England's Case Against Home Rule Part 9

Though it is from the nature of things almost impossible to take effective steps for ensuring that an Irish executive shall make a right use of its powers, it is an essential feature of the Gladstonian Const.i.tution that the Irish Parliament shall so far at least use its authority justly as to keep within the limits placed upon its competence. Whether these limitations have been wisely drawn, and whether they may not be in some respects too wide and in others too narrow, are inquiries which, though important in themselves, need hardly detain us. The question in comparison with which all matters of detail sink into insignificance is not what are the limitations which the Const.i.tution imposes on the competence of the Irish Parliament, but what is the efficacity of the means provided by the Const.i.tution for compelling the Irish Parliament to respect these limitations? This is the one vital inquiry, for upon the answer to it depends the reality of the const.i.tutional provisions for the maintenance of just legislation.

These methods are, as already pointed out, twofold.

[Sidenote: 1. Veto of Lord-Lieutenant.]

The first is the veto of the Lord-Lieutenant. Let us a.s.sume, though the truth of the a.s.sumption is not quite clear, that this veto is combined, as in the case of the colonies, with a further power of disallowance on the part of the Crown, or in effect of the British Ministry. The result is that the British Ministry, or, to put the thing plainly, the British House of Commons, can put a check on such Irish legislation as may be opposed to the letter or to the spirit of the Const.i.tution. The check is in one sense real, but it must, as in the case of the colonies, be but rarely employed. Its constant use, or its use on occasions of great importance, would seem to Irishmen, and with good reason, to nullify the concession of Home Rule. Suppose, for example, the Irish Ministry carry a measure for artificially stimulating Irish commerce, and the Crown disallows it on the ground that it is contrary to the provision of the Const.i.tution forbidding the Irish Parliament to make any law relating to trade. The Irish Cabinet thereupon resigns. What course is the Lord-Lieutenant to take? If he uses the veto he reintroduces in the most awkward form the interference of the British Parliament with Irish legislation. If he does not use the veto, or, what is in its effect the same thing, if the Act is not disallowed, then the right of veto comes to little or nothing. We may be quite sure that in general neither the Lord-Lieutenant nor the Crown will refuse a.s.sent to Bills approved of by the Irish Parliament. The veto in its different forms will, in short, be but a very slight check on unconst.i.tutional or unjust legislation.

[Sidenote: 2. Action of Privy Council.]

The second method by which it is endeavoured to check unconst.i.tutional legislation is the use of the authority vested in the English Privy Council. Privy This method is borrowed from Federalism, as the Lord-Lieutenant's veto is borrowed from the Colonial system. The Privy Council, it should be remembered, may nullify the effect of Irish legislation in two ways:--It may as an administrative body give a decision that a Bill or Act is void. It must, however, be hoped and expected that the Privy Council will rarely adopt this mode of exercising its powers, for such exercise would at once give rise to a direct conflict between the Irish Parliament and the English Privy Council. That body may, however, act simply as a Court of final appeal, and as a tribunal decide whether an enactment Of the Irish Parliament is or is not void. This, we may suppose, is the mode in which the Privy Council will usually put forth its authority. It is easy, bearing the experience of America and Canada in mind, to see how the whole arrangement will, in theory at least, work. _A._ sues _X._ in an Irish Court, _X._ bases his defence on some Act pa.s.sed by the Irish Parliament. The Privy Council p.r.o.nounce the Act void, as being opposed to some provision of the Const.i.tution, and give a judgment in favour of _A._, under which he has a right to recover 10,000 against _X._ Here it will be said the whole matter is settled. The law was unconst.i.tutional; the law has been treated as void; _A._ has obtained judgment; _A.'s_ rights are secured. This would be all that was required, but for one consideration. The object of the plaintiff in an action is to obtain not judgment, but payment or execution. What are the means by which judgments of the Privy Council may be put in force where they happen not to be supported by Irish opinion, and are opposed, it may be, to the decisions of the Irish Courts? The answer is simple: the Const.i.tution provides no means whatever. The Federal tribunals of America possess in every State officials of their own, and are supported in the main by American opinion. The Americans are, moreover, to use their own expression, "a law-abiding people." Yet for all this the judgment of the Supreme Court may be worth little if it runs across State sentiment, and if the President should happen to sympathise with State rights. A citizen of colour was unlawfully imprisoned in Georgia; he applied for a habeas corpus. The application ultimately came before Chief Justice Marshall, and the writ was granted. The traditional comment of President Jackson is noteworthy: "John Marshall has given his judgment, let him enforce it if he can." The Executive would not a.s.sist the Court, and the Supreme Court was powerless. Switzerland, again, has a Federal tribunal: it is a Court, as would be the Privy Council, which cannot command officials of its own to execute its process; it depends for aid on the Cantonal authorities. This state of things, I am told on good authority, produces its natural result. The judgments of the Federal tribunal can be rendered almost ineffective by the opposition of a Canton.

