The answer to this question is written in the history of the dealings of Governments with subject nationalities, Irish or other. The primary object of political Liberalism is to found Government on freedom. This end is not compassed at a stroke by the simple method of establishing a well-oiled representative machine. It involves, to deal with externals only, freedom of speech, of writing, of meeting, of organisation. It involves the security of personal rights as much against the Executive Government as against any private aggression. But when a larger nation forcibly incorporates a smaller one in its system it is easy to see the difficulty of maintaining order on these lines. A free government in the full sense of the term must be founded on the voluntary adhesion of the mass of the people. This adhesion is not necessarily impaired by the conflicts of interest or conviction which are the inevitable incidents of public life in any community, and which compel now one section and now another to submit to laws or acts of government which it resents. As long as each class feels that its claims, even if overborne in the end, will not be rejected without adequate understanding and fair consideration, there exist the elements of government by consent. But a smaller nation forcibly incorporated in a larger one does not feel this. The very constitution which is the pride of its masters is the badge of its own subjection. It may have equality of franchise, but its representatives are in a permanent minority. By history, by sentiment, perhaps by religion, race, or language, it has acquired differences of tone and habit. It regards public questions from a different angle. Its emphasis is different, its essentials are trifles to other people, and their essentials are its trifles. Its problems, even when on the surface they appear the same, have a different historic background, are interwoven with special associations, complicated with local and peculiar sympathies and animosities. With these nuances the smaller nation can never hope that the majority will deal, because the majority can never understand them. Not only so but the smaller people will have a pride, memory, and hope of its own. It may have a larger patriotism if its self respect is first consulted, but as long as its independent being is ignored its only collective ambition will be to assert itself. Thus in the subject people the milk of social feeling is turned to gall. All that leads a free people to respect law, to support Government, to take pride in public prosperity, to sacrifice personal to common interest, will work in this case only towards discord and civil strife, and the best men become in a sense the worst citizens. At least they become the most resolute opponents of the established order. The more opposition develops, and this means the more life flourishes in the subject people, the more the tension increases. Presently definite obstructions arise in the machinery of Government and the ruling democracy, however liberal in its original intentions, is driven into “exceptional” legislation. Constitutional rights are curtailed. Legal securities are suspended, freedom of speech is withheld. These disabilities may either be confined to the disaffected people, in which case the principle of equal rights disappears, or to save appearances as to equality they are made universal, in which case general liberty is impaired. In either event this original condition is set at naught. The essentials of political liberty are violated. Wise and moderate statesmanship may mitigate the mischief. Reactionary statesmanship may inflame it. But the seeds of trouble will always be there as long as the foreign body is embedded in the organic tissues.