Home Rule Part 5

He would naturally gather from this that the proposal of Home Rule for Ireland had come upon this country with entire freshness, and had never before been discussed among rational men. Filled with this impression he might perhaps be surprised if he obtained the chance of hearing the "still, small voice" of truth through the clamour and the uproar, to discover that this plan of Home Rule was not born yesterday, but no less than twenty-five years ago. He would find that for a whole generation every nook and cranny of this proposal has been meticulously explored, and that there have been on this subject thousands, if not millions, of speeches and leading articles, hundreds of books, and dozens of Parliamentary debates. He would even learn from many politicians that their chief difficulty was the utter boredom of their const.i.tuents over a subject which has been worn down by argument to the very threads.

But he would be more surprised than all to discover that this proposal had already been considered in at least four General Elections--1886, 1892, and the two elections of 1910.[42] "It has been deliberately rejected by the people on two occasions" would be the cry which he would hear most commonly from his Tory friends, and he would find that they referred to the elections of 1886 and 1895. Our friend the foreigner would naturally be impressed by that argument. But what would be his amazement to discover that his informants had forgotten to enlighten him on the equally important fact that Home Rule had been definitely accepted and approved by the British electorate, not in two, but in three elections--the election of 1892 and the two elections of 1910? He would discover that on all these three occasions the subject had been definitely placed before them, that on all three occasions the electorate had definitely supported Home Rule, by majorities varying from forty in 1892 to 124 in December, 1910. As to the other General Elections, might not our foreigner reflect that if an electorate were really to discover that its vote for the approval of a measure was treated--as in 1892--with indifference, it might naturally weary of well-doing?

Might he not even, if he were a shrewd man, suspect that that was the very object and aim which his informants had in view?

But perhaps his surprise would reach its highest point when he discovered that this Home Rule proposal, so far from appearing now for the first time in a definite form, had actually twice before taken the definite and statutory form of Home Rule Bills, both the specific and considered proposals of Liberal Governments, both fully drafted and laid before Parliament, and both still to be purchased at any Government printers. The first of these Bills, the Bill of 1886, was, indeed, rejected by the House of Commons on the second reading, and never ran the gauntlet of full Parliamentary debate. But the second, the Bill of 1893, occupied fully five months of Parliamentary time, and was carried successfully by Mr. Gladstone through all its stages in the House of Commons. It was amended on many points without the interference of Government authority. It presents a full scheme of self-government for Ireland, so clearly and minutely considered as to provide an efficient and reasoned basis for the measure of 1912.

THE BILLS OF 1886 AND 1893

The aim of both these great measures--the Bills of 1886 and 1893--was to give the Irish control of their own local affairs and to distinguish as clearly as possible between those affairs and Imperial matters. The method chosen in both Bills is to follow the Parnell scheme of enumerating the subjects excluded from the legislative power of the Irish Parliament. The excluding clause became considerably enlarged in the Bill of 1893 as it was left by the House of Commons. The 1893 Bill also contains a far more definite and stronger a.s.sertion of Imperial authority, which is inserted twice--first in the Preamble, and then in the second clause of the Bill.[43]

In both Bills there was a safeguarding clause as well as an excluding clause. The safeguarding clause also grew considerably between 1886 and 1893. It is almost entirely directed to preventing the Irish Legislature from establishing any new religious privileges, or interfering with any existing religious rights. The clause, as it emerged in 1893, not only forbade any new establishment or endowment of religion, but seemed to leave the claims of all denominations precisely as they stand at present.

This safeguarding clause reappears in the Bill of 1912, but it has been shortened and redrafted by the Government. It contains very important additional safeguards to prevent the adoption by the Irish civil power of the principles contained in the recent Papal Decrees against mixed marriages, and in regard to the right of Catholic clergy to claim exclusion from the courts of justice. The Irish Parliament will be debarred from acting on these decrees, and thus the whole agitation against "Ne Temere" falls to the ground.

THE TWO CHAMBERS

The 1886 Bill established, as we have seen, an arrangement by which Ireland should be governed by one legislative body consisting of two orders, a first and a second. These orders were to deliberate and vote together, except in regard to matters which should come directly under the Home Rule Act, amendments of the Act, or Standing Orders in pursuance of the Act. In such cases the first order possessed the right of voting separately, and seemed to possess an absolute veto.

The first order of the legislative body created by the 1886 Bill consisted of 103 members, of whom 75 were elected members and 28 peerage members. The elected members were to be chosen under a restricted suffrage, and the peerage members were to be the representative Irish Peers. The second order was to consist of 204 members, elected under the existing franchise.

All this was rather complicated and confusing, and was, perhaps rightly, brushed aside by the framers of the 1893 Bill. They const.i.tuted the Irish Legislature on the model of an ordinary Colonial Parliament with two Chambers--a Legislative a.s.sembly and a Legislative Council. The Legislative Council was to consist of 48 members, elected by large const.i.tuencies voting under a 20 property franchise. The Legislative a.s.sembly was to consist of 103 members, elected by the existing const.i.tuencies under the existing franchise. In cases of disagreement between the two Houses, it was proposed that, either after a dissolution or after a period of two years, the Houses were to vote together, and that the majority vote should decide the matter. Since 1893 that provision, in almost precisely the same form, has been adopted by the Australian Commonwealth, and, in a more progressive form, by, the South African Parliament.

