Already, further, before the Home Rule Bill has passed from the hands of the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone’s very moderate demands, as they seem to Englishmen, are held by some Irish Nationalists to be outrageous.[88] The difference, moreover, is not a matter of calculation, to be settled by accounts and balances, or disposed of by auditors.  No one can read the statements of Nationalists such as Mr. Redmond or Mr. Clancy without seeing that the real difference of view lies very deep.  These typical Nationalists do not regard the United Kingdom as a nation.  Ireland is the nation.  They doubt what is her interest in the British Empire; they believe, and already hint, that the financial arrangements between the two countries cannot be treated as a mere pecuniary transaction.  Ireland has been overtaxed and overburdened.  She has claims for compensation.  All the feelings or convictions which inspired hatred of Irish landlords are already being aroused with regard to the Imperial power.  A campaign against tribute may become as popular as a campaign against rent.  The two campaigns indeed have a close affinity; a large portion of the tribute is in reality payment in respect of rent, and the instalments which an Irish farmer pays to buy his land will, to him at any rate, appear rent or tribute payable to Great Britain.  The rent or tribute will be collected under the new constitution by the Irish Government.[89] No Irish Ministry will relish the position of collector.  It would have been difficult for a landlord to collect rent after his agent had publicly announced that it was excessive and unjust.  Yet a landlord could dismiss his agent; the English Cabinet cannot dismiss the Irish Government.  It is certain too that the Irish Ministry will not find the collection of rent easy.  Should the Irish Government state that the rent is iniquitously high, and refuse to collect it, what will be the position of the British Ministry?  It must either set the constitution aside or undertake for itself the collection of rent in opposition to, or, at any rate, unaided by, the Irish Executive and the Irish Parliament.  No more odious task was ever undertaken by a government.  Suppose, however, that things do not come to the worst, the financial arrangements of the Bill ensure that Ireland will soon demand modifications of its provisions.  Opposition is a probability, discontent is a certainty.

Ireland is provided under the new constitution with the readiest means of nullifying the Restrictions.  The Irish Cabinet and its servants can at any moment reduce an unpopular law to a nullity.  Even in England a resolution of the House of Commons may be enough to turn a law into a dead letter.  The Imperial Cabinet at this moment could go very near making the Vaccination Acts of no effect, and by declining to have troops sent to Hull could, as I have already pointed out, give victory to the Trades Unionists.  Nor is it necessary that the Cabinet should decline