e
United States which, in return for a free entry for Newfoundland fish
into the United States, practically gave the Newfoundland market to
American manufacturers, and explicitly forbade the granting of any trade
preference to the United Kingdom or to Canada. When, fortunately, the
American Senate rejected the Convention, Newfoundland embarked on a
course of legislative reprisal against American fishing. But this
involved the Imperial Government in a diplomatic conflict which, but for
the excellent relations subsisting with the United States, might easily
have led to a grave crisis. The inconveniences and dangers which Irish
trade policy might lead to under Home Rule can easily be inferred from
this single example, all the more if Irish policy should be influenced,
as Newfoundland's policy certainly was not, by a bias of hostility to
the Empire.

So much for the first confusion, that which would base the case for a
_separate government_ in Ireland on the success of _free institutions_
in the Colonies, entirely ignoring the whole movement for union, which
has made every geographical group of Colonies follow the example of the
Mother Country. We must now deal with the second confusion, that which
is based on a hazy notion that Home Rule is only a preliminary step to
endowing the United Kingdom as a whole with a working federal
constitution like that of Canada or Australia. Ireland, in fact, so runs
the pleasing delusion, is to be set up as an experimental Quebec, and
the other provinces will follow suit shortly. Not all Home Rulers,
indeed, are obsessed by this confusion. Mr. Childers, for instance,
makes short work of what he calls the "federal chimera," dismissing the
idea as "wholly impracticable," and pointing out that Home Rule must be
"not merely non-federal, but anti-federal." But the great majority of
Liberals to-day are busy deluding themselves or each other, and the
Nationalists are, naturally, not unwilling to help them in that task,
with the idea of Home Rule for Ireland followed by "Home Rule all
round."

The new Home Rule Bill has not yet appeared, but certain main features
of it can be taken for granted. It will be a Bill which, save possibly
for a pious expression of hope in the preamble, will deal with Ireland
only. It will set up in Ireland an Irish legislature and executive
responsible for the "peace, order, and good government" of Ireland,
subject to certain restrictions and limitations. It will assi