Mr. E. Blake, M.P., the Canadian Minister whom the Irish
have persuaded to join the Irish Home-rule forces, followed Mr. Bryce in a speech full of all the conventional phrases about the wrongs of the past and the generous conciliation which Mr. Gladstone now offers to Ireland ; but there is really not a single member of the Irish Party who makes less impression in England than Mr. E. Blake. It appears to us that his Canadian experience, so far, from qualifying him, rather disqualifies him for pleading the Home-rule cause of Ireland with effect. He is so sober, cautious, and constitutional, that he never seems to belong to the Irish Party at all, or to touch either for Irishmen or Englishmen on the critical points of the situation. His speeches read rather like phonographs of common- form " speeches on the grant of constitutional liberties to the kind of States best fitted for constitutional liberties. In his speeches Catholic priests, shillelaghs, and Irish impish- ness seem to be 'conspicuous by their absence."
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