Against Home Rule (1912) Part 9

Some of the provisions of this scheme are of exceptional interest. If it had ever been in operation the plan, for example, of adjusting the payments from one exchequer to the other in the event of changes being enacted by the Imperial Parliament in the Excise duties must have been fruitful of difficulties and created much friction. If the duties had been reduced there might have been an increased consumption. Who can say how much of the revenue lost to the Irish Exchequer in the event of a reduction of duties would have been due to the reduced rates of duty, and how much had been regained by increased consumption. Again, if the Excise duties had been increased, as in the Budget of 1909, to such a degree that the total revenue at the higher duty was less than the total revenue from the lower duty, who could have determined whether this was a case requiring a payment from the Irish to the British Exchequer, or from the British to the Irish Exchequer.

Perhaps the most striking novelty of the first scheme of 1893 was the retention of the Customs duties in lieu of Ireland's contribution to Imperial Services. At that time the estimated value of the Customs contributed by Ireland was 2,400,000, and seeing that in 1886 her reasonable share of liability on account of Imperial Services was put at 4,600,000, the very large gift to Ireland represented by this scheme may be readily imagined. Even with the full advantage of this gift the estimated Irish surplus was put at 500,000. During the discussions of the Bill an error in the Excise contributions, reducing the revenue available to the Irish Exchequer by 356,000 was discovered. The reduced surplus of 144,000 was regarded by Mr. Gladstone as "cutting it too fine," and the financial scheme was completely recast. Before explaining the third scheme it might be well to examine as before how the original scheme of 1893 would work out at the present time. This is shown in the following balance sheet.

SCHEME B (BASED ON BILL OF 1893, AS INTRODUCED).

REVENUE. EXPENDITURE.

1. Excise (true revenue 1. Civil Government _ex._ licences) 2,952,000 charges (_ex._ Constabulary 2. Local Taxes-- and Lord (_a_) Stamps 333,000 Lieutenant's salary) 6,952,000 (_b_) Death Duties 914,000 2. Collection of Ireland (_c_) Income Tax 1,307,000 Revenues, etc. 298,000 (_d_) Excise licences 284,000 3. Postal Services 1,404,000 3. Postal Revenue 1,155,000 4. Contribution to Constabulary 4. Miscellaneous 150,000 (2/3rds of --------- 1,464,500) 976,000 7,095,000 Deficit 2,535,000 --------- --------- 9,630,000 9,630,000

The narrow surplus of 144,000 has disappeared, and instead there is on present-day figures the substantial deficit of 2,535,000. Here again it may be observed that the Excise duties are fixed by the Imperial Parliament, and the Postal charges are presumably also invariable. The first Budget deficit would, as before, be not less than 3,000,000. The taxes within the absolute control of the Irish Parliament would have been producing a revenue of 2,838,000. It is within this range of taxation, or by the imposition of new direct taxes, that the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been compelled to raise an additional 3,000,000 in order to make the two sides of his account balance.

Owing to the mistake already referred to, Mr. Gladstone prepared and presented a third scheme, whose princ.i.p.al features were as follows:--

1. Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure to be one-third of the true revenue of taxes levied in Ireland.

2. Ireland to be credited with miscellaneous receipts and surplus (if any) arising from postal services.

3. Ireland to pay out of revenues credited to her, two-thirds of the cost of the Constabulary, all Civil Government charges and any deficit on postal services.

4. The Customs and Inland Revenue duties and the rates for Postal charges to be fixed and collected by Imperial Parliament.

5. After six years (1) Irish contribution to Imperial Services to be revised; (2) the collection of Inland Revenue duties to be undertaken by Irish Government; (3) Irish legislation to impose the stamp duties, income tax, and excise licences. The financial clauses as thus remodelled and simplified were expected to produce a surplus of 512,000. The characteristic feature of this arrangement was the provision for handing over to the Imperial Exchequer one-third of the Irish true tax revenue as Ireland's payment on account of Imperial Services. How matters would stand if this arrangement were applied to the present financial situation in Ireland may be seen from the following table.

