HOME RULE--ITS FORMS.
[Sidenote: Forms of Home Rule.]
The proposals for giving Ireland Home Rule, in so far as they have taken
any definite shape whatever, have assumed four forms:--
I. Home Rule as Federalism.
II. Home Rule as Colonial Independence.
III. Home Rule as the revival of Grattan's Constitution.
IV. Home Rule under the proposed Gladstonian Constitution.
[Sidenote: Conditions to be satisfied by plan of Home Rule.]
How far Home Rule under these forms, or any one of them, is compatible
with the interests of the English people must be determined by
considering what are the conditions which an acceptable plan of Home
Rule must fulfil, and by then examining how far any given form of Home
Rule satisfies them.
Any scheme of Home Rule which can conceivably be accepted by England
must, it is admitted, satisfy the following conditions.[29]
It must in the first place be consistent with the ultimate supremacy of
the British Parliament.[30]
It must in the second place be just; it must provide that each part of
the United Kingdom take a fair share of Imperial burdens; that the
citizens of each part have equality of rights; that the rights both of
individuals and of minorities be safely guarded.[31]
It must in the third place promise finality; it must be in the nature of
a final settlement of the demands made on behalf of Ireland, and not be
a mere provocation to the revival of fresh demands.
It must, in short, to sum up the whole matter, be, as already insisted
upon, a scheme which promises to England at least not greater evils than
the maintenance of the Union or than Irish independence.
These conditions constitute the touchstone by which any given plan of
Home Rule must be tested. No scheme, however ingenious, can be accepted
which lacks any of these characteristics, namely, the maintenance of
Parliamentary sovereignty--justice--finality.
[Sidenote: General character of Federalism.]
I. _Home Rule as Federalism._--Federal government is the latest
invention of constitutional science. Several circumstances confer upon
it at the present moment extraordinary prestige. It is a piece of
political mechanism which has been found to work with success in three
notorious instances. In its favour is engaged the pride--may we not say
vanity?--of one of the leading nations of the earth. Americans regard
Federalism with pardonable partiality. They are the original inventors
of the best Federal system in the world, and Federalism has made them
the greatest of all free communities. A polity under which the United
States has grown up and flourished, and fought the biggest war which has
been fought during the century, and come out of it victorious, and with
renewed strength, must, it is felt, be a constitution suited for all
nations who aspire to freedom. There is nothing therefore surprising in
the fact that Federalism is supposed to be the panacea for all social
evils, and all political perplexities, or that it should be thrust upon
our attention as the device for bringing England and her colonies into
closer connection, and (not perhaps quite consistently) for relaxing the
connection and terminating the feud between England and Ireland. We
should do well, therefore, to recollect what is the true nature of
Federalism. Federal government, whatever be its merits, is a mere
arrangement for the distribution of political power. It is an
arrangement which requires for its application certain well-defined
conditions.[32]
There must, in the first place, exist a body of countries; such, for
example, as the cantons of Switzerland, or the colonies of America, or
the provinces of Canada, so closely connected by locality, by history,
by race, or the like, as to be capable of bearing in the eyes of their
inhabitants an impress of common nationality. There must, in the second
place, be found among the people of the countries which it is proposed
to unite in Federal union, a very peculiar state of sentiment. They must
desire union; they must not desire unity. Federalism, in short, is in
its nature a scheme for bringing together into closer connection a set
of states, each of which desires, whilst retaining its individuality, to
form together with its neighbours one nation. It is not, at any rate as
it has hitherto been applied, a plan for disuniting the parts of a
united state. It may possibly be capable of this application;
experience, however, gives no guidance on this point,[33] and loyalty to
the central government is to the working of a Federal system as
necessary as loyalty on the part of individual citizens to their own
separate State. When, therefore, it is suggested that Federalism may
establish a satisfactory relation between England and Ireland, a doubt
naturally suggests itself whether the United Kingdom presents the
conditions necessary for the success of the Federal experiment. Whether
in the case of two countries, of which the one has no desire for State
rights and the other has no desire for union, the bases of a Federal
scheme are not wanting, is an inquiry which deserves consideration.
Politicians, however, may reject references to abstract theory, and the
best way of testing the application of Federalism to the relations
between England and Ireland, is to make clear to ourselves what are the
aims proposed to himself by a genuine Home Ruler, and then trace in
outline the characteristics of Federalism, and consider how the Federal
system would work in reference to the interests of England.
[Sidenote: Aim of Home Rule.]
"My plan of Home Rule for Ireland," writes an eminent Home Ruler, "would
establish between Ireland and the Imperial Parliament the same relations
in principle that exist between a State of the American Union and the
Federal Government, or between any State of the Dominion of Canada and
that Central Canadian Parliament which meets in Ottawa."
This statement exhibits both laxity of language and laxity of thought,
but it gives a definition of the objects proposed to himself by a
genuine Home Ruler which is sufficiently definite, for the ends of my
argument. Home Rule is, for our present purpose, Federalism. We may
therefore, assume that it involves the adoption throughout the present
United Kingdom of a constitution in principle, though not in detail,
like that of the United States. The United Kingdom would, if Mr.
McCarthy's proposals were adopted, be transformed into a confederacy;
the different States, say Great Britain and Ireland, or England,
Scotland, and Ireland, would bear to the whole union the same relation
which Virginia and New York bear to the United States; they would bear
towards each other the same relation which Virginia bears to New York,
or which they both bear towards Massachusetts. Such a constitution has,
it must be at once admitted, no necessary connection with Republicanism.
The King or Queen of England for the time being would occupy the
position of a hereditary president; this arrangement would, as Mr. Butt
seems to have perceived, increase rather than diminish the authority of
the Crown. It must, on the other hand, be noted that Federalism
necessarily involves the formation of a new constitution, not for
Ireland only, but for the whole of the United Kingdom. It is necessary
to insist upon this point. For half the fallacies of the arguments for
Home Rule rest upon the idea that Home Rule is a matter affecting
Ireland alone. 'Irish Federalism,' the title of a pamphlet by Mr. Butt,
is a term involving something like self-contradiction. The misnomer is
curious and full of instruction.
Whoever wishes to understand the relation of Federalism to the English
Constitution and to English interests must give some attention to the
nature of a Federal Union.
[Sidenote: Characteristics of Federalism.]
A Federal constitution must, from its very nature, be marked by the
following characteristics.
It must, at any rate in modern days, be a written constitution, for its
very foundation is the "Federal pact" or contract; the constitution must
define with more or less precision the respective powers of the central
government, and of the State governments of the central legislature and
of the local legislatures; it must provide some means (e.g., reference
to a popular vote) for bringing into play that ultimate sovereign power
which is able to modify or reform the constitution itself; it must
provide some arbiter, be it Council, Court, or Crown, with authority to
decide whether the Federal pact has been observed; it must institute
some means by which the principles of the constitution may be upheld,
and the decrees of the arbiter or Court be enforced against the
resistance (if need be) of one or more of the separate States. These are
not the accidents but the essential features of any Federal
constitution; and are found under the constitution of the Canadian
Dominion and of the Swiss Confederacy, no less than under the
constitution of the United States. They all depend on the simple, but
often neglected fact, that a Federal constitution implies an elaborate
distribution and definition of political powers; that it is from its
very nature a compromise between the claims of rival authorities, the
Confederacy and the States, and that behind all the mechanism and
artifices of the constitution there lies, however artfully concealed,
some sovereign power which must have the means both to support the
principles of the constitution and, when occasion requires, to modify
its terms. Hence almost of necessity flow some further results. Under a
federation the law of the land must be divided into constitutional laws
(or, in other words, articles of the constitution), which can be
changed, if at all, only with special difficulty, say by an appeal to
the popular vote or by a constituent assembly, and ordinary laws which
may be changed by the central Congress or by the separate assemblies of
the States. The powers both of the central Parliament and of the local
parliaments, depending as they do upon the constitutional compact, must
be limited. Neither the National Assembly of Switzerland nor the
Congress of the United States have anything like the sovereign power of
the British Parliament: the same thing is obviously true of the Cantonal
or State Assemblies. Such are, under one form or another, the essential
characteristics of a Federal Government. A confederation of which
England and Ireland formed a part would further of necessity exhibit a
feature not to be found in the United States. The authority of the
Confederacy would in reality mean the power of one State--namely, Great
Britain. No artificial distribution of the whole country into separate
States would get rid of a fact depending upon laws or facts of nature
beyond the reach of constitutional arrangements.
[Sidenote: Advantages of Federalism to England.]
It is now possible to perceive pretty clearly the relation of Federalism
to British or English interests. It would, as compared with the
independence of Ireland, present three advantages. There would not be
the same obvious and patent failure in the efforts of British
statesmanship to unite all the British isles into one country; the
continuity of English history would be to a certain extent preserved;
the break with the past would be lessened. The Federal Union might, in
the eyes of foreign powers, be simply the United Kingdom under another
form. The loss, again, to England in material resources would be
somewhat less than that involved in separation. Ireland might possibly
continue to contribute her share to the Federal Exchequer, though a
critic who reflects upon the expectations expressed by Home Rulers of
benefit to Ireland from the expenditure of Irish taxes on Irish objects,
will wonder how, unless the taxation of a poverty-stricken country is to
be greatly increased, the Irish people could support the expense both of
the central and of the local governments. American experience hardly
justifies the notion that Federalism is an economical form of
Government. It would, and this is no small advantage, make it possible
to guarantee, at any-rate in appearance, that the executive and
legislative authority of the Irish Government should be exercised with
due regard to justice. The Federal compact might, and probably would,
contain articles which forbade any State Government or legislature to
suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, to bestow political privileges upon any
church, to pass laws which infringe the obligation of contracts, to
deprive any man of his property without due compensation. The Ten
Commandments, in short, and the obvious applications thereof, might be
embodied in the fundamental law of the land. Federalism would at lowest
preserve a formal respect for justice, and if the system worked
efficiently, would protect individuals and minorities from gross
oppression at the hands of the Irish State Government.
