Still, however, the “Unionists” hope to be able some day to offer some form of self-government to Ireland.  For party purposes they are wise in postponing that day to the latest possible period, for its advent will probably dissolve the union of the “Unionists.”  Lord Salisbury, Lord Hartington, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Chamberlain cannot agree upon any scheme which all can accept without a public recantation of previous professions.  Mr. Bright is opposed to Home Rule “in any shape or form.”  Mr. Chamberlain, on the other hand, is in favour of a great National Council, on Mr. Butt’s lines or on the lines of the Canadian plan; either of which would give the National Council control over education and the maintenance of law and order.  Latterly, indeed, Mr. Chamberlain has advocated a separate treatment for Ulster.  But the first act of an Ulster Provincial Assembly would probably be to declare the union of that Province with the rest of Ireland.  Ulster, be it remembered, returns a majority of Nationalists to the Imperial Parliament.  To exclude Ulster from any share in the settlement offered to the other three Provinces would therefore be impracticable; and Mr. Bright has lately expressed his opinion emphatically in that sense.  In any case, Lord Hartington could be no party to any scheme so advanced as Mr. Chamberlain’s.  For although he declared, in his Belfast speech, that “complete self-government” was the goal of his policy for Ireland, he was careful to explain that “the extension of Irish management over Irish affairs must be a growth from small beginnings.”  But this “growth from small beginnings” would be, in Lord Salisbury’s opinion, a very dangerous and mischievous policy.  The establishment of self-government in Ireland, as distinct from what is commonly known as Home Rule, he pronounced in his Newport speech to be “a very difficult question;” and in the following passage he placed his finger upon the kernel of the difficulty:—­“A local authority is more exposed to the temptation, and has more of the facility for enabling a majority to be unjust to the minority, than is the case when the authority derives its sanction and extends its jurisdiction over a wide area.  That is one of the weaknesses of local authorities.  In a large central authority the wisdom of several parts of the country will correct the folly or the mistakes of one.  In a local authority that correction to a much greater extent is wanting; and it would be impossible to leave that out of sight in the extension of any such local authority to Ireland.”

This seems to me a much wiser and more statesmanlike view than a system of elective boards scattered broadcast over Ireland.  A multitude of local boards all over Ireland, without a recognized central authority to control them, would inevitably become facile instruments in the hands of the emissaries of disorder and sedition.  And, even apart from any such sinister influences, they would be almost certain to yield to the temptation