But Ireland, it will be said, is to occupy a position like that of a self-governing colony. In British colonies the Imperial power and the rule of law are respected; both therefore will be respected in Ireland. The plain answer to this suggestion is that in a British self-governing colony, no law is enforceable which is opposed to colonial sentiment and which the colonial Ministry refuse to put into execution. One well-ascertained fact is enough to dispose of a hundred platitudes about Imperial supremacy and the loyal obedience of our colonies. Victoria is as loyal to the Crown as any colony which England possesses, yet the submission to law of the Victorian Government and people is not by any means unlimited. Ten years ago three British subjects arrived at Melbourne and were about to land. Popular sentiment, or in other words the will of the mob, had decreed that they should not enter the colony. The Victorian Premier (Mr. Service) announced in Parliament that their landing should be hindered. The police, acting under the orders of the Ministry, boarded the ship which brought the strangers, went near to assaulting the captain, and forcibly prevented the hated travellers from setting foot on shore. By arrangement between the Melbourne Government, the captain, and the three men, who were by this time in terror of their lives, the victims of lawlessness were carried back to England. That the law had been grossly violated no one can really dispute. The violation was the more serious because it excited no notice. No appeal was apparently made to the Courts. The Governor--the representative of Imperial power and Imperial justice--knew presumably what was going on, yet he uttered not one word of remonstrance. The Agent-General for Victoria, when at last a private person in England called attention to the outrage at Melbourne, pleaded in effect the plea of necessity, and described the act of tyranny, whereby British citizens were in a British colony turned into outlaws, as 'an act of executive authority.' The Imperial Government did I believe--what was perhaps the wisest thing it could do--nothing. Imperial supremacy in the colonies was, as regards the protection of unpopular individuals, admitted to be a farce. What, however, rendered the three travellers unpopular? They were Irish informers who had aided, unless I am mistaken, in the conviction of the Phoenix Park murderers. Let us now in imagination conceive our new constitution to have come into being, and transfer the transactions at Melbourne in 1883 to Dublin in 1894. Will the Imperial supremacy which is supposed to be so effective in the colonies be of any more worth in Ireland than in Victoria?[121]