And now the Bill is to become law without any further appeal to the people.

Are English Unionists to be blamed if they declare that an Act so passed will possess no moral obligation, and that they are determined, should the terrible necessity arise, to aid the Ulstermen in resisting it to the uttermost?

CHAPTER XV.

THE DANGER TO THE EMPIRE OF ANY FORM OF HOME RULE.  THE QUESTIONS ANSWERED.

In the last chapter I explained how hopelessly unworkable is the particular scheme of Home Rule which is contained in the present Bill.  I now proceed to show why Home Rule in any form must lead to disaster—­primarily to Ireland, ultimately to the Empire.

Politicians who, like ostriches, possess the happy faculty of shutting their eyes to unpleasant facts, may say that there is only one nation in Ireland; but everyone who knows the country is quite aware that there are two, which may be held together as part of the United Kingdom, but which can no more be forced into one nation than Belgium and Holland could be forced to combine as the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  And whatever cross-currents there may be, the great line of cleavage is religion.  Of course I am aware of the violent efforts that have been made ever since the commencement of the Nationalist agitation to prove that this is not so.  Thus Parnell, addressing an English audience, explained that religion had nothing to do with the movement, and as evidence stated that he was the leader of it though not merely a Protestant but a member of the Protestant Synod and a parochial nominator for his own parish.  Of course everyone in Ireland knew perfectly well that he was only a Protestant in the sense that Garibaldi was a Roman Catholic—­he had been baptised as such in infancy; and that he was not a member of the synod or a parochial nominator, and never had been one; but the statement was good enough to deceive his Nonconformist hearers.  That Protestant Home Rulers exist is not denied.  But the numbers are so small that it is evident that they are the rare exceptions that prove the rule.  The very anxiety with which, when a Protestant Home Ruler can be discovered he is put forward, and the fact of his being a Protestant Home Ruler referred to again and again, shows what a rare bird he is.  To mention one instance amongst many; a Protestant Home Ruler has recently been speaking on platforms in England explaining that he came in a representative capacity in order to testify to the people of England that the Irish Protestants were now in favour of Home Rule.  He did not mention the fact that in the district where he resided there were about 1,000 Protestants and he was the only Home Ruler amongst them—­in fact, nearly all the rest had signed a Petition against the Bill.  And when we come to examine who these Protestant Home Rulers are, about whom so much has been said, we find first that there is in this as in every other movement,