There must, in the first place, exist a body of countries; such, for example, as the cantons of Switzerland, or the colonies of America, or the provinces of Canada, so closely connected by locality, by history, by race, or the like, as to be capable of bearing in the eyes of their inhabitants an impress of common nationality.  There must, in the second place, be found among the people of the countries which it is proposed to unite in Federal union, a very peculiar state of sentiment.  They must desire union; they must not desire unity.  Federalism, in short, is in its nature a scheme for bringing together into closer connection a set of states, each of which desires, whilst retaining its individuality, to form together with its neighbours one nation.  It is not, at any rate as it has hitherto been applied, a plan for disuniting the parts of a united state.  It may possibly be capable of this application; experience, however, gives no guidance on this point,[33] and loyalty to the central government is to the working of a Federal system as necessary as loyalty on the part of individual citizens to their own separate State.  When, therefore, it is suggested that Federalism may establish a satisfactory relation between England and Ireland, a doubt naturally suggests itself whether the United Kingdom presents the conditions necessary for the success of the Federal experiment.  Whether in the case of two countries, of which the one has no desire for State rights and the other has no desire for union, the bases of a Federal scheme are not wanting, is an inquiry which deserves consideration.  Politicians, however, may reject references to abstract theory, and the best way of testing the application of Federalism to the relations between England and Ireland, is to make clear to ourselves what are the aims proposed to himself by a genuine Home Ruler, and then trace in outline the characteristics of Federalism, and consider how the Federal system would work in reference to the interests of England.

[Sidenote:  Aim of Home Rule.]

“My plan of Home Rule for Ireland,” writes an eminent Home Ruler, “would establish between Ireland and the Imperial Parliament the same relations in principle that exist between a State of the American Union and the Federal Government, or between any State of the Dominion of Canada and that Central Canadian Parliament which meets in Ottawa.”

This statement exhibits both laxity of language and laxity of thought, but it gives a definition of the objects proposed to himself by a genuine Home Ruler which is sufficiently definite, for the ends of my argument.  Home Rule is, for our present purpose, Federalism.  We may therefore, assume that it involves the adoption throughout the present United Kingdom of a constitution in principle, though not in detail, like that of the United States.  The United Kingdom would, if Mr. McCarthy’s proposals were adopted, be transformed into a confederacy; the different States, say Great Britain and Ireland, or