THE FRAMEWORK OF HOME RULE

BY

ERSKINE CHILDERS

AUTHOR OF

"THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS, " "WAR AND THE ARME BLANCHE, " "GERMAN INFLUENCEON BRITISH CAVALRY"; EDITOR OF VOL. V. OF THE _TIMES_ "HISTORY OF THEWAR IN SOUTH AFRICA, " ETC. 

LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD

1911

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGES

 INTRODUCTION vii-xvi

I. THE COLONIZATION OF IRELAND AND AMERICA 1-20

II. REVOLUTION IN AMERICA AND IN IRELAND 21-41

III. GRATTAN'S PARLIAMENT 42-59

IV. THE UNION 60-71

V. CANADA AND IRELAND 72-104

VI. AUSTRALIA AND IRELAND 105-119

VII. SOUTH AFRICA AND IRELAND 120-143

VIII. THE ANALOGY 144-149

IX. IRELAND TO-DAY 150-187

X. THE FRAMEWORK OF HOME RULE 188-229

 I. The Elements of the Problem 188-197

 II. Federal or Colonial Home Rule 198-203

 III. The Exclusion or Retention of Irish Members at Westminster 203-213

 IV. Irish Powers and their Bearing on Exclusion 213-229

XI. UNION FINANCE 230-257

 I. Before the Union 230-231

 II. From the Union to the Financial Relations Commission of 1894-1896 232-239

 III. The Financial Relations Commission of 1894-1896 239-257

XII. THE PRESENT FINANCIAL SITUATION 258-279

 I. Anglo-Irish Finance To-day 258-264

 II. Irish Expenditure 264-274

 III. Irish Revenue 274-279

XIII. FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE 280-306

 I. The Essence of Home Rule 280-281

 II. The Deficit 281-286

 III. Further Contribution to Imperial Services 286

 IV. Ireland's Share of the National Debt 286

 V. Ireland's Share of Imperial Miscellaneous Revenue 287

 VI. Irish Control of Customs and Excise 287-294

 VII. Federal Finance 294-300

 VIII. Alternative Schemes of Home Rule Finance 300-306

XIV. LAND PURCHASE FINANCE 307-321

 I. Land Purchase Loans 307-319

 II. Minor Loans to Ireland 319-321

XV. THE IRISH CONSTITUTION 322-338

 CONCLUSION 339-341

 APPENDIX 342-347

 INDEX 348-354

INTRODUCTION

My purpose in this volume is to advocate a definite scheme ofself-government for Ireland. That task necessarily involves anhistorical as well as a constructive argument. It would be truer, perhaps, to say that the greater part of the constructive case for HomeRule must necessarily be historical. To postulate a vague acceptance ofthe principle of Home Rule, and to proceed at once to the details of theIrish Constitution, would be a waste of time and labour. It isimpossible even to attempt to plan the framework of a Home Rule Billwithout a tolerably close knowledge not only of Anglo-Irish relations, but of the Imperial history of which they form a part. The Act willsucceed exactly in so far as it gives effect to the lessons ofexperience. It will fail at every point where those lessons areneglected. Constitutions which do not faithfully reflect the experienceof the sovereign power which accords them, and of the peoples which haveto live under them, are at the best perilous experiments liable todefeat the end of their framers. 

I shall enter into history only so far as it is relevant to theconstitutional problem, using the comparative method, and confiningmyself almost exclusively to the British Empire past and present. Forthe purposes of the Irish controversy it is unnecessary to travelfarther. In one degree or another every one of the vexed questions whichmake up the Irish problem has arisen again and again within the circleof the English-speaking races. As a nation we have a body of experienceapplicable to the case of Ireland incomparably greater than thatpossessed by any other race in the world. If, from timidity, prejudice, or sheer neglect, we fail to use it, we shall earn the heavy censurereserved for those who sin against the light. 

For the comparative sketch I shall attempt, materials in the shape offacts established beyond all controversy are abundant. Colonial history, thanks to colonial freedom, is almost wholly free from the distortinginfluence of political passion. South African history alone will needrevision in the light of recent events. When, under the alchemy of freenational institutions, Ireland has undergone the same transformation asSouth Africa, her unhappy history will be chronicled afresh with ajuster sense of perspective and a juster apportionment of responsibilityfor the calamities which have befallen her. And yet, if we consider thefield for partisan bias which Irish history presents, the amount ofground common to writers of all shades of political opinion is nowastonishingly large. The result, I think, is due mainly to the goodinfluence of that eminent historian and Unionist politician, the lateProfessor Lecky. Indeed, an advocate of Home Rule, nervously suspiciousof tainted material, could afford to rely solely on his "History ofIreland in the Eighteenth Century, " "Leaders of Public Opinion inIreland, " and "Clerical Influences, "[1] which are Nationalist textbooks, and, for quite recent events, on "A Consideration of Ireland in theNineteenth Century, " by Mr. G. Locker-Lampson, the present UnionistMember for Salisbury. A strange circumstance; but Ireland, like allcountries where political development has been forcibly arrested fromwithout, is a land of unending paradox. It is only one of innumerableanomalies that Irish Nationalists should use Unionist histories aspropaganda for Nationalism; that the majority of Irish Unionists shouldinsist on ignoring all historical traditions save those which in anynormal country would long ago have been consigned by general consent tooblivion and the institutions they embody overthrown; and that Unionistwriters such as those I have mentioned should be able to reconcile theirhistory and their politics only by a pessimism with regard to thetendencies of human nature in general, or of Irish nature in particular, with which their own historical teaching, founded on a true perceptionof cause and effect, appears to be in direct contradiction. 

The truth is that the question is one of the construction, not of theverification, of facts; of prophecy for the future, rather than of bareaffirmation or negation. No one can presume to determine such a questionwithout a knowledge of how human beings have been accustomed to actunder similar circumstances. Illumination of that sort Irish history andthe contemporary Irish problem incontestably need. The modern case forthe Union rests mainly on the abnormality of Ireland, and that isprecisely why it is such a formidable case to meet. For Ireland in manyways is painfully abnormal. The most cursory study of her institutionsand social, economic, and political life demonstrate that fact. TheUnionist, fixing his eyes on some of the secondary peculiarities, andignoring their fundamental cause, demonstrates it with ease, and by ahabit of mind which yields only with infinite slowness to the growth ofpolitical enlightenment, passes instinctively to the deduction thatIrish abnormalities render Ireland unfit for self-government. In otherwords, he prescribes for the disease a persistent application of thevery treatment which has engendered it. Whatever the result, there is aplausible answer. If Ireland is disorderly and retrograde, how can shedeserve freedom? If she is peaceful, and shows symptoms of economicrecuperation, clearly she does not need or even want it. In other words, if all that is healthy in the patient battles desperately and not invain, first against irritant poison, and then against soporific drugs, this healthy struggle for self-preservation is attributed not to nativevitality, but to the bracing regimen of coercive government. 

This train of argument, so far from being confined to Ireland, is as oldas the human race itself. Of all human passions, that for politicaldomination is the last to yield to reason. Men are naturally inclined toattribute admitted social evils to every cause--religion, climate, race, congenital defects of character, the inscrutable decrees of DivineProvidence--rather than to the form of political institutions; in otherwords, to the organic structure of the community, and to rest thesecurity of an Empire on any other foundation than that of the libertyof its component parts. If, in one case, their own experience provesthem wrong, they will go to the strangest lengths of perversity inmisreading their own experience, and they will seek every imaginablepretext for distinguishing the case from its predecessor. Underlying allis a nervous terror of the abuse of freedom founded on the assumptionthat men will continue to act when free exactly as they acted under thedemoralizing influence of coercion. The British Empire has grown, andcontinues to grow, in spite of this deeply rooted political doctrine. Ireland is peculiar only in that her proximity to the seat of power hasexposed her for centuries to an application of the doctrine in its mostextreme form and without any hope of escape through the mercifulaccidents to which more fortunate communities owe their emancipation. Canada owes her position in the Empire, and the Empire itself exists inits present form to-day, owing to the accident that the transcendantlyimportant principle of responsible government advocated by Lord Durhamas a remedy for the anarchy and stagnation in which he found both theBritish and the French Provinces of Canada in 1838, did not requireImperial legislation, and was established without the Parliamentary orelectoral sanction of Great Britain. Lord Durham was derided as avisionary, and abused as unpatriotic for the assertion of this simpleprinciple. Far in advance of his time as he was, he himself shrank fromthe full application of his own lofty ideal, and consequently made onegreat, though under the circumstances not a capital, mistake in hisdiagnosis, and it was to that mistake only that Parliament gavelegislative effect in 1840. By one of the most melancholy ironies in allhistory Ireland was the source of his error, so that the Union of theCanadas, dissolved as a failure by the Canadians themselves in 1867, wasactually based on the success of the Anglo-Irish Union in repressing adangerous nationality. Did the proof of the error in Canada induceEnglishmen to question the soundness of the precedent on which the errorwas based? On the contrary, the lesson passed unnoticed, and the Irishprecedent has survived to darken thought, to retard democratic progress, and to pervert domestic and Imperial policy to this very day. It evenhad the truly extraordinary retrospective effect of obliterating fromthe minds of many eminent statesmen the significance of the Canadianparallel; for it is only six years ago that a Secretary of State for theColonies penned a despatch recommending for the Transvaal a form ofgovernment similar to that which actually produced the Canadiandisorders of 1837, and supporting it by an argument whose effect was notmerely to resuscitate what time had proved to be false in Durham'sdoctrine, but to discard what time had proved to be true. As forIreland herself, I know no more curious illustration of the strongtendency, even on the part of the most fair-minded men, to place thatcountry outside the pale of social or political science, and of theextreme reluctance to judge its inhabitants by the elementary standardsof human conduct, than the book to which I referred above--Mr. Locker-Lampson's "A Consideration of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century. "For what he admits to be the ruinous results of British Government inthe past, the author in the last few pages of a lengthy volume has nobetter cure to suggest than a continuance of British government, and hedefends this course by a terse enumeration of the very phenomena whichin Durham's opinion rendered the grant of Home Rule to Canadaimperative, concluding with a paragraph which, with the substitution of"Canada" for "Ireland, " constitutes an admirably condensed epitome ofthe arguments used both by politicians at home, and the minorities inCanada, in favour of Durham's error and against the truth heestablished. 

Mr. Lecky represents a somewhat different school of thought, and reachedhis Unionism by reasoning more profound and consistent, but, on theother hand, wholly destructive of the Imperial theory as held by themodern school of Imperialists. His fear and distrust of democracy in allits forms and in all lands[2] was such that he naturally dreaded IrishNationalism, which is a form of democratic revolt suppressed so long andby such harsh methods as to exhibit features easily open to criticism. But the gist of his argument would have applied just as well to thepolitical evolution of the self-governing Colonies. Indeed, if he hadlived to see the last Imperial Conference, the pessimism of so clear athinker would assuredly have given way before the astounding contrastbetween those countries in which his political philosophy had beenabjured, and the only white country in the Empire where by sheer forceit had been maintained intact. 

If my only object in writing were to contribute something toward thedissipation of the fears and doubts which render it so hard to carry anymeasure, however small, of Home Rule for Ireland, I should hope forlittle success. Practical men, with a practical decision to make, rarelylook outside the immediate facts before them. Extremists, in a case likethat of Ireland, are reluctant to take account of what Lord Morleycalls "the fundamental probabilities of civil society. " Sir EdwardCarson would be more than human if he were to be influenced by ademonstration that the case he makes against Home Rule is the same asthat made by the minority leaders, not only in the French, but in theBritish Province of Canada. Most of the minority to which he appealswould now regard as an ill-timed paradox the view that the very vigourof their opposition to Home Rule is a better omen for the success ofHome Rule than that kind of sapless Nationalism, astonishingly rare inIreland under the circumstances, which is inclined to yield to theinsidious temptation of setting the "eleemosynary benefits"--to use Mr. Walter Long's phrase[3]--derived from the British connection above theneed for self-help and self-reliance. The real paradox is that anyIrishmen, Unionist or Nationalist, should tolerate advisers who, howeversincere and patriotic, avowedly regard Ireland as the parasite of GreatBritain; who appeal to the lower nature of her people; to the fears ofone section and the cupidity of both; advising Unionists to rely onBritish power and all Irishmen on British alms. A day will come when thehumiliation will be seen in its true light. Even now, I do venture toappeal to that small but powerful group of moderate Irish Unionists who, so far from fearing revenge or soliciting charity, spend their wholelives in the noble aim of uniting Irishmen of all creeds on a basis ofcommon endeavour for their own economic and spiritual salvation; whofind their work checked in a thousand ways by the perpetual maintenanceof a seemingly barren and sentimental agitation; who distrust both theparties to this agitation; but who are reluctant to accept the viewthat, without the satisfaction of the national claim, and without thenational responsibility thereby conferred, their own aims can never befully attained. I should be happy indeed if I could do even a littletowards persuading some of these men that they mistake cause and effect;misinterpret what they resent; misjudge where they distrust, and instanding aloof from the battle for legislative autonomy, unconsciouslyconcede a point--disinterested, constructive optimists as they are--tothe interested and destructive pessimism which, from Clare's savageinsults to Mr. Walter Long's contemptuous patronage, has always lain atthe root of British policy towards Ireland. 

In the meantime, for those who like or dislike it, Home Rule isimminent. We are face to face no longer with a highly speculative, butwith a vividly practical problem, raising legislative and administrativequestions of enormous practical importance, and next year we shall bedealing with this problem in an atmosphere of genuine reality totallyunlike that of 1886, when Home Rule was a startling novelty to theBritish electorate, or of 1893, when the shadow of impending defeatclouded debate and weakened counsel. It would be pleasant to think thatthe time which has elapsed, besides greatly mitigating anti-Irishprejudice, had been used for scientific study and dispassionatediscussion of the problem of Home Rule. Unfortunately, after eighteenyears the problem remains almost exactly where it was. There are nodetailed proposals of an authoritative character in existence. Noconcrete scheme was submitted to the country in the recent elections. None is before the country now. The reason, of course, is that the Irishquestion is still an acute party question, not merely in Ireland, but inGreat Britain. Party passion invariably discourages patient constructivethought, and all legislation associated with it suffers in consequence. Tactical considerations, sometimes altogether irrelevant to the specialissue, have to be considered. In the case of Home Rule, when the balanceof parties is positively determined by the Irish vote, the difficultyreaches its climax. It is idle to blame individuals. We should blame theUnion. So long as one island democracy claims to determine the destiniesof another island democracy, of whose special needs and circumstances itis admittedly ignorant, so long will both islands suffer. 

This ignorance is not disputed. No Irish Unionist claims that GreatBritain should govern Ireland on the ground that the British electorate, or even British statesmen, understand Irish questions. On the contrary, in Ireland, at any rate, their ignorance is a matter for satiricalcomment with all parties. What he complains of is, that the Britishelectorate is beginning to carry its ignorance to the point of believingthat the Irish electorate is competent to decide Irish questions, andin educating the British electorate he has hitherto devoted himselfexclusively to the eradication of this error. The financial results ofthe Union are such that he is now being cajoled into adding, "It is yourmoney, not your wisdom, that we want. " Once more, an odd state ofaffairs, and some day we shall all marvel in retrospect that the Unionwas so long sustained by a separatist argument, reinforced in latterdays by such an inconsistent and unconscionable claim. 

In the meantime, if only the present situation can be turned toadvantage, this crowning paradox is the most hopeful element in thewhole of a tangled question. It is not only that the British elector islikely to revolt at once against the slur upon his intelligence and thedrain upon his purse, but that Irish Unionism, once convinced of thetenacity and sincerity of that revolt, is likely to undergo a dramaticand beneficent transformation. If they are to have Home Rule, IrishUnionists--even those who now most heartily detest it--will want thebest possible scheme of Home Rule, and the best possible scheme is notlikely to be the half measure which, from no fault of the statesmanresponsible for it, tactical difficulties may make inevitable. If thevital energy now poured into sheer uncompromising opposition to theprinciples of Home Rule could be transmuted into intellectual and moraleffort after the best form of Home Rule, I believe that the result wouldbe a drastic scheme. 

Compromise enters more or less into the settlement of all burningpolitical questions. That is inevitable under the party system; but ofall questions under the sun, Home Rule questions are the leastsusceptible of compromise so engendered. The subject, in reality, is notsuitable for settlement at Westminster. This is a matter of experience, not of assertion. Within the present bounds of the Empire no lastingConstitution has ever been framed for a subordinate State to themoulding of which Parliament, in the character of a party assembly, contributed an active share. Constitutions which promote prosperity andloyalty have actually or virtually been framed by those who were to liveunder them. If circumstances make it impossible to adopt this course forIreland, let us nevertheless remember that all the friction and enmitybetween the Mother Country and subordinate States have arisen, not fromthe absence, but from the inadequacy of self-governing powers. Checksand restrictions, so far from benefiting Great Britain or the Colonies, have damaged both in different degrees, the Colonies suffering mostbecause these checks and restrictions produce in the country submittedto them peculiar mischiefs which exist neither under a despotic régimenor an unnatural Legislative Union, fruitful of evil as both thosesystems are. The damage is not evanescent, but is apt to bite deep intonational character and to survive the abolition of the institutionswhich caused it. The Anglo-Irish Union was created and has ever sincebeen justified by a systematic defamation of Irish character. If it isat length resolved to bury the slander and trust Ireland, in the name ofjustice and reason let the trust be complete and the institutions givenher such as to permit full play to her best instincts and tendencies, not such as to deflect them into wrong paths. Let us be scrupulouslycareful to avoid mistakes which might lead to a fresh campaign ofdefamation like that waged against Canada, as well as Ireland, between1830 and 1840. 

The position, I take it, is that most Irish Unionists still count, rightly or wrongly, on defeating Home Rule, not only in the firstParliamentary battle, but by exciting public opinion during the longperiod of subsequent delay which the Parliament Bill permits. Not untilHome Rule is a moral certainty, and perhaps not even then, do theextremists intend to consider the Irish Constitution in a practicalspirit. Surely this is a perilous policy. Surely it must be so regardedby the moderate men--and there are many--who, if Home Rule comes, intendto throw their abilities into making it a success, and who will beindispensable to Ireland at a moment of supreme national importance. Irretrievable mistakes may be made by too long a gamble with the chancesof political warfare. Whatever the scheme produced, the extremists willhave to oppose it tooth and nail. If the measure is big, sound, andgenerous, it will be necessary to attack its best features with thegreatest vigour; to rely on beating up vague, anti-separatist sentimentin Great Britain; to represent Irish Protestants as a timid race forcedto shelter behind British bayonets; in short, to use all the argumentswhich, if Irish Unionists were compelled to frame a Constitutionthemselves, they would scorn to employ, and which, if grafted on the Actin the form of amendments, they themselves in after-years mightbitterly regret. Conversely, if the measure is a limited one, it will benecessary to commend its worst features; to extol its eleemosynary sideand all the infractions of liberty which in actual practice they wouldfind intolerably irksome. Whatever happens, things will be said whichare not meant, and passions aroused which will be difficult to allay onthe eve of a crisis when Ireland will need the harmonious co-operationof all her ablest sons. 

If, behind the calculation of a victory within the next two years, therelies the presentiment of an eventual defeat, let not the thought beencouraged that a better form of Home Rule is likely to come from a Torythan from a Liberal Government. Many Irish Unionists regard the prospectof continued submission to a Liberal, or what they consider asemi-Socialist, Government as the one consideration which wouldreconcile them to Home Rule. No one can complain of that. But they makea fatal mistake in denying Liberals credit for understanding questionsof Home Rule better than Tories. That, again, is a matter of provedexperience. Compare the abortive Transvaal Constitution of 1905 with thereality of 1906, and measure the probable consequences of the former bythe actual results of the latter. Let them remember, too, that everyyear which passes aggravates the financial difficulties which imperilthe future of Ireland. 

The best hope of securing a final settlement of the Irish question inthe immediate future lies in promoting open discussion on the details ofthe Home Rule scheme, and of drawing into that discussion all Irishmenand Englishmen who realize the profound importance of the issue. Thisbook is offered as a small contribution to the controversy. 

For help in writing it I am deeply indebted to many friends on bothsides of the Irish Channel, in Ireland to officials and private persons, who have generously placed their experience at my disposal; while inEngland I owe particular thanks to the Committee of which I had thehonour to be a member, which sat during the summer of this year underthe chairmanship of Mr. Basil Williams, and which published the seriesof essays called "Home Rule Problems. "

E. C. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The two latter works were written by Mr. Lecky in his Nationalistyouth the first and greater work after he had become a Unionist. Theyform a connected whole, however, and are not inconsistent with oneanother. 

[2] See "Democracy and Liberty. "

[3] "Did the people of Ireland understand that the destruction of theUnion, so lightly advocated by Lord Haldane, must result in thecessation of those largely eleemosynary benefits to which the progressof Ireland is due, her 'dissatisfaction' would be unmistakably directedtowards her false advisers?"--Letter to the _Belfast Telegraph_, October7, 1911, criticizing Lord Haldane's preface to "Home Rule Problems. "

ERRATA

Since this book went to press the Treasury has issued a revised versionof Return No. 220, 1911 [Revenue and Expenditure (England, Scotland, andIreland)], cancelling the Return issued in July, and correcting an errormade in it. It now appears that the "true" Excise revenue attributableto Ireland from _spirits_ in 1910-11 (with deductions made by theTreasury from the sum actually collected in Ireland) should be£3, 575, 000, instead of £3, 734, 000, and that the total "true" Irishrevenue in that year was, therefore, £11, 506, 500, instead of£11, 665, 500. In other words, Irish revenue for 1910-11 wasover-estimated in the Return now cancelled by £159, 000. 

The error does not affect the Author's argument as expounded in ChaptersXII. And XIII. ; but it necessitates the correction of a number offigures given by him, especially in Chapter XII. , the principal changebeing that the deficit in Irish revenue, as calculated on the mean ofthe two years 1909-10 and 1910-11, should actually be £1, 392, 000, instead of £1, 312, 500. 

The full list of corrections is as follows:

Page 259, line 9, _for_ "£1, 312, 500, " _read_ "£1, 392, 000. "

Page 260, table, third column, line 6, _for_ "£10, 032, 000, " _read_"£9, 952 500"; last line, _for_ "£1, 312, 500, " _read_ "£1, 392, 000. "

Page 261, table, last column, last line but one, _for_ "£321, 000, "_read_ "£162, 000"; last line (total), _for_ "£329, 780, 970, " _read_"£329, 621, 970. "

Page 262, line 7, _for_ "£10, 032, 000, " _read_ "£9, 952, 500"; line 10, _for_ "£1, 312, 500, " _read_ "£1, 392, 000. "

Page 275. Table, last column, line 2, _for_ "£3, 734, 000, " _read_"£3, 575, 000"; line 7, _for_ "£10, 371, 000, " _read_ "£10, 212, 000"; line14, _for_ "£11, 665, 500, " _read_, "£11, 506, 500"; in text, last line butone of page, _for_ "£10, 032, 000, " _read_ "£9, 952, 500. "

Page 276, line 5, _for_ "£500, 000, " _read_, "£340, 000"; table, lastcolumn, line 2, _for_ "£3, 316, 000, " _read_ "£3, 236, 500"; line 3, _for_"£6, 182, 000, " _read_ "£6, 102, 500"; line 9, _for_ "£8, 737, 500, " _read_"£8, 658, 000"; last line, _for_ "£10, 032, 000, " _read_ "£9, 952, 500. "

Page 277, line 2, _for_ "£1, 672, 500, " _read_ "£1, 752, 000"; line 7, _for_"£1, 312, 500, " _read_ "£1, 392, 000"; line 8, _for_ "£10, 032, 000, " _read_"£9, 952, 500"; line 12, _for_ "£1, 672, 500, " _read_ "£1, 752, 000";footnote, line 1, _for_ "£1, 793, 000, " _read_ "£1, 952, 000. "

Page 279, line 8, _for_ "70. 75, " _read_ "70. 48. "

Page 282, sixth line from bottom, _for_ "£1, 312, 500, " _read_"£1, 392, 000. "

 * * * * *

Page 246, line 8 and footnote, and page 295, lines 21-31: A temporarymeasure has been passed (Surplus Revenue Act, 1910), under which theSurplus Commonwealth Revenue is returned to the States on a basis of £15s. Per head of the population of each State. 

