Experience of federalism is not confined to the United States. The Swiss Confederation is in Europe the most successful both of democratic and of federal polities. The Swiss Executive exercises powers common to all continental governments but of a description which no English Cabinet could claim, and the Swiss Executive is made up of statesmen skilful beyond measure in what may be called the diplomacy of federalism. Yet in Switzerland, as in the United States, federal government means weak government. Ticino is a small Canton, but from the days of Athenian greatness small States have been the instructors of the world, and Englishmen, hesitating over a political leap in the dark, would do well to study the Ticinese revolution of September 11, 1890. The Radicals of the Canton rose in insurrection, and deposed the lawful government by violence; as Englishmen may remember, the contest though short involved at least one murder. The Swiss Executive (called the Federal Council) forthwith took steps to restore order and to reinstate the lawful Cantonal government. Their own commissioner, a military officer, in effect declined to put the overthrown government back in power. Order was restored, but the law was never vindicated. A strange set of negotiations, transactions, or intrigues took place. In the Federal Assembly at Berne, the Conservatives, a minority, urged the rights of the lawful government of Ticino. The Liberals defended or palliated the revolutionists. On the whole the advantage seems to have rested with the latter. A trial before a Federal Court took place, but the accused were acquitted. No one, if I am rightly informed, was punished for an act of manifest treason. It is even more noticeable that Professor Hilty, a distinguished and respected Swiss publicist, vindicates or palliates the admitted breach of law, in deference to the principle or sentiment, which if true has wide application, that 'human nature is not revolutionary, and that no revolution ever arises without a heavy share of guilt (Mitschuld) on the part of the government against which the revolution is directed.'[120] The instructiveness of this passage in Swiss history as regards the working of our new constitution is obvious; Englishmen should specially note the interconnection between lawlessness in Ticino and the balance of parties at Berne; it is easy to foresee an analogous connection between revolution, say in Dublin or Belfast, and the balance of parties at Westminster. But this is not my immediate point; my point is that the Federal Government at Berne cannot enforce obedience to law in Ticino in the way in which Englishmen expect that the Imperial Government shall, under any circumstances, enforce or cause the law to be enforced in Ireland.

But Ireland, it will be said, is to occupy a position like that of a self-governing colony. In British colonies the Imperial power and the rule of law are respected; both therefore will be respected in Ireland. The plain answer to this suggestion is that in a British self-governing colony, no law is enforceable which is opposed to colonial sentiment and which the colonial Ministry refuse to put into execution. One well-ascertained fact is enough to dispose of a hundred platitudes about Imperial supremacy and the loyal obedience of our colonies. Victoria is as loyal to the Crown as any colony which England possesses, yet the submission to law of the Victorian Government and people is not by any means unlimited. Ten years ago three British subjects arrived at Melbourne and were about to land. Popular sentiment, or in other words the will of the mob, had decreed that they should not enter the colony. The Victorian Premier (Mr. Service) announced in Parliament that their landing should be hindered. The police, acting under the orders of the Ministry, boarded the ship which brought the strangers, went near to assaulting the captain, and forcibly prevented the hated travellers from setting foot on shore. By arrangement between the Melbourne Government, the captain, and the three men, who were by this time in terror of their lives, the victims of lawlessness were carried back to England. That the law had been grossly violated no one can really dispute. The violation was the more serious because it excited no notice. No appeal was apparently made to the Courts. The Governor—the representative of Imperial power and Imperial justice—knew presumably what was going on, yet he uttered not one word of remonstrance. The Agent-General for Victoria, when at last a private person in England called attention to the outrage at Melbourne, pleaded in effect the plea of necessity, and described the act of tyranny, whereby British citizens were in a British colony turned into outlaws, as 'an act of executive authority.' The Imperial Government did I believe—what was perhaps the wisest thing it could do—nothing. Imperial supremacy in the colonies was, as regards the protection of unpopular individuals, admitted to be a farce. What, however, rendered the three travellers unpopular? They were Irish informers who had aided, unless I am mistaken, in the conviction of the Phoenix Park murderers. Let us now in imagination conceive our new constitution to have come into being, and transfer the transactions at Melbourne in 1883 to Dublin in 1894. Will the Imperial supremacy which is supposed to be so effective in the colonies be of any more worth in Ireland than in Victoria?[121]

Were it true, then, which it certainly is not, that the conditions exist in Ireland which conduce to the maintenance of federal power in the State of a well-arranged federation, and to the maintenance of Imperial power in a self-governing British colony, this would not be enough to support the argument in favour of the new constitution. For the Imperial Government needs that the law should be maintained, and the rights of individuals be protected, in Ireland with greater stringency than the law is enforced or the rights of individuals are protected either under a federal government or in a British colony. Miserable indeed would be the position of England were she forced in Ireland to wink at lawlessness such as but the other day disgraced New Orleans, or at mob law countenanced by the 'Executive,' such as in 1883 ruled supreme at Melbourne. Foreign powers at any rate would rightly decline to let the defects of our constitution excuse the neglect of international duties. If England cannot shuffle off her responsibilities, England is bound in prudence to maintain her power.

iv. The Policy of Trust. 'I believe myself that suspicion is the besetting vice of politicians and that trust is often the truest wisdom.'[122]

This sentiment is followed by curious and ambiguous qualifications. It is not cited for the sake of fixing Mr. Gladstone with any doctrine whatever; it is quoted because it neatly expresses the sentiment which, in one form or another, underlies most of the arguments in favour of Home Rule or of our new constitution. The right attitude for a politician, it is urged, is trust; he should trust the Irish leaders and their assurances or professions; he should trust in the training conferred upon men by the exercise of power; he should trust in the healing effects of a policy of conciliation, or, to put the matter shortly, he should trust in the goodness and reasonableness of human nature. Exercise only a little trustfulness and the policy of Home Rule, it is suggested, may be seen to be a wise and prudent policy.[123]

How far, then, is trust in any of the three forms, which it may on this occasion take, a reasonable sentiment?

We are told to trust the Irish leaders.

My answer to this advice is plain and decided. Confidence is not a matter of choice. You cannot give your trust simply because you wish to give it. Men are trusted because they are trustworthy. The Irish Home Rule leaders as a body cannot inspire trust, for the simple reason that their whole policy and conduct prove them untrustworthy. Politicians, strange as the fact may appear to them, cannot get quit of their past.

Look for a moment at the history—the patent, acknowledged history—of the agitators or the patriots (and I doubt not that many of them are, from their own point of view, patriotic) in whom we are asked to confide, and whose assurances are to form the basis on which to rest a dubious policy. They have been till recently the foes of England. This in itself is not much; many a rebel has been the enemy of England, and yet has been entitled to the respect of Englishmen. But there are deeds which neither hatred to England nor love of Ireland can justify. Even sedition has its moral code, and like war itself is subject to obligations which no man can neglect without infamy. The conspirators condemned by the Special Commission—and among them are to be found the most prominent of the Irish leaders[124]—have been guilty of conduct which no wise man ought to forget and no good man ought to palliate. They have for years excited Irish ignorance against England and against English officials by a system of gross incessant slander; witness the pages of United Ireland when Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan were in power at Dublin. The men whom we are told to trust are men who did enter into a criminal conspiracy by a system of coercion and intimidation to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural rents, for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country the English landlords[125]; they are men found guilty of not denouncing intimidation which led to crime and outrage, but of persisting in it with a knowledge of its effect.[126] They are proved to have made payments to compensate persons injured in the commission of crime[127]; they are men who have solicited and taken the money of Patrick Ford, the advocate of dynamite; and have invited and obtained the co-operation of the Clan-na-Gael.[128] Their whole system of agitation has been utterly unlike that of honourable agitators, conspirators, or rebels; it would have excited the horror of O'Connell; it would have been repudiated with disgust by Davis, by Gavan Duffy, by Smith O'Brien, and the other Irish leaders of 1848. The men who now ask for our confidence have in their attack upon England forgotten what was due to Ireland; they have deliberately taught Irish peasants lessons of dishonesty, oppression, and cruelty, which the farmers of Ireland may take years to unlearn. Of the degradation which they have gradually inflicted upon the English Parliament one is glad to say little. It is, however, well that the House of Commons should recollect that parliamentary debates are open to all the world and that Englishmen and Englishwomen see no reason why brutalities of expression should be tolerated in the oldest representative Assembly of Europe which would be reproved in any respectable English meeting. But you can sometimes trust men's capacity where you cannot trust their moral feeling. Unfortunately the Irish Parliamentary party have given us examples of their ability in matters of government which are not reassuring. The scenes of Committee Room No. 15[129] are a rehearsal of parliamentary life under Home Rule at Dublin.

