of Scotland a virtual dissolution
of the Union between Great Britain and Ireland. It would in any case
have been a pleasure to afford aid, however small, to the Irish
Unionists, whether Protestants or Catholics, engaged in the defence at
once of their own birthright and of the political unity of the United
Kingdom. Yet for a moment I doubted whether the republication of a
forgotten criticism of a forgotten Bill would be of essential service to
my friends. On reflection, however, I have come to see that, though the
Unionists of Ireland probably overrate the practical value of my book,
yet their hope of its serving the cause whereof they are the most
valiant defenders is based on sound reasons.

_A Leap in the Dark_ is a stringent criticism of the Home Rule Bill,
1893.[1] But the book has little to do with the details and intricacies
of that Bill. _A Leap in the Dark_ was published before the Home Rule
Bill of 1893 had reached the House of Lords, or had assumed that final
form, which made patent to the vast majority of British electors that a
measure which purported to give a limited amount of independence to
Ireland, in reality threatened England with political ruin. My criticism
is therefore in truth an attack upon the fundamental principles of Home
Rule, as advocated by Gladstone and his followers eighteen years ago.
These principles, moreover, have never been repudiated by the Home
Rulers of to-day. Some members of the present Cabinet, notably the Prime
Minister and Lord Morley, were the apologists of the Bill of 1893. In
that year _A Leap in the Dark, or Our New Constitution_, was, I venture
to say, accepted by leading Unionists, such as Lord Salisbury, the Duke
of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Henry James (now Lord
James of Hereford), as, in the main, an adequate representation of the
objections which, in the judgment of such men and thousands of
Unionists, were fatal to the acceptance of any scheme whatever of Home
Rule for Ireland. The battle over Home Rule lasting, as it did for
years, and ending with the complete victory of the Unionists, has been
forgotten by or has never become known to the mass of the present
electors. It is well that they should be reminded of the solid grounds
for the rejection by the Lords of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. It is well
that they should be reminded that this rejection was in 1895 ratified by
the approval of the electorate of the United Kingdom _A Leap in the
Dark