It is an unfortunate coincidence that the least defensible portion of an indefensible policy should, while it threatens ruin to England, offer temporary salvation to the party who rally round Mr.Gladstone.[55] C._The Powers of the Irish Government_ I._The Irish Executive_.

At the head of the Irish Executive will nominally stand the Lord Lieutenant; he will however in reality occupy the position of a colonial Governor, and be, for most purposes, little more than the ornamental figure-head of the Irish Administration.

The real executive government of Ireland[56] must be a parliamentary Ministry or Cabinet[57] chosen in effect, though not in name, by the Irish Parliament, or rather by the Irish Legislative Assembly, or House of Commons, just as the English Cabinet is appointed in effect by the English House of Commons.

Allowing then for the occasional intervention of the Lord Lieutenant as the representative of the Imperial Parliament to protect either the interests of the Empire or the special rights of the United Kingdom,[58] the Irish Ministry is to occupy in Ireland the 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.