Chapter 11

CONCLUSION

"Unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations."

--EDMUND BURKE.

The position of the mass of the Irish people with regard to the present form of government has nowhere been more cogently expressed than in the chapter on the Union in the "Cambridge Modern History," the writer of which describes it as a settlement by compulsion, not by consent; and the penalty of such methods is, that the instrument possesses no moral validity for those who do not accept the grounds on which it was adopted. If Englishmen get this firmly fixed in their minds they will understand that we regard all Unionist reforms, whether from Liberal or Conservative Governments, as instalments of conscience money, in regard to which, granting our premises, it would be sheer affectation to express surprise or to feign disgust at the lack of effusive gratitude with which we receive them. "Give us back our ancient liberties" has been the cry of the Irish people ever since George III. gave his assent to the Act of Union. The ties of sentiment which bind her colonies so closely to Great Britain are conspicuous by their absence in the case of Ireland. The ties of common interest which are not less strong in the matter of her colonial possessions are, albeit in existence as far as Great Britain and Ireland are concerned, obscured and vitiated by the system of taxation which makes the poorer country contribute to the joint expenses at a rate altogether disproportionate to her means, and which, while making her in this wise pay the piper, in no sense allows her to call the tune.

Never has there been applied in Ireland that doctrine which the _Times_ enunciated so sententiously half a century ago in speaking of the Papal States--"The destiny of a nation ought to be determined not by the opinions of other nations but by the opinion of the nation itself. To decide whether they are well governed or not is for those who live under that government." If the _Times_ were to apply the wisdom of these words to the situation in Ireland instead of screaming "Separatism" at every breath of a suggestion of the extension of democratic principles in Ireland, it would take steps to secure a condition of things under which the people would not be alienated and would be a source of strength and not of weakness.

Writing in that paper in 1880, at a time when Ireland was seething with lawlessness, Charles Gordon declared--"I must say that the state of our countrymen in the parts I have named is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe. I believe that these people are made as we are, that they are patient beyond belief, loyal but broken-spirited and desperate; lying on the verge of starvation where we would not keep cattle."

On the day after the murder of Mr. Burke in the Phoenix Park a permanent Civil Servant was sent straight from the admiralty to take his place as Under Secretary. Sir Robert Hamilton who served in Dublin in those trying conditions became a convinced Home Ruler, as did his chief, Lord Spencer; and it is generally said to have been Sir Robert who converted Mr. Gladstone to Home Rule. On the return to power of the Conservatives, after the defeat of the Home Rule Bill of 1886, Sir Robert Hamilton was retired, and in his stead Sir Redvers Buller was sent to rule Ireland _manu militari_. This officer, on being examined by Lord Cowper's Commission, expressed his opinion that the National League had been the tenants' best, if not their only, friend. "You have got," he said, "a very ignorant, poor people, and the law should look after them, instead of which it has only looked after the rich." To hold opinions so unconventional in the service of a Unionist Viceroy was impossible, and in a year other fields for Sir Redvers' activities were found. Sir West Ridgeway, who succeeded him, served as Mr. Balfour's lieutenant during the latter's efforts to "kill Home Rule with kindness," and it is significant to find him at this day writing articles in the reviews on the disappearance of Unionism, and pinning his faith to Dunravenism as the next move.

It is assuredly a remarkable fact that the shrewdest of English statesmen have not been able to see the complication with which the Irish problem is entangled. Macaulay imagined that the religious difficulty was the crux of the Irish question, but Emancipation did not bring the expected peace and contentment in its train. John Bright imagined that the agrarian question was the only obstacle to reconciliation, but a recognition three-quarters of a century after the Union that the laws of tenure are made for man and not man for the laws of tenure, failed to put an end to Irish disaffection. Mr. Gladstone thought in 1870 that the Irish problem was solved. Complicated as the question has been in its various aspects--religious, racial, economic, and agrarian--our demands have too often and too long been met in the spirit of the Levite who passed by on the other side, until violence has forced tardy redress, acquiesced in with reluctance. If the action of Wellington and Peel was pusillanimous in granting Emancipation, for the express purpose of resisting which they were placed in power, backed as they were in their refusal by their allies in Ireland, the next great measures of reform forty years later were admitted by Mr. Gladstone himself to be equally the result of violence and breaches of the law. The Queen's Speech of 1880 contained but a passing reference to Ireland and of the intention of the Government to rule without exceptional legislation; the Queen's Speech of 1881 contained reference to little but Ireland and of the intention of the Government to introduce a Coercion Bill.

