The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
History
The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government
It will be necessary to provide for the representation of the Irish
Government in the Imperial Parliament (a different thing from the
representation of Ireland, which, if the solidarity of the United Kingdom
is to be preserved, must be maintained, though, as I have already said, in
a proportion “which should be sensibly less than the proportion existing
between British Members and their electorates”). Some Member of the
Imperial Parliament must answer for that Government; and the question
arises whether the Member should be an Irish Member, designated by the
Irish Government, as its representative, or a British Minister. In view of
the fact that the Acts of the Irish Government will be subject to the
control of the Imperial Parliament, and must, therefore, come regularly
under the cognizance of the British Ministry, I suggest that the duty
should be discharged by the British Home Secretary, pending the time when
the establishment of the Federal System (Home Rule all round) will call
for a more far-reaching Parliamentary adjustment.
If the Land Commission (Group VII.) be excluded from Irish control, the
number of Ministers in charge of departments would be seven, reducible to
six by giving the portfolios of Groups VIII. and IX. to the same Minister,
and to five if a separate Minister for Law and Justice be not at once
appointed. With the Prime Minister, who might have charge of a department,
or, as in Canada, might be President of the Privy Council, a Cabinet of
seven or six as a minimum number would be composed; and this would seem to
be an adequate number, at all events to begin with.
The general result of the preceding suggestions should be that
responsibility for every agency engaged in the administration of public
business in Ireland will attach to a particular Minister, responsible to
the Irish Parliament; that interest in Irish public business will be
enormously stimulated in Ireland, and that a salutary public control will
be effectively exercised. In particular, it may be expected that public
money will be husbanded, and when expended, will be spent to the best
advantage.
It is not possible within the limits of a paper like this, to enumerate
the provisions of law, peculiar to Ireland which the organic changes
indicated in the preceding paragraphs may necessitate. An enquiry into
that matter (as into the redundancy of Judicial, Executive and Secretariat
establishments) will no doubt be undertaken by the Irish Government on a
suitable opportunity. But it is probably correct to say that changes of
substantive law will not be so much required as changes of practice,
whereby the administration of the law may be brought more into harmony,
than it is at present, with popular sentiment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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