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 upon 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. Besides, 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

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 ar rangement, 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. This 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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difficulty here. Though my immediate concern is only with Ireland, I do not suppose that if Irishmen obtain the separate management of their affairs, it is at all likely that Englishmen or Scotchmen would consent to the management of their domestic concerns by a Parliament in which Irish members had still a voice. Whether England or Scotland would still desire to have the internal affairs of Great Britain managed by one common Parliament is a matter entirely for themselves to decide' (p. 22). Very kind indeed, but a little too audacious. Imagine local Parliaments in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh! If that is not sufficiently startling, let us suppose that grotesque assemblage which meets annually in some little country town to hear musical performances upon antiquated harps and adjudge prizes to those who vainly attempt by their immortal verse to galvanise an expiring dialect, replaced by a local Parliament. The Welsh have quite as distinctive a national character as either the Irish or the Scotch, and they have their own grievances too. But an eminent lawyer might at all events be supposed to know the practice of the constitution under which we live in both islands. If the Queen,' says he, had thought fit not to convene a Parliament in the year 1867, or if the House of Commons had thought fit not to grant the supplies, thirty millions of money would have been paid into the Exchequer and paid out again, exactly as it was paid in and out.' This quibbling interpretation of the practice of the Treasury proves nothing at all. If the Queen did not call the Parliament together, the Mutiny Act could not be passed, and one out of two things would happen: either the army would have to be disbanded, or the Queen would govern in defiance of the Act of Settlement, or in other words despotically. But the power of the Crown has no terrors for Mr. Butt. He is so

enamoured of the idea of Federalism that he cares comparatively little for liberty. With some tender recollections of his own early opinions, he now appeals to the farmers for aid and comfort. The only peer who has as yet given even a partial adhesion to the Association is a Tory of the very bluest shade. It is evident that the protector of the Fenians does not fear tyranny, but democracy. The imaginations of democratic violence from an Irish House of Commons are visionary in the extreme. There is no people on earth less disposed to democracy than the Irish. The real danger of democratic or revolutionary violence is far more from the English people' (p. 64). The House of Lords is to play a great part in the new scheme, and the prerogative of creating unlimited numbers of peers is to be restored to the Crown; and the Crown itself is to shine with renewed splendour. In the whole of this wonderful pamphlet there are no more wonderful words than those which refer to the royal power.

I am not sure that one of the effects of a Federal Constitution would not be, in many respects, to strengthen the royal prerogatives; or rather, to call some of these prerogatives out of the abeyance in has placed them. For myself, I would not which the system of governing by parties regret this. I am not sure that public liberty has gained anything by the establishment of a mode of Government in which the powers of the Crown have been houses of the Revolution, and then for the too often held in trust; first, for the great party that could by any means gain a majority in the House of Commons. I have reverence enough for the old forms, as well as the old principles, of the conwhich has taken place in the public docustitution, to lament the remarkable change ments of late years (p. 65).

There is one ancient prerogative which would certainly be revived if Parliament were established in College Green, that which is formulated in the words 'La Reine s'avisera.' All this courtly language is not unbecoming in the mouth of one of her Majesty's counsel, but in that

and consider what must be, from the circumstances of the country, the constitution of the borough representatives of Ireland, will have no fear that in the House of Commons the intelligence and property of the country will be deprived of its just influence and weight' (p. 57). If this means that the principal country gentlemen of Ireland, who are nearly all Conservatives, would be returned by the small towns, which are all Radical, it is a most extraordinary assumption. Many who have studied the question, not for a few hours but for many years, have come to a widely different conclusion. There are still a few close boroughs in Ireland, but they are very few, and the seats are contested. They give us generally men of pleasure and fashion, who make little difference to the country either for harm or good. But the small open boroughs give us something much worse in many cases: London stockjobbers; English dandies, with money and without opinions, who find it convenient to have seats in Parliament; also (a very dangerous and disreputable class of men) lawyers who hope to rise in their profession by playing with treason. Several of the small boroughs are utterly and hopelessly corrupt. It is unnecessary to mention names, but no Irishman need be reminded that there are several places which have escaped disfranchisement simply because there have been no commissions of enquiry. Those which have suffered the penalties of their misdeeds are perhaps not the worst. Now English constituencies are not a bit parer than Irish, but there is one great difference. If an English borough is found guilty, you have only to transfer the seat to some large town, and the constitution is the better for the change. In Ireland a fresh allotment of seats would be difficult to make, for there really is hardly an alternative. The wealth of the country is agricultural, but

we naturally shrink from the notion of a Parliament elected entirely by the peasantry. For this reason there has been no agitation whatever in Ireland for a redistribution of seats. The thing is none the less necessary. Kingston with Blackrock, Queenstown with Passage, would make excellent boroughs. Lurgan, Newtownards, and Portadown would be greatly preferable to some of the existing boroughs. And something might be done in the way of grouping where towns are not large enough to stand alone. Even Mr. Butt does not propose to change the county constituencies.

