tuation in Ireland. But the crown is still wanting to the
work. Those who travel in Ireland and make any close inquiry into the
work of these Acts must feel that there is a great gap unfilled. It is
a gap at the top. All these new roads of reform are well and truly
laid--but they all lead nowhere.

Take one startling fact. Two Commissions of late years have considered
the great and glaring need of Ireland in the want of swift, cheap, and
convenient transport both for persons and goods. One of these
Commissions was on Canals, and the other on Railways. Both decided in
favour of national control. But as there is no national authority which
anyone trusts, both reports have been stillborn.[34]

It was probably some such facts that led, as far back as August, 1903,
to the uprising among the more moderate Unionist Irishmen of a
remarkable movement which is still affecting Ireland. This movement
took shape in a body; called the Irish Reform Association, presided
over, like the Land Conference, by that remarkable Irish peer Lord
Dunraven. That Conference put forward a set of proposals which are now
historical, and which have since, in varying forms, inspired the
movement for what is popularly known as "Devolution."[35]

Mild as are the proposals of this new party, they do not differ in
principle from the proposals of the Home Rulers.

These proposals obtained the backing of a large section of the Unionist
Party. They undoubtedly had the sympathy of Sir Anthony MacDonnell. It
is difficult to say, at the present moment, what precise part was
played by Mr. George Wyndham, then still the Irish Chief Secretary. But
the eloquent fact remains that the ultimate triumph of the Ulster
Unionists over the Devolution Party of 1903 was marked by his
resignation. There would seem to be no substantial doubt that in 1903
there arose in the Unionist Party the same division in regard to Home
Rule as arose in 1885, when Lord Carnarvon, the Tory Viceroy, met Mr.
Parnell. For the moment the better spirits seriously contemplated
removing once and for all the bitterness of the Irish grievance. There
was a return of that feeling in the autumn of 1910, when, for the
moment, at a period still known politically as the "age of reason,"
most of the Unionist Press admitted how much good reason and
common-sense there was on the side of Home Rule. On each of these
occasions the same result has occurred. At the critical moment the
extreme faction of the Uls