England's Case Against Home Rule by Albert Venn Dicey

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ENGLAND'S CASE AGAINST HOME RULE

by

A. V. DICEY

The Richmond Publishing Co. Ltd. Orchard Road,
Richmond, Surrey, England

1886

PREFACE.

An author who publishes a book having any reference to Irish affairs
may, not unnaturally, be supposed either to possess some special
knowledge of Ireland, or else to be the advocate of some new specific
for the cure of Irish discontent. Of neither of these suppositions can I
claim the benefit. My knowledge of Ireland is merely the
knowledge--perhaps it were better to say the ignorance--of an educated
Englishman. It is derived from conversation with better informed
friends, from careful attention to the discussions on Irish policy which
for the last eighteen years have engrossed public attention, and from
books accessible to ordinary readers. If I can claim no special
acquaintance with Ireland, still less have I the presumption or the
folly to come forward as the inventor of any political nostrum. My
justification for publishing my thoughts on Home Rule is that the
movement in favour of the Parliamentary independence of Ireland
constitutes, whether its advocates recognise the fact or not, a demand
for fundamental alterations in the whole Constitution of the United
Kingdom; and while I may without presumption consider myself moderately
acquainted with the principles of Constitutional law, I entertain the
firmest conviction that any scheme for Home Rule in Ireland involves
dangerous if not fatal innovations on the Constitution of Great Britain.

To set forth the reasons for this opinion is the object of this work.
The opinion itself, whatever its worth, is not the growth of recent
controversy; it has been entertained for years, and has been expressed
by me in various publications. This book is much more than a reprint;
its contents are, however, in part made up of articles which have
already been published. My thanks are due to the owners of the
_Contemporary Review_ and of the New York _Nation_ for their permission
to make free use of my contributions to the pages of their periodicals;
it is a pleasure to acknowledge the exceptional liberality with which my
friend, Mr. E.L. Godkin, has allowed me to publish on my own
responsibility in the columns of the _Nation_, opinions of which he is
himself the strenuous and most able opponent.

Nor are my acknowledgments due only to the living. Gustave de Beaumont's
'_Irelande sociale et politique_' was placed in my hands by a friend
after the plan of my argument was complete, and the writing of this book
was in fact begun. From De Beaumont I learnt more than from any other
writer on the subject of Ireland with whose works I am acquainted, and I
found to my great satisfaction that his speculations curiously confirm
the objections I was prepared to urge against the policy of Home Rule.
It is a duty to insist upon the debt I owe to De Beaumont, because at
the present moment no greater service can be rendered to Englishmen and
to Irishmen alike than to press upon them the study of an author whose
writings are far better known on the Continent than in England, and
whose thoughts, though they may seem a little out of date, are full not
only of profound wisdom but of practical guidance.

A.V. DICEY.

OCTOBER, 1886.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT

CHAPTER II.

MEANING OF HOME RULE

CHAPTER III.

STRENGTH OF THE HOME RULE MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER IV.

ENGLISH ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF HOME RULE.

Argument I.--From Foreign Experience
" II.--From the Will of the Irish People
" III.--From the Lessons of Irish History
" IV.--From the Virtues of Self-Government
" V.--From the Necessity for Coercion Acts
" VI.--From the Inconvenience to England of Refusing Home Rule

CHAPTER V.

THE MAINTENANCE OF THE UNION

CHAPTER VI.

SEPARATION

CHAPTER VII.

HOME RULE--ITS FORMS.

I.--Home Rule as Federalism
II.--Home Rule as Colonial Independence
III.--Home Rule as the Revival of Grattan's Constitution
IV.--Home Rule under the Gladstonian Constitution

CHAPTER VIII.

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

CHAPTER I.

NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT.

[Sidenote: Aim and line of argument]

My aim is to criticise from a purely English point of view the policy of
Home Rule, or the proposal to create a more or less independent
Parliament in Ireland; and as a result of such criticism to establish
the truth, and develop the consequences, of this proposition--namely,
that any system of Home Rule, whatever be the form it takes, is less
beneficial to Great Britain, or (to use popular language) to England,
than is the maintenance of the Union, and is at least as much opposed to
the vital interests of England as would be the national independence of
Ireland.

