The Duke of Devonshire, who is to move the rejection
of the Home-rule Bill in the House of Lords, made a masterly speech at Otley on Thursday, from which it may be inferred that he will speak in the true spirit of Liberalism, and not in that of crypto-Toryism. He insisted that if the Home-rule Bill of 188G was intolerable, the Home-rule Bill of 1893, as it was first presented to the House, was more intolerable; while the Home-rule Bill which will pass the House and be sent up to the Lords is most intolerable. He will resist it because it will gravely injure Ireland, because it will undermine the English Constitution, and because it has never been discussed, but pressed through the House of Commons by the use of the gag. He pointed out, as no one has yet pointed out, that the use of the gag has been even more mischievous by giving the Gladstonians an excuse for not opening their mouths in defence of the new Ninth Clause, than even by silencing the objections of the Opposition. Many of the Gladstonians would have been ashamed to defend so unconstitutional a pro- posal, and they would, as they well know, have lost credit with their constituencies if they had defended it ; so it was extremely convenient for them to be compelled to hold their tongues.
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