In July, 1885, Lord Salisbury's Viceroy, on taking office, deprecated the use of Coercion, but in January, 1886, the same Government introduced a Coercion Bill, though less than six months before they had repudiated it, and had beaten the Liberal Government on this very issue with the aid of the Irish vote. The manner in which both English parties have eaten their words is warranted to inculcate political cynicism. If in 1881 the Liberals are declared to have jettisoned their principles and to have perpetrated that which a few months before they declared would stultify their whole policy, the same damaging admission must be made by the Tories as to their acquiescence in the Franchise Bill of 1884 and their conduct of the Land Bill of 1887.

"Anyone," said Cavour, "can govern in a state of siege," but I do not think Englishmen realise the extent to which the ruling policy has been to accentuate the repressive to the exclusion of the beneficent side of government, and how ready they have been to make the government not one of opinion, as in their own country, but one of force. When Mr. Balfour introduced his perpetual Coercion Bill of 1887 it was estimated that there had been one such measure for every year of the century that was passing.

In the first instance, the institutions of Ireland, being imposed by a conquering country, never earned that measure of respect bred partly of pride which attaches itself to the self-sown customs and processes of nations; but, having introduced her legal system, England superseded it and took steps to rule by a code outside the Common Law, so that respect was, therefore, asked for legal institutions which, on her own showing, and by her own admissions, had proved inadequate. In Ireland Government did not "meet the headlong violence of angry power by covering the accused all over with the armour of the law," as in Erskine's famous phrase it did in England with regard to those imbued with revolutionary principles.

A rusty statute of Edward III., which was devised for the suppression of brigandage, was used to condemn the leaders of the Irish people, unheard, in a court of law. Trial by jury was suspended and the common right of freedom of speech was infringed. In 1901 no less than ten Members of Parliament were imprisoned under the Crimes Act, and it was not until the appointment of Sir Antony MacDonnell to the Under Secretaryship that the proclamation of the Coercion Act was withdrawn.

It is no small matter that Mr. Bryce, when reviewing his period of office, mentioned among the details of his policy that he had set his face against jury-packing, and had allowed juries to be chosen perfectly freely. The suspension of the most cherished Common Law rights of the subject from Habeas Corpus downwards has been the inevitable result of a failure to apply democratic principles of government. Jury-packing, forbidden meetings, summary arrests and prosecutions, and police reporters form a discreditable paraphernalia by which to maintain the conduct of government.

As examples of the differential treatment meted out to Ireland which is not of a nature to impress her with confidence in English methods may be mentioned the fact that the Irish militia are drafted out of the country for their training, that no citizen army of volunteers is permitted, and the desire of one faction to preserve these discriminations is to be seen in the anger with which was greeted the omission the other day of the Irish Arms Act from the Expiring Laws Continuation Bill.

Under every bad government there arise popular organisations bred of the wildness of despair which enjoy the moral sanction which the law has failed to secure "When citizens," said Filangieri long ago, "see the Sword of Justice idle they snatch a dagger." So long as the Government sate on the safety valve, so long did periodic explosions of revolutionary resentment arise, and one must appreciate the fact that in a country so devoutly Catholic as is Ireland the natural conservatism which attachment to an historic Church inculcates, and the direction on its part of anathemas at secret societies and at violence, served to make it more difficult by far to arouse revolutionary reprisals than it would be in similar circumstances in England.

"When bad men combine," wrote Edmund Burke, "the good must associate, else they will fall one by one an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." No one can accuse Burke--the apostle of constitutionalism, the arch-enemy of the French revolution--of condoning violence, but even he admitted that there is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

England must blame herself for the war of classes with which the National struggle has been complicated. It was the Act of Union which made the landlord class look to England, and established it in the anomalous position of a body drawing its income from one country and its support from another; by this means it made them a veritable English garrison appealing to England as being the only loyal people. Let us hope it is not true to say at this date that like the Bourbons they have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. The rich, the proud, and the powerful have had their day, and can one deny that the attempt to govern Ireland in the sole interests of a minority has made Ireland what it is. An unbiased French observer three-quarters of a century ago declared that the cause of Irish distress was its _mauvaise aristocratic_. It was the interest of this class, as they themselves admit, which was allowed to dominate the policy of the Unionist Party, and to effect this, force was the only available instrument. With the recognition of the fact that the possession of property is no guarantee of intelligence has come the crippling of the policy of _laissez faire_, supported though it was by the brewers of Dublin and the shipbuilders of Belfast, for this reason--that rich men tend always to rally to the defence of property. The exercise of the duties which property imposes and the responsibility which it entails being the chief advantages of a landed gentry, and their main _raison d'être_ as a ruling caste having been conspicuous by its absence, with few exceptions, in Ireland, the passing of the landowner as a social factor is looked upon with complacency.

