But, as practised in the present day, I believe this doctrine to be mischievous and false.  For one thing, there is a new England to deal with.  The England which, certainly not in deference to violent agitation, established the Congested Districts Board, gave Local Government to Ireland, and accepted the recommendations of the Recess Committee for far-reaching administrative changes, as well as those of the Land Conference which involved great financial concessions, is not the England of fifty years ago, still less the England of the eighteenth century.  Moreover, in riveting the mind of the country on what is to be obtained from England, this doctrine of ‘giving trouble,’ the whole gospel of the agitator, has blinded the Irish people to the many things which Ireland can do for herself.  Whatever may be said of what is called ‘agitation’ in Ireland as an engine for extorting legislation from the Imperial Parliament, it is unquestionably bad for the much greater end of building up Irish character and developing Irish industry and commerce.  ‘Agitation,’ as Thomas Davis said, ’is one means of redress, but it leads to much disorganisation, great unhappiness, wounds upon the soul of a country which sometimes are worse than the thinning of a people by war.’[14] If Irish politicians had at all realised this truth, it is difficult to believe that the popular movement of the last quarter of a century would not have been conducted in a manner far less injurious to the soul of Ireland and equally or more effective for legislative reform as well as all other material interests.

Now, modern Nationalism in Ireland is open to damaging criticism not only from my Unionist point of view, which was also, in many respects, the view of so strong a Nationalist as Thomas Davis; it is also open to grave objection from the point of view of the effectiveness of the tactics employed for the attainment of its end—­the winning of Home Rule.

Before examining the effect of these tactics I may point out that this conception of Nationalist policy, even if justifiable from a practical point of view, does not relieve the leaders from the obligation of giving some assurance that they are ready with a consistent scheme of re-construction, and are prepared to build when the ground has been cleared.  In this connection I might make a good deal of Unionist capital, and some points in support of my condemnation of the political absorption of the Irish mind, out of the total failure of the Nationalist party to solve certain all-important constitutional and financial problems which months of Parliamentary debate in 1893 tended rather to obscure than to elucidate.  I am, however, willing for argument’s sake to postpone all such questions, vital as they are, to the time when they can be practically dealt with.  I am ready to assume that the wit of man can devise a settlement of many points which seemed insoluble in Mr. Gladstone’s day.  But even granting all this, I think it can easily