* * * * * "Father, what is the difference between Tories and Radicals?" "Radicals, my dear, are the infamous crew who wish to destroy all the noble institutions for which the Tories would give their life-blood." "And which are you, Father?" I have inflicted this ancient (and, I always think, rather touching) scrap of dialogue upon you because it exactly illustrates my impression of _The Soul of Ulster_ (HURST AND BLACKETT). In other words, this little book, written as ably and attractively as you would expect from the author of _The First Seven Divisions_, is really less a dispassionate survey of the Home Rule difficulty than a piece of special pleading for the Northern cause. According, therefore, to your own attitude towards this problem will characters occupies her rural stage--an old grandmother, be your estimate of Lord ERNEST HAMILTON'S arguments. To the bigoted (or confirmed) Orangeman they will seem revelation; to the confirmed (or bigoted) Nationalist they will as clearly seem rubbish. Even I, who admit the justice of the author's contentions, fancied now and again (as in the matter of the "Peep-o'-Day Boys," for example) that a slightly more generous admission of faults on his own side would have strengthened the presentation of his case. One of the most interesting chapters of a quite short volume is that in which the author explains his belief, at first rather startling, that the eventual solution of the vexed question may be provided through the Sinn Fein movement. That hope, and the reasons for it, are certainly alone worth the half-crown for which you can examine them. * * * * * [Illustration: "SEE THAT, SIR? 'FARM LABOURERS, MINIMUM TWENTY-FIVE SHILLINGS A WEEK.' NOW, SIR, WOULD YOU ADVISE ME TO LEAVE MY PRESENT OCCUPATION AND TAKE UP FARM-WORK?"] * * * * *