Page:The Irish Parliament; what it was, and what it did.djvu/16

 Irish Legislatures; and a general view of the Irish Constitution will, it is believed, be of interest at the present time. It will be useful to the student, who will see in the defects of the Irish system the measure of the value of the British Constitution. The public man, too, having regard to these defects, will, it is hoped, avoid, in any future modification of the relations between Great Britain and Ireland, the dangers which proved fatal to a former Irish Constitution.

In the following pages I will endeavour to sketch in outline the constitution of the Irish House of Lords (chapter i.) and of the Irish House of Commons (chapter ii.); the relation of the Irish to the English Crown (chapter iii.); the relation of the Irish to the English Parliament (chapter iv.); the relation of the Irish Parliament to the English and Irish Privy Councils before 1782 (chapter v.); the relation of the Irish Parliament to the English Privy Council after 1782 (chapter vi.); the Irish Administration, noticing specially the "fugacious responsibility," which mainly contributed to the destruction of the Irish Constitution by a transaction, declared by Fox to be, "with all the circumstances attending it, the most disgraceful that ever happened to that country" (chapter vii.); while I will conclude with a statement of the leading