chnicalities of an alien code;
finally as legalized and systematic oppression. Was it possible that he
should have formed so affectionate a reverence either for law or
property as would be proof against the pressure of starvation?"[44] "A
people cannot be expected to love and reverence oppression because it is
consigned to the statute-book, and called law."[45]

These extracts are taken from _Irish History and Irish Character_, which
was published in 1861. But in 1867 Mr. Goldwin Smith wrote a series of
letters to the _Daily News_, which were republished in 1868 under the
title of _The Irish Question_; and these letters form, perhaps, the most
statesmanlike and far-seeing pronouncement that has ever been made on
the Irish difficulty.

In the preface Mr. Goldwin Smith begins:

"The Irish legislation of the last forty years, notwithstanding the
adoption of some remedial measures, has failed through the indifference
of Parliament to the sentiments of Irishmen; and the harshness of
English public opinion has embittered the effects on Irish feeling of
the indifference of Parliament. Occasionally a serious effort has been
made by an English statesman to induce Parliament to approach Irish
questions in that spirit of sympathy, and with that anxious desire to be
just, without which a Parliament in London cannot legislate wisely for
Ireland. Such efforts have hitherto met with no response; is it too much
to hope that it will be otherwise in the year now opening?"[46]

The only comment I shall make on these words is: they were penned more
than half a century after Mr. Pitt's Union, which was to shower down
blessings on the Irish people.

Mr. Goldwin Smith's first letter was written on the 23rd of November,
1867, the day of the execution of the Fenians Allen, Larkin, and
O'Brien. He says--

"There can be no doubt, I apprehend, that the Irish difficulty has
entered on a new phase, and that Irish disaffection has, to repeat an
expression which I heard used in Ireland, come fairly into a line with
the other discontented nationalities of Europe. Active Fenianism
probably pervades only the lowest class; passive sympathy, which the
success of the movement would at once convert into active co-operation,
extends, it is to be feared, a good deal higher.

"England has ruin before her, unless she can hit on a remedy, and
overcome any obstacles of class interest or of national pride which
would prevent its application, the part of Rus