The electors again must be made to feel that it is the essential principle of Home Rule, the setting up of an Irish Government and an Irish Parliament, to which Unionists are opposed.  The least appearance of concession to Home Rulers, or any action which gives increased currency to the delusion, certainly cherished by some moderate Gladstonians, that Home Rule can be identified with or cut down to extended local self-government,[136] will be fatal to the cause of Unionism.  The concession to Ireland of a petty, paltry, peddling legislature, which dare hardly call itself a Parliament, and is officially designated say as a national council, combined with some faint imitation of a Cabinet, called say a committee, would disappoint and irritate Home Rulers; it would cheat their hopes, but it would afford them the means of gaining their end.  It would not give assurance to Unionists, it would not be a triumph of Unionist policy, it would rather be the destruction of Unionism.  The one course of safety is to take care that at the next general election the country has laid before it for determination a clear and unmistakable issue.  The question for every elector to answer must be reducible to the form Aye or No; will you, or will you not, repeal the Union and establish an Irish Executive and an Irish Parliament in Dublin?  If the question be so raised Unionists have no reason to fear an answer.

The policy of Unionism has always relied on an appeal to the nation.

The one desire of Unionists has always been to fight their opponents on the clear unmistakable issue of Home Rule.  The policy of Separatists has been to keep Home Rule in the background whilst making its meaning indefinite, and to mix up all the multifarious issues raised by the Newcastle programme, as well as many others, with the one essential question whether we should or should not repeal or modify the Act of Union.

To their policy of appeal to the people the Unionists will, of course, adhere.  The House of Lords will, it may be presumed, as a matter not so much of right as of obvious duty, reject the present Home Rule Bill, so as to refer to the electors of the United Kingdom the question whether we shall, or shall not, have a new constitution.  Even if such a reference to the electors should result in a Gladstonian majority, it is still possible that a further dissolution might be necessary.  The majority for Home Rule might be much reduced.  I doubt whether Mr. Gladstone himself would maintain that with a majority say of ten or twenty, a Minister would be morally justified in attempting a fundamental change in the constitution.  As to such speculative matters there is no need to say anything.  It is worth while, however, to repeat a statement which cannot be too often insisted upon, that the most important function of the House of Lords at the present day is to take care that no fundamental change in the constitution takes place which has not received the undoubted assent of the nation.  The peers are more and more clearly awakening to the knowledge that under the circumstances of modern public life this protection of the rights of the nation, which is in complete conformity with democratic principle, is the supreme duty of the Upper House.