The Privy Council and the Courts.  The English Privy Council[75] may nullify the effect of Irish legislation in two ways.

It may as an administrative body give a decision that an Act is void.[76] This power can by exercised only upon the application of the Lord Lieutenant or a Secretary of State, and it is a power which we may expect will be but rarely employed, for its use would at once give rise to a direct conflict between the Irish Parliament and the English Privy Council.  Let it be noted in passing that this provision for the decision of constitutional questions is foreign to the habits and traditions of English Courts; no judge throughout the United Kingdom ever pronounces a speculative opinion upon the extent, operation, or validity of an Act of Parliament.  It is the inveterate habit of our judges to deal with particular cases as they come before them, and with particular cases alone.  They will find themselves greatly perplexed when they come to pronounce judgment upon abstract questions of law.  This is not all.  The proposed arrangement is as foreign to the spirit of American Federalism as it is to the spirit of English law.  The Supreme Court of the United States never in strictness pronounces an Act either of Congress or of a State Legislature void.  What the Court does is to treat it as void in the decision of a particular case.  Tocqueville and other critics have directed special attention to the care with which the Federal tribunals, by dealing only with given cases as they arise, avoid as far as possible coming into conflict with any State.  They determine the rights of individuals; they do not determine directly what may be the legislative competence of the State, or for that matter of the Federal, Legislature.[77] The extraordinary power given to the Privy Council violates a fundamental principle of federalism, which by the way is violated in other parts of the Home Rule Bill.  It brings, or tends to bring, the central power, represented in this case by the Privy Council, into direct conflict with one of the States of the Federation.[78]

The English Privy Council, or, in strictness, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, is under the new constitution constituted a Final Court of Appeal from every Court in Ireland.[79]

The Privy Council also is the Court of Appeal from a new kind of Imperial, or as one may say ‘Federal,’ judiciary, specially formed for the determination of matters having relation to the competence of the Irish Parliament.

This Imperial or Federal judiciary consists of the two Exchequer Judges of the Supreme Court in Ireland; they are appointed under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, and therefore by the English Ministry.  Their salaries are charged on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, and they are removable only on an address to the Houses of the Imperial Parliament.  They constitute therefore an Imperial not an Irish Court.  Before this Court may be brought on the