In the first place, the national safety would be involved. Englishmen
were at one time too fond of saying that the great Colonies might, if
they chose, sever the link which binds them to the Mother Country.
Happily, in their case, no such catastrophe need now be considered. But
it would be folly to shut our eyes to the fact that to many Irishmen
national independence appears to be the only goal worth striving for. If
the concession of full responsible government should be followed (at
whatever interval) by an assertion of complete independence, we may
assume that Great Britain would follow the example of Federal America
and re-establish the Union by force of arms, but at how great a cost!
Those who deny the possibility of a serious movement towards separation
would do well to remember Mr. Gladstone's reference[28] to the position
of Norway and Sweden, then united under one crown:--
"Let us look to those two countries, neither of them very large,
but yet countries which every Englishman and every Scotchman must
rejoice to claim his kin--I mean the Scandinavian countries of
Sweden and Norway.
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