[130] ’The crime of the Land League was a trifle compared to the crime of the landlords.’—­Mr. Sexton, April 20, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debates, p. 525.

[131] Bryce, American Commonwealth (1st ed.), ii. pp. 190, 191.

[132] Compare ibid. ii. p. 618.

[133] ’Carnot me dit avec cette niaiserie que les democrates honnetes ne manquent guere de meler a leur vertu:  “Croyez-moi, mon cher collegue, il faut toujours se fier au peuple.”  Je me rappelle que je lui repondis assez brusquement:  “Eh! que ne me disiez-vous cela la veille du 15 mai?"’—­Souvenirs de Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 196.

CHAPTER V

THE PATH OF SAFETY

We stand on the brink of a precipice.[134] To say that Englishmen are asked to take a leap in the dark is far to understate the peril of the moment.  We are asked to leave an arduous but well-known road, and to spring down an unfathomed ravine filled with rocks, on any one of which we may be dashed to pieces.

The very excess of the peril hides its existence from ordinary citizens.  Mr. Gladstone, they argue, is a wise man and a good man, his colleagues are partisans, they are not conspirators; it is incredible that they should recommend a measure fraught with ruin to England.  But the matter is intelligible enough.  Mr. Gladstone’s weakness, no less than his strength, has always lain in his temporary but exclusive preoccupation with some one dominant idea.  The one notion which possesses his mind—­to judge from his public conduct and speeches—­is that at any cost Home Rule, that is, an Irish Executive and an Irish Parliament, must be conceded to Ireland.  Enthusiasm, pride, ambition, all the motives, good and bad, which can influence a statesman, urge him to achieve this one object.  If he succeeds his political career is crowned with victory, if not with final triumph; if he fails his whole course during the last seven years turns out an error.  But it has long been manifest that only with the greatest difficulty can English electors be persuaded to accept Home Rule.  Hence it has been found essential that the principles of the measure should not be known before the time for passing it into law.  Hence the ill-starred avoidance of discussion.  Hence the ultimate framing of a scheme which is made to pass, but is not made to work, and which probably enough does not represent the real wishes or convictions of any one statesman.  Where is the Minister who will tell us that this particular Government of Ireland Bill is according to his judgment—­I will not say in its details, but in each and all of its leading principles—­the best constitution which can be framed for determining the relations between England and Ireland?  This Minister has not appeared—­I doubt whether he exists.  The Bill may be a model of artful provision for conciliating the prejudices or soothing the fears of English electors,