Sir Henry James virtually concluded the debate by a very
brilliant -speech against the Bill, pointing out that this was, not a popular revolution in any sense as regarded the followers of Mr. Gladstone. It was a revolution made by one man,—a re- volution for which the Gladstonians had to avail themselves of all the resources of the Newcastle programme to palm off upon the English people. Instead of "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," the popular cry ha England would have been, "The Bill, the new Bill, and nothing of the Bill." Even if the Unionists had occupied too much of the time of the House, the penalty for doing so should fall upon them, and not on the Irish minority, as it practically would if the Bill, carried by Closure, were to become law. He exposed the mis- take of Sir Charles Russell in supposing that the mere decision of the Supreme Court of the United States against an uncon- stitutional exertion of State prerogative in Georgia had been followed by the surrender of Georgia; and he concluded his striking speech with one of the most incisive and scornful de- nunciations of the measure which even this Parliament has yet heard.
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