At this juncture, St. Patrick’s-tide, 1920, being the hundred and twentieth anniversary of a Union which without uniting Ireland to England has come near to disuniting totally the whole English-speaking world, it is best to consider the Irish question not as theory or sentiment, but in the light of cold dynamics.

There is no certainty in political forces ; but the economical approach the status of an exact science. Enthusiasms, hatreds, friendships, agreements, disagreements may be transmuted or evaporated between nations over-night. Journalism can play a great part in creating friendliness or arousing hatred, but, as its name implies, its influence must be ephemeral unless some material event or economic tendency pin it down. A good instance of this was William Hearst’s power to fill the United States with a hatred for Spain, but which required the sinking of a warship to materialize. Idealisms may blaze up for the moment. They may even flicker for centuries like will-o’-the-wisps on the fringe of the world’s thought, but they can never be reduced to practice without the conjunction of economical laws which are as blind and ruthless as those of Nature herself.