by every alleged consideration of good sense and humanity to close without delay a period of uncertainty which is threatening to turn into a reign of anarchy or of terror?  The question supplies its own answer.  The second peril is one whereof nobody speaks, but which must occur to any man who has studied the history of the past eighteen years or reflects upon the condition of public opinion.  The peril, to put the matter plainly, is that Home Rulers will not stop at attaining Home Rule for Ireland, and that they may, and probably will, attempt to undermine the political predominance of England.  Everything points in this direction.  The agitation for Home Rule has fostered in Ireland, and to a very limited extent in certain other parts of the United Kingdom, a feeling approaching to jealousy of English power.  England or Great Britain is the predominant partner.  England is wealthy, England is prosperous.  England, as the language of common life imports, is the leading member of the United Kingdom.  Lord Rosebery announced with wise foresight that Home Rule in Ireland could hardly be established with benefit to the United Kingdom until the assent thereto of the predominant partner had been obtained by force of argument.  The idea was grounded on common sense.  Will it not suggest to Irish Nationalists that their moment of authority must be used for obtaining far greater privileges for Ireland than the extravagant political power offered by Gladstonians in 1893?  Is it not natural for Home Rulers to think that the predominant partner ought to be deprived of his predominance?  The conduct of the Coalition and some of its leaders points in this direction.  They will have obtained through the Parliament Act temporary, but strictly unlimited and dictatorial, power.  They will have obtained it by intrigue; they have rejected and treated with scorn the idea of an appeal to the people.  They have claimed, not for Parliament but for the existing House of Commons, an absolute legislative power superior to that of the nation, a power which I assert with confidence is not possessed by the elected Assemblies of the United States, or of the French Republic, or of the Swiss Confederation:  And by a strange combination of circumstances one method for depriving the predominant partner of legitimate authority may seem to a Home Ruler to lie near at hand.  Raise the cry of ‘Home Rule all round,’ or of ‘Federalise the British Empire.’  Turn England into one State of a great federation, let Wales be another, Scotland a third, the Channel Islands a fourth, and for aught I know the Isle of Man a fifth.  Let the self-governing Colonies, and British India, send deputies to the Imperial or Federal Parliament.  You may thus for a moment, under the pretence of uniting the Empire, not only divide the United Kingdom, but deprive England or Great Britain, in form at least, of that political supremacy and predominance which is the real bond of union and peace not only throughout the United