The debate on the Address was commeaced yesterday week by
Mr. Sexton, who laughed at Lord Randolph Churchill for wishing to have the debate closed directly his own speech was completed ; declared that the passage in the Queen's Speech pledging her Majesty to the Legislative Union of the two countries was unconstitutional and almost absurd, considering that in 1782 George III. gave his assent to a law not only establishing the legislative independence of Ireland, but decree- ing that it should "for ever remain in force ;" and he remarked on the language in which the Speech from the Throne treated the wish of the Bulgarians for the union of the two Bulgarian provinces as final, while it treated the wish of the Irish, con- stitutionally expressed "by the election of five-sixths of their representatives, representing five-sixths of the population," as not even admitting of consideration. (Mr. Sexton forgets that even if this be so, more than five-sixths of the British people, representing more than five-sixths of their population, entertain as strong an objection to the severance as the Irish express a wish for it.) Mr. Sexton, who followed Mr. Parnell's cue in the studious moderation of his speech, expressed his belief that there was nothing in the demands of the Irish Members incon- sistent with the securities required by Mr. Gladstone. So soon as that statesman had concluded those researches into this ques- tion which they wished to give him leisure to complete, the time would arrive when the Government would be in the frame of mind of a countryman of his, who was "blue-moulded for want of a beating."
