These proposals obtained the backing of a large section of the Unionist Party. They undoubtedly had the sympathy of Sir Anthony MacDonnell. It is difficult to say, at the present moment, what precise part was played by Mr. George Wyndham, then still the Irish Chief Secretary. But the eloquent fact remains that the ultimate triumph of the Ulster Unionists over the Devolution Party of 1903 was marked by his resignation. There would seem to be no substantial doubt that in 1903 there arose in the Unionist Party the same division in regard to Home Rule as arose in 1885, when Lord Carnarvon, the Tory Viceroy, met Mr. Parnell. For the moment the better spirits seriously contemplated removing once and for all the bitterness of the Irish grievance. There was a return of that feeling in the autumn of 1910, when, for the moment, at a period still known politically as the "age of reason," most of the Unionist Press admitted how much good reason and common-sense there was on the side of Home Rule. On each of these occasions the same result has occurred. At the critical moment the extreme faction of the Ulster Unionists has intervened and driven back the Tory Party to its fatal enslavement.
But the great fact which produced these movements still remains as valid and potent as ever. It is that, whatever improvements you introduce into the Irish machine, it can never work properly until the central motive power is a self-governing authority.
So deeply have the better Unionists been committed to that view in the past, in 1885, 1903, and 1910, that they are now shaping a new argument to face the situation of 1912. This argument is simple. It is that the new prosperity of Ireland is not a help, but a bar to Home Rule.
"If Ireland can prosper so well without Home Rule," so runs this line of reasoning, "why give her Home Rule at all?"
This is indeed a strange and cruel argument. We all know the people who used to say Home Rule was impossible because Ireland was disturbed. They are now occupied in saying that she must be denied Home Rule because she is so peaceful.
But now it appears that this ingenious dilemma is to be applied to her material condition also. As with order, so with finance. In the old days Ireland was refused Home Rule because she was too poor. How could she get on without England? She would be bankrupt. But now that she is better off she is to be refused it because she is too prosperous!
Is it not quite obvious that these are arguments after judgment? That the people who use them are merely seeking excuses for refusing Home Rule altogether and at all seasons?
The British people, essentially a just and serious people, will not listen to these last desperate pleas, the coward fugitives of a routed case.
They will rather believe that all these material improvements in the condition of Ireland only make the need for Home Rule stronger and more urgent. They will realise that Ireland requires not a material, but a moral cure to give her the full value of the new reforms. Her need is to be removed once and for all from the class of dependent communities. She wants the great tonic cure of self-reliance and self-responsibility.
For it is as true to-day as it was when Mr. Gladstone spoke these wise and searching words in April, 1886[36]:—