pothesis.

But there is something about this, our most recent revolution,
which is even more astonishing than the absence of opposition and
panic. It is that no one, whether friend or foe, has paid the least
attention to the subject. In ordinary society it has been impossible
to turn the conversation that way. Any topic in the world--but
pre-eminently Rations,--seemed more vital and more pressing. "The
Reform Bill? What Bill is that? Tell me, do you find it very difficult
to get sugar?" "The Speaker's Conference? Haven't heard about it. I'm
sure James Lowther won't allow them to do anything very silly--but
I really cannot imagine how we are to get on without meat." Or
yet again: A triumphant Suffragist said to a Belgravian sister:
"So we've got the vote at last!" "What vote?" replied the sister.
"Surely we've had a vote for ever so long? I'm sure I have, though
I never used it."

When the real history of this wonderful war is written, methinks
the historian will reckon among its most amazing features the fact
that it so absorbed the mind of the nation as to make possible a
'silent revolution.'

VI

"_THE INCOMPATIBLES_"

My title is borrowed from one of the few Englishmen who have ever
written wisely about Ireland. Our ways of trying to pacify our
Sister Kingdom have been many and various--Disestablishment Acts,
Land Acts, Arrears Acts, Coercion Acts, Crimes Acts, and every other
variety of legislative experiment; but through them all Ireland
remained unpacified. She showed no gratitude for boons which she
had not asked, and seemed to crave for something which, with the
best intentions in the world, England was unable to supply. This
failure on the part of England may have been due to the fact that
Gladstone, who, of all English statesmen, most concerned himself
with Irish affairs, knew nothing of Ireland by personal contact.
It is startling to read, in Lord Morley's _Life_ this casual record
of his former chief: "In October, 1878, Gladstone paid his first
and only visit to Ireland. It lasted little more than three weeks,
and did not extend beyond a very decidedly English pale.... Of
the multitude of strange things distinctly Irish, he had little
chance of seeing much."

One of the "strange things" which he did not see was the resolve
of Ireland to be recognized as a nation; and that recognition was
the "something" which, as I said just now, England was unable or
unwilling to supply. Late in life Gladsto