a more complete emancipation from imperial control, was it not
much better to keep things as they were, and go on enduring evils, the
worst of which were known already? Hence the advocates of the Bill
denied not the weight of the argument, but its applicability.
Separation, they urged, is impossible, for it is contrary to the nature
of things, which indicates that the two islands must go together. It is
not desired by the Irish people, for it would injure them far more than
it could possibly injure England, since Ireland finds in England the
only market for her produce, the only source whence capital flows to
her. A small revolutionary party has, no doubt, conspired to obtain it.
But the only sympathy they received was due to the fact that the
legitimate demand of Ireland for a recognition of her national feeling
and for the management of her own local affairs was contemptuously
ignored by England. The concession of that demand will banish the notion
even from those minds which now entertain it, whereas its continued
refusal may perpetuate that alienation of feeling which is at the bottom
of all the mischief, the one force that makes for separation.

It is no part of my present purpose to examine these arguments and
counter arguments, but only to show what were the grounds on which a
majority of the English voters refused to pronounce in favour of the
Home Rule Bill. The reader will have observed that the issues raised
were not only numerous, but full of difficulty. They were issues of
fact, involving a knowledge both of the past history of Ireland and of
her present state. They were also issues of inference, for even
supposing the broad facts to be ascertained, these facts were
susceptible of different interpretations, and men might, and did,
honestly draw opposite conclusions from them. A more obscure and
complicated problem, or rather group of problems, has seldom been
presented to a nation for its decision. But the nation did not possess
the requisite knowledge. Closely connected as Ireland seems to be with
England, long as the Irish question has been a main trouble in English
politics, the English and Scottish people know amazingly little about
Ireland. Even in the upper class, you meet with comparatively few
persons who have set foot on Irish soil, and, of course, far fewer who
have ever examined the condition of the island and the sources of her
discontent. Irish history, which is, no doubt, dismal reading, is a