The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
time, I do not repeat the proposal. The Irish Parliament, under the coming Bill, will be a stronger representation of the popular will than the Irish Council would have been, at all events, at the outset.
This change of administrative control, direction, and responsibility in respect of Education will, I trust, have a powerful effect in improving secular instruction, which is at present notoriously inefficient; but it need not (apart from any declaration of policy by the Irish Legislature), involve any change in the religious aspect of the teaching. Teaching in Irish primary schools of all creeds is in practice denominational (though not so in theory). My hope is that it will remain so. What the change will involve is the control of the Department over the appointment, the promotion, the removal, the qualifications, and the conditions of service of every person employed in Irish schools. That is as it should be.
The “Endowed Schools” are conducted under schemes which have, I believe, been settled by the Judicial Tribunals, and I do not suggest any interference with such schemes, but the efficiency of the secular teaching in those schools should be subject to the supervision of the Department of Education.
I come next to the Local Government Board, which consists at present of an ex-officio President (the Chief [pg 074] Secretary) and three members, one of the three being Vice-President and the real head of the Board. The appointment of a Minister, being a member of the Irish Legislature, in place of the ex-officio President who never sits on the Board, will convert this Board into a Department with a responsible Minister in charge. One member of the Board (not the medical member) may be dispensed with, and the Executive Establishment calls for revision. This Board comes into contact with the people in many intimate relations of their lives and on its successful administration will largely depend the popularity of the new Administration.
The next Department is the Board of Public Works and Buildings, which at present is a Treasury Department independent of Irish control. For the “Chairman” should be substituted a Minister responsible to the Legislative Assembly. At present there are three members, but one of these may, I think, be dispensed with at once. I look to this Department to confer benefits, long delayed, on the country; I would, especially, instance, drainage. Ireland stands in need of nothing more than a system of arterial drainage carried out on a large scale.
At present the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland make recoverable loans on behalf of the Treasury for land improvement and such like purposes. In the scheme indicated above, the making of these loans would come within the functions of the Finance Department. But the Department of Works would naturally be the Treasury's Agents advising on the necessity for such loans and supervising the expenditure of them, when borrowed for large betterment undertakings.
The next Department is the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. In the scheme [pg 075] outlined above Technical Instruction has been brought under the Education Department, while the Congested Districts Board has been brought under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture. The Act under which the Department of Agriculture at present works provides for two Bodies, to assist and advise the Vice-President, (who, as in the case of the Local Government Board, is the working head of the department)—a Board having a veto on expenditure, and a Council which gives general advice on policy. Both the Board and the Council were devised to supply that popular element in which the system of Irish Government is at present lacking. Under the new dispensation this popular element will be amply supplied. Both Bodies will therefore be unnecessary; their continuance would conduce to embarrassment and friction with the all-controlling Legislature. Both the Council and the Board should be abolished. The President and Vice-President should also disappear, and in their place should emerge a responsible Minister in charge of the Department. This Department seems to be, after the Judicial Department, the most expensively organised in Ireland. It is true that it comprises some branches which have elsewhere an independent status: but notwithstanding this, I am convinced that a revision of its numerous and costly establishments is needed in the interests of economy and efficiency.
I have already suggested that the Congested Districts Board should be relieved of the duty of purchasing land, the Land Commission being required to make these purchases on requisition from the Congested Districts Board. I would add (in accordance with the principle suggested by paragraph 100 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Congestion in Ireland, (1908)) that the creation of an Irish Legislature destroys [pg 076] the justification for this Board. The work can be better done by an Executive Agency working under the control of a Committee of Parliament. But if a Board is retained it should not be the large Board we have now. A small Board of five will be more conducive to efficiency and far more amenable to the control of the Legislature. That control I venture to add will be most beneficially exercised in bringing about the abandonment of the Congested District Board's present policy of spoon-feeding the congested villages of the West; and of dealing with them not, to any extent, on eleemosynary principles, but exclusively on those of self-help. The Board's methods of relieving congestion should be assimilated to the practice of the Land Commission on dealing with congested areas, if men now living are to see the end of the Board's activities.
In connexion with Registration, I think it is desirable to bring all kinds of registration under the control of one Minister, but the work is mostly of a routine character and a single Minister will doubtless find himself able to direct this and also the last Department remaining on my list.
This Department—for General Purposes—brings together the remaining Boards and Offices dealing with official work in Ireland; and under it may in future be brought any official business of a temporary character, not of sufficient importance to be dealt with by a separate Office, but yet of such importance that a vote is taken for it in Committee of Supply.
I have placed “Fisheries” in this Department because that important industry requires more attention than it has hitherto received, or than it can receive from the Department of Agriculture. It will also be observed that I have placed in this Department the [pg 077] subject of Thrift and Credit Societies and Co-operative Banks: thus dissociating them from the Department of Agriculture, which deals with them at present but with which they have no necessary connexion. They have been made far too much the battle-ground of contending parties. Some supervision by the Government over these co-operative agencies may perhaps be necessary, but they will flourish most when interference by the Government is least felt.
It remains to refer to the position and functions of the Lord-Lieutenant under the new dispensation (it is, of course, to be presumed that no religious disqualification will any longer attach to the office). On the assumption that the Executive power will continue vested in the King, all executive acts of the Irish Government must issue by authority of the Lord-Lieutenant through whom will also be communicated the assent to, or the withholding of assent from, Acts of the Irish Legislature. The Bill of 1893 (Clause 5 (2)) provided for:
“An Executive Committee of the Privy Council in Ireland to aid and advise in the government of Ireland being of such members and comprising persons holding such offices under the Crown as His Majesty, or if so authorised, the Lord-Lieutenant, may think fit, save as may be otherwise directed by Irish Act.”75
It will be desirable that such a Committee of the Irish Privy Council should be created to assist the Lord-Lieutenant. But while the majority of the Committee should always be composed of Ministers, it would, I think, conciliate the minority, and otherwise make for efficiency, if some members on the Privy Council Committee, were taken from outside the [pg 078] Government. If the Committee were composed of ten members, seven might be Ministers, and three members might be taken from outside the Government: the decision of the Council would be that of the majority.
Of course, I am conscious of the fact, that this arrangement may be objected to on the ground that it would expose the plans of the Government, in particular cases, to gentlemen who might not be of the Party in Office. But Privy Councillors are bound by oath to secrecy; and I think the danger of a dishonourable betrayal of trust is incommensurate with the advantages which this representation of outside feeling on the Committee, would bring. Moreover, the Lord-Lieutenant would be free not to summon any particular Privy Councillor to a session of the Committee, if the Prime Minister objected to his presence. The proceedings of the Privy Council would be secret, and no Minutes of dissent would be recorded.