THIRD MARQUESS OF SALISBURY 283
seized upon by partisans on the look-out for any stick with which to belabour their opponents. It is one of the commonest and cheapest forms of political controversy to accuse your adversary of secret attachment to the particular line of policy which he spends his life in opposing. Had Lord Salisbury shown any leanings towards Home Rule, indications of his state of mind would certainly have appeared in his private corre- spondence. This has not yet been published, but we are told by a writer who has had access to it that it contains " nothing to show that he even contemplated anything more than the measure of Irish Local Government, which, in fact, he afterwards granted." l
Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill was introduced in April, and while the debate was at its height, Lord Salisbury committed one of his " blazing indiscretions," of which his opponents were quick to take advantage. In a speech in St. James's Hall (May I5th, 1886) he propounded his recipe for the pacification of Ireland " twenty years' resolute government." And he went on to say that Ireland was not one nation, but two nations. ' There were races like the Hottentots, and even the Hindus, incapable of self-government. He would not place confidence in people who had acquired the habit of using knives and slugs."
With regard to these and similar " calculated brutalities " of speech, the opinion of Lord Robert
1 Mr. Algernon Cecil in the Diet. Nat. Biog., 2nd Supp. I. 336.
�� �
