tunities but we have simply to imagine an overt particularism on the part of New England, greedily clutching power to the bosom of New England, to decide that privilege would have wrecked federalism. The fate of the Jews is a supreme example of the result of invidious distinction, the baleful power of the Magyars is an example of an obvious source of it. National and racial and religious principles enter into all these conflicts, but without a powerful< economic element you cannot have explosion. The long step toward political adjustment, to take it the other way, is the correction of economic differences.

But it is the one step at which the British government of Ireland has oftenest faltered. Usually within the British government there have been persons like Lord Morley who interpreted the House of Commons in a spirit quite different from the glittering gayety of Walter Bagehot. Such liberals did not take their inspiration from sensible men of substantial means. They held their representative assembly in solemn honor. They believed it to be the bulwark of liberties as general as they were fundamental. They saw it as a wheel on which the destiny of the British people could be turned. At a time when the broadened electorate had just swept the rotten borough out of existence, they exulted in the transfer of power and trusted that it could work economic miracles. At the behest of such liberals, great changes did take place in Ireland. After a struggle that exhibited property stripped and battling with naked indecency through long sessions of the House of Lords, the land question of Ireland was finally brought to an adjustment by the very junkers who had bled the peasantry. But this re

mittance of the conquest of Ireland cannot be taken to typify the workings of government. On the contrary, government has largely consisted in the support and defence of privileged non-Irishmen who look on Ireland as their natural heritage. And the bitterest trials of well-meaning governors of Ireland have always come from persons fearful that their ancient privileges might be jeopardized.

ONE TENTACLE OF PRIVILEGE

Few people now remember the tenacity of the established Protestant church, for example, and its peculiar relation to Catholic Ireland. Yet it is worth recalling, if only to see how the favored institutions of an alien government die hard. Somewhere in Morley's life of Gladstone comes the passage, "the contest was now removed from the constituencies and their representatives in parliament to the citadel of privilege. The issue was no longer single, and the struggle for religious equality in Ireland was henceforth merged for the public eye in a conflict for the supremacy of the Commons in England. Perhaps I should not have spoken of religious equality, for in fact the establishment was known to be doomed, and the fight turned upon the amount of property with which the free church was to go forth to face the new fortunes. 'I should urge the House of Lords,' wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury to Mr. Gladstone,' to give all its attention to saving as large an endowment as possible.'"

In quoting this passage it is not my intention to cast an oblique glance at the idea or the nature of religious endowment. It is true that the established church in Ireland was a religious scandal. It was

also an economic scandal of the first order. Irish Catholic cities continue to offer the spectacle of the old historic cathedrals and churches still devoted to the use of Protestants, but this moss-grown evidence of confiscation is nothing to the active and inflammatory grievance that Catholics had before the disestablishment. Americans are serenely remote today from the conflicts that spring out of a state religion, but there is still food for envious amazement at the fortunes acquired by Anglican dignitaries and the lucrative aspects of the Kingdom of God in Ireland. Ten prelates were once named to the House of Commons who had left this vale of tears bequeathing an average fortune of £250,000 apiece. In 1860 the bishops held 743,326 acres of Ireland in trust for God. The governmental exaction of tithes amounted to about £500,000 a year, with bishoprics yielding from £2,310 to £14,632 a year. For 700,000 members of the state religion there were as many parochial clergymen as for the 4,500,000 Catholics. These broad features of the establishment were sufficiently undemocratic to make the issue invincible when it was fought to a finish. My object now, however, is not to break the law of oblivion but to give heed to Lord Morley's idioms. He calls the upper house "the citadel of privilege." He speaks of the "fight" turning upon " the amount of property." These are casual gleams of basic economic and governmental truths too little realized.

THE HABIT OF GRIEVANCE

The main reason for emphasizing privilege in regard to Ireland is, of course, the fact that it has remained a conquered country. It is this that has ac

centuated privilege. It is perfectly true, as many professors will tell you, that there is a class struggle in England and America as well as in Ireland, and it is conceivable to argue that Ireland has about the same political advantages as Scotland or Wales. The really oppressed islander in this view is the allsustaining Briton. This, I think, is one of Bernard Shaw's strongest feelings about the Irish question. He has seen Ireland press its claims on an exasperated and befuddled House of Commons until in mere moral confusion there have been gross concessions. In John Bull's Other Island Mr. Shaw has contrasted the pertinacious self-seeking Irish tenant with a dreadfully evicted and downtrodden Cockney, and the dramatist's sympathies are obviously with that particular limb of the predominant partner. Nothing is so tiresome to a man of Mr. Shaw's gallantry, on the other hand, as the drooping lip of suppliance. To be a willing object of pity, to approach life hat in hand, with an eye cocked for charity, goes against Mr. Shaw's individualism. He detests one thing as much as the other, the habit of intransigence and the habit of grievance. But this Shavian impatience is all right only so long as no "secret splinter " is left rankling. Many men take injustice standing up but very few, after all, take justice lying down. It is superficial to blame the Irishman for wincing until the power that injured him has been broken. That power is not the British empire. It is quite unequivocally British imperialism. Added to the trials of class in Ireland, there are the trials of class identified with race and religion; with the oppressive class the imperial one. For Ireland is one of the objects that has made imperialism hateful.

THE CURSE OF IRELAND

The Irish diagnosticians do not agree as to the cause of Ireland's condition. In ordinary talk each Irishman is likely, with decided emphasis, to attribute the state of the country to an overwhelming primary cause of his own. Since the state is unhappy, the cause is always deep-seated, and, if possible, beyond human control. It is defined as "the curse of Ireland." Intemperance, Sir, is the curse of Ireland. The English gover'ment is the one infliction of the people. The priests is at the back of it all, the priests are the damn ruination of the country. It's the Scarlet Woman. To Hell with the Pope. The graziers are the curse of Ireland. The A. O. H. is the curse of Ireland. Gambling is the blight of the land. Cooperation is part of the conciliation policy, and everyone knows that conciliation is the curse. It's ignorance, the lack of a proper education, that is the destruction of Irishmen. The gombeen man is the curse of Ireland. Yesterday it was the landlord, today it is the beggar on horseback, who rides the country to the devil. West Britonism makes us what we are, shoneenism and toadyism, so it is, they're the curse of Ireland. You can't find an Irishman to do an honest day's work. The class of people that goes into service today aren't fit for the poorhouse; laziness is the curse of Ireland. Black tea, stewing on the hob, has the country destroyed. It's new-fangled notions, putting false ideas into the heads of the working-people, that's the curse of Ireland. Ah, it's the climate, your Honor. It's a terrible climate! The climate is the curse of Ireland.