Mr. Chamberlain's Manifesto appeared on Saturday. It is much too
long,—is, indeed, almost a speech against the Home- rule Bill ; but it is vigorous and definite. Mr. Chamberlain declares that Mr. Gladstone's measure is inconsistent with his programme of last September, when the Liberal Party, with rare exceptions, repudiated Home-rule, and "refused to pur- chase the Irish vote by tampering with the unity of the Three Kingdoms," and he asserts that " what the leader of the Liberal Party last November solemnly and seriously declared to be unsafe, the Prime Minister has now deliberately undertaken." Parliament " will be summarily dismissed because a great majority of English and Scotch representatives have refused to accept proposals entirely novel and unexpected." Those proposals would set up a rival Parliament in Dublin, which would be a focus of agitation till the demands of the Separatists had been complied with, and they suspend the " fall and continuous representation" of Ireland in the Imperial Parliament. " Such an arrangement must lead inevitably to complete Separation," and "affords no example for meeting the just and intelligent demands of Scotland and Wales for a more effective control over their domestic business." Moreover, the control of Ireland is handed over to a Government which will represent the policy of the National League, and place the Ulstermen and the scattered Protestants beneath them,—an "act of cowardice and baseness unworthy of any nation." Of all the classes ruined, the landlords alone are to be compensated, at a cost of 2150,000,000 to the British taxpayer, " the most gigantic bribe ever offered to the opponents of any legislation."
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