of the Upper House.

The question, however, to be considered at the moment is whether for the
performance of this duty something more may not be required than the
compelling of a dissolution. This something more is a direct appeal to
the electors in the nature of a Referendum. The question is still a
theoretical one; it cannot (unfortunately as it will appear to many
persons) be raised during the debates on the Bill in the House of
Commons. When the Bill reaches the House of Lords, it will, we may
suppose, be rejected, and all that a Unionist can wish for is, first,
that before actual rejection its general principles should be subjected
to complete discussion, and what is in this case the same thing,
exposure, and next that the House of Lords should, if necessary, take
steps which can easily be imagined, for providing that the rejection of
the Bill shall entail a dissolution. If, however, the dissolution should
result in a Gladstonian majority, and should lead to another Home Rule
Bill being sent up to their lordships, the question then arises as to
the Referendum. My own conviction, which has been before laid before the
public, is that the Lords would do well if they appended to any Home
Rule Bill which they were prepared to accept a clause which might make
its coming into force depend upon its, within a limited time, receiving
the approval of the majority of the electors of the United Kingdom. And
in the particular case of the Home Rule Bill it is fair, for reasons
already stated,[137] that the Bill before becoming law should receive
the assent of a majority of the electors both of Great Britain and of
Ireland. This course, it may be said, is unconstitutional. This word has
no terrors for me; it means no more than unusual, and the institution of
a Referendum would simply mean the formal acknowledgment of the doctrine
which lies at the basis of English democracy--that a law depends at
bottom for its enactment on the assent of the nation as represented by
the electors. At a time when the true danger is that sections or classes
should arrogate to themselves authority which belongs to the State, it
is an advantage to bring into prominence the sovereignty of the nation.
The present is exactly a crisis at which we may override the practices
to save the principles of the constitution. The most forcible objection
which can be made is that you ought not for the sake of avoiding a
particular evil to introduce an innovation of d