Against Home Rule (1912) Part 4

[Footnote 5: "England," says Mr. James Bryce in his Introduction to "Two Centuries of Irish History," "acted as conquering nations do act, and better than some nations of that age."]

[Footnote 6: Wogan to Swift, Feb. 27th, 1732.]

[Footnote 7: Swift, "The Legion Club."]

[Footnote 8: "Life of Macartney," vol. ii, p. 136.]

[Footnote 9: "Tour in Ireland," vol. ii., p. 123 ff.]

[Footnote 10: Hamilton Rowan's "Autobiography," p. 340.]

[Footnote 11: "Wealth of Nations," Book V., Chap. III.]

[Footnote 12: "The End of the Irish Parliament," 1911, Edward Arnold.]

[Footnote 13: "Edmund Burke, a Historical Study," by John Morley, pp.

286 ff.]

[Footnote 14: "Pitt," by Lord Rosebery, p. 155.]

[Footnote 15: From the official returns embodied in "A Statement to the Prime Minister," Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, Dublin, 1886.]

[Footnote 16: "Ireland from the Union to Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation," by D.

A. Chart, M.A. A most valuable and instructive work.]

[Footnote 17: It is, I hope, no reflection on the memory of an eminent public servant to suggest that in this, as in too many of the estimated figures contained in his evidence before the Commission, and upon which the Majority Report of the Commission was largely based, Sir Robert seriously under-estimated the resources of Ireland. It is obvious when the ascertained figures of 1910 are compared with the estimated figures of 1895 that Sir Robert Giffen must have been several millions below the truth. The steady nature of the growth of Irish commerce is shown by the following figures taken from the Official Report for the year ended December 31, 1910.

Imports, Exports, Total, Mill. . Mill. . Mill. .

1904 54 49 103 1905 55 51 106 1906 57 56 113 1907 61 59 120 1908 59 57 116 1909 63 61 124 1910 65 65 130 ]

[Footnote 18: "A History of the Commercial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland," by Alice E. Murray, D.Sc.]

[Footnote 19: Sept. 26, 1871.]

CRITICAL

III

THE CONSt.i.tUTIONAL QUESTION

BY GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.

INTRODUCTORY

Few things are more remarkable in the Parliamentary history of the Home Rule movement than the complete absence from the counsels of the English advocates of Home Rule of any definite and settled policy as to the form of self-government to be offered to Ireland, and their consequent oscillation between proposals radically differing from one another.

Since the "new departure" initiated by Davitt and Devoy in 1878,[20] it has been the deliberate practice of Irish Nationalists to abstain from defining the Nationalist demand and to ask in general terms for "self-government," doubtless with the object of attracting the support of all who favour any change which could be described by that very elastic term. Such a policy has its advantages. But confusion of thought, however favourable to popular agitation, is a disadvantage when the moment for legislation arrives; and uncertainty as to the aim goes far to explain the vacillation in Home Rule policy.

Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 would have given to Ireland the substance of "responsible" or colonial self-government, subject only to certain reservations and restrictions, the value of which will be considered later in this chapter, and would have excluded the Irish members and representative peers from the Parliament of the United Kingdom. By the Bill of 1893 the reservations and restrictions were increased, and representatives of Ireland were to be permitted to sit at Westminster--by the Bill as introduced for some purposes, and by the Bill as pa.s.sed by the House of Commons for all purposes.

After the defeat of this second Bill, a "cold fit" appears to have seized the Liberal Party. Lord Rosebery, in 1894, declared that before Home Rule could be carried England, as the predominant partner, must be convinced. Sir Edward Grey in 1905 declared that his party on its return to power would "go on with Sir Anthony MacDonnell's policy," which he rightly described as a policy of large administrative reforms; and Mr.

Asquith "a.s.sociated himself entirely and unreservedly with every word"

of Sir Edward Grey's speech.[21] Accordingly the Irish Council Bill proposed by Mr. Asquith's Government in 1907 was purely a measure of devolution, certain administrative functions only being put under the control of an Irish Council, subject to the veto of the Lord Lieutenant, and the whole legislative power remaining in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This proposal, having been condemned by a National Convention at Dublin, was incontinently withdrawn.

In the years succeeding this fiasco the Liberal policy for Ireland appeared to be at the mercy of s.h.i.+fting winds. For some time Liberal speakers contented themselves with vague declarations in favour of Federalism or "Home Rule all round"--phrases which may mean much or little according to the sense in which they are used. More recently an able writer,[22] while admitting that "there is no public opinion in Ireland as to the form of the Irish Const.i.tution," has argued in a work of 350 pages in favour of the grant to Ireland of full legislative, administrative and financial autonomy; while a member of the Government[23] declared that fiscal autonomy for all practical purposes means separation and the disintegration of the United Kingdom. In a publication recently issued by a committee of Liberals, comprising several members of the present Government,[24] two views directly contrary to one another are put forward, one writer arguing for a devolution to an Irish body of "definite and defined powers only," and another for the grant of the widest possible form of Home Rule and the exclusion from Westminster of all Irish representation. The latest official p.r.o.nouncements indicate that the Government have it in their minds to revert to the Gladstonian form of Home Rule; but even now[25]

no one outside the Cabinet, and possibly few inside that inner circle, would venture on a confident prophecy even as to the broad lines of the measure which in a few days may be submitted to Parliament as representing the urgent and considered demand of public opinion.

