England's Case Against Home Rule Part 5

[Sidenote: 3. Strict government in Ireland.]

_Thirdly_.--If the Union is to be maintained with advantage to any part of the United Kingdom, the people of the United Kingdom must make the most strenuous, firm, and continuous effort, lasting, it may well be, for twenty years or more, to enforce throughout every part of the United Kingdom obedience to the law of the land. This effort can only be justified by the equally strenuous determination (which must involve an infinity of trouble) to give ear to every Irish complaint, and to see that the laws which the Irish people obey are laws of justice, and (what is much the same thing) laws which in the long run the people of Ireland will feel to be just. To carry out this course of action is difficult for all governments, is perhaps specially difficult for a democratic government. To maintain the Union is no easy task, though it has yet to be proved that any form of Home Rule will give more ease to the people of England; nor can the difficulty be got rid of, though it may be somewhat changed, by abolis.h.i.+ng the Irish representation in Parliament, or by treating Ireland as a Crown colony. Such steps, which could hardly be termed maintenance of the Union, might, as expedients for carrying through safely a course of reform, be morally and for a time justifiable. Their adoption is, however, liable to an almost insuperable objection. Democracy in Great Britain does not comport with official autocracy in Ireland. Every government must be true to its principles, and a democracy which played the benevolent despot would suffer demoralisation.

[Sidenote: Good results of the Union.]

The Act of Union has been the aim of so much random invective that its good fruits (for it has borne good no less than evil fruits) are in danger of being forgotten. It ended once and for all an intolerable condition of affairs, and its scope will never be understood unless its enactments are read in the lurid light cast upon them by the rebellion of 1798. The hateful means used to obtain an apparently good end have cast a slur on the reputation of more than one high-toned statesman.

Humanity, in the case of Cornwallis at least, had far more share than ambition in his determination to abolish the Irish Parliament. His anxiety in 1798 to save Catholics and rebels from oppression was as keen and as n.o.ble as the anxiety of Canning in 1858 to protect the natives of India from the resentments excited by the Mutiny. Every reason which in our own day after the Gordon riots made it necessary to abolish the ancient const.i.tution of Jamaica told in 1800 in favour of abolis.h.i.+ng the still more ancient Parliament of Ireland. If statesmen, bent on restoring at least the rule of law and peace in a distracted country, fancied that the corruption of the legislature might be counted a low price to pay for protecting the ma.s.s of the population from the rule or the vengeance of a faction, they committed a grave moral error. But their mistake was more pardonable than it seems to modern critics, and the lesson which it teaches--that you cannot base a just policy upon a foundation of iniquity--is one which the modern censors of Pitt may well lay to heart. However this may be, the transactions which discredited the pa.s.sing of the Act of Union give no ground for repealing it, and, except to a rhetorician in want of an _argumentum ad hominem_, it will never appear that the philosophic historian who maintains that the Treaty of Union was ill-conceived and premature, contradicts the political philosopher who contends that to repeal the Union would be not to cancel but to aggravate the evils of an historical error. The considerations which recommend or require the maintenance of the Union are often forgotten, but are obvious.

[Sidenote: Reasons for maintaining the Union.]

The support of the Union is, after all, let controversialists say what they like, the policy which in fact holds the field, and it is (strange though the a.s.sertion may appear) on the advocates of innovation, not on the supporters of things as they are, that lies the burden of making out their case. A fundamental alteration in the const.i.tution of the realm is in itself no light matter, and any man who has eyes to see or ears to hear may easily convince himself that the creation of an Irish Parliament must be the beginning, not the end, of a revolution. Dublin is not the only city in the United Kingdom which has contained an a.s.sembly which not only occasionally denied, but during the whole of its existence never admitted, the sovereignty of the Parliament at Westminster; and in the present state of the world it is inconceivable that Irish autonomy--if such be the proper term--should not excite or justify claims for local independence which would unloose the ties which bind together the huge fabric of the British Empire.

[Sidenote: Strengthens the English Crown.]