At this moment the statutes of the Imperial Parliament bind every man throughout the United Kingdom. The Courts in Ireland are bound to give effect to every statute, and the Irish Courts are supported by the Sheriff and his officers, and in the last resort by the power of the United Kingdom. Yet the very difficulty of the day is enforcing judgments which run against Irish popular opinion. Is it common sense to imagine that opposition which defies, often with success, the authority of the Irish Queen's Bench Division, or ultimately of the House of Lords, would not easily nullify the judgments of the Privy Council when not only unpopular in Ireland, but in contradiction to a law devised by the Irish Executive, pa.s.sed by the Irish Parliament, supported by the Irish Judges? The truth must be spoken: the Gladstonian Const.i.tution will, as regards the restrictions placed under it on the powers of the Irish Parliament, inevitably turn out a mere paper Const.i.tution. The methods for compelling the observance of these limitations have neither of them any real efficacity. The veto can with difficulty and but rarely be used; the judgments or opinions of the Privy Council may have a speculative interest, but will possess no coercive power.

If this be so the guarantees afforded by the Const.i.tution for just legislation are nugatory; they are worth neither more nor less than the pompous securities for every kind of inalienable right which have adorned the most splendid and the most transitory among the Const.i.tutions which have during a century been in turn created and destroyed in France--that is, they are worth nothing; nor is it unfair to conjecture that on this point my opinion agrees with the opinion of many English Home Rulers. They think the limitations on the independence of the Irish Parliament useless and destined to disappear; for their avowed belief is that legislation by an Irish Parliament will in the main be just, and that the laws of the Irish Parliament, because they represent the wishes of the Irish people, will obtain easy obedience in Ireland. If this conviction be sound--and it is the almost necessary basis for a policy of Home Rule--let us act upon it, and not impose restrictions which, if needless, must certainly be noxious. Meanwhile in any case let us dismiss the delusion that restrictions which cannot be enforced are any guarantee for justice. The Gladstonian Const.i.tution admits on the face of it that guarantees are wanted. Most Englishmen agree in the opinion implied in this admission. But if I am right in a.s.serting that the guarantees for justice are illusory, then the Gladstonian Const.i.tution does not secure justice, and is therefore not just.

[Sidenote: Does Const.i.tution possess finality?]

_3rd Question_.--Does the Gladstonian Const.i.tution hold out fair hopes of finality?

This is an enquiry which may be answered with some confidence.

To any one who surveys the Const.i.tution, not as a politician, but as a legist; to any one moderately versed in the study of comparative const.i.tutionalism, few statements which savour of prediction will appear more certain than the a.s.sertion that the Gladstonian Const.i.tution cannot be a final or even a lasting settlement of the const.i.tutional relations between England and Ireland.

The grounds of this opinion are, briefly, that the proposed Const.i.tution will, while leaving alive elements of discord, cause disappointment and inconvenience to both countries, and that the mechanism of the Const.i.tution, framed as it is upon a combination of Federalism and of Colonialism, has some of the defects of each system, and promises in its working to produce something like the maximum of irritation and friction.

