position which the New Zealand Ministry occupies in New Zealand, and
will for most purposes as truly govern Ireland as the New Zealand
Ministry governs New Zealand, or as Mr. Gladstone's Ministry governs
England. The Irish Ministry will be the true Government of Ireland.

This is a fact to which the attention of the English public ought to be
sedulously directed. The creation of an independent Irish Parliament
strikes the imagination; it is seen to be an innovation of primary
importance. The creation of an independent Irish Cabinet or Ministry is
taken as a matter of course, and neither Unionists nor Gladstonians see
its full import. Yet in Ireland, as elsewhere, the character of the
Executive is of more practical consequence than the character of the
Legislature. A country may dispense, for a long time, with legislation;
no country can dispense with good government.

This principle holds good even in an orderly country such as England,
where the sphere of the administration is far less extended than it is
in most States. We might get on for a good while prosperously enough
without a Parliament, or without new laws, but if anything deprived us
even for a week of an Executive, or if, for any reason, the whole spirit
of the public administration were changed, every Englishman would feel
this portentous revolution in every concern of his daily life. The
protection of the Government, of the army, of the police, of the law
courts, are with us so much matters of course, that we never realise how
much the comfort and prosperity of our existence hang upon it, nor do we
reflect that the aid we derive from the Courts is in the last instance
dependent upon the decisions of the judges being actively supported by
the forces at the command of the executive power. Again, we are so used
to the preservation on the part of the Executive and the Courts of an
attitude of perfect impartiality and to the extension of their aid to