England's Case Against Home Rule Part 1

England's Case Against Home Rule.

by Albert Venn Dicey.

PREFACE.

An author who publishes a book having any reference to Irish affairs may, not unnaturally, be supposed either to possess some special knowledge of Ireland, or else to be the advocate of some new specific for the cure of Irish discontent. Of neither of these suppositions can I claim the benefit. My knowledge of Ireland is merely the knowledge--perhaps it were better to say the ignorance--of an educated Englishman. It is derived from conversation with better informed friends, from careful attention to the discussions on Irish policy which for the last eighteen years have engrossed public attention, and from books accessible to ordinary readers. If I can claim no special acquaintance with Ireland, still less have I the presumption or the folly to come forward as the inventor of any political nostrum. My justification for publishing my thoughts on Home Rule is that the movement in favour of the Parliamentary independence of Ireland const.i.tutes, whether its advocates recognise the fact or not, a demand for fundamental alterations in the whole Const.i.tution of the United Kingdom; and while I may without presumption consider myself moderately acquainted with the principles of Const.i.tutional law, I entertain the firmest conviction that any scheme for Home Rule in Ireland involves dangerous if not fatal innovations on the Const.i.tution of Great Britain.

To set forth the reasons for this opinion is the object of this work.

The opinion itself, whatever its worth, is not the growth of recent controversy; it has been entertained for years, and has been expressed by me in various publications. This book is much more than a reprint; its contents are, however, in part made up of articles which have already been published. My thanks are due to the owners of the _Contemporary Review_ and of the New York _Nation_ for their permission to make free use of my contributions to the pages of their periodicals; it is a pleasure to acknowledge the exceptional liberality with which my friend, Mr. E.L. G.o.dkin, has allowed me to publish on my own responsibility in the columns of the _Nation_, opinions of which he is himself the strenuous and most able opponent.

Nor are my acknowledgments due only to the living. Gustave de Beaumont's '_Irelande sociale et politique_' was placed in my hands by a friend after the plan of my argument was complete, and the writing of this book was in fact begun. From De Beaumont I learnt more than from any other writer on the subject of Ireland with whose works I am acquainted, and I found to my great satisfaction that his speculations curiously confirm the objections I was prepared to urge against the policy of Home Rule.

It is a duty to insist upon the debt I owe to De Beaumont, because at the present moment no greater service can be rendered to Englishmen and to Irishmen alike than to press upon them the study of an author whose writings are far better known on the Continent than in England, and whose thoughts, though they may seem a little out of date, are full not only of profound wisdom but of practical guidance.

A.V. DICEY.

OCTOBER, 1886.

CHAPTER I.

NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT.

[Sidenote: Aim and line of argument]

My aim is to criticise from a purely English point of view the policy of Home Rule, or the proposal to create a more or less independent Parliament in Ireland; and as a result of such criticism to establish the truth, and develop the consequences, of this proposition--namely, that any system of Home Rule, whatever be the form it takes, is less beneficial to Great Britain, or (to use popular language) to England, than is the maintenance of the Union, and is at least as much opposed to the vital interests of England as would be the national independence of Ireland.

