de Irish
members from the Parliament at Westminster; this exclusion was pressed
upon England (plausibly enough) as a main advantage to be derived from
the concession of Home Rule to Ireland. In 1893 every Gladstonian leader
tells us that it is desirable, politic, and just to retain the Irish
members at Westminster, and their presence is, for some reason not easy
to explain, treated as removing every objection to the concession of
Home Rule to Ireland. This astounding variation of opinion in the
doctors of the State savours of empiricism, not to say quackery. A
surgeon who tells a patient that he will not live unless his leg is
amputated may be right, and may be worthy of trust; another surgeon who
asserts that amputation is unnecessary may be right, and worthy of
trust. But the surgeon who one moment insists that amputation is
necessary to the preservation of his patient's life, and the next moment
that it is unnecessary and may be fatal, is not the kind of adviser who
inspires confidence in his wisdom.

Let the ingenuity of Gladstonians reconcile, as best it can, the
doctrine of 1886 with the doctrine of 1893. To a man of sense who weighs
the matter without reference to considerations of party, one thing will
soon become apparent: the retention at Westminster of eighty, or indeed
of any Irish members at all, means under a scheme of Home Rule the ruin
of Ireland and the weakness of England.

As to Ireland.--The presence of Irish members at Westminster robs
Ireland of the one advantage which Home Rule might by any possibility
confer upon that country.

Any man in order to see that this is so has only to consider, first,
what may under favourable circumstances be the benefit of Home Rule to
Ireland, and next what is the natural result of summoning Irish members
to the Parliament at Westminster.

The best conceivable result of Home Rule is that it may detach Irishmen
from interest in English politics, and induce the most respected and
respectable men in Ireland to take matters into their own hands and
manage for themselves all strictly Irish affairs. For the last twenty
years, at least, Ireland has been represented, or misrepresented, by
eighty and more politicians, nominated in the main by Mr. Parnell. No
one supposes for a moment that the Nationalist leaders who appeared
before and were condemned by the Special Commission are fair samples of
the Irish people. They are, take them at their best, reckless agitators.
Th