Gladstonian apologist for the new
constitution of 1893 [can] make no use. His reasoning of necessity
stands thus:

The presence of 80 Irish members at Westminster has demoralised
Parliament, therefore we must above all things retain 80 or possibly 103
Irish members at Westminster. He is placed in a hopeless dilemma; he
dare not draw the only conclusion to which his argument points, namely,
that the Irish members must be excluded from the Parliament at
Westminster. By a strange fatality, the policy of 1823 retrospectively
condemns the policy of 1886, whilst the very strongest argument in
favour of the policy of 1886 condemns the policy of 1893.

The premises, were they sound, do not support the conclusion.

There exists undoubtedly such a thing in politics as necessity.

When England acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, or
when France surrendered Metz and Strasburg, no one could talk of
imprudence of impolicy. The will of Englishmen and of Frenchmen was
coerced by the force of events. When all Protestant Ireland was in arms,
when the whole Irish nation demanded parliamentary independence, when
England had been defeated in America, when France and Spain were allied
against her, then the acceptance of Grattan's declaration of right was
in truth a necessity. When Wellington became the supporter of Catholic
Emancipation because he would not face civil war, when famine was at our
gates and Peel repealed the corn laws--then again politicians could
plead the excuse of necessity. In these and like crises the wisest men
and the bravest men are forced to recognise the logic of facts; and
necessity rather than prudence dictates the course of statesmanship. But
no such crisis has now arisen. England and Ireland were as safe under
the government of Lord Salisbury as under the government of Mr.
Gladstone--perhaps safer. No one except an extremely excited and very
rhetorical politician will venture to assert that, if Lord Salisbury
instead of Mr. Gladstone had last summer gained a majority of forty, any
man or woman throughout the United Kingdom would have trembled for the
safety of the country. The sky is far less dark than on that fearful day
eleven years back[111] when England stood aghast at the assassinations
of the Phoenix Park. Irish discontent is an immense evil, of which every
just man must deplore the existence; its removal would be the greatest
benefit which statesmanship could by any possibility confe