So much for the general provisions of the present Bill. The details as
to safe-guards and exclusions will be found in the full text of the
Bill contained in Appendix A, and I shall leave the question of finance
to the chapter specifically devoted to that subject.
Let us turn now to the chief arguments against the measure as set forth
in the recent debate, and as expressed with ability and power in a
pamphlet entitled "Against Home Rule," to which practically all the
chief leaders of the Unionist cause contribute articles[41]. Apart from
the Ulster case, dealt with in a previous chapter, the main argument
seems to be that the English people have not been sufficiently
consulted. "It is all so sudden," said the elderly lady when she
received a proposal from an elderly suitor who had been delaying his
passion for a score or so of years. The same painful outcry comes from
the Unionist Party twenty-seven years after the first beginning of the
discussions of Home Rule in this country.
One can imagine, indeed, that a foreign visitor, coming to this land in
ignorance of the past of English politics, would suppose that the Home
Rule controversy had now arisen for the first time.
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