The sentiment and the interest of the Irish members will be changed.  Whether they come from North or South they will be representatives of Ireland, and will naturally and rightly consider themselves agents bound in every case to make the best bargain they can for Ireland as against the United Kingdom, or, in plain language, as against England.  They will no longer feel it their interest to keep in power the English party which they think will best govern Ireland, for with the government of Ireland the Imperial Parliament will, as long as the new constitution stands, have no practical concern.  No honest Home Ruler supposes that, if the Home Rule Bill passes into law, the Imperial Parliament will, even should the tragedy of the Phoenix Park be repeated in some more terrible form, pass a Crimes Act for Ireland; to the Irish Government will belong the punishment of Irish crime.  No interest will therefore restrain the Irish delegation from swaying backwards and forwards between the two English parties, in order to obtain from the one or the other some momentary advantage, or some lucrative concession, to the Irish people.  Intrigue will be pardonable, diplomatic finesse will become a duty.  This evil no doubt in some degree exists, but under the present state of things it admits of diminution.  A just redistribution of the franchise will undoubtedly lessen the number of Ireland’s representatives, whilst it will increase the relative importance, if not the actual numbers, of loyalists in the representation of Ireland.  The gradual settlement of the land question, as Unionists believe, will further strike at the true root of Irish discontent, and in removing the true grievance of the Irish tenants will diminish the strength of the party which depends for its power on the revolutionary elements in Irish society.  But all chance of mitigating the inconvenience inflicted upon England by the presence of the Irish members vanishes for ever when they are changed into an Irish delegation, and are compelled by their position to be the mere mouthpiece of Ireland’s claims against England.

The alleged reasons for the weakening of England are untenable, and, were they tenfold stronger than they are, could not remove the flagrant contradiction between the Gladstonian policy of 1886 and the Gladstonian policy of 1893.

But a contradiction which cannot be removed may be explained.

The withdrawal of the Irish members from Westminster might give Ireland the chance of obtaining some of the benefits, and compensate England for some of the evils, of Home Rule.  But however this may be, one result it would produce with certainty; it would dash the Gladstonian party to pieces.  The friends of Disestablishment, the Welsh, or the Scottish, Home Rulers, the London Socialists, all the revolutionists throughout the country, know that with the departure of the Irish representatives from Westminster their own hopes of triumph must be indefinitely postponed.