the States; it were ridiculous to assert that the Government at Washington is only the Government of New York under another name.  Where a Confederacy consists in reality, if not in name, of two States only, of which the one has at least four or five times the power of the other, the authority of the Confederacy means the authority of the powerful State.  “Irish Federalism,” if in reality established, would soon generate a demand from Ireland, not unreasonable in itself, under the circumstances of the case, that the whole British Empire should be turned into a Confederacy, under the guidance of a general Congress.  Thus alone could Ireland become a real State, the member of a genuine Confederation.  Hence arises a new danger.  Apply Federalism to Ireland and you immediately provoke demands for autonomy in other parts of the United Kingdom, and for constitutional changes in other parts of the British Empire.  Federalism, which in other lands has been a step towards Union, would, it is likely enough, be in our case the first stage towards a dissolution of the United Kingdom into separate States, and hence towards the breaking-up of the British Empire.  This is no future or imaginary peril; the mere proposal of Home Rule, under something like a Federal form, has already made it an immediate and pressing danger.  Sir Gavan Duffy, by far the ablest among the Irish advocates of Home Rule, predicts that before ten years have elapsed there will be a Federation of the Empire.[37] A majority of Scotch electors support the policy of Mr. Gladstone, and forthwith a most respectable Scotch periodical puts forward a plan of Home Rule for Scotland.  Canon MacColl already suggests that we should make tentatively an experiment capable of development into a permanent system on the lines of the American Constitution, and make it not only in Ireland, but also perhaps gradually in Scotland, and even in Wales.[38] It is unnecessary to discuss Canon MacColl’s argument at length.  When he tells his readers that “the Constitution which Mr. Gladstone desires to create in Ireland is modelled on the system existing in the great colonies of the Empire; there are certain variations and some novelties in the Irish scheme, but these are the lines on which it is drawn;” he ventures a statement on which, as a lawyer, I need make but one comment.  It is a statement as erroneous and misleading as can be any assertion made in good faith by a writer who must be presumed to have studied the measure of which he is speaking.  When the same authority asks why should a system which imparts strength to America, to Austria, and to Germany, disintegrate and ruin the British Empire, he raises an inquiry which does not admit of an answer, since it assumes the identity of things which are radically different.  The system which may or may not impart strength to Austria is no more the system which imparts strength to America, than the system which imparts strength to England is the same as the system which does or does not impart strength to Russia.  To lump under one head every policy which can by any straining of the terms be brought under the heads of “Federalism” or “Home Rule,” is neither more nor less absurd than to classify together every Constitution which can be called a monarchy.