Governments differ as to the use they make of these officials. Some Governments have endeavoured to confine their work to cases where a mere legal opinion has to be obtained; but, when the country is in a disturbed state, even these limited references become very frequent, and questions of policy as well as of law are often discussed with the law officers. It is needless to say that, with their knowledge of Ireland and the traditions of Castle government (it is rare that all the law officers are new to office, and, consequently, they carry on the traditions from one Government to another), they often exercise a paramount influence over the policy of the Irish Government, and practically control it. They are connected with the closest and most influential order in Irish society--the legal order, consisting of the judges and Bar of Ireland. This adds to the general weight of their advice, but it has a special bearing when cases of legal reform or administration are under consideration; it then requires unwonted courage and independence for the law officers of the Crown to support changes which the lay members of the Government deem necessary. I have known conspicuous instances of the exercise of these high qualities by law officers enabling reforms to be carried, but as a rule, particularly when the initiative of legal reform is left to them, the Irish law officers do not care to move against the feeling of the legal world in Dublin. The lawyers, like other bodies, oppose the diminution of offices and honours belonging to them, or of the funds which, in the way of fees and salaries, are distributed among members of the bar; and they become bitterly hostile to any permanent official who is known to be a firm legal reformer. It would be impossible for me not to acknowledge the great service often done to the Government by the able men who have filled the law offices, yet I feel that under certain circumstances, when their influence has been allowed too strongly to prevail, it has tended to narrow the views of the Irish Government, and to keep it within a circle too narrow for the altered circumstances of modern life. The chief peculiarity of the Irish Administration is its extreme centralization. In this two departments may be mentioned as typical of the whole--the police and administration of local justice. The police in Dublin and throughout Ireland are under the control of the Lord-Lieutenant, and both these forces are admirable of their kind. They are almost wholly maintained by Imperial funds. The Dublin force costs about £150,000 a year. The Royal Irish Constabulary costs over a million in quiet, and a million and a half in disturbed times. Local authorities have nothing to do with their action or management. Local justice is administered by unpaid magistrates as in England, but they have been assisted, and gradually are being supplanted, by magistrates appointed by the Lord-Lieutenant and paid by the State.