ons are
neglected. Constitutions which do not faithfully reflect the experience
of the sovereign power which accords them, and of the peoples which have
to live under them, are at the best perilous experiments liable to
defeat the end of their framers.

I shall enter into history only so far as it is relevant to the
constitutional problem, using the comparative method, and confining
myself almost exclusively to the British Empire past and present. For
the purposes of the Irish controversy it is unnecessary to travel
farther. In one degree or another every one of the vexed questions which
make up the Irish problem has arisen again and again within the circle
of the English-speaking races. As a nation we have a body of experience
applicable to the case of Ireland incomparably greater than that
possessed by any other race in the world. If, from timidity, prejudice,
or sheer neglect, we fail to use it, we shall earn the heavy censure
reserved for those who sin against the light.

For the comparative sketch I shall attempt, materials in the shape of
facts established beyond all controversy are abundant. Colonial history,
thanks to colonial freedom, is almost wholly free from the distorting
influence of political passion. South African history alone will need
revision in the light of recent events. When, under the alchemy of free
national institutions, Ireland has undergone the same transformation as
South Africa, her unhappy history will be chronicled afresh with a
juster sense of perspective and a juster apportionment of responsibility
for the calamities which have befallen her. And yet, if we consider the
field for partisan bias which Irish history presents, the amount of
ground common to writers of all shades of political opinion is now
astonishingly large. The result, I think, is due mainly to the good
influence of that eminent historian and Unionist politician, the late
Professor Lecky. Indeed, an advocate of Home Rule, nervously suspicious
of tainted material, could afford to rely solely on his "History of
Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," "Leaders of Public Opinion in
Ireland," and "Clerical Influences,"[1] which are Nationalist textbooks,
and, for quite recent events, on "A Consideration of Ireland in the
Nineteenth Century," by Mr. G. Locker-Lampson, the present Unionist
Member for Salisbury. A strange circumstance; but Ireland, like all
countries where political development has been forcibly arrested from
witho