PREFACE.

It is in the highest degree desirable that England and Ireland should entertain mutual sentiments of friendship, and that both should willingly occupy their appropriate positions as constituent parts of a great empire. It is in the highest degree desirable that all the inhabitants of Ireland should render to the throne of these kingdoms the homage of hearty and unqualified loyalty.

It is notorious that Ireland is dissatisfied with her position. The following work may help to elucidate the causes of her discontent. It is surely worth inquiry whether the position of Ireland is such as she ought to occupy-whether it is compatible with her rights, with her interests, and with her honour. And if it be compatible with none of these, it is worth inquiry whether a more satisfactory position could not be substituted for one which results in national suffering, in unnatural emigration, and in extensive disaffection.

The present condition of Ireland is a scandal to the civilised world, a curse to its inhabitants, and a disgrace to the imperial government. If experience can teach anything, the experience of sixty-six years of union unquestionably teaches that imperial legislation is incompetent to render Ireland prosperous and happy.

When Irish discontent is spoken of, English writers some

times suppose that it is merely a traditionary sentiment still. lingering in the national mind-the surviving result of injustice that has long since passed away. For instance, the

Times, in an article on Fenianism in September, 1865, thus deals with the existing discontent: "The greater our former injustice to Ireland, the easier it is to account for existing discontent without assuming any present injustice. If there be any such present injustice, let it be pointed out. Unless it be the maintenance of the Irish Church, we know not where to look for it; and assuredly no English interest will be allowed to protect this institution if Ireland be united in demanding its abolition."

When the Times named the State Church as the only subsisting injustice, it forgot a still greater and more grievous wrong the Legislative Union. No doubt the State Church is a monstrous wrong, and its maintenance is incompatible with the mutual good feeling of the two great sections of the Irish. people. I wish with all my heart that the word "Protestant" and "Catholic," as symbols of political party, could be obliterated from our vocabulary. This can be only effected in Ireland by the total and final separation of religion from the State.

The Saturday Review also says that injustice to Ireland is merely a matter of past history. It admits indeed that grievances existed at a former period. "But to our minds," it proceeds to say, "all that is passed now. We have turned over a new leaf. We have for some years tried to govern Ireland as a part of England, as justly, as patiently, as mildly as we could. The case for an aggrieved, a separate, an alien Ireland has passed away."

This self-complacent journal is why discontent exists in Ireland.

unable to comprehend "We have," it seems to

say, "done our best for your ungrateful nation. We have destroyed your parliament, and yet you are not satisfied. We have thereby trebled the absentee drain, extinguishing numberless home sources of industrial profit-yet you are not satisfied. We extort from your poverty an enormous tributeyet you are not satisfied. We make you pay a smart share of our own pre-Union debt-charge-yet you are not satisfied. We have drawn off to England the Irish surplus revenue, which the Act of Union promised should be appropriated to Irish purposes exclusively-yet you are not satisfied. We meet your demand for the redress of these grievances with chicanery and insolence; we call you sturdy beggars, and we mystify financial statements—yet you are not satisfied. We have got hold of your manufacture market-yet you are not satisfied. We have governed you in such a mode that your race seems in a fair way of being expelled from their native country, much to the delight of the leading organ of British opinion-yet you are not satisfied. O incorrigible nation of grumblers, how is it possible you can be discontented or ungrateful when we lavish such blessings on you? For, look you! this is governing Ireland as if she were part of England."

The free paraphrase I have given of the words of the Saturday Review shows, not unfairly, the contrast between English opinion and Irish fact. The journalist innocently says: "We have for some years tried to govern Ireland as a part of England." The experiment has not brought prosperity to Ireland. Nor is it possible that it could. For Ireland is not a

part of England. God has stamped on her the indestructible features of national individuality. Self-legislation is her vital need. To govern her, therefore, as a part of England is, in effect, to govern her for the benefit of England, and not for her own benefit. We protest against that ruinous spoliation of her wealth, that insulting suppression of her individuality, which are termed "governing her as a part of England." We demand that she shall be governed as a distinct nation, with separate needs and separate rights, in accordance with the principles of the Irish Constitution of 1782, which, notwithstanding great obstructive influences, diffused unexampled prosperity through the nation during the period of its continuance.

In a part of the article of the Saturday Review to which I have referred, the writer, speaking of a projected Fenian invasion of Canada, says: "Fortunately, the Canadians, by an overwhelming majority, are firmly attached to British rule." So they may well be. For the Canadians enjoy a free parliament, free education, a free soil, and free churches. They are not robbed of their revenue for British uses. But Canadian attachment to Great Britain would sustain a rude shock if the imperial government attempted to rule Canada upon the present Irish model; if it tried to govern Canada "as a part of England"-in other words, to destroy her legislature, rifle her exchequer, set the Anglican Church astride on the backs of the Canadians, and in every department of the state make English prejudice, English theory, or English sentiment supersede Canadian opinion.

Among the most rational notions I have seen expressed by English journalists on Irish affairs, is the following dictum of

the Pall Mall Gazette in an article on Fenianism in September, 1865: "The real prospect for Ireland is that of becoming in course of time a cis-Atlantic Lower Canada. It will no more amalgamate heartily with England than oil with water; but there is no reason why we should not be perfectly good friends, and very useful and convenient neighbours."

Not the least reason, if Ireland were treated as Canada is treated. Not the least reason, if Ireland had but the fair play of self-legislation, which is her indefeasible right. To call this dismemberment is to suppose that Foster, Grattan, Saurin, Ponsonby, and the other great opponents of the Union, were enemies of British connexion, instead of being, as they were, its firm friends.

The instinct of every Irishman-unless he is influenced by sectarian animosities and fears-will impel him not only to abhor the destruction of his country's legislature, but to hate the destroyer also. There never was a greater blunder than to call the Union a bond of international affection. When I was a boy of ten years old, I was told by my seniors that we once had a parliament in Ireland, and that English influence extinguished it. I candidly acknowlege that my immediate impulse was to regard England with resentful abhorrence. Religious prejudices had nothing to do with the matter, for I was born of a Protestant family. I do not state this from the absurd notion that any importance attaches to myself or my sentiments. I make the avowal because it records and explains my individual participation in a sentiment that at this moment actuates millions, at home, in America, and in the colonies, and which, by its general diffusion, assumes an aspect that is anything but contemptible.