cies, and exposes the misrepresentations which they have been endeavouring to palm off upon the British public.
It may, indeed, be urged that such a declaration by the House of Lords was scarcely necessary to assure the world that, at least in that assembly, the Government might rely upon general and loyal support in their endeavours to uphold the supremacy of the law. But the course taken by the Duke of Argyll finds ample justification in the determined and continuous attempts of the Separatist party to mislead the people and to conceal the real issues which are at stake. There is, moreover, a more serious danger against which the Unionist party has to guard the cause which they defend. The inhabitants of Great Britain are emphatically a business-like people, who habitually set about their daily avocations with an energy which engrosses their attention to the exclusion of those extraneous considerations of social problems and political theories which are constantly present to the mind of more speculative and less industrious nations. The natural tendency of men so much engrossed and absorbed in their own concerns is to cast aside as troublesome and uninteresting whatever interferes with the ordinary management of those concerns, and, for the sake of peace and quiet, to consent to much which they do not actually approve, but which they cannot afford the time to condemn. Thence it is that there arises the danger lest, wearied by the persistent reiteration of the demand for Home Rule, and, above all things, anxious to escape from the agitation which so greatly interrupts their usual habits of life, a large number of our fellow-countrymen may be induced to listen to the repeated assurances of the Gladstonians that they are "as much for the Union" as their opponents, and may be tempted to consent to the experiment whether Home Rule does or does not imply a step in the direction of separation. It is useless to ignore the existence of such a danger; and the best and only way to encounter it is to keep continually before the eyes of the country the truth, and the whole truth, upon the question, and the gravity of the consequences which would undoubtedly follow the granting of the Home Rule demand. For such a purpose the resolution of the Duke of Argyll was doubtless introduced; and every debate, in either House of Parliament, which has such an effect, is an undoubted gain to the cause of patriotism and loyalty. But whatever might have been the result of a debate upon this resolution, the course taken by the Separatist party in the House of Lords secured to the Government a greater triumph than their most sanguine supporters could have anticipated. In a thoughtful and well-reasoned speech, the Duke of Argyll placed his case before the House of Lords, and supported the indictment which he brought against the Gladstonians and their policy. Moreover, he pointed out in a clear and unanswerable manner, the inconsistencies of which the leaders of the Gladstonian-Parnellite party had been guilty, their perversions of historical truth, their misrepresentations of their opponents, and the fallacies with which they had endeavoured to mislead the country. He directly attacked several of those who occupied the front Opposition bench – notably Lord Spencer – whose
