to vote there on all matters whatever, including those affairs which
exclusively concern the interests of Great Britain. This is no doubt a
remedy for some of the evils of an unworkable proposal. It is a cure
which to any Englishman of sense or spirit will seem tenfold worse than
the disease. It is a cure in that sense only in which a traveller may be
said to be relieved from the fear of robbery by a highwayman shooting
him dead. The irregular interference of the Irish delegation in the
formation of the British Cabinet, and other matters which indirectly
concern England, is to be regularised (if I may use the term) by
allowing to Irish members permanent despotism over England in matters
which, on a system of Home Rule, concern England alone. Irish members
may disestablish the Church of England, though England is to have no
voice in the pettiest of Irish affairs. Irish members are to be allowed
to impose taxes on England, say to double the income tax, though of
these taxes no inhabitant of Ireland will pay a penny; the Irish
delegation--and this is the worst grievance of all--is to be enabled, in
combination with a British minority, to detach Wales from England, or to
vote Home Rule for Scotland, or to federalise still further the United
Kingdom by voting that Man, Jersey, and Guernsey shall send members to
the Imperial Parliament. Note that all this may be done by the Irish
delegation, though, under the new Constitution, England will not have a
word to say on such questions as whether the right of electing members
for the Parliament at Dublin shall or shall not be extended to every
adult, or whether Ulster shall, or shall not, be allowed Home Rule of
its own. The absurdity of this policy ought to prevent its ever being
adopted; but in these days absurdity seems to tell as little against
wild schemes of legislation as their injustice.

All this consideration of haggling and trafficking between Great Britain
and Ireland is loathsome to every true Unionist who considers Englishmen