the means, the end remains the same; and that end is the contribution in the comity of nations of the fruits of personality—without which neither men nor nations can plead a justification for life.
For when a nation such as Ireland joins a confederacy so composed, she by the mere fact of her addition transfigures the whole. This is not a fanciful figure of speech. It is a literal description of what has already occurred. In the case of no other nation of the Community, for example, has its advent been signalled by an International Treaty. That, in itself, is a transfiguration of the whole. Similarly, other nations of the Community had protested the co-equality of each and all; but the protestation had remained a protestation until it was formally declared for each and all by the claim made by and recognised for Ireland.
So it has proved in the very case of this Constitution. The full height of nationhood is the recognition of sovereignty; and the completest act of sovereignty of which a nation may be capable is to confer its Constitution on itself. With the exception of Great Britain, none of the other members of the Community were, when their constitutions were enacted, capable of this. Each of them received its Constitution as bestowed, not by the Act of its own Legislature, but by the Act of a suzerain Legislature. And that shortness of national stature remained until it was removed by the addition of Ireland to the Community. For Ireland will receive her Constitution by the Act of her own Constituent Assembly, not by the Act of any suzerain Legislature. Whether the Constitution be or be not adopted by any other assembly neither gives nor detracts from the national authority it will possess. If it be so adopted, it will be adopted, not as giving it authority, but as the completing Act of ratifying the Treaty. That is to say, it will be adopted by the Parliament of Great Britain as concluding the interest of that Parliament in the international bargain of the Treaty; and it will be passed and prescribed by the Irish Assembly as giving it full force and effect in Ireland. And that is a full sovereign act. But, since all
