re should be
created, etc." So ran the opening sentence of the Home Rule Bill of
1893. The words I have italicized are harmless but superfluous. They
have never appeared in the Constitutions granted to Colonies, even at
periods when the Colonies were most distrusted. Nothing can impair the
supreme authority of Parliament.

EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY.

In all parts of the Empire, power emanates from the Sovereign, and is
wielded locally in his name.

Section 9 of the British North America Act of 1867 runs as follows: "The
Executive Government and authority of and over Canada is hereby declared
to continue and be vested in the Queen." Similar words are used in the
South Africa Act of 1909, and in the Commonwealth of Australia
Constitution Act of 1900. Curiously enough, these were Acts to legalize
the Federation, or Union, of separate Colonies, and were passed at a
time when the principle embodied needed no affirmation. In earlier Acts
for granting Colonial Constitutions, the principle was taken for
granted, and implied in numerous provisions, but not stated explicitly.
The most recent unitary Constitution, that of the Transvaal (Section
47), was even more reticent, though the principle was none the less
clear. The point is unimportant, and the words used in the Home Rule
Bills of 1886 and 1893 (Clauses 5 and 7 respectively), modified to meet
a change of Sovereign, will serve very well: "The Executive power in
Ireland (or the Executive Government of Ireland) shall continue vested
in His Majesty...."

Thereon follow the provisions for delegation of the Royal authority,
first to the Sovereign's personal Representative in Ireland, and then
through him to the members of the Irish Executive. The simpler these
provisions are, the better. What we know as responsible government has
never been defined in any Act of Parliament. The phrase "responsible
government" has only once appeared in any Constitution--namely, in the
preamble of the Transvaal Constitution granted in 1906, and even then no
attempt was made at definition, though certain sections, like certain
sections in the Australian Constitutions of 1855 and in the later
Federal Acts, inferentially suggested features of responsible
government.

The system is two-sided. Ministers are responsible on the one hand to
the King direct, as in Great Britain, or to the King's Representative,
as in the Colonies, and, on the other hand, to the elected Legislature.
Ireland will resemble