Lord Durham was doubly right; in his prophecy of the closer union liberty would promote, and in elementary law which he laid down, of moral obligation which, whatever the result, he held superior to dynastic calculations.  It is a fact of ominous significance that the intellectual successors of the men who most hotly repudiated both these doctrines in 1838 are being driven by pressure of their Irish views to revive that repudiation in 1911, and to revive it in the midst of the most effusive protestations of the need for still closer union with a Colony which would either have undergone the fate of Ireland or have ceased to be a member of the Empire if their philosophy had triumphed.  I do not believe there is any conscious cant in that flagrant contradiction, but I do firmly believe that so long as their error about Ireland poisons in them the springs of Imperial thought, some element of fallacy lies in any Imperial policy they undertake.  In common prudence, at any rate, they should avoid telling Canada, while beckoning her nearer to the heart of the Empire, that they only gave her freedom because she was so far.

But I rely still on an awakening, on a fundamental change of spirit.  The Empire owes everything to those who have disputed, sometimes at the cost of their lives, illegitimate authority.  Some day the politicians who now spend sleepless nights with paste and scissors in ransacking the ancient files of the world’s Press for proofs that Mr. Redmond once used words signifying that he aimed at “separation”—­whatever that phrase may mean—­will regret that they ever demeaned themselves by such petty labour, and will place Mr. Redmond among the number of those who have saved the Empire from the consequences of its own errors.

APPENDIX

COMPARATIVE TABLE, SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL PROVISIONS OF THE HOME RULE BILLS OF 1886 AND 1893

HOME RULE BILL OF 1886.  HOME RULE BILL OF 1893.

THE IRISH LEGISLATURE.

To consist of the Crown and Two To consist of the Crown and Orders, sitting together, and Two Houses, sitting separately. unless either Order demands a separate vote, voting together.

1. First Order, to consist of 1. Council, of 48 Councillors (a) 75 members elected on a L25 elected on a L20 franchise from franchise from a new set of a new set of constituencies. constituencies.  Term of office, Term of office, eight years. ten years. (b) 28 Peerage members, to give place by degrees to elective members as in (a).

2.  Second Order, 204 members 2. Assembly of 103 members elected as at present.  Two from each elected as at present. constituency (with an alteration in the case of Cork).

Dissolution at least every five            Dissolution at least every five
years.                                     years.

Money Bills and votes to
originate in the Assembly.