fixity of tenure. Nor will these benefits influence the attitude of those who do not share in them-the landless working class, and the population not employed in agriculture. The state of public opinion in any country is a matter on which assertion is easy, proof impossible; yet when I state my belief that the desire for Home Rule is universal among the poorer classes of Ireland (Protestants excepted), and that a plebiscite of the whole population, if taken, would be carried in its favour by three or four to one, I am expressing an opinion not now formed for the first time, founded on long and interested observation of Irish politics, and which is to some degree capable of being supported by evidence. We cannot know the opinions of masses of men directly; we cannot ask them individually what they think. But we can ascertain what they are supposed to think by those who habitually appeal to them, and whose considerable abilities are directed to find out what they like. Public speaking and journalism, the platform and the press, must in the main accurately represent the ideas of the audiences and readers respectively addressed by each. And I would put the matter to this test: Has any orator, addressing a popular constituency outside Ulster, said a good word for the English Parliament or the English connection, even when it was clear that the majority of the House of Commons desired to meet the wishes of the Irish people, and when nearly every day of the session was occupied with Irish business? And is there any newspaper largely circulated among the masses-Ulster again being excepted-which has ever undertaken to defend the Union, or which has not at least acquiesced in the movement for Home Rule? There may be such, for a negative is impossible to prove, but I have never met with or heard of them. As a rule the most violent denunciations of England and English power are the most popular; and all opinion that contrives to make itself heard tends in one direction. I cannot believe that the Irish, or any other people, habitually buy and read only journals whose ideas they disapprove, or listen to speakers whose objects they condemn. Further, in many conversations with Irish landowners and politicians, I have always found complete agreement between Conservative and Liberal on one point, that as the last dissolution materially increased the strength of the Home Rule party, so another appeal to the constituencies would act in the same direction; and that among Home Rulers themselves (for the term is a vague one) the most ardent, the most uncompromising, the most truly national would have the advantage over rival candidates of the same colour. It is possible, no doubt, in a matter of opinion, that all to whom I have chanced to speak may be equally misinformed and mistaken: but to the absolute accordance of their predictions I can bear witness.

And if this be so with the present comparatively limited franchise, what will it be in the future? It is agreed that the

English householder in the counties must before long have a vote. To withhold from the Irishman of the same class a similar electoral privilege is to establish a distinction which cannot be long maintained. With a lower franchise the question will not be whether a few Home Rulers, more or less, will be returned-the question will be, whether outside Ulster any man will have a chance of being returned who does not accept Home Rule.

I contend therefore, first, that the land question as regards Irish opinion is not settled, nor in the least likely to be so; and next, that if it were settled, its disappearance from the list of controverted topics would only bring on, in a direct instead of an indirect form, the claim which really underlies it-the demand for an Irish Parliament.

We know what the ideas of Mr. Parnell and his friends on this subject are. We cannot doubt but that his success so far will enormously increase their popularity and power. They are in the position which O'Connell held after 1829. They have obtained from the Imperial Parliament what without the pressure exercised by them would certainly never have been granted. They tell us with abundant frankness what their ulterior objects are. Why should we doubt them? To speak of an organisation like the Land League as though it were the work of a few demagogues, anxious only to draw subscriptions from American sympathisers, is childish. Suppose (which I do not) the leaders to be merely dishonest and self-seeking -how about their supporters? Is it likely that a few clever intriguers should influence half the constituencies of Ireland if they had not a real force of opinion and sympathy behind them? To argue that when the immediate object of the Land League is attained its power will disappear and its funds drop off, seems doubly erroneous. For, in the first place, the immediate object is not attained, nor likely to be; and in the next place, we have the best reason for believing that it is not the only one kept in view.

It

What then, it may be asked, do you consider the advantages of the Land Act of 1881 to be, since in your belief it will fail in its primary purpose of conciliation? My answer is that in three respects it will have done good service. It has, in all probability, effectually checked the spread of the anti-English feeling in Ulster, and secured to the side of England the Protestant farmers of that section. will probably, though less certainly, detach from what I am afraid I must call the national movement some part of that not inconsiderable class who are indifferent to politics as such, and are content when their personal interests are secured. Many, probably the majority, of the southern and eastern tenantry are sure to be disappointed with the decisions of the Court, but all will not be; and some diminution in the strength of the opposing forces may be expected.

