ntributors to the book are an ex-Premier, four ex-Chief
Secretaries for Ireland, an ex-Lord Lieutenant, two ex-Law officers, and
a number of men whose special study of the Irish question entitles them
to have their views most carefully considered when the time comes for
restoring to Ireland those economic advantages of which she has been
deprived by political agitation and political conspiracy. At the present
moment the discussion of the Irish question is embittered by the
pressing and urgent danger to civil and religious liberties involved in
the unconditional surrender of the Government to the intrigues of a
disloyal section of the Irish people. It is the object of writers in
this book to raise the discussions on the Home Rule question above the
bitter conflict of Irish parties, and to show that not only is Unionism
a constructive policy and a measure of hope for Ireland, but that in
Unionist policy lies the only alternative to financial ruin and
exterminating civil dissensions.

We who are Unionists believe first and foremost that the Act of Union
is required--in the words made familiar to us by the Book of Common
Prayer--"for the safety, honour and welfare, of our Sovereign and his
dominions." We are not concerned with the supposed taint which marred
the passing of that Act; we are unmoved by the fact that its terms have
undergone considerable modification. We do not believe in the plenary
inspiration of any Act of Parliament. It is not possible for the living
needs of two prosperous countries to be bound indefinitely by the "dead
hand" of an ancient statute, but we maintain that geographical and
economic reasons make a legislative Union between Great Britain and
Ireland necessary for the interests of both. We see, as Irish Ministers
saw in 1800, that there can be no permanent resting place between
complete Union and total separation. We know that Irish Nationalists
have not only proclaimed separatist principles, but that they have
received separatist money, on the understanding that they would not
oppose a movement to destroy whatever restrictions and safeguards the
Imperial Parliament might impose upon an Irish Government.

The first law of nature with nations and governments, as with
individuals, is self-preservation. It was the vital interests of
national defence that caused Pitt to undertake the difficult and
thankless task of creating the legislative union. If that union was
necessary for the salvation of Eng