half of it in payment, is not going to be conciliated or to be one
iota more friendly, if he knows that the other is able to pay the
full amount and it could be yielded without detriment to the donor.
Ireland will never be content with a system of self-government
which lessens its representation in the Imperial Parliament, and
still retains for that Parliament control over all-important matters
like taxation and trade policy. Whoever controls these controls
the character of an Irish civilization, and the demand of Ireland
is not merely for administrative powers, but the power to fashion
its own national policy, and to build up a civilization of its own
with an economic character in keeping by self-devised and self-
checked efforts. To misunderstand this is to suppose there is no
such thing as national idealism, and that a people will accept
substitutes for the principle of nationality, whereas the past
history of the world and present circumstance in Europe are evidence
that nothing is more unconquerable and immortal than national feeling,
and that it emerges from centuries of alien government, and is ready
at any time to flare out in insurrection. At no period in Irish
history was that sentiment more self-conscious than it is today.

15. Nationalist Ireland requires that the Home Rule Act should be
radically changed to give Ireland unfettered control over taxation,
customs, excise and trade policy. These powers are at present denied,
and if the Act were in operation, Irish people instead of trying to
make the best of it, would begin at once to use whatever powers
they had as a lever to gain the desired control, and this would
lead to fresh antagonism and a prolonged struggle between the two
countries, and in this last effort Irish Nationalists would have
the support of that wealthy class now Unionist in the three southern
provinces, and also in Ulster if it were included, for they would