The Union again of England and Ireland has increased, as its relaxation would of necessity diminish, the power of the central government. That the Treaty of Union has, disappointing and even harmful as some of its results have been, formed a guarantee against successful rebellion, hardly admits of question. The difference between the abortive revolt of 1848 or the Fenian disturbances of 1866, and the desperate insurrection of 1798, affords some measure of the strength which the legislative unity of the kingdom has added to the English Crown. If it be suggested that the disloyalty which has prompted sedition during this century was less deep than the animosities which armed the insurgents of '98, the suggestion may be true, but it incidentally shows that under the Union some progress, however slight, has been made towards national harmony, and recalls the important fact that at the present day the wealth and the energy of Protestant Ireland firmly support the legislative unity of the kingdom. Consider again what are the facilities possessed, say, by the State of New York, by the kingdom of Bavaria, or by the Cape Colony for interfering with or arresting the action of the central power to which the State, kingdom, or dependency is subject, and you perceive at once how ample must, from the very necessity of the case, be the opportunities possessed by a semi-independent Irish executive representing a semi-independent Irish Parliament for embarra.s.sing the action of the Government in London. This will appear more clearly from a detailed examination of the different forms which may be a.s.sumed by Home Rule. One remark, however, may with advantage be made at this point of our argument, since it holds good of every possible scheme for repealing or modifying the Union. Powers conferred upon an executive and a Parliament at Dublin must from the nature of things be a deduction from the powers which can be exercised by the Parliament and Ministry at Westminster. This is a principle the truth of which is independent of the wishes or fancies either of Englishmen or of Irishmen. "The more you have of the more," runs a quaint Spanish proverb, "the less you have of the less." The saying is of mathematical certainty, but the depth and variety of its application are constantly forgotten in the excitement of controversy.

[Sidenote: Enables it to maintain freedom.]

To the existence of the Union and to the power which it confers upon the executive, is due the possibility of curbing the violence of religious and political zealots by the interposition of an authority endowed at once with overpowering strength and obvious impartiality. In Belfast even a Nationalist must, if he is a peaceable citizen, feel that the withdrawal of the Queen's troops would not conduce to his comfort. Under a system of Home Rule, it will perhaps be said, one body of fanatics or the other would, with or without the aid of the army, gain the upper hand and restore order. Grant the truth, which may perhaps be a little doubtful of this suggestion, it is at best a plea not for Home Rule but for separation, since no civilised government could, whilst England and Ireland formed under any terms whatever parts of the same political community, suffer Belfast to become the scene of a free fight which should decide by the ordeal of battle whether Protestants should tyrannise over Catholics, or Catholics coerce Protestants by a reign of terror. A reign of order moreover is not equivalent to the reign of justice. Still less is it equivalent to the establishment of that personal freedom which can only exist under the equal rule of equal law, and is the blessing which every government worthy the name is bound to confer upon its subjects.

An impartial foreigner again would probably hold, as indeed De Beaumont (unless I misunderstand his teaching) did to the end of his life actually hold, that the existing connection between England and Ireland is dictated by the state of the world, by the circ.u.mstances of the times, by the very nature of things. We are living in 1886, not in 1782: the nineteenth century is not the age for small States or for weak States. Such an observer, however, would also see much that is hidden by the dust of battle from the combatants in a desperate political conflict What is really needed to meet the real wants of which the cry for Home Rule is a more or less fact.i.tious expression is, he would note, much more a change in the spirit of Englishmen than an alteration in the const.i.tution of England. If Englishmen could learn to speak and think of Irishmen with the respect and consideration due to fellow-citizens, if they could cease to jeer at Irishmen now as not much more than a century ago they used to jeer at Scotchmen, the Union would soon become something more than a mere work of legal ingenuity. A change of feeling would make it easy for English politicians and English voters to perceive that the local affairs of Ireland ought to be managed in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in accordance with the opinion of the Parliamentary representatives of Ireland, just as Scotch affairs are managed at Westminster in accordance with the opinions of Parliamentary representatives of Scotland. Towards this reform in the practice which need not change anything in the law of our const.i.tution, Mr. Bright has already pointed the way, and Mr. Bright's moral intuitions have more than once given him a power denied to our other statesmen of prophetic insight into the future of English policy. Meanwhile those who urge the maintenance of the Union have a right to insist upon the possibilities which it contains of reconciling the strength of the Empire with due regard to the local interests and local sentiment of Ireland.

