produce lawlessness. A wise driver holds his reins all the tighter
because he is compelled to drive along the brink of a precipice. Whether
Coercion Acts, which it must be remembered have been known before now in
England, and were known in Ireland during the era of her Parliamentary
independence, and which are the sign of the difficulty of enforcing the
law, are or are not to be tolerated as a necessary evil, depends on the
answer to the inquiry, whether the Government of the United Kingdom can
by just administration, and by just legislation, remove the source of
Irish opposition to the law? Answer the question affirmatively, and the
outcry against coercion becomes unmeaning; answer the question
negatively, and you produce an argument which tells with crushing power
in favour not of Home Rule, but of Separation.

[Sidenote: 6. The argument from inconvenience.]

_The argument from the inconvenience to England._[27]--Apologies for
Home Rule drawn from foreign experience, deference due to the popular
will, from the historical failure of England to govern Ireland with
success and the like, have about them when employed by English members
of Parliament a touch of unreality; they are reasons meant to satisfy
the hearer, but do not convince the speaker. When however we come to the
argument for Home Rule drawn from the inconvenience of the present state
of things to England generally, and to English members of Parliament in
particular, we know at once that we are at any rate dealing with a real
tangible serious plea which has (if anything) only too much weight with
the person who employs it. There is nothing in the whole relation of
England to Ireland about which politicians are so well assured, as that
the presence of a body of Parnellites at Westminster is an unutterable
nuisance, and works intolerable evil. Of the reality of their conviction
we have the strongest proof. The sufferings of Irish tenants, the