in the present state of Labour opinion it should be quite sufficient to quote a few of the principal disputes that have occurred in the * last twelve months. The Sydney Waterside Workers' affair; the Brisbane Tramway Strike followed by a general cessation of work on the part of the Unions; the Lithgow affair (lasting for many months); the strike among the carriers of Adelaide and the downing of tools in the Wonthaggi State coalmine (Victoria), all these outbreaks shriek aloud that the alleged remedy for industrial trouble is, so far, no remedy at all. As a matter of fact New South Wales, the State cited as the " bright particular star" in the Arbitration heaven has suffered, probably, more severely from these disturbances than any other part of Australasia.

The writer, therefore, is fully justified in contraverting the statement that in Arbitration Australians have "devised an effective remedy for strikes." Every law of this kind, State and Federal, has been amended time and again, with a view to making its provisions binding on the recalcitrant party but so far the strike rages just as frequently as it did in the Ante-Arbitration period. Yet the principle is an eminently sound one. The community clamours for the abolition of the old truculent barbarism and a return to industrial sanity. The best men in the Democratic movement are champions of the judicial method of settling disputes, and in time it is to be hoped that the mandates of the Court will meet with the loyal acceptance of all parties. But, up to the present, no observant, impartial Australian can say that Arbitration sits in her high place crowned with triumphant laurel. It may be unpleasant to have to admit failure-but

Facts are chiels that winna ding

And daurna be disputed.

A man with a painfully red nose was once painted by an eminent artist. When the picture was completed the sitter remarked: "I like that picture very well-all but one thing—I don't like that nose!" "Neither do I, my friend, but it is yours," replied the artist. There is no sense in crying-" Peace—Peace,” when there is no peace. It is not wise to call from the housetops-" A Panacea-A Panacea!" when a fierce industrial disease is tearing the nation's vitals in defiance of the loud advertisements of an alleged Cure-all.

P. AIREY.

FA PLEA FOR A UNIONIST CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND

It seems that a large majority at a General Election is bound, after a certain interval, to have a soporific influence upon the successful Party. If, as may happen under peculiar circumstances, the victory is repeated at the next trial of electoral strength, the process, though arrested for the moment, reappears in a more marked form, and within a shorter time. This tendency to loss of initiative and of energy, which is but natural, yet more noticeable in the Unionist Party, than among their opponents, may be illustrated by the elections of 1895 and 1900, and the events which followed.

These things are fresh in our memories; the climax was reached in the summer of last year when the chiefs agreed to accept the Parliament Bill, and the Unionist Peers, being trustees of the safety and welfare of the Realm, to surrender the powers which enabled them effectively to discharge their trust.

This last straw brought out the long smouldering discontent. A revolt was set on foot, headed by the veteran Lord Halsbury, and managed with admirable skill by Lord Willoughby de Broke. Consternation reigned in the Liberal camp; they feared being compelled to attempt to enforce threats which never were meant to be carried out, with the result of making the British Government the laughing-stock of the civilised world.

But this movement, though it failed of its main objective, had results of surpassing importance. England owes to the DieHards a debt, the true measure of which has not yet been recog nised. By their action the lethargy which had been creeping over the Unionist forces, and paralysing their efforts was arrested. Life and energy and, as a result, a spirit of renewed confidence,

were restored. The enemy is being handled in the manner which has been consistently advocated in the pages of this Review, and does not relish the change. The moral of the army of defence has been re-established, and it is going into action with a sure and certain hope of ultimate, and perhaps not very distant success.

Under these circumstances the conditions of a new campaign in Great Britain are being studied, and various operations of an exceptional character, both in and out of Parliament, have been suggested and forcibly urged by the more active portion of the Unionist Press. It is the object of this article to show that the campaign should be extended to Ireland, and carried on vigorously throughout the length and breadth of that country. This may surprise many readers: but it will be proved that such a course is not only reasonable, but prudent, and that the time is ripe for its adoption.

It is not surprising that such a proposition should create surprise but too little is known here of the true sentiments of the people in Ireland. In that country public opinion, in the ordinary sense of the word, does not exist. The Freeman's Journal is the leading Nationalist organ; but it is controlled by the United Irish League. It does not reflect the opinion of the Irish people, and it is not supported by them. Neither the ordinary nor the preference shares have paid any dividend for upwards of three years, and both they and the debenture stock are at a heavy discount. Its last report, which was published in the Dublin journals of March 19, sets forth that the directors, "having conferred with Mr. John Redmond, M.P., and having obtained from him an assurance that financial assistance will be provided," adopt a suggestion for increasing the number of the board. Thus the leading Nationalist organ cannot add to its directorate without a subsidy from the funds of the United Irish League. It expresses the views of this violent but well-organised minority, which through its nine hundred branches, exercises in three provinces of Ireland, and a part of the fourth, a tyranny of which the British people have absolutely no conception.

