Besides, as has already been said, we must always bear it in mind that we do not see the other side of Destiny's cards. Suppose Ireland had remained the land of the Septs, would her lot certainly have been more happy? Neither at the time of the Norman Conquest nor afterwards do the Septs appear to have shown any tendency to a union such as would have given birth to a national polity and its attendant civilization. For aught we can see, they might have gone on indefinitely, like the clans of the Scottish Highlands, in a state of barbarous strife fatal to progress of every kind. Even their common interest in the struggle against the Anglo-Norman invader produced no general or permanent union. The Brehon law, which was their principal bond, had no executive force and was in itself barbarous, not distinguishing public from private wrong. The Septs warred upon each other not less savagely than the conqueror warred upon them all. If anything like union came at last, it was not political but religious, and brought with it a fatal share in the European war of religions. Nor were conquests other than Anglo-Norman impossible. From the Highlands and islands of Scotland came bodies of marauding adventurers which might have been reenforced, and, in the North at least, have prevailed. It is not certain that without the aid of John de Bermingham and his Anglo-Normans, the Septs would have got rid of Edward Bruce. That the interest of Ireland should be regarded as subordinate to that of Great Britain was the principle on which British politicians acted in the days that are past. To the past this principle must now be and indeed has been decisively consigned. That union, to be good for either party, must be good for both, is the accepted basis of discussion. On the other hand, it is not to be assumed that the aspirations of Irish politicians naturally bent on carving out an independent field of action for themselves, are entirely free from the bias of personal ambition or identical with a dispassionate view of the interest of the Irish people. Nor is it to be forgotten that Ulster is a part of Ireland. There are two questions, perfectly distinct and calling for separate consideration, though they have become blended in the course and for the purposes of the political agitation. One is economical, the other political.