Monday's debate was opened by Mr. Henry Fowler, the Financial
Secretary to the Treasury, in one of those bewildering speeches in which it is maintained that Ireland is to be half- separated in order that no one may ever think it possible to let her go altogether. "The assent of Ireland to Separation would be an assent to national suicide, and the question, if ever it was raised, would only be settled by an appeal to the supreme arbitrament of force." This seems to us like saying that a man
is to be allowed to begin an incision into his own throat in order that no one may ever suppose that he shall be permitted to sever the jugular artery completely. How can Mr. Fowler maintain that the very same motives which now render him and his friends so unwilling to say n No !" to the substitution of a disjunctive conjunction for an organic union, will not have even greater force when Parliament is asked to permit a complete parting of the wa3s ? To him replied Lord John Manners, who described the situation rather pithily when he said that the Bill as it stands represents a door shut at Westminster on the Irish representatives ; that Mr. Chamberlain's proposal represents a door open to them ; but that the Bill as it is to be, 'ppears likely to represent a door ajar, with all the creaking noises and disagreeable draughts which a door ajar brings to the unfortunate occupants of the apartment where the door is left in that position.
