device which could be thought of
has been taken to make it unnecessary for the National Government to
come into direct collision with any State. It deals in general with the
individual citizens of the United States; it does not deal with the
particular States. The result is that on the one hand, whatever may be
said against the taxes imposed by Congress, they cannot by any stretch
of imagination be looked upon as tribute paid by one State to another,
say by Massachusetts to New York, or by New York to Massachusetts. It is
again unnecessary for the Federal Government to issue commands to a
State. There is, therefore, little opportunity for a contest between a
State and the National Executive. Whoever wishes to understand the
elaborate devices necessary to make Federalism work smoothly should
compare the clumsiness of the arrangements by which the Swiss
Confederacy has at times been compelled to enforce obedience of the
Cantons to the will of the Confederation, with the ingenuity of the
methods by which the Federal authorities of the United States exert
their authority over American citizens.

The English Colonial system on the other hand, though far less elaborate
than any form of Federalism, does, as a matter of fact, reduce within
very narrow limits the chances of collision between England and her
colonies. The system, however, succeeds, not because it is a model of
constructive art, but because it attempts very little, and can, owing to
favourable circumstances, leave to nominal dependencies something little
short of complete self-government. Where collisions do arise they are
disposed of by the habit of the Imperial Government always to give way.

The Gladstonian Constitution is, as we have already pointed out, a
combination between Federalism and Colonialism; it may possess some of
the merits, but it much more certainly displays some of the demerits of
each system. From Federalism is borrowed the idea of leaving the
settlement of constitutional questions to a Court. But the conception is
spoilt in the borrowing. All the difficulties which under a Federal
system beset the enforcement of judgments pronounced by a Federal Court
affect in an aggravated form the attempt to enforce in Ireland
judgments affecting the validity of Irish Acts, which judgments are
pronounced by a Committee of the English Privy Council sitting in
England. The Privy Council, moreover, while it has every weakness of the
Supreme Court of America,