These are the benefits of Home Rule to Great Britain. Let us now examine
what are the evils to Great Britain of the proposed constitutional
revolution. For whoever either will meditate for a short time on the
nature of Federalism, or will examine the mode in which the constitution
of the United States--the most successful federation which the world has
seen--actually works, will soon perceive that what is miscalled "Irish
Federalism" is in reality "British Federalism," and amounts, as I am
forced to reiterate again and again, to a proposal for changing the
whole constitution of the United Kingdom It is, in fact, the most
"revolutionary" proposal, if the word "revolutionary" be used in its
strict sense, which has ever been submitted to an English Parliament,
the abolition of the House of Lords, the disestablishment of the
Church, the abolition of the monarchy, might leave the English
constitution far less essentially changed than would the adoption of
Federalism even in that apparently moderate form in which it was
presented by Mr. Butt to the consideration of the English public.
[Sidenote: Disadvantages of Federalism to England.]
The definite disadvantages to England of the proposed revolution may be
summed up under three heads:--First, the sovereignty of the Imperial
Parliament would be destroyed and all English constitutional
arrangements would be dislocated; secondly, the power of Great Britain
would be diminished; thirdly, the chance of further disagreement with
Ireland would certainly not be diminished, and would probably be
increased.
_First._--Under all the formality, the antiquarianism, the shams of the
British constitution, there lies latent an element of power which has
been the true source of its life and growth. This secret source of
strength is the absolute omnipotence,[34] the sovereignty, of
Parliament. As to the mode in which King, Lords, and Commons were to
divide the sovereign power between themselves there have been at
different times disputes leading to civil war; but that Parliament--that
is, the Crown, the Peers, and the Commons acting together--is absolutely
supreme, has never been doubted. Here constitutional theory and
constitutional practice are for once at one. Hence, it has been well
said by the acutest of foreign critics that the merit of the English
constitution is that it is no constitution at all. The distinction
between fundamental articles of the constitution and laws, between
statutes which can only be touched (if at all) by a constituent
assembly, and statutes which can be repealed by an ordinary
Parliament--the whole apparatus, in short, of artificial
constitutionalism--is utterly unknown to Englishmen. Thus freedom has in
England been found compatible at crises of danger with an energy of
action generally supposed to be peculiar to despotism. The source of
strength is, in fact, in each case the same. The sovereignty of
Parliament is like the sovereignty of the Czar. It is like all
sovereignty at bottom, nothing else but unlimited power; and, unlike
some other forms of sovereignty, can be at once put in force by the
ordinary means of law. This is the one great advantage of our
constitution over that of the United States. In America, every ordinary
authority throughout the Union is hampered by constitutional
restrictions; legislation must be slow, because the change of any
constitutional rule is impeded by endless difficulties. The vigour which
is wanting to Congress, is indeed to a certain extent to be found in the
extensive executive power left in the hands of the President; but it
takes little acuteness to perceive that in point of pliability, power of
development, freedom of action, English constitutionalism far excels
the Federalism of the United States. Nor is it less obvious that the
very qualities in which the English constitution excels that of the
United States are essential to the maintenance by England of the British
Empire. Home Rulers, whether they know it or not, touch the mainspring
of the British constitution. For from the moment that Great Britain
becomes part of a federation, the omnipotence of Parliament is gone. The
Federal Congress might be called by the name of the Imperial Parliament.
It might possibly be made up of the same elements, be elected by the
same electors, and even in the main consist of the very same persons as
the existing Parliament of the United Kingdom; but its nature would be
changed, and its power would be limited on all sides. It might deal with
Imperial expenditure, with foreign affairs, with peace and war, with
other matters placed within its competence; on every other point the
British Congress would, like the American Congress, be powerless. Nor
would all the powers taken from the Congress be necessarily given to the
local assemblies. Every analogy points the other way. If the example of
the United States is to be followed, articles of the constitution would
limit the power both of the Imperial Congress and of the local
representative assemblies. This limitation of authority could not be
measured by what appears on the face of the constitution. Some council,
tribunal, or other arbiter--let us, for the sake of simplicity, call it
the Federal Court--would have authority to determine whether a law was
or was not constitutional, or, in other words, whether it was or was
not a law. Let no one fancy that the restraint placed on the power of
ordinary legislation by the authority of a Federal Court; which alone
can interpret the constitution, is a mere form which has no practical
effect. The history of the United States is on this point decisive. De
Tocqueville, Story, and Kent are far safer and better instructed guides
than authors who "cannot conceive how any conflict of authority could
arise which could not be easily settled by argument, by conference, by
gradual experience;" and who seem to hold that to deny the existence of
a difficulty is the same thing as providing for its removal The
following are a few of the instances in which the American judiciary
have in fact determined the limits which bound the powers, either of
Congress or of the State legislatures. The judiciary have ruled that a
State is liable to be sued in the Federal Courts; that Congress has
authority to incorporate a bank; that a tax imposed by Congress was an
indirect tax, and therefore valid; that the control of the militia
really and truly belongs to Congress, and not, as in effect contended by
Connecticut and Massachusetts, to the governors of the separate States.
The Federal judiciary have determined the limits to their own
jurisdiction and to that of the State Courts. The judiciary have
pronounced one law after another invalid, as contrary to some article of
the constitution--e.g., either by being tainted with the vice of _ex
post facto_ legislation, or by impairing the obligation of contracts.
These are a few samples of the mode in which a Federal Court limits all
legislative authority. If any one wishes to see the extent to which the
power of such a Court has gone in fact, he should study the decisions on
the Legal Tender Act, which all but overset or nullified the financial
legislation of Congress during the War of Secession. If he wishes to see
the effect of applying the constitution of the United States, or
anything like that constitution, to Great Britain and Ireland, he should
consider what is implied in the undoubted fact that the Land Act of 1870
and the Land Act of 1881 would, whether passed by the central or by any
local legislature under such a constitution, be at once treated as void,
as impairing the obligation of contracts. If I am told that we might
adopt Federalism without adopting the details of the American
constitution, my reply is, not only that the remark comes awkwardly from
innovators who wish to place Ireland in the position of Massachusetts,
but that the very gist of my argument is that the existence of some
arbiter (whether it be named Crown, Council, or Court), who may decide
whether the constitution has or has not been violated, is of the essence
of Federalism, while the existence of such an arbiter absolutely
destroys the sovereignty of Parliament. Nor do the inferences to be
drawn from the action of the Federal Court, and a study of the American
constitution as it actually exists, end here. In the decisions of the
Court we may trace the rise of question after question--that is, of
conflict after conflict--as to the respective rights of the Federation
and the individual States. From the history and from the immobility of
the constitution, we may perceive the extent to which the existence of a
Federal pact checks change, or, in other words, reform. Every
institution which can lay claim to be based upon an organic law acquires
a sort of sacredness. Under a system of Federalism, the Crown, the House
of Peers, the Imperial Parliament itself, when transformed into a
Federal Assembly, would be almost beyond the reach of change, reform, or
abolition. Nor is it the Legislature of Great Britain alone which would
suffer a fundamental change. The relations between the Executive and the
country would undergo immense modification. The authority of the Crown
might be enhanced by the establishment of a Federal Union. The King
would become, in a very special sense, the representative of national or
Imperial unity, and the weakening of Parliament might lead to the
strengthening of the monarch. However this might be, it has, it is
submitted, been now shown that Federalism would dislocate every English
constitutional arrangement.
_Secondly._--The changes necessitated by Federalism would all tend to
weaken the power of Great Britain. That this is so has been already to a
great degree established, in considering the mode in which Federalism
destroys the sovereignty of Parliament. But a system of Federalism would
assuredly weaken the Government quite as much as the Legislature. The
Executive, as the organ of the Federal Union, would be hampered by new
conditions utterly unknown to an English Ministry. The language of
Federalists exhibits a curious and ominous silence or ambiguity as to
the disposal of the armed forces. Is the army to be a British army, with
authority at the will of the Federal Government to enter every part of
the new Union, or is Ireland to have an independent force of her own?
This, again--and every specific criticism is open to the same
retort--may be called a detail, but it is a detail which touches the
root of the whole matter. If the Federal, that is in effect the English,
Government is to retain the same control over the whole army as at
present--if Ireland is not to have a local force under the control of
local authorities--then the language as to Irish independence used by
Irish Nationalists is singularly misleading. If, on the other hand,
order is to be maintained, or not maintained, by a native army under the
guidance of Irish commanders, then it passes the wit of man to see by
what means the rights of the central government are to be enforced in
any case of disagreement between the Imperial and the Irish Parliament.
