A Leap in the Dark Part 3

The first inducement is that the presence of eighty Irish members at Westminster is an outward and visible sign of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament.[46] On this point it is needless to say much; few Englishmen will on consideration think it worth while to dislocate all our system of government in order that the British Parliament may retain in Ireland the kind of sovereignty which it retains in New Zealand. We are rightly proud of our connection with our colonies, but no one would seriously propose to retain nominal sovereignty in Canada at the price of a perilous and injurious change in the const.i.tution of England.

The second inducement is that Great Britain will be allowed the exclusive management of British affairs.

This sort of spurious Home Rule for England turns out however to be as illusory a blessing as the maintenance of parliamentary supremacy.

Great Britain is, under the new const.i.tution, not allowed to appoint the British Cabinet. Great Britain is forbidden to determine for herself any matter of legislation or administration which, however deeply it concerns British interests, trenches in the least degree on any Irish or Imperial interest. Any matter of finance, which comes within the wide head of Imperial liabilities, expenditure, and miscellaneous revenue,[47] falls within the competence of the Irish members. Questions of peace or war, our foreign relations, every diplomatic transaction, is a matter on which the Irish delegation may p.r.o.nounce a decision. The conjecture is at least plausible[48] that Irish members will have a right to discuss and vote upon any subject debated in the Parliament at Westminster which involves the fate of a British Cabinet. Let it be granted that, if the provisions of the Home Rule Bill be observed, no Irish representative can vote 'on any Bill, or motion in relation thereto, the operation of which Bill or motion is confined to Great Britain.'[49] But then when is the operation of a Bill confined to Great Britain, or, to use popular language, what is a British Bill? This is an inquiry in the decision whereof the Irish members will take part. The Irish members, therefore, at Westminster will be judges of their own rights, and in the only cases in which it is of practical importance to Great Britain that the Irish representatives should not vote, will be able with the aid of a British minority to fix the limits of their own jurisdiction.[50] Let the Irish members and a British minority boldly vote that the operation of a Bill, say for the Disestablishment of the English Church, is not confined to Great Britain, and they can boldly vote that the Bill do pa.s.s, and no Court in Great Britain or the British Empire can question the validity of a law enacted in open defiance of the spirit or even the words of the Const.i.tution.[51] The right of British members to the management of even exclusively British affairs will depend not upon the law of the land, but upon the moderation and sense of equity which may restrain the unfairness of partisans.h.i.+p.

For a parliamentary minority will, if only it throw scruples to the winds, be constantly able to transform itself into a majority by the unconst.i.tutional admission of the Irish vote. This is not a power which any party, be it Conservative or Radical, English, Scottish, or Irish, ought to possess. Partisans.h.i.+p knows nothing of moderation. And the reason of this blindness to the claims of justice is that the spirit of party combines within itself some of the best and some of the worst of human pa.s.sions. It often unites the self-sacrificing zealotry of religious fanaticism with the recklessness of the gambling table. Let an a.s.sailant of the Contagious Diseases Act, a fanatic for temperance, a protectionist who believes that free trade is the ruin of the country, an anti-vivisectionist who holds that any painful experiment on live animals is the most heinous of sins; let any man who has come to believe that his own credit, no less than the salvation of the country, depends on the success of a particular party, know that the triumph of his cause depends upon his voting that a particular measure operates beyond Great Britain, and we know well enough in which way he will vote. He will vote what he knows to be untrue rather than sacrifice a cause which he believes to be sacred. He will think himself both a fool and a traitor if he sacrifices the victory which is within his grasp to the maintenance of technical legality, or rather to respect for a rule of const.i.tutional procedure.

Suppose, however, that I have underrated the equity of human nature, and that no faction in the House of Commons ever attempts to violate the spirit of the Const.i.tution. The supposition is bold, not to say absurd; but even if its reasonableness be granted, this does not suffice for the protection of England's rights. The question whether a given Bill does or does not operate exclusively in Great Britain may often give rise to fair dispute, and (what should be noted) this dispute will always be decided against Great Britain in the only instances in which its decision is to Great Britain of any importance whatever. An example best shows my meaning. Let a Bill be brought forward for establis.h.i.+ng Home Rule in Wales. Is the operation of the Bill confined to Great Britain?

