But the first duty of a government is to govern; and I believe that Earl Grey has summed up the situation in Ireland more concisely and more courageously than any other British statesman in his outspoken declaration, that "in order to avert the wreck of the nation, it is absolutely necessary that some means or other should be found for securing to Ireland during the present crisis a wiser and more stable administration of its affairs than can be looked for under its existing institutions." I have heard and read a good deal in the past of the "Three F's" thought a panacea for Irish discontent.

Three other F's seem to me quite as important to the future of Irish content and public order.

These are, Fair Dealing towards Landlords as well as Tenants; Finality of Agrarian Legislation at Westminster; and last and most essential of all, Fixity of Executive Tenure.
The words I have just quoted of Earl Grey, show it to be the conviction of the oldest living leader of English Liberalism that this last is the vital point, the key of the situation.

Let me bracket with his words, and leave to the consideration of my readers, the following pregnant passage from a letter written to me by an Irish correspondent who is as devoted to Irish independence as is Earl Grey to imperial unity:-- "If the present Nationalist movement succeeds, it will have the effect of putting the worst elements of the Irish nation in power, and keeping them there irremoveably.

We are to have an Executive at the mercy of a House of Representatives, and the result will be a government, or series of governments, as weak and vicious as those of France, with this difference, that here all purifying changes such as seem imminent in France will be absolutely prevented by the irresistible power of England.