and, when occasion requires, to modify its terms.  Hence almost of necessity flow some further results.  Under a federation the law of the land must be divided into constitutional laws (or, in other words, articles of the constitution), which can be changed, if at all, only with special difficulty, say by an appeal to the popular vote or by a constituent assembly, and ordinary laws which may be changed by the central Congress or by the separate assemblies of the States.  The powers both of the central Parliament and of the local parliaments, depending as they do upon the constitutional compact, must be limited.  Neither the National Assembly of Switzerland nor the Congress of the United States have anything like the sovereign power of the British Parliament:  the same thing is obviously true of the Cantonal or State Assemblies.  Such are, under one form or another, the essential characteristics of a Federal Government.  A confederation of which England and Ireland formed a part would further of necessity exhibit a feature not to be found in the United States.  The authority of the Confederacy would in reality mean the power of one State—­namely, Great Britain.  No artificial distribution of the whole country into separate States would get rid of a fact depending upon laws or facts of nature beyond the reach of constitutional arrangements.

[Sidenote:  Advantages of Federalism to England.]

It is now possible to perceive pretty clearly the relation of Federalism to British or English interests.  It would, as compared with the independence of Ireland, present three advantages.  There would not be the same obvious and patent failure in the efforts of British statesmanship to unite all the British isles into one country; the continuity of English history would be to a certain extent preserved; the break with the past would be lessened.  The Federal Union might, in the eyes of foreign powers, be simply the United Kingdom under another form.  The loss, again, to England in material resources would be somewhat less than that involved in separation.  Ireland might possibly continue to contribute her share to the Federal Exchequer, though a critic who reflects upon the expectations expressed by Home Rulers of benefit to Ireland from the expenditure of Irish taxes on Irish objects, will wonder how, unless the taxation of a poverty-stricken country is to be greatly increased, the Irish people could support the expense both of the central and of the local governments.  American experience hardly justifies the notion that Federalism is an economical form of Government.  It would, and this is no small advantage, make it possible to guarantee, at any-rate in appearance, that the executive and legislative authority of the Irish Government should be exercised with due regard to justice.  The Federal compact might, and probably would, contain articles which forbade any State Government or legislature to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, to bestow political