An English member, unless he is a Home Ruler, will answer with an undoubted affirmative. An English, or Irish, or Welsh Home Ruler will with equal certainty, and equal honesty, give a negative answer. The question admits of fair debate, but we know already how the debate will be decided. If the Unionists const.i.tute a majority of the House, the Irish vote will be excluded. But in this case its exclusion is of no practical importance. If the Unionists const.i.tute indeed a majority of British representatives, but do not const.i.tute a majority of the House, the Irish vote will be included. The Irish representatives will decide whether Wales shall const.i.tute a separate State, and the right of Great Britain to manage British affairs will not prevent the dismemberment of England. Home Rule, such as it is for England, means at best a totally different thing from Home Rule for Ireland. In the case of England it means a limited and precarious control of legislation for Great Britain by British members of Parliament. In the case of Ireland it means the real and substantial and exclusive government of Ireland by an Irish Ministry and an Irish Parliament.

But will the advantage of even this modified half-and-half Home Rule be really offered to England?

Gladstonians, it is rumoured (and before these pages are in print the rumour may turn out to be a fact), have their own remedy for some of the only too-patent absurdities of the 'in-and-out system' embodied in clause 9 of the Home Rule Bill. A suggestion is made which would be amusing for its irony, were it not revolting for its cynicism, that the difficulty of the double majority should be removed by the allowing members not only to remain at Westminster in their full number, but also to vote there on all matters whatever, including those affairs which exclusively concern the interests of Great Britain. This is no doubt a remedy for some of the evils of an unworkable proposal. It is a cure which to any Englishman of sense or spirit will seem tenfold worse than the disease. It is a cure in that sense only in which a traveller may be said to be relieved from the fear of robbery by a highwayman shooting him dead. The irregular interference of the Irish delegation in the formation of the British Cabinet, and other matters which indirectly concern England, is to be regularised (if I may use the term) by allowing to Irish members permanent despotism over England in matters which, on a system of Home Rule, concern England alone. Irish members may disestablish the Church of England, though England is to have no voice in the pettiest of Irish affairs. Irish members are to be allowed to impose taxes on England, say to double the income tax, though of these taxes no inhabitant of Ireland will pay a penny; the Irish delegation--and this is the worst grievance of all--is to be enabled, in combination with a British minority, to detach Wales from England, or to vote Home Rule for Scotland, or to federalise still further the United Kingdom by voting that Man, Jersey, and Guernsey shall send members to the Imperial Parliament. Note that all this may be done by the Irish delegation, though, under the new Const.i.tution, England will not have a word to say on such questions as whether the right of electing members for the Parliament at Dublin shall or shall not be extended to every adult, or whether Ulster shall, or shall not, be allowed Home Rule of its own. The absurdity of this policy ought to prevent its ever being adopted; but in these days absurdity seems to tell as little against wild schemes of legislation as their injustice.

All this consideration of haggling and trafficking between Great Britain and Ireland is loathsome to every true Unionist who considers Englishmen and Irishmen as still citizens of one nation. But, when Gladstonians propose to divide the United Kingdom into two States, it is as essential as it is painful to weigh well what is the gain of Great Britain in the new scheme of political partners.h.i.+p. If the matter be looked at from this point of view, it is easy to see how miserable are the offers tendered to England. Compare for a moment the authority to be given her under the new const.i.tution with the authority she has. .h.i.therto possessed or the authority tendered to her under the Home Rule Bill of 1886.

Up to 1782 the British Parliament held in its own hands the absolute control not only of every British affair, but every matter of policy affecting either Ireland or the British Empire. The British Parliament, in which sat not a single representative of any Irish county or borough, appointed the Irish Executive. The British Parliament, whenever it thought fit, legislated for Ireland; the British Parliament controlled the whole course of Irish legislation; every Act which pa.s.sed the Parliament of Ireland was inspected, amended, and, if the English Ministry saw fit, vetoed in England. The system was a bad system and an unjust system. It is well that it ended. But as regarded the control of the British Empire it corresponded roughly with facts. The Empire was in the main the outcome of British energy and British strength, and the British Empire was governed by Great Britain.

