would be fought out over again by the
Irish members in our Parliament. It means that the House of Lords here
would throw out pretty nearly every Bill that was passed at Dublin. What
would be the result of that? You would have the present block of our
business. You would have all the present irritation and exasperation.
English work would not be done; Irish feeling would not be conciliated,
but would be exasperated. The whole efforts of the Irish members would
be devoted to throwing their weight--I do not blame them for this--first
to one party and then to another until they had compelled the removal of
these provoking barriers, restrictions, and limitations which ought
never to have been set up. I cannot think, for my part I cannot see, how
an arrangement of that sort promises well either for the condition of
Ireland or for our Parliament. If anybody, in my opinion, were to move
an amendment to our Bill in the House of Commons in such a direction as
this, with all these consequences foreseen, I do not believe such an
amendment would find twenty supporters.'[44]

This was the opinion of Mr. John Morley in 1886. A word in it here or
there is inapplicable to the details of the present Bill; but in
principle every syllable cited by me from his Newcastle address forms
part of the Unionist argument against summoning as much as a single
Irish member to Westminster. His language is admirable, it cannot be
improved. All that any one who agrees with Mr. Morley can do in order to
force his argument home is to point out in a summary manner the ways in
which the Irish delegation at Westminster will enfeeble the Imperial
Government.

_First_. The Irish members, or rather the Irish delegation, will have a
voice and often a decisive voice in determining who are the men that
shall constitute the English Cabinet; on the Irish vote will depend
whether Conservatives, Liberals, Radicals, or Socialists shall
administer the government of England. It is vain to tell us Irish
members will be restrained, whether by law or custom, from voting on
British affairs when they will vote on the most important of all British
affairs, the composition and the character of the body which is to
govern England.

That the Irish members will thus vote on a matter of special and vital
importance to England is admitted. But things stand far worse than this.
The vote of the Irish delegation will and must be swayed by an interest
adverse to the welfare of Great