Irish people, and to close a dangerous agitation, by giving to Belfast
and to Cork the same municipal privileges which they wish to extend to
Birmingham or to Liverpool. The reasons for this belief are threefold:
that Local Self-Government is itself a benefit; that Ireland ought, as
of right, to have the same institutions as England; that Local or
Municipal Self-Government will meet the real if not the nominal wish of
the Irish people. This hope I believe to be delusive. The reasons on
which it is grounded are--one of them probably, and two of them
certainly--unsound.

Local Self-Government is one of those arrangements which, like most
political institutions, cannot be called absolutely good or bad. It is a
good thing, I suppose, at Birmingham, and was some fifty years ago a
good thing in Massachusetts, and it may prove (though this is
speculation) a good thing in an English county. Local Self-Government is
not admirable at New York; it works less well than it once did in New
England; it does not produce very happy effects in London parishes; we
may well doubt whether it be really suited for modern France. Local
Self-Government where it flourishes is quite as much a result as a cause
of a happy social condition; the eulogies bestowed upon it contain a
curious mixture of truth and falsehood. What is true is, that where
self-government flourishes, society is in a sound state; what is false
is, that Local Self-Government produces a sound state of society. The
primary condition necessary for the success of self-government is
harmony between different classes. The rich must be the guides of the
poor, the poor must put trust in the rich. Men who are placed above
corruption must interest themselves in the laborious but important
details of local administration; men who might be corrupted themselves,
must desire to place power in the hands of leaders who are as a class
incorruptible. High public spirit, a detestation of jobbery, trust and