PDF-file (The same edition. Another cover. 2.2 Mb)

The Creation of the Heterogeneous Nation 327rest of the organism; for that will tend to make the centre orgoverning organ psychologically unrepresentative of the wholeand therefore not a true centre of its ego-sense. But we mustremember that separatism is not the same thing as particularismwhich may well coexist with unity; it is the sentiment of theimpossibility of true union that separates, not the mere fact ofdifference.The geographical necessity of union was obviously presentin the forming of the British nation; the conquest of Wales andIreland and the union with Scotland were historical events whichmerely represented the working of this necessity; but the unityof race and past association were wholly absent and had withgreater or less difficulty to be created. It was effected successfullywith Wales and Scotland in a greater or less lapse of time, not atall with Ireland. Geographical necessity is only a relative force;it can be overridden by a powerful sentiment of disunion whennothing is done effectively to dissolve the disintegrating impulsion.Even when the union has been politically effected, it tendsto be destroyed, especially when there is within the geographicalunity a physical barrier or line of division sufficiently strong tobe the base of conflicting economic interests, — as in that whichdivides Belgium and Holland, Sweden and Norway, Ireland andGreat Britain. In the case of Ireland, the British rulers not onlydid nothing to bridge over or dissolve this line of economicdivision and counteract the sentiment of a separate body, aseparate physical country, in the Irish mind, but by a violentmiscalculation of cause and effect they emphasised both in thestrongest possible manner.In the first place, the economic life and prosperity of Irelandwere deliberately crushed in the interests of British trade andcommerce. After that it was of little use to bring about, by meanswhich one shrinks from scrutinising, the political “union” of thetwo islands in a common legislature, a common governing organ;for that governing organ was not a centre of psychologicalunity. Where the most vital interests were not only different butin conflict, it could only represent the continued control andassertion of the interests of the “predominant partner” and the