In this branch of our subject it will be convenient not to confine our attention to the separate Irish laws, but, since many laws are also passed separately for England and for Scotland, to take a wider view and consider how far Parliament legislates in common for the whole of the United Kingdom, and how far separately for one or more of its component parts. And it follows therefrom that any conclusions that we may form as to the delegation of legislative powers are likely to apply in kind if not in degree to England and Scotland as to Ireland. In the administrative sphere, of course, the position is by no means the same as between the three countries. Scotland has at present no important central department at Edinburgh other than its Local Government Board. It was largely owing to the maintenance under the Union of the separate administration in Ireland, combined with the retention during the first sixteen years of the separate exchequers, that Parliament was obliged to legislate separately for the different portions of the United Kingdom. These were the years of the Napoleonic wars, when very heavy taxation was imposed; and, not only was a separate Act passed, according to the custom of the time, for each article that was to be taxed, but this taxation was, on account of the separate exchequers, imposed by separate Acts for Great Britain and for Ireland. In these circumstances it is not surprising to find that the most numerous Statutes of the first twenty years of the century were those whose application was confined to Great Britain or to Ireland, and that they considerably exceeded in number those which applied to the whole of the United Kingdom or to England alone. After the amalgamation of the exchequers in 1817, the annual average of Statutes applying to Great Britain dropped at once from thirty-five to seven, and gradually decreased still further, since most of the financial measures were passed thenceforward for the whole of the United Kingdom alike. But Ireland, in spite of the financial amalgamation, continued to call for a large amount of separate legislation, and the annual average of Statutes applying solely to Ireland dropped no more than from thirty-one in the decade 1811-20, to nineteen in the following decade, at which point it remained fairly constant during the greatest part of the nineteenth century. Throughout this period, the average annual number of what I call “United Kingdom” Statutes ranged between forty-nine in the decade 1861-70, and thirty-two in 1881-90, and of Statutes that applied solely to England between fifty-eight in 1881-90, and twenty-three in 1801-10. It should be added that the numbers are those of the Public Acts alone, and they would be much higher, particularly in the later years, if the Local and Private Acts were included in the enumeration. But the public Statutes are obviously alone relevant in any enquiry as to the extent to which the