The Project Gutenberg eBook, England's Case Against Home Rule, by Albert
Venn Dicey

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Title: England's Case Against Home Rule

Author: Albert Venn Dicey

Release Date: February 3, 2005 [eBook #14886]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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ENGLAND'S CASE AGAINST HOME RULE

by

A. V. DICEY

The Richmond Publishing Co. Ltd. Orchard Road,
Richmond, Surrey, England

1886

PREFACE.

An author who publishes a book having any reference to Irish affairs
may, not unnaturally, be supposed either to possess some special
knowledge of Ireland, or else to be the advocate of some new specific
for the cure of Irish discontent. Of neither of these suppositions can I
claim the benefit. My knowledge of Ireland is merely the
knowledge--perhaps it were better to say the ignorance--of an educated
Englishman. It is derived from conversation with better informed
friends, from careful attention to the discussions on Irish policy which
for the last eighteen years have engrossed public attention, and from
books accessible to ordinary readers. If I can claim no special
acquaintance with Ireland, still less have I the presumption or the
folly to come forward as the inventor of any political nostrum. My
justification for publishing my thoughts on Home Rule is that the
movement in favour of the Parliamentary independence of Ireland
constitutes, whether its advocates recognise the fact or not, a demand
for fundamental alterations in the whole Constitution of the United
Kingdom; and while I may without presumption consider myself moderately
acquainted with the principles of Constitutional law, I entertain the
firmest conviction that any scheme for Home Rule in Ireland involves
dangerous if not fatal innovations on the Constitution of Great Britain.

To set forth the reasons for this opinion is the object of this work.
The opinion itself, whatever its worth, is not the growth of recent
controversy; it has been entertained for years, and has