of Irish centralization is not that it is strong, but that it is
weak. Weak it must remain until Parliament either approves of the
permanent suspension of the Irish writs, or else devises constitutional
means for making Irish administration responsible to Irish
representatives.

If experience is decisive against the policy of the past, experience
too, all over the modern world, indicates the better direction for the
future. I will not use my too scanty space in repeating any of the great
wise commonplaces in praise of self-government. Here they are
superfluous. In the case of Ireland they have all been abundantly
admitted in a long series of measures, from Catholic Emancipation down
to Lord O'Hagan's Jury Law and the Franchise and Redistribution Acts of
a couple of years ago. The principle of self-government has been
accepted, ratified, and extended in a hundred ways. It is only a
question of the form that self-government shall take. Against the form
proposed by the late Ministry a case is built up that rests on a series
of prophetic assumptions. These assumptions, from the nature of the
case, can only be met by a counter-statement of fair and reasonable
probabilities. Let us enumerate some of them.

1. It is inferred that, because the Irish leaders have used violent
language and resorted to objectionable expedients against England during
the last six years, they would continue in the same frame of mind after
the reasons for it had disappeared. In other words, because they have
been the enemies of a Government which refused to listen to a
constitutional demand, therefore they would continue to be its enemies
after the demand had been listened to. On this reasoning, the effect is
to last indefinitely and perpetually, notwithstanding the cessation of
the cause. Our position is that all the reasonable probabilities of
human conduct point the other way. The surest way of justifying violent
language and fostering treasonable designs, is to refuse to listen to
the constitutional demand.

2. The Irish, we are told, hate the English with an irreconcilable
hatred, and would unquestionably use any Constitution as an instrument
for satisfying their master passion. Irrational hatred, they say, can be
treated by rational men with composure. The Czechs of Bohemia are said
to be irreconcilable, yet the South Germans bear with their hatred; and
if we cannot cure we might endure the antipathy of Ireland. Now, as for
the illustration,