The Framework of Home Rule Part 26

3. Future contribution to Imperial services to be voluntary.

4. Remission to Ireland of her share of the National Debt, and relinquishment by Ireland of her share of the Imperial Miscellaneous Revenue.

5. Imperial credit for Land Purchase to be extended as before, by loans guaranteed on the Consolidated Fund, under any conditions now or hereafter to be made by the Imperial authorities.

Loans to the Public Works Commissioners to be optional.

REPRESENTATION AT WESTMINSTER.

To cease.

CONFERENCE BETWEEN THE IRISH AND IMPERIAL AUTHORITIES.

This is a very important point, because friendly consultation, as at present with the Colonies, will take the place of Irish representation in the Imperial Parliament, and will prove a far more satisfactory means of securing harmony and co-operation. Arrangements similar to those of the Imperial Conference, only more precise and efficient, and of a permanent character, should be made for consultation between the Irish and British authorities on all subjects where the interests of the two countries touch one another. The need for more frequent consultation with the Colonies is being felt with increasing force, and although no permanent consultation body has yet been created, special _ad hoc_ conferences have recently been held--for Defence in 1909, and for Copyright in 1910--in addition to the quadrennial meetings, where a vast amount of varied topics are discussed, and the most valuable decisions arrived at.[185]

What the precise machinery should be in the case of Anglo-Irish relations I do not venture to say. The Ministers of the respective countries will be so easily accessible to one another that there would seem to be no need for the frequent attendance of a powerful personnel at joint meetings. But a Standing Committee, with a small official staff, would be necessary.

CONSt.i.tUTIONAL AMENDMENT.[186]

For amendment of the Home Rule Act itself it is not possible to make any statutory provision. Like all Const.i.tutional Acts, it will only be alterable by another Imperial statute, which, if it were needed, should be promoted by Ireland. But one of the most important clauses in the Act itself will be that defining Ireland's power to amend her own Const.i.tution without coming to Parliament. I venture to repeat the view that this power should be as wide as possible, consistently with the maintenance of the Imperial authority, and subject, of course, to provisions prescribing--(1) a time-limit for the initial arrangements; (2) the method of ascertaining Irish opinion; and (3) the majority in the Legislature, or in the electorate, or in both, necessary to sanction a const.i.tutional change.[187] If a Home Rule Const.i.tution, pa.s.sed into law in the heat of a party fight at Westminster, proves to be perfect, a miracle will have been performed unparalleled in the history of the Empire. At this moment a Committee of Ireland's ablest men of all parties should be at work upon it, with an instructed public opinion behind them. So only are good Const.i.tutions made, and even the very best need subsequent amendment.

FOOTNOTES:

[166] For details of prior Home Rule Bills, see the Appendix.

[167] The Victorian and South Australian Const.i.tutions of 1855 state in clear terms that the Ministry must be members of the Legislature, and all the Australian Const.i.tutions of the same date, except that of Tasmania, formally exclude all other officials from the Legislature. The Transvaal Const.i.tution of 1906 made no reference to either point; nor do the Federating Acts of 1867, 1900, and 1909 for Canada, Australia, and South Africa.

[168] A fifth custom, very common, of compelling new Ministers to seek re-election is incorporated in most of the Australian Const.i.tutions, but was expressly ruled out in Section 47 of the Transvaal Const.i.tution of 1906.

[169] See Hansard, July 3, 1893, Speech of Mr. John Morley.

[170] The words "subject to this Const.i.tution" or "subject to this Act"

are sometimes added, but have no special significance. The Australian Commonwealth Const.i.tution Act does not mention the Governor's "instructions," but only his "discretion."

[171] British North America Act, 1867, Sects. 55-57; Commonwealth of Australia Const.i.tution Act, 1900, Sects. 58-60.

[172] See especially pp. 213-229.

[173] See pp. 223-225.

[174] Taken from Amendment XIV. to the United States Const.i.tution, pa.s.sed July 28, 1866.

[175] British North America Act, 1867, Sect. 92 (13). But the Province may not encroach on powers reserved to the Dominion--e.g., in bankruptcy (Gushing v. Depuy [before Jud. Comm. of Privy Council]). See the "Const.i.tution of Canada," J.E.C. Munro, pp. 247-253. There has been much litigation over points where Dominion and Federal powers overlapped.

(See "Federations and Unions of the British Empire," H.E. Egerton, pp.

151-153).

[176] For the proposals of the Bills of 1886 and 1893, see Appendix.

[177] South Africa Act, 1909, Sects. 24 and 25.

[178] See pp. 155-162.

[179] See Pamphlet No. 17, published by Proportional Representation Society, and an excellent paper by Mr. J.F. Williams in "Home Rule Problems."

[180] Cd. 5741, 1911, pp. 46-51.

[181] See Appendix and the Bill of 1886, Clause 25; Bill of 1893, Clause 22.

[182] 54 and 55 Vict., Ch. 25, Sect. 4.

[183] Courts of Admiralty in the Colonies are regulated by Imperial Acts, though by an Act of 1890 large powers were conferred on the Colonies of declaring ordinary Courts to be Courts of Admiralty (see Moore's "Commonwealth of Australia," pp. 11 and 251).

[184] See Clauses 27-30 of the Bill of 1886, and Clauses 25-28 of the Bill of 1893.

[185] See the Precis of Proceedings, Cd. 5741, 1911.

