into contempt. A new law of sacrilege may be passed which would make
criticism of the Irish priesthood, or attacks on the Roman Catholic
religion, or the public advocacy of Protestantism, practically
impossible. The Irish House of Commons may take the decision of election
petitions into its own hands, and members nominated by the priests may
determine the proper limits of spiritual influence. Thus the party
dominant at Dublin can, if they see fit, abolish all freedom of
election; nor is this all that the Irish Parliament can accomplish in
the way of ensuring the supremacy of an Irish party. After six years
from the passing of the Home Rule Bill--let us say in the year 1900--the
Irish Parliament can alter the qualification of the electors and the
distribution of the members among the constituencies. Parliament can in
fact introduce at once universal suffrage, and do everything which the
ingenuity of partisanship can suggest for diminishing the
representation of property and of Protestantism. If, further, in any
part of Ireland there be reason to fear opposition to the laws of the
Irish Parliament, a severer Coercion Act may be passed than any which
has as yet found its way on to the pages of the English or the Irish
Statute Book. Worse than all this, the Irish Parliament has the right to
legislate with regard to transactions which have taken place before the
passing of the Home Rule Bill. An Act inflicting penalties on
magistrates who have been zealous in the enforcement of the Crimes Act,
an Act abolishing the right to recover debts incurred before 1893, an
Act for compensation to tenants who had suffered from obedience to the
behests of the Land League, are all Acts which, however monstrous, the
Irish Parliament is, under the new constitution, competent to pass.

My assertion is, be it noted, not that all or any of such laws would be
passed, but that the passing of them would, under the new constitution,
be legal. The Irish Parliament could further by its legislation pursue