federal relationship with the Imperial State has not escaped the attention of the German scholars, but they unanimously oppose such a conception as applied to the Schutzgebiete. Professor Georg Meyer, in his Die Staatsrechtliche Stellung der Deutschen Schutzgebiete, published in 1888, denied their statehood, and he was supported in this position by Professor Carl von Stengel in his Die Deutschen Schutzgebiete, ihre rechtliche Stellung, Verfassung und Verwaltung, published in 1895, and by Laband and Jellinek.

It thus appears that though, in Germany, as in France, the dependencies are regarded as deriving their political existence and rights from the will and grant of Germany, they are nevertheless being treated more and more exactly as they would be if they were considered to have inherent rights of statehood-in other words, that, although the German Empire (meaning by this term Germany and its dependencies, and not the State of Europe which calls itself "the German Empire"), is in theory a unitary organism, it is in practice a federal organism. Even the tropical dependencies, whose populations are wholly without the ability to govern themselves except, in some cases, under a tribal form, are treated as States, and the State of Germany recognizes its right and its duty to isolate these States economically, and to some extent socially, from German contact and influence, and to hold the administrators of these dependencies to the most stringent obligation to account, as a Substituted and Trustee Government for the people of these States, to the State of Germany concerning their trusteeship.

Summarizing the results of this investigation of the theory and practice of the States of continental Europe, it appears that the conception of the dependencies of a State as themselves States is steadily forcing its way from the very necessity of the case, since experience has proved that only upon this basis can dependencies

be successfully administered. As the theory is yet in process of formation, no consideration has been given to the very important corollaries which would flow from its acceptance, such as, for instance, the corollaries that the Imperial power is a trust arising out of an implied contract between the Imperial State and the dependent States, which rests upon the Legislature and the Executive of the Imperial State alike; and that therefore the Federal Empire composed of a State and its dependencies is subject to an unwritten Constitution distinct from the Constitution of the Imperial State.

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CHAPTER XXV

BRITISH ADMINISTRATION, 1780-1902

N 1780, Burke introduced a Bill in Parliament for reducing the expenses of the Civil List, which provided for the abolition of the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies and of the Board of Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, as unnecessary and useless. As Great Britain had insisted, not only at the inception of the American Revolution, but even in 1778, after the war had been going on for three years, that its dependencies were mere counties of the Realm, and its Parliament the Supreme Legislature which "granted to the dependencies the "privilege" or "indulgence" of "self-government," there was no more need for a Secretary of State for the Colonies or for a Board of Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, which was, in effect, an UnderSecretarial Board, than there was for a Secretary of State and an Under-Secretary of State for the County of Durham. The King yielded and himself abolished the two offices attacked by Burke. By an Act passed in 1782, the offices were formally abolished.

Burke, though insisting upon the unconditional and unlimited power of Great Britain over the dependencies, was a great believer, as has already been noticed, in granting "privileges" or "indulgences" to them. By his influence, in 1782, the "privilege" or "indulgence" of entire exemption from Parliamentary control was granted to Ireland, by the repeal of the Act of 1720 "for the better securing of the dependency of Ireland upon the Crown of Great Britain," in which it had been declared:

That the said Kingdom of Ireland hath been, is, and of right ought to be subordinate unto and dependent upon the Imperial Crown of Great Britain, as being inseparably united and annexed thereunto; and that the King's Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the Kingdom and people of Ireland.

Two years later, in 1783, when the Irish objected to cases going on appeal from the highest courts of Ireland to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Parliament settled this matter by granting Ireland the "privilege" and "indulgence" of entire exemption from this appellate jurisdiction, in an Act which provided:

That the right claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound only by laws enacted by his Majesty and the Parliament of that Kingdom in all cases whatever, and to have all actions and suits at law or in equity, which may be instituted in that Kingdom, decided by his Majesty's courts therein finally, and without appeal from thence, shall be, and it is hereby declared to be, established and ascertained forever, and shall at no time hereafter be questioned or questionable.

The Irish people, instead of arguing from this action of Parliament that Great Britain and Ireland constituted a Federal Empire, of which Great Britain was the Sovereign State for which the King acted, argued that Ireland was a State independent of Great Britain, though the same person was King of both States. If the King of Great Britain was merely the King of Ireland, it necessarily followed that when a Regent had to be named, Ireland might name him as well as Great Britain, and if\ they could not agree, Ireland might name its own King and become entirely independent. This was actually

attempted in 1788. At the time the Constitution of the United States was being framed, Ireland, released from Parliamentary control, was in a state of anarchy and was a menace to the peace and safety of Great Britain; and it was evident that the Act of 1782 had been a serious mistake. It seems probable that the failure of this experiment had much to do with the practically unanimous sentiment which seems to have prevailed in America in 1787 that the Northwest Territory could not safely be exempted from the control of Congress.

In 1782, when Burke's Act was passed, there was no regularly organized Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations. The administration of the British dependencies, therefore, rested with the King and the Parliament (except where, as in the case of Ireland, the Parliament had voluntarily withdrawn), acting through the Secretary of State for the Southern Department, who then began to be recognized as the Secretary of State for Home Affairs. Until 1786, the immediate charge of the administration of the dependencies was vested in a Bureau or Division of the Home Office, known as "the Plantations Branch of the Home Office.' The Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations was revived in 1784, and in 1786 the business of the Plantations Branch of the Home Office was transferred to this Committee.

Under this arrangement, the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations was, in effect, the Secretarial Board for Imperial Affairs. The Secretary of State for the Southern Department was also Secretary for Imperial Affairs. There were therefore two Secretaries of State having the same functions, acting under an arrangement which did not expressly subordinate either of them to the other. It was inevitable that one should supplant the other. The Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations, being less effective than