The outcome of this visit was two papers which were
written for the New Review—with
the editor of whom, however, I stood somewhat in the
position of Balaam with Balak, when, called on to curse
the Israelites, he was forced by a superior power
to bless them. So I with the Unionists.
The first paper was sent and passed, but it was delayed
by editorial difficulties through the critical months
of the bye-elections. When published in the December
number, owing to the exigencies of space, the backbone—namely
the extracts from the Land Acts, now included in this
re-publication—was taken out of it, and
my own unsupported statements alone were left.
I was sorry for this, as it cut the ground from under
my feet and left me in the position of one of those
mere impressionists who have already sufficiently
darkened counsel and obscured the truth of things.
As the same editorial difficulties and exigencies
of space would doubtless delay the second paper, like
the first, I resolved, by the courteous permission
of the editor, to enlarge and publish both in a pamphlet
for which I alone should be responsible, and which
would bind no editor to even the semblance of endorsement.
I, only half-enlightened, write, as has been said,
for the wholly blind and ignorantly ardent who, as
I did, accept sentiment for fact and feeling for demonstration;
who do not look at the solid legal basis on which
the present Government is dealing with the Irish question;
who believe all that the Home Rulers say, and nothing
that the Unionists demonstrate. I want them to
study the plain and indisputable facts of legislation
as I have done, when I think they must come to the
same conclusions as those which have forced themselves
on my own mind—namely, that the Home Rule
desired by the Parnellites is not only a delusive
impossibility, but is also high treason against the
integrity of the Empire, and would be a base surrender
of our obligations to the Irish Loyalists; that, whatever
the landlords were, they are now more sinned against
than sinning; and that in the orderly operation of
the Land Acts now in force, with the stern repression
of outrages[A] and punishment of crimes, for which
peaceable folk are so largely indebted to Mr. Balfour,
lies the true pacification of this distressed and
troubled country.
E. LYNN LINTON.
ABOUT IRELAND.
I.
Nothing dies so hard as prejudice, unless it be sentiment.
Indeed, prejudice and sentiment are but different
manifestations of the same principle by which men
pronounce on things according to individual feeling,
independent of facts and free from the restraint of
positive knowledge. And on nothing in modern
times has so much sentiment been lavished as on the
Irish question; nowhere has so much passionately generous,
but at the same time so much absolutely ignorant,
partisanship been displayed as by English sympathisers
