The Progress of the World. 



459 



arrogance of a false security has been humbled. 

 Numberless precautions are suggested, many are 

 already being adopted, wiiich will diminish the risks 

 of sea travel. All nations will unite in perfecting the 

 means of conimuniialion and of deliverance. Never 

 again may the officials of private companies have it in 

 their power to coin money out of the agony of hopes 

 deferred by withholding news. Nor will private 

 messages take prti edence over the lists of saved and 

 missing. The ocean will be more rapidly inter- 

 nationalised than any land or canal has yet been. In 

 the struggle with the great waters all men will be 

 comrades and allies. The vast con>\ailsion of human 

 sorrow through which we are passing will supply the 

 motive force for a fraternity as world-wide. And the 

 movement for the reform of our mercantile marine, for 

 improvement in the conditions under which seafarers 

 habitually work, for the emancipation of the serfs of 

 the sea, will, after this baptism of multitudinous death, 

 plunge forward on its vojage of victor)-. The sad 

 story, and its imperative sequel in items of reform, 

 are referred to elsewhere in this magazine. Suffice 

 it now to say that the loss of the Titanic, though 

 sore be the hearts that confess it, will be a red milestone 

 on the path of progress. It will be the era whence man 

 will date his new brotherhood in the mastery of the sea. 

 Another great cause of which our 

 chief was one of the earliest and 

 most unflinching advocates entered 

 last month on the first of what 

 promise to be its final stages of victory. The Home 

 Rule Hill was read a first time in the House of Commons. 

 The debate liegan just as our chief was sailing out of 

 the English Channel. And the week after it ended 

 another leader in the movement had passed into the 

 Unseen. Justin McCarthy and W. T. Stead were not 

 permitted to enter the long-promised land of the self- 

 governed Irish nation, but both had " stood where 

 Moses stood." The last General Election was their 

 Pisgah, and glad were their eyes to " view the land- 

 scape o'er." " Third time's catchy time " runs the 

 Northern proverb ; and certainly the third Home Rule 

 Bill has prospects of success vastly beyond any of its 

 predecessors. True, it was not first formulated, like 

 our Colonial Constitutions, at a National Convention — 

 a method which our chief had long advocated. Hut the 

 next best step was taken. The measure was, after its 

 first reading, submitted to the Irish National Con- 

 vention and adopted with entire unanimity as well as 

 with vast enthusiasm. The short shrift dealt by a 

 similar convention to an earlier projccl of Irish self- 

 government made this result by no means a foregone 



Irish Home Rule. 



Priologr.,,*!: 'y] [R,-sm„:.1 H.iincs. 



The late Mr. Justin McCarthy. 



conclusion. It was all the more welcome. The eflect 

 was dramatically heightened by the presence of Mr. 

 Gladstone's grandson, who w-as received with becoming 

 rapture. The convention was held, curiously enough, 

 on April 23rd, the day of Shakespeare and St. George. 

 Perhaps few more effective steps than this have been 

 taken to cement into one the English-speaking family 

 over which, as Carlyle insisted, Shakespeare is king ; 

 and never was the foul dragon of hatred towards 

 England .dealt a doughtier blow than by the measure 

 which Ireland adopted on St. George's Day. 



Mr. Asquilh's speech in introducing 



The the measure was, as is usual with 



Two Irish Chambers, ^i^ .^ ^odel of lucidity. John 



Hull may think at times that the 

 Prime .Minister is carried along too far by his Welsh 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer, but there are two things 

 about Mr. Asquith which good old, often puzzle-headed, 

 John likes exceedingly. One is, Mr. Asquith says 

 what he means quite plainly and clearly, and leaves 

 John in no shadow of doubt as to his meaning. The 

 other is, what Mr. A.squith says he will do he means 

 quite decidedly to git done. And that he is not loo 

 brilliant— John distrusts brilliant geni'is— and never 



