Unfortunately, while one may often secure the fairness one cannot ensure the wisdom of the Bench.  Judges err; a final Court of Appeal must often give decisions which are or are supposed to be erroneous, i.e., not a just deduction from the facts and principles which the Court is called upon to consider.  No historian will, it is likely, now defend the doctrine of the House of Lords about marriage laid down in Reg. v. Millis.  Competent authorities question some of the most important ecclesiastical judgments given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.  The decision in the Dred Scott Case, whether right or wrong, did not approve itself to eminent lawyers in the United States.  One of the decisions of the Supreme Court in the Legal Tender Cases must have been wrong; whether the last was sound is open to debate.  It is when a Court gives what is thought to be an erroneous decision on matters exciting the feelings of large classes that the difficulty of obtaining acquiescence in its judgments is palpable.  The judges decided, and it is quite possible decided rightly, that Ship Money was a legal exaction, and that the Crown’s dispensing power was authorized by law.  Popular opinion branded the judges as sycophants and traitors.  Chief Justice Taney and his colleagues decided in effect, and from a legal point of view may have been right in deciding, that slavery was recognised by the Constitution of the United States.  Their decision was denounced by the best men in the Union as infamous.  The Privy Council have laid down doctrines on matters of ritual which are held to be erroneous by a large body of the clergy, and Ritualists have gone to prison rather than treat the judgment of the Privy Council as of moral validity.  Clergymen are not perhaps the most reasonable of mankind, but they are not more unreasonable than political enthusiasts.  How then is it possible to expect that a Federal tribunal would command an obedience not yielded willingly to the laws of the Imperial Parliament?  Englishmen, indeed, might, it is possible, acquiesce in the ruling of Federal judges, and this for two reasons:  they are a legally-minded nation; and (what is of far more consequence) a Federal Court must represent in the main the opinions of the Federal Government—­that is, of Great Britain.  But it is idle to suppose that Mr. Parnell and Mr. Parnell’s followers would find it easier to respect an Imperial or Federal tribunal than to bow to the will of the Imperial Parliament.

Home Rulers would, moreover, soon discover a reason for resistance to the Federal Court or the Federal Government, which from their point of view would be a perfectly valid reason.  The Federal Government would, in effect, be the Government of England; the Federal Court would in effect be a Court appointed by the English Government.  In a Confederacy where there are many States, the Government of the Federation cannot be identified with even the most powerful of