THE MECHANICS OF HOME RULE
The inevitableness of Home Rule resides in the fact that it is, as one
might say, a biped among ideas. It marches to triumph on two feet, an
Irish and an Imperial foot. If there were in Ireland no demand whatever
for self-government it would, nevertheless, be necessary in the
interests of the Empire to force it on her. The human, or as some people
may prefer to call it, the sociological case for Home Rule, and the
historical case for it have already been outlined. We now turn to
consideration, of another order, derived from Political Mechanics, or
rather bearing on the mere mechanism of politics. Let us approach the
problem first from the Imperial side.
On the whole, the most remarkable thing about the British Empire is that
there is no British Empire. We are in presence of the familiar
distinction between the raw material and the finished article. There
are, indeed, on the surface of the globe a number of self-governing
colonies, founded and peopled by men of Irish and English blood. In each
of these the United Kingdom is represented by a Governor whose whole
duty consists in being seen on formal occasions, but never heard in
counsel or rebuke. The only other connecting links are those of law and
finance. The Privy Council acts as a Court of Appeal in certain causes,
and Colonial Governments borrow money in the London market. These
communities widely seperated in geography and in temperament, have no
common fiscal policy, no common foreign policy, no common scheme of
defence, no common Council to discuss and decide Imperial affairs. Now
this may be a very wise arrangement, but you must not call it an Empire.
From the point of view of unity, if from no other, it presents an
unfavourable contrast to French Imperialism, under which all the oversea
colonies are represented in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris. In the
English plan the oversea colonies are unrelated atoms. You may say that
they afford all the materials for a grandiose federation; but if you
have flour in one bag, and raisins in another, and candied peel in
another, and suet in another you must not call them a Christmas pudding
until they have been mixed together and cooked. Those areas of the
globe, coloured red on the maps, may have all the resources requisite
for a great, self-sufficing, economic unit of a new order. Their peoples
may desire that new order. But until it is achieved you must remember
that the British Empire belongs to the region of dream and not to that
of fact.
For many years now, apostles of reconstruction have been hammering out
the details of a scheme that shall unify the Empire on some sort of
Federal basis. For the new organism which they desire to create they
need a brain. Is this to be found in the Westminster Assembly, sometimes
loosely styled the "Imperial Parliament"? As things stand at present
such a suggestion is a mere counter-sense. That body has come to such a
pass as would seem to indicate the final bankruptcy of the governing
genius of England. All the penalties of political gluttony have
accumulated on it. Parliament, to put the truth a little brutally, has
broken down under a long debauch of over-feeding. Every day of every
session it bites off far more in the way of bills and estimates than it
even pretends to have time to chew. Results follow which it would be
indiscreet to express in terms of physiology. Tens of millions are
shovelled out of the Treasury by an offhand, undiscussed, perfunctory
resolution. The attempt to compress infinite issues in a space too
little has altered and, as some critics think, degraded the whole tenor
of public life. Parliament is no longer the Grand Inquest of the Nation,
at least not in the ancient and proper meaning of the words. The
declaration of Edmund Burke to the effect that a member has no right to
sacrifice his "unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened
conscience" to any set of men living may be echoed by the judges in our
day, but to anyone who knows the House of Commons it is a piece of pure
irony. Party discipline cracks every session a more compelling whip; and
our shepherded, regimented, and automatised representatives themselves
realise that, whatever more desirable status they may have attained,
they have certainly lost that of individual freedom. Out of their own
ranks a movement has arisen to put an end altogether to Party
government. This proposal I myself believe to be futile, but its very
futility testifies to the existence of an intolerable situation. All
this turns on the inadequacy of the time of the House of Commons to its
business. But the distribution of such time as there is, is a revel of
ineptitudes. It resembles the drawing of a schoolboy who has not yet
learned perspective. A stranger dropping into the Chamber will find it
spending two hours in helping to determine whether Russia is to have a
Czar, and the next four hours helping to determine whether Rathmines is
to have, let us say, a new sewer. The affairs of India, involving the
political welfare of three hundred millions of human beings, get one
day; Egypt, that test case in international ethics, has to be content
with a few scattered hours. And, despite all this, local questions are
not considered at sufficient length or with sufficient knowledge. The
parish pump is close enough to spoil St Stephen's as an Imperial
Council, and yet so far away as to destroy its effectiveness as an organ
of local government.
