I.


Ireland was the oldest and the nearest of the Colonies. We are apt to
forget that she was ever colonized, and that for a long period, although
styled a Kingdom, she was kept in a position of commercial and political
dependence inferior to that of any Colony. Constitutional theory still
blinds a number of people to the fact that in actual practice Ireland is
still governed in many respects as a Colony, but on principles which in
all other white communities of the British Empire are extinct. Like all
Colonies, she has a Governor or Lord-Lieutenant of her own, an Executive
of her own, and a complete system of separate Government Departments,
but her people, unlike the inhabitants of a self-governing Colony,
exercise no control over the administration. She possesses no
Legislature of her own, although in theory she is supposed to possess
sufficient legislative control over Irish affairs through representation
in the Imperial Parliament. In practice, however, this control has
always been, and still remains, illusory, just as it would certainly
have proved illusory if conferred upon any Colony. It can be exercised
only by cumbrous, circuitous, and often profoundly unhealthy methods;
and over a wide range of matters it cannot by any method whatsoever be
exercised at all.

To look behind mere technicalities to the spirit of government, Ireland
resembles one of that class of Crown Colonies of which Jamaica and Malta
are examples, where the inhabitants exercise no control over
administration, and only partial control over legislation.[4]

Why is this?