can delegate to a central
Government, partly of its own choice, functions hitherto locally
exercised. Once more, that is the origin of all true Federations,
British and foreign, in all parts of the world.

If, then, the Home Rule Bill cannot in legal form be a federating or
unifying measure, it must be one of a precisely opposite character, and
a measure of devolution. It is a proof of the need for a scientific
nomenclature that the word "devolution" has to Irish ears come to mean
something similar in kind to "Federal" Home Rule, but less in degree,
and something different in kind from "Colonial" Home Rule, and
infinitely less in degree. What a tangle of truth and fallacy from the
misuse of a single word! It is associated rightly with the ill-starred
Irish Council Bill of 1907, and it has been universally but wrongly used
to indicate a small measure of local government in contradistinction to
the Home Rule Bills of Mr. Gladstone and, _a fortiori_, to any more
liberal schemes.

Nevertheless, the problem before us is one of devolution pure and
simple, and the question is, how far is devolution to go? It may go to
the full length of Colonial Home Rule, that is, Ireland may be vested
with the full freedom now enjoyed by a self-governing Colony (for the
grants of Colonial Home Rule were measures of devolution), or it might
at the other extreme take the form of a petty municipal government. By
hypothesis, however, we are precluded from considering any scheme which
does not admit of responsible government in Ireland. That condition
commits us to something in the nature of "Colonial" Home Rule, now
enjoyed by States widely varying in size, wealth, and population, from
the Dominion of Canada, with over seven million inhabitants, to
Newfoundland, with under a quarter of a million inhabitants and very
slender resources. It is worth notice also (to shift our analogy for the
moment) that little Newfoundland, which, owing to divergency of
interest, has declined both federation with the Dominion and union with
any of the constituent parts of the Dominion, subsists happily and
peacefully by the side of her powerful neighbour; and that New Zealand,
for the same reason, prefers to occupy the same independent position by
the side of Australia.

III.

THE EXCLUSION OR RETENTION OF IRISH MEMBERS AT WESTMINSTER.[78]

We have discarded the "Federal" solution as wholly impracticable, and
have arrived at the "Colonial" solution. And a