The case of the Irish people has never been put with more clearness and
frankness than it was by Mr. Redmond in the House of Commons two years
ago. Having been accused by Unionists of adopting a more extreme line
outside Parliament than that which he followed at St. Stephen's, the
Irish leader in reply, after declaring that separation from Great
Britain would be better than a continuance of the present method of
government, and that he should feel bound to recommend armed revolt if
there were any chance of its success, went on to say:--

"I am profoundly convinced that by constitutional means, and within the
constitution, it is possible to arrive at a compromise based upon the
concession of self-government--or, as Mr. Gladstone used to call it,
autonomy--to Ireland, which would put an end to this ancient
international quarrel upon terms satisfactory and honourable to both
nations."

An Orangeman described the late Government as being engaged in the
useless task of trying to conciliate those who will not be conciliated.
The words of Mr. Redmond indicate the one way in which a _Pacata
Hibernia_ can be secured within the Empire. It is a compromise, but it
has this one virtue which compromises rarely possess--that it will
satisfy the great mass of the Irish people, and it concedes, as we hold,
no vital principle.

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSION

"Unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations."

--EDMUND BURKE.

The position of the mass of the Irish people with regard to the present
form of government has nowhere been more cogently expressed than in the
chapter on the Union in the "Cambridge Modern History," the writer of
which describes it as a settlement by compulsion, not by consent; and
the penalty of such methods is, that the instrument possesses no moral
validity for those who do not accept the grounds on which it was
adopted. If Englishmen get this firmly fixed in their minds they will
understand that we regard all Unionist reforms, whether from Liberal or
Conservative Governments, as instalments of conscience money, in regard
to which, granting our premises, it would be sheer affectation to
express surprise or to feign disgust at the lack of effusive gratitude
with which we receive them. "Give us back our ancient liberties" has
been the cry of the Irish people ever since George III. gave his assent
to the Act of Union. The ties of sentiment which bind her colonies so
closely to Great B