SCHEME C (BASED ON BILL OF 1893, AS AMENDED).

REVENUE. EXPENDITURE

1. Customs 2,866,000 1. Civil Government 2. Excise (_ex._ licence Charges 6,952,000 duties) 2,952,000 2. Constabulary (2/3rds 3. Stamps 333,000 of 1,464,000) 976,000 4. Death duties 914,000 3. Estimated deficit on 5. Licence duties 284,000 Postal Services 249,000 6. Income Tax 1,307,000 7. Crown Lands, etc. 25,000 --------- 8,681,000 --------- 8. 2/3rds of 8,965,000 5,757,000 9. Miscellaneous Receipts 115,000 --------- 5,902,000 Deficit 2,275,000 --------- --------- Total 8,177,000 Total 8,177,000 --------- ---------

The main Irish objection to a scheme of this description is that, whatever tax be imposed, the amount taken from the Irish taxpayer would be 50 per cent. greater than the amount going into the Irish Exchequer.

It is easy to foresee that such an arrangement would have led to much friction and difficulty, and that it could not have lasted even the six years for which it was provisionally fixed. If applied to the present situation Ireland would have been contributing less than 3,000,000 for Imperial services, although a very moderate estimate of what her contribution should be would require her to pay at least 5,000,000. In spite of this modest payment, however, this scheme would have confronted the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer with a deficit of more than 2,250,000 rising at once to 2,700,000 in consequence of the Insurance Act.

In reviewing the three financial schemes which have previously seen the light, the following facts stand out clearly:--

1. Some contribution was expected from Ireland for Imperial services in each scheme.

2. The rates of customs, excise, and postage were in all cases to be controlled by the Imperial Parliament.

3. The customs were in every case to be collected by officers of the Imperial Exchequer.

4. In the two schemes of 1893 "true" revenue and not "collected" revenue was the basis of the financial arrangement.

5. Each of these schemes would involve the Irish Parliament from the outset in a huge deficit.

In view of these facts it is certain that any arrangement which pretended to give a Budget surplus to the Irish Parliament would involve, overtly or covertly, the payment of a large subsidy to Ireland out of the Imperial Exchequer. Such a contingency is not likely to make Home Rule more acceptable, or the path of any Bill through Parliament more easy.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 50: See Parliamentary Debates.]

[Footnote 51: Based on White Papers 233 (1910) and 220 (1911).]

[Footnote 52: No contribution from Ireland in this year; local expenditure is estimated to have been in excess of revenue contributed.]

[Footnote 53: Since the above was written, Mr. Birrell has promised (March 27, 1912) to publish the report "some time" after the introduction of the Home Rule Bill.]

V

HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL a.n.a.lOGY.

BY L.S. AMERY, M.P.

There is no argument in favour of Home Rule for Ireland which is more frequently used to-day than that which is based on the a.n.a.logy of our Colonial experience. In the history of every one of our Colonies--so runs one variant of the argument--from Lord Durham's report on Canada down to the grant of responsible government to the Transvaal, "Home Rule" has turned disaffection into loyalty, and has inaugurated a career of prosperity. Why should we then hesitate to apply to Irish discontent the "freedom" which has proved so sovereign a remedy elsewhere? Again, if our Dominions have been able to combine local Home Rule with national unity--so runs another variant--why should a policy which works successfully in Canada or Australia not work in the United Kingdom?

Another suggestion freely thrown out is that Home Rule is only the beginning of a process of federalisation which is to bring us to the goal of Imperial Federation. In one form or another the Colonial a.n.a.logy occupies the foreground of almost every speech or article in favour of Irish Home Rule. The ablest, as well as the most courageous, piece of Home Rule advocacy which has so far appeared, Mr. Erskine Childers's "Framework of Home Rule," is based from first to last on this a.n.a.logy and on little else.

