rian atmosphere was to be founded on the basis of
the existing Queen's College in that city. The reasons which Mr.
Balfour gave for desiring a settlement of the question deserve
quotation:--

"For myself I hope a University will be granted, and I hope it will be
granted soon. I hope so, as a Unionist, because otherwise I do not know
how to claim for a British Parliament that it can do for Ireland all,
and more than all, that Ireland could do for herself. I hope so as a
lover of education, because otherwise the educational interests both of
Irish Protestants and of Irish Roman Catholics must grievously suffer,
and suffer in that department of education, the national importance of
which is from day to day more fully recognised. I hope so as a
Protestant, because otherwise too easy an occasion is given for the
taunt that in the judgment of Protestants themselves Protestantism has
something to fear from the spread of knowledge."

Two years after this declaration a Royal Commission on the whole
question was mooted, and immediately the cry of "Hands off Trinity" was
raised, in spite of the fact that no Royal Commission had sat on that
College since 1853, an interval of time in which there had been four
Commissions on Oxford and Cambridge, and three on the Scottish
Universities. The terms of reference of the Commission of 1901 on its
appointment under the chairmanship of Lord Robertson were vague. A Judge
of the High Court in Ireland threatened to resign if Trinity
College--the main centre of University education in the island--were
included in the scope of the inquiry of a Commission on the means for
obtaining such education in the country. The Commission sat in private,
and it was not till the first volume of evidence was published that it
was discovered that the terms of reference had been so interpreted as to
exclude Trinity from the inquiry, and to retain the services of the
learned Judge.

After discussing the alternatives of a new Catholic University, or a
reconstitution of the Royal University with the addition of a new
Catholic College, the Commissioners decided in favour of the latter.
Their plan comprised a federal teaching University with four constituent
Colleges, the three Queen's Colleges and a new Catholic College to be
situated in Dublin. Changes in the constitution of the Queen's Colleges,
to remove the religious objections at present entertained towards them
were proposed, and in reference to the endowmen