Mr. Blake's speech at the Eighty Club on Thursday was
the speech of an accomplished debater, but contained no evidence of any originality in reference to the difficulties of the Irish problem. Indeed, it was tainted from beginning to end by the radically false conception that the success of Canadian self-government is a good omen for Home-rule in Ireland. This assumption Mr. Blake even exaggerated into the extraordinary dictum that "the difficulties which existed in the case of Canada with regard to Home-rule, did not exist in the case of Ireland." "Ireland," said Mr. Blake, "was at our doors." Precisely, and that is just the key-stone of the difficulty. Canada we can let alone, because if Canada makes up her mind to leave us, we may reasonably make an act of resignation and shake hands with a sigh. That is just what we cannot do with Ireland. And the very fact that we cannot, and that Ire- land knows that we cannot, irritates to the last degree all the supersensitiveness of Irish politicians, as well as the awkward- ness and want of tact of English statesmen. The mind of a Canadian statesman almost necessarily approaches the Irish problem from a wrong point of view.
