Surely there must be an irreducible political unit, or else
the fissiparous tendency which the Lord Chancellor seeks to encourage would tear every nation to pieces. The United Kingdom has become a unit, and woe to her if her unity be destroyed. It must never be forgotten that States cannot stand still, and that they must either progress towards a closer union and incorporation, as we see is happening in the United States of America, or else they must tread the path of complete separation, as has happened in the case of Norway and Sweden. If we start a movement in the direction of disunion and disintegration, that complete separation, openly desired, and indeed demanded, by the Nationalists, must come. If, on the other hand, we press on with the work of union begun in 1800, we shall ultimately reach a form of incorporation which will make the separation of Britain and Ireland no more desired or desirable than, say, the separation of the Highlands from the Lowlands.
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