Lacedaemonian heroes known as Castor and Pollux, honoured in their
life and more honoured in their death, when a star was called
after them, and upon that star the fond imagination of the people
fastened lively conceptions; for they thought that when a ship at
sea was caught in a storm, when dread began to possess the minds
of the crew, and peril thickened round them, and even alarm was
giving place to despair, that if then in the high heavens this
star appeared, gradually and gently but effectually the clouds
disappeared, the winds abated, the towering billows fell down to
the surface of the deep, calm came where there had been uproar,
safety came where there had been danger, and under the beneficent
influence of this heavenly body the terrified and despairing crew
came safely to port. The proposal which the liberal party of this
country made in 1886, which they still cherish in their mind and
heart, and which we trust and believe, they are about now to carry
forward, that proposal has been to Ireland and the political
relations of the two countries what the happy star was believed to
be to the seamen of antiquity. It has produced already
anticipations of love and good will, which are the first fruits of
what is to come. It has already changed the whole tone and temper
of the relations, I cannot say yet between the laws, but between
the peoples and inhabitants of these two great islands. It has
filled our hearts with hope and with joy, and it promises to give
us in lieu of the terrible disturbances of other times, with their
increasing, intolerable burdens and insoluble problems, the
promise of a brotherhood exhibiting harmony and strength at home,
and a brotherhood which before the world shall, instead of being
as it hitherto has been for the most part, a scandal, be a model
and an example, and shall show that we whose political wisdom is
for so many purposes recognised by the nations of civilised Europe
and America have at length found the means of meeting this oldest
and worst of all our difficulties, and of substituting for
disorder, for misery, for contention, the actual arrival and the
yet riper promise of a reign of peace.--_Theatre Royal, Glasgow,
July 2, 1892._

The Naval Estimates Of 1894.

(M197) _The first paragraph of this memorandum will be found on p. 508_:--