nullified by the veto of the Lord-Lieutenant.  The contribution from Ireland would be duly collected and be paid up to the day, since its collection would lie in the hands of British officials; and should any difficulty arise, the collectors would be aided by the Irish Court of Exchequer, the Judges of which would be appointed by the English Government, and the judgments of the Court of Exchequer could, if need were, be enforced by the British Army.  This paper federation, in short, looks as promising as paper Constitutions generally do.  It appears at first sight to combine the merits of American Federalism and of Colonial independence.  To see, however, whether the Gladstonian Constitution gives any real promise of fulfilling the hopes which it seems to hold out, let us examine how far it really fulfils the conditions on which alone, as we have already pointed out, Home Rule can possibly be accepted by the people of Great Britain.

[Sidenote:  1st Question.—­Is sovereignty of Parliament preserved?]

1st Question.—­Is the Gladstonian Constitution consistent with the sovereignty or ultimate legislative supremacy of the British Parliament?[67]

It is well to make clear to ourselves the precise meaning of this enquiry.  It is nothing else than this:  Do or do not the provisions of the Gladstonian Constitution either legally or morally impair the right of the British Parliament when sitting at Westminster without having summoned a single representative from Ireland to legislate (e.g. pass a Coercion Act) for Ireland, and if need be to repeal of its own authority all or any of the provisions of the Gladstonian Constitution, including the very provision under which it is declared in substance that the Constitution shall not be alterable except by the Imperial Parliament, which consists, as already noted, of the British Parliament and the Irish Parliament?  To put the same matter in another shape, the enquiry is whether, under the Gladstonian Constitution, the British Parliament does or does not retain the sovereignty now admittedly possessed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.[68]

Let us first consider the matter as a pure question of constitutional law.

[Sidenote:  As a question of constitutional law.]

The inquiry then is whether a Judge in England or Ireland resolved to do his duty would or would not be bound to treat as invalid an Act passed by the British Parliament either inconsistent with or, to put the matter more strongly, actually repealing of such Parliament’s own authority the provisions of the Gladstonian Constitution, or in other words of the Government of Ireland Bill, which would then, as we are assuming the Gladstonian Constitution to be in existence, have become the Irish Government Act.

Such a Judge would have to consider a question to which English Courts are now quite unaccustomed as regards Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  The reason why they are unused to solve the particular kind of question supposed to arise under the new Irish Constitution is, that as the Parliament of the United Kingdom is undoubtedly a sovereign body, the validity of its enactments is in any British Court beyond dispute.  The reason why the problem might under the Gladstonian Constitution require an answer is, that the question might arise whether the British Parliament were or were not a sovereign body.