But the Gladstonians, we shall be told, guarantee the good faith of their associates. Unfortunately, as judges of character the Gladstonians are out of court. The leader who first obtained their confidence was Mr. Parnell. If the Home Rule Bill of 1886 had become law Mr. Parnell would have become Premier of Ireland, and we should have been bidden to put trust in his loyalty and his integrity. There are no Gladstonians now who think Mr. Parnell trustworthy. Why should they be better judges of the trustworthiness of Mr. Dillon, Mr. M'Carthy, or Mr. Davitt, than they were of the character of the statesman who was the leader, friend or patron of the whole Irish Parliamentary party? Note, however—for in this matter it is essential to make one's meaning perfectly clear—I do not allege, or suppose, that the assurances of the Irish leaders are mendacious. They believe, I doubt not, what they say at the moment; but their words mean very little. In a sense they believed, or did not disbelieve, the slanderous accusations which filled the pages of United Ireland. In a sense they now believe that the Home Rule Bill is a satisfactory compromise. But the belief in each case must be considered essentially superficial. Men are the victims of their own career: it is absolutely impossible that leaders many of whom have indulged in virulence, in slanders, in cruelty, in oppression, should be suddenly credited with strict truthfulness, with sobriety, with respect for the rights of others. Even as it is, landlords are, in Mr. Sexton's eyes, criminals,[130] and he therefore cannot be trusted to act with fairness towards Irish landowners. Mr. Redmond holds that imprisoned dynamiters and other criminals should be released, whether guilty or not, and it is therefore reasonable not to put Mr. Redmond in a position where he can insist upon an amnesty for dynamiters and conspirators. Nor is it at all clear that as regards amnesty any Anti-Parnellite dare dissent from the doctrine of Mr. Redmond. It is odious, it will be said, to dwell on faults or crimes which, were it possible, every man would wish forgotten. But when we are asked to trust politicians who are untrustworthy, it is a duty to say why we must refuse to them every kind of confidence. Of the penalty for such plain speaking I am well aware. It will be said that to attack the Irish leaders is to slander the Irish people. This is untrue. In times of revolution men perpetually come to the front unworthy of the nation whom they lead. To treat distrust of the leaders of the Land League as dislike or distrust of the Irish people is as unfair as to say that the censor of Robespierre, of Marat, or of Barere denies that during the Revolution Frenchmen displayed high genius and rare virtues. There are thousands of Irishmen who will endorse every word I have written about the Irish leaders. Add to this that I am not called upon to pronounce any further condemnation upon the party than was pronounced upon the chief among them by the Special Commission. All I assert is that from the nature of things the men found guilty by the Commission cannot inspire trust.

Power, it is often intimated, teaches its own lessons. Trust Irishmen with the government of their own country, and you may feel confident that experience will teach them how to govern justly.

To this argument I need not myself provide a reply: it has been admirably given by my friend Mr. Bryce. Every word which in the following passage refers to the State legislatures of the United States applies in principle to the future Parliament at Dublin:—

'The chief lesson which a study of the more vicious among the State legislatures teaches, is that power does not necessarily bring responsibility in its train. I should be ashamed to write down so bald a platitude were it not that it is one of those platitudes which are constantly forgotten or ignored. People who know well enough that, in private life, wealth or rank or any other kind of power is as likely to mar a man as to make him, to lower as to raise his sense of duty, have nevertheless contracted the habit of talking as if human nature changed when it entered public life, as if the mere possession of public functions, whether of voting or of legislating, tended of itself to secure their proper exercise. We know that power does not purify men in despotic governments, but we talk as if it did so in free governments. Every one would of course admit, if the point were put flatly to him, that power alone is not enough, but that there must be added to power, in the case of the voter, a direct interest in the choice of good men, in the case of the legislator, responsibility to the voters, in the case of both, a measure of enlightenment and honour. What the legislatures of the worst States show is not merely the need for the existence of a sound public opinion, for such a public opinion exists, but the need for methods by which it can be brought into efficient action upon representatives who, if they are left to themselves, and are not individually persons with a sense of honour and a character to lose, will be at least as bad in public life as they could be in private. The greatness of the scale on which they act, and of the material interests they control, will do little to inspire them. New York and Pennsylvania are by far the largest and wealthiest States in the Union. Their legislatures are confessedly the worst.'[131]

The passage is the more impressive just because it is not written with a view to Ireland. No one doubts that the people of the United States, both in morality and in talent, equal if they do not excel the people of any other country in the world. But the warmest eulogist of America seeks throughout his work for the explanation of the fact which is really past dispute, that the political morality of the United States sinks below the general morality of the nation.[132] There is not the least reason why under a vicious constitution the government at Dublin should not reflect or exaggerate the vices, rather than represent the noble qualities and the gifts, of the Irish people.

But the doctrine of trust takes another and more general form. You may place confidence, it is alleged, in the goodness of human nature, and should believe that the concession of Home Rule, just because it meets the wishes of the Irish people, will take away every source of discontent, and thereby remove any difficulty in making even an imperfect constitution work well.

To this the answer may fairly be made, which I have made in the preceding pages, that Home Rule does not meet the wish of the most important part of the Irish people, but in truth arouses their abhorrence, and that even Home Rulers care much less than Gladstonians suppose about constitutional changes. To give a man a vote for a Parliament at Dublin when he is demanding an acre or two of land, comes very near giving him a stone when he asks for bread. But I assume for a moment that the Irishmen, who express no great enthusiasm for the Home Rule Bill, desire the new constitution as ardently as sixty years or so ago our fathers desired parliamentary reform. Yet even on this assumption the belief in Home Rule as a panacea for Irish ills is childish, and belongs to a bygone stage of opinion. We now know that changes in political machinery, however important, do not of themselves produce content. A poverty-stricken peasant in Connaught will not be made happy because a Parliament meets at Dublin. We now further know that the difficulty of satisfying popular aspirations often arises from the fundamental faults of human nature. Trust in the people may often be wiser than distrust, but to suppose that masses of men are wiser, more reasonable, or more virtuous than the individuals of which they consist, is as idle a political delusion as the corresponding ecclesiastical delusion that a church has virtues denied to the believers who make up the church. On this point an anecdote makes my meaning clearer than an argument. On May 15, 1848, the French National Assembly was invaded by an armed mob, who shouted and yelled for three hours and more, and threatened at any moment to slaughter the representatives of France. From June 22-26, 1848, there raged the most terrible of the insurrections which Paris has seen. For the first time in modern history the workmen of the capital rose against the body of the more or less well-to-do citizens. There was not a man in Paris who did not tremble for his property and his life. Householders feared the very servants in their homes. Between these days of ferocity intervened a day of sentiment. On May 21, 1848, the Assembly attended a Feast of Concord. There were carts filled with allegorical figures, there were processions, there were embraces; the whole town, soldiers, national guards, gardes mobiles, armed workmen, a million of men or more, passed in array before the deputies. The feast was a feast of concord, but every deputy had provided himself with pistols or some weapon of defence. This was the occasion when we are told by the reporter of the scene, 'Carnot said to me with a touch of that silliness (niaiserie) which is always to be found mixed up with the virtues of honest democrats, "Believe me, my dear colleague, you must always trust the people." I remember I answered him rather rudely, "Ah! why didn't you remind me of that on the day before May 15?"' The anecdote is told by the greatest political thinker whom France has produced since the days of Montesquieu. 'Trust in the people' did not appear the last word of political wisdom to Alexis de Tocqueville.[133]

The Gladstonian pleas to which answer has been made are, it will be said, arguments not in favour of our new constitution, but in support of Home Rule. The remark is just; it points to a curious weakness in the reasoning of Gladstonians. They adduce many reasons of more or less weight for conceding some kind of Home Rule to Ireland. But few indeed are the reasons put forward, either in the House of Commons or elsewhere, in favour of the actual Home Rule Bill of 1893. As to the merits of this definite measure Ministerialists show a singular reticence. It may be that they wish to save time and hold that the measure commends itself without any recommendation by force of its own inherent merits. But to a critic of the new constitution another explanation suggests itself. Can it be possible that Ministerialists themselves are not certain what are the fixed principles of the new policy? Everything about it is indefinite, vague, uncertain. Who can say with assurance what Gladstonians understand by Imperial supremacy? Is there or is there not any idea of excluding Ulster from the operation of the Bill? Is it or is it not a principle that members from Ireland shall be summoned to Westminster? Are the Irish members, if summoned, to vote on all matters, or on some only? To each of these questions the only answer that can be given is—nobody knows. But in this state of ignorance it is natural and excusable that apologists should confine themselves to general lines of defence. No politician who respects himself would willingly risk a vigorous apology for the special provisions of a particular measure, when, for aught he knows, the provision which he thinks essential turns out to be an unimportant detail, and is liable to sudden variation.

