As the first step it should be calmly settled what are the specific grievances under which Ireland labours, and which the Imperial legislature cannot, but an Irish Parliament could, remove. Historic wrongs are past remedy. Ireland has more than her share of representation in Parliament. She has no established Church. If her priesthood would let her, she would have a complete system of national education. Her land law is now far more favourable to the tenant than that of the other kingdoms, and she has been and still is receiving government subventions in aid of the tillers of her soil which English and Scotch tenants do not receive and which would cease if she became independent. Nothing is closed against her people. They have the markets of the whole Empire. All its offices, patronage, and services are perfectly open to them. So long as they will abstain from outrage and murder, they enjoy all the personal privileges of British freemen. It cannot be said that the law has been suspended for any purpose other than the repression of outrage. If the ordinary law and government were very bad, Ulster would hardly have prospered as it has done. If Castle government is the grievance, abolition of it was offered to Ireland long ago and was by her rejected. Let the existing grievances be specified, and let it be seen whether Imperial legislation is incapable of redressing them. The truth is that with the Irish leaders it has not been redress of particular wrongs and grievances or the introduction of practical improvements that has been the object of desire. Their aim has been to create a nationalist feeling which should end in political separation. Such has been the constant tenor of their appeals to sentiment and the end to which their policy has really pointed. Suppose Ireland severed from Great Britain, what would be her lot? She would then have to assume all the burdens and responsibilities of an independent nation, including military and naval defence, as well as the entire expense of a separate government. As she could not hope to vie in strength with her powerful neighbour, she would be at that neighbour's mercy; nor, considering the temper in which the parting would take place, would occasions for quarrel be unlikely to arise. Ireland might have to seek the protection and become the vassal of some foreign power. Irish trade would no longer be free of British markets or of the markets of British dependencies. Irish labour would no longer be free of the British labour market. The Indian service and the Imperial services generally would be closed against Irishmen. Nor would Ireland be entirely united in herself or perfectly set free from the hated British influence. She would still have in her the men of Ulster, Saxon and Protestant, antagonistic probably to the Catholic majority, and if they were pressed in the unequal conflict, stretching out their hands for aid to their fellow-Protestants and kinsmen in Great Britain.