pire to the grade of the most
dependent of her colonies, and should be governed despotically by
English officials, without representation in the English Parliament or
any machinery of local self-government. Another proposal has been to
give four provincial Governments to Ireland, limiting their powers to
local rating, education, and legislation in respect of matters which
form the subjects of private Bill legislation at present; in fact, to
place them somewhat on the footing of the provinces of Canada, while
reserving to the English Parliament the powers vested in the Dominion of
Canada. Such a scheme would seem adapted to whet the appetite of the
Irish for nationality, without supplying them with any portion of the
real article. It would supply no basis on which a system of agrarian
reform could be founded, as it would be impossible to leave the
determination of a local question, which is a unit in its dangers and
its difficulties, to four different Legislatures; above all, the hinge
on which the question turns--the sufficiency of the security for the
British taxpayer--could not be afforded by provincial resources. Indeed,
no alternative for the Land Bill of 1886 has been suggested which does
not err in one of the following points: either it pledges English credit
on insufficient security, or it requires the landowners to accept Irish
debentures or some form of Irish paper money at par; in other words, it
makes English taxes a fund for relieving Irish landlords, or else it
compels the Irish landowner, if he sells at all, to sell at an
inadequate price. Before parting with Canada, it may be worth while
noticing that another, and more feasible, alternative is to imitate more
closely the Canadian Constitution, and to vest the central or Dominion
powers in a central Legislature in Dublin, parcelling out the provincial
powers, as they have been called, amongst several provincial
Legislatures. This scheme might be made available as a means of
protecting Ulster from the supposed danger of undue interference from
the Central Government, and for making, possibly, other diversities in
the local administration of various parts of Ireland in order to meet
special local exigencies.

A leading writer among the dissentient Liberals has intimated that one
of two forms of representative colonial government might be imposed on
Ireland--either the form in which the executive is conducted by
colonial officials, or the form of the great ir