foreign affairs, for which many of its members are exceptionally qualified by knowledge and experience; but there is no apparent use in having in the several States a revising Senate as an academic check on hasty or ill-advised legislation by the Lower House. If any such supervisal is desirable, it would be better provided for by reserving, in certain matters, a power of appeal to the Central Parliament, or to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or to a specially appointed Court having powers analogous to those of the Supreme Court of the United States. In Ireland, I am convinced that the existence of two Houses could not fail to lead to jealousy, contention, and bickering, without any commensurate advantage.
Eminent students of parliamentary and constitutional history, who have given much thought to the evolution of the English governmental system, are of opinion that the intimate and direct combination of legislative and executive functions in the House of Commons is, in principle, unsound and logically indefensible, and that, in practice, it has seriously hampered the action of Parliament, and impaired its usefulness, and they strongly recommend that in any constitutional reconstruction this feature should, as far as possible, be eliminated. There is undoubtedly great force in the objection, especially in view of the changes brought about by the passing of the Parliament Act, and of the constantly increasing magnitude and gravity of the great questions of worldwide principle and policy with which we are faced through the results of the war.
As matters now stand an altogether disproportionate amount of the time of Parliament is consumed in the discussion of every-day matters of administration; subjects legitimate in themselves, but trivial, and often even frivolous, relatively to those weightier matters of legislation for which the acknowledged necessity is year by year increasing in urgency, but for the reasonable consideration of which no sufficient time is left available. Even in peace times this evil has long been recognised,
