expediency, to break up the connection between Great Britain and the
neighbouring island, it would still be hard to persuade the nation that
there was not vile treachery in refusing to stand by and support that
part of the Irish people which wished to retain the connection with
England. The treachery would approach to infamy if it should appear that
England, for the sake of her own comfort, left English subjects who had
always obeyed the law and relied on the honourable protection of the
United Kingdom at the mercy of conspirators whose lawlessness had taken
the form of cruelty and tyranny, and whose vindictiveness was certain to
punish as criminality former acts of loyalty or obedience to English
sovereignty. High-toned self-sacrifice which results in breach of faith
to associates is considered by the world at large as a particularly
odious form of hypocrisy. Nothing in the treaty between England and the
American Colonies involved more just bitterness of feeling than the
partial, and probably inevitable, desertion of the Loyalists. The
national conscience would condemn rather than approve the prudential
considerations which might, under certain circumstances, induce
Englishmen to consent to see Ireland an independent nation; such consent
would imply the adoption of views of national interest fundamentally
inconsistent with the maintenance of Imperial power; the damage
resulting from loss of character is difficult to estimate, but is none
the less real because it does not admit of computation in the terms of
the multiplication table.

_Secondly_, the independence of Ireland means loss to Great Britain both
in money and in men. The pecuniary loss is, indeed, not quite so
serious as might at first sight be looked for.[28] The provisions of the
rejected Government of Ireland Bill imply, it would seem, that the
pecuniary gain of the United Kingdom from Ireland in the way of taxation
may, in Mr. Gladstone's judgment, be estimated at about three and a half