The train of reasoning by which it is sought to establish this principle, and the consequences which the principle involves, consists of the following steps: first, an examination into the causes which give strength to the Home Rule movement in England, and the nature of the arguments in its support used by English Home Rulers; secondly, a statement of the advantages and disadvantages, from an English point of view, on the one hand of maintaining the Union, and on the other of separation from Ireland; thirdly, a criticism of each of the princ.i.p.al forms[1] under which Home Rule has been actually presented to the attention of the public, the aim of such criticism being in each case to determine how far the particular form of Home Rule can compete as regards the interests of England with the alternative policies of Unionism and of Irish independence; and, fourthly, a summary of the conclusions arrived at by this survey of the policy of Home Rule. My endeavour will be to make this survey without any appeal to prejudice, pa.s.sion, or sentiment, and with the calmness and fairness which a scientific const.i.tutionalist should display in weighing the merits of any other proposed alteration in our form of government, such for example as the introduction of life peers into the House of Lords, or in estimating the value of some foreign const.i.tutional invention, such for example as the Swiss Referendum or the Dual system which links together Hungary and the Austrian Empire. No citizen of the United Kingdom indeed can pretend to be an impartial critic of a policy which divides the whole nation into opposing parties. But during a period of revolutionary excitement it is well to remember that any legislative innovation, however keen the feelings of partisanship which it may arouse, is always in itself capable of being looked at from a logical or abstract point of view, and ought to be so looked at by jurists. To one cla.s.s indeed among the advocates of Home Rule the fundamental principle contended for in these pages will appear irrelevant to the points at issue between such Home Rulers and their opponents. Nationalists, who still occupy the position held in 1848 by Sir Gavan Duffy and his friends, and who either openly contend for the right of Ireland to be an independent nation, or accept Home Rule (as they may with perfect fairness) simply as a step towards the independence of their country, are naturally and rightly unaffected by reasoning which shows, however conclusively, that Home Rule may be as injurious to England as a complete severance of the political connection between England and Ireland. A Nationalist may say with justice that he is no more bound to consider whether England will or will not be damaged by Ireland's becoming a nation, than an Italian patriot was bound, in 1859, to show that Austria would not suffer by being deprived of Lombardy or of Venetia; he accepts Home Rule on the maxim that half a loaf is better than no bread, but a starving man is not required to refuse the offer of food because the donor cannot make the gift without getting into debt; nor does the acceptance of half a loaf afford the least presumption that the recipient would not prefer a whole loaf if he could get it. Some indeed of the considerations which tell in the eyes of an Englishman against Home Rule may indirectly lead an Irish Nationalist to the belief that the boon of legislative independence, if granted to Ireland, would prove the present of a stone in reply to a prayer for bread. But should a Nationalist be convinced that no form of Home Rule would benefit Ireland, he would cling all the more firmly to the faith that her salvation depends upon her taking her place among independent states. To Nationalists, therefore, even though at present they may be fighting the cause of Irish nationality behind the vizor of Home Rule, these pages are not addressed; the position they occupy is one of which no man has any cause to feel ashamed. The opinion that, considering the misery which has marked the connection between England and Ireland, the happiest thing for the weaker country would be complete separation from the United Kingdom, is one which in common with most Englishmen, and, it may be added, in common with the wisest foreign observers, I do not share; but fairness requires the admission that it is an opinion which a man may hold and may act upon, without incurring the charge either of folly or of wickedness. To Nationalists, however, these pages, as I have said, are not addressed. The persons for whom they are intended are either Home Rulers, whether in Great Britain or in Ireland, who _bona fide_ advocate the policy of Home Rule as a policy good and wise in itself and for its own sake; or else Unionists, who firmly believe that the whole State will suffer by any attempt to tear up the Treaty of Union, but yet are unable to give for the faith that is in them as strong grounds of reason as they would desire. To such persons the importance of the principle (if true) which is contended for throughout these pages must appear undeniable; it strikes at the root of more than one half of the arguments by which Home Rulers from the time of Mr. b.u.t.t to the days of Mr. Parnell have attempted, fairly enough, and latterly with great success, to win over English opinion to their cause, and it undermines the whole position occupied by Mr. Gladstone and his English followers. They a.s.sume with undeniable truth that the English people will not at the present moment, except under compulsion, acquiesce in Irish independence; they further a.s.sume, and must from the nature of the case a.s.sume, that Home Rule under one shape or another presents a fair prospect at least of advantages not derivable from the maintenance of the Union, and is at the very worst so much less injurious to British interests than would be separation from Ireland, as to offer to England a reasonable compromise between the just claims of Englishmen to secure the prosperity of Great Britain and the greatness of the British Empire, and the legitimate desire of Irishmen for national independence. If the proposition which it is my object to maintain turn out to be sound, all these a.s.sumptions fall to the ground, together with a host of fallacies for which these a.s.sumptions form the necessary basis. The principle, in short, which it is my object to enforce--that Home Rule in Ireland is more dangerous to England than Irish independence--lies at the bottom of all the rational opposition made by Unionists to the creation of an Irish Parliament, and, together with the arguments by which the principle is maintained, and the conclusions to which it leads, forms the true and just and reasonable case of England against Home Rule.

[Sidenote: Possible objections to method.]

The whole spirit and method of my argument is open to at least three plausible objections, which deserve examination, both because if left unnoticed they are certain to occur to and perplex any intelligent reader, and because their removal brings into relief the strength of my line of reasoning.

