It should also be provided that if the Speaker's decision on the right of a member of the delegation to speak or vote be challenged, and the majority of the House or Committee is against his ruling, such a reversal of his decision should not be deemed a vote of want of confidence.

The attendance of a delegation thus constituted would preserve an evident connection between the Imperial Parliament and the Irish Legislature, and effectually get rid of the notion that Ireland was no longer subject to its sovereignty, while the evils of the existing situation would probably be entirely remedied.

§ 9. ALTERNATIVE SCHEMES.

Many of the opponents of Mr. Gladstone's scheme have talked of it as if it were a plan sui generis-as if a government with very extensive powers could easily be created by a method totally different and on lines wholly distinct.

It is, of course, necessary to distinguish between local government and Home Rule. The true antithesis of local government is not supreme government, but central government, and such central government may or may not be supreme. A central government, whatever its form, cannot discharge all its functions itself, however small it makes the sphere of its interference; some of the business to be done must be delegated to

individuals or bodies of citizens, with power to transacit over a limited area. The bodies (whether elected or not) that transact the business of local government are of course always to some extent controlled by the central authority. The more numerous the duties devolved on the local bodies, and the less extensive the control exercised over them, the less centralised is the administration. In Ireland the control over local government is exercised by the Lord-Lieutenant, his Chief Secretary, a Local Government Board, a Board of Public Works, a Prison Board, a Board of National Education, and a staff of permanent officials. The executive work thus performed might be, no doubt, transferred to a national council elected by the Irish people; but that would not be giving Home Rule, and it would be open to all the objections that arise to any plan involving the appointing of executive functionaries by popular election. No reform of local government, and no transfer of the control over local government, amounts to Home Rule. By that term the Nationalist party obviously mean a central government subordinate to the Imperial Parliament, with powers of legislative control over all the matters that may be fairly described as not affairs of Imperial concern, including the subjects usually classified by lawyers as coming within the domain of private as opposed to public law.*

* See e.g. Holland, "Jurisprudence," pp. 79 and 245 et seq., as to this distinction. Professor Holland places under the head Public Law, (1) Con

No.

If Home Rule, as thus defined in general terms, is once assented to, it is not too much to say that the main outlines of the Gladstone-Morley scheme must be followed unless legal principles which lie at the very root of the Constitution are attacked. For instance, as we have seen above, the executive government of Ireland was, according to that plan, to continue vested in her Majesty, and to be carried on by the Lord-Lieutenant on behalf of her Majesty, with the aid of such officers as to her Majesty might from time to time seem fit, and from this provision no doubt a Ministry of the colonial type would result; for its effect would be that the Irish legislative body could not elect the members of the executive for a term of years or permanently, though by means similar to those used by the House of Commons it would be able no doubt to control to some extent the power of appointment by the Crown. If this plan is not followed in regard to the Irish executive the doctrine of prerogative is assailed, and it is not easy to see how an executive could be devised that would not be open to very grave objections. To allow the legislative body to discharge all executive functions in regard to Irish affairs would be contrary to all sound political theories. To make the executive officers directly stitutional Law, (2) Administrative Law, (3) Criminal Law, (4) Criminal Law Procedure, (5) the Law of the State considered in its quasi-private personality, (6) the procedure relating to the State as so considered; and under Private Law, laws creating rights as between private individuals, i.e., as to property, contract, civil injuries, marriage, &c.

responsible to the Irish Legislature would be to diminish greatly the powers of the Lord-Lieutenant and the Imperial Cabinet. The plan of the United States constitution could not be followed, because the head of the State is not a president, but an hereditary monarch. It seems therefore that any one who accepts the principle of Home Rule, and who wishes to proceed on the lines of the Constitution, must, in devising a proposed executive authority for Ireland, adopt the principle of the Bill we have been discussing.

Mr. Chamberlain is the most conspicuous of those who claimed to be adherents of Irish Home Rule and at the same time objected to the rejected Bill, not simply on the details but on the principle of the Bill. He has, however, given an illustration of a scheme founded on principles he would accept-the constitution of the Canadian Dominion. One infers, therefore, that in Mr. Chamberlain's opinion the British North America Act, 1867, is not founded on the same general principles as the rejected Bill. reference to the Act hardly bears this view out. Mr. Chamberlain says of the Canadian federation, "It shows you how you can have the absolute supremacy of a central and supreme legislative authority, and how that can be maintained with practical autonomy on the part of the local bodies."* In fact, though Mr. Gladstone's Bill does show this, the

A

* Speech at the inaugural meeting of the National Radical Union, Birmingham Daily Post, June 18th, 1886.

relations of the Canadian Parliament and the provincial legislatures under the Act of 1867 do not show any such thing. The Canadian Parliament is not a supreme legislative authority; for by s. 91 of the British North America Act, 1867, its powers are limited to making laws not coming within the classes of subjects by that act exclusively assigned to the legislatures of the provinces;* and for greater certainty a list of subjects on which it may legislate is drawn up. By the section defining the powers of the provincial legislatures,† an exclusive legislative power is given to them in certain specified classes of subjects. The point to be noticed here is that as to those subjects the power of the Canadian Parliament is expressly excluded, and that in fact the legislative power in Canadian affairs is divided between the Dominion Parliament and the provincial legislatures. The former has no control at all over the latter when they legislate on matters within their powers, but it has power as to defined matters to make laws binding on the whole colony. If, therefore, the relations between the Imperial Parliament and Ireland could be or were framed on these lines, the result would be that the Imperial Parliament would not be a sovereign legislature, but, like the Dominion Parliament

* 30 Vict. c. 3, s. 91. In the case of McClanagan, app., v. The St. Anne's Mutual Building Society of Montreal, (3, L.N. 61), the Court of Queen's Bench at Montreal held an Act of the Dominion Parliament to be unconstitutional and void.

† Ibid. s. 92.