MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND IRISH REPRESENTATION.
LTO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your review (signed "C ") of Mr. Thorold's Life of Mr. Labouchere there is a grave error which, in the interests of historical accuracy, I feel sure you will be willing to have corrected. Your reviewer tells us that Mr. Chamberlain "held that the continued representation of Ireland at Westminster was a matter of such vital importance as to rank above party interests." "To this view he steadfastly adhered throughout the whole of the discussion" in 1885-6. A little later your reviewer says :
"It is impossible to read the correspondence now published by Mr. Thorold without coming to the conclusion that, whether Mr. Chamberlain was right or wrong in his opinions, his conduct throughout the negotiations was dignified, consistent, and patriotic. Mr. Labouchere, on the other hand, never rose above the level of a wirepuller." It is impossible to make good this claim that Mr. Chamberlain steadfastly and consistently insisted that Ireland should be represented at Westminster. If your reviewer will look at pp. 278-9 of Mr. Thorold's book, he will there find a letter from Mr. Chamberlain written in January, 1886. In that letter Mr. Chamberlain sketches out a plan giving Ireland a separate Parliament, and excluding the Irish members from the Imperial Parliament because "the worst of all plans would be one which kept the Irishmen at Westminster while they had their own Parliament at Dublin." Yet when the Home Rule Bill was introduced, one of the two conditions upon which Mr. Chamberlain insisted as the price of his support of the Bill was tl4e retention of the Irish representa tion on its present footing, according to population, with the promise of the alteration before the Bill was read a second time. I have no desire to comment on Mr. Chamberlain's record in this matter; I am content to draw attention to the facts, which show that whatever else Mr. Chamberlain was he certainly was not " consistent " in this matter of Irish
representation.—I am, Sir, &c., CHARLES GEAKE.
Percy Lodge, Ca7npden Hill. [We have received from the writer of the review (Lord Cromer) the following answer, in which we entirely concur, to Mr. Geake's criticism :—
" I am quite prepared to admit that, in view of the fact that in the course of the discussions precedino. the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill in 1886 Mr. Chamberlain's opinions underwent some modifications, the term 'consistent' as applied to his attitude is open to some exception. But the point urged by Mr. Charles Geake does not appear to me materially to affect my main argument, which was that, throughout these discussions, Mr. Labouchere was and Mr. Chamberlain was not looking exclusively to the party aspect of the question." T–ED. Spectator.]
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