The const.i.tution of 1782 gave legislative independence to Ireland, but did not degrade the British Parliament to the position which will be occupied by the Imperial Parliament under the const.i.tution of 1893. The British Parliament remained supreme in Great Britain; the British Parliament controlled the Imperial policy both of England and of Ireland. The British Parliament, or rather the British Ministry, virtually appointed the Irish Executive. The British Parliament renounced all rights to legislate for Ireland[52]; the British Parliament technically possessed no representatives in the Parliament at Dublin. But any one who judges of inst.i.tutions not by words but by facts will perceive that in one way or another the influence and the wishes of the British Government were represented more than sufficiently in the Irish Houses of Parliament. Grattan's const.i.tution, in short, left the British Parliament absolutely supreme in all British and Imperial affairs, and gave to the British Ministry predominating weight in the government of Ireland. This is a very different thing from the shadowy sovereignty which the English Parliament retains, but abstains from exercising, in our self-governing colonies. It is a very different thing from the nominal power to legislate for Ireland which the new const.i.tution confers upon the Imperial Parliament.

Since the Union England and Ireland have been politically one nation.

The Imperial or British Government has controlled, and the Imperial Parliament has pa.s.sed laws for, the whole country. Nor has the presence of the Irish members till recent days substantially limited the authority of Great Britain. Till 1829 the Protestant landlords of Ireland who were represented in the Imperial Parliament shared the principles or the prejudices of English landowners. Since the granting of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation Roman Catholic or Irish ideas or interests have undoubtedly perplexed or enc.u.mbered the working of British politics.

But the representatives of Ireland have been for the most part divided between the two great English parties, and it was not till Mr. Parnell's influence united the majority of Irish representatives into a party hostile to Great Britain that any essential evil or inconvenience resulted from their presence at Westminster. This inconvenience, whatever its extent, has been the price of the Union. The gain has been worth the payment: the action of Parliament has been hampered, but its essential and effective authority throughout the realm has been maintained.

In 1886 Mr. Gladstone framed a const.i.tution which was meant to be a final and a just settlement of the questions at issue between England and Ireland. Under the const.i.tution of 1886 Great Britain surrendered to Ireland about the same amount of independence as is offered her under the proposed const.i.tution of 1893. But the difference in the position of Great Britain under the two const.i.tutions is immense.

Under the const.i.tution of 1886 Great Britain was offered a position of the highest authority.

To the British Parliament (in which was to sit not a single Irish member) was to fall the appointment of the British or Imperial Ministry.

The British Parliament received absolute control of all British, colonial, Imperial, and foreign affairs. Perfect unity was restored to the spirit of her government, and predominance in the British, or, to use ordinary language, in the English, Parliament was given to the conservative elements of English society. Great Britain became mistress in her own home; she became much more than this; she was enthroned as undisputed sovereign of the British Empire.[53]

Under the const.i.tution, in short, of 1886, if Great Britain was weakened on one side she was strengthened on another. Her Parliament obtained an immense accession of authority, and was all but entirely freed both from the necessity for considering Irish questions and from the damage of Irish obstruction. Ireland surrendered to England all share in the government of the Empire, and the further dismemberment of Great Britain without the a.s.sent of the British people became difficult, if not impossible. It does not lie in the mouth of Gladstonians to say that the measure of 1886 was unjust. It was laid before the country as a compromise which was just to England and to Ireland. The Irish leaders, we were told, accepted the proposal, just as we are told that they accept the proposed const.i.tution of 1893. If the acceptance was honest, then in 1886 they agreed to a bargain far more favourable to England than the contract now pressed on our acceptance. If their acquiescence was a mere pretence, what trust can we place in the a.s.sertion that they accept the arrangement of 1893?

However this may be, it is clear that England is now offered a position of weakness and of inferiority such as she has never occupied during the whole course of her history. What is the meaning or justification of the proposed surrender by England of every compensation for Irish Home Rule which was offered her in 1886?

For this surrender Gladstonians a.s.sign but two reasons.

The presence of the Irish members at Westminster is, it is said, a concession to the wishes of Unionists.

This plea, even were it supported by the facts of the case, would be futile. It might pa.s.s muster with disputants in search of a verbal triumph, but to any man seriously concerned for the welfare of the nation must appear childishly irrelevant. The welfare of the State cannot turn upon the neatness of a _tu quoque_; retorts are not reasons, and had every Unionist, down from the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re to the present writer, pressed in 1886 for the retention of the Irish members at Westminster, the controversial inexpertness of the Unionists seven years ago would not diminish the dangers with which, under a system of Home Rule, the presence of the Irish members at Westminster actually threatens England. But the plea, futile as it is, is not supported by fact. It rests on a misrepresentation of the Unionist position in 1886.