That the argument is effective cannot be gainsaid. It is the argument which appeals most strongly to the great body of thoughtful Liberals who from every other point of view look upon the project with unconcealed misgiving. It is the argument which has appealed to public opinion in the Dominions, and has there secured public resolutions and private subscriptions for the Nationalist cause. In one of its forms it appealed to the imagination of an Imperialist like Cecil Rhodes. In another it has, undoubtedly, in recent years attracted not a few Unionists who have been prepared to approach with, at any rate, an open mind the consideration of a federal const.i.tution for the United Kingdom. And, indeed, if the a.n.a.logy really applied, it would be difficult to resist the conclusion. If Ireland has really been denied something which has proved the secret of Colonial loyalty and prosperity, what Englishman would be so short-sighted as to wish to deprive her of it for the mere sake of domination? If Home Rule were really a stepping-stone towards Imperial Federation, how insincere our professions of "thinking Imperially," if we are not prepared to sacrifice a merely local sentiment of union for a great all-embracing ideal!

But, as a matter of fact, there is no such a.n.a.logy bearing on the question which, here and now, is at issue. On the contrary the whole trend of Colonial experience confirms, in the most striking fas.h.i.+on, the essential soundness of the position which Unionists have maintained throughout, that the material, social and moral interests, alike of Ireland and of Great Britain, demand that they should remain members of one effective, undivided legislative and administrative organisation.

The whole argument, indeed, plausible as it is, is based on a series of confusions, due, in part, to deliberate obscuring of the issue, in part to the vagueness of the phrase "Home Rule," and to the general ignorance of the origin and real nature of the British Colonial system. There are, indeed, three main confusions of thought. There is, first of all, the confusion between "free" or "self-governing" inst.i.tutions, as contrasted with unrepresentative or autocratic rule, and separate government, whether for all or for specified purposes, as contrasted with a common government. In the next place there is the confusion between the status of a self-governing Dominion, in its relations to the Imperial Government, and the status of a Colonial state or provincial government towards the Dominion of which it forms a part. A truly inimitable instance of this confusion has been provided by Mr. Redmond in a declaration made on more than one occasion that all that Ireland asks for, is, "What has already been given to twenty-eight different portions of the Empire."[54] Considering that the "portions" thus enumerated include practically sovereign nation states like Canada, provinces like those of the South African Union, with little more than county council powers, and stray survivals, like the Isle of Man, of an earlier system of government, based on the same principle of ascendency and interference as the government of Ireland under Poynings's Act, it is difficult to know which to admire most, Mr. Redmond's a.s.surance, or his cynical appreciation of the ignorance or capacity for deliberate self-deception of those with whom he has to deal. The third confusion is that between Imperial functions and national or Dominion functions, due to the fact that the two are combined in the United Kingdom Parliament, which is also, under present conditions, the Imperial Parliament, and to the consequent habitual use of the word "Imperial" in two quite different senses. It is this last confusion which makes such a declaration as Mr. Asquith's about safeguarding "the indefeasible authority of the Imperial Parliament" a mere equivocation, for it affords no indication as to whether the supremacy retained is the effective and direct control maintained by Canada over Ontario, or the much slighter and vaguer supremacy exercised by the United Kingdom over the Dominions. It is this same confusion, too, which is responsible for the notion that the problem of creating a true Imperial Parliament or Council by a federation of the Dominions would be a.s.sisted, either by creating an additional Dominion in the shape of Ireland, or by arranging the internal const.i.tution of the United Kingdom, as one of the federating Dominions, on a federal rather than on a unitary basis.

The confusion of ideas between self-government and separate government pervades the whole argument that the granting of "Home Rule" to Ireland would be a.n.a.logous to the grant of responsible inst.i.tutions to the Colonies. The essence of Home Rule is the creation of a separate government for Ireland. The essence of our Colonial policy has been the establishment of popular self-government in the Colonies. That this self-government has been effected through local parliaments and local executives, and not by representation in a common parliament, is a consequence of the immense distances and the profound differences in local conditions separating the Dominions from the Mother Country. It is an adaptation of the policy to peculiar conditions, and not an essential principle of the policy itself.

