There is a school of men that is always lost in admiration of all foreign institutions, and that has the greatest contempt for all that passes at home. Is this a right sentiment? We know our own institutions through experience, but others only in theory. It therefore happens that, whilst we see quite easily the defective side of our own, we are I believe much too inclined to exaggerate the merits of neighbours. The English inhabit an old house. The arrangements, which were excellent in former times, are now frequently found very inconvenient. They make a few reforms, but those are done with the utmost prudence, because when workmen are placed in an old building there is always danger of the walls giving way. They know that if they decide to pull down the old house and build a new one they must spend a good deal, and also sleep outside for some time. In order to avoid this inconvenience, they prefer remaining where they are, as long as it will hold together. I think their argument is just, but they are not as well lodged as they might be. We are not in the same position; our old house has fallen, we have had all the annoyance and expense of a removal: we had to sleep outside for a long time. Now, the great work of the new one is finished, the roof is in its place; the ensign is still missing and also many small interior fittings, but still, such as it is, we can certainly say, that the service is better done there than in most other establishments. But to continue the comparison, it is but too evident that great reforms are needed in this country. For instance, this institution of a grand jury, almost omnipotent and absolutely irresponsible, is made to exasperate the people. It is not even a feudal institution, for the feudal law provided that “none could be judged save by his peers.” It is the application, pure and simple, of the rights of conquest. If the Land Leaguers confined themselves to demanding the abolition of such abuses, they would be so manifestly right that every reasonable man would sympathise with them, and the English would be forced to yield at once. Instead of doing this, they claim a number of things that cannot possibly be granted, which would manifestly be either useless or injurious to them if they obtained them, and no one really can tell whether they would reform existing abuses or whether they would not rather content themselves with using them against their political adversaries. Thus the other day the Lord Mayor of Dublin told me that Ireland suffered from too much centralisation. If such cases as that which formed the subject of the meeting at which I was present are of frequent occurrence, it seems to me that it is rather an excess of decentralisation from which she is suffering.