the self-control and energy supposed to flow from the
inspiring sentiment of nationality. Still the Colonial system is, in
spite of its immense defects as a scheme of Home Rule for Ireland, out
and out the least objectionable of the models which have been proposed
to us for our imitation, and this for several reasons. To grant to
Ireland, if she be prepared to accept it, the position of Victoria is
not to impair the supremacy of Parliament; if we copied faithfully the
Victorian polity, every Irish member of Parliament would permanently
depart from Westminster; there would be no more need for having at
Westminster a representative of Dublin than there is for having a
representative of Melbourne; the Irish Parliament would depend for its
very existence on an Act of the Imperial Parliament, and the British
Parliament would be able without consulting any Irish representative to
modify, override, or abolish all or any part of the Act constituting the
Irish Parliament. In this there would be no breach of faith, for the
Constitution would bear on its face that the Act of Parliament on which
it depended could be changed by the British Parliament as lawfully as
can the Act 18 & 19 Vict. c. 55, which calls into existence the
Victorian legislature. The undoubted legal authority and ease with which
the British Parliament could suspend or abolish the Irish Constitution
would have two good results: the one that Great Britain would have a
sanction by which to enforce the adherence of the Irish government to
just principles of legislation and of administration; the other that the
readiness with which this sanction could be applied would, it is not
unlikely, make its application needless. England, again, would not by
the concession of Colonial independence dislocate her own Constitution:
she would only be extending to Ireland a scheme of government already
existing in other parts of the Empire, and would find herself possessed
of officials accustomed to make a Colonial Constitution work. Nothing
would be changed: there would only be one Colony the more, and the
Colonial Office would find no insuperable difficulty in undertaking the
government of Ireland in the same sense in which the Office undertakes
the government of Victoria. The position, it may be objected, would be a
very poor one for Ireland. With this objection I entirely agree: my very
contention is that for Ireland, no less than for England, it is best
that Ireland shall form p