A Leap in the Dark Part 1

A Leap in the Dark.

by A.V. Dicey.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

This book is not a disquisition on the details of the Home Rule Bill. It is an examination into the leading principles of the Bill with a view to establis.h.i.+ng two conclusions. The first is, that the Home Rule Bill, though nominally a measure for the government of Ireland, contains in reality a New Const.i.tution for the whole United Kingdom. The second is, that this New Const.i.tution must work injury both to England and to Ireland, and instead of 'closing a controversy of seven hundred years, opens a const.i.tutional revolution. The whole aim, in short, of the book is by the collection together of arguments which separately have been constantly used by Unionist statesmen, to warn the people of England against a leap in the dark.

A.V. DICEY.

OXFORD: _May_ 1893.

INTRODUCTION

Irish Unionists have pressed for a republication of _A Leap in the Dark_. They hold that it will be of some service in their resistance to the Coalition of Home Rulers, Socialists, and Separatists formed to force upon the people of England and of Scotland a virtual dissolution of the Union between Great Britain and Ireland. It would in any case have been a pleasure to afford aid, however small, to the Irish Unionists, whether Protestants or Catholics, engaged in the defence at once of their own birthright and of the political unity of the United Kingdom. Yet for a moment I doubted whether the republication of a forgotten criticism of a forgotten Bill would be of essential service to my friends. On reflection, however, I have come to see that, though the Unionists of Ireland probably overrate the practical value of my book, yet their hope of its serving the cause whereof they are the most valiant defenders is based on sound reasons.

_A Leap in the Dark_ is a stringent criticism of the Home Rule Bill, 1893.[1] But the book has little to do with the details and intricacies of that Bill. _A Leap in the Dark_ was published before the Home Rule Bill of 1893 had reached the House of Lords, or had a.s.sumed that final form, which made patent to the vast majority of British electors that a measure which purported to give a limited amount of independence to Ireland, in reality threatened England with political ruin. My criticism is therefore in truth an attack upon the fundamental principles of Home Rule, as advocated by Gladstone and his followers eighteen years ago.

These principles, moreover, have never been repudiated by the Home Rulers of to-day. Some members of the present Cabinet, notably the Prime Minister and Lord Morley, were the apologists of the Bill of 1893. In that year _A Leap in the Dark, or Our New Const.i.tution_, was, I venture to say, accepted by leading Unionists, such as Lord Salisbury, the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Henry James (now Lord James of Hereford), as, in the main, an adequate representation of the objections which, in the judgment of such men and thousands of Unionists, were fatal to the acceptance of any scheme whatever of Home Rule for Ireland. The battle over Home Rule lasting, as it did for years, and ending with the complete victory of the Unionists, has been forgotten by or has never become known to the ma.s.s of the present electors. It is well that they should be reminded of the solid grounds for the rejection by the Lords of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. It is well that they should be reminded that this rejection was in 1895 ratified by the approval of the electorate of the United Kingdom _A Leap in the Dark_ will a.s.suredly remind my readers that in 1893 the hereditary House of Lords, and not the newly elected House of Commons, truly represented the will of the nation. This is a fact never to be forgotten. It is of special import at the present moment. Another equally undoubted fact deserves attention. Home Rulers themselves despair of carrying a Home Rule Bill until they shall have turned the Parliament Bill into the Parliament Act, 1911, and my readers ought never to forget that the pa.s.sing of the Parliament Bill into law destroys, and is meant to destroy, every security against the pa.s.sing of any Home Rule Bill whatever which the present majority of the House of Commons choose to support. This gives an ominous significance to the obstinate refusal of the Government to alter or amend any of the material enactments contained in this ill-starred measure. _A Leap in the Dark_, combined with a knowledge of the Parliament Bill and the legislative dictators.h.i.+p with which it invests the existing Coalition, suggests at least four conclusions which must at all costs be forced at this moment upon the attention of the nation. They may be thus summed up:

_First_.--If the Parliament Bill pa.s.ses into law the existing majority of the House of Commons will be able to force, and will a.s.suredly in fact force, through Parliament any Home Rule Bill whatever (even were it the Home Rule Bill of 1893), which meets with the approval of Mr. Redmond, and obtains the acquiescence of the rest of the Coalition.

The Coalition need not fear any veto of the House of Lords. There will be no necessity for an appeal to the electors, or in other words to the nation. The truth of this statement is indisputable.

