Volume 3 — 6. Speech of Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, April 8, 1886, on moving for leave to bring in a Bill to make provision for the future Government of Ireland. (continued 2)
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The first part of the Government policy is disclosed. We have still to learn what its complement, the Land Purchase Bill, is to be, what proposal is to be made about loyal Ulster, the subject on which Mr. Gladstone was so strangely vague, on which Mr. Parnell was discreetly silent. These further manifestations of Cabinet wisdom can hardly save the scheme now lingering on to death. We wish we could be certain, that this collapse would rid Parliament and Ireland of all such projects for the future. But, whatever be the fate of the present Ministry, we may be sure that the end is not yet, unless Mr. Parnell's faction is completely broken, unless the policy urged by Lord Hartington is firmly adopted, and party life reorganized in England, on the principle of excluding the Irish vote from consideration in our party conflicts. If no such resolution is enforced by English patriotism, Irish Nationalists will return to their demands, enhanced in power and renown by the tribute they have extorted from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
On these events of the future we shall not now speculate; but if past history throws any light on the character of our population, one thing may be confidently predicted. If Home Rule should be ultimately conceded to Ireland, the political party which may be responsible for the carrying of the scheme, will have to look forward to a long period of exclusion from public confidence. However the British people may be worried or deluded into forgetfulness of their duty to themselves and to Ireland, the working of a Dublin Parliament will soon rouse them, the reaction will set in; and the authors of the scheme will have before them as lengthened a banishment from power, as the country gentlemen suffered when their chivalrous devotion to the House of Stuart blinded them for a time to the practical interests of England; as was the fate of the Whigs at the beginning of this century, when they identified their party with implacable opposition to Pitt's struggle to deliver Europe from the tyranny of Bonaparte.