Such an assembly is clearly unfitted to function as the cerebrum of
Empire. It must be relieved of burdens which in the complexity of modern
politics it is no longer able to bear. How is this to be done? In one
way and in one way only, by leaving local business to local bodies. But
that is Home Rule, or, as the learned, envisaging the idea from another
point of view, sometimes prefer to call it, Devolution. Through the
principle of autonomy, incompletely applied, the British Possessions
have so far evolved. Through the principle of autonomy, completely
applied, and in no other wise, can they evolve into an ordered system
worthy of the Imperial name. This is at first blush a singular
development. Here lie Ireland and England separated by a mountain of
misunderstanding. We Irish Nationalists have for a century been trying
to bore a tunnel through from one side. And suddenly we become aware of
the tapping of picks not our own, and encounter midway the tunnel which
the Party of Imperial Reconstruction have driven through from the other
side. Here are all the materials for a _tableau_. Justice falls on the
neck of expediency. Imperialism recognises in nationality no rebel but a
son of the house. Toryism rubs its eyes, and finds that it is Home Rule.
But, sounded to its depths, this new current of thought appears not only
not eccentric but inevitable. Ample explanation is to be found in the
history of the Irish fight for self-government. On this subject there
has been in Ireland a marked evolution of ideas. O'Connell began by
demanding simple Repeal of the Union and the Restoration of Grattan's
Parliament. But by 1844 he had advanced towards a Federal programme.
"Beside the local Parliament in Ireland having full and perfect local
authority," he writes in that year, "there should be, for questions of
Imperial concern, colonial, military, and naval, and of foreign alliance
and policy, a Congressional or Federal Parliament, in which Ireland
should have a fair share and proportion of representation and power."
The proposed change of programme came in a questionable shape to a
suspicious time. It was not received with universal favour, and, to
avert dissension, it was represented as a mere _ballon d'essai_ and was
abandoned. O'Connell died, and Repeal and Federation alike were
swallowed up in the Great Famine. But time was to renew its urgency. The
essential facts, and the logic of the facts, remained unaltered. When
Isaac Butt came to formulate his scheme at the Home Rule Conference in
1873 he renewed the Federal proposal in terms almost verbally the same.
The Conference resolved:
"That, in claiming these rights and privileges for our country, we
adopt the principle of a Federal arrangement, which would secure to
the Irish Parliament the right of legislating for and regulating
all matters relating to the internal affairs of Ireland, while
_leaving to the Imperial Parliament the power of dealing with all
questions affecting the Imperial and Government, legislation
regarding the colonies and other dependencies of the Crown, the
relations of the Empire with Foreign States, and all matters
appertaining to the defence and stability of the Empire at large;
as well as the power of granting and providing the supplies
necessary for Imperial purposes_."
Parnell, who was a supreme master of the art of doing one thing at a
time, naturally laid the emphasis on Ireland. But when he was asked by
Mr Cecil Rhodes to agree to the retention of Irish representatives at
Westminster in the interests of Imperial Federation, he declared himself
in very definite terms:
"It does not come so much within my province to express a full
opinion upon the larger question of Imperial federation, but I
agree with you that the continued Irish representation at
Westminster immensely facilitates such a step, while the contrary
provision in the Bill of 1886 would have been a bar. Undoubtedly
this is a matter which should be dealt with largely in accordance
with the opinion of the Colonies themselves, and if they should
desire to share in the cost of Imperial matters, as undoubtedly
they now do in the responsibility, and should express a wish for
representation at Westminster, I certainly think it should be
accorded to them, and that public opinion in these islands would
unanimously concur in the necessary constitutional modifications."
That is, if you will, thinking Imperially. Mr Redmond stands where
Parnell stood. He claims for the Irish people "the legislative and
executive control of all purely Irish affairs." But he is altogether
friendly to a later and larger application of the principle of autonomy.