With the memory of the Irish volunteers before his mind, an historian,
such, for example, as Mr. McCarthy, will hardly assert that the
difficulty raised is one of which he cannot conceive the existence. For
my part, I heartily join in the admiration he, no doubt, feels for the
patriots of 1782, but no man in his senses will maintain that the moral
of that year is that a local Irish army can, under no circumstances,
prove an embarrassment to the central Government. The general tone,
even more than the precise language of Irish Federalists, all but
forbids the supposition that they are prepared to secure the supremacy
of the Federal Government by giving it the sole control of the only
armed force which is to exist in any part of the Union. They probably
hope that some sort of compromise may be found with regard to a matter
in which, as theory and experience alike prove, compromise is all but
impossible. Under certain circumstances, and in certain cases, and
subject to certain conditions, the use of the armed force throughout
Great Britain and Ireland is, we may suppose, to be left in the hands of
the Federal Executive; under other circumstances, and under other
conditions, the local forces are probably to be controlled by the local
or State Government. Whether such an arrangement would continue in
working order for a year, is more than doubtful. Assume, however, that
somehow it could be got to work, the fact still remains that a scheme,
intended to secure local liberty, would certainly ensure Imperial
weakness. The need, moreover, for bestowing some element of strength on
a Federal Executive as a counterpoise to its many elements of weakness
leads almost of necessity to a result which has scarcely received due
notice. The executive authority must be placed beyond the control of a
representative assembly. Neither in the United States, nor in
Switzerland, nor in the German Empire, can the Federal administration be
displaced by the vote of an assembly. Federalism is in effect
incompatible with Parliamentary government as practised in England. The
Canadian Ministry, it may be urged, can be changed at the will of the
Dominion Parliament, and the common Ministry of Austria-Hungary is
responsible to the Delegations. This is true; but these exceptions are
precisely of the class which prove the rule which they are cited to
invalidate. The Cabinet system of the Dominion is a defect in the
Canadian Constitution, and could not work were not Canada, by its
position as a dependency, under the guidance of a power beyond the reach
of the Dominion Parliament. What may be the real responsibility to the
Delegations of the common ministry of Austria-Hungary, admits of a good
deal of doubt. No one, who will not be deceived by words, believes the
responsibility to be at all like the liability of Mr. Gladstone or Lord
Salisbury to be dismissed from office by a vote of the House of Commons.
The Emperor-King is, as regards the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the
permanent and unchangeable head of the State. Turn the United Kingdom
into a Federal State, and Parliamentary Government, as Englishmen now
know it, is at an end. This may or may not be an evil, but it is a
revolution which ought to give pause to innovators who deem it a
slighter danger to innovate on the Act of Union than to remodel the
procedure of the House of Commons.
The central Government would again, merely from that division of powers
which is of the essence of Federalism, be as feeble against foreign
aggression as against local resistance. Home Rule, it is constantly
said, has at least this advantage, as compared with Irish independence,
that it prevents any alliance between Ireland and a foreign enemy. This
gain might turn out rather nominal than real. Neither the United States
nor France could, of course, send an Embassy to any State comprised
within the British Union; but, if war impended, they might and would
attempt to gain the favour of the Irish Ministry, or the Irish party who
controlled the Irish Parliament, or exercised the authority of the local
Government of Ireland. Suppose that when war was about to be proclaimed
between the British Federation and France, the Irish Parliament objected
to hostilities with the French Republic. Can it be denied that the local
Parliament and the local executive could, by protests, by action, or
even by inaction, give aid or comfort to the foreign enemy? The local
legislature would, in the supposed case, be aided by a minority of the
central Parliament or Congress. Obstruction would go hand in hand with
sedition. Loyalty to the Union was strong throughout the Northern States
during the War of Secession; but the tale used certainly to be told that
had Meade been defeated at Gettysburg, the leaders of the New York
democracy would have attempted "to carry the State out of the Union."
Moreover, Great Britain would perhaps find it easier to control the
action of an independent than of a confederated Ireland. Blockades and
embargoes are, as already pointed out, modes of persuasion applicable
to foreigners, but inapplicable to citizens; the Government of the Union
found it harder to check the latent disloyalty of South Carolina than it
would have found it to deal with the open enmity of Canada. This topic
is too odious and too far removed from the realm of practical politics,
to need more than the allusion required for the completeness of my
argument.
Federalism, in short, would mean the weakness of Great Britain, both at
home and abroad. As the head of a Confederacy, England, as the head also
of the British Empire, would meet undiminished responsibilities with
greatly diminished power.
_Thirdly._--Federalism is at least as likely to stereotype and increase
the causes of division between England and Ireland as to remove them.
A Federal Government is, of all constitutions, the most artificial. If
such a government is to be worked with anything like success, there must
exist among the citizens of the confederacy a spirit of genuine loyalty
to the Union. The "Unitarian" feeling of the people must distinctly
predominate over the sentiment in favour of "State rights." To require
this is to require a good deal more than the mere general submission to
the Government which is requisite for the prosperity of every State,
whatever be the nature of its polity. In a Federation every citizen is
influenced by a double allegiance. He owes fealty to the central
Government; he owes fealty also to his Canton or State. National
allegiance and local allegiance divide and perplex the feelings even of
loyal citizens. Unless the national sentiment predominate, the
Federation will go to pieces at any of those crises when the interest or
wishes of any of the States conflict with the interest or wishes of the
Union. So keen an observer and profound a critic as De Tocqueville
believed that both the American and the Swiss Federations would make
shipwreck on this rock. He was mistaken; he did not allow for the rapid
development of national sentiment. But his error was pardonable. The
leaders of the Sonderbund did prefer the interest of Lucerne to the
unity of Switzerland. Lee and Jackson were disloyal to the Union,
because they were loyal to Virginia. Leading officers of the United
States army, soldiers educated at Westpoint, trained the armies of the
Confederates. They were men of unblemished honour; they were, some of
them, not originally zealous in the cause of secession, but they
believed that their duty to their State--to Virginia, to South Carolina,
or to Georgia--was paramount over their duty to the Government at
Washington. If Virginia had stood by the Union, General Lee might, in
all probability, have been the conqueror of the Confederate States, of
which he was the hero. Ireland has had far graver causes for
disaffection towards the English Government than any of the reasons
alleged for the secession of Virginia; but Irish officers and Irish
soldiers have always been perfectly loyal to England. The reason of the
difference is obvious; the officers of the English army have never been
distracted by the difficulties of divided allegiance. Make Ireland one
of the States of a Confederacy, and these difficulties will at once
arise. Irish officers and Irish soldiers, members of the Irish
State--paid by and to a certain extent under the command of the Irish
Government--can hardly be blamed if in times of civil differences,
leading it may be to civil war, they should feel more loyalty to their
State than to the Union. This Union, be it remembered, would in such a
case be nothing but Great Britain under a new and less impressive title.
The existence and nature of the Federal bond is calculated to supply
both the causes and occasions of such differences.
Home Rulers, it is clear, form already most exaggerated hopes of the
benefits to be conferred on Ireland by Home Rule; and, further, in their
own minds (naturally enough) confound Federalism with national
independence.
"Give Ireland," writes Mr. Finch,[35] "the management of her own
affairs, and you will see called into her service the ablest and most
capable of her sons; while, as things now stand, the intellect of
Ireland is shut out from all share in the administration. With careers
at home worthy of the best and ablest of the people, much of the wealth
which is now drained off from Ireland without any return, will be
expended in developing the industrial resources of the country;
industry will revive, and with the revival of industry will come
employment for the people. 'It is the difficulty of living by wages in
Ireland,' says Sir G.C. Lewis, 'which makes every man look to the land
for maintenance.' With employment for the people, half the difficulty of
the land question will be solved. If, then, we wish to promote the moral
and material welfare of the Irish people, let us make them masters of
their own affairs."
"I have indicated what I believe," writes Mr. O'Neill Daunt,[36] "to be
the radical disease of Ireland: the want of a domestic legislature racy
of the soil, and acting in harmony with the national sentiment. God has
created Ireland with the needs of a separate nation, and with the needs
are associated the rights. 'Our patent to be a State, not a shire,' said
Goold in 1799, 'comes direct from Heaven. The Almighty has in majestic
characters signed the great charter of our independence. The great
Creator of the world has given our beloved country the gigantic outlines
of a kingdom.'
"If Ireland had been left the unfettered use of the natural materials of
wealth in her soil and in her people, and of the facilities of internal
and external commerce supplied by her physical configuration and her
geographical position--if her interests were protected by a Parliament
sitting in her capital, securing the expenditure at home of her annual
revenue, both public and private, rendering impossible that destructive
hæmorrhage of her income by which she is impoverished, aiding the
development of her industries, and resisting all aggression on her
commercial and political rights--in a word, if the Irish Constitution
had not been treacherously undermined and overthrown, we should now have
been the best support of the Empire, instead of being its scandal and
its weakness."
Politicians who write thus expect far more from national independence
than nationality itself can give. More than fifty years have elapsed
since Spain expelled the foreign invader; but Spain has not yet
succeeded in expelling ignorance, prejudice, superstition, or
oppression. But whatever be the miracles of nationality, Ireland would
not, under Federalism, be a nation. Rhode Island has all the freedom
demanded for his country by an eminent Home Ruler, whose expressions I
have cited. He surely does not consider the inhabitants of Rhode Island
to be a nation.
Whatever else Home Rule might give to Ireland, one gift it assuredly
would not bring with it. It would not endow the country with wealth. To
Irish enthusiasm and patriotism illusions on this matter are pardonable.
In the English advocate of Home Rule they are unpardonable. Ireland is,
and must, under any form of government conceivable, for a length of time
remain a poor country. Capital knows nothing of patriotism or sentiment.
