modern recollection was without even a Viceroy. Lord Carnarvon had resigned and had not been replaced. Sir W. Hart Dyke had resigned also his office as Chief Secretary, and his successor had not been found. Mr. W. H. Smith had gone to Ireland to enquire, but the result of his researches has never been made known. Mr. Gladstone had no choice on this Irish question; he could not pass it over, or avoid it; he was compelled to attempt to deal with it. His merit is that he has tried cure instead of repression. If the Tories were right in their official declarations on January 26th, the situation they had created, or which had developed, in Ireland, during the government of Lord Carnarvon was so grave that it would have been treason on the part of Mr. Gladstone to neglect it.
How ought Ireland to be dealt with? Mr. Gladstone says that Ireland should, by a domestic legislature and native executive, govern itself in all things which do not touch the supremacy of the Parliament at Westminster, and which do not impair the unity of the Empire. What does Lord Salisbury say? That he offers "no opposition to local government being extended to Ireland", but this he clearly did not mean, for a little later in the same speech he declared: "I would never advise my countrymen to place confidence in the inhabitants of Ireland . . . . because they are a deeply divided people." Lord Salisbury says that he would have the Government of England govern Ireland honestly, consistently, and resolutely for twenty years; but Lord Salisbury had tried his plan of government, and even if he had been honest he certainly had not been consistent or resolute for so much as even twenty weeks. It was only in September that one of Lord Salisbury's colleagues in the Cabinet said
