nated by our self-constituted constituent committee, and the rumour is so absurd that it is not improbably well founded. So far there is nothing to distinguish this new movement from any of the thousand forms into which the Protean spirit of Irish disaffection has entered both before and since the Union. But when we come to consider the composition of the Association we shall find grave cause for reflec

tion.

The most prominent leader of the agitation is of course Mr. Isaac Butt, Q.C. His eloquence and intellectual powers, directed with the practised skill of a great lawyer, enable him to make the best of any cause he may choose to advocate. His pamphlet has reached a third edition, and it is the only work of the slightest consequence which we as yet owe to the Association. Next to Mr. Butt in celebrity is Sir William Wilde, an eminent oculist, and an amateur archæologist of great fame, but who until lately has, so far as is known to the outer world, loved to meddle in politics as little as the needy knife-grinder. Mr. Shaw, M.P. for Bandon, is best known as having been the first to free that old Protestant borough from the domination of the Bernard family. The Rev. Joseph Galbraith is a Fellow of Trinity College, and has been Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Dublin. Mr. Laurence Waldron has been, what he will never be again, M.P. for Tipperary; he is an Education Commissioner, and the possessor of large property. Mr. Edward Purdon has been Lord Mayor of Dublin. So far the list is not a very formidable one. The Association is, however, a sort of Cave of Adullam, where discontented Toryism has taken refuge. The Orangeman and the Roman Catholic have kissed each other, the Fenian ap

plauding loudly. It is as it was in the days of the United Irishmen :

ξυνώμοσαν γὰρ ὄντες ἔχθιστοι τὸ πρὶν πῦρ καὶ θάλασσα.

Discontent makes strange bedfellows. The copy recalls the original in a feeble and undecided manner still both find dilettante admirers. Peers and M.P.'s do not openly espouse the new doctrines, but they flirt with them more or less openly. The Dublin Evening Mail, the old organ of Orangeism, is very strong on the subject. The Irish Times, whose hand is against every man, lends a fitful support. But the real Nationalist prints, the Irishman and his congeners, have widely different objects, as the Federalists very well know. From a Federal Union, in which our local affairs are to be managed by a kind of aggravated Grand Jury, to the Republic democratic and social, is a very long way indeed. But even the Red Spectre, never quite hidden in these days, does not frighten our theorists, and they play with the Mephistophelean fires like children who do not know the danger.

The principal public appearance of the Association has been on the occasion of a dinner to Mr. John Martin, the nationalist and ci-devant rebel, who has lately beaten the clerical candidate in Meath. Mr. Martin's views go much farther than those of his entertainers. Some extracts from them, as reported in the Dublin Evening Mail of February 6 last, show how completely he is prepared to break through the cobwebs of the constitution mongers. 'In June 1844,' he says, 'I became a member of the Repeal Association; there has been no change whatever in my political creed and principles of action.' Alluding to the rebellion of 1848, he says, 'A friend of mine, then and now, John Mitchel, was the boldest advocate of resist

ance;' and he goes on to say that he distinctly approved of the rebellion, though his views have now changed, and he cites the example of Hungary in favour of non-insurrectionary, peaceable, open protest, and passive resistance.' The speaker seems to have forgotten that not only was the insurrection of the Hungarians that of a nation against an alien oppressor, but that it was provoked by the infringement of the oldest and best established constitutional rights, and that, moreover, the insurrection would have been successful but for the interference of Russia. When Mr. Martin finds a foreign tyrant intervening by request in our internal affairs, it is time for him to compare Ireland to Hungary. This gentleman owes his election partly to an outburst of popular irritation against the dictation of the clergy, but far more to the inexperience of his opponent, who allowed himself to be surprised, not by the Home Government Association, but by the Fenian leaders. The victory is an exact counterpart of that gained by O'Donovan Rossa in Tipperary. Moreover, it was Mr. Martin's reputation as a rebel which caused him to be selected as a candidate. The same party were exceedingly anxious to oust the PostmasterGeneral from Limerick. But Mr. Monsell is an old electioneerer, and was very properly on his guard. Mr. Butt alone would have had a chance against him, and for private reasons he could not stand. But what does Mr. Martin himself say on the subject?

In most constituencies the Nationalist majorities may, I think, be induced to follow Meath's example and return men like

me.

To bring about the election of Nationalist representatives for nearly all the constituencies of Ireland, I think there ought to be some general organisation of all the advocates of Home Government throughout the country. There ought to be a central committee in Dublin, and local committees in all the counties and boroughs. I think the Council of the

Home Government Association may very probably take the post of the Central Committee.

