One day near the beginning of June Mr. Shane Leslie, in a letter to The Times, compared the Irish to the English as professional politicians to amateurs. It is a pleasing conception, the Mother of Parliaments retaining her amateur status, bringing with it a vision of a leisured and stately autonomy. At the same time there is something very admirable and winning about the continuous enthusiasm for politics that certain peoples display. But the admiration we English accord them seems to me to be that which we give to a child who is clever at his play. For a whole people to be politically effective, that was possible in the city-states of Hellas, it was the ideal of Rousseau, but, so we are told, it is out of the question in the modern nation State. We mark our ballot papers, having for the most part but the vaguest ideas of the particular issues at stake, and thus is the voice of the people heard; then and only then. But can this be really all? Are those only to be reckoned politicians who sit at Westminster or nurse constituencies? I do not believe it for a moment. The more benefits are conferred on us by the legislature, the more will our interests lie with it; and the more closely we seem to be entwined in the net of economic circumstance, the more we shall look to it for help and guidance.