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A few days after the tragedy of Jacques' loss and return, Sergeant Duval, Denise's father, appeared for his annual visit to Bienville. The story of Jacques was told to him, and when he came over to pay his call of ceremony on Madame Marcel, he was so rude as to twit Toni about Jacques. Toni, much displeased at this, retired to his usual place of refuge under the counter, and concluded that when he married Denise he would contrive to be absent during Sergeant Duval's annual visit.

Paul Verney was twelve years old, and had never had any affairs of the heart, like Toni. But one June afternoon, in the same summer when Toni had lost and recovered Jacques, and had succumbed to the tender passion, fate overtook Paul Verney in the person of Lucie Bernard, the prettiest little creature imaginable, prettier even than Denise and very unlike that small piece of perfection. Paul, who was very fond of reading, took his book, which happened to be an English one, to the park that afternoon of fate, and was sitting on a bench, laboriously puzzling over the English language, when a beautiful little girl in blue, with a gigantic sash and large pale blue hat, with roses blushing all over it, under which her dark hair fell to her waist, came composedly up to him and said:

"Let me see your book."

Paul was so astonished at being addressed by a young lady, under the circumstances, that he promptly handed over his book, and Lucie, seating herself on the bench, proceeded to read it. Paul was surprised to see that the English book, through which he had been painfully spelling his way, seemed perfectly easy to Lucie, who, without a moment's hesitation, read on, remarking casually to Paul:

"I can read English as well as I can read French. My mother was an American, you know, and Americans speak English."

Paul did not know the piece of family history thus confided to him, nor, indeed, did he know anything about this little nymph, but he thought in his honest little heart that she was the most charming vision his boyish eyes had ever rested on. He admired her dainty little slippers, her silk stockings, her general air of fashion, but blushed at finding himself sitting on the same bench with her, particularly as he saw his father the gray-haired advocate, Monsieur Paul Verney, approaching. He was just about to sneak away, leaving his book in the hands of the fair brigand, when a fierce-looking English nursery governess suddenly descended upon them, and, seizing Lucie by the arm, carried her off. The governess threw Paul's book down on the gravel path, and Paul picked it up.

Somehow, the book seemed to have a different aspect after having been held in the charming little fairy's hands. Paul was possessed by a wholly new set of emotions. He longed to tell some one of this startling adventure--a little girl planting herself on the bench by him and taking his book from him without the least embarrassment or even apology. What very strange little girls must those be whose mothers were American! Paul had plenty of friends among the boys of his own age and class, and among his school-mates, but he had never confided in any of them as he did in Toni Marcel. So presently, wandering down by the bridge where he was certain to find Toni at this hour of the day, he saw his friend perched in the little cranny which he called his own, on the bridge above the dark and rippling water. Two small boys could be squeezed into this place and Paul Verney, climbing up, sat side by side with Toni, and, with his arm around his friend's neck, bashfully but delightedly told Toni and Jacques, who, of course, heard everything that was told to Toni, all about this beautiful dream-like creature he had seen in the park. Then Toni said, without any bashfulness at all:

"I have got a sweetheart, too--it is Denise; some day I am going to marry her, and in the morning we will eat candy at mama's shop, and in the afternoon we will eat cakes at Mademoiselle Duval's shop."

Toni's eyes, as he said this, shone with a dark and lambent light. Paul Verney, on the contrary, had a pair of ordinary light blue eyes through which his honest, tender soul glowed. He was the most romantic boy alive, but all his romantic notions he had carefully concealed from every human being until then. A dream had come into his boyish mind, not of munching bonbons and stuffing cakes, such as Toni's practical mind had conceived, but a dream of the beautiful Lucie grown up, dressed in a lovely white satin gown, with a tulle veil and orange blossoms, such as he had once seen a young lady wear when she was married to a dashing lieutenant in a dazzling uniform. Paul meant to be a dashing lieutenant in a dazzling uniform some day, and then the vision of Lucie, stealing instantly into his mind, seemed to fill a place already prepared for her there. The two lads sat, Paul's closely-cropped, reddish hair resting upon Toni's disheveled black shock, and felt very near together indeed.

"But how will you ever see mademoiselle again?" said Toni to Paul.

Paul's face grew sad.

"I don't know how I ever shall," he said. "I never had a girl speak to me before, and I never played with a girl--I don't think it's proper. And the English governess was so cross to Lucie--for so she called her. But I shall walk every day in the park, and perhaps I shall see her again."

Paul was as good as his word and the very next afternoon walked in the park by himself. He was a neat boy always, but that day his face shone with scrubbing, and he had on his best sailor suit of white linen, and his little cane in his hand. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and even the shady paths of the park glowed with a beautiful, mysterious, green light. As Paul walked along, he heard a whisper in his ear. It was Toni, who had crept up from behind a clump of shrubbery and said to him:

"There she is, just down that path, sitting with Captain and Madame Ravenel and holding Madame Ravenel's hand."

Paul, following the path, came at once on the bench where sat his divinity, as Toni had described. He doubted if he would have had the courage to bow to her, but Lucie called out:

"Oh, that is the nice little boy who was reading the English book yesterday."