The two grounds for believing that the Gladstonian Const.i.tution bears no promise of finality run into one another, but they admit of separate examination, and each requires explanation or justification.

[Sidenote: Const.i.tution will cause disappointment to England.]

The Const.i.tution will cause disappointment and inconvenience both to England and to Ireland, Englishmen will on the Gladstonian Const.i.tution coming into operation find to their great disappointment that they have not attained the object which from an English point of view was the princ.i.p.al inducement to grant Home Rule to the Irish people, that is, freedom from the difficulty of governing Ireland. The difficulty no doubt will be diminished, or rather s.h.i.+fted; but the dream is vain that under the new Const.i.tution Englishmen would be able to trouble themselves no more about the concerns of Ireland than they do about the affairs of Canada. Ireland would still be our immediate neighbour.

Irishmen would still be divided by differences of cla.s.s and religion, and England would still, disguise the fact as you may, be ultimately responsible for good government in Ireland. Home Rule is not Separation, and nothing short of Irish independence would greatly lessen English responsibility. This would be true under whatever form Home Rule were established, but it is emphatically true of Home Rule under the particular form contemplated by the Gladstonian Const.i.tution. The army in Ireland--and no one supposes that England can withdraw her soldiers from the country--will be the British Army under the control of the British Government. But the power of the sword is, though we often forget the fact, the sanction by which law is maintained. Hence it follows that the British Ministry remains at bottom responsible for the maintenance of peace and order throughout Ireland. Note the results. If there are riots at Belfast; if unpopular officials are a.s.sa.s.sinated in Dublin; if evictions give rise to murder in Kerry, the British Army must in the last resort be called in to restore peace or punish crime. If the army are not under the control of the Irish Executive, then the English Cabinet become directly responsible for the government of Ireland. If British soldiers are placed at the disposal of the Irish Ministry, still the English Government must, s.h.i.+ft the thing as you will, share the responsibility of the Irish Cabinet. During a riot at Belfast a hundred Protestants or Catholics are shot by British soldiers whilst restoring order. If any one fancies that such slaughter can take place without the English Ministry being called upon in the British Parliament for explanation and defence, he shows utter ignorance of English, or indeed of human nature. Nor is it for the action only of the troops that the English Executive will incur liability. If British subjects are killed by a mob in Belfast or in Dublin whilst British troops stand quietly by and under the direction of an Irish Home Secretary take no steps to prevent murder, we may rest a.s.sured that the Queen's Government in England will be asked whether it is decent that the Queen's forces should be trained to stand as indifferent spectators of outrageous breaches of the Queen's peace.

Take again the question of pardoning crime. Suppose that the first Irish Ministry on their accession to power propose to inaugurate the new era by a free pardon of all the political offenders, dynamiters and others, whose misguided zeal placed them within the gripe of the law, but also in no small measure contributed to achieve the Parliamentary independence of Ireland. If the request is not granted, then the Irish Administration are refused the means of carrying on the government of the country after their own notions of sound polity. If the request is granted, can the English Government be held entirely irresponsible for the mode in which the Crown exercises its prerogative? Let it be settled that the prerogative of mercy must in Ireland be exercised in accordance with the wishes of the Irish Ministry. Even then the English Government will not really escape responsibility. British soldiers put down a riot at Belfast; they are indicted for the murder of a Catholic rioter, before a Catholic grand jury, convicted by a Catholic jury under the direction of a Catholic judge who has just been appointed by the new Irish Ministry. Popular opinion demands the execution of the convicted murderers, the Irish Ministry advise that the law should take its course. The general belief in England, shared we will suppose by the English Home Office, is that the convicted soldiers are about to be capitally punished for having simply discharged their duty. Is an English Minister to abstain from advising a pardon? The dilemma is difficult. If he recommends a pardon, the Irish Government are prevented by England from governing Ireland. If the soldiers are hanged, the English Ministry will not keep long in office, the British Army will hardly maintain its habit of absolute obedience to the civil power.