The train of reasoning by which it is sought to establish this
principle, and the consequences which the principle involves, consists
of the following steps: first, an examination into the causes which give
strength to the Home Rule movement in England, and the nature of the
arguments in its support used by English Home Rulers; secondly, a
statement of the advantages and disadvantages, from an English point of
view, on the one hand of maintaining the Union, and on the other of
separation from Ireland; thirdly, a criticism of each of the principal
forms[1] under which Home Rule has been actually presented to the
attention of the public, the aim of such criticism being in each case to
determine how far the particular form of Home Rule can compete as
regards the interests of England with the alternative policies of
Unionism and of Irish independence; and, fourthly, a summary of the
conclusions arrived at by this survey of the policy of Home Rule. My
endeavour will be to make this survey without any appeal to prejudice,
passion, or sentiment, and with the calmness and fairness which a
scientific constitutionalist should display in weighing the merits of
any other proposed alteration in our form of government, such for
example as the introduction of life peers into the House of Lords, or in
estimating the value of some foreign constitutional invention, such for
example as the Swiss Referendum or the Dual system which links together
Hungary and the Austrian Empire. No citizen of the United Kingdom indeed
can pretend to be an impartial critic of a policy which divides the
whole nation into opposing parties. But during a period of revolutionary
excitement it is well to remember that any legislative innovation,
however keen the feelings of partisanship which it may arouse, is always
in itself capable of being looked at from a logical or abstract point of
view, and ought to be so looked at by jurists. To one class indeed among
the advocates of Home Rule the fundamental principle contended for in
these pages will appear irrelevant to the points at issue between such
Home Rulers and their opponents. Nationalists, who still occupy the
position held in 1848 by Sir Gavan Duffy and his friends, and who either
openly contend for the right of Ireland to be an independent nation, or
accept Home Rule (as they may with perfect fairness) simply as a step
towards the independence of their country, are naturally and rightly
unaffected by reasoning which shows, however conclusively, that Home
Rule may be as injurious to England as a complete severance of the
political connection between England and Ireland. A Nationalist may say
with justice that he is no more bound to consider whether England will
or will not be damaged by Ireland's becoming a nation, than an Italian
patriot was bound, in 1859, to show that Austria would not suffer by
being deprived of Lombardy or of Venetia; he accepts Home Rule on the
maxim that half a loaf is better than no bread, but a starving man is
not required to refuse the offer of food because the donor cannot make
the gift without getting into debt; nor does the acceptance of half a
loaf afford the least presumption that the recipient would not prefer a
whole loaf if he could get it. Some indeed of the considerations which
tell in the eyes of an Englishman against Home Rule may indirectly lead
an Irish Nationalist to the belief that the boon of legislative
independence, if granted to Ireland, would prove the present of a stone
in reply to a prayer for bread. But should a Nationalist be convinced
that no form of Home Rule would benefit Ireland, he would cling all the
more firmly to the faith that her salvation depends upon her taking her
place among independent states. To Nationalists, therefore, even though
at present they may be fighting the cause of Irish nationality behind
the vizor of Home Rule, these pages are not addressed; the position they
occupy is one of which no man has any cause to feel ashamed. The opinion
that, considering the misery which has marked the connection between
England and Ireland, the happiest thing for the weaker country would be
complete separation from the United Kingdom, is one which in common with
most Englishmen, and, it may be added, in common with the wisest foreign
observers, I do not share; but fairness requires the admission that it
is an opinion which a man may hold and may act upon, without incurring
the charge either of folly or of wickedness. To Nationalists, however,
these pages, as I have said, are not addressed. The persons for whom
they are intended are either Home Rulers, whether in Great Britain or in
Ireland, who _bona fide_ advocate the policy of Home Rule as a policy
good and wise in itself and for its own sake; or else Unionists, who
firmly believe that the whole State will suffer by any attempt to tear
up the Treaty of Union, but yet are unable to give for the faith that is
in them as strong grounds of reason as they would desire. To such
persons the importance of the principle (if true) which is contended for
throughout these pages must appear undeniable; it strikes at the root of
more than one half of the arguments by which Home Rulers from the time
of Mr. Butt to the days of Mr. Parnell have attempted, fairly enough,
and latterly with great success, to win over English opinion to their
cause, and it undermines the whole position occupied by Mr. Gladstone
and his English followers. They assume with undeniable truth that the
English people will not at the present moment, except under compulsion,
acquiesce in Irish independence; they further assume, and must from the
nature of the case assume, that Home Rule under one shape or another
presents a fair prospect at least of advantages not derivable from the
maintenance of the Union, and is at the very worst so much less
injurious to British interests than would be separation from Ireland, as
to offer to England a reasonable compromise between the just claims of
Englishmen to secure the prosperity of Great Britain and the greatness
of the British Empire, and the legitimate desire of Irishmen for
national independence. If the proposition which it is my object to
maintain turn out to be sound, all these assumptions fall to the ground,
together with a host of fallacies for which these assumptions form the
necessary basis. The principle, in short, which it is my object to
enforce--that Home Rule in Ireland is more dangerous to England than
Irish independence--lies at the bottom of all the rational opposition
made by Unionists to the creation of an Irish Parliament, and, together
with the arguments by which the principle is maintained, and the
conclusions to which it leads, forms the true and just and reasonable
case of England against Home Rule.