 * * * * *

Page 288, line 2, _omit_ "like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. "These islands have distinct local tariffs, but they cannot be said to bewholly under local control. 

THE FRAMEWORK OF HOME RULE

CHAPTER I

THE COLONIZATION OF IRELAND AND AMERICA

I. 

Ireland was the oldest and the nearest of the Colonies. We are apt toforget that she was ever colonized, and that for a long period, althoughstyled a Kingdom, she was kept in a position of commercial and politicaldependence inferior to that of any Colony. Constitutional theory stillblinds a number of people to the fact that in actual practice Ireland isstill governed in many respects as a Colony, but on principles which inall other white communities of the British Empire are extinct. Like allColonies, she has a Governor or Lord-Lieutenant of her own, an Executiveof her own, and a complete system of separate Government Departments, but her people, unlike the inhabitants of a self-governing Colony, exercise no control over the administration. She possesses noLegislature of her own, although in theory she is supposed to possesssufficient legislative control over Irish affairs through representationin the Imperial Parliament. In practice, however, this control hasalways been, and still remains, illusory, just as it would certainlyhave proved illusory if conferred upon any Colony. It can be exercisedonly by cumbrous, circuitous, and often profoundly unhealthy methods;and over a wide range of matters it cannot by any method whatsoever beexercised at all. 

To look behind mere technicalities to the spirit of government, Irelandresembles one of that class of Crown Colonies of which Jamaica and Maltaare examples, where the inhabitants exercise no control overadministration, and only partial control over legislation. [4]

Why is this?

Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, always frank and fearless in his politicaljudgments, gave the best answer in 1893, when opposing the first readingof the second of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bills. "Does anybody doubt, "he said, "that if Ireland were a thousand miles away from England shewould not have been long before this a self-governing Colony?" Now thiswas not a barren geographical truism, which might by way of hypothesisbe applied in identical terms to any fraction of the UnitedKingdom--say, for example, to that part of England lying south of theThames. Mr. Chamberlain never made any attempt to deny--no one with thesmallest knowledge of history could have denied--that Ireland, thoughonly sixty miles away from England, was less like England than any ofthe self-governing Colonies then attached to the Crown, possessingdistinct national characteristics which entitled her, in theory at anyrate, to demand, not merely colonial, but national autonomy. On thecontrary, Mr. Chamberlain went out of his way to argue, with all theforce and fire of an accomplished debater, that the Bill was a highlydangerous measure precisely because, while granting Ireland a measure ofautonomy, it denied her some of the elementary powers, not only ofcolonial, but of national States; for instance, the full control overtaxation, which all self-governing Colonies possessed, and the controlover foreign policy, which is a national attribute. The complementarystep in his argument was that, although nominally withheld by statute, these fuller powers would be forcibly usurped by the future IrishGovernment through the leverage offered by a subordinate Legislature andExecutive, and that, once grasped, they would be used to the injury ofGreat Britain and the minority in Ireland. Ireland ("a fearful danger")might arm, ally herself with France, and, while submitting theProtestant minority to cruel persecution, would retain enough nationalunity to smite Britain hip and thigh, and so avenge the wrong of ages. 

Even to the most ardent Unionist the case thus presented must, in theyear 1911, present a doubtful aspect. The British _entente_ with France, and the absence of the smallest ascertainable sympathy between Irelandand Germany, he will dismiss, perhaps, as points of minor importance, but he will detect at once in the argument an antagonism, natural enoughin 1893, between national and colonial attributes, and he will remember, with inner misgivings, that his own party has taken an especially activepart during the last ten years in furthering the claim of theself-governing Colonies to the status of nationhood as an essential stepin the furtherance of Imperial unity. The word "nation, " therefore, asapplied to Ireland, has lost some of its virtue as a deterrent to HomeRule. Even the word "Colony" is becoming harmless; for every year thathas passed since 1893 has made it more abundantly clear that colonialfreedom means colonial friendship; and, after all, friendship is moreimportant than legal ties. In one remarkable case, that of the conqueredDutch Republic in South Africa, a flood of searching light has beenthrown on the significance of those phrases "nation" and "Colony. "There, as in Ireland, and originally in Canada, "national" includedracial characteristics, and colonial autonomy signified nationalautonomy in a more accurate sense than in Australia or Newfoundland. Butwe know now that it does not signify either a racial tyranny withinthose nations, or a racial antipathy to the Mother Country; but, on thecontrary, a reconciliation of races within and friendship without. 

Would Mr. Chamberlain recast his argument now? Unhappily, we shall notknow. But it does seem to me that recent history and his own temperamentwould force him to do so. As in his abandonment of Free Trade, it was astrong and sincere Imperialist instinct that eventually transformed himfrom the advocate of provincial Home Rule into the relentless enemy ofHome Rule in any shape. Take the Imperial argument, shaken to itsfoundations by subsequent events, from the case he stated in 1893, andwhat remains? Two pleas only--first, the abnormality of Irishmen;second, Ireland's proximity to England. The first expresses the oldtraditional view that Ireland is outside the pale of all human analogy;the exception to all rules; her innate depravity and perversity suchthat she would abuse power where others respect it, derive enmity whereothers derive friendship, and willingly ruin herself by internaldissension and extravagant ambitions in order, if possible, at the sametime to ruin England. Unconnected, however loosely, with the highImperial argument, I do not believe that this plea could have been usedwith sincerity by Mr. Chamberlain even in 1893. He was a democrat, devoted to the cause of enfranchising and trusting the people; and thisplea was, after all, only the same anti-democratic argument applied toIreland, and tipped with racial venom, which had been used forgenerations by most Tories and many Whigs against any extension ofpopular power. Lord Randolph Churchill, the Tory democrat, in hisdispassionate moments, always scouted it, resting his case against HomeRule on different grounds. It was strange enough to see the argumentused by the Radical author of all the classic denunciations of classascendancy and the classic eulogies of the sense, forbearance andgenerosity of free electorates. It was all the stranger in that Mr. Chamberlain himself a few years before had committed himself to a schemeof restricted self-government for Ireland, and in the debates on Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill of 1886, when the condition of Irelandwas far worse than in 1893, had declared himself ready to give thatcountry a Constitution similar to that enjoyed by Quebec or Ontariowithin the Dominion of Canada. But politics are politics. Under theinexorable laws of the party game, politicians are advocates and swelltheir indictments with every count which will bear the light. The systemworks well enough in every case but one--the indictment of afellow-nation for incapacity to rule itself. There, both in Ireland andeverywhere else, as I shall show, it works incalculable mischief. Oncecommitted irrevocably to the opposition of Mr. Gladstone's Bills, Mr. Chamberlain, standing on Imperial ground, which seemed to him and hisfollowers firm enough then, used his unrivalled debating powers totraduce and exasperate the Irish people and their leaders by everydevice in his power. 

One other point survives in its integrity from the case made by Mr. Chamberlain in 1893, and that is the argument about distance. Clearlythis is a quite distinct contention from the last; for distance from anygiven point does not by itself radically alter human nature. Australiansare not twice as good or twice as bad as South Africans because theyare twice as far from the Mother Country. "Does anybody doubt"--let merepeat his words--"that if Ireland were a thousand miles from Englandshe would not have been long before this a self-governing Colony?" Thewhole tragedy of Ireland lies in that "if"; but the condition is, without doubt, still unsatisfied. Ireland is still only sixty miles awayfrom the English shores, and the argument from proximity, for what it isworth, is still plausible. To a vast number of minds it still seemsconclusive. Put the South African parallel to the average moderateUnionist, half disposed to admit the force of this analogy, he wouldnevertheless answer: "Ah, but Ireland is so near. " Well, let us joinissue on the two grounds I have indicated--the ground of Irishabnormality, and the ground of Ireland's proximity. It will be found, Ithink, that neither contention is tenable by itself; that a supporter ofone unconsciously or consciously reinforces it by reference to theother, and that to refute one is to refute both. It will be found, too, that, apart from mechanical and unessential difficulties, the whole caseagainst Home Rule is included and summed up in these two contentions, and that the mechanical problem itself will be greatly eased andilluminated by their refutation. 

II. 

Those sixty miles of salt water which we know as the Irish Channel--ifonly every Englishman could realize their tremendous significance inAnglo-Irish history--what an ineffectual barrier "in the long result oftime" to colonization and conquest; what an impassable barrier--throughthe ignorance and perversity of British statesmanship--to sympathy andracial fusion!

For eight hundred years after the Christian era her distance from Europegave Ireland immunity from external shocks, and freedom to work out herown destiny. She never, for good or ill, underwent Roman occupation orTeutonic invasion. She was secure enough to construct and maintainunimpaired a civilization of her own, warlike, prosperous, andmarvellously rich, for that age, in scholarship and culture. Sheproduced heroic warriors, peaceful merchants, and gentle scholars anddivines; poets, musicians, craftsmen, architects, theologians. She had apassion for diffusing knowledge, and for more than a thousand years senther missionaries of piety, learning, art, and commerce, far and wideover Europe. For two hundred years she resisted her first foreigninvaders, the Danes, with desperate tenacity, and seems to have absorbedinto her own civilization and polity those who ultimately retained afooting on her eastern shores. 

With the coming of the Anglo-Normans at the end of the twelfth centurythe dark shadow begins to fall, and for the first time the Irish Channelassumes its tragic significance. England, compounded of Britons, Teutons, Danes, Scandinavians, Normans, with the indelible impress ofRome upon the whole, had emerged, under Nature's mysterious alchemy, astrong State. Ireland had preserved her Gaelic purity, her tribalorganization, her national culture, but at the cost of falling behind inthe march of political and military organization. Sixty miles dividedher from the nearest part of the outlying dominions of feudal England, 150 miles from the dynamic centre of English power. The degree ofdistance seems to have been calculated with fatal exactitude, incorrespondence with the degrees of national vitality in the twocountries respectively, to produce for ages to come the worst possibleeffects on both. The process was slow. Ireland was near enough toattract the Anglo-Norman adventurers and colonists, but strong enoughand fair enough for three hundred years to transform them into patriots"more Irish than the Irish"; always, however, too near and too weak, even with their aid, to expel the direct representatives of English rulefrom the foothold they had obtained on her shores, while at the sametime too far and too formidable to enable that rule to expand into thecomplete conquest and subjugation of the realm. 

"The English rule, " says Mr. Lecky, "as a living reality, was confinedand concentrated within the limits of the Pale. The hostile powerplanted in the heart of the nation destroyed all possibility of centralgovernment, while it was itself incapable of fulfilling that function. Like a spear-point embedded in a living body, it inflamed all around itand deranged every vital function. It prevented the gradual reductionof the island by some native Clovis, which would necessarily have takenplace if the Anglo-Normans had not arrived, and instead of that peacefuland almost silent amalgamation of races, customs, laws, and languages, which took place in England, and which is the source of many of the bestelements in English life and character, the two nations remained inIreland for centuries in hostility. "

From this period dates that intense national antipathy felt by theEnglish for the Irish race which has darkened all subsequent history. Itwas not originally a temperamental antipathy, or it would be impossibleto explain the powerful attraction of Irish character, manners, and lawsfor the great bulk of the Anglo-Norman colonists. Nor within Ireland, even after the Reformation, was it a religious antipathy between aProtestant race and a race exclusively and immovably Catholic. It was inorigin a political antipathy between a small official minority, backedby the support of a powerful Mother Country struggling for ascendancyover a large native and naturalized majority, divided itself by tribalfeuds, but on the whole united in loathing and combating thatascendancy. Universal experience, as I shall afterwards show, provesthat an enmity so engendered takes a more monstrous and degrading shapethan any other. Religion becomes its pretext. Ignorance makes it easy, and interest makes it necessary, to represent the native race as savagesoutside the pale of law and morals, against whom any violence andtreachery is justifiable. The legend grows and becomes a permanentpolitical axiom, distorting and abasing the character of those who acton it and those who, suffering from it, and retaliating against itsconsequences, construct their counter-legend of the inherent wickednessof the dominant race. If left to themselves, white races, of diversenationalities, thrown together in one country, eventually coalesce, orat least learn to live together peaceably. But if an external power tooremote to feel genuine responsibility for the welfare of theinhabitants, while near enough to exert its military power on them, takes sides in favour of the minority, and employs them as its permanentand privileged garrison, the results are fatal to the peace andprosperity of the country it seeks to dominate, and exceedinglyharmful, though in a degree less easy to gauge, to itself. So it waswith Ireland; and yet it cannot fail to strike any student of historywhat an extraordinary resilience she showed again and again under anytransient phase of wise and tolerant government. 

Such a phase occurred in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. , when, after the defeat of the Geraldines, for the first time somesemblance of royal authority was established over the whole realm; andwhen an effort was also made, not through theft or violence, but byconciliatory statecraft, to replace the native Brehon system of law andland tenure by English institutions, and to anglicize the Irish chiefs. The process stopped abruptly and for ever with the accession of Mary, tobe replaced by the forcible confiscation of Irish land, and the"planting" of English and Scotch settlers. 

Ireland, for four hundred years the only British Colony, is now drawninto the mighty stream of British colonial expansion. Adventurous andambitious Englishmen began to regard her fertile acres as Raleighregarded America, and, in point of time, the systematic and State-aidedcolonization of Ireland is approximately contemporaneous with that ofAmerica. It is true that until the first years of the sixteenth centuryno permanent British settlement had been made in America, while inIreland the plantation of King's and Queen's Counties was begun as earlyas 1556, and under Elizabeth further vast confiscations were carried outin Munster within the same century. But from the reign of James I. Onward, the two processes advance _pari passu_. Virginia, first foundedby Raleigh in 1585, is firmly settled in 1607, just before theconfiscation of Ulster and its plantation by 30, 000 Scots; and in 1620, just after that huge measure of expropriation, the Pilgrim Fatherslanded in New Plymouth. Puritan Massachusetts--with its offshoots, Connecticut, New Haven and Rhode Island--as well as Catholic Maryland, were formally established between 1629 and 1638, and Maine in 1639, at aperiod when the politically inspired proscription of the Catholicreligion, succeeding the robbery of the soil, was goading the unhappyIrish to the rebellion of 1641. While that rebellion, with its fierceexcesses and pitiless reprisals, was convulsing Ireland, the unitedColonies of New England banded themselves together for mutual defence. 

A few years later Cromwell, aiming, through massacre and rapine, at theextermination of the Irish race, with the savage watchword "To Hell orConnaught, " planted Ulster, Munster, and Leinster with men of the samestock, stamp, and ideas as the colonists of New England, and in thefirst years of the Restoration Charles II. Confirmed theseconfiscations, at the same time that he granted Carolina to LordClarendon, New Netherlands to the Duke of York, and New Jersey to LordBerkeley, and issued fresh Charters for Connecticut and Maryland. Finally, Quaker Penn founded Pennsylvania in 1682, and in 1691 WilliamIII. , after the hopeless Jacobite insurrections in favour of the last ofthe Stuarts, wrung the last million acres of good Irish land from theold Catholic proprietors, planted them with Protestant Englishmen, andcompleted the colonization of Ireland. Forty years passed (1733) beforeGeorgia, the last of the "Old Thirteen Colonies, " was planted, as Ulsterhad been planted, mainly by Scotch Presbyterians. 

During the greater part of this period we must remember that conqueredIreland herself was contributing to the colonization of America. Everysuccessive act of spoliation drove Catholic Irishmen across the Atlanticas well as into Europe, and gave every Colony an infusion of Irishblood. Until the beginning of the eighteenth century this class ofemigration was for the most part involuntary. Cromwell, for example, shipped off thousands of families indiscriminately to the West Indiesand America for sale, as "servants" to the colonists. The only organizedand voluntary expedition in which Irish Catholics took part was that toMaryland under Lord Baltimore. The distinction in course of time becameimmaterial. In the free American air English, Scotch, and Irish becameone people, with a common political and social tradition. 

It is interesting, and for a proper understanding of the Irish question, indispensable, briefly to contrast the characteristics and progress ofthe American and Irish settlements, and in doing so to observe theprofound effects of geographical position and political institutions onhuman character. I shall afterwards ask the reader to include in thecomparison the later British Colonies formed in Canada and South Africaby conquest, and in Australia by peaceful settlement. 

Let us note, first, that both in America and Ireland the Colonies werebi-racial, with this all-important distinction, that in America thenative race was coloured, savage, heathen, nomadic, incapable of fusionwith the whites, and, in relation to the almost illimitable territorycolonized, not numerous; while in Ireland the native race was white, civilized, Christian, numerous, and confined within the limits of asmall island to which it was passionately attached by treasured nationaltraditions, and whose soil it cultivated under an ancient and reveredsystem of tribal tenure. The parallel, then, in this respect, is slight, and becomes insignificant, except in regard to the similarity of themental attitude of the colonists towards Indians and Irish respectively. In natural humanity the colonists of Ireland and the colonists ofAmerica differed in no appreciable degree. They were the same men, withthe same inherent virtues and defects, acting according to the pressureof environment. Danger, in proportionate degree, made both classesbrutal and perfidious; but in America, though there were moments ofsharp crisis, as in 1675 on the borders of Massachusetts, the degree wascomparatively small, and through the defeat and extrusion of the Indiansdiminished steadily. In Ireland, because complete expulsion andextermination were impossible, the degree was originally great, and, long after it had actually disappeared, haunted the imagination anddistorted the policy of the invading nation. 

In America there was no land question. Freeholds were plentiful for themeanest settlers and the title was sound and indisputable. In the"proprietary" Colonies, it is true, vast tracts of country wereoriginally vested by royal grants in a single nobleman or a group ofcapitalists, just as vast estates were granted in Ireland to peers, London companies, and syndicates of "undertakers"; but by the nature ofthings, the extent of territory, its distance, and the absence of awhite subject race, no agrarian harm resulted in America, and a healthysystem of tenure, almost exclusively freehold, was naturally evolved. 

In Ireland the land question was the whole question from the first. Ifthe natives had been exterminated, or their remnants wholly confined, as Cromwell planned, to the barren lands of Connaught, all might havebeen well for the conquerors. Or if Ireland had been, in Mr. Chamberlain's phrase, a thousand miles away, all might have come rightunder the compulsion of circumstances and the healing influence of time. That the Celtic race still possessed its strong powers of assimilationwas shown by the almost complete denationalization and absorption of alarge number of Cromwell's soldier-colonists in the south and south-eastunder what Mr. Lecky calls the "invincible Catholicism" of the Irishwomen. But the Irish were not only numerous, but fatally near the seatof Empire. The natives--Irish or Anglo-Irish--were still more than twiceas numerous as the colonists; they were scattered over the wholecountry, barren or fertile, and that country was within a day's sail ofEngland. The titles of the colonists to the land rested on sheerviolence, sometimes aggravated by the grossest meanness and treachery, and these titles were not recognized by the plundered race. Even withtheir gradual recognition it would have been difficult to introduce theEnglish system of tenure, which was radically different and repellent tothe Irish mind. The bare idea of one man absolutely owning land andtransmitting it entire to his heirs was incomprehensible to them. 

The solution for all these difficulties was unfortunately only too easyand obvious. England was near, strong, and thoroughly imbued with thepolicy of governing Ireland on the principle of antagonizing the raceswithin her. It was possible, therefore, by English help, under laws madein England, to constitute the Irish outlaws from the land, labourers onit, no doubt, that was an economic necessity, precarious occupiers ofplots just sufficient to support life; but, in the eyes of the law, serfs. The planters of the southern American Colonies imported Africannegroes for the same purpose, with irretrievably mischievous results totheir own descendants. Nor is it an exaggeration to compare the use madeof the Irish for a certain period to the use made of these negroes, forgreat numbers of the Irish were actually exported as slaves toBarbadoes, Jamaica, and even to Carolina. 

The outlawed multitude in Ireland were deprived, not only of all rightsto the land, but, as a corollary, of all social privileges whatsoever. "The law, " said an Irish Lord Chancellor, "does not suppose any suchperson to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic. " The instrument of ostracismwas the famous Penal Code, begun in William's reign in direct andimmediate defiance of a solemn pledge given in the Treaty of Limerick, guaranteeing liberty of conscience to the Catholics, and perfected inthe reign of Anne. This Code, ostensibly framed to extirpateCatholicism, was primarily designed to confirm and perpetuate thegigantic dislocation of property caused by the transference of Irish andAnglo-Irish land into English and Scotch ownership. Since the rightfulowners were Catholic, and the wrongful owners Protestants, the lawsagainst the Catholic religion--a religion feared everywhere byEnglishmen at this period--were the simplest means of legalizing andbuttressing the new régime. I shall not linger over the details of theCode. Burke's description of it remains classic and unquestioned: "Acomplete system full of coherence and consistency, well digested andcomposed in all its parts . .. A machine of wise and elaboratecontrivance; and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment anddegradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human natureitself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man. "

The aim was to reduce the Catholics to poverty, ignorance, andimpotence, and the aim was successful. Of the laws against priests, worship, education, and of the bars to commerce and the professions, Ineed not speak. In the matter of property, the fundamental enactmentsconcerned the land, namely, that no Catholic could own land, or lease itfor more than thirty years, and even then on conditions which madeprofitable tenure practically impossible. This law created and sustainedthe serfdom I have described, and is the direct cause of the modern landproblem. It remained unaltered in the smallest respect for seventyyears, that is, until 1761, when a Catholic was permitted to lease forsixty-one years as much as fifty acres of bog not less than four feetdeep. Long before this the distribution of landed property and thesystem of land tenure had become stereotyped. 

This system of tenure was one of the worst that ever existed on the faceof the globe. It has been matched in portions of India, but nowhereelse in this Empire save in little Prince Edward Island, where we shallmeet with it again. In Ireland, where it assumed its worst form, violentconquest by a neighbouring power not only made it politic to outlaw theold owners, but precluded the introduction of the traditional Englishtenures, even into the relations between the British superior landlordand the British occupying colonist. The bulk of the confiscated Irishland, as I have mentioned, had been granted in fee to English noblemen, gentlemen, or speculators, who planted it with middle or lower-classtenants. A number of Cromwell's private soldiers settled in Leinster andMunster, and, holding small farms in fee, formed an exception to thisrule. But the greater part of Ireland, in ownership, as distinguishedfrom occupation, consisted of big estates, and a large number of theEnglish owners, being only a day's sail from England, became, by naturalinstinct, habitual absentees. Others lived in Dublin and neglected theirestates. Absenteeism, non-existent in America, assumed in Ireland theproportions of an enormous economic evil. In England the landlord was, and remains, a capitalist, providing a house and a fully equipped farmto the tenant. In Ireland he was a rent receiver pure and simple, unconnected with the occupier by any healthy bond, moral or economic. The rent-receiving absentee involved a resident middleman, whocontracted to pay a stipulated rent to the absentee, and had to extractthat rent, plus a profit for himself, out of the occupiers, whetherCatholic serfs, Protestant tenants, or both, and usually did so bysubdivision of holdings and disproportionate elevation of rents. Overthree of the four Provinces of Ireland--for a small part of Ulster wasdifferently situated--the middleman himself frequently became anabsentee and farmed his agency to another middleman, who by furthersubdivisions and extortions made an additional private profit, and who, in his turn, would create a subsidiary agency, until the land in manycases was "subset six deep. "[5] The ultimate occupier and sole creatorof agricultural wealth lived perpetually on the verge of starvation, beggared not only by extortionate rents, partly worked out in virtuallyforced labour, but by extortionate tithes paid to the alien AnglicanChurch, in addition to the scanty dues willingly contributed to thehunted priests of his own prescribed religion. His resident upperclass--though we must allow for many honourable exceptions--was theSquirearchy, satirized by Arthur Young as petty despots with the vicesof despots; idle, tyrannical, profligate, boorish, fit founders of theworst social system the modern civilized world has ever known. Theslave-owning planters of Carolina were by no means devoid of similarfaults, which are the invariable products of arbitrary control overhuman beings, but there the physiological gulf between the dominant andsubject race was too broad and deep to permit of substantialdeterioration in the former. In Ireland the ethnological difference wassmall; the artificial cleavage and deterioration great in inverseproportion. 

