Sir Henry James's speech was a fine bit of oratory,
as well as a fine bit of argument. He described the " Plan of Campaign" as a plan by which one party to a con- tract was urged not to fulfil it, and to dispose of the rights which the law had given to the other party to the contract. Of the excuse that Parliament had rejected Mr. Parnell's propose in the autumn, Sir Henry made very light. If you permitted people to justify themselves for breaking the law by urging provocation, yofi made the law of no effect. There was a Judge who, when told by the prisoner that his wife had so aggravated him that he could not help half-murdering her, replied, "Just so, those are the very wives I have to protect; it is only the aggravating wife who gets attacked ; the wives who do not aggravate their husbands stand in no danger at all." The silence of the Liberal leaders on this "Plan of Campaign" was most significant. It was as full of meaning towards law-abiding Irishmen as the action of the Quaker who once said, "Friend, I will not, because I must not, strike thee, bat I will shove thee very hard." It was impossible to hand over Ireland to the mercy of men who had initiated this "Plan of Campaign." There was no trace of new powers arising in Ireland, no proof that when the agitation was over, the power of the agitators would pass away. The minority in Ireland demand protection, not only in Ulster, where the minority is united, but all over Ireland, where it is scattered and helpless. What would an Irish Government actuated by anti-English sympathies, do to facilitate the extradition to France or America of an Irish criminal, or to prevent the ships of a Naval Power with which the Irish people were in sympathy from coaling in Irish ports P Yet we should be responsible to foreign Governments for acts which we should find it by no means easy to prevent. And as for Home-rule, it did not improveyour central over a.aomewbat
u nruly horse to take the bit out of his month, and sit on the box with only the reins in your hand; yet that was what we were asked to do as regarded Irish obedience to the central authority.
