dependence. No genuine Nationalist can really acquiesce in the
prohibition of Ireland's arming even in self-defence. Where, again, is
the Nationalist who is prepared to say that he will not if the Bill is
passed demand that every conspirator and every dynamiter, who is
suffering for the cause of Ireland, shall be released from prison? Is it
credible that the Land Leaguers have forgotten what is due to the
wounded soldiers of their cause? Are they prepared to forget the
imperative claims of evicted tenants or imprisoned zealots?[100] I
cannot believe it.

But if they are so base as to forget what is due to their friends and
victims, what trust could England place in the permanence of any
sentiment expressed by such men with however much temporary fervour and
however much apparent honesty? If, as I am convinced, the Irish leaders
are not prepared to betray the fanatics or ruffians who have trusted and
served them, then with what content does England look on the prospect of
a general amnesty for criminals or of lavish rewards for breach of
contract and the defiance of law?

But in truth the new constitution provides for the general discontent,
not of one class of Irishmen, but of the whole Irish people.

Home Rule is at bottom federalism, and the successful working of a
federal government depends on the observation by its founders of two
principles. The first is that no one State should be so much more
powerful than the rest as to be capable of vying in strength with the
whole, or even with many of them combined.[101] The second is that the
federal power should never if possible come into direct conflict with
the authority of any State. Each of these well-known principles has,
partly from necessity and partly from want of skill, been violated by
the constructors of the spurious federation which is to be miscalled the
United Kingdom. The confederacy will consist of two States; the one,
England, to use popular but highly significant language, in wealth, in
population, and in prestige immensely outweighs the other, Ireland. And
by an error less excusable because it might have been avoided, the power
of the central government will be brought into direct conflict with the
authority of the Irish State. Read the Bill as it should be read by any
one who wishes to understand the working of the new constitution, and
throughout substitute 'England' for the term 'United Kingdom.' Note then
what must be the operation of the constitut