Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government; Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland)
probably find no more difficulty in getting an English party to
consent to such an immoral bargain than they do now.
The provisions as to legislation for Ireland are still more
extraordinary. The Irish Parliament is to have complete power of
legislating as to Irish affairs, with the exception of certain matters
enumerated in the Act; thus it may repeal any Acts of the Imperial
Parliament passed before 1914. On the other hand, the English
Parliament (in which Ireland will have only forty-two representatives)
will also be able to pass laws binding Ireland (and in this way to
re-enact the laws which the Irish Parliament has just repealed), and
these new laws the Irish Parliament may not repeal or overrule. Now
this power of the English Parliament will either be a reality or a
farce; if it is a reality, the Irish Nationalists will be no more
inclined to submit to laws made by "an alien Parliament" in which they
have only forty-two representatives than they are at present to submit
to those made by one in which they have 103; if it is a farce, the
"supremacy of the Imperial Parliament" is a misleading expression.
The Lord Lieutenant is to act as to some matters on the advice of the
Irish Ministry, as to others on the advice of the English. Anyone who
has studied the history of constitutional government in the colonies
in the early days, when the governor was still supposed to act as
to certain affairs independently of ministerial advice, will see the
confusion to which this must lead. Suppose the Lord Lieutenant acts
on the advice of the English ministers in a way of which the
Irish Parliament do not approve, and the Irish Ministry resign in
consequence, what can result but a deadlock?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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