e of
government as applied to outlying portions of the British Empire. The
historical circumstances which moulded the form of each individual
Colonial Constitution, the Constitutions themselves, and the
modifications they have subsequently undergone, supply a mass of
material rich in interest and instruction for the makers of an Irish
Constitution. Nor is the analogy academical. Ireland is at this moment
under a form of government unique, so far as I know, in the whole world,
but resembling more closely than anything else that of a British Crown
Colony where the Executive is outside popular control, and the
Legislature is only partially within it; with this additional and
crowning inconvenience, that the Irish Crown Colony can obstruct the
business of the Mother Country. What we have to do is to liberate Great
Britain and to give Ireland a rational Constitution--not pedantically
adhering to any colonial model, but recognizing that, however closely
her past history resembles that of a Colony, Ireland, by her
geographical position, has a closer community of interest with Great
Britain than that of any Colony.

Three main difficulties have to be contended with: first, that the
system to be overthrown is so ancient, and the prejudice against Home
Rule so inveterate; second, the Irish are not agreed upon any
constructive scheme; third, the confusion in the popular mind between
"Federal" and other systems of Home Rule.

A.

With regard to the first of these obstacles, we have got to make a big
national effort to take a sensible and dispassionate view of the whole
problem. We must cease to regard Ireland as an insubordinate captive, as
a "possession" to be exploited for profit, or as a child to be humoured
and spoiled. All this is _vieux jeu_. It belongs to an utterly
discredited form of so-called Imperialism, which might more fitly be
called Little Englandism, masquerading in the showy trappings of
Bismarckian philosophy. We have gone too far in the "dismemberment" of
our historic Empire, and near enough to the dismemberment of what
remains, to apply this worn-out metaphor to the process of making
Ireland politically free.

In Ireland we must build on trust, or we build on sand.

What is best for Ireland will be best for the Empire.

Let us firmly grasp these principles, or we shall fail. They may be
carried to the extreme point. If it were for Ireland's moral and
material good to become an independent nation, it wo