SESSION OF 1882.—Still graver were the lessons of the first four months of this year. Mr. Forster went on filling the prisons of Ireland with persons whom he arrested under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, and never brought to trial. But the country grew no more quiet. At last he had nine hundred and forty men under lock and key, many of them not "village ruffians," whose power a few weeks' detention was to break, but political offenders, and even popular leaders. How long could this go on? Where was it to stop? It became plain that the Act was a failure, and that the people, trained to combination by a century and a half's practice, were too strong for the Executive. Either the scheme and plan of the Act had been wrong, or its administration had been incompetent. Whichever was the source of the failure (most people will now blame both), the fault must be laid at the door of the Irish Executive; not of Mr. Forster himself, but of those on whom he relied. It had been a Dublin Castle Bill, conceived and carried out by the incompetent bureaucracy which has so long pretended to govern Ireland. Such a proof of incompetence destroyed whatever confidence in that bureaucracy then remained to us, and the disclosures which the Phoenix Park murders and the subsequent proceedings against the Invincibles brought out, proved beyond question that the Irish Executive had only succeeded in giving a more dark and dangerous form, the form of ruthless conspiracy, to the agitation it was combating.

When therefore the Prevention of Crime Bill of 1882 was brought in, some of us felt unable to support it, and specially bound to resist those of its provisions which related to trials without a jury, and to boycotting. It was impossible, on the morrow of the Phoenix Park murders, to deny that some coercive measure might be needed; but we had so far lost faith in repression, and in the officials who were to administer it, as to desire to limit it to what was absolutely necessary, and we protested against enacting for Ireland a criminal code which was not to be applied to Great Britain. Our resistance might have been more successful but for the manner in which the Nationalist members conducted their opposition. When they began to obstruct—not that under the circumstances we felt entitled to censure them for obstructing a Bill dealing so harshly with their countrymen—we were obliged to desist, and our experience of the stormy scenes of the summer of 1882 deepened our sense of the passionate bitterness with which they regarded English members, scarcely making an exception in favour of those who were most disposed to sympathize with them. Many and many a time when we listened to their fierce cries, we seemed to hear in them the battle-cries of the centuries of strife between Celt and Englishman from Athenry to Vinegar Hill; many a time we felt that this rage and mistrust were chiefly of England's making; and yet not of England's, but rather of the overmastering fate which had prolonged to our own days the hatreds and the methods of barbarous times:

hemeis d' ouk aitioi esmen Alla Zeus kai Moira kai eerophoitis Herinus.

So much of the session as the Crime Bill had spared was consumed by the Arrears Bill, over which we had again a "crisis" with the House of Lords. This was the third session that had been practically given up to Irishmen. The freshness and force of the Parliament of 1880—a Parliament full of zeal and ability—had now been almost spent, yet few of the plans of domestic legislation spread before the constituencies of 1880 had been realized. The Government had been anxious to legislate, their majority had been ready to support them, but Ireland had blocked the way; and now the only expedient for improving the procedure of the House was to summon Parliament in an extra autumn session. Here was another cause for reflection. England and Scotland were calling for measures promised years ago, but no time could be found to discuss them. Nothing was done to reorganize local government, to reform the liquor laws, to improve secondary education, to deal with the housing of the poor, or a dozen other urgent questions, because we were busy with Ireland; and yet how little more loyal or contented did Ireland seem to be for all we had done. We began to ask whether Home Rule might not be as much an English and Scotch question as an Irish question. It was, at any rate, clear that to allow Ireland to manage her own affairs would open a prospect for England and Scotland to obtain time to attend to theirs.[3]

This feeling was strengthened by the result of the attempts made in the autumn session of 1882, to improve the procedure of the House of Commons. We had cherished the hope that more drastic remedies against obstruction and better arrangements for the conduct of business, might relieve much of the pressure Irish members had made us suffer. The passing of the New Rules shattered this hope, for it was plain they would not accomplish what was needed. Some blamed the Government for not framing a more stringent code. Some blamed the Tory and the Irish Oppositions (now beginning to work in concert) for cutting down the proposals of the Government. But most of us saw, and came to see still more clearly in the three succeeding sessions, that the evil was too deep-rooted to be cured by any changes of procedure, unless they went so far as to destroy freedom of debate for English members also. The presence in a deliberative assembly of a section numbering (or likely soon to number) one-seventh of the whole—a section seeking to lower the character of the assembly, and to derange its mechanism, with no further interest in the greater part of its business except that of preventing it from conducting that business—this was the phenomenon which confronted us, and we felt that no rules of debate would overcome the dangers it threatened.

It is from this year 1882 that I date the impression which we formed, that Home Rule was sure to come. "It may be a bold experiment," we said to one another in the lobbies; "there are serious difficulties in the way, though the case for it is stronger than we thought two years ago. But if the Irishmen persist as they are doing now, they will get it. It is only a question of their tenacity."

It was impossible not to be struck during the conflicts of 1881 and 1882 with the small amount of real bitterness which the conduct of the Irish members, irritating as it often was, provoked among the Liberals, who of course bore the brunt of the conflict. The Nationalists did their best to injure a Government which was at the same time being denounced by the Tories as too favourable to Irish claims; they lowered the character of Parliament by scenes far more painful than those of the session of 1887, on which so much indignation has been lately expended; they said the hardest things they could think of against us in the House; they attacked us in our constituencies. Their partisans (for I do not charge this on the leaders) interrupted and broke up our meetings. Nevertheless, all this did not provoke responsive hatred from the Liberals. There could not be a greater contrast than that between the way in which the great bulk of the Liberal members all through the Parliament of 1880 behaved towards their Irish antagonists, and the violence with which the Tory members, under much slighter provocation, conduct themselves towards those antagonists now. I say this not to the credit of our temper, which was no better than that of other men heated by the struggles of a crowded assembly. It was due entirely to our feeling that there was a great balance of wrong standing to the debit of England; that if the Irish were turbulent, it was the ill-treatment of former days that had made them so; and that, whatever might be their methods, they were fighting for their country. Although, therefore, there was little social intercourse between us and them, there was always a hope and a wish that the day might come when the Liberal party should resume its natural position of joining the representatives of the Irish people in obtaining radical reforms in Irish government. And the remarkable speech of February 9, 1882, in which Mr. Gladstone declared his mind to be open on the subject, and invited the Nationalists to propound a practicable scheme of self-government, had encouraged us to hope that this day might soon arrive.

SESSION OF 1883.—Three facts stood out in the history of this comparatively quiet session, each of which brought us further along the road we had entered.

One was the omission of Parliament to complete the work begun by the Land Bill of 1881, of improving the condition of the Irish peasantry and reorganizing Irish administration. The Nationalist members brought in Bills for these purposes, including one for amending the Land Act by admitting leaseholders to its benefits and securing tenants against having their improvements reckoned against them in the fixing of rents. Though we could not approve all the contents of these Bills, we desired to see the Government either take them up and amend them, or introduce Bills of its own to do what was needed. Some of us spoke strongly in this sense, nor will any one now deny that we were right. Sound policy called aloud for the completion of the undertaking of 1881. The Government however refused, alleging, no doubt with some truth, that Ireland could not have all the time of Parliament, but must let England and Scotland have their turn. Nor was anything done towards the creation of new local institutions in Ireland, or the reform of the Castle bureaucracy. We were profoundly disheartened. We saw golden opportunities slipping away, and doubted more than ever whether Westminster was the place in which to legislate for Irish grievances.

Another momentous fact was the steady increase in the number of Nationalist members. Every seat that fell vacant in Ireland was filled by them. The moderate Irish party, most of whom had by this time crossed the floor of the House, and were sitting among us, had evidently no future. They were estimable, and, in some cases, able men, from whom we had hoped much, as a link between the Liberal party and the Irish people. But they seemed to have lost their hold on the people, nor were they able to give us much practical counsel as to Irish problems. It was clear that they would vanish at the next General Election, and Parliament be left to settle accounts with the extreme men, whose spirits rose as those of our friends steadily sank.

Lastly: it was in this session that the alliance of the Nationalists and the Tory Opposition became a potent factor in politics. Its first conspicuous manifestation was in the defeat of the Government by the allied forces on the Affirmation Bill, when the least respectable privates in both armies vied with one another in boisterous rejoicings over the announcement of numbers in the division. I do not refer to this as ground for complaint. It was in the course of our usual political warfare that two groups, each hating and fearing the Ministry, should unite to displace it. But we now saw what power the Irish section must exert when it came to hold the balance of numbers in the House. Till this division, the Government had commanded a majority of the whole House. This would probably not outlast a dissolution. What then? Could the two English parties, differing so profoundly from one another, combine against the third party? Evidently not. We must, therefore, look forward to unstable Governments, if not to a total dislocation of our Parliamentary system.

