Sir Wilfrid Lawson has been the first to declare that
if the policy of the present Government does not succeed in recon- ciling Ireland, as he hopes it will, he would much rather accept "disintegration,"—in spite of the dismay with which British constituencies are filled by that pentasyllabic word,—than keep Ireland to be a source of weakness and disaster. Dis- integration, he says, has often done us good, as when we gave up Calais, the United States, the Ionian Islands, and so forth. That is all very well, but would Sir Wilfrid Lawson be prepared to give up the Isle of Wight or the Isle of Thanet, if it became thoroughly disaffected ? If we could shove Ireland across the Atlantic, no doubt we might remove a source of weakness by "disintegration ;" but where she is, Ireland independent and hostile would be both more miserable herself, and a cause of more misery to us, than even Ireland disaffected and hostile- but also powerless for mischief.
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