advanced by the Treasury, to a longer period than that now permitted; and other expedients of the kind are possible. But we strongly protest against the notion that the Irish tenant is to be converted into a landowner, through the interposition of the State, without bearing a part of the cost; this would be a socialistic and perilous measure, tossing property about for a greedy scramble, and utterly unjust to the general taxpayer. In another point of extreme importance, the Land Act, we think, requires revision; it does not apply to leasehold tenants so long as existing leases continue; and strong as the objections, no doubt, are to interference with solemn written contracts, it is, we believe, in existing circumstances, and after what has occurred in Ireland, unjust to exclude this important class from the benefits open to yearly tenants, and so to keep it in a state of unrest. If this concession, however, be made, so far as regards the rights of tenants we think that nothing more should be done; the measure of justice would be complete; and we should object to any change in the law which would countenance, in the slightest degree, the scandalous doctrine of the 'prairie' value of land, as the measure of its legitimate rent, put forward recklessly by Land League demagogues. We wish, however, that something could be done in the interest of the Irish landlords undoubtedly ruined, in many instances, by the Revolution of 1879-82, and sufferers to some extent through the Land Act; we appeal to the greatest financier of his time to consider if partial relief be possible.

Though the end probably is still distant, the Land Act, changed as we have suggested, will in our judgment ultimately make Irish tenants a fairly contented class. We turn to another branch of the subject: how, notwithstanding the reforms of late years, we are to account for the general illwill to government and law still pervading Ireland; for the hatred professed towards the official classes; for the still formidable signs of unrest; for the demand for separation and Home Rule; for the evident alienation from British rule of certainly a great part of the nation? In considering this matter, it is of the first importance to distinguish between a phase of sentiment that is transient and due to passing causes, and one that has a solid basis of justice; and to draw a marked line between unreal grievances, or those beyond the reach of statesmen to cure, and grievances which can be lessened or removed. In our opinion the passionate clamour against 'England' and 'Castle government,' at present heard in the South of Ireland, is in a great measure a factitious

The Demand for Home Rule.

cry, got up by bad and unprincipled men to retain their hold on an ignorant people; the same may be said of the rabid complaints against authority of almost every kind; and evidently the still continuing symptoms of crime and disturbance in some districts are largely consequences of the terrible period of violence through which the country has passed. If we bear in mind that a body of able men is ploting against our rule in Ireland, that they have singled out for their persistent attacks the whole system of Irish Government and its administrators, from the Lord Lieutenant to the police, and that recent events have made them powerful, we can understand how, to attain their ends, they stir up persistently popular masses, excitable, vehement, and without knowledge, against what they call 'alien tyranny ; nor can we wonder, after what has occurred, that they command a large amount of support and sympathy. Again, if we recollect that but a few months ago a reign of terror prevailed in Ireland, and rebellion had nearly supplanted government, we readily perceive how the passions of the time have by no means completely subsided; the waves, in fact, of a tremendous tempest are still moving though the wind has lulled. In a word, the Land League and its chief leaders are, in a great measure, alone responsible for the crusade being now preached in Ireland against her institutions and ruling classes; and the vehement feelings in this way engendered are largely due to this pernicious influence.

This ebullition of Irish sentiment, at least in its present state of violence, will, however, assuredly not be permanent. No doubt, nothing exactly like it has been seen in the course of history; but hostility to the rule of England in Ireland unfortunately is no new thing, and the result has invariably been quiescence after a period of greater or less disturbance. The grievance, too, which is the object of attack, is either in no real sense a grievance, or is one that must be tenderly dealt with; it is either a phantom, or a state of things which cannot be essentially changed. The relative position of the two islands, the greater extent and power of Great Britain, and the teaching, as it were, of more than seven centuries, have made the supremacy of England over Ireland a necessary and incontestable fact and it is worse than idle to resist conclusions drawn, so to speak, from the nature of things. Supremacy, however, implies government-accordingly England must rule Ireland; and this rule must be beyond challenge, in whatever degree we may improve or modify the institutions by which it is upheld, or the actual instru

ments of British Power. When demagogues, therefore, denounce the tyranny' of England and the subjection' of Ireland, they are simply clamouring against realities which must be accepted as finally settled; and we can only regret that they command the attention of a race one of whose most startling faults is to kick against facts and to pursue fancies. Nor can it be expected-though in this matter something may be done in the way of reform-that statesmen, charged to maintain the Empire, can, at the bidding of a hostile faction, make a clean sweep of the system of government in Ireland and its existing agents. The experiment, after what we have lately seen, would be reckless and pernicious folly and notwithstanding unscrupulous clamour, no case whatever has been made for the change. To wild demands of this kind, therefore, a stern refusal must be distinctly made; and it is even questionable whether it may not be necessary to repress more thoroughly than is now attempted the ferocious attacks being constantly made by rebel orators and their press in Ireland against the entire class that represents authority. As regards threats and signs of disorder and crime, they must be put down by the strong arm of the law, and by a method of administration just but severe. In this respect we may trust with confidence in the statesmen at present in power in Ireland; and whether the Crimes Act be renewed or not-and much as we regret it, we have little doubt that it must be renewed in its main provisions-this must be one great principle of Irish government. And here we notice a point of importance felt deeply by all right-minded Englishmen, and which we trust will command attention. The 'Irish Party,' as every one knows, have made the House of Commons, as well as Irish platforms, a theatre for attacks on the Irish Government; and with the professed object of making our rule in Ireland hateful and even impossible, they not only obstruct the work of Parliament, but week after week, and night after night, defame the official and upper classes in Ireland in a manner that must be pronounced infamous. Considering what a people the Irish are, not to speak of the rights of the House of Commons, it is high time that some means should be found to put an end to this most grave scandal.

