If it be a success to make Irishmen hate one
another, Sir S. Nortlicote's tour in Ulster has been a great success. He has said very little, except that the Union must be maintained ; but he has enabled all Orangemen and a great many Catholics to show that they are as ready for civil war as ever. A great many Englishmen, including some Liberals, hold that to be a healthy position of affairs, because, they say, while Ireland is divided secession is impossible. Secession is impossible anyhow, with- out British consent, as all Home-rulers, even the wildest, admit, and we believe the idea of deriving benefit from Irish divisions is as inaccurate as immoral. In the first place, the quarrel between North and South makes the proposal of any Inodus vivendi between Britain and Ireland impossible ; and in the second place, the hatred of the south towards England is mainly caused by the attitude of the north. It is because Catholic Ireland confuses England as she is with her old vanguard, the Orange party, that she hates England so hard. The division, moreover, makes Ireland unreasonable to a needless degree, the southerners losing the whole benefit of the northerners' grip of facts, and the north- erners the .whole advantage of the southerners' perception of what the majority want. If Irishmen could only pull together, there must come reason into their councils, and it is reason that is wanted. We could compromise with Scotland, if Scotchmen all hated us as their forefathers did.
