That we should love ours is a sort of middle
term between treason and insanity. It is as if a lover were to insist
that no poems should be written to any woman except _his_ mistress. It
is as if he were to put the Coercion Act in force against anyone found
shedding tears over the sufferings of any mother except _his_ mother. In
fact it is the sort of domineering thick-headedness that never fails to
produce disloyalty.
The national idea, then, is the foundation of the "case for Home Rule."
It might indeed be styled the whole case, but this anthem of nationality
may be transposed into many keys. Translated into terms of ethics it
becomes that noble epigram of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's for which I
would exchange a whole library of Gladstonian eloquence: "Good
government is no substitute for self-government." In Ireland we have
enjoyed neither. Political subjection has mildewed our destiny, leaf and
stem. But were it not so, had we increased in wealth like Egypt, in
population like Poland, the vital argument for autonomy would be neither
weaker nor stronger.
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