In the Bill of 1912 these provisions of 1893 reappear, but in a broader and more liberal form. The Irish Legislative a.s.sembly and Legislative Council--names which seem to give to Ireland a position of a subordinate--have given way, as we have seen, to the frank and generous t.i.tles of Senate and House of Commons, both forming the Irish Parliament. The machinery for settling disagreements has come back from its journey round the world refreshed by a new draft of democracy, imbibed from the climates of Australia and South Africa. In cases of differences between the a.s.semblies they will meet and decide by common vote, without the necessity of a dissolution. That is a great and important simplification, and for it the Irish have to thank the genius of the founders of the South African Const.i.tution.

IN OR OUT?

Every student of the Home Rule question knows that Mr. Gladstone several times varied his proposals in regard to the Irish representation at Westminster. The Irish Party were, from the beginning, indifferent on the point; but it was quite clear that this was a matter vitally affecting Imperial interests. The first proposal grafted into the Bill of 1886 was that the Irish should cease to attend at Westminster altogether. But, after seven years of consideration, there grew up a general agreement that the entire absence of the Irish Party at Westminster might create a series of difficult relations between the Parliaments, and might even gradually lead to separation.

The first proposal of the Bill of 1893 was that the Irish members should attend in slightly reduced numbers and vote at Westminster only on Irish concerns. But this proposal--known as the "In and Out"

clause--found little favour in debate, and suffered severely at the hands of Mr. Chamberlain. Mr. Gladstone finally left the matter to the judgment of the House of Commons, and--after a severe Parliamentary crisis, in which the Government narrowly escaped destruction--it was decided that 80 Irish members should sit in the British House of Commons without any restriction of their power or authority.

In the Bill of 1912 the solution finally reached in 1893 is again adopted, with one vital difference--that the Irish members to be summoned to Westminster will be reduced not to 80, but to 42. Those members will possess full Parliamentary powers, as indeed it is right and necessary they should, as long as the Parliament at Westminster continues to exercise such large powers over Ireland. But Mr. Asquith threw out the suggestion that the British House of Commons should, by its Standing Orders, arrange for a further delegation of Parliamentary power to national groups. The House of Commons has already a Scotch Committee, and to that might be added an English Committee and a Welsh Committee. It would be a serious thing for the central body to over-ride the opinions of these committees.

But Mr. Asquith also threw out an even more important hint as to the future development of the Home Rule policy. It is clear that if the Irish Home Rule Bill is simply the first stage in a process which will lead to the creation of Home Rule Parliaments for local affairs in Scotland, England and Wales, then such slight control as the 42 Irish members may retain over British affairs will be only temporary. What, then, is the present Parliamentary relationship between Irish Home Rule and the Federal idea?

THE NEW FEDERALISM

Since the year 1893 there has been a great change of feeling in regard to the whole Home Rule question. The British Parliament has gone through a great crisis in its procedure, and it has, for the moment, accepted a temporary way out in the form of a drastic use of the closure, applied by Mr. Balfour, under Standing Orders, to so vital a matter as Supply. That violent remedy known as the "Compartment Closure" is now almost automatically extended by both parties, under the very thin veil of liberty left by a special resolution, to almost every great measure that comes before the House of Commons.

This development of the British Parliamentary system has created a new outlook on the Home Rule question. The case of Ireland still stands by itself, with great grievances and strong historical claims behind it.

Home Rule for Ireland will always have a peculiar urgency, arising from conditions of geographical position. But the pa.s.sion for Irish liberty is now mingled in the average British mind with the pa.s.sion for the liberty of the British House of Commons. It is recognised that unless Ireland is freed the British Parliament will remain in chains.

This new att.i.tude has widened the outlook of Home Rulers until Home Rule has ceased to be a merely Irish question. Nothing was more dramatic during the recent debates over the Insurance Bill than the sudden wave of federal feeling in the House of Commons which compelled the Government to grant a separate administrative insurance authority, not merely to Ireland, but also to Scotland and Wales. Similarly with Home Rule. What was in 1893 only a pale glimmer of foresight, is with many, in the year 1912, a pa.s.sionate conviction. It is that after Home Rule has been given to Ireland it must be extended also to Scotland, Wales, and possibly England.

