ho reflects on
the meaning of the policy of Home Rule, who studies the authoritative
utterances of Gladstonian leaders, such as Mr. Gladstone[30] himself,
Mr. Asquith,[31] or Mr. Bryce.[32] Gladstonian statesmen wrap up their
meaning in vague generalities; they insist, and in one sense with truth,
that the sovereignty of Parliament is reserved. They do not wish to
alarm their English followers. It is possible that they conceal even
from themselves how completely the Imperial Ministry and Parliament
surrender the practical government of Ireland into the hands of the
Irish Parliament and its leaders. But for all this, their own language
and the Bill itself prove that the supreme authority of Parliament is
under the new constitution to be taken in its limited, and what for the
sake of distinction we may call its 'colonial' sense. This is proved, if
evidence were wanting, by the provision[33] that after fifteen years from
the time when the Bill passes into law the financial relations between
England and Ireland may be revised in pursuance of an Address to the
Crown from the House of Commons or from the Irish legislative assembly.
If the Imperial Parliament retains an effective or practically unlimited
supremacy, the provision is futile and needless. What necessity is there
for enacting that a sovereign Parliament, which institutes, may alter a
scheme of taxation? But the provision is intelligible enough on one
supposition, and on one supposition only. It is both intelligible and in
place if Parliament gives up the real right of governing Ireland and
occupies towards what is now a part of the United Kingdom the position,
or something very like the position, which Parliament occupies towards a
self-governing colony. It then embodies a compact between England and
Ireland, and institutes a regular method for revising their financial
relations. But this very compact proves that as regards Ireland the
Imperial Parliament, if it reserves to itself ultimate sovereignty, has
for practical purposes surrendered the reality of control.

There is no need to assert that this supremacy of the Imperial
Parliament means nothing. The assertion would not be true. The
reservation of sovereign authority means something, but it does not mean
much. It does not mean the power or the right to govern Ireland; it
means at most the legal and moral right to modify, or put an end to, the
new constitution if ever it works badly.

The power, indeed, to a