heir fascination for the Irish mind.

As long as Mr. Gladstone is a power in English public life, and his
pledges given in Lancashire are unredeemed or unrepudiated, the Home
Rule party will press him without mercy; but it is not reasonable to
argue from their success, a success which Mr. Gladstone has given them,
that they exercise a permanent influence on Irish affairs. When the
Southport pledges were given, the Irish land laws were yet without that
reform which a series of Governments, Tory as well as Whig, had admitted
to be necessary. It could not be said until after 1870 that the book of
English neglect of Irish interests was finally closed, and that is only
sixteen years ago. During this period we have seen the great English
Parliamentary Ruler continually plunging after coercion, and returning
to make some other big concession to agitation. Thus Ireland has had no
chance of trying what a good system of laws consistently administered
could supply. The principle of the Land Act of 1870 was a provision for
the protection of property--the tenants' property recognized by custom
during a long course of years, although ignored by the law and exposed
to confiscation by the reckless Whig legislation of 1850-2. The Land Act
of 1881 was an arbitrary attempt to remedy the misfortunes of an
improvident agricultural interest by legislative interference with
contract. Contracts were readjusted and finally settled for fifteen
years to come. Political economy was bidden to take itself off, but
prices varied quite regardless of Mr. Gladstone's arrangements, and the
weather did not pay them the least consideration. The passion for
revolution was stimulated, and a large number of Mr. Gladstone's clients
are as badly off as before. Might it not be worth while to try for a
time how far good government, after the removal of all substantial
grievances, might supply that 'real settlement,' 'that finality,' which
the country is now asked to find in Dublin Parliaments, First Orders,
and bribes at the cost of the English taxpayer?

This counter-policy of maintaining order and good government in Ireland
should be emphasized by measures to make that island, even more
completely than she now is, a part of the United Kingdom. The Queen's
laws in Ireland are the same, except in some slight details, as in
England. The Irish judicature might be made part of the High Court at
Westminster. The Queen's writs from Westminster should run throughout
I