s upon the condition of public opinion. The peril, to put
the matter plainly, is that Home Rulers will not stop at attaining
Home Rule for Ireland, and that they may, and probably will,
attempt to undermine the political predominance of England.
Everything points in this direction. The agitation for Home Rule
has fostered in Ireland, and to a very limited extent in certain
other parts of the United Kingdom, a feeling approaching to
jealousy of English power. England or Great Britain is the
predominant partner. England is wealthy, England is prosperous.
England, as the language of common life imports, is the leading
member of the United Kingdom. Lord Rosebery announced with wise
foresight that Home Rule in Ireland could hardly be established
with benefit to the United Kingdom until the assent thereto of the
predominant partner had been obtained by force of argument. The
idea was grounded on common sense. Will it not suggest to Irish
Nationalists that their moment of authority must be used for
obtaining far greater privileges for Ireland than the extravagant
political power offered by Gladstonians in 1893? Is it not natural
for Home Rulers to think that the predominant partner ought to be
deprived of his predominance? The conduct of the Coalition and some
of its leaders points in this direction. They will have obtained
through the Parliament Act temporary, but strictly unlimited and
dictatorial, power. They will have obtained it by intrigue; they
have rejected and treated with scorn the idea of an appeal to the
people. They have claimed, not for Parliament but for the existing
House of Commons, an absolute legislative power superior to that of
the nation, a power which I assert with confidence is not possessed
by the elected Assemblies of the United States, or of the French
Republic, or of the Swiss Confederation: And by a strange
combination of circumstances one method for depriving the
predominant partner of legitimate authority may seem to a Home
Ruler to lie near at hand. Raise the cry of 'Home Rule all round,'
or of 'Federalise the British Empire.' Turn England into one State
of a great federation, let Wales be another, Scotland a third, the
Channel Islands a fourth, and for aught I know the Isle of Man a
fifth. Let the self-governing Colonies, an