ritish public opinion. It could have been shown that the development
of Ireland--the development not only of the resources of her soil but of
the far greater wealth which lies in the latent capacities of her
people--was demanded quite as much in the interest of one country as in
that of the other.

Here, indeed, is an untilled field for those to whom the Irish Question
is yet a living one. If I could think that each country fully realised
its own responsibility in the matter, if I could think that the
long-continued misunderstanding was at an end, nothing would induce me
to trouble the waters at this auspicious hour, when a better feeling
towards Ireland prevails in Great Britain, and when the Irish people are
fully appreciative of the obviously sincere desire of England to be
generous to Ireland. But an examination of the events upon which the
prevailing optimism is based will show that, unhappily,
misunderstanding, though of another sort, still exists, and that Ireland
is as much as ever a riddle to the English mind.

Now this new optimism in the English view of Ireland seems to be based,
not upon a recognition of the development of what I have ventured to
dignify with the title of a new philosophy of Irish progress, but upon a
belief that the spirit of moderation and conciliation displayed by so
many Irishmen in connection with the Land Act is due to the fact that my
incomprehensible countrymen have, under a sudden emotion, put away
childish things and learned to behave like grown-up Englishmen.
Throughout the press comments upon the Dunraven Conference and in public
speeches both inside and outside Parliament there has run a sense that a
sort of portent, a transformation scene, a sudden and magical
alteration in the whole spirit and outlook of the Irish people, has come
to pass.

I feel some hesitation in asking the reader to believe that a great and
lasting revolution in Irish thought has been brought about in such a
moment in the life of a people as twelve short years. But a lesser
number of months seemed to the English mind adequate for the
accomplishment of the change. And what a change it was that they
conceived! To them, less than a year ago, the Irish Question was not
merely unsolved, but in its essential features appeared unaltered. After
seven centuries of experimental statecraft--so varied that the English
could not believe any expedient had yet to be tried--the vast majority
of the Irish people regarde