less control than at
present over her own affairs? Is that seriously their last word in
statesmanship, to exasperate Nationalist Ireland without even providing
in any appreciable degree a mechanical remedy for disordered political
functions? The idea has only to be stated to be dismissed. It is not
even practical politics. Some things are sheer impossibilities; and to
leave the Union system as it is, while reducing representation, is one
of them.

We revert, then, to a contemplation of the well-tried expedient, "Trust,
and you will be trusted." But then we have to meet pessimists of two
descriptions, the honest and the merely cynical. The honest pessimist
(often, unhappily, an educated Irishman) says: "The Irish in Ireland are
an incurably criminal race. They differ from Irishmen elsewhere and from
Anglo-Saxons everywhere. Air and soil are unaccountable. The Union
policy has been, and remains, a painful but a quite inevitable
necessity. It is sound, now and for all time." The cynical pessimist, on
the other hand, admits the errors of past policy, but says frankly that
it is too late to change. "We have gone too far, raised passions we
cannot allay." I shall not try further to confute the honest pessimist.
The preceding chapters have been written in vain if they do not shatter
the theory of original sin. And to the cynical pessimist, who is a
reincarnation of our old friend Fitzgibbon (for that clear-headed
statesman frankly imputed original sin to the conquerors of Ireland, as
well as to the conquered), I would only say: "Use your common sense."
These panics over the vagaries and excesses of an Irish Parliament,
always groundless, are beginning to look highly ridiculous. In 1893,
when the last Home Rule Bill was being discussed, a Franco-Irish
alliance was the fear. Now it is the other way, and the _Spectator_ has
been writing solemn articles to warn its readers that Mr. Dillon, in a
speech on foreign policy, has shown ominous signs of hostility to
France. In the election of January, 1910, an ex-Cabinet Minister
informed the public that Home Rule meant the presence of a German fleet
in Belfast Lough--at whose invitation he did not explain, though he
probably did not intend to insult Ulster. This wild talk has not even
the merit of a strategical foundation. It belongs to another age.
Ireland has neither a fleet nor the will or money to build one. Our
fleet, in which large numbers of Irishmen serve, guarantees the securit