to the assertion that because England is strong she ought wherever her own interests are at stake to reck nothing of justice, such cynical scorn for all considerations except the possession of superior power would kindle just resentment in the soul of every man, whether in Ireland or in England, who believes that national morality is more than a mere phrase, though even in this case the open cynicism might excite less disgust than cynicism veiling itself under the mask of benevolence.  Happily, however, there is in the present instance no opposition between truth and justice.  Home Rule is no doubt primarily a scheme for the government of Ireland, but it is also much more than this:  it is a plan for revolutionising the constitution of the whole United Kingdom.  There is no unfairness, therefore, in insisting that the proposed change must not take place if it be adverse to the interests of Great Britain.  This is merely to assert that the welfare of thirty millions of citizens must, if a conflict of interest arise, be preferred to the interest of five millions of citizens.  Home Rulers, it must again and again be repeated, demand not the national independence of Ireland, but the maintenance of the connection between England and Ireland on terms different from the conditions contained in the Act of Union.  To keep one’s mind clear on this point is of importance, because the result follows that, as already intimated, a whole series of arguments or claims which may fairly be put forward by a Nationalist are not available to a Home Ruler.  A Nationalist, for example, may urge that the will of the Irish people to be independent is decisive of their moral right to independence, and that the perils which a free Ireland may bring upon England need not in any way concern him or his country.  Whether indeed the principle of “nationality,” or the contention that any portion of a State which deems itself conscious of distinct national sentiment may, as a matter of absolute right, claim to become a separate nation, can be maintained, is an enquiry not so easily answered in the affirmative as is often assumed by modern democrats.  What, however, is here insisted upon is not that the principle of nationality is unsound, but that this principle does not cover the demand for Home Rule.  A Home Ruler asks not for the political separation, but for the political partnership of England and Ireland.  He wishes not that the firm should be dissolved, but that the Articles of Association should be revised.  There is not then the least unfairness in the answer that no modification can be allowed which in the judgment of his associates is fatal to the prosperity of the concern.  To crowds excited by pictures of past greatness or of past struggles, by the hope of future prosperity to be brought about by miracles wrought by substituting the rule of love for the rule of law, there may appear to be something prosaic, not to say repulsive, in the comparison of the relation between