-day colonial autonomy is an axiom. But Ireland is a measure of the
depth of these convictions. There would be no Empire to idealize if
their Irish principles had been applied just a little longer to any of
the oversea States which constitute the self-governing Colonies of
to-day. As it is, these principles have wrought great and perhaps
lasting mischief which, in the righteous glow of self-congratulation
upon what we are accustomed to call our constructive political genius,
we are too apt to overlook. It was bad for America to pass through that
phase of agitation and discord which preceded the revolutionary war. It
was demoralizing for the Canadas to be driven into rebellion by the
vices of ascendancy government. Mr. Gladstone, speaking of Australian
autonomy, was right in satirizing the "miserable jargon" about fitting
men for political privileges, and in demonstrating the harm done by
withholding those privileges. And the Irish race all over the world,
fine race as it is, would be finer still if Ireland had been free.

The political habits formed in dealing with Ireland have disastrously
influenced Imperial policy in the past. Cannot we, by a supreme national
effort, reverse the mental process, and, if we have always failed in the
past to learn from Irish lessons how not to treat the Colonies, at any
rate learn, even at the eleventh hour, from our colonial lessons how to
treat Ireland? Must we for ever sound the old alarms about "disloyalty"
and "dismemberment" and "abandonment of the loyal minority to the tender
mercies of their foes"; phrases as old as the Stamp Act of 1765? Must we
carry the "gentle art of making enemies," practised to the last point of
danger in the Colonies, to the preposterous pitch of estranging men at
our very doors, while pluming ourselves on the friendship of peoples
12,000 miles away? These are anxious times. We have a mighty rival in
Europe, and we need the co-operation of all our hands and brains. On a
basis of mere profit and loss, is it sensible to maintain a system in
Ireland which weakens both Ireland and the whole United Kingdom, clogs
the delicate machinery of Parliamentary government, and, worked out in
hard figures of pounds, shillings, and pence, has ceased even to show a
pecuniary advantage?

Have Unionists really no better prescription for the constitutional
difficulties caused by the Union than to reduce the representation of
Ireland in Parliament so as to give Ireland still