peace and ensuing it, we
might perchance be like the dog who let fall that piece of meat from
between his teeth--losing the substance for shadow. We do better, all
things considered, with our present arrangements--trusting to the
imperfect operations of human law rather than shooting Niagara for the
chance of the clear stream at the bottom.

The whirligig of Time has changed the relative positions of the two
great parties in Ireland. Formerly it was the Catholics who desired
the abolition of Home Rule, and the Protestants who held by the
National Parliament. That Parliament was exclusively Protestant, and
the powerful minority ground the helpless majority to the very ground.
Catholics were persecuted from shore to shore, and all sorts and
conditions of Protestant bullies and tyrants sent up petitions to
forbid the iniquity of Catholic trade rivalry. What was then would be
now--changing the venue and putting the Catholics where the
Protestants used to be. We do not believe that the "principle of
Nationality" is the working power of this desire for Home Rule, as Mr.
Stansfeld asserts--unless indeed the principle of Nationality can be
stretched so as to cover the self-aggrandizement of a party, the
bitterness of religious hatred, and the tyranny of a cruel and
coercive combination. The grand and noble name of Nationality can
scarcely be made so elastic as this. Respect for law lies at the very
heart of the principle, and the Irish Home Rulers are of all men the
most conspicuous for their contempt of law and their bold infraction
of the very elementary ordinances of civilized society.

As for tyranny, no coercion established by Government--not even that
proclaimed by Mr. Gladstone--has been more stringent than the coercion
exercised by the Plan of Campaign. What happened in Tipperary only
the other day when certain rent-paying tenants, who had been
boycotted, did public penance in the following propositions? They
offered:--"Firstly, to come forward to the subsequent public meeting
and express public contrition for having violated their resolution to
hold out with the other tenants; secondly, not to pay the next
half-year's rent, due on the 10th of December, but to in future act
with the general body of the tenantry; and thirdly, to pay each a
pecuniary sum, to be halved between the Ponsonby tenants and the
Smith-Barry Tipperary tenantry in the fight which is to come on."
Surely no humiliation was ever greater than this!-