and such Council as her Majesty might from time to time
see fit. The initiative power of recommending taxation was also vested
in the Queen, and delegated to the Lord Lieutenant. These clauses are
co-ordinate and correlative with the clause conferring complete local
powers on the Irish Legislature, while it preserves all imperial powers
to the Imperial Legislature. The Governor is an imperial officer, and
will be bound to watch over imperial interests with a jealous scrutiny,
and to veto any Bill which may be injurious to those interests. On the
other hand, as respects all local matters, he will act on and be guided
by the advice of the Irish Executive Council. The system is self-acting.
The Governor, for local purposes, must have a Council which is in
harmony with the Legislative Body. If the Governor and a Council,
supported by the Legislative Body, do not agree, the Governor must give
way, unless he can, by dismissing his Council, and dissolving the
Legislative Body, obtain both a Council and a Legislative Body which
will support his views. As respects imperial questions, the case is
different; here the last word rests with the mother country, and in the
last resort a determination of the Executive Council, backed by the
Legislative Body, to resist imperial rights, must be deemed an act of
rebellion on the part of the Irish people, and be dealt with
accordingly.

In acceding to the claims of the National Party for Home Rule in Ireland
another question had to be considered: the demands of the English
garrison, as it is called--or, in plain words, of the class of Irish
landlords--for protection. They urged that to grant Home Rule in Ireland
would be to hand them over to their enemies, their tenants, and to lead
to an immediate, or to all events a proximate, confiscation of their
properties. Without admitting the truth of these apprehensions to the
full extent, or indeed to any great extent, it was undoubtedly felt by
the framers of the Home Rule Bill that a moral obligation rested on the
Imperial Government to remove, if possible, "the fearful exasperations
attending the agrarian relations in Ireland," rather than leave a
question so fraught with danger, so involved in difficulty, to be
determined by the Irish Government on its first entry on official
existence. Hence the Land Bill, the scheme of which was to frame a
system under which the tenants, by being made owners of the soil, should
become interested as a class