people have been aroused, and Ministers have been swept off their feet by a storm of indignation and disloyalty.

Let it be borne in mind that up to 1869 -always excepting the Melbourne Administration-not one single act was done by the English Parliament which was calculated to obliterate the memory of past wrongs, and to give the Irish people confidence in English statesmanship. And what has been done since? The Land Act of 1870 was a hopeless failure. Mr. Gladstone was under the impression that the Church Act and the Land Act of 1870 had settled the Irish question. In your "Life of Parnell " Life of Parnell" you report Mr. Gladstone as saying: "I do not think that Mr. Parnell or Irish matters much engaged my attention until we came back to government in 1880. You

see we thought the Irish question was settled. There was the Church Act, and the Land Act, and there was a time of peace and prosperity, and I frankly confess that we did not give so much attention to Ireland as we ought to have done. Then you know there was distress and trouble, and the Irish question came again to the front." Nothing can show more clearly the incompetence of English statesmen to understand the Irish question than that Mr. Gladstone, who had done more for Ireland than any other English statesman, should have believed he had settled the Irish question for all time, when, in point of fact, his Acts of 1869 and 1870 were unsettling Acts, and only the beginning of an era of reform. Yet Mr. Gladstone believed that it was both beginning and end. Despite

the efforts made by Isaac Butt and other Irish members between 1871 and 1876, nothing was done in the direction of land reform until the Land League came. Is there any honest Englishman who, looking the question fairly in the face, will assert that the English Parliament has any claim to the gratitude of Irishmen ? One thing is perfectly clear, viz., that in the words of Mr. Lecky the English Parliament still fails to "allay discontent or to attract affection." Assuredly if ever there was a case that required consideration in view of these facts, it is the demand of the Irish people, that, with this record before the world, they should be allowed to do, what it has been demonstrated the English Parliament cannot do, viz., to govern Ireland in accordance with Irish public opinion.

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Despite the educational propaganda carried on by Mr. Gladstone between 1886 and 1893, it is much to be feared that not only the bulk of Englishmen, but many English statesmen, do not yet clearly understand the nature of the Irish demand, or the grounds on which it rests. I venture to say that there are many even intelligent Englishmen who do not know that there ever was a Parliament in Ireland; while the number who are aware that the old Irish Parliament was almost coeval, and actually coordinate with the English Parliament, might be counted on the fingers of one's hand.

The first Irish Parliament was held in the reign of Edward I, in 1295. The earliest Irish statutes date from 1310. From 1295 to 1495 the Irish Parliament

was free from the control of the English Parliament. No law made in England

was binding in Ireland. It was in nowise necessary for the English Parliament to ratify the Irish statutes. In 1495 the first attempt at any innovation was made. Poynings' law was passed. It provided (1) that all Acts hitherto passed in England should be binding in Ireland: (2) that no Parliament should hereafter be summoned in Ireland until the Viceroy had obtained the King's Licence to hold it: (3) that the heads of bills to be introduced in the Irish Parliament should be first submitted to the English Privy Council: (4) that the consent of King and Privy Council should be obtained before such bills were introduced. It will be seen that, servile as this Parliament was, it did not surrender its independence;