[Sidenote: Possible objections to method.]

The whole spirit and method of my argument is open to at least three
plausible objections, which deserve examination, both because if left
unnoticed they are certain to occur to and perplex any intelligent
reader, and because their removal brings into relief the strength of my
line of reasoning.

[Sidenote: 1. Too abstract.]

_First objection._--To deal with a burning controversy in the abstract
and logical manner suitable to the discussion of the problems of
jurisprudence savours, it may be objected, of theoretic, academic, or
pedantic disquisition more fit for a University class-room than for the
living world of contemporary politics.

The force of this criticism does not admit of denial. My method of
treating the question of Home Rule is necessarily lifeless when
compared with the vehement rhetoric or heated eloquence which
characterises public or parliamentary discussion; it is also true that
the argumentative treatment of matters affecting actual life always
bears about it a certain air of unreality.

If, however, systematic argument lacks the animation of political
discussion or dispute, it possesses its own counterbalancing merits, and
the mode of treating Home Rule purposely adopted in these pages has, it
is conceived, two not inconsiderable advantages. The first of these
advantages is that it diverts the mind from a crowd of personal,
temporary, and in themselves trivial considerations, which, though they
possess not only an apparent but also a real significance, are at bottom
irrelevant to the final decision of the true points at issue. Whether,
for example, Mr. Gladstone ought to have proclaimed himself a Home Ruler
before the elections of 1885, whether Lord Salisbury's reference, or
alleged reference, to twenty years of coercion was or was not judicious,
and did or did not receive a fair interpretation from his opponents;
whether Lord Carnarvon misled Mr. Parnell, or whether the Irish leader
was a dupe to his own astuteness; whether Mr. Chamberlain ought to have
joined the late Ministry, or, having gone into the Cabinet, ought never
to have left it; what have been the motives consciously or unconsciously
affecting Mr. Gladstone's course of action--these and a hundred other
enquiries of the like sort, which engage the attention and distract the
judgment of the public, possess, in the eyes of any serious thinker
occupied in estimating the strength of the arguments for and against
Home Rule, no material importance whatever. His concern is the merit or
demerit of a legislative enactment. He is not concerned at all with the
conduct or the character of legislators. Mr. Gladstone's motives may be
the highest which can be ascribed to the Premier by the voice of
admiring friendship, or the basest which can be imputed to him by the
unfairness of political rancour. In any case they are irrelevant to the
matter in hand. An unwise measure will not become a beneficial law
because its author is a saint or a patriot; a statesmanlike law will not
turn out a curse to the country because its defender is an intriguer or
a traitor. We all see that this is so if we carry our view back to the
controversies of the last generation; the personalities of fifty or
sixty years ago are reduced before our eyes into their real pettiness.
The first Reform Bill still retains its importance for as a measure
which for good or bad revolutionised the constitution; its beneficial or
pernicious effects are still traceable in the England of to-day; but its
evils are not lessened by the acknowledged virtues of Lord Althorpe, nor
are its good effects marred by the ambition of Brougham or the violence
of O'Connell. It is no slight recommendation of any mode of reasoning if
it suggests to us the prudence of judging the policy of 1886 in the
spirit and by the standards which every man of sense applies to the
policy of 1832. Academic disquisition has its faults, but ought to
produce academic calmness; a class-room is after all a better place for
quiet reflection than the House of Commons or the hustings.

