missioners are very great. There is no natural boundary between Northern and Southern Ireland, and it will be almost impossible to arrange that the new boundary line shall satisfy at once the wishes of the inhabitants of the border counties and yet conform to geographical conditions. In any case, the decision once made must pass into law, and for either Ulster or Southern Ireland to resist it by force of arms would be an act of rebellion against the Crown, which the forces of the Crown would have to be called in to subdue. That would be an unspeakable calamity to the North, to the South, to Great Britain, and to the Empire at large. But we cannot believe that responsible leaders on either side will be so foolish and wicked as to plunge the country into civil war, because they are dissatisfied-if such be the casewith the decisions of a Commission duly established by an Act of Parliament.

It is earnestly to be desired that the Irish leaders. should meet once more before the Commission begins its work, and make a final effort to come to an amicable arrangement. A decision imposed from without on Northern or Southern Ireland can hardly fail to intensify bitterness and to cause further estrangement. The responsible men on both sides know that this will be so, and (despite the fiery language of their camp followers) are anxious to avoid bloodshed. Their difficulty is obvious. Should Mr Cosgrave agree to anything less than & transfer of considerable areas to the Free State, he will have to face the implacable opposition of the Republican party at the next election. And should Sir James Craig agree that the wishes of the border populations ought to be respected, and that they should be given a free vote as to whether they are to remain under the Northern Government, or be merged in the Free State, he will be denounced by the No-Popery Orangemen. Yet, after all, the duty of the leaders is to lead and not to follow. Mr Cosgrave will have to fight the Republicans, no matter what he does about the boundary. And the Northern Premier will find that if he does not, sooner or later, master the fanaticism of the Orange lodges, he will be powerless to govern his territory justly or peaceably. The large majority of moderate people on both sides of the border desire peace, and they will support

hose who seek peace. If Mr Cosgrave and Sir James Craig would take the courageous and patriotic course of ettling this dispute by a reasonable compromise, we believe that they would secure for themselves the gratiude of all Irishmen of goodwill. If this cannot be, we ook forward with grave anxiety to the coming winter, when the decisions of the Commission must pass into aw, unless Great Britain is to break her word.

There is a danger, however, that a different alternaive to the acceptance of the Boundary Commission may De put forward by Northern Ireland. On behalf of Ulster t has been said many times that the present condition of the Free State is hardly to be distinguished from that of an independent Republic; and it has been suggested, lthough not by responsible statesmen like Sir James Craig and Lord Londonderry, that the simplest way of solving our present difficulties would be to permit Southern Ireland to secede from the Empire and to form an independent State, thus leaving the six counties of Ulster with their own Parliament, attached by the Act of 1920 to the British Crown. It is easy to understand why Ulster, in its present mood, should desire such a solution. It would finally and for ever cut her off from Southern Ireland, and any attempt by the new Republic to tamper with her territory would, of course, be frustrated at once by the British Army. Southern Ireland would then be an alien State, no longer having claims of any sort upon Great Britain, without any important resources, with a small population, impoverished and feeble, which would not dare to offend a Great Power, whether that Power be France or Germany or England. And thus, it is argued, loyal Ulster (for Ulster is always loyal when she gets her own way) would be secure.

It is right that this unscrupulous and selfish policy should be brought out into the light of day. First of all, it is not true that the citizens of the Free State are in the same position that they would be were the Treaty broken and Southern Ireland permitted to secede from the Empire. As things are, every Irishman has the inestimable privilege of his Imperial citizenship. He has the protection of His Majesty's ambassadors and consuls wherever he goes in the world. He is a British

