[Footnote 51: Based on White Papers 233 (1910) and 220 (1911).] [Footnote 52: No contribution from Ireland in this year; local expenditure is estimated to have been in excess of revenue contributed.] [Footnote 53: Since the above was written, Mr. Birrell has promised (March 27, 1912) to publish the report "some time" after the introduction of the Home Rule Bill.] V HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL ANALOGY. BY L.S. AMERY, M.P. There is no argument in favour of Home Rule for Ireland which is more frequently used to-day than that which is based on the analogy of our Colonial experience. In the history of every one of our Colonies--so runs one variant of the argument--from Lord Durham's report on Canada down to the grant of responsible government to the Transvaal, "Home Rule" has turned disaffection into loyalty, and has inaugurated a career of prosperity. Why should we then hesitate to apply to Irish discontent the "freedom" which has proved so sovereign a remedy elsewhere? Again, if our Dominions have been able to combine local Home Rule with national unity--so runs another variant--why should a policy which works successfully in Canada or Australia not work in the United Kingdom? Another suggestion freely thrown out is that Home Rule is only the beginning of a process of federalisation which is to bring us to the goal of Imperial Federation. In one form or another the Colonial Analogy occupies the foreground of almost every speech or article in favour of Irish Home Rule. The ablest, as well as the most courageous, piece of Home Rule advocacy which has so far appeared, Mr. Erskine Childers's "Framework of Home Rule," is based from first to last on this analogy and on little else. That the argument is effective cannot be gainsaid. It is the argument which appeals most strongly to the great body of thoughtful Liberals who from every other point of view look upon the project with unconcealed misgiving. It is the argument which has appealed to public opinion in the Dominions, and has there secured public resolutions and private subscriptions for the Nationalist cause. In one of its forms it appealed to the imagination of an Imperialist like Cecil Rhodes. In another it has, undoubtedly, in recent years attracted not a few Unionists who have been prepared to approach with, at any rate, an open mind the consideration of a federal constitution for the United Kingdom. And, indeed, if the analogy really applied, it would be difficult to resist the conclusion. If Ireland has really been denied something which has proved the secret of Colonial loyalty and prosperity, what Englishman would be so short-sighted as to wish to deprive her of it for the mere sake of domination? If Home Rule were really a stepping-stone towards Imperial Federation, how insincere our professions of "thinking Imperially," if we are not prepared to sacrifice a merely local sentiment of union for a great all-embracing ideal!