The history of Ireland for the last two centuries and more is a
continuous exposition of the disastrous consequences of political and
economic separatism within an area where every natural condition, and
the whole course of historical development, pointed to political and
economic union. Geographically, racially and historically an integral
part of a single homogeneous island group, Ireland has never really been
allowed to enjoy the full advantages of political and economic union
with the adjoining main island. Almost every misfortune which Ireland
has suffered is directly traceable to this cause. In spite of this, it
is now seriously proposed to subject her once again to the disadvantages
of political separation, and that on the very eve of an inevitable
change of economic policy, which, while it would restore real vitality
and purpose to political union, would also once more intensify all the
injury which economic disunion has inflicted upon Ireland in the past.
In the long constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century her
position as a separate political unit made Ireland a convenient
instrument of Stuart policy against the English Parliament. Cromwell,
with true insight, solved the difficulty by legislative union with
England. But his work was undone at the Restoration, and for another 122
years Ireland remained outside the Union as a separate and subordinate
state. Her economic position was that of a Colony, as Colonies were then
administered. But it was that of a "least favoured Colony." This was
due, in part, to a real fear of Ireland as a danger to British
constitutional liberty and British Protestantism[86] which long
survived the occasion which has seemed to justify it. But what was a
more serious and permanent factor was the circumstance that Ireland's
economic development could only be on lines which competed with England,
and not like Colonial development on lines complementary to English
trade. One after another Irish industries were penalised and crippled by
being forbidden all part in the export trade. A flourishing woollen
industry, a prosperous shipping, promising cotton, silk, glass, glove
making and sugar refining industries were all ruthlessly repressed,[87]
not from any innate perversity on the part of English statesmen, or from
any deliberate desire to ruin Ireland, but as a natural and inevitable
consequence of exclusion from the Union under the economic policy of the
age. Whatever outlet Irish economic activity took there was always some
English trade whose interests were prejudicially affected, and which
promptly exercised a perfectly legitimate pressure upon the Government
to put a stop to the competition. The very poverty of Ireland, as
expressed in the lowness of Irish wages, was an ever convenient and
perfectly justifiable argument for exclusion. The linen industry alone
received a certain amount of toleration, and even encouragement. These
regulations were so little animated by direct religious or racial
antipathy that it was upon the Protestant Scotch and English settlers
that they fell with the greatest severity, driving them into exile by
thousands, to become, subsequently, one of the chief factors in the
American Revolution. But if the direct economic effect of political
separation weighed less heavily upon the Catholic majority, they
suffered all the more from the utter paralysis of all industry and
enterprise consequent upon the Penal Laws. These laws, monstrous as they
seemed even to Burke, were in their turn a natural outcome of a
political separation which made the security of Protestantism in Ireland
rest upon the domination of a narrow oligarchy in instant terror of
being swamped. Under Union they would never have been devised, or could
certainly never have endured.
The revolution by which the Irish Parliament, in 1782, asserted its
constitutional equality with the British Parliament, subject only to the
power of bribery, direct or indirect, retained by the Crown, brought out
in still more glaring relief the utter unsoundness of the existing
political structure under separation. After eighteen years of ferment
within Ireland and friction without, British and Irish statesmen, face
to face with civil war and French invasion, realised that the sorry
farce had to come to an end. Meanwhile the immediate economic effect of
liberation from the direct restrictions on Irish foreign trade, already
conceded in 1779, and helped in various directions by judicious
bounties, was undoubtedly to give a new impetus to production in
Ireland. The first ten years of Grattan's Parliament were, on the whole,
years of growing prosperity. Whether, even apart from civil war and
increasing taxation, that prosperity would have continued to increase,
if the Union had not come about, is, however, a more doubtful matter.
