r. Gladstone favoured provisional inclusion,
without prejudice to a return to the earlier plan of exclusion if that
should be recommended by subsequent experience.(302) In the bill now
introduced (Feb. 13, 1893), eighty representatives from Ireland were to
have seats at Westminster, but they were not to vote upon motions or bills
expressly confined to England or Scotland, and there were other
limitations. This plan was soon found to be wholly intolerable to the
House of Commons. Exclusion having failed, and inclusion of reduced
numbers for limited purposes having failed, the only course left open was
what was called _omnes omnia_, or rather the inclusion of eighty Irish
members, with power of voting on all purposes.

Each of the three courses was open to at least one single, but very
direct, objection. Exclusion, along with the exaction of revenue from
Ireland by the parliament at Westminster, was taxation without
representation. Inclusion for all purposes was to allow the Irish to
meddle in our affairs, while we were no longer to meddle in theirs.
Inclusion for limited purposes still left them invested with the power of
turning out a British government by a vote against it on an imperial
question. Each plan, therefore, ended in a paradox. There was a fourth
paradox, namely, that whenever the British supporters of a government did
not suffice to build up a decisive majority, then the Irish vote
descending into one or other scale of the parliamentary balance might
decide who should be our rulers. This paradox--the most glaring of them
all--habit and custom have made familiar, and familiarity might almost seem
to have actually endeared it to us. In 1893 Mr. Gladstone and his
colleagues thought themselves compelled to change clause 9 of the new
bill, just as they had thought themselves forced to drop clause 24 of the
old bill.

V

It was Mr. Gladstone's performances in the days of committee on the bill,
that stirred the wonder and admiration of the House. If he had been fifty
they would have been astonishing; at eighty-four they were indeed a
marvel. He made speeches of powerful argument, of high constitutional
reasoning, of trenchant debating force. No emergency arose for which he
was not ready, no demand that his versatility was not adequate to meet.
His energy never flagged. When the bill came on, he would put on his
glasses, pick up the paper of amendments, and running through them like
lightning, would say, "