Foreign experience then affords but a very tottering foundation on which to raise pleas for Home Rule in Ireland.  It may no doubt be read by those who are already convinced that Home Rule is desirable in favour of their views.  It may confirm a faith based on other grounds, more it cannot do.  Fairly looked at, foreign experience tells rather against than for the doctrines of Home Rule.  If appealed to at all, it must be taken as a whole.  It then shows that Federalism is when nourishing a stage towards, not a stage away from, national unity; it shows that a strong central power above Parliamentary control is almost a condition to the successful combination in one body of semi-independent States.[7] It shows that the whole tendency of modern civilization flows towards the creation of great States; national unity is, so to speak, the watchword of the age; this is scarcely a reason for breaking up the United Kingdom.  The sagacity of Italian statesmanship rejected the plausible scheme of an Italian Federation.  If Englishmen are to take lessons from foreigners they need not be ashamed of being instructed by Cavour.

[Sidenote:  Argument 2.  Will of Irish people]

The argument from the will of the Irish people.—­Eighty-six representatives of the Irish people represent the wish of Ireland for Home Rule.  We cannot under a Parliamentary system of government go behind the result of an election.  It must be taken therefore that Ireland wishes for Home Rule; and since popular government as it exists in England means nothing else than government in accordance with the wishes of the people, the wish of the Irish people for the Parliamentary independence of their country proves their right to an Irish Parliament, and terminates, or ought to terminate, all opposition to Home Rule.

[Sidenote:  Criticism on argument]

This simple argument, that because three millions of Irishmen, or for that matter three millions of Englishmen, wish for a thing, they are therefore absolutely entitled to have it, is not often put forward in its naked simplicity, but is constantly presented under various rhetorical disguises, such for example as the assertion that Irishmen have a right to manage their own affairs, that Ireland only wants to be left to herself, and the like; and impresses both the imagination and the conscience of the masses.  There is a good deal to be said about the truth of the alleged fact on which the argument is based, namely the wish of the Irish people.  It might be worth while to note that the “people” in this case meant only a majority of the electors, whose wish is notoriously opposed to the ardent desire of a respectable minority; and it might be well to suggest that the constitutional pedantry which refuses to “go behind an electoral return,” i.e., to see things as they are, is not the same thing as either good sense or statesmanship.  But for the present purpose it is better to admit that the majority of the inhabitants