Paul, blushing up to the roots of his reddish hair, made three bows, one to Madame Ravenel, one to Lucie, and one to Captain Ravenel. Madame Ravenel returned his bow, as did the captain, with much gravity, and Paul passed on, his heart beating with rapture. He had quite often seen the Ravenels and knew them by name. They were apparently the only sad-looking persons in all Bienville. They lived in a small, high, gloomy, old house with a garden at the back, just around the corner from the little street in which Madame Marcel had her shop. Captain Ravenel was a retired officer, but no one ever saw him talking with any of the officers of the garrison, nor was he ever known either to enter any of their houses or to welcome any officers to his house.was, in 1886, regarded as his.

See a very interesting account of the present Irish Executive in "Home Rule Problems" in a chapter entitled "The Present System of Government, in Ireland," by G.F.H. Berkeley. There are 67 Boards, of which only 26 are under direct control of the Irish Secretary. No Parliamentary statute applies to Ireland, of course, unless that country is expressly included by name.

The central Civil Service is predominantly Protestant, and in municipalities like Belfast the Catholics hold a very small proportion of the salaried posts.

Census for 1911. Preliminary Report. Page 6.

Census Summary. Preliminary Report. Page 6.

See "The Statesman's Year Book," 1911, pp. 877-8.

THE HOME RULE CASE

THE CASE THAT HAS CHANGED--AND IS NOW STRONGER

i.--THE COUNCILS AND ii.--THE LAND.

"They saved the country because they lived in it, as the others abandoned it because they lived out of it."

GRATTAN.

THE HOME RULE CASE

Those who, like myself, visited Ireland last summer as delegates of the Eighty Club included some who had not thoroughly explored that country since the early nineties. They were all agreed that a great change had taken place in the internal condition of Ireland. They noticed a great increase of self-confidence, of prosperity, of hope. Many who entered upon that tour with doubts as to the power of the Irish people to take up the burden of self-government came back convinced that her increase in material prosperity would form a firm and secure basis on which to build the new fabric.

What does this new prosperity amount to? The new Census figures leave us in no doubt as to its existence. For the first time there is a real check in that deplorable wastage of population that has been going on for more than half a century. The diminution of population in Ireland revealed by the 1901 Census amounted to 245,000 persons. The diminution revealed by the 1911 Census amounts to 76,000. In other words, the decrease of 1901-11 is 1.5 per cent., as against 5.2 per cent, for 1891-1901, or only one against five in the previous decade. This is far and away the smallest decrease that has taken place in any of the decennial periods since 1841; and this decrease is, of course, accompanied by a corresponding decline in the emigration figures.

What is even more refreshing is the evidence which goes to show that the population left behind in Ireland has become more prosperous. For the first time since 1841, the Census now shows an increase--small, indeed, but real--of inhabited houses in Ireland, and a corresponding increase in the number of families.

It is the first slight rally of a country sick almost unto death. We must not exaggerate its significance. Ireland has fallen very low, and she is not yet out of danger. There is no real sign of rise in the extraordinarily small yield of the Irish income tax. That yield shows us a country, with a tenth of the population, which has only a thirtieth of the wealth of Great Britain--a country, in a word, at least three times as poor. The diminution in the Irish pauper returns is entirely due to Old-age Pensions. The much-advertised increase in savings and bank deposits, always in Ireland greatly out of proportion to her well-being, is chiefly eloquent of the extraordinary lack of good Irish investments.

The birth-rate in Ireland, although the Irish are the most prolific race in the world, is still--owing to the emigration of the child-bearers--the lowest in Europe. The record in lunacy is still the worst, and the dark cloud of consumption, though slightly lifted by the heroic efforts of Lady Aberdeen, still hangs low over Ireland.

Finally, while we rejoice that the rate of decline in the population is checked, we must never forget that the Irish population is still declining, while that of England, Wales and Scotland is still going up.

But still the sky is brightening, and ushering in a day suitable for fair weather enterprises. Perhaps the surest and most satisfactory sign of revival in Irish life is to be found in the steady upward movement of the Irish Trade Returns. That movement has been going on steadily since the beginning of the twentieth century. It is displayed quite as much in Irish agricultural produce as in Irish manufactured goods; and in view of certain boasts it may be worth while to place on record the fact that the agricultural export trade of Ireland is greater by more than a third than the export of linen and ships. Denmark preceded Ireland in her agricultural development, but it must be put to the credit of Irish industry and energy that Ireland is now steadily overhauling her rivals.

The mere recital of these facts, indeed, gives but a faint impression of the actual dawn of social hope across the St. George's Channel. In order to make them realise this fully, it would be necessary to take my readers over the ground covered by the Eighty Club last summer, in light railways or motor-cars, through the north, west, east and south of Ireland. Everywhere there is the same revival. New labourers' cottages dot the landscape, and the old mud cabins are crumbling back--"dust to dust"--into nothingness. Cultivation is improving. The new peasant proprietors are putting real work into the land which they now own, and there is an advance even in dress and manners. Drinking is said to be on the decline, and the natural gaiety of the Irish people, so sadly overshadowed during the last half-century, is beginning to return.

