Page:Home rule (Beesly).djvu/13

13 service? If Ireland undervalues these advantages now, it is because she has to set against them the denial of Home Rule. Concede Home Rule, and they become clear boons, not to be lightly thrown away or trifled with.

Mr. Gladstone has told us plainly that he has introduced the so-called guarantees into his Bill only as a concession to jealousies which he did not share, and regarded as a weakness. I have no doubt he sees clearly what I have endeavoured to point out, that in the well-proved absence of a determination on the part of the English people to trample out Irish patriotism by brute force, there is only one guarantee for the maintenance of the Union which is of any efficacy; and that is a readiness to throw up the Union. "He that loveth his life shall lose it, but he that hateth it shall keep it unto life eternal." Let Mr. Gladstone plant a firm foot on reality. Let him drop these idle and irritating precautions. He will not only conciliate the Irish, but he will pull the linchpin out of the whole argument of such a critic as Mr. Justice Stephen. As long as he admits that the Union is something never to be surrendered he puts the long arm of the lever into the hand of Mr. Parnell, and furnishes the Imperialists with an opportunity of scoring a petty triumph in the conflict of words.

I have not pretended to deal in these few pages with all the subordinate issues that have arisen in the Home Rule controversy. It was the less necessary to do so because I have gone straight to the root of the matter. If I have seemed to argue the question chiefly from the point of view of English interests, I trust no one will suspect me of placing these above English duties. I am addressing myself principally to our working men, and I know that after all nothing moves them so much as an appeal to their sense of justice and moral right. They do not need to be reminded of the cruel wrongs our country has inflicted on Ireland, wrongs which we only began to redress seventeen years ago. I believe they will think that it is not enough to redress these wrongs, but that some reparation for them is due. While I would not pay a penny to Ireland by way of blackmail, or as a bribe to induce her