19 MAY 1928, Page 31

" In the past, patriotism meant taking the right side

of the one great issue of national self-government, and expressed itself largely in polities and speech-making. It should now express itself in doing solid work." Thus speaks an Irishman on Ireland in Hibernia (Kegan Paul, 2s. 6d.). Mr. Bolton C. "Waller has no illusions about the tasks ahead. In reading of them an Englishman must surely congratulate himself that his country disburdened itself from the responsibility for Irish progress when it did. With regard to Gaelic, for instance, we find the Southern Irish face to face with facts. They are at liberty to speak nothing else, but how many of them even trouble to learn it, now that it is semi-compulsory ? The author's discussion of union with Northern Ireland is illuminating, for he recognizes that to put any kind of com- pulsion on Ulster is impossible. If his opinions were generally accepted in the South, we might see fusion within a decade or two. This is a serious, practical book, full of knowledge and good will, yet pleasantly " Irish " in parts.