This is obvious from any consideration of the circ.u.mstances under which the policy of Colonial self-government originated. Under the old Colonial system which preceded it, the Governor not only controlled the executive government, whose members were simply his official subordinates, but also controlled legislation through a nominated Upper Chamber or Legislative Council. The object of this restrictive policy was not interference with local affairs, but the supposed necessity of safeguarding general Imperial interests. Local affairs were, in the main, left to the local government. But the peculiar const.i.tution of that government rendered it almost inevitable that the practical control of those affairs should fall into the hands of a narrowly limited cla.s.s, cl.u.s.tering round the Governor and his circle, and by its privileges and prejudices creating in those excluded from that cla.s.s a spirit of opposition, which extended from its members to the whole Imperial system which they were supposed to personify. In each of the North American Colonies a small oligarchy, generally known as the "Family Compact,"

was able to "monopolise the Executive Council, the Legislative Council, the Bench, the Bar, and all offices of profit." It was against this system, and not against the Imperial connection or even against undue interference from England, that the Canadian rebellion of 1837 was directed. In 1838 Lord Durham made his famous report in which he attributed the troubles to their true cause, the disregard of public opinion, and proposed that the Governor should in future govern, in local affairs, in accordance with the advice given by Colonial Ministers enjoying the confidence of the popular a.s.sembly. A few years later his policy was put into execution by Lord Elgin in Canada, and rapidly extended to other Colonies. Five years ago the same system of government was applied to the Transvaal and to the Orange River Colony.[55]

From the foregoing brief summary, it is sufficiently clear that the really vital feature of the policy inaugurated by Lord Durham was the acceptance of responsible popular government in local affairs, and not the separation of Colonial government from Imperial control. The policy did not involve the setting up of new legislative machinery or a new definition of Imperial relations. For an existing system of separate government in local affairs, which created friction and discontent, it simply subst.i.tuted a new system which has, in the main, worked smoothly up to the present. From the success of this policy, what possible direct inference can be drawn as to the effect of setting up in Ireland, not a similar system of government, for Ireland already enjoys political inst.i.tutions as fully representative as those of any Colony, or of any other portion of the United Kingdom, but a separate centre of government?

At the same time the success of responsible government in the Colonies is, on closer examination, by no means without bearing on the problem of Ireland. That system of Colonial responsible government which seems to us so simple and obvious is, on the contrary, one of the most artificial systems the world has ever known, based as it is upon conditions which have never been present before in the world's history, and which are now rapidly disappearing, never, perhaps, to recur. That a popular a.s.sembly in complete control of the executive, should respect an unwritten convention limiting its powers and rights to purely local affairs, and submit to a purely external control of its wider interests and destinies, seemed to most of Lord Durham's contemporaries almost unthinkable. Not only those who opposed the policy, but many of those who advocated it, were convinced that it would lead to complete separation. Nor were their fears or hopes by any means ill-grounded.

That they were not justified by the event was due to an altogether exceptional combination of factors. The first of these was the overwhelming supremacy of the United Kingdom in commerce and naval power, and its practical monopoly of political influence in the outer world. Sheltered by an invincible navy, far removed from the sound of international conflict, the Colonies had no practical motive for concerning themselves with foreign affairs, or with any but purely local measures of defence. Even when, as in 1854, they were technically involved by the United Kingdom in war with a great Power, they were not so much as inconvenienced. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, incurred no serious expenditure for their defence beyond what was in any case required for the defence of its sea-borne commerce, nor was its foreign policy at any time seriously deflected by regard for Colonial considerations. Even when the Colonies encroached on the original limits set them, and began to establish protectionist tariffs against the Mother Country, British manufacturers could afford to disregard a handicap of which they were at first scarcely sensible, while British statesmen smiled condescendingly at the harmless aberrations of Colonial inexperience. Another factor was the very fact that it was colonies that the United Kingdom was dealing with, new countries where every other interest was secondary to that of opening up and developing the untamed wilderness, to creating the material framework which, in fulness of time, might support a complete national life. There was consequently little real interest in external policy in the Colonial a.s.semblies, little leisure for criticism of the Imperial authorities, little desire to a.s.sert any particular point of view. Last, but not least, was the factor of distance, interposing a veil of obscurity between the different communities in the Empire; mitigating minor causes of friction, keeping Colonial politics free from being entangled in the British Party system.

