[Sidenote: Reasons for maintaining the Union.]

The support of the Union is, after all, let controversialists say what
they like, the policy which in fact holds the field, and it is (strange
though the assertion may appear) on the advocates of innovation, not on
the supporters of things as they are, that lies the burden of making out
their case. A fundamental alteration in the constitution of the realm is
in itself no light matter, and any man who has eyes to see or ears to
hear may easily convince himself that the creation of an Irish
Parliament must be the beginning, not the end, of a revolution. Dublin
is not the only city in the United Kingdom which has contained an
Assembly which not only occasionally denied, but during the whole of its
existence never admitted, the sovereignty of the Parliament at
Westminster; and in the present state of the world it is inconceivable
that Irish autonomy--if such be the proper term--should not excite or
justify claims for local independence which would unloose the ties which
bind together the huge fabric of the British Empire.

[Sidenote: Strengthens the English Crown.]

The Union again of England and Ireland has increased, as its relaxation
would of necessity diminish, the power of the central government. That
the Treaty of Union has, disappointing and even harmful as some of its
results have been, formed a guarantee against successful rebellion,
hardly admits of question. The difference between the abortive revolt of
1848 or the Fenian disturbances of 1866, and the desperate insurrection
of 1798, affords some measure of the strength which the legislative
unity of the kingdom has added to the English Crown. If it be suggested
that the disloyalty which has prompted sedition during this century was