encounter.' The words are worthy of the man, having about them a ring of sham magnanimity. It is very magnanimous to talk of assuming a responsibility of which you cannot possibly divest yourself, and thus taking credit for what is an inseparable incident of the position of a Minister. But the magnanimous nature of the declaration is somewhat tarnished when we remember that, by means of this assumption of a responsibility that is his already, the Minister conceals his conduct altogether from those who are most interested to know what it is, and takes the chance that, if he can only conceal it long enough, he may evade the very responsibility which he pretends to court. Is not the inflated inanity, the vague and bombastic phraseology, in which the Prime Minister has just been indulging in his pompous claim of ascendancy in Europe at a time when he has not added a man to our army, or a ship to our fleet, as dangerous as it is vulgar and degrading? Where are the allies and friends that our spirited foreign policy has made for us? and, if we had them, what chance have we of keeping them in face of the insults which our spirited Minister is never tired of flinging at his equals and inferiors? So much for foreign policy-let us look for a moment at that very insignificant place called home.

Even as we felt abroad so we feel here—we have taken an entirely new departure, and our landmarks are gone-we have learnt to believe that nothing is impossible-it is not what we have actually suffered, it is the utter shipwreck of all confidence, the utter uncertainty of what may happen next, the feeling that there is nothing which the combined ignorance, vanity, and audacity of one man may not attempt which hangs heavily on thinking men. We feel that we are in a new region under new auspices, and we have not learnt yet the true nature of our present situation. One thing we can see clearly, and that is that everything is done which can be done in order to stimulate and swell the vanity of the nation. The old English simplicity, that said less than it meant and did more than it promised, is out of fashion, and is replaced, as far as the present Government can influence it, by vulgarity, pretension, and ostentation; unless a stop can be put to this grievous evil, we are assuredly advancing on the course that leads to some great calamity. I have pointed out how the very foundation of our Government is shaken by the utter contempt with which Parliament is treated, and the incredible meanness with which that treatment is submitted to. All these things indicate a state of transition, and, as far as it is permitted to judge, a transition directly downwards. For all this there is but one remedy, and that remedy is now before us. We may, if we will, get rid of this incubus which is degrading our character in Europe, demoralising our people by teaching them to take tinsel for gold and glass for diamonds, sapping our prosperity by deranging our finances, laying

the axe to the very root of our Constitution by treating the House of Commons as no longer fit to be trusted with affairs of State, and only useful to supply funds for purposes which superior persons have devised.

Let us say with Henry the Fifth

I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,
But, being awake, I do despise my dream.

ROBERT Lowe.

THE COMMON-SENSE OF HOME RULE.

I. A REPLY.

'MAY the Lord deliver us from the Devil, and from metaphors ! ' This pious aspiration-it is Heine's, if I remember rightly-might well be made to include the easy popular and misleading method of political teaching by so-called 'parallels.' The demand of a section of the people of Ireland for Home Rule has been most confidently and plausibly supported by the assertion that federal institutions' have succeeded in the United States, in the Dominion of Canada, in AustriaHungary, and in the German Empire. This form of argument appears in the writings and speeches of Mr. Butt, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. O'Connor Power, Mr. J. G. McCarthy, and other advocates of Home Rule, apparently without the slightest shadow of a suspicion on the part of those who employ it that it is not complete and conclusive. I do not find that any of the Home Rule apologists admit that the conditions under which federal principles would have to be applied to the United Kingdom differ from those prevailing in the Austrian and German Empires, in Canada and the United States. They are not even aware—or, if they are, they carefully conceal their knowledge of the fact that the federal systems to the success of which they appeal have scarcely more resemblance to each other in essentials than the government of Napoleon III. and the government of President Grévy. A palpable confusion of thought, produced by playing with ambiguous phrases and by inaccurate references to the misapprehended working of political machinery, vitiates the reasoning of the Home Rulers. Their parallels,' when examined, go to pieces. It is plain to all who are acquainted with the facts, that any federal relations which could possibly be established between the various parts of the United Kingdom must be as different from those created by the Constitution of the United States or by the Dualism' of Austria-Hungary as each of these systems is from the other. It is notorious that in almost every federation, in the old world or the new, internal conflicts have arisen which it has been often most difficult to compose, and the like of which, given the historical and moral conditions existing in Great Britain and Ireland, could only have been ended by civil war. If the advocates of Home Rule desire to obtain

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a serious hearing for their claim, they must face the truth, disencumber themselves of their worthless baggage of paraliels,' and recognise the fact that upon them lies the burden of proof. When they have produced a scheme of federation which shall furnish even a prima facie answer to the objections urged against Home Rule, it will be time to ask Parliament to examine the question in a practical spirit and with an open mind. It is puerile to contend that the principle of a federal system can be discussed without reference to its details. The opponents of Home Rule affirm that no scheme of federation applicable to the British Islands can be framed which would not involve disastrous consequences, leading directly and inevitably to the dismemberment of the Empire' or an appeal to the sword. Parliament cannot be called upon to waste the public time, and perhaps to arouse misleading expectations, by discussing any proposals which do no not at least pretend, with some sort of plausibility, to avoid those ruinous results.

