perity of our existence hang upon it, nor do we
reflect that the aid we derive from the Courts is in the last instance
dependent upon the decisions of the judges being actively supported by
the forces at the command of the executive power. Again, we are so used
to the preservation on the part of the Executive and the Courts of an
attitude of perfect impartiality and to the extension of their aid to
all citizens alike, that we can hardly even in imagination conceive what
would be the condition of things if the public administration favoured
particular classes and looked askance on the rights of one class, whilst
it enforced with rigour the rights of another. Yet events which have
been passing before our eyes may show any one how absolutely dependent
we may be, at any moment, for our enjoyment of life, property, or
freedom upon the authority and the equity of the Executive. Consider the
strike at Hull. Practically the legal rights and personal freedom of
every inhabitant of the city depend upon the action of the Government.
It is as plain as day that if the Government had taken actively and
unfairly the side of one party or the other to the contest, the party
which the Government favoured would at once have won. Suppose, though
the supposition is a very improbable one, that the Home Secretary had
directed the police to put down every form of picketing and to arrest
every one who counselled the free labourers to desert their employment,
the strike would come at once to an end. Suppose on the other hand--the
supposition is also a wild one--that the Home Secretary had declined to
protect the rights of the free labourers, that the troops had been
withdrawn, and that the police had been inactive; suppose, in short,
that the Government had been careless to maintain order. The Trade
Unionists would at once have become supreme, and freedom of contract, as
well as liberty of person, would have been at once abolished. Even in
England then the power to exercise our rights as citizens has its source
in the constant, though unobserved, intervention of the executive power.
What is true of England is truer still of countries where the sphere of
the administration is more widely extended than with us, and what is
true of every civilised country is truest of all of Ireland. Ireland is
a country where the sphere of the administration is large, and where it
will probably be increased. Ireland is divided by hostile factions not
too much prone