B. The Retention of the Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament

This is now[36] an essential, or at least a most important part of the ministerial policy for Ireland, yet it is a proposal which even its advocates must find difficult of defence.  In 1886 every Gladstonian leader told us that it was desirable, politic, and just to exclude Irish members from the Parliament at Westminster; this exclusion was pressed upon England (plausibly enough) as a main advantage to be derived from the concession of Home Rule to Ireland.  In 1893 every Gladstonian leader tells us that it is desirable, politic, and just to retain the Irish members at Westminster, and their presence is, for some reason not easy to explain, treated as removing every objection to the concession of Home Rule to Ireland.  This astounding variation of opinion in the doctors of the State savours of empiricism, not to say quackery.  A surgeon who tells a patient that he will not live unless his leg is amputated may be right, and may be worthy of trust; another surgeon who asserts that amputation is unnecessary may be right, and worthy of trust.  But the surgeon who one moment insists that amputation is necessary to the preservation of his patient’s life, and the next moment that it is unnecessary and may be fatal, is not the kind of adviser who inspires confidence in his wisdom.

Let the ingenuity of Gladstonians reconcile, as best it can, the doctrine of 1886 with the doctrine of 1893.  To a man of sense who weighs the matter without reference to considerations of party, one thing will soon become apparent:  the retention at Westminster of eighty, or indeed of any Irish members at all, means under a scheme of Home Rule the ruin of Ireland and the weakness of England.

As to Ireland.—­The presence of Irish members at Westminster robs Ireland of the one advantage which Home Rule might by any possibility confer upon that country.

Any man in order to see that this is so has only to consider, first, what may under favourable circumstances be the benefit of Home Rule to Ireland, and next what is the natural result of summoning Irish members to the Parliament at Westminster.

The best conceivable result of Home Rule is that it may detach Irishmen from interest in English politics, and induce the most respected and respectable men in Ireland to take matters into their own hands and manage for themselves all strictly Irish affairs.  For the last twenty years, at least, Ireland has been represented, or misrepresented, by eighty and more politicians, nominated in the main by Mr. Parnell.  No one supposes for a moment that the Nationalist leaders who appeared before and were condemned by the Special Commission are fair samples of the Irish people.  They are, take them at their best, reckless agitators.  They were chosen by their patron, Mr. Parnell, not on account of their worth or talent, but because they were apt instruments for carrying