.[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The barrier which now
blocks the way to any Reunion of Ireland is the fact that under the new Constitution, the State will be more or -less in the nature of an artificial person,
while what corresponds to it elsewhere will be a Cabinet system with a collective responsibility and also with a rule of law to protect the individual from arbitrary action, whether
as members of a family or not.
. No doubt temporary measures are always possible outside whatever constitutional rights that may exist, yet there is a great difference between this and our permanent powers vested in the Executive in order to overrule the law itself. The Roman law which is still prevalent on the Continent took no account of territoriality, and gave the State, as an artificial person, the Droit Administrant, under what is in reality a law of persons of its own. Rousseau, who was the real author of all the constitutions which came after him, including that of America, took the people as the sole source of any authority, yet only wrote of " places" when the state of nature prevailed and thus was also the author of the idea of territoriality. He was also careful to provide for an intermediary to pass on the structure of government, after the "Rights of Man" had been reserved. Nature supplied this in the shape of Napoleon, who handed on a system of administration which is still the real ruler of France.
The Barons at Runnymede, who carved out the libertie of the subject from the royal prerogative itself, had very different ideas, and not only was the commander of their forces an Anglo-Irishman, but also the second signature to the charter is that of the Archbishop of Dublin, who thus secured
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