A proposal to give to Ireland full "responsible" government, without any
other limitations than such as are imposed on our self-governing
Colonies, would find few supporters in this country. Under such a
constitution an Irish Government would have power to forbid or restrict
recruiting for the Imperial forces in Ireland, and to raise and train a
force of its own. It might establish or subsidise a religion, make
education wholly denominational, levy customs duties on imports from
Great Britain and give fiscal advantages to a foreign power, confiscate
or transfer property without payment, and deprive individuals of
nationality, franchise, liberty, or life without process of law. However
improbable some of these contingencies may appear, it is right on a
matter of so much moment to consider possibilities and not probabilities
only. Such powers as these could not without serious risk be conceded to
any part of the kingdom, and in the case of Ireland there would be a
special danger in granting them to a popularly elected body.
In the first place, the national safety would be involved. Englishmen
were at one time too fond of saying that the great Colonies might, if
they chose, sever the link which binds them to the Mother Country.
Happily, in their case, no such catastrophe need now be considered. But
it would be folly to shut our eyes to the fact that to many Irishmen
national independence appears to be the only goal worth striving for. If
the concession of full responsible government should be followed (at
whatever interval) by an assertion of complete independence, we may
assume that Great Britain would follow the example of Federal America
and re-establish the Union by force of arms, but at how great a cost!
Those who deny the possibility of a serious movement towards separation
would do well to remember Mr. Gladstone's reference[28] to the position
of Norway and Sweden, then united under one crown:--
"Let us look to those two countries, neither of them very large,
but yet countries which every Englishman and every Scotchman must
rejoice to claim his kin--I mean the Scandinavian countries of
Sweden and Norway. Immediately after the great war the Norwegians
were ready to take sword in hand to prevent their coming under the
domination of Sweden. But the Powers of Europe undertook the
settlement of that question, and they united those countries upon a
footing of strict legislative independence and co-equality.... And
yet with two countries so united, what has been the effect? Not
discord, not convulsions, not danger to peace, not hatred, not
aversion, but a constantly growing sympathy; and every man who
knows their condition knows that I speak the truth when I say that
in every year that passes the Norwegians and the Swedes are more
and more feeling themselves to be the children of a common country,
united by a tie which never is to be broken."
The tie was broken within twenty years.
It may be that the Nationalist leaders, or some of them, do not desire
separation; but it by no means follows that a concession of their
demands would not lead to that result. Franklin, in 1774, had an
interview with Chatham, in which he says--
"I assured him that, having more than once travelled almost from
one end of the continent (of America) to the other, and kept a
great variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with
them freely, I never had heard in any conversation from any person,
drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or
a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America."[29]
And yet independence came within ten years.
In the case of the United Kingdom there is no need to consider in detail
how serious would be the effects--naval, military, and economic--of
separation, for the gravity of such a contingency is admitted by all.
Admiral Mahan, the American naval expert, writes that--
"the ambition of the Irish separatists, realised, might be even
more threatening to the national life of Great Britain than the
secession of the South was to that of the American Union.... The
instrument for such action in the shape of an independent
Parliament could not safely be trusted even to avowed friends."