the greatest vigour; to rely on beating up vague, anti-separatist sentiment in Great Britain; to represent Irish Protestants as a timid race forced to shelter behind British bayonets; in short, to use all the arguments which, if Irish Unionists were compelled to frame a Constitution themselves, they would scorn to employ, and which, if grafted on the Act in the form of amendments, they themselves in after-years might bitterly regret.  Conversely, if the measure is a limited one, it will be necessary to commend its worst features; to extol its eleemosynary side and all the infractions of liberty which in actual practice they would find intolerably irksome.  Whatever happens, things will be said which are not meant, and passions aroused which will be difficult to allay on the eve of a crisis when Ireland will need the harmonious co-operation of all her ablest sons.

If, behind the calculation of a victory within the next two years, there lies the presentiment of an eventual defeat, let not the thought be encouraged that a better form of Home Rule is likely to come from a Tory than from a Liberal Government.  Many Irish Unionists regard the prospect of continued submission to a Liberal, or what they consider a semi-Socialist, Government as the one consideration which would reconcile them to Home Rule.  No one can complain of that.  But they make a fatal mistake in denying Liberals credit for understanding questions of Home Rule better than Tories.  That, again, is a matter of proved experience.  Compare the abortive Transvaal Constitution of 1905 with the reality of 1906, and measure the probable consequences of the former by the actual results of the latter.  Let them remember, too, that every year which passes aggravates the financial difficulties which imperil the future of Ireland.

The best hope of securing a final settlement of the Irish question in the immediate future lies in promoting open discussion on the details of the Home Rule scheme, and of drawing into that discussion all Irishmen and Englishmen who realize the profound importance of the issue.  This book is offered as a small contribution to the controversy.

For help in writing it I am deeply indebted to many friends on both sides of the Irish Channel, in Ireland to officials and private persons, who have generously placed their experience at my disposal; while in England I owe particular thanks to the Committee of which I had the honour to be a member, which sat during the summer of this year under the chairmanship of Mr. Basil Williams, and which published the series of essays called “Home Rule Problems.”

E.C.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] The two latter works were written by Mr. Lecky in his Nationalist youth the first and greater work after he had become a Unionist.  They form a connected whole, however, and are not inconsistent with one another.

[2] See “Democracy and Liberty.”