reintroduces in the most awkward form the interference of the British Parliament with Irish legislation.  If he does not use the veto, or, what is in its effect the same thing, if the Act is not disallowed, then the right of veto comes to little or nothing.  We may be quite sure that in general neither the Lord-Lieutenant nor the Crown will refuse assent to Bills approved of by the Irish Parliament.  The veto in its different forms will, in short, be but a very slight check on unconstitutional or unjust legislation.

[Sidenote:  2.  Action of Privy 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