hostile critics have given insufficient praise.  But the essential unreality which this ingenuity has concealed has not even yet met with due condemnation.  Since the day when the National Assembly of France presented the brand-new French Constitution to the acceptance of Louis XVI. no form of government has ever been seriously proposed for adoption by an intelligent people so radically unworkable as that Gladstonian Constitution which has been instinctively rejected by the good sense of the British Parliament.  The Constitution of France lasted out two years; to a jurist it may appear conceivable, though hardly probable, that by the vigorous aid of the British Parliament the new Constitution for the United Kingdom might have lasted for as long a period.

FOOTNOTES: 

[29] Compare Mr. Gladstone’s speech of 8th April, 1886, ’The Times Parliamentary Debates,’ pp. 130, 131; and Mr. Gladstone’s speech of 13th April, ibid., pp. 255, 256.

[30] Compare ibid., pp. 130, 132.

[31] Compare the following expressions in Mr. Gladstone’s speeches:—­“The essential conditions of any plan that Parliament can be asked or could be expected to entertain are, in my opinion, these:—­The unity of the Empire must not be placed in jeopardy; the safety and welfare of the whole—­if there is an unfortunate conflict, which I do not believe—­the welfare and security of the whole must be preferred to the security and advantage of the part.  The political equality of the three countries must be maintained.  They stand by statute on a footing of absolute equality, and that footing ought not to be altered or brought into question.  There should be what I will at present term an equitable distribution of Imperial burdens.  Next I introduce a provision which may seem to be exceptional, but which in the peculiar circumstances of Ireland, whose history unhappily has been one long chain of internal controversies as well as of difficulties external, is necessary in order that there may be reasonable safeguards for the minority.  I am asked why there should be safeguards for the minority.

* * * * *

“I have spoken now of the essential conditions of a good plan for Ireland, and I add only this—­that in order to be a good plan it must be a plan promising to be a real settlement of Ireland. (Speech of Mr. Gladstone, 8th April, 1886, ‘The Times Parliamentary Debates,’ pp. 130, 131.)

“I laid down, I say, five essential conditions, from which it appeared to me we could under no circumstances depart.  These were the essential conditions under which in our opinion the granting of a domestic Legislature to Ireland would be justifiable and wise—­first, that it must be consistent with Imperial unity; secondly, that it must be founded upon the political equality of the three nations; thirdly, that there must be an equitable distribution of Imperial burdens; fourthly,