We deeply regret to notice that Mr. W. E. Forster,
who has been seriously ill for months, has this week suffered a dangerous relapse. Even should he recover, as we must all still hope, there is now no prospect that he will take any part in the dis- cussions on Home-rule,—a serious loss to those who are opposing that dangerous experiment. Years of study of Ireland, com- mencing with the famine, and continued under circumstances most favourable to knowledge, have convinced Mr. Forster that the Irish people are not ready for self-government, that the agrarian revolution, unless moderated, might dissolve society, and that Home-rule can end only in widespread disaster. This is his distinct judgment, apart from the effect of separa- tion upon Great Britain, to which in his speeches he seldom refers, and which, we believe, he thinks would be less either for good or evil than its effect upon Ireland itself. That country has had few more sincere and earnest friends than Mr. Forster; though he has rarely been able to tolerate, far less approve, the opinions which prevail with the mass of her population, and has consequently been of all men the one most villainously aspersed by her representatives.
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