FOOTNOTES:

[108] 'I have told you candidly my sentiments. I think they are not likely to alter yours.... But hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. In the present it can hardly remain; but before its final settlement it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says, "through great varieties of untried being," and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.'—Burke's Works, ii. (ed. 1872), p. 517, 'Reflections on the Revolution in France.'

[109] As to the general causes of the strength of the Home Rule movement in England, and the general considerations in its favour, see England's Case against Home Rule (3rd ed.), ch. iii. and iv. pp. 34-127. From the opinions expressed in these chapters I see no reason for receding.

[110] Mr. M'Carthy, April 10, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debate, 353.

[111] [May 6, 1882. Now twenty-nine years back.]

[112] Every one should read Mr. Lecky's letter of April 4, 1893, addressed to the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, and printed in the Chamber's Reply to Mr. Gladstone's speech. It deals immediately not with the relations between England and Ireland, but with the alleged prosperity of Ireland under Grattan's Constitution. But in principle it applies to the point here discussed, and I venture to say that every page of Mr. Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century which refers to Grattan's Parliament bears out the contention, that no inference can be drawn from it as to the successful working, as regards either England or Ireland, of the legislature to be constituted under the Home Rule Bill.

[113] Add also that steamboats and railways have practically, since the time of Grattan, brought Ireland nearer to England, and Dublin nearer to London. At the end of the last or the beginning of this century a Lord Lieutenant was for weeks prevented by adverse winds from crossing from Holyhead to Dublin. Mr. Morley can attend a Cabinet Council at Westminster one afternoon and breakfast next morning in Dublin.

[114] With the conclusions as to Home Rule of my lamented friend Mr. Freeman it is impossible for me to agree. But for that very reason I can the more freely insist upon the merit of his paper on Irish Home Rule and its Analogies as an attempt to clear up our ideas as to the meaning of Home Rule. He, for instance, points out that the relations between Hungary and Austria do not constitute the relation of Home Rule and afford no analogy to the relation which Home Rulers propose to establish between Great Britain and Ireland. See The New Princeton Review for 1888, vol. vi. pp. 172, 190.

[115] A Gladstonian who thinks the case of the Channel Islands in point, would do well to get up the facts of their history. They were no more 'given' a constitution by England than, as most Frenchmen believe, they were conquered from France. See Mr. Haldane, April 7, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debates, p. 333.

[116] They have now (1911) led to political separation, happily without the need for civil war.

[117] See further on this point, Home Rule as Federalism, England's Case against Home Rule (3rd ed.), pp. 160-197, and for Home Rule as Colonial Independence, ib. pp. 197-218.

[118] Then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

[119] See 'Andrew Jackson,' American Statesmen Series, p. 182.

[120] Hilty, Separatabdruck aus dem Politischen Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft (Jahrgang 1891), p. 377.

[121] For the story of Kavanagh, Hanlon, and Smith, and their attempted landing at Melbourne, see England's Case (3rd ed.), p. 207.

[122] Mr. Gladstone, February 13, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debates, p. 307.

[123] An eminent and very able Gladstonian M.P. once said in my presence, in effect, for I cannot cite his actual words, that the difference between Gladstonians and Unionists was a difference in their judgment of character or of human nature. He touched I believe far more nearly than do most politicians the root of the differences which divide the authors and the critics of our new constitution.

[124] Report of Special Commission, pp. 54, 55.

[125] Ibid. pp. 53, 119.

[126] Ibid. pp. 119, 120.

[127] Report of Special Commission, p. 120.

[128] Ibid.

[129] This Committee Room was the scene of the desertion of Parnell by the majority of his former followers.

[130] 'The crime of the Land League was a trifle compared to the crime of the landlords.'—Mr. Sexton, April 20, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debates, p. 525.

[131] Bryce, American Commonwealth (1st ed.), ii. pp. 190, 191.

[132] Compare ibid. ii. p. 618.

[133] 'Carnot me dit avec cette niaiserie que les democrates honnetes ne manquent guere de meler a leur vertu: "Croyez-moi, mon cher collegue, il faut toujours se fier au peuple." Je me rappelle que je lui repondis assez brusquement: "Eh! que ne me disiez-vous cela la veille du 15 mai?"'—Souvenirs de Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 196.



CHAPTER V

THE PATH OF SAFETY

We stand on the brink of a precipice.[134] To say that Englishmen are asked to take a leap in the dark is far to understate the peril of the moment. We are asked to leave an arduous but well-known road, and to spring down an unfathomed ravine filled with rocks, on any one of which we may be dashed to pieces.

The very excess of the peril hides its existence from ordinary citizens. Mr. Gladstone, they argue, is a wise man and a good man, his colleagues are partisans, they are not conspirators; it is incredible that they should recommend a measure fraught with ruin to England. But the matter is intelligible enough. Mr. Gladstone's weakness, no less than his strength, has always lain in his temporary but exclusive preoccupation with some one dominant idea. The one notion which possesses his mind—to judge from his public conduct and speeches—is that at any cost Home Rule, that is, an Irish Executive and an Irish Parliament, must be conceded to Ireland. Enthusiasm, pride, ambition, all the motives, good and bad, which can influence a statesman, urge him to achieve this one object. If he succeeds his political career is crowned with victory, if not with final triumph; if he fails his whole course during the last seven years turns out an error. But it has long been manifest that only with the greatest difficulty can English electors be persuaded to accept Home Rule. Hence it has been found essential that the principles of the measure should not be known before the time for passing it into law. Hence the ill-starred avoidance of discussion. Hence the ultimate framing of a scheme which is made to pass, but is not made to work, and which probably enough does not represent the real wishes or convictions of any one statesman. Where is the Minister who will tell us that this particular Government of Ireland Bill is according to his judgment—I will not say in its details, but in each and all of its leading principles—the best constitution which can be framed for determining the relations between England and Ireland? This Minister has not appeared—I doubt whether he exists. The Bill may be a model of artful provision for conciliating the prejudices or soothing the fears of English electors, but it is not a well-digested constitution. It is inferior to the Home Rule Bill of 1886. Another consequence of the circumstances under which the Bill has been framed is that its authors themselves have never had the benefit to be derived from the mature discussion of its principles. Mr. Gladstone himself cannot say what are and what are not the fundamental ideas of his scheme. He obviously held, at any rate when the Bill was introduced, that the presence of the Irish members at Westminster was a detail, whereas it is in reality the fact which governs the character of the new constitution. To imply that such a matter can be treated as subsidiary is, in the eyes of any student of constitutions, as ridiculous as it would seem to Mr. Gladstone for a Chancellor of the Exchequer, on introducing his budget, to assert that, whether he maintained or did not maintain the income tax, was an organic detail which did not fundamentally affect his financial proposals. The Ministry are as much at sea as their chief; nor is this wonderful. There are two things of which English statesmen have had little experience. The one is a revolutionary movement, the other is the construction of a constitution. But the Home Rule Bill is at once the effect and the sign of a revolutionary movement, and the task in which the Gladstonians are engaged is the formation of a new constitution. Blind leaders are leading a blind people, and our blind leaders, some of whom care more for Radical supremacy in England than for Imperial supremacy in Ireland, are like many other men of our time, the slaves of phrases, such as 'trust in the people,' which pass muster for principles. If the blind lead the blind, what wonder if they stumble over a precipice?

