jurisdiction of the judges and magistracy throughout the country.  The most deplorable movement in modern Nationalism is the attempt to introduce into Irish politics the worst methods of American political corruption.  There have recently sprung into prominence in Ireland two societies which are in some respects the most sinister, the most immoral, and the most destructive of those which have corrupted and infected public life in the country.  These two—­the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood—­have in common the secrecy of their operations and the destructiveness of their aims.  Their influence is marked not only by despotic and tyrannical government, but, what may be even more mischievous from the point of view of the community, by the deliberate persecution and suppression of all independent thought.  Those who have watched the proceedings of the Dublin Corporation have felt the increasing strength of an influence proceeding from Belfast—­an influence which is threatening to control the whole course of Nationalist politics in Dublin and the south.  The forces of influence, combination, and intimidation which forced the Budget on a reluctant Ireland and routed the Roman Catholic Hierarchy over the Insurance Bill will not be disbanded under Home Rule.  On the contrary, they are now being exercised so as to enable the Board of Erin to absorb the older organisations and to place in the hands of its leaders—­or rather in those of a single man—­the nomination of most, if not all, the representatives of the Nationalist party in Ireland.  Mr. Joseph Devlin, who seeks to build this vast power, is a politician of American ideals and sympathies, and under the guidance of his organisation politics in Ireland would be shaped after the model of Tammany Hall rather than that of St. Stephen’s.  The party which appoints the municipal officers of Dublin in secret caucus, meeting for reasons which are never avowed and after debates which are never published, is only waiting to extend its operations.  Even now it is notorious that the magistrates’ bench in Ireland is regularly and systematically “packed” whenever licensing or agrarian cases are under discussion.  The scandalous inaction of the present Irish Executive in reference to cattle driving and other forms of organised intimidation, the failure to enforce the law and the absolute immunity which the present Chief Secretary has persistently allowed to Nationalist Members of Parliament and paid organisers in incitement to outrage and intimidation, have paralysed the administration of justice and disheartened and disgusted the Judiciary, the Magistrates, and the Police.  But under Home Rule the measure of protection which is still afforded by a strong and independent Bench would be removed.  The Resident Magistrate would be as much under the heel of the caucus as the local justice; the Recorder’s Bench and even the High Court would be constantly subjected to influences of a mischievous and incalculable kind.