if Westminster should cease at any time to be the centre of interest, disaster was sure to follow. And this conception of the duty of an Irish National Party overlooked the possibilities latent in Ulster Unionism. To an extent, not at the time fully grasped by anyone in Ireland, it stood not for the Unionist Party, as that party was understood in England, but for itself alone. The exigencies of party warfare required that it, like the Nationalist Party, should attach itself to an English party; that it should adopt the parlance of English parties; that it should declare its unbending loyalty to Imperial interests and the British Constitution. But it was not inclined to admit in practice that the British Constitution could override its own particular interests. It could not be ignored or flouted with impunity; it was the rock upon which all schemes based upon the peaceful possibilities of English parliamentary situations were destined in the end to make shipwreck. But the rock was not yet in sight and its existence was unsuspected. It was common ground to the two Irish parties that the arena was Parliament and that the prize should go to the party which won the game according to Westminster rules. It is easy now for those who kept their eyes shut to say that they would have opened them if everybody else had not been born blind, and it would be more dignified to say nothing. But the fact remains that the mistake was made. During the lean years for its policy that followed 1908, _Sinn Fein_ continued persistently to preach its doctrines: that to obtain "the full measure of a nation's rights" Ireland must rely not upon outside aid but upon her own efforts: that all Irishmen had a common interest, and that interest not the interest of England: that all Irishmen, whether called Nationalist or Unionist, were brothers in a common country impoverished and weakened by the loss of independence resulting from the Act of Union, and that to recognize their common interests and understand one another was their immediate object. It published articles on the destruction of Irish industries in the interests of those of England, a destruction arrested by the Constitution of 1782, and acting without restraint since the loss of that Constitution by the Act of Union. It welcomed literary contributions by the most eminent Irish men of letters, without distinction of politics or religion: it preached unceasingly the doctrines of toleration and goodwill amongst Irishmen. But as the prospect of the triumph of parliamentarianism through its alliance with the Liberal Party grew brighter, interest centred more and more upon the doings of Parliament and the vicissitudes of parliamentary fortunes. Now at last the dream of a century was to take shape in something resembling a substance, and the time for discussion, arrangement and accommodation was over. In April, 1910, _Sinn Fein_ announced on behalf of its party that Mr. John