At the same time it must be remembered that, although the Irish Parliament is not debarred from statutory interference with common law rights, its legislation will be subject to rules of interpretation, at the hands of the Judicial Committee, by which statutes are always construed in favour of the subject. It is a well-accepted rule of construction in English courts that common law rights cannot be taken away except by express words.(36) It is something to secure that the interpretation of the new Constitution and of Irish statutes shall, in the last resort, be wholly in the hands of an Imperial Court. The chartered protection of the rights of the individual by a fundamental Act is always difficult and often impossible. In the last resort it depends very much on the interpretation which the judges choose to place upon such an Act.(37) The Executive Veto. It is obvious, therefore, that the principal and indeed almost the only safeguard provided in the Bill against inequitable or discriminating legislation(38) is the veto of the Lord-Lieutenant acting on the instructions of the Imperial Government. A political check is preferred to a juristic check. The apostolic maxim “all things are lawful but all things are not expedient,” appears to have been the motto of the draughtsman. Not law but policy will decide what Irish Acts are to be placed on the Statute-Book. It must be admitted that this is the principle most in harmony with precedent if the constitutions granted to the colonies are to be regarded as precedents. No colony would have tolerated for a moment the elaborate network of restrictions in Clause 4 of the Bill of 1893, through the finely-woven meshes of which it would have been hard for any Irish legislation of an original or experimental character to pass. If we are really in earnest about setting up a Parliament on College Green, we cannot do otherwise. The executive veto must be the real check, and in the presence of such a check, English judges would always be very loath(39) to declare the Acts of a legislature _ultra vires_ merely because they infringed common law rights.