"It is to be feared that Germany cannot add any real strength to control Russia, while Russia knows that the insane vanity of French politicians is preparing a war of vengeance against Germany. Until the masses of the people have a practical constitutional plebiscite to _veto_ war _beforehand,_ it seems as though horrors which seem dead and obsolete must rise anew. _Perhaps_ this is the lesson which the populations all have to learn. The earliest great triumph which the old plebeians of Rome won was the constitutional principle that wars could not be made without previous sanction of the popular assembly. England, alas! has not yet even demanded this obvious and just veto. The men whose trade is war, whose honours and wealth can only be won by war, will make it by hook or by crook, while their fatal and immoral trade is honoured. "Affectionately yours, "F. W. Newman." In April, 1887, the Irish question was again to the fore, and part of the letter from which I quote shows clearly that Newman was in favour of some form of Local Government for Ireland, though not of the same kind as was being pressed forward by Mr. Parnell, who had urged on his countrymen agrarian agitation and boycotting as the screw which was to force the hand of the Home Government. "My opinion is unchanged (1) that Grattan's Parliament was foolishly, mischievously, and immorally subverted by English double-dealing; (2) that in one hundred years things are so changed in Ireland and _in Rome_ that we cannot go back to that crisis and heal old wounds by reinstating Grattan's work without making new wounds; (3) I deeply blame Orangemen in Belfast as (apparently) bent on promoting animosity, and on convincing us that they will rather rush into civil war than endure a Parliament in Dublin supreme over all Ireland: but however much this may be suspected as the bluster and cunning of a minority in Ulster, to ignore it totally may be unjust as well as unwise. And besides, I think that Ireland needs the practice of Local Government, varying locally, before that of a Central Irish Parliament. This forbids my desiring a complete triumph to Mr. Parnell. "You are aware that I have long desired Provincial Chambers for all three kingdoms, and can see nothing to forbid them now for Ireland if Mr. Gladstone were to take that side. If he did it would be carried against Mr. Parnell by a vast majority of votes. No mere political measure can cure famine and rackrent or insecure tenure; but if the agrarian evil be appeased, no hatred of England on the part of Irish leaders will suffice to make Ireland discontented. If Mr. Gladstone fixedly opposes, if he says 'Honour compels me'--his Midlothian defence of the Egyptian war!--I should not the less say he had made a wrongful treaty. But 'a fac is a fac': _someone_ hitherto makes this settlement impossible. If now the Tories miscarry, apparently Gladstone will come in again, and not Oedipus can tell us whether he will dissolve Parliament.