because the labours of the Divorce Court increase year by year, the law
ought not to permit divorce. The absurdity of the official reply
suggests the existence of some reason which the defenders of this
strange omission are unwilling clearly to allege. The true reason why
the founders of the new constitution have omitted in this instance to
copy a polity which they profess to admire is not hard to discover. An
enactment which enjoined an Irish Parliament to respect the sanctity of
a contract would be fatal to any remodelling of the Irish land law which
tended towards the spoliation of landowners. Yet this very fact makes
the matter all the more serious. That British statesmen should under
these circumstances deliberately decline to insert an injunction to
respect the sanctity of plighted good faith is much more than an
omission. It amounts to the suggestion, almost to the approval, of
legislative robbery; it is a proclamation that as against landlords, as
against creditors, as against any unpopular class, the Imperial
Parliament sanctions the violation of good faith. To the Irish
Parliament the authors of the new constitution in effect say: 'You may
raise no soldiers, you may not yourselves summon volunteers for the
defence of your country, you shall not impose customs on foreign goods,
and are therefore forbidden to follow a policy of protection approved of
by every civilised State except England; you shall neither establish nor
endow a church, you shall not by providing salaries for your priesthood
at once lighten the burdens of the flock, and improve the position of
the pastor; these things, not to speak of many others, you are forbidden
to do, though there are many wise statesmen who deem that the courses of
action from which you are debarred would conduce to the dignity and the
prosperity of Ireland; but there is one thing which you may do, you may
sanction breach of faith, you may encourage dishonesty, you may enjoin
fraud, you may continue to teach the worst lesson which the vacillation
of English government has as yet taught the Irish people, you may drive