But where, asks the triumphant critic not quite ingenuously, is the line
to be drawn between local and Imperial affairs? Problems far more
perplexed than this have been solved by the wit of man. The line was
drawn by O'Connell and Butt, by Parnell and Gladstone. It can be drawn
to meet the circumstances of to-day by men of goodwill, after discussion
and mutual adjustment. But why not postpone the case of Ireland until a
scheme of Home Rule all round either for the United Kingdom or for the
whole Empire has been worked out? We answer that Ireland comes first on
grounds both of ethics and of expediency. Through all the blackness of
dismal years we have laboured to preserve the twin ideas of nationality
and autonomy, and the labourer is worthy of his hire. But a Home Rule
assembly, functioning in Dublin, may well furnish the germ of a
reorganisation of the Empire. If so, let it be remembered that it was
not Mr Chamberlain but Daniel O'Connell who first in these countries
gave to Imperialism a definite and articulate form. In any event Home
Rule is the only remedy for the present congestion of St Stephen's. It
is the only tonic that can restore to English public life its old vigour
of independence.
Such are the necessities and such is the future of the Empire merely as
a problem in what has been called Political Mechanics. We have now, from
the same point of view, to examine very cursorily the present government
of Ireland. The phrasing, let me interpose, is inaccurate. Ireland, in
our day, is not governed; it is only administered. A modern government,
if it wishes to be real, must above all else explain itself. For such
luxuries, so far as Ireland is concerned, there is no time in the House
of Commons. A modern government must exercise active control over every
department of public business. For such an effort there is, so far as
Ireland is concerned, no energy in the House of Commons. Once in a blue
moon it does of course become necessary to pass an Irish Bill, a
University or a Land Bill. The Party shepherds round up their flocks,
and, for a reluctant day or two, they have to feed sparely in
unaccustomed pastures. Or again, as in 1886, 1893, or 1912, Ireland
dominates British politics, and the English members descend on her with
a heavy flop of hatred or sympathy as it may happen. But at all other
times the Union Parliament abdicates, or at least it "governs" Ireland
as men are said sometimes to drive motor-cars, in a drowse. Three
days--or is it two?--are given to Irish Estimates, and on each of these
occasions the Chamber is as desolate as a grazing ranch in Meath.
Honourable members snatch at the opportunity of cultivating their souls
in the theatres, clubs, restaurants, and other centres of culture in
which London abounds. The Irish Party is compelled by the elemental
necessities of the situation to speak with one voice on matters
regarding which there would properly be at least two voices in an Irish
Parliament, precisely identical in personnel. Ulster Unionism presents a
similar solidarity.
Whenever a point of any novelty is made, the Chief Secretary's secretary
slips over to one of the Irish Officials who on these occasions lie
ambushed at the back of the Speaker's chair, and returns with all the
elation of a honey-laden bee. His little burden of wisdom is gratefully
noted on the margin of the typewritten brief which has been already
prepared in Dublin by the Board under discussion, and, entrenched behind
this, the Right Honourable gentleman winds up the debate. Sometimes his
solemnity wrings laughter from men, sometimes his flippancy wrings
tears from the gods, but it does not in the least matter what he says.
The division bells ring; the absentees come trooping in, learn at the
door of the lobby, each from his respective Whip, whether his
spontaneous, independent judgment has made him a Yes! or a No! and vote
accordingly in the light of an unsullied conscience. The Irish
officials, with a sigh of relief or a shrug of contempt, collect their
hats and umbrellas, and retire to their hotels to erase from their minds
by slumber the babblings of a mis-spent evening. And the course of
administration in Ireland is as much affected by the whole proceedings
as the course of an 80 h.p. Mercédès is affected by a cabman's oath.
