Gladstone, they argue, is a wise man and a good man, his colleagues
are partisans, they are not conspirators; it is incredible that they
should recommend a measure fraught with ruin to England. But the matter
is intelligible enough. Mr. Gladstone's weakness, no less than his
strength, has always lain in his temporary but exclusive preoccupation
with some one dominant idea. The one notion which possesses his mind--to
judge from his public conduct and speeches--is that at any cost Home
Rule, that is, an Irish Executive and an Irish Parliament, must be
conceded to Ireland. Enthusiasm, pride, ambition, all the motives, good
and bad, which can influence a statesman, urge him to achieve this one
object. If he succeeds his political career is crowned with victory, if
not with final triumph; if he fails his whole course during the last
seven years turns out an error. But it has long been manifest that only
with the greatest difficulty can English electors be persuaded to accept
Home Rule. Hence it has been found essential that the principles of the
measure should not be known before the time for passing it into law.
Hence the ill-starred avoidance of discussion. Hence the ultimate
framing of a scheme which is made to pass, but is not made to work, and
which probably enough does not represent the real wishes or convictions
of any one statesman. Where is the Minister who will tell us that this
particular Government of Ireland Bill is according to his judgment--I
will not say in its details, but in each and all of its leading
principles--the best constitution which can be framed for determining
the relations between England and Ireland? This Minister has not
appeared--I doubt whether he exists. The Bill may be a model of artful
provision for conciliating the prejudices or soothing the fears of
English electors, but it is not a well-digested constitution. It is
inferior to the Home Rule Bill of 1886. Another consequence of the
circumstances under which the Bill has been framed is that its authors
themselves have never had the benefit to be derived from the mature
discussion of its principles. Mr. Gladstone himself cannot say what are
and what are not the fundamental ideas of his scheme. He obviously held,
at any rate when the Bill was introduced, that the presence of the Irish
members at Westminster was a detail, whereas it is in reality the fact
which governs the character of the new constitution. To imply that such
a matter can be