misunderstand this is to suppose there is
no such thing as national idealism, and that a people will accept
substitutes for the principle of nationality, whereas the past history
of the world and present circumstance in Europe are evidence that
nothing is more unconquerable and immortal than national feeling, and
that it emerges from centuries of alien government, and is ready at any
time to flare out in insurrection. At no period in Irish history was
that sentiment more self-conscious than it is today.

15. Nationalist Ireland requires that the Home Rule Act should be
radically changed to give Ireland unfettered control over taxation,
customs, excise and trade policy. These powers are at present denied,
and if the Act were in operation, Irish people instead of trying to make
the best of it, would begin at once to use whatever powers they had as
a lever to gain the desired control, and this would lead to fresh
antagonism and a prolonged struggle between the two countries, and
in this last effort Irish Nationalists would have the support of that
wealthy class now Unionist in the three southern provinces, and also
in Ulster if it were included, for they would then desire as much as
Nationalists that, while they live in a self-governing Ireland, the
powers of the Irish government should be such as would enable it to
build up Irish industries by an Irish trade policy, and to impose
taxation in a way to suit Irish conditions. As the object of British
consent to Irish self-government is to dispose of Irish antagonism
nothing is to be gained by passing measures which will not dispose of
it. The practically unanimous claim of Nationalists as exhibited in
the press in Ireland is for the status and power of economic control
possessed by the self-governing dominions. By this alone will the causes
of friction between the two nations be removed, and a real solidarity of
interest based on a federal union for joint defense of the freedom and
well-being of the federated communities be possible and I have no doubt
it would take place. I do not believe that hatreds remain for long among
people when the causes which created them are removed. We have seen in
Europe and in the dominions the continual reversals of feeling which
have taken place when a sore has been removed. Antagonisms are replaced
by alliances. It is mercifully true of human nature that it prefers to
exercise goodwill to hatred when it can, and the common sense of the
best