ject, the
discussion of which must pass into a discussion of the government of the
island as a whole.

Since, then, we may conclude that whatever Ministry is in power will be
bound to take up the state of Ireland--since Parliament and the nation
will be occupied with the subject during the coming sessions fully as
much as they have been during those that have recently passed--the next
inquiry is, What will the tendency of opinion and legislation be? Will
the reasons and forces described above bring us to Home Rule? and if so,
when, how, and why?

There are grounds for answering these questions in the negative. A
majority of the House of Commons, including the present Ministry and
such influential Liberals as Mr. Bright, Lord Hartington, Mr.
Chamberlain, stand pledged to resist it, and seem--such is the passion
which controversy engenders--more disposed to resist it than they were
in 1885. But this ground is less strong than it may appear. We have had
too many changes of opinion--ay, and of action too--upon Irish affairs
not to be prepared for further changes. A Ministry in power learns much
which an Opposition fails to learn. Home Rule is an elastic expression,
and some of those who were loudest in denouncing Mr. Gladstone's Bill
will find it easy to explain, should they bring in a Bill of their own
for giving self-government to Ireland, that their measure is a different
thing, and free from the objections brought against his. Nor, if such a
conversion should come, need it be deemed a dishonest one, for events
are potent teachers, and governments now seek rather to follow than to
form opinion. Although a decent interval must be allowed, no one will be
astonished if the Tory leaders should move ere long in the direction
indicated. Toryism itself, as has been remarked already, contains
nothing opposed to the idea.

Far greater obstacles exist in the aversion which (as already observed)
so many Englishmen of both parties have entertained for any scheme which
should seem to leave the Protestant minority at the mercy of the peasant
and Roman Catholic majority, and to carry us some way toward the
ultimate separation of the islands. These alarms are genuine and
deep-seated. One who (like the present writer) thinks them, if not
baseless, yet immensely overstrained, is, of course, convinced that they
may be allayed. But time must first pass, and the plan that is to allay
them may have to be framed on somewhat different lines