e shall
hear during the present discussions. We shall, perhaps, have thrown at
our heads cases like the absorption of Persia by Russia, of Tripoli by
Italy, of Morocco by France, and of the Congo by Germany.

If we are to argue the matter on those lines it will be fair to point
out, on the other side, that during the last decade Norway has
separated from Sweden, new provincial and state governments have been
created in Canada and the United States, new self-governing powers have
been given to Cuba and the Philippines by the Americans in faithful and
loyal adherence to their word at the time of the Spanish-American war,
and, even more recently, new powers have been given to Alsace and
Lorraine by the German Empire.

So the argument might go on, to and fro, each party pelting one another
with cases from other parts of the world. Perhaps at that point it
might be well to remember the grave and wise warning given us by Lord
Morley in his "Life of Gladstone"--that each case of political
re-adjustment really stands by itself, and that often little light can
be thrown, but rather darkness deepened, by studying too closely the
analogies from other communities.

Still, though the case of the relations between England and Ireland
must always stand on its own merits, there are general tendencies in
the world which come under law. There are certain lessons to be
gathered from other countries which we should be unwise to ignore. The
Greeks, who were great constitution builders, amused themselves in
their later period by making immense collections of political specimens
from among the Hellenic States. Doubtless their politicians derived
some advantage from this practice of their philosophers.

There are general tendencies, and those tendencies may be classified
under the two familiar heads of (1) the tendency towards unity and (2)
the tendency towards division. These two tendencies are always going on
side by side in various parts of the world. But the puzzling part of
political study is that very often what seems a tendency towards unity
conceals a tendency towards division, and that what seems a tendency
towards division is really a tendency to unity.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Take, for instance, the famous case of the British Empire. Any
superficial observer from another clime or another planet might
conclude from reading the records, that the tendency within the British
Empire during the last century lay toward division. He w