The legal right of the majority of the House of Commons to pa.s.s any bill whatever into law, even though the House of Lords refuse its a.s.sent, is absolutely secured by the very terms of the Parliament Bill. That the leaders of the Coalition, such as Mr. Asquith, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. John Redmond, will press their legal right to its extreme limits is proved to any man who knows how to read the teaching of history, by the experience of 1893. Mr.

Gladstone used every power he possessed, and used it unscrupulously, to drive a Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. He was a man trained in the historical traditions of Parliament. He a.s.suredly did not relish the use of the closure and the guillotine. He was supported in the Commons by a very narrow majority, never I think exceeding forty-eight, and often falling below that number. The power of the party system, or as Americans say, the "Machine," was admittedly much less in 1893 than it has become in 1911. Yet Mr. Gladstone used such power as he possessed to the utmost. He hurried through the House of Commons a Bill which had not in fact received the a.s.sent of the nation. He made the freest use of every device for curtailing freedom of debate. A large and most important portion of the Home Rule Bill was not discussed at all in the Commons. And this Bill contained provisions, not appearing in its original form, for the retention of eighty Irish members at Westminster with full authority to take part in every kind of legislation which might be laid before Parliament; though Mr. Gladstone himself held the fairness to England of this provision dubious[2] and Mr. (now Lord) Morley had in 1886 demonstrated by reasoning which to my mind is absolutely conclusive that under a system of Home Rule the presence of Irish representatives in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster would work fatal injury to Ireland and gross injustice to England.[3] Can any man able to draw from political precedents their true meaning believe that Mr. Asquith, and the allies who are his masters, will be more scrupulous in forcing the next Home Rule Bill through the House of Lords than was Mr. Gladstone in forcing the Home Rule Bill of 1893 through the House of Commons? Mr. Asquith is supported by a large though incongruous majority. His almost avowed aim in pus.h.i.+ng the Parliament Bill, unchanged and unchangeable, through the Houses of Parliament is to force the Home Rule Bill on the people of Great Britain against their will. Hesitation to make use of this dictatorial authority, should he ever obtain it, will to himself mean political ruin; to his English supporters it will seem political pusillanimity; by his Irish confederates it will be denounced as breach of faith and treachery. As certainly as night follows day the pa.s.sing of the Parliament Act will be succeeded by the attempted pa.s.sing of a Home Rule Act.

_Secondly_.--Mr. Redmond and the Home Rulers, or Separatists, of whom he is the leader, will exact under any Home Rule Bill of say 1912 or 1913, at lowest, every advantage which was demanded by Irish Nationalists in 1893.

Why, in the name of common sense, when Irish Nationalists are absolute masters of the situation, should they demand lower payment for their support than was offered to them twenty years ago when the Home Rule majority was every day losing strength, when every one knew that nothing but the show of moderation gave the slightest chance of a Home Rule Bill escaping the veto of the House of Lords, when every one, except perhaps Mr. Gladstone, foresaw that the next General Election would give to Unionists a crus.h.i.+ng majority? Every advantage conceded in 1893 to Irish Separatists at the expense of England will a.s.suredly reappear in one form or another in the next Home Rule Bill. Thus Ireland will, we may antic.i.p.ate, under the next Home Rule Bill send to the Parliament at Westminster at least eighty members armed with the fullest legislative authority, so that, to revive the language current eighteen years ago, Ireland will govern and tax England whilst England will retain no right either to govern or to tax Ireland.

_Thirdly_.--Every question to which in 1893 Gladstonians could discover no answer satisfactory to Unionists or to the electorate of Great Britain requires an answer in 1911 as much as in 1893. The answer favourable to Home Rule has not as yet been discovered.

Is it possible to combine the effective supremacy of the Imperial Parliament with Home Rule or the substantial legislative independence of Ireland? Can Ireland, close to the sh.o.r.e of Great Britain, occupy the position of a self-governing colony, such as New Zealand, divided from Great Britain by thousands of miles of sea? Is it possible to create, or even to imagine, a Court which shall decide whether a law pa.s.sed by the Irish Parliament violates the provisions of the proposed Home Rule Act? Above all, can the wit of man devise any scheme of const.i.tution which shall at once satisfy the aspirations of Irish Nationalism and the patently just demand of Ulster that Protestants shall retain the freedom and the rights secured to them as citizens of the United Kingdom? Is there any form of Home Rule which will satisfy the desire of Irish Nationalists for something approaching national independence without the urgent peril of rousing civil war between Ulster and the Parliament at Dublin? All these inquiries, and others like them, hara.s.sed the Parliament of 1893; they were all answered by Unionists, that is by the majority of the British electors, with a decided negative; they will all be raised and will all need an answer when the leaders of the Coalition condescend to produce their next Home Rule Bill or even to reveal its fundamental principles.

