, to have a Convention called at Dublin to determine the future
government of the Island, such a plan would have the advantage that it
recognizes the one political opinion, which we can trace in Irish
popular expression--the desire to be done with England. It is true, that
the policy of Irish ideas declared at Southport was a means to an
end--the better union of the two countries--but pledged to two
antagonistic principles, Mr. Gladstone must some time choose which he
will abandon.

On the other hand, in accepting Irish independence we shrink from
responsibility for the acts of England. We know that the disorder now
ruling in Ireland is, to some extent, the result of English
misgovernment in past generations, and instead of attempting by firmness
and patience to remedy the mischief our fathers have done, we leave the
future to Providence. In this aspect of the question, we would remind
our readers of the words used in our article on 'Disintegration' not
three years ago:--

'The highest interests of the Empire, as well as the most
sacred obligations of honour, forbid us to solve this
question by conceding any species of independence to
Ireland; or, in other words, any licence to the majority in
that country to govern the rest of Irishmen as they please.
To the minority, to those who have trusted us, and on the
faith of our protection have done our work, it would be a
sentence of exile or of ruin. All that is Protestant--nay,
all that is loyal--all who have land or money to lose, all
by whose enterprize and capital industry and commerce are
still sustained, would be at the mercy of the adventurers
who have led the Land League, if not of the darker
counsellors by whom the Invincibles have been inspired. If
we have failed after centuries of effort to make Ireland
peaceable and civilized, we have no moral right to abandon
our post and leave all the penalty of our failure to those
whom we have persuaded to trust in our power. It would be an
act of political bankruptcy, an avowal that we were unable
to satisfy even the most sacred obligations, and that all
claims to protect or govern any one beyond our own narrow
island were at an end.'--'Quarterly Review,' October, 1883,
pp. 593, 594.

Mr. Gladstone assured his hearers last week, that he was bent on
consolidating the unity of the kingdom; he would not tolerate th