Almost the only able and lively speech (before Mr. Gladstone's)
of the week's rather dismal and spiritless Irish debate was Mr. Horsman's on Monday night. He showed that the Liberals have never really had the power to legislate on the Irish Church till this year, that thirty-three years ago they were defeated in attempt- ing it by a powerful Tory Opposition which has only just lost its force ; and he showed that his leader, Mr. Gladstone, is still less liable to any charge of sudden change of attitude. This he proved by quotations from the comments of the newspapers of the day on his Irish Church speech in 1865,—amongst others, by along passage from an article in these columns, treating the speech as a deliberate sacrifice of his then seat for the University of Oxford to the earnestness of his Liberal principles, and pointing out how skilfully Mr. Gathorne Hardy had won to himself by his speech the Church support which Mr. Gladstone had sacrificed. Mr. Horsman was, as usual, amusing in his personalities. He said that it was notorious that of nine members of the Cabinet who " adorned " the Treasury bench, eight are in favour of disestab- lishment ; the ninth, Mr. Hardy, is very averse to the disestablish- ment of the Irish Church, but still more averse to the disestab- lishment of the Government, "which he evidently thinks the more valuable' institution of the two,—and that is a view upon which his colleagues, without one dissentient voice, cordially agree with him." Mr. Horsman, therefore, alluding to Mr. Disraeli's boast at Edinburgh that the thirty-two best measures since the great Reform Act had been carried by Conservatives, in spite of factious Liberal opposition, anticipated that the disestablishment of the Irish Church would be carried by the present occupants of the Treasury bench, " as the Thirty-Third great measure of reform which has been carried by a Tory Government in spite of the obstruction of factious Liberals."
Previous page