Now it would be plainly useless to grant Home Rule to any of these countries until there is a wider and deeper demand for it. The issue of Home Rule for Ireland was definitely raised in both the elections of 1910, and when the people gave their votes they knew, and were actually warned by Mr. Balfour himself, and by most of the other Unionist chiefs, that the result would be the creation of a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. But it cannot be said that the same proposal was so definitely and effectively put forward in regard to Scotland and Wales. In both those countries there is a very widespread desire for Home Rule. But there has not yet been any definite democratic vote on that desire. It may be necessary, therefore, to delay the extension of Home Rule to those countries. But the desire is sufficiently strong both in Scotland and in Wales to justify the Government in so framing a Home Rule Bill as to enable those other parts of the United Kingdom to be brought under its provisions in due time. There is a strict a.n.a.logy for that proceeding in the North America Act of 1867, which created the Dominion of Canada. That Act joined together three provinces at first, but left the door open for other provinces to come in. They have since come in, one by one--all except the island of Newfoundland--until the great federation of States which we now know as the Canadian Dominion has been gradually built up.[44]

What follows from all this? Surely that a Home Rule Bill for Ireland must be so framed as to render it a possible basis of a federal Const.i.tution in the near future. But if the Irish members were entirely excluded from the British Parliament, as in 1886, then we should be turning our backs on Federalism. The only a.n.a.logy to such a Const.i.tution would be that of Austria-Hungary, where two countries are united in one Government, but work through two Parliaments. Lord Morley tells us that Mr. Parnell was very anxious to imitate in the 1886 Bill the ingenious machinery of "Delegations," by which the relations of the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments combine for common affairs.[45]

There is much to be said for that machinery in Austria-Hungary, strongly binding together two countries which must otherwise have inevitably drifted asunder. But Mr. Parnell was thinking only of Ireland, and he was not a Federalist. We are thinking of the whole United Kingdom, and many of us are Federalists. The machinery of "Delegations" therefore would not suit our purpose.

What seems to be required ultimately at Westminster is a small Parliament devoted to Imperial affairs--Imperial finance, Imperial legislation, and Imperial administration--and leaving to subordinate Parliaments the administration of local matters. Many are firmly convinced that in that way the United Kingdom would become a more successful and efficient country, with legislation better adapted to the needs of its inhabitants, and with a mind more free for the consideration of great Imperial affairs. This now seems to them the only way to produce order out of the present const.i.tutional chaos.

What, then, are the lines that should be followed if we are to go forward to that goal? An Imperial Parliament of that nature would probably be a smaller a.s.sembly than the present House of Commons, which is far too large for modern conditions. There is, therefore, good ground for reducing the representation of Ireland to 42, or 38 less than in 1893. That will clear the way for a future Imperial a.s.sembly of between 300 and 400, it being understood that as each section of the United Kingdom obtains its own Home Rule Parliament it will consent to have its representation at Westminster reduced in proportion.

As long as the present system of Cabinet Government resting on majorities exists--and it is the only conceivable system for a completely self-governing democracy--it still seems, as it seemed to the men of 1893, impossible to agree to any "in and out" arrangement.

Under such a plan the Government might possess a majority on Imperial or English affairs, while it could be out-voted on Irish affairs.

Although such a situation might conceivably work for a time, it might come to a sudden deadlock in a moment of emergency. It seems best, therefore, that the 42 Irish members at Westminster should possess full voting powers. If any Liberal dreads the prospect of having 42 Irish members still possibly giving votes hostile to Liberal views--say, on education--I would ask him to remember that the Liberal Party will not have to mourn the loss of Irish votes still almost certain to be cast in their favour on behalf of many democratic measures.

The prospect of this larger federal settlement opens a larger vision than that of 1886 or 1893. Strangely enough, it is the same vision as that sketched by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the daring speech which he made on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill of 1886:--

"In my view the solution of this question should be sought in some form of federation, which would really maintain the Imperial unity, and which would, at the same time, conciliate the desire for a national local government which is felt so strongly in Ireland. I say I believe it is on this line, and not on the line of our relations with our self-governing Colonies, that it is possible to seek for and to find a solution of this difficulty."[46]

FOOTNOTES:

[37] See Appendix A for the text of the 1912 Bill.

[38] It is proposed that the representation be divided as follows:--Ulster, 59 members; Leinster, 41; Munster, 37; Connaught, 25; The Universities, 2; making a total of 164.

[39] In Canada the Senators are selected for life. Since 1891 the New Zealand Senators are selected for seven years only.

[40] See Appendix C.

[41] "Against Home Rule." London: Warne and Co., 1/-net.

[42] Home Rule was not properly debated in the General Election of 1895, which turned on other issues, and in the General Elections of 1900 and 1906 it was laid aside by common consent.

[43] See Appendix D.

[44] The 146th clause of the British North America Act (1867) reads as follows:--

ADMISSION OF OTHER COLONIES.

"It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the advice of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, on Addresses from the Houses of Parliament of Canada, and from the Houses of the respective Legislatures of the Colonies or Provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia, to admit those Colonies or Provinces, or any of them, into the Union, and on Address from the Houses of Parliament of Canada to admit Ruperts Land and the North Western Territory, or either of them, into the Union, on such terms and conditions in each case as are in the Addresses expressed, and as the Queen thinks fit to approve, subject to the provisions of this Act: and the provisions of any Order in Council in that behalf shall have effect as if they had been enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland."

[45] For a description of this machinery see Chap. IX., "Home Rule in the World," p. 121.

[46] April 9th, 1886.