[Sidenote: And carry out just reforms.]

The Union, lastly, whilst it increases the power of the whole United Kingdom, provides the means of carrying out, and of carrying out with due regard to justice, any reform, innovation, or if you please revolution, required for the prosperity of the Irish people. The duty, it has been laid down, of an English Minister is to effect by his policy all those changes in Ireland which a revolution would effect by force.

The maxim comes from a strange quarter, but the doctrine of Disraeli sums up on this matter the teaching of Mill and De Beaumont, and it is absolutely sound if you add to it the implied condition that an English Minister, whilst aiming at the ends of a wise revolutionist, must pay a respect to the demands of justice not always evinced by the revolutionary spirit. But to put in force a policy of just revolution, nothing is so necessary as the combination of resistless power with infinite wealth. This is exactly what the government of the United Kingdom can, and no Irish government could, supply. Mr. Gladstone and his followers fully admit this, and the Land Purchase Bill was the sign of their conviction that the policy of Home Rule itself needs for its success and justification the power to draw upon the wealth of the United Kingdom. Let the United Kingdom, it is said in effect, pay fifty millions, that without any injustice to Irish landlords Irish tenants may be turned into landowners, and may then enjoy the blessings of Home Rule, freed from all temptation to use legislative power for purposes of confiscation. The advice may in one sense be sound, but prudence suggests that if the fifty millions are to be expended, it were best first to settle the agrarian feud, and then to see whether the demand for Home Rule would not die a natural death. French peasants were Jacobins until the revolution secured to them the soil of France. The same men when transformed into landed proprietors became the staunch opponents of Jacobinism. It is in any case the interest of England to see whether, say in a generation, the existing or further changes in the tenure of land may not avert all necessity or demand for changes in the const.i.tution. Interest here coincides with duty. No scheme whether of Home Rule or of Irish independence has been proposed, nor, it may be said with confidence, ever can be proposed, which, disguise the matter as you will, does not savour of treachery to thousands of Irishmen who have performed the duties and claim to retain the rights of citizens of the United Kingdom. The worst delusion of the revolutionary spirit is the notion that justice to the people may be based upon injustice to individuals. Protestants have not more, but neither have they less, claim to protection from the State than Catholics. Even landowners are not of necessity wrong-doers. Rent is a debt, and it may occasionally be the duty, even of a tenant, to pay his creditor. An insolvent debtor has, however excusable or pitiable his position, no absolute moral right to improve his own position by torturing or murdering any solvent neighbour who may be inclined to pay his own debts. To maintain the Union is to maintain the effort to perform the obligations of the country, and to compel all citizens of the country to perform the duties imposed by law. The effort is an arduous one, the more so since it must be combined with the equally strenuous endeavour to see that in Ireland, as in every part of the United Kingdom, the demands of the law be made to coincide with the demands of morality and of humanity. Still _pactum serva_ is a good maxim for nations no less than for individuals: there may be a higher law than the rule of keeping one's promise, but before a man or a government incurs even the appearance of bad faith, it were well to see whether the so-called higher law of conscience may not in reality be the lower dictates of indolence or cowardice. Neither nations nor individuals are bound in duty to do impossibilities. The limit of power is the limit of responsibility, but if England can no longer enforce justice in Ireland, there will still be the grave question whether this fearful result of past misdoing or error does not suggest and justify Separation rather than Home Rule.

CHAPTER VI.

SEPARATION.

[Sidenote: Evils of Separation]

Englishmen are so firmly and with such good reason convinced that the independence of Ireland would be fatal to the greatness and security of Great Britain, that they rarely attempt to weigh accurately the grounds of reason which may be adduced in support of a conviction which has acquired the character of a political instinct. The evils, however, to England which may be reasonably antic.i.p.ated from the political separation of the two countries may be summed up under three heads.

