Speaking generally, and if the land system were satisfactorily settled, it may be said that the Irish are not Radicals in one sense of the word. Their habit of thought is Conservative. They are, like the French, somewhat too inclined to look and state interference in everything. Their tendency is, as M. Guizot said of the French, to fall into a division between administrators and administered. Their hostility to law is not to law abstractedly, but to the law as presenting what they regard as an alien ascendency. I am inclined to think that, had they a Parliament of their own, they would surprise us by their Conservative legislation. Apart from the Nationalists, who form the great bulk of the nation, are the Fenians. They are comparatively speaking few in number. Their strength consists in being able to tell the Irish that Home Rule never will be granted, and that Ireland must either separate from us, or be ruled by us in local as well as in Imperial affairs. {293} That the Nationalists have to a certain extent acted with the Fenians is true. But could they do otherwise? They had to fight against a common opponent. Between a Nationalist and a Fenian there is as much difference as between the most moderate Whig Squire who sat in last Parliament on the Liberal benches and me. Yet we both voted frequently together against the Conservatives. The Nationalists are the Girondists, the Fenians are the Jacobins. Like the Girondists they make common cause against a common enemy. (_He carries on this simile lengthily._) Mr. Parnell and his political friends have substituted constitutional agitation for lawless and revolutionary agitation. He has only succeeded in this by persuading his countrymen that his action will result in success. If he be doomed to failure, the Fenians will once more gain the upper hand in Ireland. The _Times_ has more than once suggested that the Irish Parliamentary party should state precisely what they want. They want a Parliament. How possibly can they be expected to say officially to what limitations and to what restrictions they would submit for the sake of a definite settlement before some responsible English statesman, with a strong following at his back, is prepared to give them a Parliament? They would indeed be fools were they to make such a tactical blunder. In any negotiation of which I have ever read, bases are agreed on before either party--and certainly before the weaker party--specifies details. I think, however, I am not far wrong in saying the following scheme would be accepted: 1. Representation in the Imperial Parliament upon Imperial matters alone. This would require a hard and fast definition as to what is Imperial and what is local, together with, as in the United States, some legal tribunal of appeal.