But the principal gain is outside Ireland. Whatever else Govern

ment and Parliament have done, they have satisfied every reasonable man in England and Scotland that the utmost limits of just and reasonable concession to Irish demands have been reached. The English conscience may at last be content. In the unhappy but not impossible event of our failure to put an end to persistent and systematic violation of law; if outrage, intimidation, and murder are still to continue, unpunished and gloried in because not condemned by popular Irish feeling; if, in short, the autumn and winter of 1881 are to resemble those of 1880 and 1879, there will be no hesitation and no division of opinion as to what ought to be done. It is easy to understand the scruples and the reluctance of an executive called upon to enforce a law which they regard as unjust; but when they have put that law into the shape suggested by themselves, when they have cut down every claim and pretension which they hold to be unreasonable, not only Irish landowners, but the English public, have a right to require that such rights as remain shall be guarded by the full power of the law; that it shall no longer be dangerous to obey the law, safe to defy it; that an honest witness shall not be in greater danger than an assassin; and that a rival and practically superior authority shall not be allowed to supersede that of magistrates and judges. We must not overrate the effect of what we have done. We must not indulge in the pleasant dream of a contented, reconciled, and loyal people. That is not the state of things we have to meet. We are at the beginning of a struggle, not at the end of one. We have seen in foreign countries, again and again, what is the power of a movement carried on under the standard of nationality; it is now our turn to deal with such a movement ourselves. To overrate the danger (I should be glad to think that I did so) is at worst a harmless error; to underrate it may be more serious.

It is, as far as I know, peculiar to the Home Rule movement that while in effect and in reality one for the subversion of the existing constitution—while, if successful, it must necessarily lead to a virtual if not formal separation of the two islands-yet that in the pursuance of its ostensible object there is nothing illegal or seditious. The Union created by an Act of Parliament may be repealed by one. To speak, to vote, to agitate for Repeal, are acts strictly within the limit of constitutional right. No man can be reasonably charged with sedition or disaffection for proposing to undo in 1882 what was done in 1801. Yet few things can be more certain than this: that if once a representative assembly meets in Dublin, calling itself a Parliament, no restriction or limitation of its powers, however stringently imposed as a condition, will long endure. It will be declared by universal acclamation to be the only authority competent to make laws for Ireland. And inasmuch as under our parliamentary system the governing power practically resides in the House of Commons, the creation of a separate House of Commons for Ireland implies a

separate executive, representing different ideas and a different policy. What is this but separation?

We are then in this dilemma-that we sincerely desire to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, but that the one dominant idea which has taken possession of the Irish mind is that we should not govern Ireland at all. If we resist, we belie our loudest professions ; if we give way, we break up the Empire. If we try to compromise by granting a half-independence-freedom of local but not of imperial action can we as reasonable men doubt that the power we have conceded will be used as a means of extorting larger power? that the one hand which we release will be employed to liberate the other?

The question of Home Rule, in its various forms, is too large to be discussed at the end of an article; nor do I attempt to argue it. My present object will be sufficiently accomplished, if I have indicated some of the difficulties which lie before us, and explained why, at least in my belief, it is premature to say, 'Now we have settled our Irish troubles, and may deal in peace with questions that concern England.'

DERBY.

THE JEWISH QUESTION.

ON opening the Nineteenth Century the other day in Canada, I was surprised to find that Mr. Lucien Wolf, of the Jewish World, in his paper on the Anti-Jewish agitation had set me down as having commenced the agitation in England. Mr. Wolf writes, as he avows, under the influence of all-consuming indignation and strong passion,' for which it is easy, under the circumstances, to feel respect and sympathy, but which cannot fail to colour his statements. I replied at the time that I was not aware that there had ever been an Anti-Jewish agitation in England. No tidings of such a movement had reached Canada. So far as I could see, fully the due measure of homage was being paid by the highest representatives of English society to Jewish wealth. We had even received accounts, in connection with the last general election, of a new political sect which was seeking to identify the English race with the Ten Tribes, and to found on that pedigree a claim to worldwide dominion. In Germany, as elsewhere on the Continent, there has been an Anti-Jewish agitation: in England, I apprehend, there has been none.

It had happened that when I was last in England we were on the brink of a war with Russia, which would have involved the whole Empire, including Canada, whose mercantile marine would have been in great danger of being cut up by Russian cruisers. The Jewish interest throughout Europe, with the Jewish Press of Vienna as its chief organ, was doing its utmost to push us in. Mr. Lucien Wolf avows that the Jews all over the world were united in opposition to what they regarded as the hypocritical designs of Russia, though Russia might perhaps retort the epithet, inasmuch as her crime in their eyes was not her ambition but her protection of the Eastern Christians, with whom the Jews had a quarrel of their own. At such a crisis it was necessary and right to remind the English people that Israel was a separate race, with tribal objects, and that its enmities could not be safely allowed to sway the councils of England. As to the merits of the quarrel between the Eastern Christians and the Jews, there was room for doubt: we had some reason to believe that there was as much of extortion on one side as of fanaticism on the