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Liberal leaders have ever met. English-making our laws. With constitutional men and Scotchmen should remember this technicalities we have nothing to do. We fact when the solid resistance of the Prot- claim a moral right to ignore and disobey estants of Ulster is represented to them a Parliament set up against our wishes. as something to be expected, and there- The laws of the Imperial Parliament we fore as something which can be discounted. will obey, but we will not acknowledge a Nothing but the gravest danger would Parliament on College Green." If the have united the Ulster Liberals and the convention adopts a policy based upon Orangemen. With the Orangemen I do these propositions, as it can hardly be not desire to express much sympathy, for doubted that it will, the resistance offered they have undoubtedly helped to keep by Ulster need be nothing but passive. alive the spirit of religious intolerance in What would happen, supposing Mr. GladIreland, and have abetted in this evil work stone were to pass his bill, would be somethe efforts of the more extreme Irish Ro- thing like this. The Home Rule Act man Catholics. It must not be forgotten, would probably direct that writs should however, that the Orange organization has be immediately issued for the return of suffered a good deal of misrepresentation the Irish Parliament. In the north, the in England, and that, as a rule, its char- returning officers would throw the writs acter is misunderstood. Whether we like aside, risking the actions that would be it or not as a whole, we must acknowledge brought against them, and no election that it has not a few redeeming features, would take place. This, however, would and possesses a real hold on its members. not prevent the Dublin Parliament meetIt is, for example, a thoroughly democratic institution. Class distinctions have no place in the Orange lodges, and laborer and landlord are on an equality at their meetings. Again, it is to be noted that, though Orangeism and Episcopalianism usually go together, the Puritan spirit is still present. Every lodge opens its proceedings by a reading from the Bible.

Unquestionably the resistance which will be offered to Home Rule will be perfectly genuine and perfectly spontaneous. Except for an infinitesimal minority, the Protestants of the north are determined to resist the rule of a Dublin Parliament.

III.

THE kind of resistance which the Protestants of the north will offer to Home Rule can best be estimated by considering the basis of that resistance. The Ulstermen argue that, by whatever right the rest of Ireland claims to withdraw from the rule of the Parliament at Westminster, by that right Ulster can claim to remain under the direct rule of the Imperial Parliament. "The Parliament of the United Kingdom," say the Ulster Protestants, "has a right to make laws for us itself, but it has no right to hand us over against our will to another Parliament, and to endow that Parliament with the right of

ing and falling to business. Presumably that Parliament's earliest duty would be to fill its coffers, and taxation would be at once imposed. Here, then, would come the first point of friction. The Ulstermen would, of course, refuse to pay a tax levied in Dublin, and then the Dublin Parliament would be face to face with a strike against taxes, in which every merchant of wealth and position in Belfast and Derry, and every landlord in the north would be engaged. The Dublin Parliament would, no doubt, prefer to have its officers meet with open resistance. It is, however, far more likely that they would not meet with that indulgence, but would be confronted with that most appalling of all forms of organized resistance a Quaker rebellion. The Ulstermen would allow their goods to be seized, but what then? No one would buy at the sales, and the Dublin Parliament would find themselves spending thousands to raise a few pounds of taxation. We know what the tithe war did in a corner of a thinly inhabited Welsh county. Though no public body was injured, it was felt that an impossible situa tion was being created. Imagine the effect not of a tithe but of a tax war, with the combatants the proprietors of factories and shipyards instead of small farmers. Meantime, Belfast and the north would

quaint themselves on the spot with the temper of the people of the north can be under no illusions in regard to this matter. The suppression of the Belfast riots of 1886 proved a most difficult task, though on that occasion the municipality, the local magistrates, and all the better citizens worked with the utmost vigor and devotion to stop the fighting. What would be the result of rioting in Belfast when all the leading men in the town and the whole machinery of local government were engaged, not on the side of the soldiers, but of the mob? During the late riots, magistrates and well-known citizens rode with the police because they knew that the rioters, out of liking for them, would not

have been obliged to organize a voluntary system of government. The grand juries and the municipalities would afford the framework, and all that would be required would be a certain amount of filling in. A system of arbitration would be devised, no doubt, to meet the difficulty that Ulster could no longer recognize the Dublin courts of law it may be taken for granted that, in the next bill, these would be put under the Dublin government and by this means the disputes and differences that are certain to arise in a business community could be temporarily settled. The organization of a police force would also have to be undertaken, but this need not be a matter of great difficulty. Passive resistance, consisting fire, or walked up and down in the crowds in the ignoring of the Dublin Parliament and all its works, could hardly help being successful. The Imperial Parliament would be with difficulty persuaded to use its soldiers to collect Irish local taxes, and so long as open riot was avoided there would be no other excuse for dragooning Ulster. That the Ulstermen will afford any excuse for the use of Imperial troops I do not believe. The convention, and whatever permanent watching committee may arise from it, will not be under Orange control, and in its deliberations and decisions counsels of prudence are likely to prevail. Ulster will not fight till she is attacked.

