y Council.]

The second method by which it is endeavoured to check unconstitutional
legislation is the use of the authority vested in the English Privy
Council. Privy This method is borrowed from Federalism, as the
Lord-Lieutenant's veto is borrowed from the Colonial system. The Privy
Council, it should be remembered, may nullify the effect of Irish
legislation in two ways:--It may as an administrative body give a
decision that a Bill or Act is void. It must, however, be hoped and
expected that the Privy Council will rarely adopt this mode of
exercising its powers, for such exercise would at once give rise to a
direct conflict between the Irish Parliament and the English Privy
Council. That body may, however, act simply as a Court of final appeal,
and as a tribunal decide whether an enactment Of the Irish Parliament is
or is not void. This, we may suppose, is the mode in which the Privy
Council will usually put forth its authority. It is easy, bearing the
experience of America and Canada in mind, to see how the whole
arrangement will, in theory at least, work. _A._ sues _X._ in an Irish
Court, _X._ bases his defence on some Act passed by the Irish
Parliament. The Privy Council pronounce the Act void, as being opposed
to some provision of the Constitution, and give a judgment in favour of
_A._, under which he has a right to recover L10,000 against _X._ Here it
will be said the whole matter is settled. The law was unconstitutional;
the law has been treated as void; _A._ has obtained judgment; _A.'s_
rights are secured. This would be all that was required, but for one
consideration. The object of the plaintiff in an action is to obtain not
judgment, but payment or execution. What are the means by which
judgments of the Privy Council may be put in force where they happen not
to be supported by Irish opinion, and are opposed, it may be, to the
decisions of the Irish Courts? The answer is simple: the Constitution
provides no means whatever. The Federal tribunals of America possess in
every State officials of their own, and are supported in the main by
American opinion. The Americans are, moreover, to use their own
expression, "a law-abiding people." Yet for all this the judgment of
the Supreme Court may be worth little if it runs across State sentiment,
and if the President should happen to sympathise with State rights. A
citizen of colour was unlawfully imprisoned in Georgia; he applied for a
habeas corpus. The application u