Our Judge with these propositions fully before his mind would scan the terms of the Gladstonian Constitution, or in other words of the Irish Government Act.  He would certainly come to the conclusion that the point for his decision was one of great nicety.  Against the validity of any Act passed by the British Parliament in contravention of the provisions of the Constitution could be adduced the precise and formal enactment, passed, be it noted, by the undoubtedly sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom, that the Constitution should be alterable in one way, and in one way only;[69] and if it were said that the body which passed this enactment could also repeal it, then the Judge might consider that that body, namely the Parliament of the United Kingdom, had in effect ceased to exist, and that the successor to its sovereign powers, if any, was not the British Parliament, but the Imperial Parliament, the body which, under any view, had legal authority to alter the Constitution.  No doubt there would be a great deal to be urged on the other side.  The attention of the Judge would be called to the singular and ambiguous use throughout the Constitution of the term Imperial Parliament, which it might be argued was meant to show that what I have called the British Parliament was to be identified with the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  Reference would also be made to the ambiguous saving of powers contained in the 37th section of the Irish Government Act.  The high and all-important enquiry as to the authority of the British Parliament sitting at Westminster would come to turn upon the studied ambiguities of one ill-drawn section of an Act of Parliament.  There the legal question of the sovereignty of the British Parliament under the Gladstonian Constitution may well be left.  It is not within the scope of this work to deal with the draughtsmanship of the Government of Ireland Bill.  It is easy to anticipate what would be the practical result of that Bill’s ambiguities if it passed into an Act.  Irish Judges would honestly take one view, English Judges would as honestly take another.  The Courts of Ireland would maintain that the Constitution could be altered only in the method provided by the Constitution, namely, by the Imperial Parliament.  The English Courts would maintain that the Constitution could also be altered by the British Parliament, which was itself the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and possessed the sovereignty inherent in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  No Court in either country could satisfactorily terminate the dispute.  Force would no doubt settle what law had left undecided, but to interpret a Constitution by power of arms is in reality to substitute revolutionary violence for constitutional discussion.[70]

Let us next consider the matter before us, not as a question of constitutional law, but as a question of public morality.

[Sidenote:  As question of public morality.]