IV.

BUT it may be said, the Parliament at Westminster will not be able to tolerate the passive resistance of Ulster. When they see the laws passed at Dublin ignored, and when the Dublin Parliament asks for help, they will have to do one of two things either repeal the Home Rule Bill, or else break down the passive resistance by Imperial coercion. I cannot help believing that the first alternative is the one which the Imperial Parliament is most likely to accept. If, however, they adopt that of coercion, England will certainly be confronted with civil war in its most dangerous and hideous form. As long as the Imperial Parliament lets things drift, the Ulster men will remain loyal to the connection with England. The moment, however, the Imperial government attempts coercion in earnest, Great Britain will begin the manufacture of the bit terest enemies she has ever had. The English people, as a whole, may not realize what a hostile Ulster would mean, but those who have taken the trouble to ac

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persuading the people to keep the peace.
If, instead, the Protestant clergy and the
leading citizens were helping the people,
it would take fifteen thousand troops, bat-
teries on Cave Hill, and gunboats in the
Lough, to hold down Belfast alone; while
to manage the whole of Ulster, fifty thou-
sand men and a drum-head court-martial
and the nearest tree for every rebel would
be required. No doubt we could put
Ulster down and hold her down, but would
the result be worth having, looked at from
the least sentimental point of view possi-
ble? Granted that Home Rule had paci-
fied the south, and had made the Celtic
Irish loyal, it would have made the north
bitterly hostile and disloyal, and only to
be restrained by military force.
should have shifted the area of rebellion,
that is all, and have made the strongest,
richest, and most vigorous portion of the
Irish people our enemies instead of our
friends. Judged, then, on mere grounds
of expediency, and even admitting such
very doubtful premises as those which
assume that Home Rule will pacify the
southern Irish and render them loyal, the
proposal to reverse the policy of the Union
must be declared unwise. At its best it
would be but a change of enemies. The
existence of the two Irelands - the Ire-
land of the Protestant Teuton and the Ire-
land of the Catholic Celt the Ireland of
idle thriftlessness and the Ireland of in-
dustry and enterprise the Ireland of
dreams and sentiment, and the Ireland of
seriousness and common sense - forbids
the dissolution of the Union. In spite of
the grumbling and the disaffection, no
sincerely minded Englishman, whatever
his politics, can fail to admit that the
Union is the form of government "which
divides us least." As long as the Union

is maintained there is some hope of the peace being kept. Great Britain under the Union can intervene as a permanent arbitrator between the warring elements. Withdraw that arbitration, and help to hold down one of the combatants while the other tyrannizes over him, and the peace of Ireland is gone.

People sometimes wonder how it is that the north should at present be so devoted to the Union. The Ulster men, as Mr. Gladstone is fond of lamenting, opposed the Union in 1799; why do they prize it so greatly now? In this loyalty of Ulster to the Union is to be found the strongest hope for Ireland. It is often asked, what has the Union done for Ireland? The answer is, that it has converted the most discontented and rebellious province in Ireland into the most prosperous and contented. And be it noted this success has not been won by making a pet of Ulster or by maintaining a Protestant ascendancy. All the Imperial legislation for Ireland since the Union has been directed not in favor of, but against, the selfish and purely Protestant interests of Ulster. Ulster has had nothing but bare justice since the Union, while public works and well-paid offices, legal and administrative, have been showered on the south. Ulster has gone her way without State help or favoritism. Belfast has grown, like an American city, by the pure energy of its inhabitants, just as Cork has dwindled by the lethargy of hers. But when the Union has done so much for Ulster in some ninety-two years, what may we not hope another century will accomplish in the south? Already the violence of Irish faction and rebellion has abated, and if the Union is only let alone the whole of Ireland may ultimately become reconciled to the English connection. What, then, the English elector has to remember in deciding how he will vote at the next election is the fact that the whole question pivots on Ulster. Home Rule is intended to pacify Ireland, but it cannot pacify Ireland because of Ulster. If any proof of that is needed, look at the fact that the most religious, the most serious-minded, the most earnest, and the least political people in the north are quietly deciding that they will take the awful responsibility of resisting the law -a responsibility which may cost them their lives and their worldly goods, and may give over their homes to anarchy and destruction. That is a fact upon which the electors of England and Scotland must think long and think wisely. ST. LOE STRACHEY.

From Temple Bar.

AUNT ANNE.

CHAPTER V.

