I shall not attempt to measure the relative strength of these influences, but I should be inclined to rate highest the ultimate effect of democracy, and of a Parliament in which must be a Protestant minority powerful by their talents, their wealth and their energy. Democracy has everywhere its own problems, as engrossing for it as any in which the Church is interested. It will solve them in its own way, which may not be always the Church’s. “Nothing,” says Mr. Bryce with reference to America, “excites more general disapproval than any attempt by an ecclesiastical organisation to interfere in politics.” Under democratic institutions there may be the same results in Ireland. The remodelling of primary education will probably be one of the first struggles in which an Irish Parliament will be engaged. The fight will be in the open, which is a clear gain. The Church may for a time succeed in retaining its present hold over the schools. It is quite as likely that it will lose ground, and that the first Irish Minister of Education will be the first to incur ecclesiastical censure. There is much evidence of the growth of a widespread toleration extending it may be hoped, to the northeast corner of Ulster: “Since the Local Government Act of 1898,” writes Mr. Annan Bryce, “it has not been found that the priest interferes unless in the rare cases where there is a question of personal morality, and then not always with success.” The opinions of three Lord-Lieutenants upon this point cannot be ignored. Lord Aberdeen: “After years of continuous residence in Ireland, watching affairs and meeting people of every class and creed, I am profoundly impressed with the baselessness of alarm about the consequences of Home Rule. “On Home Rule for Ireland, I repeat and emphasise the opinion of my former telegrams, especially regarding apprehension of religious intolerance.” The late Lord Spencer: “I have had some experience of Ireland, and yet I do not know any specific instance where there has been the exercise of religious intolerance on the part of the Roman Catholics against their Protestant countrymen.” The Marquis of Crewe: “In 1886 and 1893 the animosity between classes, largely agrarian in its origin, was far stronger than at present, and the line of cleavage roughly followed that of religious difference. But even in those days, as I well remember, it was evident that the possibilities of intolerance in a self-governed Ireland were deliberately and grossly exaggerated, with a party motive. Now, when the various classes know each other better, and there is less occasion for friction, the attempt to excite religious discord will utterly fail, as I firmly believe.”