The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-10-22 00:00:00

CHARACTERISTIC LETTER FROM LORD ARGYLL.

A correspondent has received the following from
the Duke of Argyll:
Sir.—You ask me whether in Scotland there is any
disaffection to the union with Ireland. If you had
asked me this two years ago I should have been dis-
posed to think that my interrogator was what the
Scotch call "daft." So far as lam aware, no human
being in Scotland outside a lunatic asylum ever enter-
tained such an idea: And if any man does now enter-
tain it, he ought, in my opinion, to be taken care of
by his friends. But you seem to forget several
facts of our recent experience. They are these:
1. Mr. Gladstone produced a scheme for separating
the Legislatures of Great Britain and Ireland.
2. It is an essential part of that scheme that Irish
members having a separate Parliament of their own
shcold not be allowed also to govern Great Britain as
part of the Parliament at Westminster.
3. That in accordance with this obvious principle of
reason, the scheme of Mr. Gladstone provided for the
dismissal or omission of all Irish members from the
Parliament of Great Britain.

4. That in one of the most formal of all his late
publications Mr. Gladstone has distinctly said that
"it is not allowable to deal with Ireland upon any
principle the benefit of which could not be allowed to
Scotland in circumstances of equal and equally clear
desire."

5. That a great number of people, both in Scotland
and England, are followers of Mr. Gladstone, and seem
willing to vote for anything he proposes, or anything
he may induce others to demand.
6. That, under the stimulus of his universal solici-
tations to discontent, a certain number of people have
at least been talking about Home Rule for Scotland.
7. That Mr. Gladstone's language distinctly points
to his own Irish scheme as offering "benefits '—
whether desired or not.
8. That the " benefit " to Ireland is that she be-
comes a tributary and dependency separated from all
voice or vote in Imperial concerns, which are ex-
pressly reserved for the Imperial Parliament.
9. That he has thus set forth the dismissal of
Scotch members from the Westminster Parliament,
and the reduction of Scotland to a tributary province,
with a local Parliament, as a proposal which he is
quite willing to entertain, and which he suggests as
beneficial.

10. That, although no Scotchman except himself
has, so far as I know, ever contemplated such a
scheme as possible, yet many Scotchmen call them-
selves followers of Mr. Gladstone and supporters of
this corresponding Irish scheme.
11. That the late hazy talk abDut Mr. Gladstone's
"concessions" has been founded on the notion that
he is now willing to allow Irishmen both to rule them-
selves and to rule us.
12. That Lord Rosebery, another Scotchman, has
lately ridiculed the very idea of such a "concession,
and has asked whether Irish members are to be sum-
moned to attend by the ringing of a bell.
, 13. That the ridicule is just and well-directed, and
indicates that the scheme, which is described as a
benefit to Ireland, will have equally to be applied as
a benefit to Scotland when she has been educated up
to the standard of wisdom and enlightenment which
has been set before us.
I continue to have some confidence in the common-
sense and public virtues of our people. But when I
see men who have hitherto been men of common-
sense so bewildered and deluded on the fundamental
principles of our constitution, and on the greatest
achievements of our historical development in civilisa-
tion, I can put trust nowhere except in every man
doing his duty by resisting what he knows to be
folly, and by asserting the independence of his own
mind against the dangerous solicitations of party
spirit and of hero-worship. Yours obediently,
ARGYLL.