Mr. Frederic Harrison on New Year's Day seems to have
done what a New Year's address could do, to confirm the adhesion of the Positivists to the cause of Home-rule. He remarked that the policy of the Government seemed to be absolutely hopeless, caloulated to inflame revolutionary passions, and wantonly waste the conservative forces on either side. It was a policy contenting no one, solving no problem, and founding nothing. Could not that be said of every policy which has as yet been suggested ? If the policy of the Government founds nothing, it sweeps away nothing. Mr. Gladstone's policy would have swept away a great deal, and, as we believe, would have founded nothing in the place of what it swept away. Mr. Balfour has extended the range of order and peace. The Home-rulers propose what would subvert everything and establish chaos,—to which Positivism, positive only in negations of faith, naturally inclines.
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