This concession, immense though it be, does not exclude vital differences of opinion.

In our new confederacy, as in every other, there will arise the contest between State rights and federal rights, between the authority of the Central Government and of the State Government.

In any case, a whole class of new difficulties and questions of a totally new description will make their appearance in the field of English politics, and call for the exercise on the part both of English and of Irish statesmen of extraordinary wisdom and extraordinary self-control.

The new constitution in short, in virtue of its federal tendencies, will revolutionise the public life of the United Kingdom.
From whatever side the matter be considered we arrive at the same result.

The Home Rule Bill is a new constitution; it subverts the bases of the English constitution as we now know it, for it destroys throughout Ireland the effective authority of the Imperial Parliament, and turns the United Kingdom into a federal government of a new and untried form.
The change may be necessary or needless, wise or unwise.