ional compact, must
be limited. Neither the National Assembly of Switzerland nor the
Congress of the United States have anything like the sovereign power of
the British Parliament: the same thing is obviously true of the Cantonal
or State Assemblies. Such are, under one form or another, the essential
characteristics of a Federal Government. A confederation of which
England and Ireland formed a part would further of necessity exhibit a
feature not to be found in the United States. The authority of the
Confederacy would in reality mean the power of one State--namely, Great
Britain. No artificial distribution of the whole country into separate
States would get rid of a fact depending upon laws or facts of nature
beyond the reach of constitutional arrangements.

[Sidenote: Advantages of Federalism to England.]

It is now possible to perceive pretty clearly the relation of Federalism
to British or English interests. It would, as compared with the
independence of Ireland, present three advantages. There would not be
the same obvious and patent failure in the efforts of British
statesmanship to unite all the British isles into one country; the
continuity of English history would be to a certain extent preserved;
the break with the past would be lessened. The Federal Union might, in
the eyes of foreign powers, be simply the United Kingdom under another
form. The loss, again, to England in material resources would be
somewhat less than that involved in separation. Ireland might possibly
continue to contribute her share to the Federal Exchequer, though a
critic who reflects upon the expectations expressed by Home Rulers of
benefit to Ireland from the expenditure of Irish taxes on Irish objects,
will wonder how, unless the taxation of a poverty-stricken country is to
be greatly increased, the Irish people could support the expense both of
the central and of the local governments. American experience hardly
justifies the notion that Federalism is an economical form of
Government. It would, and this is no small advantage, make it possible
to guarantee, at any-rate in appearance, that the executive and
legislative authority of the Irish Government should be exercised with
due regard to justice. The Federal compact might, and probably would,
contain articles which forbade any State Government or legislature to
suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, to bestow political privileges upon any
church, to pass laws which infringe the obligation of