and political zealots by the interposition of an authority endowed at
once with overpowering strength and obvious impartiality. In Belfast
even a Nationalist must, if he is a peaceable citizen, feel that the
withdrawal of the Queen's troops would not conduce to his comfort. Under
a system of Home Rule, it will perhaps be said, one body of fanatics or
the other would, with or without the aid of the army, gain the upper
hand and restore order. Grant the truth, which may perhaps be a little
doubtful of this suggestion, it is at best a plea not for Home Rule but
for separation, since no civilised government could, whilst England and
Ireland formed under any terms whatever parts of the same political
community, suffer Belfast to become the scene of a free fight which
should decide by the ordeal of battle whether Protestants should
tyrannise over Catholics, or Catholics coerce Protestants by a reign of
terror. A reign of order moreover is not equivalent to the reign of
justice. Still less is it equivalent to the establishment of that
personal freedom which can only exist under the equal rule of equal
law, and is the blessing which every government worthy the name is bound
to confer upon its subjects.

An impartial foreigner again would probably hold, as indeed De Beaumont
(unless I misunderstand his teaching) did to the end of his life
actually hold, that the existing connection between England and Ireland
is dictated by the state of the world, by the circumstances of the
times, by the very nature of things. We are living in 1886, not in 1782:
the nineteenth century is not the age for small States or for weak
States. Such an observer, however, would also see much that is hidden by
the dust of battle from the combatants in a desperate political conflict
What is really needed to meet the real wants of which the cry for Home
Rule is a more or less factitious expression is, he would note, much
more a change in the spirit of Englishmen than an alteration in the