First. The Restrictions are one and all of them limits upon the powers of the Irish Parliament; they are none of them limits upon the powers of the Irish Executive.  The new constitution does not contain—­from its nature it hardly could contain—­a single safeguard against abuse of power by the Irish Ministry or its servants.  Yet in all countries there is far more reason to dread executive than parliamentary oppression, and this is emphatically true of Ireland.

Secondly. The Restrictions contain no prohibition against the passing of an Act of Indemnity.

Yet of all the laws which a Legislature can pass an Act of Indemnity is the most likely to produce injustice.  It is on the face of it the legislation of illegality; the hope of it encourages acts of vigour, but it also encourages violations of law and of humanity.  The tale of Flogging Fitzgerald in Ireland, or the history of Governor Eyre in Jamaica, is sufficient to remind us of the deeds of lawlessness and cruelty which in a period of civil conflict may be inspired by recklessness or panic, and may be pardoned by the retrospective sympathy or partisanship of a terror-stricken or vindictive Legislature.  Circumstances no doubt may arise in Ireland, as in other countries, under which the maintenance of order or the protection of life may excuse or require deviation from the strict rules of legality.  But the question, whether these circumstances have arisen, will always be decided far more justly by the Parliament at Westminster than it can be decided by the Parliament at Dublin.  Can any one really maintain that a Parliament in which Mr. Healy, or, for that matter, Col.  Saunderson, might be leader, would be as fair a tribunal as a Parliament under the guidance of Mr. Gladstone or Lord Salisbury for determining whether an officer who, acting under the direction of the Irish Government and with a view to maintain order at Belfast or at Dublin, should have put an agitator or conspirator to death without due trial, had or had not done his duty.

Thirdly. There is among the Restrictions no prohibition against the passing of an ex post facto law.  Yet an ex post facto law is the instrument which a legislature is most apt to use for punishing the unpopular use of legal rights.  There is not a landlord, there is not a magistrate, there is not a constable in Ireland, who may not tremble in fear of ex post facto legislation.  There is no reason, as far as the Home Rule Bill goes, why the gaoler who kept Mr. William O’Brien in prison or the warders who attempted to pull off his breeches, should not be rendered legally liable to punishment for their offences against the unwritten law of Irish sedition.  No such monstrosity of legal inequity will, it may be said, be produced.  I admit this.  But the very object of prohibitions is the prevention of outrageous injustice.  The wise founders of the United States prohibited both to Congress and to every State legislature the passing of ex post facto legislation.  If any man hint that it be an insult to Ireland to anticipate the possible injustice of an Irish Parliament, my reply is simple.  No Irishman need resent as an insult prohibitions which were not felt to be insulting either by the citizens of America or the citizens of Massachusetts.