the Irish vote. The manner in which both English parties
have eaten their words is warranted to inculcate political cynicism. If
in 1881 the Liberals are declared to have jettisoned their principles
and to have perpetrated that which a few months before they declared
would stultify their whole policy, the same damaging admission must be
made by the Tories as to their acquiescence in the Franchise Bill of
1884 and their conduct of the Land Bill of 1887.

"Anyone," said Cavour, "can govern in a state of siege," but I do not
think Englishmen realise the extent to which the ruling policy has been
to accentuate the repressive to the exclusion of the beneficent side of
government, and how ready they have been to make the government not one
of opinion, as in their own country, but one of force. When Mr. Balfour
introduced his perpetual Coercion Bill of 1887 it was estimated that
there had been one such measure for every year of the century that was
passing.

In the first instance, the institutions of Ireland, being imposed by a
conquering country, never earned that measure of respect bred partly of
pride which attaches itself to the self-sown customs and processes of
nations; but, having introduced her legal system, England superseded it
and took steps to rule by a code outside the Common Law, so that respect
was, therefore, asked for legal institutions which, on her own showing,
and by her own admissions, had proved inadequate. In Ireland Government
did not "meet the headlong violence of angry power by covering the
accused all over with the armour of the law," as in Erskine's famous
phrase it did in England with regard to those imbued with revolutionary
principles.

A rusty statute of Edward III., which was devised for the suppression of
brigandage, was used to condemn the leaders of the Irish people,
unheard, in a court of law. Trial by jury was suspended and the common
right of freedom of speech was infringed. In 1901 no less than ten
Members of Parliament were imprisoned under the Crimes Act, and it was
not until the appointment of Sir Antony MacDonnell to the Under
Secretaryship that the proclamation of the Coercion Act was withdrawn.

It is no small matter that Mr. Bryce, when reviewing his period of
office, mentioned among the details of his policy that he had set his
face against jury-packing, and had allowed juries to be chosen perfectly
freely. The suspension of the most cherished Common Law rights of the
subject