These are:—­

     First.  The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament.

     Secondly.  The retention of the Irish members in the Parliament
     at Westminster.

     Thirdly.  The powers of the Irish Government, in which term is
     here included both the Irish Executive and the Irish Parliament.

     Fourthly.  The Restrictions (popularly known as the safeguards)
     and the obligations imposed upon the Irish Government.

These features are primary and essential; everything else, however important in itself, is subsidiary and accidental.

A. The Supremacy of the Imperial Parliament[26]

The Home Rule Bill asserts in its preamble the inexpediency of ‘impairing or restricting the supreme authority of Parliament’; and in clause 33, apparently[27] assumes the right of the Imperial Parliament after the passing of the Home Rule Bill to enact for Ireland laws which cannot be repealed by the Irish Parliament.

The new constitution therefore maintains the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament.

What, however, is the true meaning of this ‘supreme authority,’ ‘supremacy,’ or ‘sovereignty,’ if you like, of the Imperial Parliament?

The term, as already pointed out,[28] is distinctly ambiguous, and unless this ambiguity is cleared up, the effect of the Home Rule Bill, and the nature of our new constitution, will never be understood.

The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament may mean the right and power of Parliament to govern Ireland in the same sense in which it now governs England, that is, to exercise effective control over the whole administration of affairs in Ireland, and for this purpose, through the action of the English Government, or, when necessary, by legislation, to direct, supervise and control the acts of every authority in Ireland, including the Irish Executive and the Irish Legislature.  If this were the meaning of the expression, the Imperial Parliament would, after the passing of the Home Rule Bill, as before, be as truly supreme in Ireland as in England, in Scotland, in the Isle of Man, or in Jersey.  The Irish Executive and the Irish Parliament would, of course, be bodies possessing large—­and it might be very dangerous—­delegated powers, but they would stand in the same relation to the Imperial Parliament as does the London County Council, which also possesses large delegated powers, which administers the affairs of a population as large as that of Scotland and which, very possibly, may receive from Parliament as time goes on larger and more extended authority than the Council now possesses.  This is the sense which many Gladstonians, and some Unionists, attribute to the term ‘supremacy of Parliament.’  It is not the sense in which the expression ‘supreme authority of Parliament’ is used in the Home Rule Bill.