For the greater part of a century, in every part of Ireland, tenanciesof land, whether held by Catholic or Protestant, by lease or at will, were alike in certain fundamental characteristics. The tenant hadneither security of tenure nor right to the value of the improvementswhich were invariably made by his own capital and labour. Even aleaseholder, when his lease expired, had no prescriptive claim torenewal, but must take his chance at a rent-auction with strangers, thefarm going to the highest bidder. If he lost, he was homeless andpenniless, while the fruits of his labour and capital passed into otherhands. The miserable Catholic cottier was, of course, in a similar case, though relatively his hardship was less, since his condition, being thelowest possible in all circumstances, could scarcely be worse. Obviously, in a case where the landlord was neither the capitalist northe protector and friend of the tenant, the possession of thoseelementary rights, security of tenure and compensation for improvements, was the condition precedent to the growth of a sound agrarian system. Their denial was incompatible with social order. Yet they were denied, and for one hundred and eighty years an intermittent struggle to obtainthem by violence and criminal conspiracy degraded and retarded Ireland. 

But a marked distinction grew up between a small portion of Ireland andthe rest. James I. 's plantation of Ulster had been far more drastic andthorough than any operation of the kind before or since. Laterimmigrants had flowed in, and at the beginning of the eighteenthcentury in the north-eastern portion--the predominantly ProtestantUlster of to-day--Scotch Protestant tenants, mainly Presbyterian, werethickly settled, and formed an industrious community of strong andtenacious temper. In the original leases granted by the concessionairesin the seventeenth century, fixity of tenure was implied, and a nominalrent levied, somewhat after the American model; but under the example ofother Provinces, and the economic pressure exerted by the growth in theCatholic population, these privileges seem to have been almost whollyobliterated. The absentee landlords, reckless of social welfare, exactedthe rack or competitive rent. As in the south and west, tithes to theEstablished Church and oppressive and corrupt local taxation for roadsand other purposes, aggravated the discontent. For agrarian reasonsonly--and there were others which I shall mention--many thousands ofProtestants left Ireland for ever. It required a long period of outrageand conspiracy, attaining in 1770 the proportions of a small civil war, and at the end of the century, by the anti-Catholic passions itinspired, wrecking new hopes of racial unity, to establish what came tobe known as the Ulster Custom of Tenant Right. If Protestant freemen hadto resort to these demoralizing methods to obtain, and then only afterirreparable damage to Ireland, the first condition of social stability, a tolerable land system, the effect of the agrarian system on CatholicIreland, prostrate under the Penal Code, may be easily imagined. 

In addition to excessive subdivision of holdings and excessive tithes, rents, and local burdens, another agrarian evil, unknown in the vast andthinly populated tracts of America intensified the misery of the Irishpeasantry of the eighteenth century. This was the conversion of the bestland from tillage into pasture, with the resulting clearances andmigrations, and the ultimate congestion on the worst land. Lecky quotesa contemporary pamphlet, which speaks of the "best arable land in thekingdom in immense tracts wantonly enjoyed by the cattle of a fewindividuals, and at the same time the junctions of our highways andstreets crowded with shoals of mendicant fellow-creatures. " This changefrom arable to pasture has been a common and often in the long run ahealthy, economic tendency in many countries, England and Scotlandincluded, though temporarily a fruitful source of misery. Under normalconditions the immediate evils right themselves in course of time. Nothing was normal in Ireland, and any breath of economic change in theoutside world reacted cruelly on the wretched subject class, whichproduced, though it did not enjoy, the greater part of the wealth of thekingdom. Under an accumulation of hardships famine was periodic, andfrom 1760, when the first Whiteboys appeared, disorder in one degree oranother was chronic. The motive, it is universally agreed now, wasmaterial, not religious. The Whiteboys of the south and west were thecounterparts of the Protestant Steelboys and Oakboys of the north, andeven in the south and west there were Protestant as well as CatholicWhiteboys. Lord Charlemont, the Protestant Irish statesman, denying thisnow well-ascertained fact, was nevertheless explicit enough about thecause of the disorders. "The real causes, " he said, "were . .. Exorbitantrents, low wages, want of employment, farms of enormous extent let bytheir rapacious and indolent proprietors to monopolizing land-jobbers, by whom small portions of them were again let and relet to intermediateoppressors, and by them subdivided for five times their value among thewretched starvers upon potatoes and water; taxes yearly increasing, andstill more tithes, which the Catholic, without any possible benefit, unwillingly pays in addition to his priest's money . .. Misery, oppression, and famine. "[6]

Agrarian crime, operating through an endless succession of secretsocieties, Whiteboys and Rightboys in the eighteenth century; TerryAlts, Rockites, Caravats, Ribbonmen, Moonlighters, in the nineteenth, was rampant for nearly two centuries, long surviving the repeal of thePenal Code; and its last echoes may be heard at this moment. In theabsence of all wholesome law, violence and terror were the only means ofself-defence. The remedy applied was retaliatory violence under forms oflaw. Nothing whatsoever was done to remove the essential vices ofagrarian tenure during the eighteenth century; nothing tentative evenduring the nineteenth century until the year 1870; nothing effective andpermanent until 1881, when, as far as humanly possible, it was soughtto give direct statutory expression to the Ulster Custom, with theaddition of the principle of a fair judicial rent. Englishmen shouldrealize this when they discuss Irish character. It is a very old story, but nine out of ten Englishmen, when talking vaguely of Irishdiscontent, disloyalty, and turbulence, forget, or have never learnt, this and other fundamental facts. As for the Irish landlords, we mustremember that the founders of that class differed in no respect fromother English landlords, or from the aristocratic Americanconcessionaires, just as their compatriot tenants and lessees wereidentical in stock with the American colonists. Their descendants andsuccessors have been the victims of circumstance. Each generation hasinherited the vested interests of the last, and it is not in humannature to look far behind vested interests into the wrongful acts whichcreated them and the bad laws that perpetuate them. Doubly victimizedhave been those resident landlords who at all periods, from the earliestera of colonization, in spite of temptation and bad examples aroundthem, have acted towards their tenantry as humane and patrioticcitizens. A bad agrarian system infects the whole body politic. Goodlandlords and contented tenants inevitably suffered with the rest. 

In commerce and industry, as in land, the Irish Colony stood at a heavydisadvantage by comparison with America. From the Restoration onward, English statesmen took the same view of both dependencies, namely, thattheir commercial interests should be wholly subordinate to those of theMother Country, and the same Department, the Board of Trade andPlantations, made the fiscal regulations for Ireland and America. Theold idea that for trade purposes Ireland counted as an integral part ofthe United Kingdom did not last longer than 1663. But it was not whollyabrogated by the great Navigation Act of that year, which, though itplaced harsh restrictions on the Irish cattle trade with England, didnot expressly exclude Irish ships from the monopoly of the colonialtrade conferred upon English vessels, so that for seven years longer atolerably prosperous business was carried on direct between Ireland andthe American Colonies. [7] An Act of 1670, prohibiting, with a fewnegligible exceptions, all direct imports from the Colonies intoIreland, gave a heavy check to this business, arrested the growth ofIrish shipping, and, in conjunction with subsequent measures ofnavigational, fiscal, and industrial repression, converted Ireland for acentury into a kind of trade helot. She was treated either as a foreigncountry, as a Colony, or as something inferior to either, according tothe dictation of English interests, while possessing neither thecommercial independence of a foreign country nor the natural andindefeasible immunity which distance, climate, variety of soil, andunlimited room for expansion continued to confer, in spite of allcoercive restraints, upon the American Colonies. Though the Britishtrade monopoly was certainly a contributory cause in promoting theAmerican revolution, it was never, any more than the British claim totax, a severe practical grievance. The prohibition of the export ofmanufactures, and the compulsory reciprocal exchange of colonial naturalproducts for British manufactured goods and the chartered merchandise ofthe Orient, were not very onerous restrictions for young communitiessettled in virgin soil; nor, with a few exceptions like raw wool, whoseexport was forbidden, were the American natural products of a kind whichcould compete with those of the Mother Country. The real damageinflicted upon the Colonies by the mercantile system--one which itsmodern defenders are apt to forget--was moral. To practise and condonesmuggling was habitual in America, and some of the English Governors setthe worst example of all by making a profit out of connivance at theillicit traffic. "Graft" was their creation. The moral mischief done waspermanent, and it resembled in a lesser degree the mischief done inIreland both by bad agrarian and bad commercial laws. Ireland, owing toher proximity, was in the unhappy position of being a competitor in thegreat staples of trade, both raw and manufactured, and she was nearenough and weak enough to render it easy to stamp out this competitionso far as it was thought to be inimical to English interests. The cattleand provision trade with England had been damaged as far back as 1663, and was killed in 1666, though the export of provisions to foreigncountries survived, and became almost the sole source of Irish tradeduring the eighteenth century. The policy with raw wool was to admitjust as much as would satisfy the English weavers without arousing thedetermined opposition of the competitive English graziers. The Irishmanufactured wool trade, a flourishing business, for which Irishmenshowed exceptionally high aptitude, and which in the normal course ofthings would probably have become her staple industry, was destroyedaltogether, avowedly in the interests of the English staple industry, byprohibitory export duties imposed in 1698. Subsidiaryindustries--cotton, glass, brewing, sugar-refining, sail-cloth, hempenrope, and salt--were successively strangled. One manufacture alone, thatof linen, centred in the Protestant North, was spared, and for a shortperiod was even encouraged, not because it was a Protestant industry, but because at first it aroused no trade jealousy in England, and was insome respects serviceable to her. In 1708, when it was proposed toextend the industry to Leinster, considerations of foreign tradeprovoked an outburst of hostility, and harassing restrictions wereimposed on this industry also. On the whole, however, it suffered lessthan the rest, and lived to become one of the two importantmanufacturing industries of present-day Ireland. 

English policy was as fatuous as it was cruel. Numbers of the Irishmanufacturers and artisans, both Catholic and Protestant, emigrated toEurope, and devoted their skill and energy to strengthening industrieswhich competed with those of England. Within Ireland, since industry andcommerce formed the one outlet left by the Penal Code for Catholicbrains and capital--though even here the Code imposed harassingdisabilities--the commercial restrictions completed the ruin of theproscribed sect. But at this period the main source of weakness toIreland, of strength to America, and of danger to the Empire as a whole, was the Protestant emigration. Lecky estimates that 12, 000 Protestantfamilies in Dublin and 30, 000 in the rest of the country were ruined bythe suppression of the wool trade. The great majority of theseProtestants were Presbyterians belonging to North-East Ulster, anddescendants of the men who had defended that Province with suchdesperate gallantry against the Irish insurgents under the deposed JamesII. Political power in Ireland was wielded in the interests of a smallterritorial and Episcopalian aristocracy, largely absentee. TheDissenters belonged to the middle and lower classes, and were for themost part tenants or artisans. Creed and caste antipathies were combinedagainst them. Their value as citizens was ignored. Though their right toworship was legally recognized by an Act of 1719, they remained from1704 to 1778 subject to the Test, were incapacitated for all publicemployment, and were forbidden to open schools. Under an accumulation ofagrarian, economic, and religious disabilities, they naturally leftIreland to find freedom in America. And it is beyond question that theyturned the scale against the British arms in the great War ofIndependence. 

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Class C. In Sir William Anson's classification, "Law and Custom ofthe Constitution, " p. 253. 

[5] J. Fisher, "End of the Irish Parliament" cited. 

[6] MS. Autobiography cited by Lecky, vol. Ii. , p. 35. 

[7] The best modern account of the commercial relations of Great BritainMid Ireland is Miss Murray's "Commercial Relations between England andIreland. "

CHAPTER II

REVOLUTION IN AMERICA AND IN IRELAND

In the Old World and in the New, therefore, two societies, composed ofhuman beings similar in all essential respects, were growing up underthe protection of the British Crown; the one servile, the other free;the one stagnant where it was not retrograde, the other prosperous, progressive, and, by the magnetism of its own freedom, progress, andprosperity, steadily draining its Irish fellow of talent, energy, andindustrial skill. 

What was the ultimate cause of this glaring divergency? Religion, as aspiritual force, was not the root cause. The American Colonies, withthree exceptions--the earliest Virginia, the latest Georgia, and theCatholic community of Maryland--were formed by Dissenters, [8] exilesthemselves from persecution, but not necessarily forbearing to others, and, in the case of the New England Puritans, bitterly intolerant. It isinteresting to observe that the Quakers and the Catholics, men standingat the opposite poles of theology, set the highest example of tolerance. Quaker Pennsylvania enforced absolute liberty of conscience, and Quakersin all the Provinces worked for religious harmony and freedom. CatholicMaryland, as long as its government remained in Catholic hands, andunder the guidance of the wise and liberal Proprietary, Lord Baltimore, pursued the same policy, and attracted members of sects persecuted inNew England. [9] The parallel with Ireland is significant. At the end ofthe seventeenth century, when a quarrel was raging between the Crown andMassachusetts over the persecution of Quakers in that Colony, and for afurther period in the eighteenth century, Quaker missionaries andsettlers were conducting a campaign of revivalism in Ireland with nomolestation from the Catholics, though with intermittent obstructionfrom magistrates and Protestant clergy. Wesleyans received the samesympathetic treatment. [10] The tolerance shown by Irish Catholics, inspite of terrible provocation, is acknowledged by all reputablehistorians. Nor was Protestant intolerance, whether Anglican orNonconformist, of a deeper dogmatic shade than anywhere else in theKing's dominions. But in Ireland it was political, economic, and social, while in America it was purely theological, and, moreover, purelyAmerican. The Episcopalian ascendancy in Ireland represented foreigninterests, and therefore struck against Dissent as well as againstPopery, and estranged both. The root of the American trouble, leading tothe separation of the Colonies, was political and wholly unconnectedwith religion. The root of the Irish trouble, adventitiously connectedwith religion, lay, and lies still, in the Irish political system. Otherevils were transient and curable; this was permanent. The Penal Code waseventually relaxed; the disabilities of the Dissenters were eventuallyremoved; the commercial servitude was abolished, but the politicalsystem _in essentials_ has never been changed. Let us see what it wasand how it worked at the period we are considering, again by comparisonwith America. 

Though the word "plantation" was applied alike to the colonization ofIreland and America, Ireland was never called a Colony, but a Kingdom. The distinction was not scientific, and operated, like all otherdistinctions, to the injury of Ireland. Neither country was representedin the British Parliament. In both countries the representatives of theCrown were appointed by England, and controlled, in America almostcompletely, in Ireland absolutely, the Executive and Judges. In Irelandthe Viceroy was always an Englishman; in America, the Governors of a fewof the non-proprietary Colonies were colonials, but most Governors wereEnglish, and some of the proprietary class were absentees. [11] In thecase both of Ireland and America the English Government claimed asuperior right of control over legislation and taxation, and in bothcases it was found necessary to remove all doubts as to this right bypassing Declaratory Acts, for Ireland in 1719, for America in 1766. Thegreat difference lay in the Legislature, and was the result of differentdegrees of remoteness from the seat of power. America was profoundlydemocratic from the beginning, outpacing the Mother Country by fully twocenturies. There was no aristocracy, and in most Colonies littledistinction between upper and middle classes. The popular Assemblies, elected on the broadest possible franchise, were truly representative. Some of the Legislative Councils, or Upper Chambers, were elective also. Most of them, although nominated, and therefore inclined to be hostileto the popular body, were nevertheless of identical social composition;so that there was often an official, but never a caste, ascendancy. Fromvery early times there was occasional friction between the HomeGovernment, represented by the Governors, and the colonial democracies, over such matters as taxation, official salaries, quartering of troops, and navigation laws. Writs of _quo warranto_ were issued againstConnecticut, Carolina, New York, and Maryland, in the latter part of theseventeenth century, and the Charter of Massachusetts, after longwrangles with the Crown, was forfeited in 1684, and not restored until1692, after a period of despotic government under Sir Edmund Andros. Butfor a century or more the system worked well enough upon the whole. Under the powerful lever of the representative Assembly, neutralized bythe ever-present need for military protection from the Mother Country, and with the wholesome check to undue coercion set by the broadAtlantic, civic freedom grew and flourished to a degree unknown in anyother part of the civilized world. 

In Ireland civic freedom was unknown. There was no popular Assembly. Awealthy aristocracy of English extraction and of Anglican faith, partlyresident, partly absentee, and wholly subservient to the EnglishGovernment, constituted the Upper House of that strange institutionknown as Parliament, and to a great extent nominated and controlled theLower House through means frankly corrupt. Representation was almostnominal; close pocket-boroughs predominated, and seats were bought andsold in the open market. In the year 1790 more than a third of theMembers of the House of Commons were placemen, 216 Members out of 300were elected by boroughs and manors, and, of these, 176 were elected byindividual patrons. Fifty-three of these patrons, nominating 123Members, sat as Peers in the Upper House. Cash, places, and peerages, were the usual considerations paid for maintaining a Governmentmajority. The Catholics, from three-quarters to five-sixths of thepopulation, had neither votes nor members; the Dissenters scarcely anymembers and an almost powerless vote. The Irish Legislature, by an Actas old as 1495, the famous Poynings' Law, could neither initiate norpass a measure without the consent of the English Privy Council, and theDeclaratory Act of 1719 confirmed the power of making English Actsapplicable to Ireland. Government in England itself was, no doubt, unrepresentative and corrupt at that period, and the people paid thepenalty in full; but it was a national government, under the aegis ofthe national faith, and resting, however remotely, on the ultimatesanction of the people, just as American opinion, more democraticallyascertained, continued to control the major part of American affairs. InIreland the Government was systematically anti-Irish. There was nocareer for Irishmen in Ireland. Both Catholics and Dissenters wereexcluded from all civil and military offices; the highest posts weregenerally given to Englishmen born and bred, and the country, Episcopalian only to a fractional extent, was ruled by a narrowEpiscopalian oligarchy of wealthy landowners and prelates, who barteredIrish freedom for the place and power of their own families anddependents. The conditions of this sordid exchange were the ground ofthe first important Anglo-Irish political struggle in the eighteenthcentury, when the English Viceroy, Townshend, succeeded in 1770-71, atthe cost of half a million, in transferring the bribing power, andtherefore the controlling power, from the "Undertakers, " as they wereknown, direct to the Crown. 

There seems to have been no continuous English policy beyond that ofmaking Ireland completely subservient to English interests and purposes, and often to purposes of the most humiliating and degrading kind. TheIrish Pension List has earned immortal infamy. Jobs too scandalous topass muster in England were systematically foisted upon the Irishestablishment. Royal mistresses, a host of needy Germans, a Danish Queenbanished for adultery, lived in England or abroad upon incomes drawnfrom the impoverished Irish Exchequer. Nor was it only a question ofpensions. Quantities of valuable sinecure offices were habitually givento Englishmen who never came near the shores of Ireland. In short, theEnglish policy towards Ireland was similar to Spain's policy towards herSouth American Colonies, minus the grosser forms of physical cruelty andoppression. Yet Ireland, like the American Colonies until the verge ofthe revolutionary struggle, was consistently loyal to the Crown both inpeace and war. The loyalty of Catholic Ireland, poverty-stricken, inarticulate, almost leaderless, and shamefully misgoverned, does not, from the human standpoint, appear worthy of admiration, but it was afact. The few Catholic noblemen outdid the Protestants in expressions ofdevotion; the Whiteboy risings were as little disloyal as religious. Nota hand stirred for James or his heirs when Jacobite plots and risingswere causing grave public danger in England and Scotland. Catholic LordTrimleston offered exclusively Catholic regiments with Catholic officersto George III. For foreign service in 1762, though they were vetoed bywhat his Viceroy Halifax called the "ill-bred bigotry" of the IrishParliament. Nor was it till thirty years after that date that Protestantdiscontent, under intolerable provocation, assumed an anti-dynastic andRepublican form. To compare the Imperial spirit displayed by America andIreland in their views and action is difficult, partly because thevarious American Colonies differed widely, partly because there existedin Ireland no organ of government which could express popular feeling. Neither country, of course, paid any cash contribution to Imperialexpenses, though both could fairly claim that the English monopoly oftrade imposed an indirect tribute of indefinite size, while Ireland, inpensions, rents to absentees, and sinecure appointments, was drained ofmany millions more. American patronage was an element of substantialvalue to England, but it was not on the Irish scale. America on thewhole, perhaps, showed less patriotic feeling than Ireland. With fullallowance for the lack of sympathy and understanding shown by theBritish regulars to the American volunteers in their co-operation in theFrench wars, it can scarcely be denied that the colonists, together withmuch heroism and public spirit, showed occasional slackness andparsimony in resisting the penetration of a foreign Power whichthreatened to hem in their settlements from the St. Lawrence to themouth of the Mississippi. Ireland during the Seven Years' War, and untilthe Peace of Paris in 1763, maintained a war establishment of 24, 000troops. She maintained a peace establishment of 12, 000 troops, and from1767 onwards of 15, 000 troops. There never seems to have been a whisperof protest from the Catholic population against these measures, nor, except in the matter of the American War, to which we shall comepresently, from the Protestants. It may be added that, after 1767, Catholics in considerable numbers were surreptitiously enlisted in theranks, in spite of the Penal Code, and from then until the present dayhave fought for the Flag as staunchly as any other class of the King'ssubjects. 

It never occurred to responsible English statesmen that here was ground, firm as a rock in America, and firm enough in Ireland, on which, if onlythey obeyed the instincts and maxims upon which England herself hadrisen to greatness, they might build a mighty and durable Imperialstructure. That loyalty, to be genuine and lasting, must spring fromliberty was a truth they did not appreciate, and to this truth, strangely enough, in spite of the lessons of nearly a century and ahalf, a numerous school of English statesmen is still blind. It was nodoubt a fatality that the smouldering discontent both of America andIreland burst into flame in the reign of a monarch who endeavoured, evenwithin the limits of Britain, to regain the arbitrary power which hadcost their throne to the Stuarts; it was an additional fatality that thestandard of public morals among the class through which he ruled duringthe period of crisis had fallen to lower depths than ever before orsince. Even incorruptible men were either weak and selfish or subject tosome cardinal defect of temper or intellect which, at times of crisis, neutralized their genius. Chatham and Burke were the noblest figures ofthe time, yet Chatham, in his highest mood a nobler and truer championof American liberty than Burke, was Minister--nominally, at anyrate--when the Revenue Duties imposed upon the American Colonies in 1867destroyed in a moment the reconciliation brought about by the repeal ofthe Stamp Act. Burke was surely false to his political philosophy infounding his American argument on expedience rather than on principle. Chatham was a thorough democrat, trusting the people, poor or rich, rudeor cultured, common or noble, American or British. Burke, at a time whenthe reflection of the genuine opinion of the nation in a pure and freeParliament might have saved us, as his splendid orations could not saveus, from a disastrous war, scouted Parliamentary reform, and took hisunconscious share in playing the game of the most narrow coercionistTories like Charles Townshend and George III. 

Of the interminable chain of fatalities which sicken the mind infollowing every phase of Ireland's history, Burke's rigid temperamentalconservatism always seems to me the most fatal and the most melancholy. It is not that he, the greatest intellect Ireland has ever produced, made his career in England. By the time one reaches the period in whichhe lived one gets used to the expatriation of Irish brains and vigour, not only to England and America, but to Spain, France, Russia, andGermany. It is that his intellect was so constituted as in the long runto be useless, and on some occasions absolutely harmful, to Ireland, sincerely as he loved her, and often as he supported measures for hertemporary benefit, and rejoiced in their temporary success. An incidentoccurred in 1773 which tested his worth to Ireland, and incidentallythrew into strong light English views of Ireland and America at theperiod immediately preceding the revolutionary epoch. The IrishGovernment, not with any high social aim, but in desperation at thegrowing Treasury deficit, proposed a tax upon the rents of absenteelandlords, and the fate of the measure, like all Irish measures, had tobe decided in the first instance in England. North's Tory Ministryactually consented to it. Chatham, far from the active world, and toobroken in health to influence policy either way, wrote a powerful pleafor it; but a strong group of Whig magnates, themselves wealthy absenteeproprietors of Irish land, signed a vehement remonstrance which carriedthe day against it, and the author of this remonstrance, of all men inthe world, was the Irishman Burke, who, owning not an acre of Irish landhimself, devoted all his transcendent talents, all the subtlety andvariety of his reasoning, to clothing the selfish greed of others withthe garb of an enlightened patriotism. 

