The difference between giving with freedom and dignity on the one side, with acknowledgment and gratitude on the other, and giving under compulsion, giving with disgrace, giving with resentment dogging you at every step of your path, this difference is, in our eyes, fundamental, and this is the main reason not only why we have acted, but why we have acted now. This, if I understand it, is one of the golden moments of our history--one of those opportunities which may come and may go, but which rarely return, or, if they return, return at long intervals, and under circumstances which no man can forecast. There have been such golden moments even in the tragic history of Ireland, as her poet says-- "One time the harp of Innisfail Was tuned to notes of gladness." And then he goes on to say-- " But yet did oftener tell a tale Of more prevailing sadness." But there was such a golden moment--it was in 1795--it was on the mission of Lord Fitzwilliam. At that moment it is historically clear that the Parliament of Grattan was on the point of solving the Irish problem. The two great knots of that problem were, in the first place, Roman Catholic emancipation; and in the second place, the Reform of Parliament. The cup was at her lips, and she was ready to drink it, when the hand of England rudely and ruthlessly dashed it to the ground in obedience to the wild and dangerous intimations of an Irish faction. "Ex illo fluere ac retro sublapsa referri, Spes Danaum." There has been no great day of hope for Ireland, no day when you might hope completely and definitely to end the controversy, till now--more than ninety years. The long periodic time has at last run out, and the star has again mounted into the heavens. What Ireland was doing for herself in 1795 we at length have done. The Roman Catholics have been emancipated--emancipated after a woeful disregard of solemn promises through twenty-nine years, emancipated slowly, sullenly, not from good will, but from abject terror, with all the fruits and consequences which will always follow that method of legislation. The second problem has been also solved, and the representation of Ireland has been thoroughly reformed; and I am thankful to say that the franchise was given to Ireland on the readjustment of last year with a free heart, with an open hand, and the gift of that franchise was the last act required to make the success of Ireland in her final effort absolutely sure. We have given Ireland a voice; we must all listen for a moment to what she says. We must all listen-- both sides, both parties, I mean as they are, divided on this question--divided, I am afraid, by an almost immeasurable gap. We do not undervalue or despise the forces opposed to us. I have described them as the forces of class and its dependents; and that as a general description--as a slight and rude outline of a description--is, I believe, perfectly true. I do not deny that