Commerce has no partiality for the masses. Credit cherishes no trust
towards the people. The one prediction which we may make with confidence
is that a measure of Home Rule would not increase Irish capital, and
would shake Irish credit. The rumour of Home Rule has already, it is
said, disturbed the course of business in Ireland. From the nature of
things, then, the establishment of Federalism would lead to bitter
disappointment. The country would not enjoy the dignity of independence;
it would not enjoy the comfort of wealth. Every Irishman would feel that
he had been cheated of his hopes, and this not because he is an
Irishman, but because he is a man. It is human to expect far more from
even the most beneficial of revolutions than any political change can
bring. The unity of Italy was well worth all the price it cost. The
unity of Germany gave intense gratification to natural feelings of
national pride. Yet there are probably many even in the Italian Kingdom
who sigh for the light taxes of the Bourbon or Papal rule, and Germans
who glory in the greatness of the Empire flee by thousands to the United
States that they may escape the burden of conscription. The
disappointment which naturally attends a great change would in the case
of Ireland be specially bitter. To what cause would the disappointment
be attributed? The answer is easy to find. If taxation increased--as it
probably would; if wealth did not increase--as it certainly would not;
if the sense of semi-independence did not produce the hope, the energy,
the new life, the regeneration which enthusiasts consider to be the
natural result of nationality--if anything, in short, failed to go
according to the hopes of men who had formed hopes which a miracle
itself could hardly satisfy--the blame for the non-fulfilment of
groundless anticipations would rest upon the Confederacy--that is in
other words, upon England. To suppose this, is not to attribute special
unreasonableness to Irishmen. If Italy had been forced to accept,
instead of her longed-for independence, the local self-government which
might be conceded to the State of an Austrian Federation, we may be
quite sure that the Grist Tax, the Sicilian Banditti, the intrigues of
France in Tunis, the perversity of the Pope, the poverty of Italian
workmen, the factiousness of Italian politicians, every evil, in short,
real or imaginary, under which Italy now suffers, or has suffered since
1870--would have been attributed to her connection with a Union presided
over by the Austrian Emperor. National independence, like every other
form of independence, has at least this merit, that it compels men to
take their fate into their own hands, and to feel that they themselves
or the circumstances of the world are the causes of their misfortunes.
Semi-independence makes it easy for men to attribute every mishap to the
absence of absolute freedom.
If the existence of a Federal constitution would of itself supply the
cause for discontent, it is of the very nature of such a constitution to
supply the occasions of dispute. Nothing can prevent the rise of burning
questions about Federal and State rights. Is nullification or secession,
or the refusal to pay Federal taxes a State right? If these questions
arise, by whom are they to be settled? Suppose they are referred to a
Federal Court, say the Privy Council, is it reasonable to fancy that
Irishmen or Englishmen, for that matter, will acquiesce in the decision
of grave political issues (say the right of the Federal Government to
proclaim martial law at Dublin, or the validity of the Land Act) by any
tribunal? For when political issues are referred to the decision of a
Court the difficulty is great of enlisting public opinion in favour of
its decrees. The theory of the constitution and the expectation of the
people is that references to the judges will be events of rare
occurrence, and that the Bench, when it acts at all, will act only as
interpreter of the constitutional pact. Things are certain to turn out
far otherwise. The intervention of the tribunals will in one form or
another be constantly evoked, and will be evoked to determine the most
burning questions of the day. The Constitution of the United States
would be unintelligible without reference to a long line of determined
cases; its principles are to be found quite as much in the decisions of
the Supreme Court as in its Articles. Swiss Constitutionalists have
greatly increased as years have gone on the originally limited powers of
the Federal tribunal. The statesmen who drafted the Act constituting the
Canadian Dominion fancied they could in effect avoid the necessity for
judicial interpretation, but a long series of reports proves the
futility of their expectation. Each day increases the mass, and it must
be added the importance, of the judgments by which the Privy Council
determines questions of constitutional law for the Colonies. Moreover,
even laymen soon perceive that interpretation means legislation. It is
technically correct to say that the Supreme Court of the United States
acts only as interpreter of the Constitution, but we must not be
deceived by fictions. The Supreme Court has legislated as truly, and
perhaps more effectively than Congress. It has achieved, and from the
nature of things was compelled to achieve, a feat forbidden to Congress;
it has added to or enlarged the Articles of the Constitution. The good
fortune of the United States gave to them in Judge Marshall a profound
and statesmanlike lawyer, and the judgments of the great Chief Justice
have built up the existing Constitution. He may be counted, if not among
its founders, at any rate as its main architect. In this instance
judicial authority was combined with political wisdom, and Marshall's
opinion was, it is said, rejected by the Court in but two cases, and had
it in these instances been followed, would have improved the
Constitution. Unfortunately, while one may often secure the fairness one
cannot ensure the wisdom of the Bench. Judges err; a final Court of
Appeal must often give decisions which are or are supposed to be
erroneous, i.e., not a just deduction from the facts and principles
which the Court is called upon to consider. No historian will, it is
likely, now defend the doctrine of the House of Lords about marriage
laid down in _Reg._ v. _Millis_. Competent authorities question some of
the most important ecclesiastical judgments given by the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council. The decision in the _Dred Scott Case_,
whether right or wrong, did not approve itself to eminent lawyers in the
United States. One of the decisions of the Supreme Court in the _Legal
Tender Cases_ must have been wrong; whether the last was sound is open
to debate. It is when a Court gives what is thought to be an erroneous
decision on matters exciting the feelings of large classes that the
difficulty of obtaining acquiescence in its judgments is palpable. The
judges decided, and it is quite possible decided rightly, that Ship
Money was a legal exaction, and that the Crown's dispensing power was
authorized by law. Popular opinion branded the judges as sycophants and
traitors. Chief Justice Taney and his colleagues decided in effect, and
from a legal point of view may have been right in deciding, that slavery
was recognised by the Constitution of the United States. Their decision
was denounced by the best men in the Union as infamous. The Privy
Council have laid down doctrines on matters of ritual which are held to
be erroneous by a large body of the clergy, and Ritualists have gone to
prison rather than treat the judgment of the Privy Council as of moral
validity. Clergymen are not perhaps the most reasonable of mankind, but
they are not more unreasonable than political enthusiasts. How then is
it possible to expect that a Federal tribunal would command an obedience
not yielded willingly to the laws of the Imperial Parliament?
Englishmen, indeed, might, it is possible, acquiesce in the ruling of
Federal judges, and this for two reasons: they are a legally-minded
nation; and (what is of far more consequence) a Federal Court must
represent in the main the opinions of the Federal Government--that is,
of Great Britain. But it is idle to suppose that Mr. Parnell and Mr.
Parnell's followers would find it easier to respect an Imperial or
Federal tribunal than to bow to the will of the Imperial Parliament.
Home Rulers would, moreover, soon discover a reason for resistance to
the Federal Court or the Federal Government, which from their point of
view would be a perfectly valid reason. The Federal Government would, in
effect, be the Government of England; the Federal Court would in effect
be a Court appointed by the English Government. In a Confederacy where
there are many States, the Government of the Federation cannot be
identified with even the most powerful of the States; it were ridiculous
to assert that the Government at Washington is only the Government of
New York under another name. Where a Confederacy consists in reality, if
not in name, of two States only, of which the one has at least four or
five times the power of the other, the authority of the Confederacy
means the authority of the powerful State. "Irish Federalism," if in
reality established, would soon generate a demand from Ireland, not
unreasonable in itself, under the circumstances of the case, that the
whole British Empire should be turned into a Confederacy, under the
guidance of a general Congress. Thus alone could Ireland become a real
State, the member of a genuine Confederation. Hence arises a new danger.
Apply Federalism to Ireland and you immediately provoke demands for
autonomy in other parts of the United Kingdom, and for constitutional
changes in other parts of the British Empire. Federalism, which in other
lands has been a step towards Union, would, it is likely enough, be in
our case the first stage towards a dissolution of the United Kingdom
into separate States, and hence towards the breaking-up of the British
Empire. This is no future or imaginary peril; the mere proposal of Home
Rule, under something like a Federal form, has already made it an
immediate and pressing danger. Sir Gavan Duffy, by far the ablest among
the Irish advocates of Home Rule, predicts that before ten years have
elapsed there will be a Federation of the Empire.[37] A majority of
Scotch electors support the policy of Mr. Gladstone, and forthwith a
most respectable Scotch periodical puts forward a plan of Home Rule for
Scotland. Canon MacColl already suggests that we should make tentatively
an experiment capable of development into a permanent system on the
lines of the American Constitution, and make it not only in Ireland, but
also perhaps gradually in Scotland, and even in Wales.[38] It is
unnecessary to discuss Canon MacColl's argument at length. When he
tells his readers that "the Constitution which Mr. Gladstone desires to
create in Ireland is modelled on the system existing in the great
colonies of the Empire; there are certain variations and some novelties
in the Irish scheme, but these are the lines on which it is drawn;" he
ventures a statement on which, as a lawyer, I need make but one comment.
It is a statement as erroneous and misleading as can be any assertion
made in good faith by a writer who must be presumed to have studied the
measure of which he is speaking. When the same authority asks why should
a system which imparts strength to America, to Austria, and to Germany,
disintegrate and ruin the British Empire, he raises an inquiry which
does not admit of an answer, since it assumes the identity of things
which are radically different. The system which may or may not impart
strength to Austria is no more the system which imparts strength to
America, than the system which imparts strength to England is the same
as the system which does or does not impart strength to Russia. To lump
under one head every policy which can by any straining of the terms be
brought under the heads of "Federalism" or "Home Rule," is neither more
nor less absurd than to classify together every Constitution which can
be called a monarchy.
But while I write these pages a more significant indication of this
danger has appeared. Mr. Gladstone's own method of interpreting his own
past utterances makes it the duty of his critics to weigh well not only
his direct statements, but his suggestions; and there is, I think, no
possible unfairness in construing the language of his pamphlet on the
Irish Question as an intimation that he already entertains, if he does
not favour, the idea of applying the Federal principle to Scotland and
to Wales.[39] Federalism is the solvent which, if applied to one part of
the United Kingdom, will undo the work not only of Pitt, but of Somers,
of Henry VIII., and of Edward I. Meanwhile, the one prediction which may
be made with absolute confidence is that Federalism would not generate
that goodwill between England and Ireland which, could it be produced,
would, in my judgment at least, be an adequate compensation even for the
evils and the inconveniences of the Federal system.
To the view of Federalism here maintained there exist one or two
objections, so obvious that without some reference to them my argument
would lack completeness.
