[Sidenote:  Does Constitution possess finality?]

3rd Question.—­Does the Gladstonian Constitution hold out fair hopes of finality?

This is an enquiry which may be answered with some confidence.

To any one who surveys the Constitution, not as a politician, but as a legist; to any one moderately versed in the study of comparative constitutionalism, few statements which savour of prediction will appear more certain than the assertion that the Gladstonian Constitution cannot be a final or even a lasting settlement of the constitutional relations between England and Ireland.

The grounds of this opinion are, briefly, that the proposed Constitution will, while leaving alive elements of discord, cause disappointment and inconvenience to both countries, and that the mechanism of the Constitution, framed as it is upon a combination of Federalism and of Colonialism, has some of the defects of each system, and promises in its working to produce something like the maximum of irritation and friction.

The two grounds for believing that the Gladstonian Constitution bears no promise of finality run into one another, but they admit of separate examination, and each requires explanation or justification.

[Sidenote:  Constitution will cause disappointment to England.]

The Constitution will cause disappointment and inconvenience both to England and to Ireland, Englishmen will on the Gladstonian Constitution coming into operation find to their great disappointment that they have not attained the object which from an English point of view was the principal inducement to grant Home Rule to the Irish people, that is, freedom from the difficulty of governing Ireland.  The difficulty no doubt will be diminished, or rather shifted; but the dream is vain that under the new Constitution Englishmen would be able to trouble themselves no more about the concerns of Ireland than they do about the affairs of Canada.  Ireland would still be our immediate neighbour.  Irishmen would still be divided by differences of class and religion, and England would still, disguise the fact as you may, be ultimately responsible for good government in Ireland.  Home Rule is not Separation, and nothing short of Irish independence would greatly lessen English responsibility.  This would be true under whatever form Home Rule were established, but it is emphatically true of Home Rule under the particular form contemplated by the Gladstonian Constitution.  The army in Ireland—­and no one supposes that England can withdraw her soldiers from the country—­will be the British Army under the control of the British Government.  But the power of the sword is, though we often forget the fact, the sanction by which law is maintained.  Hence it follows that the British Ministry remains at bottom responsible for the maintenance of peace and order throughout Ireland.  Note the results.  If there are riots at Belfast; if unpopular officials