A conference was held in 1896, presided over by Col.  Saunderson, the leader of the Orangemen, and was attended by all the Irish members, irrespective of party.  The outcome was a resolution in the House of Commons, proposed by Mr. John Redmond, and seconded by Mr. Lecky.  The rejoinder of the Government to the demands made was to the effect that the postulate of the Commissioners that Ireland and Great Britain must, for the purposes of the inquiry, be considered as separate entities stultified the report.

One cannot characterise this attitude otherwise than as a piece of special pleading.  The appointment, not merely of the Royal Commission, but of the Select Committees of 1865 and 1890, presupposed a disparity between the conditions in the two countries which not only existed in fact but were recognised by law.

In regard to the Church, the kind, the police, education, and even marriage, the laws are different in the two countries; and we have seen how, in respect of such widely separate things as land, railway passengers, and armorial bearings, the systems of taxation are distinct.

The position of the official Conservatives was well stigmatised by one of the most distinguished among their own body—­Mr. Lecky—­when he declared that—­

“Some people seem to consider Ireland as a kind of intermittent personality—­something like Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll—­an integral part when it was a question of taxation, and, therefore, entitled to no exemptions, a separate entity when it was a question of rating, and, therefore, entitled to no relief.”

To the argument that Ireland has no greater claim to relief, on the score of her poverty, than have the more backward agricultural counties of England, the answer is that Wiltshire or Somersetshire—­shall we say—­have always received equal treatment with the rest of the country, and have never entered into a mutual partnership as did Ireland when she trusted to the pledges made to her by England, and expressed in these terms by Castlereagh:—­

“Ireland has the utmost possible security that she cannot be taxed beyond the measure of her comparative ability, and that the ratio of her contribution must ever correspond with her relative wealth and prosperity.”

The attitude of Ireland in this matter is perfectly plain.  While deprecating in the strongest terms the means by which the Union was carried, she is prepared, so long as it remains in force, to abide by its terms.  It partakes of the nature of what lawyers call a bilateral contract, imposing duties and obligations on both sides, and these liabilities can only be removed—­as in the case of the Disestablished Irish Church—­by the consent of both the contracting parties to the treaty.