HOME RULE.* ALL the five books before us dealing with

the Irish question were published before the terms of the third Home Rule Bill were known. We have read them with a strong wonder as to' what the authors would have said of Mr. Asquith's Bill, since. the fatal ingenuity of its finance does not square with any of the particular expectations formed of it. Mr. Barry O'Brien's, book, Dublin Castle and the Irish People, is a second edition,. and we shall not, therefore, say anything about it except to, quote from a new preface in which Mr. O'Brien writes as. follows of the question how far Ireland can pay her way :—

"But can Ireland support herself? is another question often asked. Let me mention two facts. The national capital of Ireland has been estimated at £400,000,000. The national income at from 70,00D,000 to 416,000,000. To say that a country with these resources cannot support herself is, of course, absurd, though owing to the effects of maladministration in the past Ireland needs. financial support to give her a fair start in preparing for the. future. Ireland has been starved, not from want of resources, but by what Bright once called ' incarable and guilty administration.' 'Give us the land,' an Irish peasant farmer once said to him, 'and we will beat the hunger out of Ireland.' A recent Unionist writer admits a fact which, curiously enough, justifies the assertion of this farmer. He tells us that since the adoption of the Land Purchase System Ireland has progressed steadily. And yet, throughout the. greater part of the nineteenth century, both English parties com- bined in preventing the reform of land laws which were crushing the life of the country. Sixty-four per cent. of the population of Ireland, he reminds us, are engaged in agriculture, and yet the English Parliament refused up to quite a recent date to grant the demands of the people for land reforms which would make agri- cultural progress possible. This writer bears frank testimony to. the financial integrity of the people by the statement that the peasants have ' scrupulously ' paid the advances made under the Land Purchase Acts.'

Those who have read Mr. Barry O'Brien's book know that. it contains useful information as to the administration

• (1) Dublin Castto and the Irish People. By B. Barry O'Brien. Second: Edition. London: Kegan Pant, Trench and Co. [3s. ed. not. 1—(2) The. Nos Spirit in Inroad. By the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Henri:Nen, K.P. Loudon John Murray. [1d. not. —13) The Militant Danger of Holio Rule for Ireland.. By MaJor-Oeueral Sir Thomas Fraser, K.C.B., C.M.G. With Map. Same Publisher. [2s. ed. net.1—(4) Irish Home Buhl. By S. G. Hobson, London Stephen Swift. [39. lid. net.1—(5) Against Home Rule: the Case for (ha Union. London : F. Warne and Co. [lc j

of Ireland; but as to this new preface we can only say that a writer who believes that the Unionist policy of land purchase (which is steadily leading Ireland towards prosperity and has already undermined the desire for Home Rule among a largo proportion of agriculturists) provides an argument for end- ing the Union would believe anything.

The text of Lord Dunraven's little pamphlet, The New Spirit in Ireland, was originally delivered as a speech at Cork in support of the "All for Ireland" movement. Mr. William O'Brien was on the platform on the occasion, and there was such a union of hearts among O'Brienites and devolutionists, in opposition to the Irish Nationalist Party, that even Cork had scarcely known such fervour. But time's revenges sometimes come rapidly. We suppose that few of those who then first found themselves in sympathy with Mr. O'Brien—many of them were Unionists who felt that opposition to the professional Nationalist politicians was a duty in any form—would now support Mr. O'Brien in his reserved acceptance of Mr. Asquith's Bill. Lord Dunraven's pamphlet is a 'moan on "sentiment." Sentiment means sym- pathy and understanding, and these in their turn admit the principles of local differentiation and sovereign identity—in fact, devolution.

Sir Thomas Fraser's The Military Danger of Horne Rule for Ireland, though a useful and timely little book, deals leas with military subjects than the title led us to expect. He mingles politics inextricably with strategy, and though this is not admirable from the point of view of clarity in writing we daresay it has the merit of being a counterpart of what would happen under Homo Rule if over Great Britain were at war. The review of the various risings in Ireland, of the in- vasion by the French on behalf of James II., and of the French invasion arranged by Lord Edward Fitzgerald is a relevant warning to any one who forgets the tremendous strain that is thrown on those responsible for the defence of Great Britain by the proximity of a hostile Ireland. Nor is it necessary that there should be active hostility in Ireland for this strain to be felt. Indifferent loyalty, mere disputa- tiousness resulting in delay, would be enough to rob military measures of all the promptitude which is essential to success. Sir Thomas Fraser points out that the European terminus of wireless telegraphy is in the West of Ireland, and that a disaffected Ireland could control all messages between ourselves and Canada. The Fenian wing, again, could use the apparatus for coin municating with their base in the United States—a base distant, in point of time, no further than France was in the eighteenth century. If the American Fenians acted as an exchange for cipher messages between Ireland and the Continent of Europe the whole circuit would be independent of the control of Great Britain. No doubt France would not again try to use Ireland as a jumping-off ground against England, but no sound national strategy should aim at security on the basis of political probabilities. It should aim at the much less invidious ideal of security from attack without reference to any friendships or alliances whatever. Sir Thomas Fraser does not admit

