An ably-
handled coherent body in the midst of the liquid groups will make it felt
that Ireland is a nation, naturally dependent though she must be. We
have to do with forces in politics, and the great majority of the Irish
Nationalists in Ireland has made them a force.
No doubt Mr. Matthew Arnold is correct in his apprehensions of the
dangers we may fear from a Dublin House of Commons. The declarations
and novel or ultra theories might almost be written down beforehand.
I should, for my part, anticipate a greater danger in the familiar
attitude of the English metropolitan Press and public toward an
experiment they dislike and incline to dread:--the cynical comments,
the quotations between inverted commas, the commiserating shrug, cold
irony, raw banter, growl of menace, sharp snap, rounds of laughter.
Frenchmen of the Young Republic, not presently appreciated as offensive,
have had some of these careless trifles translated for them, and have
been stung. We favoured Germany with them now and then, before Germany
became the first power in Europe. Before America had displayed herself
as greatest among the giants that do not go to pieces, she had, as
Americans forgivingly remember, without mentioning, a series of flicks of
the whip.
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