The Abolition of the Irish Senate The Senate of the
Irish Free State is about to die. Unless Mr. de Valera agrees to a prolongation of its life, it will cease to exist on the 11th of next month. The President has given no indication that he will make proposals for any alternative form of Second Chamber, and therefore the very real dangers of single-chamber government are alarmingly imminent. Quite apart from the vexed question of the method of appointment or election of the Senate; the situation that would arise under a form of constitution that would leave the Dail omnipotent would be fraught with the gravest dangers. Irish politicians arc not notorious for deliberation, and laws which might be passed by the Dail as a result of the clash of party pasSions would be immediately effective, once the restraining and delaying functions of a second chamber were abolished. Judges might be dismissed, the freedom of the Press abolished, or revolutionary currency reforms, passed at a single sitting. Almost any action might be taken, and by a Government resting on the very narrowest majority. Mr. de Valera has willed it, but he may well live to see single-chamber government operate to his own undoing—unless he profits by the absence of a Senate to prolong the life of the present Dail indefinitely.
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