Part 8

Next in importance to the right division of Imperial and local powers is a correct understanding of the relation borne by the executive of an autonomous country to the mother country. In every part of the British Empire which enjoys home rule the legislature consists of the Queen and the two local legislative bodies. The administrative power resides in the Queen alone. The Queen has the appointment of all the officers of the government; money bills can be introduced into the legislature only with the consent of the Queen. The initiative power of taxation then is vested in the Queen, the executive head, in practice represented by the Governor. But such a power of initiation is of course useless unless the legislative body is willing to support the executive, and grants it the necessary funds for carrying on the government. What, then, is the contrivance by which the governmental machine is prevented from being stopped by a difference between the executive and legislative authorities? It is the same in the mother country, and in every British home-rule country, with this difference only--that beyond the limits of the mother country the Queen is represented by a governor to whom are delegated such a measure of powers as is necessary for the supreme head of a local self-governing community. The contrivance is this in the mother country:--the Queen acts upon the advice of a cabinet council; in home-rule dependencies the Governor acts on the advice of a local council. If this cabinet council in the mother country, or local council in a dependency, ceases to command a majority in the popular legislative body, it resigns, and the Governor is obliged to select a council which, by commanding such a majority, can obtain the supplies necessary to carry on the government. The consequence then is, that in a home-rule community, if a serious difficulty arises between the legislative and executive authority, the head of the executive, the governor, refers the ultimate decision of the question to the general body of electors by dissolving the popular legislative body. It has been urged in the discussion on the Irish Government Bill that the powers of the executive in relation to the legislative body ought to be expressed in the Bill itself; but it is clear to anybody acquainted with the rudiments of legislation that the details of such a system (in other words, the mode in which a governor ought to act under the endless variety of circumstances which may occur in governing a dependency) never have been and never can be expressed in an Act of Parliament. But how little difficulty this absence of definition has caused may be judged from the fact that neither in England nor in any of her home-rule dependencies has any vital collision arisen between the executive and legislative authorities, and that all the home-rule colonies have managed to surmount the obstacles which the opponents of Home Rule argued would be fatal to their existence. The main principles have now been stated on which the Irish Government Bill is framed, and it remains to give a summary of the provisions of the Bill, the objects and bearing of which will be readily understood from the foregoing observations. The first clause provides that--

"On and after the appointed day there shall be established in Ireland a Legislature consisting of Her Majesty the Queen and an Irish legislative body."

This is the first step in all English constitutional systems, to vest the power of legislation in the Queen and the legislative body. Such a legislature might have had conferred on it the independent powers vested in Grattan's Parliament: but the second clause at once puts an end to any doubt as to the subordination of the Irish legislative body; for while on the one hand it confers full powers of local self-government, by declaring that the Legislature may make any laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland, it subjects that power to numerous exceptions and restrictions. The exceptions are contained in the third clause, and the restrictions in the fourth. The exceptions are as follows:--

"The Legislature of Ireland shall not make laws relating to the following matters or any of them:--

"(1.) The status or dignity of the Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency;

"(2.) The making of peace or war;

"(3.) The army, navy, militia, volunteers, or other military or naval forces, or the defence of the realm;

"(4.) Treaties and other relations with foreign States, or the relations between the various parts of Her Majesty's dominions;

"(5.) Dignities or titles of honour;

"(6.) Prize or booty of war;

"(7.) Offences against the law of nations; or offences committed in violation of any treaty made, or hereafter to be made, between Her Majesty and any foreign State; or offences committed on the high seas;

"(8.) Treason, alienage, or naturalization;

"(9.) Trade, navigation, or quarantine;

"(10.) The postal and telegraph service, except as hereafter in this Act mentioned with respect to the transmission of letters and telegrams in Ireland;

"(11.) Beacons, lighthouses, or sea-marks;

"(12.) The coinage; the value of foreign money; legal tender; or weights and measures; or

"(13.) Copyright, patent rights, or other exclusive rights to the use or profits of any works or inventions."

Of these exceptions the first four preserve the imperial rights which have been insisted on above, and maintain the position of Ireland as an integral portion of that Empire of which Great Britain is the head. The remaining exceptions are either subsidiary to the first four, or relate, as is the case with exceptions 10 to 13, to matters on which it is desirable that uniformity should exist throughout the whole Empire. The restrictions in clause 4 are:--

"The Irish Legislature shall not make any law--

"(1.) Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

"(2.) Imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege, on account of religious belief; or

"(3.) Abrogating or derogating from the right to establish or maintain any place of denominational education or any denominational institution or charity; or

"(4.) Prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at that school; or

"(5.) Impairing, without either the leave of Her Majesty in Council first obtained on an address presented by the legislative body of Ireland, or the consent of the corporation interested, the rights, property, or privileges of any existing corporation incorporated by royal charter or local and general Act of Parliament; or

"(6.) Imposing or relating to duties of customs and duties of excise, as defined by this Act, or either of such duties, or affecting any Act relating to such duties or either of them; or

"(7.) Affecting this Act, except in so far as it is declared to be alterable by the Irish Legislature."

These restrictions differ from the exceptions, inasmuch as they do not prevent the Legislature of Ireland from dealing with the subjects to which they refer, but merely impose on it an obligation not to handle the specified matters in a manner detrimental to the interests of certain classes of Her Majesty's subjects. For example, restrictions 1 to 4 are practically concerned in securing religious freedom; restriction 5 protects existing charters; restriction 6 is necessary, as will be seen hereinafter, to carrying into effect the financial scheme of the bill; restriction 7 is a consequence of the very framework of the Bill: it provides for the stability of the Irish constitution, by declaring that the Irish Legislature is not competent to alter the constitutional act to which it owes its existence, except on those points on which it is expressly permitted to make alterations.

Clause 5 is an exposition, so to speak, of the consequence which would seem to flow from the fact of the Queen being a constitutional part of the Legislature. It states that the royal prerogatives with respect to the summoning, prorogation, and dissolution of the Irish legislative body are to be the same as the royal prerogatives in relation to the Imperial Parliament. The next clause (6) is comparatively immaterial; it merely provides that the duration of the Irish legislative body is to be quinquennial. As it deals with a matter of detail, it perhaps would have more aptly found a place in a subsequent part of the Bill. Clause 7 passes from the legislative to the executive authority; it declares:--