In the March number of this Review an article was published from the pen of my friend, Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P., to which I turned with much interest. Here, if it were anywhere possible, I thought that I should find the demands of the Home Rule party stated in a form compelling thorough and serious examination. Mr. McCarthy is not only an accomplished man of letters; he has a wide and sound knowledge of politics, disciplined by long experience in political discussion outside the House of Commons and inside it. His geniality and freshness of thought have won him the liking of all who are acquainted with him, and, if he will permit me to say so, his judgment is very highly valued by those who know him best. If anyone could put the Home Rule case in an attractive and effective shape, it would be Mr. McCarthy. One doubt alone could rest upon the worth of his advocacy. It may well be questioned how far Mr. McCarthy's sweet reasonableness' can be held to represent the spirit of the anti-English sentiment in Ireland, as revealed during the agrarian agitation of the autumn. It may, perhaps, be said of his arguments:

These are the afterthoughts that reason coins
To justify excess, and pay the debt

Incurred by passion's prodigality.1

But, conceding to Mr. McCarthy's exposition of the Home Rule case all the representative authority which he could claim for it himself, what is its substance and its worth? I am forced to say that it is a most disappointing production, though the fault is, doubtless, in the case, not in the advocate. Nothing can be more smooth and pleasant than the flow of what is seemingly Mr. McCarthy's argument, addressing itself with easy confidence to the intelligence and the fairness of Englishmen. But when it is examined it shows only

Philip van Artevelde, Part II. act ii. scene 1.

a concatenation of unproved assertions, audacious inferences, and incorrect statements as to matters of fact. The real difficulties which would arise out of a federal connection between Great Britain and Ireland are airily put aside by Mr. McCarthy, are ingeniously evaded, or altogether ignored. I propose, in the first place, to offer a few criticisms upon Mr. McCarthy's apology for Home Rule; and afterwards to set forth the objections to an Anglo-Irish Federation which arise out of those criticisms or upon points unnoticed by Mr. McCarthy. In my judgment the Home Rulers are not entitled even to a provisional hearing until they grapple, as they have never yet done, with the arguments on the other side, and show how it is possible to avoid some at least of the mischiefs which Home Rule would apparently bring upon the people of these kingdoms.

The tone of Mr. McCarthy's article is suspiciously triumphant. It presents the Home Rule demand as absolutely clear, simple, convincing, almost self-evident, to be resisted only by sheer stupidity or rancorous prejudice. This is a familiar artifice of forensic rhetoric. An advocate pleading a doubtful cause will say: 'Gentlemen of the jury, it must be patent to the meanest intelligence that the defendant meant this or that; No fair-minded men can refuse to recognise the incontestable rights of my client;' and so on. Can Mr. McCarthy really believe that his case is irresistible? If so, how does he account for the fact that outside the Irish Home Rule party there are to be found no adherents of the federal scheme in the three kingdoms? The whole body of thinking Englishmen cannot be overridden by prejudice, ignorance, and incapacity to hear reason. I will cite one name which Mr. McCarthy, I am sure, will admit is that of one not warped by anti-Irish prejudice and not afraid of new ideas. I cite Mr. Mill's name as an example, showing that intelligent and unprejudiced persons see enormous-nay, insuperable-difficulties where Mr. McCarthy would have us believe there are none. Any form of federal union between Great Britain and Ireland,' says Mr. Mill, 'would be unsatisfactory while it lasted, and would end either in total conquest or in complete separation.' Of course Mr. Mill's authority does not conclude the argument, but it warns us not to follow Mr. McCarthy in assuming that a complex political problem is as easily solved as a sum in simple addition.

The title, no less than the tone, of Mr. McCarthy's article is misleading. It is "The Common-sense of Home Rule,' whereas it might with more propriety be The Common-places of Home Rule.' The following are the main propositions upon which Mr. McCarthy's appeal rests. (1) That it is unfair to condemn Home Rule as leading to the dismemberment of the Empire: (2) That Home Rule would leave the House of Commons exactly as it is': (3) That Parliament is overloaded with business more properly to be dealt with by local bodies (4) That the day will come' when England and Scotland,

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