this, the only remedy in the whole of
their political materia medica which they have not tried, is the one
which has effected a cure wherever else it has been applied.

I ask, to what does England look forward in a prolongation of the
present conditions? There is no finality in the politics of Ireland any
more than in those of other countries. She cannot say to Ireland--"Thus
far shalt thou go, and no further." As one burning question is solved
another arises to take its place and to demand redress. The battle for
the moment may seem to be to the strong, but in the long run might is
unable to resist the advances of right. Time, we may well declare, is on
our side; but one has to count the cost in the material damage to us,
and in the moral damage to Great Britain, in the ultimate concession,
perhaps under duress, of so much which has repeatedly been refused.
Ever since, in 1881, Mr. Gladstone "banished to Saturn the laws of
political economy," strong measures of State socialism have been enacted
by both parties. It is not for nothing that the tenants in the West find
themselves to-day paying less than half for their holdings of what they
paid twenty years ago, and paying it, moreover, not by way of rent but
as a terminable annuity. If there is one point which the events of the
last generation have established in their eyes it is this--that Parnell
was justified in telling them to keep a firm grip of their holdings, and
that Great Britain has admitted the justice of the grounds on which
their agitation was based, by the revolution in the social fabric which
she has set in train by the Land Purchase Acts.

Who was the witty Frenchman who declared that England was an island and
that every Englishman was an island? It is not only because of this
preoccupation with their own affairs that their _amour propre_ has been
injured by their failure in Ireland. One cannot expect to gather figs
from thistles or grapes from thorns, and when Englishmen appreciate to
how small an extent the Union has enured to the advantage of Ireland,
they will understand the feelings which actuate the desire for
self-government. Is there anything which makes Englishmen believe that
the extension of Land Purchase or the foundation of a university will
make for a permanent settlement? The history of the last half century
can scarcely make them sanguine that when the burning questions of
to-day have been disposed of they will find in the Imperial Parliam