to an Irish Ministry more desirable than that within three years[60] from the passing of the Bill landlords and tenants should come to an arrangement, and nothing is more likely to produce this result than the withdrawal from the landlords of the aid, if not the protection, of the law.  My argument, however, at the present point does not require the assertion or the belief that an Irish Ministry will be guilty of every act of oppression which it can legally commit.  All that I insist upon is that an Irish Ministry will exercise immense power, and that without violating a letter of the constitution, and without passing a single act which any Court whatever could treat as void, the Ministry will be able to change the social condition of Ireland.  The Irish Cabinet, remember, will not be checked by any Irish House of Commons, for it will represent the majority of that House.  It will not need to fear the interposition of the Imperial Ministry or the Imperial Parliament, for if the authorities in England are to supervise and correct the conduct of the Irish Cabinet, Home Rule is at an end.  Mr. Asquith has repudiated all idea of creating two Executives in Ireland[61] for the ordinary purposes of government, and from his own point of view he is right.  The notion of a dual control is preposterous; the attempt to carry it out must involve anarchy or revolution.  The Irish Ministry must in ordinary matters be at least as free as the Ministry of a self-governing colony.  The independence of the Irish Executive is indeed a totally new phenomenon in Irish history, and is, as I have said, a far more important matter than the independence of the Irish Parliament, but it is an essential feature of Home Rule, and every elector throughout England should try to realise its import.

One check, indeed, is placed upon the power of the Irish Cabinet.  The military forces of the Crown, and the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police (as long as they exist[62]), are subject to the control of the Imperial or English Ministry.[63] The result is that the English Cabinet will have the means of using force in Ireland for the maintenance of order, for the execution of the law, or for the maintenance of the authority of the Imperial Parliament.  But this advantage is after all purchased at the price of placing the country under the rule of something very like two Executives.  If the policy of the Irish Cabinet, e.g. as to suppressing a riot at Dublin or Belfast, should differ from the policy of the English Cabinet, the ordinary police may be called into action whilst the army or the royal constabulary stand by inactive, or the army may disperse a meeting which the Irish Ministry hold to be a lawful assembly.

II. The Irish Parliament. The authority of the Irish Parliament, whilst acting within the limits of the constitution, is extremely wide.[64]