Great Britain and Ireland to the relation between shareholders in a trading company.  But at a period when a fundamental change in the constitution is advocated on grounds of faith, benevolence, or generosity, a good deal is gained by bringing into relief the business aspect of constitutional reforms.  It can never be amiss to be reminded that, in the words of one of the most thoughtful among the advocates of Home Rule, “Government is a very practical business, and that those succeed best in it who bring least of sentiment or enthusiasm to the conduct of their affairs.”  It is at moments of revolutionary fervour, when men measure proposed policies rather by their wishes than by their experience, that every citizen needs to have impressed upon his mind that government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination.  Nor let any one imagine that the expression of the belief constantly avowed or implied throughout these pages, that Home Rule would be as great an evil to England as Irish independence, shows a reckless and most unbusinesslike indifference to the perils and losses of separation.  My conviction is unalterable that separation would be to England, as also to Ireland, a gigantic evil.  This position is fully compatible with the belief that there are other evils as great, or greater.  If a man says that he prefers the loss of his right hand to the loss of his life, he cannot reasonably be charged with making light of amputation.  It is however perfectly true that the line of argument pursued in this work must, if it be sound, drive those to whom it is addressed to a choice between the maintenance of the Union and the concession to Ireland of national independence.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1]

These are—­

i.  Home Rule as Federalism.

ii.  Home Rule as Colonial Independence.

iii.  Home Rule as the Restoration of Grattan’s Constitution.

iv.  Home Rule under the Government of Ireland Bill, or, to use a convenient name, under the Gladstonian constitution.  Chap. vii.

CHAPTER II.

MEANING OF HOME RULE.

“Home Rule” is a term which, like all current and popular phrases, is, though intelligible, wanting in precision.  Hence it is well, before we investigate the different forms which schemes of Home Rule may assume, to fix in our minds precisely what Home Rule does mean and what it does not mean.

[Sidenote:  What Home Rule means.]

“Home Rule”—­or, to speak more accurately, the policy of Home Rule—­means, if we may use language with which we are all familiar in relation to the Colonies, the endowment of Ireland with representative institutions and responsible government.