Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Great Britain and Nationality. Y. That is a pertinent question, but I think I can show that the principle is not violated in any of these cases. To explain fully and to defend adequately our position with regard to each would require a very lengthy discussion. I can only answer briefly, but this much may be said, and it will be enough. (a) Ireland. Let us take Ireland first. We often hear, nowadays, the phrase " Ireland a nation." But Ireland is not, and never has been, a nation in the proper sense of the word?in the sense in which we use it of, say, Poland or Serbia. For more than 700 years she has been under the same crown with England; for three centuries she has been part of the " United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." She has long been on the same footing as Scotland and Wales, who are perfectly content with their position; she has her share, and more than her proper share, in the parliamentary representation of the whole. It is true that the bulk of the Irish people, anxious to manage their own affairs and insisting on their separateness from the rest of the United Kingdom, have for some time demanded the right of self-government. But it must be remembered that at least a third of the population, representing more than half the wealth and industrial prosperity of the country,adheres with passionate loyalty to the old connection. In spite of this difficulty and many others, little understood abroad, Parliament has now conferred on nationalist Ireland the autonomy she desires. Home Rule is on the Statute Book; the execution of the measure merely awaits the end of the war. Not content with this, some Irish demand complete separation and independence, and with this object they rebelled a year ago. But this demand we cannot concede; to break up the Empire in such a w...