He was wrong fundamentally about Ireland, and only superficially rightabout America. In the terms of this celebrated remonstrance, asilluminated by his own private correspondence, his consistency isrevealed. By the very nature of things, he maintained, the centralParliament of a great heterogeneous Empire must exercise a supremesuperintending power and regulate the polity and economy of the severalparts as they relate to one another, a principle which, of course, wouldhave justified the taxation of America, and which, save on the ground ofexpediency alone, he would certainly have applied to America. Theproximity of Ireland helped his logic, and surely logic was neverdistorted to stranger ends. The "ordinary residence" of the threatenedIrish landowners was in England, "to which country they were attached, not only by the ties of birth and early habit, but also by those ofindisputable public duties, " as though these facts did not constitute inthemselves a damning satire on the system of Irish Government. They wereto be "fined" for living in England, as though that fine were not themost just and politic which could be conceived, if it went even an inchtowards establishing the principle that Ireland's affairs were thebusiness of responsible resident Irishmen, or towards the furtherprinciple, enshrined in Drummond's celebrated phrase of seventy yearslater in regard to the agrarian system which these Whig noblemen sharedin founding, that "property has its duties as well as its rights. "Finally, argued Burke, heaping irony upon irony, the tax would leaddirectly to the "separation" of the two Kingdoms both in interest andaffection. The Colonies would follow the Irish example, and thus aprinciple of disunion and separation would pervade the whole Empire; thebonds of common interest, knowledge, and sympathy which now knit ittogether would everywhere be loosened, and a narrow, insulated, localfeeling and policy would be proportionately increased. [12] Such wasBurke's Imperialism, as evoked by an Irish measure which struck at theroot of a frightful social evil and of a vicious political system. Butthe idea expressed by Burke--the spirit of his whole argument--went farbeyond this particular absentee tax or any similar tax proposed, ashappened in one instance, by a Colony. It was the superbly grandioseexpression, and all the more insidiously seductive in that it was sograndiose, of a principle which all thinking men now know, or ought toknow, is the negation of Empire, which lost us America, which camewithin an ace of losing us Canada, which might well have lost us SouthAfrica, and which has in very fact lost us, though not yet irrevocably, the "affection, " to use Burke's word, of Ireland. We may call localpatriotism "narrow and insulated, " if we please, but we recognize now, in every case save that of Ireland, that it is the only foundation for, and the only stimulant to, Imperial patriotism. 

Chatham, an Englishman of the English, was nevertheless a betterIrishman than Burke, and therefore a better Imperialist. "The tax, " hewrote, "was founded on strong Irish policy. England, it is evident, profits by draining Ireland of the vast incomes spent here from thatcountry. But I could not, as a Peer of England, advise the King, onprinciples of indirect, accidental English policy, to reject a tax onabsentees sent over here as the genuine desire of the Commons of Irelandacting in their proper and peculiar sphere, and exercising theirinherent exclusive right by raising supplies in the manner they judgebest. " Chatham, in short, applied precisely the same argument to Irelandas, in his memorable speeches of the next year (1774), he applied toAmerica, and in both cases he was right. The only mistake he made was inhis estimate of that travesty of a representative assembly, the IrishHouse of Commons, which, at the secret instigation of the Viceroy, though without actual coercion, eventually threw out a tax sodistasteful to its English patrons. But the argument for financialindependence remained unassailable, and eventually the Irish Parliamentitself summoned up the courage to adopt and act upon it. 

It may seem almost impossible that in a body so corrupt and exclusive anational sentiment should have arisen. But every elective assembly, however badly constituted, contains the seeds of its own regeneration, and, under even moderately favourable circumstances, moves irresistiblytowards freedom. The pity was that circumstances, save for one brief andinvigorating interlude, were persistently unfavourable to Ireland. Thetask was enormous, demanding infinitely more self-sacrifice than eventhe ablest and most prescient of her Parliamentarians realized. Until itwas too late, in fact, they never awoke to the true nature of the task, dazzled by illusory victories. Rotten to the core as the IrishParliament was, they sought, strengthened by popular influences, to makeit the instrument for freeing Ireland from a paralyzing servitude; andup to a point they succeeded, but they did not see that the onlysecurity for real and permanent success was to reform the Parliamentitself. There the inveterate spirit of creed and class ascendancy, resting in the last resort on English military power, survived longenough to nullify their efforts. 

The American Revolution and the Irish revolutionary renaissance--the oneachieved by a long and bitter war, the other withoutbloodshed--originated and culminated together, were derived from thesame sources, and ran their course in close connection. In Ireland themovement was exclusively Protestant, in America unsectarian; but in bothcases finance was the lever of emancipation. America, resenting thecommercial restrictions imposed by the Mother Country, but not, untilpassion had obscured all landmarks, contesting their abstract justice, and suffering no great material harm from their incidence, fought forthe principle of self-taxation--a principle which did, of course, logically include, as the Americans instinctively felt, that ofcommercial freedom. Ireland, harassed by commercial restrictions farmore onerous, naturally regarded their abolition as vital, and thecontrol of internal taxation as subsidiary. Apart from concretegrievances, both countries had to fear an unlimited extension of Britishclaims founded on the all-embracing Declaratory Acts of 1719 and 1766. 

Unfortunately for herself, Ireland for seventy years or more had beensteadily supplying America with the human elements of resistance intheir most energetic and independent form, and robbing herselfproportionately Approximately, how many Protestants belonging mainly toUlster, whether through eviction from the land, industrial unemployment, or disgust at social and political ostracism, left Ireland for Americain the course of the eighteenth century, it is impossible to say; butthe number, both relatively to population and relatively to the totalemigration, Catholic and Protestant, to all parts of the world, wasundoubtedly very large. Mr. Egerton, in his "Origin and Growth of theEnglish Colonies, " reckons that in 1775 a sixth part of the thirteeninsurrectionary Colonies was composed of Scots-Irish exiles from Ulster, and that half the Protestant population of that Province emigrated tothose Colonies between 1730 and 1770. As the crisis approached, emigration became an exodus. Thirty thousand of the farming class aresaid to have been driven west by the wholesale evictions of the earlyseventies, and ten thousand weavers followed them during the disastrousdepression in the linen trade caused by interruption of commerce withAmerica. The majority went to the northern Colonies, especiallyPennsylvania, took from the first a vehement stand against the Royalclaims, and supplied some of Washington's best soldiers. A minority wentto the backwoods of Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina, and were littleheard of until as late in the war as 1780, when Tarleton began hisanti-guerilla campaign in the South. Then they woke up, and became, liketheir compatriots of the North, formidable and implacable foes. 

Ireland and America, therefore, embarked on their struggle with theEnglish Parliament in close sympathy. The treatise of Molyneux on Irishliberty was read with wide approval in America. Franklin visited andencouraged the Irish patriots, and the Americans in 1775 issued aspecial address to them, asserting an identity of interest. Chatham, onthe eve of war, dwelt strongly in the House of Lords upon the sameidentity of interest, and in doing so expressly coupled together IrishCatholics and Protestants. 

Although united by interest and sentiment, Ireland and America enteredon the struggle under widely varying conditions. The American Colonieswere thirteen separate units, with only a rude organization for commonaction, and in each of these units there existed a cleavage of opinion, based neither on class nor creed, between rebels and loyalists. In spiteof this weakness, the revolt was thoroughly national in the sense thatit was organized and maintained through the State Assemblies, resting ona broad popular franchise. In Ireland, unbought and unofficial opinionwas united against England. On the other hand, there was no nationalLegislature; only an enslaved and unrepresentative Legislature, temperedby a band of exceptionally brilliant and upright men, and continuallythrust forward in spite of itself into bold and independent action byunconstitutional pressure from the unrepresented elements outside. Success so won, as we shall see, was delusive. 

We may note two important additional circumstances: first, the densemist of ignorance in which, and largely in consequence of which, Englandbegan her quarrel both with America and Ireland. The average Englishmanwas probably even more ignorant of Ireland, which was sixty miles away, than of America, which was three thousand miles away. I am not at allsure that that fact is not true still. At any rate, it was true then. Yet knowledge of Ireland was more necessary, because her condition wasbad in ways unknown in America. In all the essentials of materialwell-being, America was supremely fortunate, while Ireland was in thedepths of misery. It is not that this misery went undescribed orunlamented, or that it was not realized by a small number of Englishmen. Some of the most famous writings of the time, from the mordant satire ofSwift to the learned and elaborate diagnosis of Arthur Young, laid barethe hideous ravages wrought by misrule in Ireland; but they had littleor no effect upon English statesmen, and were unread by the only classesfrom which, if they had had knowledge, proper practical sympathy mighthave come. Until Townshend's Viceroyalty (1767-1772) most of the IrishViceroys were absentees for the greater part of their term of office, leaving the conduct of Irish affairs to English Bishops and Judges, thewisest and most humane of whom could make little or no impression onEnglish official indifference. American Governors were at any rateresident, or mainly resident, and a few were good and popularadministrators, though the information which most of them supplied tothe Home Government showed a blindness to what was going on under theirvery eyes which would be incomprehensible if we did not know byexperience that it is the invariable result of irresponsible rule overwhite men, whether at home or abroad. If, without the presence of racedistinctions, it needed Parliamentary reform in England itself to forcethe ruling class to study with real sympathy the needs, character, anddesires of their own people, naturally the same ruling class, sendingout its own members or dependents to America, obtained the mostgrotesquely distorted notions of what Americans were and what theywanted or resented. "Their office, " wrote Franklin of the Governors, [13]"makes them indolent, their indolence makes them odious, and, beingconscious that they are hated, they become malicious. Their malice urgesthem to continual abuse of the inhabitants in their letters toAdministration, representing them as disaffected and rebellious, and (toencourage the use of severity) as weak, divided, timid, and cowardly. Government believes all, thinks it necessary to support and countenanceits officers, " etc. The same spirit pervades the official correspondenceof even the best Irish Viceroys of the eighteenth century, andultimately had a far more disastrous effect in that there were at alltimes in Ireland ancient elements of social dissension which needed onlyskilful fomentation by her English rulers to ruin all hopes ofreconciliation and unity. That phase was to come after the first Irishvictories. For the present the system--for it can scarcely be called apolicy--was to irritate all Irishmen and all Americans alike, irrespective of creed, class, or sentiment, and thus to create on eachside of the Atlantic that dangerous phenomenon, an united people. 

The other noticeable point, admirably described by Mr. Holland in his"Imperium et Libertas, " is the confusion of political ideas in regard tothe status of white dependencies--a confusion greatly augmented byloose and misleading analogies with India and the tropical Colonies. Even a genius like Burke, as I have already pointed out, was misled. Chatham came nearest to the truth, but, naturally, the actual outbreakof war with America checked his political thinking, and threw him backon the bare doctrine of supremacy, right or wrong. It was not fullyunderstood that there must be a radical difference between thegovernment of places settled and populated by white colonists and ofplaces merely exploited by white traders. All the prerogatives of theCrown and Parliament were theoretically valid over both classes ofdependency, and to abandon any of them seemed to most men of that day tobe inconsistent with Imperial supremacy. Honest and fair-mindedpoliticians and thinkers tried in vain to reconcile local freedom withImperial unity. We have the key now, though we have made no use of it inIreland; but most of our forefathers not only had no glimmering of thetruth when the fratricidal war began, but learnt nothing from the waritself, and remained unenlightened for sixty years more. If therenunciation in 1778 of the right to tax the Colonies, and thenegotiations founded thereon, had led to a peace, it is quite certainthat friction would have subsequently arisen on other points. The ideaof what we now know as "responsible government" was unknown. Short ofcoercive war, there seemed to be only two altogether logicalalternatives--complete separation and legislative Union. Americaobtained the one, Ireland was eventually to undergo the other; but it isinteresting to remember that suggestions, rejected by Franklin asuseless, were made for the representation of the American Colonies inthe English Parliament, just as suggestions for a legislative Unionbetween Ireland and England appeared intermittently all through theeighteenth century, long before such a Union was a question of practicalpolitics. 

I need only briefly summarize the incidents which ended in the year 1782with the final loss of the American Colonies, and the simultaneousachievement by Ireland of an apparent legislative independence. To takeAmerica first, the Stamp Act was passed in 1765, and, thanks to thetumult it created, repealed by the Whigs in 1766, though the DeclaratoryAct which accompanied the repeal neutralized its good results. The newRevenue Duties on glass, paper, painters' colours, and tea were imposedin 1767, reviving the old irritation, and all but that on tea wereremoved, after a period of growing friction, in 1770. Anothercomparative lull was succeeded by fresh disorder when in 1773 the EastIndia Company was permitted to send tea direct to America, and Bostoncelebrated its historic "tea-party. " The coercion of Massachusettsfollowed, with Gage as despotic Military Governor, and, as a result, allthe Colonies were galvanized into unity. In September, 1774, theContinental Congress met, framed a Declaration of Rights, and obtained ageneral agreement to cease from all commerce with Britain untilgrievances were redressed. Fresh coercion having been applied, war brokeout in 1775. The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, by John Hancock, President of Congress and the descendant of an Ulsterexile, and was first read aloud in Philadelphia by Captain John Nixon, the son of an evicted Wexford farmer. Another Irishman, GeneralMontgomery, led the invasion of Canada. [14] The war, with manifoldvicissitudes, dragged on for eight years; but the surrender ofCornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, virtually ended the physicalstruggle, while the resolution of the House of Commons on February 27, 1782, against the further prosecution of hostilities, ended the contestof principle. 

The turning-point had been the intervention of the French in 1778, andthe same event was to turn the scale in Ireland. There, for many yearspast, the public finances had been sinking into a more and morescandalous condition. Taxation was by no means heavy, but pensions andsinecures multiplied, and the debt swelled. Inevitably there grew upwithin Parliament a small independent opposition which would not bebribed into conniving at the ruin of Ireland, while even bought placemenwere stung into throwing their votes into the Irish rather than theEnglish scale. Frequent efforts were made to use the insufficiency ofthe hereditary revenue as a lever for gaining control of finance and forobtaining domestic reform. An Octennial Act, passed in 1768, went alittle way towards transforming Parliament from a permanent privilegedCommittee, under the control of the Executive, into the semblance atleast of a free Assembly, and the first dissolution under this Act, in1776, produced the famous Parliament which, though elected on the samenarrow and corrupt basis as before, in the space of six years firstadmitted the principle of toleration for all creeds, and wrested fromEnglish hands commercial and legislative autonomy. It came too late toavert--if, indeed, it could ever have averted--the implication ofIreland in the American War, its predecessor of 1775 having, in defianceof Irish opinion, subscribed an Address to the Crown, expressing"abhorrence" of the American revolt and "inviolable attachment to thejust rights" of the King's Government, and having obediently voted fourthousand Irish troops for the war. 

Nor, for all the impassioned eloquence of Grattan and Hussey Burgh, didthe real driving-power of the new Parliament come from within its ownranks, but from the unrepresented multitude outside. A clause removingthe test from Dissenters was struck out of the Catholic Relief Act of1778, mainly owing to dictation from England, but partly from resentmentagainst Presbyterian sympathy with the American cause. It was only in1780, when the Presbyterians were enrolled in that formidablerevolutionary organization known as the Volunteers, that a test whichhad excluded them from all share in the government of their adoptedcountry for seventy-four years was repealed. As for the Catholics, thesmall measure of legal relief granted to them excited no oppositionanywhere. Parts of the Penal Code, especially the laws against worshipand the clergy, had become inoperative with time and the sheerimpossibility of enforcement. The religion, naturally, had thriven underpersecution, so that in spite of the Code's manifold temptations torecant, only four thousand converts had been registered in the lastfifty years. The laws designed to safeguard the wholesale confiscationsof the previous century had long ago achieved their purpose, and menwere beginning to perceive the fatal economic effects of keeping thegreat mass of the people poor and ignorant. The real spirit oftoleration shown in the enactments of 1778, the most important of whichenabled Catholics to obtain land on a lease of 999 years, was smallenough if we consider the quiescence of the Catholics for generationspast, the absence of all tendency in them towards counter-persecution, or even towards intolerance of Protestantism in any of its forms, Quaker, Huguenot, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Methodist, in spite oftheir own overwhelming numbers and of the burning grievance of thetithes. Politically they were a source of great strength to theGovernment. When the Presbyterians condemned the American War, theCatholic leaders memorialized the Government in favour of it as warmlyas the tame majority in Parliament. 

Conservatives by religion, their devotion to authority annulled allinstincts of revenge for the hideous wrongs of the past. The Government, now on the verge of a war with the two great Catholic Powers of Europe, began to realize this, and to feel the wisdom of some degree ofconciliation. After all, only four years before they had not merelytolerated, but established, the Catholic Church in the conqueredprovince of Quebec, with the result that the French Canadians remainedloyal during the American War. But neither the Government nor the finestindependent men in Parliament--not even Grattan--entertained theremotest idea of admitting Irish Catholics to any really effective sharein the Government which their loyalty made stable. That noble buthopeless conception originated later, as the dynamic impulse forcommercial freedom and legislative independence was originating now, outside the walls of Parliament. 

The rupture with France in 1778 denuded Ireland of troops, and calledinto being the Protestant Volunteers; a disciplined, armed body, headedby leaders as weighty and respectable as Lord Charlemont. This body, formed originally for home defence, by a natural and legitimatetransition assumed a political aspect, and demanded from a dismayed andterrorized Government commercial freedom for Ireland. For once in herlife Ireland was too strong to be coerced. Punishment like that appliedto Massachusetts was physically impossible. The bitter protests ofEnglish merchants passed unheeded, and the fiscal claims of theVolunteers, with their cannon labelled "Free Trade or this, " weregranted in full early in 1780. The moral was to persist. From 40, 000 thenumbers of the Volunteers rose in the two succeeding years to 80, 000, and they stood firm for further concessions. The national movement grewlike a river in spate; it swept forward the lethargic Catholics andengulfed Parliament. In a tempest of enthusiasm Grattan's Declaration ofIndependence was carried unanimously in the Irish House of Commons onApril 16, 1782, and a month later received legal confirmation in Englandat the hands of the same Whig Government and Parliament which broke offhostilities with America, and in the same session. 

America took her own road and worked out her own magnificent destiny. Most of us now honour Washington and the citizen troops he led. We saythey fought, as Hampden and their English forefathers fought, for asublime ideal, freedom, and that they were chips of the old block. Butlet not distance delude us into supposing that they were without thefull measure of human weakness, or that they did not sufferconsiderable, perhaps permanent, harm from the ten years of smotheredrevolt and lawless agitation, followed by the seven years of open warwhich preceded their victory. Washington's genius carried them safelythrough the ordeal of the war, and the still more exacting ordeal ofpolitical reconstruction after the war, but it is well known how nearlyhe and his staunchest supporters failed. The Revolution, like allrevolutions, brought out all the bad as well as all the good in humannature. Bad laws always deteriorate a people; they breed a contempt forlaw which coercion only aggravates, and which survives the establishmentof good laws. As I have already indicated, the dislike and thesystematic evasion by smuggling of the trade laws during the long periodwhen the revolt was incubating harmed American character, and probablysowed the seed of future corruption and dissension. However true thatmay be, it is certainly true that the American rebels showed no moreheroism or self-sacrifice than the average Englishman or Irishman in anyother part of the world might have been expected to show under similarconditions. Historians and politicians, to whom legal authority alwaysseems sacrosanct and agitation against it a popular vice, who mistakecause and effect so far as to derive freedom from character, instead ofcharacter from freedom, can make, and have made, the conventional caseagainst Home Rule for the Americans as plausibly as the same case has, at various times, been made against Home Rule for Canada, South Africa, and Ireland. Since all white men are fundamentally alike in theirfaults as well as in their virtues, there is always abundant materialfor an indictment on the ground of bad character. The Americans of therevolutionary war, together with much fortitude, integrity, and publicspirit, showed without doubt a good deal of levity, self-seeking, vindictiveness, and incompetence; and whoever chooses to amass, magnify, and isolate evidences of their guilt can demonstrate their unfitness forself-government just as well as he can demonstrate the same propositionin the case of Ireland. Mr. J. W. Fortescue, the learned and entertaininghistorian of the British Army, has done the former task as well as itcan be done. He denounces the whole Colony of Massachusetts--men of hisown national stock--as the pestilent offspring of an "irreconcilablefaction, " which had originally left England deeply imbued with thedoctrines of Republicanism. Having gained, and by lying and subterfugeretained, some measure of independence, they sank from depth to depth ofmeanness and turpitude. They struggled for no high principle, andrefused to be taxed from England, simply because they were toocontemptibly stingy and unpatriotic to pay a shilling a head towards themaintenance of the Imperial Army. It is always the "mob, " the"ruffians, " the "rabble, " of Boston who carry out the reprisals againstthe royal coercion, and, like the Irish peasants of the nineteenthcentury, they are always the half-blind, half-criminal tools ofunscrupulous "agitators. " It has been, and remains, an obsession withthe partisans of law over liberty all the world over that the fetteredcommunity, wherever it may be and however composed, does not really wantliberty, but that the majority of its sober citizens are dragged into anartificial agitation by mercenary scribes and sham patriots--a viewwhich is always somewhat difficult to reconcile, as students of Americanand Irish history are aware, not only with the facts of prolonged andtenacious resistance, but with the other view, equally necessary to theargument for law, that the whole community is sinfully unfit forliberty; and Mr. Fortescue falls into the usual maze ofself-contradiction and obscurity when he tries to give an intelligibleaccount of a war which lasted seven long and weary years, and yet was"factitious, " initiated by an hysterical rabble, stimulated andsustained by the basest and pettiest motives, and which, he contends, was "the work of a small but energetic and well-organized minoritytowards which the mass of the people, when not directly hostile, wasmainly indifferent. " Happily, Mr. Fortescue's candour as an historian offacts gives us the clue to this strange tangle. We find no evidence thatthe sober loyalist majority who sustain one side of his argument, andwhom we should expect to find crushing the revolt with ease inco-operation with the British regular troops, were, in fact, a majority, nor that they were either better or worse men, or more or less ardentpatriots, than the mutinous minority, or the British regular soldiersthemselves. Their loyalty, like the disloyalty of the other side, issometimes interested and evanescent, more often sincere and tenacious;they are given to desertion, like Washington's troops, like Lee's andGrant's troops nearly a century later, like the Boer troops and like allVolunteer levies, which have somehow to combine war with the duty ofkeeping their homes and business afloat. We find, too, that acounter-current of desertion flows from the British, and still more fromthe German, regulars, also a natural enough phenomenon in what wasvirtually a civil war for liberty; so that "General Greene was oftenheard to say that at the close of the war he fought the enemy withBritish soldiers, and that the British fought him with those ofAmerica. " And then Mr. Fortescue, ignoring the British side of the case, exultingly quotes against the Americans "the cynical Benedict Arnold, who knew his countrymen, " and who said: "Money will go farther than armsin America. " Yet Arnold, whose opinion of his countrymen Mr. Fortescueaccepts as correct and conclusive, was himself, not a plain deserter, but a perjured military traitor of the most despicable kind. We mayconclude, perhaps, after taking a broad view of the whole Revolution, that Washington not only knew his countrymen, who were Mr. Fortescue'scountrymen, better than Arnold, but was a better representative of theirdominant characteristics. [15]

Mr. Fortescue is peculiar in the violence of his prepossession, and weknow the source of that prepossession, a passionate love of the BritishArmy, which does him great honour, while it distorts his politicalvision. I should not refer at such length to his view of the AmericanWar were it not that, whenever a concrete case of Home Rule comes up fordiscussion, his philosophy is apt to become the typical and predominantphilosophy. Historical sense seems to vanish, and the same savage racialbias supervenes, whether the unruly people concerned are absolutelyconsanguineous, closely related, or of foreign nationality. Instead of ageneral acceptance of the ascertained truth that men thrive and coalesceunder self-government and sink into deterioration and division undercoercion, we get the same pharisaical assumption of superiority in thedominant people, the same attribution of sordid and ugly motives to theleaders of an unruly people, the same vague idealization of the loyalistminority, the same fixed hallucination that the majority does not wantwhat by all the constitutional means in its power it says it wants, andthe correspondingly fatal tendency to gauge the intensity of aconviction solely by the amount of physical violence it evokes, whilemaking that very violence an argument for the depravity of those who useit, and a pretext for denying them self-government. 

