another kind. We should like to know what a great constitutional lawyer-Whig or Tory, Somers or Mansfield-would say to the proposition that the empire may be dismembered by the votes of men who are virtually, if not formally, in the position of rebels. We are satisfied that they would hold that such men have no right to sit in a constitutional assembly, and that their votes are ab initio invalid. How can a constitutional settlement be arrived at by the votes of those who are outside the pale of the constitution? If this be not a maxim of common law, it is, at least, a maxim of common

sense.

Take now the case with which the British people may be required to deal before long. There are in the present House of Commons close upon 400 Unionists. The English and Scotch Home Rulers do not number more than 200. There is thus, excluding the disaffected Irishmen, a majority of nearly two to one in favour of maintaining the Union. Without the votes of the men who are avowedly working for the dismemberment of the empire, and who glory in their disloyalty to the British flag and their detestation of the British name, the Gladstonians would be

an insignificant faction in the House.1

Mr Gladstone is the most sanguine of political meteorologists. At eighty-one he is as confident as a boy. But even Mr Gladstone does not pretend to believe that (apart from the Irishmen) he can wipe out the Unionist majority. However the next election may turn (and there is really no reason to fear that the forces of the allies will suffer any serious reverse), it is admitted on all hands that only by the aid of Parnellites and Healyites can a Separatist victory be gained. Does any man in his senses imagine that the Home Rule majority in the Parliament of 1893 (if there is to be a majority) will exceed eighty? But this means that (apart from the Irishmen) those who are loyal to the Union will still outnumber their rivals. It is never safe to prophesy unless we know; but it is understood that the best informed among the Unionist organisers are persuaded that, even at the worst, they will not lose twenty seats.

Take it, however (for the sake of argument), that, including eighty-five Irishmen, Mr Gladstone will have a majority of from forty to fifty in the new Parliament. Has a majority thus com

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posed any moral or constitutional title to force Home Rule upon the British people? We hold that it has none.

We do not dwell now upon the fact that from every point of view the disaffected districts of Ireland are largely over-represented in the imperial Parliament. The number of members that they return is excessive, out of all proportion to their population and wealth. In any measure of electoral redistribution professing to be equitable, this ought to have been seen to; only sheer cowardice, indeed, has prevented the anomaly from being rectified before now; and a reduction in the number of Irish representatives must be one of the leading provisions in any new Reform Bill. This, however, by the way. The objection we take is far more vital; and a historical illustration will make our meaning plain.

During the long period that Sir Robert Walpole was Prime Minister there was a not inconsiderable Jacobite faction in England, while Scotland was notoriously disaffected to the House of Hanover. Now suppose that, with the aid of the disaffected Scots, an "old parliamentary hand"-St John, say, or Wyndham-had carried a resolution in the House of Commons to restore the Stuarts. What would have been the duty of the Government, of the House of Lords, and of the people in such an event? Would the majority of the English nation have been bound to submit without resistance to a dynastic revolution which they regarded with dismay? There can be only one answer. The English people would have said, and said truly "We shall not permit the Scots to rule over us. We shall not permit a conspiracy of parliamen

tary factions to ruin the empire. We represent the true majority of the governing race; and before we consent to what appears to us to be neither more nor less than national suicide, we elect to try the issue on a different field." The House of Lords, which was then strongly Hanoverian, would have replied in similar terms. They would have declared that the resolution of the other House was ultra vires and invalid, and that all loyal citizens were bound to resist it.

At the present moment we are confronted by a problem that involves issues as wide. Who doubts, indeed, that an independent and hostile Ireland upon our weatherquarter would be even more disastrous than a dynastic revolution? The Unionist leaders in the nineteenth century are entitled to say, as the Hanoverian leaders in the eighteenth century would no doubt have said: "When the English people as a whole are prepared to acquiesce in a revolution that will be fatal to the monarchy, we shall cease to resist; but not till then. So long as dismemberment can be effected only by an alliance with the enemies of England, our duty is clear. A parliamentary verdict which is obtained by the votes of men who are constitutionally disabled from voting- - for a rebel, veiled or other, has no right to be a member-cannot bind us.'

