ancient oppression, will not join, and justly join, in denouncing as at once ignominious and ruinous the payment of a tribute raised for Imperial purposes at the moment when Ireland ceases to have any voice in the direction of Imperial policy? Irishmen again will find to their surprise that the Constitution intended to give them independence imposes annoying fetters on their freedom of action. They wish for a protective tariff, and they come across the prohibition to make laws affecting trade; they desire that the country shall defend herself, and they discover that they cannot raise even a body of volunteers; they wish to try the plan of concurrent endowment, and they are thwarted by the article of the Constitution prohibiting the endowment of religion. These restrictions are the more annoying because none of them are imposed upon the Colonies. Irishmen will further discover that great achievements of constructive legislation require for their success the command of large pecuniary resources, and that exemption from British control involves the withdrawal of all assistance from the British Treasury. [Sidenote: Constitution will cause friction.] The Constitution will produce irritation and friction. Every scheme for uniting into a political whole States which are intended to retain, even when connected together, a certain amount of independence, aims at minimising the opportunities for constitutional collision, or for friction between the different States which are connected together, and also between any State and the Central power. If we compare the mode in which this end is attained, either under the Federal system or under the Colonial system, with the arrangements of the Gladstonian Constitution, we shall easily see how little its authors have attended to the necessity for avoiding occasions of constitutional friction.