But in England no less than in Ireland our new constitution gives artificial power to weakness.  At Westminster the Irish members, be they 80 or 103, will have no legitimate place.  Mr. Gladstone on this point is, for aught I know, at one with the Unionists.  In 1886 he without scruple, and therefore no doubt without any sense of injustice, expelled the representatives of Ireland from the British Parliament.  In 1893 he brings them back to Westminster.  But his words betray his hesitation.  He expects, may we not say he hopes, that they will remain in Ireland and on their occasional visits to London have the good sense and good taste not to interfere in British affairs.  Few are the persons who share these anticipations.  If they are to be realised they must be embodied in the constitution; the Premier might at this moment without shame, and without regret, revert to the better policy of 1886.  On his present policy we all know that his expectations will not be fulfilled.  The voluntary absence of the Irish members from Westminster is as vain a dream as the fancy that Ireland under Home Rule may suffer from a plethora of money.  To Westminster the Irish members will come.  If they do not come of their own accord they will be fetched by allies who need their help.  At Westminster they will hold the balance of parties, and will while the constitution lasts rule the destiny of England with a sole regard at best to the immediate interest of Ireland, at worst to the interests of an Irish faction.  To Ireland will be given power without responsibility, to England will belong responsibility without power.  Nor will the unnatural subjection of a great, a flourishing, a wealthy, and a proud country to a weaker and poorer neighbour be rendered the more bearable by the knowledge that the ill-starred supremacy of Ireland means, in England, the equally unnatural and equally ominous predominance of an English faction, which, since it needs Irish aid, does not command England’s confidence.  Radicals or revolutionists will in the long run have bitter cause to regret an arrangement which identifies their political triumph with England’s humiliation.

Thirdly.  The new constitution is based on a play of words which conceals two contradictory interpretations of its character.[103]

The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament means to Irish Home Rulers and to most Gladstonians that Ireland shall possess colonial independence.[104] It means to Unionists and to many electors who can hardly be called either Unionists or Gladstonians, that the British Parliament, or, in other words, England, shall retain the real, effective, and even habitual control of Irish affairs.  In the one sense it means only that Ireland shall remain part of the British Empire, in the other that Ireland shall still be part of the United Kingdom.  And, what is of great importance, the mass of Englishmen waver between these two interpretations of Imperial supremacy.  When they think of Home Rule as satisfying Ireland, they hold that it gives Irishmen everything which they can possibly ask.  When they think of Home Rule as not dismembering the United Kingdom, they fancy that it leaves to the British Parliament all the real authority which Parliament can possibly require.