of one. In a local
authority, that correction is to a much greater extent wanting, and it
would be impossible to leave that out of sight, in any extension of any
such local authority in Ireland." This principle was often used in the
later controversy as a recognition by Lord Salisbury that the creation of
a great central body would be a safer policy than the mere extension of
self-government in Irish counties. In another part of the speech, it is
true, the finger-post or weather-vane pointed in the opposite direction.
"With respect to the larger organic questions connected with Ireland,"
said Lord Salisbury, "I cannot say much, though I can speak emphatically.
I have nothing to say but that the traditions of the party to which we
belong, are on this point clear and distinct, and you may rely upon it our
party will not depart from them." Yet this emphatic refusal to depart from
the traditions of the tory party did not prevent Lord Salisbury from
retaining at that moment in his cabinet an Irish viceroy, with whom he
(M91) was in close personal relations, and whose active Irish policy he
must have known to be as wide a breach in tory tradition as the mind of
man can imagine. So hard is it in distracted times, the reader may
reflect, even for men of honourable and lofty motive to be perfectly
ingenuous.

The speaker next referred to the marked way in which Mr. Parnell, a day or
two before, had mentioned the position of Austro-Hungary. "I gathered that
some notion of imperial federation was floating in his mind. With respect
to Ireland, I am bound to say that I have never seen any plan or any
suggestion which gives me at present the slightest ground for anticipating
that it is in that direction that we shall find any substantial solution
of the difficulties of the problem." In an electric state of the political
atmosphere, a statesman who said that at present he did not think federal
home rule possible, was taken to imply that he might think it possible,
by-and-by. No door was closed.

It was, however, Lord Salisbury's language upon social order that gave
most scandal to simple consciences in his own ranks. You ask us, he said,
why we did not renew the Crimes Act. There are two answers: we could not,
and it would have done no good if we could. To follow the extension of the
franchise by coercion, would have been a gross inconsistency. To show
confidence by one act, and the absence of confidence by a simultaneous
act, would