that we can count certainly on the command of the sea. He says :—

"Nowadays, with the exception of Japan, all Naval Powers, in- cluding our own, are alike wanting in that war experience, whereas a century ago we possessed it and others did not. Hence the basis of our great superiority of the past has to be remade once more in war, for we can no longer venture to count alone on what a century has left us of the prestige of that past without the causes that gave that prestige ita existence. Nor is this all. In the last century our Empire must have increased tenfold, and we now have at least 50,000 miles of unfrozen coasts, though, of course., the strategic lines of communication have not °erre. spondingly increased. While, therefore, our comparative naval

strength is not one- tenth of what it was a century ago, our naval requirements are sure to have become very considerably greater than they were at that date, and with the completion of the Panama Canal in a few years' time, w' ill be greater still."

We arc glad that Sir Thomas Fraser has written of this sub- ject, which is generally neglected in detail in discussions of Home Rule. Home Rulers always try to laugh the military

argument out of court, but it is a serious matter all the lame.

Mr. S. G. Hobson in Irish Home Rule writes with his usual He is essentially fair in intention. We seldom agree with him, but we acknowledge gladly his freedom from a mere party allegiance—for surely it is the duty of those who are not by circumstance in the meshes of the party net to offer sincere advice and not blindly and with vows of political piety to put their feet into the same holes. He models his argument continually on that of M. Paul-Dubois, the author of L'Irlancle Conteraporaine. He argues that land purchase was necessary in the circumstances, and that Unionists did well to introduce it, but lie mistrusts the policy as a final solution. Is, then, the remarkable progress of Irishmen under this system, and wherever they have been persuaded to take up. co-operation and shake themselves free from the gombeen man, to count for nothing P To read Mr. Hobson one would almost think so. Home Rulers complain that the Unionist policy is out of date, but it is difficult to imagine anything more out of date than a policy which assumes that there is no material change in the condition of Ireland since 1886 or

1893. The Wyndham Land Purchase Act and the new spirit in Irish agriculture inspired by Sir Horace Plunkett and his colleagues have been the greatest blessings Ireland has known..

Mr. Birrell called a halt in land purchase, and the Liberal Government basely turned Sir Horace Plunkett out of his

office. As for finance Mr. Hobson comes to the conclusion that Ireland pays her way. We know this manner of paying one's way. It costs the English taxpayer six millions a year for Mr. Hobson to be able to say it. Finally we may mention that Mr. Hobson thinks that a Home Rule Bill ought to be only the first step in a scheme of imperial Federa- tion. In that respect we imagine that Mr. Asquith's Bill must have disappointed him, unless be is deluded by tha hollow arguments expressly put forward to capture the sym- pathy of the Dominions. Mr. Hobson would probably admit that in no Imperial Council or Parliament would the various parts which make up, say, the Commonwealth of Australia or the Dominion of Canada be separately represented. The dis- integration of the United Kingdom is not and cannot be a stop towards the integration of the Empire.

Lastly we come to the most important book on our list,

Against Home Rale: the Case for the Union, which is a cam- paign work containing contributions from all the leaders of the Unionist Party, with a preface by Mr. Bonar Law. The book is a positive armoury of good arguments against Home Rule, and we have only to quote its table of contents to show how impossible it is for us to do justice to it in a review. Besides the preface of the Leader of the Unionist Party there are articles by Mr. Balfour, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. Walter Long, Mr. George Wyndham, and half a dozen other men of first distinction in the Unionist Party, not omitting an intro- duction by Sir Edward Carson. A very remarkable article is that entitled "Historical Retrospect," by Mr. J. R. Fisher, the editor of the Northern Whig. He makes several telling quotations from Arthur Young, who, it may be remembered, wrote a careful and impartial study of affairs in Ireland under Grattan's Parliament. That Parliament was very fond of public works, but unfortunately the works were scandalously jobbed. Money, Young tells us, was voted for "collieries where there is no coal ; for bridges where there are no rivers ; for navigable cuts where there is no water; for harbours where there are no ships; and churches where there are no congregations." Hamilton Rowan, a famous rebel, writing to his father from America in regard to the reports which had been spread that a Union was intended, used the following words : "In that measure I see the downfall of one of the most corrupt assemblies, I believe, that ever existed." If people would only study the real history of Ireland they would soon understand that a Dublin Parliament never brought peace or goodwill to Ireland, and that though the Union could not work a miracle it did more for Ireland than any other form of government which has ever been tried in that island. Another admirable article by an Irishman is that entitled " The Position of Ulster," by the Right Ron, Thomas Sinclair. Here you have a statement by a typical Ulsterman of Liberal proclivities— Mr. Sinclair is no Orangeman—in regard to the ruin which Home Rule must bring upon North-East Ulster. Mr. Sinclair begins his article with these words:— " By Ulster I mean the six counties, Antrim, Down, London- derry, Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh, with the important adjacent sections of Monaghan, Cavan,eindDonegal, in all of which, taken i together, the Unionist population s in an unmistakable majority, and in which the commercial and manufacturing prosperity of the province is maintained by Unionist energy, enterprise, and industry."