Page:Abolition of the Vice-Royalty of Ireland.djvu/24

20 some degree over the machinery of our complicated and multifarious legislation, would be in consonance with the wishes and the convictions of an immense majority of the community at large.

Let us apply what has been said to the case before us. We have a mass of business to be transferred from Ireland to England in consequence of the suppression of the Irish Executive. We wish (for I may surely assume this in the absence of any insuperable obstacle) to place Irish affairs on the same footing, and to commit them to the same hands, as those of the other members of this united realm. We are impeded in this operation by the existing pressure of duties upon the department to which they would most naturally and obviously be referred. We at the same time find that another great office is so overburdened as to render it a matter of necessity that it should be relieved; and it so happens that a large portion of the load now imposed upon both these offices is of a nature which would admit of its being reasonably and advantageously lodged in a third quarter, which might be specially charged with its responsibilities. Provide then for the relief at once of these branches of the National service,—for the more efficient discharge of great public duties,— and for the more complete and intimate consummation of international union. Take from the Home Secretary all the legal labour of his office; withdraw from the Chancellor those administrative functions which embarrass his duties