Session of 1884.—I pass over the minor incidents of this year, including the continued neglect of remedial legislation for Ireland to dwell on its dominant and most impressive lesson. It was the year of the Franchise Bill, which, as regards Ireland, worked an extension, not merely of the county but also of the borough franchise, and produced, owing to the economic condition of the humbler classes in that country, a far more extensive change than in England or Scotland. When the Bill was introduced the question at once arose—Should Ireland be included?

There were two ways of treating Ireland between which Parliament had to choose.

One was to leave her out of the Bill, on the ground that the masses of her population could not be trusted with the franchise, as being ignorant, sympathetic to crime, hostile to the English Government. This course was the logical concomitant of exceptional coercive legislation, such as had been passed in 1881 and 1882. It was quite compatible with generous remedial legislation. But it placed Ireland in an unequal and lower position, treating her, as the Coercion Acts did, as a dependent country, inhabited by a population unfit for the same measure of power which the inhabitants of Britain might receive.

The other course was to bestow on Ireland the same extended franchise which the English county occupiers were to receive, applying the principle of equality, and disregarding the obvious consequences. These consequences were both practical and logical. The practical consequence was the increase in numbers and weight of the Irish party in Parliament hostile to Parliament itself. The logical consequence was the duty of complying with the wishes of the enfranchised nation. Whatever reasons were good for giving this enlarged suffrage to the Irish masses, were good for respecting the will which they might use to express it. If the Irish were deemed fit to exercise the same full constitutional rights in legislation as the English, must they not be fit for the same rights of trial by jury, a free press, and all the privileges of personal freedom?

Of these two courses the Cabinet chose the latter, those of its members whom we must suppose, from the language they now hold, to have then hesitated, either stifling their fears or not apprehending the consequences of their boldness. It might have been expected, and indeed was generally expected, that the Tory party would refuse to follow. They talked largely about the danger of an extended Irish suffrage, and pointed out that it would be a weapon in the hands of disloyalty. But when the moment for resistance came, they swerved, and never divided in either House against the application of the Bill to Ireland. They might have failed to defeat the measure; but they would have immensely strengthened their position, logically and morally, had they given effect by their votes to the sentiments they were known to entertain, and which not a few Liberals shared.

The effect of this uncontested grant to Ireland of a suffrage practically universal was immense upon our minds, and the longer we reflected on it the more significant did it become. It meant to us that the old methods were abandoned, and, as we supposed, for ever. We had deliberately given the Home Rule party arms against English control far more powerful than they previously possessed. We had deliberately asserted our faith in the Irish people. Impossible after this to fall back on Coercion Bills. Impossible to refuse any request compatible with the general safety of the United Kingdom, which Ireland as a nation might prefer. Impossible to establish that system of Crown Colony Government which we had come to perceive was the only real and solid alternative to self-government. To those of us who had been feeling that the Irish difficulty was much the greatest of all England's difficulties, this stood out beyond the agitation of the autumn and the compromise of the winter as the great political event of 1884.[4]

Although this sketch is in the main a record of Parliamentary opinion, I ought not to pass over the influence which the study of their constituents' ideas exerted upon members for the larger towns. We found the vast bulk of our supporters—English supporters, for after 1882 it was understood that the Irish voters were our enemies—sympathetic with the Irish people. They knew and thought little about Home Rule, believing that their member understood that question better than they did, and willing, so long as he was sound on English issues, to trust him. But they pitied Irish tenants, and condemned Irish landlords. Though they acquiesced in a Coercion Bill when proposed by a Liberal Cabinet, because they concluded that nothing less than necessity would lead such a Cabinet to propose one, they so much disliked any exceptional or repressive legislation that it was plain they would not long tolerate it. Any popular leader denouncing coercion was certain to have the sentiment of the English masses with him, while as to suspending Irish representation or carrying out consistently the policy of treating Ireland as a subject country, there was no chance in the world of their approval. Those of us, therefore, who represented large working-class constituencies became convinced that the solution of the Irish problem must be sought in conciliation and self-government, if only because the other solution, Crown Colony Government, was utterly repugnant to the English masses, in whom the Franchise Bill of 1884, completing that of 1867, had vested political supremacy.[5]

Session of 1885.—The allied powers of Toryism and Nationalism gained in this year the victory they had so long striven for. In February they reduced the Ministerial majority to fourteen; in June they overthrew the Ministry. No one supposed that on either occasion the merits of the issue had anything to do with the Nationalist vote: that vote was given simply and solely against the Government, as the Government which had passed the Coercion Acts of 1881 and 1882—Acts demanded by the Tory party, and which had not conceded an Irish Parliament. At last the Irish party had attained its position as the arbiter of power and office. Some of us said, as we walked away from the House, under the dawning light of that memorable 9th of June, "This means Home Rule." Our forecast was soon to be confirmed. Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, formed upon the resignation of Mr. Gladstone's, announced that it would not propose to renew any part of the Coercion Act of 1882, which was to expire in August. Here was a surrender indeed! But the Tory leaders went further. They did not excuse themselves on the ground of want of time. They took credit for their benevolence towards Ireland; they discovered excellent reasons why the Act should be dropped. They even turned upon Lord Spencer, whose administration they had hitherto blamed for its leniency, and attacked him in Parliament, among the cheers of his Irish enemies. From that time till the close of the General Election in December everything was done, short of giving public pledges, to keep the Irish leaders and the Irish voters in good humour. The Tory party in fact posed as the true friends of Ireland, averse from coercion, and with minds perfectly open on the subject of self-government.

This change of front, so sudden, so unblushing, completed the process which had been going on in our minds. By 1882 we had come to feel that Home Rule was inevitable, though probably undesirable. Before long we had asked ourselves whether it was really undesirable, whether it might not be a good thing both for England, whose Parliament and Cabinet system it would relieve from impending dangers, while leaving free scope for domestic legislation, and for Ireland, which could hardly manage her affairs worse than we were managing them for her, and might manage them better. And thus, by the spring of 1885, many of us were prepared for a large scheme of local self-government in Ireland, including a central legislative body in Dublin.[6]

Now when it was plain that the English party which had hitherto called for repression, and had professed itself anxious for a patriotic union of all parties to maintain order and a continuity of policy in Ireland, was ready to bid for Irish help at the polls by throwing over repression and reversing the policy it had advocated, we felt that the sooner Ireland was taken out of English party politics the better. What prospect was there of improving Ireland by the superior wisdom and fairness of the British Parliament, if British leaders were to make their Irish policy turn on interested bargains with Nationalist leaders? Repression, which we clearly saw to be the only alternative to self-government, seemed to be by common consent abandoned. I remember how, at a party of members in the beginning of July, some one said, "Well, there's an end for ever of coercion at any rate," and every one assented as to an obvious truth. Accordingly the result of the new departure of the Salisbury Cabinet in 1885 was to convince even doubters that Home Rule must come, and to make those already convinced anxious to see it come quickly, and to find the best form that could be given it. Many of us expected the Tory Government to propose it. Rumour declared the new Lord Lieutenant to be in favour of it. His government was extremely conciliatory in Ireland, even to the recalcitrant corporation of Limerick. Not to mention less serious and less respected Tory Ministers, Lord Salisbury talked at Newport about the dualism of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy with the air of a man who desired to have a workable scheme, analogous, if not similar, suggested for Ireland and Great Britain. The Irish Nationalists appeared to place their hopes in this quarter, for they attacked the Liberal party with unexampled bitterness, and threw all their voting strength into the Tory scale.

As it has lately been attempted to blacken the character of the Irish leaders, it deserves to be remarked that whatever has been charged against them was said or done by them before the spring of 1885, and was, practically, perfectly well known to the Tory leaders when they accepted the alliance of the Irish party in the House of Commons, and courted their support in the election of 1885. To those who remember what went on in the House in the sessions of 1884 and 1885, the horror now professed by the Tory leaders for the conduct and words of the Irish party would be matter for laughter if it were not also matter for just indignation.

Why, it may be asked, if the persuasion that Home Rule was certain, and even desirable, had become general among the Liberals who had sat through the Parliament of 1880, was it not more fully expressed at the election of 1885? This is a fair question, which I shall try to answer.

