MR GLADSTONE & MR PARNELL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2113, 23 January 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

MR GLADSTONE & MR PARNELL.

Mb Parnell, in his speech at Liverpool, challenged Mr Gladstone to frame his Constitution for Ireland, and submit it to the electors of Great Britain. Mr Gladstone, speaking at West Calder, said — Mr Parnell has conveyed to me, through the confidential channel of the public Press, a suggestion that I had better frame a plan for giving looal government to Ireland. My reasons against complying with that demand are these. What I have said is, that the wish of Ireland, clearly and constitutionally expressed, deserves our most respectful and favourable attention. But then I observe at once that Ido not yet know, what the wish of Ireland is, nor shall I know it, nor can it be constitutionally expressed until after the election which is now approaching ; and I must alto say that I believe Mr Parnell may have taken me, perhaps, to be very wanting in the experience of public life, or else, perhaps, not to have profited by my experience of public life. I think that, because that experience teaches me that if I were so rash as to make myself a volunteer physician for the people of Ireland, instead of those authorised doctors whom she is by-and-bye going to send to the House of Commons, I should not only exhibit myself in the character of a capacity which Ido not wish to fill before the public, but very severely damage any proposal which might ham en to have been hatched in my mind. I have a third reason, which is this — I am not in the Government of the country, and when a great Constitutional question arises with respect to the government of Ireland, and if a proposal is to be made effectually by the Government of the country—and although the Government of the country have been rather silent upon this subject, and appear to be much disinclined to use any language that might put them for the moment in less easy relationship with the party from over the Channel to whom they owe so much in the transactions of the last Parliament, yet undoubtedly they continue to be the Government of the country, and every rational man in opposition, will rr quire to hear what they have got to say upon the subject before making up his own mind, and will not take their plans on the particular question unless he takes them altogether (cheers). Gentlemen, I therefore think I can give tolerably good reasons why, with every courtesy to Mr Parnell, it is impossible for me to accede to the kind invitation he has given me.

It takes 800 full-blown roses to make a tablespoonful of perfume ; whilst a shilling's worth of cooked onions will epent » neighbourhood,