have arisen, will always be
decided far more justly by the Parliament at Westminster than it can be
decided by the Parliament at Dublin. Can any one really maintain that a
Parliament in which Mr. Healy, or, for that matter, Col. Saunderson,
might be leader, would be as fair a tribunal as a Parliament under the
guidance of Mr. Gladstone or Lord Salisbury for determining whether an
officer who, acting under the direction of the Irish Government and with
a view to maintain order at Belfast or at Dublin, should have put an
agitator or conspirator to death without due trial, had or had not done
his duty.

_Thirdly._ There is among the Restrictions no prohibition against the
passing of an _ex post facto_ law. Yet an _ex post facto_ law is the
instrument which a legislature is most apt to use for punishing the
unpopular use of legal rights. There is not a landlord, there is not a
magistrate, there is not a constable in Ireland, who may not tremble in
fear of _ex post facto_ legislation. There is no reason, as far as the
Home Rule Bill goes, why the gaoler who kept Mr. William O'Brien in
prison or the warders who attempted to pull off his breeches, should not
be rendered legally liable to punishment for their offences against the
unwritten law of Irish sedition. No such monstrosity of legal inequity
will, it may be said, be produced. I admit this. But the very object of
prohibitions is the prevention of outrageous injustice. The wise
founders of the United States prohibited both to Congress and to every
State legislature the passing of _ex post facto_ legislation. If any man
hint that it be an insult to Ireland to anticipate the possible
injustice of an Irish Parliament, my reply is simple. No Irishman need
resent as an insult prohibitions which were not felt to be insulting
either by the citizens of America or the citizens of Massachusetts.

_Fourthly._ The Restrictions on the powers of the Irish Parliament do
not contain any safeguard against legislation which sets aside
contracts.

This is remarkable, not to say ominous. The Gladstonian constitution has
been drawn up by legislators who profess to profit by the experience of
America. Under the Constitution of the United States[71] no State can
pass any law 'impairing the obligation of a contract.' This provision
has kept alive throughout the Union the belief in the sacredness of
legal promises. It embodies a principle which lies at the bottom of all
progressive legislatio