To their policy of appeal to the people the Unionists will, of course, adhere. The House of Lords will, it may be presumed, as a matter not so much of right as of obvious duty, reject the present Home Rule Bill, so as to refer to the electors of the United Kingdom the question whether we shall, or shall not, have a new constitution. Even if such a reference to the electors should result in a Gladstonian majority, it is still possible that a further dissolution might be necessary. The majority for Home Rule might be much reduced. I doubt whether Mr. Gladstone himself would maintain that with a majority say of ten or twenty, a Minister would be morally justified in attempting a fundamental change in the constitution. As to such speculative matters there is no need to say anything. It is worth while, however, to repeat a statement which cannot be too often insisted upon, that the most important function of the House of Lords at the present day is to take care that no fundamental change in the constitution takes place which has not received the undoubted assent of the nation. The peers are more and more clearly awakening to the knowledge that under the circumstances of modern public life this protection of the rights of the nation, which is in complete conformity with democratic principle, is the supreme duty of the Upper House. The question, however, to be considered at the moment is whether for the performance of this duty something more may not be required than the compelling of a dissolution. This something more is a direct appeal to the electors in the nature of a Referendum. The question is still a theoretical one; it cannot (unfortunately as it will appear to many persons) be raised during the debates on the Bill in the House of Commons. When the Bill reaches the House of Lords, it will, we may suppose, be rejected, and all that a Unionist can wish for is, first, that before actual rejection its general principles should be subjected to complete discussion, and what is in this case the same thing, exposure, and next that the House of Lords should, if necessary, take steps which can easily be imagined, for providing that the rejection of the Bill shall entail a dissolution. If, however, the dissolution should result in a Gladstonian majority, and should lead to another Home Rule Bill being sent up to their lordships, the question then arises as to the Referendum. My own conviction, which has been before laid before the public, is that the Lords would do well if they appended to any Home Rule Bill which they were prepared to accept a clause which might make its coming into force depend upon its, within a limited time, receiving the approval of the majority of the electors of the United Kingdom. And in the particular case of the Home Rule Bill it is fair, for reasons already stated,[137] that the Bill before becoming law should receive the assent of a majority of the electors both of Great Britain and of Ireland.