The immense industrial development of England during the next
half-century would probably, in any case, have crushed out the smaller
and weaker Irish industries, while the existence of a separate tariff in
Great Britain would have been a serious obstacle to the development of
Irish agriculture. A full customs union, with internal free trade, was
undoubtedly the best solution of the difficulty. But Pitt's Commercial
Propositions of 1785 failed, partly, indeed, owing to political
intrigues, but still more owing to the fundamental impossibility of
securing an effective customs union without some form of political
union.
When finally Ireland entered the Union it was with the severe handicap
of an industrial system artificially repressed for over a century. The
removal of the last traces of internal protection in 1824 only
accelerated the process, inevitable in any case, by which Irish
industries, with the exception of linen, were submerged. But
manufacturing industry was at the best a small matter in Ireland
compared with agriculture. And to Irish agriculture the Union meant an
immense development in every direction. Unfortunately the inheritance of
the preceding century, a vicious agrarian system and a low standard of
living, was not easily to be eliminated, and little attempt was made to
eliminate it. The great increase of agricultural production was
accompanied, not by a progressive and well-diffused rise in the standard
of national well-being, but by high rents and extravagance on the one
side, and, on the other, the rapid multiplication of a population living
on the very margin of subsistence. The terrible year of famine was a
warning to British statesmanship of the need of a constructive and
Conservative policy for the reorganisation of Irish agricultural life
and for the broadening of the economic basis in Ireland by the
deliberate encouragement of new industries. Under a true conception of
Union, political and economic--and there were not wanting men like Lord
George Bentinck and Disraeli who entertained it--Ireland might within a
generation have been levelled up to the general standard of the United
Kingdom.
But the evil effects of political and economic separatism in the
eighteenth century were still unremedied when the whole economic policy
of Union was abandoned. The very principle and conception of Free Trade
is, inherently, as opposed to the maintenance of national as of Imperial
Union. Ireland was deprived of that position of advantage in the British
market which was one of the implied terms of the Union, and was not
allowed to protect her own market. Incidentally, and as a consequence of
the new fiscal policy, Ireland was saddled with a heavy additional
burden of taxation which only handicapped her yet further in the
struggle to recover from the famine and to meet foreign competition. The
full severity of that competition was, however, not experienced till
towards the end of the seventies, when the opening up of the American
West, coupled with the demonetisation of silver, brought down prices
with a run. A series of bad harvests aggravated the evil. The same
conditions were experienced all over Europe, and were everywhere met by
raising tariffs to the level required to enable agriculture to maintain
itself. Even in England "Fair Trade" became a burning issue. Given
normal agrarian conditions in Ireland the Irish vote would have gone
solid with the Fair Traders, and the United Kingdom would in all
probability have reverted to a national system of economics a generation
ago. As things were, landlords and farmers in Ireland, instead of
uniting to defend their common interest, each endeavoured to thrust the
burden of the economic _débâcle_ on the other. The bitterness of the
agrarian struggle which ensued was skilfully engineered into the channel
of the Home Rule agitation. In other words, the evils of economic
separatism, aggravated by the social evils surviving from the separatism
of an earlier age, united to revive a demand for the extension and
renewal of the very cause of these evils.
Since then the underlying conditions of Irish economic life have
undergone a complete transformation. The wealth and credit of the United
Kingdom have been used to inaugurate a settlement of the agrarian
question. The productive and competitive efficiency of Irish agriculture
has been enormously increased both by Government advice and assistance
and by patriotic private effort. Old Age Pensions have alleviated the
burden of an excessive residue of older persons, and irrigated the
poorer districts with a stream of ready money. In every direction there
is a deliberate effort to raise the economic standard of Ireland to the
British level. Last, but by no means least, the exclusion of all foreign
live stock from the United Kingdom, though originally designed only as a
precautionary measure against cattle disease, has in effect protected
one most important branch of Irish agriculture and given it a vital
interest in the maintenance of the Union. On the eve of the revival of a
national policy of economic development Ireland stands on a far sounder
basis, and in a far better position to take advantage of that
development, than in 1800. The standard of life is rising, and will of
itself put a check on a mere multiplication of beings living on the
margin of subsistence. For the natural increase of population, which
will once more come about, there will be provision not only through more
intensive cultivation and in rural industries, but also in a real,
though possibly gradual, development of new manufacturing industries.
