With

such reasoning, such shameless
trifling, does "the greatest states-
man the world has ever seen"
open the session of Parliament.
It has been said before in these
pages, that no one has ever so
thoroughly gauged the gullibility
of a large section of the British
public as Mr Gladstone. He is
far too acute a man to have re-
sorted to the miserable subterfuges
and misty utterances of which he
is a master, if he had not realised
that his worshippers, with closed
eye and open mouth, were prepared,
and indeed eager, to swallow any-
thing, provided it were gilded by
him. He knows very well that
for him to be silent as to the Plan
of Campaign would be fatal. He
knows that it would alarm his
English followers if they saw him
without words on any subject. The
evil must be bad indeed which he
could not explain away.
whom Lord Palmerston proposed
to send to Italy to explain away
Garibaldi's wife, and thus remove
an obstacle to a diplomatic mar-
riage, must not appear to be struck
dumb by any incident which would
tell against his policy; and there-
fore words he has, and plenty of
them. But when they are uttered,
there is not in them, from begin-
ning to end, one spark of light,
one gleam for guidance. The leader
leads into darkness. He turns
aside from the way. He gives up
all political manliness, and is re-
warded with the cheers of those
to whom he is a god, and the con-
tempt of all men who refuse to be
blinded by fanaticism, and are not
cynically resolved that morality
shall not stand in the way of what
thing they call "good."

The man

said then; what the Chief Secre- that, and the other thing.
tary to the Lord Lieutenant has
done; what the last Parliament
should have done, &c., &c.; and
having thus pirouetted round and
round the subject, he finishes off
with a "forsooth" about his being
asked to say what his opinion is
of the Plan of Campaign. And,
instead of it, he rides off upon a
subterfuge. "I will tell you what
I think of the Plan of Campaign.
It is the consequence of the policy
which he" (the seconder of the Ad-
dress) and his friends have pur-
sued." Loud cheers from the Par-
nellites above and below the gang-
way. It has come to this. A
statesman of the highest rank is
not ashamed to conceal an opinion
which is asked for, in order that
the public mind may be guided on
a great question, by a mean and
paltry evasion. His conduct brings
into a strong light both his own
moral plight and his contempt for
the reasoning powers of his fol-
lowers. For it is evident that to
give as an opinion about a matter
an opinion as to what it result-
ed from, is to insult the under-
standing of those to whom it
is addressed. What is your
opinion of Guy Fawkes's plot?
My opinion is, that it was the
consequence of King James I.
being King of England. What
is your opinion of the conduct
of those who murdered Lord
Frederick Cavendish and Mr
Burke? My opinion is that it is
the natural result of the policy of
the Government in letting Mr
Parnell out of Kilmainham Jail.
What is your opinion of boycot-
ting? My opinion is that is a
sequence to be expected from the
payment of rent. And so, when
asked what is his opinion of the
Plan of Campaign, the leader of
the Opposition says it is his opin-
ion of it that it resulted from this,

It is matter of course in a party
so blind in its following of Mr
Gladstone as are the votaries of
Home Rule, that it should be

"like master like man." Accord- They will only have to make up ingly, not one speaker rose from the front Opposition bench who did not make it more plain than before, that, just as the Plan of Campaign is a conspiracy, so there was a conspiracy of those who were wont to cheer the "resources of civilisation" and to re-echo denunciations by their chief of "public plunder" and of the "march of ruin through rapine to the dismemberment of the empire." Every speech showed that there existed a conspiracy to please the plunderers, now that the resources of civilisation are looked upon as exhausted. The Morleys and the Fowlers and the Harcourts vied with one another in raising clouds of dust to obscure a very simple and clear issue. The highly ingenuous argument was freely propounded, that as men were about to be tried for their participation in the Plan of Campaign, it would be premature to express any opinion in regard to it. It was urged that to do so might prejudice the accused at their trial. Such an argument shows an obliquity of mind so extraordinary, that it is scarcely possible to believe it can be put forward with candour. The question whether the Plan of Campaign commends itself to the moral sense of right and wrong has nothing whatever to do with the question whether certain men, in promoting the Plan of Campaign, have been guilty of a criminal offence. Nothing that can be said in Parliament or elsewhere can affect that question, or prejudice it in any way. The facts to be proved at the trial cannot be affected by any opinion as to the Plan of Campaign itself, which is a printed and published scheme. The jury at the trial will have no duty to consider whether the Plan of Campaign is moral or not.

