shops in the House of Lords?" Answer from a
premature sponsor of Lord John's--"We will." Answer from Lord John--"I
will not." _Question retrospective_ from the Conservatives--"What is
it, not being already done, that we could have done for Ireland?"
_Answer_ from the Liberals--"Oh, a thousand things!" _Question
prospective_ from the Conservatives--"What is it, then, in particular,
that you, in our places, would do for Ireland? Name it." _Answer_ from
the Liberals--"Oh, nothing in particular!" Sir R. Peel ought to have
done for Ireland whole worlds of new things. But the Liberals, with
the very same power to _do_ heretofore, and to _propose_ now, neither
did then, nor can propose at present. And why? partly because the
privilege of acting for Ireland, so fruitful in reproaches, is barren
in practice: the one thing that remained to be done,--viz. the putting
down agitators--_has_ been done; and partly because the privilege of
proposing for Ireland is dangerous: first, as pledging themselves
hereafter; second, because to specify, though it were in so trivial a
matter as the making pounds into guineas for Maynooth, is but to put
on record, and to publish their own party incapacity to agree upon any
one of the merest trifles imaginable. Anarchy of anarchies, very mob
of very mobs, whose internal strife is greater than your common enmity
_ab extra_--what shall we believe? Which is your true doctrine? Where
do you fasten your real charge? Amongst conflicting arguments, which
is it that you adopt? Amongst self-destroying purposes, for which is
it that you make your election?

[28] The reader may suppose that Lord John Russell had no
motive for wishing his motion to fail, because (as he was
truly admonished by Sir Robert Peel) that motion pledged him
to nothing, and was "an exercise in political fluxions on the
problem of combining the _maximum_ of damage to his opponents
with the _minimum_ of prospective engagement to himself."
True: but for all that Lord John would have cursed the hour in
which he resolved on such a motion, had it succeeded. What
would have followed? Ministers would have gone out: Sir Robert
Peel has repeatedly said they would in the event of parliament
condemning their Irish policy. This would bring in Lord John,
and _then_ would be revealed the distraction of his party, the
chicanery of his late motion, and the mere incapacity of
moving at all upon Iri