English statesmen seem to have applied that maxim of Machiavelli--that benefits should be conferred little by little so as to be more fully appreciated. It is hard to realise that little more than thirty years have elapsed since the time when the landed interest was supreme in these islands. Their power was first assailed by the Ballot Act of 1873, and the Corrupt Practices Act of 1884 did much to put a term to a form of intimidation at which Tories did not hold up their hands in horror, while the Franchise Act of 1883 destroyed their power, so that in those years passed away for ever the time when, as Archbishop Croke put it, an Irish borough would elect Barabbas for thirty pieces of silver.

Of one thing, indeed, we may be certain, and that is that we have touched bottom in the matter of Unionist concessions. The manner in which the programme mapped out between Mr. Wyndham and Sir Antony MacDonnell was rendered nugatory is evidence of that. The administration of the Land Act, under the secret instructions issued by Dublin Castle, was such as to cripple the Estates Commissioners in their application of its provisions. The proposals as to the settlement of the University question were nipped in the bud after advances had been made to the Catholic bishops to discover what was the minimum which they would accept, and this was done although Mr. Balfour had declared at Manchester in 1899--"Unless the University question can be settled Unionism is a failure."

Mr. F.H. Dale, an English Inspector of Schools, who, in the last couple of years, has produced two comprehensive blue books on the state of primary and secondary education in Ireland, declared that he found the desire for higher education in Ireland greater than in England; but in spite of this, so far, neither British party has advanced one step in the direction of a permanent solution, pleading as excuse that the fear of strengthening the hands of the priests blocks the way, albeit a university under predominatingly lay control is all that even the hierarchy in Ireland demand; while to add to the groundlessness on which intolerance is based the only institution of a satisfactory kind which is endowed by the State is a Jesuit College supported by what one can only call circuitous means.

Mr. Balfour himself has admitted that no Protestant parent could conscientiously send his son to a college which was as Catholic as Trinity is Protestant. If Oxford and Cambridge had been founded by foreign Catholics for the express purpose of destroying the Protestant religion in England, a thirty years' abolition of tests, which in no sense affected their "atmosphere," would not have overcome the prejudice and scruples persisting against them.

The vicious circles round which Irish questions rotate is nowhere seen more clearly than in this connection. When complaint is made that a disproportionately small number of Catholics hold high appointments in the public offices in Ireland, the reply is made that the number of members of that Church with high educational qualifications is small; when demands are made for facilities for higher education, the reluctance of English people to publicly endow sectarian education is urged as an excuse, although Irishmen have not, since Trinity abolished tests, made any demands for a purely sectarian University or College.

I have shown how, as a result of our aloofness from both English parties, we find ourselves between the upper and the nether millstones, and in what way in regard to the University question the old error which for so long obstructed the land question is at work--mean the error of denying reform for English reasons and endeavouring to force English doctrines into the law and government of Ireland and of suppressing Irish customs and Irish ideas.

On the advent to power of the present Government the heads of the great departments in Whitehall excused their apparent dilatoriness in effecting those administrative changes which the country expected from a Liberal Government, by the fact that after twenty years of Conservative rule the permanent officials were so steeped in the methods of Toryism their habits were to such a degree tinged and coloured by its policy, that there was the greatest possible difficulty in making the necessary alterations. In the case of Ireland this is so to a much greater extent, and one must recognise the truth of that saying of some Irish member to the effect that a new Chief Secretary was like the change of the dial on a clock--the difference was not great, for the works remain the same.

The main arguments against reform are founded on prophetic fears, and if one is impressed by the threats of a _jacquerie_ on the part of the Orangemen, led though they may be again, as they were twenty years ago, by a Minister of Cabinet rank, Nationalists, on the other hand, may remind Englishmen that the Irish volcanoes are not yet extinct, and that the history of reform is such as to show the value of violence on the failure of peaceful persuasion--a feature the most lamentable in Irish politics; and in this connection let it never be forgotten that "the warnings of Irish members," as Mr. Morley wrote in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ on the introduction of the Coercion Bill which followed the Phoenix Park murders, "have a most unpleasant knack of coming true." When the counsels of prudence coincide with the claims of justice, surely the last word had been said to disarm opposition.

