The above clauses contain the pith and marrow of the whole scheme. The exact constitution of the legislative body, and the orders into which it should be divided, the exclusion or non-exclusion of the Irish members from the Imperial Parliament, indeed, the whole of the provisions found in the remainder of this Bill, are matters which might be altered without destroying, or even violently disarranging, the Home-rule scheme as above described.
Clauses 9, 10, and 11 provide for the constitution of the legislative body; it differs materially from the colonial legislative bodies, and from the Legislature of the United States. For the purpose of deliberation it consists of one House only; for the purpose of voting on all questions (except interlocutory applications and questions of order), it is divided into two classes, called in the Bill "Orders," each of which votes separately, with the result that a question on which the two orders disagree is deemed to be decided in the negative. The object of this arrangement is to diminish the chances of collision between the two branches of the Legislature, which have given rise to so much difficulty both in England and the colonies. Each order will have ample opportunity of learning the strength and hearing the arguments of the other order. They will therefore, each of
them, proceed to a division with a full sense of the responsibility attaching to their action. A further safeguard is provided against a final conflict between the first and second orders. If the first order negative a proposition, that negative is in force only for a period of three years, unless a dissolution takes place sooner, in which case it is terminated at once; the lost bill or clause may then be submitted to the whole House, and if decided in the affirmative, and assented to by the Queen, becomes law. The first order of the Irish legislative body comprises 103 members. It is intended to consist ultimately wholly of elective members; but for the next immediate period of thirty years the rights of the Irish representative peers are, as will be seen, scrupulously reserved. The plan is this: of the 103 members composing the first order, seventy-five are elective, and twenty-eight peerage members. The qualification of the elective members is an annual income of £200, or the possession of a capital sum of £4000 free from all charges. The elections are to be conducted in the electoral districts set out in the schedule to the Bill. The electors must possess land or tenements within the district of the annual value of £25. The twenty-eight peerage members consist of the existing twenty-eight representative peers, and any vacancies in their body during the next thirty years are to be filled up in the manner at present in use respecting the election of Irish representative peers. The Irish representative peers cease to sit in the English Parliament; but a member of that body is not required to sit in the Irish Parliament without his assent, and the place of any existing peer refusing to sit in the Irish Parliament will be filled up as in the case of an ordinary vacancy. The elective members of the first order sit for ten years; every five years one half their number will retire. The members of the first order do not vacate their seats on a dissolution of the legislative body. At the expiration of thirty years, that is to say, upon the exhaustion
of all the existing Irish representative peers, the whole of the upper order will consist of elective members. The second order consists of 204 members, that is to say, of the 103 existing Irish members (who are transferred to the Irish Parliament), and of 101 additional members to be elected by the county districts and the represented towns, in the same manner as that in which the present 101 members for counties and towns are elected—each constituency returning two instead of one member. If an existing member does not assent to his transfer, his seat is vacated.
A power is given to the Legislature of Ireland to enable the Royal University of Ireland to return two members.
The provisions with respect to this second order fall within the class of enactments which are alterable by the Irish Legislature. After the first dissolution of parliament the Irish Legislature may deal with the second order in any manner they think fit, with the important restrictions:—(1) That in the distribution of members they must have due regard to population; (2) that they must not increase or diminish the number of members.
The transfer to the Irish legislative body of the Irish representative peers, and of the Irish members, involves their exclusion under ordinary circumstances from the Imperial Parliament, with this great exception, that whenever an alteration is proposed to be made in the fundamental provisions of the Irish Government Bill, a mode of procedure is devised for recalling both orders of the Irish legislative body to the Imperial Parliament for the purpose of obtaining their consent to such alteration (clause 39).
Further, it is right to state here that Mr. Gladstone in his speech on the second reading of the Bill proposed to provide, "that when any proposal for taxation was made affecting the condition of Ireland, Irish members should have an opportunity of appearing in the House to take a share in the transaction of that business."
Questions arising as to whether the Irish Parliament has or not exceeded its constitutional powers may be determined by the ordinary courts of law in the first instance; the ultimate appeal lies to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. An additional safeguard is provided by declaring that before a provision in a Bill becomes law, the Lord Lieutenant may take the opinion of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as to its legality, and further, that without subjecting private litigants to the expense of trying the constitutionality of an Act, the Lord Lieutenant may, of his own motion, move the judicial committee to determine the question. With a view to secure absolute impartiality in the committee, Ireland will be represented on that body by persons who are or have been Irish judges (clause 25).
The question of finance forms a separate portion of the Bill, the provisions of which are contained in clauses twelve to twenty, while the machinery for carrying those enactments into effect will be found in Part III. of the Land Bill. The first point to be determined was the amount to be contributed by Ireland to imperial expenses. Under the Act of Union it was intended that Ireland should pay 2/17ths, or in the proportion of 1 to 7-1/2 of the total expenditure of the United Kingdom. This amount being found exorbitant, it was gradually reduced, until at the present moment it amounts to something under the proportion of 1 to 11-1/2. The bill fixes the proportion at 1/15th, or 1 to 14, this sum being arrived at by a comparison between the amount of the income-tax, death-duties, and valuation of property in Great Britain, and the amount of the same particulars in Ireland. The amount to be contributed by Ireland to the imperial expenditure being thus ascertained, the more difficult part of the problem remained to provide the fund out of which the contribution should be payable, and the mode in which its payment should be secured. The plan which commended itself to the framers of the Bill, as combining