military operations would, I presume, take the form of a
suspension _sine die,_ leaving the future open; would require
attention to be paid to defence on the recognised southern
frontier of Egypt, and need not involve any precipitate
abandonment of Suakin.

Home Rule Bill, 1886. (Page 308)

(M196) _The following summary of the provisions of the Home Rule bill of
1886 supplements the description of the bill given in Chapter V. Book
X._:--

One of the cardinal difficulties of all free government is to make
it hard for majorities to act unjustly to minorities. You cannot
make this injustice impossible but you may set up obstacles. In
this case, there was no novelty in the device adopted. The
legislative body was to be composed of two orders. The first order
was to consist of the twenty-eight representative peers, together
with seventy-five members elected by certain scheduled
constituencies on an occupation franchise of twenty-five pounds
and upwards. To be eligible for the first order, a person must
have a property qualification, either in realty of two hundred
pounds a year, or in personalty of the same amount, or a capital
value of four thousand pounds. The representative peers now
existing would sit for life, and, as they dropped off, the crown
would nominate persons to take their place up to a certain date,
and on the exhaustion of the twenty-eight existing peers, then the
whole of the first order would become elective under the same
conditions as the seventy-five other members.

The second order would consist of 206 members, chosen by existing
counties and towns under the machinery now operative. The two
orders were to sit and deliberate together, but either order could
demand a separate vote. This right would enable a majority of one
order to veto the proposal of the other. But the veto was only to
operate until a dissolution, or for three years, whichever might
be the longer interval of the two.

The executive transition was to be gradual. The office of viceroy
would remain, but he would not be the minister of a party, nor
quit office with an outgoing government. He would have a privy
council; within that council would be formed an executive body of
ministers like the British cabinet. This executive would be
responsible to the Irish legislature, just as the execut