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.