party government can be carried on. Gladstone proposed in effect to break the legislative Union by giving Ireland a Parliament of her own. This Parliament he styled “statutory.” Restrictions were to be laid upon it which would have made its relation to the British Parliament one of vassalage, and against which it would almost certainly have commenced, from the moment of its birth, a struggle for equality and independence. If it was baffled in that struggle, it might even have held out its hands for aid to the foreign enemies of Great Britain. The framer of the measure apparently had not distinctly made up his mind whether he would include the Irish in the Parliament of Great Britain or exclude them from it. That he should have rushed into legislation so momentous, legislation affecting the very existence of the United Kingdom, without having thoroughly made up his mind on the vital point, is surely a proof that, great as he was in finance, mighty as he was in debate, powerful as he was in framing and carrying measures of reform, when, as in dealing with Irish Disestablishment or the Universities, a clear case was put into his hands, he was hardly one of those sure-footed statesmen to whom can be safely intrusted the supreme destinies of a nation. If after the equitable settlement of the agrarian question and the reduction of the population to the number which the island can maintain, the political enmity generated by the long struggle continues unassuaged, and the Irish contingent remains, as it has now for many years been, an alien and rebellious element in the British Parliament, disturbing and distracting British councils, there may be a sufficient reason for letting Ireland go. It would be folly to keep her as a mere thorn in the side of Great Britain. It would be more than folly to attempt to hold her in bondage. It is not unlikely that, after a trial of independence, she might of her own accord come back to the Union. But all wise statesmen have united in saying that there must be legislative Union or independence. Two Parliaments, two nations.[1] The announcement of Gladstone’s plan was followed by terrible searching of heart in his party, ending in a split. Lord Hartington undertook the leadership of the Unionist-Liberals, and showed energy and striking ability in his new part. The fatal blow was the declared opposition of Bright, the great pillar of political righteousness, and the lifelong advocate of justice to Ireland. The stoutest opposition and that which did most to save the integrity of the United Kingdom was made, as I shall always hold, by _The Times_. The error into which it fell with regard to the Parnell Letters was a trifling matter compared with the memorable service which it rendered on the whole to the Unionist cause.