Page:Abolition of the Vice-Royalty of Ireland.djvu/25

21 on the bench; let the new officer whom it is proposed to create superintend that class of affairs on both sides of St. George's Channel; and let the internal Government of the United Kingdom in matters of general import, whether in England, Scotland, or Ireland, be committed without distinction to the same hand, and be directed by the same head. I cannot but believe that such an arrangement would conduce materially to the advancement of the public interests; and that it would be a more reasonable as well as more acceptable arrangement, than the establishment of a fourth Secretary of State, charged with the separate administration of a certain class of affairs, for no better reason than simply that they are Irish.

It is quite true, as may be observed by those who are acquainted with the detailed construction of the Bill for the abolition of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, that it contains nothing absolutely irreconcileable with the adoption of a scheme such as I have ventured to suggest. The Bill provides, in the first place, for the distribution of the functions and authority of the Lord Lieutenant and his Executive between Her Majesty and the Privy Council in Ireland; and it then transfers the duties of administration to "one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State," recognizing at the same time the probable necessity for the appointment of a fourth. There is nothing certainly in these provisions incompatible with the arrangements above