where they do not at times give rise to heart-burnings. It is well
indeed, judging from the lessons of history, if they do not produce
bitter conflicts, or even civil war. Let us take, however, the most
sanguine view possible. Let us grant that both in England and in Ireland
every minister, every legislator, every judge, is inspired with a spirit
of perfect disinterestedness and absolute fairness. This concession,
immense though it be, does not exclude vital differences of opinion. In
our new confederacy, as in every other, there will arise the contest
between State rights and federal rights, between the authority of the
Central Government and of the State Government. In any case, a whole
class of new difficulties and questions of a totally new description
will make their appearance in the field of English politics, and call
for the exercise on the part both of English and of Irish statesmen of
extraordinary wisdom and extraordinary self-control. The new
constitution in short, in virtue of its federal tendencies, will
revolutionise the public life of the United Kingdom.

From whatever side the matter be considered we arrive at the same
result. The Home Rule Bill is a new constitution; it subverts the bases
of the English constitution as we now know it, for it destroys
throughout Ireland the effective authority of the Imperial Parliament,
and turns the United Kingdom into a federal government of a new and
untried form.

The change may be necessary or needless, wise or unwise. The first and
most pressing necessity of the moment is that every elector throughout
the United Kingdom should, realise the immense import of the innovation.
It is a revolution far more searching than would be the abolition of the
House of Lords or the transformation of our constitutional monarchy into
a presidential republic.