Against Home Rule (1912). Various
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Table of Contents
BY GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.
INTRODUCTORY
Few things are more remarkable in the Parliamentary history of the Home Rule movement than the complete absence from the counsels of the English advocates of Home Rule of any definite and settled policy as to the form of self-government to be offered to Ireland, and their consequent oscillation between proposals radically differing from one another. Since the "new departure" initiated by Davitt and Devoy in 1878,[20] it has been the deliberate practice of Irish Nationalists to abstain from defining the Nationalist demand and to ask in general terms for "self-government," doubtless with the object of attracting the support of all who favour any change which could be described by that very elastic term. Such a policy has its advantages. But confusion of thought, however favourable to popular agitation, is a disadvantage when the moment for legislation arrives; and uncertainty as to the aim goes far to explain the vacillation in Home Rule policy.
Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 would have given to Ireland the substance of "responsible" or colonial self-government, subject only to certain reservations and restrictions, the value of which will be considered later in this chapter, and would have excluded the Irish members and representative peers from the Parliament of the United Kingdom. By the Bill of 1893 the reservations and restrictions were increased, and representatives of Ireland were to be permitted to sit at Westminster—by the Bill as introduced for some purposes, and by the Bill as passed by the House of Commons for all purposes.
After the defeat of this second Bill, a "cold fit" appears to have seized the Liberal Party. Lord Rosebery, in 1894, declared that before Home Rule could be carried England, as the predominant partner, must be convinced. Sir Edward Grey in 1905 declared that his party on its return to power would "go on with Sir Anthony MacDonnell's policy," which he rightly described as a policy of large administrative reforms; and Mr. Asquith "associated himself entirely and unreservedly with every word" of Sir Edward Grey's speech.[21] Accordingly the Irish Council Bill proposed by Mr. Asquith's Government in 1907 was purely a measure of devolution, certain administrative functions only being put under the control of an Irish Council, subject to the veto of the Lord Lieutenant, and the whole legislative power remaining in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This proposal, having been condemned by a National Convention at Dublin, was incontinently withdrawn.
In the years succeeding this fiasco the Liberal policy for Ireland appeared to be at the mercy of shifting winds. For some time Liberal speakers contented themselves with vague declarations in favour of Federalism or "Home Rule all round"—phrases which may mean much or little according to the sense in which they are used. More recently an able writer,[22] while admitting that "there is no public opinion in Ireland as to the form of the Irish Constitution," has argued in a work of 350 pages in favour of the grant to Ireland of full legislative, administrative and financial autonomy; while a member of the Government[23] declared that fiscal autonomy for all practical purposes means separation and the disintegration of the United Kingdom. In a publication recently issued by a committee of Liberals, comprising several members of the present Government,[24] two views directly contrary to one another are put forward, one writer arguing for a devolution to an Irish body of "definite and defined powers only," and another for the grant of the widest possible form of Home Rule and the exclusion from Westminster of all Irish representation. The latest official pronouncements indicate that the Government have it in their minds to revert to the Gladstonian form of Home Rule; but even now[25] no one outside the Cabinet, and possibly few inside that inner circle, would venture on a confident prophecy even as to the broad lines of the measure which in a few days may be submitted to Parliament as representing the urgent and considered demand of public opinion.
Franklin said truly that—
"those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects."
But surely on a question of such vital moment to the Empire as the revision of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the bases, if not the details, of the contemplated change are deserving of prolonged consideration and even of some public and ordered discussion. The British North America Act, 1867, by which the relation of the Dominion of Canada to its provinces is regulated, was the result, not only of years of preliminary debate in the provincial Legislatures and elsewhere, but of a formal conference at Quebec in 1864, followed by the appointment of delegates to confer with the Imperial Government on the matter. In Australia the proposal for union, agitated at intervals since 1846, was canvassed in every detail at inter-colonial Conferences or Conventions in 1883, in 1891, and in 1897–8, as well as in the several colonial Legislatures, before it was embodied in the Australia Constitution Act, 1900. And although in the case of South Africa, owing to the urgency of the question of union, the time occupied in the discussion was less than in the other great dominions, yet in the Convention of 1908–9 the best brains in the country were occupied for months in considering every detail of the proposal for union before it was submitted to the Colonial and Imperial Parliaments for their sanction.[26] And yet in the Mother Country, where centuries of military and political conflict have given us the Union, it is considered that a few weeks' consideration by a committee of the Cabinet, without advice from independent constitutional experts,[27] and without formal consultation even with the Government's own supporters outside the Ministry, is sufficient to determine both the general form and the details of a proposal for its dissolution.
In the confusion so engendered it may be useful to consider in some detail the different proposals which have been or may be made under the name of Home Rule, their special qualities and dangers, and the results to which they may severally lead.
RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT.
A proposal to give to Ireland full "responsible" government, without any other limitations than such as are imposed on our self-governing Colonies, would find few supporters in this country. Under such a constitution an Irish Government would have power to forbid or restrict recruiting for the Imperial forces in Ireland, and to raise and train a force of its own. It might establish or subsidise a religion, make education wholly denominational, levy customs duties on imports from Great Britain and give fiscal advantages to a foreign power, confiscate or transfer property without payment, and deprive individuals of nationality, franchise, liberty, or life without process of law. However improbable some of these contingencies may appear, it is right on a matter of so much moment to consider possibilities and not probabilities only. Such powers as these could not without serious risk be conceded to any part of the kingdom, and in the case of Ireland there would be a special danger in granting them to a popularly elected body.
In the first place, the national safety would be involved. Englishmen were at one time too fond of saying that the great Colonies might, if they chose, sever the link which binds them to the Mother Country. Happily, in their case, no such catastrophe need now be considered. But it would be folly to shut our eyes to the fact that to many Irishmen national independence appears to be the only goal worth striving for. If the concession of full responsible government should be followed (at whatever interval) by an assertion of complete independence, we may assume that Great Britain would follow the example of Federal America and re-establish the Union by force of arms, but at how great a cost! Those who deny the possibility of a serious movement towards separation would do well to remember Mr. Gladstone's reference[28] to the position of Norway and Sweden, then united under one crown:—
"Let us look to those two countries, neither of them very large, but yet countries which every Englishman and every Scotchman must rejoice to claim his kin—I mean the Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Norway. Immediately after the great war the Norwegians were ready to take sword in hand to prevent their coming under the domination of Sweden. But the Powers of Europe undertook the settlement of that question, and they