all accounts of
the priests, died the death of saints, not scoundrels; so that we now
realize the old, old story of the tragedy of misunderstanding, as much,
indeed, by their own countrymen as by the Englishman.

If it was to illustrate in one dramatic coup that misunderstanding
which has been growing between all parties in Ireland, then they have
not died in vain, for every party must feel to a certain extent
responsible for the catastrophe. Several things, however, seem to stand
out prominently amidst the chaos.

Castle government is dead as Queen Anne and Home Rule as natural and as
inevitable as the morrow's sunrise; Unionism, in the English sense of
Empire, survives: everyone is a Unionist now; but what still remains
inexorable is the attitude of Sir Edward Carson, whose "Unionism" is
merely a euphemism for "bureaucracy," and who, with the Ulster
Volunteers still in arms, equally prepared to resist constitutional
government, whether from Westminster or from Dublin, is the greatest
Home Ruler of us all--or should we say Sinn Feiner?

Personally, I have always thought, and still think, that the Orangeman
has more to gain in an Irish Parliament than anyone else as representing
the layman, the business man; but I, for one, should be sorry to see
Home Rule at the cost of a single Ulster Volunteer's life.

Mr. William O'Brien has for years, as a species of political outcast,
been preaching the doctrine of conciliation, and has suffered in
consequence, but his successful opponents have not gained the victory,
for we are now rapidly drifting towards the total exclusion of several
counties--the thing of all things they most wished to avoid.

All the while people are wondering whether it is the people themselves
or the politicians who are responsible for the antagonism, and three of
the greatest national movements since the days of tenant grievances
stare us in the face as outside, if not politics, at least outside the
ordinary conventional politicians--I mean Sir Horace Plunkett's
Co-operative Movement, Larkin-Connolly's Labour Movement, and Sinn Fein.

Surely something is wrong if such movements cannot be assimilated by
either of the great political parties, as they should have been if those
parties were together completely representative of the nation.

All our greatest men were isolated--Redmond, Carson, Plunkett, O'Brien,
Connolly, W. M. Murphy, the Lord-Lieutenant--all appealing to or
threatening the unfortunat