minishing poverty; why the disestablishment of the Anglican
Church has increased rather than diminished the hostility to England of
the Catholic priesthood; or why two Land Acts have not contented Irish
farmers. It is easy enough, in short, and this without having recourse
to any theory of race, and without attributing to Irishmen either more
or less of original sin than falls to the lot of humanity, to see how it
is that imperfect statesmanship--and all statesmanship it should be
remembered is imperfect--has failed of obtaining good results at all
commensurate with its generally good intentions. Failure, however, is
none the less failure because its causes admit of analysis. It is no
defence to bankruptcy that an insolvent can, when brought before the
Court, lucidly explain the errors which resulted in disastrous
speculations. The failure of English statesmanship, explain it as you
will, has produced the one last and greatest evil which misgovernment
can cause. It has created hostility to the law in the minds of the
people. The law cannot work in Ireland, because the classes whose
opinion in other countries supports the action of the Courts are in
Ireland, even when not law-breakers, in full sympathy with law-breakers.
This fact, a Home Ruler may add, is for this purpose all the more
instructive, if it be granted that the errors of British policy do not
arise from injustice or ill-will to Irishmen. The inference, he
insists, to be drawn from the lesson of history is, that it is
impossible for the Parliament of the United Kingdom to understand or to
provide for Irish needs. The law is hated and cannot be executed in
Ireland because, as we are told on high authority, it comes before the
Irish people in a foreign garb. The law is detested, in short, not
because it is unjust, but because it is English. The reason why judges
soldiers or policemen strive in vain to cope with lawlessness is, that
they are in fact trying to enforce not so much the rule of justice as
the supremacy of England. The Austrian administration in Lombardy was
never deemed to be bad--it was very possibly better than any which the
Italian kingdom can supply; the Austrian rule was hated not because the
Austrians were bad rulers, but because they were foreigners. In Ireland,
as in Lombardy, permanent discontent is caused by the outraged sentiment
of nationality. Meet this sentiment, argues the friend of Home Rule, by
the concession to Ireland of an independ