Whether it be the Land Act, with its beneficial or imperfect provisions, or whether it be that dawning of the rays of hope, that beginning of the knitting together of the heart of one nation to the heart of the other, the diminution of crime is a matter of rejoicing, and we wish it were greater, we congratulate the Government, and we heartily hope that in the hands of beneficial and benign causes it may continue to decrease. Well, such is the retrospect. What is the prospect? What is to come? Will the Government continue still to deal with signs, and never to look at the substance, to legislate against symptoms and manifestations and never to touch the disease, to try and prune off from the rankly luxurious vegetation, here a twig and there a leaf, and never to ask themselves whether the proper purpose and design is not to bring it out by the roots? There are many things which are said by the Government in debate, but there is one thing which they and their supporters most rarely say. I think, as far as my recollection and experience goes, I may almost venture to go further, and assert they never say,--I never had heard them express a confidence that they will be able to establish a permanent resistance to the policy of Home Rule. (_Opposition cheers._) I am glad not to be met with adverse challenges when I say this. If this be a question of time at all, then it is most important to consider what is the right time. I don't disguise any more than the honorable member for East Cork the strength of the combinations that are opposed to us. They are very strong indeed; they have nearly the whole wealth of the country; they have nearly the whole of the high station of the country; they have most of the elements of social strength which abound in them; they have with these all the things which belong to wealth, to rank, and to station in this country, which is vast in its amount, they are very strong, and by their strength they may secure delay, but delay in a subject of this kind, a controversy of nations, is not an unmixed good. It has its dangers and its inconveniences. You are happily free at this moment from the slighest shadow of foreign complications. You have at this moment the constitutional assent of Ireland, pledged in the most solemn form, for the efficacy of the policy which I am considering. But the day may come when your condition may not be so happy. I do not expect, any more than I desire, these foreign complications, but still it is not wise wholly to shut them out.