s of their strength and the absolute
necessity for arduous efforts to defeat the Separatists at the
polling-booths. The error must not be repeated.

The people must be told, as they may be told with absolute truth, that
the fate of England is in question, and that nothing but the efforts of
every Unionist throughout the land can save the country from
destruction. The contest has, without either party being aware of the
change, shifted its character since 1886. Then the names of Unionists
and Separatists expressed the whole difference between the opponents and
supporters of the Home Rule Bill. The Gladstonians for the most part
meant the Bill to affect, as far as possible, the condition of Ireland
alone. They did not mean to change the constitution of the United
Kingdom. It is now plain, as has been shown throughout these pages, that
the measure of so-called Home Rule is a new constitution for the whole
United Kingdom. In 1886 the Gladstonians _bona fide_ intended to close
the period of agitation. In 1893 many Gladstonians see in Home Rule for
Ireland only the first step towards an extended scheme of federalism.
In 1886 no Gladstonian had palliated crime or oppression, no
Gladstonian statesman had discovered that boycotting was nothing but
exclusive dealing, no Gladstonian Chancellor had made light of
conspiracy. All this is changed. Alliance with revolutionists or
conspirators has imbued respectable English statesmen with revolutionary
doctrines and revolutionary sentiment. The difference between Unionist
and Separatist remains, but it is merged in the wider difference between
Constitutionalists and Revolutionists. The question at issue is not
merely, though this is serious enough, whether the Act of Union shall be
repealed or relaxed, but whether the United Kingdom is morally a nation,
and whether as a nation it has a right to insist upon the supreme
authority belonging to the majority of its citizens. A similar question
was some thirty-two years ago put to the people of the United States; it
was decided by the arbitrament of battle.

The terrible calamity of an appeal to the test of force Englishmen may
avoid, but if it is to be avoided the national rights of the whole
people of the United Kingdom must be asserted as strenuously by their
votes as the rights of the citizens of the United States were vindicated
by their arms. The people of England again must be solemnly warned that
errors in policy or acts of injustice