n. It gives the best guarantee which a
constitution can give against the most insidious form of legislative
unfairness; it embodies a doctrine which all legislatures are likely to
neglect and which an Irish Parliament is more likely to neglect than any
other legislature, for in Ireland there exist contracts which do not
command popular approval, and the Imperial legislation of twenty years
and more has taught the Irish people that agreements which do not
command popular approval may, without breach of good faith, be set aside
by legislative enactment. We all know further that reforms, or
innovations, are desired by thousands of Irishmen which cannot be
carried into effect unless the obligation of contracts be impaired. Why,
then, have statesmen who borrow freely from the Constitution of the
United States omitted the most salutary of its provisions from our new
constitution?

The official reply is at any rate singular; it is apparently[72] that
the section of the United States Constitution which invalidates any law
impairing the obligation of a contract has given much occupation to the
Courts of America. This answer is on the face of it futile; it urges the
proved utility of a law as a reason for its not being enacted; as well
suggest that because the criminal courts are mainly occupied with the
trial of thieves there ought to be no law against petty larceny, or that
because the labours of the Divorce Court increase year by year, the law
ought not to permit divorce. The absurdity of the official reply
suggests the existence of some reason which the defenders of this
strange omission are unwilling clearly to allege. The true reason why
the founders of the new constitution have omitted in this instance to
copy a polity which they profess to admire is not hard to discover. An
enactment which enjoined an Irish Parliament to respect the sanctity of
a contract would be fatal to any remodelling of the Irish land law which
tended towards the spoliation of landowners. Yet this very fact makes
the matter all the more serious. That British statesmen should under
these circumstances deliberately decline to insert an injunction to
respect the sanctity of plighted good faith is much more than an
omission. It amounts to the suggestion, almost to the approval, of
legislative robbery; it is a proclamation that as against landlords, as
against creditors, as against any unpopular class, the Imperial
Parliament sanctions the violation of go