The Worlds Famous Orations. Great Britain: III. (18651906).
1906. On the Government of Ireland Bill James, Viscount of Bryce
(18381922) Born in 1838; practised law until 1882; Regius
Professor of Civil Law at Oxford 18701893; elected to Parliament
in 1880; Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1886;
President of the Board of Trade in 1894; author of The American
Commonwealth, 1888; Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland in 1906. NOTHING1 is more essential than that in passing
a measure like this we should base it on firm legal grounds, and
that we should clearly understand what relation the law we are
asked to pass is to bear to the political action that is to go
on under it. I do not think anything better deserves the
attention of the House, and I hope the House will suffer me to
deal somewhat minutely with it. My right honorable and learned
friend laid down three propositions: the first was that by this
Bill the unity of the empire would be destroyed; the second,
that the imperial Parli