Ireland has passed through a revolution in the Victorian age--Material progress--Dublin--Belfast--Improvement in Catholic places of worship and in the habitations of the people--State of the Irish community--Symptoms of retrogression--Decline of agriculture--The progress of Ireland Ireland much less than that of England and Scotland, and why--State of the Irish land system--Recent legislation has done some good, but it has been unjust, and has had pernicious effects--Ireland divided into three peoples--Notwithstanding great reforms Catholic Ireland is still, in the main, disaffected--Presbyterian Ireland--Cry for the confiscation of the Irish land--Protestant Ireland--Fall of its old ascendency--Discontent among the landed gentry--Nature of the government of Ireland by the Imperial Parliament--Its merits and defects--Attitude of the greater part of Ireland towards it--The administration of Irish affairs--The bureaucracy of the Castle--The Anglican, Presbyterian, and Catholic Irish Churches--The administration of justice in Ireland--Irish literature and public opinion--General survey of the present state of Ireland--Irish policy of Lord Salisbury's Ministry--'Present Irish Questions' to be discussed in this work 1-38 CHAPTER II THE QUESTION OF HOME RULE The question of Home Rule not extinct--The reasons--Butt's scheme of Home Rule--It is denounced and ridiculed by Mr. Gladstone, and defeated in the House of Commons--Death of Butt--The Home Rule movement becomes allied with a foreign conspiracy--Davitt and Parnell--The Land League--Mr. Gladstone's surrender to it--The movement makes no progress in the Parliament of 1880-85--The General Election of 1885--Mr. Gladstone suddenly adopts the policy of Home Rule--The probable reasons--The Home Rule Bill of 1886--Its nature and tendencies--Decisive objections to the measure--It is rejected at the General Election of 1886, having been previously rejected in the House of Commons-- Policy and conduct of Mr. Gladstone--The Home Rule movement makes some progress in England, and why--The Home Rule Bill of 1893--It is much worse than that of 1886--The reasons--It is rejected by the House of Lords--Home Rule under different forms--The Union must be maintained--Proposal that Parliament should occasionally sit in Dublin--The over-representation of Ireland should be redressed 39-83 CHAPTER III THE QUESTION OF THE IRISH LAND--SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE LAND SYSTEM OF IRELAND TO THE YEAR 1870