Empire; and tentative suggestions for the creation of some sort of Imperial Federation, after the war, have been thrown out on all sides.
Any such organised Imperial Union between the United Kingdom and the Dominions would be greatly facilitated by an antecedent arrangement for the devolution upon subordinate bodies of the functions of the House of Commons in matters of domestic and internal legislation and administration, leaving the Parliament of the Empire free to devote its whole time and strength—for both of which there will be full occupation—to imperial and foreign affairs, including the defence of the realm, and all other matters in which the Dominions and the Mother-country have a common interest, as well as the general supervision of home affairs and the conduct of such as shall not have been specifically assigned to the subordinate councils.
It may be said that the federalisation of the kingdom would leave the Ulster difficulty untouched; but, is this so? The fundamental objection of the people of the North-Eastern counties is that all projects for the separate government of Ireland lower the status of those counties below that which they now enjoy of legislation and administration as an integral part of the United Kingdom, on equal and similar terms to the counties of England or Scotland, placing them in subjection without appeal to a sectional authority, whose sympathies they know to be alien to their social and political aspirations and habits of mind, and making them outcast from the Empire in which they have been proud of their citizenship.
In a federation of States, each having powers approximately like those of the provinces of Canada, or the constituent members of the United States, in which Ireland should take her place on equal footing with England, Scotland, or Wales, the Ulster counties would have in everything equal rights and privileges with those of England and Scotland, so that their primary objection would no longer be of much force; whilst, if the powers of the several
