19 OCTOBER 1895, Page 3

Nothing is more satisfactory than the evidence which comes from

all quarters that Ireland is settling down, and that for the time, at any rate, the will-o'-the-wisp of Home- rule is very little and very languidly followed. A Chicago notable, Mr. H. Duggan, late of the Chicago Board of Educa- tion, who has just returned from Ireland, has declared to an interviewer of the Chicago Times-Herald that in his judgment the Irish people are well satisfied with the Government under

which they now live. "In Ireland," he said, "I did not talk with the scum of the cities, but with the people who are owners of the soil, and tillers. I found that they do not want separation. They do desire union with England." "The Irish movement in this country," he went on, "in my judg. ment, is but a part of American politics, and amounts to nothing so far as the real Ireland is concerned. I learned that much while I was with the Irish people themselves." It would, of course, be absurd to exaggerate the importance of such evidence, but we suspect that it very fairly depicts the present state of opinion in Ireland. No doubt a very little might rekindle the embers; but embers, though capable of reawaking, are better than fierce flame.