So much for exclusively Irish affairs. When Ireland comes into some
"general" scheme of legislation the parody of government becomes if
possible more fantastic in character. Let me take just three
instances--Old Age Pensions, Insurance, and the Budget. In regard to the
first it was perhaps a matter of course that no attempt should be made
to allow for the difference in economic levels between Great Britain and
Ireland. This is the very principle of Unionism: to apply like methods
to things which are unlike. But in the calculation of details an
ignorance was exhibited which passed the bounds of decency. Mistakes of
five or six per cent are, in these complex affairs, not only to be
expected but almost to be desired; they help to depress ministerial
cocksureness. But in this case there was an error of 200 per cent, a
circumstance which incidentally established in the English mind a
pleasing legend of Irish dishonesty. The Insurance Bill was ushered in
with greater prudence. The "government," recognising its own inability
to lead opinion, had the grace to refrain from misleading it. No special
Irish memorandum was issued, and no attempt was made to adjust the
scheme to Irish social and economic conditions. But Budgets afford on
the whole the capital instance of what we may call legislation by
accident. The Act of Union solemnly prescribes the principles on which
these measures are to be framed, and points to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer as the trustee of Irish interests. But nobody of this
generation ever knew a Chancellor of the Exchequer who had even read the
Act of Union; Mr Lloyd George, on his own admission, had certainly not
read it in 1909. What has happened is very simple. The fulfilment of
treaty obligations required differential taxation, but administrative
convenience was best served by a uniform system of taxation. In the
struggle between the two, conscience was as usual defeated. The
Chancellor, according to the practice which has overridden the Act of
Union budgets for Great Britain, drags the schedule of taxes so fixed
through Ireland like a net, and counts the take. That, in the process,
the pledge of England should be broken, and her honour betrayed, is not
regarded by the best authorities as an objection or even as a relevant
fact. In the more sacred name of uniformity Ireland is swamped in the
Westminster Parliament like a fishing-smack in the wash of a great
merchantman.
But let one illusion be buried. If Ireland does not govern herself it is
quite certain that the British Parliament does not govern her. Changing
the venue of inquiry from London to Dublin we find ourselves still in
regions of the fantastic. From the sober and unemotional pages of
"Whitaker's Almanack" one learns, to begin with, that "the government of
Ireland is semi-independent." The separatism of geography has in this
case triumphed. The _de facto_ rulers of Ireland in ordinary slack
times, and in the daily round of business, are the heads of the great
Departments. Some of these are not even nominally responsible to
Parliament. The Intermediate Board, for instance, has for thirty years
controlled secondary education, but it has never explained itself to
Parliament and, because of the source from which its funds are derived,
it is not open to criticism in Parliament. But none of the heads are
really responsible to any authority except their own iron-clad
consciences and the officials of the Treasury, with whom, for the sake
of appearances, they wage an unreal war. In theory, the Chief Secretary
answers to Parliament for the misdeeds of them all. In practice, this
fines itself down to reading typewritten sophistications in reply to
original questions, and improvising jokes, of a well-recognised pattern,
to turn the point of supplementary questions for forty minutes on one
day in the week during session. In its own internal economy the
government of Ireland is a form of Pantheism, with the Chief Secretary
as underlying principle. He is the source of everything, good and evil,
light and darkness, benignity and malignity, with the unfortunate result
that he is in perpetual contradiction with himself. As we know, the
equilibrium of modern governments is maintained by mutual strain between
the various ministers. Sometimes, as in the case of Lord Randolph
Churchill, a strong personality, moved by a new idea, tears the
structure to pieces. But the Chief Secretary knows no such limitations
from without. Theoretically, he may be produced to infinity in any
direction; he is all in every part. But, as a matter of fact, through
the mere necessity of filling so much space his control becomes rarefied
to an invisible vapour; he ends by becoming nothing in any part. With
its ultimate principle reduced to the status of a _Dieu fainéant_
political Pantheism is transformed into political Atheism. Responsible
government is perceived not to exist in Ireland. Mr Barry O'Brien in his
admirable book, "Dublin Castle and the Irish People," confesses himself
unable to find a better characterisation of the whole system than is
contained in a well-known passage from "The Mikado." I make no apology
for conveying it from him.
"One cannot help recalling the memory of Pooh-Bah, 'Lord
High-Everything-Else' of the Mikado of Japan. Who forgets the
memorable scene between him and Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner,
on an occasion of supreme importance?
_Ko-Ko_. Pooh-Bah, it seems that the festivities in connection with
my approaching marriage must last a week. I should like to do it
handsomely, and I want to consult you as to the amount I ought to
spend upon them.
