roposal of a completely
novel and revolutionary kind, without precedent in the history of the
Western world.

As a matter of plain fact, it was the framers of the Act of Union who
were the revolutionaries, and it is the supporters of Home Rule who are
returning to the ancient paths. The Home Rulers have five centuries
behind them, as against the one century behind the Unionists. From the
days of Simon de Montfort[56] the Irish Parliament developed side by
side with the English, growing with the growth of English rule in
Ireland, and varying with its limitations. Its powers, indeed, were
placed under a grave and serious limitation by Poynings' Law, passed
in the reign of Henry VII.,[57] and strengthened in the reign of Mary
Tudor.[58] They were for a brief time entirely taken away by Oliver
Cromwell, who was, strangely enough, the first great Unionist ruler of
Ireland. Restored by Charles II., the Irish Parliament was again
limited in power by the Government of George I.[59] But in 1782 it
broke through all these limitations, and became for a short brilliant
period a fully self-governing Parliament.

We have thus the illuminating fact that, with one single exception--and
that an example eminent in English affairs, but certainly not to be
followed in Irish--every great English ruler and monarch governed
Ireland under a distinct Irish Home Rule Parliament up to the year
1800. If Home Rule is so certain to be ruinous to Empire, how, we may
well ask, did these rulers build up the British Empire? How did
Marlborough and Clive, Chatham and Walpole, do their great world-work
with an Irish Parliament behind them? The answer is, of course, that
they did it better, and not worse, because Ireland was so far satisfied
with her fortunes as to be willing to put her full force into the
struggle for Empire.

For as long as Ireland possessed a Parliament she always possessed
hope.

THE UNION CENTURY

As against these five centuries, we have one century of Irish rule
under a united Parliament--1800 to 1911. One against five. But as the
one is more recent, we have here not a bad provision of material for an
answer to the question: "Which has proved in the past the best way of
governing Ireland--Union or Home Rule?"

In regard to the century of Union, the record lies before us, open and
palpable, a tale of disaster and tragedy almost without parallel in the
modern history of the world. We see in the statistics of Irish
population