The peril in which the country stands is concealed from us by a curious reaction of opinion. Good political institutions, it was at one time held, were the cause of a nation's happiness, and England, it was firmly believed, owed her prosperity wholly to her constitution. A century of revolutions has taught us all that a good form of government cannot of itself save a state from ruin, and many of us have come to think that forms of government are nothing, and that no constitutional changes can impair the strength of England. No delusion however is more patent or more noxious. Never was a country richer in the elements of strength than were the Thirteen Colonies when their independence was acknowledged by England. Yet the Confederation by the vices of its constitution filled the colonies with discord, and made them both weak at home and contemptible abroad, whilst the creation of the United States restored them to peace and opened for them the road to greatness. The predominance for more than fifty years of the Slave Power in the politics of the American Union, the struggle measured by centuries through which at last the Protestant and progressive Cantons of Switzerland asserted their rightful supremacy over the Catholic and unprogressive Cantons of Switzerland, the weakness of Prussia when, not much more than forty[135] years back, she could hardly maintain her rights and her dignity against Austria, the classical instance of Germany, which though possessed of every source of power lay for generations at the mercy of France, mainly on account of vicious political institutions, are proofs, if evidence were wanting, of the capacity of ill-designed constitutions to hamper the action and threaten the prosperity of great nations. A constitution in truth is a national garb. A good constitution will not make a weak country strong, but an unsuitable constitution may reduce a strong country to feebleness. A weakling does not become a strong man by putting on armour, but a giant can derive no advantage from his strength if once he be got by fraud or force into a strait waistcoat.

Strength, it is true, will in the long run assert itself. The artificial supremacy of Ireland, or of a faction supported by Irish votes, will not last for ever; probably it will not last long. If the new constitution prove unbearable by England it will not be borne; it will be overthrown or evaded. Far am I from asserting that the breach or evasion will, when it shall occur, be justifiable. Englishmen's ideas of good faith are strict, but they are narrow. One main reason for dreading the new constitution is that it may try beyond measure the patience and the honesty of England. If, for instance, Ulster should resist the legal authority of the Parliament at Dublin, there may arise one of those terrible periods in which the observation of pledged faith seems inconsistent with the natural dictates of honour and humanity, and weak concession at the present moment will, at such a crisis, be found to have contained among its other perils the danger lest England, when at last she re-asserts her power in Ireland, should not re-establish her justice.

Where then lies the path of safety? The road is difficult, but it is clearly marked; it is at any rate to be found, not by any exercise of subtlety or of extraordinary acuteness, but by obeying the plain dictates of common sense and sound public morality. The characteristics of Unionist policy must be seriousness, simplicity, and reliance upon an appeal to the nation.

Seriousness is essential.

The need of the time is to impress on the mass of the people the intense gravity of the crisis. Far too much was said before the general election about the weaknesses and the inconsistencies of the Gladstonians, and far too little about the causes of their strength and the absolute necessity for arduous efforts to defeat the Separatists at the polling-booths. The error must not be repeated.

The people must be told, as they may be told with absolute truth, that the fate of England is in question, and that nothing but the efforts of every Unionist throughout the land can save the country from destruction. The contest has, without either party being aware of the change, shifted its character since 1886. Then the names of Unionists and Separatists expressed the whole difference between the opponents and supporters of the Home Rule Bill. The Gladstonians for the most part meant the Bill to affect, as far as possible, the condition of Ireland alone. They did not mean to change the constitution of the United Kingdom. It is now plain, as has been shown throughout these pages, that the measure of so-called Home Rule is a new constitution for the whole United Kingdom. In 1886 the Gladstonians bona fide intended to close the period of agitation. In 1893 many Gladstonians see in Home Rule for Ireland only the first step towards an extended scheme of federalism. In 1886 no Gladstonian had palliated crime or oppression, no Gladstonian statesman had discovered that boycotting was nothing but exclusive dealing, no Gladstonian Chancellor had made light of conspiracy. All this is changed. Alliance with revolutionists or conspirators has imbued respectable English statesmen with revolutionary doctrines and revolutionary sentiment. The difference between Unionist and Separatist remains, but it is merged in the wider difference between Constitutionalists and Revolutionists. The question at issue is not merely, though this is serious enough, whether the Act of Union shall be repealed or relaxed, but whether the United Kingdom is morally a nation, and whether as a nation it has a right to insist upon the supreme authority belonging to the majority of its citizens. A similar question was some thirty-two years ago put to the people of the United States; it was decided by the arbitrament of battle.

The terrible calamity of an appeal to the test of force Englishmen may avoid, but if it is to be avoided the national rights of the whole people of the United Kingdom must be asserted as strenuously by their votes as the rights of the citizens of the United States were vindicated by their arms. The people of England again must be solemnly warned that errors in policy or acts of injustice may snatch from us the power of determining a political controversy at the ballot-box instead of on the battle-field. It is folly to raise cases on the constitution; it is always of the most doubtful prudence to handle the casuistry of politics. Nothing will tempt me to discuss in these pages what are the ethical limits to the exercise of constitutionally unlimited sovereignty, or at what point legal oppression justifies armed resistance. Two considerations must at this crisis be kept in mind. The one is that, until oppression is actually committed, the maintenance of order is the duty of every citizen, and, like most political duties, is also a matter of the most obvious expediency; the other is that the compulsion of loyal citizens to forgo the direct protection of the government whose sovereignty they admit, and to accept the rule of a government whose moral claim to their allegiance they deny, is a proceeding of the grossest injustice. Let the people of England also be solemnly warned that the Gladstonian policy of 1893 repeats the essential error of the condemned policy of Protestant ascendency. Gladstonians hold that the democracy of England may ally itself with the democracy of Ireland, and may treat lightly the rights and the wishes of a Protestant and Conservative minority. In bygone times the aristocratic and Protestant government of England allied itself with the Protestant and aristocratic government of Ireland, and held light the rights and the wishes of the Catholic majority. Each policy labours under the same defect. The enforced supremacy of a class, be it a minority or a majority, is opposed to the equitable principle of the supremacy of the whole nation. There is no reason to suppose that Catholic ascendency will be found more tolerable than was Protestant ascendency.

The policy of Unionism should be marked by simplicity.

The Unionist leaders have a clear though a difficult duty to perform. Their one immediate function is resistance to a dangerous revolution. Logically and politically, there was a good deal to be said for the deliberate refusal to discuss, or to vote upon, any of the details of the Home Rule Bill. There is always a danger lest the attempt to amend a radically and essentially vicious measure should promote the delusion that it is amendable. And any success in debate would be dearly purchased if it led the electors to suppose that the Government of Ireland Bill, which in fact embodies a policy, so fundamentally perverse that no alteration of details can render it tolerable, is a measure which, though faulty in its execution, is sound in principle. The Unionists leaders, however, whom we can absolutely trust, have decided that abstention from debate would be an error. As far as the matter is to be looked at from a parliamentary point of view their judgment is decisive, and since the policy of combating the Bill point by point has been adopted it should be carried out, as it is being carried out, with the utmost stringency. Minute discussion of the clauses of the Bill is elaborate instruction for the mass of the nation.

To the cry of obstruction no heed whatever need be paid. As long as there is real discussion obstruction becomes, when the matter in debate is the formation of a new constitution for the United Kingdom, an impossibility. The business needs the most careful consideration. Ministers themselves are uncertain as to what are the essential principles of their own scheme. Every detail involves a principle, and in a Bill where clearness is of vital importance, every clause involves an ambiguity. Each part moreover of the new constitution must be considered with regard to the rest, and the expression of different views as to the meaning of the Bill is of itself of utility, when it is of the greatest importance that Englishmen and Irishmen, Conservatives and Radicals, should be agreed as to the meaning of the new Fundamental Law. When, in short, a constitution for the country is being drawn up, no discussion which is rational can be obstructive. If a week or a fortnight of parliamentary time is expended in defining the meaning of the supreme authority of Parliament, or in deciding whether the Irish delegacy is or is not to be retained at Westminster, not a moment too much is devoted to points of such transcendent importance. 'But the debate,' it is urged, 'will at this rate last for months.' Why not? 'No other Bills,' it is added, 'can be passed.' What Bills, I answer, ought to be passed whilst the constitution of England is undergoing fundamental alteration? 'But the principles of the measure,' it is objected, 'might have been discussed and settled during the last seven years.' So, I reply, they might, if it had pleased the Gladstonians either to produce their Bill or to announce its general principles. Their silence was politic; it won them a majority at the general election, but you cannot from the nature of things combine the advantages both of reticence and of outspokenness. Silence may have been justified as a piece of clever party tactics; it is a very different question whether the concealment of seven years has turned out high statesmanship. Gladstonians, like other men, cannot, as the saying goes, have their cake and eat it. They have had the advantages, they are now paying the inevitable price of reserve. Unionists in any case are bound to turn this invaluable time to account. Discussion of the constitution is the education of the people.

