her of 22 Geo. III. c. 63, or of
23 Geo. III. c. 28. The worst features of the method by which the Act of
Union was carried would have been avoided had the English Parliament
resumed the right to legislate for Ireland. The Treaty of Union depends
on Acts both of the British and of the Irish Legislature. This is
elementary but has escaped the attention of Mr. Sexton (see _Times
Parliamentary Debates_, Feb. 13, 1893, p. 319), whose investigations
into the history of his country are apparently recent.

[106] "The plan that was to be proposed was to be such as, at least in
the judgment of its promoters, presented the necessary
characteristics--I will not say of finality, because it is a discredited
word--but of a real and continuing settlement."--Mr. Gladstone, Feb. 13,
1893, _Times Parliamentary Debates_, p. 303.

[107] See Mr. Gladstone's Irish Constitution, _Contemporary Review_,
May, 1886, p. 616.

CHAPTER IV

PLEAS FOR THE NEW CONSTITUTION

Gladstonians when pressed with the manifest objections to which the new
constitution is open rely for its defence either upon general
considerations intended to show that the criticisms on the new
constitution are in themselves futile, or upon certain more or less
specific arguments, of which the main object is to establish that the
policy of Home Rule is either necessary or at least free from danger,
and that, therefore, this policy and the new constitution in which it is
to be embodied deserve a trial.

My object in this chapter is to examine with fairness the value both of
these general considerations and of these specific arguments.

The general considerations are based upon the alleged prophetic
character of the criticisms on the new constitution or upon the
anomalies to be found in the existing English constitution.

Ministerialists try to invalidate strictures on the Home Rule Bill, such
as those set forth in the foregoing pages, by the assertion that the
objections are mere prophecy and therefore not worth attention.

This line of defence may, as against Home Rulers, be disposed of at once
by an _argumentum ad hominem_. No politicians have made freer use of
prediction. Every Gladstonian speech is in effect a statement that is a
prophecy of the benefits which Home Rule will confer on the United
Kingdom. Gladstonian anticipations no doubt are prophecies of future
blessings; but whoever foretells the future is equally a prophet,
whether he announces the end o