The truth is, the Nationalist Party was accused of the vices inseparable from the parliamentary system by those who very humanly imagined that such vices were not inherent in the system itself, but were peculiar to British parliamentarianism. In all criticism there was lacking any suggestion of the possibility of similar defects in a purely Irish parliament. That is natural for two reasons. First, because the political development of Ireland makes it as premature for her to doubt the wisdom of her own elected assemblies, as it would have been for revolutionary France to question the practical value of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Second, because the immediate cause of dissatisfaction with constitutional nationalism was the evident impossibility of its ever realizing the true aims of nationalism. Consequently, it is in vain that the Nationalist Party appeals for recognition of its actual services. A generation has arisen which accepts as a matter of course the fruits of a hard struggle, and insists upon the one vital and essential fact, namely, that the Irish members at Westminster have not brought Ireland a step nearer independence, and in the very nature of things, they cannot do so. Meanwhile, the burdens of over-taxation and misgovernment press every year more heavily on the country. Party achievements are dismissed as of slight importance by impatient and perhaps ungenerous critics, who assert--and rightly--that the Nationalist Party did not represent merely a section of public opinion in the House of Commons, but represented the Irish nation. Therefore, the test of party politics cannot be allowed. To which it is open to the apologist of constitutionalism to reply: you cannot participate in the game of party politics and then refuse to recognize the rules of that game. It is no more reasonable to believe that the Irish nation can be represented in the British Parliament, than to believe that the British nation is represented there. In both cases the elected persons vaguely correspond to actual phases of popular opinion, elicited, as a rule, under conditions which would make it difficult for a crowd of philosophers to express their judgment, not to mention a semi-educated, newspaper-fed mob.