Assume, for the purpose of my argument, that the Irish Parliament always acts absolutely within the limits or the letter of the constitution, though to make this assumption is to substitute unreasonable hopes for rational expectations.  What Englishmen should note, because they do not yet understand it, is that within the limits of the constitution the Irish Cabinet and the Irish Parliament possess and must possess the most extensive powers, and that these powers may be used in ways which would surprise and shock the British public, and impede and weaken the action of the Imperial, or English, Government.

D. The Restrictions (or Safeguards) and the Obligations

I. Their Nature.  The limitations on the power of the Irish Legislature are of a twofold character.

The Restrictions contained in clause 3 of the Bill are intended to restrain the Irish Parliament from acting as the representative body of an independent nation.  This clause invalidates for example acts with respect to the Crown or the succession to the Crown, with respect to peace or war, with respect to the naval or military forces of the realm, with respect to treaties or other relations with foreign states, and with respect to trade with any place out of Ireland, which apparently includes the imposition of a protective tariff.

The Restrictions[67] contained in clause 4 may be roughly divided into three heads; first, prohibitions intended to ensure the maintenance of absolute religious equality[68]; secondly, prohibitions intended to prevent injustice to individuals, such as deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, denial of equal protection of the law, the taxing of private property without due compensation, or the unfair treatment of any existing corporation; thirdly, a provision prohibiting any law which deprives any inhabitant of the United Kingdom of equal rights to public sea fisheries.[69]

On these Restrictions it were easy to write an elaborate treatise.  Should our new constitution ever come into force, they will give rise to a whole series of judgments, and to lengthy books explanatory thereof.  The language in which the Restrictions are expressed is in many cases exceptionable.  No lawyer will venture to predict what for instance may be the interpretation placed by the Courts on such expressions as ’due process of law,’ ‘just compensation,’ and the like, and it is more than doubtful whether the so-called safeguards are so expressed as to carry out the intention of their authors, or, even in words, adequately to protect either the authority of the Imperial Parliament or the rights of individuals.  But it is not my purpose to criticise the Restrictions, or the Bill itself, in detail.  The drafting of the Government of Ireland Bill needs much amendment, but at the present juncture it is waste of time to criticise defects removable by better draftmanship or by slight changes in the substance of the measure.  My object is to dwell on such points relating to the Restrictions as show their bearing on the character of the new constitution.[70]