g as Irish members remain at Westminster the English
Parliament will never be freed from debates about Irish affairs.

This is a point there is no need to labour. Unless (what no honest man
can openly propose) the 80 or 103 members from Ireland are to be taken
from one Irish party only, they must represent different interests and
different opinions. Some few at least will represent the wishes, the
complaints, or the wrongs of Ulster. But if this be so, it is certain
that the controversies which divide Ireland will make themselves heard
at Westminster. Can any sane man fancy that if the Dublin Parliament
passes an Act for the maintenance of order at Belfast, if the people of
Belfast are suspected of intending to resist the Irish government, if
Irish landlords, rightly or not, fear unfair treatment at the hands of
the Irish Ministry or the Irish Parliament, none of these things will be
heard of at Westminster? The supposition is incredible. Let Irish
members sit at Westminster and Irish affairs will be debated at
Westminster, and will often be debated when, under a system of Home
Rule, it were much better they should be passed over in silence. Admit,
what is not certain, that Home Rule in Ireland will occasionally
withdraw a few Irish questions from discussion in England, it must be
remembered that a new crop of Irish questions will arise. The federal
character of the new constitution must produce in one form or another
disputes and discussions as to the limits which bound the respective
authority of the Imperial and of the Irish Governments. The Imperial
Parliament will, for the first time, be harassed by the question of
State rights. Add to this that at every great political crisis the House
of Commons will have before it an inquiry which must produce
interminable debates, namely whether a given bill is or is not a measure
which concerns only the interest of Great Britain.

Two inducements are offered to England for the adoption of a plan the
evils whereof were so patent in 1886 that it then could not, if we are
to believe Mr. Morley,[45] have commanded twenty supporters in the House
of Commons.

The first inducement is that the presence of eighty Irish members at
Westminster is an outward and visible sign of the supremacy of the
Imperial Parliament.[46] On this point it is needless to say much; few
Englishmen will on consideration think it worth while to dislocate all
our system of government in order that the Britis