for Ireland should define
their position? They defeated Mr. Gladstone's scheme last year in
Parliament and in the constituencies; and they defeated it by the
promise of a counter policy which was to consist, in brief, of placing
Ireland on the same footing as Great Britain in respect to Local
Government; or, if there was to be any difference, it was to be in the
direction of a larger and more generous measure for Ireland than for the
rest of the United Kingdom. This certainly was the policy propounded by
the distinguished leader of the Liberal Unionists in his speech at
Belfast, in November, 1885, and repeated in his electoral speeches last
year. In the Belfast speech Lord Hartington said: "My opinion is that it
is desirable for Irishmen that institutions of local self-government
such as are possessed by England and Scotland, and such as we hope to
give in the next session in greater extent to England and Scotland,
should also be extended to Ireland." But this extension of local
self-government to Ireland would require, in Lord Hartington's opinion,
a fundamental change in the fabric of Irish Government. "I would not
shrink," he says, "from a great and bold reconstruction of the Irish
Government," a reconstruction leading up gradually to some real and
substantial form of Home Rule. His Lordship's words are: "I submit with
some confidence to you these principles, which I have endeavoured to lay
down, and upon which, I think, the extension of Local Government in
Ireland must proceed. First, you must have some adequate guarantees both
for the maintenance of the essential unity of the Empire and for the
protection of the minority in Ireland. And, secondly, you must also
admit this principle: the work of complete self-government of Ireland,
the grant of full control over the management of its own affairs, is not
a grant that can be made by any Parliament of this country in a day. It
must be the work of continuous and careful effort." Elsewhere in the
same speech Lord Hartington says: "Certainly I am of opinion that
nothing can be done in the direction of giving Ireland anything like
complete control over her own affairs either in a day, or a session, or
probably in a Parliament." "Complete control over her own affairs," "the
work of complete self-government of Ireland, the grant of full control
over the management of its own affairs:" this is the policy which Lord
Hartington proclaimed in Ulster, the promise which he, the prox