leaders would wish, and from their own point of view rightly wish, to carry through a revolutionary policy.  The Imperial Government would attempt, and from an English point of view rightly attempt, to arrest revolution.  Every considerable legislative measure would give ground for negotiation and for understandings—­that is, for dissatisfaction and for misunderstanding.  There would be disputes about the land laws, disputes about the army, disputes about the police, disputes about the authority of Imperial legislation, disputes about the validity of Irish enactments, disputes about appeals to the Privy Council.  To say that all these sources of irritation might embitter the relation between England and Victoria, and that, as they do not habitually do so, one may infer that they will not embitter the relation between England and Ireland, is to argue that institutions nominally the same will work in the same way when applied to totally different circumstances.  Victoria is prosperous; Ireland is in distress.  Victoria takes pride in the Imperial connection; the difficulty in dealing with Ireland consists in the fact that large bodies of Irishmen detest the British Empire.  Victoria has never aspired to be a nation; the best side of Irish discontent consists in enthusiasm for Irish nationality.  Above all this, there has never been any lasting feud between England and her Australian dependencies; the main ground in favour of a fundamental change in the constitutional relations of Ireland and England is the necessity of putting an end at almost any cost to traditional hatred and misunderstanding generated by centuries of misgovernment and misery.  If, as already pointed out, the source of this misery, so far as it can be touched by law at all, is a vicious system of land tenure, it is in vain to imagine that the misfortunes of Ireland can be cured by any mere change of constitutional forms.  Grant, however, for the sake of argument, that the passion of nationality is the true ground of the demand for Home Rule; grant, also, in defiance of patent facts, that the autonomy of a dependency satisfies the sensibilities of a nation; still it is idle to fancy that a system based, like our scheme of Colonial government, on friendly understandings and the habitual practice of compromise, can regulate the relations of two countries which are kept apart mainly because they cannot understand one another, and can neither of them admit the necessity of mutual concessions.  Moreover, a scheme of nominal subjection combined with real independence has the one great defect that it does not teach the lessons which men and nations learn by depending on their own unassisted and uncontrolled efforts.  No one learns self-control who fancies he is controlled by a master.[49]