All this is terribly true in the case of Ireland, and when I next revertto the American continent, the reader will observe that the same ideaswere entertained towards Canada, the only white Colony left to theBritish Empire after the loss of the thirteen States. 

FOOTNOTES:

[8] The origin of North Carolina is, perhaps, debatable. Nearly allhistorians have represented it as settled by Dissenting refugees; butMr. S. B. Weeks, a Carolina historian, has written an essay to prove thatthis was not the case ("Religious Development in the Province of NorthCarolina, " Baltimore, 1892). The Charter contained a clause for libertyof conscience on the instructive ground that, "by reason of the remotedistance of those places, toleration would be no breach of the unity andconformity established in this realm. "

[9] "Church and State in Maryland, " George Petrie. Lord Baltimore, theCatholic founder and Proprietary, enforced complete tolerance from thefirst (1634), and secured the passage of an Act in 1649 giving legalforce to the policy, with heavy penalties against interference with anysect. In 1654 Puritans gained control of the Assembly, and passed an Actagainst Popery. A counter-revolution repealed this Act, but finally in1689 the Church of England was established by law. 

[10] Lecky, "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, " vol. I. , pp. 408-410. 

[11] Until 1692 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, electedtheir own Governors. Massachusetts continued to have Colonial Governors, and sometimes New Jersey and New Hampshire. Proprietary Governments weregradually abolished and converted into "Royal" Governments like therest. At the period of the Declaration of Independence two only wereleft--Pennsylvania and Maryland (see "Origin and Growth of the EnglishColonies, " H. E. Egerton). 

[12] Lecky, "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, " vol. Ii. , pp. 124-126. 

[13] Trevelyan, "The American Revolution, " vol. I. , p. 16. 

[14] See "The Irish Race in America, " by Captain Ed. O'Meagher Condore. 

[15] "History of the British Army, " vol. Iii. 

CHAPTER III

GRATTAN'S PARLIAMENT

We left Ireland in 1782 apparently in possession of a triumph as greatas that of America, though won without bloodshed and without the leasttincture of sedition; for the Volunteers of 1782 were as loyal to theCrown as the most ardent American royalists. In the light of politicalideas developed at a much later period, we know that the AmericanColonies might have remained within the Empire, even if their utmostclaims had been granted. Had the idea of responsible government beenunderstood, it would have been realized that their exclusive control oftaxation and legislation was not inconsistent with Imperial Union, butessential to it. Grattan and his Irish friends, ignorant of the truesolution, honestly thought, in the intoxication of the moment, that theyhad solved the problem so disastrously bungled for America. The facts ofethnology and geography seemed to have been recognized. Ireland andEngland, united by a Crown which both reverenced, stood together, likeBritain and the Dominions of to-day, as sister nations, with the oldirritating servitude swept away, and the bonds of natural affection andnatural interest substituted. That the close proximity of the twonations, however marked the contrast between their naturalcharacteristics, made these bonds far more necessary and valuable thanin the case of America, stood to reason, and, again, the fact wasrecognized in Anglo-Irish relations. America had fought rather thansubmit to a forced contribution to Imperial funds. Nobody in Ireland, inor out of Parliament, had ever objected in principle to an indirectvoluntary contribution in troops, and now that the American War wasended, non-Parliamentary objections to one particular application of theprinciple had no further substance. Nor, as was shortly to be shown inthe reception given in Ireland to Pitt's abortive CommercialPropositions of 1785, was there any objection to a direct contributionin money on a fixed annual scale in return for a mutual free trade. [16]The sun had surely risen over a free yet loyal Ireland. 

Never was there a more complete delusion. It would have been far betterfor Ireland if she had never had a Parliament at all, but had had toseek her own salvation in the healthy rough-and-tumble of domesticrevolution. The mere name of "Parliament" seems perpetually to havehypnotized even its best members, and the illusion was at its highestnow. Nothing essential had been changed. Commercial freedom was the mostreal gain, because it involved the definite repeal of certain trade-lawsand the permission to Ireland to make what she liked and send it whereshe liked; but it was a small gain without some means of finding outwhat Ireland really liked, and translating that will, without externalpressure, into law. The Parliament was neither an organ of publicopinion nor a free agent. It was even more corrupt and lessrepresentative than before. It was as completely under the control ofthe English Government as before. The modern conception of a ColonialMinistry serving under a constitutional Governor selected by the Crown, but acting with the advice of his Ministry, was unknown. The EnglishGovernment, through its Lord-Lieutenant, still appointed EnglishMinisters in Ireland, and in the hands of these Ministers lay not onlythat large portion of the national income known as the hereditaryrevenue, but the whole machinery of patronage and corruption. Even thelegislative independence was unreal; for majorities still had to bebought, Irish Bills had still to receive the Royal Assent, that is, English ministerial assent; so that powerful English pressure could be, and was, brought to bear upon their policy and construction. And theworst of it was that English pressure here and elsewhere meant then whatit meant in the next century, and what it too often means now, Englishparty pressure exercised spasmodically and ignorantly, in order to servesectional English ends. In short, Ireland, so far from being a nation, was still virtually a Colony, subjected to the worst conceivable form ofcolonial Government, groaning under economic evils unknown in the leastfortunate of the Colonies, and without the numerous mitigatingcircumstances and the hope of ultimate cure due to remoteness from theseat of Empire. On the contrary, nearness to England, and, above all, nearness to France, where the misrule and miseries of ages were about toculminate in a fearful upheaval of social order, complicated immenselythe problem of regeneration in Ireland. 

What was the remedy? Parliamentary reform. The Volunteers saw thisinstantly. Parliament itself scouted the idea of reform, because itthreatened the Protestant ascendancy. Any weakening of the Protestantascendancy was unthinkable to Irish statesmen, even to Grattan, who in1778 had coined the grandiose phrase that "the Irish Protestant couldnever be free until the Irish Catholic had ceased to be a slave, " andwho afterwards explained what he meant by saying that the liberty of theCatholic was to be only such as was "entirely consistent with theProtestant ascendancy, " and that "the Protestant interest was his firstobject. " Ascendancy, then, in the mind of the ruling class in Irelandwas fundamental. What was its corollary? Dependence on England. Ascendancies, whether based on creed or property, or, as in Ireland, onboth, cannot last in any white community without external support, andthe external support for ascendancy in Ireland was English force withoutand English bribes within. There was the chain of causation, the viciouscircle rather; and yet Grattan, who never touched a bribe, thought hehad freed his beloved Ireland from the English influences which werethrottling her. He could not see that the more he wrestled for theindependence of a sham Parliament, while resisting its transformationinto a real Parliament, the more he strengthened those influences, because he inevitably widened the gulf between Parliament and the Irishpeople. The glamour his brilliant gifts had thrown over the IrishParliament only served to divert his own mind and the minds of othertalented and high-minded men from the seat of disease in Ireland. Timeand talent were wasted from the first over points of pride, trivialitieswhich seemed portentous to over-sensitive minds; metaphysical puzzles asto the exact nature of the relations now existing between Ireland andEngland; whether the repeal of the Poynings' Act and the Declaratory Actwere sufficient guarantees of freedom; whether Ireland herself shouldnominate a Regent or accept the nomination from England. Meanwhile, thesands were running out, and Ireland was a slave to a minute but powerfulminority of her sons and, only through them, to England. 

Yet the heart of Ireland was sound. All the materials for regenerationwere there. The Catholics, whom by an old inherited instinct Grattanprofessed to dread, were the most Conservative part of the population, so Conservative as to be unaware of the source of their miseries, without the smallest leaning towards a counter-ascendancy, and without anotion of sedition or rebellion. Paradox as it seems, if they leaned inany political direction, it was dimly towards the constituted authorityof the day, the Irish Parliament. But the truth is that they werewithout political consciousness, behind the times, unappreciative of thenew forces operating round them. In sore need of courageous andenlightened guidance from men of their own faith, they were almostleaderless. The leeway to be made up after the destructive action of thepenal laws was so enormous that Catholic philanthropists had no time orwill for high politics, and devoted their whole energy to the furtherrelaxation of those laws, to the education of their backwardco-religionists, and to the mitigation of poverty. For relief theyinstinctively looked towards the only legal source of relief, though thesource of secular oppression, Parliament. But this was habit. TheCatholics at this time were like clay in the hands of the potter, opento any curative and ennobling impulse. That impulse came, as was rightand natural, from the Protestant side. The only healthy politicalorganization in Ireland in 1782 was that of the Volunteers of the North, with their headquarters at Belfast. They represented all that was bestin the Protestant population. They had won the practical victory, suchas it was, Parliament, with all its flaming rhetoric, only the titularvictory. They grasped the essential truth that Parliament was rotten, and that Ireland's future depended on its reform. Numbering some 80, 000or 100, 000, they at once began to press for reform, and, since they hadno constitutional resources, to overawe Parliament. Parliament at oncestood on its dignity and on its civil rights against the "Pretorianbands. " "And now, " said Grattan in his magnificent way, "having given aParliament to the people, the Volunteers will, I doubt not, leave thepeople to Parliament, and thus close specifically and majestically agreat work. "

But the work was not begun. Parliament was the enemy of the people, andthe Volunteers knew it. Now, what was the "people" in the minds of theVolunteers? Undoubtedly they did not, after a century of racialascendancy, perform the miracle of accepting at once in its entirety theprinciple of absolute political equality for all Irishmen, Catholic andProtestant alike. Such mental revulsions rarely occur among men, andwhen they do occur are apt to produce reactionary cataclysms. But theydid from the first give a real meaning to Grattan's vague rhetoric aboutCatholic slaves; from the first they made overtures towards theCatholics, and ventilated proposals for the Catholic franchise as a partof their scheme of reform ten years before that enfranchisement, withoutParliamentary reform and therefore valueless, became a practical issue. For the present these proposals were outvoted, and the effective demandof the Volunteers, as framed in the great Convention held at Dublin inNovember, 1783, was for a purification and reconstruction of Parliamenton a democratic Protestant basis. The Catholic franchise had beenstrongly supported, but by the influence of Charlemont and Floodrejected. It is, of course, easy to maintain in theory that a democraticProtestant ascendancy so designed was as incompatible with Irish freedomas an aristocratic and corrupt ascendancy; but nobody with faith inhuman nature or any knowledge of history, will care to affirm that theprocess of reform would have ended with the enactment of the VolunteerBill. No present-day Protestant Ulsterman should entertain such adishonouring doubt. Mercifully, men are so made that, if left tothemselves, they go forward, not backward. A pure Assembly, formed onthe Volunteer plan, stimulated by the enlightened conscience which suchan Assembly invariably develops, by the discovery of the fundamentalidentity of interests between the great bulk of Catholics andProtestants, and by the manly instinct of self-preservation againstundue English encroachment, would have moved rapidly towards toleranceand equality. 

But the Assembly which might have saved Ireland never came into being. The Volunteers were in weak and incompetent hands. The metamorphosisthey had undergone from a body formed for home defence into a militantpolitical organization found them at the critical moment unprovided withthe right stamp of leader. Flood, who helped to draft their Bill, was abrilliant but unscrupulous and discredited Parliamentarian, and afanatical advocate of an unimpaired Protestant ascendancy. LordCharlemont, one of the most influential founders of the movement, and aman of the highest integrity, was lukewarm for reform, an aristocrat andan ascendancy man to the finger-tips, dreading the mysterious forces hehad helped to call into being, and desirous to keep them, as he said, "respectable. " Was it respectable for armed men to dictate to aParliament, however just their cause? As often happens in the ferment ofpopular movements, the one leader who spoke undiluted truth and sensespoke it in florid and unmeasured language and was himself of a figureand behaviour little likely to inspire permanent confidence. This wasthe famous Bishop of Derry, called by Charlemont a blasphemous Deist, byWesley an exemplary Divine, by Fox a dishonest madman, and by JeremyBentham "a most excellent companion, pleasant, intelligent, well-bred, and liberal-minded to the last degree. " He was certainly vain andostentatious, certainly a democratic free-thinker, but a full knowledgeof his character is not of much concern to us. The point is that he wasright about Ireland's needs, though the wrong man at the moment to drivehome her claims. Many finer agitators than he have failed in causes justas good. Many without half his merits have succeeded. We shall find hisCanadian counterparts later in the figures of Mackenzie and Papineau. 

The crisis came on November 29, 1783, when the Reform Bill reachedParliament, and was introduced by Flood, wearing the Volunteer dress. Itwas rejected on the first vote. No doubt the circumstances werehumiliating, and if there had been any serious inclination in Parliamenttowards self-reform and the relinquishment of an odious and mischievousmonopoly, we should freely forgive rejection. But there was little ornone, as after-events proved, and the real humiliation lay, not in thedictation of the Irish Volunteers, but in the fact that the Volunteersthemselves were overawed by a strong body of British regular troops, mustered for the occasion under General Burgoyne. The vicious circle wascomplete. Forced to choose between reform and dependence on England, Parliament chose the latter. And only a year and a half before Grattanhad dazzled his hears with the words: "Ireland is now a nation . .. _estoperpetua_. "

There are very few critical dates in Irish history, and of those few thenight of November 29, 1783, was the most critical of all. It marked theclimax of a brief and bright renaissance from the long stagnation of theeighteenth, and heralded a decline into the long agony of the nineteenthcentury, a decline concealed by the fictitious lustre which still hangsover the first decade of Grattan's unreformed Parliament, but none theless already present. The Volunteers, their grand opportunity lost, slowly broke up. Should they have used force, even under the threat ofBurgoyne's guns? It would have been infinitely better both for Englandand Ireland if they had. Nothing but force could avail. Never wouldforce have been better justified, for the very soul of a people "rangzwischen Tod und Leben. "

It is hard, nevertheless, to blame the Volunteers for not appreciatingthe full magnitude of the crisis and acting accordingly. They were aheadof their time as it was in the political instinct which taught them thevital importance of a reformed Parliament. They were far ahead ofEngland, where the younger Pitt had failed to carry Reform a few monthsbefore, and was to fail again two years later when he urged reform forIreland. They were even ahead of their time in religioustolerance--witness the Gordon riots in London two years before. TheirParliament wore the crown and spoke the regal language of a patriotAssembly. For five years they themselves had glorified justifiably inthe perfect discipline and sobriety with which they had used theirirregular power. Their most trusted leaders suggested that they wouldyet achieve their ends without violence, while the large majority of theVolunteers themselves were still as loyal to the Crown as theCatholics, and were inclined, therefore, to shrink from action which, although in itself not in the remotest degree connected with dynasticquestions, involved a theoretical conflict with the Crown, and perhapsan actual collision with Royal troops. One of the last acts of theVolunteer Convention, before its dissolution, was to pass an address tothe King expressing fervent zeal for the Crown, reminding him of theirquiet and dignified behaviour in the past, and praying that "theirhumble wish to have certain manifest perversions of the Parliamentaryrepresentation of this kingdom remedied by the Legislature in somereasonable degree, might not be imputed to any spirit of innovation inthem, but to a sober and laudable desire to uphold the Constitution, toconfirm the satisfaction of their fellow-subjects, and to perpetuate thecordial union of the two kingdoms. " This document might have been copied_mutatis mutandis_ from the American petitions prior to the war, and wasto be reproduced almost word for word in Canadian petitions dealing withless serious grievances whose neglect at the hands of the Government didactually lead to armed rebellion. It must be taken, as Mr. Lecky trulysays, as the "defence of the Convention before the bar of history. "Drawn up by the most moderate and least prescient leaders, it was avindication of the past, not a pledge for the future; for "from thattime, " as Mr. Lecky writes, "the conviction sank deep into the minds ofmany that reform in Ireland could only be effected by revolution, andthe rebellion of 1798 might be already foreseen. "

The story of that transition, with all its disastrous consequences inthe denationalization of Ireland, in the arrest of healing forces, inthe reawakening of slumbering bigotries and hatreds, in the artificialtransformation of Catholics into anti-English rebels, and Protestantsinto anti-Irish Loyalists, in the long agony of the land war, the tithewar, the Church war, and the loathsome savageries of the rebellionitself, is one of the most repulsive in history. It is repulsive becauseyou can watch, as it were, upon a dissecting-table the moral fibre of apeople, from no inherent germ of decay, against reason, against nature, visibly wasting under a corrosive acid. Typical figures stand out: thestrong figure of Fitzgibbon, voicing ascendancy in its crudest andugliest form; at the other extreme the ardent but inadequate figure ofWolfe Tone, affirming in words which expressed the literal truth of thecase that "to subvert the tyranny of our execrable Government, to breakthe connection with England, the never-failing source of all ourpolitical evils, and to assert the independence of my country--thesewere my objects. " Midway stands Grattan, the defeated and disillusioned"Girondin, " as Mr. Fisher aptly calls him, [17] blind until it was toolate to the errors which plunged his country into anarchy, and retiringin despair when he saw that anarchy coming. And on the other side of thewater, Pitt, dispassionately prescribing for Ireland in 1784, whilethere was yet time, the radical remedy, Reform, patiently turning, whenthat was refused, to palliatives like mutual free trade in 1785 and theCatholic franchise in 1793; and meanwhile, with an undercurrent of coolscepticism, preparing the ground for the only alternative to Reform, short of a revolutionary separation of the two countries, legislativeUnion, and remorselessly pushing that Union through by the onlyavailable means, bribery. 

In this wretched story we seek in vain for individual scapegoats. Tracing events to their source, we strike against two obstructions, proximity and ignorance, and we may as well make them our scapegoats. Ifproximity had implied knowledge and forbearance, all would have beenwell, but it implied just the reverse, and prohibited the kind ofsolution which, after very much the same sort of crisis, and in theteeth of ignorance and error, was afterwards reached in the case ofCanada and South Africa. 

The immediate cause is clear. The failure of Reform is the key to theRebellion and the Union. In a patriotic anxiety to idealize Grattan'sParliament, with a view to justifying later claims for autonomy, Irishmen have generally shut their eyes to this cardinal fact, and havepreferred to dwell with exaggerated emphasis on the little good thatParliament did rather than on the enormous evils which it not only leftuntouched, but scarcely observed. We must remember that it was not onlya Protestant body, but a close body of landlords, with an infusion oflawyers and others devoted to the interest of landlords. In thatcapacity it was incapable of diagnosing, much less of remedying, thegravest material ills of Ireland. In the very narrow domain where thelandlord interest was not concerned, as in industrial and commercialmatters, Parliament seems to have acted on the whole with wisdom. Itendeavoured to encourage industries, while refusing to squander itsnewly won commercial powers in waging tariff wars with Great Britain, where prohibitive duties against Irish goods still continued to beimposed. But Ireland was no longer an industrial country. All theencouragement in the world could not replace lost aptitudes or bringback the exiled craftsmen who, during a century past, had left Irelandto enrich European countries with their skill. The favoured linenindustry alone survived to reach its present flourishing condition. Therevival in other manufactures, even in that of wool, which wasremarkably rapid and strong, seems to have been artificial andtransient. No wonder; for, while Ireland had been stagnant for acentury, her great competitor, England, had been steadily building upthat capacity for organized industry which, under the inventive geniusof Arkwright, Hargreaves, and Watt, and the economic genius of AdamSmith, made the last twenty years of the eighteenth century such amarvellous period of industrial expansion, and eventually convertedEngland from an agricultural into a manufacturing nation. Ireland washopelessly late in the race. On the other hand, the fertile land ofIreland remained as the indestructible source of wealth and the primemeans of subsistence for the great bulk of the four and a half millionsouls who inhabited the country. Parliament seems to have been almostindifferent to the miseries of the agricultural population, whollyindifferent, certainly, to their source, the vicious agrarian systemwhich it was the interest of its own members to sustain. Foster's famousCorn Law without doubt increased tillage, and, in conjunction with theinflated prices for produce caused by the French War, gave a powerfulthough a somewhat unhealthy impulse to the trade in corn. But itenriched only the landlords, and left untouched the real abuses, absenteeism, middlemanism, insecurity of tenure, rack-rents, and tithes. The Whiteboy risings of the sixties and seventies recurred, and were metwith Coercion Acts as stupid and cruel as those of the nineteenthcentury. The tithe grievance, which festered and grew into civil war inthe nineteenth century, was never touched. While tenants in North-EastUlster were painfully and forcibly establishing their custom of tenantright in the teeth of the law, the inhuman system of cottier tenancy, which was to last until 1881, became more and more firmly rooted inother parts of Ireland. 

None but a democratic Assembly could possibly have grappled with theseevils; nor is there any reason to suppose that in the existing conditionof Ireland a Protestant democratic Assembly, even if temporarily itretained its sectarian character, would have grappled with them lessboldly and drastically than an Assembly composed of Catholics andProtestants. The material interests of nineteen-twentieths of the peoplewere the same, while the education and intelligence belonged mainly tothe Protestants. Ulster tenants had as much need of good land laws asother tenants. Tithes were as much disliked in the north as in thesouth. The Established Church was the Church of a very small minority, and its clergy, numbers of whom were absentees, were as unpopular as theabsentee landlords and the absentee office-holders and pensioners. 

But with no redress, and, what is more important, no prospect of redressfor the primary ills of Ireland, the centrifugal forces of religion andrace had full scope for their baneful influence. And it was at the verymoment when tolerance was steadily gaining ground among all classes thatthese spectres of ancient wrong were summoned up to destroy the goodwork. 

How did this come about? Let us remember once more that everythinghinged on Reform. Reform gained a little, but suffered far more, by itsassociation with the question of Catholic franchise, which was uselesswithout Reform, while it was the corollary of Reform. Nothing is moreremarkable than the growth of academic tolerance during this period, doubtful and suspect as the motives sometimes were. It is true that thegreat Relief Act of 1793, giving Catholics the vote and removing aquantity of other disqualifications, would scarcely have been sanctionedby the Parliamentary managers without the stern dictation of Pitt, whosemind was strongly influenced by the violent anti-Catholic turn justtaken by the French Revolution; but, once sanctioned, it passedrapidly, and was received with universal satisfaction in the country atlarge. Without "Emancipation, " that is, the permission to electCatholics to sit in Parliament and hold office, the franchise wasillusory and even harmful. In the counties the forty-shilling "freehold"vote ("freehold" was an ironical misnomer) encouraged Protestantlandlords for another generation, before and after the Union, stillfurther to subdivide already excessively small holdings, while thebenefits to be derived from the admission to power of propertiedCatholics, with all their intensely Conservative instincts, were thrownaway. Emancipation apart, the franchise without Reform was a completefarce, for the boroughs, which controlled the Parliamentary balance, were the personal property of Protestant landlords, and the 110Parliamentary placemen were indirectly their tools. As usual, the men oflight and leading contributed unconsciously to the strength of a systemwhich, in their hearts, as honest men, they condemned. Each of them hadsome fatal defect of understanding. Grattan became a strong Emancipator, but remained an academic and ineffectual reformer striving in vain toreconcile Reform with a passionate abhorrence of democracy and adetermination to keep power in the hands of landed property. In England, which was Protestant in the Established sense, he would have done nomore harm than Burke, who for the same reason fought Reform as stronglyas Pitt and his father Chatham had advocated it. But in Ireland, whichwas Catholic and Nonconformist, landed property signified Episcopalianlanded property, that is, the narrowest form of ascendancy. Charlemontwas an even stranger paradox. He was an academic Reformer beforeGrattan, but not an Emancipator, arriving at the same sterility asGrattan through a religious bias which Grattan ceased to feel, a biasinspired, not by a fanatical fear of democracy in itself, but by a fearof Catholic revenge for past wrongs. These men and their like, admirableand lovable as in many respects they were, were useless to Ireland inthose terrible times. Whether Emancipation, unaccompanied by Reform, hadany real chance of passing Parliament in 1795, when the Whig ViceroyFitzwilliam, the one Viceroy in the eighteenth century who everconceived the idea of governing Ireland according to Irish ideas, cameover from England with the avowed intention of proposing it, is a matterof conjecture. Fitzwilliam was snuffed out by Pitt, and recalled undercircumstances which still remain a matter of controversy. All we can saywith certainty is that the opinion of Ireland at large was absolutelyignored, and that English party intrigues and English claims on Irishpatronage had much to do with the result. On the whole, however, I agreewith Mr. Fisher that too much importance has been given to this episode, especially by Mr. Lecky, who devotes nearly a volume to it. 

