all questions affecting the Imperial army as a whole; they also determine, as far as their intervention is required, questions of foreign policy.  The function in short of the Delegations is to deal with matters, and with those matters only, which affect the Austro-Hungarian State as a united body, and in its relation to foreigners.  Hence three Ministers, the Minister of War, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who act for the whole monarchy, constitute what is called the Common Ministry, and are appointed by the Emperor-King, and are responsible neither to the Hungarian Parliament nor to the Imperial Parliament, but simply to the Delegations.  It is natural for Englishman to conclude that the Delegations regulate matters, such for example as questions regarding customs, &c., which must affect every portion of the State, and must, if the two divisions of it are to be united at all, be regulated on common principles.  But this is not so.  The economical relations of the two parts of the Empire are determined by laws identical in substance, passed by the Hungarian and Imperial Parliaments respectively.  These laws are enacted from ten years to ten years.  It is therefore possible under the present arrangement that in ’88 the existing customs union between Austria and Hungary may come to an end.[6] The position further of the Delegations is in reality that of two separate committees each representing a separate Parliament.  Infinite pains have been taken to place the Hungarian and the Austrian Delegations on exactly equal footing.  The Delegations meet alternately at Vienna and at Pesth, they debate in general separately, and come to an agreement through written negotiations; they may have a common meeting.  In this case the number of deputies present on each side must be equal, and by a vote of the majority at such common meeting, any question in dispute is finally determined.

The Austro-Hungarian system is therefore briefly this.  Two separate States, each having a separate administration, a separate Parliament, and separate bodies of subjects or citizens, are each ruled by one and the same monarch; the two portions of the monarchy are linked together mainly as regards their relation to foreign powers by an assembly of delegates from each Parliament and by a Ministry which is responsible to the Delegations alone, and which acts in regard to a limited number of matters which are of absolute necessity the common concern of the monarchy.  This is the Dual system held up for our imitation.  Picture it for a moment as actually existing in what is still the United Kingdom.  We should have an English Ministry and an English Parliament at Westminster which had not the least authority in Ireland; we should have an Irish Ministry and an Irish Parliament at Dublin which had not the least authority in England.  Each Parliament would in point say of foreign policy be hampered by the superior authority of a third Parliament consisting of sixty English