the State, and proved their devotion to it at the gravest crises; what they are has been shown in the war in South Africa. At present, however, profound and just discontent has sunk deep into the hearts of this order of men. They are the heirs of conquest and confiscation, it is said; but they were placed in the position they hold by English kings and Parliaments; is that any reason that, within the last half-century, the Nemesis of conquest and confiscation should have been invoked against them, in the Encumbered Estates Act and predatory agrarian laws? They were too much of an exclusive caste, separated from their dependents, and possessing powers over the occupiers of the soil, which were sometimes abused; is that any reason that they should have been deprived of political influence, supplanted by the bureaucratic Castle, changed from owners of their estates into mere pensioners, shut out by the force of law from local and county government? What, however, the Irish landed gentry most deeply feel is that, in the course of the last sixty years, they have been deceived, nay, betrayed, by British statesmen, who, having repeatedly assured them that their position was secure, have sacrificed them when it seemed to suit their purpose. The Imperial Parliament has, during the last century, had absolute control over the affairs of Ireland. No impartial student of history will deny that it has governed Ireland very much better than her old Parliament could possibly have done, after the dreadful rising of 1798 had literally torn the country to pieces. The large majority of thinking persons have long ago been convinced that the policy of Home Rule, that is, the substitution for the Houses at Westminster of a statutory legislature seated in Dublin, would be disastrous to the Empire and Ireland alike; and that the evils attendant on the present system would be aggravated a hundred-fold by the revolution Mr. Gladstone tried to effect. Nor can it be questioned that the Imperial Parliament has, for a long period, sincerely desired to legislate and rule for the good of Ireland, and has accomplished important Irish reforms, whatever legitimate exceptions may be taken to them. Protestant ascendency and the Established Church have fallen; the law has long been indifferent to Irishmen of all classes; education has been brought home to the mass of the people; the tenure of land has been transformed, unwisely no doubt, but wholly in the interest of the occupiers of the soil. Nevertheless, much that the Imperial Parliament has done, and left undone, in the Victorian era, remains matter of censure and regret; and its Irish administration has been in many respects unfortunate. The neglect to make a provision for the Irish Catholic priesthood, a main object of Pitt and of our best statesmen, when the Anglican Church was disestablished in 1869, was a grave and a calamitous mistake; the attempts that have been made to reform the Irish