Charles James Fox shares with Edmund Burke the praise of having brought the ideas which we call Liberal to bear on Irish government, and his words are at least as true to-day as when they were written: "We ought not to presume to legislate for a nation in whose feelings and affections, wants and interests, opinions and prejudices, we have no sympathy." Are "The Incompatibles" to be always incompatible, or can we now, even at the eleventh hour, make some effort to understand the working of the Irish temperament? The incompatibility, as Matthew Arnold read it, is not between the two nations which Providence has so closely knit together, but between insolence, dulness, rigidity, on the one hand, and sensibility, quickness, flexibility, on the other. What Arnold lamented was that England has too often been represented in Ireland, and here also when Irish questions were discussed, by "the genuine, unmitigated Murdstone--the common middle-class Englishman, who has come forth from Salem House--and Mr. Creakle. He is seen in full force, of course, in the Protestant North; but throughout Ireland he is a prominent figure of the English garrison. Him the Irish see, see him only too much and too often"--and to see him is to dislike him, and the country which sent him forth. Is there not a touch of Murdstone and Creakle in the present dealings of Parliament with Ireland? Forces greater than that of Salem House have decreed that Ireland is to have self-government, and have converted--for the astonishment of after-ages--Mr. Balfour and Lord Curzon into Home Rulers. Surely, if there is one question which, more conspicuously than another, a nation is entitled to settle for itself it is the question whether military service shall be compulsory. True, the legislative machinery of Home Rule is not yet in action; but legislative machinery is not the only method by which national sentiment can be ascertained. To introduce conscription into Ireland by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, after you have conceded to the Irish their claim to have a Parliament of their own, may not indeed be a breach of faith, but it surely is a breach of manners and good sense. VII _FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS_ Many, said the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed, but few are the true bacchanals. Many, in the present day, are they who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, methinks, are her real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom" is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though 'twere ungracious to question its sincerity, we must admit that this generous enthusiasm is of very recent growth.