[Sidenote: 1. Too abstract.]

_First objection._--To deal with a burning controversy in the abstract and logical manner suitable to the discussion of the problems of jurisprudence savours, it may be objected, of theoretic, academic, or pedantic disquisition more fit for a University cla.s.s-room than for the living world of contemporary politics.

The force of this criticism does not admit of denial. My method of treating the question of Home Rule is necessarily lifeless when compared with the vehement rhetoric or heated eloquence which characterises public or parliamentary discussion; it is also true that the argumentative treatment of matters affecting actual life always bears about it a certain air of unreality.

If, however, systematic argument lacks the animation of political discussion or dispute, it possesses its own counterbalancing merits, and the mode of treating Home Rule purposely adopted in these pages has, it is conceived, two not inconsiderable advantages. The first of these advantages is that it diverts the mind from a crowd of personal, temporary, and in themselves trivial considerations, which, though they possess not only an apparent but also a real significance, are at bottom irrelevant to the final decision of the true points at issue. Whether, for example, Mr. Gladstone ought to have proclaimed himself a Home Ruler before the elections of 1885, whether Lord Salisbury's reference, or alleged reference, to twenty years of coercion was or was not judicious, and did or did not receive a fair interpretation from his opponents; whether Lord Carnarvon misled Mr. Parnell, or whether the Irish leader was a dupe to his own astuteness; whether Mr. Chamberlain ought to have joined the late Ministry, or, having gone into the Cabinet, ought never to have left it; what have been the motives consciously or unconsciously affecting Mr. Gladstone's course of action--these and a hundred other enquiries of the like sort, which engage the attention and distract the judgment of the public, possess, in the eyes of any serious thinker occupied in estimating the strength of the arguments for and against Home Rule, no material importance whatever. His concern is the merit or demerit of a legislative enactment. He is not concerned at all with the conduct or the character of legislators. Mr. Gladstone's motives may be the highest which can be ascribed to the Premier by the voice of admiring friendship, or the basest which can be imputed to him by the unfairness of political rancour. In any case they are irrelevant to the matter in hand. An unwise measure will not become a beneficial law because its author is a saint or a patriot; a statesmanlike law will not turn out a curse to the country because its defender is an intriguer or a traitor. We all see that this is so if we carry our view back to the controversies of the last generation; the personalities of fifty or sixty years ago are reduced before our eyes into their real pettiness.

The first Reform Bill still retains its importance for as a measure which for good or bad revolutionised the const.i.tution; its beneficial or pernicious effects are still traceable in the England of to-day; but its evils are not lessened by the acknowledged virtues of Lord Althorpe, nor are its good effects marred by the ambition of Brougham or the violence of O'Connell. It is no slight recommendation of any mode of reasoning if it suggests to us the prudence of judging the policy of 1886 in the spirit and by the standards which every man of sense applies to the policy of 1832. Academic disquisition has its faults, but ought to produce academic calmness; a cla.s.s-room is after all a better place for quiet reflection than the House of Commons or the hustings.

The second of the advantages which marks the proposed mode of argument is that a line of thought which fixes a reader's attention all but exclusively upon the probable effects of Home Rule is a preservative against the errors which arise from introducing into a dispute, bitter enough in itself, all the poisonous venom of historical recrimination, and all the delusions which are the offspring of the misleading tendency to personify nations. The ma.s.sacres of 1641, the sack of Drogheda, the violated treaty of Limerick, the follies strangely mingled with the patriotism of Grattan's Parliament, the outrages which discredited the rebellion of 1798, and the cruelties which disgraced its suppression; the corruption which carried the Union, and the broken pledges which turned political union into a source of fresh sectarian discord; the calamities, the mistakes and the crimes which mark each scene in the tragedy of Irish history, afford to Protestants and to Catholics alike an exhaustless supply of recriminatory invective. But to evoke the spectres of past ages is not the way to a.s.suage the animosities of the present day. The crimes of bygone generations are subjects for curious investigation, but the determination of historical problems, even when conducted in the spirit of the calmest enquiry, never removes the difficulties of practical statesmanship. Apologies, at any rate, or diatribes produced by the necessity for palliating or for denouncing the misdeeds of other times, only add a new element of confusion to the turmoil of political warfare. Whether the insurgents of 1641 ma.s.sacred every Protestant on whom they could lay their hands, or bear only an indirect responsibility for the death of eight or nine thousand men and women ruthlessly expelled from the lands of which in Irish eyes they were wrongful occupiers, is a question to be settled by Mr. Froude, Mr.

