Irish Home Rule, that the pessimistic attitude of such writers as Mr. Froude is a wise one. Mr. Topp, too, I fear, is touched by the same spirit of despair, for he even laments, if I understand him rightly, the granting of "Catholic emancipation," regarding that act apparently as putting the most effective weapon—viz., a vote—into the hands of a people racially hostile to English law. But, after all, practical politics are only a choice of evils, and the Irish Roman Catholics must have been enfranchised or reconquered. Still, I admit that it does not lighten the task to have thus "armed" a race whom we must assimilate, or who may otherwise weaken, if not destroy, the fabric of our Empire.
Let us, however, never forget that the British Empire is based on a blending of races and nationalities originally fiercely antagonistic. Both Lord Hartington and Mr. Balfour, in addressing Scotch audiences recently, have felicitously emphasised the fact that Scotland offers the most perfect illustration of the possibility of welding the Celt and the Teuton into a common nationality; and, furthermore, of subsequently making that blended nationality the most loyal, intelligent, and enterprising portion of a world-wide Empire. The present Unionists are those
