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.
In federations the law of the land is nearly powerless when opposed to the will of a particular State.

President Jackson's reported dictum, 'John Marshall[118] has delivered his judgment, let him now enforce it if he can,' and the fact that the judgment was never enforced,[119] are things not to be forgotten.