Page:The Irish Constitution Explained.djvu/27



All powers of Government may derive from the people, but the people cannot of themselves govern themselves. In simple small communities the people may gather together and frame the manner of their government from meeting to meeting (and only then when ancient custom has given them the practice and expectation of such assemblies); but among nations for a people to discipline and rule themselves it is necessary that they bestow recognised and definite powers of government on representatives of their choice. Such representatives, to be sure, have a habit of conceiving that they are rulers of their own right. Cases have even been known where they have endeavoured to obstruct the right of the people to depose them. But the truth is that such representatives are merely a convenience. They are a people's instruments, and no more. Without them the achievement of a common agreement, and the formulation of laws based on that common agreement, would prove so cumbersome as to be impossible. A people must therefore tolerate them with good humour; and keep them under proper control. And when such representatives have been chosen, they together form an organised body for the making of laws, and for the supervision and control of the execution of such laws.

Obviously, then, once a Constitution has stated the sovereign source of all authority, and defined the fundamental rights of that sovereignty, it is essential that it should prescribe the manner in which laws shall be made for the 25