Federalism, it is urged, has succeeded in Switzerland and in America; it
may, therefore, succeed in the United Kingdom.
If the general drift of my argument does not sufficiently answer this
objection, two special replies lie near at hand. In the case both of
Switzerland and of America, a Federal Constitution supplied the means by
which States, conscious of a common national feeling, have approached to
political unity. It were a rash inference from this fact, that when two
parts of one nation are found (as must be asserted by any Home Ruler)
not to be animated by a common feeling of nationality, a Federal
Constitution is the proper means by which to keep them in union. The
more natural deduction from the general history of Federalism is, that a
confederation is an imperfect political union, transitory in its nature,
and tending either to pass into one really united State, or to break up
into the different States which compose the Federation.
If, again, the example either of America or of Switzerland is to teach
us anything worth knowing, the history of those countries must be read
as a whole. It will then be seen that the two most successful
confederacies in the world have been kept together only by the decisive
triumph through force of arms of the central power over real or alleged
State rights. General Dufour in Switzerland, General Grant and General
Sherman in America, were the true interpreters and preservers of the
constitutional pact. This undoubted fact hardly suits the theories of
Irish Federalists.
Nor ought we to stop at this point. Citizens of the Union filled with
justifiable pride at the success of the American Constitution assume
that a Federal Government is in itself absolutely the best form of
government, that in any country where it can be adopted it must be an
improvement on the existing institutions of the land, and that as
compared with the constitutional monarchy of England federalism
exhibits no special faults from which English constitutionalism is free.
This assumption is perfectly natural; it resembles that absolute faith
in the virtues of the British Constitution which reached its culminating
point when Burke's intimate friend and pupil, Gilbert Elliott, himself
no mean statesman, went to Corsica to establish a miniature copy of
English Parliamentary institutions. But in each case a faith which is
natural will also be pronounced by any candid judge to be unfounded.
Federalism has in its very essence, and even as it exists in America, at
least two special faults. It distracts the allegiance of citizens, and
what is even more to the present point, it does not provide sufficient
protection for the legal rights of unpopular minorities. There is not,
and never was, a word in the Articles of the Constitution forbidding
American citizens to criticise the institutions of the State. An
American Abolitionist had as much right to denounce slavery at Boston,
or for that matter at Charlestown, as an English Abolitionist had to
denounce slavery in London or Liverpool. It were ridiculous to maintain
that the right was one which either Lloyd Garrison or his disciples were
able to exercise. Mr. Godkin[40] has repeated with perfect fairness the
tale of the persecutions suffered by Prudence Crandall in Connecticut
because she chose in exercise of her legal and moral rights to educate
young women of colour. Mr. Godkin apparently draws, as I have already
pointed out, from the fact an inference--which I confess myself not well
able to follow--against all attempts to enforce an unpopular law. The
more natural conclusion is that the Federal Government was not able to
protect the rights of individuals against strong local sentiment. This
moral at any rate has an obvious application to any scheme of Federalism
for Ireland.
The experience of Canada, again, is adduced to prove that a Federal
constitution is compatible with loyalty to the British Crown. Why should
an arrangement which produces peace, prosperity, and loyalty across the
Atlantic not be applied to Ireland?
The answer is, that the case of Canada is as regards Federalism
irrelevant. Canada is not part of a British Federation. The Dominion as
a whole is simply a colony, standing essentially in the same relation to
England as Victoria or New South Wales. The laws of the Parliament that
meets at Ottawa need the Royal sanction, or, in other words, may be
vetoed, or rather not approved, by the English Ministry of the day. The
Act itself on which the existence of the Canadian constitution depends
is an Act of the British Parliament, and cannot be modified by any other
authority. The British Parliament is supreme in Canada as throughout the
British dominions; and Canada sends no representatives to the British
Parliament. The provinces, no doubt, which compose the Dominion are
under an Act of Parliament a Federation; but the dangers and
difficulties of Federalism are to a great extent avoided by the
supremacy of the British Crown. These difficulties, however, do arise.
If any one will study the "Letellier case," he will soon perceive that
Canada has exhibited the germ of the conflict between the central
authority of the Dominion and the "State right" of the provinces; he
will also perceive that the conflict was determined by a reference to
the English Ministry, who in effect gave judgment in favour of the
Dominion. The example of Canada suggests, if anything, that Irish
difficulties might be solved by turning Ireland into a colony without
representatives in the Imperial Parliament.
We have now the materials for comparing, as regards the interests of
England, the effects of Irish independence with the effects of Home Rule
as Federalism. The case as between the two stands thus:--
The national independence of Ireland entails on England three great
evils--the deliberate surrender of the main object at which English
statesmanship has aimed for centuries, together with all the moral loss
and disgrace which such surrender entails; the loss of considerable
material resources in money, and still more in men; the incalculable
evil of the existence in the neighbourhood of Great Britain of a new, a
foreign, and, possibly, a hostile State. For these evils there are,
indeed, to be found two real though inadequate compensations--namely,
the probability that loss of territory might restore to England a unity
and consistency of action equivalent to an increase of strength, and the
possibility that separation might be the first step towards gaining the
goodwill, and ultimately the alliance of Ireland. It is, however, hardly
worth while to calculate what might be the extent of the possible
deductions from evils which no English statesman would knowingly bring
on Great Britain. By men of all parties and of all views it is
practically conceded that England neither will nor can, except under
compulsion, assent to Irish independence.
Federalism, on the other hand, has the appearance of a compromise. It
does not avowedly break up the unity of Great Britain and Ireland; it
does not wholly deprive England of Irish resources; it does not,
directly at least, lay Great Britain open to foreign attack. Federalism
has, however, special evils of its own. It revolutionizes the whole
Constitution of the United Kingdom; by undermining the sovereignty of
Parliament, it deprives English institutions of their elasticity, their
strength, and their life; it weakens the Executive at home, and lessens
the power of the country to resist foreign attack. The revolution which
works these changes holds out no hope of reconciliation with Ireland. An
attempt, in short, to impose on England and Scotland a constitution
which they do not want, and which is quite unsuited to the historical
traditions and to the genius of Great Britain, offers to Ireland a
constitution which Ireland is certain to dislike, which has none of the
real or imaginary charms of independence, and ensures none of the solid
benefits to be hoped for from a genuine union with England.
If this be the true state of the case, thus much at least is
argumentatively made out: Federalism offers to England not a
constitutional compromise, but a fundamental revolution, and this
revolution, however moderate in its form or in the intention of its
advocates, does not offer that reasonable chance of reconciliation with
the mass of the Irish people which might be a compensation for a repeal
of the Union, and is as much opposed to the interests of Great Britain
as would be the national independence of Ireland. This conclusion is a
purely negative one, but it is, as far as English statesmen are
concerned, the _reductio ad impossibile_ of the case in favour of Home
Rule in so far as Home Rule takes the form of Federalism.
* * * * *
II. _Home Rule as Colonial Independence._--The modern Colonial policy of
England has, or is thought to have, achieved two results which impress
popular imagination:--it has relieved English statesmanship from an
unbearable burden of worry and anxiety; it has (as most people believe)
changed Colonial unfriendliness or discontent into enthusiastic or
ostentatious loyalty. Some politicians, therefore, who are anxious to
terminate the secular feud between England and Ireland, and to free
Parliament from the presence, and therefore from the obstructiveness, of
the Home Rulers, readily assume that the formula of "Colonial
independence" contains the solution of the problem how to satisfy at
once the demand of Ireland for independence and the resolution of Great
Britain to maintain the integrity of the Empire. This assumption rests
on no sure foundation, but derives such plausibility as it possesses
from the gross ignorance of the public as to the principles and habits
which govern the English State system. A mere account of the
constitutional relations existing between England and a self-governed
colony is almost equivalent to a suggestion of the reasons which forbid
the hope that the true answer to the agitation for Home Rule is to be
found in conceding to Ireland institutions like those which satisfy the
inhabitants of New South Wales or Victoria. To render such a statement
at once brief and intelligible is no easy matter, for, among all the
political arrangements devised by the ingenuity of statesmen, none can
be found more singular, more complicated, or more anomalous than the
position of combined independence and subordination occupied by the
large number of self-governing colonies which are scattered throughout
the British Empire. Victoria, which may be taken as a type of the whole
class, is, for most purposes of local and internal administration, and
for some purposes which go beyond the sphere usually assigned to local
government, an independent, self-governing community. Victoria is at the
same time, for all purposes in theory and for many purposes in fact, a
merely subordinate portion of the British Empire, and as truly subject
to the British Parliament as is Middlesex or the Isle of Wight.
Let us try in the first place to realize--for this is the essential
matter as regards my present argument--the full extent of Victorian
independence.
