without his assent, and the place of any existing peer refusing to sit in the Irish Parliament will be filled up as in the case of an ordinary vacancy. The elective members of the first order sit for ten years; every five years one half their number will retire. The members of the first order do not vacate their seats on a dissolution of the legislative body. At the expiration of thirty years, that is to say, upon the exhaustion of all the existing Irish representative peers, the whole of the upper order will consist of elective members. The second order consists of 204 members, that is to say, of the 103 existing Irish members (who are transferred to the Irish Parliament), and of 101 additional members to be elected by the county districts and the represented towns, in the same manner as that in which the present 101 members for counties and towns are elected--each constituency returning two instead of one member. If an existing member does not assent to his transfer, his seat is vacated. A power is given to the Legislature of Ireland to enable the Royal University of Ireland to return two members. The provisions with respect to this second order fall within the class of enactments which are alterable by the Irish Legislature. After the first dissolution of parliament the Irish Legislature may deal with the second order in any manner they think fit, with the important restrictions:--(1) That in the distribution of members they must have due regard to population; (2) that they must not increase or diminish the number of members. The transfer to the Irish legislative body of the Irish representative peers, and of the Irish members, involves their exclusion under ordinary circumstances from the Imperial Parliament, with this great exception, that whenever an alteration is proposed to be made in the fundamental provisions of the Irish Government Bill, a mode of procedure is devised for recalling both orders of the Irish legislative body to the Imperial Parliament for the purpose of obtaining their consent to such alteration (clause 39). Further, it is right to state here that Mr. Gladstone in his speech on the second reading of the Bill proposed to provide, "that when any proposal for taxation was made affecting the condition of Ireland, Irish members should have an opportunity of appearing in the House to take a share in the transaction of that business."