To this speech the Duke of Devonshire replied on the
following clay,—that is, last Saturday,—when addressing a great Unionist demonstration at Skipton, in a stately and powerful speech, which could only have been described as dull,—as it was by a Gladstonian contemporary,—either from singular deficiency in ordinary apprehension, or from singular excess of blinding prejudice. The Duke remarked that Mr. Gladstone had been governing now for six months without either having asked for or received any vote of confidence from the present House of Commons;—be had been summoned by the Queen to form an Administration only because he was the head of the largest group of those which, by their combina- tion, contrived to reject the Administration of Lord Salisbury. But there is as yet nothing to show that this combination of disjointed groups will be a stable one, or even inclined so far to co-operate as to give Mr. Gladstone's Government a chance of submitting its policy fully to the country. This would have to be tested even before the next Home-rule Bill could be discussed. As for Mr. Asquith's expression of distaste for any analysis of electoral returns with a view to showing that in England a great majority are opposed to Irish Home-rule, and that even in Great Britain a decided majority are opposed to it, so that it is only the Irish elections which turn the scale, the Duke would have heartily agreed with Mr. Asquith had the opposed parties differed only as to the manner in which the United Kingdom should be governed by the representatives of the people of that Kingdom. But the analysis becomes a momentous element in the question when it is proposed to place a portion of the United Kingdom under a separate and totally different:Constitution from the rest. That raises a ques- tion on which the individual members of the Union have a right to be separately consulted. If there is to be a virtual dissolution of the Union, there should be a virtual restoration, —and to each of the Kingdoms which were bound together,— of the right to make or refuse a fresh contract.
Previous page