Victoria enjoys a Constitution after the British model. The Governor,
the two Houses, the Ministry, reproduce the well-known features of our
limited monarchy. The Victorian Parliament further possesses in Victoria
that character of sovereignty which the British Parliament possesses
throughout the dominions of the Crown, and is (subject, of course, to
the authority of the British Parliament itself) as supreme at Melbourne
as are Queen, Lords, and Commons at Westminster. It makes and unmakes
Cabinets; it controls the executive action of the Ministry; who, in
their turn, are the authorized advisers of that sham constitutional
monarch, the Colonial Governor. The Parliament, moreover, recognizes no
restrictions on its legislative powers; it is not, as is the Congress of
the United States, restrained within a very limited sphere of action; it
is not, as are both the Congress and the State Legislatures of the
Union, bound hand and foot by the articles of a rigid Constitution; it
is not compelled to respect any immutable maxims of legislation. Hence
the Victorian Parliament--in this resembling its creator, the British
Parliament--exercises an amount of legislative freedom unknown to most
foreign representative assemblies. It can, and does, legislate on
education, on ecclesiastical topics, on the tenure of land, on finance,
on every subject, in short, which can interest the Colony. It provides
for the raising of Colonial forces; it may levy taxes or impose duties
for the support of the Victorian administration, or for the protection
of Colonial manufactures. It is not forbidden to tax goods imported from
other parts of the Empire; it is not bound to abstain from passing _ex
post facto_ laws, to respect the sanctity of contracts, or to pay any
regard to the commercial interests of the United Kingdom. It may alter
the Constitution on which its own powers depend, and, for example,
extend the franchise or remodel the Upper House. To understand the full
extent of the authority possessed by the Victorian Parliament and the
Victorian Ministry--which is, in fact, appointed by the Parliament--it
should be noted that, while every branch of the administration (the
courts, the police, and the Colonial forces) is, as in England, more or
less directly under the influence or the control of the Cabinet, the
Colonies have, since 1862, provided for their own defence, and, except
in time of war, or peril of war, are not garrisoned by British
troops.[41] It is, therefore, no practical exaggeration to assert that
Victoria is governed by its own Executive, which is appointed by its own
Parliament, and which maintains order by means of the Victorian police,
supported, in case of need, by Victorian soldiers. An intelligent
foreigner, therefore, might reside for years in Melbourne, and conceive
that the supremacy of the British Government was little more than
nominal. In this he would be mistaken. But should he assert that, as to
all merely Colonial matters, Victoria was in practice a self-governed
and independent country, his language would not be accurate, yet his
assertion would not go very wide of the truth.
The local independence, however, of an English colony is hardly more
noteworthy than are the devices by which a colony is retained in its
place as a subordinate portion of the British Empire, and anyone who
would understand the English Colonial system must pay hardly less
attention to the subordination than to the independence of a country
like Victoria.
The foundation of the whole scheme is the admission of the complete and
unquestioned supremacy of the British Parliament throughout every
portion of the royal dominions. No Colonial statesman, judge, or lawyer
ever dreams of denying that Crown, Lords, and Commons can legislate for
Victoria, and that a statute of the Imperial Parliament overrides every
law or custom repugnant thereto, by whomsoever enacted, in every part of
the Crown dominions. The right, moreover, of Imperial legislation has
not fallen into disuse. Mr. Tarring[42] enumerates from sixty to seventy
Imperial statutes, extending from 7 Geo. III. c. 50 to 44 & 45 Vict. c.
69, which apply to the Colonies generally, and to this list, which might
now be lengthened, must be added a large number of statutes applying to
particular colonies. The sovereignty of Parliament, moreover, is
formally recorded in the Colonial Laws Act, 1865 (28 & 29 Vict. cap.
63), which itself may well be termed the charter of Colonial legislative
authority. This essential dogma of parliamentary sovereignty, moreover,
is not proclaimed as a merely abstract principle--it is enforced by two
different methods. Every court, in the first place, as well in Victoria
as elsewhere throughout the British dominions, is bound to hold void,
and in fact does hold void, enactments which contravene an Imperial
statute, and from Colonial courts there is an appeal to the Privy
Council. The Colonial Governor, in the second place, though from one
point of view he is a constitutional monarch acting under the advice
given him by his Ministers, bears also another and a different
character. He is an Imperial official appointed by the Crown--that is,
by the English Cabinet, which represents the wishes of the Imperial
Parliament--and he is, as such representative of the Imperial power,
bound if possible to avert the passing of any Bill, and when he cannot
avert the passing, then to veto any Act of the Colonial Legislature,
which is disapproved of by the Home Government as opposed either to
Imperial law or to Imperial policy. Thus, a Victorian Act, even when
sanctioned by the Governor, must pass through another stage before it
finally becomes law. It must receive the assent of the Crown, or, in
other words, the assent of the English Secretary of State for the
Colonies, and unless this assent be either actually or constructively
given it does not come into force.[43] The matter to be carefully noted
is that the Crown, or in other words the English Ministry, which
represents the House of Commons, has, as far as law goes, complete
power of controlling the legislation even of colonies like Victoria.
This power is both positive and negative. If the Victorian Parliament
fails to pass some enactment necessary in the opinion of the British
Parliament for the safety of the Empire, then the Parliament at
Westminster can pass an Act for Victoria supplying the needful
provisions. If on the other hand the Victorian Legislature passes a
bill, (e.g. expelling Chinese from the Colony,) which the Home
Government representing the British Parliament deems opposed to Imperial
interests, then the Government can either direct the Governor to refuse
his assent to the law, or cause the Crown to disallow it, and thus in
any case make it void. When we add to all this that there are many
occasions, which we can here only allude to, on which a Colonial
Governor can, and does, act so as to hinder courses of action which
conflict with English interests or policy, it becomes clear enough that,
as far as constitutional arrangements can secure the reality of
sovereignty, the Imperial Parliament maintains its supremacy throughout
the length and breadth of the British Empire. It is of course perfectly
true that Parliament having once given representative institutions to a
colony, does not dream of habitually overriding or thwarting Colonial
legislation. But it were a gross error to suppose that Colonial
recognition of British sovereignty is a mere form. It is in the main
cheerfully acquiesced in by the people of Victoria, because they gain
considerable prestige and no small material advantage from forming part
of the Empire. They have no traditional hostility with the mother
country; they have every reason to deprecate separation, and--a matter
of equal consequence--they believe that if they wished for independence
it would not be refused them. England stands, in short, as regards
Victoria, in a position of singular advantage. She could suppress local
riot, or cause it to be suppressed, and she would not try to oppose a
national demand for separation. Hence a complicated political
arrangement is kept in tolerable working order by a series of
understandings and of mutual concessions. If either England or Victoria
were not willing to give and take, the connection between England and
the Colony could not last a month. The policy, in short, of Colonial
independence is, like most of our constitutional arrangements, based on
the assumption that the parties to it are willing to act towards one
another in a spirit of compromise and good-will, and though at the
present moment the pride of England in her Colonial empire, and the
appreciation on the part of our colonies of the benefits, moral and
material, of the supremacy of Great Britain, keep our scheme of Colonial
government in working order, it is well to realize that this system is
not so invariably successful as might be inferred from the optimism
which naturally colours official utterances. The names of Sir Charles
Darling and Sir George Bowen recall transactions which show that a
community as loyal as Victoria may adopt a course of policy which meets
with the disapproval of English statesmen. The recent and deliberate
refusal of the citizens of Melbourne to endure the landing on their
shores of informers whose evidence had procured the punishment of an
outrageous crime, combined with the fact that the populace of Melbourne
were abetted in a gross, indubitable, patent breach of law by Colonial
Ministers who were after all, technically speaking, servants of the
Crown, gives rise to serious reflection, and suggests that, even under
favourable circumstances, Colonial independence is hardly consistent
with that enforcement throughout the Crown's dominions of due respect
for law which is the main justification for the existence of the British
Empire.[44] A student, moreover, who turns his eyes towards dependencies
less favourably situated than Victoria soon perceives how great may at
any moment become the difficulty of working an artificial and
complicated system of double sovereignty. In Jamaica the hostility of
the whites and blacks led to riot on the part of the blacks, followed by
lawless suppression of riot on the part of the Governor, who represented
the feelings of the whites, and the restoration of peace and order
ultimately entailed the abolition of representative government. At the
Cape the pressure of war at once exposed the weak part of the
constitutional machine. The pretensions of the Cape Ministry to snatch
from the hands of the Governor the control of the armed forces met with
successful resistance; but the question then raised as to the proper
relation between the Colonial Ministry and the army, though for a time
evaded, is certain sooner or later to re-appear, and will not always
admit of an easy or peaceable answer.[45]
Any reader interested in my argument should supplement this brief
statement of the relation actually existing between England and her
self-governing colonies by a perusal of Mr. Todd's most instructive
'Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies.' But the statement,
brief and colourless though it be, is sufficient for its purpose; it
shows that the proposal to give to Ireland the institutions of a colony
is open to two fatal objections.
1st.--The concession to Ireland of Colonial independence would entail
upon England probable peril and certain disgrace.
