privileges upon any church, to pass laws which infringe the obligation of contracts, to deprive any man of his property without due compensation.  The Ten Commandments, in short, and the obvious applications thereof, might be embodied in the fundamental law of the land.  Federalism would at lowest preserve a formal respect for justice, and if the system worked efficiently, would protect individuals and minorities from gross oppression at the hands of the Irish State Government.

These are the benefits of Home Rule to Great Britain.  Let us now examine what are the evils to Great Britain of the proposed constitutional revolution.  For whoever either will meditate for a short time on the nature of Federalism, or will examine the mode in which the constitution of the United States—­the most successful federation which the world has seen—­actually works, will soon perceive that what is miscalled “Irish Federalism” is in reality “British Federalism,” and amounts, as I am forced to reiterate again and again, to a proposal for changing the whole constitution of the United Kingdom It is, in fact, the most “revolutionary” proposal, if the word “revolutionary” be used in its strict sense, which has ever been submitted to an English Parliament, the abolition of the House of Lords, the disestablishment of the Church, the abolition of the monarchy, might leave the English constitution far less essentially changed than would the adoption of Federalism even in that apparently moderate form in which it was presented by Mr. Butt to the consideration of the English public.

[Sidenote:  Disadvantages of Federalism to England.]

The definite disadvantages to England of the proposed revolution may be summed up under three heads:—­First, the sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament would be destroyed and all English constitutional arrangements would be dislocated; secondly, the power of Great Britain would be diminished; thirdly, the chance of further disagreement with Ireland would certainly not be diminished, and would probably be increased.

First.—­Under all the formality, the antiquarianism, the shams of the British constitution, there lies latent an element of power which has been the true source of its life and growth.  This secret source of strength is the absolute omnipotence,[34] the sovereignty, of Parliament.  As to the mode in which King, Lords, and Commons were to divide the sovereign power between themselves there have been at different times disputes leading to civil war; but that Parliament—­that is, the Crown, the Peers, and the Commons acting together—­is absolutely supreme, has never been doubted.  Here constitutional theory and constitutional practice are for once at one.  Hence, it has been well said by the acutest of foreign critics that the merit of the English constitution is that it is no constitution at all.  The distinction between fundamental articles of the constitution and laws, between statutes which