The story is unfinished. Once again we stand at the close of another experiment of England in the government of Ireland. Each of them has been founded on the idea of English interests; each has lasted about a hundred years--"Tudor conquest," Plantations, an English parliament, a Union parliament. All alike have ended in a disordered finance and a flight of the people from the land. Grattan foretold the failure of the Union and its cause. "As Ireland," he said, "is necessary to Great Britain, so is complete and perfect liberty necessary to Ireland, and both islands must be drawn much closer to a free constitution, that they may be drawn closer to one another." In England we have seen the advance to that freer constitution. The democracy has entered into larger liberties, and has brought new ideals. The growth of that popular life has been greatly advanced by the faith of Ireland. Ever since Irish members helped to carry the Reform Acts they have been on the side of liberty, humanity, peace, and justice. They have been the most steadfast believers in constitutional law against privilege, and its most unswerving defenders. At Westminster they have always stood for human rights, as nobler even than rights of property. What Chatham foresaw has come true: the Irish in the English parliament have been powerful missionaries of democracy. A freedom-loving Ireland has been conquering her conquerors in the best sense. The changes of the last century have deeply affected men's minds. The broadening liberties of England as a free country, the democratic movements that have brought new classes into government, the wider experience of imperial methods, the growing influence of men of good-will, have tended to change her outlook to Ireland. In the last generation she has been forced to think more gravely of Irish problems. She has pledged her credit to close the land question and create a peasant proprietary. With any knowledge of Irish history the religious alarm, the last cry of prejudice, must inevitably disappear. The old notion of Ireland as the "property" of England, and of its exploitation for the advantage of England, is falling into the past. A mighty spirit of freedom too has passed over the great Colonies and Dominions. They since their beginning have given shelter to outlawed Irishmen flying from despair at home. They have won their own pride of freedom, and have all formally proclaimed their judgment that Ireland should be allowed the right to shape her own government. The United States, who owe so much to Irishmen in their battle for independence, and in the labours of their rising prosperity, have supported the cause of Ireland for the last hundred years; ever since the first important meeting in New York to express American sympathy with Ireland was held in 1825, when President Jackson, of Irish origin, a Protestant, is said to have promised the first thousand dollars to the Irish emancipation fund.