As an administrative body it can give a decision as to the constitutional validity of any Bill brought before or Act passed by, the Irish Parliament. In its judicial character it is a court of final appeal, with exclusive power to pronounce a decision upon the validity of an Act of the Irish Parliament whenever the validity thereof comes in question in the course of an action.[[62]] The decisions of the Privy Council are final; their twofold character as opinions and judgments deserve special attention. The result is that the Judicial Committee of the English Privy Council can always in one way or another pronounce void the proposed or actual legislation of the Irish Parliament if it is in the judgment of the Privy Council unconstitutional.
Ireland in return for the advantages gained by her under the Gladstonian Constitution gives up the representation which she now has in each of the two Houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. No Irish representative, either Peer or Commoner, sits under that Constitution at Westminster.[[63]] The present Parliament of the United Kingdom under whatever name it be described, and whatever be its powers, becomes therefore on the withdrawal of the Irish representatives a British Parliament, and is hereinafter termed by me, for the sake of distinction, the British Parliament. Ireland also contributes annually to the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom a sum of over four millions. The Irish customs and excise are made the security for the payment of this contribution; they are, if I understand the Government of Ireland Bill rightly, to be collected by British officials and paid into the British Treasury, but the details of the financial arrangements intended to exist under the Gladstonian Constitution are not within the scope of this work.
The Irish Parliament has no power to modify or alter the provisions of the Constitution under which it exists,[[64]] except in one or two cases provided for by the Constitution itself. The Constitution is alterable in a particular manner therein pointed out, namely by the co-operation of the British Parliament and the Irish Parliament. If we omit certain complications of detail, this co-operation takes place by the Irish representatives being summoned back, and thus added to the British Parliament. The body thus constituted for the alteration of the Gladstonian Constitution is formed of much the same elements as the existing Parliament of the United Kingdom, and is hereinafter called the Imperial Parliament.[[65]]
As regards the English Constitution.
As regards the Constitution of England—
The Gladstonian Constitution, as it will now be seen, does, whatever the intention of its authors, as a matter of fact seriously affect the Constitution of England, and this in more points than one.
First.—The withdrawal of the Irish representation from the Parliament of the United Kingdom constitutes in effect a new body, which in its composition is different from the present Parliament of the United Kingdom, and which since (allowing for changes introduced by the different Reform Acts which have been passed during the century) it corresponds with the Parliament of Great Britain as it existed before the Union with Ireland, may be rightly described by the name I have applied to it, of the British Parliament. This British Parliament has admittedly authority to legislate on every matter which comes within the competence neither of the Irish Parliament, nor of the body which I have distinguished as the Imperial Parliament, which, it will be remembered, consists of the British Parliament with the Irish representatives summoned thereto. Whether the British Parliament has or has not any further powers is a moot question which I purposely leave for the moment untouched. What is admitted on all hands is that a Parliament in which Irish representatives have no voice whatever can legislate on every matter affecting England, Scotland, or the British Empire, and also on the topics specially excluded from the competence of the Irish Parliament unless they belong to the one topic, namely, the alteration of the Gladstonian Constitution, reserved for the Imperial Parliament.
Secondly.—The British Parliament, whatever be its theoretical authority, will cease under the Gladstonian Constitution to pass laws for Ireland, and will not impose any taxation on Ireland in addition to the contribution which Ireland is compelled to pay under the Constitution.
Hence, Thirdly,—and as a result of the various features in the Gladstonian Constitution which have been already noted, there exist under it three bodies with different functions which, by whatever name they may be each called, ought to be carefully distinguished. They are—
(i.) The British Parliament at Westminster, in which sit no Irish members, which legislates for Great Britain, and for the whole of the British Empire, except Ireland, but which does not in general at any rate legislate for Ireland.