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Isaac Butt,
and his Home Government Association, founded in the autumn of 1870, he
promptly declared, like Mr. John Morley, that legislative Union with
Great Britain was the only position permanently possible for an island
situated as Ireland is. In a speech at Aberdeen[19] he indignantly
asked--
"Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this
time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to
disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the
purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind
and crippling any powers we possess for conferring benefits on the
country to which we belong."
And for fifteen years, in power or in opposition, Mr. Gladstone preached
and acted upon the same doctrine. When the Land League was founded he
denounced it as an organisation whose steps were "dogged with crime,"
and whose march was "through rapine to the dismemberment of the Empire."
The League was finally "proclaimed" by his Government as a criminal
conspiracy and its members, from Mr.


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