or
sect; the introduction of armed men "for the suppression of domestic
violence"; "perpetuities or monopolies," and a variety of other things.
Analogous provisions are to be found in the British North America Act,
1867 (constituting the Dominion of Canada), where the provincial
Legislatures are forbidden to interfere with certain rights and
privileges of religious bodies in the matter of education. There are no
limitations of the kind in the Australian Commonwealth Act of 1900.
Australia, no doubt, correctly represents the tendency of modern thought
on this matter. Some of the American safeguards have produced great
inconvenience. Nor can it be denied that the most elaborately contrived
legal safeguards are of less value than the moral safeguard afforded by
the sense of honour, justice, and prudence in the community. The
existence of these qualities in Ireland, as in other white countries, is
the true foundation of Home Rule. Some day Irishmen will ask, as a
united country, for the repeal of these statutory safeguards.

That brings me to the penultimate point of importance, which may be held
to affect the inclusion or exclusion of Irish Members at Westminster--I
mean the question of future constitutional amendment. Here the colonial
analogies are a little complicated. Since the Australian Colonies Act of
1850, in the new grant of a Constitution to a self-governing Colony,
power has invariably been given to amend its own Constitution, without,
of course, detracting from any powers specified in it for preserving the
sovereignty of the Mother Country. Canada, when federating in 1867, took
the somewhat singular course of making no provision in her Federal
Constitution for its subsequent amendment, though, by Section 92 of the
British North America Act, she gave her Provinces the exclusive right to
amend their own Constitutions, a right which three of them have used to
abolish their Upper Chambers. The Dominion Constitution, then, cannot be
amended otherwise than by an Imperial Act. Such amending Acts are
promoted by the Dominion Government without any specially devised
machinery for ascertaining the public opinion of Canadians. Australia,
on the other hand, when federating in 1900, made elaborate arrangements,
which have been put several times into operation, for the amendment of
the Federal Constitution by the Australian people itself, without an
Imperial Act. Now, it will follow as a matter of course that Ireland
will be