be dissolved, but that the Articles of Association should be revised.
There is not then the least unfairness in the answer that no
modification can be allowed which in the judgment of his associates is
fatal to the prosperity of the concern. To crowds excited by pictures of
past greatness or of past struggles, by the hope of future prosperity to
be brought about by miracles wrought by substituting the rule of love
for the rule of law, there may appear to be something prosaic, not to
say repulsive, in the comparison of the relation between Great Britain
and Ireland to the relation between shareholders in a trading company.
But at a period when a fundamental change in the constitution is
advocated on grounds of faith, benevolence, or generosity, a good deal
is gained by bringing into relief the business aspect of constitutional
reforms. It can never be amiss to be reminded that, in the words of one
of the most thoughtful among the advocates of Home Rule, "Government is
a very practical business, and that those succeed best in it who bring
least of sentiment or enthusiasm to the conduct of their affairs." It is
at moments of revolutionary fervour, when men measure proposed policies
rather by their wishes than by their experience, that every citizen
needs to have impressed upon his mind that government and legislation
are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination. Nor let any
one imagine that the expression of the belief constantly avowed or
implied throughout these pages, that Home Rule would be as great an evil
to England as Irish independence, shows a reckless and most
unbusinesslike indifference to the perils and losses of separation. My
conviction is unalterable that separation would be to England, as also
to Ireland, a gigantic evil. This position is fully compatible with the
belief that there are other evils as great, or greater. If a man says
that he prefers the loss of his right hand to the loss of his life, he
cannot reasonably be charged with making light of amputation. It is
however perfectly true that the line of argument pursued in this work