Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/173

 JAMES BRYCE

��The noble lord, the member for Rossendale [the Marquis of Hartington], said, on the first night of the debate, that he looked upon it as a most important thing that an Englishman should find himself at home if he traveled to Ireland; but that he could not do that if the laws of Ire- land were to be not only different in themselves, but also administered by a different executive, and in a different spirit. This is exactly what happens in the United States. If a citizen travels from Massachusetts or Pennsylvania to Arkansas or Texas, he will find that the laws are different ; that the executive authority is different and independent ; and that the laws are administered in these newer western States in a very different and sometimes an unfortunate manner ; but that does not prevent citizens of the United States who travel out of one State into another from feeling themselves everywhere at home.

The second argument of my right honorable and learned friend was that under the Bill the imperial Parliament would not be able to legis- late for Ireland. He can not mean that it will not be able to do so for imperial purposes, be- cause that power is expressly reserved by the Bill. But, he asks, can it legislate for other purposes? He says: "Perhaps it can, as a mat- ter of abstract right." But what difference is there between an abstract right and any other kind of right? None whatever. There is, in- deed, a difference between forms in which right may exist. There are rights which you put ia

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