had been brought into existence. Mr.
Gerald Balfour, the Chief Secretary, was engaged at the time upon his
measure for the extension of Local Government to Ireland. This measure
became law in 1898, and the Department Act in 1899. Under that Act, the
duty was laid upon each of the new County Councils of electing two
members to serve upon a Consultative Council of Agriculture, to which a
minority of nominated members was added, and this Council in its turn
elects two-thirds of the members of an Agricultural Board, and supplies
four representatives to a Board of Technical Instruction, which, like
the Council and the Agricultural Board, has a predominantly popular
character.[50]

At the summit stands the Minister, or Vice-President, as he is called
(for in accordance with ancient custom, the Chief Secretary is nominally
in supreme control of this as of all other Irish Departments), and a
large and efficient staff of permanent officials. He and his staff have
a large centralized authority, but this authority is subject to a
constitutional check in the shape of a veto wielded by the Boards over
the expenditure of the Endowment Fund. What is more important, policy
tends to be shaped in accordance with popular views by the existence of
the Council and the Boards.

Here, then, is the germ of responsible government. At first sight a
critic might exclaim: "Why, here is democracy pushed to a point unknown
even in Great Britain, where Government Departments are wholly
independent of Local Councils." That is in a limited sense true, and it
is quite arguable that British Departments would be the better for an
infusion of local control. But we must not be misled by a false analogy.
Great Britain reaches the Irish ideal by other means. Her departmental
Ministers are directly responsible to a predominantly British House of
Commons where a hostile vote can at any moment eject them from
office.[51] There is no Irish Parliament, nor any kind of predominantly
Irish body which is vested with the same power. The Vice-President of
the Irish Department of Agriculture, an institution concerned
exclusively with Irish affairs, whether he sits in the House of Commons
or not (and for two years Mr. T.W. Russell had not a seat at
Westminster), could not be ejected from office even by a unanimous vote
of Irish Members of the House, with the moral backing of a unanimous
Irish people.[52] That is one of the anomalous results of the Union, and
it was a