a product of recent years in Ireland--as a body who represent the
moderate section of opinion, the demands of which are reasonable and
comprise all that the Liberal Party can be expected to concede; and
among this section of recent writers on Irish politics three stand out
prominently by reason of their position and of their proposals:--Mr.
T.W. Russell, in "Ireland and the Empire," preached with cogent force
the need for the last step in the expropriation of the Irish landlords,
the one great obstacle, in his eyes, to a prosperous and contented
Ireland. In the economic field Sir Horace Plunkett has pleaded, in
"Ireland in the New Century," for the salvation of the Irish race by the
development of industries; while in the political sphere Lord Dunraven,
in "The Outlook in Ireland," has urged the pressing need for the closer
association of Irishmen with the government of their own country. I am
not concerned to deny the remarkable fact which these volumes indicate
in the change of view on the part of three representative Protestant and
Unionist Irishmen; but in this connection two things, on which
sufficient stress has not so far been laid, must be recalled. In the
first place the members of what is called the middle party are recruits
not from Nationalism but from Unionism; it is some of the members of the
latter party who have abated their vehemence, and not any of those of
the former who have altered their orientation in respect of great
democratic principles.

To speak of the new school of opinion as a party, moreover, is to
overstate the case as to the relative positions of three small groups of
Unionist opinion, which have little or nothing in common except a joint
denunciation of the present _regime_.

The views of Mr. Russell with regard to compulsory purchase are not, one
suspects, those of Lord Dunraven. Lord Dunraven's views as to
Devolution, it may be surmised, are too democratic for Sir Horace
Plunkett, and are not sufficiently democratic for Mr. Russell. It is
impossible to conceive a plan of reform which would enjoy the support of
all these three while the ideas of ameliorative work entertained by the
body of Orangemen led by Mr. Sloan, who are disgusted by the attitude
traditionally attached to their order, would, there is no doubt, differ
from those of any others. It would be impossible to find a common
denominator between the views of these modern converts from the old
Unionism which presented an unben