_The Safeguards_.

The Restrictions on the power of the Irish Parliament are, it is asserted, sufficient and more than sufficient to reassure Unionists, and an intimation is sometimes added that, if further security is wanted, further safeguards may be provided.
This ground of confidence may be briefly dismissed; its answer is in effect supplied by the foregoing pages.
On the action of the Irish Executive the Restrictions place, and from the nature of things can place, no restraint whatever, and yet both England and the Irish Loyalists have far more reason to dread the abuse of executive than of legislative authority.

On the legal action of the Irish Parliament the Restrictions do place a certain restraint, but the Restrictions are, as already shown, not in reality enforceable.

They are for good purposes a nullity; they are effective, if at all, almost wholly for evil; they exhibit the radical and fatal inconsistency of Gladstonian policy.

The policy of Home Rule is a policy of absolute and unrestricted trust; the safeguards are based on distrust.