Mr. Gladstone has written a letter to Mr. Beaufoy to
help him in his canvas for Kennington, in which he makes much of the defeat on Wednesday of the Bill for entitling prisoners under the Irish Crimes Act to exceptionally good treatment by a majority of only 66, as if that implied a reduction of the Ministerial majority to that number. In reality, the House was not at all a full House, and the contest was not a serious contest; the majority was 259 against 193. The language in which the letter speaks of "the great conspiracy which aimed at stabbing the vital interests of Ireland by means of forged letters through the honour of her leader, Mr. Parnell," is on a level with Mr. Frederic Harrison's purple invective. And when Mr. Gladstone says that the triumph of Home-rule, as he said in his message to the St. James's Hall meeting on Wednesday, is approaching moment by moment, he indulges in a degree of confidence which betrays a feverish judgment. The Barnsley election should have chastened his excitement more than it has done. England has certainly not made up her mind, and without England it is idle for Ireland, Scotland, and Wales to pretend to make up theirs. Germany might just as well profess to make up her mind without Prussia. Mr. Beaufoy may win, but he will hardly win the more decisively for receiving this conga d'dire from Mr. Gladstone.
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