in on April 14th, the elections began on July 1st; no one can say what might have been the result of a long discussion, during which the first feelings of alarm (for alarm there was) might have worn off.  And the decision is without finality, also, because the decision of the country was merely against the particular plan proposed by Mr. Gladstone, and not in favour of any alternative plan for dealing with Ireland, most certainly not for the coercive method which has since been adopted.  One particular solution of the Irish problem was refused.  The problem still stands confronting us, and when other modes of solving it have been in turn rejected, the country may come back to this mode.

We may now turn from the past to the future.  Yet the account which has been given of the feelings and ideas arrayed against the Bill does not wholly belong to the past.  They are the feelings to which the opponents of any plan of self-government for Ireland still appeal, and which will have to be removed or softened down before it can be accepted by the English.  In particular, the probability of separation, and the supposed dangers to the Protestants and the landlords from an Irish Parliament, will continue to form the themes of controversy so long as the question remains unsettled.

What are the prospects of its settlement?  What is the position which it now occupies?  How has it affected the current politics of England?

It broke up the Liberal party in Parliament.  The vast numerical majority of that party in the country supported, and still supports, Mr. Gladstone and the policy of Irish self-government.  But the dissentient minority includes many men of influence, and constitutes in the House of Commons a body of about seventy members, who hold the balance between parties.  For the present they are leagued with the Tory Ministry to resist Home Rule, and their support insures a parliamentary majority to that Ministry.  But it is, of course, necessary for them to rally to Lord Salisbury, not only on Irish questions, but on all questions; for, under our English system, a Ministry defeated on any serious issue is bound to resign, or dissolve Parliament.  Now, to maintain an alliance for a special purpose, between members of opposite parties, is a hard matter.  Agreement about Ireland does not, of itself, help men to agree about foreign policy, or bimetallism, or free trade, or changes in land laws, or ecclesiastical affairs.  When these and other grave questions come up in Parliament, the Tory Ministry and their Liberal allies must, on every occasion, negotiate a species of concordat, whereby the liberty of both is fettered.  One party may wish to resist innovation, the other to yield to it, or even to anticipate it.  Each is obliged to forego something in order to humour the other; neither has the pleasure or the credit of taking a bold line on its own responsibility.  There is, no doubt, less difference between the respective