The second of the advantages which marks the proposed mode of argument
is that a line of thought which fixes a reader's attention all but
exclusively upon the probable effects of Home Rule is a preservative
against the errors which arise from introducing into a dispute, bitter
enough in itself, all the poisonous venom of historical recrimination,
and all the delusions which are the offspring of the misleading tendency
to personify nations. The massacres of 1641, the sack of Drogheda, the
violated treaty of Limerick, the follies strangely mingled with the
patriotism of Grattan's Parliament, the outrages which discredited the
rebellion of 1798, and the cruelties which disgraced its suppression;
the corruption which carried the Union, and the broken pledges which
turned political union into a source of fresh sectarian discord; the
calamities, the mistakes and the crimes which mark each scene in the
tragedy of Irish history, afford to Protestants and to Catholics alike
an exhaustless supply of recriminatory invective. But to evoke the
spectres of past ages is not the way to assuage the animosities of the
present day. The crimes of bygone generations are subjects for curious
investigation, but the determination of historical problems, even when
conducted in the spirit of the calmest enquiry, never removes the
difficulties of practical statesmanship. Apologies, at any rate, or
diatribes produced by the necessity for palliating or for denouncing
the misdeeds of other times, only add a new element of confusion to the
turmoil of political warfare. Whether the insurgents of 1641 massacred
every Protestant on whom they could lay their hands, or bear only an
indirect responsibility for the death of eight or nine thousand men and
women ruthlessly expelled from the lands of which in Irish eyes they
were wrongful occupiers, is a question to be settled by Mr. Froude, Mr.
Lecky, and Mr. Gardiner; but the barbarities of insurgent Catholics, and
the retaliatory severity of Protestant victors, which mark the fury of
an internecine conflict removed from us by the lapse of more than two
centuries have little to do with the practical question whether it be
expedient at the present day that the local affairs of Ulster should be
dealt with by a Parliament sitting at Dublin, or whether members from
Ireland should have seats at Westminster. Recrimination, while it adds
nothing to knowledge, disturbs the judgment of statesmen and of
electors; but not even the reckless resuscitation of bitter memories,
which ought to be forgotten, adds so much to the confusion of the day as
does the habit fostered by the illusions of language, and by the falsely
applied historical method, of speaking and thinking of England and
Ireland as though they were two human beings, who, on closing a
life-long quarrel, might be expected to entertain towards one another
those sentiments of regret, generosity, or gratitude which are proper to
men and women, but can only by the boldest of fictions be supposed to
enter into the relations between classes or nations. To this delusion of
personification is due the notion that Englishmen of to-day ought to
make compensation and feel personal shame for the cruelties of Cromwell,
or for Pitt's corruption of Irish patriots; that we are in some way
liable and should feel compunction for crimes committed by (possibly)
the ancestors of the very men to whom we are now supposed to owe
reparation. To the same cause is to be attributed the absurd demand that
the Irish Catholics should put on ashes and sackcloth for the massacres
of 1641, or that living Irishmen should be grateful for the well-meant
though most unsuccessful efforts made by the Parliament of the United
Kingdom to govern one-third of the United Kingdom on sound principles of
justice. A Sovereign's plainest duty is to rule his subjects for their
good according to the best of his power and of his knowledge, and the
mere discharge of duty does not entitle a ruler to gratitude from the
persons who are benefited by his justice. A Parliamentary Sovereign
being the representative and agent of its (so-called) subjects, is _a
fortiori_ if there can be degrees in such matters--bound to govern for
the benefit of the people whom it represents and ought to serve; and
there is something strictly preposterous in the idea that Irish
electors, who in common with the rest of the United Kingdom send
representatives to Westminster, should glow with gratitude when the
Parliament of the United Kingdom so far performs its duty as to enact
laws from which Ireland derives benefit No one suggests that Englishmen
or Scotchmen should feel grateful either to Parliament or to their Irish
fellow-citizens for the maintenance of good government throughout
England and Scotland. And it would puzzle the wit of man to show why
one-third of the United Kingdom should be expected to entertain feelings
never demanded from the other two-thirds thereof.

[Sidenote: 2. Too much reference to interest.]

_Second objection_.--The habitual reference made throughout these pages
to national interest as the test or standard of national policy has (it
may be suggested) a touch of sordidness and selfishness, and implies
that statesmanship has nothing to do with morality.

