What, however, is here insisted upon is not that the principle of nationality is unsound, but that this principle does not cover the demand for Home Rule.

A Home Ruler asks not for the political separation, but for the political partnership of England and Ireland.

He wishes not that the firm should be dissolved, but that the Articles of Association should be revised.
There is not then the least unfairness in the answer that no modification can be allowed which in the judgment of his associates is fatal to the prosperity of the concern.

To crowds excited by pictures of past greatness or of past struggles, by the hope of future prosperity to be brought about by miracles wrought by substituting the rule of love for the rule of law, there may appear to be something prosaic, not to say repulsive, in the comparison of the relation between Great Britain and Ireland to the relation between shareholders in a trading company.
But at a period when a fundamental change in the constitution is advocated on grounds of faith, benevolence, or generosity, a good deal is gained by bringing into relief the business aspect of constitutional reforms.

It can never be amiss to be reminded that, in the words of one of the most thoughtful among the advocates of Home Rule, "Government is a very practical business, and that those succeed best in it who bring least of sentiment or enthusiasm to the conduct of their affairs." It is at moments of revolutionary fervour, when men measure proposed policies rather by their wishes than by their experience, that every citizen needs to have impressed upon his mind that government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination.