Viewing it all round, then, it must be admitted that the problem of governing Ireland while leaving things as they are is a sufficiently formidable one.  Read the remarkable admissions which the facts have forced from intelligent opponents of Home Rule like Mr. Dicey, and add to them all the other evils which are rooted in our existing system of Irish government, and then consider what hope there is, under “things as they are,” of “sedulously doing justice to every demand from Ireland,” “strenuously, and without fear or favour, asserting the equal rights of landlords and tenants, Protestants and Catholics,” “putting down every outrage, and reforming every abuse;” and all the “while refusing to accede to the wishes of millions of Irishmen” for a fundamental change in a political arrangement that has for centuries produced all the mischief which the so-called Unionist party are forced to admit, and much more besides, while it has at the same time frustrated every serious endeavour to bring about the better state of things which they expect from—­what?  From “things as they are!” As well expect grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles.  While the tree remains the same, no amount of weeding, or pruning, or manuring, or change of culture, will make it bring forth different fruit.  Mr. Dicey, among others, has demolished what Lord Beaconsfield used to call the “bit-by-bit” reformers of Irish Government—­those who would administer homoeopathic doses of local self-government, but always under protest that the supply was to stop short of what would satisfy the hunger of the patient.  But a continuance of “things as they are,” gilded with a thin tissue of benevolent hopes and aspirations, is scarcely a more promising remedy for the ills of Ireland.  Is it not time to try some new treatment—­one which has been tried in similar cases, and always with success?  One only policy has never been tried in Ireland—­honest Home Rule.

Certainly, if Home Rule is to be refused till all the prophets of evil are refuted, Ireland must go without Home Rule for ever.  “If the sky fall, we shall catch larks.”  But he would be a foolish bird-catcher who waited for that contingency.  And not less foolish is the statesman who sits still till every conceivable objection to his policy has been mathematically refuted in advance, and every wild prediction falsified by the event; for that would ensure his never moving at all. Sedet aeternumque sedebit.  A proper enough attitude, perhaps, on the part of an eristic philosopher speculating on politics in the silent shade of academic groves, but hardly suitable for a practical politician who has to take action on one of the most burning questions of our time.  Human affairs are not governed by mathematical reasoning.  You cannot demonstrate the precise results of any legislative measure beforehand as you can demonstrate the course of a planet in the solar system.  “Probability,” as Bishop Butler says, “is the guide of life;” and