reat Britain, which has shown no great signs of diminution in
her power. A closer parallel than that of Hungary is to be found in the
case of Bohemia, which, in respect of general social conditions and the
proportion of national to hostile forces, bore a much stronger
resemblance to Ireland, and which adopted in 1867 a policy of withdrawal
of its representatives from a hostile legislature with results so
disastrous that after a few years she returned to the methods which the
Sinn Fein party are anxious to make an end of in Ireland.

All foreign parallels, however, are apt to be misleading, but Irishmen
have only to remember the fact that the secession of Grattan and his
followers from the Irish Parliament in 1797 paved the way for the
passing of the Act of Union to find in it a warning against what is the
main plank in the platform of Sinn Fein--"the policy of
withdrawal"--which, moreover, would leave the control of Irish
legislation to the tender mercies of such Irish members as Mr. Walter
Long and Mr. William Moore, which would further involve the condemnation
of the policy pursued by every Irish leader since the Union, and would
mean the abandonment of the weapon by which every Irish reform has been
wrested from English prejudice--namely, an independent party in the
House of Commons, backed up by a vigorous organisation in Ireland.

For the rest, those who have read the high-flown manifestoes of the Sinn
Fein party will be concerned to look around for the result of the
proposal which they have been preaching for the last three years, and if
they find nothing but a ridiculous mouse in the matter of achievement
will be inclined to declare that not a mountain but a molehill has been
in labour. It is a singular fact that although since the general
election there have been no less than ten by-elections in Ireland, of
which only two were in "safe" Unionist seats, in no single instance have
the advocates of the policy of abstention from attendance from
Westminster had the courage to go to the polls with a candidate of
their own. We are told by the exponents of the new policy that they are
sweeping the country before them, but the only certain data which
Irishmen have as to its popularity is that in ten per cent. of the
constituencies in the country, the only ones to which any test has been
applied, in no instance has Sinn Fein dared to show its face at the
hustings.

Two Irish members, it is true, resigned uncompromisingl