their minds whether certain facts are proved, and if they hold that they are not, then they do not need to go further, but must acquit the accused. But if they hold that certain facts are proved, then if the judge tells them that if these facts are proved the crime charged has been committed, they have no alternative but to convict. But the question whether certain facts constitute a crime depends upon the law, which the judge is responsible to lay down, and which the jury are responsible to accept. Therefore it is plain that no prejudice can arise from an expression of approval or disapproval of the Plan of Campaign. It can in no way affect the trial of the traversers. But, further, no opinion is asked from the leaders of public opinion on the criminality of the Plan of Campaign. Questions of criminality punishable by the law are one thing, questions of public morality are another thing. And here it is that the rail-riding of right honourable gentlemen of the Separatist party makes them such a spectacle to honest men. They dare not for their political lives stand forth and straightforwardly denounce the Plan of Campaign. For they, having sold their political heritage for the strength that the Parnellite Jacob may bring them, dare not utter a word that might delay their having the mess of pottage served out. A word of repudiation of what Parnellism is promoting, and good-bye to the savoury mess of office, which they receive from no other hand than Mr Parnell's. But it is equally certain that, on the other hand, they are in as great a difficulty in the case of their own followers. Except a few extremists, who are prepared to out-Parnell Parnell, the great mass of the Gladstonian

be grasped and torn, or too coarsely immoral to require to be torn at. all. But it was left to Sir William Harcourt, when acting as leader of the Opposition in the absence of Mr Gladstone, to show that there are always depths deeper still, and even fouler, into which a great party can plunge when once it has condescended to abandon its

Liberals cannot yet be trusted to accept the Plan of Campaign as moral and worthy of their support. Even extreme Radicals, who must please their Parnellite friends, in order to buy support for their own wild schemes, cannot in distinct and frank terms adopt the Plan of Campaign. So practised and determined a Radical as Mr Illingworth gives it support as a permissible own principles, and accept the "extra" legal mode of proced- companionship of those whose prinure, whatever that may mean. ciples it has denounced. As The son of the Lord Chief-Justice "He who stands upon a slippery place of England, himself a lawyer, while Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him not prepared to declare it legal, up," gives it his "moral" support. In what sense the word moral is used by the learned gentlemen it is very difficult to guess. But such declarations from typical Radicals are a very strong indication of the shifts to which they are driven to justify to their own consciences their complete surrender to the National League. But other Radicals as extreme cannot sear their consciences sufficiently to enable them to adopt the hollow pretences of the member for Bradford and the member for Sheffield. So persistent a Radical and so consistent a Home-Ruler as Mr Storey, the member for Sunderland, feels compelled to lift up his voice against so flagrant a breach of the first principles of morality, as that one man, able to pay his debts, should be encouraged to refuse to do so, in order to concuss his creditor in his action in reference to another debtor, who says he is not able to meet the claims against him. And it is certain that Mr Storey, in so expressing himself, was but giving voice to the thought of many a Radical, who is tongue-tied by fear of Irish constituents and socialistic Radicals. In truth, every argument brought forward to show directly that the plan of Campaign is justifiable, is either too flimsy to

so does Sir William Harcourt, the denouncer of Mr Parnell, the inventor of the great juice simile, the indignant patriot who swelled with wrath at the idea of any respectable politicians associating themselves with men "steeped to the lips in treason," now shamelessly exhibit himself, clinging to the foul support that fifteen months ago was held up by him to the loathing contempt of honest men, and of which he said that those who contaminated themselves by contact with it would so stink in the nostrils of the nation that they would be flung aside with disgust. Not only has Sir William Harcourt and the members of his party succeeded within eight or nine months in verifying his own prophecies in their own persons-not only have they wallowed in Parnellite juice and been flung aside by the country in disgust,—but they have found a deeper depth and a filthier pool even yet. No more disgraceful night for British statesmanship, no more lamentable episode of parliamentary degradation, have ever soiled the annals of British history than the closing of the debate on Mr Parnell's amendment by the speech of the Parnellite leader, Sir William Harcourt. Unrelieved by one noble sentiment, undisguised by