This impression may it is possible be conveyed to a careless reader by
the form in which the case against Home Rule is stated; but no
suggestion can in reality be more unfounded. It will be seen to be
unfounded by any one who notes for a moment the meaning of the term
"interest" as applied to matters of national policy. The interest or the
welfare of a nation comprises many things which have nothing to do with
trade or with wealth, and the value of which does not admit of being
measured in money. The interest, welfare, or prosperity of England
includes the maintenance of her honour, the performance of all her
obligations, and, above all, the strict discharge of every engagement
which she has undertaken towards countries or to individuals. The
protection, for example, of law-abiding citizens in the enjoyment of
rights secured to them by law; the maintenance of peace throughout the
length and breadth of the Empire; the suppression of lawlessness; the
strict performance of every promise which the State has made to every
man or body of men, whether poor or rich, whether belonging to the class
of labourers, of farmers, or even of landlords--the rendering, in short,
to every man of his due--are things which without any improper extension
of the term interest fall under the head of national interests.
Utilitarianism, in truth, being a body of principles applicable
primarily to legislation and only secondarily to ethics, its doctrines
hold far more obviously true in the field of politics than in the field
of morals. On any wide view of large public questions expediency will be
found to be only another name for justice. It can be neither the
interest nor the duty of any nation to legislate in a way which produces
more of suffering than of happiness. A policy opposed to the interests
or the welfare of the United Kingdom as a whole, even though it may
appear for a moment to favour some particular portion of the State, is,
we may be well assured, a policy opposed not only to wisdom, but to
justice.

[Sidenote: 3. Exclusively English point of view.]

_Third objection._--To look at Home Rule mainly from an English point of
view, to criticise it because of its bearing on the interests or welfare
of England, is, it may perhaps be thought, to treat the whole matter
from the wrong side, and to betray an indifference to the welfare of
Ireland. Home Rule, the objector may say, is a scheme for the government
of Ireland. It therefore concerns the people of Ireland alone, it should
be subjected to examination from an Irish, not from an English point of
view, and to consider it in any other light is to exhibit in a new form
that callous disregard by England of Ireland's claims which has
prevented the two countries from blending into one community.

It is of primary importance that this objection should be stated with
all the force which can be given to it, for were it valid it would
assuredly be, in the judgment of all just persons, fatal to the line of
reasoning which my readers are invited to pursue. The objection is,
however, so far from being valid as to present my whole method of
reasoning in a false light. A main reason why an Englishman does well to
look at Home Rule from an English point of view is, that this mode of
dealing with the adjustment of the possibly opposed interests of England
and Ireland is (paradoxical though the assertion may sound) both the
least irritating and in itself the fairest method of meeting the demands
of Irish Home Rulers; though--and this is the one certainly good result
which has arisen from the changed attitude towards Home Rule of Mr.
Gladstone and his followers--these demands may now happily be dealt with
as claims put forward not specially by Irishmen, but by a political
party which includes large numbers of Scotchmen and Englishmen. The
assertion, however, that to look at Home Rule from an English point of
view is the way to minimise irritation, and to deal fairly with a topic
specially requiring fair treatment, requires some explanation.