In the Federalist future the Queen is to regain the old prerogative of creating Irish Peers'which by the way she has never lost. Prerogative is in great favour with Mr. Butt, and its exercise is to be confided to a Lord-Lieutenant appointed as at present, whose ministers-for local affairs only-would stand in the same relation to the Parliament as the ministers in Canada or in the great Australian colony stand to the Colonial Parliament' (p. 61). It needs no long argument to show how entirely the case of Ireland differs from that of any colony. Our dependencies are only such in name. They are far distant; they are practically self-governed; the colonists are friends and allies rather than fellow-citizens.

Mr. Butt is the most able and prominent member of the Home Government Association, but he is not the originator of the scheme. The true and first inventor and patentee was Daniel O'Connell. Does his imitator consider what it was that gave the old agitation its power? The Liberator always professed to be working constitutionally for the repeal of an Act of Parliament.' His means were the assembling of hundreds of thousands of peasants, poorer and more discontented than those that Ireland now contains. The matter ended

as such a movement naturally would end; the party of action attempted physical force, and the Repeal bubble collapsed. Mr. Butt is probably not bold enough to convoke monster meetings. He shows his courage in another way-by an attempt to give his ideas a definite form. This is what the uncrowned monarch never dared to do, either at Conciliation Hall or in Parlia ment. His legal skill was exerted in driving his coach through the statute law; Mr. Butt's is expended in the far more difficult task of forging a constitution which will hold water. But the basis of the old Repeal agitation no longer exists. The oppressions of 1840 are not carried on now-a-days. The Church Establishment is gone. For three centuries it was a sore place which the agitator could always pinch when he wished to rouse the patient to madness. The Land question is settled, and landlords, even if they were inclined, can no longer commit the injustice of former days. A Roman Catholic holds the Great Seal with general approbation. The profession of the old faith is a qualification rather than a disability for seats on the Bench, and for all the other good things of this life. The census of 1841 showed, indeed, as O'Connell was so fond of saying, that we were eight millions;' but it also showed that there were among us three million seven hundred thousand above the age of five years who could not read. Ignorance and a potato diet-that is what we have lost, or are fast losing. The banks are crowded on fair days with farmers, who come to deposit large sums of money. Can it be doubted that, having only learnt lately how to make money, they will soon discover more profitable investments than bank-receipts? Agriculture is improving. Railways are beginning to pay. Salmon are increasing. Wages are steadily rising.

There is a dark side to the picture. It will not do to excuse agrarian outrage, as Mr. Martin does, by a tu quoque. Sheffield was very bad, but the Commission sent down there had only one difficulty in getting evidence the fear which delinquents had of the law. In Westmeath witnesses will not speak because they are afraid of a secret tribunal, from whose sentence the law is powerless to shield them. Still the outrages are few indeed to what they were, and their area is more confined. Time, if allowed to

work, will cure these sore spots, as it already has the greater part of the body.

But we must not allow the empire to be dismembered; and nothing less than this is really contemplated. In the Preface to the third edition, Mr. Butt affirms that the desire for national independence will never be torn from the heart of the Irish nation.' Exactly so: that is what the Fenians say. They know what they want, and care nothing for the integrity of the empire. The Fenians will use this Home Government Association, but will not be ruled by it. So far as it plays into their hands it is popular with their sympathisers, but no farther. Mr. Martin and some of his friends were turned out of the Repeal Association in 1846 because they advocated physical force. The abortive rebellion of 1848 was the natural consequence of their opinions. But a successful rebellion would quickly swallow up them and their theories in the general gulf of anarchy.

Mr. Goldwin Smith long since remarked that the disestablishment of the Church would probably make the Irish Protestants 'the most disloyal Irishmen of all.' This has now come to pass, but only to a limited extent, namely, in the extreme party who loved ascendency better than justice. There are men willing to imperil their country and their own property out of mere pique for the loss of those unjust privileges