a nation may be capable is to confer its Constitution
on itself. With the exception of Great Britain, none of the other members
of the Community were, when their constitutions were enacted, capable of
this. Each of them received its Constitution as bestowed, not by the Act
of its own Legislature, but by the Act of a suzerain Legislature. And that
shortness of national stature remained until it was removed by the
addition of Ireland to the Community. For Ireland will receive her
Constitution by the Act of her own Constituent Assembly, not by the Act of
any suzerain Legislature. Whether the Constitution be or be not adopted by
any other assembly neither gives nor detracts from the national authority
it will possess. If it be so adopted, it will be adopted, not as giving it
authority, but as the completing Act of ratifying the Treaty. That is to
say, it will be adopted by the Parliament of Great Britain as concluding
the interest of that Parliament in the international bargain of the
Treaty; and it will be passed and prescribed by the Irish Assembly as
giving it full force and effect in Ireland. And that is a full sovereign
act. But, since all the members of the Community are declared to be
co-equal, the advent of Ireland, therefore, has given the recognition of
sovereignty to them all, and raised each to the full height of nationhood.

The consequences of this are at the moment difficult to foresee fully; but
they are consequences that the addition of Ireland to the Community has
created, though in the fullness of time they were ready for her advent. It
is certain that they will reach far and strike deep, not only within the
Community, but towards other nations, not members of the Community.
Already as between the six full members of the Community the thought of
Empire belongs to the past; and the word and feudal trappings will follow
the thought. Indeed, though the foolish trappings remain, in the text of
both the Treaty and the Constitution the word has already begun to be
supplanted by the word Community. And though it be true that words are
only words, it is equally true that words are the parasites of thought,
and cling to the mind long after their original uses are forgotten. To
cause the relinquishment of an ancient word is itself a liberal
accomplishment of no mean sort, as psychologists know; and none can say
where new conceptions will not lead when once the barrier of words has
been broken down.

These are, how