"Old Buckshot," said Parnell grimly enough in 1881, "thinks that by making Ireland a gaol he will settle the Irish question." Throwing over that theory Great Britain decided in 1884--in the phrase then current--that to count heads was better than to break them, but having counted them she ignored their verdict, and has continued so to do for more than twenty years. One would have thought that she would have applied the rigour of her theories and put an end to this travesty by which she has conceded the letter of democracy--a phantom privilege which she has rendered nugatory. It was the impossibility of ignoring the constitutionally-expressed wishes of the Irish people after he had extended the suffrage, which made Mr. Gladstone a Home Ruler, and Englishmen have to remember that this, the only remedy in the whole of their political materia medica which they have not tried, is the one which has effected a cure wherever else it has been applied.

I ask, to what does England look forward in a prolongation of the present conditions? There is no finality in the politics of Ireland any more than in those of other countries. She cannot say to Ireland--"Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." As one burning question is solved another arises to take its place and to demand redress. The battle for the moment may seem to be to the strong, but in the long run might is unable to resist the advances of right. Time, we may well declare, is on our side; but one has to count the cost in the material damage to us, and in the moral damage to Great Britain, in the ultimate concession, perhaps under duress, of so much which has repeatedly been refused. Ever since, in 1881, Mr. Gladstone "banished to Saturn the laws of political economy," strong measures of State socialism have been enacted by both parties. It is not for nothing that the tenants in the West find themselves to-day paying less than half for their holdings of what they paid twenty years ago, and paying it, moreover, not by way of rent but as a terminable annuity. If there is one point which the events of the last generation have established in their eyes it is this--that Parnell was justified in telling them to keep a firm grip of their holdings, and that Great Britain has admitted the justice of the grounds on which their agitation was based, by the revolution in the social fabric which she has set in train by the Land Purchase Acts.

Who was the witty Frenchman who declared that England was an island and that every Englishman was an island? It is not only because of this preoccupation with their own affairs that their _amour propre_ has been injured by their failure in Ireland. One cannot expect to gather figs from thistles or grapes from thorns, and when Englishmen appreciate to how small an extent the Union has enured to the advantage of Ireland, they will understand the feelings which actuate the desire for self-government. Is there anything which makes Englishmen believe that the extension of Land Purchase or the foundation of a university will make for a permanent settlement? The history of the last half century can scarcely make them sanguine that when the burning questions of to-day have been disposed of they will find in the Imperial Parliament the knowledge, the interest, or the time necessary for dealing with new questions as they arise--for arise they assuredly will.

Great Britain may legislate with lazy, ill-informed, good intentions, as Mr. Gladstone admitted was done in the case of the Encumbered Estates Act, or she may grant concessions piecemeal, and the minority which thereby she maintains will denounce every reform as mere _panem et circenses_ by which she hopes to keep the majority subdued.

The "loyal minority" have cried "wolf" too often. Nearly forty years ago, when Disestablishment was threatened, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin said--"You will put to Irish Protestants the choice between apostacy and expatriation, and every man among them who has money or position, when he sees his Church go, will leave the country. If you do that, you will find Ireland so difficult to manage that you will have to depend on the gibbet and the sword."

The twenty-five attempts to settle by legislation the land question were in nearly every instance denounced as spoliation by the House of Lords, which was constrained to let them pass into law. The pages of Hansard are grey with unfulfilled forebodings as to what would be the effect of the extension of the Franchise and of the grant of popular Local Government. The results of the former took the wind out of the sails of those who declared that popular wishes in Ireland were overridden by a political caucus, the success of local government has given Orangemen occasion to blaspheme.

The history of Irish legislation on all these points has been one of belated concession to demands repeatedly made, at first scouted and finally surrendered. And withal, English statesmen have not killed Home Rule with kindness. "Twenty years of resolute government" were confidently expected to give Irish Nationalism its _quietus. E pur si muove._

NOTES

[1] L. Paul-Dubois. _L'Irlande Contemporaine_, p. 174.

[2] "Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," Vol. II., p. 455.

[3] _L'Irlande Contemporaine_, p. 232.

[4] Hansard, August 1, 1881.

[5] _Ibid._, September 3, 1886.

[6] _Ibid._, August 19, 1886.

[7] _Ibid._, March 22, 1887.

[8] _Ibid._, April 22, 1887.

[9] _Ibid._, February 14, 1907.

