Within the present bounds of the Empire no lasting
Constitution has ever been framed for a subordinate State to the
moulding of which Parliament, in the character of a party assembly,
contributed an active share. Constitutions which promote prosperity and
loyalty have actually or virtually been framed by those who were to live
under them. If circumstances make it impossible to adopt this course for
Ireland, let us nevertheless remember that all the friction and enmity
between the Mother Country and subordinate States have arisen, not from
the absence, but from the inadequacy of self-governing powers. Checks
and restrictions, so far from benefiting Great Britain or the Colonies,
have damaged both in different degrees, the Colonies suffering most
because these checks and restrictions produce in the country submitted
to them peculiar mischiefs which exist neither under a despotic regime
nor an unnatural Legislative Union, fruitful of evil as both those
systems are. The damage is not evanescent, but is apt to bite deep into
national character and to survive the abolition of the institutions
which caused it. The Anglo-Irish Union was created and has ever since
been justified by a systematic defamation of Irish character. If it is
at length resolved to bury the slander and trust Ireland, in the name of
justice and reason let the trust be complete and the institutions given
her such as to permit full play to her best instincts and tendencies,
not such as to deflect them into wrong paths. Let us be scrupulously
careful to avoid mistakes which might lead to a fresh campaign of
defamation like that waged against Canada, as well as Ireland, between
1830 and 1840.

The position, I take it, is that most Irish Unionists still count,
rightly or wrongly, on defeating Home Rule, not only in the first
Parliamentary battle, but by exciting public opinion during the long
period of subsequent delay which the Parliament Bill permits. Not until
Home Rule is a moral certainty, and perhaps not even then, do the
extremists intend to consider the Irish Constitution in a practical
spirit. Surely this is a perilous policy. Surely it must be so regarded
by the moderate men--and there are many--who, if Home Rule comes, intend
to throw their abilities into making it a success, and who will be
indispensable to Ireland at a moment of supreme national importance.
Irretrievable mistakes may be made by too long a gamble with the chances
of political warfa