Without agreeing with every expression of opinion contained in thefollowing pages I heartily recommend this book, especially to Englishmenand Scotchmen, as a thoughtful, well-informed, and scholarly study ofseveral of the more important features of the Irish question.
It has always been my conviction that one of the chief causes of thedifficulty of persuading the British people of the justice and expediencyof conceding a full measure of National autonomy to Ireland was to befound in the deep and almost universal ignorance in Great Britainregarding Irish affairs present and past—an ignorance which hasenabled every unscrupulous opponent of Irish demands to appeal with moreor less success to inherited and anti-Irish prejudice as his chief bulwarkagainst reform. It was this conviction that led Mr. Parnell and hisleading colleagues, after the defeat of the first Home Rule Bill in 1886,to establish an agency in England for the express purpose of removing theignorance and combating its effects, and no advocate of Irish claims inEngland or Scotland has failed to find traces down to this day of the goodeffects of the propaganda thus set on foot, the discontinuance of whichwas one of the lamentable results of the dissensions in the Irish NationalParty between 1890 and 1900.
This book carries on the work of combating British ignorance of Irishaffairs and the effects of that ignorance in a manner which seems to mesingularly effective. The writer is no mere rhetorician or dealer ingeneralities. On the contrary, he deals in particular facts and gives hisauthorities. Nothing is [vi]more striking than the care he has obviouslytaken to ascertain the details of the subjects with which he has concernedhimself and the inexorable logic of his method. It is perfectly safe tosay that he neglected few sources of information which promised anyvaluable results, and that he has condensed into a few pages the morevital points of many volumes. It is not necessary to say anything of hisstyle except that the cultured reader will most appreciate and enjoyit.
I shall not anticipate what the author has to say except in respect ofone particular matter to which it seems to me expedient that particularpublic attention should be directed, especially by English and Scotchreaders. The study of Irish history throws an inglorious light on thecharacter of many British statesmen, and one of the salient facts broughtinto prominence in this little volume is that, even since the conversionof Mr. Gladstone to Home Rule, more than one leader of each of the twogreat political parties in Great Britain have displayed an utter lack ofpolitical principle in their dealings with Ireland, and especially withthe Irish National question. I cannot but think that if the facts, as toldby the author of this volume, were universally, or even widely, knownamongst Englishmen and Scotchmen there would be much less heard in thefuture regarding Home Rule eventuating in Rome Rule or endangering theexistence of the