hey were. And not only must the concession of
Home Rule await the conversion of the British electorate, but before the
demand could be effectively preferred, another leader must rise up among
the Irish; and he, for all Lord Rosebery knew, was at the moment being
wheeled in a perambulator. This apparently cynical avowal of the new
premier's own attitude towards Home Rule accurately stated the facts of
the situation, and fairly reflected the mind of the British electorate,
after Irish obstruction had given them an opportunity of studying the
bearing of the Irish Question on English politics.

If the logic of events was thus making for the removal of Home Rule from
the region of practical politics in England, an even more momentous
change was taking place in Ireland. Whilst the Home Rule controversy was
at its height in the 'eighties and early 'nineties, some Irish
grievances were incidentally dealt with--not always under the best
impulses or in the best way. The concentration of all the available
thought and energy of Irish public men upon an appeal to the passions
and prejudices of English parties had led to the further postponement of
all Irish endeavour to deal rationally and practically with her own
problems at home. But during the welter of contention which prevailed
after the fall of Parnell, there grew up in Ireland a wholly new spirit,
born of the bitter lesson which was at last being learned. The Irish
still clung undaunted to their political ideal, but its pursuit to the
exclusion of all other national aims had received a wholesome check.
Thought upon the problems of national progress broadened and deepened,
in a manner little understood by those who knew Ireland from without,
and, indeed, by many of those accounted wise among the observers from
within. Was the realisation of a distinctive national existence, many
began to ask themselves, to be for ever dependent upon the fortunes of a
political campaign? In any scheme of a reconstructed national life to
which the Irish would give of their best, there must be
distinctiveness--that much every man who is in touch with Irish life is
fully aware of--but the question of existence must not be altogether
ignored. At the rate the people were leaving the sinking ship, the Irish
Question would be settled in the not distant future by the disappearance
of the Irish. Had we not better look around and see how other countries
with more or less analogous conditions fared? Could