know amazingly little about Ireland.  Even in the upper class, you meet with comparatively few persons who have set foot on Irish soil, and, of course, far fewer who have ever examined the condition of the island and the sources of her discontent.  Irish history, which is, no doubt, dismal reading, is a blank page to the English.  In January, 1886, one found scarce any politicians who had ever heard of the Irish Parliament of 1782.  And in that year, 1886, an Englishman anxious to discover the real state of the country did not know where to go for information.  What appeared in the English newspapers, or, rather, in the one English newspaper which keeps a standing “own correspondent” in Dublin, was (as it still is) a grossly and almost avowedly partisan report, in which opinions are skilfully mixed with so-called facts, selected, consciously or unconsciously, to support the writer’s view.  The Nationalist press is, of course, not less strongly partisan on its own side, so that not merely an average Englishman, but even the editor of an English newspaper, who desires to ascertain the true state of matters and place it before his English readers, has had, until within the last few months, when events in Ireland began to be fully reported in Great Britain, no better means at his disposal for understanding Ireland than for understanding Bulgaria.  I do not dwell upon this ignorance as an argument for Home Rule, though, of course, it is often so used.  I merely wish to explain the bewilderment in which Englishmen found themselves when required to settle by their votes a question of immense difficulty.  Many, on both sides, simply followed their party banners.  Tories voted for Lord Salisbury; thorough-going admirers of Mr. Gladstone voted for Mr. Gladstone.  But there was on the Liberal side a great mass who were utterly perplexed by the position.  Contradictory statements of fact, as well as contradictory arguments, were flung at their heads in distracting profusion.  They felt themselves unable to determine what was true and who was right.  But one thing seemed clear to them.  The policy of Home Rule was a new policy.  They had been accustomed to censure and oppose it.  Only nine months before, the Irish Nationalists had emphasized their hostility to the Liberal party by doing their utmost to defeat Liberal candidates in English constituencies.  Hence, when it was proclaimed that Home Rule was the true remedy which the Liberal party must accept, they were startled and discomposed.

Now, the English are not a nimble-minded people.  They cannot, to use a familiar metaphor, turn round in their own length.  Their momentum is such as to carry them on for some distance in the direction wherein they have been moving, even after the order to stop has been given.  They need time to appreciate, digest, and comprehend a new proposition.  Timid they are not, nor, perhaps, exceptionally cautious, but they do not like to be hurried, and insist on looking at a proposition for a good while before they