Prussian war to the Irish Federalists: so spoke a Dublin editor not long ago. Very likely he was right. Nevertheless a movement may be ridiculous and dangerous at the same time. In Ireland, most unfortunately, this is not uncommonly the case. In that most peculiar country men are under a great temptation to look at things in a local and narrow spirit. The early bird is a nuisance from the point of view of the worm; and from the point of view of an Irishman who cannot or will not look beyond his own island, many ideas seem laudable which appear manifestly chimerical to men of wider vision. This last new phase of Irish opinion may be as harmless as it is senseless-as transitory as it is devoid of political value; but it may also be the prelude to a serious agitation:

the little rift within the lute Which by-and-by will make the music

mute.

People say that the notion of a federation between England and Ireland is absurd. Very likely. Still to despise it overmuch might be to imitate the Parisian badauds who fancied the pyrotechnic display at Saarbrücken introductory to the easy and complete subjection of Germany. Fortunately we have an authoritative statement of the views

VOL. IV. NO. XIX. NEW SERIES.

the party. All illusions have a tendency to increase if not promptly dispelled, and Ireland is of all lands that in which the political mirage is most frequent and most deceptive.

Be it known, then, that there exists in Dublin a certain Home Government Association. It is not a very thriving concern. Funds are low, and popular support is at present wanting. Nevertheless, with sublime unconsciousness of their own weakness, the promoters of the movement, in emulation of the Tooley Street tailors, are pleased to consider themselves the people of Ireland, and to stigmatise those who do not agree with them as an English faction.' Their programme is simple but comprehensive-nothing less than the dissolution of the present Union, and the substitution of a Federal Bund. is not at present intended that the Irish Parliament should be altogether independent: it is to be a local legislature, and the Imperial Parliament is still to contain Irish representatives. In other words, Irishmen are to have the privilege of legislating for England and Scotland, while the people of Great Britain are to have no voice in the affairs of Ireland. It is even whispered that the members of the Home Legislature have actually been nomi

B 2

It

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 archeologist 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 ori ginal 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.

Mr.

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. 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, bat 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