[Sidenote:  Strengthens the English Crown.]

The Union again of England and Ireland has increased, as its relaxation would of necessity diminish, the power of the central government.  That the Treaty of Union has, disappointing and even harmful as some of its results have been, formed a guarantee against successful rebellion, hardly admits of question.  The difference between the abortive revolt of 1848 or the Fenian disturbances of 1866, and the desperate insurrection of 1798, affords some measure of the strength which the legislative unity of the kingdom has added to the English Crown.  If it be suggested that the disloyalty which has prompted sedition during this century was less deep than the animosities which armed the insurgents of ’98, the suggestion may be true, but it incidentally shows that under the Union some progress, however slight, has been made towards national harmony, and recalls the important fact that at the present day the wealth and the energy of Protestant Ireland firmly support the legislative unity of the kingdom.  Consider again what are the facilities possessed, say, by the State of New York, by the kingdom of Bavaria, or by the Cape Colony for interfering with or arresting the action of the central power to which the State, kingdom, or dependency is subject, and you perceive at once how ample must, from the very necessity of the case, be the opportunities possessed by a semi-independent Irish executive representing a semi-independent Irish Parliament for embarrassing the action of the Government in London.  This will appear more clearly from a detailed examination of the different forms which may be assumed by Home Rule.  One remark, however, may with advantage be made at this point of our argument, since it holds good of every possible scheme for repealing or modifying the Union.  Powers conferred upon an executive and a Parliament at Dublin must from the nature of things be a deduction from the powers which can be exercised by the Parliament and Ministry at Westminster.  This is a principle the truth of which is independent of the wishes or fancies either of Englishmen or of Irishmen.  “The more you have of the more,” runs a quaint Spanish proverb, “the less you have of the less.”  The saying is of mathematical certainty, but the depth and variety of its application are constantly forgotten in the excitement of controversy.

[Sidenote:  Enables it to maintain freedom.]

To the existence of the Union and to the power which it confers upon the executive, is due the possibility of curbing the violence of religious and political zealots by the interposition of an authority endowed at once with overpowering strength and obvious impartiality.  In Belfast even a Nationalist must, if he is a peaceable citizen, feel that the withdrawal of the Queen’s troops would not conduce to his comfort.  Under a system of Home Rule, it will perhaps be said, one body of fanatics or the other would, with or without