The anti-national Irish Parliament was past praying for. Long before1795 the Irish aristocracy had lost whatever power for good it everpossessed, and most of the resolute reformers of Wolfe Tone'smiddle-class Protestant school had turned, under the enthrallingfascination of the French Revolution, into revolutionaries. Reform hadbeen refused in 1782; again, and without coercion from the Volunteers, in 1783. It was refused again in 1784, against the advice of Pitt and atthe instigation of Pitt's own Viceroy, Rutland, whom Pitt hadurged--what a grim irony it seems!--to give "unanswerable proofs thatthe cases of Ireland and England are different, " and who answered withtruth that the ascendancy of a minority could only be maintained "byforce or corruption. " Every succeeding year showed the same results. Wolfe Tone was more than justified, he was compelled, to convert hisSociety of United Irishmen, founded in 1791, into a revolutionaryorganization and to seek by forcible means to overthrow the Executivewhich controlled Parliament and, through it, Ireland. Since the symbolof the Irish Executive was the British Crown, he, of course, abjured theCrown, though he had no more quarrel with the Crown as such than had theAmerican or Canadian patriots. He simply loved his country, and from thefirst saw with clear eyes the only way to save her. Tolerance to him wasnot an isolated virtue, but an integral part of democracy. He tooklittle interest in the Parliamentary side of Catholic relief, realizingits hollow unreality, and, in the case of the Bill of 1793, actuallyridiculing the absurd spectacle of the Catholic cottiers being herded tothe poll by their Protestant landlords. Nor was he even an extremeDemocrat, for he advocated a ten-pound, instead of a forty shillingfranchise. His original pamphlet of 1791 contains nothing but the mostsober political common sense. 

His aim was to unite Irishmen of all creeds to overthrow a Governmentwhich did not emanate from or represent them, and which was ruinous tothem. It is not surprising that he failed. Ireland was very nearEngland. French intervention had been decisive in distant America, andthe French Revolution in its turn had been hastened by the Americanexample. But the intervention in Ireland of Republican France, forpurely selfish and strategic reasons, without effective command of thesea, and with the stain of the Terror upon her, was of little materialvalue and a grave moral handicap to the Irish Revolutionists. It is themanner of Tone's failure and the consequences of his failure that havesuch a tragic interest. A united Ireland could have dispensed with theaid of France. What prevented unity? Tone laboured to bring both creedstogether, and to a certain degree was successful. Until the very last itwas the Catholics, not the Protestants, who shrank most from revolution. Yet, in the Rebellion of 1798, the North never moved, while CatholicWexford and Wicklow rose. 

The root cause is to be found in those agrarian abuses whose longneglect by the Irish Parliament constituted the strongest justificationfor Reform. The Orange Society, founded under that name in 1795, originated in the "Peep o' Day Boys, " a local association formed inArmagh in 1784 for the purpose of bullying Catholics. There is no doubtthat the underlying incentive was economic. Even when the Penal Code hadlost in efficacy, its results survived in the low standard of living ofthe persecuted Catholics. As I pointed out in a former chapter, thereckless cupidity of the landlords in terminating leases and fixing newrents by auction, with the alternative of eviction, threw thoseProtestant tenants who did not emigrate into direct competition withCatholic peasants of a lower economic stamp, who because they lived onlittle could afford to offer fancy rents. Hence much bitter friction, leading to sordid village rows and eventually to the organizedruffianism of the Peep o' Day Boys. The Catholic Franchise Act of 1793, unaccompanied by Emancipation, actually intensified the trouble byremoving the landlord's motive to prefer a Protestant tenant on accountof his vote. Under ill-treatment, the Catholics naturally retaliatedwith a society known as the "Defenders, " and in some districts werethemselves the aggressors. Defenderism, in its purely agrarian aspect, spread to other parts of Ireland, where Protestants were few, and becamemerged in Whiteboyism. This had always been an agrarian movement, directed against abuses which the law refused to touch, and withoutreligious animus, although the overwhelming numbers of the Catholics inthe regions where it flourished would have placed the Protestants attheir mercy. In Ulster both the contending organizations necessarilyacquired a religious form and necessarily retained it. But at bottom badlaws, not bigotry, were the cause. There was nothing incurable, or evenunique, about the disorders. Analogous phenomena have appearedelsewhere, for example, in Australia, between the original squatters onlarge ranches and new and more energetic colonists in search of land forcloser settlement. Under a rational system of tenure and distributionthere was plenty of good land in Ireland for an even larger population. Tone, who was a middle-class lawyer, seems never to have appreciatedwhat was going on. So far from healing the schism, he appears to havewidened it by throwing the United Irish Committee of Ulster into thescale of the Catholics against the Orangemen. But, in truth, he washelpless. Good administration only could unite these distractedelements, and without the Reform for which he battled, goodadministration was impossible. The dissension, widening and acquiring anincreasingly religious and racial character, paralyzed Ulster, whichoriginally was the seat of the Revolution. The forces normally at workto favour law and order--loyalty to the Crown, dislike of the FrenchRevolution, and resentment at Franco-Irish conspiracies--gatheredproportionately greater strength. 

The Southern Rebellion of 1798--a mad, pitiful thing at the best, thework of half-starved peasants into whose stunted minds the splendidideal of Tone had scarcely begun to penetrate--was a totally differentsort of rebellion from any he had contemplated. It was neither nationalnor Republican. The French invasions had met with little support; thefirst with positive reprobation. Nor was it in origin sectarian, although, once aflame, it inevitably took a sectarian turn. Several ofthe prominent leaders were Protestants. Priests naturally joined in itbecause they were the only friends the people had had in the dark agesof oppression. In so far as it can be regarded as spontaneous, it was ofWhiteboy origin, anti-tithe and anti-rack-rent. But it was not evenspontaneous; that is another dreadful and indisputable fact whichemerges. The barbarous measures taken to repress and disarm, prior tothe outbreak, together with the skilfully propagated reports of a comingmassacre by Orangemen, would have goaded any peasantry in the world torevolt, and the only astonishing thing is that the revolt was so localand sporadic. General Sir Ralph Abercromby retired, sickened with thehorrors he was forbidden to avert. "Within these twelve months, " hewrote of the conduct of the soldiery at the time of his resignation, "every crime, every cruelty that could be committed by Cossacks orCalmucks has been transacted here. .. . The struggle has been, in thefirst place, whether I was to have the command of the Army really ornominally, and then whether the character and discipline of it were tobe degraded and ruined in the mode of using it, either from the facilityof one man or from the violence and oppression of a set of men who havefor more than twelve months employed it in measures which they durst notavow or sanction. "

Abercromby's resignation, in Mr. Lecky's opinion, "took away the lastfaint chance of averting a rebellion. " Fitzgibbon, Lord Clare, was nowsupreme in the Government, and henceforth represents incarnate theforces which provoked the Rebellion and founded upon it the Union. Hehad bided his time for a decade, watching the trend of events, foreseeing their outcome, and smiling sardonically at the ineffectualwrithings of the men of compromise. He stands out like a block of blackgranite over against the slender figure of Wolfe Tone, who was hisanti-type in ideas and aims, his inferior in intellect, his superior inmorals, but no more than his rival in sincerity, clarity, andconsistency of ideas. Clare was a product of the Penal Code, the son ofa Catholic Irishman who, to obtain a legal career, had become aProtestant. He himself was not a bigot, but a very able cynic, with adefinite theory of government. Tolerance, Emancipation, Reform, were somuch noxious, sentimental rubbish to him, and he had never scrupled tosay so. Ireland was a Colony, English colonists were robbers in Ireland, and robbers must be tyrants, or the robbed will come by their own again;that was his whole philosophy, [18] his frigid and final estimate of thetendencies of human nature, and his considered cure for them. Racialfusion was a crazy conception not worth argument. Wrong on one side, revenge on the other; policy, coercion. As he put it in his famousspeech on the Union, the settlers to the third and fourth generation"were at the mercy of the old inhabitants of the island. " "Laws must beframed to meet the vicious propensities of human nature, " and laws ofthis sort for the case of Ireland should, he held with unanswerablelogic, properly be made in England, not by the travesty of a Parliamentin Ireland, which, in so far as it was in any degree Irish, had shownfaint but ominous tendencies towards tolerance and the reunion ofIrishmen. He never took the trouble to demonstrate the truth of histheory of revenge by a reasoned analysis of Irish symptoms. He took itfor granted as part of a universal axiomatic truth, and, like allphilosophers of his school, pointed to the results of misgovernment andcoercion as proofs of the innate depravity of the governed and of theirneed for more coercion. Anticipating a certain limited class of Irishmenof to-day, often brilliant lawyers like himself, he used to bewailEnglish ignorance of Ireland, meaning ignorance of the incurablecriminality of his own kith and kin. He was just as immovably cynicalabout the vast majority of his own co-religionists as about theconquered race. If, as was obvious, so far from fearing the revenge ofthe Catholics, their unimpeded instinct was to take sides with them tosecure good government, they were not only traitors, but imbeciles whocould not see the doom awaiting them. Yet Fitzgibbon's admirers mustadmit that his consistency was not complete. He was perfectly cognizantof the real causes of Irish discontent. He was aware of the grievancesof Ulster, and his description of the conditions of the Munsterpeasantry in the Whiteboy debates of 1787 is classical. If pressed, hewould have answered, we may suppose, that it was impolitic to cureevils which were at once the consequence of ascendancy and thecondition of its maintenance. That other strange lapse in 1798, when hedescribed the unparalleled prosperity of Ireland since 1782 under aConstitution which, in the Union debates of 1800, he afterwards coveredwith deserved ridicule as having led to anarchy, destitution, andbankruptcy, must be attributed to the exigencies of debate; for he wasan advocate as well as a statesman, and occasionally gave way to thetemptation of making showy but unsubstantial points. 

These slips were rare, and do not detract from the massive coherence ofhis doctrine. He remains the frankest, the most vivid, and the mostpowerful exponent of a theory of government which has waged eternalconflict with its polar rival, the Liberal theory, in the evolution ofthe Empire. The theory, of course, extends much farther than thebi-racial Irish case, to which Fitzgibbon applied it. It was used, as weshall see, to meet the bi-racial circumstances of Canada and SouthAfrica, and it was also used in a modified form to meet the uni-racialcircumstances of Australia and of Great Britain itself. Anyone who readsthe debates on the Reform Bill of 1831 will notice that the oppositionrested at bottom on a profoundly pessimistic distrust of the people, andon the alleged necessity of an oligarchy vested with the power and dutyof "framing laws to meet the vicious propensities of human nature. " In aword, the theory is in essence not so much anti-racial asanti-democratic, while finding its easiest application where thosedistinctions of race and creed exist which it is its effect, though notits purpose, to intensify and envenom. Fitzgibbon is a repulsive figure. Yet it would be unjust to single him out for criticism. Like him, thephilosophers Hume and Paley believed in oligarchy, and accepted force orcorruption as its two alternative props. Burke thought the same, thoughthe Pitts thought otherwise. Fitzgibbon's brutal pessimism was only thepolitical philosophy of Paley, Hume, and Burke pushed relentlessly in anexceptional case to its extreme logical conclusion. But we can justlycriticize statesmen of the present day who, after a century's experienceof the refutation of the doctrine in every part of the world, stilladhere to it. 

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Pitt's original scheme was accepted in Ireland, but defeated inEngland, owing to the angry opposition of British commercial interests. The scheme, as amended to conciliate these interests, was deservedlyrejected in Ireland. 

[17] J. Fisher, "The End of the Irish Parliament. " The author is muchindebted to this brilliant study, which appeared only this year (1911). 

[18] See Fitzgibbon's Speeches in the Irish House of Lords, on theCatholic Franchise Bill, March 13, 1793, and on the Union, February 10, 1800. 

CHAPTER IV

THE UNION

The worst feature of Fitzgibbonism is that it has the power artificiallyto produce in the human beings subject to it some of the very phenomenawhich originally existed only in the perverted imagination of itsprofessors. Some only of the phenomena; not all; for human naturetriumphs even over Fitzgibbonism. There has never been a moment sincethe Union when a representative Irish Parliament, if statesmen had beenwise and generous enough, to set such a body up, would have acted on theprinciple of revenge or persecution. Nor, in spite of all evidences tothe contrary, has there ever been a moment when Protestant Ulstermen, heirs of the noble Volunteer spirit, once represented in such aParliament, would have acted on the assumption that they had to meet apolicy of revenge. Nevertheless, Fitzgibbonism did succeed, as it was tosucceed in Canada, in making pessimism at least plausible and inachieving an immense amount of direct ascertainable mischief. 

The rift between the creeds and races, just beginning to heal threegenerations after the era of confiscation, but reopened under theoperations of economic forces connected with race and religion, yetperfectly capable of adjustment by a wise and instructed Government, yawned wide from 1798 onwards, when Government had become a soullesspoliceman, and scenes of frenzy and slaughter had occurred which couldnot be forgotten. Swept asunder by a power outside their control, Protestants and Catholics stood henceforth in opposite political camps, and it became a fixed article of British policy to govern Ireland byplaying upon this antagonism. The flame of the Volunteer spirit neverperished, but it dwindled to a spark under the irresistible weight of amanufactured reaction. Dissenters and Anglicans united, not to lead theway in securing better conditions for their Catholic fellow-countrymen, not for the interests of Ireland as a whole, but under the ignoblecolours of religious fanaticism. Hence that strangely artificialalliance between the landlords of the South and West and the democratictenantry, artisans, and merchants of the North; an alliance formed tomeet an imaginary danger, and kept in being with the most mischievousresults to the social and economic development of Ireland. Since theProtestant minority had made up its mind to depend once more on theEnglish power it had defied in 1782, the old machine of Ascendancy, which had showed certain manifest signs of decrepitude under Grattan'sParliament, was reconstructed on a firmer, less corrupt, and morelasting basis. 

The Legislative Union is not a landmark or a turning-point in Irishhistory. It reproduced "under less assailable forms" the Governmentwhich existed prior to 1782. The real crisis, as I have said, came atthe end of 1783, when the Volunteers tried, by reforming Parliament, togive Irish Government an Irish character. It is essential toremember--now as much as ever before--that Ireland has never had anational Parliament. She has never been given a chance ofself-expression and self-development. It is useless, though Home Rulersfrequently give way to the temptation, to advocate Home Rule by arguingfrom Grattan's Parliament. O'Connell, in the Repeal debate of 1834, devoted hours to praising that Parliament, and had his own argumentturned against him with crushing force by the Secretary to the Treasury, who easily proved that it was the most corrupt and absurd body that everexisted. The same game of cross-purposes went on in the Home Ruledebates of 1886 and 1893, and reappeared but this year in a debate ofthe House of Lords (July 4, 1911), when the Roman Catholic Home Ruler, Lord MacDonnell, eulogized Grattan's Parliament in answer to LordLondonderry, the Protestant Unionist landlord, who painted it in itstrue colours. Yet Lord Londonderry springs from the class and school ofCharlemont, who, by refusing to act as an Irishman, hastened the ruin ofthe Parliament which Lord Londonderry satirizes, and Lord MacDonnellfrom the race which was betrayed by that Parliament. The anomaly neednot surprise us. It is not stranger than the fact that the Union wouldnever have been carried without Catholic support in Ireland. 

The point we have to grasp is that Ireland was a victim to the crudityand falsity of the political ideas current at the time of the Union, persistent all over the Empire for long afterwards, and not extinct yet. Between Separation, personified by Tone, and Union, personified byFitzgibbon, and carried by those milder statesmen, Castlereagh and Pitt, there seemed to be no alternative. Actually there was and is analternative: a responsible Irish Parliament and Government united toEngland by sympathy and interest. 

The Parliamentary history of the Union does not much concern us. Bribery, whether by titles, offices, or cash, had always been the normalmeans of securing a Government majority in the Irish House of Commons. Corruption was the only means of carrying the vote for the Union, andthe time and labour needed for securing that vote are a measure of therewards gained by those who formed the majority. Disgusting business asit was, we have to admit that a Parliament which refused to reformitself at the bidding of all that was best and healthiest in Irelanddid, on its own account, deserve extinction. The sad thing is that thetrue Ireland was sacrificed. 

Pitt and Castlereagh, though they plunged their hands deep in the mireto obtain the Union, quite honestly believed in the policy of the Union. They were wrong. They merely reestablished the old ascendancy in a form, morally perhaps more defensible, but just as damaging to the interestsof Ireland. In addition to absentee landlords, an alien and a largelyabsentee Church, there was now an absentee Parliament, remote from allpossibility of pressure from Irish public opinion, utterly ignorant ofIreland, containing within it, for twenty-nine years, at any rate, representatives of only one creed, and that the creed of the smallminority. Pitt had virtually pledged himself to make CatholicEmancipation an immediate consequence of the Union, and his Viceroy, Cornwallis, had thereby obtained the invaluable support of the Catholichierarchy and of many of the Catholic gentry. The King, half mad at thetime, refused to sanction the redemption of the pledge, and Pitt, to hisdeep dishonour, accepted the insult and dropped the scheme. Fitzgibbonism in its extreme form had triumphed. It was a repetition ofthe perfidy over the Treaty of Limerick a century before. Indeed, atevery turn of Irish history, until quite recent times, there seems tohave been perpetrated some superfluity of folly or turpitude which shutthe last outlet for natural improvement. It cannot be held, however, that the refusal of Emancipation for another generation seriouslydamaged the prospects of the Union as a system of government. After itwas granted, the system worked just as badly as before, and in allessentials continues to work just as badly now. Inequalities in theIrish franchise were only an aggravation. In order to cripple Catholicpower, Emancipation itself was accompanied in 1829 by an Act whichdisfranchised at a stroke between seven and eight tenths of the Irishcounty electorate, nor was it until the latest extension of the UnitedKingdom franchise, that is, eighty-five years after the Union, that theIrish representation was a true numerical reflection of the Irishdemocracy. But these were not vital matters. In the Home Rule campaignsof 1886 and 1893, Irish opinion, constitutionally expressed, wasimpotent. The vital matter was that the Union killed all wholesomepolitical life in Ireland, destroyed the last chance of promotingharmony among Irishmen, and transferred the settlement of Irishquestions to an ignorant and prejudiced tribunal, incapable ofcomprehending these questions, much less of adjudicating upon them withany semblance of impartiality. 

The Legislative Union was unnatural. The two islands, near as they wereto each other, were on different planes of civilization, wealth, andeconomic development, without a common tradition, a common literature, or a common religion. Each had a temperament and genius of its own, andeach needed a different channel of expression. Laws applicable to oneisland were meaningless or noxious in the other; taxation applicable toa rich industrial island was inappropriate and oppressive for a pooragricultural island. And upon a system comprising all theseincompatibilities there was grafted the ruinous principle of ascendancy. 

There is nothing inherently strange about the difference between Englandand Ireland. Artificial land-frontiers often denote much sharpercleavages of sentiment, character, physique, language, history. Asea-frontier sometimes makes a less, sometimes a more, effective line ofdelimitation. Denmark and Sweden, France and England, are examples. Nor, on the other hand, did the profound differences between Ireland andEngland preclude the possibility of their incorporation in a politicalsystem under one Crown. We know, by a mass of experience from Federaland other systems, that elements the most diverse in language, religion, wealth, and tradition may be welded together for common action, providedthat the union be voluntary and the freedom of the separate parts bepreserved. The first conditions of a true union were lacking in the caseof Ireland. The arrangement was not voluntary. It was accompanied bygross breach of faith, and it signified enslavement, not liberty. 

A true Union was not even attempted. The Government of Ireland, ineffect, and for the most part in form, was still that of a conqueredColonial Dependency. It was no more representative in any practicalsense after the Union than before the Union. The popular vote wassubmerged in a hostile assembly far away. The Irish peerage was regardedrightly by the Irish people as the very symbol of their own degradation, the Union having been purchased with titles, and titles having been fora century past the price paid for the servility of Anglo-Irishstatesmen. But the peerage, in the persons of the twenty-eightrepresentatives sent to Westminster, still remained a powerful nucleusof anti-Irish opinion, infecting the House of Lords with anti-Irishprejudice, and often opposing a last barrier to reform when theopposition of the British House of Commons had been painfully overcome. In truth the cardinal reforms of the nineteenth century were obtained, not by persuasion, but by unconstitutional violence in Ireland itself. There was still a separate Executive in Ireland, a separate system oflocal administration, and until 1817 a separate financial system, all ofthem wholly outside Irish control. The only change of constitutionalimportance was that the Viceroy gradually became a figure-head, and hisautocratic powers, similar to those of the Governor of a Crown Colony, were transferred to the Chief Secretary, who was a member of the BritishMinistry. Gradually, as the activity of Government increased, there grewup that grotesque system of nominated and irresponsible Boards which atthe present day is the laughing-stock of the civilized world. The wholepatronage remained as before, either directly or indirectly, in Englishhands. If it was no longer manipulated in ways frankly corrupt, it wasmanipulated in a fashion just as deleterious to Ireland. Before, asafter, the Union there was no public career in Ireland for an Irishmanwho was in sympathy with the great majority of his countrymen. To winthe prizes of public life, judgeships, official posts, and the rest, itwas not absolutely necessary to be a Protestant, though for a long timeall important offices were held exclusively, and are still held mainly, by Protestants; but it was absolutely necessary to be a thoroughgoingsupporter of the Ascendancy, and in thoroughgoing hostility to Irishpublic opinion as a whole. In other words, the unwritten Penal Code waspreserved after the abolition of the written enactments, and was usedfor precisely the same pernicious purpose. It was a subtle and sustainedattempt "to debauch the intellect of Ireland, " as Mr. Locker-Lampsonputs it, to denationalize her, and to make her own hands the instrumentof her humiliation. The Bar was the principal sufferer, because now, asbefore, it was the principal road to humiliation. Fitzgibbonsmultiplied, so that for generations after the Union some of the ablestIrish lawyers were engaged in the hateful business of holding up theirown people to execration in the eyes of the world, of combatinglegislation imperatively needed for Ireland, and of framing and carryinginto execution laws which increased the maladies they were intended toallay. 

Let nobody think these phenomena are peculiar to Ireland. In many partsof the world where Ascendancies have existed, or exist, the same methodsare employed, and always with a certain measure of success. Irish moralfibre was at least as tough as that of any other nationality inresisting the poison. 

But the results were as calamitous in Ireland as in other countries. Nocountry can progress under such circumstances. The test of government isthe condition of the people governed. Judged by this criterion, it is noexaggeration to say that Ireland as a whole went backward for at leastseventy years after the Union. Even Protestant North-East Ulster, withits saving custom of tenant-right, its linen industry, and all thespecial advantages derived from a century of privilege, though itescaped the worst effects of the depression, suffered by emigrationalmost as heavily as the rest of Ireland, and built up its industrieswith proportionate difficulty. Over the rest of Ireland the mainfeatures of the story are continuous from a period long antecedent tothe Union. A student of the condition of the Irish peasantry in theeighteenth and in the first three-quarters of the nineteenth centuriescan ignore changes in the form or personnel of government. He wouldscarcely be aware, unless he travelled outside his subject, thatGrattan's Parliament ever existed, or that subsequently a longsuccession of Whig and Tory Ministers, differing profoundly in theirpolitical principles, had alternately sent over to Ireland ChiefSecretaries with theoretically despotic powers for good or evil. These"transient and embarrassed phantoms" came and went, leaving theirreputations behind them, and the country they were responsible for inmuch the same condition. 

