have been let loose on every
institution of the country, and it is only when we take the greatest
common measure of the results that we can see that the upshot has been
on the whole rather good than bad. When Parnell declared that while
accepting Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule proposals he must nevertheless state
definitely that no one could set a limit to the march of a nation, he
was stating an axiom which is every day illustrated by English statesmen
of either party when they say, on the one hand, that the refusal, and on
the other hand the concession, of certain fiscal proposals will lead to
the dismemberment of the Empire. What can be stated in cold blood as a
possible contingency in the case of, say, Canada or New Zealand has only
to be adumbrated in that of Ireland to be denounced, not as a
justifiable retort to the flouting of local demands, but as a
treasonable aspiration to be put down with a strong hand.

The new aspect of Imperial responsibility as entailing on the mother
country a position not of contempt of, but rather of deference to, the
wishes of the colonies cannot but have a direct bearing on Anglo-Irish
relations.

It is the greatest feature in Parnell's achievement that he succeeded in
persuading ardent spirits to lay aside other weapons, while he strove
what he could do by stretching the British Constitution to the utmost,
linking up as he did all the forces of discontent to a methodical use of
the Parliamentary machine. In the very depth of the winter of our
discontent, in 1881, when he was in Kilmainham Gaol, crime became most
rampant; in truth--as he had grimly said would be the case--Captain
Moonlight had taken his place, and in the following year when he was let
out of gaol it was expressly to slow down the agitation. More than one
Prime Minister has had to echo those words of the Duke of Wellington of
seventy years ago--"If we don't preserve peace in Ireland we shall not
be a Government," and the periodic recrudescence of lawlessness which
the island has seen has, it is freely admitted, forced the hands of
Governments which were inflexible in the face of mere constitutional
opposition.

The latest aspect which this anti-constitutional movement has taken in
Ireland is what is known as Sinn Fein, which adopts a rigid attitude of
protest against the existing condition of things, and which declares
that the recognition of the _status quo_ involved in any acquiescence in
the present mode of governme