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constitution, they assert that they will to the utmost of their ability
resist the introduction and impede the working of the new constitution.
Their abhorrence of Home Rule may be groundless, their threats may be
baseless; their power to give effect to their menaces may have no
existence. All that I now contend is that the strongest, and the most
energetic, part of Irish society is in fact and in truth bitterly
opposed, not only to the details, but to the fundamental principle, of
the new polity. It avails nothing to urge that the Protestants and the
educated Catholics are in a minority. This plea shows that in Parliament
they can be outvoted; it does not show that they will, or can, be
pacified by a policy which runs counter to their traditions, their
interests, and their sentiment. You cannot vote men into content, you
cannot coerce them into satisfaction. Let us look facts in the face. The
measure which is supposed to gratify Ireland satisfies at most a
majority of Irishmen. This may be enough for a Parliamentary tactician,
it is not enough for a far-seeing statesman or a man of plain common
sense. When we are told a minority are filled with discontent, we must
ask who constitute the minority. When we find that the minority consists
of men of all descriptions and of all creeds, that they represent the
education, the respectability, the worth, and the wealth of Ireland, we
must be filled with alarm. Wealth, no doubt, is no certain sign of
virtue, any more than poverty can be identified with vice; a rich man
may be a scoundrel, and a poor man may be an honour to the human race,
but the world would be much worse constituted than it is, if the
possession of a competence were not connected with honesty, energy,
adherence to duty, and every other civic virtue. When it is said or
admitted by Gladstonians that the propertied classes of Ireland are
against Home Rule we know what this means; it means that the energy of
Ireland is against Home Rule, that the honesty of Ireland is against
Home Rule, that the learning of Ireland is against Home Rule, that all
that makes a nation great is against Home Rule, and that the Irishmen
most entitled to our respect and honour implore us not to force upon
them the curse of Home Rule. This is no trifle. Let us at any rate have
done with phrases; let us admit that the satisfaction of Ireland means
merely the satisfaction of a class, though it may be the most numerous
class of Irishmen, and