h Parliament may retain
in Ireland the kind of sovereignty which it retains in New Zealand. We
are rightly proud of our connection with our colonies, but no one would
seriously propose to retain nominal sovereignty in Canada at the price
of a perilous and injurious change in the constitution of England.

The second inducement is that Great Britain will be allowed the
exclusive management of British affairs.

This sort of spurious Home Rule for England turns out however to be as
illusory a blessing as the maintenance of parliamentary supremacy.

Great Britain is, under the new constitution, not allowed to appoint the
British Cabinet. Great Britain is forbidden to determine for herself any
matter of legislation or administration which, however deeply it
concerns British interests, trenches in the least degree on any Irish or
Imperial interest. Any matter of finance, which comes within the wide
head of Imperial liabilities, expenditure, and miscellaneous
revenue,[47] falls within the competence of the Irish members. Questions
of peace or war, our foreign relations, every diplomatic transaction, is
a matter on which the Irish delegation may pronounce a decision. The
conjecture is at least plausible[48] that Irish members will have a
right to discuss and vote upon any subject debated in the Parliament at
Westminster which involves the fate of a British Cabinet. Let it be
granted that, if the provisions of the Home Rule Bill be observed, no
Irish representative can vote 'on any Bill, or motion in relation
thereto, the operation of which Bill or motion is confined to Great
Britain.'[49] But then when is the operation of a Bill confined to Great
Britain, or, to use popular language, what is a British Bill? This is an
inquiry in the decision whereof the Irish members will take part. The
Irish members, therefore, at Westminster will be judges of their own
rights, and in the only cases in which it is of practical importance to
Great Britain that the Irish representatives should not vote, will be
able with the aid of a British minority to fix the limits of their own
jurisdiction.[50] Let the Irish members and a British minority boldly
vote that the operation of a Bill, say for the Disestablishment of the
English Church, is not confined to Great Britain, and they can boldly
vote that the Bill do pass, and no Court in Great Britain or the British
Empire can question the validity of a law enacted in open defiance of
the spirit or ev