Lord Aberdeen's return to Ireland, twenty years after his first entry into Dublin as Lord-Lieutenant, was announced immediately after the resignation of Mr. Balfour's ministry. It was to a new Ireland that the viceroy came. Much history had been made since the days when the 'Union of Hearts' presaged a smooth passage to popularity for the Earl of Aberdeen. Successive Tory Governments had laboured upon Irish affairs, and if they had stopped short at Home Rule they had come very near it. The Nationalist party was inclined to be sullen, realizing their futility, and compelled to wait humbly upon Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's pleasure. He was independent of them. They were free to join the Opposition if they chose to do so, although the Prime Minister, always consistent, hinted that a Home Rule Bill was about to appear on the Parliamentary horizon. There was the South African business to be got through first; then the fiscal question seemed capable of wasting more public time, and questions of Empire and home finance all blocked the way to the ambitions of the group led by Mr. John Redmond. Astute Nationalists quickly understood that they must wait for another General Election, perhaps two, before {327} their hopes could be realized, and therefore they stood aside while the country blinked its eyes at the unusual sight of Liberals sitting in the seats of the mighty, and new men with even newer names flocking to the Cabinet room in Downing Street. Meanwhile, the Viceroy of Ireland took possession of his high office. For nearly eight years he had lived in retirement, his Governor-Generalship of Canada beginning in 1893 and ending in 1898. The Canadian period was another record of success for the viceregal pair, who were undoubtedly the most valuable at the disposal of the Government for viceregal positions requiring a long pedigree, a long purse, and the royal attribute of being all things to all men. The position of a Lord-Lieutenant nominated by a Liberal Prime Minister is the most anomalous and difficult in the Government. He is selected because he is a member of the party in power, and asked to fill a post in which, as the representative of the king, he must not display any political leanings. His Majesty is above politics, and the man who is accorded royal honours in Ireland must represent the king non-politically. Even in this attempt he must needs lay himself open to the charges--eagerly laid against him--of showing favour to either political party, for even a Viceroy of Ireland cannot help being aware of the politics and religion of some of those upon whom he bestows office. In the case of a Liberal Lord-Lieutenant he dwells in a country where Liberalism has been buried for more than a generation, where {328} a religious motive colours every political action, and where bones of contention provide the only food for the hungry politicians.