_Pooh-Bah_. Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First Lord of
the Treasury, Lord Chamberlain, Attorney-General, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Privy Purse, or Private Secretary?
_Ko-Ko_. Suppose we say as Private Secretary.
_Pooh-Bah_. Speaking as your Private Secretary, I should say that
as the city will have to pay for it, don't stint yourself; do it
well.
_Ko-Ko_. Exactly--as the city will have to pay for it. That is your
advice?
_Pooh-Bah_. As Private Secretary. Of course you will understand
that, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am bound to see that due
economy is observed.
_Ko-Ko_. Oh, but you said just now, 'Don't stint yourself; do it
well.'
_Pooh-Bah_. As Private Secretary.
_Ko-Ko_. And now you say that due economy must be observed.
_Pooh-Bah_. As Chancellor of the Exchequer.
_Ko-Ko_. I see. Come over here where the Chancellor can't hear us.
_(They cross stage.)_ Now, as my Solicitor, how do you advise me to
deal with this difficulty?
_Pooh-Bah_. Oh, as your Solicitor, I should have no hesitation in
saying chance it.
_Ko-Ko_. Thank you _(shaking his head)_; I will.
_Pooh-Bah_. If it were not that, as Lord Chief Justice, I am bound
to see that the law isn't violated.
_Ko-Ko_. I see. Come over here where the Chief Justice can't hear
us. (_They cross the stage_.) Now, then, as First Lord of the
Treasury?
_Pooh-Bah_. Of course, as First Lord of the Treasury, I could
propose a special vote that would cover all expenses if it were not
that, as leader of the Opposition, it would be my duty to resist
it, tooth and nail. Or, as Paymaster-General, I could so cook the
accounts that, as Lord High Auditor, I should never discover the
fraud. But then, as Archbishop of Jitipu, it would be my duty to
denounce my dishonesty, and give myself into my own custody as
Commissioner of Police."
Under such arrangements as these the inevitable happens. The Chief
Secretary accepts his rôle. He is, no doubt, consoled to discover that
in one sphere, namely in that of patronage, his supremacy is effective.
He discovers further that he can hamstring certain obnoxious Acts, as Mr
Walter Long hamstrung the Land Act, by the issue of Regulations. The
rest of his official career depends on his politics. If a Tory, he
learns that the Irish Civil Service is a whispering gallery along which
his lightest word is carried to approving ears, and loyally acted upon.
Further "Ulster" expects law and order to be vindicated by the
occasional proclamation of Nationalist meetings, and batoning of
Nationalist skulls. And he absolutely must say from time to time in
public that the Irish Question in essence is not political but economic.
This is the whole duty of a Tory Chief Secretary. A Liberal Chief
Secretary functions on somewhat different lines. Administration presents
itself to him as a colossal heap of recalcitrant, wet sand out of which
he has to fashion a statue of fair-play. Having, with great labour, left
his personal impress on two or three handfuls, the weary Titan abandons
his impossible task. He falls back in good order on the House of
Commons, where his party majority enables him to pass an Irish Bill from
time to time. His spare time he divides between commending Dublin Castle
to the seven devils that made it, and praying for the advent of Home
Rule.
In either case the sovereignty of Ireland relapses into the hands of the
permanent officials, that camarilla of Olympians. To the official lives
of these gentlemen, regarded as works of art, I raise my hat in
respectful envy. They have realised the vision of Lucretius. From the
secure remoteness of their ivory towers they look down unmoved on the
stormy and drifting tides below, and they enjoy the privilege, so rare
in Ireland, of knowing the causes of things. To the ordinary man their
political origins are shrouded in twilight. They seem to him to have
come like water, but unhappily it cannot be said that they go like wind.
While they are with us they are absolute, seen by nobody, felt by all
the world, the Manchu mandarins of the West. They have been attacked on
many foolish counts; let us in justice to them and ourselves be quite
clear as to what is wrong with them. Some people say that there are too
many Boards, but it is to be remembered that for every new function with
which we endow the State it must have a new organ. Others say that they
are over-staffed; but all government departments in the world are
over-staffed. Still others say that they are stupid and corrupt. As for
corruption, it certainly does exist under many discreet veils, but its
old glory is fading. Incompetent the great officials never were. A poet
tells us that there are only two people in the world who ever understand
a man--the woman who loves him, and the enemy who hates him best. In one
of these ways, if not in the other, Dublin Castle understands Ireland.