[186] See pp. 225-227.

[187] See Section 128 of the Australia Const.i.tution Act, 1900, and Section 152 of the South Africa Act, 1909.

CONCLUSION

Is it altogether idle to hope that some such body will yet come into existence, if not in time to influence the drafting of the Bill, at any rate to bring to bear upon its provisions the sober wisdom, not of one party only in the State, but of all; and so, if it were possible, to give to the charter of Ireland in her "new birth of freedom" the sanction of a united people?

Home Rule will eventually come. Within the Empire, the utmost achieved by the government of white men without their own consent is to weaken their capacity to a.s.sume the sacred responsibility of self-government.

It is impossible to kill the idea of Home Rule, though it is possible, by r.e.t.a.r.ding its realization, to pervert some of its strength and beauty, and to diminish the vital energy on which its fruition depends.

And it is possible in the case of Ireland, up to and in the very hour of her emanc.i.p.ation, after a struggle more bitter and exhausting than any in the Empire, to heap obstacles in the path of the men who have carried her to the goal, and on whom in the first instance must fall the extraordinarily difficult and delicate task of political reconstruction.

They will be on their mettle in the eyes of the world to prove that the prophets of evil were wrong, to show sympathy and inspire confidence in the very quarters where they have been most savagely traduced and least trusted, and they will have to exhibit dauntless courage in attacking old abuses and promoting new reforms. They will need their hands strengthened in every possible way.

The help must come--and it cannot come too soon--from the working optimists of Ireland, from the hundreds of men and women, of both parties and creeds, who are labouring outside politics to extirpate that stifling undergrowth of pessimism which runs riot in countries denied the light and air of freedom. All these people agree on the axiom that Ireland has a distinct individual existence, and that her future depends upon herself. No one should dare to stop there. Let him who feels impelled to stop there at any rate act with open eyes. In expecting to realize social reconstruction without political reconstruction--however divergent the aims may now seem to be--he expects to achieve what has never been achieved in any country in the Empire, and to achieve this miracle in the very country which has suffered most from political repression, and possesses the most fantastic system of government to be found in the King's dominions. The thing is impossible, and if at bottom he feels it to be so, and inclines sadly to the view that political servitude is but the least of two evils, I would only venture to suggest this: Is it not a finer course to stake something on a risk run in every white community but Ireland rather than to face the certainty of half achievement? And is it not, after all, a sound risk to trust the very men who now respond to the appeal for self-reliance, mutual tolerance, and united effort in their private affairs, not to renounce these qualities and abuse the rights of citizenship when the public affairs of their country are under their own control?

As for the risk to Great Britain, I have only this last word to say: Let her people, not for the first time, show that they can rise superior to the philosophy, as fallacious in effect as it is base and cowardly in purpose, which sets the safety of a great nation above the happiness and prosperity of a small one. Within the last few weeks the wheel has turned full circle, and the almost inexplicable contradiction which has existed for so long between Unionism and Imperialism has been illuminated with a frank cynicism rare in our public life. It is being said that the freedom given to Canada cannot be given to Ireland, because the separation from the Empire theoretically rendered possible by such a step would be immaterial in the case of Canada, which is distant, but perilous in the case of Ireland, which is near. If this be Imperialism, it should stink in the nostrils of every decent citizen at home and abroad.

It is true, to our shame, that, by little more than an accident, Canada obtained the freedom which gave her people harmony, energy, and wealth in the teeth of this mean and selfish doctrine. But Lord Durham took a higher view. Let me recall the memorable words which he added to his long and brilliant argument for liberty as a source, not only of domestic regeneration, but of affection and loyalty to the Motherland: "_But at any rate our first duty is to secure the well-being of our colonial countrymen;_ and if, in the hidden decrees of that wisdom by which this world is ruled, it is written that these countries are not for ever to remain portions of the Empire, we owe it to our honour to take good care that, when they separate from us, they should not be the only countries on the American continent in which the Anglo-Saxon race shall be found unfit to govern itself."

Lord Durham was doubly right; in his prophecy of the closer union liberty would promote, and in elementary law which he laid down, of moral obligation which, whatever the result, he held superior to dynastic calculations. It is a fact of ominous significance that the intellectual successors of the men who most hotly repudiated both these doctrines in 1838 are being driven by pressure of their Irish views to revive that repudiation in 1911, and to revive it in the midst of the most effusive protestations of the need for still closer union with a Colony which would either have undergone the fate of Ireland or have ceased to be a member of the Empire if their philosophy had triumphed. I do not believe there is any conscious cant in that flagrant contradiction, but I do firmly believe that so long as their error about Ireland poisons in them the springs of Imperial thought, some element of fallacy lies in any Imperial policy they undertake. In common prudence, at any rate, they should avoid telling Canada, while beckoning her nearer to the heart of the Empire, that they only gave her freedom because she was so far.

But I rely still on an awakening, on a fundamental change of spirit. The Empire owes everything to those who have disputed, sometimes at the cost of their lives, illegitimate authority. Some day the politicians who now spend sleepless nights with paste and scissors in ransacking the ancient files of the world's Press for proofs that Mr. Redmond once used words signifying that he aimed at "separation"--whatever that phrase may mean--will regret that they ever demeaned themselves by such petty labour, and will place Mr. Redmond among the number of those who have saved the Empire from the consequences of its own errors.