Incidentally the establishment of a protective tariff for the United
Kingdom will, by lowering the excessive duties on tea and tobacco which
weigh so heavily upon Ireland, increase still further the local excess
of Government expenditure over revenue and facilitate the local
accumulation of capital, already so noticeable a feature of recent
years, and thus provide an essential factor in stimulating new
enterprise, whether agricultural or industrial. Nor would it be in any
way inconsistent with a national economic policy for the United Kingdom
as a whole to devote special sums, through bounties and in other ways,
towards the opening up of new fields for the economic activities of the
Irish people. For the first time in her history Ireland will have a fair
start, and, under the Union, the twentieth century may yet prove
Ireland's century just as Canadians claim that it will prove Canada's
century.
Now let us turn to the other side of the picture. The establishment of
Home Rule, in other words of political separatism, must inevitably be
followed by active economic separatism, _i.e._ by the creation of a
completely separate fiscal system in Ireland. The idea that an Irish
Chancellor of the Exchequer can carry on in dependence on a British
Budget, which may at any moment upset all his calculations of revenue,
is absurd. So is the idea that there can be separate tariffs with mutual
Free Trade, or a common tariff without a common government to frame it.
If Free Trade, indeed, were to be maintained in England, fiscal
separation would be no disadvantage to Ireland. On the contrary, she
would continue to enjoy the same access to the British market while
giving her own industries such protection as might be convenient. It is
one of the glaring weaknesses of the policy of Free Imports that it
actually puts a premium on separatism. But it is impossible to discuss
the future on that assumption. Whatever the fate of the Home Rule Bill
may be it is certain that Free Trade is doomed, and that the United
Kingdom, whether united or divided, will revert to a policy of national
protection and national development.
What will be the effect upon Ireland? Assuming mutual good will,
assuming that the Irish Government will be ready to grant a substantial
preference to British trade over foreign trade, there can be no doubt
that Great Britain would respond and give to Irish products the same
preference as might be extended to Canadian or Australian products. But
the first duty of the British Government would be to British producers.
While Empire-grown wheat, and possibly meat, would come in free, the
British farmer would receive a measure of protection against the rest of
the Empire in dairy products and poultry, in barley and oats, in hops,
tobacco, sugar beet, vegetables and fruit, in all those crops, in fact,
in which the British production could meet the British demand without an
undue effect upon prices.
Now, it is precisely by these intensive forms of production that Ireland
stands to gain most under Union. Under Home Rule she would lose this
advantage and have to compete on an equality with the rest of the Empire
both in respect to these products and in respect to wheat and meat. It
is extremely doubtful, too, whether her special privileges with regard
to store cattle would long survive. They could no longer be defended, as
against Canada, by the arguments now used, and as a piece of pure
protectionism there would be no reason for Great Britain to give them a
separate fiscal entity. And if the hopes of Irish agriculture would be
severely checked, still more would that be true of those hopes of new
industries already referred to. Even the great linen industry might find
a small duty enough to transfer a large part of its production within
the British tariff zone. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether any
tariff that Ireland could impose, consistently either with preference or
with reasonable prices in so small a market and on so small a scale of
production, could be of much effect against the competition of British
industries, strengthened and made aggressive under the stimulus of a
national trade policy.
This is the most favourable hypothesis. But it is at least conceivable
that a Nationalist Government, whether actuated by a laudable desire to
hurry on Irish industrial development, or influenced by the tradition of
animosity which still plays so strong a part in Nationalist politics,
may refuse to enter upon the policy of Imperial preference. It might
even be tempted by various considerations to give a preference to the
United States or to Germany. Germany is a large importer of foodstuffs.
The establishment of a British tariff may prove a serious blow to her
manufacturing interests. A trade agreement with Ireland might be a very
useful temporary business expedient from the German point of view.
