By far the strongest portion of the Gladstonian argument is the stress that can be laid on the demoralisation of Parliament, produced partly, though not wholly, by the Irish vote.  This is a consideration which, as far as it goes, tells in favour of Home Rule.  It is, however, a consideration of which the Gladstonian apologist for the new constitution of 1893 [can] make no use.  His reasoning of necessity stands thus: 

The presence of 80 Irish members at Westminster has demoralised Parliament, therefore we must above all things retain 80 or possibly 103 Irish members at Westminster.  He is placed in a hopeless dilemma; he dare not draw the only conclusion to which his argument points, namely, that the Irish members must be excluded from the Parliament at Westminster.  By a strange fatality, the policy of 1823 retrospectively condemns the policy of 1886, whilst the very strongest argument in favour of the policy of 1886 condemns the policy of 1893.

The premises, were they sound, do not support the conclusion.

There exists undoubtedly such a thing in politics as necessity.

When England acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, or when France surrendered Metz and Strasburg, no one could talk of imprudence of impolicy.  The will of Englishmen and of Frenchmen was coerced by the force of events.  When all Protestant Ireland was in arms, when the whole Irish nation demanded parliamentary independence, when England had been defeated in America, when France and Spain were allied against her, then the acceptance of Grattan’s declaration of right was in truth a necessity.  When Wellington became the supporter of Catholic Emancipation because he would not face civil war, when famine was at our gates and Peel repealed the corn laws—­then again politicians could plead the excuse of necessity.  In these and like crises the wisest men and the bravest men are forced to recognise the logic of facts; and necessity rather than prudence dictates the course of statesmanship.  But no such crisis has now arisen.  England and Ireland were as safe under the government of Lord Salisbury as under the government of Mr. Gladstone—­perhaps safer.  No one except an extremely excited and very rhetorical politician will venture to assert that, if Lord Salisbury instead of Mr. Gladstone had last summer gained a majority of forty, any man or woman throughout the United Kingdom would have trembled for the safety of the country.  The sky is far less dark than on that fearful day eleven years back[111] when England stood aghast at the assassinations of the Phoenix Park.  Irish discontent is an immense evil, of which every just man must deplore the existence; its removal would be the greatest benefit which statesmanship could by any possibility confer upon England.  But the immediate dealing with it in a particular way is not a necessity.  Were the Home Rule Bill, and every Home Rule Bill, rejected by Parliament, the United Kingdom would be as safe as it has been at any time for the last ninety years and more.