of the Irish Parliament useless and destined to disappear; for their
avowed belief is that legislation by an Irish Parliament will in the
main be just, and that the laws of the Irish Parliament, because they
represent the wishes of the Irish people, will obtain easy obedience in
Ireland. If this conviction be sound--and it is the almost necessary
basis for a policy of Home Rule--let us act upon it, and not impose
restrictions which, if needless, must certainly be noxious. Meanwhile in
any case let us dismiss the delusion that restrictions which cannot be
enforced are any guarantee for justice. The Gladstonian Constitution
admits on the face of it that guarantees are wanted. Most Englishmen
agree in the opinion implied in this admission. But if I am right in
asserting that the guarantees for justice are illusory, then the
Gladstonian Constitution does not secure justice, and is therefore not
just.

[Sidenote: Does Constitution possess finality?]

_3rd Question_.--Does the Gladstonian Constitution hold out fair hopes
of finality?

This is an enquiry which may be answered with some confidence.

To any one who surveys the Constitution, not as a politician, but as a
legist; to any one moderately versed in the study of comparative
constitutionalism, few statements which savour of prediction will appear
more certain than the assertion that the Gladstonian Constitution cannot
be a final or even a lasting settlement of the constitutional relations
between England and Ireland.

The grounds of this opinion are, briefly, that the proposed Constitution
will, while leaving alive elements of discord, cause disappointment and
inconvenience to both countries, and that the mechanism of the
Constitution, framed as it is upon a combination of Federalism and of
Colonialism, has some of the defects of each system, and promises in
its working to produce something like the maximum of irritation and
friction.

The two grounds for believing that the Gladstonian Constitution bears no
promise of finality run into one another, but they admit of separate
examination, and each requires explanation or justification.

[Sidenote: Constitution will cause disappointment to England.]

The Constitution will cause disappointment and inconvenience both to
England and to Ireland, Englishmen will on the Gladstonian Constitution
coming into operation find to their great disappointment that they have
not attained the object which from an English point