The question, however, to be considered at the moment is whether for the performance of this duty something more may not be required than the compelling of a dissolution.  This something more is a direct appeal to the electors in the nature of a Referendum.  The question is still a theoretical one; it cannot (unfortunately as it will appear to many persons) be raised during the debates on the Bill in the House of Commons.  When the Bill reaches the House of Lords, it will, we may suppose, be rejected, and all that a Unionist can wish for is, first, that before actual rejection its general principles should be subjected to complete discussion, and what is in this case the same thing, exposure, and next that the House of Lords should, if necessary, take steps which can easily be imagined, for providing that the rejection of the Bill shall entail a dissolution.  If, however, the dissolution should result in a Gladstonian majority, and should lead to another Home Rule Bill being sent up to their lordships, the question then arises as to the Referendum.  My own conviction, which has been before laid before the public, is that the Lords would do well if they appended to any Home Rule Bill which they were prepared to accept a clause which might make its coming into force depend upon its, within a limited time, receiving the approval of the majority of the electors of the United Kingdom.  And in the particular case of the Home Rule Bill it is fair, for reasons already stated,[137] that the Bill before becoming law should receive the assent of a majority of the electors both of Great Britain and of Ireland.  This course, it may be said, is unconstitutional.  This word has no terrors for me; it means no more than unusual, and the institution of a Referendum would simply mean the formal acknowledgment of the doctrine which lies at the basis of English democracy—­that a law depends at bottom for its enactment on the assent of the nation as represented by the electors.  At a time when the true danger is that sections or classes should arrogate to themselves authority which belongs to the State, it is an advantage to bring into prominence the sovereignty of the nation.  The present is exactly a crisis at which we may override the practices to save the principles of the constitution.  The most forcible objection which can be made is that you ought not for the sake of avoiding a particular evil to introduce an innovation of dubious expediency.  The objection itself is valid, but it is in the present instance inapplicable.  My conviction is that the introduction of the Referendum, in one shape or another in respect of large constitutional changes, would be a distinct benefit to the country.  It affords the one available check on the recklessness of party leaders; for the check is at once effective and in perfect conformity with democratic principle and sentiment.  A second objection is that a Referendum renders any law which obtains the approval of the electors more difficult of alteration than an ordinary