it, nor do we reflect that the aid we derive from the Courts is in the last instance dependent upon the decisions of the judges being actively supported by the forces at the command of the executive power.  Again, we are so used to the preservation on the part of the Executive and the Courts of an attitude of perfect impartiality and to the extension of their aid to all citizens alike, that we can hardly even in imagination conceive what would be the condition of things if the public administration favoured particular classes and looked askance on the rights of one class, whilst it enforced with rigour the rights of another.  Yet events which have been passing before our eyes may show any one how absolutely dependent we may be, at any moment, for our enjoyment of life, property, or freedom upon the authority and the equity of the Executive.  Consider the strike at Hull.  Practically the legal rights and personal freedom of every inhabitant of the city depend upon the action of the Government.  It is as plain as day that if the Government had taken actively and unfairly the side of one party or the other to the contest, the party which the Government favoured would at once have won.  Suppose, though the supposition is a very improbable one, that the Home Secretary had directed the police to put down every form of picketing and to arrest every one who counselled the free labourers to desert their employment, the strike would come at once to an end.  Suppose on the other hand—­the supposition is also a wild one—­that the Home Secretary had declined to protect the rights of the free labourers, that the troops had been withdrawn, and that the police had been inactive; suppose, in short, that the Government had been careless to maintain order.  The Trade Unionists would at once have become supreme, and freedom of contract, as well as liberty of person, would have been at once abolished.  Even in England then the power to exercise our rights as citizens has its source in the constant, though unobserved, intervention of the executive power.  What is true of England is truer still of countries where the sphere of the administration is more widely extended than with us, and what is true of every civilised country is truest of all of Ireland.  Ireland is a country where the sphere of the administration is large, and where it will probably be increased.  Ireland is divided by hostile factions not too much prone to respect the law.  Even as things stand, the Irish Executive finds it hard enough to hold a perfectly even and level course, and the whole state of the country depends upon the spirit in which the law is enforced.  One of the very gravest defects of our present system is that in Ireland a change of government means, to a certain extent, a change in the administration of the law.  Yet both Mr. Balfour and Mr. Morley have enforced the law, and have meant, according to their lights, to act towards all citizens with equitable impartiality.  And Mr. Balfour, Mr. Morley, or any statesman appointed by