t nationality," as Professor Bury of
Cambridge tells us, "has governed, as one of the most puissant forces,
the political course of the last century and is still unexhausted." It
has governed not only the West but the East; the twain have met in that
demand for a constitutional national State which in our day has flamed
up, a fire not to be put out, in Turkey, Persia, Egypt. But it is in
Imperial politics that the bouleversement has been most complete. When
critics now find fault with the structure of the Empire they complain
not that there is too much Downing Street in it, but that the residual
power of Downing Street-is not visible to the naked eye. To us Irish the
blindness of England to the meaning of her own colonial work is a
maddening miracle. A wit of the time met Goldsmith at dinner. The
novelist was a little more disconcerting than usual, a result, let us
charitably hope, of the excellence of the claret. Afterwards they asked
his fellow-diner what he thought of the author. "Well," he replied, "I
believe that that man wrote 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' and, let me tell
you, it takes a lot of believing." Similarly when we in Ireland learn
that Great Britain has founded on the principle of local autonomy an
Empire on which the sun never sets, we nerve ourselves to an Act of
Faith. It is not inappropriate to observe that a large part of the
"founding" was done by Irishmen.

But the point of immediate interest lies in this. The foolishness of
England in Ireland finds an exact parallel, although on a smaller scale
and for a shorter period, in the early foolishness of England in her own
colonies. In both cases there is an attempt to suppress individuality
and initiative, to exploit, to bully, to Downing Street-ify. It was a
policy of Unionism, the sort of Unionism that linked the destiny of the
lady to that of the tiger. The fruits of it were a little bitter in the
eating. The colonies in which under the Home Rule regime "loyalty" has
blossomed like the rose, were in those days most distressingly disloyal.

Cattle-driving and all manner of iniquities of that order in Canada; the
boycott adopted not as a class, but as a national, weapon in Cape
Colony; the Eureka stockade in Australia; Christian De Wet and the crack
of Mausers in the Transvaal--such were the propaedeutics to the
establishment of freedom and the dawn of loyalty in the overseas
possessions. But in this field of government the gods gave England not
only a