His final test of legislation was to be, not its consonance with the judgment of the British people, but with the demand of the Irish crowd. 'Ireland is at your doors. Providence has placed her there. Law and legislation have been a compact between you. You must face these obligations. You must deal with them and discharge them. As to the modes of giving effect to this principle I do not now enter upon them. I am of opinion they should be dictated, as a general rule, by that which may appear to be the mature, well-considered, and general sense of the Irish people.'--20th Dec. 1867. At this date 'the general sense of the Irish people' was, to Mr. Gladstone's mind, the policy formulated by the Irish Episcopacy, the scheme which at a later stage of the campaign in the following year he described as the lopping off the three branches of the Upas tree of Protestant ascendancy. He failed in Lancashire, but his success in other parts of the kingdom was complete; and then ensued the abolition of the Irish Establishment and an adjustment of the land question which carried the recognition of local customs farther than Englishmen had anticipated. The Liberal party had been charged to consult Irish opinion. As long as Cardinal Cullen and Mr. Gladstone were agreed all went merrily, even if some rude coercion like the Westmeath Act was required to deal with Irish ideas which did not find expression in the Cardinal. But whilst the English Minister and the Irish Primate declared, that Ribbonism was an impudent pretender to any representative character and must be rooted out, a third organ of opinion claimed the benefit of the Southport principle in the form of the Home Rule Association, and Mr. Gladstone at Aberdeen replied with angry scorn: 'Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that, at this time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate the capital institutions of this country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits, through legislation, on the country to which we belong?'--26th Sept. 1871.