artillery are, against the wish of the Irish Government, put in movement
to enforce the judgment of a British Court, and to obtain £1,000 for
Lord Clanricarde. The matter will have become serious; the dignity of
the Irish nation will be at stake; the complaints of the plaintiff will
be drowned by the indignant clamours of eighty members at Westminster.
The essential principle of the new constitution is that there shall be
but one Executive in Ireland. The moment that the British Government
intervenes to support the judgment of British Courts, we have in Ireland
two hostile Executives. We tremble on the verge either of legal
revolution or of civil war. An English Cabinet, I suspect, will hardly
enforce the unpopular rights of a hated plaintiff by use of arms.

Why, it will be said, assume that the Irish Government and the Irish
people will not enforce the law? The assumption, I answer, is justified
not only by the history of Ireland, but by general experience. In all
federations, even the best ordered, difficulties constantly arise as to
the sphere of the Federal Government and the State Governments, and as
to the enforcement of judgments delivered by Federal Courts. The
authority of the federal tribunals has not always been easily enforced
even in the United States. Serious difficulties hamper the action of the
Swiss federal authorities. Even in England enthusiasm or conviction
occasionally triumphs over legality. English clergymen are at least as
reasonable as excited politicians, yet Ritualists have not invariably
submitted to the authority of the Privy Council. Why should Irishmen be
more reasonable than other men? In Ireland we are trying an entirely
novel and dangerous experiment; we are fostering the spirit of
nationality under the forms of federation. The Privy Council, hide the
matter as you will, represents British power. If Ireland is a nation,
the Government of Great Britain is an alien Government; the judgments of
the Privy Council are the judgments of an alien Court, and reason