dorse this solemn declaration. Those who are opposing Mr. Gladstone, and are now presenting themselves as candidates, call themselves Unionists; but we, at present, hold Ireland rather as if we were her jailers than as if we were united with her. Union maintained by heavy garrisons and a constabulary which is an assistant army, is not real union. There is no willing union between a prisoner and his cell, between a prisoner and his handcuffs. Union should imply co-operation, not dominance; Union should mean equality, not subjection. The Paper Union of 1800 has never been real; for nearly thirty years the great majority of the Irish people were subject to disabilities, and liable to penal laws which have been described by Lord Coleridge as "unparalleled in the history of the world". Union! it was the union of the chained and muzzled dog with his owner or keeper. Until 1844 some of these penal laws continued to disfigure our statute book. Union! how could there be union when until 1869 the church of the minority had State power, State wealth, and State privilege, whilst that of the majority had none? Union! how could there be union whilst the healthy reformed municipal life encouraged in England for more than fifty years, has yet to be created on the same broad lines in Ireland? Union! how could there be union in Ireland when until 1884 there was no such wide political franchise as was enjoyed by the people of this country? Union! how is union possible when Ireland is treated as a piece of machinery to be wound up from Dublin Castle?
In a Radical programme issued in 1885, and commended by Mr. Chamberlain to his fellow Radicals the actual government of Ireland is thus described:
