what amendments may be discussed (the rest being passed over in
silence); when the discussion is supposed to begin, their supporters
ostentatiously walk out, and the Opposition argue to empty benches;
then when the moment for closing the discussion arrives, the Minister
in charge gets up and says that the Government cannot accept any of
the amendments proposed; the bell rings, the Government supporters
troop back, and pass all the clauses unamended. As an instance of this
contemptible way of conducting the debate, it is sufficient to point
to the fact already mentioned, that so vital a matter as the power
of the English Parliament to tax Ireland was not even hinted at until
nearly the end of the debates.

And now the Bill is to become law without any further appeal to the
people.

Are English Unionists to be blamed if they declare that an Act so
passed will possess no moral obligation, and that they are determined,
should the terrible necessity arise, to aid the Ulstermen in resisting
it to the uttermost?

CHAPTER XV.

THE DANGER TO THE EMPIRE OF ANY FORM OF HOME RULE. THE QUESTIONS
ANSWERED.

In the last chapter I explained how hopelessly unworkable is the
particular scheme of Home Rule which is contained in the present
Bill. I now proceed to show why Home Rule in any form must lead to
disaster--primarily to Ireland, ultimately to the Empire.

Politicians who, like ostriches, possess the happy faculty of shutting
their eyes to unpleasant facts, may say that there is only one nation
in Ireland; but everyone who knows the country is quite aware that
there are two, which may be held together as part of the United
Kingdom, but which can no more be forced into one nation than
Belgium and Holland could be forced to combine as the Kingdom of the
Netherlands. And whatever cross-currents there may be, the great line
of cleavage is religion. Of course I am aware of the violent efforts
that have been made ever since the commencement of the Nationalist
agitation to prove that this is not so. Thus Parnell, addressing an
English audience, explained that religion had nothing to do with the
movement, and as evidence stated that he was the leader of it though
not merely a Protestant but a member of the Protestant Synod and a
parochial nominator for his own parish. Of course everyone in Ireland
knew perfectly well that he was only a Protestant in the sense that
Garibaldi was a Roman Catholic--he had been baptised as suc