[10] The statement in the text, written shortly after the prorogation of Parliament, unexpectedly demands modification. Almost all the planters on the Clanricarde estate have expressed their readiness to clear out of the evicted lands and to accept re-settlement elsewhere. The Lords' amendments will in consequence not prove the obstacle which it was feared they would to the exercise of powers of compulsion by the Estates Commissioners against the owner.

[11] "Greville Memoirs," Series I., Vol. III., p. 269.

[12] _Ibid._, Series II., p. 217, December, 1843.

[13] _Ibid._, Series II., Vol. II., March, 1846.

[14] Hansard, February, 1848.

[15] _United Irishman_, May 14, 1904.

[16] "Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," Vol. II., p. 4, October 14, 1885.

[17] Hansard, May 20, 1884.

[18] "Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," Vol. II., p. 456, 1892.

[19] "Greville," Series I., Vol. II., p. 76, November, 1830.

[20] "Life of Whately," Vol. II., p. 246, 1852.

[21] "Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," Vol. II., p. 28, December, 1885.

[22] Morley's "Life of Gladstone," Vol. II., Bk. IX., Cap. 4, p. 524.

[23] Hansard, March 6, 1905.

[24] _Times_, January 10, 1906.

[25] Mrs. John Richard Green, _Independent Review_, June, 1905.

[26] "Ireland and the Empire," p. 275.

[27] Hansard, May 7, 1907.

[28] Morley's "Life of Gladstone," Vol. II., Bk. IX., Cap. 1, p. 481.

ADDENDUM

PAGE 51.--A Bill introduced last session by Mr. William Redmond which passed through both Houses of Parliament without opposition or debate, will, when at an early date it comes into force, repeal the Tobacco Cultivation Act, 1831, which forbade the growth of tobacco in Ireland. Under the new Act there will be no obstacle in the way of its cultivation, provided the excise conditions which will be imposed are complied with.

Among the places in which experiments in tobacco growing have been made in the last few years are Randalstown in Meath, Tagoat in Wexford, and Tullamore in King's County, and in addition Lord Dunraven and Col. Hon. Otway Cuffe have shown the success with which this crop may be cultivated in other parts of Ireland.

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By GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM, Author of "The Seething Pot," "Hyacinth," and "Benedict Kavanagh." Cr. 8vo. Antique Paper. Bound in Irish Linen. 6s.

"There can be no doubt that this story will have a great success, for it is intensely alive and holds the interest from start to finish ... The story is very exciting; the author has a wonderful power of keeping his grip on it and describing the incidents with relentless force."--_Daily Telegraph_.

"Its characters are finely drawn and its interest compelling."--_Morning Leader_.

"The book is extremely well done all round, and will be read as much for its engrossing story as for the admirable picture it gives of those stirring times which closed the eighteenth century."--_Pall Mall Gazette_.

CAMBIA CARTY.

By WILLIAM BUCKLEY, Author of "Croppies Lie Down." Cr. 8vo. Irish Linen. 3s. 6d.

THE QUEST.

By JAMES H. COUSINS, 2s. 6d. net. Contains--The Going Forth of Dana: The Sleep of the King: The Marriage of Lir and Niav, &c.

THE AWAKENING AND OTHER SONNETS.

By JAMES H. COUSINS. With marginal designs by T. SCOTT. Royal 16mo. Cloth, 1s. net; Paper, 6d. net.

THE GILLY OF CHRIST.

By SEOSAMH MAC CATHMHAOIL. With three illustrations by A.M. WENTWORTH SHEILDS. Royal 16mo. Cloth, 1s. net.

THE EGYPTIAN PILLAR.

Poems by EVA GORE BOOTH. Royal 16mo. 1s. net.

ABOUT WOMEN.

Verses by CHARLES WEEKES. Royal 16mo. 1s. net.

WILD EARTH.

A Book of Verse. By PADRAIC COLUM. 1s. net.

POETRY.

POEMS, 1899-1905. By W.B. YEATS.

This volume contains the Plays--_The Shadowy Waters, The King's Threshold_, and _On Baile's Strand_, entirely revised and largely re-written, and the collection of Lyrics _In the Seven Woods_. Cr. 8vo. 6s. net.

DEIRDRE; a Play in One Act. By W.B. YEATS.

(Plays for an Irish Theatre.) Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

THE TÁIN,

An Irish Epic told in English Verse. By Mary A. Hutton.

Fcap 4to. Antique Paper. Bound in Irish Linen gilt, gilt top. 10s. 6d. net.

