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There was another anticipation, another forecast of evils to follow, which told most of all upon English opinion. This was the notion that Home Rule was only a stage in the road to the complete separation of the two islands. The argument was conceived as follows: “The motive passions of the Irish agitation have all along been hatred toward England and a desire to make Ireland a nation, holding her independent place among the nations of the world. This design was proclaimed by the Young Irelanders of 1848 and by the Fenian rebels of 1866; it has been avowed, in intervals of candour, by the present Nationalists themselves. The grant of an Irish Parliament will stimulate rather than appease this thirst for separate national existence. The nearer complete independence seems, the more will it be desired. Hatred to England will still be an active force, because the amount of control which England retains will irritate Irish pride, as well as limit Irish action; while all the misfortunes which may befall the new Irish Government will be blamed, not on its own imprudence, but on the English connection. And as the motives for seeking separation will remain, so the prospect of obtaining it will seem better. Agitation will have a better vantage-ground in an Irish Parliament than it formerly had among the Irish members of a British Legislature; and if actual resistance to the Queen’s authority should be attempted, it will be attempted under conditions more favourable than the present, because the rebels will have in their hands the machinery of Irish Government, large financial resources, and a prima facie title to represent the will of the Irish people. As against a rebellious party in Ireland, England has now two advantages–an advantage of theory, an advantage of fact. The advantage of theory is that she does not admit Ireland to be a distinct nation, but maintains that in the United Kingdom there is but one nation, whereof some inhabit Great Britain and some Ireland. The advantage of fact is that, through her control of the constabulary, the magistrates, the courts of justice, and, in fine, the whole administrative system of Ireland, she can easily quell insurrectionary movements. By creating an Irish Parliament and Government she would strip herself of both these advantages.”

I need hardly say that I do not admit the fairness of this statement of the case, because some of the premises are untrue, and because it misrepresents the nature of the Irish Government which Mr. Gladstone’s Bill would have created. But I am trying to state the case as it was sedulously and skilfully presented to Englishmen. And it told all the more upon English waverers, because the considerations above mentioned seemed, if well founded, to destroy and cut away the chief ground on which Home Rule had been advocated, viz. that it would relieve England from the constant pressure of Irish discontent and agitation, and bring about a time of tranquillity, permitting good feeling to grow up between the peoples. If Home Rule was, after all, to be nothing more than a half-way house to independence, an Irish Parliament only a means of extorting a more complete emancipation from imperial control, was it not much better to keep things as they were, and go on enduring evils, the worst of which were known already? Hence the advocates of the Bill denied not the weight of the argument, but its applicability. Separation, they urged, is impossible, for it is contrary to the nature of things, which indicates that the two islands must go together. It is not desired by the Irish people, for it would injure them far more than it could possibly injure England, since Ireland finds in England the only market for her produce, the only source whence capital flows to her. A small revolutionary party has, no doubt, conspired to obtain it. But the only sympathy they received was due to the fact that the legitimate demand of Ireland for a recognition of her national feeling and for the management of her own local affairs was contemptuously ignored by England. The concession of that demand will banish the notion even from those minds which now entertain it, whereas its continued refusal may perpetuate that alienation of feeling which is at the bottom of all the mischief, the one force that makes for separation.