f things may not be wholly displeasing to him, as
holding out a hope that the flame which he has been helped by British
legislation to kindle in Ireland may already be taking hold upon the
substructions and outworks of the edifice of property in Great Britain
also.

One thing at least is clear.

The two antagonistic principles which confront each other in Ireland
to-day are the principles of the Agrarian Revolution represented by Mr.
Davitt, and the principle of Authority, represented in the domain of
politics by the British Government, and in the domain of morals by the
Vatican. With one or the other of these principles the victory must
rest. If the Irish people of all classes who live in Ireland could be
polled to-day, it is likely enough that a decisive majority of them
would declare for the principle of Authority in the State and in the
Church, could that over-riding issue be made perfectly plain and
intelligible to them. But how is that possible? In what country of the
world, and in what age of the world, has it ever been possible to get
such an issue made perfectly plain and intelligible to any people?

In the domain of morals the principle of Authority, so far as concerns
Catholic Ireland, rests with a power which is not likely to waver or
give way. The Papal Decree has gone forth. Those who profess to accept
it will be compelled to obey it. Those who reject it, whatever their
place in the hierarchy of the Church may be, must sooner or later find
themselves where Dr. M'Glynn of New York now is. Catholic Ireland can
only continue to be Catholic on the condition of obedience, not formal
but real, not in matters indifferent, but in matters vital and
important, to the Head of the Catholic Church.

In the domain of politics the principle of Authority rests with an
Administration which is at the mercy of the intelligence or the
ignorance, the constancy or the fickleness, the weakness or the
strength, of constituencies in Great Britain, not necessarily familiar
with the facts of the situation in Ireland, not necessarily enlightened
as to the real interests either of Great Britain or of Ireland, nor even
necessarily awake, with Cardinal Manning, to the truth that upon the
future of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire.

With two, three, four, or five years of a steady and cool administration
of the laws in Ireland, by an executive officer such as Mr. Balfour
seems to me to have shown himself to be--with a