han the contract now pressed on our acceptance. If their acquiescence
was a mere pretence, what trust can we place in the assertion that they
accept the arrangement of 1893?

However this may be, it is clear that England is now offered a position
of weakness and of inferiority such as she has never occupied during the
whole course of her history. What is the meaning or justification of the
proposed surrender by England of every compensation for Irish Home Rule
which was offered her in 1886?

For this surrender Gladstonians assign but two reasons.

The presence of the Irish members at Westminster is, it is said, a
concession to the wishes of Unionists.

This plea, even were it supported by the facts of the case, would be
futile. It might pass muster with disputants in search of a verbal
triumph, but to any man seriously concerned for the welfare of the
nation must appear childishly irrelevant. The welfare of the State
cannot turn upon the neatness of a _tu quoque_; retorts are not reasons,
and had every Unionist, down from the Duke of Devonshire to the present
writer, pressed in 1886 for the retention of the Irish members at
Westminster, the controversial inexpertness of the Unionists seven years
ago would not diminish the dangers with which, under a system of Home
Rule, the presence of the Irish members at Westminster actually
threatens England. But the plea, futile as it is, is not supported by
fact. It rests on a misrepresentation of the Unionist position in 1886.

'The case in truth stands thus:--Mr. Gladstone was [in 1886] placed in
effect in this dilemma: "If you do not," said his opponents, "retain the
Irish representatives at Westminster, the sovereignty of the British
Parliament will be, under the terms of your Bill, no more than a name;
if you do retain them, Great Britain will lose the only material
advantage offered her in exchange for the local independence of
Ireland." Gladstonians, in substance, replied that the devices embodied
in the Government of Ireland Bill at once freed the British Parliament
from the presence of the Parnellites and safeguarded the sovereignty of
the British, or (for in this matter there was some confusion) of the
Imperial Parliament. On the latter point issue was joined. The other
horn of the dilemma fell out of sight, and some Unionists, rightly
believing that the Bill as it stood did not preserve the supremacy of
the British Parliament, pressed the Ministry hard with all the