Chamberlain; A Study

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...to claim whatever might be accorded to Ireland. This is only a repetition of what I have often said before, and I have nothing to add or enlarge.1 It is true that in 1885 Chamberlain had proposed in the Cabinet, and Gladstone had supported, as we have seen, a scheme of representative county government for Ireland, with a central board for all Ireland, to be chosen by the county boards;3 and that this scheme--accepted at the time by Mr. Parnell--was abandoned only because Lord Hartington and all the peers in the Cabinet save Lord Granville were against it. But though Chamberlain had thus striven for a settlement which gave to Ireland exceptional treatment, it was of the nature of such a devolution of the powers of the Imperial Parliament as had been sketched in Gladstone's utterances of 1879 and 1881; and in the way of a special treatment for Ireland, Chamberlain had refused to go the length of a national legislature sitting at Dublin. In his Warrington speech of September 8th, 1885, he pointed out that Mr. Parnell's claims for an Irish Parliament exceeded the powers given to State legislatures in the American Union, "which had hitherto been the type and model of the Irish demands"; and as having in the past declared for that model, he opposed the extension of the Home Rule theory. In the same speech, too, he avowed that he would concede to all parts of the kingdom alike the fullest possible measure of local selfgovernment.1 1 November 26th, 1879. 1 Morley's Life of Gladstone, iii, 58. 2 Ibid, iii, 193-4. Compare Chamberlain's Home Hide Speeches, pp. 34-35. Chamberlain held to this position when, early in 1886, he stated to Gladstone the conditions on which he re-accepted office.2 The words above cited from Gladstone might consistently be stretched...