Lecky, and Mr. Gardiner; but the barbarities of insurgent Catholics, and the retaliatory severity of Protestant victors, which mark the fury of an internecine conflict removed from us by the lapse of more than two centuries have little to do with the practical question whether it be expedient at the present day that the local affairs of Ulster should be dealt with by a Parliament sitting at Dublin, or whether members from Ireland should have seats at Westminster. Recrimination, while it adds nothing to knowledge, disturbs the judgment of statesmen and of electors; but not even the reckless resuscitation of bitter memories, which ought to be forgotten, adds so much to the confusion of the day as does the habit fostered by the illusions of language, and by the falsely applied historical method, of speaking and thinking of England and Ireland as though they were two human beings, who, on closing a life-long quarrel, might be expected to entertain towards one another those sentiments of regret, generosity, or grat.i.tude which are proper to men and women, but can only by the boldest of fictions be supposed to enter into the relations between cla.s.ses or nations. To this delusion of personification is due the notion that Englishmen of to-day ought to make compensation and feel personal shame for the cruelties of Cromwell, or for Pitt's corruption of Irish patriots; that we are in some way liable and should feel compunction for crimes committed by (possibly) the ancestors of the very men to whom we are now supposed to owe reparation. To the same cause is to be attributed the absurd demand that the Irish Catholics should put on ashes and sackcloth for the ma.s.sacres of 1641, or that living Irishmen should be grateful for the well-meant though most unsuccessful efforts made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to govern one-third of the United Kingdom on sound principles of justice. A Sovereign's plainest duty is to rule his subjects for their good according to the best of his power and of his knowledge, and the mere discharge of duty does not ent.i.tle a ruler to grat.i.tude from the persons who are benefited by his justice. A Parliamentary Sovereign being the representative and agent of its (so-called) subjects, is _a fortiori_ if there can be degrees in such matters--bound to govern for the benefit of the people whom it represents and ought to serve; and there is something strictly preposterous in the idea that Irish electors, who in common with the rest of the United Kingdom send representatives to Westminster, should glow with grat.i.tude when the Parliament of the United Kingdom so far performs its duty as to enact laws from which Ireland derives benefit No one suggests that Englishmen or Scotchmen should feel grateful either to Parliament or to their Irish fellow-citizens for the maintenance of good government throughout England and Scotland. And it would puzzle the wit of man to show why one-third of the United Kingdom should be expected to entertain feelings never demanded from the other two-thirds thereof.

[Sidenote: 2. Too much reference to interest.]

_Second objection_.--The habitual reference made throughout these pages to national interest as the test or standard of national policy has (it may be suggested) a touch of sordidness and selfishness, and implies that statesmanship has nothing to do with morality.

This impression may it is possible be conveyed to a careless reader by the form in which the case against Home Rule is stated; but no suggestion can in reality be more unfounded. It will be seen to be unfounded by any one who notes for a moment the meaning of the term "interest" as applied to matters of national policy. The interest or the welfare of a nation comprises many things which have nothing to do with trade or with wealth, and the value of which does not admit of being measured in money. The interest, welfare, or prosperity of England includes the maintenance of her honour, the performance of all her obligations, and, above all, the strict discharge of every engagement which she has undertaken towards countries or to individuals. The protection, for example, of law-abiding citizens in the enjoyment of rights secured to them by law; the maintenance of peace throughout the length and breadth of the Empire; the suppression of lawlessness; the strict performance of every promise which the State has made to every man or body of men, whether poor or rich, whether belonging to the cla.s.s of labourers, of farmers, or even of landlords--the rendering, in short, to every man of his due--are things which without any improper extension of the term interest fall under the head of national interests.

Utilitarianism, in truth, being a body of principles applicable primarily to legislation and only secondarily to ethics, its doctrines hold far more obviously true in the field of politics than in the field of morals. On any wide view of large public questions expediency will be found to be only another name for justice. It can be neither the interest nor the duty of any nation to legislate in a way which produces more of suffering than of happiness. A policy opposed to the interests or the welfare of the United Kingdom as a whole, even though it may appear for a moment to favour some particular portion of the State, is, we may be well a.s.sured, a policy opposed not only to wisdom, but to justice.