subject, and can serve the King, if he chooses, in the Army, the Navy, or the Civil Service, whether in India, in the Colonies, or at home. There are a large number of Irishmen, including not only the old Unionists, but the Constitutional Nationalists, and many of the supporters of the Free State (some of whom would call themselves Sinn Feiners), who would bitterly resent extrusion from the Empire. And it is not too much to say that, making all allowance for the apparently halfhearted adherence of Irish ministers to the British element in the Constitution, of which we have already spoken, a majority of Irishmen do not really desire Republic at all, although it would be easy to drive them into such a position that they would vote on the Republican side. Further, it is too often forgotten that the Treaty provides certain safeguards against the invasion of personal liberty, against the seizure of property, against partial legislation, which would all be swept away were the Treaty broken. There are no more loyal people in the Empire than the old Southern Unionists, of whom some 350,000 still remain. It is easy to be loyal in Ulster; it is not so easy to maintain and exhibit loyalty to the King in Southern Ireland. If the Treaty were broken, there would be nothing to prevent the savings of the Church of Ireland, amounting to nine or ten millions, which provide for the support of her clergy, from being confiscated under one pretext or another. There would be nothing to prevent Trinity College, with its revenues and its traditions, from being handed over to the National University with de Valera as its Chancellor. Indeed, the proposal was actually made last spring that the College buildings should be seized to provide accommodation for the Dail. The thing could not be done, but solely because the Treaty forbade such confiscation. And these are only illustrations. Once Southern Ireland became an independent State, Great Britain would be powerless to interfere with the spolia. tion of the minority who were judged to have British sympathies. All this is forgotten or is looked on with complacency by those who advocate the abandonment of the Treaty, which is working as well as any one could have expected, and which is being gradually discovered even by Sinn Feiners to give Ireland a measure of

Independence, such as the most sanguine Nationalists of wenty years ago neither expected nor desired.

Should Great Britain break the Treaty by refusing to out any of its conditions, such as Article 12, into operaion, Free Staters and Republicans alike would repudiate t wholly, and in such repudiation they would regain he sympathy of America and most of the Colonies, or they would be in a position to assert that Great Britain had acted with perfidy, and that she had ot meant what she said in 1921. It would be very langerous for British ministers to arouse once again he hostility of the United States and the distrust of the reat Dominions.

Lord Birkenhead said in July to some American usiness men that in this country we had a singularity, lmost old-fashioned, of paying our debts. We took the -iew, whether right or wrong, that the credit of a great ountry depended upon a simple but age-long fidelity o obligations.' Mr Baldwin has said, and truly said, much the same thing. thing. Both of these Conservative tatesmen were speaking of money-debts. But their poast applies to obligations other than financial. England more than a nation of shopkeepers. We pride ourelves on keeping our plighted word. We have pledged ur word to Southern Ireland as a whole, and in paricular to those Southern loyalists who have suffered itterly for their loyalty to the Empire. We have romised them that a Republican constitution will never be granted to their country, for we shall never Irive them out of the Empire which they and their orbears have done so much to build up. We are not nmindful of our promises to Ulster, and we shall keep ur word by preventing her citizens from being transerred against their will to the Free State, and placed nder a Government which they detest. But we shall ot, to please her, break our word to men equally loyal, who have already endured much suffering because of heir devotion to the King and to the Empire of which hey are still citizens.

Art. 10.-THE HOUSE OF AIRLIE.

The House of Airlie. By the Rev. William Wilson. Two vols. Murray, 1924.

THE history of Scotland may be said to have been made by the history of its families. Before General Wade opened up the Highlands by his roads and communications, every territorial magnate reigned supreme on his own property. Communication with neighbouring chiefs was restricted, and, therefore, either took the form of an alliance or of a deadly feud. The clan system was the outcome. It was necessary for the head of a great family to attach every member of the same name to his interests, by protection, benevolence, and care for their children, so as to ensure a strong force of followers in every cause he undertook. The rugged mystery of the mountains and the glens created an atmosphere which turned this protection into something akin to that of Jehovah for the Israelites. The necessity of a good understanding with his clansmen fostered in the chief and his immediate family a habit of kindliness to, and interest in the welfare of, their dependents, which has ever been a strongly marked feature of the ownership of property in Scotland. The cause of their Head was the cause of every man, woman, and child of the clan, and personal fear of loss of life and belongings infused & bitterness into feuds, intensified in most cases by strong religious feeling and creating an alternate support of, or opposition to, the government of the day, according as to whether its policy was favourable or unfavourable to their claims. For some eight centuries the House of Airlie has played its part in the history of Scotland; but it has remained for Mr Wilson, the present minister of the parish of Airlie, to give us a book which is not only an historical record, but a study of character and a stirring romance. The interest is increased by the fact that the telling of the story has been a labour of love, and that the author has been moved to write it because the atmosphere which has surrounded him for many years is so impregnated with the history and the spirit of the family whose name has given its title to the book, that he seems to have been unable to escape from its com