[181] See Appendix and the Bill of 1886, Clause 25; Bill of 1893, Clause 22.

[182] 54 and 55 Vict., Ch. 25, Sect. 4.

[183] Courts of Admiralty in the Colonies are regulated by Imperial Acts, though by an Act of 1890 large powers were conferred on the Colonies of declaring ordinary Courts to be Courts of Admiralty (see Moore’s “Commonwealth of Australia,” pp. 11 and 251).

[184] See Clauses 27-30 of the Bill of 1886, and Clauses 25-28 of the Bill of 1893.

[185] See the Precis of Proceedings, Cd. 5741, 1911.

[186] See pp. 225-227.

[187] See Section 128 of the Australia Constitution Act, 1900, and Section 152 of the South Africa Act, 1909.

CONCLUSION

Is it altogether idle to hope that some such body will yet come into existence, if not in time to influence the drafting of the Bill, at any rate to bring to bear upon its provisions the sober wisdom, not of one party only in the State, but of all; and so, if it were possible, to give to the charter of Ireland in her “new birth of freedom” the sanction of a united people?

Home Rule will eventually come.  Within the Empire, the utmost achieved by the government of white men without their own consent is to weaken their capacity to assume the sacred responsibility of self-government.  It is impossible to kill the idea of Home Rule, though it is possible, by retarding its realization, to pervert some of its strength and beauty, and to diminish the vital energy on which its fruition depends.  And it is possible in the case of Ireland, up to and in the very hour of her emancipation, after a struggle more bitter and exhausting than any in the Empire, to heap obstacles in the path of the men who have carried her to the goal, and on whom in the first instance must fall the extraordinarily difficult and delicate task of political reconstruction.  They will be on their mettle in the eyes of the world to prove that the prophets of evil were wrong, to show sympathy and inspire confidence in the very quarters where they have been most savagely traduced and least trusted, and they will have to exhibit dauntless courage in attacking old abuses and promoting new reforms.  They will need their hands strengthened in every possible way.

The help must come—­and it cannot come too soon—­from the working optimists of Ireland, from the hundreds of men and women, of both parties and creeds, who are labouring outside politics to extirpate that stifling undergrowth of pessimism which runs riot in countries denied the light and air of freedom.  All these people agree on the axiom that Ireland has a distinct individual existence, and that her future depends upon herself.  No one should dare to stop there.  Let him who feels impelled to stop there at any rate act with open eyes.  In expecting to realize social reconstruction without political reconstruction—­however