Gladstone's well-meant
Land Bill, to the occasional despatch of commissions; and, in fine, we
behold through History the Irish malady treated as a form of British
constitutional gout. Parliament touched on the Irish only when the Irish
were active as a virus. Our later alternations of cajolery and repression
bear painful resemblance to the nervous fit of rickety riders compounding
with their destinations that they may keep their seats. The cajolery was
foolish, if an end was in view; the repression inefficient. To repress
efficiently we have to stifle a conscience accusing us of old injustice,
and forget that we are sworn to freedom. The cries that we have been
hearing for Cromwell or for Bismarck prove the existence of an impatient
faction in our midst fitter to wear the collars of those masters whom
they invoke than to drop a vote into the ballot-box. As for the prominent
politicians who have displaced their rivals partly on the strength of an
implied approbation of those cries, we shall see how they illumine the
councils of a governing people.
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