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 associations 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-factitious agitation met by equally
factitious 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 citizenship 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 com