What are the general outlines of this great measure? Its central
proposal is the creation of an Irish Parliament, responsible for the
administration of Irish affairs. That Parliament is to consist of a
Senate and a House of Commons, numbering respectively 40 and 164,
guided by an Irish Executive, chosen in the same manner as the British
Imperial Cabinet. Ireland, in other words, is to be governed by
responsible Parliamentary chiefs, commanding a majority in the Irish
House of Commons. In this honest recognition of facts and terms we have
an advance on the vagueness of former proposals. Otherwise, both this
Parliament and this Executive are to have the same liberty and are to
be restrained by almost precisely the same checks and safeguards, in
regard both to religious rights and Imperial sovereignty, as those
which existed in the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893. Ireland is to
retain at Westminster a representation of forty-two members.
What is to happen if the two Irish Chambers differ? According to the
Bill, the Senate is to be nominated, at first by the Imperial
Government, and afterwards by the Irish Parliament, and the members are
to sit by rotation for eight years.
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