no one in or out of Ulster, former Unionist or confirmed Nationalist, would have any interest in opposing them.  In the meantime local councils have taught us what is likely to happen.  Minorities are virtually excluded from them and from paid places in their gift.  Of Protestants holding local office the great majority are survivals from the old Grand Jury system.  Political discussions are frequent, but they are all among Nationalists.  Intolerance of independent opinion and impatience of criticism are everywhere noticeable, and the Corporation of Dublin does not show a good example.  It is intolerance of this kind rather than any approach to religious persecution that Protestants suffer from in the present and fear for the future.

Men who have something to lose dread the idea of Home Rule, including farmers who have bought their holdings, but as yet this has not been allowed time to work.  There is a long way between not caring to support a Nationalist and voting for a Unionist.  The chief employers of labour are mostly for the Union, but few are in a position to help the Unionist cause effectively, for they have to deal with strike makers and possible boycotters.  When Labour troubles come, Nationalist politicians try to make out that they are caused by English agitators, and that there would be none under Home Rule.  The probability is all the other way.  There could be nothing in the existence of an Irish Parliament to prevent English Socialists from crossing the Channel, and some Labour leaders in England are Irish.  We have heard a great deal lately about the union of the two democracies, and that is the point where they would unite.  Passing from labour to land, which is after all the great interest of Southern and Western Ireland, the danger is even greater.  With the loss of British credit it would be almost impossible to carry out the plan of occupying ownership without the grossest injustice, and the mischief would not stop there.  An Irish Government would be poor, but would be expected to do all and more than all that the united government has done.  At first the gap might be stopped by extravagant super-income tax, by half-compensated seizures of demesne land, and by penalising the owners of ground rents and town property.  Confiscation is not a permanent source of wealth, for it soon kills the goose that laid the golden egg.  Then the turn of the large farmer would come.

Most Unionists, and many who call themselves Home Rulers, are satisfied with the form of government they now have.  The country has prospered wonderfully, and it will continue to prosper if the land purchase system is carried out to the end in a liberal spirit.  The worst danger comes from the check given to the process by the present Ministry.  But the national feelings of Ireland must not be ignored.  Her far-back history, bad in itself, but represented worse by unscrupulous writers, makes it necessary to maintain an impartial power above the warring elements.  In a pastoral