In the first place, the electors made few inquiries about Ireland. They disliked the subject; they had not realized its supreme importance. Those of us who felt anxious to explain our views (as was my own case) had to volunteer to do so, for we were not asked about them. The Irish party in the constituencies was in violent opposition to Liberal candidates; it did not interrogate, but denounced. Further, it was felt that the issue was mainly one to be decided in Ireland itself. The question of Home Rule was being submitted, not, as heretofore, to a limited constituency, but to the whole Irish people. Till their will had been constitutionally declared at the polls it was not proper that Englishmen or Scotchmen should anticipate its tenour. We should even have been accused, had we volunteered our opinions, of seeking to affect the result in Ireland, and, not only of playing for the Irish vote in Great Britain, as we saw the Tories doing, but of prejudicing the chances of those Liberal candidates who, in Irish constituencies, were competing with extreme Nationalists. A third reason was that most English and Scotch Liberals did not know how far their own dispositions towards Home Rule were shared by their leaders. Mr. Gladstone's declaration in his Midlothian address was no doubt a decided intimation of his views, and was certainly understood by some (as by myself) to imply the grant to Ireland of a Parliament; but, strong as its words were, its importance does not seem to have been fully appreciated at the moment. And the opinions of a statesman whose unequalled Irish experience and elevated character gave him a weight only second to that of Mr. Gladstone—I mean Lord Spencer—had not been made known. We had consequently no certainty that there were leaders prepared to give prompt effect to the views we entertained. Lastly, we were not prepared with a practical scheme of self-government for Ireland. The Nationalist members had propounded none which we could either adopt or criticize. Convinced as we were that Home Rule would come and must come, we felt the difficulties surrounding every suggestion that had yet been made, and had not hammered out any plan which we could lay before the electors as approved by Liberal opinion.[7] We were forced to confine ourselves to generalities.

Whether it would have been better for us to have done our thinking and scheme-making in public, and thereby have sooner forced the details of the problem upon the attention of the country, need not now be inquired. Any one can now see that something was lost by the omission. But those who censure a course that has actually been taken usually fail to estimate the evils that would have followed from the taking of the opposite course. Such evils might in this instance have been as great as those we have encountered.

I have spoken of the importance we attached to the decision of Ireland itself, and of the attitude of expectancy which, while that decision was uncertain, Englishmen were forced to maintain. We had not long to wait. Early in December it was known that five-sixths of the members returned from Ireland were Nationalists, and that the majorities which had returned them were crushing. If ever a people spoke its will, the Irish people spoke theirs at the election of 1885. The last link in the chain of conviction, which events had been forging since 1880, was now supplied. In passing the Franchise Bill of 1884, we had asked Ireland to declare her mind. She had now answered. If the question was not a mockery, and representative government a sham, we were bound to accept the answer, subject only, but subject always, to the interests of the whole United Kingdom. In other words, we were bound to devise such a scheme of self-government for Ireland as would give full satisfaction to her wishes, while maintaining the ultimate supremacy of the Imperial Parliament and the unity of the British Empire.

Very few words are needed to summarize the outline which, omitting many details which would have illustrated and confirmed its truth, I have attempted to present of the progress of opinion among Liberal members of the Parliament of 1880.

1. Our experience of the Coercion Bills of 1881 and 1882 disclosed the enormous mischief which such measures do in alienating the minds of Irishmen, and the difficulty of enlisting Irish sentiment on behalf of the law. The results of the Act of 1881 taught us that the repression of open agitation means the growth of far more dangerous conspiracy; those of the Act of 1882 proved that even under an administration like Lord Spencer's repression works no change for the better in the habits and ideas of the people.

2. The conduct of the House of Lords in 1880 and 1881, and the malign influence which its existence exerted whenever remedial legislation for Ireland came in question, convinced us that full and complete justice will never be done to Ireland by the British Parliament while the Upper House (as at present constituted) remains a part of that Parliament.

3. The break-down of the procedure of the House of Commons, and the failure of the efforts to amend it, proved that Parliament cannot work so long as a considerable section of its members seek to impede its working. To enable it to do its duty by England and Scotland, it was evidently necessary, either to make the Irish members as loyal to Parliament as English and Scotch members usually are, or else to exclude them.

4. The discussions of Irish Bills in the House of Commons made us realize how little English members knew about Ireland; how utterly different were their competence for, and their attitude towards, Irish questions and English questions. We perceived that we were legislating in the dark for a country whose economic and social condition we did not understand—a country to which we could not apply our English ideas of policy; a country whose very temper and feeling were strange to us. We were really fitter to pass laws for Canada or Australia than for this isle within sight of our shores.

5. I have said that we were legislating in the dark. But there were two quarters from which light was proffered, the Irish members and the Irish Executive. We rejected the first, and could hardly help doing so, for to accept it would have been to displace our own leaders. We followed the light which the Executive gave. But in some cases (as notably in the case of the Coercion Bill of 1881) it proved to be a "wandering fire," leading us into dangerous morasses. And we perceived that at all times legislation at the bidding of the Executive, against the wishes of Irish members, was not self-government or free government. It was despotism. The rule of Ireland by the British Parliament was really "the rule of a dependency through an official, responsible no doubt, but responsible not to the ruled, but to an assembly of which they form less than a sixth part."[8] As this assembly closed its ears to the one-sixth, and gave effect to the will of the official, this was essentially arbitrary government, and wanted those elements of success which free government contains.

This experience had, by 1884, convinced us that the present relations of the British Parliament to Ireland were bad, and could not last; that the discontent of Ireland was justified; that the existing system, in alienating the mind of Ireland, tended, not merely to Repeal, but to Separation; that the simplest, and probably the only effective, remedy for the increasing dangers was the grant of an Irish Legislature. Two events clinched these conclusions. One was the Tory surrender of June, 1885. Self-government, we had come to see, was the only alternative to Coercion, and now Coercion was gone. The other was the General Election of December, 1885, when newly-enfranchised Ireland, through five-sixths of her representatives, demanded a Parliament of her own.

These were not, as is sometimes alleged, conclusions of despair. We were mostly persons of a cautious and conservative turn of mind, as men imbued with the spirit of the British Constitution ought to be. The first thing was to convince us that the existing relations of the islands were faulty, and could not be maintained. This was a negative result, and while we remained in that stage we were despondent. Many Liberal members will remember the gloom that fell on us in 1882 and 1883 whenever we thought or spoke of Ireland. But presently the clouds lifted. We still felt the old objections to any Home Rule scheme, though we now saw that they were less formidable than the evils of the present system. But we came to feel that the grant of self-government was a right thing in itself. It was not merely a means of ridding ourselves of our difficulties, not merely a boon yielded because long demanded. It was a return to broad and deep principles, a conformity to those natural laws which govern human society as well as the inanimate world—an effort to enlist the better and higher feelings of mankind in the creation of a truer union between the two nations than had ever yet existed. When we perceived this, hope returned. It is strong with us now, for, though we see troubles, perhaps even dangers, in the immediate future, we are confident that the principles on which Liberal policy towards Ireland is based will in the long run work out a happy issue for her, as they have in and for every other country that has trusted to them.

One last word as to Consistency. We learnt in the Parliament of 1880 many facts about Ireland we had not known before; we felt the force and bearing of other facts previously accepted on hearsay, but not realized. We saw the Irish problem change from what it had been in 1880 into the new phase which stood apparent at the end of 1885, Coercion abandoned by its former advocates, Self-government demanded by the nation. Were we to disregard all these new facts, ignore all these new conditions, and cling to old ideas, some of which we perceived to be mistaken, while others, still true in themselves, were out-weighed by arguments of far wider import? We did not so estimate our duty. We foresaw the taunts of foes and the reproaches of friends. But we resolved to give effect to the opinions we slowly, painfully, even reluctantly formed, opinions all the stronger because not suddenly adopted, and founded upon evidence whose strength no one can appreciate till he has studied the causes of Irish discontent in Irish history, and been forced (as we were) to face in Parliament the practical difficulties of the government of Ireland by the British House of Commons.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: I may mention here another fact whose significance impressed some among us. Parliament, which usually sinned in not doing for Ireland what Ireland asked, occasionally passed bills for Ireland which were regarded as setting very bad precedents for England. By some bargain between the Irish Office and the Nationalist members, measures were put through which may have been right as respects Ireland, but which embodied principles mischievous as respects Great Britain. We felt that if it was necessary to enact such statutes, it would be better that they should proceed from an Irish Legislature rather than from the Imperial Parliament, which might be embarrassed by its own acts when asked to extend the same principles to England. The Labourers' Act of July, 1885, is the most conspicuous example.]

[Footnote 4: At Easter, 1885, I met a number of leading Ulster Liberals in Belfast, told them that Home Rule was certainly coming, and urged them to prepare some plan under which any special interests they conceived the Protestant part of Ulster to have, would be effectually safe-guarded. They were startled, and at first discomposed, but presently told me I was mistaken; to which I could only reply that time would show, and perhaps sooner then even English Liberals expected.]