The peril is obvious. An Irish Cabinet armed with the authority
possessed by a Victorian Ministry would at once provide for the
self-defence of Ireland, and an Irish army, obeying an Irish Executive
and commanded by Irish officers, would be none the less formidable
because it might in name be identified with an armed police, or, like
the troops raised at the Cape or in Victoria, enjoy the ominous title of
Volunteers. If the Colonial precedent were strictly carried out, British
troops ought, from the time Ireland obtained an independent Parliament,
to be withdrawn from the country. The acknowledged danger of foreign
invasion, and the unavowed probability of Irish insurrection, would make
the retirement of the English army impossible. But the presence of
British forces--and forces, be it remarked, intended in reality as a
check on the action of the local Government--would of itself place
Ireland in a position utterly unlike the situation of Victoria, and
would also involve both the Imperial and the local Government in endless
difficulties and controversies. If any one doubts this, let him read the
correspondence between Mr. Molteno[46] and Sir Bartle Frere, and
substitute for the Premier of the Cape Colony the name of Mr. Parnell,
and for Sir Bartle Frere the name of any Lord-Lieutenant who might be
unfortunate enough to hold office in Ireland after Mr. Parnell became
Premier of an Irish Cabinet. Suppose, however, that by some miracle of
management or good luck the Irish and English forces acted well
together, and that the satisfaction given by a state of things
approaching to independence prevented for the moment all attempts at
separation, England might escape peril, but she would assuredly not
avoid deserved disgrace. An Irish Parliament, returned in the main by
the very men who support the National League, would assuredly pass laws
which every man in England, and many men throughout Ireland, would hold
to be unjust, and which, whether in themselves unjust or not, would
certainly set aside Imperial legislation, which England is bound by
every consideration of honour and justice to uphold. There is no need to
demonstrate here what has been demonstrated by one writer after another,
and, indeed, hardly needs proof, that at the present day an Irish
Parliament would certainly deprive Irish landlords, and possibly deprive
Irish Protestants, of rights which the Imperial Parliament would never
take away, and which the Imperial Government is absolutely bound to
protect.[47] If the English Government were to be base enough to
acquiesce in legislation which the Imperial Parliament would never
itself have countenanced, then England would be dishonoured; if Bill
after Bill passed by the Irish Legislature were prevented from becoming
law by veto after veto, then English honour might be saved, but the
self-government of Ireland would be at an end, nor would England gain
much in credit. The English Ministry can, as long as the connection with
a colony endures, arrest Colonial legislation. But the Home Government
cannot for any effective purpose interfere with the administrative
action of a Colonial Executive. Given courts, an army, and a police
controlled by the leaders of the Land League, and it is easy to see how
rents might be abolished and landlords driven into exile without the
passing by the Irish Parliament of a single Act which a Colonial
Secretary could reasonably veto, or which even an English court could
hold void under the provisions of the Colonial Laws Act. It is indeed
probable that wild legislation at Dublin might provoke armed resistance
in Ulster. But a movement which, were Ireland an independent nation,
might ensure just government for all classes of Irishmen would, if
Ireland were a colony, only add a new element of confusion to an already
intolerable state of affairs. Imagine for a moment what would have been
the position of England if Englishmen had been convinced that Riel,
though technically a rebel, was in reality a patriot, resisting the
intolerable oppression of the Dominion Parliament, and you may form some
slight idea of the feeling of shame and disgrace with which Englishmen
would see British soldiers employed to suppress the revolt of Ulster
against a Government which, without English aid, would find it difficult
to resist or punish the insurgents. The most painful and least
creditable feature in the history of the United States is the apathy
with which for thirty years the Northern States tolerated Southern
lawlessness, and even now indirectly support Southern oppression.
2nd.--If Colonial independence would be found in Ireland inconsistent
with the protection of England's interests and with the discharge of
England's duties, it would also fail to produce the one result which
would be an adequate compensation for many probable or certain
evils--namely, the extinction of Irish discontent.
It is by no means certain, indeed, that Colonial independence would be
accepted with genuine acquiescence by any class of Irishmen. Certainly
the demand for Grattan's Parliament lends no countenance to the
supposition that the people of Ireland would accept with satisfaction a
political arrangement which is absolutely opposed in its character to
the Constitution of 1782.[48] Suppose, however, for the sake of
argument, that the Irish leaders and the Irish people accepted the offer
of Colonial independence; we may be well assured that this acceptance
would not produce good-will towards England, and this not from the
perversity of the Irish nature, of which we hear a great deal too much,
but from difficulties in the nature of things, of which we hear a great
deal too little. The restrictions on the authority of the Irish
Parliament would, one cannot doubt, be, as safeguards for the authority
of the Imperial Government, absolutely illusory. But they would be
intensely irritating. Irish leaders would wish, and from their own point
of view rightly wish, to carry through a revolutionary policy. The
Imperial Government would attempt, and from an English point of view
rightly attempt, to arrest revolution. Every considerable legislative
measure would give ground for negotiation and for understandings--that
is, for dissatisfaction and for misunderstanding. There would be
disputes about the land laws, disputes about the army, disputes about
the police, disputes about the authority of Imperial legislation,
disputes about the validity of Irish enactments, disputes about appeals
to the Privy Council. To say that all these sources of irritation might
embitter the relation between England and Victoria, and that, as they do
not habitually do so, one may infer that they will not embitter the
relation between England and Ireland, is to argue that institutions
nominally the same will work in the same way when applied to totally
different circumstances. Victoria is prosperous; Ireland is in distress.
Victoria takes pride in the Imperial connection; the difficulty in
dealing with Ireland consists in the fact that large bodies of Irishmen
detest the British Empire. Victoria has never aspired to be a nation;
the best side of Irish discontent consists in enthusiasm for Irish
nationality. Above all this, there has never been any lasting feud
between England and her Australian dependencies; the main ground in
favour of a fundamental change in the constitutional relations of
Ireland and England is the necessity of putting an end at almost any
cost to traditional hatred and misunderstanding generated by centuries
of misgovernment and misery. If, as already pointed out, the source of
this misery, so far as it can be touched by law at all, is a vicious
system of land tenure, it is in vain to imagine that the misfortunes of
Ireland can be cured by any mere change of constitutional forms. Grant,
however, for the sake of argument, that the passion of nationality is
the true ground of the demand for Home Rule; grant, also, in defiance of
patent facts, that the autonomy of a dependency satisfies the
sensibilities of a nation; still it is idle to fancy that a system
based, like our scheme of Colonial government, on friendly
understandings and the habitual practice of compromise, can regulate the
relations of two countries which are kept apart mainly because they
cannot understand one another, and can neither of them admit the
necessity of mutual concessions. Moreover, a scheme of nominal
subjection combined with real independence has the one great defect that
it does not teach the lessons which men and nations learn by depending
on their own unassisted and uncontrolled efforts. No one learns
self-control who fancies he is controlled by a master.[49]
The scheme, in short, of Colonial independence, though less absolutely
impracticable than any form of Federalism,[50] has, as a solution of our
Irish difficulties, two fatal defects: it gives Ireland a degree of
independence more dangerous to England than would be the existence of
Ireland as a separate nation; it bestows on Ireland a kind of
self-government which presents neither the material advantages derived
from the Union, nor the possible, though hypothetical, gains which might
accrue to her from the self-control and energy supposed to flow from the
inspiring sentiment of nationality. Still the Colonial system is, in
spite of its immense defects as a scheme of Home Rule for Ireland, out
and out the least objectionable of the models which have been proposed
to us for our imitation, and this for several reasons. To grant to
Ireland, if she be prepared to accept it, the position of Victoria is
not to impair the supremacy of Parliament; if we copied faithfully the
Victorian polity, every Irish member of Parliament would permanently
depart from Westminster; there would be no more need for having at
Westminster a representative of Dublin than there is for having a
representative of Melbourne; the Irish Parliament would depend for its
very existence on an Act of the Imperial Parliament, and the British
Parliament would be able without consulting any Irish representative to
modify, override, or abolish all or any part of the Act constituting the
Irish Parliament. In this there would be no breach of faith, for the
Constitution would bear on its face that the Act of Parliament on which
it depended could be changed by the British Parliament as lawfully as
can the Act 18 & 19 Vict. c. 55, which calls into existence the
Victorian legislature. The undoubted legal authority and ease with which
the British Parliament could suspend or abolish the Irish Constitution
would have two good results: the one that Great Britain would have a
sanction by which to enforce the adherence of the Irish government to
just principles of legislation and of administration; the other that the
readiness with which this sanction could be applied would, it is not
unlikely, make its application needless. England, again, would not by
the concession of Colonial independence dislocate her own Constitution:
she would only be extending to Ireland a scheme of government already
existing in other parts of the Empire, and would find herself possessed
of officials accustomed to make a Colonial Constitution work. Nothing
would be changed: there would only be one Colony the more, and the
Colonial Office would find no insuperable difficulty in undertaking the
government of Ireland in the same sense in which the Office undertakes
the government of Victoria. The position, it may be objected, would be a
very poor one for Ireland. With this objection I entirely agree: my very
contention is that for Ireland, no less than for England, it is best
that Ireland shall form part of the United Kingdom. Home Rulers think
otherwise: they prefer the local autonomy of Victoria to a share in the
United Kingdom. They may probably, however, say that taxation involves
representation, and that if Ireland is to take the disadvantages she
must also have the immunities of a colony. Here fair-minded men will
hold that the Home Rulers are right. The maxim, indeed, that taxation
involves representation need not deeply impress any one who remembers
that throughout the United Kingdom the property of every woman is taxed,
and that no woman has a share in Parliamentary representation. But a
formula which is not logically defensible may yet be the embodiment of a
just claim. If the very hazardous experiment of placing Ireland in the
position of Victoria is to be tried, it must be tried fairly and with
every circumstance which may increase its chances of success. Ireland on
assuming the position of a colony should, like other colonies, be freed
from Imperial taxation. England can afford the sacrifice of three or
four millions a year, and she would obtain a valuable _quid pro quo_ in
the increased homogeneity of the British Parliament. Ireland too would
gain something. A country impoverished, in part at least through bad
government, might think it no hard bargain to gain at once local
independence and exemption from a heavy weight of taxation. The absence
of anything like a tribute to Great Britain would be an immense
advantage, for it would remove one cause of certain discontent, and
would for once place England before the Irish people at any rate in the
light of a liberal ally. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not recommend
Home Rule under any form whatever: what I do assert is that of all its
forms the Colonial form is the least injurious to British interests, and
that the experiment of placing Ireland in the situation of Victoria can
be carried out neither with fairness nor with any chance of success,
unless Englishmen let Ireland, like Victoria, be exempt from Imperial
taxation. If any English taxpayer says that the price is too high to pay
for the success of an experiment of which I do not myself recommend the
trial, I am not concerned to consider whether he is right. My only
concern is to insist that the sacrifice of three or four millions per
annum is an essential feature of this particular scheme of Home Rule,
and that persons who say the sacrifice is too great have only added one
to the many arguments which lead to the conclusion that under no form
whatever can Irish Home Rule be accepted by England.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Objection to Constitution of 1782, not faults of Irish
Parliament.]
