Page:The parallel between the English and American civil wars.djvu/58

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN CIVIL WARS generations a problem which it would tax their statesmanship to solve. In both countries wise men blundered when they had to deal with racial questions. We Englishmen have still to reckon with the consequences of the policy of Cromwell and the Puritans in Ireland. Their land confiscations laid, in the words of Mr Lecky, the foundation of that deep and lasting division between the proprietary and the tenants which is the chief cause of the political and social difficulties of Ireland. The people of the United States have still to reckon with the consequences of giving the suffrage to the negro race. We see the temporary evils which resulted from that experiment; we do not know what social or political difficulties it may cause in the future. Neither the gloomy nor the sanguine predictions of contemporary publicists are satisfactory guides; an historian needs the fuller evidence which time alone can bring in order to complete the parallel between the results of the two Civil Wars. 50