al League represents the spirit to which Mr. Gladstone appealed at
Southport in 1867. In the December of that year he charged the new
voters, in words of solemn adjuration, to look at Ireland from the Irish
point of view. This appeal had an electric effect upon the population of
that island. In the years which have passed since, his own injunction
has been sometimes rudely disregarded by Mr. Gladstone himself, but he
never long delayed to turn again to his favourite theory, to make
another effort to justify the principle with which he had started, and
at each renewal of his enterprise he plunged himself and his party
deeper into the morass of Hibernian disorder. Mr. Gladstone's admirers
are very proud of his numerous successes in carrying important Bills
through Parliament, but it is forgotten that his Irish Bills, though
carried, have never attained the ends for which they were passed. Twice
have all the resources of his genius, all the machinery of his party,
been called into requisition to bring about a final settlement of the
Irish Land question, and yet the work is still to be done. The
explanation is not far to seek. Mr. Gladstone's passionate recklessness
committed him in 1867 to an enterprise, the magnitude of which excited
his vanity, the actual nature of which he only dimly perceived.

In the year we have named he was trying to recover his footing after a
heavy fall in his first start as leader of the Liberal Party. A scheme
of Parliamentary reform, carried by his political opponent, had marked
the commencement of another epoch. In the new arena of public life two
centres of political energy were certain to be strongly represented in
the organization which Mr. Gladstone hoped to lead back to office. The
Spirit of Dissent was all powerful among the English householders. The
Irish tenant, whose electoral strength, directed by the Roman
priesthood, had been exhibited with much effect in 1852, was sure to
receive a great increase of power under the new Reform Bill. To combine
these influences was one of the conditions of any prolonged tenure of
office by the Liberal party. The Irish Establishment had been forsaken
by English opinion in previous years. Its overthrow would be hailed with
enthusiasm by the Dissenting communities, whilst the Irish priesthood
would regard disestablishment with undoubted satisfaction. The condition
of Irish Land Tenure was admitted by all parties to require amendment,
and its settlement