The British system of Colonial self-government has so far proved workable because of the exceptional circ.u.mstances in which it originated. But its success cannot be regarded as wholly unqualified.

The failure to provide any direct representation of Colonial interests and aspirations in the Imperial Parliament may not have mattered as far as foreign policy and defence were concerned. But it did affect the colonies most seriously from the economic point of view, for it precluded them from pressing with any effect for the development of inter-Imperial communications, or from resisting the abolition of the system of preferential trade which meant so much to their prosperity.

Under the influence of a narrowly selfish and short-sighted policy, inspired by English manufacturing interests, Canada saw the stream of commerce and population pa.s.s by her sh.o.r.es on its way to the United States. The relative progress of the British Colonies and of the United States since the abolition of preference is some measure of the economic weakness of a political system which has no common trade policy. In any case the British Colonial system, as we have known it is inevitably moving towards its crisis. The conditions under which it originated are fast disappearing. The commercial and political expansion of Europe, of America, of Asia, are bringing the Dominions more and more into the arena of international conflict. The growth of foreign navies is forcing them to realise the necessity of taking a larger part in their own defence. Their growing national self-consciousness demands not only that they should cease to be dependent on the Mother Country for their safety, but also that they should exercise control over the foreign policy of which defence is merely the instrument. There are only two possible solutions to the problem which is now developing: the one is complete separation, the other is partners.h.i.+p in an Imperial Union in which British subjects in the Dominions shall stand on exactly the same footing, and enjoy the same powers and privileges in Imperial affairs, as British subjects in the United Kingdom.

The conditions--geographical, economic, political--which, in the Colonies, made the grant of free inst.i.tutions, unaccompanied by some form of political federation or union, even a temporary success, were, indeed, exceptional. None of them were present in the circ.u.mstances of Ireland before the Union. They are not present to-day. Geographically the United Kingdom is a single compact island group, of which Ireland is by no means the most outlying portion. No part of Ireland is to-day, or ever was, as inaccessible from the political centre of British power as the remoter parts of the Highlands, not to speak of the Shetlands or Hebrides. Racially, no less than physically, Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, peopled as it is with the same mixture of racial elements as the main island of the group. The blend of Celt with Dane, with Normans and English of the Pale, with English citizens of the seaports and Cromwellian settlers, which const.i.tutes Celtic Ireland, so-called, is less Celtic both in speech and in blood than either Wales or the Highlands. Religion alone has maintained a difference between a predominantly Celtic and a predominantly Teutonic Ireland which would otherwise have disappeared far more completely than the difference between Celtic and Teutonic Scotland. Economically, the connection between Ireland and Great Britain, always close, has become such that to-day Ireland subsists almost wholly upon the English market. In these respects, at least, there is no resemblance between the conditions of Ireland and that of any of the Colonies.

On the other hand, politically, Ireland was for centuries treated as a colony--"the first and nearest of the Colonies," as Mr. Childers puts it. The difficulties and defects of early Colonial government were intensified by the great conflict of the Reformation, which made Ireland a centre of foreign intrigue, and by the long religious and const.i.tutional struggle of the seventeenth century, which fell with terrible severity upon a population which had throughout espoused the losing cause. Cromwell; realising that "if there is to be a prosperous, strong and United Kingdom there must be one Parliament and one Parliament only," freed Ireland from the Colonial status. Unfortunately, his policy was reversed in 1660, and for over a century Ireland endured the position of "least favoured Colony"--least favoured, partly because, with the possible exception of linen, all her industries were compet.i.tive with, and not complementary to English industries, and so were deliberately crushed in accordance with the common economic policy of the time, partly because the memories of past struggles kept England suspicious and jealous of Irish prosperity. Every evil under which the old colonial system laboured in Canada before the rebellion was intensified in Ireland by the religious and racial feud between the ma.s.s of the people and the ascendant caste. The same solvent of free government that Durham recommended was needed by Ireland. In view of the geographical and economic position of Ireland, and in the political circ.u.mstances of the time, it could only be applied through union with Great Britain. Union had been vainly prayed for by the Irish Parliament at the time of the Scottish Union. Most thoughtful students, not least among them Adam Smith,[56] had seen in it the only cure for the evils which afflicted the hapless island.

