As to the Coercion Act, no sensible man, be he Radical or Tory, need trouble himself. The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, is neither a disgrace to England nor an injury to Ireland. Its permanence, which is the cause of its mildness, is its merit. Well would it have been had the Act been extended to the whole United Kingdom. Local laws are open to some of the same objections as temporary laws. The enactment contains some improvements in our criminal procedure. There is no more idle superstition than the belief that criminal procedure does not, like other human arrangements, require change. If incendiarism should become an element in the conduct of trade disputes, if dynamite is to be recognised as a legitimate arm in political conflicts, the criminal law of the United Kingdom will, we may be sure, need and receive several alterations and improvements. By far the strongest portion of the Gladstonian argument is the stress that can be laid on the demoralisation of Parliament, produced partly, though not wholly, by the Irish vote. This is a consideration which, as far as it goes, tells in favour of Home Rule. It is, however, a consideration of which the Gladstonian apologist for the new constitution of 1893 [can] make no use. His reasoning of necessity stands thus: The presence of 80 Irish members at Westminster has demoralised Parliament, therefore we must above all things retain 80 or possibly 103 Irish members at Westminster. He is placed in a hopeless dilemma; he dare not draw the only conclusion to which his argument points, namely, that the Irish members must be excluded from the Parliament at Westminster. By a strange fatality, the policy of 1823 retrospectively condemns the policy of 1886, whilst the very strongest argument in favour of the policy of 1886 condemns the policy of 1893. The premises, were they sound, do not support the conclusion. There exists undoubtedly such a thing in politics as necessity.