dangers; they have forgotten what real peril
is; they cannot understand the calmness with which, not a century ago,
their fathers resisted at once insurrection in Ireland and the most
powerful foreign enemy who has ever challenged the power of England, and
this too at a time when the population of Great Britain was not above
nine millions and the people of Ireland numbered more than four
millions, when France was the leading military power of the world, and
Ireland might at any moment receive the aid of a French army led by one
of the best French generals. The men of 1798 or 1800 would mock at our
ideas of necessity. Ireland has not an eighth of the population of the
United Kingdom; our Home Rulers are not Ireland; they are a very
different thing--the Irish populace. Let us yield everything which ought
to be yielded to justice; let us obey the dictates of expediency, which
is only justice looked at from another side; let us concede much to
generosity; but in the name of common sense, of honesty, and of
manliness, let us hear no more of necessity. Once in an age necessity
may be the defence of statesmanship forced to confess its own blindness,
but it is far more often the plea of tyranny, of ambition, of cowardice,
or despair.

B. _No danger in Home Rule_. The arguments which are employed to show
that the policy of Home Rule and the new constitution which embodies it
involve no danger for England are in the main drawn from the
'Safeguards' or Restrictions contained in the Bill--from the alleged
precedent of Grattan's Constitution--from the success of Home Rule in
other parts of the world--and, generally, from the expediency of
trustfulness.

i. _The Safeguards_. The Restrictions on the power of the Irish
Parliament are, it is asserted, sufficient and more than sufficient to
reassure Unionists, and an intimation is sometimes added that, if
further security is wanted, further safeguards may be provided.

This ground of confidence may be briefly dismissed; its answer is in
effect supplied by the foregoing pages.

On the action of the Irish Executive the Restrictions place, and from
the nature of things can place, no restraint whatever, and yet both
England and the Irish Loyalists have far more reason to dread the abuse
of executive than of legislative authority. On the legal action of the
Irish Parliament the Restrictions do place a certain restraint, but the
Restrictions are, as already shown, not in reality enforce