? Any attempt to exclude the Irish from the benefits
of such a scheme, after all the promises of the last general election,
would almost certainly wreck the government; for constituencies have
ways and means of impressing their wills on their representatives in
Parliament even without a dissolution. If, on the other hand, Ireland
should be included in a general scheme of local Government, the question
of who shall control the police will arise. In Great Britain the police,
of course, will be under local control. To refuse this to Ireland would
be to offer a boon with a stigma attached to it. The Irish members
agreed to let the control of the constabulary remain, under Mr.
Gladstone's scheme, for some years in the hands of the British
Government; but they would not agree to this while Dublin Castle ruled
the country. Moreover, the formidable difficulty suggested by Lord
Salisbury and Mr. John Stuart Mill (see pp. 115, 116) would appear the
moment men began seriously to consider the question of local government
for Ireland. The government of Dublin Castle would have to go, but
something would have to be put in its place; and when that point has
been reached it will probably be seen that nothing much better or safer
can be found than some plan on the main lines of Mr. Gladstone's Bill.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: Speech at Manchester, May 7, 1886, by Mr. Shaw-Lefevre,
who was a member of the Cabinet to which Mr. Chamberlain's scheme was
submitted.]

[Footnote 16: _Hansard_, vol. 220, pp. 708, 715.]

[Footnote 17: _Considerations on Representative Government_, p. 281.]

[Footnote 18: Dicey's _England's Case against Home Rule_, pp. 25-31, and
Letter in _Spectator_ of September 17th, 1887.]

[Footnote 19: From the beginning of 1880 till now there have been six
Viceroys and ten Chief Secretaries in Dublin--namely, Duke of
Marlborough, Earls Cowper and Spencer, Earls of Carnarvon and Aberdeen,
and the Marquis of Londonderry; Mr. Lowther, Mr. Forster, Lord F.
Cavendish, Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Campbell Bannerman, Sir W. Hart Dyke, Mr.
W.H. Smith, Mr. J. Morley, Sir M. Hicks-Beach, and Mr. A. Balfour. A
fine example, truly, of stable government and continuous policy!]

[Footnote 20: Creasy's _Imperial and Colonial Constitutions of the
Britannic Empire,_ p. 155.]

[Footnote 21: May's _Const. Hist._, i. 313.]

[Footnote 22: Blackstone's _Commentaries_, by Stephen, ii. 491, 492,
497, 507.]

[Footnote 23: We need not go far afi