A deaf ear, then, must be steadily turned to manufactured wrath against the Irish Government; and all lawful means should be taken to check and suppress the clamour of rebellious demagogues. It is otherwise, however, with the deep-seated ill-will felt generally against the rule of England in three at least of the Irish Provinces, and with the wide

Vague Ill-will Towards England.

15

spread discontent with the Union; these problems deserve the earnest attention of all thinking men and responsible statesmen. In considering, however, this grave subject, we must first clearly apprehend the causes of this unfortunate state of opinion, in order to ascertain the extent to which it may be possible to effect a change in it; and this, too, consistently with the first duty of Englishmen to uphold the Commonwealth. We are not among those who, as they look back at the sad relations of the two countries, think that all the wrong has been on the side of England; the lawless disorder of the Irish race, and its inveterate resistance to accomplished facts, assuredly often deserved punishment; and a great deal of what is most blameable in the Irish policy of England in the past was in accord with the spirit of the age, and has a parallel in contemporary events. Yet, after making allowance for this, the misgovernment of Ireland in bygone times, and even down to a recent period, has been such as necessarily left a traditional source of injustice behind; and it still rankles in the hearts of a people prone, to a fault, to dwell on unhappy memories. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the island was a continual scene of civil wars and spoliations of land, accompanied usually with atrocious cruelties; and the sword of the invader violently effaced the usages and laws of the vanquished race. When this melancholy period had come to a close, it left a body of alien colonists planted in the soil, and keeping a nation under; this settlement of conquest was prolonged for years by establishing a harsh ascendency of sect, and degrading three-fourths of a subject people, proscribed in their faith and social relations; and Ireland was governed in the interest of a class without regard to an oppressed community. Soon after the Union, this condition of affairs, although being improved in the course of time, continued in some of its main features: The Roman Catholics of Ireland did not obtain the full rights of freemen until 1829, and they formed the great mass of the people : and for many years afterwards, in the Church, in the Land, in Education, and in Local Government, the principle of the domination of a caste survived. Ireland, in fact, was ruled by England indeed, but through, and in the main for the benefit of, a favoured oligarchy of race and sect; the whole system was exclusive, harsh, and founded on false and unjust distinctions; and too little regard was given to the rights and legitimate claims of the nation as a whole. One of the most startling proofs of this state of affairs was that, fifty years ago, a third of the Irish people, 2,500,000 souls,

were always in want and wretched distress, without the protection of a Poor Law-social conditions brought out in fearful relief by the great famine of 1846-47.

a

It is to this long train of unhappy events that we must mainly ascribe the dislike of England, and the antipathy to the British connexion, inveterate in the South of Ireland; and this state of opinion must be distinguished from the passionate clamour we have noticed. Undoubtedly, during the last twenty years extraordinary efforts have been made by Parliament, under the inspiration of Mr. Gladstone chiefly, to redress the wrongs and the ills of Ireland; and admirable reforms have been generously carried out. Yet many traces of the past exist, and must continue for a considerable time; these keep up the long-standing bitterness; and, what is more important, the settled ideas and traditions of generations of men are not easily, or to be suddenly, changed. Besides, as in the case of the Land, so in the case of the whole Irish Question, the progress made by the mass of the people in knowledge and thought during the last half century has quickened in them the sense of all that is to be regretted in the national life; and this feeling has been immensely strengthened by sympathy with Ireland across the Atlantic. Discontent with England and the Union, therefore, is traditional and deep-rooted sentiment; it is, so to speak, a chronic disease due to causes that have been long at work, and penetrate the vital parts of the nation. This being so, we may fairly ask how is it possible to remedy this state of things-by immediate reforms, however sweeping, by sudden concessions, however large? how, in a word, can one generation efface, in an ancient and tolerably large community, a series of ills that have been the growth of ages? If statesmen will firmly grasp the truth that what is called 'Nationalist feeling in Ireland is a legacy of many unhappy centuries, they will see that no changes that can be effected in the institutions and laws of the country, or in the administration of Irish affairs, will at once sensibly diminish this sentiment; and they will give up the optimistic view that the problem of Ireland can be quickly solved. Yet it does not follow that nothing is to be done, that the ne plus ultra of reform has been reached; that earnest efforts ought not still to be made to appease the ill-will of the South of Ireland, and to win her people over to imperial sympathies. The principles here to be observed, we submit, are, not expecting too much at once, and placing largely our trust in time, to follow the rule of justice in our Irish policy, and steadily to remove, as far as