has more than one special weakness of its own.
It lacks moral authority, for it is an English Court sitting in England
and representing English opinion; it lacks jurisdiction, because while
it can pronounce on the validity of Irish, it cannot pronounce on the
validity of British Acts of Parliament; it does not possess a strictly
judicial character, because it is not only a Court called upon to give
judgments, but is also an administrative body called upon to deliver
opinions upon the validity of Irish Bills and of Irish Acts. Hence its
decrees come into direct collision with the proposals or enactments of
the Irish Parliament, and the Privy Council is made to appear not as a
body of Judges deciding cases between man and man, but as a body of
officials whose duty it is to oppose any unconstitutional action on the
part of the Irish Parliament. From Federalism again is borrowed the
contribution by Ireland towards meeting the expenses of the Empire. But
imposts which under a Federal system are a tax towards the payment of
common expenditure are under the Gladstonian Constitution a tribute to a
foreign power. From the Federal system again is taken that restriction
of legislative authority which hardly affects Parliaments such as that
of Victoria, and which under any circumstances is a source of
irritation. From the Colonial system, on the other hand, is derived the
theoretical supremacy of the British Parliament, the right of veto, and
the fatal dependence of the Irish executive on every vote of the Irish
legislature. From the colonies we therefore bring to Ireland sources of
dispute, of friction, and of irritation, which are unknown to a true
system of Federalism, whilst we do not give Ireland that practical
independence, and that immunity from taxation, which prevent our
ill-arranged connection with the colonies from causing real
dissatisfaction. Federalism has its merits and its defects; English
Colonialism works well enough; the sham Federalism and the sham
Colonialism of the Gladstonian Constitution must create between Great
Britain and Ireland all the causes of discontent which have from time to
time tried the strength of the American Union, and all the causes of
disturbance which from time to time reveal the weakness of the tie which
binds together our Colonial Empire.

Among the hypothetical virtues of the Gladstonian Constitution cannot
assuredly be numbered the merit of finality.

The Gladstonian Constitution the