ion states like Canada, provinces like
those of the South African Union, with little more than county council
powers, and stray survivals, like the Isle of Man, of an earlier system
of government, based on the same principle of ascendency and
interference as the government of Ireland under Poynings's Act, it is
difficult to know which to admire most, Mr. Redmond's assurance, or his
cynical appreciation of the ignorance or capacity for deliberate
self-deception of those with whom he has to deal. The third confusion is
that between Imperial functions and national or Dominion functions, due
to the fact that the two are combined in the United Kingdom Parliament,
which is also, under present conditions, the Imperial Parliament, and to
the consequent habitual use of the word "Imperial" in two quite
different senses. It is this last confusion which makes such a
declaration as Mr. Asquith's about safeguarding "the indefeasible
authority of the Imperial Parliament" a mere equivocation, for it
affords no indication as to whether the supremacy retained is the
effective and direct control maintained by Canada over Ontario, or the
much slighter and vaguer supremacy exercised by the United Kingdom over
the Dominions. It is this same confusion, too, which is responsible for
the notion that the problem of creating a true Imperial Parliament or
Council by a federation of the Dominions would be assisted, either by
creating an additional Dominion in the shape of Ireland, or by
arranging the internal constitution of the United Kingdom, as one of the
federating Dominions, on a federal rather than on a unitary basis.

The confusion of ideas between self-government and separate government
pervades the whole argument that the granting of "Home Rule" to Ireland
would be analogous to the grant of responsible institutions to the
Colonies. The essence of Home Rule is the creation of a separate
government for Ireland. The essence of our Colonial policy has been the
establishment of popular self-government in the Colonies. That this
self-government has been effected through local parliaments and local
executives, and not by representation in a common parliament, is a
consequence of the immense distances and the profound differences in
local conditions separating the Dominions from the Mother Country. It is
an adaptation of the policy to peculiar conditions, and not an essential
principle of the policy itself.

This is obvious from any consideration