uld in
all probability have been substantially realised had Louis Philippe
shown as much energy in 1848 as in 1832, and had the Orleanist dynasty
reigned till after his death. Girardin's guess would not have been even
a happy hit if one of a thousand accidents had averted the catastrophe
of February 24. The worth of the arguments against or for the new
constitution depends upon the extent to which they are based upon a
mastery of general principles and upon a sound analysis of the
conditions of the time, and in these conditions are included the
character of the English and of the Irish people. But to object to
criticisms simply as prophecies is to reject foresight and to forbid
politicians who are creating a constitution for the future to consider
what will be its future working.

Another Gladstonian argument is that because the English constitution
itself is full of paradoxes, peculiarities, and anomalies, therefore the
contradictions or anomalies which are patent in the new constitution
(such for example as the retention of the Irish members at Westminster)
are of no importance.

The fact asserted is past dispute. Our institutions are based upon
fictions. The Prime Minister, the real head of the English Executive, is
an official unknown to the law. The Queen, who is the only
constitutional head of the Executive, is not the real head of the
Government. The Crown possesses a veto on all legislation and never
exercises it; the House of Lords might, if the House pleased, reject
year by year every Bill sent up to it by the House of Commons; yet such
a course of action is never actually pursued and could not be dreamt of
except by a madman. There is no advantage in exemplifying further a
condition of things which must be known to every person who has the
slightest acquaintance with either the law, or the custom, of the
constitution. But the inference which Gladstonian apologists draw from
the existence of anomalies is, in the strict sense of the word,
preposterous. On the face of the matter it is a strange way of reasoning
to say that because the constitution is filled with odd arrangements
which no man can justify in theory, you therefore, when designing a new
constitution, should take no care to make your arrangements consistent
and harmonious. But the Gladstonian error goes a good deal deeper than
is at first sight apparent. The anomalies or the fictions of the
constitution are in reality adaptations, often awkward eno