e larger functions also; though Ireland would naturally
leave in operation the great bulk of the statutes concerned, since they
intimately affect the commercial and industrial relations of the two
countries. For the rest, Ireland no more than the Colonies can be freed
from a measure of Imperial control maintained by Acts like the Merchant
Shipping Act of 1894.

The Postal Service in Ireland should, as in the Bill of 1886, come under
Irish control.

In the Home Rule Bill of 1893 (Section 34) it was laid down that for
three years the Irish Legislature should not "pass an Act respecting the
relations of landlord or tenant, or the sale, purchase, or letting of
land generally." Such a provision repeated in the coming Bill would be
inconsistent with the absence of Irish Members from Westminster. But I
take it for granted that there is no question of its repetition. At
first it might appear that Land Purchase should be distinguished from
other branches of land legislation and reserved to the Imperial
Government on the ground that it needs Imperial credit. I shall deal
with this point fully in Chapter XIV., and only need here to express the
view that Land Purchase cannot be separated from other branches of land
legislation, or from the Congested Districts Board, or even from the
control of the police, and that we are bound to give, and shall be
acting wisely in giving, all these powers to the Irish Legislature from
the first.

It is necessary perhaps to add that non-representation at Westminster
does not in the smallest degree affect the complete legal supremacy of
the Imperial Parliament over the subordinate Irish Legislature. This
Legislature will in legal language be a "local and territorial" body,
like those of the Colonies. It will be the creature of Parliament, and
could be amended or even extinguished by it in a subsequent Act. The
Bill of 1886 (perhaps because it never reached the Committee stage) said
nothing explicit about the supremacy, though the Bill of 1893, while
providing for representation at Westminster, repeatedly (and sometimes
quite superfluously) affirmed it--in the Preamble, for example, and in a
rider to Clause 2. The King's authority, through the Lord-Lieutenant,
will be supreme in Ireland, as, through the Governors, it is supreme in
the Colonies. Every Irish Bill, like every Colonial Bill, will require
the Royal Assent, given through the Lord-Lieutenant, who will correspond
to the Colonial Governors