Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/76

 vote of officers and rank and file. The details, for the moment, are immaterial. They would require closer attention at the moment of creation. The main matter is that each council would control its own affairs by the direct representation of all the people in the country engaged in its practical conduct. And these special interests would meet the direct representation of the Nation by Assembly in the Government of the day.

The Government would, by necessity, depending as it would on the will of the Assembly, be found from and always be responsible to that Assembly. That is to say, the largest party, or combination of parties, just as in the present clumsy theory of government, would create the Government of the day. But the Ministers of Government would be presidents of various councils, and would reflect their desire. Instead of evolving theories from consultation with the permanent officials of departments, as happens in England and most other countries, they would be directly in touch with the interests over whose destinies they preside, and their attention would, be occupied with the immediate practical questions raised from time to time. If some scheme suggested itself to them as desirable they would first have to win the consent and approval of their respective councils before coming to the Assembly with them; and when they came, they would come not only as Ministers of the Government but as spokesmen of their councils. Thus the clumsiness and constant injustice of majority government would continually be refined by contact