But this very compact proves that as regards Ireland the Imperial Parliament, if it reserves to itself ultimate sovereignty, has for practical purposes surrendered the reality of control.
There is no need to assert that this supremacy of the Imperial Parliament means nothing.

The assertion would not be true.

The reservation of sovereign authority means something, but it does not mean much.

It does not mean the power or the right to govern Ireland; it means at most the legal and moral right to modify, or put an end to, the new constitution if ever it works badly.
The power, indeed, to abolish the constitution can neither be given nor taken away by Acts of Parliament, by the declarations of English statesmen, or the concessions of Irish leaders, whether authorised or not to pledge the Irish people.

It is given to Great Britain, not by enactments, but by nature; it arises from the inherent capacity of a strong, a flourishing, a populous, and a wealthy country to control or coerce a neighbouring island which is poor, divided, and weak.[34] This natural supremacy will, if the interests of Great Britain require it, be enforced by armies, by ironclads, by blockades, by hostile tariffs, by all the means through which national predominance can make itself felt.
All reference to superior power is, in controversies between citizens, hateful to every man endowed with a sense of humanity or of justice.