This work is an attempt to tell the whole story of the Táin Bó Cúailngne in a complete and artistic form. The writer, working always from original sources, has taken the L.L. text of the tale as the basis of her narrative, but much material has been worked into its texture, not only from the L.U. version of the Táin and fragments of other versions, but from very many other Irish epic sources. Some of the material so used has not yet been edited. The object always has been to bring out the great human interests of the story in their own Gaelic atmosphere.

The narrative is divided into fifteen books, and there is a short introductory narrative called "The Finding of the Táin," and a short closing narrative called "The Writing of the Táin"; these form a sort of Early Christian frame to the great Pagan tale.

The medium chosen is blank verse; but the verse, being written under the immediate influence of old Gaelic literature, has a character of its own.

The author has been engaged on the work for the past ten years, and, in addition to writing the poem, has compiled a series of Appendices, comprising a very complete set of topographical notes, an account of the chief authorities used, and various other notes and comments. The book should be of great interest to scholars and folk-lorists, as well as to lovers of poetry, and to all who are interested in the old Irish stories.

DRAMA.

THE FIDDLER'S HOUSE.

A Play in Three Acts. By PADRAIC COLUM. Paper cover. Cr. 8vo. 1s. net.

DEIRDRE.

A Play in Three Acts. By A.E. Royal 16mo. 1s. net.

THE PAGAN.

A Comedy in Two Scenes. By LEWIS PURCELL. Cr. 8vo. Antique Paper, 1s. net.

THE TURN OF THE ROAD.

A North of Ireland Play in two Scenes. By RUTHERFORD MAYNE. 1s. net.

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ABBEY THEATRE SERIES OF IRISH PLAYS.

Crown 8vo. 1s. net each.

Kincora. By LADY GREGORY.

The Land. By PADRAIC COLUM.

The White Cockade. By LADY GREGORY.

Spreading the News, The Rising of the Moon, by LADY GREGORY; and The Poorhouse, by LADY GREGORY and DOUGLAS HYDE.

The Building Fund. By WILLIAM BOYLE.

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Samhain, 1906. Edited by W.B. YEATS. Containing _Hyacinth Halvey_, by Lady Gregory. 6d. net.

THE SHANACHIE.

An Irish Illustrated Quarterly. Fcap. 4to. 1s net each number.

The _Spring_ Number contains "Pat's" Pastoral--An Act of Thanksgiving; The People of the Glens, by J.M. SYNGE; The Royal Hibernian Academy, by J.B. YEATS, R.H.A.; A National Dramatist, by GEORGE ROBERTS; Stories by K.M. PURDON and L. MACMANUS; Poems by JANE BARLOW, THOMAS KEOHLER, JAMES H. COUSINS, and PADRAIC COLUM. Illustrations by WILLIAM ORPEN, J.B. YEATS, &c.

The _Summer_ Number contains The Rationale of Art, by J.B. YEATS. The Resolution, by G.A. BIRMINGHAM; The Crows of Mephistopheles, by GEORGE FITZMAURICE; A Note on Fanlights, by J.H. ORWELL; and the first of a series of Articles on the South West of Ireland, by J.M. SYNGE.

The _Autumn_ Number contains Discoveries, W.B. YEATS; St. Patrick on the Stage, by JOHN EGLINTON; The Blasket Islands, by J.M. SYNGE; The Quail, a Story of Turgeniff's, translated by MARGARET GOUGH; The Shanachie in the East, by Professor HONWITZ; Poems by PADRAIC COLUM, SUSAN MITCHELL, and S.R. LYSAGHT. Illustrations by C. MARSH, GRACE GIFFORD, W. DALY, and O. CUNNINGHAM.

The _Winter_ Number contains The Ballygullion Creamery Society, a Story by LYNA C. DOYLE; The Passing, by T.D. FITZGERALD; Mysticism in English Poetry, by J.H. COUSINS; Marcus of Clooney, a Story by PADRAIC COLUM; On Bullying, by G.A. BIRMINGHAM; In West Kerry, by J.M. SYNGE; The Doom of La Traviata, by LORD DUNSANY; An Idle Hour with a Cyclopedia, by MICHAEL ORKNEY; Poetry by SEUMAS O'SULLIVAN, GEORGE ROBERTS, PADRAIC COLUM, GRACE MACNAMARA. Illustrations by R.C. ORPEN, JACK B. YEATS, GRACE GIFFORD.

_ANNUAL VOLUME_ contains above four Parts, bound in Belfast Buckram, 6s.

Cases for binding the Parts can be obtained from the Publishers. Price 1s. each.

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