With both these safeguards inserted in the Home Rule Bill much of the objection commonly felt against the creation of an Irish Parliament, an objection largely due to loose thinking, should disappear. It may be argued that both in Canada and Australia disputes do occasionally occur between the State Legislatures and the Central Parliaments as to their respective rights. That is one of the inevitable disadvantages of a federal regime, but, as a very distinguished Canadian statesman once said to the writer, the counterbalancing advantages of a de-centralized system far outweigh all such drawbacks. No student of current politics can be blind to the fundamental fact that the amalgamating of the Parliaments of Scotland, Ireland and England into one legislature, without at the same time unifying the legislation of those countries, has produced a state of congestion and overwork which cannot be permanently tolerated. In existing circumstances neither matters affecting the whole Empire nor local legislative needs can secure a sufficient expenditure either of energy or time to do them justice. By partially reversing the process of unification through a devolution of powers to local legislatures we should be following a precedent that has proved successful in other parts of the Empire and in foreign countries while at the same time putting our action into harmony with the true process of evolution. XVI.—Contemporary Ireland And The Religious Question (I) A Catholic View. BY MONSIGNOR O’RIORDAN It is as characteristic of those who have fallen in fortune to talk of their wealth as it is of the consumptive to talk of their health. It is natural. If they were conscious of having the reality they would not feel the need of convincing others that they had it. For a like reason those speak most of virtues and gifts who have them least. One rightly suspects the spirit of those who keep insisting that all are intolerant who think and act on other principles and in other ways than theirs. The word tolerance has met the fate of other words which denote excellent things; it has come to be misused. “Tolerance,” like “religion,” “liberty,” etc., has become a shibboleth, and like these it has been run to death.