tly the power exercised by them has
always, except perhaps at Parnell's zenith, been far less than was the
combined authority of the gentry before the landlord rule was broken.
Those who shared in that authority acted, and could afford to act, with
unquestioning confidence; they were surer of themselves, than is any
popular leader or any official in Ireland of to-day. It seldom occurred
to them to ask whether their conduct in any juncture might meet with
approval; being a law to other people, they were naturally a law to
themselves, and an Irish law. Their power was excessive, and demoralised
them by its lack of limitation; yet many of the qualities which it bred,
made them an element of great value in the country. These qualities are
by no means extinct in their kindred, nor is the tradition of their
right to leadership forgotten.

Of one thing Miss Somerville and those for whom she speaks (she is a
real spokeswoman) may be well assured. Whatever be the surface mood of
the moment, whatever the passing effect of war's hectic atmosphere,
nothing is more deeply realised throughout Ireland than the need to
restore the old ways, the old friendships--the need to bring back the
gentry to their old uses in Ireland, and to so much of leadership as
should be theirs by right of fitness. When the history of the Irish
Convention comes to be fully recorded, it will be seen that a great
desire was universally felt, cordially uttered, in that assembly, to
bridge over the gulf which divides us from yesterday in Ireland, and to
recover for the future much of what was admirable, valuable and lovable
in a past that is not unkindly remembered. Indeed, it is plain that Miss
Somerville has felt the influences that were abroad on the winds, when
she wrote of her comrade:--

Her love of Ireland, combined with her distrust of some of those
newer influences in Irish affairs to which her letters refer, made
her dread any weakening of the links that bind the United Kingdom
into one; but I believe that if she were here now, and saw the
changes that the past eighteen months have brought to Ireland, she
would be quick to welcome the hope that Irish politics are lifting
at last out of the controversial rut of centuries, and that
although it has been said of East and West that "never the two
shall meet," North and South will yet prove that in Ireland it is
always the impossible that happens.

North a