Nevertheless, the problem before us is one of devolution pure and simple, and the question is, how far is devolution to go?  It may go to the full length of Colonial Home Rule, that is, Ireland may be vested with the full freedom now enjoyed by a self-governing Colony (for the grants of Colonial Home Rule were measures of devolution), or it might at the other extreme take the form of a petty municipal government.  By hypothesis, however, we are precluded from considering any scheme which does not admit of responsible government in Ireland.  That condition commits us to something in the nature of “Colonial” Home Rule, now enjoyed by States widely varying in size, wealth, and population, from the Dominion of Canada, with over seven million inhabitants, to Newfoundland, with under a quarter of a million inhabitants and very slender resources.  It is worth notice also (to shift our analogy for the moment) that little Newfoundland, which, owing to divergency of interest, has declined both federation with the Dominion and union with any of the constituent parts of the Dominion, subsists happily and peacefully by the side of her powerful neighbour; and that New Zealand, for the same reason, prefers to occupy the same independent position by the side of Australia.

III.

THE EXCLUSION OR RETENTION OF IRISH MEMBERS AT WESTMINSTER.[78]

We have discarded the “Federal” solution as wholly impracticable, and have arrived at the “Colonial” solution.  And at this point I feel it necessary to plead for the reader’s patient, if reluctant, attention to what follows.  The solution I suggest is unpopular, mainly, I believe, because prejudice has so beclouded the issue in the past, and because for the eighteen years since the last Home Rule Bill, while prejudice has diminished, the subject of Irish Home Rule has ceased to be studied with scientific care.

Where is the crux of the problem?  In what provision of the coming Bill will the difference between Federal Home Rule and Colonial Home Rule arise?  The answer is clear:  in the retention or exclusion of Irish Members at Westminster.  No Colony has representatives at Westminster.  The Federal solution, on the other hand, whether it be applied to the whole Empire or to the United Kingdom alone, involves an exclusively Federal Parliament unconcerned with State or provincial affairs.  That we have not got.  What we have got is an absolutely supreme and sovereign Parliament which has legal authority, not only over all Imperial affairs within and without the United Kingdom, but over the minutest local affairs.  Unrepresented though the Colonies are, they can legally be taxed, coerced, enslaved at any moment by an Act passed by a party majority in this Parliament.  Such measures, though legal, would be unconstitutional; but, both by law and custom, and in actual daily practice, Parliament passes and enforces certain Acts affecting the self-governing Colonies, and wields potential and actual authority of all-embracing extent over the Empire and over the local affairs of the United Kingdom.