As to colonial independence.--The plain and decisive reason why the loyalty of New Zealand to the Empire affords no presumption of the loyalty under our new constitution of Ireland to the United Kingdom is this: The whole condition of New Zealand is different from the condition of Ireland, and our new constitution is not intended to give Ireland the position of New Zealand. Thousands of miles separate New Zealand from Great Britain. Ireland is separated from us by not much more than twelve miles. New Zealand has never been hostile to England; her people are loyal to the British Crown. Ireland, or part of the Irish people, has been divided from England by a feud of centuries; it would be difficult among Irish Nationalists to obtain even the show of loyalty to the Crown. New Zealand is wealthy, and New Zealand pays not a single tax into the Exchequer of the United Kingdom. Ireland is poor, and, if her taxation is lightened by Home Rule, the tribute which will be paid to England will be heavy, and far more galling than the taxes she now pays in common with the rest of the United Kingdom. The new constitution, again, is utterly unlike a colonial constitution. Its burdens would not be tolerated by any one of our independent colonies. The rights it gives, no less than the obligations it imposes, are foreign to our colonial system. The presence of the Irish representation at Westminster forbids all comparison between Ireland under Home Rule and New Zealand under a system of colonial independence. But the matter must be pressed further. Even were it possible to place Ireland in the position either of an American State or Swiss Canton, or of an independent colony, the arrangement would not meet the needs of the United Kingdom. This is a point which has not as yet arrested attention. For the safety of the United Kingdom it is absolutely necessary that the authority of the Imperial Government, or, in other words, the law of the land, should be enforced in Ireland in a sense in which the law of the land is rarely enforced in federations, and in which it is certainly not enforced by the Imperial Government in self-governing colonies.