Ireland, it is argued, has for generations been discontented and disloyal.  Every sort of remedy has been tried.  The rule of the ordinary law, coercion, Protestant supremacy, Catholic relief, the disestablishment of the Anglican Church, the maintenance of the English land tenure and English landlordism, the introduction of a new system of land tenure unknown to any other country in the world and more favourable to tenants than the land law of any other State in Europe, the removal of every grievance which could be made patent to the Imperial Parliament, every plan or experiment which could approve itself to the judgment of English politicians has been tried, and no scheme, however plausible, has ended in success.  Concession has proved as useless as severity, and the existence in the Statute Book of a permanent Coercion Act is a standing proof of failure.  He who asserts that Irish disloyalty or discontent has not declined understates the case.  It has increased.  Grattan was a statesman of a more exalted type than O’Connell, and Grattan was more zealous for connection with England than was the Roman Catholic tribune.  And though in Grattan’s time the grievances of Ireland were in every man’s judgment far more intolerable than, even on the showing of Home Rulers, are the wrongs which Ireland now endures, the Ireland of Grattan was loyal to England.  O’Connell was a nobler leader than Parnell, and it would be absurd to suppose that any Parnellite or Anti-Parnellite exerted a tenth of O’Connell’s influence.  Yet Parnell and Parnell’s followers have achieved a feat which the hero of Catholic emancipation could never accomplish; O’Connell never obtained for Repeal more than half the votes of Ireland’s parliamentary representatives; Parnell and his followers have rallied the vast majority of Irish members in support of Home Rule.  Meanwhile year by year the government of England is weakened, and (though the argument comes awkwardly from the mouth of English constitutionalists who are allies and friends of conspirators and boycotters) the morality of English public life has been undermined, by the presence at Westminster of Irish members who, regarding the English Parliament as an alien power, weaken its action, despise its traditions, and degrade its character.  One remedy for Irish miseries and for English dangers has not been tried.  No English statesman before Mr. Gladstone (it is urged) has offered to Ireland the one thing which Ireland desires—­the boon or right of parliamentary independence.  Be the desire for Home Rule reasonable or not, it is Home Rule for which Ireland longs.  Ireland feels herself a nation.  Satisfy then Ireland’s wish, meet the feeling of nationality, and Ireland will be at rest.  This experiment must at least be tried; its perils must be risked.  The present situation is intolerable, the concession of Home Rule to Ireland is a necessity.

This, to the best of my apprehension, is the Gladstonian argument.  My aim has certainly been to state it fairly and in its full force.