claim to protection from the State than Catholics. Even landowners are
not of necessity wrong-doers. Rent is a debt, and it may occasionally be
the duty, even of a tenant, to pay his creditor. An insolvent debtor
has, however excusable or pitiable his position, no absolute moral right
to improve his own position by torturing or murdering any solvent
neighbour who may be inclined to pay his own debts. To maintain the
Union is to maintain the effort to perform the obligations of the
country, and to compel all citizens of the country to perform the duties
imposed by law. The effort is an arduous one, the more so since it must
be combined with the equally strenuous endeavour to see that in Ireland,
as in every part of the United Kingdom, the demands of the law be made
to coincide with the demands of morality and of humanity. Still _pactum
serva_ is a good maxim for nations no less than for individuals: there
may be a higher law than the rule of keeping one's promise, but before a
man or a government incurs even the appearance of bad faith, it were
well to see whether the so-called higher law of conscience may not in
reality be the lower dictates of indolence or cowardice. Neither nations
nor individuals are bound in duty to do impossibilities. The limit of
power is the limit of responsibility, but if England can no longer
enforce justice in Ireland, there will still be the grave question
whether this fearful result of past misdoing or error does not suggest
and justify Separation rather than Home Rule.




CHAPTER VI.

SEPARATION.