It is not my purpose to enter in detail into the history of Ireland inthe nineteenth century, but only to note a few salient points which willhelp us to a comparison with the progress of other parts of the Empire. It is necessary to repeat that the basis upon which the whole economicstructure of Ireland rested, the Irish agrarian system, was inconsistentwith social peace and an absolute bar to progress. I described inChapter I. How it came into being and the collateral mischiefs attendingit. During the nineteenth century, by accident or design, thesemischiefs were greatly aggravated. Until 1815 high war prices and thelow Catholic franchise stimulated subdivision of holdings, alreadyexcessively small, and the growth of population. With the peace cameevictions, conversions into pasture, and consolidation of farms. Thedisfranchisement of the mass of the peasantry which accompaniedEmancipation in 1829 inspired fresh clearances on a large scale andcaused unspeakable misery, with further congestion on the worstagricultural land. "Cottier" tenancy, at a competitive rent, andterminable without compensation for the improvements which were madeexclusively by the tenant, was general over the greater part of Ireland. Generally it was tenancy-at-will, with perpetual liability to eviction. Leaseholders, however, were under conditions almost as onerous. Thelabourer, who was allowed a small plot, which he paid for in labour, was in the worst plight of all. In addition, burdensome tithes werecollected by an alien Church and rents were largely spent abroad. IfIrish manufactures had not been destroyed, and there had been an outletfrom agriculture into industry, the evil effects of the agrarian systemwould have been mitigated. As it was, in one of the richest and mostfertile countries in the world the congestion and poverty wereappalling. Competition for land meant the struggle for bare life. Renthad no relation to value, but was the price fixed by the frantic biddingof hungry peasants for the bare right to live. The tenant had nointerest in improving the land, because the penalty for improvement wasa higher rent, fixed after another bout of frantic competition. 

"Almost alone amongst mankind, " wrote John Stuart Mill, [19] "the cottieris in this condition, that he can scarcely be either better or worse offby any act of his own. If he were industrious or prudent, nobody but hislandlord would gain; if he is lazy or intemperate, it is at hislandlord's expense. A situation more devoid of motives to either labouror self-command, imagination itself cannot conceive. The inducements offree human beings are taken away, _and those of a slave notsubstituted_. He has nothing to hope, and nothing to fear, except beingdispossessed of his holding, and against this he protects himself by the_ultima ratio_ of a defensive civil war. Rockism and Whiteboyism werethe determination of a people, who had nothing that could be calledtheirs but a daily meal of the lowest description of food, not to submitto being deprived of that for other people's convenience. 

"Is it not, then, a bitter satire on the mode in which opinions areformed on the most important problems of human nature and life, to findpublic instructors of the greatest pretension imputing the backwardnessof Irish industry, and the want of energy of the Irish people inimproving their condition, to a peculiar indolence and insouciance inthe Celtic race? Of all vulgar modes of escaping from the considerationof the effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the mostvulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and characterto inherent natural differences. "

The "civil war" referred to by Mill as the _ultima ratio_ of thecottier tenant went on intermittently for ninety years of the nineteenthcentury, as it had gone on during the eighteenth century, and was met bycoercive laws of the same general stamp. Until Mr. Gladstone took thequestion in hand in 1870, no reformer could get a hearing in Parliament. Bill after Bill, privately introduced, met with contemptuous rejectionin favour of some senseless measure of semi-military coercion. Therecan, I believe, be no doubt that responsible Irish opinion, madeeffective, would have grappled with the evil firmly and conscientiously. Until the peasant class was driven to the last pitch of desperation, their leaders did not conceive, and, indeed, never wholly succeeded inimplanting, the idea of a complete overthrowal of landlordism. Thepeasant was not unwilling to pay rent. He had, and still has, a deep, instinctive respect for a landed aristocracy, and was ready, and isstill ready, to repay good treatment with an intensity of devotiondifficult to parallel in other parts of the United Kingdom. In thatveritably cataclysmic dispersion of the Irish race which ensued upon thegreat famine, rent continued to be paid at home out of sums remittedfrom relatives in America. No less than nineteen millions of money werethus remitted, according to the Emigration Commissioners of 1863, between 1847 and that date. The Roman Catholic Church, as in every partof the world, was strongly on the side of law and order, and, indeed, onmany occasions stepped in to condemn disorder legitimately provoked byintolerable suffering. The wealthy and educated landlord class, face toface in a free Parliament with the tenant class, including, be itremembered, the Ulster Protestant tenants, with grievances less acute indegree, but similar in kind, would have consented to meet reform halfwayunder the stimulus of patriotism and an enlightened self-interest. Against the great majority of Irish landlords there was no personalcharge. They came into incomes derived from a certain source underancient laws for which they were not responsible. But, acting throughthe ascendancy Parliament far away in London, they remained, as anorganized class--for we must always make allowance for an enlightenedand public-spirited minority--blind to their own genuine interests andto the demands of humane policy. Their responsibility was transferred toEnglish statesmen, who were not fitted, by temperament or training, toundertake it, and who always looked at the Irish land question, whichhad no counterpart in England, through English spectacles. We cannotattribute their failure to lack of information. At every stage there wasplenty of unbiassed and instructed testimony, Whig and Tory, Protestantand Catholic, independent and official, as to the nature and origin ofthe trouble. Mill and Bright, in 1862, only emphasized what Arthur Younghad said in 1772, and what Edward Wakefield, Sharman Crawford, MichaelSadler, Poulett Scrope, and many other writers, thinkers, andpoliticians had confirmed in the intervening period, and what everyfair-minded man admits now to be the truth. Commission after Commissionreported the main facts correctly, if the remedies they proposed wereinadequate. The Devon Commission, reporting in 1845, on the eve of thegreat famine, condemned the prevalent agrarian tenure, and recommendedthe statutory establishment of the Ulster custom of tenant right. A verymild and cautious Bill was introduced and dropped. 

Next year came the famine, revealing in an instant the rottenness of theeconomic foundations upon which the welfare of Ireland depended. Thepopulation had swollen from four millions in 1788 to nearly eight and ahalf millions in 1846, an unhealthy expansion, due to the well-known lawof propagation in inverse ratio to the adequacy of subsistence. Whathappened was merely the failure of the potato-crop, not a serious matterin most countries, but in Ireland the cause of starvation tothree-quarters of a million persons, and the starting-point of that vastexodus which in the last half of the nineteenth century drained Irelandof nearly four million souls. The famine passed, and with it allrecollection of the report of the Devon Commission. Hitherto most of theland legislation had been designed to facilitate evictions. Now came theEncumbered Estates Act of 1849, whose purpose was to facilitate thebuying out of bankrupt Irish landlords, and whose effect was toperpetuate the old agrarian system under a new set of more mercenarylandlords, pursuing the old policy of rack-rents and evictions. In thethree years 1849-1852, 58, 423 families were evicted, or 306, 120 souls. Aroused from the stupor of the famine, the peasants had to retaliatewith the same old defensive policy of outrage. Peaceful agitation wasof no use. The Tenant League of North and South, formed in 1852, claimedin vain the simplest of the rights granted under pressure of violence in1870 and 1881. 

Violence, indeed, was the only efficient lever in Ireland for any butsecondary reforms until the last fifteen years of the century, when aremedial policy was spontaneously adopted, with the general consent ofBritish statesmen and parties. Fear inspired the Emancipation Act of1829, which was recommended to Parliament by the Duke of Wellington as ameasure wrong in itself, but necessary to avert an organized rebellionin Ireland. Tithes, the unjust burden of a century and a half, were onlycommuted in 1838, after a Seven Years' War revolting in its incidents. Mr. Gladstone admitted, and no one who studies the course of events candeny, that without the Fenianism of the sixties, and the light thrownthereby on the condition of Ireland, it would have been impossible tocarry the Act--again overdue by a century--for the disestablishment ofthe Irish Church in 1869, or the Land Act, timid and ineffectual as itwas, of 1870. Without the organized lawlessness of the Land League itwould have been equally impossible to bring about those more drasticchanges in Irish land tenure which, amidst storms of protest from vestedinterests affected, were initiated under the great Land Act of 1881, and, after another miserable decade of crime and secret conspiracy, extended by the Acts of 1887, 1891, and 1896. 

Briefly, the effect of these Acts was to establish three principles: afair rent, fixed by a judicial tribunal, the Land Commission, andrevisable every fifteen years; fixity of tenure as long as the rent ispaid; and free sale of the tenant-right. 

The remedy eventually brought widespread relief, but, from a social andeconomic standpoint, it was not the right remedy. There is no securityfor good legislation unless it be framed by those who are to live underit. Constructive thought in Ireland for the solution of her owndifficulties and the harmonizing of her own discordant elements had beensystematically dammed, or diverted into revolutionary excesses, which, in the traditional spirit of Fitzgibbonism, were made the pretext formore stupid torture. Thus, O'Connell, whose attachment to law was sostrong that in 1843, when the Repeal agitation had reached seeminglyirresistible proportions, he deliberately restrained it, was tried forsedition. So, too, were dissipated the brilliant talents of the YoungIreland group and the grave statesmanship of Isaac Butt. Fits intervenedof a penitent and bungling philanthropy which has left its traces onnearly all Irish institutions. For example, it was decided in 1830 thatthe Irish must be educated, and a system was set up which wasdeliberately designed to anglicize Ireland and extirpate RomanCatholicism. Four years later, in defiance of Irish opinion, a Poor Lawpedantically copied from the English model was applied to Ireland. Therailway system also was grossly mismanaged. And so with the land. Whenreform eventually came, the evil had gone too far, and it was beyond theart of the ablest and noblest Englishmen, inheriting English conceptionsof the rights of landed property, to devise any means of placing therelations between landlord and tenant in Ireland, inhuman and absurd asthey were, on a sound and durable basis. The dual ownership set up bythe Land Acts was more humane, but in some respects no less absurd andmischievous. It exasperated the landlord, while, by placing before thetenant the continual temptation of further reductions in rent, it tendedto check good cultivation. 

Men came to realize at last that the complete expropriation of thelandlords through the State-aided purchase of the land was the onlylogical resource, and this process, begun tentatively and on a verysmall scale as far back as 1870, under the inspiration of John Bright, and extended under a series of other Acts, was eventually set in motionon a vast scale by the Wyndham Act of 1903. 

I leave a final review of Purchase and of other quite recent remediallegislation, as well as the far more important movements forregeneration from within, to later chapters. Meanwhile, let us pause fora moment and pronounce upon the political system which made such havocin Ireland. All this havoc, all this incalculable waste of life, energy, brains, and loyalty, was preventable and unnecessary. Ethics and honourapart, where was the common sense of the legislative Union? Would ithave been possible to design a system better calculated to embitter, impoverish, and demoralize a valuable portion of the Empire?

Let us now turn our eyes across the Atlantic, and observe the effects ofan Imperial policy founded on the same root idea. 

FOOTNOTES:

[19] "Principles of Political Economy, " vol. Ii. , p. 392. 

CHAPTER V

CANADA AND IRELAND

In comparing the history of Canada with the closely allied history ofIreland, we must bear in mind that in the last half of the eighteenthcentury the present British North America consisted of three distinctportions: Acadia, or the Maritime Provinces, which we now know asNewfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, colonized originally by a few Frenchmen and later by Scotch and Irish;Lower Canada, extensively colonized by the French, which we now know asthe Province of Quebec; and Upper Canada, which we now know as Ontario, colonized last of all by Americans under circumstances to be described. 

In 1763, before the repeal of any part of the Penal Code against IrishRoman Catholics, the French Catholic Colony of Lower Canada, with apopulation of about seventy thousand souls and the two small towns ofQuebec and Montreal, passed definitely into British possession under theTreaty of Paris, which brought to a conclusion the Seven Years' War. Fortunately, there was no question, as in Ireland, of expropriating theowners of the soil in favour of State-aided British planters, and henceno question of a Penal Code, even on the moderate scale current in GreatBritain at the same period. On the contrary, it became a matter ofurgent practical expediency to conciliate the conquered Province in viewof the growing disaffection of the American Colonies bordering it on theSouth. This disaffection, assuming ominous proportions on the enactmentof the Stamp Act in 1765, was itself an indirect result of the conquestof Canada a few years before; for the claim to tax the Americans forImperial purposes arose from the enormous expense of the war of conquestand of the subsequent charges for defence and upkeep. It was forgottenthat American volunteers had captured Louisburg in 1745, and had bornea distinguished part in later operations, and that to lay a compulsorytax upon them would banish glorious memories common to America andBritain. Henceforward, conquered French Canada was made a politicalbulwark against rebellious America. The French colonists, a peaceable, primitive folk, as attached to their religion as the Irish, and devotedmainly to agriculture, retained, as long as they desired it, the oldFrench system of law known as the Custom of Paris and the free exerciseof their religion. Like the Irish, they were strongly monarchical andstrongly conservative in feeling, and as impervious to the Republicanpropaganda emanating from their American neighbours as the CatholicIrish always at heart remained to the revolutionary principles of WolfeTone's school. Unmolested in their habits and possessions, theyphilosophically accepted the transference from the Bourbon to theHanoverian dynasty, and became an indispensable source of strength toGeorge III. When that monarch was using his German troops to coerce hisAmerican subjects and his British troops to overawe the UlsterVolunteers. 

In 1774, immediately before the outbreak of a war against which Irelandwas protesting, and in which, with the soundest justification, theIrish-Americans, Catholic and Protestant, took such a prominent partagainst the British arms, the Quebec Act was passed giving formalstatutory sanction to the Catholic religion, and setting up a nominatedlegislative Council, whose members were subject to no religious test. InIreland it was not till six years later, and, as we have seen, by meansof precisely the same pressure--British fear of America--that the IrishProtestant Volunteers obtained the abolition of the test for Dissenters, while Catholics in Ireland were still little more than outlaws, and hadto wait for nearly sixty years for complete emancipation. The result ofthe Quebec Act, together with the sympathetic administration of thatgreat Irishman, Sir Guy Carleton, was the firm allegiance of the FrenchProvince in spite of an exceedingly formidable invasion, during thewhole of the American War, and even after the intervention of EuropeanFrance. It is part of the dramatic irony of these occurrences that someof the invading army was composed of Morgan's Irish-American riflemen, and that one of the two joint leaders of the invasion was theIrish-American, General Richard Montgomery, who fell at the unsuccessfulassault of Quebec on December 31, 1775. 

In spite of Burke's noble appeal in the House of Commons, toleration inthe abstract had nothing to do with the treatment of the FrenchCatholics. British Catholics in the neighbouring Prince Edward Islandwere denied all civil rights in 1770, and only gained them in 1830. InEngland, the Quebec Act with difficulty survived a storm of indignation, in which even Chatham joined. The small minority of British settled inQuebec and Montreal made vehement protests, while the American Congressitself in 1774 committed the irreparable blunder of making theestablishment of the Roman Catholic religion in Canada one of itsformally published grievances against Great Britain. When war broke out, and the magnitude of the mistake was seen, efforts were made to seducethe Canadians by hints of a coming British tyranny, but the Canadiansvery naturally abode by their first impressions. 

The peace of 1783 and the final recognition of American Independence ledto results of far-reaching importance for the further development of theBritish Empire. Out of the loss of the American Colonies came thefoundation of Australia and of British Canada. Before the war it hadbeen the custom to send convicts from the United Kingdom to penalsettlements in the American Colonies. The United States stopped thistraffic. Pitt's Government decided, after several years of doubt anddelay, to divert the stream of convicts to the newly acquired and stillunpopulated territory of New South Wales, made known by the voyages ofCaptain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks. At the same period a very differentclass of men, seeking a new home, were thrown upon the charity of theBritish Government. These were the "United Empire Loyalists, " as theystyled themselves, some 40, 000 Americans, with a sprinkling of Irishmenamong them, such as Luke Carscallion, Peter Daly, Willet Casey, and JohnCanniff, [20] who had fought on the Royalist side throughout the war, andat the end of it found their fortunes ruined and themselves the objectsof keen resentment. Pitt, with a "total lack of Imperial imagination, "as Mr. Holland Rose puts it, [21] does not seem to have considered theplan of colonizing Australia with a part of these men, 433 of whom werereported to be living in destitution in London three years after thewar. No more alacrity was shown in relieving the distress of those stillin America. In 1788, however, a million and a quarter pounds were votedby Parliament for relief, and large grants of land were made in Canada, whither most of the Loyalists had already begun to emigrate. Some wentto the Maritime Provinces, notably to the region now known as NewBrunswick; a few went to the towns of the Quebec Province, for thecountry lands on the lower reaches of the St. Lawrence were alreadymonopolized by the French "habitants"; the rest, estimated at 10, 000, tothe upper reaches of the St. Lawrence and along the shores of the LakesOntario and Erie, in short, to what we now know as the Province ofOntario, and to what then became known as Upper Canada. 

From this moment the three Canadas gain sharp definition. To the westUpper Canada, exclusively American or, as we must now say, British incharacter; next to the east, and cutting off its neighbour from the sea, the ancient Province of Lower Canada, predominantly French, with aminority of British traders in the two towns Quebec and Montreal; lastof all the Maritime Provinces, small communities with an almostindependent history of their own, although, like Upper and Lower Canada, they eventually presented a problem similar fundamentally to the Irishproblem on the other side of the Atlantic. Prince Edward Island is theclosest parallel, for, besides the Catholic disabilities of 1770, in1767 the whole of its land had been granted away by ballot in a singleday to a handful of absentee English proprietors, who sublet tooccupiers without security of tenure, with the result that a landquestion similar to that of Ireland arose, which inflamed society andretarded the development of the island for a whole century. Ultimately, moreover, statesmen were driven to an even more drasticsolution--compulsory and universal State-aided land purchase. [22] Beforethe period we have now reached, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, which was carved out of it, had been given rude systems ofrepresentative Government, and New Brunswick, also at one time a part ofNova Scotia, received a Constitution in 1784. 

The great question after the American War was how to govern the twocontiguous Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, the one newly settled bymen of British race and Protestant faith, the other also under theBritish flag, but overwhelmingly French and Catholic, both, in thecritical half-century to come, to be reinforced by immigrants from theOld World, and to a large extent from misgoverned Ireland. But let thereader once and for all grasp this point, that, once out of Ireland, there ceases, not immediately, but in course of time, to be any racialor political distinction between the different classes of Irishmen, whose antagonism at home, artificially provoked and fomented by the badform of government under which they lived, so often made Ireland itselfa very hell on earth. I want to dwell on this point in order to avoidconfusion when I speak of the bi-racial conditions of Lower Canada andIreland respectively. 

To return to the question of Government. The American Colonies werelost. Here in Canada was an opportunity for a new Imperial policy, better calculated to retain the affections of the colonists. Threedistinct problems were involved:

1. Was French or Lower Canada, with its small minority of British, to begiven representative Government at all?

2. If so, was it to be left as a separate unit, or was it to beamalgamated in a Union with its neighbour, Upper Canada?

3. Whichever course was taken, what was to be the relation between theHome Government and Canada?

All these questions arise in the case of Ireland itself, and theparallel in each case is interesting. In Canada they were determined forthe space of half a century by the Constitutional Act of 1791, passed atthe period when Grattan's unreformed Parliament was hastening to itsfall, and Wolfe Tone was founding his Society of United Irishmen. Let ustake in turn the three questions posed above. 

1. The British minority in Lower Canada, supported by a correspondingschool in England, were strong for an undisguised British ascendancy, without any recognition of the French. They urged, what was true, thatthe French were unaccustomed to representative government, and implied, what was neither true nor politic, that they could not, and ought notto, be educated to it. If there was to be an Assembly at all, it should, they claimed, be wholly British and Protestant, or, in the alternative, the Protestant minority only should be represented at Westminster. Inother words, they wished either for the pre-Union Irish system or forthe post-Union Irish system, both of them, as time was just beginning toprove, equally disastrous to the interests of Ireland. We are notsurprised to find these ideas supported by the Irishman Burke, in whomhorror of the French Revolution had destroyed the last particle ofLiberalism. If Pitt lacked "Imperial imagination, " he knew more thanmost of his contemporaries about the elementary principles of governingwhite men. It was only a few years before that he had urged upon hisIrish Viceroy, Rutland, a reform of the Irish Parliament which mighthave united the races and averted all the disasters to come, and in thisvery year (1791) he was pressing forward the Catholic franchise inIreland. The French in Canada must, he said, be represented in a popularAssembly equally with the British, and on the broadest possiblefranchise, and they were. 

2. The next question was that of the union or separation of Upper andLower Canada. Here, and from the same underlying motive, the Britishminority in Lower Canada were for the Union, partly on commercialgrounds, but mainly as a step in the direction of overcoming Frenchinfluence. Upper Canada, wholly British, was, on the whole, neutral. Pitt, on high principle, again took correct ground. He did not, indeed, foresee that separation, for geographical reasons, would cause certaininconveniences; but he did understand--and experience in both Provincesultimately proved him right--that it was absolutely hopeless to try andavert social and racial discord by artificially swamping the Frenchelement. He declared, then, for the separation of the two Canadas intotwo distinct Provinces. Note the beginnings of another, though adistant, analogy with the relations of Ireland and Great Britain, distant because the French at this time largely outnumbered the Britishof both Provinces, and in after-years maintained something very near anumerical equality. But the same underlying principle was involved. Pitt, in the Legislative Union of Ireland and Great Britain nine yearslater, constructed without geographical necessity, indeed, in defianceof geography and humanity, the very system which, in a form bycomparison almost innocuous, he had condemned for Canada; but not, wemust in fairness remember, before doing his part at an earlier date toarrive at a solution which, given a fair chance, would have rendered theUnion of Ireland and England unnecessary. 

3. So far, good. But there still remained a further question fartranscending the other in importance--What was to be the relationbetween the Home Government and the new Colonies? Here all Britishintellects, that of Fox alone excepted, were as much at a loss as ever. One simple deduction was made from what had happened in America, namely, that the new Colonies must not be forced to contribute to Imperial fundsby taxes levied from London. That claim had already been abandoned in1778 by the Colonial Tax Repeal Act, which nevertheless expresslyreserved the King's right to levy "such duties as it may be expedient toimpose for the regulation of commerce, " the sum so raised to be retainedfor the use of the Colony. No one made the more comprehensive deduction, even in the case of wholly British Upper Canada, that Colonial affairsshould be controlled by Colonial opinion, constitutionally ascertained, and that the British Governor should act primarily through adviserschosen by the majority of the people under his rule. We must bear inmind that, had Grattan's Parliament been reformed, and the warring racesin Ireland been brought into harmony, it would still have had to passthrough the crucial phase of establishing its right to choose Ministersby whose advice the Lord-Lieutenant should be guided, that is, if itwere to become a true Home Rule Parliament of the kind we aim at to-day. 

From the date of the Constitutional Act passed for Canada in 1791, ittook fifty-six troubled years and an armed rebellion in each Province toestablish the principle of what we call "responsible Government" forCanada, and, through Canada, for the rest of the white Colonies of theEmpire. During these fifty-six years, which correspond in Irish historyto a period dating from the middle of Grattan's Parliament down to thegreat Famine, ascendancies, with the symptoms of disease which alwaysattended ascendancies, grew up in Canada, as they had in Ireland, inspite of conditions which were far more favourable in Canada to healthypolitical growth. Canada started with this great advantage over Ireland, that instead of a corrupt parody of a Parliament, each of her Provinces, under the Constitutional Act of 1791, had a real popular Assembly, elected without regard to race or religion. It was the Upper House orLegislative Council, as it was called, that interposed the firstobstacle to the free working of popular institutions. In both Provincesthis Council was nominated by the Governor, and could be used, and wasnaturally used, to represent minority interests and obstruct the popularassembly. Fox had correctly prophesied that it would soon come "toinspire hatred and contempt. " But he did not mean that such a chamberwas in itself an insuperable bar to harmony. Nominated or hereditarysecond chambers are not necessarily inconsistent with populargovernment, provided that the Executive Government itself possesses theconfidence of the representative Assembly. Under that lever, obstructioneventually gives way. But this idea of a tie of confidence between theGovernors and the governed was exactly what was lacking. 

