In the course of this hot debate, Mr. Gladstone was
told, by an interjection of Lord Randolph Churchill's, that not only the 24th, 37th, and 39th clauses of the Bill would neces- sarily be completely reconstructed, but that the whole Bill must necessarily be reconstructed, in order to reduce it into harmony with the new clauses ; whereupon Mr. Gladstone emphatically pronounced the words, "Never, never !" But if the whole scope of the Bill is not to be enlarged so as to lay down the functions of the British Parliament in the absence of the Irish Members, and to determine the Constitutional effect of a vote of want of confidence in the Government carried in that Parliament in the absence of those Irish Members,—it seems to us that a new Bill must be brought in to determine the powers and functions of the British Parliament and its relations to the Imperial Parlia- ment, as minutely as the Irish Bill will determine the powers and functions of the Irish Legislature and its relations to the Imperial Parliament. That is a subject so important, that if it is omitted from the new Bill on the Government of Ireland, it must be dealt with in a new Bill on the Government of Great Britain.
