This is the suggested argument—­let us consider its validity.

As to federalism.—­All the conditions which make a federal constitution work successfully in the United States, in Switzerland, and possibly in Germany, are wanting in England and Ireland.  No man till the last five or six years has even suggested that Englishmen or Scotsmen desire a federal government for its own sake.  Whether Mr. Gladstone himself has any wish to federalise the whole United Kingdom is at least open to doubt.  Where federalism has succeeded, it has succeeded as a means of uniting separate communities into a nation; it has not been used as a means of disuniting one State into separate nationalities.  The United States, it has been well said, is a nation under the form of a federal government.  Gladstonians apparently wish to bind together two, or shall we say three or four, nations, or nationalities, under the reality of a federation and the name of a United Kingdom.  While all the powerful countries of the world are increasing their strength by union, the advocates of the new constitution pretend to increase the moral strength of the United Kingdom by loosening the ties of its political unity.  If any one ask why federalism which has succeeded in America should not succeed in the United Kingdom, the true answer is best suggested by another question:  Why would not the constitutional monarchy of England suit the United States?  The answer in each case is the same.  The circumstances and wants of the two countries are essentially different; and if this be not a sufficient reply, the reflection is worth making that in the three great Confederacies of the world unity has been achieved, or enforced by armed conflict.

As to colonial independence.—­The plain and decisive reason why the loyalty of New Zealand to the Empire affords no presumption of the loyalty under our new constitution of Ireland to the United Kingdom is this:  The whole condition of New Zealand is different from the condition of Ireland, and our new constitution is not intended to give Ireland the position of New Zealand.  Thousands of miles separate New Zealand from Great Britain.  Ireland is separated from us by not much more than twelve miles.  New Zealand has never been hostile to England; her people are loyal to the British Crown.  Ireland, or part of the Irish people, has been divided from England by a feud of centuries; it would be difficult among Irish Nationalists to obtain even the show of loyalty to the Crown.  New Zealand is wealthy, and New Zealand pays not a single tax into the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.  Ireland is poor, and, if her taxation is lightened by Home Rule, the tribute which will be paid to England will be heavy, and far more galling than the taxes she now pays in common with the rest of the United Kingdom.  The new constitution, again, is utterly unlike a colonial constitution.  Its burdens would not be tolerated by any one of our independent colonies.  The rights it gives, no less than the obligations it imposes, are foreign to our colonial system.  The presence of the Irish representation at Westminster forbids all comparison between Ireland under Home Rule and New Zealand under a system of colonial independence.