[Footnote 5: My recollection of a conversation with a distinguished public man in July, 1882, enables me to say that this fact had impressed itself upon us as early as that year. He doubted the fact, but admitted that, if true, it was momentous. The passing of the Franchise Bill made it, in our view, more momentous than ever.]

[Footnote 6: Some thought that its functions should be very limited, while large powers were granted to county boards or provincial councils. But most had, I think, already perceived that the grant of a merely local self-government, while retaining an irresponsible central bureaucracy, would do more harm than good. It seemed at first sight a safer experiment than the creation of a central legislative body. But, like many middle courses, it combined the demerits and wanted the merits of each of the extreme courses. It would not make the country tranquil, as firm and long-continued repression might possibly do. Neither would it satisfy the people's demands, and divert them from struggles against England to disputes and discussions among themselves, as the gift of genuine self-government might do.]

[Footnote 7: Some of us had tried to do so. I prepared such a scheme in the autumn of 1885, and submitted it to some specially competent friends. Their objections, made from what would now be called the Unionist point of view, were weighty. But their effect was to convince me that the scheme erred on the side of caution; and I believe the experience of other Liberals who worked at the problem to have been the same as my own—viz. that a small and timid scheme is more dangerous than a large and bold one. Thus the result of our thinking from July, 1885, till April, 1886, was to make us more and more disposed to reject half-and-half solutions. Some of us (of whom I was one) expressed this feeling by saying in our election addresses in 1885, "the further we go in giving the Irish people the management of their own affairs (subject to the maintenance of the unity of the empire) the better."]

[Footnote 8: Quoted from an article contributed by myself to the American Century Magazine, which I refer to because, written in the spring of 1883, it expresses the ideas here stated.]



HOME RULE AND IMPERIAL UNITY

BY LORD THRING

The principal charge made against the scheme of Home Rule contained in the Irish Government Bill, 1886, is that it is incompatible with the maintenance of the unity of the Empire and the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. A further allegation states that the Bill is useless, as agrarian exasperation lies at the root of Irish discontent and Irish disloyalty, and that no place would be found for a Home Rule Bill even in Irish aspirations if an effective Land Bill were first passed. An endeavour will be made in the following pages to secure a verdict of acquittal on both counts—as to the charge relating to Imperial unity and the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, by proving that the accusation is absolutely unfounded, and based partly on a misconception of the nature of Imperial ties, and partly on a misapprehension of the effect of the provisions of the Home Rule Bill as bearing on Imperial questions; and as to the inutility of the Home Rule Bill in view of the necessity of Land Reform, by showing that without a Home Rule Bill no Land Bill worth consideration as a means of pacifying Ireland can be passed.

The complete partisan spirit in which Home Rule has been treated is the more to be deplored as the subject is one which does not lend itself readily to the trivialities of party debates. It raises questions of principle, not of detail. It ascends at once into the highest region of politics. It is conversant with the great questions of constitutional and international law, and leads to an inquiry into the very nature of governments and the various modes in which communities of men are associated together either as simple or composite nations. To describe those modes in detail would be to give a history of the various despotic, monarchical, oligarchical, and democratic systems of government which have oppressed or made happy the children of men. Such a description is calculated to perplex and mislead from its very extent; not so an inquiry into the powers of government, and a classification of those powers. They are limited in extent, and, if we confine ourselves to English names and English necessities, we shall readily attain to an apprehension of the mode in which empires, nations, and political societies are bound together, at least in so far as such knowledge is required for the understanding of the nature of Imperial supremacy, and the mode in which Home Rule in Ireland is calculated to affect that supremacy.

The powers of government are divisible into two great classes—1. Imperial powers; 2. State powers, using "State" in the American sense of a political community subordinated to some other power, and not in the sense of an independent nation. The Imperial powers are in English law described as the prerogatives of the Crown, and consist in the main of the powers of making peace and war, of maintaining armies and fleets and regulating commerce, and making treaties with foreign nations. State powers are complete powers of local self-government, described in our colonial Constitutions as powers to make laws "for the peace, order, and good government of the Colony or State" in which such powers are to be exercised.

Intermediate between the Imperial and State powers are a class of powers required to prevent disputes and facilitate intercourse between the various parts of an empire or other composite system of States—for example, the coinage of money, and other regulations relating to the currency; the laws relating to copyright, or other exclusive rights to the use and profits of any works or inventions; and so forth. These powers may be described as quasi-Imperial powers.

Having arrived at a competent knowledge of the materials out of which governments are formed, it may be well to proceed to a consideration of the manner in which those materials have been worked up in building the two great Anglo-Saxon composite nations—namely, the American Union and the British Empire—for, if we find that the arrangements proposed by the Irish Home Rule Bill are strictly in accordance with the principles on which the unity of the American Union was based and on which the Imperial power of Great Britain has rested for centuries, the conclusion must be that the Irish Home Rule Bill is not antagonistic to the unity of the Empire or to the supremacy of the British Parliament.

In discussing these matters it will be convenient to begin with the American Union, as it is less extensive in area and more homogeneous in its construction than the British Empire. The thirteen revolted American colonies, on the conclusion of their war with England, found themselves in the position of thirteen independent States having no connection with each other. The common tie of supremacy exercised by the mother country was broken, and each State was an independent nation, possessed both of Imperial and Local rights.

The impossibility of a cluster of thirteen small independent nations maintaining their independence against foreign aggression became immediately apparent, and, to remedy this evil, the thirteen States appointed delegates to form a convention authorized to weld them into one body as respected Imperial powers. This was attempted to be done by the establishment of a central body called a Congress, consisting of delegates from the component States, and invested with all the powers designated above as Imperial and quasi-Imperial powers. The expenses incurred by the confederacy were to be defrayed out of a common fund, to be supplied by requisitions made on the several States. In effect, the confederacy of the thirteen States amounted to little more than an offensive and defensive alliance between thirteen independent nations, as the central power had States for its subjects and not individuals, and could only enforce the law against any disobedient State by calling on the twelve other States to make war on the refractory member of the union. A system dependent for its efficacy on the concurrence of so many separate communities contained in itself the seeds of dissolution, and it soon became apparent that one of two things must occur—either the American States must cease as such to be a nation, or the component members of that union must each be prepared to relinquish a further portion of the sovereign or quasi-sovereign powers which it possessed. Under those circumstances, what was the course taken by the thirteen States? They perceived that it was quite possible to maintain complete unity and compactness as a nation if, in addition to investing the Supreme Government with Imperial and quasi-Imperial powers, they added full power to impose federal taxes on the component States and established an Executive furnished with ample means to carry all federal powers into effect through the medium of federal officers. The government so formed consisted of a President and two elected Houses called Congress, and, as a balance-wheel of the Constitution, a Supreme Court was established, to which was confided the task of deciding in case of dispute all questions arising under the Constitution of the United States or relating to international law. The Executive of the United States, with the President as its source and head, was furnished with full authority and power to enforce the federal laws. The army and navy were under its command, and it was provided with courts of justice, and subordinate officers to enforce the decrees of those courts throughout the length and breadth of the Union. Above all, a complete system of federal taxation supplied the Central Government with the necessary funds to perform effectually all the functions of a supreme national government.

The nature of the Constitution of the United States will be best understood by considering the position in which its subjects stand to the Central Government and their own State Governments. In effect, every inhabitant of the United States has a double nationality. He belongs to one great nation called the United States, or, as it would be more aptly called to show its absolute unity, the American Republic, having jurisdiction over the whole surface of ground comprised in the area of the United States. He is also a citizen of a smaller local and partially self-governing body—more important than a county, but not approaching the position of a nation—called a State.

It is no part of the object of this article to enter into the details of the American government, its advantages or defects. This much, however, is clear—the American Constitution has lasted nearly one hundred years, and shows no signs of decay or disruption. It has stood the strain of the greatest war of modern times, and has emerged from the conflict stronger than before. Even during the war the antagonism of the rebels was directed, not against the Union, but against the efforts of the Northern States to suppress slavery, or, in other words, to destroy, as the Southern States believed (not unjustly as the event showed), their property in slaves, and consequently the only means they had of making their estates profitable. One conclusion, then, we may draw, that a nation in which the Imperial powers and the State powers are vested in different authorities is no less compact and powerful, as respects all national capacities, than a nation in which both classes of powers are wielded by the same functionaries; and one lesson more may be learnt from the American War of Secession—namely, that in a nation having such a division of powers, any conflict between the two classes results in the Supreme or Imperial powers prevailing over the Local governmental powers, and not in the latter invading or driving a wedge into the Supreme powers. In fact, the tendency in case of a struggle is towards an undue centralization of the nation by reason of the encroachment by the Supreme authority, rather than towards a weakening of the national unity by separatist action on the part of the constituent members of the nation.

