ve had their day, and can one deny that the attempt to govern
Ireland in the sole interests of a minority has made Ireland what it is.
An unbiased French observer three-quarters of a century ago declared
that the cause of Irish distress was its _mauvaise aristocratic_. It was
the interest of this class, as they themselves admit, which was allowed
to dominate the policy of the Unionist Party, and to effect this, force
was the only available instrument. With the recognition of the fact that
the possession of property is no guarantee of intelligence has come the
crippling of the policy of _laissez faire_, supported though it was by
the brewers of Dublin and the shipbuilders of Belfast, for this
reason--that rich men tend always to rally to the defence of property.
The exercise of the duties which property imposes and the responsibility
which it entails being the chief advantages of a landed gentry, and
their main _raison d'etre_ as a ruling caste having been conspicuous by
its absence, with few exceptions, in Ireland, the passing of the
landowner as a social factor is looked upon with complacency.

English statesmen seem to have applied that maxim of Machiavelli--that
benefits should be conferred little by little so as to be more fully
appreciated. It is hard to realise that little more than thirty years
have elapsed since the time when the landed interest was supreme in
these islands. Their power was first assailed by the Ballot Act of 1873,
and the Corrupt Practices Act of 1884 did much to put a term to a form
of intimidation at which Tories did not hold up their hands in horror,
while the Franchise Act of 1883 destroyed their power, so that in those
years passed away for ever the time when, as Archbishop Croke put it, an
Irish borough would elect Barabbas for thirty pieces of silver.

Of one thing, indeed, we may be certain, and that is that we have
touched bottom in the matter of Unionist concessions. The manner in
which the programme mapped out between Mr. Wyndham and Sir Antony
MacDonnell was rendered nugatory is evidence of that. The administration
of the Land Act, under the secret instructions issued by Dublin Castle,
was such as to cripple the Estates Commissioners in their application of
its provisions. The proposals as to the settlement of the University
question were nipped in the bud after advances had been made to the
Catholic bishops to discover what was the minimum which they would
accept, and this was done