It might have been imagined that our Government had about as many self-created difficulties to contend with as any administration could possibly encounter; but this week three more have assumed gigantic dimensions; and yet—so far at all events—Mr. Balfour has succeeded in evading if not overcoming at least two of them. Whena few months ago Lord Dunraven put before the world his scheme of " Devolution " in Ireland—a plan which Mr. Balfour has himself in the course of this week's debates described as a Home Rule echeme—the Irish Unionists were up in in arms at once; and when it was discovered that the scheme had the sanction and was indeed in some measure the production of Sir Antony MacDonnell, the Under-Secretary for Ireland, the resentment against the Government knew no bounds. The prompt repudiation of the scheme by Mr. Wyndham, the Chief Secretary, naturally failed to appease them while Sir Antony remained in office. This week the whole matter has been thrashed out in the Commons, and Mr. Wyndham has with great difficulty been induced to read to the House the letters which passed between himself and Sir Antony Mac-Donnell at the time when the new Under-Secretary—a Roman Catholic and an avowed Home Ruler—was appointed by Mr. Wyndham as "a colleague rather than a subordinate" to organise a drastic reform in the system of Irish administration. It is really a most interesting and remarkable story. Mr, John Morley declared thatthe letters did honour to both men; and in one sense no doubt they did.
They showed that the Unionist and the Home Ruler were ready to work together to find a compromise for the reform of Irish administration, But such a project, concealed as it was, was hardly fair to the body of the Irish Unionists, to whom no such compromise'could possibly commend itself,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.