nterests of an Irish faction. To Ireland will be given power
without responsibility, to England will belong responsibility without
power. Nor will the unnatural subjection of a great, a flourishing, a
wealthy, and a proud country to a weaker and poorer neighbour be
rendered the more bearable by the knowledge that the ill-starred
supremacy of Ireland means, in England, the equally unnatural and
equally ominous predominance of an English faction, which, since it
needs Irish aid, does not command England's confidence. Radicals or
revolutionists will in the long run have bitter cause to regret an
arrangement which identifies their political triumph with England's
humiliation.

_Thirdly_. The new constitution is based on a play of words which
conceals two contradictory interpretations of its character.[103]

The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament means to Irish Home Rulers and
to most Gladstonians that Ireland shall possess colonial
independence.[104] It means to Unionists and to many electors who can
hardly be called either Unionists or Gladstonians, that the British
Parliament, or, in other words, England, shall retain the real,
effective, and even habitual control of Irish affairs. In the one sense
it means only that Ireland shall remain part of the British Empire, in
the other that Ireland shall still be part of the United Kingdom. And,
what is of great importance, the mass of Englishmen waver between these
two interpretations of Imperial supremacy. When they think of Home Rule
as satisfying Ireland, they hold that it gives Irishmen everything which
they can possibly ask. When they think of Home Rule as not dismembering
the United Kingdom, they fancy that it leaves to the British Parliament
all the real authority which Parliament can possibly require.

This difference of interpretation lays the foundation of
misunderstanding, but it does far more harm than this. It must keep
Irish Nationalists alarmed, and not without reason, for the permanence
of the independence which they may have obtained. A change of feeling or
a change of party may cause the Imperial Parliament to assert its
reserved authority. England keeps her pledges.[105] Yes, but here it is
not a mere question of good faith. When two contractors each from the
beginning put _bona fide_ a different interpretation upon their
contract, neither of them is chargeable with dishonesty for acting in
accordance with his own view of the agreement. The spirit of Union