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consumption of luxuries, an excellent test of wealth, shows an immediate decline, tobacco falling in thirty years by 37 per cent. and wine by 47 per cent. Loss of trade follows loss of the flag. London, having become the political centre of gravity of Ireland, tends also to become her financial and commercial centre of gravity. There is a diminution of the productive, and a great increase of the parasitic classes. The home market slips away from the home manufacturer; a sort of mania of exchange takes possession of the country; and she ends by reaching a higher figure per unit of her population of exports and imports than any other European nation, paying ruinous tribute on both processes to the Shylocks of transit. It is a situation too sadly familiar to us all. M. PaulDubois' remedy, too, is familiar; it is the programme of the men of 1779 and of the Industrial Pioneers of to-day : Use at home as many as you need of the things that are made at home, and make at home as many as possible of the things that are used at home. He neither anticipates nor desires any notable development of industry on the great scale, but looks for the prosperity of Ireland to progressive agriculture, and the smaller rural industries that come naturally to cluster around it.

Such is, in bare outline, the diagnosis of Ireland made by this detached and sympathetic student. He touches upon many other subjects, upon that of Clericalism and Anti-Clericalism with particular delicacy and insight. One may regret that, with his French experience, he does not discuss such problems as that now rising very definitely on the political horizon: Does Ireland stand to gain or to lose by Protection? One may find a fault of line or of colour bere and there, or chance on an irritating phrase. But on the whole and as a whole this is the best book that has been written in recent years on

the problems of Ireland. The meaner journalism may seek
in it for nothing better than party capital. But the
worker in any Irish movement, who possesses the supreme
wisdom of humility, and who had rather be bettered than
flattered, will be glad to have seen himself in M. Paul-
Dubois' mirror. His last message is one of hope. He
may, as his Conclusion shows, have underrated the
resolution of Ireland to secure integral Home Rule-a
National Government being a delicate and intricate
machine which cannot be set working in halves. He may,
by times, have seemed to forget that there are many
kinds of Conciliation, that, for instance, an infallible
method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be
devoured. But, as between us and our rulers, he gives
his verdict, on the evidence, for Ireland and against
England. And he foreshadows a possible unification of
all progressive parties on the Irish side, a tacit Concordat
under which, on the sole condition that the national idea
be not submerged or the national flag lowered in
surrender, all progressive parties would come to regard
themselves as but different regiments of the same Army
of Advance. May that hope come true!

T. M. KETTLE.

This book is an English translation of L'Irlande Contemporaire,
Paris, 1907.
M. Paul-Dubois desires to express his gratitude for
great personal kindness during two visits to Ireland, and invaluable
help in his studies of Irish life to Mr. T. P. Gill, The Rev. F. J.
Hogan, D.D. and the authorities of Maynooth College, and Sir
Horace Plunkett. He wishes further to pay a tribute to the
memory of that brilliant writer on Irish affairs, the late J. F.
Taylor, K.C., and to say how much he has profited by the counsel
and assistance of the late Rt. Hon. W. E. H. Lecky.

The Editor wishes to record his particular indebtedness, as
regards the Historical Introduction, to Mr. A. E. Clery, LL.B.,
and as regards the remainder of the book to Mr. J. M. Hone,
and Mr. G. F. H. Berkeley.

It has been thought well to add in an Appendix a few Notes,
mainly of a statistical character.
T. M. K.

HISTORICAL

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I.—BEFORE THE UNION

We must look to the past if we would understand the present. Hence, before we approach the study of contemporary Ireland, it is well to turn our gaze backwards and try to comprehend the broader facts of the history of that country. We must look to the historical causes of which the existing condition of affairs is the immediate outcome. When we do so, two questions at once suggest themselves. How comes it that though it has been so often crushed, the Irish nation still survives; and yet. though able to survive, has never been able to attain its freedom? And again, how is it that the English, a people long famous for liberal principles and practical common sense, have failed so miserably in the task of conciliating Ireland? Why have their efforts in Ireland borne no other crop than one of unprofitable hatred, with the result that after seven centuries and a half, that country is to-day an element of disintegration, and a dead weight in the British Empire? What, in a word, has caused-to employ a strong term-the bankruptcy of English rule in Ireland?

It is difficult to give even a brief sketch of the history of Ireland. It is no exaggeration to say that Irish history is a book but half open. Students of Celtic and archæologists are still engaged in preparing the way for the historian. Many Irish Manuscripts, records and state. papers dealing with the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as with earlier epochs, have not yet seen

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