e begun to ponder things
more calmly. The English people are listening to the arguments from
Irish history that are now addressed to them. They will be moved by the
solid grounds of policy which that history suggests; will understand
that what they have deemed insensate hatred is the natural result of
long misgovernment, and will disappear with time and the removal of its
causes. Many of the best minds of both nations will be at work to
discover some method of reconciling Irish self-government with imperial
supremacy and union free from the objections brought against the Bills
of 1886. It is reasonable to expect that they may greatly improve upon
these measures, which were prepared under pressure from a clamorous
Opposition. What Mr. Disraeli once called the historical conscience of
the country will appreciate those great underlying principles to which
Mr. Gladstone's policy appeals. It has been accused of being a policy of
despair; and may have commended itself to some who supported it as being
simply a means of ridding England of responsibility. But to others it
seemed, and more truly, a policy of faith; not, indeed, of thoughtless
optimism, but of faith according to the definition which calls it "the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith,
by which nations as well as men must live, means nothing less than a
conviction that great principles, permanent truths of human nature, lie
at the bottom of all sound politics, and ought to be boldly and
consistently applied, even when temporary difficulties surround their
application. Such a principle is the belief in the power of freedom and
self-government to cure the faults of a nation, in the tendency of
responsibility to teach wisdom, and to make men see that justice and
order are the surest sources of prosperity. Such a principle is the
perception that national hatreds do not live on of themselves, but will
expire when oppression has ceased, as a fire burns out without fuel.
Such a principle is the recognition of the force of national sentiment,
and of the duty of allowing it all the satisfaction that is compatible
with the maintenance of imperial unity. Such, again, is the appreciation
of those natural economic laws which show that nations, when disturbing
passions have ceased, follow their own permanent interests, and that an
island which finds its chief market in England and draws its capital
from England will prefer a connection with Englan