To the Unionist, we should fancy, the argument, when fairly stated, must be decisive; but is it not possible to bring home to the moderate and reasonable Home Ruler (for such surely there are) the intrinsic unreasonableness of a policy which leaves-or virtually leaves-the determination of this great question to rebels or pseudo-rebels? He holds, as we

hold, that the dismemberment of the empire would be a national, nay, a world-wide, calamity. He holds, as we hold, that the establishment of an independent Irish Republic1 across the Irish Channel would be a fatal blow to the prosperity, if not to the existence, of what Mr Kingsley has called "this great English land." If the eighty-five Irish Separatists were to take the field for the purpose of securing separation, he would (we do him the justice to believe) declare them rebels; he would use the whole force of the State against them; he would have no hesitation in punishing them as rebels are punished. But because they propose to attain their end by votes instead of by arms, is the case altered? If the object aimed at is unconstitutional, the one mode is as illegitimate as the other; and to allow that in such a case rebels may take by parliamentary forms what they would not be allowed to take by force, is surely the height of folly.

The moderate Home Ruler may reply, possibly, that if we do not permit the representatives of the disaffected districts-the members for Connaught and Munster-to record their votes in the final and critical division, we disfranchise a province. But the franchise is not a fetish which we are bound to worship at all hazards. When we have purged our minds of cant, we shall find that there are worse things in this bad world than compulsory absence from the polling - booths. It is better at any rate to disfranchise the people of a province than to consent to the disruption of an empire. The people of a disloyal province must be pre

pared to accept the penalties that attach to disloyalty. We may be sorry to hurt their feelings; but we really cannot help ourselves. Suppose that a foreign enemy had effected a landing on the Irish coast, and that, from a strategic point of view, the city of Cork (let us say) was the key of the position, would any British general in his senses refrain from taking possession of it merely because he was led to believe that the citizens favoured a foreign occupation,-refrain at least until he had ascertained by a popular vote what their wishes might be ?

We repeat, then, that a parliamentary verdict which is obtained by the votes of men who are constitutionally disabled from voting cannot be regarded as binding.

What then? Are the Unionists to appeal to the sword? Are they to take the field with their retainers as in the good (or bad) old times? Mr Morley, in his Puritanic mood, is probably the nearest approach to Cromwell that we have at present a very Brummagem Cromwell, no doubt; unfortunately he is on the wrong side. Cromwell at the head of the wild Irish Kernes would be a spectacle for gods and men! The blood of the fighting Plantagenets runs in Sir William's veins; but Sir William knows that discretion is the better part of valour; and to avoid unnecessary bloodshed-he would no doubt see it to be his duty to go over to the enemy before the action commenced. In spite of the Irish blackthorns, there could not be much doubt of the result. The Separatists would be smitten hip and thigh.

Fortunately we shall be spared all this. Unionist and Separatist will not be required to settle their differences at Naseby or Marston Moor. The House of Lords stands between us and any apprehension of civil war. It may be urged, indeed, that at the close of the nineteenth century the House of Lords is a far less powerful body than it was at the beginning of the eighteenth. It is quite true that of late years the House of Lords has not been unduly obstinate or obstructive. It may have shown itself indeed, on more than one occasion, unduly facile. It has seldom or never at least refused to ratify a measure which the nation had deliberately and unmistakably

approved. The moral pressure of a unanimous community was too strong to be steadily or successfully resisted. But in the present case all the conditions are altered. The Peers have the people of England behind them. No Minister, however arbitrary or imperious, need threaten them with his displeasure. They can afford to treat his menaces with contempt. So long as a clear majority of the governing race are against disruption their position is unassailable. So long as they are able to say,-"Until the British people withdraw their mandate the integrity of the empire shall be preserved," the most timid may take heart of grace.

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THE Rev. Septimus Stole and Lavinia were diametrically opposed in their views; yet he entertained the highest opinion of her, and pronounced her to be " most estimable person." He would indeed have felt most supremely happy if he could only have succeeded in winning her round to his views-so much capability for good did he discern in her character.

To do him no more than fair and simple justice, he was labouring fervently and hard to attain his end; but their conversational encounters seemed usually to take an untoward and unexpected turn for which he was not prepared, and terminated always in his discomfiture. He was, notwithstanding the insinuations made by Pip

VOL. CXLIX.-NO. DCCCCVII.

-COWPER.

perly, an honest - minded man, though narrow; and he knew that her nature was not really irreverent, but profoundly the reverse.

She had a mind of her own and a will of her own, and consequently took an independent and original view when she took one at all. She would accept nothing-not even his pet missionary society, for which he acted as the indefatigable secretary and treasurer. It was quite dreadful, she freely acknowledged, to hear of the spiritual darkness of these particular blacks; but it was, to her thinking, far more awful to contemplate the ignorance, the brutality, and the crime prevailing at home.

"People make a fuss," she said, "and shudder at the idea of roast

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