tion from
swaying backwards and forwards between the two English parties, in
order to obtain from the one or the other some momentary advantage, or
some lucrative concession, to the Irish people. Intrigue will be
pardonable, diplomatic finesse will become a duty. This evil no doubt in
some degree exists, but under the present state of things it admits of
diminution. A just redistribution of the franchise will undoubtedly
lessen the number of Ireland's representatives, whilst it will increase
the relative importance, if not the actual numbers, of loyalists in the
representation of Ireland. The gradual settlement of the land question,
as Unionists believe, will further strike at the true root of Irish
discontent, and in removing the true grievance of the Irish tenants will
diminish the strength of the party which depends for its power on the
revolutionary elements in Irish society. But all chance of mitigating
the inconvenience inflicted upon England by the presence of the Irish
members vanishes for ever when they are changed into an Irish
delegation, and are compelled by their position to be the mere
mouthpiece of Ireland's claims against England.

The alleged reasons for the weakening of England are untenable, and,
were they tenfold stronger than they are, could not remove the flagrant
contradiction between the Gladstonian policy of 1886 and the Gladstonian
policy of 1893.

But a contradiction which cannot be removed may be explained.

The withdrawal of the Irish members from Westminster might give Ireland
the chance of obtaining some of the benefits, and compensate England for
some of the evils, of Home Rule. But however this may be, one result it
would produce with certainty; it would dash the Gladstonian party to
pieces. The friends of Disestablishment, the Welsh, or the Scottish,
Home Rulers, the London Socialists, all the revolutionists throughout
the country, know that with the departure of the Irish representatives
from Westminster their own hopes of triumph must be indefinitely
postponed. England is the stronghold of British conservatism, and an
arrangement which leaves the fate of England in the hands of Englishmen
may be favourable to reform, but is fatal to revolution. Has this fact
arrested the attention of Gladstonians? I know not. It is an unfortunate
coincidence that the least defensible portion of an indefensible policy
should, while it threatens ruin to England, offer temporary salvation to
the party