'The case in truth stands thus:--Mr. Gladstone was [in 1886] placed in effect in this dilemma: "If you do not," said his opponents, "retain the Irish representatives at Westminster, the sovereignty of the British Parliament will be, under the terms of your Bill, no more than a name; if you do retain them, Great Britain will lose the only material advantage offered her in exchange for the local independence of Ireland." Gladstonians, in substance, replied that the devices embodied in the Government of Ireland Bill at once freed the British Parliament from the presence of the Parnellites and safeguarded the sovereignty of the British, or (for in this matter there was some confusion) of the Imperial Parliament. On the latter point issue was joined. The other horn of the dilemma fell out of sight, and some Unionists, rightly believing that the Bill as it stood did not preserve the supremacy of the British Parliament, pressed the Ministry hard with all the difficulties involved in the removal of the Irish members. In the heat of debate speeches were, I doubt not, delivered in which the argument that you could not, as the Bill stood, remove the Irish members from Westminster and keep the British Parliament supreme in Ireland, was driven so far as to sound like an argument in favour of, at all costs, allowing members from Ireland to sit in the English Parliament. Those who appeared to fall into this error were, it must be noted, but a fraction of the Unionist Party, and their mistake was little more than verbal. When the Ministry maintained that the removal of the Irish members from Westminster was a main feature of their Home Rule policy, opponents naturally insisted upon the defects of the scheme laid before them, and did not insist on the equal or greater defects of a plan which the Government did not advocate. Mr. Gladstone, we are now told, has changed his position, and a.s.sents to the principle that Ireland must be represented in the British Parliament. If this a.s.sent be represented as a concession to the demands of Unionists, my reply is that it is no such thing. It is merely the acceptance of a different horn of an argumentative dilemma. Grant for the sake of argument (what is by no means certain) that the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is really saved. The advantage offered to England in exchange for Home Rule is a.s.suredly gone. My friend, Mr. John Morley, used to argue in favour of Home Rule from the necessity of freeing the English Parliament from Parnellite obstruction. As a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what he thinks of a concession which strikes his strongest argumentative weapon out of his hands. My curiosity will be satisfied on the same day which tells us Lord Spencer's reflections on the surrender of the policy represented by the Land Purchase Bill. Meanwhile, I know well enough the thoughts of every Unionist who is not tied by the exigencies of his political antecedents or utterances. To say that in the eyes of such a man the proposed concession is worthless, is to say far too little. It is not a concession which he rates at a low price; it is a proposal which he heart and soul condemns.'[54]

These words were not written to meet the present condition of the controversy; they were published in 1887 at a time when no Gladstonian, except Mr. Gladstone (if indeed he were an exception), knew whether the retention in the Parliament at Westminster, or the exclusion from the Parliament at Westminster, of the Irish members, was an essential principle of Home Rule.

England again, it is alleged, suffers without murmuring all the inconvenience caused by the Irish vote at Westminster; and she may well, under a system of Home Rule, bear without complaint evils which she has tolerated for near a century.

The answer to this reasoning is plain. It is a sorry plea indeed for a desperate innovation that it leaves the evils of the existing state of things no worse than they now are. For the sake of the maintenance of the Union, which Unionists hold of inestimable value, England has borne the inconvenience caused to her by the Irish vote. It argues simplicity, or impudence, to urge that England should continue to bear the inconvenience when the national unity is sacrificed for the sake of which it was endured. But the reply does not stop here. The presence of Irish members at Westminster under the new const.i.tution increases and stereotypes the evils, whatever their extent, now resulting from the existence of 103 Irish members in the House of Commons. The evils are increased because the Irish members are turned into a delegation from the Irish State, and their action ceases to be influenced, as it now is, by the consideration--a very important one--that the Imperial Parliament not only in theory but in fact legislates for Ireland, and that the English Cabinet controls the Irish administration and directs the course of political promotion in Ireland. The sentiment and the interest of the Irish members will be changed. Whether they come from North or South they will be representatives of Ireland, and will naturally and rightly consider themselves agents bound in every case to make the best bargain they can for Ireland as against the United Kingdom, or, in plain language, as against England. They will no longer feel it their interest to keep in power the English party which they think will best govern Ireland, for with the government of Ireland the Imperial Parliament will, as long as the new const.i.tution stands, have no practical concern.

