The Government of Lord North roused the American Colonies by attempts to rule them against their own wishes, and the result was that they secured their independence.  Austria refused self-government to Italy, and in consequence lost its Italian territory, while Hungary, to which it granted the boon, was retained in the dual monarchy.  Spain, by refusing autonomy to her colonies, suffered the loss of South.  America, Cuba, Puerto Rica, and the Philippines, and the action of Holland in the same way led to the separation from it of the kingdom of the Belgians.

All these are cases in point, but the most interesting parallel is that of Lower Canada, which, like Ireland, is Celtic and Catholic, and is, moreover, a French-speaking province.  There, too, there was a struggle between races, and it was only by “merging”—­as Lord Durham expressed it—­“the odious animosities of origin in the feelings of a nobler and more comprehensive nationality” that peace was restored.  The Tory Cabinet of Peel gave Canada Parliamentary Government, and proclaimed rebels became Ministers of the Crown, and who is there who will contend that the application of the maxim “trust in the people” of that great Imperial statesman, Lord Durham, was not justified by the results of the grant of self-government not to a peaceful and loyal colony, but to one which was boiling with discontent and rebellion.  Twelve years after Lord Durham’s experiment, the Government of Lord Derby gave Australia similar institutions, and that fact alone shows how successful the policy had proved.  Great Britain has just given representative government to the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony.  Within five years of the peace of Vereeniging the pledges of that compact were honourably fulfilled in spite of the forebodings of one of the political parties, and Louis Botha, the Premier of one of the new colonies, is the most distinguished of the generals who less than six years ago were leading their armies against those of Great Britain.

England has realised that it is only by government with the consent of the governed that she can maintain her colonies, and the contrast between her treatment of Ireland and that of her colonies is to be seen in the fact that to them is extended the protection of the British fleet, while they are at the same time left free to legislate in the matter of trade, to deal with their own defence, and all the while contribute nothing to Imperial charges.

The failure of the policy of North and the success of that of Durham are apparent.  The former has been applied in Ireland, although the country has consistently cried out for the latter.  How long do those with whom the last word in government is the policy applied to-day, imagine that they can govern a country at the bayonet’s edge in such a way that she has neither the weight of an equal nor the freedom of a dependency?  Lord Rosebery, whose liberalism may be described in the same terms as those