considered with regard to the rest, and the expression of different views as to the meaning of the Bill is of itself of utility, when it is of the greatest importance that Englishmen and Irishmen, Conservatives and Radicals, should be agreed as to the meaning of the new Fundamental Law.  When, in short, a constitution for the country is being drawn up, no discussion which is rational can be obstructive.  If a week or a fortnight of parliamentary time is expended in defining the meaning of the supreme authority of Parliament, or in deciding whether the Irish delegacy is or is not to be retained at Westminster, not a moment too much is devoted to points of such transcendent importance.  ’But the debate,’ it is urged, ‘will at this rate last for months.’  Why not?  ’No other Bills,’ it is added, ‘can be passed.’  What Bills, I answer, ought to be passed whilst the constitution of England is undergoing fundamental alteration?  ‘But the principles of the measure,’ it is objected, ’might have been discussed and settled during the last seven years.’  So, I reply, they might, if it had pleased the Gladstonians either to produce their Bill or to announce its general principles.  Their silence was politic; it won them a majority at the general election, but you cannot from the nature of things combine the advantages both of reticence and of outspokenness.  Silence may have been justified as a piece of clever party tactics; it is a very different question whether the concealment of seven years has turned out high statesmanship.  Gladstonians, like other men, cannot, as the saying goes, have their cake and eat it.  They have had the advantages, they are now paying the inevitable price of reserve.  Unionists in any case are bound to turn this invaluable time to account.  Discussion of the constitution is the education of the people.

In order, however, that this political training may be effective, our parliamentary teachers must take care that the public are not confused by the prominence necessarily given to details.  Minute criticism of the Bill is important, but at the present moment it is important only as enforcing the radical vice of its main principles.  No effort must be spared to keep the mind of the nation well fixed upon these principles.  The surrender by the British Parliament and the British Government of all effective part in the government of Ireland, the ambiguities of such a term as ‘Imperial supremacy’ and all that these ambiguities involve, the inadequacy and the futility of the Restrictions, the errors and impolicy of the financial arrangements, above all the injustice to England and the injury to Ireland of retaining, under a system of Home Rule, even a single Irish representative at Westminster, these broad considerations are the things which should be pressed, and pressed home, upon the electors.  Minor matters are good topics for parliamentary discussion, but should not receive a confusing and illusory prominence.