In order, however, that this political training may be effective, our parliamentary teachers must take care that the public are not confused by the prominence necessarily given to details. Minute criticism of the Bill is important, but at the present moment it is important only as enforcing the radical vice of its main principles. No effort must be spared to keep the mind of the nation well fixed upon these principles. The surrender by the British Parliament and the British Government of all effective part in the government of Ireland, the ambiguities of such a term as 'Imperial supremacy' and all that these ambiguities involve, the inadequacy and the futility of the Restrictions, the errors and impolicy of the financial arrangements, above all the injustice to England and the injury to Ireland of retaining, under a system of Home Rule, even a single Irish representative at Westminster, these broad considerations are the things which should be pressed, and pressed home, upon the electors. Minor matters are good topics for parliamentary discussion, but should not receive a confusing and illusory prominence.

The electors again must be made to feel that it is the essential principle of Home Rule, the setting up of an Irish Government and an Irish Parliament, to which Unionists are opposed. The least appearance of concession to Home Rulers, or any action which gives increased currency to the delusion, certainly cherished by some moderate Gladstonians, that Home Rule can be identified with or cut down to extended local self-government,[136] will be fatal to the cause of Unionism. The concession to Ireland of a petty, paltry, peddling legislature, which dare hardly call itself a Parliament, and is officially designated say as a national council, combined with some faint imitation of a Cabinet, called say a committee, would disappoint and irritate Home Rulers; it would cheat their hopes, but it would afford them the means of gaining their end. It would not give assurance to Unionists, it would not be a triumph of Unionist policy, it would rather be the destruction of Unionism. The one course of safety is to take care that at the next general election the country has laid before it for determination a clear and unmistakable issue. The question for every elector to answer must be reducible to the form Aye or No; will you, or will you not, repeal the Union and establish an Irish Executive and an Irish Parliament in Dublin? If the question be so raised Unionists have no reason to fear an answer.

The policy of Unionism has always relied on an appeal to the nation.

The one desire of Unionists has always been to fight their opponents on the clear unmistakable issue of Home Rule. The policy of Separatists has been to keep Home Rule in the background whilst making its meaning indefinite, and to mix up all the multifarious issues raised by the Newcastle programme, as well as many others, with the one essential question whether we should or should not repeal or modify the Act of Union.

To their policy of appeal to the people the Unionists will, of course, adhere. The House of Lords will, it may be presumed, as a matter not so much of right as of obvious duty, reject the present Home Rule Bill, so as to refer to the electors of the United Kingdom the question whether we shall, or shall not, have a new constitution. Even if such a reference to the electors should result in a Gladstonian majority, it is still possible that a further dissolution might be necessary. The majority for Home Rule might be much reduced. I doubt whether Mr. Gladstone himself would maintain that with a majority say of ten or twenty, a Minister would be morally justified in attempting a fundamental change in the constitution. As to such speculative matters there is no need to say anything. It is worth while, however, to repeat a statement which cannot be too often insisted upon, that the most important function of the House of Lords at the present day is to take care that no fundamental change in the constitution takes place which has not received the undoubted assent of the nation. The peers are more and more clearly awakening to the knowledge that under the circumstances of modern public life this protection of the rights of the nation, which is in complete conformity with democratic principle, is the supreme duty of the Upper House.

The question, however, to be considered at the moment is whether for the performance of this duty something more may not be required than the compelling of a dissolution. This something more is a direct appeal to the electors in the nature of a Referendum. The question is still a theoretical one; it cannot (unfortunately as it will appear to many persons) be raised during the debates on the Bill in the House of Commons. When the Bill reaches the House of Lords, it will, we may suppose, be rejected, and all that a Unionist can wish for is, first, that before actual rejection its general principles should be subjected to complete discussion, and what is in this case the same thing, exposure, and next that the House of Lords should, if necessary, take steps which can easily be imagined, for providing that the rejection of the Bill shall entail a dissolution. If, however, the dissolution should result in a Gladstonian majority, and should lead to another Home Rule Bill being sent up to their lordships, the question then arises as to the Referendum. My own conviction, which has been before laid before the public, is that the Lords would do well if they appended to any Home Rule Bill which they were prepared to accept a clause which might make its coming into force depend upon its, within a limited time, receiving the approval of the majority of the electors of the United Kingdom. And in the particular case of the Home Rule Bill it is fair, for reasons already stated,[137] that the Bill before becoming law should receive the assent of a majority of the electors both of Great Britain and of Ireland. This course, it may be said, is unconstitutional. This word has no terrors for me; it means no more than unusual, and the institution of a Referendum would simply mean the formal acknowledgment of the doctrine which lies at the basis of English democracy—that a law depends at bottom for its enactment on the assent of the nation as represented by the electors. At a time when the true danger is that sections or classes should arrogate to themselves authority which belongs to the State, it is an advantage to bring into prominence the sovereignty of the nation. The present is exactly a crisis at which we may override the practices to save the principles of the constitution. The most forcible objection which can be made is that you ought not for the sake of avoiding a particular evil to introduce an innovation of dubious expediency. The objection itself is valid, but it is in the present instance inapplicable. My conviction is that the introduction of the Referendum, in one shape or another in respect of large constitutional changes, would be a distinct benefit to the country. It affords the one available check on the recklessness of party leaders; for the check is at once effective and in perfect conformity with democratic principle and sentiment. A second objection is that a Referendum renders any law which obtains the approval of the electors more difficult of alteration than an ordinary Act of Parliament. The allegation is true, but it really tells greatly in favour of an ultimate reference to the people of any Home Rule Bill passed in a Parliament. If such a Bill becomes law, it ought to be a law not admitting of easy repeal. No doubt reaction may be justifiable, but reaction is a great evil, and the Referendum puts a check as well on reaction as on hasty innovation. In any case the time has arrived when Unionist statesmen should consider the expediency of announcing that no Home Rule Bill will finally be accepted until it has undergone a reference to and received the approval of the electors. On no better issue could battle be joined with revolutionists than on the question whether the people of the United Kingdom should or should not be allowed to express their will. Unionists have every reason to feel confidence in their cause; their only policy, their one path of safety is to make it, as they can do, absolutely plain that they rely upon justice, and that they appeal from parties to the nation.

We have now before us the essential features of the new constitution framed by Gladstonians for the whole United Kingdom. We know its inherent defects and inconsistencies; we have considered what may be said on its behalf, or rather of the policy of which it is the outcome. The proposed change in our form of government touches the very foundations of the State, and deeply, though indirectly, threatens the unity of the whole Empire. Never surely since the day when the National Assembly of France drew up that Constitution of 1791, which built to be eternal endured for not quite a year, has an ancient nation been so strangely invited to accept an untried and unknown polity.

The position indeed of the French constitution-makers was in some respects stronger and more defensible than the position of our English innovators. The members of the National Assembly knew precisely what they were doing. They meant to alter the fundamental institutions of France. A change moreover in the whole scheme of French government was an admitted necessity. France might be uncertain as to the working of the new constitution, but France was absolutely certain that the ancien regime was detestable. Individuals or nations may wisely risk much when they are escaping from a social condition which they detest, they may know that an innovation is in itself of doubtful expediency, yet may consider any alleged reform worth a trial when no change can be a change for the worse. In the France of 1791 confidence in the future meant abhorrence of the past.

