wrongful occupiers, is a question to be settled by Mr. Froude, Mr. Lecky, and Mr. Gardiner; but the barbarities of insurgent Catholics, and the retaliatory severity of Protestant victors, which mark the fury of an internecine conflict removed from us by the lapse of more than two centuries have little to do with the practical question whether it be expedient at the present day that the local affairs of Ulster should be dealt with by a Parliament sitting at Dublin, or whether members from Ireland should have seats at Westminster. Recrimination, while it adds nothing to knowledge, disturbs the judgment of statesmen and of electors; but not even the reckless resuscitation of bitter memories, which ought to be forgotten, adds so much to the confusion of the day as does the habit fostered by the illusions of language, and by the falsely applied historical method, of speaking and thinking of England and Ireland as though they were two human beings, who, on closing a life-long quarrel, might be expected to entertain towards one another those sentiments of regret, generosity, or gratitude which are proper to men and women, but can only by the boldest of fictions be supposed to enter into the relations between classes or nations. To this delusion of personification is due the notion that Englishmen of to-day ought to make compensation and feel personal shame for the cruelties of Cromwell, or for Pitt's corruption of Irish patriots; that we are in some way liable and should feel compunction for crimes committed by (possibly) the ancestors of the very men to whom we are now supposed to owe reparation. To the same cause is to be attributed the absurd demand that the Irish Catholics should put on ashes and sackcloth for the massacres of 1641, or that living Irishmen should be grateful for the well-meant though most unsuccessful efforts made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to govern one-third of the United Kingdom on sound principles of justice. A Sovereign's plainest duty is to rule his subjects for their good according to the best of his power and of his knowledge, and the mere discharge of duty does not entitle a ruler to gratitude from the persons who are benefited by his justice. A Parliamentary Sovereign being the representative and agent of its (so-called) subjects, is à fortiori if there can be degrees in such matters—bound to govern for the benefit of the people whom it represents and ought to serve; and there is something strictly preposterous in the idea that Irish electors, who in common with the rest of the United Kingdom send representatives to Westminster, should glow with gratitude when the Parliament of the United Kingdom so far performs its duty as to enact laws from which Ireland derives benefit No one suggests that Englishmen or Scotchmen should feel grateful either to Parliament or to their Irish fellow-citizens for the maintenance of good government throughout England and Scotland. And it would puzzle the wit of man to show why one-third of the United Kingdom should be expected to entertain feelings never demanded from the other two-thirds thereof.

Second objection.—The habitual reference made throughout these pages to national interest as the test or standard of national policy has (it may be suggested) a touch of sordidness and selfishness, and implies that statesmanship has nothing to do with morality.

This impression may it is possible be conveyed to a careless reader by the form in which the case against Home Rule is stated; but no suggestion can in reality be more unfounded. It will be seen to be unfounded by any one who notes for a moment the meaning of the term "interest" as applied to matters of national policy. The interest or the welfare of a nation comprises many things which have nothing to do with trade or with wealth, and the value of which does not admit of being measured in money. The interest, welfare, or prosperity of England includes the maintenance of her honour, the performance of all her obligations, and, above all, the strict discharge of every engagement which she has undertaken towards countries or to individuals. The protection, for example, of law-abiding citizens in the enjoyment of rights secured to them by law; the maintenance of peace throughout the length and breadth of the Empire; the suppression of lawlessness; the strict performance of every promise which the State has made to every man or body of men, whether poor or rich, whether belonging to the class of labourers, of farmers, or even of landlords—the rendering, in short, to every man of his due—are things which without any improper extension of the term interest fall under the head of national interests. Utilitarianism, in truth, being a body of principles applicable primarily to legislation and only secondarily to ethics, its doctrines hold far more obviously true in the field of politics than in the field of morals. On any wide view of large public questions expediency will be found to be only another name for justice. It can be neither the interest nor the duty of any nation to legislate in a way which produces more of suffering than of happiness. A policy opposed to the interests or the welfare of the United Kingdom as a whole, even though it may appear for a moment to favour some particular portion of the State, is, we may be well assured, a policy opposed not only to wisdom, but to justice.

Third objection.—To look at Home Rule mainly from an English point of view, to criticise it because of its bearing on the interests or welfare of England, is, it may perhaps be thought, to treat the whole matter from the wrong side, and to betray an indifference to the welfare of Ireland. Home Rule, the objector may say, is a scheme for the government of Ireland. It therefore concerns the people of Ireland alone, it should be subjected to examination from an Irish, not from an English point of view, and to consider it in any other light is to exhibit in a new form that callous disregard by England of Ireland's claims which has prevented the two countries from blending into one community.

It is of primary importance that this objection should be stated with all the force which can be given to it, for were it valid it would assuredly be, in the judgment of all just persons, fatal to the line of reasoning which my readers are invited to pursue. The objection is, however, so far from being valid as to present my whole method of reasoning in a false light. A main reason why an Englishman does well to look at Home Rule from an English point of view is, that this mode of dealing with the adjustment of the possibly opposed interests of England and Ireland is (paradoxical though the assertion may sound) both the least irritating and in itself the fairest method of meeting the demands of Irish Home Rulers; though—and this is the one certainly good result which has arisen from the changed attitude towards Home Rule of Mr. Gladstone and his followers—these demands may now happily be dealt with as claims put forward not specially by Irishmen, but by a political party which includes large numbers of Scotchmen and Englishmen. The assertion, however, that to look at Home Rule from an English point of view is the way to minimise irritation, and to deal fairly with a topic specially requiring fair treatment, requires some explanation.

Experience of the world teaches every man that in complicated affairs of private life, involving questions, say, both of money and of sentiment, nothing so surely prevents quarrels as to separate in the clearest manner possible matters of business from matters of feeling. In determining a dispute between A. and B., a great step is gained when a friend induces each of the parties first to state clearly his exact legal rights and his exact pecuniary interest, and only when these facts are made clear to consider what are the concessions