No honest Home Ruler supposes that, if the Home Rule Bill pa.s.ses into law, the Imperial Parliament will, even should the tragedy of the Phoenix Park be repeated in some more terrible form, pa.s.s a Crimes Act for Ireland; to the Irish Government will belong the punishment of Irish crime. No interest will therefore restrain the Irish delegation from swaying backwards and forwards between the two English parties, in order to obtain from the one or the other some momentary advantage, or some lucrative concession, to the Irish people. Intrigue will be pardonable, diplomatic finesse will become a duty. This evil no doubt in some degree exists, but under the present state of things it admits of diminution. A just redistribution of the franchise will undoubtedly lessen the number of Ireland's representatives, whilst it will increase the relative importance, if not the actual numbers, of loyalists in the representation of Ireland. The gradual settlement of the land question, as Unionists believe, will further strike at the true root of Irish discontent, and in removing the true grievance of the Irish tenants will diminish the strength of the party which depends for its power on the revolutionary elements in Irish society. But all chance of mitigating the inconvenience inflicted upon England by the presence of the Irish members vanishes for ever when they are changed into an Irish delegation, and are compelled by their position to be the mere mouthpiece of Ireland's claims against England.

The alleged reasons for the weakening of England are untenable, and, were they tenfold stronger than they are, could not remove the flagrant contradiction between the Gladstonian policy of 1886 and the Gladstonian policy of 1893.

But a contradiction which cannot be removed may be explained.

The withdrawal of the Irish members from Westminster might give Ireland the chance of obtaining some of the benefits, and compensate England for some of the evils, of Home Rule. But however this may be, one result it would produce with certainty; it would dash the Gladstonian party to pieces. The friends of Disestablishment, the Welsh, or the Scottish, Home Rulers, the London Socialists, all the revolutionists throughout the country, know that with the departure of the Irish representatives from Westminster their own hopes of triumph must be indefinitely postponed. England is the stronghold of British conservatism, and an arrangement which leaves the fate of England in the hands of Englishmen may be favourable to reform, but is fatal to revolution. Has this fact arrested the attention of Gladstonians? I know not. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the least defensible portion of an indefensible policy should, while it threatens ruin to England, offer temporary salvation to the party who rally round Mr. Gladstone.[55]

C. _The Powers of the Irish Government_

I. _The Irish Executive_. At the head of the Irish Executive will nominally stand the Lord Lieutenant; he will however in reality occupy the position of a colonial Governor, and be, for most purposes, little more than the ornamental figure-head of the Irish Administration. The real executive government of Ireland[56] must be a parliamentary Ministry or Cabinet[57] chosen in effect, though not in name, by the Irish Parliament, or rather by the Irish Legislative a.s.sembly, or House of Commons, just as the English Cabinet is appointed in effect by the English House of Commons. Allowing then for the occasional intervention of the Lord Lieutenant as the representative of the Imperial Parliament to protect either the interests of the Empire or the special rights of the United Kingdom,[58] the Irish Ministry is to occupy in Ireland the position which the New Zealand Ministry occupies in New Zealand, and will for most purposes as truly govern Ireland as the New Zealand Ministry governs New Zealand, or as Mr. Gladstone's Ministry governs England. The Irish Ministry will be the true Government of Ireland.

This is a fact to which the attention of the English public ought to be sedulously directed. The creation of an independent Irish Parliament strikes the imagination; it is seen to be an innovation of primary importance. The creation of an independent Irish Cabinet or Ministry is taken as a matter of course, and neither Unionists nor Gladstonians see its full import. Yet in Ireland, as elsewhere, the character of the Executive is of more practical consequence than the character of the Legislature. A country may dispense, for a long time, with legislation; no country can dispense with good government.

This principle holds good even in an orderly country such as England, where the sphere of the administration is far less extended than it is in most States. We might get on for a good while prosperously enough without a Parliament, or without new laws, but if anything deprived us even for a week of an Executive, or if, for any reason, the whole spirit of the public administration were changed, every Englishman would feel this portentous revolution in every concern of his daily life. The protection of the Government, of the army, of the police, of the law courts, are with us so much matters of course, that we never realise how much the comfort and prosperity of our existence hang upon it, nor do we reflect that the aid we derive from the Courts is in the last instance dependent upon the decisions of the judges being actively supported by the forces at the command of the executive power. Again, we are so used to the preservation on the part of the Executive and the Courts of an att.i.tude of perfect impartiality and to the extension of their aid to all citizens alike, that we can hardly even in imagination conceive what would be the condition of things if the public administration favoured particular cla.s.ses and looked askance on the rights of one cla.s.s, whilst it enforced with rigour the rights of another. Yet events which have been pa.s.sing before our eyes may show any one how absolutely dependent we may be, at any moment, for our enjoyment of life, property, or freedom upon the authority and the equity of the Executive. Consider the strike at Hull. Practically the legal rights and personal freedom of every inhabitant of the city depend upon the action of the Government.

