Page:Home rule; Fenian home rule; Home rule all round; Devolution; what do they mean?.djvu/29

25 into the belief that any half-measures will ever satisfy the Irish Nationalist demand. They must make up their minds either to retain the Union or repeal the Union.

The demand for an "Independent Irish Executive" is a very important portion of the Nationalist claim. It is a demand for greater Executive powers than existed in Grattan's Parliament.

There was under the Ante-Union Constitution, properly speaking, no ministry in Ireland responsible to the Irish Parliament. The position of Irish Ministers was essentially different from the position of their colleagues in England. Ministerial power was vested chiefly in the Lord Lieutenant and his Chief Secretary who filled in Ireland a position at least as important as that of a Prime Minister in England; but the Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary were appointed and instructed by English Ministers and changed with each succeeding English administration. The Irish Executive Government was thus completely subordinated to the play of party government in England. The Irish administration was, in fact, appointed and directed by the English Cabinet, and the English doctrine that a Parliamentary censure carried against a Ministry or the defeat of an important Ministerial measure must be followed by resignation was not recognised in Ireland.

The Irish Parliament accordingly had full legislative independence, but it did not control the Executive,