(2) That the British Ministers were ready to concede the former, and were not ready to yield the latter; but conceded both, owing to the circumstances of the time, and considered the concession final. (3) That the British Ministers wished to obtain a contribution from Ireland for Imperial purposes, and the maintenance of a final appeal to an Imperial Court of Judicature. (4) That the British Ministers do not appear to have proposed the representation of Ireland in the British Legislature. In substance the plan proposed by Mr. Gladstone in 1886 was the plan which Grattan rejected in 1782. The objection to any such plan is the probability that if Ireland were to be asked, and were even to consent for the moment to make an appreciable contribution to the common expenses of the Empire, without being given through her representatives any share in the Parliamentary control of the funds so voted, and in the discussion of Imperial affairs—if, in other words, she was made a tribute-paying colony, instead of being treated as a member of a Federal system having an undiminished area of taxation for National purposes—a fresh and formidable grievance would arise in a few years, on the ground that taxation without representation was an intolerable thing, and contrary to the first principles of the Constitution. It was with these considerations present to his mind that Mr. Butt, when leader of the Irish Home Rule Party, in order to get over the difficulty, had proposed that a Federal arrangement should be instituted between Great Britain and Ireland—_i.e._, an arrangement under which Great Britain and Ireland should agree to vest certain powers in a purely Irish Legislature and certain others in the Imperial Parliament. The late Mr. Sharman Crawford, who like Mr. Butt was an Ulsterman and a Protestant, held similar views at an earlier epoch, and put them prominently forward during the period which elapsed between the imprisonment of O’Connell and the collapse of the first Tenant-right movement. With their opinion before us, it may be asked—why was no such plan proposed in 1782 by the English statesmen of the day? The answer is not far to seek.