land system have, with scarcely an exception, been sorry failures; the results have been, in no doubtful sense, deplorable. Few, too, will justify such measures as the establishment in Ireland of household suffrage, that is, giving a monopoly of political power to an ignorant and priest-ridden democracy,[15] and depriving property and intelligence of all influence, or as the handing over county and city government, in three-fourths of Ireland, to much the same classes. Nor are even positive errors such as these the worst, perhaps, that can be laid to the charge of the Imperial Parliament in the conduct of Irish affairs. With rare exceptions, the reforms it has made have been, unhappily, too late, and have been obtained only through menacing popular movements; it has over and over again made Irish questions the mere subjects of the selfish strife of party, with evil consequences for Irish interests; it has occasionally, and even for large spaces of time, shown a marked indifference to reasonable Irish demands; and its administration of Ireland has repeatedly been inconsistent, even contradictory, shortsighted, and feeble. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that the rule of the Imperial Parliament, in the circumstances in which Ireland has been placed, is, from the nature of the case, faulty in many respects; it is that of a dominant assembly practically controlling a subject dependency; and, as we see in the striking instances of Athens and Rome, this kind of government has never been free from great and real objections. This, no doubt, is no reason that we should fly from less to unbearable evils, and adopt the fatal scheme of Home Rule; and the causes that have made our Parliamentary _regime_ in Ireland as defective as it is are evident, and, as I shall point out afterwards, may probably be removed, to some extent at least, without subverting the constitution of these realms. But the broad fact remains, and cannot be concealed; the Imperial Parliament, much as it has done, has not reached the hearts or gained, in any degree, the sympathy of an immense majority of the Irish people.