will not overturn an Empire" is open to the observation that they disestablished a Church.

When Froude came to practical politics, he always seemed to be "moving about in worlds not realised." His statement that national education in Ireland was the best that existed in any part of the Empire almost takes one's breath away, and the idea that no Irish legislature would have passed the Land Act is a strange fantasy indeed.

Whether an Irish Parliament could be trusted to deal fairly by the landlords is an open question.

That it would fail to consider the interests of the tenants is unthinkable.

Froude was on much firmer ground when he employed the case of Protestant Ulster, the Ulster of the Plantation, as an argument against Home Rule.