The gentlemen of the Council may be congratulated on the delightful task here assigned to them. But the Association is not in funds, and we are further treated to the threat that Irishmen all over the world must be laid under contribution. Here is a pleasant prospect for peaceable people. Not only are we to have the Rent' re-established, but the poor waiters and chambermaids of New York are again to cast their hard-won greenbacks into the capacious maw of a new agitation. Mr. Martin is of opinion that Irish members in the Imperial Parliament ought to do nothing but protest against their own presence there; as if, like the Doge of Genoa at Paris, they were there against their own will and to their own utter confusion. Mr. Shaw, M.P., is reported to have said with exquisite taste that 'if we had half of the 103 Irish members honest, he was sure we should see a Parliament in College Green.' It is so easy to call everybody a knave that does not agree with us. Sir William Wilde was kind enough to inform his friends that when the Federal Union is established, the title of their sovereign would be Victoria, Queen of Ireland and Great Britain, because she is the lineal descendant of Eva, the fair daughter of an Irish king.' This is an extremely rich proposition, and may be otherwise stated thus: Eva's father was an Irish chief, who never had the smallest pretension to be King of Ireland; Queen Victoria is descended from Eva: therefore Queen Victoria is Queen of Ireland. Great Britain is thrown in as a trifle of no consequence. The logic is on a par with that of Mr. Prendergast, who, in a note to the Cromwellian Settlement, after telling us how certain young ladies of Miletus committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the Gaulish invaders

upon

observes that if these had been Irish Celts, the fair ones need not have been afraid, for no son of Erin would have offered them harm.' Mr. Galbraith is anxious to impress brother Protestants that they are in no danger from the Roman Catholics. This may be joyfully and thankfully admitted. Religious feeling since the disestablishment of the Church can never again be the bitter thing that it once was. Even the Orangemen of Londonderry may one day be brought to deny themselves the refined pleasure of insulting their neighbours on stated occasions. But then the Government must leave them alone. Mr. Galbraith quotes Count Beust; but, even if there were any analogy between Hungary and Ireland, it is too soon to pronounce upon the success of the Austro-Hungarian reforms. He also quotes Mr. Fox, who said it was idle to talk to Ireland of the word Union, since there could be no such thing as a real Union on an equal footing between countries so disproportionate and so unequal.' Fox was a great man, but it is evident that his words tell far more forcibly against Federation than against any other sort of connection. The disproportion was at all events not so great as in the case of Scotland. It may be assumed that the connection itself is indissoluble. sides, the Whigs of Fox's day used Ireland as a make-weight to increase their own importance at home. Canning claimed to have used South America to redress the balance' of European power; Fox and Sheridan would fain have used Ireland to eke out the scanty proportions of an English party. Burke's panacea was local independence and political subjection. No one knew better than Burke how nearly impossible that was. His own son's experiences in Ireland must have taught him that the inevitable tendency of the Irish Parliament was towards sovereignty. In the end it would

Be

have to be put down by the sword. The more nakedly this fact is stated the better.

But, passing from the after-dinner theorists, let us hear Mr. Butt himself. The very first sentence in his pamphlet is a challenge to the critic. I venture to submit to the people, both of England and Ireland, a clear and distinct proposal for a new arrangement of the relations of the two countries, as a substitute for that entered into at the commencement of the present century.' Habemus confitentem reum. After that the learned writer cannot complain that hasty words of his have been unfairly taken hold of. And, besides, the publication which begins thus has reached a third edition. This new and wonderful scheme proposes to 'leave the Imperial Parliament exactly as it is. If any changes are to be made in its constitution, they ought to be made, not as any part of a Federal arrangement, but in the ordinary course of the exercise of the power of the Imperial Parliament itself' (p. 42). It is to be left exactly as it is, but its power over the public purse is to be confined to voting the required revenue only for the interest of the debt, the civil list, the army and navy, and the diplomatic and colonial establishments. is somewhat of a bull, but let that pass. To these expenses Ireland would be bound to contribute. Everything else, including of course the control over commerce, would be left to the Irish Parliament. Does Mr. Butt really mean that we are to have the power of imposing a protective tariff, or of interfering by bounties with the course of trade? Because, if he does not mean it, he might as well have said so. Anybody who knows Ireland knows that these very things would be exceedingly likely to take place. Or does he simply wish to break up the Empire? Of course he vehemently denies any such intention, but he is far too acute not to see the

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