PRESENT IRISH QUESTIONS.
Present Irish Questions. By William O'Connor Morris. (Grant Richards. 6s.)—Judge O'Connor Morris is well known as one of the most voluminous writers that even Ireland possesses ; besides, as what may be termed an anti-Castle Unionist, he has his own field pretty much to himself. In this very substantial new volume he exhibits his now familiar strength, and his perhaps even more familiar weakness, as a writer and controversialist. He has a great deal to say that is worth bearing, but he says it too rhetorically, too aggressively, too much like a pamphleteer, and too little like a historian,—for example, he laments "the strange but signal ignorance of Irish affairs that has been but too characteristic of the British people, and in a lesser degree of many British statesmen." So while his chapters on "The Question of Irish Land" are well worth studying, he rather mars them by his denunciations of the work of the Sub-Commissioners. At the same time, there may prove to be a good deal in Judge Morris's contention that the new landlordism which has been created by recent legislation is not an improvement on what pre- ceded it, but rather the reverse. Judge Morris's opinions upou "financial relations" are comparatively moderate ; he aims at nothing more than "an annual grant from the Exchequer for Irish uses as compensation for excessive taxation." This book will be found chiefly valuable as a handbook of present-day Irish questions and as an arsenal of arguments for disputants.
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