ugh it may be said that the acceptance of the Bill without prejudice
would not have stultified the principles already vindicated in a long
struggle by the Irish people, the body as constituted, it was felt,
would have served the purpose of the Unionist party by dividing without
a sufficient _quid pro quo_ the attention of the Irish people from their
devotion to the cause for the broad principles of which they have been
striving, and there was this further danger that a body so restricted in
its scope and anti-democratic in its administration would have broken
down in action, and would have in this way provided Unionists with the
very strongest possible argument for opposition to a full autonomy.

While a certain proportion of Liberals are prepared to admit that the
Bill made havoc of Liberal principles there is a Laodicean section who
have greatly blamed Irish Nationalists for having refused what was
offered them, when having asked for bread they were given a stone. To
such people as I have in mind I should like to quote what Mr. Gladstone
wrote to Lord Hartington on November 10th, 1885:--

"If that consummation--the concession to Ireland of full power to manage
her own local affairs--is in any way to be contemplated, action at a
stroke will be more honourable, less unsafe, less uneasy than the
jolting process of a series of partial measures."[28]

The position of that section of Liberals is strange which is represented
by the assertion that their party has already made enough sacrifices in
regard to Irish affairs, and which is anxious to return to the _laissez
faire_ policy of their mid-Victorian predecessors. The point I submit is
this, either Liberals do or they do not believe in the principle of
self-government as applied to Ireland, and if they do adhere to it no
effort is too great, no difficulty too extreme, for them to face in the
attempt to solve so serious a problem. Those who think that because in
1886, and again in 1893, the Liberals, with Irish support,
unsuccessfully attempted to solve the Irish question, they have thereby
contracted out of their moral obligation, take a very curious view of
the responsibilities of popular government; but it is not so strange as
the position of those who hold that because in 1907 the Irish people
refused a particular form of change in the methods of government for
which they never asked, they have in consequence closed every avenue to
constitutional reform which can be op