If a legislature is established it must be given the means of enforcing
its laws. We do not know what the present Government propose to do with
the Irish police, but whatever the law says in practice, they will be
under the local executive. Unpopular people will not be protected, and
many of them will be driven out of the country. Parliamentary Home
Rulers draw rosy pictures of the future Arcadia; but they will not be
able to fulfil their own prophecies. Apart from the agrarian question,
there is the party of revolutionists in Ireland whose headquarters are
in America. They have furnished the means for agitation, and will look
for their reward. The Fenian party has less power in the United States
than it used to have, but there will be congenial work to do in Ireland.
A violent faction can be kept in order where there is a strong
government, but in a Home Rule Ireland it would not be strong for any
such purpose. Appeals to cupidity and envy would find hearers, and there
could be no effective resistance. The French Jacobins were a minority
but they swept all before them.
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