th anti-Nationalist
shrapnel. Irish Judges, in fact, are very like the horse in the
schoolboy's essay: 'The horse is a noble and useful quadruped, but,
when irritated, he ceases to do so."

"_Police_.--The Royal Irish Constabulary was formerly an Army of
occupation. Now, owing to the all but complete disappearance of
crime, it is an Army of no occupation."

"_Dublin Castle in general_.--Must be seen to be disbelieved."

Since there does not exist a British Empire, it is necessary to invent
one. Since there does not exist an Irish government, in any modern and
intelligible sense of the word, it is necessary to invent one. The
common creative mould out of which both must be struck is the principle
of Home Rule.

CHAPTER IX

AFTER HOME RULE

The advocates of Home Rule are invited to many ordeals by way of
verifying their good faith; perhaps the heaviest ordeal is that of
prophecy. Very well, people say, what are you going to do with Home Rule
when you get it? What will Irish politics be like in, say, 1920? If we
show embarrassment or offer conflicting answers, the querist is
persuaded that we are, as indeed he thought, vapouring sentimentalists,
not at all accustomed to live in a world of clear ideas and unyielding
facts. The demand, like many others made upon us, is unreal and
unreasonable. What are the English going to do with Home Rule when they
get it? What will German or Japanese or American politics be like in
1920? These are all what Matthew Arnold calls "undiscovered things." The
future resolutely declines to speak out of her turn. She has a trick of
keeping her secrets well, better than she keeps her promises. Professor
Dicey wrote a Unionist tract, very vehement and thunderous, in which he
sought to injure Home Rule by styling it a leap in the dark. But the
whole conduct of life, in its gravest and its lightest issues alike, is
a perpetual leap in the dark. Every change of public policy is a raid
across the frontiers of the unknown; or rather, as I prefer to put it,
every fundamental reform is essentially an Act of Faith in to-morrow,
and so it is with Home Rule.

But while none of us can prophesy all of us can conjecture, and in this
case with a great deal of confidence. On the one hand, Ireland is a
country of very definite habits of thought; on the other, her immediate
problems are obvious. These two circumstances facilitate the process
which the learned desc