“Such is the present one,” said he, raising his voice, and looking around him with a glance of bold defiance. “You are about to take away the right of self-government from a nation, and every man in the land, not only such as sit here, sir, but every man to whose future ambition a seat in this House may form a goal, every man has a deep interest in your proceedings. It is a grave and weighty question, whose conditions impose the conviction that we are unfit to legislate for ourselves,--that we are too weak, or too venal, or too ignorant, or too dishonest. To that conclusion you must come, or no other. Absence from Ireland must suggest enlightenment on her interests; distance must lend knowledge as well as enchantment, or an English Parliament cannot be better than our own. I have listened attentively, but unconvinced, to all arguments on this head; I have heard over and over again the long catalogue of benefits to accrue to this country when the power of realizing them herself has been wrested from her, and I have thought of Lear and his daughters! It would seem to me, however, that the social welfare and the commercial prosperity of a people are themes too vulgar for the high consideration of our times. The real question at issue is not whether a Parliament should or should not continue to sit here, but what shall I, and others like me, benefit by voting it away forever?” “Order! order!” called out several voices. But Daly resumed: “I ask pardon. It is more parliamentary to put the case differently, and I shall, under correction, do so. Well, sir, we may benefit largely. I trust I am not disorderly in saying that peerages, bishoprics, regiments, frigates, commissionerships, and Heaven knows what more, will reward us when our utility to the State has met the approval of an Imperial Parliament. I can well credit every promise of such gratitude, and have only to ask in turn, Are these the arguments that should sway us now? Is it because we are bungling legislators that they wish for us in London?--is it because we are venal they seek our company, because we are inefficient they ask for our cooperation? Are they so supremely right-minded, honorable, and far-seeing that they need the alloy of our dulness to make them mortal? And suppose such the case, will it be gratifying to us to become the helots to this people? Will our national pride be flattered because our eloquence is sneered at, our law derided, our political knowledge a scoff, and our very accent a joke? Do not tell me such things are unlikely; we are far weaker on the point than we like to confess. For myself, I can imagine the sense of shame--of deep, heartfelt, abasing shame--I should feel at seeing some of those I see here rise in a British House of Commons to address that body, while the rumor should run, 'He is the member for Meath or for Wicklow.' I can picture to myself such a man: a man of low origin and mean capacity; a man who carves his path in life less from his own