connexion, the friendship, of the two countries-I would not speak the whole truth if I did not add, that if Ireland is to pass through troublous times without any concession to her nationality, then, indeed, events may arise which no man can attempt to control. Among the warmest friends of British connexion there are many, very many, who believe that their first and highest allegiance is due to their native land-who would follow the banner of their country wherever it might lead, and who would prefer almost any future for that country to the prospect of the eternal continuance of things as they

are.

Every right-minded man will earnestly hope and pray that means may yet be found of averting from the human race the evils which must follow a general war among nations. But if this hope be realized this will not diminish the importance, although it may remove the pressure, of the Irish question. Wars will come again. "England's difficulty" will be, one day or other, "Ireland's opportunity." Spenser's mysterious foreboding must always appear, even in the prosperous and joyous days of England, as the handwriting on the wall. When the time of trial actually comes, Ireland will be the danger at all times it will be the weakness-of England. While the Irish question is unsettled England is insecure. If the Irish nation be willing now to accept a settlement of that question, in the form of a Federal Union such as is suggested in these pages, the English minister would be, indeed, unwise who would omit the opportunity of effecting it.

Effect of the Union on England.

If I have written strongly, and it may be boldly, on the subject of the danger that attends the continuance of Irish disaffection, I have certainly done so in no spirit of menace. Still more remote from my thoughts is anything like hostility

to England. I know that it is ungracious to speak of danger from Ireland, even if it be in the language of warning. But accidental circumstances gave me an insight into the extent and intensity-perhaps I might add into the resources—of Irish disaffection, and with the strong convictions I have formed, I could not honestly conceal the belief I entertain. I turn with pleasure to a view of the question on which I can write in a manner more congenial to my own feelings, and, I admit at once, more calculated to make way with the English people.

The best argument that I can address to any high-minded Englishman in favour of the concession of a native Parliament to Ireland, is that Irish affairs would be better managed by an Irish Parliament, and that under such a Parliament Ireland would be happier and more contented than she is now. I may, however, without wounding any of his national susceptibility, use the argument that the present condition of Ireland is before the civilized world a reproach to the English nation. When in an evil hour England took upon herself the Parliamentary government of Ireland, she took upon herself a task which she could not possibly perform. A popular representive assembly at one with the people is the essential necessity of Parliamentary government. The Irish people can never find such an assembly in a representative assembly which is really and essentially an English-which at all events is certainly not an Irish—one. The failure was inherent in the very nature of the attempt; but of that failure England has all the responsibility, and incurs all the odium and reproach.

But Englishmen ought, I think, seriously to reflect whether the attempt to combine English and Irish representation in one body has not impaired the efficiency of Parliament as the instrument for the management of English affairs. The multiplicity of business which is now thrown upon Parliament is more than it can do. English bills of

great moment have been often postponed for Irish questions in which party interests were supposed to be involved. No one can doubt that English business would be far better managed if it were left to a House of Commons composed exclusively of English members, and giving their whole attention to that. business alone.

But this is not all. Very many questions of purely English interests are really decided, not by a reference to English considerations, but with reference to that which is somewhat contemptuously termed "the Irish vote." It is not only that in many instances measures have been carried by the votes of the Irish members against an English majority. In some of the most important and decisive periods of recent English history, ministers have been kept for years in office by the support of an Irish party against the wish of the English people. In 1835 the Lichfield House compact displaced the ministry of Sir Robert Peel, and handed over the guidance of English affairs to that of Lord Melbourne. Who can now calculate the extent to which this influenced the whole course and policy of the present reign? From 1837 to 1841 that same Melbourne ministry was retained in office against the wish of the English people by the support of Mr. O'Connell. In 1851, and again in 1852, the Whig ministry were displaced by the votes of Irish members, whose only object was to have revenge upon the writer of the Durham letter. In 1852 the ministry of Lord Derby was displaced by a compact between the opposition and the Irish party, who were pledged to support tenant-right. In all these cases the continuance or fall of the ministry depended upon the

arrangement they or their opponents were able to make for Irish support, and that support was given or withheld, not with any view to English interests or English questions, but with reference to the bargain which was made as to Irish affairs. No system of government could be worse, either for

England or Ireland, than one which makes the determination of English policy dependent on these separate and questionable intrigues. At best the purchase of the support of Irish members to any particular English policy, not by reference to its own merits, but by a bargain as to Irish policy, is in its very nature destructive of the independence and freedom of Parliament. Compacts of this nature are questionable transactions, even when conducted solely with reference to the public interests involved, or supposed to be involved, on both sides. We do not need experience to tell us how very easily and naturally they may be degraded into trafficking in which very little is thought of beyond stipulations for patronage and place.

To anyone who studies the history of English politics since the Union, it will be evident that since the Reform Bill the illegitimate action of the Irish element in the House of Commons has exercised a very decisive influence over their course. Before the Reform Bill it was not felt, partly because governments were then stronger, and did not depend so much. as they do now upon the management of sections in the House-partly because, in the days of nomination boroughs, there was not the line of demarcation between Irish members and English members which there is now. Sir Robert Peel was not less of an English statesman because he first took his seat for the Irish borough of Cashel; neither was Lord John Russell because he was nominated by the Duke of Devonshire for Bandon. The governing classes in whom power was vested before the Reform Bill were nearly identical in the two countries. They had common interests, and sympathies, and feelings. With the extension of popular power created by the Reform Bill—and even more than this, with the new questions raised, and the new passions stirred by the impulse given to popular ambition-a wholly new order of things came. An entirely different assembly took

the place of the old House of Commons. The The arrangements of the Union were subjected to a new test. It is easily intelligible that a system which might have worked very well in blending together two sets of members chosen by unreformed constituencies, would altogether break down when it was applied to another and a wholly different state of things. The moment the Irish vote appeared as a distinct power in the House, detached from, and uninterested in, the questions of English policy, that moment the system of intrigue and bargains, and compacts, became the inevitable result-and from that moment the House of Commons was incapable of fulfilling, even for England, the true functions of the representation of the people.

This is a view of the question which it is, of course, impossible, in the limits of this tract, to follow out; but I would venture to suggest to any Englishman who will thoroughly study the records of Parliamentary history since 1832, that he will come to the conclusion that the mischiefs which have followed the attempt to combine the two nations into one representative system have been felt in the degradation and deterioration of English Government and the English Parliament itself.

The Mode of doing Irish Business in the United Parliament.

As I have adverted to the mode in which English business is very often jostled and crushed out of the way of Irish party debates, I must briefly glance at the mode in which the ordinary Irish business is done.

Writing on an Irish question, I may, perhaps, adopt that very expressive form of statement which English prejudice calls an Irish "Bull," and if I am asked how Irish business is done, answer the question by saying that a great deal of it is not done at all. It were easy to give a long catalogue of measures

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