to take up.  Irishmen for the first time will feel the full responsibility, because for the first time they have received the full power, of self-government.  The argument, in short, on the Home Rule view stands thus:  the miseries of Ireland flow historically from political causes, and are to be met by political changes.  At the bottom of Irish disorder lies the sentiment of Irish nationality.  The change, therefore, that is needed is such a concession to that sentiment as is involved in giving Ireland an Irish legislature.  This is the reform by which the result of curing Irish discontent can be achieved, and it is a reform not incompatible with the interests of Great Britain.

This is (in my judgment) a fair statement of the historical argument relied upon by the advocates of Home Rule, though, of course, it allows of infinite variety as to its form of expression.  It is a line of reasoning which rests on premisses many of which (as any candid critic must admit) contain a large amount of truth.  It is logically by far the strongest of the Home Rule arguments.  It is one, moreover, in which authorities who on other points differ from each other are in agreement.  Mr. Parnell asserts with emphasis that Ireland is a “nation,” and apparently holds that the passing of a good law by the Parliament of the United Kingdom is less desirable than the existence of an Irish Parliament, even should that Parliament delay good legislation.  Mr. Gladstone attributes the inefficacity of laws passed by the Imperial Parliament to their coming before Irishmen in a “foreign garb,” and an author who is not in any way a supporter of the Liberal leader does not apparently on this point disagree with Mr. Gladstone.  “If there was a hope that anything which we could give would make the Irish contented and loyal subjects of the British Empire, no sacrifice would be too great for such an object.  But there is no such hope.  The land tenure is not the real grievance:  it is merely the pretext.  The real grievance is our presence in Ireland at all.  If there was a hope that by buying up the soil and distributing it among the tenantry we could make them, if not loyal, yet orderly and prosperous, even so the experiment would be worth trying; but, again, there is no such hope.  The Land Bill of 1870 gave the tenants a proprietary right in their holdings.  They have borrowed money on the security of that right at ruinous interest, and the poorest of them are already sinking under their debts to the local banker or tradesman.  If we make them proprietors to-morrow, their farms in a few years will be sold or mortgaged.  We shall have destroyed one set of landlords to create another who will not be more merciful."[8]

[Sidenote:  Criticism]