. The Lord-Lieutenant, like his colonial
counterpart, will have to exercise both his Executive and Legislative
functions in a double capacity: in the first instance by the advice of
his Irish Cabinet, but subject to a veto by the British Cabinet. This
dual capacity has belonged to all Colonial Governors ever since the
principle of responsible government was established. As I showed in
earlier chapters, it was regarded even by Lord John Russell as
impossible and absurd as late as 1840; but it ought by now to be
understood by every educated man, and we may hope to be spared the
philosophical disquisitions and hair-splitting criticisms which it
evoked from men who should have known better in the Home Rule debates of
1893.

Laws framed at Westminster will be applicable to Ireland, as they are
frequently made applicable to the Colonies.[89] Conversely, only through
the express legislative authority of Westminster will an Irish, like a
Colonial Act,[90] be held to operate outside the borders of Ireland.

Apart from the strict legal omnipotence of Imperial sovereignty, it is,
of course, impossible to say now what the exact constitutional position
of Ireland will be under any form of Home Rule. No Bill can state it
fully in set terms. Time, custom, and judicial decisions will build up a
body of doctrine. It is so with the Colonies, whose exact constitutional
relations with the Mother Country are still a matter of juristic debate,
and are only to be deduced from the study of an immense number of
judicial decisions and of Imperial Acts passed subsequently to the grant
of the original Constitutions. Some of these Acts I have already
illustrated. The one Act of general application, namely, the Colonial
Laws Validity Act, cannot be read without the rest, though in form it
appears to contain a complete set of rules. While giving general power
to a self-governing Colony "to make laws for the peace, welfare, and
good government of the Colony" (words which will also necessarily appear
in the Home Rule Bill), the Act makes void all colonial laws or parts of
laws which are "repugnant to the provisions of any Act of Parliament
extending to the Colony to which such law shall relate," and this
provision will no doubt, be applied, _mutatis mutandis,_ to Ireland, as
it was in Section 32 of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. The Irish
Legislature, that is, will be able "to repeal or alter any enactments in
force in Ireland except such as either relat