It is like the clearing of the sky after long rain and storm. The clouds have, for the moment, rolled away towards the horizon, and the blue is appearing. Will the clouds return, or is this improvement to be sure and lasting? That will depend on the events of the next few years.

What has produced this great change in the situation since 1893? To answer that question we must look at the Statute Book. We shall then realise that defeat in the division lobbies was not the end of Mr. Gladstone's policy in 1886 and 1893. That policy has since borne rich fruit. It has been largely carried into effect by the very men who opposed and denounced it. Not even they could make the sun stand still in the heavens.

The Tories and Liberal dissentients who defeated Mr. Gladstone gave us no promise of these concessions. The only policy of the Tory Party at that time was expressed by Lord Salisbury in the famous phrase, "Twenty years of resolute government." Although the Liberal Unionists were inclined to some concession on local government, Lord Salisbury himself held the opinion that the grant of local government to Ireland would be even more dangerous to the United Kingdom than the grant of Home Rule.

If we turn back, indeed, to the early Parliamentary debates and the speeches in the country, we find that Mr. Chamberlain in 1886 concentrated his attack rather on Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill than on his Home Rule scheme. In his speech on the second reading of the 1886 Bill, indeed, Mr. Chamberlain proclaimed himself a Home Ruler on a larger scale than Mr. Gladstone--a federal Home Ruler. But in the country, he brought every resource of his intellect to oppose the scheme of land purchase.

Similarly with John Bright. Lord Morley, in his "Life of Gladstone," describes Bright's speech on July 1st, 1886, as the "death warrant" of the first Home Rule Bill. But if we turn to that speech we find that Bright, too, based his opposition to Home Rule almost entirely on his hatred of the great land purchase scheme of that year. He called it a "most monstrous proposal." "If it were not for a Bill like this," he said, "to alter the Government of Ireland, to revolutionise it, no one would dream of this extravagant and monstrous proposition in regard to Irish land; and if the political proposition makes the economic necessary, then the economic or land purchase proposition, in my opinion, absolutely condemns the political proposition." In other words, John Bright held to the view that it was the necessity for the Irish Land Bill of 1886 which condemned the Home Rule Bill of that year.

So powerfully did that argument work on the feelings of the British public that in the Home Rule Bill of 1893, not only was the land purchase proposition dropped, but in its place a clause was actually inserted forbidding the new Irish Parliament to pass any legislation "respecting the relations of landlord and tenant for the sale, purchase or re-letting of land" for a period of three years after the passing of the Act.

So anxious was Mr. Gladstone to show to the English people that Home Rule could be given to Ireland without the necessity of expenditure on land purchase, and with comparative safety to the continuance of the landlord system in Ireland!

Such was the record on these questions up to the year 1895, when the Unionists brought the short Liberal Parliament to a close, and entered upon a period of ten years' power, sustained in two elections with a Parliamentary majority of 150 in 1895 and of 130 in 1900.

But the biggest Parliamentary majorities have limits to their powers. Crises arise. Accidents happen. There is always a shadow of coming doom hanging over the most powerful Parliamentary Governments. With it comes an anxiety to settle matters in their own way, before they can be settled in a way which they dislike. Thus it is that we find that between 1895 and 1905, during that ten years of Unionist power, two great steps were taken towards a peaceful settlement of the Irish question.

One was the Irish Local Government Act of 1898, which extended to Ireland the system of local government already granted in 1889 to the country districts of England. The other was the great Land Purchase Act of 1903, which carried out Mr. Gladstone's policy of 1886, and set on foot a gigantic scheme of land-transference from Irish landlord to Irish tenant. That scheme is still to-day in process of completion.

It is these two Acts which have largely changed the face of Ireland.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Take first the Act of 1898. Up to that year the county government of Ireland was carried on entirely by a system of grand jurors, consisting chiefly of magistrates, and selected almost entirely from the Protestant minority. These gentlemen assembled at stated times, and settled all the local concerns of Ireland, fixing the rates, deciding on the expenditure, and carrying out all the local Acts. They formed, with Dublin Castle, part of the great machinery of Protestant Ascendancy. Very few Catholics penetrated within that sacred circle.

These gentlemen, even now for the most part Protestants, still hold the power of justice. But the power of local government has passed from their hands. Every county of Ireland now has its County Council. Beneath the County Councils there are also District Councils exercising in Ireland, as in England, the powers of Boards of Guardians. Neither the Irish counties nor the corporations of Ireland's great cities have power over their police. There are no Irish Parish Councils. Otherwise Ireland now possesses powers of local government almost as complete as those of England and Scotland.

How has this system worked? In the discussions that preceded the establishment of local government in Ireland we heard many prophecies of doom. So great was the fear of trusting Ireland with any powers of self-government that the Unionists actually proposed, in 1892, a Local Government Bill, which would have established local bodies subject to special powers of punishment and coercion.

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