Meanwhile, in 1782, the dominant caste utilised the Ulster volunteer movement to wrest from Great Britain, then in the last throes of the war against France, Spain, and America, the independence of the Irish Parliament. Theoretically co-equal with the British Parliament, Grattan's Parliament was, in practice, kept by bribery in a position differing very little from that of Canada before the rebellion. Still the new system in Ireland might, under conditions resembling those of Canada in 1840, have gradually evolved into a workable scheme of self-government. But the conditions were too different. A temporary economic revival, indeed, followed the removal of the crippling restrictions upon Irish trade. But, politically, the new system began to break down almost from the start. Its entanglement in English party politics, which geography made inevitable, lead to deadlocks over trade and over the regency question, the latter practically involving the right to choose a separate sovereign. The same geographical conditions made it impossible for Ireland to escape the influence of the French Revolution. The factious spirit and the oppression of the ruling caste did the rest. There is no need to dwell here on the horrors of the rising of 1798, and of its repression, or on the political and financial chaos that marked the collapse of an ill-starred experiment. England, struggling for her existence, had had enough of French invasion, civil war, and general anarchy on her flank. The Irish Parliament died, as it had lived, by corruption, and Castlereagh and Pitt conferred upon Ireland the too long delayed boon of equal partners.h.i.+p in the United Kingdom.

The mistakes which, for a century, deprived the Union of much of its effect--the delay in granting Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, the folly of Free Trade, acquiesced in by Irish members, by which agrarian strife was intensified, and through which Ireland again lost the increase of population which she had gained in the first half century of Union--need not be discussed here. The fact remains that to-day Ireland is prosperous, and on the eve of far greater prosperity under a sane system of national economic policy. What is more, Ireland is in the enjoyment of practically every liberty and every privilege that is enjoyed by any other part of the United Kingdom, of greater liberty and privilege than is enjoyed by Dominions which have no control of Imperial affairs. The principle which in the case of the Colonies was applied through separate governments has, in her case, been applied through Union. It could only have been applied through Union in 1800. It can only be applied through Union to-day. Railways and steams.h.i.+ps have strengthened the geographical and economic reasons for union; train-ferries and aircraft will intensify them still further. Meanwhile the political and strategical conditions of these islands in the near future are far more likely to resemble those of the great Napoleonic struggle than those of the Colonial Empire in its halcyon period.

In one aspect, then, the Union was the only feasible way of carrying out the principle which underlay the successful establishment of Colonial self-government. In another aspect it was the last step of a natural and, indeed, inevitable process for which the history of the British Colonies since the grant of self-government has furnished a.n.a.logies in abundance. It has furnished none for the reversal of that process. It is only necessary to consider the reasons which, in various degrees, influenced the several groups of independent Colonies in North America, Australia, and South Africa to unite under a single government, whether federal or unitary, thus wholly or partially surrendering the "Home Rule" previously enjoyed by them, in order to see how close is the parallel. The weak and scattered North American Colonies were at a serious disadvantage in all political and commercial negotiations with their powerful neighbour, the United States, a fact very clearly emphasised by the termination of Lord Elgin's reciprocity treaty in 1864. None of them was in a position to deal with the vast territories of the North-West, undeveloped by the Hudson's Bay Company, and in imminent danger of American occupation. A common trade policy, a common railway policy, and a common banking system were essential to a rapid development of their great resources, and only a common government could provide them. In Australia the chief factor in bringing about federation was the weakness and want of influence of the separate Colonies in dealing with problems of defence and external policy, impressed upon them by German and French colonial expansion in the Pacific, and by the growth of j.a.pan. In South Africa, on the other hand, the factors were mainly internal. The constant friction over railway and customs agreements, continually on the verge of breaking down, embittered the relations of the different Colonies and maintained an atmosphere of uncertainty discouraging to commercial enterprise. Four different governments dealt with a labour supply mainly required in one colony.