The fundamental conditions of federal government are well known.  They are first the existence of States such as the Cantons of Switzerland or the States of Germany, which are capable of bearing in the eyes of their inhabitants an impress of common nationality, and next the existence among the inhabitants of the federalised country of a very peculiar sentiment, which may be described as the desire for political union without the desire for political unity.[8] This condition of opinion leads to a division of powers between the federal or national government and the States.  Whatever concerns the nation as a whole is placed under the control of the federal power.

All matters which are not primarily of common interest remain in the hands of the States.  Now each of these conditions upon which federalism rests has, as a matter of history, been absolutely unknown to the people of England.  In uniting other countries to England they have instinctively aimed at an incorporative not at a federal union.  This absence of the federal spirit is seen in two matters which may appear of subordinate, but are in reality of primary, consequence.  Every member of Parliament has always stood on a perfect equality with his fellows; the representatives of a county or of a borough, English members, Scottish members, Irish members, have hitherto possessed precisely equal rights, and have been subject to precisely the same duties.  They have been sent to Parliament by different places, but, when in Parliament, they have not been the delegates of special localities; they have not been English members, or Scottish members, or Irish members, they have been simply members of Parliament; their acknowledged duty has been to consult for the interest of the whole nation; it has not been their duty to safeguard the interests of particular localities or countries.  Hence until quite recent years English parties have not been formed according to sectional divisions.  There has never been such a thing as an English party or a Scottish party.  Up to 1832 the Scottish members were almost without exception Tories; since 1832 they have been for the most part Liberals or Radicals; they have kept a sharp eye upon Scottish affairs, but they have never formed a Scottish party.  The same thing has, to a great extent, held good of the Irish members.  The notion of an Irish party is a novelty, and in so far as it has existed is foreign to the spirit of our institutions.  Hence further, the Cabinet has been neither in form nor in spirit a federal executive.  No Premier has attempted to constitute a Ministry in which a given proportion of Irishmen or Scotchmen should balance a certain proportion of Englishmen.  English politicians have as yet hardly formed the conception of an English party.  Not a single Prime Minister has claimed the confidence of the country on the ground that his colleagues were, or were not, English, Scottish, or Irish.  That a Premier should glory in his pure Scottish descent is an innovation; it is an innovation ominous of revolution; it betrays a spirit of disintegration.  If at the moment it flatters Scottish pride, Scotchmen and Irishmen would do well to recollect that it is a certain presage of a time when some Englishman will rise to power and obtain popular support on the ground of his staunch English sympathies and of his unadulterated English blood.