To this restriction no Irish member has ever raised the least objection.

It was reserved for Mr.Bartley--one of the most vehement opponents of Irish nationality and an Irish Parliament--to declare that such a restriction would make the Parliament unworthy of the acceptance of a nation of freemen, and to propose that accordingly it should be removed.

The position, then, in which the Irish opponents of the Bill were placed, was this--that while denouncing the supremacy and encroachments of the Catholic Church as one of the main objections against the Bill, they proposed that the Irish Parliament should have the right to establish and endow that very Church.

Mr.Balfour perceived--under the light thus borne in upon him--that this was not an amendment which the Tory party could safely support; and he accordingly advised Mr.Bartley to withdraw it.

Mr.Gladstone made a few scornful observations; and, without a division, the proposal was huddled out of sight.