various fractions of the realm.
Scottish and Welsh Home Rule are in the air, but they are not practical
issues. English Home Rule is not even in the air. I mean that
Englishmen, whatever their views on the congestion of Parliamentary
business owing to the pressure of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish affairs,
have not seriously considered the idea of a subordinate Legislature
exclusively English, which would be just as essential a feature of a
completely federalized kingdom as subordinate Legislatures exclusively
Irish, Scottish, and Welsh.

Not that it is essential to the federalization of the United Kingdom
that Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, should all have separate
Legislature. Any one of these fractions could coalesce with another or
others in a joint Legislature. It would be technically possible, though
highly unreasonable, to go to the extreme of giving Great Britain,
regarded as one Province, a separate Legislature; Ireland, regarded as
another Province, a separate Legislature; and, above these two
subordinate bodies, a new Imperial Parliament representing the whole
realm. Such a dual Federation was nearly coming about in Canada, when
Ontario and Quebec dissolved their Union and resolved to federate. It
became a quadruple Federation, owing to the adhesion of Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick; but in a dual form it would have worked just as well. It
is scarcely necessary to say that the disparity in population,
resources, and power between Ireland and Great Britain render a dual
Federation, which, of course, involves three Legislatures, chimerical.
What I want to insist on is that, whatever subdivisions are adopted, it
is absolutely essential to every Federation that there should be a
division of powers between a central and at least two local
Legislatures--three altogether. That is the minimum. Other things are
also essential, but for the moment we can confine ourselves to the
outstanding requirement. Now, there is no question in the coming Bill of
any such Federation. Later years may see such a development, whether
from pressure of work on the Imperial Parliament or from irresistible
demand for Home Rule from Scotland or Wales, or both, but not next year.
The Bill will contemplate two Parliaments, not three, namely, the
existing Imperial Parliament and the Irish Legislature. There is,
therefore, no question of Federal Home Rule, and the term "Federal," as
applied to Irish Home Rule at the present time, is meaningl