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nothing short of a new Imperial Constitution. But this is not the way in which the English people have been accustomed to meet their political difficulties. They have wisely sought to deal with each contingency as it arises, using the means which experience has taught them to be the best, instead of roving the world of political speculation for far-fetched analogies and model Constitutions. We could not, if we would, deal with each part of the United Kingdom as if all were exactly alike. The case of Scotland, although it presents many resemblances, is not exactly analogous to that of Ireland, and the geographical fact of the insular position of Ireland, the political fact of her intense Nationalism, and, most of all, her differential treatment in the pages of the statute-book, put her in a different category.

It may be found possible to limit devolution of legislative powers in the case of Great Britain to an alteration in the procedure of the House of Commons. The one difficulty I see is the responsibility of the Executive for legislation. Can a Liberal Government with a majority in the whole House afford to allow legislative autonomy to a Committee of English members in which it is in a minority, and conversely can a Unionist Government in a similar position in the whole House afford to allow legislative autonomy to a Committee of Scotch members in which it is in a minority? Possibly. There can be no doubt that the doctrine of the responsibility of the Cabinet of the day for legislation has been carried much too far-it was almost unknown at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the private member was as powerful as to-day he is impotent. A system of national' committees in legislation might restore to the House the autonomy of which it has been deprived, and one might then see something of the legislative initiative, activity, and independence which Deputies exercise in the committees of the French Parliament.

One thing is quite certain-however many 'Legislatures' we may have in the House of Commons, we cannot have more than one Executive; and therefore, unless we have separate Parliaments we must make some distinction as to what kind of legislation the Government of the day is to be responsible for. There are no precedents to guide us. It is true we have a Scotch Standing Committee in the House legislating in exclusively Scottish affairs, but this proves too little or too much; too little because that Committee has only been in existence when the majority of Scottish members have been of the same party as the majority in the whole House; too much because the Scotch Committee is not really autonomous-all its measures have to be submitted on Report to the whole House. The present Lord Chancellor did

indeed put forward, in an article written in 1892 and re-published by him in the Contemporary Review for March 1911, the ingenious suggestion that there might be two Executives existing concurrently in the House of Commons-an Imperial Cabinet consisting of four Secretaries of State, the First Lord of the Treasury, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, these being, in his opinion, purely 'Imperial ' Ministers; and a British Cabinet consisting of such Ministers as (among others) the Home Secretary, the Presidents of the Local Government Board, Board of Education and Board of Trade, and the Secretary for Scotland. The classification will not bear a very close examination; the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, and the President of the Board of Trade would not easily find an exclusive place in either category. Moreover, the scheme involves some strange complexities and readjustments of the conventions' of the Constitution. What would be the position of the British Executive if defeated in the House of Commons on British affairs? Would it resign or would it be entitled to call for a dissolution confined to Great Britain alone? If it could only do the former, its authority in the House would be precarious; if it could command the latter, the position of the Imperial Cabinet would be intolerable. Nor could the distinction between the two Cabinets really be maintained. What, for example, would be the position of such Imperial' Ministers as the Secretary for War or the Home Secretary, if a vote of censure were passed on either or both by the British members, for the employment of troops in an industrial dispute in Great Britain? The position of Ministers under such a system would be worse than precarious, it would be servile-they would be like the medieval villein, the legal test of whose servitude was found by the common law in the definition that he knows not to-day what he may have. to do to-morrow.' A scheme such as this represents a kind of inchoate devolution-a differentiation in the Executive without a corresponding differentiation in the Legislature. Two distinct Executives are only possible if there are two distinct Legislatures.

It seems to me that this is eminently a case for experiment under the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. The great advantage of such a procedure is that it is experimental, and in no sense final. By delegating business to a Grand Committee by a Standing Order the House never entirely renounces its control over such legislation, and it can decide in each individual case whether it will dispense with the Report stage or not. The flexibility of such a procedure is obvious. The Government of Ireland Bill, instead of laying down a uniform system of local

legislatures for the United Kingdom, has confined itself to Ireland as a special case, and leaves open the possibility of differential treatment of the other parts of the kingdom. This seems sound. As for the provisions of the Bill itself, as distinct from its general principles, I have no space to discuss them in detail in the present article, but I think it may be truly said of them that they follow the line of historical development. Here is no repeal of the Act of Union. The Bill recognises that Ireland has been bound during the last hundred years by innumerable legislative ties, pre-Union statutes and post-Union statutes. Litera scripta manet. Those ties are never likely to be seriously relaxed. History has done its work. Grattan's Parliament may have been premature, and it is possible at one and the same time to defend the Act of Union and to plead for its modification. Of this Bill, and of its whole method of approaching the subject of constitutional reconstruction, I think it may justly be said that the men who framed it have laid to heart the wise words of Burke I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building.'

J. H. MORGAN.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake

to return unaccepted MSS.

PROPERTY OF

Fletcher Free Library.

BURLINGTON, VT.

