restored, or for the first time created, feelings of friendliness between the Belgians and the Dutch.  There are to be found Belgian statesmen who regret the proclamation of Belgian independence.  When in 1881 the Americans celebrated at Yorktown the centenary of British defeat, they went out of their way to display their goodwill towards Great Britain.  Plaudits and toasts, it may be said, prove nothing except the existence of a sentiment which, even if it be genuine, is certain to be evanescent.  This is true; but the matter for consideration is not whether the feeling of friendliness towards Great Britain which found expression daring the festivities at Yorktown would survive a conflict of interest between England and America, but whether a condition of feeling which allows the two nations to look calmly after their own interests, unblinded by passion or animosity, could possibly have been produced by the continuance of that connection between England and America which was terminated by the surrender of Cornwallis.  There is at least no absurdity in the supposition that this question ought to be answered in the negative, and that Americans and Englishmen are at any rate not enemies just because a hundred years ago they ceased to be fellow-citizens.

Let not, however, the gist of my argument be misunderstood.  The possible increase of English power, and the possible growth of goodwill between England and Ireland, are not used as anything like reasons in favour of Separation.  They are set down simply as deductions from the immense evils of a policy which no Englishman can regard as other than most injurious to the whole United Kingdom.  The reason why it is wise to dwell on this kind of set-off against the ill effects of Separation is that Home Rule, while involving almost all the evils of Separation, will be found on examination not to hold out anything like the same hopes of compensating advantages.

FOOTNOTES: 

[28] See ‘Economic Value of Ireland to Great Britain,’ by Robert Giffen, The Nineteenth Century, March, 1886, p. 229.

CHAPTER VII.

HOME RULE—­ITS FORMS.

[Sidenote:  Forms of Home Rule.]

The proposals for giving Ireland Home Rule, in so far as they have taken any definite shape whatever, have assumed four forms:—­

I. Home Rule as Federalism.

II.  Home Rule as Colonial Independence.

III.  Home Rule as the revival of Grattan’s Constitution.

IV.  Home Rule under the proposed Gladstonian Constitution.

[Sidenote:  Conditions to be satisfied by plan of Home Rule.]

How far Home Rule under these forms, or any one of them, is compatible with the interests of the English people must be determined by considering what are the conditions which an acceptable plan of Home Rule must fulfil, and by then examining how far any given form of Home Rule satisfies them.