It is as plain as day that if the Government had taken actively and unfairly the side of one party or the other to the contest, the party which the Government favoured would at once have won. Suppose, though the supposition is a very improbable one, that the Home Secretary had directed the police to put down every form of picketing and to arrest every one who counselled the free labourers to desert their employment, the strike would come at once to an end. Suppose on the other hand--the supposition is also a wild one--that the Home Secretary had declined to protect the rights of the free labourers, that the troops had been withdrawn, and that the police had been inactive; suppose, in short, that the Government had been careless to maintain order. The Trade Unionists would at once have become supreme, and freedom of contract, as well as liberty of person, would have been at once abolished. Even in England then the power to exercise our rights as citizens has its source in the constant, though un.o.bserved, intervention of the executive power.

What is true of England is truer still of countries where the sphere of the administration is more widely extended than with us, and what is true of every civilised country is truest of all of Ireland. Ireland is a country where the sphere of the administration is large, and where it will probably be increased. Ireland is divided by hostile factions not too much p.r.o.ne to respect the law. Even as things stand, the Irish Executive finds it hard enough to hold a perfectly even and level course, and the whole state of the country depends upon the spirit in which the law is enforced. One of the very gravest defects of our present system is that in Ireland a change of government means, to a certain extent, a change in the administration of the law. Yet both Mr.

Balfour and Mr. Morley have enforced the law, and have meant, according to their lights, to act towards all citizens with equitable impartiality. And Mr. Balfour, Mr. Morley, or any statesman appointed by the Imperial Parliament, is likely to act with more fairness than at the present moment would any Executive chosen by any Irish Parliament. One thing, at any rate, is certain. An independent Irish Executive will possess immense power. It will be able by mere administrative action or inaction, without pa.s.sing a single law which infringes any Restriction to be imposed by the Irish Government Act, 1893, to effect a revolution.

Let us consider for a moment a few of the things which the Irish Cabinet might do if it chose. It might confine all political, administrative, or judicial appointments to Nationalists, and thus exclude Loyalists from all positions of public trust. It might place the Bench,[59] the magistracy, the police wholly in the hands of Catholics; it might, by encouragement of athletic clubs where the Catholic population were trained to the use of arms, combined with the rigorous suppression of every Protestant a.s.sociation suspected, rightly or not, of preparing resistance to the Parliament at Dublin, bring about the arming of Catholic and the disarming of Protestant Ireland, and, at the same time, raise a force as formidable to England as an openly enrolled Irish army.

But the mere inaction of the Executive might in many spheres produce greater results than active unfairness. The refusal of the police for the enforcement of evictions would abolish rent throughout the country.

And the same result might be attained by a more moderate course. Irish Ministers might in practice draw a distinction between 'good' landlords and 'bad' landlords, and might grant the aid of the police for the collection of reasonable, though refusing it for the collection of excessive rents, and might at last magnanimously recognise the virtues of Mr. Smith-Barry, whilst pa.s.sing a practical sentence of outlawry on Lord Clanricarde. Is there anything absurd or unreasonable in the supposition that a Ministry of Land Leaguers chosen by a Parliament of Nationalists should attempt to enforce the unwritten law of the Land League? A Gladstonian who answers this question in the affirmative entertains a far lower opinion than can any candid Unionist of Mr.