The suggestion is that a Unionist campaign in Ireland should be undertaken at the earliest possible moment; that at every by-election the seat should be contested by a Unionist and Tariff

Reform candidate; and that at the General Election, Unionist candidates in every constituency should explain to the electors, who are generally sympathetic with Tariff Reform, what are the advantages which that system would confer upon a country threefourths of whose people depend upon agriculture for a living.

The idea is not altogether new; it was put forward in a letter which appeared in the Dublin Daily Express six or seven weeks before the election of January 1910. The Nationalist expenses of that election were defrayed out of the £10,000 collected by Mr. T. P. O'Connor in America during the autumn of 1909. But this sum was exhausted in the defence of the seventeen seats attacked by the O'Brienites, ten of which were captured. If the uncontested seats, about sixty-seven in number, had been contested by Unionists, many would have been secured through lack of funds on the part of their opponents. But Ireland is the country of paradox and of political imposture. These candidates, successful in some cases, because their opponents had not the money to fight them, would have represented their constituents far more faithfully than the others. The Irish vote has little to do with the personal opinions of the voter. If the same plan of action had been repeated in December 1910, the result would have been the bankruptcy of the Nationalist exchequer, and we should not now be talking about Home Rule, either in or out of Parliament. But the suggestion met with no response. The older members of the Unionist organisations in Ireland remembered the fiasco of 1885, and feared to risk the repetition of an undertaking whose only effect might be to demonstrate the weakness of the Unionist position. In the General Election of that year the Conservatives contested every seat in Ireland. The result was in every way disappointing. The Unionists were in any case in small minorities, and many of them, not without reason, were afraid to vote. Their opinions being known, the ballot was no protection. The result was that in some instances the Conservative poll did not reach three figures. "It would never do," said the cautious ones, "to run such a risk again; and look what it would cost."

But, in the words of the Psalmist, "They were afraid where no fear was." They remembered only the electoral disaster, and forgot entirely the immense change in the position which had taken place between 1885 and 1910. In the former year Mr. Parnell

was approaching the zenith of his popularity and reaching the extreme limit of his success. Funds for the campaign were being supplied in abundance, not only from America but from Ireland itself. Mr. Parnell was the unchallenged Leader of an undivided Party. Above all; he offered Home Rule to the Irish people as a means to an end-as the only way in which they could expel the English garrison, and by the extermination of the landlords, achieve their heart's desire-the ownership of the soil they tilled. Mr. Redmond occupies a different position. He is hardly even the real leader of a Party from which a small band of able men, which puts the material prosperity of Ireland before constitutional change, has successfully revolted. Funds are not supplied from Ireland, but are obtained with difficulty and much labour from America. There is an uneasy feeling that he sold the pass in the matter of the Budget, when, contravening the resolution of the National Convention of February 1909, he enabled Mr. Lloyd George to place £1,500,000 of additional taxation upon the country, upon the over-taxation of which he had so often descanted in eloquent terms, even while the Bill was before Parliament in 1909. He hardly ventures to set his foot in the County of Cork, the greater portion of which has been captured by the revolters. On the last occasion on which he visited the City of Cork, he was guarded by a body of five hundred men, armed with clubs or hockey sticks. But the authorities still had to consider the question, "Custodes quis custodiet ipsos?" and Mr. Redmond's bodyguard, in the city which his great predecessor had so long represented, was guarded in its turn by a strong body of police.

But most important of all is the fact that Home Rule has ceased to be a means to the end for the sake of which it was so eagerly embraced. That end is being brought about by other means, and there is a prevalent and well-grounded fear that Home Rule may prove rather a barrier than an aid to the tenant who desires the ownership of his farm. More than half the tenantfarmers of Ireland had become owners of their holdings under the Unionist Land Purchase Legislation, when in November 1909 Mr. Birrell, at the instance of the Nationalist members, arrested the progress which was being made. Neither the 330,000 farmers, who have already purchased, and fear additional taxation, nor the 270,000 who have been disappointed, are very eager to