_First_.--The acquiescence by England in Irish independence would be a deliberate and complete surrender of the objects at which English statesmans.h.i.+p has, under one form or another, aimed for centuries. Such a surrender would, in addition to its material effects, inflict an amount of moral discredit on England which would itself be the cause of serious dangers. That a powerful nation should (except under the force of crus.h.i.+ng defeat) a.s.sent to an arrangement which would decrease its resources and authority must inevitably appear to all the world to be, and probably would be in reality, such a sign either of declining strength or of declining spirit as would in a short time provoke the aggression of rivals and enemies. Abdication of royal or imperial authority is with States no less than with individuals the precursor of death. Loss of territory, indeed, in consequence of defeat, is in itself only in so far damaging as defeat may imply a want of capacity to resist attack, or as the diminution of territory may involve loss of resources.

Thus the surrender of Lombardy by Austria, of Alsace by France, of Schleswig-Holstein by Denmark, the acquiescence of Holland in the independence of Belgium; or, to come nearer home, the treaty by which England acknowledged that the struggle to retain her American colonies had ended in failure, each and all of them brought only such discredit upon the defeated country as is the direct consequence of want of success. None, of these transactions had anything like the disastrous results which the concession of Irish independence would entail on England. The Austrians, the French, the Danes, and the Dutch had, as the whole world admitted, struggled manfully to maintain their power. They were beaten as one party or other to a fight must be beaten, but they did not betray any of those failings which encourage further attack. The close of the conflict with our colonies a.s.suredly did not leave England disgraced before the world. The obstinacy of George III., the splendid resistance made by a nation a.s.sailed at once by a combination of enemies, any one of whom alone would have seemed a formidable foe, the victories of Rodney, the defence of Gibraltar, not only saved but increased the renown of England, and were warnings which no foreigner could disregard, that the loss of the American colonies, though it might diminish the Empire, had not quenched the spirit or undermined the strength of Great Britain. No one can suppose that a peaceful retreat from the difficulties and responsibility of providing for the Government of Ireland would leave to England that reputation for courage and endurance which, even in the midst of defeat, was retained by the generation who acknowledged the independence of America. Peaceable surrender may avert material loss; it cannot maintain moral character.

One thing only would render the concession of Irish independence compatible with Englishmen's respect for themselves, or with the respect of other nations for England. This condition would be the obvious, and, so to speak, patent conviction on the part of the whole English people, that the grant of independence to Ireland was the fulfilment of a duty demanded by justice. No such conviction exists, nor is it ever likely to come into existence. Even were so great a change of English sentiment to take place that a majority of the people became ready, on grounds of expediency, to break up the connection between Great Britain and the neighbouring island, it would still be hard to persuade the nation that there was not vile treachery in refusing to stand by and support that part of the Irish people which wished to retain the connection with England. The treachery would approach to infamy if it should appear that England, for the sake of her own comfort, left English subjects who had always obeyed the law and relied on the honourable protection of the United Kingdom at the mercy of conspirators whose lawlessness had taken the form of cruelty and tyranny, and whose vindictiveness was certain to punish as criminality former acts of loyalty or obedience to English sovereignty. High-toned self-sacrifice which results in breach of faith to a.s.sociates is considered by the world at large as a particularly odious form of hypocrisy. Nothing in the treaty between England and the American Colonies involved more just bitterness of feeling than the partial, and probably inevitable, desertion of the Loyalists. The national conscience would condemn rather than approve the prudential considerations which might, under certain circ.u.mstances, induce Englishmen to consent to see Ireland an independent nation; such consent would imply the adoption of views of national interest fundamentally inconsistent with the maintenance of Imperial power; the damage resulting from loss of character is difficult to estimate, but is none the less real because it does not admit of computation in the terms of the multiplication table.

