"There is only one way in which you can govern Ireland within the Constitution, and that is by allowing her to govern herself in all those matters which cannot interfere with the greatness and well-being of the Empire of which she forms a part. I admit there is another way. That is a way that has not been tried yet.... There is a way in which you might obtain at all events some present success in the government of Ireland. It is not Mr. Balfour's bastard plan of a semi-constitutional, a semi-coercive method. You might find among yourselves some great Englishman or Scotsman, who would go over to Ireland--her Parliamentary representation having been taken away {269} from her--and would do justice to her people notwithstanding the complaints of Irish landlordism. Such a man might be found who, on the other hand, would oppose a stern front to the inciters of revolution or outrage, and on the other hand would check the exorbitant demands of the governing classes in that country, and perhaps the result might be successful. But it would have to be a method outside the Constitution both on the one side and on the other. Your Irish Governor would have to have full power to check the evil-doer; whether the evil-doer were a lord or a peasant, whether the malefactor hailed from Westminster or New York, the power should be equally exercised and constantly maintained. In that way, perhaps, as I have said, you might govern Ireland for a season. That, in my judgment, from the first time when I entered political life, appeared to me to be the only alternative to the concession to Ireland of full power over her own domestic interests, and her future. In one way only, I also saw, could the power and influence of a constitutional party be banded together within the limits of the law; by acting on those principles laid down by Lucas and Gavan Duffy in 1852, that they should hold themselves aloof from all English political parties and combinations, that they should refuse place and office for themselves or for their friends or their relations, and that the Irish constituencies should refuse to return any member who was a traitor to those pledges." In July Parnell was presented with the freedom of the City of Edinburgh. In his speech of acknowledgment he said: