, still further elongated by the prefix 'anti.' When I
arrived on the scene the game had begun in deadly earnest, but I noticed
the ball lying unmolested in another quarter of the field. In Irish
public life I have often had reason to envy that ball, and perhaps now
its lot may be mine, while the game goes on and the critics pay
attention to each other.

To my friendly critics a word of explanation is due. The opinions to
which I have given expression are based upon personal observation and
experience extending over a quarter of a century during which I have
been in close touch with Irish life at home, and not unfamiliar with it
abroad. I have referred to history only when I could not otherwise
account for social and economic conditions with which I came into
contact, or with which I desired practically to deal. Whether looking
back over the dreary wastes of Anglo-Irish history, or studying the men
and things of to-day, I came to conclusions which differed widely from
what I had been taught to believe by those whose theories of Irish
development had not been subjected to any practical test. Deeply as I
have felt for the past sufferings of the Irish people and their heritage
of disability and distress, I could not bring myself to believe that,
where misgovernment had continued so long, and in such an immense
variety of circumstances and conditions, the governors could have been
alone to blame. I envied those leaders of popular thought whose
confidence in themselves and in their followers was shaken by no such
reflections. But the more I listened to them the more the conviction was
borne in upon me that they were seeking to build an impossible future
upon an imaginary past.

Those who know Ireland from within are aware that Irish thought upon
Irish problems has been undergoing a silent, and therefore too lightly
regarded revolution. The surface of Irish life, often so inexplicably
ruffled, and sometimes so inexplicably calm, has just now become smooth
to a degree which has led to hasty conclusions as to the real cause and
the inward significance of the change. To chime in with the thoughtless
optimism of the hour will do no good; but a real understanding of the
forces which have created the existing situation will reveal an
unprecedented opportunity for those who would give to the Irish mind
that full and free development which has been so long and, as I have
tried to show, so unnaturally delayed.

Among these new forc