In comparing the Constitution of the United States with the Constitution of the British Empire, we find an apparent resemblance in form as respects the Anglo-Saxon colonies, but underlying the surface a total difference of principle. The United States is an aggregate of homogeneous and contiguous States which, in order to weld themselves into a nation, gave up a portion of their rights to a central authority, reserving to themselves all powers of government which they did not expressly relinquish.

The British Empire is an aggregate of many communities under one common head, and is thus described by Mr. Burke in 1774, in language which may seem to have been somewhat too enthusiastic at the time when it was spoken, but at the present day does not more than do justice to an Empire which comprises one-sixth of the habitable globe in extent and population:—

"I look, I say, on the Imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonies ought to enjoy under those rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head of her extensive Empire in two capacities: one as the local legislature of this island, providing for all things at home immediately and by no other instrument than the executive power; the other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her Imperial character, in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all the several Legislatures, and guides and controls them all without annihilating any. As all these provincial Legislatures are only co-ordinate with each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her, else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effectually afford mutual assistance."[9]

The means by which the possessions of Great Britain were acquired have been as various as the possessions themselves. The European, Asiatic, and African possessions became ours by conquest and cession; the American by conquest, treaty, and settlement; the Australasian by settlement, and by that dubious system of settlement known by the name of annexation. Now, what is the link which fastens each of these possessions to the mother country? Surely it is the inherent and indestructible right of the British Crown to exercise Imperial powers—in other words, the supremacy of the Queen and the British Parliament? What, again, is the common bond of union between these vast colonial possessions, differing in laws, in religion, and in the character of the population? The same answer must be given: the joint and several tie, so to speak, is the same—namely, the sovereignty of Great Britain. It is true that the mode in which the materials composing the British Empire have been cemented together is exactly the reverse of the manner of the construction of the American Union. In the case of the Union, independent States voluntarily relinquished a portion of their sovereignty to secure national unity, and entrusted the guardianship of that unity to a representative body chosen by themselves. Such a union was based on contract, and could only be constructed by communities which claimed to be independent. Far different have been the circumstances under which England has developed itself into the British Empire. England began as a sovereign power, having its sovereignty vested at first solely in the Sovereign, but gradually in the Sovereign and Parliament. This sovereignty neither the Crown nor the Parliament can, jointly or severally, get rid of, for it is of the very essence of a sovereign power that it cannot, by Act of Parliament or otherwise, bind its successors.[10] This principle of supremacy has never been lost sight of by the British Parliament. Their right to alter or suspend a colonial Constitution has never been disputed. Contract never enters into the question. The dominant authority delegates to its subordinate communities as much or as little power as it deems advantageous for each body, and, if it sees fit, resumes a portion or the whole of the delegated authority. The last point of difference to be noted between the American Constitution and the Constitution of the British Empire is the fact that as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jupiter fully equipped, so the American Constitution came forth from the hands of its framers complete and, what is of more importance, practically in material matters unchangeable except by the agony of an internecine war or some overwhelming passions. The British Empire, on the other hand, is, as respects its component members, ever in progress and flux. An Anglo-Saxon colony, no less than a human being, has its infancy under the maternal care of a governor, its boyhood subject to the government of a representative council and an Executive appointed by the Crown, its manhood under Home Rule and responsible government, in which the Executive are bound to vacate their offices whenever they are out-voted in the Legislature. Changes are ever taking place in the growth, so to speak, of the several British possessions, but what is the result? Nobody ever dreams of these changes injuring the Imperial tie or the supremacy of the British Parliament, that alone towers above all, unchangeable and unimpaired; and, what is most notable, loyalty and devotion to the Crown—that is to say, the Imperial tie—so far from being weakened by the transition of a colony from a state of dependence in local affairs to the higher degree of a self-governing colony, are, on the contrary, strengthened almost in direct proportion as the central interference with local affairs is diminished. On this point an unimpeachable witness—Mr. Merivale—says: "What, then, are the lessons to be learnt from a consideration of the American Constitution and of our colonial system? Surely these: that Imperial unity and Imperial supremacy are in no degree dependent on the control exercised by the central power on its dependent members." Facts, however, are more conclusive than any arguments; and we have only to look back to the state some forty years ago of Canada, New Zealand, and the various colonies of Australia, and compare that state with their condition to-day, to come to the conclusion that the fullest power of local government is perfectly consistent with the unity of the Empire and the supremacy of the British Parliament. Under the old colonial Constitutions the Executive of those colonies was under the control of the Crown; and Mr. Merivale says "that the political existence consisted of a series of quarrels and reconciliations between the two opposing authorities—the colonial legislative body and the Executive nominated by the Crown." England resolved to give up the control of the Executive, and to grant complete responsible government—that is to say, the Governor of each colony was instructed that his Executive Council (or Ministry, as we should call it) must resign whenever they were out-voted by the legislative body. The effect of this change, this relaxing, as would be supposed, of the Imperial tie, was magical, and is thus described by Mr. Merivale:[11]

"The magnitude of that change—the extraordinary rapidity of its beneficial effects—it is scarcely possible to exaggerate. None but those who have traced it can realize the sudden spring made by a young community under its first release from the old tie of subjection, moderate as that tie really was. The cessation, as if by magic, of the old irritant sores between colony and mother country is the first result. Not only are they at concord, but they seem to leave hardly any traces in the public mind behind them. Confidence and affection towards the home, still fondly so termed by the colonist as well as the emigrant, seem to supersede at once distrust and hostility. Loyalty, which was before the badge of a class suspected by the rest of the community, became the common watchword of all, and, with some extravagance in the sentiment, there arises no small share of its nobleness and devotion. Communities, which but a few years ago would have wrangled over the smallest item of public expenditure to which they were invited by the Executive to contribute, have vied with each other in their subscriptions to purposes of British interests in response to calls of humanity, or munificence for objects but indistinctly heard of at the distance of half the world."

The Dominion of Canada has been so much talked about that it may be well to give a summary of its Constitution, though, in so far as regards its relations to the mother country, it differs in no material respect from any other self-governing colony. The Dominion consists of seven provinces, each of which has a Legislature of its own, but is at the same time subject to the Legislature of the Dominion, in the same manner as each State in the American Union has a Legislature of its own, and is at the same time subject to the control of Congress. The distinguishing feature between the system of the American States and the associated colonies of the Dominion of Canada is this—that all Imperial powers, everything that constitutes a people a nation as respects foreigners, are reserved to the mother country. The division, then, of the Dominion and its provinces consists only in a division of Local powers. It is impossible to mark accurately the line between Dominion and Provincial powers, but, speaking generally, Dominion powers relate to such matters—for example, the regulation of trade and commerce, postal service, currency, and so forth—as require to be dealt with on a uniform principle throughout the whole area of a country; while the Provincial powers relate to provincial and municipal institutions, provincial licensing, and other subjects restricted to the limits of the province. As a general rule, the Legislature of the Dominion and the Legislature of each province have respectively exclusive jurisdiction within the limits of the subjects entrusted to them; but, as respects agriculture and immigration, the Dominion Parliament have power to overrule any Act of the provincial Legislatures, and, as respects property and civil rights in Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, the Dominion Parliament may legislate with a view to uniformity, but their legislation is not valid unless it is accepted by the Legislature of each province to which it applies.

The executive authority in the Dominion Government, as in all the self-governing colonies, is carried on by the Governor in the name of the Queen, but with the advice of a Council: that is to say, as to all Imperial matters, he is under the control of the mother country; as to all local matters, he acts on the advice of his local Council. The result of the whole is that the citizenship of an inhabitant of the Dominion of Canada is a triple tie. Suppose him to reside in the province of Quebec. First, he is a citizen of that province, and bound to obey all the laws which it is within the competence of the provincial Legislature to pass. Next, he is a citizen of the Dominion of Canada, and acknowledges its jurisdiction in all matters outside the legitimate sphere of the province. Lastly, and above all, he is a subject of her Majesty. He is to all intents and purposes, as respects the vast company of nations, an Englishman, entitled to all the privileges as he is to all the glory of the mother country so far as such privileges can be enjoyed and glory participated in without actual residence in England. One startling point of likeness in events and unlikeness in consequences is to be found in the history of Ireland and Canada. In 1798 Ireland rebelled. Protestant and Catholic were arrayed in arms against each other. The rebellion was quenched in blood, and measures of repression have been in force, with slight intervals of suspension, ever since, with this result—that the Ireland of 1886 is scarcely less disloyal and discontented than the Ireland of 1798. In 1837 and 1838 Canada rebelled. Protestants and Catholics, differing in nationality as well as in religion, were arrayed in arms against each other. The rebellion was quelled with the least possible violence, a free Constitution was given, and the Canada of 1886 is the largest, most loyal, and most contented colony in her Majesty's dominions.

