The natural expression however of English discontent or disappointment is reactionary opposition.  Reaction, or the attempt of one party in a state to reverse a fundamental policy deliberately adopted by the nation, is one of the worst among the offspring of revolution, and is almost, though not entirely, unknown to the history of England.  Yet there is more than one reason why if the Home Rule Bill be carried, reaction should make its ill-omened appearance in the field of English public life.  The policy of Home Rule, even should it be for the moment successful, lacks the moral sanctions which have compelled English statesmen to accept accomplished facts.  The methods of agitation in its favour have outraged the moral sense of the community.  Mr. Gladstone’s victory is the victory of Mr. Parnell, and the triumph of Parnellism is the triumph of conspiracy, and of conspiracy rendered the more base because it was masked under the appearance of a constitutional movement.  Neither the numbers nor the composition of the ministerial majority are impressive.  The tactics of silence, evasion, and ambiguity may aid in gaining a parliamentary victory, but deprive the victory of that respect for the victors on the part of the vanquished which, in civil contests at any rate, alone secures permanent peace.  But the pleas and justifications for reaction are rarely its causes.  If Englishmen attempt to bring about the legal destruction of the new constitution, their action will be produced by a sense of the false position assigned to England.  No device of statesmanship can stand which is condemned by the nature of things.  The predominance of England in the affairs of the United Kingdom is secured by sanctions which in the long run can neither be defied nor set aside; the constitution which does not recognise this predominance is doomed to ruin.  That its overthrow would be just no one dare predict; the future is as uncertain as it is dark.  A main reason why a wise man must deprecate the weak surrender by Englishmen of rightful power is the dread that, if in a moment of irritation they reassert their strength, they may exhibit neither their good faith nor their justice.

FOOTNOTES: 

[95] J. M’Carthy, April 10, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debates, p. 354.  No part of these quotations is italicised in the report.

[96] J. M’Carthy.

[97] Mr. Sexton.

[98] Mr. Gladstone, April 21, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debates, p. 565.

[99] At Bodyke, June 2, 1887, Mr. M. Davitt said:—­’Our people, however, who so leave Ireland are not lost in the Irish cause, for they will join the ranks of the Ireland of retribution beyond the Atlantic; and when the day shall again come that we have a right to manage our own affairs, the sun may some day shine down upon England when we here in Ireland will have the opportunity of having vengeance upon the enemy for its crimes in Ireland.’—­Freeman’s Journal, June 3, 1887.  See ’Notes on the Bill,’ published by the Irish Unionist Alliance, p. 368.  These expressions were used after the union of hearts.