_Fourthly_.--England in the circ.u.mstances of to-day is threatened with two perils which did not exist in 1893, and yet are of stupendous gravity.

The first is, that in the case of a measure of Home Rule the opportunities for discussing its provisions which are contained in the Parliament Bill may turn out nominal rather than real. It is not at all certain that for such a Bill, even though it be abhorred by the electorate of the United Kingdom, the House of Lords will be practically able to secure the delay and elaborate discussion to which Mr. Asquith professedly attaches immense importance.

Unionists will believe that the measure pa.s.sed by a large majority of the House of Commons is detested by the majority of the British electors. But how will it be possible to carry on the government of Ireland, to maintain order, or to save a loyal minority from gross oppression after a Home Rule Bill applauded by Separatists has been pa.s.sed through the House of Commons, and for the first time has been rejected by the House of Lords? Every official in Ireland, down from the Lord Lieutenant to the last newly appointed member of the Irish Constabulary, every Irishman loyal or disloyal, will know that the Bill will within a year or two become law and that Irish Nationalists will control the Parliament and the government of Ireland. Will not the House of Lords be urged by every alleged consideration of good sense and humanity to close without delay a period of uncertainty which is threatening to turn into a reign of anarchy or of terror? The question supplies its own answer. The second peril is one whereof n.o.body speaks, but which must occur to any man who has studied the history of the past eighteen years or reflects upon the condition of public opinion. The peril, to put the matter plainly, is that Home Rulers will not stop at attaining Home Rule for Ireland, and that they may, and probably will, attempt to undermine the political predominance of England.

Everything points in this direction. The agitation for Home Rule has fostered in Ireland, and to a very limited extent in certain other parts of the United Kingdom, a feeling approaching to jealousy of English power. England or Great Britain is the predominant partner. England is wealthy, England is prosperous.

England, as the language of common life imports, is the leading member of the United Kingdom. Lord Rosebery announced with wise foresight that Home Rule in Ireland could hardly be established with benefit to the United Kingdom until the a.s.sent thereto of the predominant partner had been obtained by force of argument. The idea was grounded on common sense. Will it not suggest to Irish Nationalists that their moment of authority must be used for obtaining far greater privileges for Ireland than the extravagant political power offered by Gladstonians in 1893? Is it not natural for Home Rulers to think that the predominant partner ought to be deprived of his predominance? The conduct of the Coalition and some of its leaders points in this direction. They will have obtained through the Parliament Act temporary, but strictly unlimited and dictatorial, power. They will have obtained it by intrigue; they have rejected and treated with scorn the idea of an appeal to the people. They have claimed, not for Parliament but for the existing House of Commons, an absolute legislative power superior to that of the nation, a power which I a.s.sert with confidence is not possessed by the elected a.s.semblies of the United States, or of the French Republic, or of the Swiss Confederation: And by a strange combination of circ.u.mstances one method for depriving the predominant partner of legitimate authority may seem to a Home Ruler to lie near at hand. Raise the cry of 'Home Rule all round,'

or of 'Federalise the British Empire.' Turn England into one State of a great federation, let Wales be another, Scotland a third, the Channel Islands a fourth, and for aught I know the Isle of Man a fifth. Let the self-governing Colonies, and British India, send deputies to the Imperial or Federal Parliament. You may thus for a moment, under the pretence of uniting the Empire, not only divide the United Kingdom, but deprive England or Great Britain, in form at least, of that political supremacy and predominance which is the real bond of union and peace not only throughout the United Kingdom, but also throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire. I do not tremble for the power--the lawful and legitimate power--of England. Political devices, however crafty, break down whenever they are opposed to the nature of things. I know that unity is increasing throughout the Empire not through the cunning or the statecraft of politicians, but through the whole course of events. One part of our Imperial system becomes daily under the effect of railways, steamers, telegraphs, and the like, nearer and nearer to every other part. The sentiment of unity which is more valuable than any law aiming at formal federation each year gains strength. What I do fear and insist upon is the danger that a legislative dictators.h.i.+p conferred on a party, and therefore necessarily taken away from the nation, should be employed in the attempt, vain though it ultimately must be, to deprive the predominant partner of a predominance requisite for the maintenance both of the United Kingdom and of the British Empire.

