o those devout Churchmen
who, under Home Rule, would naturally desire to carry the process a
further step.

We have proceeded on the assumption that the Irish Parliament
would--formally, at least--confine itself within the limits prescribed
by the law of its creation. But it is necessary at least to contemplate
the possibility that it would prove less complaisant. The safeguards and
limitations inserted in any Act of the kind must of necessity be couched
in general terms. The constitutional history of the United States and
other countries is full of cases showing how difficult it is to define
in practice where the border line between _intra_ and _ultra vires_
comes. It is the custom of all Governments, if there is any possible
room for debate as to their competence to take any particular line of
action, to give themselves the fullest benefit of the doubt, and the
Irish Government is unlikely to prove any exception to the rule. When
the Judicature and all the forces of Executive Government, except the
direct command of troops, is in their hands, the laws passed by the
Irish Parliament could be put in force in Ireland. The British
Government could not intervene except by acts which would amount to open
war between the two countries. We must remember that this enforcement of
Irish laws by Irish police in spite of the decisions of a "foreign"
Government at Westminster is openly advocated and contemplated by the
large and active section of the Nationalists who have adopted as their
watchword the motto "Ourselves alone" (_Sinn Fein_). Nothing could be
more futile than the idea that the judgments of the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council would ever be accepted as final by the Nationalist
majority, or that the royal assent could ever be withheld from an Act
constitutionally passed by the Irish Legislature, without precipitating
a crisis. The result of applying the veto of the House of Lords in
England to the measures of Liberal Ministers was the agitation for
removing the veto. The Nationalists took part in that agitation and have
learned its lesson. Directly the British Government asserts its
technical right of veto, a similar agitation to get rid of all
obnoxious restraints would arise in Ireland.

If anything could increase the danger of friction, it would be the
scheme favoured by Mr. Erskine Childers and other Liberals of submitting
constitutional questions to the decision of the British Privy Council
reinforced by