y, "up to
the very hilt," before a single slave was released from bondage. The
Irish Church (it may be suggested) was abolished off-hand. This apparent
exception to the regular course of long argumentative controversy which
in England marks all great innovations has misled Home Rulers, yet the
exception is only apparent. Long before 1869 the intelligence of
England--one might say of the civilised world--had been convinced by
the power of reason that the maintenance in a Roman Catholic country,
and at the expense of a Roman Catholic population, of a Protestant
ecclesiastical establishment was an indefensible anomaly. The walls fell
at the first blast which sounded attack, because the foundations had
been argumentatively sapped and undermined for more than a generation.
With the cause of Home Rule it is far otherwise. Its sudden progress has
been characterised by a singular absence of systematic discussion. No
one supposes that its English advocates are deficient in talent or in
zeal. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Bryce--to name no others--are
as competent apologists for any opinion they entertain as can well be
found. They have been put upon their mettle; they have addressed the
nation in Parliament and out of Parliament; they have produced a certain
number of reasons, which deserve respectful consideration, in support of
their favourite innovation. But no candid critic can feel that these
eminent men, and other less distinguished labourers in the same cause,
have put forward arguments of strength enough to account for the
undoubted conviction of the reasoners. Appeals to trust in the people,
to confidence in human nature, to the strength of love as contrasted
with the weakness of law, to shame for our past misgovernment of the
Irish, to sanguine expectations of terminating a secular feud which has
caused wretchedness to Ireland and has lessened the power of England,
would appear in the judgment of orators addressing English electors
likely to have much more weight with their audience than any attempt to
prove that the establishment of a Parliament at Dublin will be conducive
to the benefit of the Empire. Nor is this wonderful. The plain truth is
that the strength of the Home Rule movement depends, as far as England
is concerned, on a peculiar, though not of necessity a transitory, state
of opinion. The arguments of Home Rulers, whatever their worth (and I
have not the remotest intention of denying that they have wei