The four reflections at any rate which may be suggested by _A Leap in the Dark_ are well worth the consideration of the loyal citizens of the United Kingdom.

A.V. DICEY.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Its technical t.i.tle as given in the Bill is the Irish Government Act, 1893.

[2] See _Annual Register_, 1893 (New Series), p. 180.

[3] See especially pp. 39, 40, 41-43 _post._

A LEAP IN THE DARK[4]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] My readers are earnestly recommended to study Mr. Cambray's _Irish Affairs and the Home Rule Question_. It brings the history of the Home Rule movement well up to date, and strengthens almost every argument against Home Rule to be found in _A Leap in the Dark._ The notes in square brackets are new.

CHAPTER I

OLD AND NEW CONSt.i.tUTION

The Home Rule Bill[5] contains a New Const.i.tution for the whole United Kingdom.[6]

The Bill bears on its face that its object is 'to amend the provision for the Government of Ireland'; it is ent.i.tled 'The Irish Government Act, 1893'; it is in popular language known as the Home Rule Bill. But all these descriptions are misleading. It is in truth a measure which affects the government alike of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland.

It changes, to some extent the form, but to a far greater extent the working, and the spirit of all our inst.i.tutions. It is a bold attempt to form a new const.i.tution for the whole United Kingdom; it subverts the very bases of the existing const.i.tution of England.

The present const.i.tution of the United Kingdom is marked and has long been marked by two essential characteristics, the one positive and the other negative.

The positive characteristic is the absolute and effective authority of the Imperial Parliament throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.

To this characteristic Englishmen are so accustomed that they hardly recognise its full importance. A government may make its power felt in three different ways--by the action of the Executive, including under that head all the agents of the Executive, such as the judiciary and the armed forces--by legislation--and by the levying of taxes. Take any of these tests of authority, and it will be found that the British Parliament is not only theoretically, but actually and effectively, supreme throughout the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. The Cabinet is virtually appointed by the Houses of Parliament; the army, the judges, the magistracy, all officials who throughout the country exercise executive power in any form whatever are directly or indirectly appointed by Parliament, and hold office subject to the will of Parliament Of the legislative authority of Parliament as regards the United Kingdom it is scarcely necessary to speak. Any law affecting the United Kingdom not only lawfully may, but can in fact, be changed by the Imperial Parliament. Of the unlimited legislative authority ascribed to, and exercised by, Parliament in the United Kingdom the Home Rule Bill itself is sufficient evidence; and the Gladstonian Ministry, at any rate, see no reason why Parliament should not within the course of a few weeks remodel the fundamental laws of the realm. The right to impose taxes is historically the source of Parliamentary power, and in all matters of taxation Parliament has absolute freedom of action from one end of the United Kingdom to the other; whether the income tax is to be lowered, raised, or abolished, whether some new duty, such as the cart and wheel tax, shall be imposed, whether the United Kingdom shall maintain free trade, or return to protection, how taxes shall be raised and how they shall be spent--all matters in short connected with revenue are throughout the United Kingdom determined and determinable in the last resort by Parliament alone.

Hence, as things now stand, no kind of governmental action in any part of Great Britain and Ireland escapes Parliamentary supervision. The condition of the army, the management of the police, the misconduct of a judge, the release of a criminal, the omission to arrest a defaulting bankrupt, the pardon of a convicted dynamiter, the execution of a murderer, the interference of the police with a public meeting, or the neglect of the police to check a riot in London, in Skye, or in Tipperary, any matter, great or small, with which the executive is directly or indirectly concerned, is, if it takes place in any part of the United Kingdom, subject to stringent and incessant Parliamentary supervision, and may, at any moment, give rise to debates on which depend the fate of ministries and parties. If there be such a thing as supreme actual and effective authority, such authority is throughout the whole of the United Kingdom exercised by the Imperial Parliament, not occasionally and in theory, but every day and in the ordinary course of affairs.

This exertion of actual and effective power by the Imperial Parliament throughout the United Kingdom is a totally different thing from the supremacy or sovereignty exercised by Parliament throughout the whole British Empire. As a matter of legal theory Parliament has the right to legislate for any part of the Crown's dominions. Parliament may lawfully impose an income tax upon the inhabitants of New South Wales; it may lawfully abolish the const.i.tution of the Canadian Dominion, just as some years ago it did actually abolish the ancient const.i.tution of Jamaica.

