Is there not a touch of Murdstone and Creakle in the present dealings of Parliament with Ireland?  Forces greater than that of Salem House have decreed that Ireland is to have self-government, and have converted—­for the astonishment of after-ages—­Mr. Balfour and Lord Curzon into Home Rulers.  Surely, if there is one question which, more conspicuously than another, a nation is entitled to settle for itself it is the question whether military service shall be compulsory.  True, the legislative machinery of Home Rule is not yet in action; but legislative machinery is not the only method by which national sentiment can be ascertained.  To introduce conscription into Ireland by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, after you have conceded to the Irish their claim to have a Parliament of their own, may not indeed be a breach of faith, but it surely is a breach of manners and good sense.

VII

FREEDOM’S NEW FRIENDS

Many, said the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed, but few are the true bacchanals.  Many, in the present day, are they who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, methinks, are her real worshippers.  “We are fighting for Freedom” is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though ’twere ungracious to question its sincerity, we must admit that this generous enthusiasm is of very recent growth.

Liberty has always had her friends in England; but where she could count one, Authority could count two.[*] Five years ago, how many Englishmen really cared for Liberty, not rendering her mere lip-service, but honestly devoting themselves to her sacred cause?  If you polled the nation from top to bottom, how many liberty-lovers would you find?  At one election their number, as disclosed by the polls, would rise, at another it would sink.  At the best of times, if you divide the nation into strata, you would find large sections in which Liberty had no worshippers and very few friends.  It had long been one of the bad signs of the times that the love of Liberty had almost ceased to animate what are called, in the odious language of social convention, “the upper classes.”  For generations the despised and calumniated Whigs had maintained the cause of Freedom in their peculiarly dogged though unemotional fashion, and had established the political liberties of England on a strong foundation.  But their day was done, their work was accomplished, and their descendants had made common cause with their hereditary opponents.

[Footnote *:  I am speaking here of England only—­not of Scotland, Ireland, or Wales.]