the difficulty of applying German precedents to proposed innovations in
the English constitution lies far deeper than the unsuitability to
England of the forms of German Imperialism. The condition which has
given birth to the present German Empire is that in Germany the
sentiment of nationality has overridden the political divisions which
broke up Germany into almost disconnected and often hostile States. In
Germany the popular passion for unity has compelled the formation of a
United Empire. This sentiment, and not the cumbersome device of an
ill-arranged constitution, prevents Bavaria from using her independence
in a manner inconsistent with the unity of the Empire. The force which
tends towards unity is constantly on the increase. The Empire has the
legal means of diminishing or indeed of destroying the independence of
the States, and should the independence of a State ever come into
conflict with the unity of the nation State rights will not, we may be
sure, win the day. Nor, further, is it any accident that Bismarck whilst
tolerating the existence of Parliaments will not tolerate the
introduction of Parliamentary government. The acquiescence of Liberals
in the evils of personal rule is due to the consciousness that the real
authority of the Emperor is necessary for the unity of the Empire.
Contrast all this with the condition of things under which Englishmen
are adjured to concede a Parliament to Ireland. The leading features of
the case, according at any rate to Home Rulers, are that Parliament is
too weak to withstand the pressure exercised by eighty-six obstructives,
and that Ireland, no less, as we are now at last frankly told, than
Scotland and Wales, desires to relax the bonds of national unity. We are
advised to dissolve the United Kingdom into a confederacy because
Germany, through a clumsy form of confederacy, is growing into a united
empire. This counsel confuses the stages of imperfect development with
the stage of incipient decay; it ascribes to the childishness of
approaching senility the hopes which are proper to the childishness of