oving through many minds in Ireland the
question whether this state of things must permanently endure. Is that
estrangement inevitable? I at least think otherwise. Throughout the last
two decades of the nineteenth century landlord and tenant were opposed
in a struggle for definite material interests; it was a fight not only
for free conditions of tenure but for the reduction of rent, if not for
its total abolition. A way of peace was found in State-aided land
purchase, and in a reconstitution of the whole agricultural order. The
landlords, where they have been bought out, have not even the duty of
rent collecting. How will this affect their traditional attitude, which
calls itself loyalty to the English connexion, but which I interpret
rather as a traditional justification of the Union and of the hereditary
landlord policy? If self-government is established without dissolution
of the Union, is it not reasonable to suppose that there will be a
change in men's dispositions?

The question involved is really more serious, though of far less
political importance, than that of Ulster. Whatever happens, the
industrial community of Belfast and its district is not going to run
away. That element will not be lost to Ireland; it is too strong, too
well able to assert itself; and it is anchored by its interest. The
ex-landlords, now that their occupation is gone, are bound to Ireland
only by habit and attachment. At present they fulfil no essential
function; and it will be open undoubtedly for the gentry once more to
make an error mischievous to Ireland and disastrous to themselves. They
may take up the line of unwilling submission, of refusal to co-operate,
of cold-shouldering and crying down the new Parliament and the new
Ministry. Social pressure may be exercised to keep men from seeking
election, and so to perpetuate the existing severance between the
leisured and wealthier classes and the main body of the nation. There
will be strong tendencies in this direction. But on the other hand I
think that among the men who have grown up under the new order there is
an increasing willingness to accept the change. One friend of mine--no
politician, and, like all non-politicians, a Unionist--said to me lately
that he would be rather disappointed if Home Rule did not become law--he
was "curious about it"; and he added, "I think a great many like me have
the same feeling." Others probably have a more positive outlook, and
desire to take an