Englishmen, in the next place, will soon discover that the creation of a statutory const.i.tution for Ireland curiously hampers the working of our own inst.i.tutions. Questions must arise whether Acts of the British Parliament do or do not trench upon the provisions of the Irish Const.i.tution. Few persons are aware of the number of Imperial Acts which touch the Colonies. To such statutes there is no legal or moral objection, because the principle embodied in the Colonial Laws Act, 1865, that enactments pa.s.sed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom override any Colonial law with which they conflict, is universally admitted; but, as already pointed out, it is questionable as a matter of law whether the statutes of the British Parliament can repeal Acts duly pa.s.sed by the Irish Parliament, and it is quite beyond question that for the British Parliament to infringe upon the province of the Irish legislature would involve a breach of good faith. Changes again in the formation of the British Parliament might under the Gladstonian Const.i.tution become difficult. The abolition of the House of Lords would be hard to reconcile with the right of the Irish Peers to be summoned on occasion to the Imperial Parliament. An increase in the number of British representatives in the House of Commons would be objected to by Irishmen because it diminished the relative importance of the members from Ireland when recalled to take part in the deliberations of the Imperial Parliament. The reduction of the number of members of the House of Commons, though one of the most salutary reforms which could be carried out, would be opposed by every person interested in maintaining the present excessive number of the Lower House, on the ground that to reduce the numbers of the House of Commons, to say 400, would involve an increase in the authority of the Irish members whenever they reappeared on the scene. The moot question whether the British Parliament could on an emergency repeal of its own authority the articles of the Irish Const.i.tution; the extent to which Ireland should be represented on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; above all, the vital question whether the rea.s.sembled Imperial Parliament were not the true representative of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the ultimate sovereign power in the State, would in periods of excitement give rise to disputes. .h.i.therto quite alien to English politics, and involving elements of unknown danger.

Ambiguity and obscurity, since they help to pa.s.s Bills, are in the judgment of Parliamentary draughtsmen and Parliamentary statesmen characteristics which promote the easy working of Acts. Knives which are made to sell are not knives which are made to cut. No delusion is more dangerous. The founders of the American Union knew their own minds, and were not well acquainted with the advantages to be derived from the obscurities of modern draughtsmans.h.i.+p. But on two points they tried the experiment of keeping real perils out of sight by omitting to refer to them. "Slave" and "slavery" are words not to be found in the Const.i.tution of the United States. What (if any) was the right of a State to retire from the Union, was a matter purposely left open for the interpretation of future generations. The Abolition movement, the Fugitive Slave Law, the War of Secession tell the result of trying to ignore perils or problems which it is not easy to face or to solve.

[Sidenote: And to Ireland.]

The last disappointment of Englishmen would be to find that Home Rule had not satisfied Ireland. For to Irishmen no less than to Englishmen the Const.i.tution must bring disappointment and inconvenience.

That the Gladstonian Const.i.tution cannot satisfy Ireland is all but certain.

To say this is not to imply that its acceptance by Irish Home Rulers is dishonest. In their eyes it is a move in the right direction; they exaggerate, as their English allies underrate, the freedom of action which the Const.i.tution offers to Ireland. It cannot, as already pointed out, by any possibility remove the admitted causes of Irish discontent.

It cannot tempt capital towards Ireland, but it may easily drive capital away from her sh.o.r.es; it cannot diminish poverty; it cannot in its direct effect a.s.suage religious bigotry; it cannot of itself remove agrarian discontent. The Land Purchase Bill, even when discarded, remains an involuntary exposure of the futility of the Gladstonian Const.i.tution, and of the unsoundness of the principle on which the demand for Home Rule rests. No friend of Italy ever suggested that Italian independence should be accompanied by a loan from Austria to the Italian Kingdom. For the principle of nationality was the true source of Italian disaffection. If in dealing with Ireland we must calm agrarian misery before satisfying national aspirations, this necessity is all but a confession that Irish unrest is due far more to desire for a change in the land laws than to pa.s.sionate longing for national independence. I do not doubt that the spirit of nationality has some, though probably a small, part in the production of Irish discontent. But the Gladstonian Const.i.tution is unfortunately so devised as to outrage quite as much as it soothes national sentiment. The tribute will affect every Irishman in his pride no less than in his purse. Can any one suppose that Northerners indignant at recent treachery, and Catholics mindful of ancient oppression, will not join, and justly join, in denouncing as at once ignominious and ruinous the payment of a tribute raised for Imperial purposes at the moment when Ireland ceases to have any voice in the direction of Imperial policy? Irishmen again will find to their surprise that the Const.i.tution intended to give them independence imposes annoying fetters on their freedom of action. They wish for a protective tariff, and they come across the prohibition to make laws affecting trade; they desire that the country shall defend herself, and they discover that they cannot raise even a body of volunteers; they wish to try the plan of concurrent endowment, and they are thwarted by the article of the Const.i.tution prohibiting the endowment of religion.