[Sidenote: 3. Exclusively English point of view.]

_Third objection._--To look at Home Rule mainly from an English point of view, to criticise it because of its bearing on the interests or welfare of England, is, it may perhaps be thought, to treat the whole matter from the wrong side, and to betray an indifference to the welfare of Ireland. Home Rule, the objector may say, is a scheme for the government of Ireland. It therefore concerns the people of Ireland alone, it should be subjected to examination from an Irish, not from an English point of view, and to consider it in any other light is to exhibit in a new form that callous disregard by England of Ireland's claims which has prevented the two countries from blending into one community.

It is of primary importance that this objection should be stated with all the force which can be given to it, for were it valid it would a.s.suredly be, in the judgment of all just persons, fatal to the line of reasoning which my readers are invited to pursue. The objection is, however, so far from being valid as to present my whole method of reasoning in a false light. A main reason why an Englishman does well to look at Home Rule from an English point of view is, that this mode of dealing with the adjustment of the possibly opposed interests of England and Ireland is (paradoxical though the a.s.sertion may sound) both the least irritating and in itself the fairest method of meeting the demands of Irish Home Rulers; though--and this is the one certainly good result which has arisen from the changed att.i.tude towards Home Rule of Mr.

Gladstone and his followers--these demands may now happily be dealt with as claims put forward not specially by Irishmen, but by a political party which includes large numbers of Scotchmen and Englishmen. The a.s.sertion, however, that to look at Home Rule from an English point of view is the way to minimise irritation, and to deal fairly with a topic specially requiring fair treatment, requires some explanation.

Experience of the world teaches every man that in complicated affairs of private life, involving questions, say, both of money and of sentiment, nothing so surely prevents quarrels as to separate in the clearest manner possible matters of business from matters of feeling. In determining a dispute between _A._ and _B._, a great step is gained when a friend induces each of the parties first to state clearly his exact legal rights and his exact pecuniary interest, and only when these facts are made clear to consider what are the concessions fairly to be demanded from him as a matter, not of right, but of liberality. Nothing, again, is plainer in the conduct of controversies between man and man, than that if _A._ intends to exact his full legal rights from _B._, the most irritating defence of _A.'s_ conduct is his pretence of acting solely with a view to _B.'s_ own good; and that, on the other hand, no manner of enforcing _A.'s_ claims against _B._ causes so little unnecessary vexation to _B._ as for _A._ to say openly that he demands his rights because they are his rights, and because to demand them is his interest. Here, if nowhere else, the rules which apply to private disputes apply also to political controversies. If millions of Englishmen refuse a request made by millions of Irishmen, by far the least irritating form of refusal is open avowal that the reason for denying a separate Parliament to Ireland is the irreparable injury which Home Rule will work both to Great Britain and to the British Empire.

This a.s.sertion has the merit, which even in politics is not small, of truth. If the Parliamentary independence of Ireland threatened as little damage to England as the Parliamentary independence of Victoria, an Irish legislature would meet in Dublin before the end of the year.

Englishmen, it is true, do not believe that Ireland would in the long run gain by the possession of legislative independence. It is not, however, the doubt as to the reality of the blessing to be conferred on Ireland, but the certainty as to the injury to be done to England, which causes their opposition to Home Rule. To base this opposition upon the probable inconsistency between a Home Rule policy and the true interests of Ireland, involves the a.s.sumption that Englishmen are better judges of what makes for the true interest of Ireland than are the majority of Irishmen. The soundness of this a.s.sumption must seem to any man, who either recalls the most obvious facts of Irish history, or notes the depth of ignorance as to all things Irish which prevails even among our educated cla.s.ses, to be open to reasonable question. What is not questionable is that the a.s.sertion, in whatever form it be made, that three millions of Irishmen do not understand what is good for themselves must arouse in their hearts deep and natural anger. If indeed the claim of Great Britain to look in this matter of Home Rule solely to the effect of Home Rule on British interests, were equivalent to the a.s.sertion that because England is strong she ought wherever her own interests are at stake to reck nothing of justice, such cynical scorn for all considerations except the possession of superior power would kindle just resentment in the soul of every man, whether in Ireland or in England, who believes that national morality is more than a mere phrase, though even in this case the open cynicism might excite less disgust than cynicism veiling itself under the mask of benevolence.

