Page:Home rule (Beesly).djvu/8

8 for a degree of concentration which sacrifices the full and healthy development of political existence.

Even during the present century the tendency has not been upon the whole towards unification. Survey Europe from north to south. Russia has swallowed Finland and Poland, but she cannot digest them. Finland has her separate national institutions, and makes steady progress towards complete Home Rule. The Polish national spirit is inextinguishable, and must sooner or later prevail. Norway was conquered by the Swedish King in 1814; but, though the two countries remain under one sovereign, the smaller is completely independent of the larger. The Austrian Emperor, after conquering Hungary and destroying her independence in 1849, was obliged to restore it completely in 1867; and his motley dominions are now only held together by the concession of various degrees of Home Rule. Germany has been driven to unify—for military purposes only—by fear of France and Russia; Italy by fear of France and Austria. But that the unification will continue in either case when the danger shall have passed away I do not the least believe. Holland and Belgium were unified in 1815; but the latter regained its independence in 1830. The country we call Spain is still known to its own inhabitants as "the Spains"; and provincial feeling remains so strong that when the monarchy disappears it will very likely be succeeded by a Federal Republic.

Perhaps the argument most persistently brandished in the face of English sympathisers with the Irish demand for Home Rule is that it will lead, and is meant to lead, to separation. It may be remarked in passing that the same people who say this will tell you in the next breath that the bulk of the disaffected Irish really care for nothing but the Land question, and that Mr. Parnell would never have got them even to nibble at Home Rule if he had not baited it with Tenant Right. But the latter of these two conflicting lines of argument produces no effect on the English workman. It appeals to the small but powerful class of Englishmen who own land or hold mortgages in Ireland, or whose relations do; or