t
scandal which now mars the administration of the Poor Law reform in
Ireland--the corrupt appointment of officers in the Poor Law medical
service. If we cannot have a State medical service, we can at all events
ensure that appointments under the Poor Law shall be placed in
incorruptible hands.

It is not to be assumed that this short sketch of policy is exhaustive,
or that it touches even in outline upon all that the Unionist Party
might fairly hope to do in Ireland. It is designed to show only that
financially and politically, every step which can be taken to relieve
the poverty and oppression which has too long continued in Ireland must
be taken by a Unionist Parliament and a Government pledged to secure the
administration of law and order in Ireland.

I desire on behalf of the Committee under whose auspices this work has
been prepared to thank Mr. S. Rosenbaum for the ability and zeal he has
shown in editing the book and in preparing it for publication. I wish
also to acknowledge my personal debt to Mr. G. Locker Lampson, M.P.,
who, as Vice-Chairman of the Committee, has shown so much zeal and
assiduity in connection with this important work.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Commercial Relations Between England and Ireland." By Miss
A.E. Murray (P.S. King & Sons).]

[Footnote 2: Attorney General in the Irish Parliament, and later Earl of
Clare.]

HISTORICAL

I

A NOTE ON HOME RULE

BY THE RIGHT HON. A.J. BALFOUR, M.P.

The greater part of the present volume is devoted to showing why this
country should not adopt Home Rule; but it is perhaps worth while for
the ordinary British citizen to ask himself a preliminary question,
namely, why he should be pressed even to consider it. That the
establishment of an Irish Parliament must involve doubtful and
far-reaching consequences is denied by no one. What then is the _prima
facie_ case which has induced many Englishmen and Scotchmen to think
that it ought to be seriously debated? If we could erase the past and
approach the problem of framing representative institutions in their
most practicable shape for the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, who
would think it wise to crowd into these small Islands two, or, as some
would have it, three, four, or five separate Parliaments, with their
separate elections, their separate sets of ministers and Offices, their
separate party systems, their divergent policies? Distances are, under
modern conditions, so s