Note 52 — Chapter IX

Even the Recess Committee (and we cannot wonder) but dimly grasped the constitutional position when they laid stress on the necessity for an Agricultural Minister "directly responsible to Parliament." Logically, they should have first recommended the establishment of an Irish Parliament to which the Minister should be responsible. To make him responsible to the House of Commons was absurd; and a Departmental Committee of 1907 has, in fact, recommended that the Vice-President should not have a seat in Parliament, but should remain in his proper place, Ireland. Meanwhile, the original mistake has caused friction and controversy. Soon after the Liberal Ministry took office in 1906, Sir Horace Plunkett, the first Vice-President, as a Unionist, was replaced by Mr. T.W. Russell, a Home Ruler. On the assumption that such an Office was Parliamentary, its holder standing or falling with the British Ministry of the day, the step was quite justifiable, and even necessary. On the opposite assumption, confirmed by the Departmental Committee, the step was unjustifiable, that is, on the theory of the Union. An Irish Parliament alone should have the power of displacing Irish Ministers.