Land Act of 1870, though far less so than his Land Act of 1881. At this point a joint attack on the Administration was planned by the Whigs and Peelites in the shape of a Free Trade motion, and the balance of parties at the moment rendered the vote of the tenant Leaguers decisive. After some negotiation the leaders of the party agreed to vote with Mr. Disraeli on the coming division rather than risk the loss of such a measure as his Land Bill. Having described the intrigue by which the Irish party was induced to violate the agreement it had made with Mr. Disraeli, and which led to his defeat and to the loss of the Irish Land Bill, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy adds : The Aberdeen Government, which succeeded them, instead of taking up the land question at the point which it had reached-a concession freely promised by party canvassers before the division-set about corrupting the Irish party. They gave office to the notorious John Sadleir... Lord Palmerston, who was landlord of an impoverished Irish tenantry, scoffed at the proposal of recognising tenant right; and it is proper to add that at home the deserters found unexpected support from a section of bishops and priests under the influence of Archbishop Cullen, who, fresh from a Roman cloister, confounded the legitimate claims of the people with Italian projects which he detested. The Irish party was disabled, and finally broken up .. and the attention of Parliament long diverted from the wrongs of Irish farmers. It is possible that in some quarters this testimony to Lord Beaconsfield's Irish land policy may not be agreeable. There are so-called Conservatives who do not like to be reminded of the fact that the Tory chief was in favour of retrospective compensation. Such individuals may, perhaps, say, We admit that Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, who was the leader of the Irish National party at the time, is the best living witness to Mr. Disraeli's Irish policy in 1852; but what Englishman thinks it worth while to go back to the history of thirty years ago? To this it may be answered, There was one Englishman who cared to do so. On one of the last occasions in which he appeared in the House of Lords Lord Beaconsfield said : I may remind your Lordships that so early as the year 1852, after some attempts had been made-but not of a very large character-to legislate for the state of Ireland, founded on the conclusions recommended by the Devon Commission, a Government was formed in this country, of which I had the honour to be a member, which resolved to deal with this question, and, if possible, to grapple with it.6 He then quoted from a speech he had made in the House of Commons in 1870, to the following effect: The particular Bill which we brought forward in 1852, which would have regulated the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland, was referred, after the fall of our Government, to a Select Committee. The labours of that Select Committee I will not dwell upon, because it would weary the House and time will not permit. They experienced various complications and many strange vicissitudes; but this was the result: every provision in the Bill that we brought forward to regulate the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland was adopted by that Committee, with one vital exception, and a Bill was at last passed in 1860 to Hansard's Debates, August 3, 1880. regulate those relations, with the omission of what I consider to be a vital clause in the Bill of 1852-namely, that which gave compensation to the tenant for improvements, and retrospective compensation. This was the last speech Lord Beaconsfield delivered on the Irish land question. In a few months he was in his grave at Hughenden. Why did he remind the House of Lords of the vital importance he had for thirty years attached to retrospective compensation for Irish tenants? No party object was to be gained. It was not to educate again the landed magnates he was addressing that he gave them this episode of recent history. Those, however, who were sufficiently acquainted with him to be able to realise his ruling passion-a love of honourable fame-could understand his motive in thus recording such opinions at the close of his career. Even those who care more for the division lobby than for fame will, perhaps, recognise some merit in Mr. Disraeli's Irish land policy and the attempt to unite Protestants and Catholics as National Conservatives, when they remember that in Lord Palmerston's last Parliament Mr. Disraeli had a clear majority of the Irish members voting with him. From 1859 to 1865 a majority of the representatives from Ireland returned as Conservatives! What a difference now! and what a still greater difference we are about to see! In what Sir Stafford Northcote called the great speech, nobly conceived and nobly expressed, in which the present Prime Minister proposed a public monument to Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Gladstone said that, were he a young man entering public life, he would take for his future guidance some of the characteristics of Mr. Disraeli, one of those he described being his long-sighted persistency of purpose, reaching from his first entrance on the avenue of life to its very close.' How do we find that persistency of purpose exhibited in his Irish policy? Notably in his recognition of popular sentiment in dealing with Ireland, and especially of that sentiment as inseparably associated with Irish history. He gave a practical illustration of his regard for that sentiment when he directed the Treasury minute to be prepared for the cost of translating and publishing the valuable materials of Irish history that hitherto no Chancellor of the Exchequer would consent to publish. Indeed in this, the guiding principle of his Irish policy, he is apart from every English statesman of his time. Amidst contradictions and inconsistencies, from which others are not free, in this he stands above them all and alone. What has been described as the hard-headed, logical school of statesmen, of which Lord Sherbrooke is a type, object to the study of Irish history, on the ground that it leads inevitably to Irish nationality. Lord Sherbrooke does not represent the majority into whose hands the government of England is about to pass. But men like Lord Sherbrooke and Lord Grey represent that once powerful class of administrators who created what they called the National Board and the Provincial Colleges. When, half a century ago, these administrators took into their hands the responsibility of educating the Irish people, they resolved to check and destroy, as far as they could do so, the study of Irish history. When they established the Queen's Colleges, whilst a professor of the Irish language might be allowed, no teaching of Irish history was to be tolerated. Against all this the National party, from the days of Thomas Davis to the Parliamentary session of 1884, have earnestly protested. Boycotted by the Castle authorities, the study of Irish history is heartily welcomed in every true Irish home, from the rooms of some of the patriotic Protestant clergymen of Trinity College to the fireside of the peasant. Though it has been placed on an Index Expurgatorius by the State dispensers of education, Irish history is taught in the reading-rooms of the National League and in the Young Men's Societies, not only in Ireland but in Great Britain, in Canada, in Australia, and wherever the Irish race is found. Ignored by the Executive, it is in fact the key of the Irish policy they cannot understand. Perhaps there are statesmen in England bewildered by the Irish question, and sincerely anxious to comprehend it, who may take a lesson from the reading-rooms of the young men of Ireland and from the memorable words of Lord Beaconsfield, spoken when he was Prime Minister and referring to his speech on Ireland of February 1844: In my conscience the sentiment of that speech was right. It may have been expressed with the heedless rhetoric which I suppose is the appanage of all who sit below the gangway; but in my historical conscience the sentiment of that speech was right. Perhaps I ought to apologise to the House for alluding to history. We have been told by a great authority in this debate that there must be no more history introduced into discussions, and I observe that the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Lowe) has been wandering about the country during the recess delivering lectures against the study of history. But, sir, Irish policy is Irish history, and I have no faith in any statesman who attempts to remedy the evils of Ireland who is either ignorant of the past or who will not deign to learn from it.7 Whatever may be the judgment of the newer generation on his genius and career, any one who desires to uphold the true fame of Lord Beaconsfield, or to vindicate the ruling idea of his Irish policy, may point to those words and to the national sentiment of the earlier speech to which they refer. J. POPE HENNESSY. 7 Hansard's Debates, March 16, 1868. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake SCOTT'S MIDLOTHIAN OAT FLOUR, which is made entirely from the finest quality of Midlothian ats, is so purified from the Fibrous Integument, that it has concentrated in it 80 per cent. more flesh and bone forming operties than the finest Oat Meal, which is acknowledged to be the most nutritious of all Cereals. 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