by the weapons they have used to get to their present strength, do think it; forgetful that our obtuseness to their constant appeals forced them into the extremer shifts of agitation.  Yet it will hardly be denied that these men love Ireland; and they have not shown themselves by their acts to be insane.  To suppose them conspiring for separation indicates a suspicion that they have neither hearts nor heads.  For Ireland, separation is immediate ruin.  It would prove a very short sail for these conspirators before the ship went down.  The vital necessity of the Union for both, countries, obviously for the weaker of the two, is known to them; and unless we resume our exasperation of the wild fellow the Celt can be made by such a process, we have not rational grounds for treating him, or treating with him, as a Bedlamite.  He has besides his passions shrewd sense; and his passions may be rightly directed by benevolent attraction.  This is language derided by the victorious enemy; it speaks nevertheless what the world, and even troubled America, thinks of the Irish Celt.  More of it now on our side of the Channel would be serviceable.  The notion that he hates the English comes of his fevered chafing against the harness of England, and when subject to his fevers, he is unrestrained in his cries and deeds.  That pertains to the nature of him.  Of course, if we have no belief in the virtues of friendliness and confidence—­none in regard to the Irishman—­we show him his footing, and we challenge the issue.  For the sole alternative is distinct antagonism, a form of war.  Mr. Gladstone’s Bill has brought us to that definite line.  Ireland having given her adhesion to it, swearing that she does so in good faith, and will not accept a smaller quantity, peace is only to be had by our placing trust in the Irish; we trust them or we crush them.  Intermediate ways are but the prosecution of our ugly flounderings in Bogland; and dubious as we see the choice on either side, a decisive step to right or left will not show us to the world so bemired, to ourselves so miserably inefficient, as we appear in this session of a new Parliament.  With his eighty-five, apart from external operations lawful or not, Mr. Parnell can act as a sort of lumbricus in the House.  Let journalists watch and chronicle events:  if Mr. Gladstone has humour, they will yet note a peculiar smile on his closed mouth from time to time when the alien body within the House, from which, for the sake of its dignity and ability to conduct its affairs, he would have relieved it till the day of a warmer intelligence between Irish and English, paralyzes our machinery business.  An ably-handled coherent body in the midst of the liquid groups will make it felt that Ireland is a nation, naturally dependent though she must be.  We have to do with forces in politics, and the great majority of the Irish Nationalists in Ireland has made them a force.