III. _Home Rule as the revival of Grattan's Constitution._--The cry for
Home Rule sometimes takes the form of a demand that Ireland should
reacquire the Constitution of 1782. The true answer to this demand is
not to be found where Englishmen often seek for it, in attacks on
Grattan's Parliament. That body exhibited some grave defects common to
the English Parliament of the day; it had also many faults of its own to
answer for; but it had with all its demerits virtues which still cast a
halo round its memory in the eyes of Irish patriotism, and which serve
to redeem many of its admitted faults in the judgment of impartial
history. It produced great men. Flood, Grattan, Curran, and Fitzgibbon
were none of them faultless statesmen, but they were leaders of whom any
people have a right to be proud. Grattan's Parliament, moreover, though
it represented a class, represented a class of Irishmen, and we may even
say the best class of Irishmen. It was lastly, with all its defects, a
Parliament of men who knew and belonged to Ireland, and after its
lights cared for the country. It was in a true sense a national
Parliament. When we consider further that the Parliament was abolished
against the wish of the best men in Ireland, that it was abolished by
arts which have brought lasting and just discredit on the men who
carried through the Act of Union, we can well understand why as calm and
as well-informed judges as Mr. Lecky hold to the belief--certainly in
nowise in itself unreasonable--that the Treaty of Union was, to say the
least, premature, and that England and Ireland would have gained much if
for a generation or two more the interest and repute of Ireland had been
guarded by an Irish Parliament. The argument that the Irish Parliament
because it was corrupt, or because it represented a class, was rightly
abolished, proves too much. The English Parliament under Walpole was at
least as open as the Irish Parliament in the time of Grattan to each of
these charges, yet long before legislation had removed the flagrant
anomalies of the unreformed House of Commons the English Parliament had
cast off its worst vices, and few persons will maintain that England
would have gained if during the time of Walpole Parliamentary government
had been abolished. Be this as it may, vituperation of Grattan's
Parliament is for our present purpose as irrelevant as it is unjust and
injudicious.
[Sidenote: True objection, restoration impossible.]
The true reason for declining to consider the demand for the
Constitution of 1782 is, that to concede it is in the strictest sense of
the word an impossibility. Grattan's Constitution not only is dead, but
can look for no resurrection. The social, the political, the religious,
we might almost say the physical conditions under which Grattan's
Parliament existed have vanished, never to return. "It cannot be too
clearly understood," writes Mr. Lecky, "that the real meaning of the
separate Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century was that the
efficient government of the country was placed in the hands of its
Protestant gentry, qualified by the fact that the English Government
possessed a sufficient number of nomination boroughs to exercise a
constant controlling influence over their proceedings. The existing
Grand Juries and the Synod of the disestablished Church are the bodies
which now represent most faithfully the independent elements in
Grattan's Parliament. That Parliament consisted exclusively of men who
were bound to the English connection by the closest ties of interest and
sentiment [and] who were pre-eminently the representatives of
property."[51] We may deplore that such a Parliament was doomed to
destruction when it might possibly have been saved by reform. But to any
one who has eyes to see it is as clear as day that with Protestant
ascendancy, with the prestige of the Established Church, with the
leading position of Irish landlords, with the submission of Irish
tenants, with the power of control exercised by the English Government,
with the necessary dependence of the English Colony upon the connection
with England, Grattan's Constitution with all its possibilities or
impossibilities has vanished for ever. You can no more restore the
Parliament of 1782 in Ireland than you can restore the unreformed
Parliament of 1832 in England. In either case to reproduce the form
would not renew the spirit, and the attempted revival of an anomaly
would turn out the creation of a monstrosity.
One consideration suggested by the memory of Grattan's Parliament is
well worth attention. With the curious laxity of thought about
constitutional changes which marks modern British statesmanship,
language is often used which implies that to ask for Grattan's
Parliament is equivalent to asking for Colonial self-government as in
Victoria. No two things are in reality more different. It is no
exaggeration to say that the Constitution of 1782 presented in its
principles the exact antithesis to the modern Constitution of Victoria.
Grattan's Constitution rested on the absolute denial of British
Parliamentary sovereignty. The keynote of his policy was the
Parliamentary independence of Ireland; its aim was to make Ireland an
independent nation connected with England only by goodwill, by common
interest, and by what has been called the "golden link" of the Crown.
The statement indeed that between the date of Irish Parliamentary
independence and the date of the Union England and Ireland were governed
under two crowns, is not much better than a piece of rhetorical
antiquarianism.[52] It is, however, undoubtedly true that from 1782 to
1800 the British Parliament had no more right to legislate for Ireland
than at the present day it has to legislate for New York, and no appeal
lay from any Irish Court to any English tribunal. But if under the
Constitution of 1782 Ireland was in one sense an independent nation, she
could not under that Constitution be called a self-governed country. The
Irish Executive was controlled by George the Third and his English
Ministers, and the passing of the Act of Union was proof, if evidence
were needed, that England possessed potent though unavowed means for
controlling the decision of the Irish Legislature. The Constitution, it
may be added, bore exactly the fruit to be expected from its anomalous
character. It stimulated national feeling; this was its saving merit. It
did not secure supremacy to the will of the Irish nation; this, as
appeared in 1800, was its fatal flaw. Compare with this the
Constitution of Victoria. The Victorian Constitution is based on
complete acknowledgment of English Parliamentary sovereignty. But the
amplest recognition of British authority is balanced by the unrestricted
enjoyment of local self-government. Hence Victoria manages her own
affairs, but Victorians are not inspired with the sense of constituting
a nation.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Gladstonian Constitution--its character.]
IV. _Home Rule under the Gladstonian Constitution_[53]--No legislative
proposal submitted to Parliament has ever received harder measure than
the Government of Ireland Bill. Its introduction aroused the keenest
political battle which during half a century has been fought in England.
The Bill therefore became at once the mark of hostile and (what is
nearly the same thing) of unfair criticism at the hands of opponents.
This was to be expected; it is the necessary result of the system which
makes tenure of office depend on success in carrying through or
resisting proposed legislation. What did take place but was not to be
expected was, that the Government of Ireland Bill met with harsh
criticism at the hands of its friends. The Opposition wished to prove
that the principle of the Bill was bad, by showing that it led to
disastrous and absurd results. They therefore directed their assaults
upon the details of a measure which they disliked in reality not because
of the special provisions which they attacked, but because of the
principle to which these provisions gave effect. Ministeralists on the
other hand were only too ready to surrender any clause in the Bill as a
matter of detail, provided only they could persuade Parliament to
sanction the principle of the measure, and thereby affirm the policy of
giving Ireland an Irish Executive and an Irish Parliament. Nor was this
course of action dictated solely by the exigencies of Parliamentary
strategy. Ministerialists saw the flaws in the Bill as plainly as did
the Opposition, and no man (it may be conjectured), from the Premier who
devised, down to the draughtsman who drew, the Government of Ireland
Bill, would have wished it to become an Act in the form in which it
stood on the 7th day of June, 1886. The supporters, moreover, of the
Government emphasized their dislike to the details of the particular
measure, because to attack a detail of the machinery by which it was
proposed to give Ireland Home Rule countenanced in the critic's own mind
the assumption that some mechanism could be invented which might carry
out the principle of creating an Irish Parliament without violating the
conditions on which alone the idea of any such measure could be
entertained by any English statesman. Opponents, in short, of the
Government of Ireland Bill attacked its details out of hostility to its
principle; its defenders tried to win approval for its principle by
conceding or insisting upon the defects of its details.[54] The result
was unfortunate. The Bill was never either by its opponents or its
friends regarded in the light in which it ought to be viewed by a
constitutional lawyer. It was never criticised as a whole; it never
therefore received full justice. Whoever examines the now celebrated
Bill in the spirit of a jurist will see that it constitutes, in spite of
many obvious blots both in its special provisions and in its language, a
most ingenious attempt to solve the problem of giving to Ireland a
legislature which shall be at once practically independent, and
theoretically dependent, upon the Parliament of Great Britain; which
shall have full power to make laws and appoint an executive for Ireland,
and yet shall not use that power in a way opposed to English interests
or sense of justice. The problem (it may be said) admits of no solution.
This may be so, and is indeed my own conviction. But this conviction
ought not to prevent the acknowledgment that the Bill is the rough
outline of an ingeniously attempted solution. If the Bill fails in
achieving its object, the failure arises not from mistakes of detail,
but from the unsoundness of the principle on which the Bill rests, and
shows that the conditions on which Englishmen can wisely give Home Rule
to Ireland are conditions which no scheme of Home Rule can satisfy. The
idea which lies at the basis of the plan sketched out in the Government
of Ireland Bill is the combination of the Federal system and the
Colonial system of Home Rule. The right mode of criticising this
combination is first to trace in the barest outline the leading features
of the Bill, treating it much as if it had become an Act, and had given
to Ireland an actual Constitution; and next to examine how far this
Constitution, which may with no unfairness be called the "Gladstonian
Constitution," satisfies the conditions which a scheme of Home Rule is
bound to fulfil.
The Gladstonian Constitution establishes a new form of government in
Ireland; it also modifies, or, to use plain and accurate language,
repeals the main provisions of the Act of Union, and thus introduces a
fundamental change into the existing Constitution of England.[55]
The following are for our present purpose its principal features.
[Sidenote: Its features as regards government of Ireland.]
As regards the government of Ireland--
The Executive Government of Ireland is vested in the Queen, but is
carried on by the Lord-Lieutenant and a Council.[56] Though the
formation and powers of the Executive are under the Constitution left
very much at large, we may fairly assume that the authors of the
Constitution intend that the Lord-Lieutenant should occupy the position
in substance of Colonial Governor, and rule Ireland through a ministry
appointed nominally by the Lord-Lieutenant, but in reality selected by
the Irish legislative body. In this manner the Irish Constitution is,
like that of Victoria, a copy of the English original.