the same manner as do the Englishmen of the same type, these
Irishmen spend their time reviling popular representatives as ignorant,
venal, and beneath contempt. A prophet who, on the basis of the election
of Mr. Grayson, foretold an imminent dissolution of the democratic
forces in Great Britain, would in truth have more ground on which to
base his forecast than has one who from the nebulous movements of the
Sinn Fein party, arrives at an analogous conclusion in the case of
Ireland. That the political landmarks in Ireland have in the last few
years shifted is obvious to the most superficial observer. The
devolutionist secession from orthodox Unionism, the Independent Orange
Lodge represented by Mr. Sloan, the "Russellite" Ulster tenant-farmers,
and the rise of a democratic vote in Belfast regardless of the strife of
sects, all serve as indications of this fact; but let it be noted that
while we have evidences in these directions of the forces at work in the
disintegration of the old Orange strongholds, we have no such obvious
indications of the upheaval going on in the traditional Nationalist
Party, save only the mere _ipse dixit_ of the very people who assure us
that they themselves are making it felt. There is every reason to
suppose that the Sinn Fein movement, in so far as it consists of passive
resistance, will be regarded by the Irish people as merely doing
nothing. They could understand a non-Parliamentary action were it
replaced by physical force, and the weakness of passive resistance lies
precisely in this, that the logical result of its failure is an appeal
to armed revolt which no man in his senses can in modern conditions in
Ireland think possible, or, if possible, calculated to be other than
disastrous. The attempt which the Sinn Fein organisation has
consistently, if unsuccessfully, made to arrogate to itself all credit
for the progress of the Gaelic League and of the Industrial Revival, is
singularly disingenuous in view of the assistance which both those
movements have received and are receiving from the Parliamentary Party
and its allies. The provisions of the Merchandise Marks Act, and the
fact that through the agency of members of the Irish Party the Foreign
Office has directed British Consuls abroad to publish separately the
returns of Irish imports, which have hitherto been lost by their
inclusion in the returns under the one head "British," will do far more
for the development of the Irish export t