_Secondly_, the independence of Ireland means loss to Great Britain both in money and in men. The pecuniary loss is, indeed, not quite so serious as might at first sight be looked for.[28] The provisions of the rejected Government of Ireland Bill imply, it would seem, that the pecuniary gain of the United Kingdom from Ireland in the way of taxation may, in Mr. Gladstone's judgment, be estimated at about three and a half millions per annum, and this may presumably be taken as a not unfair estimate. The sacrifice of a seventh part of the population of the United Kingdom is no slight matter. Its importance is enhanced by the circ.u.mstance, never to be forgotten, that Great Britain is the centre of an Empire. The brutal and stupid jests by which respectable Englishmen often hint that the bravery, the capacity, and the genius of Irishmen are of little service to the Empire, and that their value is more than counterbalanced by the ill results of Irish discontent and sedition, conceal from unreflecting minds the extent to which every part of the United Kingdom has severally contributed to the fortune and power of the country. Irish labourers, Irish soldiers, Irish generals, and Irish statesmen have a.s.suredly rendered no trifling services to the British Crown. There is, however, one valid ground for rating the loss in men to England, which would result from separation from Ireland somewhat lower than one would on first thoughts be inclined to place it. Even were Ireland an independent country there is nothing to prevent England from leaving all the advantages of English citizens.h.i.+p open to the inhabitants of the Irish State. In this matter much is to be learnt from Germany. Neither Stein, nor Niebuhr, nor Moltke, were by birth subjects of Prussia, yet Prussia did not lose the inestimable gains to be derived from their talents. A generous, a liberal, and a just extension of the privileges of citizens.h.i.+p might fill the English army and the English civil service with men drawn from a State independent of Great Britain.

If the independence of Ireland were proclaimed to-morrow, there would not be a hundred Irish labourers the fewer in Liverpool or in London.

Connections and relations depending upon community of language, community of interest, community of feeling, the ties of kindred, of business, of friends.h.i.+p, or of affection cannot, happily, be dissolved, or to any great extent affected, by political revolutions. In any case, it would depend on the wisdom of Great Britain whether separation from Ireland should or should not mean the estrangement of Irishmen.

_Thirdly_, the independence of Ireland would give England a foreign, and possibly a hostile, neighbour along the western coast of Great Britain.

We should, for the first time since the accession of the Stuarts, occupy a position something like that of a Continental nation, and know what it was to have a foe, or at best a very cold friend, upon our borders. In time of war Ireland would be the abettor or the open ally of, say, the United States, or of France; Dublin would, unless reconquered, be the outpost of the French Republic or of the American Union. In times of peace things would not stand much better; our diplomacy would be constantly occupied with the intrigues carried on in Dublin; the possibility of attack from Ireland would necessitate the increase of our forces; increased taxation would be drawn from a diminished population; we should be compelled to double our army when we had lost that part of the kingdom which used to form our best recruiting-ground. Sooner or later England would be driven, like every Continental State, to accept the burden of conscription, and with conscription would come essential changes in the whole habits of English life. Nor can we count upon this being the end of our calamities. The burden of conscription would deprive us of our one great advantage over compet.i.tors in the struggle for trade; an overtaxed and overburdened people could not long maintain their mercantile pre-eminence. This is the picture which is constantly drawn, in one shape or another, of the ruinous results to England of the free development of Irish nationality. No one can undertake to say that its main features are false. Still, it must be admitted that the prophets of evil neglect to notice several facts which ought not to be overlooked. Ireland is a poor country of about the population of Belgium; it is occupied by a people far less wealthy than the inhabitants of England; and, moreover, by a people divided among themselves by marked differences of race, religion, and historical tradition. Is it really to be feared that such a neighbour could, even if both independent and hostile, be half the peril to England that Germany is to France, or France to Italy? Money const.i.tutes now more truly than ever the sinews of war, and it will be a long time before Ireland is a country abounding in money. There is, to say the least, something ignominious in the dread that Englishmen could not hold their own in the face of an Irish Republic, which would certainly be poor, and would probably be a prey to violent factions. Grant again--and this is granting a good deal--that Ireland might become a province of France, there is still some difficulty in seeing why Englishmen can live without fear within sight of Boulogne, and yet must tremble at the thought of French regiments a.s.sembling in Dublin. The command of the sea moreover would, whether Ireland were or were not aided by foreign allies, be a complete protection for England against invasion. If England's naval supremacy were lost, the power of the British Empire would in any case be gone. The vital matter for us is to retain command of the seas. Our capacity for doing this would not be greatly affected by Irish independence. America, further, and France are the only allies to whom Ireland could look for aid. The notion that the United States would consent to receive Ireland under any terms into the Union must appear to any one who has studied American politics the wildest of dreams. It supposes that the Americans would, without any gain to themselves, disarrange the whole balance of their const.i.tution, and by involving themselves in all the complexities of European politics depart from the path which they have continuously pursued, and which is marked out to them by the plainest rules of common sense, and, it is hardly an exaggeration to say, by the laws of nature. A people who decline to annex Cuba, and are fully willing to wait till circ.u.mstances bring Canada into the Union and give America possession of Mexico, are not likely to incorporate Ireland. The alliance of France is a different matter. Reflection, however, mitigates the dread of its occurrence.

