Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/266

 worked all the mischief in the republic. He would have but one chamber, returned by equal constituencies, with a chief magistrate and executive directly eligible by, and responsible to, the legislature. A second chamber, if it is opposed to the popular house, is noxious; if it is in harmony with it, it is superfluous.

Mr. Conway has learned, by the sad experience of his own beloved republic, how disastrous a thing is the doctrine of state rights or home rule. Let this Radical of Radicals speak a word in season to those undiscerning ones in England, who in this matter seem in haste to confound purblind re-action with action, retrogression with progression:—

"Could there be a more cruel concession made by England to Ireland than that very home rule for which so earnest a demand is now made? Whether England should concede complete independence to Ireland may be' a question; but to raise up in Ireland ambitions that at some point must be checked, to give embodiment to aspirations and interests which no sooner reach their development than they will be certainly crushed, were the gift of weak indulgence, and by no means that of true generosity. For every concession the Northern people made to 'state sovereignty' in the South, several thousand Southerners had to be slain in the end."