right, and, as Home
Rulers, we should be wise to remember it.

Lastly, even if the question of inclusion in the House of Commons were
"capable of solution," as it is not, there would remain the problem
raised by the House of Lords. It is idle to ignore the fact that the
bulk of the Irish peerage, and the Assembly of which it forms part, has
been for a century in consistent and resolute opposition to the views of
the vast majority of Irishmen. The recent curtailment of its powers,
whether a right or a wrong measure in itself, does not make it any the
more suitable as an Upper Chamber, under a Home Rule scheme, for the
decision of important Irish questions reserved for settlement at
Westminster; indeed, the bare proposal is the best imaginable example of
the extraordinary complications which would ensue from the introduction
of a quasi-Federal element into a unitary Constitution.

Federal Upper Chambers, so far from being hostile to State rights, are
almost invariably framed on the principle of giving disproportionately
large representation to the smaller States. In the United States and
Australia, for example, every State, however small, has an equal number
of Senators.

It will be clear now that there are two distinct ways of approaching the
question of the framework of Home Rule. One may begin with the nature
and extent of the powers reserved or delegated, and proceed from them to
the inclusion and exclusion of Irish representation at Westminster, or
one may begin with the topic of inclusion or exclusion and proceed from
it to the nature and extent of powers. While premising that we must
trust Ireland and evoke her sense of responsibility, I chose the latter
of the two courses, because I believe it to be on the whole the most
illuminating and trustworthy course. It is also the more logical course,
though I should not have adopted it for that reason alone; and I have
already given, I hope, some good reasons to show that in this matter
logic and policy coincide. Englishmen pride themselves on the lack of
logic which characterizes their slowly evolved institutions, but they
may easily carry that pride to preposterous extremes. Faced now with the
necessity of making a written Constitution which will stand the test of
daily use they would commit the last of innumerable errors in Irish
policy if, with full warning from experience elsewhere, they were to
frame a measure whose unprecedented and unworkable provisions were the