A Leap in the Dark | Page 5

answer satisfactory to Unionists or to the electorate of Great Britain requires an answer in 1911 as much as in 1893. The answer favourable to Home Rule has not as yet been discovered.
Is it possible to combine the effective supremacy of the Imperial Parliament with Home Rule or the substantial legislative independence of Ireland? Can Ireland, close to the shore of Great Britain, occupy the position of a self-governing colony, such as New Zealand, divided from Great Britain by thousands of miles of sea? Is it possible to create, or even to imagine, a Court which shall decide whether a law passed by the Irish Parliament violates the provisions of the proposed Home Rule Act? Above all, can the wit of man devise any scheme of constitution which shall at once satisfy the aspirations of Irish Nationalism and the patently just demand of Ulster that Protestants shall retain the freedom and the rights secured to them as citizens of the United Kingdom? Is there any form of Home Rule which will satisfy the desire of Irish Nationalists for something approaching national independence without the urgent peril of rousing civil war between Ulster and the Parliament at Dublin? All these inquiries, and others like them, harassed the Parliament of 1893; they were all answered by Unionists, that is by the majority of the British electors, with a decided negative; they will all be raised and will all need an answer when the leaders of the Coalition condescend to produce their next Home Rule Bill or even to reveal its fundamental principles.
Fourthly.--England in the circumstances of to-day is threatened with two perils which did not exist in 1893, and yet are of stupendous gravity.
The first is, that in the case of a measure of Home Rule the opportunities for discussing its provisions which are contained in the Parliament Bill may turn out nominal rather than real. It is not at all certain that for such a Bill, even though it be abhorred by the electorate of the United Kingdom, the House of Lords will be practically able to secure the delay and elaborate discussion to which Mr. Asquith professedly attaches immense importance. Unionists will believe that the measure passed by a large majority of the House of Commons is detested by the majority of the British electors. But how will it be possible to carry on the government of Ireland, to maintain order, or to save a loyal minority from gross oppression after a Home Rule Bill applauded by Separatists has been passed through the House of Commons, and for the first time has been rejected by the House of Lords? Every official in Ireland, down from the Lord Lieutenant to the last newly appointed member of the Irish Constabulary, every Irishman loyal or disloyal, will know that the Bill will within a year or two become law and that Irish Nationalists will control the Parliament and the government of Ireland. Will not the House of Lords be urged by every alleged consideration of good sense and humanity to close without delay a period of uncertainty which is threatening to turn into a reign of anarchy or of terror? The question supplies its own answer. The second peril is one whereof nobody speaks, but which must occur to any man who has studied the history of the past eighteen years or reflects upon the condition of public opinion. The peril, to put the matter plainly, is that Home Rulers will not stop at attaining Home Rule for Ireland, and that they may, and probably will, attempt to undermine the political predominance of England. Everything points in this direction. The agitation for Home Rule has fostered in Ireland, and to a very limited extent in certain other parts of the United Kingdom, a feeling approaching to jealousy of English power. England or Great Britain is the predominant partner. England is wealthy, England is prosperous. England, as the language of common life imports, is the leading member of the United Kingdom. Lord Rosebery announced with wise foresight that Home Rule in Ireland could hardly be established with benefit to the United Kingdom until the assent thereto of the predominant partner had been obtained by force of argument. The idea was grounded on common sense. Will it not suggest to Irish Nationalists that their moment of authority must be used for obtaining far greater privileges for Ireland than the extravagant political power offered by Gladstonians in 1893? Is it not natural for Home Rulers to think that the predominant partner ought to be deprived of his predominance? The conduct of the Coalition and some of its leaders points in this direction. They will have obtained through the Parliament Act temporary, but strictly unlimited and dictatorial, power. They will have obtained it by intrigue; they have