millions per annum, and this may presumably be taken as a not unfair
estimate. The sacrifice of a seventh part of the population of the
United Kingdom is no slight matter. Its importance is enhanced by the
circumstance, never to be forgotten, that Great Britain is the centre of
an Empire. The brutal and stupid jests by which respectable Englishmen
often hint that the bravery, the capacity, and the genius of Irishmen
are of little service to the Empire, and that their value is more than
counterbalanced by the ill results of Irish discontent and sedition,
conceal from unreflecting minds the extent to which every part of the
United Kingdom has severally contributed to the fortune and power of the
country. Irish labourers, Irish soldiers, Irish generals, and Irish
statesmen have assuredly rendered no trifling services to the British
Crown. There is, however, one valid ground for rating the loss in men to
England, which would result from separation from Ireland somewhat lower
than one would on first thoughts be inclined to place it. Even were
Ireland an independent country there is nothing to prevent England from
leaving all the advantages of English citizenship open to the
inhabitants of the Irish State. In this matter much is to be learnt from
Germany. Neither Stein, nor Niebuhr, nor Moltke, were by birth subjects
of Prussia, yet Prussia did not lose the inestimable gains to be derived
from their talents. A generous, a liberal, and a just extension of the
privileges of citizenship might fill the English army and the English
civil service with men drawn from a State independent of Great Britain.
If the independence of Ireland were proclaimed to-morrow, there would
not be a hundred Irish labourers the fewer in Liverpool or in London.
Connections and relations depending upon community of language,
community of interest, community of feeling, the ties of kindred, of
business, of friendship, or of affection cannot, happily, be dissolved,
or to any great extent affected, by political revolutions. In any case,
it would depend on the wisdom of Great Britain whether separation from