position might be a difficult one,
even if supported by the whole force of the state. But if smuggling were
regarded as no crime, if the smuggler were looked upon as the patriot
who deprived an alien power of a revenue to which England had no right,
it is clear that nothing but the energetic support of all the central
and local authorities in the country could give a revenue officer the
remotest chance of victory in his contest with smugglers. But suppose
the national government were apathetic, suppose that the Irish Ministry
looked with favourable eye on the diminution of English revenue; suppose
that no Irish official gave any aid to a custom-house officer; suppose
that, if a British coastguardsman were murdered, Irish detectives made
no effort to discover the wrong-doer; and that when the culprit was
discovered the Irish law officers hesitated to prosecute; suppose that
when a prosecution took place the Attorney-General showed that his heart
was not in the matter, and that the jury acquitted a ruffian clearly
guilty of murder, is it not as clear as day that smuggling would
flourish and no customs be collected? In the same way the Irish Ministry
might by mere apathy, by the very easy process of doing nothing, nullify
the effect of judgments delivered by the Exchequer judges, and the Irish
Ministry would show very little ingenuity if they could not without any
open breach of the law impede the carrying out of executions against the
goods of persons whom popular feeling treated as patriots.

The Irish Executive might, as already pointed out,[90] easily raise an
Irish army. Drilling countenanced or winked at by the Irish Ministry
could never be stopped by the British Government. Prussia at the period
of her extreme weakness, and under the jealous eye of Napoleon, sent
every Prussian through the ranks. Bulgaria raised an army while
pretending to encourage athletic sports. The value of the precedent is
not likely to escape an Irish Premier.

The Irish Parliament cannot legally repeal a single provision of the
constitution, but an Irish Parliament might render much of the
constitution a nullity. The Parliament might pass Acts which trenched
upon the Restrictions limiting its authority. Till treated as void such
statutes would be the law of the land. Such voidable Acts, and even
parliamentary resolutions,[91] would go like a watchword through the
country and encourage throughout Ireland popular resistance to Imperial
law.