that the sovereignty of the British
Parliament meant in Ireland what the sovereignty of the Imperial
Parliament now means in New Zealand. But 'the retention of the Irish
members is a matter of great public importance' (at any rate in the
opinion of Mr. Gladstone) 'because it visibly exhibits that supremacy'
(_i.e._ the supremacy of Parliament) 'in a manner intelligible to the
people.'--Mr. Gladstone, Feb. 13, 1893, _Times Parliamentary Debates_,
p. 306. See as to Home Rule in the character of colonial independence,
_England's Case against Home Rule_ (3rd ed.), pp. 197-218.

[36] _i.e._ at the moment when these pages are written. What parts of
the Government of Ireland Bill may or may not be officially deemed
essential by the time these pages appear in print, no sensible man will
undertake to predict. Mr. Gladstone's own language is most
extraordinary. On the retention of the Irish members, which in the eyes
of any ordinary man affects the whole character of the new constitution,
and essentially distinguishes the Home Rule policy of 1886 from the Home
Rule policy of 1893, he uses (_inter alia_) these words: 'On the
important subject of the retention of the Irish members I do not regard
it, and I never have regarded it, as touching what may be called the
principles of the Bill. It is not included in one of them. But whether
it be a principle of the Bill or not, there is no question that it is a
very weighty and, if I may say so, an organic detail which cuts rather
deep in some respects into the composition of the Bill.'--Mr. Gladstone,
Feb. 13, 1893, _Times Parliamentary Debates_, pp. 305, 306. This
statement, with the whole passage of which it forms part, is as
astounding as would have been a statement by Lord John Russell on
introducing the great Reform Bill, that he could not say whether the
disfranchisement of rotten boroughs did or did not form a principle of
the measure.

[37] Compare Report of Special Commission, pp. 18, 19.

[38] Under the Home Rule Bill of 1893 as sent up to the House of Lords,
it would have been the 'constant presence.'

[39] The division of parties in an American State is governed not by
questions concerning the internal affairs of the State, but by the
questions which divide parties at Washington. State politics depend upon
federal politics. 'The national parties have engulfed the State parties.
The latter have disappeared absolutely as independent bodies, and
survive merely as branches of