in London for forty days—­forty days in the wilderness.  What does that mean?  It means this, that every question that had been fought out in Ireland would be fought out over again by the Irish members in our Parliament.  It means that the House of Lords here would throw out pretty nearly every Bill that was passed at Dublin.  What would be the result of that?  You would have the present block of our business.  You would have all the present irritation and exasperation.  English work would not be done; Irish feeling would not be conciliated, but would be exasperated.  The whole efforts of the Irish members would be devoted to throwing their weight—­I do not blame them for this—­first to one party and then to another until they had compelled the removal of these provoking barriers, restrictions, and limitations which ought never to have been set up.  I cannot think, for my part I cannot see, how an arrangement of that sort promises well either for the condition of Ireland or for our Parliament.  If anybody, in my opinion, were to move an amendment to our Bill in the House of Commons in such a direction as this, with all these consequences foreseen, I do not believe such an amendment would find twenty supporters.’[44]

This was the opinion of Mr. John Morley in 1886.  A word in it here or there is inapplicable to the details of the present Bill; but in principle every syllable cited by me from his Newcastle address forms part of the Unionist argument against summoning as much as a single Irish member to Westminster.  His language is admirable, it cannot be improved.  All that any one who agrees with Mr. Morley can do in order to force his argument home is to point out in a summary manner the ways in which the Irish delegation at Westminster will enfeeble the Imperial Government.

First.  The Irish members, or rather the Irish delegation, will have a voice and often a decisive voice in determining who are the men that shall constitute the English Cabinet; on the Irish vote will depend whether Conservatives, Liberals, Radicals, or Socialists shall administer the government of England.  It is vain to tell us Irish members will be restrained, whether by law or custom, from voting on British affairs when they will vote on the most important of all British affairs, the composition and the character of the body which is to govern England.

That the Irish members will thus vote on a matter of special and vital importance to England is admitted.  But things stand far worse than this.  The vote of the Irish delegation will and must be swayed by an interest adverse to the welfare of Great Britain; for the interest of Great Britain, or, to use ordinary language of England, is that the English Government should be strong, and should represent the majority of the English or British electors.  The direct interest of the Irish delegation is that the English Government should be weak, and represent the minority of English electors.  That this is so is obvious.