In a subsequent speech, Mr. Matthews expressed his own very
strong conviction that the reservation of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament over the Irish Parliament would necessarily be a solemn farce, not only because the supreme Parliament would be very loth to interfere, but because if it did interfere, it would find the whole authority of the Irish Government opposed to the interference. The Irish Judges would find all the legal difficulties in the world in giving effect to the interference. The Irish Executive would find numberless reasons for inaction, and nothing would be done until the statutory Irish Parliament and Government had been abolished by the power which set them up, and then only at the cost of reconquest. If you once set up a National Government proud of its own independence, and eager to resist any tampering with it, it is absurd to expect that you, will find it a medium that transmits faithfully the pressure of the supreme Parliament, whenever the Prime Minister of that Parliament so much as touches an electric-bell.
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