Franklin said truly that--

"those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects."

But surely on a question of such vital moment to the Empire as the revision of the const.i.tution of the United Kingdom, the bases, if not the details, of the contemplated change are deserving of prolonged consideration and even of some public and ordered discussion. The British North America Act, 1867, by which the relation of the Dominion of Canada to its provinces is regulated, was the result, not only of years of preliminary debate in the provincial Legislatures and elsewhere, but of a formal conference at Quebec in 1864, followed by the appointment of delegates to confer with the Imperial Government on the matter. In Australia the proposal for union, agitated at intervals since 1846, was canva.s.sed in every detail at inter-colonial Conferences or Conventions in 1883, in 1891, and in 1897-8, as well as in the several colonial Legislatures, before it was embodied in the Australia Const.i.tution Act, 1900. And although in the case of South Africa, owing to the urgency of the question of union, the time occupied in the discussion was less than in the other great dominions, yet in the Convention of 1908-9 the best brains in the country were occupied for months in considering every detail of the proposal for union before it was submitted to the Colonial and Imperial Parliaments for their sanction.[26] And yet in the Mother Country, where centuries of military and political conflict have given us the Union, it is considered that a few weeks' consideration by a committee of the Cabinet, without advice from independent const.i.tutional experts,[27] and without formal consultation even with the Government's own supporters outside the Ministry, is sufficient to determine both the general form and the details of a proposal for its dissolution.

In the confusion so engendered it may be useful to consider in some detail the different proposals which have been or may be made under the name of Home Rule, their special qualities and dangers, and the results to which they may severally lead.

RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT.

A proposal to give to Ireland full "responsible" government, without any other limitations than such as are imposed on our self-governing Colonies, would find few supporters in this country. Under such a const.i.tution an Irish Government would have power to forbid or restrict recruiting for the Imperial forces in Ireland, and to raise and train a force of its own. It might establish or subsidise a religion, make education wholly denominational, levy customs duties on imports from Great Britain and give fiscal advantages to a foreign power, confiscate or transfer property without payment, and deprive individuals of nationality, franchise, liberty, or life without process of law. However improbable some of these contingencies may appear, it is right on a matter of so much moment to consider possibilities and not probabilities only. Such powers as these could not without serious risk be conceded to any part of the kingdom, and in the case of Ireland there would be a special danger in granting them to a popularly elected body.

In the first place, the national safety would be involved. Englishmen were at one time too fond of saying that the great Colonies might, if they chose, sever the link which binds them to the Mother Country.

Happily, in their case, no such catastrophe need now be considered. But it would be folly to shut our eyes to the fact that to many Irishmen national independence appears to be the only goal worth striving for. If the concession of full responsible government should be followed (at whatever interval) by an a.s.sertion of complete independence, we may a.s.sume that Great Britain would follow the example of Federal America and re-establish the Union by force of arms, but at how great a cost!

Those who deny the possibility of a serious movement towards separation would do well to remember Mr. Gladstone's reference[28] to the position of Norway and Sweden, then united under one crown:--

"Let us look to those two countries, neither of them very large, but yet countries which every Englishman and every Scotchman must rejoice to claim his kin--I mean the Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Norway. Immediately after the great war the Norwegians were ready to take sword in hand to prevent their coming under the domination of Sweden. But the Powers of Europe undertook the settlement of that question, and they united those countries upon a footing of strict legislative independence and co-equality.... And yet with two countries so united, what has been the effect? Not discord, not convulsions, not danger to peace, not hatred, not aversion, but a constantly growing sympathy; and every man who knows their condition knows that I speak the truth when I say that in every year that pa.s.ses the Norwegians and the Swedes are more and more feeling themselves to be the children of a common country, united by a tie which never is to be broken."

The tie was broken within twenty years.

It may be that the Nationalist leaders, or some of them, do not desire separation; but it by no means follows that a concession of their demands would not lead to that result. Franklin, in 1774, had an interview with Chatham, in which he says--

"I a.s.sured him that, having more than once travelled almost from one end of the continent (of America) to the other, and kept a great variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with them freely, I never had heard in any conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America."[29]

And yet independence came within ten years.

In the case of the United Kingdom there is no need to consider in detail how serious would be the effects--naval, military, and economic--of separation, for the gravity of such a contingency is admitted by all.

Admiral Mahan, the American naval expert, writes that--

"the ambition of the Irish separatists, realised, might be even more threatening to the national life of Great Britain than the secession of the South was to that of the American Union.... The instrument for such action in the shape of an independent Parliament could not safely be trusted even to avowed friends."

Some Home Rulers are able to--