The authors of our new constitution can hardly be called the designers of their own handiwork; they have been the sport of accident. Their intention, or rather the intention of their leader, was in 1886 merely to grant some sort of Parliamentary independence to Ireland. The resolution to concede Home Rule was sudden; it may have been taken up without due weighing of its consequences. It has assuredly led to unexpected results. The statesmen who meant merely to give Home Rule to Ireland have stumbled into the making of a new constitution for the United Kingdom. What wonder that their workmanship betrays its accidental origin. It has no coherence, no consistency; nothing is called by its right name, and words are throughout substituted for facts; the new Parliament of Ireland is denied its proper title; the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is nominally saved, and is really destroyed; and the very statesmen who proclaim the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament refuse to assert the subordination of the Irish Parliament. The authors of the constitution are at sea as to its leading principles, and its most essential provision they deem an organic detail, which may at any moment be modified or removed. The whole thing is an incongruous patchwork affair, made up of shreds and tatters torn from the institutions of other lands. It is as inconsistent with the proposed and rejected Constitution of 1886 as with the existing Constitution of England. While however our constitution-makers tender for the acceptance of the nation a scheme of fundamental change, whereof the effect is uncertain, conjectural, and perilous, and the permanence is not guaranteed by its authors, Englishmen are well satisfied with their old constitution; they may desire its partial modification or expansion, they have never even contemplated its overthrow. Politicians, in short, who meant to initiate a moderate reform, are pressing a revolutionary change on a country which neither needs nor desires a revolution; they propose to get rid of grave, though temporary, inconveniences by a permanent alteration of which no man can calculate the results in our whole system of government. Never before was a nation so strangely advised by such bewildered counsellors to take for so little apparent reason so desperate a leap in the dark.

FOOTNOTES:

[134] The whole gist of this chapter applies to the state of England in 1911 with greater force than even to its condition in 1893. Home Rule will be carried, if at all, only by a House of Commons freed from the authority of the House of Lords, and from the need of an appeal to the people.

[135] Now sixty-one years.

[136] If any one wishes to see the difference between local self-government and Home Rule, let him compare the Bill for the extension of self-government in Ireland, brought in by the late Ministry, with the Home Rule Bill. The Local Government Bill went very far, some persons may even maintain dangerously far, in creating and in extending the authority of local bodies in Ireland. But it was not Home Rule, or anything like Home Rule. The most extended Local Government Bill and the most restricted Home Rule Bill differ fundamentally in principle. The one in effect denies, the other in effect concedes, a separate national government to Ireland.

[137] See pp. 119-121, ante.



APPENDIX

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL

ARRANGEMENT OF CLAUSES

Legislative Authority Clause. 1. Establishment of Irish Legislature. 2. Powers of Irish Legislature. 3. Exceptions from powers of Irish Legislature. 4. Restrictions on powers of Irish Legislature.

Executive Authority 5. Executive power in Ireland.

Constitution of Legislature 6. Composition of Irish Legislative Council. 7. Composition of Irish Legislative Assembly. 8. Disagreement between two Houses, how settled.

Irish Representation in House of Commons 9. Representation in Parliament of Irish counties and boroughs.

Finance 10. As to separate Consolidated Fund and taxes. 11. Hereditary revenues and income tax. 12. Financial arrangements as between United Kingdom and Ireland. 13. Treasury Account (Ireland). 14. Charges on Irish Consolidated Fund. 15. Irish Church Fund. 16. Local loans. 17. Adaptation of Acts as to Local Taxation Accounts and probate, etc., duties. 18. Money bills and votes. 19. Exchequer judges for revenue actions, election petitions, etc.

Post Office Postal Telegraphs and Savings Banks 20. Transfer of post office and postal telegraphs. 21. Transfer of savings banks.

Irish Appeals and Decision of Constitutional Questions 22. Irish appeals. 23. Special provision for decision of constitutional questions.

Lord Lieutenant and Crown Lands 24. Office of Lord Lieutenant. 25. Use of Crown lands by Irish Government.

Judges and Civil Servants 26. Tenure of future judges. 27. As to existing judges and other persons having salaries charged on the Consolidated Fund. 28. As to persons holding civil service appointments. 29. As to existing pensions and superannuation allowances.

Police 30. As to Police.

Miscellaneous 31. Irish Exchequer Consolidated Fund and Audit. 32. Law applicable to both Houses of Irish Legislature. 33. Supplemental provisions as to powers of Irish Legislature. 34. Limitation on borrowing by local authorities.

Transitory Provisions 35. Temporary restriction on powers of Irish Legislature and Executive. 36. Transitory provisions. 37. Continuance of existing laws, courts, officers, etc. 38. Appointed day. 39. Definitions. 40. Short title.



SCHEDULES

A BILL TO AMEND THE PROVISION FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND[138]

Whereas it is expedient that without impairing or restricting the supreme authority of Parliament, an Irish Legislature should be created for such purposes in Ireland as in this Act mentioned:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Legislative Authority

1. On and after the appointed day there shall be in Ireland a Legislature consisting of Her Majesty the Queen and of two Houses, the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly.

2. With the exceptions and subject to the restrictions in this Act mentioned, there shall be granted to the Irish Legislature power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland in respect of matters exclusively relating to Ireland or some part thereof.

3. The Irish Legislature shall not have power to make laws in respect of the following matters or any of them:—

(1) The Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency; or the Lord Lieutenant as representative of the Crown; or

(2) The making of peace or war or matters arising from a state of war; or

(3) Naval or military forces, or the defence of the realm; or

(4) Treaties and other relations with foreign States or the relations between different parts of Her Majesty's dominions or offences connected with such treaties or relations; or

(5) Dignities or titles of honour; or

(6) Treason, treason-felony, alienage, or naturalisation; or

(7) Trade with any place out of Ireland; or quarantine, or navigation (except as respects inland waters and local health or harbour regulations); or

(8) Beacons, lighthouses, or sea marks (except so far as they can consistently with any general Act of Parliament be constructed or maintained by a local harbour authority); or

(9) Coinage; legal tender; or the standard of weights and measures; or

(10) Trade marks, merchandise marks, copyright, or patent rights.

Any law made in contravention of this section shall be void.

4. The powers of the Irish Legislature shall not extend to the making of any law—

(1) Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

(2) Imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege, on account of religious belief; or

(3) Abrogating or prejudicially affecting the right to establish or maintain any place of denominational education or any denominational institution or charity; or

(4) Prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money, without attending the religious instruction at that school; or

(5) Whereby any person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or may be denied the equal protection of the laws, or whereby private property may be taken without just compensation; or

(6) Whereby any existing corporation incorporated by Royal Charter or by any local or general Act of Parliament (not being a corporation raising for public purposes taxes, rates, cess, dues, or tolls, or administering funds so raised) may, unless it consents, or the leave of Her Majesty is first obtained on address from the two Houses of the Irish Legislature, be deprived of its rights, privileges, or property without due process of law; or

(7) Whereby any inhabitant of the United Kingdom may be deprived of equal rights as respects public sea fisheries.

Any law made in contravention of this section shall be void.

Executive Authority

5.—(1) The executive power in Ireland shall continue vested in Her Majesty the Queen, and the Lord Lieutenant, on behalf of Her Majesty, shall exercise any prerogatives or other executive power of the Queen the exercise of which may be delegated to him by Her Majesty, and shall, in Her Majesty's name, summon, prorogue, and dissolve the Irish Legislature. (2) There shall be an Executive Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland to aid and advise in the government of Ireland, being of such numbers, and comprising persons holding such offices, as Her Majesty may think fit, or as may be directed by Irish Act. (3) The Lord Lieutenant shall, on the advice of the said Executive Committee, give or withhold the assent of Her Majesty to Bills passed by the two Houses of the Irish Legislature, subject nevertheless to any instructions given by Her Majesty in respect of any such Bill.

Constitution of Legislature

6.—(1) The Irish Legislative Council shall consist of forty-eight councillors. (2) Each of the constituencies mentioned in the First Schedule to this Act shall return the number of councillors named opposite thereto in the schedule. (3) Every man shall be entitled to be registered as an elector, and when registered to vote at an election, of a councillor for a constituency, who owns or occupies any land or tenement in the constituency of a rateable value of more than twenty pounds, subject to the like conditions as a man is entitled at the passing of this Act to be registered and vote as a parliamentary elector in respect of an ownership qualification or of the qualification specified in section five of the Representation of the People Act, 1884, as the case may be: Provided that a man shall not be entitled to be registered, nor if registered to vote, at an election of a councillor in more than one constituency in the same year. (4) The term of office of every councillor shall be eight years, and shall not be affected by a dissolution; and one half of the councillors shall retire in every fourth year, and their seats shall be filled by a new election.

