many of them, although hundreds of years may have passed since they
came, still look on themselves as rather English than Irish. The last
fifty years, whose wonderful changes have in most parts of the world
tended to unite and weld into one compact body the inhabitants of each
part of the earth's surface, connecting them by the ties of commerce,
and of a far easier and swifter intercourse than was formerly possible,
have in Ireland worked in the opposite direction. It has become more and
more the habit of the richer class in Ireland to go to England for its
enjoyment, and to feel itself socially rather English than Irish. Thus
the chasm between the immigrants and the aborigines has grown deeper.
The upper class has not that Irish patriotism which it showed in the
days of the National Irish Parliament (1782-1800), and while there is
thus less of a common national feeling to draw rich and poor together,
the strife of landlords and tenants has continued, irritating the minds
of both parties, and gathering them into two hostile camps. As everybody
knows, the Nationalist agitation has been intimately associated with the
Land agitation--has, in fact, found a strong motive-force in the desire
of the tenants to have their rents reduced, and themselves secured
against eviction. Now, many people in England assumed that an Irish
Parliament would be under the control of the tenants and the humbler
class generally, and would therefore be hostile to the landlords. They
went farther, and made the much bolder assumption that as such a
Parliament would be chosen by electors, most of whom were Roman
Catholics, it would be under the control of the Catholic priesthood, and
hostile to Protestants. Thus they supposed that the grant of
self-government to Ireland would mean the abandonment of the upper and
wealthier class, the landlords and the Protestants, to the tender
mercies of their enemies. Such abandonment, it was proclaimed on a
thousand platforms, would be disgraceful in itself, dishonouring to
England, a betrayal of the very men who had stood by her in the past,
and were prepared to stand by her in the future, if only she would stand
by them. It was, of course, replied by the defenders of the Home Rule
Bill, that what the so-called English party in Ireland really stood by
was their own ascendency over the Irish masses--an oppressive
ascendency, which had caused most of the disorders of the country. As to
religion, there were many Pro