WALTER was going to India for the winter. It had all been arranged while Aunt Anne sat out on the balcony with Mr. Wimple. Mr. Fisher had explained to Florence that the paper wanted a new correspondent for a time, and that it would be an excellent thing for Walter to get the change and movement of the new life. He was to go out by P. and O., making a short stay at Gibraltar, for press purposes, as well as one at Malta. He had looked anxiously enough at his wife when they were alone again that evening; but she had put out her two hands as if in congratulation.

"I am very glad," was all she said, "it will do you good and make you strong." "To live for you and the chicks, my sweet."

And so they arranged the getting ready; for he was to start by the very next boat, and that sailed in ten days' time.

"If your mother had been in England you might have gone with me as far as Gib.," Walter remarked. "I suppose you would be afraid to leave the servants in charge?"

"I should like to go," she answered, as she poured out the coffee-it was breakfast time- "but I couldn't leave the children."

"By Jove," Walter exclaimed, not heeding her answer, "there's Aunt Anne in a hansom! I say, Floggie dear, let me escape. What on earth does she mean by coming at this hour of the morning? Say I'm not down yet, and shall be at least three hours before I am; but keep the breakfast hot somehow."

"Couldn't you see her?"

"No, no, she would want to weep over me if she heard that I was going, and I know I should laugh. Manage to get rid of her soon." And he flew up-stairs as the street door was opened.

"My dear Florence," Mrs. Baines said, as she walked in with a long footstep and a truly tragic air, "let me put my arms round you, my poor darling."

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Why, Aunt Anne, what is the matter?" Florence asked cheerfully, and with considerable astonishment.

"You are very brave, my love," the old lady said, scanning her niece's face, "but I know all; an hour ago I had a letter telling me of Walter's departure. My dear, it will break your heart."

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But why?"

"My love, it will."

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Oh, no," Florence said, "I am not so foolish. Life is full of ordinary events that bring out very keen feelings; I have been thinking that lately; but one must learn to take them calmly."

"You do not know what you will suffer when he is gone."

"No, Aunt Anne, I shall miss him, of course; but I shall hope that he is enjoying himself."

"My dear Florence, I expected to find you broken-hearted."

"That would be cruel to him. I am glad he is going, it will do him good, and really I have not had time to think of myself yet, I have been so busy."

Mrs. Baines considered for a moment. "That is the reason, I knew there was an explanation somewhere," she said, in an earnest, emotional tone. "I knew how unselfish you were from the first moment I saw you, Florence. It is like you, my darling, not to think of yourself. Try not to do so, for you will feel your loneliness bitterly enough when he is gone."

"But don't tell me so," Florence said, half crying, half laughing. "How did you know about it, Aunt Anne?"

"Mr. Wimple told me."

"Mr. Wimple have you seen him then?"

"My love, he is one of the most culti vated men I ever met; we have many tastes and sympathies in common. He wrote to ask me to meet him by the Albert Memorial."

"To meet him!" Florence exclaimed. "Yes," answered the old lady solemnly. "He agrees with me that never was there in any age or country a more beautiful work than the Albert Memorial. We arranged to meet and examine it together; he wrote to me just now and mentioned that Walter was going to India; I telegraphed to Mr. Wimple instantly that I could see no one else to-day, for I knew that you would welcome my loving sympathy. I came to offer it to you, Florence." She said the last words in a disappointed and injured voice.

"It was very kind of you, Aunt Anne; but indeed I have only had time to be glad that he would get a rest and pleasant change of work."

"I must see him before he goes; I may never do so again," Mrs. Baines said, after a pause.

"Oh yes, you will, dear."

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I have brought him two little tokens that I thought of him as I hastened to you after hearing the news. I thought they

would be useful to him. These are glycerine lozenges, Florence; they are excellent for the throat. The sea mist or the desert sand is sure to affect it."

"Thank you, it was very kind of you; you are much too generous-you make us quite uneasy." Florence was miserable at the two evils suggested.

"My love, if I had thousands a year you should have them," Aunt Anne answered, and, intent on her present-making, she went on, "and here is a little case of scissors, they are of different sizes. I know how much gentlemen "- Aunt Anne always said gentlemen, never "men," as do the women of to-day"like to find a pair suited to their requirements at the moment; I thought that they might be useful to him on the voyage.' She gave a sigh of relief as though presenting her gifts had removed a load from her mind. "I suppose Walter is not down yet, my love?"

"He is up-stairs," Florence said, a little guiltily, "I am afraid he will not be down just yet."

Aunt Anne gave a reflective wink, as though she perfectly understood the reason of Walter's non-appearance; but if she did she had far too much tact to betray it.

"If it be your wish, my dear, I will forego the pleasure of saying a last goodbye to him."