These restrictions are the more annoying because none of them are imposed upon the Colonies. Irishmen will further discover that great achievements of constructive legislation require for their success the command of large pecuniary resources, and that exemption from British control involves the withdrawal of all a.s.sistance from the British Treasury.

[Sidenote: Const.i.tution will cause friction.]

The Const.i.tution will produce irritation and friction.

Every scheme for uniting into a political whole States which are intended to retain, even when connected together, a certain amount of independence, aims at minimising the opportunities for const.i.tutional collision, or for friction between the different States which are connected together, and also between any State and the Central power.

If we compare the mode in which this end is attained, either under the Federal system or under the Colonial system, with the arrangements of the Gladstonian Const.i.tution, we shall easily see how little its authors have attended to the necessity for avoiding occasions of const.i.tutional friction.

Where Federalism, as in America, appears in its best form, the skill with which opportunities for collision or friction have been minimised is almost above praise. The Federal or Central power is so constructed as to represent the whole nation; its authority cannot by any misrepresentation be identified with the power of one State more than another. The Federal Government acts through its own officers, is represented by its own Judiciary, and levies its own taxes without recourse to State authorities. Every device which could be thought of has been taken to make it unnecessary for the National Government to come into direct collision with any State. It deals in general with the individual citizens of the United States; it does not deal with the particular States. The result is that on the one hand, whatever may be said against the taxes imposed by Congress, they cannot by any stretch of imagination be looked upon as tribute paid by one State to another, say by Ma.s.sachusetts to New York, or by New York to Ma.s.sachusetts. It is again unnecessary for the Federal Government to issue commands to a State. There is, therefore, little opportunity for a contest between a State and the National Executive. Whoever wishes to understand the elaborate devices necessary to make Federalism work smoothly should compare the clumsiness of the arrangements by which the Swiss Confederacy has at times been compelled to enforce obedience of the Cantons to the will of the Confederation, with the ingenuity of the methods by which the Federal authorities of the United States exert their authority over American citizens.

The English Colonial system on the other hand, though far less elaborate than any form of Federalism, does, as a matter of fact, reduce within very narrow limits the chances of collision between England and her colonies. The system, however, succeeds, not because it is a model of constructive art, but because it attempts very little, and can, owing to favourable circ.u.mstances, leave to nominal dependencies something little short of complete self-government. Where collisions do arise they are disposed of by the habit of the Imperial Government always to give way.

The Gladstonian Const.i.tution is, as we have already pointed out, a combination between Federalism and Colonialism; it may possess some of the merits, but it much more certainly displays some of the demerits of each system. From Federalism is borrowed the idea of leaving the settlement of const.i.tutional questions to a Court. But the conception is spoilt in the borrowing. All the difficulties which under a Federal system beset the enforcement of judgments p.r.o.nounced by a Federal Court affect in an aggravated form the attempt to enforce in Ireland judgments affecting the validity of Irish Acts, which judgments are p.r.o.nounced by a Committee of the English Privy Council sitting in England. The Privy Council, moreover, while it has every weakness of the Supreme Court of America, has more than one special weakness of its own.