Did it not know what the people of Ireland want, it could not so
infallibly have maintained its tradition of giving them the opposite.
Other critics again find the deadly disease of the Boards to reside in
the fact that they are a bureaucracy. This diagnosis comes closer to the
truth, but it is not yet the truth. Bureaucracies of trained experts are
becoming more and not less necessary. What is really wrong with the
Castle is that it is a bureaucracy which has usurped the throne of the
nation. "In England," declared Mr Gladstone, "when the nation attends,
it can prevail." In Ireland, though it should attend seven days in the
week, it could never under present arrangements stamp the image of its
will on public policy. The real sin of the Castle regime is that it is a
sham, a rococo, a despotism painted to look like representative
government. To quote a radiant commonplace, the rich significance of
which few of us adequately grasp, it does not rest on the consent of the
governed.
"From whatever point of view we envisage the English Government in
Ireland," writes Mr Paul-Dubois, "we are confronted with the same
appearance of constitutional forms masking a state of things which
is a compound of autocracy, oppression, and corruption."
Such a system does not possess within itself the seed of continuance.
Disraeli announced, somewhat prematurely, the advent of an age in which
institutions that could not bear discussion would have to go. Matthew
Arnold yearned for a time in which the manifestly absurd would be
abandoned. In the flame of either dictum the present "government" of
Ireland shrivels to ashes, and affairs are ripe for the application of
both. Here, as in the Colonies, the people must enter into its heritage.
The days are for ever dead in which a nation could be ruled in daily
disregard of its history, its ideals, its definite programme.
On the minutiae of administration I do not mean to touch. When the whole
spirit, atmosphere, and ethos are anti-moral it is idle to chronicle any
chance rectitude of detail. If a man is a murderer it is not much to his
credit to observe that he has triumphed over the primitive temptation to
eat peas with his knife. If a government is based on contempt for public
opinion, as its fundamental principle, no useful purpose is served by a
record of the occasions on which a policeman has been known to pass a
citizen in the street without beating him. But there is one further
confirmation of the view, here advanced, to omit which would be to
ignore the most significant fact of our time. Certain departments such
as the Congested Districts Board and the Department of Agriculture,
recent creations, have been freshened by the introduction of a
representative, non-official element. Others such as the Estates
Commission have been under the control of officials of a new type, able
men who do not conceal the fact that they believe in Ireland. All of
these new Boards have struck root in the national life to a depth never
reached by any of their predecessors. The lesson of this change is the
lesson of freedom. In the precise degree in which government trusts the
people will the people trust government. It remains to complete the
process by a scheme of autonomy that shall make every administrator a
trustee and executant of the will of the nation.
There are other organs of "government" in Ireland of which the reader
may reasonably expect to hear something. He will permit me to discharge
my obligations by copying out certain paragraphs from an old note-book:
"_Judges_.--It is a mistake to suppose that none of the Irish
Judges know any law. Our judiciary includes many masterly lawyers,
and many adroit men of the world. But all of them are political
appointments. Hence in ordinary cases a man will get clean justice.
But the moment politics flutter on the breeze, the masked battery
on the Bench is uncurtained to bellow forth anti-Nationalist
shrapnel. Irish Judges, in fact, are very like the horse in the
schoolboy's essay: 'The horse is a noble and useful quadruped, but,
when irritated, he ceases to do so."
"_Police_.--The Royal Irish Constabulary was formerly an Army of
occupation. Now, owing to the all but complete disappearance of
crime, it is an Army of no occupation."
"_Dublin Castle in general_.--Must be seen to be disbelieved."
Since there does not exist a British Empire, it is necessary to invent
one. Since there does not exist an Irish government, in any modern and
intelligible sense of the word, it is necessary to invent one. The
common creative mould out of which both must be struck is the principle
of Home Rule.