sooner or later to re-appear, and will not always
admit of an easy or peaceable answer.[45]

Any reader interested in my argument should supplement this brief
statement of the relation actually existing between England and her
self-governing colonies by a perusal of Mr. Todd's most instructive
'Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies.' But the statement,
brief and colourless though it be, is sufficient for its purpose; it
shows that the proposal to give to Ireland the institutions of a colony
is open to two fatal objections.

1st.--The concession to Ireland of Colonial independence would entail
upon England probable peril and certain disgrace.

The peril is obvious. An Irish Cabinet armed with the authority
possessed by a Victorian Ministry would at once provide for the
self-defence of Ireland, and an Irish army, obeying an Irish Executive
and commanded by Irish officers, would be none the less formidable
because it might in name be identified with an armed police, or, like
the troops raised at the Cape or in Victoria, enjoy the ominous title of
Volunteers. If the Colonial precedent were strictly carried out, British
troops ought, from the time Ireland obtained an independent Parliament,
to be withdrawn from the country. The acknowledged danger of foreign
invasion, and the unavowed probability of Irish insurrection, would make
the retirement of the English army impossible. But the presence of
British forces--and forces, be it remarked, intended in reality as a
check on the action of the local Government--would of itself place
Ireland in a position utterly unlike the situation of Victoria, and
would also involve both the Imperial and the local Government in endless
difficulties and controversies. If any one doubts this, let him read the
correspondence between Mr. Molteno[46] and Sir Bartle Frere, and
substitute for the Premier of the Cape Colony the name of Mr. Parnell,
and for Sir Bartle Frere the name of any Lord-Lieutenant who might be
unfortunate enough to hold office in Ireland after Mr. Parnell became
Premier of an Irish Cabinet. Suppose, however, that by some miracle of
management or good luck the Irish and English forces acted well
together, and that the satisfaction given by a state of things
approaching to independence prevented for the moment all attempts at
separation, England might escape peril, but she would assuredly not
avoid deserved disgrace. An Irish Parliament, returned in the main by
the