It lacks moral authority, for it is an English Court sitting in England and representing English opinion; it lacks jurisdiction, because while it can p.r.o.nounce on the validity of Irish, it cannot p.r.o.nounce on the validity of British Acts of Parliament; it does not possess a strictly judicial character, because it is not only a Court called upon to give judgments, but is also an administrative body called upon to deliver opinions upon the validity of Irish Bills and of Irish Acts. Hence its decrees come into direct collision with the proposals or enactments of the Irish Parliament, and the Privy Council is made to appear not as a body of Judges deciding cases between man and man, but as a body of officials whose duty it is to oppose any unconst.i.tutional action on the part of the Irish Parliament. From Federalism again is borrowed the contribution by Ireland towards meeting the expenses of the Empire. But imposts which under a Federal system are a tax towards the payment of common expenditure are under the Gladstonian Const.i.tution a tribute to a foreign power. From the Federal system again is taken that restriction of legislative authority which hardly affects Parliaments such as that of Victoria, and which under any circ.u.mstances is a source of irritation. From the Colonial system, on the other hand, is derived the theoretical supremacy of the British Parliament, the right of veto, and the fatal dependence of the Irish executive on every vote of the Irish legislature. From the colonies we therefore bring to Ireland sources of dispute, of friction, and of irritation, which are unknown to a true system of Federalism, whilst we do not give Ireland that practical independence, and that immunity from taxation, which prevent our ill-arranged connection with the colonies from causing real dissatisfaction. Federalism has its merits and its defects; English Colonialism works well enough; the sham Federalism and the sham Colonialism of the Gladstonian Const.i.tution must create between Great Britain and Ireland all the causes of discontent which have from time to time tried the strength of the American Union, and all the causes of disturbance which from time to time reveal the weakness of the tie which binds together our Colonial Empire.

Among the hypothetical virtues of the Gladstonian Const.i.tution cannot a.s.suredly be numbered the merit of finality.

The Gladstonian Const.i.tution therefore fails entirely to fulfil for any practical purpose the conditions it is meant to satisfy. It neither maintains the sovereignty of Parliament, nor makes adequate securities for justice, nor offers a prospect of finality.

A criticism of Home Rule in its four forms gives then this result:--

[Sidenote: Result of criticism. 1. Home Rule as Federalism.]

Home Rule as Federalism means the immediate dislocation and the ultimate rebuilding of the whole English Const.i.tution; it involves the transformation of an old and tried polity which centuries of experience have admirably adapted to the wants of the English people, and which has fostered the growth of the British Empire, into a form of government in itself not free from defects, and successful where it has succeeded only under conditions which the United Kingdom does not present.

[Sidenote: 2. Home Rule as Colonial independence.]

Home Rule in the form of Colonial independence involves far less change in the inst.i.tutions of Great Britain or in the complex arrangements of the British Empire than does Federalism. It appears at first sight to be an application to Ireland of inst.i.tutions which, as they have been found to answer their purpose in such countries as Canada and Victoria, may also prove successful in Ireland. The appearance is delusive. The true reasons why the Colonial system, self-contradictory as it is in theory and unsatisfactory as it sometimes is in practice, has produced harmony between England and her dependencies, are that the colonies are far distant and are prosperous, that they feel pride in their relation to the mother-country, that whilst contributing not a penny towards meeting Imperial burdens they derive valuable and valued benefits from the connection with the Empire, and lastly that they are not in reality dependencies; the colonies willingly acquiesce in the supremacy of England, because England protects them gratis and does not govern them at all. It is not the Colonial system, but the conditions which make that system succeed, which ought to engross our attention. These conditions will not be found in any arrangement whatever between England and Ireland. It is in the strictest sense impossible that Ireland whilst forming part of the United Kingdom, or even of the British Empire, should enjoy or endure the independence of Victoria. If the Act which gives Victoria her const.i.tution were reenacted with the necessary verbal changes for Ireland, the const.i.tution which satisfies the Victorians would not satisfy the Irish, and for a good reason: the form would be the same, but the effect would be different. A suffering and discontented people will not accept words for facts.

