she could hardly maintain her
rights and her dignity against Austria, the classical instance of
Germany, which though possessed of every source of power lay for
generations at the mercy of France, mainly on account of vicious
political institutions, are proofs, if evidence were wanting, of the
capacity of ill-designed constitutions to hamper the action and threaten
the prosperity of great nations. A constitution in truth is a national
garb. A good constitution will not make a weak country strong, but an
unsuitable constitution may reduce a strong country to feebleness. A
weakling does not become a strong man by putting on armour, but a giant
can derive no advantage from his strength if once he be got by fraud or
force into a strait waistcoat.

Strength, it is true, will in the long run assert itself. The artificial
supremacy of Ireland, or of a faction supported by Irish votes, will not
last for ever; probably it will not last long. If the new constitution
prove unbearable by England it will not be borne; it will be overthrown
or evaded. Far am I from asserting that the breach or evasion will, when
it shall occur, be justifiable. Englishmen's ideas of good faith are
strict, but they are narrow. One main reason for dreading the new
constitution is that it may try beyond measure the patience and the
honesty of England. If, for instance, Ulster should resist the legal
authority of the Parliament at Dublin, there may arise one of those
terrible periods in which the observation of pledged faith seems
inconsistent with the natural dictates of honour and humanity, and weak
concession at the present moment will, at such a crisis, be found to
have contained among its other perils the danger lest England, when at
last she re-asserts her power in Ireland, should not re-establish her
justice.

Where then lies the path of safety? The road is difficult, but it is
clearly marked; it is at any rate to be found, not by any exercise of
subtlety or of extraordinary acuteness, but by obeying the plain
dictates of common sense and sound public morality. The characteristics
of Unionist policy must be seriousness, simplicity, and reliance upon
an appeal to the nation.

Seriousness is essential.

The need of the time is to impress on the mass of the people the intense
gravity of the crisis. Far too much was said before the general election
about the weaknesses and the inconsistencies of the Gladstonians, and
far too little about the cause