m. If once we go behind the voice of a people, constitutionally
expressed, we court endless risks. National leaders have always been
called "agitators," which, of course, they are, and non-representative
agitators, which they are not. To deny the genuineness of a claim which
is feared is an invariable feature of oppositions to measures of Home
Rule. The denial is generally irreconcilable with the case made for the
dangers of Home Rule, and that contradiction in its most glaring shape
characterizes the present opposition to the Irish claims. But Unionists
should elect to stand on one ground or the other, and for my part I
shall assume that the large majority of Irishmen, as shown by successive
electoral votes, want Home Rule. Precisely what form of Home Rule they
want is another and by no means so clear a matter, on which I shall
presently have a word to say. But they want, in the general sense, to
manage their own local affairs. Her best friends would despair of
Ireland if that was not her desire.

What, in the Colonies, Ireland, and everywhere else, is the deep
spiritual impulse behind the desire for Home Rule? A craving for
self-expression, self-reliance. Home Rule is synonymous with the growth
of independent character. That is why Ireland instinctively and
passionately wants it, that is why she needs it, and that is why Great
Britain, for her own sake, and Ireland's, should give it. If that is not
the reason, it is idle to talk about Home Rule; but it is the reason.

Character is the very foundation of national prosperity and happiness,
and we are blind to the facts of history if we cannot discern the
profound effect of political institutions upon human character.
Self-government in the community corresponds to free will in the
individual. I am far from saying that self-government is everything. But
I do say that it is the master-key. It is fundamental. Give
responsibility and you will create responsibility. Through political
responsibility only can a society brace itself to organized effort, find
out its own opinions on its own needs, test its own capabilities, and
elicit the will, the brains, and the hands to solve its own problems.

These are such commonplaces in every other part of the Empire, which has
an individual life of its own, that men smile if you suggest the
contrary. But ordinary reasoning is rarely applied to Ireland. There
"good government" has been held to be "a substitute for self-government"
and