HOME RULE FOR IRELAND. How to rule Ireland peaceably and well has been a problem ever since its annexation. Irish agitations have passed into a by-word. and as many schemes have been propounded for the ameliotution of the condition of the country as would number the years of British rule. The Fenian outbreak (1804) led to so much suffering for all classes, and entailed such misery upon many utterly innocent of its principles, that the attention of the ablest men in the distracted country was directed to some project which, while leaving substantially under the British rule, should secure for it free legislation in matters of internal interest. Hence arose the home-rule league, first suggested by the nude and far-seeing Isaac Butt, member for Dublin, and for many years controlled by him and largely influenced by John Francis Maguire, M.P. for Cork. Its professed object was to declare the right of the Irish people to self-government, and to establish the principles of a federal arrangement, by which the right of legislating for and regulating all matters relating to the internal affairs of the country should be secured to an Irish parliament, consisting of an equal number of Protestants and Roman Catholics. leaving to the imperial parliament all questions affecting the imperial crown in its relation to other countries, and, in short.
all and everything pertaining to the defense and protection of the empire at large. Mr. Butt advocated a zovernmet‘t.for Ireland as n constituency of Great Britain, such as obtains in the United States, where each individual state is self-governed and yet represented in the 'national congress. In 1871 Isaac Butt was returned as member for Limerick, and two years later the first convention of the home-rule league was held in Dublin. At the succeeding election (1874) its popularity was demonstrated, 00 members from Ireland being returned upon its merits, and 28 in England solemnly engaging to support it: nevertheless a 'notion in the houses in its favor was defeated by 314 to 52, and, in the following year. Mr. Butt's motion for a committee on the subject was negatived three several times. A stormy convention was held at Dublin in 1877, which was followed by increased activity on the part of the home-rule members in the houses, Mr. Butt still being tIme chosen leader of the party. In 1878 he resigned, and the principles of the home-rule party having undergone a change. it has lately become apparent that their ultimate object is the establishment of an Irish parliament in which four-fifths of the members will be Roman Catholics.