en the words of the Constitution.[51] The right of
British members to the management of even exclusively British affairs
will depend not upon the law of the land, but upon the moderation and
sense of equity which may restrain the unfairness of partisanship.

For a parliamentary minority will, if only it throw scruples to the
winds, be constantly able to transform itself into a majority by the
unconstitutional admission of the Irish vote. This is not a power which
any party, be it Conservative or Radical, English, Scottish, or Irish,
ought to possess. Partisanship knows nothing of moderation. And the
reason of this blindness to the claims of justice is that the spirit of
party combines within itself some of the best and some of the worst of
human passions. It often unites the self-sacrificing zealotry of
religious fanaticism with the recklessness of the gambling table. Let an
assailant of the Contagious Diseases Act, a fanatic for temperance, a
protectionist who believes that free trade is the ruin of the country,
an anti-vivisectionist who holds that any painful experiment on live
animals is the most heinous of sins; let any man who has come to believe
that his own credit, no less than the salvation of the country, depends
on the success of a particular party, know that the triumph of his cause
depends upon his voting that a particular measure operates beyond Great
Britain, and we know well enough in which way he will vote. He will vote
what he knows to be untrue rather than sacrifice a cause which he
believes to be sacred. He will think himself both a fool and a traitor
if he sacrifices the victory which is within his grasp to the
maintenance of technical legality, or rather to respect for a rule of
constitutional procedure.

Suppose, however, that I have underrated the equity of human nature, and
that no faction in the House of Commons ever attempts to violate the
spirit of the Constitution. The supposition is bold, not to say absurd;
but even if its reasonableness be granted, this does not suffice for the
protection of England's rights. The question whether a given Bill does
or does not operate exclusively in Great Britain may often give rise to
fair dispute, and (what should be noted) this dispute will always be
decided against Great Britain in the only instances in which its
decision is to Great Britain of any importance whatever. An example best
shows my meaning. Let a Bill be brought forward for establishing Home