THE EXPLANATION
35
the exercise of the Referendum that experience in other countries does not justify. With the wide franchise allowed in the Constitution, the tendency will be to play into the hands of political parties, and one of the purposes of the Referendum is to destroy the power of political parties. Yet a slight change here may easily be made. And the essential fact is that the people of Ireland, having asserted the fact of their sovereignty, and defined its qualities, proceed to exercise its functions by holding over the Oireachtas the two instruments of the Referendum and the Initiative.
How will those functions be exercised? It is impossible to say, except that there is so education like the education of responsibility.
