Lord Salisbury's Ministry came into office, six years ago, at the head of the most powerful majority that had been returned to the House of Commons since the great Reform era. The time was singularly opportune to consider the state of Ireland, and to deal with the Irish questions that required sound and wise treatment. The Opposition was paralysed by a rout at the polls; the National League conspiracy showed few signs of life; the 'Nationalist' party was rent asunder; the community was more quiescent than it had been for years. It would be unfair to deny that, since it acquired power, the Government has been beset by many and grave obstacles in legislating on domestic subjects; it has been encompassed by a sea of foreign troubles; it has had to conduct the protracted war in South Africa. It would be absurd, too, to expect that it could, once for all, have placed Irish affairs permanently on a secure basis; this can only be the result of the wisdom of years aided by the healing influence of time. But it has disappointed enlightened Irish opinion; it has not done, or even tried to do, what it might have accomplished. Undoubtedly parts of its policy have been good; it has effected something, if not much, in developing the material resources of the west of Ireland, and in mitigating the danger and the stress of Irish poverty; it has carried on the excellent work of Mr. Arthur Balfour in this respect; the Department of Agriculture it has lately formed will, not improbably, be of real use in promoting industry and self-reliance among the peasantry, on the principles advocated, a century and a half ago, by Berkeley. But commendation, I think, must here end; the Government, I believe, has made grave mistakes; it has assuredly not successfully dealt with the great 'Case of Ireland,' greater now than in the days of Molyneux and Swift. It has not reduced the excessive representation of Ireland in the House of Commons; until this is done the Union will not be secure. It has disregarded the verdict of the important Commission which has declared that Ireland has been immensely overtaxed for years; here it defies universal Irish opinion; and having pledged itself to make a further inquiry, it has not hitherto taken a step to redeem its pledge. It is divided on the question of high education in Ireland, and professes that this must be an 'open question,' as if this was not unwise and perilous; and though it has appointed a Commission to report on the subject, Catholic Ireland very possibly may not obtain the place of learning which it is entitled to demand. Above all, on the capital question of the Irish land, the Government has certainly all but ignored the recommendations of a Commission chosen by itself, and has refused to lessen the injustice proved to have been done wholesale; like its predecessors, in the case of the Encumbered Estates Act, it is still bent on agrarian legislation that has done infinite mischief.