{ 71 
was the blackest page in her history, and was uni- 
versally condemned by the whole civilised world. 
England then treated the opinion of the civilised 
world with self-complacent contempt. She can no 
longer assume the same self-complacency, when Mr. 
Gladstone’s faithful lieutenant, Mr. Asquith, declares 
“ throughout the length and breadth of the British 
Empire and the whole of the King’s dominions the 
one derided failure of our statesmanship is to be 
found close to our own borders in Ireland.” 
A dozen years ago Mr. Roosevelt, then President 
of the United States, said to me in the White House : 
“J can thoroughly understand the feelings of Irish- 
men. No one can read their history and fail to 
appreciate them, It was the history of Mr. Lecky 
that first made me a Home Ruler; I cannot under- 
stand how the author of that description of the Union 
could be himself a Unionist. I cannot understand 
how any man could read that history, far less write 
it, without becoming a Home Ruler. It seems to me 
that expedience as well as justice are so strongly in 
favour of the reform that it cannot be long denied to 
[reland.” 
The publication of this opinion by the eminent 
ruler of the greatest of free nations excited hardly a 
ripple of interest in England. But England cannot 
afford to be indifferent to-day, when Mr. Roosevelt 
writes in response to the Irish Party (— 
«1 most earnestly hope that full Home Rule will be given 
to Ireland—Home Rule relatively to the Empire such as 
Texas or Maine or Oregon now enjoys relatively to the 
National Government at Washington. Of course, Ireland 
should remain part of the Empire. Ihave no more sympathy 
with the irreconcilable extremists on one side of the question 
than on the other. I am sure that the Canadians and 
Australians feel in this matter exactly as Americans do, 
and that both permanently, and as regards this particular 
war, it would be an immense advantage to the Empire to 
give Ireland Home Rule.”