"Well, dear Aunt Anne, when he does come down he will have a great deal to do," Florence answered still more guiltily, for she could not help feeling that Aunt Anne saw through the ruse.

"My love, I quite understand," Mrs. Baines said solemnly, "and he will know that it was from no lack of affection that I did not wait to see him."

"Poor Aunt Anne," Florence thought when she had gone, "she would wring a tragedy from every daily trial if she were encouraged. "Oh, you wicked coward,' she said to Walter, "to run away like that!"

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"Yes, my darling; but I am starved, and really, you know, Floggie, confound Aunt Anne!"

"Oh, but she is very kind!" Florence said, as she displayed the presents. "How did Mr. Wimple happen to know that you were going to India?" she asked.

"I met him yesterday at the office. He went to see Fisher; it was arranged that he should the other night."

"It is very extraordinary his striking up a friendship with Aunt Anne."

"Yes, very extraordinary," he laughed, and then the old lady was forgotten.

The days flew by and the last one came. To-morrow (Thursday) Walter was to start by an early train for Southampton. All his arrangements were complete, and on that last day he had virtually nothing to do, "therefore, Floggie dear," he pleaded, "let us have a spree.'

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"Yes," she answered, willingly enough, though her heart was heavier than his. "How shall we manage it?"

"Let us stroll about all day or go to Richmond, and come back and have a cosy little dinner somewhere."

"Here," she pleaded, “let us dine here, in our own home on this last evening; we'll have a very nice dinner."

"Very nice indeed?"

"Very nice indeed, you greedy thing." "All right, darling, suppose you go and order it. Then get ready and let's start as soon as possible; we'll amuse ourselves well, and forget that we have not a month to do it in. Live and be happy in the present day, dear Floggie," he went on in a mock serious tone, "for there is always a chance that to-morrow will not declare itself."

So they went off, like the boy he was in spite of his more than thirty years, and the girl that she sometimes felt herself to be in spite of the two children and the eight years of matrimony. They walked a little way. Then Walter had a brilliant

idea.

"Let's get into a hansom," he said, "drive to Waterloo and take the first train that is going in any pleasant direction; I think Waterloo is the best place for that sort of speculation. This beggar's horse looks pretty good, jump in."

As they drove up to the station, a fourwheel cab moved away, the cabman grumbling at the sum that had been given him by two people, a man and a woman, who still stood on the station steps looking after him.

"Why, there's Wimple!" Walter exclaimed; "and who's that with him, wonder?"

told it was she who had paid the scanty fare. As they stood together, they looked poor and common and singularly unprepossessing; it was impossible to help feeling that they were nearly connected. They looked like husband and wife, and of an indefinite and insignificant class. Suddenly Alfred Wimple caught Walter's eye; he nodded gravely without the least confusion, but he evidently said something quickly and in a low tone to his companion, for they hurried away through one of the station doors.

"That horrid Mr. Wimple seems to possess us lately," Florence thought.

As they went from the ticket office, she saw Mr. Wimple and his friend hurrying along the platform. A minute later they had entered a Portsmouth train which was on the point of starting.

"If that's his Liphook friend, I don't think much of the looks of her. Alfred always picked up with odd people," Walter thought; but he kept those reflections to himself; all he said aloud was, "I say, Floggie dear, if Wimple turns up while I'm away, don't be uncivil to him, and give him food if you can manage it. Somehow he always looks half starved, poor beggar! Fisher is going to give him some reviewing to do, perhaps that will help him a bit."

There was a train going to Windsor in ten minutes; so they went by it, and strolled down by the river, and looked at the boats, and went into the town and looked at the shops, and the outside of the castle. Then they lunched at the confectioner's, an extravagant lunch which Walter ordered, and afterwards, while they were still drowsy and happy, they hired an open fly and drove to Virginia Water. They hurried back to Windsor in time to catch the 6 P.M. train for town, by half a minute, and congratulated themselves upon finding an empty carriage.

"I shall always remember this dear day," Florence said, as they sat over their last little dinner at home.

"That's a good thing," Walter said, I" and so will I, dear wife. When I come back we'll have another like it in memory of this one's success." Then he remembered Alfred Wimple: "I should like to know who that girl was," he thought; "wonder if she's the daughter of another tailor he doesn't want to pay, and if I met him to-morrow I wonder what lie he would tell me about her he always lied, poor beggar !" And this shows that Walter's thoughts were sometimes not as charitable as his words.

Florence looked up quickly. Mr. Wimple wore a shabby grey coat, and round his neck and over his mouth there was a grey comforter, for the October morning was slightly chilly. In his hand he carried a worn brown portmanteau. Beside him stood a tall, good-looking young woman of five-and-twenty, commonly, almost vulgarly dressed. She looked after the departing cab with a scowl on her face that

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