Lord Salisbury held that the next General Election would not
finally settle the Home-rule Question. If, as he expected, the Conservatives carried the day, he looked forward to the Gladstonians still persisting in their advocacy of Irish Home- rule; and if the Gladstonians carried the day, he looked forward to the Conservatives offering the most steady resistance to Irish Home-rule. He held that the " object-lesson " we had had in Irish Home-rule had gone a good way towards disgusting England with the Irish means of political warfare. "They are not the means of political warfare we adopt in this country. I have no sympathy with the man who plasters lime in Mr. Parnell's eyes, but neither have I any sympathy with the man who drives spectacle-glasses into Mr. Tim Healy's eyes." Again, "If I wished to describe the character of Mr. Parnell, I should use the language of Mr. Timothy Healy. If I wished to describe the character of Mr. Timothy Healy, I should use the language of Mr. Parnell." And then Lord Salisbury went on to insist on the great danger of handing over political power to the ministers of any great clerical order, and said that it was not specially the Roman Catholic clergy that he was afraid of, but that he should make the same protest if the Anglican or any other clergy entered the political field and presumed to dictate to the laity. We see very clearly the danger discerned by Lord Salisbury, if a majority of the laity are willing to be dictated to ; but the danger of dictation depends on the moral attitude of those to whom the dictation is addressed; and it appears to us to he the fault of the laity, not the fault of the clergy, if the danger be serious.
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