at paper, and then proposes
to hand over the property and the virtual government of Ireland to the
men whose ideas it represents, must be either a traitor or a fool.'

There is no occasion to dwell on the existence of this body or the
character of its operations. They are part of the case of the
Government. Mr. Morley has frankly told us, that we ought to pass the
new Bill, because the League is so strong. If we did not, we should have
to quarrel with the League, and to meet not only this great association
as we knew it in its times of prosperity, but the League as supported by
all the reserve forces of Mr. Egan and Mr. Ford. At present these
leaders of public opinion send money; but if the National League, its
staff, its secretaries, its branches, its newspapers and Members of
Parliament, are not enough, they are ready to send dynamite.

One remarkable fact, however, in connection with the National League
deserves special consideration, for it illustrates the singularly
disastrous character of Mr. Gladstone's interposition in Irish affairs.
The society, which we have endeavoured to describe, and which Mr.
Morley recommends to our attention as the _locum tenens_ of dynamite and
the dagger, is now officered in nearly every village by the priests of
the Roman Church. At the beginning of his career, Mr. Parnell personally
was regarded by the Roman Catholic hierarchy with suspicion, if not with
hostility. Mr. Butt had never succeeded in securing their hearty
co-operation in his Home Rule scheme. Mr. Parnell was not only a
Protestant, but expressed his contempt very freely for the adherents of
the Roman Church, whilst he avowed his sympathy with Revolutionists,
whom the Irish Catholic had been taught to regard as enemies of the Holy
Father. We can always trace in the history of this Church two forces at
work; the principle of order and authority, worldly and calculating, in
sympathy with the powers that be, trusting by skill and caution to
manipulate them for its own ends; and on the other hand, the wilder
spirit of sacerdotal ambition ready to ride the storm and dare
catastrophe. Before Mr. Gladstone's second Administration, the former
influence was gaining much strength in Ireland. Even if we make
allowance for the social origin of the Irish priests, filled from their
infancy with the rebel sentiment of the peasantry, there are many sins
that the disposition of their Church was until very recently to rely
upon intrigue an