justify their policy by arguments which are the intellectual equivalents for the moral feelings which go to constitute the opinion of the day.  Of these arguments, those which require statement and examination can be conveniently summed up under six heads—­the argument from foreign experience, the argument from the will of the Irish people, the argument from the lessons of Irish history, the argument from the virtues of self-government, the argument from the necessity for Coercion Acts, the argument from the inconvenience to England of refusing Home Rule to Ireland.

[Sidenote:  Argument 1.  Foreign experience.]

The argument from foreign experience.—­Home Rule under one shape or another has been tried in a large number of foreign countries, and has (it is alleged) been found everywhere to solve the problem of combining into one State communities which, like England and Ireland, were not ready to coalesce into one united nation.  Each State throughout the American Union, each Canton of Switzerland, has something like sovereign independence.  Yet the United States are strong and prosperous, and the Swiss Confederacy, which was a land at one time torn by religious animosities, and divided by differences of race, is now a country so completely at harmony with itself that without a regular army it maintains its independence in the face of the armed powers of Europe.  Canada or Victoria have more complete liberty of action than any one dreams of claiming for Ireland.  Yet Canada and Victoria are loyal, and under the guidance of men who, it may be, were yesterday rebels in Ireland, support the supremacy of the British Parliament and contribute to the splendour of the English Crown.  The German Empire contains not only separate States, but separate kingdoms, such as Bavaria, ruled by kings or princes who certainly value highly the independence of their countries and the dignity of their thrones.  The despotism of Turkey has not forbidden the local independence of Crete, and self-government has, it is hinted, produced acquiescence in Turkish rule.  The autocracy of the Czar is found compatible with Home Rule in Finland, and Finland is the most contented portion of Russia.  Norway and Sweden are united in feeling because they are not by law a “united kingdom,” and act in harmony just because each country has a different constitution, and each is governed by its own Parliament.  Denmark has, with benefit to herself, given local independence to Iceland, and Iceland is content.  Austria and Hungary, after centuries of misunderstanding and twenty years of bitter conflict, have finally composed the feud of ages by a compromise, which gives to the two parts of the Empire the practical blessings of Parliamentary independence, and concedes to Hungary at least the sentimental blessing of acknowledged nationality.  The argument, in fact, from foreign experience, professes to be an induction based upon a foundation of instances as large as can support any conclusion of social science.