Assuming, then, thus much to be proved by the Constitution of the United States that national unity of the closest description is consistent with complete Home Rule in the component members of the nation, and by the history of Canada and the British colonial empire that an Imperial tie is sufficient to bind together for centuries dependencies differing in situation, in nationality, in religion, in laws, in everything that distinguishes peoples one from another, and further and more particularly that emancipation of the Anglo-Saxon colonies from control in their internal affairs strengthens instead of weakening Imperial unity, let us turn to Ireland and inquire whether there is anything in the circumstances under which Home Rule was proposed to be granted to Ireland, or in the measures intended to establish that Home Rule, fairly leading to the inference that disruption of the Empire or an impairment of Imperial powers would probably be a consequence of passing the Irish Government Bill and the Irish Land Bill. And, first, as to the circumstances which would seem to recommend the Irish Home Rule Bill.

Ireland, from the very commencement of her connection with England, has chafed under the restraints which that connection imposed. The closer the apparent union between the two countries the greater the real disunion. The Act of 1800, in words and in law, effected not a union merely, but a consolidation of the two countries. The effect of those words and that law was to give rise to a restless discontent, which has constantly found expression in efforts to procure the repeal of the Act of Union and the reestablishment of a National Parliament in Dublin. How futile have been the efforts of the British Parliament to diminish by concession or repress by coercion Irish aspirations or Irish discontent it is unnecessary to discuss here. All men admit the facts, however different the conclusions which they draw from those facts. What Burke said of America on moving in 1775 his resolution on conciliation with the colonies was true in 1885 with respect to Ireland:—

"The fact is undoubted, that under former Parliaments the state of America [read for America, Ireland] has been kept in continual agitation. Everything administered as remedy to the public complaint, if it did not produce, was at least followed by an heightening of the distemper, until, by a variety of experiments, that important country has been brought into her present situation—a situation which I will not miscall, which I dare not name, which I scarcely know how to comprehend in the terms of any description."[12]

At length, after the election of 1885, Mr. Gladstone and the majority of his followers came to the conclusion that an opportunity had presented itself for providing Ireland with a Constitution conferring on the people of that country the largest measure of self-government consistent with the absolute supremacy of the Crown and the Imperial Parliament and the entire unity of the Empire. A scheme was proposed which was accepted in principle by the representatives of the National party in Ireland as a fair and sufficient adjustment of the Imperial claims of Great Britain and the Local claims of Ireland. The scheme was shortly this. A Legislative Assembly was proposed to be established in Ireland with power to make all laws necessary for the good government of Ireland—in other words, invested with the same powers of local self-government as a colonial Assembly. The Irish Assembly was in one respect unlike a colonial Legislature. It consisted of one House only, but this House was divided into two orders, each of which, in case of differences on any important legislative matter, voted separately. This form was adopted in order to minimize the chances of collision between the two orders, by making it imperative on each order to hear the arguments of the other before proceeding to a division, thus throwing on the dissentient order the full responsibility of its dissent, with a complete knowledge of the consequences likely to ensue therefrom. The clause conferring on the Irish Legislature full powers of local self-government was immediately followed by a provision excepting, by enumeration, from any interference on the part of the Irish Legislature, all Imperial powers, and declaring any enactment void which infringed on that provision. This exception (as is well known) is not found in colonial Constitutional Acts. In them the restriction of the words of the grant to Local powers only has been held sufficient to safeguard the supremacy of the British Parliament and the unity of the Empire. The reason for making a difference in the case of the Home Rule Bill was political, not legal. Separation was declared by the enemies of the Bill to be the real intention of its supporters, and destruction of the unity of the Empire to be its certain consequence. It seemed well that Ireland, by her representatives, should accept as a satisfactory charter of Irish liberty a document which contained an express submission to Imperial power and a direct acknowledgment of Imperial unity. Similarly with respect to the supremacy of the British Parliament. In the colonial Constitutions all reference to this supremacy is omitted as being too clear to require notice. In the case of the Irish Home Rule Bill instructions were given to preserve in express words the supremacy of the British Parliament in order to pledge Ireland to an express admission of that supremacy by the same vote which accepted Local powers. It is true that the wording by the draftsman of the sentence reserving the supremacy of Parliament was justly found fault with as inaccurate and doubtful, but that defect would have been cured by an amendment in Committee; and, even if there had not been any such clause in the Bill, it is clear, from what has been said above, that the Imperial Legislature could not, if it would, renounce its supremacy or abdicate its sovereign powers. The executive government in Ireland was continued in the Queen, to be carried on by the Lord Lieutenant on behalf of her Majesty, with the aid of such officers and Council as to her Majesty might from time to time seem fit. Her Majesty was also a constituent part of the Legislature, with power to delegate to the Lord Lieutenant the prerogative of assenting to or dissenting from Bills, and of summoning, proroguing, and dissolving Parliament. Under these provisions the Lord Lieutenant resembled the Governor of a colony with responsible government. He was invested with a double authority—first, Imperial; secondly, Local. As an Imperial officer, he was bound to veto any Bill injuriously affecting Imperial interests or inconsistent with general Imperial policy; as a Local officer, it was his duty to act in all local matters according to the advice of his Council, whose tenure of office depended on their being in harmony with, and supported by, a majority of the Legislative Assembly. Questions relating to the constitutionality of any particular law were not left altogether to the decision of the Governor. If a Bill containing a provision infringing Imperial rights passed the Legislature, its validity might be decided in the first instance by the ordinary courts of law, but the ultimate appeal lay to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and, with a view to secure absolute impartiality in the Committee, it was provided that Ireland should be represented on that body by persons who either were or had been Irish judges. Not the least important provision of the Bill, as respects the maintenance of Imperial interests, was the continuance of Imperial taxation. The Customs and Excise duties were directed to be levied, as heretofore, in pursuance of the enactments of the Imperial Parliament, and were excepted from the control of the Irish Legislature, which had full power, with that exception, to impose such taxes in Ireland as they might think expedient. The Bill further provided that neither the Imperial taxes of Excise nor any Local taxes that might be imposed by the Irish Legislature should be paid into the Irish Exchequer. An Imperial officer, called the Receiver-General, was appointed, into whose hands the produce of every tax, both Imperial and Local, was required to be paid, and it was the duty of the Receiver-General to take care that all claims of the English Exchequer, including especially the contribution payable by Ireland for Imperial purposes, were satisfied before a farthing found its way into the Irish Exchequer for Irish purposes. The Receiver-General was provided with an Imperial Court to enforce his rights of Imperial taxation, and adequate means for enforcing all Imperial powers by Imperial civil officers. The Bill did not provide for the representation of Ireland in the Imperial Parliament on all Imperial questions, including questions relating to Imperial taxation, but it is fully understood that in any Bill which might hereafter be brought forward relating to Home Rule those defects would be remedied.

An examination, then, of the Home Rule Bill, that "child of revolution and parent of separation," appears to lead irresistibly to two conclusions. First, that Imperial rights and Imperial powers, representation for Imperial purposes, Imperial taxation—in short, every link that binds a subordinate member of an Empire to its supreme head—have been maintained unimpaired and unchanged. Secondly, that, in granting Home Rule to discontented Ireland, that form of responsible government has been adopted which, as Mr. Merivale declares—and his declaration subsequent events have more than verified—when conferred on the discontented colonies, changed restless aspirations for separation into quiet loyalty.

That such a Bill as the Home Rule Bill should be treated as an invasion of Imperial rights is a proof of one, or perhaps of both, the following axioms—that Bills are never read by their accusers, and that party spirit will distort the plainest facts. The union of Great Britain and Ireland was not, so far as Imperial powers were concerned, disturbed by the Bill, and an Irishman remains a citizen of the British Empire under the Home Rule Bill, with the same obligations and the same privileges, on the same terms as before. All the Bill did was to make his Irish citizenship distinct from his Imperial citizenship, in the same manner as the citizenship of a native of the State of New York is distinct from his citizenship as a member of the United States. Now it has been found that the Central power in the United States has been more than a match for the State powers, and can it be conceived for a moment that the Imperial power of Great Britain should not be a match for the Local power of Ireland—a State which has not one-seventh of the population or one-twentieth part of the income of the dominant community?

