Two inducements are offered to England for the adoption of a plan the evils whereof were so patent in 1886 that it then could not, if we are to believe Mr. Morley,[45] have commanded twenty supporters in the House of Commons.

The first inducement is that the presence of eighty Irish members at Westminster is an outward and visible sign of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament.[46] On this point it is needless to say much; few Englishmen will on consideration think it worth while to dislocate all our system of government in order that the British Parliament may retain in Ireland the kind of sovereignty which it retains in New Zealand.  We are rightly proud of our connection with our colonies, but no one would seriously propose to retain nominal sovereignty in Canada at the price of a perilous and injurious change in the constitution of England.

The second inducement is that Great Britain will be allowed the exclusive management of British affairs.

This sort of spurious Home Rule for England turns out however to be as illusory a blessing as the maintenance of parliamentary supremacy.

Great Britain is, under the new constitution, not allowed to appoint the British Cabinet.  Great Britain is forbidden to determine for herself any matter of legislation or administration which, however deeply it concerns British interests, trenches in the least degree on any Irish or Imperial interest.  Any matter of finance, which comes within the wide head of Imperial liabilities, expenditure, and miscellaneous revenue,[47] falls within the competence of the Irish members.  Questions of peace or war, our foreign relations, every diplomatic transaction, is a matter on which the Irish delegation may pronounce a decision.  The conjecture is at least plausible[48] that Irish members will have a right to discuss and vote upon any subject debated in the Parliament at Westminster which involves the fate of a British Cabinet.  Let it be granted that, if the provisions of the Home Rule Bill be observed, no Irish representative can vote ’on any Bill, or motion in relation thereto, the operation of which Bill or motion is confined to Great Britain.’[49] But then when is the operation of a Bill confined to Great Britain, or, to use popular language, what is a British Bill?  This is an inquiry in the decision whereof the Irish members will take part.  The Irish members, therefore, at Westminster will be judges of their own rights, and in the only cases in which it is of practical importance to Great Britain that the Irish representatives should not vote, will be able with the aid of a British minority to fix the limits of their own jurisdiction.[50] Let the Irish members and a British minority boldly vote that the operation of a Bill, say for the Disestablishment of the English Church, is not confined to Great Britain, and they can boldly vote that the Bill do pass, and no Court in Great Britain or the British Empire can question the validity of a law enacted in open defiance of the spirit or even the words of the Constitution.[51] The right of British members to the management of even exclusively British affairs will depend not upon the law of the land, but upon the moderation and sense of equity which may restrain the unfairness of partisanship.