INDEX TO VOL. LXXI

The titles of articles are printed in italics

ADM

ADMIRALTY Administration, Re-

cent Changes in, 201-216

Aerial locomotion, 75-85
Africa, East, difficulties of white
settlement in, 312–331
Africa, Portuguese colonies, 497-510
Africa, Senussi confraternity and war
in Tripoli, 1216-1229

Agadir, The Aftermath of Suggestions
for a Settlement of Territorial Ambi-
tions, 191-200

Agricultural England and the rural
exodus, 174-190

Aischro-Latreia-the Cult of the Foul,
332-340; reply to, 547-556
America and Scotch-Irish immigrants,
1121-1133

Anglican Churches in England and
Australasia, connexion between
the Church and the State, 1089-
1097

Anglo-German alliance, English
Radical advocacy of, 589-598
Anglo-German relations and terri-
torial expansion, 191-200
Anglo-Russian Agreement and the
independence of Persia, 40-47
Arctic research, England's backward-
ness in, 756-766

Army, National, The Working Classes
and a, 86-97

Army officers, their financial position,
706-718

Army, Oxford and the, 1164-1175

Art collections, Our, and American
competitors, 24-39

Art, French and English, Salon and
Academy, 1202-1215

Art, The terrible and the pitiful in,
547-556

Arts, State recognition and encourage-
ment of the, 557-567
Atlantic cables and Imperial wireless
scheme, 1076-1088
Australian Experiences, Some, of the
Organisation of a Disestablished
Church, 1089-1097

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Barrett (Elizabeth) and the love story
of the Brownings, 976-988
Beaumont, Pauline de, 1147-1163
Bellairs (Commander Carlyon), A New
Imperial Preference Scheme, 385-400
Bengal, Calcutta, and changes in
Indian Government, 48-57

Biology, hereditary transmission of
variations, 511-531

Bird Flight, The Solution of the Mystery
of, 75-85

Birmingham, Bishop of, and Anglican
Socialists, 1029–1045

Bismarck's policy and modern Prusso-
Germany, 1059–1075

Blake (Lady), The Triad Society and
the Restoration of the Ming Dynasty,
667-687

Bland (J. O. P.), The Yellow Peril,
1017-1028

Bradley (A. G.), The Ulster Scot in
the United States, 1121-1133
Brain centres and psychical mechanism
in education, 945-965

Braine (Capt. H. E.), The Sword and
the Lance versus the Rifle, 966-975
Bright (Charles), Cables versus Wire-
less Telegraphy, 1076–1088

British East African Problems, Some,

312-331

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CAN

Canada and the Navy a Canadian
View, 821-828

Carlyle (Thomas) and peace-at-any-
price policy, 795-803

Carman (Albert R.), Canada and the
Navy a Canadian View, 821-828

FIG

Crystal Palace, The: a Reminiscence
and a Suggestion, 1176-1184
Custance (Admiral Sir Reginald), The
Naval Case for Ratifying the De-
claration of London, 435-444

AVIDSON (George L. O.), The

Castberg (J.), The Legal Position of Dution of the Mystery of Bird

Women in Norway, 364-377

Catholic Layman, A, 741-755

Celibacy, The Church and, 165-173;
replies to, 303-311

Centenary of Charles Dickens's birth,
274-284

Chaperon, The Passing of the, 582-588
Chateaubriand, French Society life
in days of, 1147-1163

Childers (Erskine), The Real Issue in
Ireland, 643-656; a rejoinder to,
849-852

China and Islam,

between, 657-666

Fraternisation

Chinese Ming dynasty, Triad Society
and struggle for restoration of the,
667-687

Chinese revolution and the Western

world, 1017-1028

Christian beliefs, Milton's influence on,
901-918

Church, The, and Celibacy, 165–173;
replies to, 303-311

Church of England and Oxford Move-

ment, 133-147, 341-356, 532-546
Churchill (Mr.) and Naval War Staff,
201-216

Città Eterna, La a Reminiscence of
the 'Seventies, 466-482

Clarke (Rev. A. H. T.), The Passing

of the Oxford Movement, 133–147;
341-356; reply to, 532-546
Clergy, The, and Disestablishment,
868-880, 1098-1106

Clergy, The, and Celibacy, 165–173,
303-311

Coal Crisis, The, 378-384

Coal miners' strike, Socialist tyranny,
and the nation's industries, 401-410,
609-622

Coal Strike, The-and After, 623-631
Coleridge (Hon. Gilbert), An Old

Boy's Impression of the Fourth of
June at Eton, 1192-1201
Congested Districts Board, benefits
to Ireland, 267-273
Coulton (G. G.), The Church and
Celibacy': Reply to Mrs. Huth
Jackson, 307-311

Cox (Harold), Holding a Nation to
Ransom, 401-410
Crammond (Edgar), England's Eco-
nomic Position and her Financial
Relations with Scotland and Ireland,
411-434; The Third Edition of
Home Rule 1 Ireland's Economic
Development, 849-852

Flight, 75-85

Declaration of London, Naval Case for

Ratifying the, 435-444

Delhi as the new capital of India, 48-57
Depopulation, Rural, in England during
the Nineteenth Century, 174-190
Dickens (Charles) 1 February 7th, 1812–
1912, 274-284

Dimnet (Abbé Ernest), Is M. Macter-

linck critically estimated? 98-111
Diplomacy and Parliament, 632-642
Disestablishment of the Church in
Wales, 1089-1106

Disestablishment, The Clergy and, 1098-
1106

Disestablishment, Why some of the Clergy
will welcome, 868-880

Duff (Lady Grant), The Action of
Women in the French Revolution,
1009-1016

EDUCATION and character-training

Public Schools,

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Educational endowments, and return-
able scholarships, 1185-1191
Emancipation of women in Norway,
legal and political, 364-377

Emigration, Britain's neglected advan-
tages, 483-496

Emigration to Canada, an Imperial
problem, 112–132

England's Economic Position and her
Financial Relations with Scotland
and Ireland, 411-434

English Radicals and Foreign Politics,
589-598

Established Churches and Disestab-

lishment, 868-880, 1089-1106
Eton, The Fourth of June at 1 an Old
Boy's Impression of, 1192-1201
Evolution and heredity, influence of
environment, 511-531

Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park,
the Crystal Palace, 1176–1184

EDERAL Home Rule and appor-

Federalism, Home Rule and, 1230-1242
Feeble-minded Children, The Treatment
of, 930-944

Feminism in France during the Reign
of Terror, 1009-1016
Figgis (Darrell), Charles Dickens!
February 7th, 1812-1912, 274-284

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