Active alliance with Ireland would mean war with England, and now for seventy years France and England have been at peace. This state of things is the more remarkable because there have during that period arisen occasions for discord, and because no feeling of sentimental friends.h.i.+p forbids warfare. The true guarantee for peace between nations which were long deemed hereditary foes is the immense interest which each has in abstaining from war. Could the state of things which existed at the beginning of the century be revived, thousands of Englishmen and Frenchmen would be ruined. The security for peace depending upon national interest would not be diminished were Ireland to-morrow proclaimed an independent republic. That this independence would facilitate French attack is undeniable, but attack would not be the more likely to occur. Add to all this that Irish discontent or sedition would, during a war, help France as much as Irish independence. Ireland is no doubt the weak point in the defences of Great Britain. This no one denies. The only question is whether and to what extent the independence of that country would widen the breach in England's defensive system.

[Sidenote: Possible advantages of Separation]

Any one who attempts to forecast the probable evils to England of Irish independence should keep one recollection constantly before his mind.

The wisest thinkers of the eighteenth century (including Burke) held that the independence of the American Colonies meant the irreparable ruin of Great Britain. There were apparently solid grounds for this belief; experience has proved it to be without foundation.

A calm observer can even now see that the complete dissolution of the connection between Great Britain and Ireland, disastrous as in many respects such an event would undoubtedly be, holds out to the larger country the possibility of two advantages.

Loss of territory might be equivalent in some aspects to increase of power.

There exists in Europe no country so completely at unity with itself as Great Britain. Fifty years of reform have done their work, and have removed the discontents, the divisions, the disaffection, and the conspiracies which marked the first quarter or the first half of this century. Great Britain, if left to herself, could act with all the force, consistency, and energy given by unity of sentiment and community of interests. The distraction and the uncertainty of our political aims, the feebleness and inconsistency with which they are pursued, arise, in part at least, from the connection with Ireland. Neither Englishmen nor Irishmen are to blame for the fact that it is difficult for communities differing in historical a.s.sociations and in political conceptions to keep step together in the path of progress. For other evils arising from the connection the blame must rest on English Statesmen. All the inherent vices of party government, all the weaknesses of the Parliamentary system, all the evils arising from the perverse notion that reform ought always to be preceded by a period of lengthy and more than half-fact.i.tious agitation met by equally fact.i.tious resistance, have been fostered and increased by the inter-action of Irish and English politics. No one can believe that the inveterate habit of ruling one part of the United Kingdom on principles which no one would venture to apply to the government of any other part of it, can have produced anything but the most injurious effect on the stability of our Government and the character of our public men. The advocates of Home Rule find by far their strongest arguments for influencing English opinion, in the proofs which they produce that England, no less than Ireland, has suffered from a political arrangement under which legal union has failed to secure moral unity; these arguments, whatever their strength, are, however, it must be noted, far more available to a Nationalist than to an advocate of Federalism.

English authority in Ireland would be increased by the possession of that freedom of action which every powerful State exercises in its dealings with a weaker though an independent nation. There is something so repulsive to the best feelings of citizens.h.i.+p in even the hypothetical contemplation of the advantages (such as they are) which would accrue to Great Britain from the transformation of thousands of our fellow-countrymen into aliens, that it is painful to trace out in clear language the strength of the position which England would occupy towards the Irish Republic. But in argument the strict following out of the conclusions flowing from facts is a form of honesty, and however repulsive these conclusions may be, their statement is a matter of duty.