7.—(1) The Irish Legislative Assembly shall consist of one hundred and three members, returned by the existing parliamentary constituencies in Ireland, or the existing divisions thereof, and elected by the parliamentary electors for the time being in those constituencies or divisions. (2) The Irish Legislative Assembly when summoned may, unless sooner dissolved, have continuance for five years from the day on which the summons directs it to meet and no longer. (3) After six years from the passing of this Act, the Irish Legislature may alter the qualification of the electors, and the constituencies, and the distribution of the members among the constituencies, provided that in such distribution due regard is had to the population of the constituencies.

8. If a Bill or any provision of a Bill adopted by the Legislative Assembly is lost by the disagreement of the Legislative Council, and after a dissolution, or the period of two years from such disagreement, such Bill, or a Bill for enacting the said provision, is again adopted by the Legislative Assembly and fails within three months afterwards to be adopted by the Legislative Council, the same shall forthwith be submitted to the members of the two Houses deliberating and voting together thereon, and shall be adopted or rejected according to the decision of the majority of those members present and voting on the question.

Irish Representation in House of Commons

9. Unless and until Parliament otherwise determines, the following provisions shall have effect—

(1) After the appointed day each of the constituencies named in the Second Schedule to this Act shall return to serve in Parliament the number of members named opposite thereto in that schedule, and no more, and Dublin University shall cease to return any member.

(2) The existing divisions of the constituencies shall, save as provided in that schedule, be abolished.

(3) An Irish representative peer in the House of Lords and a member of the House of Commons for an Irish constituency shall not be entitled to deliberate or vote on—

(a) any Bill or motion in relation thereto, the operation of which Bill or motion is confined to Great Britain or some part thereof; or

(b) any motion or resolution relating solely to some tax not raised or to be raised in Ireland; or

(c) any vote or appropriation of money made exclusively for some service not mentioned in the Third Schedule to this Act; or

(d) any motion or resolution exclusively affecting Great Britain or some part thereof or some local authority or some person or thing therein; or

(e) any motion or resolution, incidental to any such motion or resolution as either is last mentioned, or relates solely to some tax not raised or to be raised in Ireland, or incidental to any such vote or appropriation of money as aforesaid.

(4) Compliance with the provisions of this section shall not be questioned otherwise than in each House in manner provided by the House.

(5) The election laws and the laws relating to the qualification of parliamentary electors shall not, so far as they relate to parliamentary elections, be altered by the Irish Legislature, but this enactment shall not prevent the Irish Legislature from dealing with any officers concerned with the issue of writs of election, and if any officers are so dealt with, it shall be lawful for Her Majesty by Order in Council to arrange for the issue of such writs, and the writs issued in pursuance of such Order shall be of the same effect as if issued in manner heretofore accustomed.

Finance

10.—(1) On and after the appointed day there shall be an Irish Exchequer and Consolidated Fund separate from those of the United Kingdom. (2) The duties of customs and excise and the duties on postage shall be imposed by Act of Parliament, but subject to the provisions of this Act the Irish Legislature may, in order to provide for the public service of Ireland, impose any other taxes. (3) Save as in this Act mentioned, all matters relating to the taxes in Ireland and the collection and management thereof shall be regulated by Irish Act, and the same shall be collected and managed by the Irish Government and form part of the public revenues of Ireland: Provided that—

(a) the duties of customs shall be regulated, collected, managed, and paid into the Exchequer of the United Kingdom as heretofore; and

(b) all prohibitions in connection with the duties of excise, and so far as regards articles sent out of Ireland, all matters relating to those duties, shall be regulated by Act of Parliament; and

(c) the excise duties on articles consumed in Great Britain shall be paid in Great Britain or to an officer of the Government of the United Kingdom.

(4) Save as in this Act mentioned, all the public revenues of Ireland shall be paid into the Irish Exchequer and form a Consolidated Fund, and be appropriated to the public service of Ireland by Irish Act. (5) If the duties of excise are increased above the rates in force on the first day of March one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, the net proceeds in Ireland of the duties in excess of the said rates shall be paid from the Irish Exchequer to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom. (6) If the duties of excise are reduced below the rates in force on the said day, and the net proceeds of such duties in Ireland are in consequence less than the net proceeds of the duties before the reduction, a sum equal to the deficiency shall, unless it is otherwise agreed between the Treasury and the Irish Government, be paid from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom to the Irish Exchequer.

11.—(1) The hereditary revenues of the Crown in Ireland which are managed by the Commissioners of Woods shall continue during the life of Her present Majesty to be managed and collected by those Commissioners, and the net amount payable by them to the Exchequer on account of those revenues, after deducting all expenses (but including an allowance for interest on such proceeds of the sale of those revenues as have not been re-invested in Ireland), shall be paid into the Treasury Account (Ireland) hereinafter mentioned, for the benefit of the Irish Exchequer. (2) A person shall not be required to pay income tax in Great Britain in respect of property situate or business carried on in Ireland, and a person shall not be required to pay income tax in Ireland in respect of property situate or business carried on in Great Britain. (3) For the purpose of giving to Ireland the benefit of the difference between the income tax collected in Great Britain from British, Colonial, and foreign securities held by residents in Ireland, and the income tax collected in Ireland from Irish securities held by residents in Great Britain, there shall be made to Ireland out of the income tax collected in Great Britain, an allowance of such amount as may be from time to time determined by the Treasury, in accordance with a minute of the Treasury laid before Parliament before the appointed day, and such allowance shall be paid into the Treasury Account (Ireland) for the benefit of the Irish Exchequer. (4) Provided that the provisions of this section with respect to income tax shall not apply to any excess of the rate of income tax in Great Britain above the rate in Ireland or of the rate of income tax in Ireland above the rate in Great Britain.

12.—(1) The duties of customs contributed by Ireland and, save as provided by this Act, that portion of any public revenue of the United Kingdom to which Ireland may claim to be entitled, whether specified in the Third Schedule to this Act or not, shall be carried to the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, as the contribution of Ireland to Imperial liabilities and expenditure as defined in that Schedule. (2) The civil charges of the Government in Ireland shall, subject as in this Act mentioned, be borne after the appointed day by Ireland. (3) After fifteen years from the passing of this Act the arrangements made by this Act for the contribution of Ireland to Imperial liabilities and expenditure, and otherwise for the financial relations between the United Kingdom and Ireland, may be revised in pursuance of an address to Her Majesty from the House of Commons, or from the Irish Legislative Assembly.

13.—(1) There shall be established under the direction of the Treasury an account (in this Act referred to as the Treasury Account (Ireland)). (2) There shall be paid into such account all sums payable from the Irish Exchequer to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, or from the latter to the former Exchequer, and all sums directed to be paid into the account for the benefit of either of the said Exchequers. (3) All sums which are payable from either of the said Exchequers to the other of them, or being payable out of one of the said Exchequers are repayable by the other Exchequer, shall in the first instance be payable out of the said account so far as the money standing on the account is sufficient; and for the purpose of meeting such sums, the Treasury out of the customs revenue collected in Ireland, and the Irish Government out of any of the public revenues in Ireland, may direct money to be paid to the Treasury Account (Ireland) instead of into the Exchequer. (4) Any surplus standing on the account to the credit of either Exchequer, and not required for meeting payments, shall at convenient times be paid into that Exchequer, and where any sum so payable into the Exchequer of the United Kingdom is required by law to be forthwith paid to the National Debt Commissioners, that sum may be paid to those Commissioners without being paid into the Exchequer. (5) All sums payable by virtue of this Act out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom or of Ireland shall be payable from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom or Ireland, as the case may be, within the meaning of this Act, and all sums by this Act made payable from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom shall, if not otherwise paid, be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

14.—(1) There shall be charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund in favour of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom as a first charge on that fund all sums which—

(a) are payable to that Exchequer from the Irish Exchequer; or (b) are required to repay to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom sums issued to meet the dividends or sinking fund on guaranteed land stock under the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891, or (c) otherwise have been or are required to be paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom in consequence of the non-payment thereof out of the Exchequer of Ireland or otherwise by the Irish Government.

(2) If at any time the Controller and Auditor-General of the United Kingdom is satisfied that any such charge is due, he shall certify the amount of it, and the Treasury shall send such certificate to the Lord Lieutenant, who shall thereupon by order, without any counter-signature, direct the payment of the amount from the Irish Exchequer to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, and such order shall be duly obeyed by all persons, and until the amount is wholly paid no other payment shall be made out of the Irish Exchequer for any purpose whatever.

