Competing plans have been put forward, with more or less detail, for governing Ireland. The suggestion that Ireland should be governed as a _Crown_ colony need only be mentioned to be rejected. It means in effect, that Ireland should sink from the rank of an equal or independent member of the British Empire to the grade of the most dependent of her colonies, and should be governed despotically by English officials, without representation in the English Parliament or any machinery of local self-government. Another proposal has been to give four provincial Governments to Ireland, limiting their powers to local rating, education, and legislation in respect of matters which form the subjects of private Bill legislation at present; in fact, to place them somewhat on the footing of the provinces of Canada, while reserving to the English Parliament the powers vested in the Dominion of Canada. Such a scheme would seem adapted to whet the appetite of the Irish for nationality, without supplying them with any portion of the real article. It would supply no basis on which a system of agrarian reform could be founded, as it would be impossible to leave the determination of a local question, which is a unit in its dangers and its difficulties, to four different Legislatures; above all, the hinge on which the question turns--the sufficiency of the security for the British taxpayer--could not be afforded by provincial resources. Indeed, no alternative for the Land Bill of 1886 has been suggested which does not err in one of the following points: either it pledges English credit on insufficient security, or it requires the landowners to accept Irish debentures or some form of Irish paper money at par; in other words, it makes English taxes a fund for relieving Irish landlords, or else it compels the Irish landowner, if he sells at all, to sell at an inadequate price. Before parting with Canada, it may be worth while noticing that another, and more feasible, alternative is to imitate more closely the Canadian Constitution, and to vest the central or Dominion powers in a central Legislature in Dublin, parcelling out the provincial powers, as they have been called, amongst several provincial Legislatures. This scheme might be made available as a means of protecting Ulster from the supposed danger of undue interference from the Central Government, and for making, possibly, other diversities in the local administration of various parts of Ireland in order to meet special local exigencies.