Happily, however, there is in the present instance no opposition between truth and justice. Home Rule is no doubt primarily a scheme for the government of Ireland, but it is also much more than this: it is a plan for revolutionising the const.i.tution of the whole United Kingdom. There is no unfairness, therefore, in insisting that the proposed change must not take place if it be adverse to the interests of Great Britain. This is merely to a.s.sert that the welfare of thirty millions of citizens must, if a conflict of interest arise, be preferred to the interest of five millions of citizens. Home Rulers, it must again and again be repeated, demand not the national independence of Ireland, but the maintenance of the connection between England and Ireland on terms different from the conditions contained in the Act of Union. To keep one's mind clear on this point is of importance, because the result follows that, as already intimated, a whole series of arguments or claims which may fairly be put forward by a Nationalist are not available to a Home Ruler. A Nationalist, for example, may urge that the will of the Irish people to be independent is decisive of their moral right to independence, and that the perils which a free Ireland may bring upon England need not in any way concern him or his country.

Whether indeed the principle of "nationality," or the contention that any portion of a State which deems itself conscious of distinct national sentiment may, as a matter of absolute right, claim to become a separate nation, can be maintained, is an enquiry not so easily answered in the affirmative as is often a.s.sumed by modern democrats. What, however, is here insisted upon is not that the principle of nationality is unsound, but that this principle does not cover the demand for Home Rule. A Home Ruler asks not for the political separation, but for the political partnership of England and Ireland. He wishes not that the firm should be dissolved, but that the Articles of a.s.sociation should be revised.

There is not then the least unfairness in the answer that no modification can be allowed which in the judgment of his a.s.sociates is fatal to the prosperity of the concern. To crowds excited by pictures of past greatness or of past struggles, by the hope of future prosperity to be brought about by miracles wrought by subst.i.tuting the rule of love for the rule of law, there may appear to be something prosaic, not to say repulsive, in the comparison of the relation between Great Britain and Ireland to the relation between shareholders in a trading company.

But at a period when a fundamental change in the const.i.tution is advocated on grounds of faith, benevolence, or generosity, a good deal is gained by bringing into relief the business aspect of const.i.tutional reforms. It can never be amiss to be reminded that, in the words of one of the most thoughtful among the advocates of Home Rule, "Government is a very practical business, and that those succeed best in it who bring least of sentiment or enthusiasm to the conduct of their affairs." It is at moments of revolutionary fervour, when men measure proposed policies rather by their wishes than by their experience, that every citizen needs to have impressed upon his mind that government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination. Nor let any one imagine that the expression of the belief constantly avowed or implied throughout these pages, that Home Rule would be as great an evil to England as Irish independence, shows a reckless and most unbusinesslike indifference to the perils and losses of separation. My conviction is unalterable that separation would be to England, as also to Ireland, a gigantic evil. This position is fully compatible with the belief that there are other evils as great, or greater. If a man says that he prefers the loss of his right hand to the loss of his life, he cannot reasonably be charged with making light of amputation. It is however perfectly true that the line of argument pursued in this work must, if it be sound, drive those to whom it is addressed to a choice between the maintenance of the Union and the concession to Ireland of national independence.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]

These are--

i. Home Rule as Federalism.

ii. Home Rule as Colonial Independence.

iii. Home Rule as the Restoration of Grattan's Const.i.tution.

iv. Home Rule under the Government of Ireland Bill, or, to use a convenient name, under the Gladstonian const.i.tution. Chap. vii.

CHAPTER II.

MEANING OF HOME RULE.

"Home Rule" is a term which, like all current and popular phrases, is, though intelligible, wanting in precision. Hence it is well, before we investigate the different forms which schemes of Home Rule may a.s.sume, to fix in our minds precisely what Home Rule does mean and what it does not mean.

[Sidenote: What Home Rule means.]

"Home Rule"--or, to speak more accurately, the policy of Home Rule--means, if we may use language with which we are all familiar in relation to the Colonies, the endowment of Ireland with representative inst.i.tutions and responsible government.