The best part of Gladstone s speech is the long introduction, in which he says that even the beneficent laws of the English have always the reverse effect in practice. What better proof does that fellow need that England is not called upon to be the lawgiver and ruler of Ireland! His measures are a pretty piece of patchwork. The main thing in them is to lure the lawyers with the prospect of lawsuits and the landlords with the prospect of state assistance. Odger s election scandal was doubly useful: the pig-Whigs saw for the first time that they must let the workers into Parliament, or else the Tories will get in. Secondly, it is a lesson to Mr. Odger and his accomplices, He would have got in despite Waterlow if some of the Irish workers had not abstained from voting, because he had behaved so trimming during the debate in the General Council, which they knew of from Reynolds s. You'll receive the Irish Bill next week.
Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1870