able. They are
for good purposes a nullity; they are effective, if at all, almost
wholly for evil; they exhibit the radical and fatal inconsistency of
Gladstonian policy. The policy of Home Rule is a policy of absolute and
unrestricted trust; the safeguards are based on distrust. There is
something to be said for generous confidence, and something also for
distrustful prudence; there is nothing to be said for ineffective
suspicion.

ii. _Grattan's Constitution_. From the asserted harmony between England
and Ireland from 1782 to 1800 under Grattan's Constitution, the
inference is drawn that there is no reason to fear discord between
England and Ireland under the Gladstonian constitution of 1893.

The fallacy underlying the appeal to this precedent has been, to use
words of Mr. Lecky, 'so frequently exposed that I can only wonder at its
repetition.'[112] Under Grattan's Constitution the Irish Executive was
appointed, not by the Irish Parliament, but by the English Ministry; the
Irish Parliament consisted solely of Protestants; it represented the
miscalled 'English garrison,' and was in sympathy with the governing
classes of England. With all this to promote harmony, the concord
between the governing powers in England and in Ireland was dubious. The
rejection of England's proposals as to trade, and the exaction of the
Renunciation Act, betray a condition of opinion which at any moment
might have produced open discord. When at last the parliamentary
independence of Ireland had led up to a savage rebellion, suppressed I
fear with savage severity, English statesmen knew that an independent
Irish Parliament threatened the existence of England. I may be allowed,
even by Gladstonians, to place the genius and patriotism of Pitt on at
least a level with the genius and patriotism of the present Premier. I
may be allowed to doubt whether Mr. Gladstone's studies, however
profound, in the history of Ireland, can, in 1893, render his
acquaintance with the circumstances and the dangers of 1800 equal to the
knowledge of the Minister who, in 1800, carried the Act of Union. And
Pitt then held that the Union with Ireland was necessary for the
preservation of England. If moreover Grattan's Constitution be a
precedent for our guidance, let us see to what the precedent points. The
leading principles or features of Grattan's Constitution are well known.
They are the absolute sovereignty of the Irish Parliament, and its
independence of and equ