But though Parliament does in fact exert a certain, or rather a very uncertain, amount of power throughout the whole Empire, we all know that the Imperial Parliament neither exercises, nor claims to exercise, in a self-governing colony such as New Zealand,[7] that kind of effective authority which Parliament exercises in the United Kingdom. The Cabinet of New Zealand is not appointed at Westminster; the action of a New Zealand Ministry as regards the affairs of New Zealand is not controlled by the English Government. Not a pennyworth of taxation is imposed on the inhabitants of New Zealand, or of any colony whatever, by the Imperial Parliament. Even the imposition of customs, though it has an important bearing on the interest of the Empire, is in a self-governing colony determined by the colonial, and not by the British, Parliament.

It is the Parliament of New Zealand, and not the Parliament of England, which governs New Zealand. The Imperial Parliament, though for Imperial purposes it may retain an indefinite supremacy throughout the British Empire, has, as regards self-governing colonies, renounced, for all other than Imperial purposes, executive and legislative functions. To labour this point may savour of pedantry. But the distinction insisted upon, whilst often overlooked, is of extreme importance. We risk being deceived by words. The Imperial Parliament is supreme in the United Kingdom, it is also supreme in New Zealand. But the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is a misleading expression; it means one thing in the United Kingdom, and another thing in New Zealand or in Canada. In the United Kingdom it means the exercise of real, actual, effective and absolute authority. In New Zealand it means little more than the claim to regulate matters of a distinctly and exclusively Imperial character.

The distinction is vital. The essential feature of the English const.i.tution is the actual and direct government of the whole United Kingdom by the Parliament at Westminster. No change could be more fundamental than a change which, in England, Scotland, or Ireland, reduced this actual authority to the ultimate or reserved sovereignty exercised, or rather claimed, by Parliament in Canada or in New Zealand.

The negative characteristic of the English const.i.tution is the absence of federalism or of the federal spirit.

The spirit of inst.i.tutions is as important as their form, and the spirit of English Parliamentary government has always been a spirit of unity.

The fundamental conditions of federal government are well known. They are first the existence of States such as the Cantons of Switzerland or the States of Germany, which are capable of bearing in the eyes of their inhabitants an impress of common nationality, and next the existence among the inhabitants of the federalised country of a very peculiar sentiment, which may be described as the desire for political union without the desire for political unity.[8] This condition of opinion leads to a division of powers between the federal or national government and the States. Whatever concerns the nation as a whole is placed under the control of the federal power.

All matters which are not primarily of common interest remain in the hands of the States. Now each of these conditions upon which federalism rests has, as a matter of history, been absolutely unknown to the people of England. In uniting other countries to England they have instinctively aimed at an incorporative not at a federal union. This absence of the federal spirit is seen in two matters which may appear of subordinate, but are in reality of primary, consequence. Every member of Parliament has always stood on a perfect equality with his fellows; the representatives of a county or of a borough, English members, Scottish members, Irish members, have hitherto possessed precisely equal rights, and have been subject to precisely the same duties. They have been sent to Parliament by different places, but, when in Parliament, they have not been the delegates of special localities; they have not been English members, or Scottish members, or Irish members, they have been simply members of Parliament; their acknowledged duty has been to consult for the interest of the whole nation; it has not been their duty to safeguard the interests of particular localities or countries. Hence until quite recent years English parties have not been formed according to sectional divisions. There has never been such a thing as an English party or a Scottish party. Up to 1832 the Scottish members were almost without exception Tories; since 1832 they have been for the most part Liberals or Radicals; they have kept a sharp eye upon Scottish affairs, but they have never formed a Scottish party. The same thing has, to a great extent, held good of the Irish members. The notion of an Irish party is a novelty, and in so far as it has existed is foreign to the spirit of our inst.i.tutions. Hence further, the Cabinet has been neither in form nor in spirit a federal executive. No Premier has attempted to const.i.tute a Ministry in which a given proportion of Irishmen or Scotchmen should balance a certain proportion of Englishmen. English politicians have as yet hardly formed the conception of an English party. Not a single Prime Minister has claimed the confidence of the country on the ground that his colleagues were, or were not, English, Scottish, or Irish. That a Premier should glory in his pure Scottish descent is an innovation; it is an innovation ominous of revolution; it betrays a spirit of disintegration. If at the moment it flatters Scottish pride, Scotchmen and Irishmen would do well to recollect that it is a certain presage of a time when some Englishman will rise to power and obtain popular support on the ground of his staunch English sympathies and of his unadulterated English blood.