One condition indeed, which more perhaps than any other ensures the success of our Colonial system, Great Britain has in the case of Ireland the power to reproduce. Immunity from Imperial taxation is one source of Colonial loyalty to the Empire. If Ireland is to accept or to receive the mixed independence and subordination of a colony, she ought to enjoy the substantial advantage of a theoretically inferior position. The Colonial system, as I have already insisted, involves the renunciation of Imperial taxation.

[Sidenote: 3. Home Rule as Const.i.tution of 1782.]

Home Rule as the revival of Grattan's Const.i.tution is an impossibility.

The Const.i.tution of 1782 belongs to a past age, and cannot by any miracle of political art be at the present day restored to life.

[Sidenote: 4. Home Rule as Gladstonian Const.i.tution.]

Home Rule under the Gladstonian Const.i.tution means an artificial combination of Federalism and Colonialism. Its aim is to secure the advantages of two opposite systems; its result is to combine and intensify the disadvantages of both systems. It inevitably tends towards the dissolution of the United Kingdom into a Federation; it immediately disturbs the bases of the Const.i.tution by creating the artificial bond of something like a Federal legislature between England and Ireland; it introduces into the relations between each of the different divisions of the United Kingdom elements of conflict which are all but inherent in Federalism; it requires that absolute deference for the judicial decisions of a Federal Court which if it exist anywhere can exist only among a people like the Americans, imbued with legal notions, and as it were born with innate respect for law. That this sentiment cannot exist in Ireland is certain; whether it exist in the required intensity even in England is problematical. The Gladstonian Const.i.tution, again, because it contains some inst.i.tutions borrowed from the Colonial system without the conditions requisite for their proper working so to speak falsifies them. The Imperial supremacy of Great Britain, the Imperial control over the army, the occasional interference with the Irish executive and the veto of the Crown on Irish legislation, are each and all of them under the Gladstonian Const.i.tution certain to be the source of justifiable dissatisfaction. To the ingenuity of the plan proposed by Mr. Gladstone's Ministry hostile critics have given insufficient praise.

But the essential unreality which this ingenuity has concealed has not even yet met with due condemnation. Since the day when the National a.s.sembly of France presented the brand-new French Const.i.tution to the acceptance of Louis XVI. no form of government has ever been seriously proposed for adoption by an intelligent people so radically unworkable as that Gladstonian Const.i.tution which has been instinctively rejected by the good sense of the British Parliament. The Const.i.tution of France lasted out two years; to a jurist it may appear conceivable, though hardly probable, that by the vigorous aid of the British Parliament the new Const.i.tution for the United Kingdom might have lasted for as long a period.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Compare Mr. Gladstone's speech of 8th April, 1886, '_The Times_ Parliamentary Debates,' pp. 130, 131; and Mr. Gladstone's speech of 13th April, _ibid._, pp. 255, 256.

[30] Compare _ibid._, pp. 130, 132.

[31] Compare the following expressions in Mr. Gladstone's speeches:--"The essential conditions of any plan that Parliament can be asked or could be expected to entertain are, in my opinion, these:--The unity of the Empire must not be placed in jeopardy; the safety and welfare of the whole--if there is an unfortunate conflict, which I do not believe--the welfare and security of the whole must be preferred to the security and advantage of the part. The political equality of the three countries must be maintained. They stand by statute on a footing of absolute equality, and that footing ought not to be altered or brought into question. There should be what I will at present term an equitable distribution of Imperial burdens. Next I introduce a provision which may seem to be exceptional, but which in the peculiar circ.u.mstances of Ireland, whose history unhappily has been one long chain of internal controversies as well as of difficulties external, is necessary in order that there may be reasonable safeguards for the minority. I am asked why there should be safeguards for the minority.

"I have spoken now of the essential conditions of a good plan for Ireland, and I add only this--that in order to be a good plan it must be a plan promising to be a real settlement of Ireland. (Speech of Mr.

Gladstone, 8th April, 1886, '_The Times_ Parliamentary Debates,' pp.