The motive which has induced the Senate to take this
disastrous decision is clearly indicated in the report of Mr. Gwynn's "effective" speech. The County Councils, acting under the pressure of extreme Nationalist organisations, strongly support compulsory Irish ; and the bribe of a Scholar- ship-rate, amounting in all to £50,000 or £60,000 a year, has carried the day, and converted the majority of the Senate to a view to which many of them were previously opposed, on the ground that it would unduly penalise students who intended to enter commerce or the medical, engineering, or legal pro- fessions. The motive is not educational ; it is political, for the leverage has been applied by bodies who frankly avow that
compulsory Irish is essential to the assertion of the claim of full nationhood. The attitude of the Roman Catholic hierarchy shows a partial surrender ; but the wisest and moat learned leaders of that Communion clearly recognise the dangers of this concession to political sentimentalism. They see that it will not only drive many of their co-religionists from the National University into Trinity College, Dublin, but that it will justify them in this defection.
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