One argument remains to be noticed which the opponents of Home Rule urge as absolutely condemnatory of the measure, whereas, if properly weighed, it is conclusive in its favour. Home Rule, they say, is a mere question of sentiment. "National aspirations" are the twaddle of English enthusiasts who know nothing of Ireland. What is really wanted is the reform of the Land Law. Settle the agrarian problem, and Home Rule may be relegated to the place supposed to be paved with good intentions. The Irish will straightway change their character, and become a law-abiding, contented, loyal people. Be it so. But suppose it to be proved that the establishment of an Irish Government, or, in other words, Home Rule, is an essential condition of agrarian reform—that the latter cannot be had without the former—surely Home Rule should stand none the worse in the estimation of its opponents if it not only secures a safe basis for putting an end to agrarian exasperation, but also gratifies the feeling of the Irish people as expressed by the majority of its representatives in Parliament? Now, what is the nature of the Irish Land Question? This we must understand before considering the remedy. In Ireland (meaning by Ireland that part of the country which is in the hands of tenants, and falls within the compass of a Land Bill) the tenure of land is wholly unlike that which is found in the greater part of England. Instead of large farms in which the landlord makes all the improvements and the tenant pays rent for the privilege of cultivating the land and receives the produce, small holdings are found in which the tenant does the improvements (if any) and pays a fixed rent-charge to the owner. In England the tenant does not perform the obligations or in any way aspire to the character of owner. If he thinks he can get a cheaper farm, he quits his former one, regarding his interest in the land as a mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. Not so the Irish tenant. He has made what he calls improvements, he claims a quasi-ownership in the land, and has the characteristic Celtic attachment for the patch of ground forming his holding, however squalid it may be, however inadequate for his support. In short, in Ireland there is a dual ownership—that of the proprietor, who has no interest in the soil so long as the tenant pays his rent and fulfils the conditions of his tenancy; and that of the tenant, who, subject to the payment of his rent and performance of the fixed conditions, acts, thinks, and carries himself as the owner of his holding. A system, then, of agrarian reform in Ireland resolves itself into an inquiry as to the best mode of putting an end to this dual ownership—that is to say, of making the tenant the sole proprietor of his holding, and compensating the landlord for his interest in the ownership. The problem is further narrowed by the circumstance that the tenant cannot be expected to advance any capital or pay an increased rent, so that the means of compensating the landlord must be found out of the existing rent.

The plan adopted in Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill was to commute the rent-charges, offering the landlord, as a general rule, twenty years' purchase on the net rental of the estate (that is to say, the rent received by him after deducting all outgoings), and paying him the purchase-money in L3 per cent. stock taken at par. The stock was to be advanced by the English Government to an Irish State department at 3-1/8 per cent. interest, and the Bill provided that the tenant, instead of rent, was to pay an annuity of L4 per cent. on a capital sum equal in amount to twenty times the gross rental.

The notable feature which distinguished this plan from all other schemes was the security given for the repayment of the purchase-money: hitherto the English Government has lent the money directly to the landlord or tenant, and has become the mortgagee of the land—in other words, has become in effect the landlord of the land sold to the tenant until the repayment of the loan has been completed. To carry into effect under such a system any extensive scheme of agrarian reform (and if not extensive such a reform would be of no value in pacifying Ireland) presupposes a readiness on the part of the English Government to become virtually the landlord of a large portion of Ireland, with the attendant odium of absenteeism and alien domination. Under a land scheme such as that of 1886, all these difficulties would be overcome. The Irish, not the English, Government would be the virtual landlord. It would be the interest of Ireland that the annuities due from the tenants should be regularly paid, as, subject to the prior charge of the English Exchequer, they would form part of the Irish revenues. The cardinal difference, then, between Mr. Gladstone's scheme and any other land scheme that has seen the light is this—that in Mr. Gladstone's scheme the English loans would have been lent to the Irish Government on the security of the whole Irish revenues, whereas in every other scheme they have been lent by the English Government to the Irish creditors on the security of individual patches of land.

The whole question, then, of the relation between Home Rule and agrarian reform may be summed up as follows:—Agrarian reform is necessary for the pacification of Ireland; agrarian reform cannot be efficiently carried into effect without an Irish Government; an Irish Government can only be established by a Home Rule Bill: therefore a Home Rule Bill is necessary for the pacification of Ireland. It is idle to say, as has been said on numerous platforms, that plans no doubt can be devised for agrarian reform without Home Rule. The Irish revenues are the only collateral security that can be obtained for loans of English money, and Irish revenues are only available for the purpose on the establishment of an Irish Government. Baronial guarantees, union guarantees, county guarantees, debenture schemes, have all been tried and found wanting, and vague assertions as to possibilities are idle unless they are based on intelligible working plans.

The foregoing arguments will be equally valid if, instead of making the tenants peasant-proprietors, it were thought desirable that the Irish State should be the proprietor and the tenants be the holders of the land at perpetual rents and subject to fixed conditions. Again, it might be possible to pay the landlords by annual sums instead of capital sums. Such matters are really questions of detail. The substance is to interpose the Irish Government between the tenant and the English mortgagee, and to make the loans general charges on the whole of the Irish Government revenues as paid into the hands of an Imperial Receiver instead of placing them as special charges, each fixed on its own small estate or holding. The fact that Mr. Gladstone's land scheme was denounced as confiscation of L100,000,000 of the English taxpayers' property, while Lord Ashbourne's Act is pronounced by the same party wise and prudent, shows the political blindness of party spirit in its most absurd form. Lord Ashbourne's Act requires precisely the same expenditure to do the same work as Mr. Gladstone's Bill requires, but in Mr. Gladstone's scheme the whole Irish revenue was pledged as collateral security, and the Irish Government was interposed between the ultimate creditor and the Irish tenant, while under Lord Ashbourne's Act the English Government figures without disguise as the landlord of each tenant, exacting a debt which the tenant is unwilling to pay as being due to what he calls an alien Government.

An endeavour has been made in the preceding pages to prove that Home Rule in no respect infringes on Imperial rights or Imperial unity, for the simple reason that the Imperial power remains exactly in the same position as it was before, the Home Rule Bill dealing only with Local matters. At all events, Burke thought that the Imperial supremacy alone constituted a real union between England and Ireland. He says—

"My poor opinion is, that the closest connection between Great Britain and Ireland is essential to the well-being—I had almost said to the very being—of the three kingdoms; for that purpose I humbly conceive that the whole of the superior, and what I should call Imperial politics, ought to have its residence here, and that Ireland, locally, civilly, and commercially independent, ought politically to look up to Great Britain in all matters of peace and war. In all these points to be joined with her, and, in a word, with her to live and to die."[13]

How strange to Burke would have seemed the doctrine that the restoration of a limited power of self-government to Ireland, excluding commerce, and excluding all matters not only Imperial, but those in which uniformity is required, should be denounced as a disruption of the Empire!

It remains to notice one other charge made against the Gladstonian Home Rule Bill, namely, that of impairing the supremacy of the British Parliament. That allegation has been shown also to be founded on a mistake. Next, it is said that the Gladstonian scheme does not provide securities against executive and legislative oppression. The answer is complete. The executive authority being vested in the Queen, it will be the duty of the Governor not to allow executive oppression; still more will it be his duty to veto any act of legislative oppression. Further, it is stated that difficulties will arise with respect to the power of the Privy Council to nullify unconstitutional Acts. But it is hard to see why a power which is exercised with success in the United States, where all the States are equal, and without dispute in our colonies, which are all dependent, should not be carried into effect with equal ease in Ireland, which is more closely bound to us and more completely under our power than the colonies are, or than the several States are under the power of the Central Government.

To conclude: the cause of Irish discontent is the conjoint operation of the passion for nationality and the vicious system of land tenure, and the scheme of the Irish Home Rule Bill and the Land Bill removes the whole fabric on which Irish discontent is raised. The Irish, by the great majority of their representatives, have accepted the Home Rule Bill as a satisfactory settlement of the nationality question. The British Parliament can, through the medium of the Home Rule Bill and the establishment of an Irish Legislature, carry through a final settlement of agrarian disputes with less injustice to individuals than could a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and, be it added, with scarcely any appreciable risk to the British taxpayer. Of course it may be said that an Irish Parliament will go farther—that Home Rule is a step to separation, and a reform of the Land Laws a spoliation of the landlords. To those who urge such arguments I would recommend the perusal of the speech of Burke on Conciliation with America, and especially the following sentences, substituting "Ireland" for "the colonies:"—

"But [the Colonies] Ireland will go further. Alas! alas! when will this speculating against fact and reason end? What will quiet these panic fears which we entertain of the hostile effect of a conciliatory conduct? Is it true that no case can exist in which it is proper for the Sovereign to accede to the desires of his discontented subjects? Is there anything peculiar in this case to make it a rule for itself? Is all authority of course lost when it is not pushed to the extreme? Is it a certain maxim that the fewer causes of discontentment are left by Government the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebel?"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Burke's Speech on American Taxation, vol. i. p. 174]

[Footnote 10: This is the opinion of both English and American lawyers. See Blackstone's Comm., i. 90; Austin on Jurisprudence, i. 226. As to American cases, see Corley on Constitutional Limitations, pp. 2-149.]

