It is obvious that we were right in supposing that
the fanaticism of Home-rule would grow in force and volume. Among men of high standing, we have had this week speeches both from Mr. Stansfeld and from Professor Stuart, of which we may say that while the former went to the verge of supporting Mr. Dillon, even if it did not pass the verge, Professor Stuart's speech certainly did pass that verge. He is reported in the Daily News to have said at Darlington on Monday :—" Liberals were called upon by the other side to denounce Mr. Dillon and his friends on the Plan of Campaign.' He would not join in denouncing it. If there be illegality, still he declared there was moral justice at the bottom of it. Members of the Society of Friends had at times stood against the law and under- taken to endure the punishment for such action; nor had Mr. Dillon and his friends shrunk from doing the same. When the laws were opposed to the convictions of the masses of the people, as in Ireland, then it was time that the laws should be altered." Moral justice !—and in a "Plan of Campaign" the very essence of which, as Mr. Dillon candidly avowed in Court, is that those who owe a just debt, and know that it is a just debt, should withhold and repudiate what they owe, in order to strengthen the hands of those who have not the means of paying their debt, and who might in equity, though not in law, claim from any landlord not as poor as themselves the release of some part of it ! If that is Professor Stuart's notion of justice, we fear that English conceptions of meant and intim are becoming as obscure and wavering as the Irish.
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