e
void the proposed or actual legislation of the Irish Parliament if it is
in the judgment of the Privy Council unconstitutional.

Ireland in return for the advantages gained by her under the Gladstonian
Constitution gives up the representation which she now has in each of
the two Houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. No Irish
representative, either Peer or Commoner, sits under that Constitution at
Westminster.[63] The present Parliament of the United Kingdom under
whatever name it be described, and whatever be its powers, becomes
therefore on the withdrawal of the Irish representatives a British
Parliament, and is hereinafter termed by me, for the sake of
distinction, the British Parliament. Ireland also contributes annually
to the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom a sum of over four
millions. The Irish customs and excise are made the security for the
payment of this contribution; they are, if I understand the Government
of Ireland Bill rightly, to be collected by British officials and paid
into the British Treasury, but the details of the financial arrangements
intended to exist under the Gladstonian Constitution are not within the
scope of this work.

The Irish Parliament has no power to modify or alter the provisions of
the Constitution under which it exists,[64] except in one or two cases
provided for by the Constitution itself. The Constitution is alterable
in a particular manner therein pointed out, namely by the co-operation
of the British Parliament and the Irish Parliament. If we omit certain
complications of detail, this co-operation takes place by the Irish
representatives being summoned back, and thus added to the British
Parliament. The body thus constituted for the alteration of the
Gladstonian Constitution is formed of much the same elements as the
existing Parliament of the United Kingdom, and is hereinafter called the
Imperial Parliament.[65]

[Sidenote: As regards the English Constitution.]

As regards the Constitution of England--

The Gladstonian Constitution, as it will now be seen, does, whatever the
intention of its authors, as a matter of fact seriously affect the
Constitution of England, and this in more points than one.

_First._--The withdrawal of the Irish representation from the Parliament
of the United Kingdom constitutes in effect a new body, which in its
composition is different from the present Parliament of the United
Kingdom, and which since (allowing for change