Incidentally a large increase of German merchant shipping in Irish
harbours might, in the case of possible hostilities, be of no little
service in providing commerce destroyers with a most convenient excuse
for being in the most favourable area for their operations. Any fiscal
excursions of that sort would inevitably be visited upon Ireland by
severe economic reprisals of one kind or another on the part of Great
Britain, from which Ireland would receive permanent injury far
outweighing any temporary advantage which might be secured from foreign
countries.
In other words, Ireland under Home Rule would be in almost every respect
thrust back into her eighteenth century position of "least favoured
Colony." She would, at the best, be handicapped in the British market in
respect of those products by which she could profit most, and in those
which she is less fitted to produce would have to compete with the
virgin soil and competitive energy and organisation of the great
Dominions. At the worst, her fiscal policy might invite reprisals and
make her "least favoured" not only by her circumstances but by the
intention of those who would frame the British tariff. It is true that
the British Government would no longer dream of directly interdicting
Irish exports. But in that respect modern organised capital has an
influence to promote or kill almost as great as that of governments in
former times. And the influence of British capital, under such
circumstances, would certainly not tend to be directed towards the
economic development of Ireland.
But the use of the customs tariff is by no means the only great
instrument of a national economic policy. To promote the flow of trade
in national channels, to secure the fullest development of the national
territory and resources, the removal of natural internal barriers is
often even more important than the setting up of artificial external
barriers. Statesmen who have had to face the task of giving strength and
solidity to weak political unions have always aimed at the development
of internal communications. Washington's first concern after the success
of the American War of Independence was to endeavour to create a system
of internal river and canal navigation in order to help to bind the
loosely allied States into a real union. Bismarck used the Prussian
railways as well as the Zollverein to build up German unity. In the
making of Canada the Intercolonial railway and the Canadian Pacific were
essential complements to the national tariff. Railways forced South
Africa into union, and will gradually give Australia real cohesion and
unity. In the United Kingdom there has been no national policy with
regard to communications, least of all any nationally directed or
stimulated effort to cement the political union of 1800. But such a
policy is essential to the reality of the Union. To get rid, as far as
possible, of the barrier which the St. George's Channel presents to-day
both to the convenience of passenger traffic and to the direct through
carriage of goods between internal points in the two islands should be
one of the first objects of Unionist policy in the future. In the
train-ferry, which has bridged the channels of sea-divided Denmark,
which in spite of the Baltic, has made Sweden contiguous with Germany,
which for the purposes of railway traffic, has practically abolished
Lake Michigan, modern developments have provided us with the very
instrument required. To Irish agriculture the gain of being put into
direct railway communication with all England and Scotland would be
immense. From the tourist and sporting point of view Ireland would reap
a doubled and trebled harvest. More than that, the bridging of St.
George's Channel will for the first time enable the west coast of
Ireland to become what it ought to be, the true west coast of the United
Kingdom, the starting point of all our fast mail and passenger services
across the Atlantic.
But all this implies the Union, the existence of a single Government
interested in the development of the United Kingdom as a whole. Separate
governments in Great Britain and Ireland would not have the same
inducement to give financial encouragement to such schemes. Irish
manufacturers and British farmers alike might protest against being
taxed to facilitate the competition of rivals in their own markets. An
Irish Government would have neither sufficient money nor sufficient
interest to give the subsidies necessary to secure a three days' service
across the Atlantic. A British Government would naturally develop one of
its existing ports, or some new port on the west coast of Scotland,
rather than build up a new source of revenue and national strength in a
separate State. No one could blame it, any more than we could blame the
Canadian Government for wishing to subsidise a fast service from Halifax
or some other port in the Dominion rather than one from St. John's,
Newfoundland. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Navigation
Acts deliberately destroyed Irish shipping. A policy of _laisser faire_
in matters of national communication has hitherto prevented its revival.
