hand” of an ancient statute, but we maintain that geographical and economic reasons make a legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland necessary for the interests of both.  We see, as Irish Ministers saw in 1800, that there can be no permanent resting place between complete Union and total separation.  We know that Irish Nationalists have not only proclaimed separatist principles, but that they have received separatist money, on the understanding that they would not oppose a movement to destroy whatever restrictions and safeguards the Imperial Parliament might impose upon an Irish Government.

The first law of nature with nations and governments, as with individuals, is self-preservation.  It was the vital interests of national defence that caused Pitt to undertake the difficult and thankless task of creating the legislative union.  If that union was necessary for the salvation of England and the foundation of the British Empire, it is assuredly no less necessary for the continued security of the one and the maintenance and prestige of the other.

Mr. J.R.  Fisher, in his historical retrospect, shows us how bitter experience convinced successive generations of English statesmen of the dangers that lay in an independent Ireland.  One of the very earliest conflicts between the two countries was caused by the action of the Irish Parliament in recognising and crowning a Pretender in Dublin Castle.  Then the fact that the Reformation, which soon won the adherence of the English Government and the majority of the English people, never gained any great foothold in Ireland, caused the bitter religious wars which devastated Europe to be reproduced in the relations of the two countries.  When England was fighting desperately with the Spanish champions of the Papacy, Spanish forces twice succeeded in effecting a landing on the Irish coast, and were welcomed by the people.  Later on, by the aid of subsidies from an Irish Parliament, Strafford raised 10,000 men in Ireland in order to support Charles I. in his conflict with the English people.  Cromwell realised that the only remedy for the intrigues and turbulence of the Irish Parliament lay in a legislative union.  But, unfortunately, his Union Parliament was terminated by the Restoration.  Then, again, when France became the chief danger that England had to face, Tyrconnel, with the aid of French troops and French subsidies, endeavoured to make Ireland a base for the invasion of England.  Under the Old Pretender again, another effort was made to make the Irish Parliament a medium for the destruction of English liberties.