Experience of the world teaches every man that in complicated affairs of
private life, involving questions, say, both of money and of sentiment,
nothing so surely prevents quarrels as to separate in the clearest
manner possible matters of business from matters of feeling. In
determining a dispute between _A._ and _B._, a great step is gained when
a friend induces each of the parties first to state clearly his exact
legal rights and his exact pecuniary interest, and only when these facts
are made clear to consider what are the concessions fairly to be
demanded from him as a matter, not of right, but of liberality. Nothing,
again, is plainer in the conduct of controversies between man and man,
than that if _A._ intends to exact his full legal rights from _B._, the
most irritating defence of _A.'s_ conduct is his pretence of acting
solely with a view to _B.'s_ own good; and that, on the other hand, no
manner of enforcing _A.'s_ claims against _B._ causes so little
unnecessary vexation to _B._ as for _A._ to say openly that he demands
his rights because they are his rights, and because to demand them is
his interest. Here, if nowhere else, the rules which apply to private
disputes apply also to political controversies. If millions of
Englishmen refuse a request made by millions of Irishmen, by far the
least irritating form of refusal is open avowal that the reason for
denying a separate Parliament to Ireland is the irreparable injury which
Home Rule will work both to Great Britain and to the British Empire.
This assertion has the merit, which even in politics is not small, of
truth. If the Parliamentary independence of Ireland threatened as little
damage to England as the Parliamentary independence of Victoria, an
Irish legislature would meet in Dublin before the end of the year.
Englishmen, it is true, do not believe that Ireland would in the long
run gain by the possession of legislative independence. It is not,
however, the doubt as to the reality of the blessing to be conferred on
Ireland, but the certainty as to the injury to be done to England, which
causes their opposition to Home Rule. To base this opposition upon the
probable inconsistency between a Home Rule policy and the true interests
of Ireland, involves the assumption that Englishmen are better judges of
what makes for the true interest of Ireland than are the majority of
Irishmen. The soundness of this assumption must seem to any man, who
either recalls the most obvious facts of Irish history, or notes the
depth of ignorance as to all things Irish which prevails even among our
educated classes, to be open to reasonable question. What is not
questionable is that the assertion, in whatever form it be made, that
three millions of Irishmen do not understand what is good for themselves
must arouse in their hearts deep and natural anger. If indeed the claim
of Great Britain to look in this matter of Home Rule solely to the
effect of Home Rule on British interests, were equivalent to the
assertion that because England is strong she ought wherever her own
interests are at stake to reck nothing of justice, such cynical scorn
for all considerations except the possession of superior power would
kindle just resentment in the soul of every man, whether in Ireland or
in England, who believes that national morality is more than a mere
phrase, though even in this case the open cynicism might excite less
disgust than cynicism veiling itself under the mask of benevolence.
Happily, however, there is in the present instance no opposition between
truth and justice. Home Rule is no doubt primarily a scheme for the
government of Ireland, but it is also much more than this: it is a plan
for revolutionising the constitution of the whole United Kingdom. There
is no unfairness, therefore, in insisting that the proposed change must
not take place if it be adverse to the interests of Great Britain. This
is merely to assert that the welfare of thirty millions of citizens
must, if a conflict of interest arise, be preferred to the interest of
five millions of citizens. Home Rulers, it must again and again be
repeated, demand not the national independence of Ireland, but the
maintenance of the connection between England and Ireland on terms
different from the conditions contained in the Act of Union. To keep
one's mind clear on this point is of importance, because the result
follows that, as already intimated, a whole series of arguments or
claims which may fairly be put forward by a Nationalist are not
available to a Home Ruler. A Nationalist, for example, may urge that
the will of the Irish people to be independent is decisive of their
moral right to independence, and that the perils which a free Ireland
may bring upon England need not in any way concern him or his country.
Whether indeed the principle of "nationality," or the contention that
any portion of a State which deems itself conscious of distinct national
sentiment may, as a matter of absolute right, claim to become a separate
nation, can be maintained, is an enquiry not so easily answered in the
affirmative as is often assumed by modern democrats. What, however, is
here insisted upon is not that the principle of nationality is unsound,
but that this principle does not cover the demand for Home Rule. A Home
Ruler asks not for the political separation, but for the political
partnership of England and Ireland. He wishes not that the firm should
be dissolved, but that the Articles of Association should be revised.
There is not then the least unfairness in the answer that no
modification can be allowed which in the judgment of his associates is
fatal to the prosperity of the concern. To crowds excited by pictures of
past greatness or of past struggles, by the hope of future prosperity to
be brought about by miracles wrought by substituting the rule of love
for the rule of law, there may appear to be something prosaic, not to
say repulsive, in the comparison of the relation between Great Britain
and Ireland to the relation between shareholders in a trading company.
But at a period when a fundamental change in the constitution is
advocated on grounds of faith, benevolence, or generosity, a good deal
is gained by bringing into relief the business aspect of constitutional
reforms. It can never be amiss to be reminded that, in the words of one
of the most thoughtful among the advocates of Home Rule, "Government is
a very practical business, and that those succeed best in it who bring
least of sentiment or enthusiasm to the conduct of their affairs." It is
at moments of revolutionary fervour, when men measure proposed policies
rather by their wishes than by their experience, that every citizen
needs to have impressed upon his mind that government and legislation
are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination. Nor let any
one imagine that the expression of the belief constantly avowed or
implied throughout these pages, that Home Rule would be as great an evil
to England as Irish independence, shows a reckless and most
unbusinesslike indifference to the perils and losses of separation. My
conviction is unalterable that separation would be to England, as also
to Ireland, a gigantic evil. This position is fully compatible with the
belief that there are other evils as great, or greater. If a man says
that he prefers the loss of his right hand to the loss of his life, he
cannot reasonably be charged with making light of amputation. It is
however perfectly true that the line of argument pursued in this work
must, if it be sound, drive those to whom it is addressed to a choice
between the maintenance of the Union and the concession to Ireland of
national independence.

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