new constitution it will still occupy towards Great Britain. The
Imperial Parliament, it is true, retains considerable reserved powers;
what are the effect and nature of these powers shall be considered in
its due place. The matter upon which I now insist is simply this: the
new constitution does in any case transfer the effective government of
Ireland from the Imperial Parliament to the Irish Parliament. The
authority reserved to the Imperial Parliament may be termed supremacy,
or sovereignty, or may be described by any other fine-sounding name
which we are pleased to use, but the fact remains unaltered that, as
long as the new constitution stands and works, the Imperial Parliament
will not govern Ireland in the sense in which it governs England and
Scotland, and that such authority as it exerts in Ireland will be
analogous not to the power which it now exercises there, but to the
influence which it possesses in Canada or in New Zealand.[19]

The new constitution is at bottom a federalist or semi-federalist
constitution; it introduces into English institutions many of the forms
of federalism and still more of its spirit.

The Parliament sitting at Westminster becomes for the first time a
Federal Congress.

Of its members, 567 will represent Great Britain; 80 will represent
Ireland. The exact numbers are for the present purpose insignificant.
The serious matter is that the Imperial Parliament undergoes an
essential change of character. The British members will have, or are
intended to have, no concern with the government of Ireland. The Irish
members ought to have nothing to do with the government of Great
Britain. On Imperial subjects the Imperial Parliament, or, to call it by
its proper name, the Federal Congress, votes as a whole; on Irish