To-day new ideas are in the air. Those ideas can be applied, either
from the standpoint of the Union or from that of separatism. In the one
case Ireland has the prospect of becoming, what her geographical
position entitles her to be, the eastern bridge-head of the North
Atlantic. In the other the immense power of the larger capital and
larger subsidies of Great Britain will be as effective as any navigation
laws of the past in leaving her a derelict by the wayside, continuing to
wait idle and hungry, with empty harbours, while the great streams of
commerce flow past her to north and south.
And if the theory of _laisser faire_ is rapidly dying out in matters of
trade and communications, it has already been largely superseded in
regard to social questions. The duty of the State to expend money in
order to level up the standard of life of its citizens, or to prevent
their sinking below that standard, is to-day universally recognised. The
methods by which that object is aimed at are various. There is the
crudest form, that of direct money relief, such as is involved in Old
Age Pensions. There is the subsidising of socially desirable economic
operations, such as insurance against sickness or the acquisition of
freehold by tenants. There is the expenditure of money on various forms
of education, in the scientific assistance of industry and agriculture,
in promotion of forestry, drainage, or the improvement of local
communication. There is the enforcement of innumerable regulations to
safeguard the health and safety of the working population. Nowhere has
this conception of the duty of the State exercised a greater influence
than in Ireland during the last twenty years. The Congested Districts
Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Land Purchase Scheme,
illustrate one phase of its carrying into effect. Old Age Pensions,
cheap labourers' cottages, sickness insurance illustrate another. All
these have been provided out of the United Kingdom exchequer. They could
not be provided out of Irish revenues. Still less could Irish revenues
provide for a continuous extension of this policy in order to keep on a
level with English conditions.
It has been stated by Mr. Churchill that under the Government scheme of
Home Rule, Land Purchase and Old Age Pensions will be paid by Great
Britain. Even if that were a workable arrangement it only covers a small
part of the field. For the rest Home Rule would mean the complete
abandonment of the attempt to level up the social conditions of Great
Britain and Ireland to a common standard. The Irish Government would
never have the means to carry out the same programme of social
legislation as will be carried out in Great Britain. Handicapped in
competition with British industries it would, moreover, naturally be
disinclined, even apart from the question of cost, to apply any
legislation or any regulations which might tend to raise the cost of
production. There will thus not only be an inevitable falling back for
want of means, but, in addition, a continual temptation to the weaker
and more backward State to meet superior industrial efficiency by the
temporary cheapness of inferior social conditions.[88]
But such a policy would not only be disastrous in itself in its ultimate
effect upon Irish national life. It would at once provide a fresh and
valid excuse for effective fiscal differentiation against Ireland in
Great Britain. Once again, as in the eighteenth century, Ireland would
be penalised for being a poor and "sweated" country.
So far the discussion of the economic results of separation has been
confined to Ireland, because Ireland would undoubtedly be the chief
sufferer. Her dependence on the English market, the smallness of her
home market, her backward social condition, would all be insuperable
obstacles to a really healthy development on independent lines. Great
Britain, on the other hand, would suffer relatively much less from Home
Rule. The immediate shrinkage of trade with Ireland, even with an Irish
tariff to overcome, might not be very great. The real loss would be not
so much any actual decrease of trade, as the loss judged by the
standard of the possibilities of Irish development under the Union. The
essence of the situation after all is that the United Kingdom is a
single economic area. The exclusion of one part of that area from the
political and economic life of the rest, while injurious to the rest,
must prove disastrous above all to the part excluded. After centuries of
alternate neglect and repression Ireland has at last been brought to a
condition in which she is capable of taking the fullest advantage of a
new era of progress and development for the United Kingdom as a whole.
And this is the time which is chosen for seriously suggesting that she
should once again be excluded from all the benefits of partnership in
the United Kingdom and driven out into the wilderness of poverty and
decay. The plea for this folly is an unreal sentiment which is itself
merely the survival of the mistaken political or economic separatism of
the past, and which is nothing to the real and justifiable sentiment of
bitterness which would be roused in Ireland if the plea were accepted.