You are certainly
in love; suppose you were suddenly asked "to state the case" for love?
You are probably civilised; suppose you were suddenly asked "to state
the case for civilisation"? So it is with the Home Rule idea. To ask
what is the gate of entrance to it is like asking what was the gate of
entrance to hundred-gated Thebes. My friend, Mr Barry O'Brien, in
lecturing on Ireland, used to begin by recounting a very agreeable and
appropriate story. A prisoner on trial was asked whether he would accept
for his case the jury which had tried the last. He objected very
vehemently. "Well, but," said the Judge, "what is the nature of your
objection? Do you object to the panel or to the array?" "Ah!" replied
the traverser, "if you want to know, I object to the whole damned
business." That is approximately our objection to the present system of
government in Ireland. But let me attempt to group under a series of
somewhat arbitrary headings the "case for Home Rule," that is to say,
the case for applying to Ireland the plain platitudes of constitutional
freedom.
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