Page:Home rule (Beesly).djvu/2



I do not desire the complete separation of Ireland from England, but I do not fear it. The two countries have many interests in common, both public and private; and if they can arrange some terms of union which shall be acceptable to each, and shall give to each the inestimable advantage of Home Rule, it will be a happy consummation. But sooner than go on as we have been doing for the last hundred years, and especially for the last ten years, I should welcome complete separation.

The object of these pages is to advocate self-government for both countries. I say for both countries. For who is so simple, such a slave of phrases, as to maintain that England enjoys self-government, when Ireland has a veto upon English legislation. Not indeed a veto in theory; I could bear that with much equanimity; but what is far more galling, a practical and most real veto; a veto which is felt at every turn and which will certainly continue to be felt as long as the union is maintained in its present form.

What a blinded fanatic that man must be—I do not care whether he is a costermonger or an ex-Cabinet Minister—who can find in our nominal government of Ireland any set off against her real government of England. At the present moment it is her yoke which galls us, not ours which galls her. Just let us reckon up how it works.

What do the bulk of Irishmen most want? There is no sort of doubt about it. They want, in Mr. Parnell's words, to keep a firm grip of their homesteads, and to pay only such rent as in their own judgment they can afford.

Well, they are practically doing just that. There are thirty-two millions of us to less than five millions of them. But we cannot collect those rents, and we cannot evict the tenants. We have tried it, and we have had to give