Gladstone's Irish allies. It would be the grossest unfairness to suggest that every man convicted of conspiracy by the Special Commission added to criminality and recklessness a monstrous form of hypocrisy, and that, whilst urging Irish peasants to boycott evictors and land-grabbers, he felt no genuine moral abhorrence of evictions and land-grabbing. But if, as is certainly the case, the founders of the Land League really detested the existing system of land tenure, and considered a landlord who exacted rent a criminal, and a tenant who paid it a caitiff, it is as certain as anything can be that they will be under the greatest temptation, not to say, in their own eyes, under a stringent moral obligation, to strain the power of an Irish Executive for the purpose of abolis.h.i.+ng the payment of rent. Nothing, at any rate, will seem to an Irish Ministry more desirable than that within three years[60] from the pa.s.sing of the Bill landlords and tenants should come to an arrangement, and nothing is more likely to produce this result than the withdrawal from the landlords of the aid, if not the protection, of the law. My argument, however, at the present point does not require the a.s.sertion or the belief that an Irish Ministry will be guilty of every act of oppression which it can legally commit. All that I insist upon is that an Irish Ministry will exercise immense power, and that without violating a letter of the const.i.tution, and without pa.s.sing a single act which any Court whatever could treat as void, the Ministry will be able to change the social condition of Ireland. The Irish Cabinet, remember, will not be checked by any Irish House of Commons, for it will represent the majority of that House. It will not need to fear the interposition of the Imperial Ministry or the Imperial Parliament, for if the authorities in England are to supervise and correct the conduct of the Irish Cabinet, Home Rule is at an end. Mr. Asquith has repudiated all idea of creating two Executives in Ireland[61] for the ordinary purposes of government, and from his own point of view he is right. The notion of a dual control is preposterous; the attempt to carry it out must involve anarchy or revolution. The Irish Ministry must in ordinary matters be at least as free as the Ministry of a self-governing colony. The independence of the Irish Executive is indeed a totally new phenomenon in Irish history, and is, as I have said, a far more important matter than the independence of the Irish Parliament, but it is an essential feature of Home Rule, and every elector throughout England should try to realise its import.

One check, indeed, is placed upon the power of the Irish Cabinet. The military forces of the Crown, and the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police (as long as they exist[62]), are subject to the control of the Imperial or English Ministry.[63] The result is that the English Cabinet will have the means of using force in Ireland for the maintenance of order, for the execution of the law, or for the maintenance of the authority of the Imperial Parliament. But this advantage is after all purchased at the price of placing the country under the rule of something very like two Executives. If the policy of the Irish Cabinet, _e.g._ as to suppressing a riot at Dublin or Belfast, should differ from the policy of the English Cabinet, the ordinary police may be called into action whilst the army or the royal constabulary stand by inactive, or the army may disperse a meeting which the Irish Ministry hold to be a lawful a.s.sembly.

II. _The Irish Parliament._ The authority of the Irish Parliament, whilst acting within the limits of the const.i.tution, is extremely wide.[64]

The Parliament appoints the Irish Government of the day; it will determine whether Mr. M'Carthy or Mr. Redmond, Mr. Healy or Mr. Davitt, directs the Irish Administration. In this matter the British Government will have no voice. The English Ministry are under the new const.i.tution expected in many ways to co-operate with the Irish Ministry, yet it is quite conceivable that the Ministers of the Crown at Dublin may be men whose whole ideas of expediency, of policy, of political morality, may be opposed to the ideas of the Ministers of the Crown at Westminster.

The Irish Parliament, again, even if every Restriction on its powers inserted in the Home Rule Bill should pa.s.s into law, will be found to have ample scope for legislative action.[65]

It can repeal[66] any Act affecting Ireland which was enacted before the pa.s.sing of the Home Rule Bill. Thus it can do away with the right to the writ of _habeas corpus_; it can abolish the whole system of trial by jury; it can by wide rules as to the change of venue expose any inhabitant of Belfast, charged with any offence against the Irish Government, to the certainty of being tried in Dublin or in Cork. If an Irish law cannot touch the law of treason or of treason-felony, the leaders of the Irish Parliament may easily invent new offences not called by these names, and the Parliament may impose severe penalties on any one who attempts by act or by speech to bring the Irish Government into contempt. A new law of sacrilege may be pa.s.sed which would make criticism of the Irish priesthood, or attacks on the Roman Catholic religion, or the public advocacy of Protestantism, practically impossible. The Irish House of Commons may take the decision of election pet.i.tions into its own hands, and members nominated by the priests may determine the proper limits of spiritual influence. Thus the party dominant at Dublin can, if they see fit, abolish all freedom of election; nor is this all that the Irish Parliament can accomplish in the way of ensuring the supremacy of an Irish party. After six years from the pa.s.sing of the Home Rule Bill--let us say in the year 1900--the Irish Parliament can alter the qualification of the electors and the distribution of the members among the const.i.tuencies. Parliament can in fact introduce at once universal suffrage, and do everything which the ingenuity of partisans.h.i.+p can suggest for diminis.h.i.+ng the representation of property and of Protestantism. If, further, in any part of Ireland there be reason to fear opposition to the laws of the Irish Parliament, a severer Coercion Act may be pa.s.sed than any which has as yet found its way on to the pages of the English or the Irish Statute Book. Worse than all this, the Irish Parliament has the right to legislate with regard to transactions which have taken place before the pa.s.sing of the Home Rule Bill. An Act inflicting penalties on magistrates who have been zealous in the enforcement of the Crimes Act, an Act abolis.h.i.+ng the right to recover debts incurred before 1893, an Act for compensation to tenants who had suffered from obedience to the behests of the Land League, are all Acts which, however monstrous, the Irish Parliament is, under the new const.i.tution, competent to pa.s.s.

