The new constitution is at bottom a federalist or semi-federalist constitution; it introduces into English institutions many of the forms of federalism and still more of its spirit.

The Parliament sitting at Westminster becomes for the first time a Federal Congress.

Of its members, 567 will represent Great Britain; 80 will represent Ireland.  The exact numbers are for the present purpose insignificant.  The serious matter is that the Imperial Parliament undergoes an essential change of character.  The British members will have, or are intended to have, no concern with the government of Ireland.  The Irish members ought to have nothing to do with the government of Great Britain.  On Imperial subjects the Imperial Parliament, or, to call it by its proper name, the Federal Congress, votes as a whole; on Irish subjects it does not vote at all; on British topics its British members only vote.  The British and the Irish members, in short, alike represent, though in a very clumsy fashion, the States of a Confederacy.  Though the fact be artfully concealed, we have under the new constitution already, in germ at least, a British State and an Irish State, a British Parliament and an Irish Parliament, and a third body consisting of these two Parliaments, which is the Imperial or Federal Parliament.[20]

The different features of federalism make their appearance though under strange forms.

The constitution imposes Restrictions on the powers of the State Governments and of the Federal Government.

This appears unmistakably in the limitations placed upon the authority of the Irish Parliament.

These Restrictions, be they wise or unwise, politic or impolitic, are perfectly in keeping with the constitutional arrangements of a Federal Government, but are absolutely unknown to the theory and practice of English parliamentary government.

The powers of the Imperial Parliament, it may be said, are under the new constitution subject to no limitations.  In words this assertion is true, in substance it is false.  If the constitution works properly the Imperial Parliament will clearly be subject to the terms of the Government of Ireland Act, 1893, or, in other words, of the Federal Constitution.  This subjection is not absolute; it is moral, not legal, still it exists.  A breach of the federal compact will be no light matter.

The constitution again, as one would expect under a federal scheme, provides for the enforcement of the compact.

In the case of Ireland this is manifest.  The royal veto,[21] the power of the Courts, and ultimately of the Privy Council, to pronounce on the constitutionality of any Irish Act, and treat it as void if it is in excess of the authority bestowed upon the Irish legislature, the provisions for the legal determination of constitutional questions,[22] the arrangements as to the payment of the Irish customs into the Imperial Exchequer, the special and very anomalous position of the Exchequer Judges, are all attempts, whatever be their worth, to restrain the Irish legislature and government, or in effect the Irish people, from the undue assertion of State rights.