England's Case Against Home Rule by Albert Venn Dicey
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page 16 of 286 (05%)
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dealing with the adjustment of the possibly opposed interests of England
and Ireland is (paradoxical though the assertion may sound) both the least irritating and in itself the fairest method of meeting the demands of Irish Home Rulers; though--and this is the one certainly good result which has arisen from the changed attitude towards Home Rule of Mr. Gladstone and his followers--these demands may now happily be dealt with as claims put forward not specially by Irishmen, but by a political party which includes large numbers of Scotchmen and Englishmen. The assertion, however, that to look at Home Rule from an English point of view is the way to minimise irritation, and to deal fairly with a topic specially requiring fair treatment, requires some explanation. Experience of the world teaches every man that in complicated affairs of private life, involving questions, say, both of money and of sentiment, nothing so surely prevents quarrels as to separate in the clearest manner possible matters of business from matters of feeling. In determining a dispute between _A._ and _B._, a great step is gained when a friend induces each of the parties first to state clearly his exact legal rights and his exact pecuniary interest, and only when these facts are made clear to consider what are the concessions fairly to be demanded from him as a matter, not of right, but of liberality. Nothing, again, is plainer in the conduct of controversies between man and man, than that if _A._ intends to exact his full legal rights from _B._, the most irritating defence of _A.'s_ conduct is his pretence of acting solely with a view to _B.'s_ own good; and that, on the other hand, no manner of enforcing _A.'s_ claims against _B._ causes so little unnecessary vexation to _B._ as for _A._ to say openly that he demands his rights because they are his rights, and because to demand them is his interest. Here, if nowhere else, the rules which apply to private disputes apply also to political controversies. If millions of |
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