When we set up an Irish Legislature, then, we have to contemplate four different classes of affairs in a descending scale:  (1) Affairs of common interest to the whole Empire; (2) affairs of exclusive interest to the United Kingdom; (3) affairs exclusively British; (4) affairs exclusively Irish.

With regard to (1), the prospects of Imperial Federation do not affect the Irish issue.  It is no doubt illogical and sometimes highly inconvenient that the British Cabinet and Parliament, representing British and Irish electors only, should decide matters which deeply concern the whole Empire, including the self-governing Colonies, but it is the fact.  In the meantime we are securing very effective consultation with the self-governing Colonies by the method of Imperial Conference.  A Federal Parliament for the whole Empire is a possible though a remote alternative to that system.  Colonial representation in the present Imperial Parliament is an altogether impracticable alternative.  The suggestion had often been made for the American Colonies at the height of their discontent, later for Canada as an alternative to the Act of 1791, and in recent times also.  The same fallacious idea underlay the Union of Ireland with Great Britain and her representation in Parliament, while retaining colonial institutions.  At present the prospects of Imperial Federation seem to be indifferent.  On the other hand, the affection between all branches of our race which is the indispensable groundwork of Federation becomes visibly stronger, and will become stronger, provided that we do not revert to the ancient and discredited policy either of dictating to the Colonies or taking sides with one or another of the parties within them, provided also that the Colonies in their growing strength do not dictate to us or take sides with one or other of our parties.

But, whatever the prospects of Imperial Federation, so long as the present situation lasts, there is no reason for giving a self-governing Ireland more control over Imperial matters affecting the self-governing Colonies than the self-governing Colonies themselves possess.  The present position is illogical enough; that would be to render it doubly illogical.  Representation of Ireland, therefore, at Westminster, on the ground that she should take part in settling matters of the widest Imperial purport, is indefensible.  The alternative and much more effectual method, as with the Colonies, is Conference.

(2-4) But it is when we come to regard the United Kingdom as a self-contained entity that the difficulty of retaining Irish Members at Westminster appears most formidable.  If we discard the Federal solution we must discard it wholeheartedly, not from a pedantic love of logic, but to avoid real, practical anomalies which might cause the whole political machine to work even worse than it does at present.  From what I have written, it will be seen at once that to retain the Irish Members in the House of Commons, while giving Ireland responsible government, would be to set up a kind of hybrid system, retaining the disadvantages of the Union without gaining the advantages of Federalism.  A Federal system needs a Federal Parliament, which we have not got, and shall not get for a long time yet.  To introduce into it a quasi-Federal element is to mix oil with water.