ality with the Parliament of Great Britain; the
renunciation by the British Parliament of any claim whatever to
legislate for Ireland, and of any jurisdiction on the part of any
British court to entertain appeals from Ireland; and, lastly, the
absence of all representation of Ireland in the Parliament at
Westminster. Each of these principles or features is denied or reversed
by our new Gladstonian constitution. The Irish Parliament is to be, not
a sovereign legislature, but a subordinate legislature created by
statute, and a legislature of such restricted and inferior authority as
to be unworthy of the name of a parliament. The Imperial Parliament,
with its vast majority of British members, asserts its absolute
supremacy in Ireland, and the right at its discretion to legislate for
Ireland on any matter whatever; in Ireland there is to be founded an
Imperial or British Court appointed by the Imperial Ministry, having
jurisdiction on all matters affecting Imperial rights, and the final
Court of Appeal from every tribunal in Ireland is to be the British
Privy Council. Add to this that Irish members are to sit in the
Parliament of Westminster as the 'outward and visible sign' of the
Imperial Parliament's supremacy. But if every principle of Grattan's
Constitution be contradicted by the Gladstonian constitution, if every
principle which Grattan detested is a principle which Mr. Gladstone
asserts, with what show of reason can the success, uncertain though it
be, of the Constitution of 1782 be pleaded as evidence of the probable
success of the Gladstonian constitution of 1893? That two arrangements
are unlike is to ordinary minds no proof that they will have similar
results; a parliamentary majority of forty-two may repeal the Act of
Union, but it cannot repeal the laws of logic.[113]

iii. _Success of Home Rule_. All over the world, we are told, Home Rule
has succeeded; there are, under the government of the British Crown, at
least twenty countries enjoying Home Rule, and their local independence
causes no inconvenience to the United Kingdom or to the British Empire.
It follows therefore that Home Rule in Ireland will be a success and
will in no way disturb the peace or prosperity of the United Kingdom.

The sole difficulty in meeting this argument is the extreme vagueness of
its principal term. The words 'Home Rule' are in their signification so
vague, at any rate as employed by Ministerialists, that they cover
governments