from any such imputation. She has her spiritual secrets, buried deep in
what we may call the subliminal consciousness of the race, and to the
disclosure of these secrets we may look with confidence for the
inspiration of a new literature. But in politics Ireland has no secrets.
All her cards are on the table, decipherable at the first glance. Her
political demand combines the lucidity of an invoice with the axiomatic
rectitude of the Ten Commandments. There is no doubt about what she
wants, and none about why she ought to have it. In that sense the case
for Home Rule is made, and this book, having justified its title, ought
to come to an end. But convention prescribes that about the nude contour
of principles there should be cast a certain drapery of details, and
such conventions are better obeyed.

Where we are to begin is another matter. We are, as has been so often
suggested, in presence of a situation in which one cannot see the trees
for the forest. The principle of the government of Ireland is so
integrally wrong that it is difficult to signalise any one point in
which it is more wrong than it is in any other. A timber-chaser, that is
to say a pioneer for a lumber firm, in the Western States of America
once found himself out of spirits. He decided to go out of life, and
being thorough in his ways he left nothing to chance. He set fire to his
cabin, and, mounting the table, noosed his neck to a beam, drank a large
quantity of poison, and, as he kicked over the table, simultaneously
shot himself through the head and drew a razor across his throat. Later
on the doctor had to fill in the usual certificate. At "Cause of Death"
he paused, pondered, and at last wrote, "Causes too numerous to
specify." The fable possesses a certain suggestive value upon which we
need not enlarge. How, one may well ask, are we to itemise the retail
iniquities of a system of government which is itself a wholesale
iniquity? But since we must begin somewhere let us begin with the