"There exists in Europe no country so completely at unity with itself as
Great Britain. Fifty years of reform have done their work, and have
removed the discontents, the divisions, the disaffection, and the
conspiracies which marked the first quarter, or the first half of this
century. Great Britain, if left to herself, could act with all the
force, consistency, and energy given by unity of sentiment and community
of interests. The distraction and the uncertainty of our political aims,
the feebleness and inconsistency with which they are pursued, arise, in
part at least, from the connection with Ireland. Neither Englishmen nor
Irishmen are to blame for the fact that it is difficult for communities
differing in historical associations and in political conceptions to
keep step together in the path of progress. For other evils arising from
the connection the blame must rest on English Statesmen. All the
inherent vices of party government, all the weaknesses of the
parliamentary system, all the evils arising from the perverse notion
that reform ought always to be preceded by a period of lengthy and more
than half factitious agitation met by equally factitious resistance,
have been fostered and increased by the interaction of Irish and English
politics. No one can believe that the inveterate habit of ruling one
part of the United Kingdom on principles which no one would venture to
apply to the government of any other part of it, can have produced
anything but the most injurious effect on the stability of our
Government and the character of our public men. The advocates of Home
Rule find by far their strongest arguments for influencing English
opinion, in the proofs which they produce that England, no less than
Ireland, has suffered from a political arrangement under which legal
union has failed to secure moral union. _These arguments, whatever their
strength, are, however, it must be noted, more available to a
Nationalist than to an advocate of federalism_."[56]
The words which I have italicised are an expression of opinion; but
nothing can alter the damning statement of fact--"legal union has failed
to secure moral union." Nevertheless, Mr. Dicey advocates the
maintenance of this legal union as it stands.
"On the whole, then, it appears that, whatever changes or calamities the
future may have in store, the maintenance of the Union is at this day
the one sound policy for England to pursue. It is sound because it is
expedient; it is sound because it is just."[57]
I shall not discuss the question of Home Rule with the eminent writers
whose works I have cited. It is enough that they demonstrate the failure
of the Union. So convinced was Mr. Lecky, in 1871, of its failure, that
he suggested a readjustment of the relations of the two countries on a
federal basis;[58] and Mr. Goldwin Smith, in 1868, contended that the
Irish difficulty could only be settled by the establishment of
Provincial Councils, and an occasional session of the Imperial
Parliament in Dublin. Mr. Dicey clings to the existing Union while
demonstrating its failure, because he has persuaded himself that the
only alternative is separation.
Irishmen may be pardoned for acting on Mr. Dicey's facts, and
disregarding his prophecies. The mass of Irishmen believe, with Grattan,
that the ocean protests against separation as the sea protests against
such a union as was attempted in 1800.[59]