The eighty votes from Ireland daunt them.
But wise men must look behind votes at facts.

The eighty Irish Home Rulers are, it is true, no light matter, even when allowance is made for the way in which corruption and intimidation vitiate the vote of Ireland.

But their voice is not the voice of the Irish people; it is at most the mutter or the clamour of a predominant Irish faction.

It is the voice of Ireland in the same sense in which a century ago the shouts or yells of the Jacobin Club were the voice of France.

To any one who looks behind the forms of the constitution to the realities of life, the voice of Irish wealth, of Irish intelligence, and of Irish loyalty is at least as important as the voice of Irish sedition or discontent.