My a.s.sertion is, be it noted, not that all or any of such laws would be pa.s.sed, but that the pa.s.sing of them would, under the new const.i.tution, be legal. The Irish Parliament could further by its legislation pursue lines of policy opposed to the moral feeling and political judgment of Great Britain, and this too where Irish legislation practically affects Great Britain. State lotteries might be re-established, gambling tables might be re-opened at Dublin. If the imposition of protective duties on imported goods is forbidden, there is nothing apparently to prevent the reintroduction of Protection into Ireland by the payment of bounties; there is certainly nothing to prohibit the repeal or suspension of the Factory Acts, so that English manufacturers might be compelled to compete with Irish rivals who are freed from the limits imposed upon excessive labour by the humanity or the wisdom of England. The power of the Irish Parliament to pa.s.s laws which in the eyes of Englishmen are unwise or inequitable, is, it will be urged, an essential part of the policy of Home Rule. I admit that this is so. But this makes it the more necessary that English electors should realise what this essential characteristic of Home Rule means, or may mean. The Nonconformist conscience exposed Irish Home Rulers to painful humiliation and possible ruin by forbidding them to follow the political leader of their choice to whom they had deliberately renewed their allegiance. Is it certain that Englishmen who could not tolerate the official authority of Mr.

Parnell will bear the official leaders.h.i.+p, say of Mr. Healy, if employed to carry out the economical principles of Mr. Davitt?

The legislative powers, ample as they are, of the Irish Parliament are in some respects restricted, but what the Parliament cannot accomplish by law it could accomplish by resolution. The expressed opinion of a legislature ent.i.tled to speak in the name of the people of Ireland must always command attention, and may exert decisive influence. Suppose that the Irish House of Commons a.s.serts in respectful, but firm, language, the right of the Irish people to establish a protective tariff; suppose that when England is engaged in a diplomatic, or an armed, contest with France, the Irish House of Commons resolves that Ireland sympathises with France, that Ireland disapproves of all alliance with Germany, that she has no interest in war, and wishes to stand neutral; or suppose that, taking another line, the Irish Parliament at the approach of hostilities resolves that the people of Ireland a.s.sert their inherent right to arm volunteers, or raise an army in their own defence. No English Minister can allege with truth that these resolutions or a score more of the same kind are a breach of the const.i.tution; yet such resolutions will not be without their effect in England; they cannot be without their effect abroad; in many parts of Ireland they will have more than the authority of an Act of Parliament.

a.s.sume, for the purpose of my argument, that the Irish Parliament always acts absolutely within the limits or the letter of the const.i.tution, though to make this a.s.sumption is to subst.i.tute unreasonable hopes for rational expectations. What Englishmen should note, because they do not yet understand it, is that within the limits of the const.i.tution the Irish Cabinet and the Irish Parliament possess and must possess the most extensive powers, and that these powers may be used in ways which would surprise and shock the British public, and impede and weaken the action of the Imperial, or English, Government.

D. _The Restrictions (or Safeguards) and the Obligations_

I. _Their Nature_. The limitations on the power of the Irish Legislature are of a twofold character.

The Restrictions contained in clause 3 of the Bill are intended to restrain the Irish Parliament from acting as the representative body of an independent nation. This clause invalidates for example acts with respect to the Crown or the succession to the Crown, with respect to peace or war, with respect to the naval or military forces of the realm, with respect to treaties or other relations with foreign states, and with respect to trade with any place out of Ireland, which apparently includes the imposition of a protective tariff.

The Restrictions[67] contained in clause 4 may be roughly divided into three heads; first, prohibitions intended to ensure the maintenance of absolute religious equality[68]; secondly, prohibitions intended to prevent injustice to individuals, such as deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, denial of equal protection of the law, the taxing of private property without due compensation, or the unfair treatment of any existing corporation; thirdly, a provision prohibiting any law which deprives any inhabitant of the United Kingdom of equal rights to public sea fisheries.[69]