[Footnote 11: "Lectures on the Colonies," p, 641.]

[Footnote 12: Burke, vol. i. p. 181.]

[Footnote 13: "Letter on Affairs of Ireland," i. 462.]



THE IRISH GOVERNMENT BILL AND THE IRISH LAND BILL

BY LORD THRING

A mere enumeration or analysis of the contents of the Irish Government Bill, 1886, and the Land (Ireland) Bill, 1886, would convey scarcely any intelligible idea to the mind of an ordinary reader. It is, therefore, proposed in the following pages, before entering on the details of each Bill, to give a summary of the reasons which led to its introduction, and of the principles on which it is founded. To begin with the Irish Government Bill—

The object of the Irish Government Bill is to confer on the Irish people the largest measure of self-government consistent with the absolute supremacy of the Crown and Imperial Parliament and the entire unity of the Empire. To carry into effect this object it was essential to create a separate though subordinate legislature; thus occasion was given to opponents to apply the name of Separatists to the supporters of the Bill—a term true in so far only as it denoted the intention to create a separate legislature, but false and calumnious when used in the sense in which it was intended to be understood—of imputing to the promoters of the Bill the intention to disunite or in any way to disintegrate the Empire. Indeed, the very object of the measure was, by relaxing a little the legal bonds of union, to draw closer the actual ties between England and Ireland, in fact, to do as we have done in our Colonies, by decentralizing the subordinate functions of government to strengthen the central supremacy of natural affection and Imperial unity. The example of the effects of giving complete self-government to our Colonies would seem not unfavourable to trying the same experiment in Ireland. Some forty years ago, Canada, New Zealand, and the various colonies of Australia were discontented and uneasy at the control exercised by the Government of England over their local affairs. What did England do? She gave to each of those communities the fullest power of local government consistent with the unity of the Empire. The result was that the real union was established in the same degree as the apparent tie of control over local affairs was loosened. Are there any reasons to suppose that the condition of Ireland is such as to render the example of the Colonies applicable? Let us look a little at the past history of that country. Up to 1760 Ireland was governed practically as a conquered country. The result was that in 1782, in order to save Imperial unity, we altogether relaxed the local tie and made Ireland legislatively independent. The Empire was thus saved, but difficulties naturally arose between two independent legislatures. The true remedy would have been to have imposed on Grattan's Parliament the conditions imposed by the Irish Government Bill on the statutory Parliament created by that Bill; the course actually taken was that, instead of leaving the Irish with their local government, and arranging for the due supremacy of England, the Irish Legislature was destroyed under the guise of Union, and Irish representatives were transferred to an assembly in which they had little weight, and in which they found no sympathy. The result was that from the date of the Union to the present day Ireland has been constantly working for the reinstatement of its National Legislature, and has been governed by a continuous system of extraordinary legislature called coercion; the fact being that between 1800, the date of the Act of Union, and 1832, the date of the great Reform Act, there were only eleven years free from coercion, while in the fifty-three years since that period there have been only two years entirely free from special repressive legislation. So much, therefore, is clear, that Irish discontent at not being allowed to manage their own affairs has gradually increased instead of diminishing. The conclusion then would seem irresistible, that if coercion has failed, the only practical mode of governing Ireland satisfactorily is to give the people power to manage their local affairs. Coming, then, to the principle of the Bill, the first step is to reconcile local government with Imperial supremacy, in other words, to divide Imperial from local powers; for if this division be accurately made, and the former class of powers be reserved to the British Crown and British Parliament, while the latter only are intrusted to the Irish Parliament, it becomes a contradiction in terms to say that Imperial unity is dissolved by reserving to the Imperial authority all its powers, or that Home Rule is a sundering of the Imperial tie when that tie is preserved inviolable. Imperial powers, then, are the prerogatives of the Crown with respect to peace and war, and making treaties with foreign nations; in short, the power of regulating the relations of the Empire towards foreign nations. These are the jura summi imperii, the very insignia of supremacy; the attributes of sovereign authority in every form of government, be it despotism, limited monarchy, or republic; the only difference is that in a system of government under one supreme head, they are vested in that head alone, in a federal government, as in America or Switzerland, they reside in the composite body forming the federal supreme authority. Various subsidiary powers necessarily attend the above supreme powers; for example, the power of maintaining armies and navies, of commanding the militia, and other incidental powers. Closely connected with the power of making peace and war is the power of regulating commerce with foreign nations. Next in importance to the reservations necessary to constitute the Empire a Unity with regard to foreign nations, are the powers required to prevent disputes and to facilitate intercourse between the various parts of the Empire. These are the coinage of money and other regulations relating to currency, to copyright or other exclusive rights to the use or profit of any works or inventions. The above subjects must be altogether excluded from the powers of the subordinate legislature; it ceases to be subordinate as soon as it is invested with these Imperial, or quasi-Imperial, powers.

Assuming, however, the division between Imperial and local powers to be accurately determined, how is the subordinate legislative body to be kept within its due limits? The answer is very plain,—an Imperial court must be established to decide in the last resort whether the subordinate legislature has or has not infringed Imperial rights. Such a court has been in action in the United States of America ever since their union, and no serious conflict has arisen in carrying its decisions into effect, and the Privy Council, acting as the Supreme Court in respect to Colonial appeals, has been accepted by all the self-governing colonies as a just and impartial expositor of the meaning of their several constitutions.

Next in importance to the right division of Imperial and local powers is a correct understanding of the relation borne by the executive of an autonomous country to the mother country. In every part of the British Empire which enjoys home rule the legislature consists of the Queen and the two local legislative bodies. The administrative power resides in the Queen alone. The Queen has the appointment of all the officers of the government; money bills can be introduced into the legislature only with the consent of the Queen. The initiative power of taxation then is vested in the Queen, the executive head, in practice represented by the Governor. But such a power of initiation is of course useless unless the legislative body is willing to support the executive, and grants it the necessary funds for carrying on the government. What, then, is the contrivance by which the governmental machine is prevented from being stopped by a difference between the executive and legislative authorities? It is the same in the mother country, and in every British home-rule country, with this difference only—that beyond the limits of the mother country the Queen is represented by a governor to whom are delegated such a measure of powers as is necessary for the supreme head of a local self-governing community. The contrivance is this in the mother country:—the Queen acts upon the advice of a cabinet council; in home-rule dependencies the Governor acts on the advice of a local council. If this cabinet council in the mother country, or local council in a dependency, ceases to command a majority in the popular legislative body, it resigns, and the Governor is obliged to select a council which, by commanding such a majority, can obtain the supplies necessary to carry on the government. The consequence then is, that in a home-rule community, if a serious difficulty arises between the legislative and executive authority, the head of the executive, the governor, refers the ultimate decision of the question to the general body of electors by dissolving the popular legislative body. It has been urged in the discussion on the Irish Government Bill that the powers of the executive in relation to the legislative body ought to be expressed in the Bill itself; but it is clear to anybody acquainted with the rudiments of legislation that the details of such a system (in other words, the mode in which a governor ought to act under the endless variety of circumstances which may occur in governing a dependency) never have been and never can be expressed in an Act of Parliament. But how little difficulty this absence of definition has caused may be judged from the fact that neither in England nor in any of her home-rule dependencies has any vital collision arisen between the executive and legislative authorities, and that all the home-rule colonies have managed to surmount the obstacles which the opponents of Home Rule argued would be fatal to their existence. The main principles have now been stated on which the Irish Government Bill is framed, and it remains to give a summary of the provisions of the Bill, the objects and bearing of which will be readily understood from the foregoing observations. The first clause provides that—

"On and after the appointed day there shall be established in Ireland a Legislature consisting of Her Majesty the Queen and an Irish legislative body."

This is the first step in all English constitutional systems, to vest the power of legislation in the Queen and the legislative body. Such a legislature might have had conferred on it the independent powers vested in Grattan's Parliament: but the second clause at once puts an end to any doubt as to the subordination of the Irish legislative body; for while on the one hand it confers full powers of local self-government, by declaring that the Legislature may make any laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland, it subjects that power to numerous exceptions and restrictions. The exceptions are contained in the third clause, and the restrictions in the fourth. The exceptions are as follows:—

"The Legislature of Ireland shall not make laws relating to the following matters or any of them:—

"(1.) The status or dignity of the Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency;

"(2.) The making of peace or war;

"(3.) The army, navy, militia, volunteers, or other military or naval forces, or the defence of the realm;

"(4.) Treaties and other relations with foreign States, or the relations between the various parts of Her Majesty's dominions;