ith exclusively Irish affairs. But such a
resolution would be consistent equally with a narrow scheme on the one
hand, such as a plan for national councils, and a broad scheme on the
other, giving to Ireland a separate exchequer, separate control over
customs and excise, and practically an independent and co-ordinate
legislature.(187) How could the government meet the challenge to say
outright whether they intended broad or narrow? Such a resolution could
hardly have outlived an evening's debate, and would not have postponed the
evil day of schism for a single week.

Precedents lent no support. It is true that the way was prepared for the
Act of Union in the parliament of Great Britain, by the string of
resolutions moved by Mr. Pitt in the beginning of 1799. But anybody who
glances at them, will at once perceive that if resolutions on their model
had been framed for the occasion of 1886, they would have covered the
whole ground of the actual bill, and would instantly have raised all the
formidable objections and difficulties exactly as the bill itself raised
them. The Bank Charter Act of 1833 was founded on eight resolutions, and
they also set forth in detail the points of the ministerial plan.(188) The
renewal of the East India Company's charter in the same year went on by
way of resolutions, less abundant in particulars than the Bank Act, but
preceded by correspondence and papers which had been exhaustively
canvassed and discussed.(189) The question of Irish autonomy was in no
position of that sort.

The most apt precedent in some respects is to be found on a glorious
occasion, also in the year 1833. Mr. Stanley introduced the proposals of
his government for the emancipation of the West Indian slaves in five
resolutions. They furnished a key not only to policy and general
principles, but also to the plan by which these were to be carried
out.(190) Lord Howick followed the minister at once, raising directly the
whole question of the plan. Who could doubt that Lord Hartington would now
take precisely the same course towards Irish resolutions of similar scope?
The procedure on the India bill of 1858 was just as little to the point.
The general disposition of the House was wholly friendly to a settlement
of the question of Indian government by the existing ministry. No single
section of the opposition wished to take it out of their hands, for
neither Lord Russell nor the Peelites nor the Manchester men, and probably
not