I have always endeavoured to look upon the most hopeful aspects of the Irish question.  But with the appalling tragedy of the Famine half way in the last century, with half our people gone and the population still diminishing, one is bound to admit that the nineteenth century was one of the most disastrous in Irish history.

Is it surprising that, during my time, driven desperate at the sight of a perishing people in one of the most fruitful lands on earth, we should have made two attempts at rebellion?

In 1848 the means were totally inadequate.

In 1867 the movement looked more hopeful in many respects.  The revolutionary organisation had a large number of enrolled members on both sides of the Atlantic.  Among them were hundreds in the British army, and many thousands of Irish-American veterans trained in the Civil War, eager to wipe off the score of centuries in a conflict, on something like equal terms, with the olden oppressor of their race.

But the real hope of success lay in the prospect of a war between America and England, which at one time seemed imminent, and justified the action of the Fenian chiefs in their preparations.

It was, however, the very existence of Fenianism which, more than any other cause, prevented war.  For none knew better than far-seeing statesmen like Mr. Gladstone (who declared that he was prompted to remedial measures for Ireland by “the intensity of Fenianism”) that within a month of the commencement of a war between America and England, Ireland would be lost to the British crown for ever.  That is why English statesmen would have grovelled in the dust before America, rather than engage in a conflict with her.

The generous way in which the Irish exiles in America have poured their wealth into the lap of their island mother, and the determination they have shown to shed their blood for her just as freely, should the opportunity only come, are the features which to some extent counterbalance the tragedy of the Famine.  For that terrible calamity, by driving our people out in millions, raised a power on the side of Ireland which her oppressors could not touch, a power which is no doubt among the means intended by Providence to hasten our coming day of freedom.

Nevertheless, emigration, the most unanswerable proof of English misgovernment, is a terrible drain on our country’s life-blood, and no entirely hopeful view of Ireland’s future can be held until this is stopped.

What, however, are the reflections which bring encouragement?

One is that the time cannot be far distant when some statesman of the type of Gladstone will try to avert the danger threatening the British empire through an ever-discontented Ireland, by conceding to her at least the amount of self-government possessed by Canada and Australia.