Were Ireland independent, England would possess three means far more effective for enforcing her will upon her weaker neighbour than are coercion acts, courts, or constables. England could deal not with individuals, but with the State, and she could compel respect for treaties or due regard to English interests by invasion, by a pacific blockade, or by a hostile tariff. There is a special reason for dwelling on the facility with which England could compel the observance of engagements. Morally the most serious of all the objections to England's conceding Irish independence is the indelible disgrace which would rightly fall upon any country which did not provide for the protection of men who had been loyal and faithful citizens. Now the point to be noted is that England's authority, resulting not from law but from power in an independent Ireland, would greatly enhance her capacity for ensuring the fair treatment of Irish Protestants. The treaty of independence would provide guarantees for their rights, and any breach of these guarantees would be a _casus belli_. The mere threat of a hostile tariff would of itself be a stronger sanction than the most strenuous provisions of an Act of Parliament backed only by the very hypothetical power of compelling a half-independent executive to obey the judgments of, say, the Privy Council The guarantees of a treaty are, it may be said, often worthless. This is so; but their worthlessness arises from the weakness of the country in whose favour they are made.

In any event they may be worth a good deal more than provisions of an Act of Parliament. The deriders of a paper Union which has lasted for a century have no right to count on the validity of a paper Federation which still awaits creation.

It is, again, possible that the severance of all political connection might open the way to friends.h.i.+p or alliance.

This a.s.sertion is no unmeaning paradox. If one could antic.i.p.ate with any confidence that the acknowledgment of Irish nationality would bring to Ireland happiness and prosperity, it would not be a very bold conjecture that as Ireland flourished and prospered, ill-will to England might rapidly decrease. With nations, as with individuals, to remove all causes of mutual irritation is much the same thing as removing the disposition to quarrel. Not twelve years have pa.s.sed since the last Austrian soldier marched out of Italy, yet Austria is at this moment less unpopular with the Italians than France, and Garibaldi's death evoked tributes of respect at Vienna. For fifteen years the whole force of European law was employed to keep Belgium united to Holland; the obvious interests, moreover, of all the inhabitants of the kingdom of the Netherlands told in favour of union. Yet year by year the two divisions of one country became more and more hostile to each other.

Fifty years of separation have, as far as appearances go, restored, or for the first time created, feelings of friendliness between the Belgians and the Dutch. There are to be found Belgian statesmen who regret the proclamation of Belgian independence. When in 1881 the Americans celebrated at Yorktown the centenary of British defeat, they went out of their way to display their goodwill towards Great Britain.

Plaudits and toasts, it may be said, prove nothing except the existence of a sentiment which, even if it be genuine, is certain to be evanescent. This is true; but the matter for consideration is not whether the feeling of friendliness towards Great Britain which found expression daring the festivities at Yorktown would survive a conflict of interest between England and America, but whether a condition of feeling which allows the two nations to look calmly after their own interests, unblinded by pa.s.sion or animosity, could possibly have been produced by the continuance of that connection between England and America which was terminated by the surrender of Cornwallis. There is at least no absurdity in the supposition that this question ought to be answered in the negative, and that Americans and Englishmen are at any rate not enemies just because a hundred years ago they ceased to be fellow-citizens.

Let not, however, the gist of my argument be misunderstood. The possible increase of English power, and the possible growth of goodwill between England and Ireland, are not used as anything like reasons in favour of Separation. They are set down simply as deductions from the immense evils of a policy which no Englishman can regard as other than most injurious to the whole United Kingdom. The reason why it is wise to dwell on this kind of set-off against the ill effects of Separation is that Home Rule, while involving almost all the evils of Separation, will be found on examination not to hold out anything like the same hopes of compensating advantages.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] See 'Economic Value of Ireland to Great Britain,' by Robert Giffen, _The Nineteenth Century_, March, 1886, p. 229.

CHAPTER VII.

HOME RULE--ITS FORMS.

[Sidenote: Forms of Home Rule.]

The proposals for giving Ireland Home Rule, in so far as they have taken any definite shape whatever, have a.s.sumed four forms:--

I. Home Rule as Federalism.

II. Home Rule as Colonial Independence.

III. Home Rule as the revival of Grattan's Const.i.tution.

IV. Home Rule under the proposed Gladstonian Const.i.tution.

[Sidenote: Conditions to be satisfied by plan of Home Rule.]