A few noble lords tore themselves away from these entrancing topics to attend the opening of the debate in the Commons on the Government of Ireland Bill. They were ill-rewarded for their pains, for never has a Home Rule debate produced fewer interesting moments. The CHIEF SECRETARY was so studiously restrained in explaining the merits of the Bill that the "yawning chasm" which, according to its opponents, the measure is going to create between Southern and Northern Ireland was to be observed in advance on the countenances of many of his listeners. Years ago Mr. BALFOUR told the Irish Nationalists that Great Britain was not to be bored into acceptance of Home Rule; but I am beginning to doubt now whether he was right. If the Government get the Bill through it will be due more to John Bull's weariness of the eternal Irish Question than to any enthusiastic belief in the merits of this particular scheme. Hardly anyone off the Treasury Bench had a good word to say for it, but fortunately for its chances their criticisms were often mutually destructive. Mr. CLYNES moved its rejection. From his remark that Irish respect for the law was destroyed in 1913, and that the present Administration was regarded as "the most abominable form of government that had ever ruled in Ireland," I should gather that he has only recently begun his researches into Irish history and Irish character, and is working backwards. His prescription was to cease governing Ireland by force and leave her to frame her own constitution. Lord ROBERT CECIL agreed with Mr. CLYNES in regarding it as a very bad Bill, but there parted company with him. In his view the deterioration of Ireland began in 1906, when the era of "firm government" came to an end. Drop coercion by all means, but "let the murderers begin." As for forcing self-government on a country that rejected it, that was nonsense. As "a citizen of the world," and not merely an Irishman, Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR denounced the Bill _urbi et orbi_. Nobody in Ireland wanted it unless it was the place-hunters of the Bar and the Press, for whom it would provide rich pickings. The House was brought back from rhetoric to plain fact by the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER'S reminder that if the Bill were not passed the Home Rule Act of 1914 would come into force. He hoped that Southern Ireland would recover its sanity, accept the Bill and set itself to persuade Ulster into an All-Ireland Parliament _via_ the golden bridge of the Irish Council. Captain CRAIG could not imagine that happening in his lifetime. To his mind the only merit of the Bill was that it safeguarded Ulster against Dublin domination.