(3) There shall be charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund next after the foregoing charge:

(a) all sums, for dividends or sinking fund on guaranteed land stock under the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891, which the Land Purchase Account and the Guarantee Fund under that Act are insufficient to pay; (b) all sums due in respect of any debt incurred by the Government of Ireland, whether for interest, management, or sinking fund; (c) an annual sum of five thousand pounds for the expenses of the household and establishment of the Lord Lieutenant; (d) all existing charges on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom in respect of Irish services other than the salary of the Lord Lieutenant; and (e) the salaries and pensions of all judges of the Supreme Court or other superior court in Ireland or of any county or other like court, who are appointed after the passing of this Act, and are not the Exchequer judges hereafter mentioned.

(4) Until all charges created by this Act upon the Irish Consolidated Fund and for the time being due are paid, no money shall be issued from the Irish Exchequer for any other purpose whatever.

15.—(1) All existing charges on the Church property in Ireland—that is to say, all property accruing under the Irish Church Act, 1869, and transferred to the Irish Land Commission by the Irish Church Amendment Act, 1881—shall so far as not paid out of the said property be charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund, and any of those charges guaranteed by the Treasury, if and so far as not paid, shall be paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(2) Subject to the existing charges thereon, the said Church property shall belong to the Irish Government, and be managed, administered, and disposed of as directed by Irish Act.

16.—(1) All sums paid or applicable in or towards the discharge of the interest or principal of any local loan advanced before the appointed day on security in Ireland, or otherwise in respect of such loan, which but for this Act would be paid to the National Debt Commissioners, and carried to the Local Loans Fund, shall, after the appointed day, be paid, until otherwise provided by Irish Act, to the Irish Exchequer.

(2) For the payment to the Local Loans Fund of the principal and interest of such loans, the Irish Government shall after the appointed day pay by half-yearly payments an annuity for forty-nine years, at the rate of four per cent, on the principal of the said loans, exclusive of any sums written off before the appointed day from the account of assets of the Local Loans Fund, and such annuity shall be paid from the Irish Exchequer to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, and when so paid shall be forthwith paid to the National Debt Commissioners for the credit of the Local Loans Fund.

(3) After the appointed day, money for loans in Ireland shall cease to be advanced either by the Public Works Loan Commissioners or out of the Local Loans Fund.

17.—(1) So much of any Act as directs payment to the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account of any share of probate, excise, or customs duties payable to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom shall, together with any enactment amending the same, be repealed as from the appointed day without prejudice to the adjustment of balances after that day; but the like amounts shall continue to be paid to the Local Taxation Accounts in England and Scotland as would have been paid if this Act had not passed, and any residue of the said share shall be paid into the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(2) The stamp duty chargeable in respect of the personalty of a deceased person shall not in the case of administration granted in Great Britain be chargeable in respect of any personalty situate in Ireland, nor in the case of administration granted in Ireland be chargeable in respect of any personalty situate in Great Britain; and any administration granted in Great Britain shall not, if re-sealed in Ireland, be exempt from stamp duty on administration granted in Ireland, and any administration granted in Ireland shall not, when re-sealed in Great Britain, be exempt from stamp duty on administration granted in Great Britain.

(3) In this section the expression "administration" means probate or letters of administration, and as respects Scotland, confirmation inclusive of the inventory required under the Acts relating to the said stamp duty, and the expression "personalty" means personal or movable estate and effects.

18.—(1) Bills for appropriating any part of the public revenue or for imposing any tax shall originate in the Legislative Assembly.

(2) It shall not be lawful for the Legislative Assembly to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address, or Bill for the appropriation for any purpose of any part of the public revenue of Ireland, or of any tax, except in pursuance of a recommendation from the Lord Lieutenant in the session in which such vote, resolution, address, or Bill is proposed.

19.—(1) Two of the judges of the Supreme Court in Ireland shall be Exchequer judges, and shall be appointed under the great seal of the United Kingdom; and their salaries and pensions shall be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

(2) The Exchequer judges shall be removeable only by Her Majesty on address from the two Houses of Parliament, and each such judge shall, save as otherwise provided by Parliament, receive the same salary and be entitled to the same pension as is at the time of his appointment fixed for the puisne judges of the Supreme Court, and during his continuance in office his salary shall not be diminished, nor his right to pension altered, without his consent.

(3) An alteration of any rules relating to such legal proceedings as are mentioned in this section shall not be made except with the approval of Her Majesty the Queen in Council; and the sittings of the Exchequer judges shall be regulated with the like approval.

(4) All legal proceedings in Ireland, which are instituted at the instance of or against the Treasury or Commissioners of Customs, or any of their officers, or relate to the election of members to serve in Parliament, or touch any matter within the powers of the Irish Legislature, or touch any matter affected by a law which the Irish Legislature have not power to repeal or alter, shall, if so required by any party to such proceedings, be heard and determined before the Exchequer judges or (except where the case requires to be determined by two judges) before one of them, and in any such legal proceeding an appeal shall, if any party so requires, lie from any court of first instance in Ireland to the Exchequer judges, and the decision of the Exchequer judges shall be subject to appeal to Her Majesty the Queen in Council and not to any other tribunal.

(5) If it is made to appear to an Exchequer judge that any decree or judgment in any such proceeding as aforesaid has not been duly enforced by the sheriff or other officer whose duty it is to enforce the same, such judge shall appoint some officer whose duty it shall be to enforce the judgment or decree; and for that purpose such officer and all persons employed by him shall be entitled to the same privileges, immunities, and powers as are by law conferred on a sheriff and his officers.

(6) The Exchequer judges, when not engaged in hearing and determining such legal proceedings as above in this section mentioned, shall perform such of the duties ordinarily performed by other judges of the Supreme Court in Ireland as may be assigned by Her Majesty the Queen in Council.

(7) All sums recovered by the Treasury or the Commissioners of Customs or any of their officers, or recovered under any Act relating to duties of customs, shall, notwithstanding anything in any other Act, be paid to such public account as the Treasury or the Commissioners direct.

Post Office Postal Telegraphs and Savings Banks

20.—(1) As from the appointed day the postal and telegraph service in Ireland shall be transferred to the Irish Government, and may be regulated by Irish Act, except as in this Act mentioned and except as regards matters relating—

(a) to such conditions of the transmission or delivery of postal packets and telegrams as are incidental to the duties on postage; or

(b) foreign mails or submarine telegraphs or through lines in connection therewith; or (c) to any other postal or telegraph business in connection with places out of the United Kingdom.

(2) The administration of or incidental to the said excepted matters shall, save as may be otherwise arranged with the Irish Post Office, remain with the Postmaster-General.

(3) As regards the revenue and expenses of the postal and telegraph service, the Postmaster-General shall retain the revenue collected and defray the expenses incurred in Great Britain, and the Irish Post Office shall retain the revenue collected and defray the expenses incurred in Ireland, subject to the provisions of the Fourth Schedule to this Act; which schedule shall have full effect, but may be varied or added to by agreement between the Postmaster-General and the Irish Post Office.

(4) The sums payable by the Postmaster-General or Irish Post Office to the other of them in pursuance of this Act shall, if not paid out of the Post Office moneys, be paid from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom or of Ireland, as the case requires, to the other Exchequer.

(5) Sections forty-eight to fifty-two of the Telegraph Act 1863, and any enactment amending the same, shall apply to all telegraphic lines of the Irish Government in like manner as to the telegraphs of a company within the meaning of that Act.

21.—(1) As from the appointed day there shall be transferred to the Irish Government the post office savings banks in Ireland and all such powers and duties of any department or officer in Great Britain as are connected with post office savings banks, trustee savings banks or friendly societies in Ireland, and the same may be regulated by Irish Act.

(2) The Treasury shall publish not less than six months' previous notice of the transfer of savings banks.

(3) If before the date of the transfer any depositor in a post office savings bank so requests, his deposit shall, according to his request, either be paid to him or transferred to a post office savings bank in Great Britain, and after the said date the depositors in a post office savings bank in Ireland shall cease to have any claim against the Postmaster-General or the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, but shall have the like claim against the Government and Consolidated Fund of Ireland.