R I.

NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT.

[Sidenote: Aim and line of argument]

My aim is to criticise from a purely English point of view the policy of
Home Rule, or the proposal to create a more or less independent
Parliament in Ireland; and as a result of such criticism to establish
the truth, and develop the consequences, of this proposition--namely,
that any system of Home Rule, whatever be the form it takes, is less
beneficial to Great Britain, or (to use popular language) to England,
than is the maintenance of the Union, and is at least as much opposed to
the vital interests of England as would be the national independence of
Ireland.

The train of reasoning by which it is sought to establish this
principle, and the consequences which the principle involves, consists
of the following steps: first, an examination into the causes which give
strength to the Home Rule movement in England, and the nature of the
arguments in its support used by English Home Rulers; secondly, a
statement of the advantages and disadvantages, from an English point of
view, on the one hand of maintaining the Union, and on the other of
separation from Ireland; thirdly, a criticism of each of the principal
forms[1] under which Home Rule has been actually presented to the
attention of the public, the aim of such criticism being in each case to
determine how far the particular form of Home Rule can compete as
regards the interests of England with the alternative policies of
Unionism and of Irish independence; and, fourthly, a summary of the
conclusions arrived at by this survey of the policy of Home Rule. My
endeavour will be to make this survey without any appeal to prejudice,
passion, or sentiment, and with the calmness and fairness which a
scientific constitutionalist should display in weighing the merits of
any other proposed alteration in our form of government, such for
example as the introduction of life peers into the House of Lords, or in
estimating the value of some foreign constitutional invention, such for
example as the Swiss Referendum or the Dual system which links together
Hungary and the Austrian Empire. No citizen of the United Kingdom indeed
can pretend to be an impartial critic of a policy which divides the
whole nation into opposing parties. But during a period of revolutionary
excitement it is well to remember that any legislative innovation,
however keen the feelings of partisanship which it may arouse, is always
in itself c