[Footnote 15: Speech at Manchester, May 7, 1886, by Mr. Shaw-Lefevre,
who was a member of the Cabinet to which Mr. Chamberlain's scheme was
submitted.]
[Footnote 16: _Hansard_, vol. 220, pp. 708, 715.]
[Footnote 17: _Considerations on Representative Government_, p. 281.]
[Footnote 18: Dicey's _England's Case against Home Rule_, pp. 25-31, and
Letter in _Spectator_ of September 17th, 1887.]
[Footnote 19: From the beginning of 1880 till now there have been six
Viceroys and ten Chief Secretaries in Dublin--namely, Duke of
Marlborough, Earls Cowper and Spencer, Earls of Carnarvon and Aberdeen,
and the Marquis of Londonderry; Mr. Lowther, Mr. Forster, Lord F.
Cavendish, Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Campbell Bannerman, Sir W. Hart Dyke, Mr.
W.H. Smith, Mr. J. Morley, Sir M. Hicks-Beach, and Mr. A. Balfour. A
fine example, truly, of stable government and continuous policy!]
[Footnote 20: Creasy's _Imperial and Colonial Constitutions of the
Britannic Empire,_ p. 155.]
[Footnote 21: May's _Const. Hist._, i. 313.]
[Footnote 22: Blackstone's _Commentaries_, by Stephen, ii. 491, 492,
497, 507.]
[Footnote 23: We need not go far afield for illustrations. A few samples
will suffice. "It was natural," says Mill (_Rep. Gov._, p. 311), "to
feel strong doubts before trial had been made how such a provision [as
the Supreme Court of the United States] would work; whether the tribunal
would have the courage to exercise its constitutional power; if it did,
whether it would exercise it wisely, and whether the Government would
consent peaceably to its decision. The discussions on the American
Constitution, before its final adoption, give evidence that these
natural apprehensions were strongly felt; but they are now entirely
quieted, since, during the two generations and more which have
subsequently elapsed, nothing has occurred to verify them, though there
have at times been disputes of considerable acrimony, and which became
the badges of parties respecting the limits of the authority of the
Federal and State Governments." The Austrian opponents of Home Rule in
Hungary predicted that it would lead straight to separation. The
opponents of the Canadian Constitution prophesied that Canada would in a
few years be annexed to the United States; and Home Rule in Australia
was believed by able statesmen to involve independence at an early date.
Mr. Dicey himself tells us "that the wisest thinkers of the eighteenth
century (including Burke) held that the independence of the American
Colonies meant the irreparable ruin of Great Britain. There were
apparently solid reasons for this belief: experience has proved it to be
without foundation." The various changes in our own Constitution, and
even in our Criminal Code, were believed by "men of light and leading"
at the time to portend national ruin. All the judges in the land, all
the bankers, and the professions generally, petitioned against
alteration in the law which sent children of ten to the gallows for the
theft of a pocket-handkerchief. The great Lord Ellenborough declared in
the House of Lords that "the learned judges were unanimously agreed"
that any mitigation in that law would imperil "the public security." "My
Lords," he exclaimed, "if we suffer this Bill to pass we shall not know
where we stand; we shall not know whether we are on our heads or on our
feet." Mr. Perceval, when leader of the House of Commons in 1807,
declared that "he could not conceive a time or change of circumstances
which would render further concessions to the Catholics consistent with
the safety of the State." (_Croker Papers_, i. 12.) Croker was a very
astute man; but here is his forecast of the Reform Act of 1832: "No
kings, no lords, no inequalities in the social system; all will be
levelled to the plane of the petty shopkeepers and small farmers: this,
perhaps, not without bloodshed, but certainly by confiscations and
persecutions." "There can be no longer any doubt that the Reform Bill is
a stepping-stone in England to a Republic, and in Ireland to
separation." Croker met the Queen in 1832, considered her very
good-looking, but thought it not unlikely that "she may live to be plain
Miss Guelph." Even Sir Robert Peel wrote: "If I am to be believed, I
foresee revolution as the consequence of this Bill;" and he "felt that
it had ceased to be an object of ambition to any man of equable and
consistent mind to enter into the service of the Crown." And as late as
1839, so robust a character as Sir James Graham thought the world was
coming to an end because the young Queen gave her confidence to a Whig
Minister. "I begin to share all your apprehensions and forebodings," he
writes to Croker, "with regard to the probable issue of the present
struggle. The Crown in alliance with Democracy baffles every calculation
on the balance of power in our mixed form of Government. Aristocracy and
Church cannot contend against Queen and people mixed; they must yield in
the first instance, when the Crown, unprotected, will meet its fate, and
the accustomed round of anarchy and despotism will run its course." And
he prays that he may "lie cold before that dreadful day." (_Ibid._, ii.
113, 140, 176, 181, 356.) Free Trade created a similar panic. "Good
God!" Croker exclaimed, "what a chaos of anarchy and misery do I foresee
in every direction, from so comparatively small a beginning as changing
an _average_ duty of 8_s._ into a _fixed_ duty of 8_s._, the fact being
that the fixed duty means _no duty at all_; and _no duty at all_ will be
the overthrow of the existing social and political system of our
country!" (_Ibid._, iii. 13.) And what have become of Mr. Lowe's gloomy
vaticinations as to the terrible consequences of the very moderate
Reform Bill of 1866, followed as it was by a much more democratic
measure?]