The Executive Council in each Province was also chosen by the BritishGovernor or Lieutenant-Governor, generally a military man, from personsrepresenting either his own purely British policy or the ideas of aprivileged colonial minority, and without regard to the wishes oropinions of the Colonial Assembly, just as the Executive officers inIreland, both before and after the Union, were chosen out ofcorresponding elements by the Lord-Lieutenant or Chief Secretary, actingunder the orders of the British Government, and without any regard tothe wishes or opinions of the majority of Irishmen. Behind all, inremote Downing Street stood the British Government, in the shape of theColonial Office for Canada and the Irish Office for Ireland, bothworking in dense ignorance of the real needs of the countries for whichthey were responsible, and permeated with prejudice and pedantry. Tocomplete the parallel, there was now a foreign Power in the closeneighbourhood of each dependency, the United States in the case ofCanada, France in the case of Ireland, both of them Republican Powers, and both able and willing to take advantage of disaffection in thedependencies in order to further a quarrel with the Mother Country. Wehave seen the results in Ireland. Let us now observe the results inCanada, taking especial care to notice that an ascendancy Governmentgives rise to the same type of evil in a uni-racial as in a bi-racialcommunity. 

Let us glance first at what happened in Upper Canada, which wasuni-racial, that is, composed of settlers from the United Kingdom(including Ireland) and America. Here the original settlers, the "UnitedEmpire Loyalists" from America, formed from the first, and maintainedfor half a century, an ascendancy of wealth and religion over theincoming settlers, who soon constituted the majority of the population. As in Ireland, though in a degree small by comparison, there was a landquestion and a religious question, closely related to one another. Happily, it was not a case of robbery, but of simple monopoly. Excessively large grants of land, nine-tenths of which remaineduncultivated, were obtained by the original settlers, most of whom wereEpiscopalian in faith, and, under the Act of 1791, further tracts ofenormous extent, which for the most part lay waste and idle, were setapart in each township, under the name of "Clergy Reserves" for theEpiscopalian Church. Since the majority of the incoming settlers werePresbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, or Roman Catholics, many of themfrom the Protestant and Catholic parts of Ireland, some from America, some even from Germany, these conditions caused intense irritation, checking both the development of the country and the growth of solidcharacter among the colonists. Absentee ownership was a grave economicevil, though happily it was not complicated and embittered by a vicioussystem of tenure. Education suffered severely through the diversion ofthe income from public lands to private purposes. 

The ascendancy was maintained on lines familiar in Ireland--through themutual dependence of the colonial minority and the Home Governmentacting through its Governor. A few leading Episcopalian families fromamong the United Empire Loyalists, installed at Toronto, with thesupport of a succession of High Tory Lieutenant-Governors, monopolizedthe Executive Council, the Legislative Council, the Bench, the Bar, andall offices of profit, denying a Canadian career to the vast majority ofUpper Canadians, just as Irishmen were excluded from an Irish career. For a long time the Assembly itself, which retained its originalConstitution long after the influx of immigrants had rendered necessaryits enlargement on a new electoral basis, was a subject of monopolyalso. Even when enlarged in 1821 it was helpless against the nominatedCouncil and Executive, backed by Downing Street. The oligarchy came tobe known by the name of the "family compact, " and, as the reader willobserve, it bore a close resemblance in form to the "undertaker" systemin Ireland before the Union, and to the monopoly of patronage obtainedby certain families, notably the Beresfords. 

While the Colony was still small, the system worked tolerably well; butfrom the second decade of the nineteenth century onwards, when thepopulation grew from 150, 000 to 250, 000 in 1832, and to 500, 000 a fewyears later, and the Episcopalians sank into a numerical minority as lowas a quarter, troubles of the Irish type became proportionately acute. The Colony was in reality perfectly content with its position under theCrown, and in the war with America in 1812 all classes and creeds unitedto repel invasion with enthusiasm. One of the prominent leaders was anIrishman, James Fitzgibbon, and a poor Irish private, James O'Hara, wonfame by refusing to surrender at the capture of Toronto Fort. As usual, however, a fictitious standard of "loyalty, " which, in fact, meantprivilege, was set up, obscuring those questions of good governmentwhich were the only real matters at issue in Canada, as in Ireland. There were Republican immigrants of many denominations from America, Radicals of Cobbett's school from England and Scotland, tenants of ademocratic turn from Ulster, and a growing stream of Catholic cottiersflying from the "clearances" and tithe war in other Irish Provinces. Allthese classes of men made excellent settlers, and only wanted fair andequal treatment to make them perfectly peaceable citizens. To theofficial oligarchy, however, even their moderate leaders came to beviewed as rebels, and were often subjected to imprisonment or tobanishment. 

Among others William Gourlay, a Scotsman, Stephen Willcocks and FrancisCollins, Irishmen, all three perfectly respectable reformers, sufferedin this way. Bidwell, the great Robert Baldwin, and other good men wererendered powerless for good. As invariably happens in any part of theworld where a course is pursued which estranges moderate men andembitters extreme men, agitators came to the front lacking thatself-control and sense of responsibility which the sobering education ofoffice alone can give, and generally ruining themselves while theybenefit humanity at large. Chief of these was W. L. Mackenzie, aPresbyterian Scot from Dundee. All this man really wanted was whatexists to-day as a matter of course in all self-governingcountries--responsible government. He even conceived that great idea ofthe Confederation of British North America, which came to birth in 1867. Thwarted in his attacks on the oligarchy, he degenerated into violentcourses, and ultimately organized, or rather was provoked intoorganizing, the rebellion of 1837. The grievances which led to thisoutbreak were genuine and severe, and were all in course of timeadmitted and redressed. One, the powerlessness of the Assembly, owing tothe control by the Executive of annual sums sufficient to pay theofficial expenses of Government, corresponded to a pre-Union Irishgrievance, and was remedied by an Act of 1831. Most of the othergrievances were incurable by constitutional effort. They may be foundsummarized in the "Seventh Report of Grievances, " a temperate andtruthful document drawn up by a Committee of the Assembly in 1835. Thehuge unsettled Clergy Reserves and Crown Lands were the worst concreteabuse, and matters had just then been aggravated by the suddenestablishment of scores of sinecure rectories. Jobbery, maladministration, and the dependence of the judges on the Executivewere other complaints; but the main assault was made quite rightly onthe form of the Colonial Government, which rendered peaceful reform ofany abuse as impossible as in Ireland, and the cardinal claim was thatthe Executive should act, not under the dictation of Downing Street, ofan irresponsible Governor, or of a narrow colonial oligarchy, but inaccordance with popular opinion. Mackenzie's rebellion of 1837 was a nomore formidable affair than the similar efforts in Ireland made underincomparably greater provocation by Emmett in 1803 and Smith O'Brien in1848, and was as easily suppressed; but, unlike the Irish outbreaks, andin conjunction with a revolt arising in the same year and from similarcauses in the adjoining Province of Lower Canada, it led to a completechange of system. 

In Lower Canada the same preposterous system of government wasaggravated by the presence of the two races, French and English. Yetthere was nothing inherently dangerous or unwholesome about thissituation. The French, like the Catholics in Ireland, never showed thesmallest tendency towards religious intolerance, nor were they lessloyal at heart than the Radicals of Upper Canada or the Tories of eitherProvince. They took the same energetic part in repelling the Americaninvasion of 1812, and produced at least one remarkable leader in theperson of Colonel Salaberry, who commanded the French-CanadianVoltigeurs. Like their co-religionists in Ireland, they weretemperamentally averse to Republicanism in any shape, whether on theAmerican model over the border or on the model of revolutionary France, where Republicanism since 1793 was anti-Catholic and the result ofmiseries and oppressions as bad as those in Ireland; whence, moreover, many priests and nobles fled from persecution to Lower Canada. As ineighteenth-century Ireland, we find that the Roman Catholic clergy, the_seigneurs_ or aristocrats, and the _habitants_ or peasants, were of aConservative cast, throwing their weight, often even against their owninterests, into the scale of the established Government, while thelawyers and journalists alone produced determined agitators. The racialcleavage, moreover, as in Ireland, was artificially accentuated by thepolitical system. There was in reality a strong community of interestbetween the British lower class and the French lower class against thetyranny of an official clique, and to the end a substantial number ofEnglishmen worked with the French for reform; but with the failure oftheir efforts came that inevitable tightening of the bonds of race, evenagainst interest, which we have seen operating with such lamentableeffect in Ireland. And, as in Ireland, we find the best instincts ofthe people withered and perverted into rebellion by "Fitzgibbonism, " thepolicy of distrust and coercion. 

The British official ascendancy, supreme from the first, becameextraordinarily rigid. The Executive Council and Legislative Councilwere almost entirely British, the Assembly overwhelmingly French. Therewere no regular heads of departments, so that the Governor had noskilled advice, much less responsible advice. The Councils blocked alllegislation they disliked, and for more than forty years, by means ofunrestricted control over a large part of the provincial revenues, wereable to defy the Assembly. It will be observed that, although Irelandnever had anything worth calling an Assembly, her structure both beforeand after the Union was essentially the same, in that Irish publicopinion, whether voiced by the Volunteers against the unreformedParliament or after the Union by the Nationalist party at Westminster, was powerless. The existence of a popular Assembly in Canada only madethe anomalies more obvious. 

There were, of course, marked divergencies of character and less markeddivergencies of interest between the French majority and the Britishminority in Canada. The French, by comparison, were a backward andconservative race, less well educated and less progressive and energeticboth in agriculture and commerce than the British. On the other hand, subsequent experience showed that, under free constitutional government, British intelligence, wealth, and energy would, here as elsewhere, havepreserved their full legitimate influence. Under a system whichthrottled French ideas and aspirations, and treated the most harmlesspopular movements as treasonable machinations, deadlock and anarchy werein the long run inevitable. 

The popular demands were much the same as those in Upper Canada: controlof the purse, the independence of the judges, an elective LegislativeCouncil, and a curtailment of the arbitrary powers and privileges of theExecutive, which led to gross jobbery, favouritism, and extravagance. Asin Upper Canada, the greatest practical grievance, though it assumed asomewhat different form, was the disposal of the public lands. Here, too, there were extensive and undeveloped Clergy Reserves for theEpiscopalian Church, as well as free grants on a large scale tospeculators. The estates of the Jesuit Order had been confiscated, sothat disputes about their disposal were tinged with religiousbitterness. But most of the friction over the land question came fromthe operations of a chartered land company, which, under the protectionof the Government, and with financial and political support fromEngland, dealt with the unsettled land in a manner very unfair and oftencorrupt, and promoted here, as in Upper Canada and Ireland, absenteeownership. 

The popular agitation ran the same course as in Upper Canada, reachedits crisis at the same moment, threw into prominence the same types ofmen, moderate and extreme, and produced the same waste of good humanmaterial and distortion of human character, both in the ascendant andthe subject classes. As Sir John Cockburn tells us in his "PoliticalAnnals of Canada" (p. 177), some of the most incendiary speakers andwriters (in 1836) were "most able and worthy men, who in the subsequentdays of tranquillity occupied most prominent and distinguished positionsin the public service, revered as loyal, true, and able statesmen by allclasses. " The popular movement was by no means wholly French. A Scot, John Neilson; an Englishman, Wilfred Nelson; and an Irish journalist, Dr. O'Callaghan, were prominent members of a kind of Radical party; butthe ablest and most influential among the agitators, and in everyrespect more admirable than Mackenzie, was the Frenchman, LouisPapineau, who first became Speaker of the Assembly in 1817, and retainedthat high position until the verge of the rebellion of 1837. By no meansdevoid of superficial faults, but eloquent, honest, accomplished andadored by his compatriots, here was a man who, if he had been givenreasonable scope for his talents, and steadied by officialresponsibility, would have been a tower of strength to the Colony andthe British connection. He corresponds in position and aims, and to acertain extent in character and gifts, to his great Irish contemporary, O'Connell. But O'Connell was too conservative to produce great results. Papineau, dashing himself in vain for twenty years against theentrenched camp of the ascendancy, finally degenerated, like Mackenzie, into a commonplace rebel. 

The phases through which the agitation passed before it reached thisdisastrous point need only a brief review. Naturally enough, owing tothe bi-racial conditions, friction had arisen earlier in Lower than inUpper Canada, yet the first recognition of the flagrant defects of theConstitution was not made till 1828, when a Committee of the BritishHouse of Commons published a Report which, though its recommendationswere mild and inadequate, was in effect a censure of the whole politicalsystem of the Province and an admission of the justice of the agitation. There was no result for four years, while matters went from bad to worsein the Colony. At last, in 1832, under an Act similar to that passed forUpper Canada, all the provincial revenues were placed under the controlof the Assembly in return for the voting of a fixed Civil List. Thiswell-meant half-measure made matters worse, because it left the Assemblyjust as powerless as before over the details of legislation andadministration, while giving it the power to paralyze the Government byrefusing all, instead of only part, of the supplies. This it proceededto do, and in the next five years large deficits were piled up, and theColony became insolvent. 

Meanwhile, in February, 1834, a year before the publication of the"Seventh Report of Grievances" in Upper Canada, and three months beforeO'Connell's celebrated motion in the House of Commons for the Repeal ofthe Union between England and Ireland, the Assembly of Lower Canada, atPapineau's instance, passed the equally celebrated "Ninety-twoResolutions. " Bombastic and diffuse, like parts of O'Connell's speech, this historic document nevertheless was as true in all really essentialrespects as Mackenzie's manifesto and as O'Connell's tremendousindictment of the system of Government in Ireland. All three men, O'Connell with far the most justification, demanded the same thing, goodgovernment for their respective countries under a responsible Parliamentand Ministry. They all occasionally used wild language, O'Connell theleast wild. O'Connell, who nine years later deliberately quenched apopular revolt he could have headed, failed in his aim as completely asTone, Emmett, and Smith O'Brien, who pressed their efforts to the pointof violence. Mackenzie and Papineau, who took to arms, succeeded intheir aim. 

The crisis in Lower Canada was precipitated, and, indeed, provoked, by achallenge thrown out in March, 1837, from the British House of Commons, where, at Lord John Russell's instance, the Ten Resolutions were agreedto, which amounted in effect to a denial of all the colonial claims anda declaration of war upon those who made them. Papineau had to eat hiswords or make them good, and he chose the latter course. Hisinsurrection was arranged in concert with that of the Upper Province, broke out simultaneously in the winter of 1837, and was extinguishedwith little difficulty. The men who made it suffered. Canada and theEmpire profited. Both Papineau and Mackenzie, following the precedent ofWolfe Tone with France, endeavoured with little success to engageAmerican sympathy and the aid of her army, though Canada had as littledesire for American rule as Ireland had for French rule. 

Let us remark, as an interesting fact for those who imagine thatIrishmen are always instinctively on the side of turbulence anddisorder, that the Irish immigrants who poured into Canada at theaverage annual rate of 20, 000 in the years--terrible years inIreland--preceding the rebellions, [23] acted much as we might expect. Inthe Lower Province, following the lead of the French Catholic hierarchy, they declared in November, 1837, against Papineau's party, and thusstrengthened the hands of the Government when the crisis approached. [24]In the Upper Province Catholics were strongly on the side of reform, buttook no part in the rebellion. Orangemen in both Provinces, as we mightguess, sided as strongly with the ascendancy parties, but colonial airseems to have taken some of the theological venom out of Orangeism. IfCharles Buller is to be trusted, some Catholics joined the societies inUpper Canada, which were more Tory than religious, and the healths ofWilliam of Orange and the Catholic Bishop Macdonnell were drunk inimpartial amity. [25]

In the meantime, three of the four outlying Provinces of NorthAmerica--Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island--where thesame form of Constitution prevailed as in Upper and Lower Canada, hadbeen passing through a similar phase of misgovernment and agitationduring the previous thirty years. Each suffered under a littlemonopolist ascendancy, called by the same name, "the family compact, "and sustained, against the prevailing sentiment and interest, by theBritish Governor, and in each had arisen, or was arising, the same louddemand for responsible government. Samuel Wilmot in New Brunswick, Joseph Howe in Nova Scotia, were the best-known spokesmen. There was noviolence, but a growing dislocation. In five Provinces of North America, therefore, the Colonial Government had broken down or was tottering, andfrom exactly the same cause as in Ireland, though under provocationinfinitely less grave. For the moment, however, attention wasconcentrated upon the Canadas, where, as a result of the rebellion, theConstitution of Lower Canada was suspended early in 1838. In the summerof 1838 Lord Durham, the Radical peer, was sent out by Melbourne'sMinistry as Governor-General, with provisionally despotic powers, andwith instructions to advise upon a new form of government. 

Before we come to Durham's proposals, let us pause and examine the stateof home opinion on the Irish and Colonial questions. The people of GreatBritain at large had no opinion at all. They were ignorant both ofCanada and Ireland, and had been engaged, and, indeed, were stillengaged, in a political struggle of their own which absorbed all theirenergies. The Chartist movement in 1838 was assuming grave proportions. The Reform, won in 1832 under the menace of revolution and in the midstof shocking disorders, was in reality a first step toward the domesticHome Rule that Ireland and the five Provinces of North America wereclamouring for. Tory statesmen were quite alive to this political fact, and condemned all the political movements, British, Irish, and Colonial, indiscriminately and on the same broad anti-democratic grounds. The Dukeof Wellington, who was not a friend of the Reform Act, and had onlyadopted Catholic Emancipation in order to avoid civil war in Ireland, speaking about Canada in the House of Lords on January 18, 1838, coupledtogether the United States, British North America, and Ireland asdismal examples of the folly of concession to popular demands. Pointingto the results of the Canada Act of 1831, to which I have alreadyalluded, and which gave the Assemblies control of the provincialrevenue, and with an eye, no doubt, on the tithe war barely at an end inIreland, he said: "Let noble lords learn from Canada and our otherdominions in North America what it is to hold forth what are calledpopular rights, but which are not popular rights here or elsewhere, andwhat occasion is given thereby to perpetuate a system of agitation whichends in insurrection and rebellion. "

The Whig statesmen who, if we except Peel's short Administration of1834-35, were in power from 1830 to 1841, though by no means democraticmen, were clear enough about Reform for Great Britain, but nearly asignorant and quite as wrong about Ireland and Canada as the Tories. Theonly prominent Parliamentarian who, as after events proved, correctlydiagnosed and prescribed for the disease in both countries wasO'Connell. Not fully alive to the Irish analogy, but correct from firstto last about Canada, was a small group of independent Radicals, of whomRoebuck, Hume, Grote, Molesworth, and Leader were the principalrepresentatives. After the insurrections in Canada came John StuartMill, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Charles Buller, and with them Lord Durhamhimself. 

No one can understand either Irish or Colonial history without readingthe debates of this period in the Lords and Commons on Canada andIreland. Alternating with one another with monotonous regularity, theynevertheless leave an impression of an extraordinary lack ofearnestness, sympathy, and knowledge, and an extraordinary degree ofprejudice and of bigotry in the Parliament to whose care for better orworse the welfare of nearly ten millions of British citizens outsideGreat Britain was entrusted. Save for an occasional full-dress debate atsome peculiarly critical juncture, the debates were ill-attended. Theprevailing sentiment seems to have been that Ireland and Canada, leavened by a few respectable "loyalists" and officials, on the whole, were two exceedingly mutinous and embarrassing possessions, which, nevertheless, it was the duty of every self-respecting Briton to dragooninto obedience. Both dependencies were assumed to be equally expensive, though, in fact, Ireland, as we know now, was showing a handsome profitat the time, whereas Canada was costing a quarter of a million a year. For the rest, the pride of power tempered a sort of fatalistic apathy. In the case of Ireland the element of pure selfishness was stronger, because the immense vested interests, lay and clerical, in Irish landwere strongly represented. The proximity of Ireland, too, renderedcoercion more obvious and easy. Otherwise, her case was the same as thatof Canada. "The Canadas are endeavouring to escape from us, America hasescaped us, but Ireland shall not escape us, " said an English member toO'Connell just before the Repeal debate of 1834. Such was the currentview. 

Yet, as in the case of Ireland and of the lost American Colonies, thematerials for knowledge of Canada were considerable. Petitions pouredin; Committees and Commissions were appointed, and made reports whichwere consigned to oblivion. Roebuck, one of the small Radical group, washimself a Lower Canadian by birth, and acted as agent at Westminster forthe popular party in that Province. He was as impotent as O'Connell, thespokesman of the Irish popular party. If the Colonial Office was notquite the "den of peculation and plunder" which Hume called it in1838, [26] it was an obscure and irresponsible department, where jobberywas as rife as in Dublin Castle. In the ten years of colonial crisis(1828-1838), there were eight different Colonial Secretaries and sixIrish Chief Secretaries. 

Over and above all this apathy and arrogance was the perfectly genuineincapacity to comprehend that idea of responsible government which eventhe most hot-headed and erratic of the colonial agitators didinstinctively comprehend. Until Durham had at last opened Lord JohnRussell's eyes, the great Whig statesman was as positive and explicit asthe Tories, Wellington and Stanley, in declaring that it was utterlyimpossible for the Monarch's Representative overseas to govern otherwisethan by instructions from home and through Ministers appointed byhimself in the name of the King. One constitutional King ruled overGreat Britain, Canada, and Ireland. He could not be advised by two setsof Ministers. The thing was not only an unthinkably absurd nullificationof the whole Imperial theory, but, in practice, would destroy anddissolve the Empire. William IV. Himself told Lord Melbourne that it washis "fixed resolution never to permit any despatch to be sent . .. Thatcan for a moment hold out the most distant idea of the King everpermitting the question even to be entertained by His Majesty'sconfidential servants of a most remote bearing relative to any change ofthe appointment of the King's Councils in the numerous Colonies. " LordStanley said, in 1837, that the "double responsibility" was impossible, that there must either be separation or no responsible government, andthat it was "no longer a question of expediency but of Empire. " LordJohn Russell, polished, sober, scorning to descend to the mere vulgarabuse of the colonials which disfigured the utterances of many of hisopponents, struggling visibly to reconcile Liberalism with Empire, nevertheless arrived at the same conclusion. In a debate of March 6, forexample, in the same year, in proposing the defiant Resolutions whichprovoked the rebellion in Canada, he argued at length that a responsibleColonial Ministry was "incompatible with the relations of a MotherCountry and a Colony, " and would be "subversive of the power of theBritish Crown, " and again, on December 22, that it meant "independence. "O'Connell rightly replied to the former speech that Russell and hisfollowers were supporting "principles that had been the fruitful sourceof civil war, dissension, and distractions in Ireland for centuries. "The Radical group pushed home the Irish parallel. Hume quoted, asapplicable to Canada, Fox's saying: "I would have the whole IrishGovernment regulated by Irish notions and Irish prejudices, and I firmlybelieve . .. That the more she is under Irish Government the more shewill be bound to English interests. " Molesworth declared, what wasperfectly true at that moment of passion and folly, that his extremepolitical opponents wanted to make the reconquest of Ireland a precedentfor the reconquest of Canada. 

It would repay the reader to turn back from this debate to the IrishRepeal Debate of three years earlier, and listen to Sir Robert Peelstating as one of the "truths which be too deep for argument, " that theRepeal of the Union "must lead to the dismemberment of this greatEmpire, must make Great Britain a fourth-rate Power, and Ireland asavage wilderness, " which, as a matter of fact, it was at the very timehe was speaking, after thirty years of the Legislative Union, and sevenhundred years of irresponsible government. We must listen to himclaiming that the beneficent and impartial British Government was"saving Ireland from civil war" between its own "warring sects, "whereas, in fact, it was that Government which had brought those warringsects into being, which had fomented and exploited their dissensions, which had provoked the rebellion of 1798, and by its shameful neglectand partiality in the succeeding generation had flung Ireland into asocial condition hardly distinguishable from "civil war. " And we mustrealize that closely similar arguments, with special stress on the rightof taxation, had been used for the coercion of the American Colonies, and that exactly the same arguments, founded on the same inversion ofcause and effect, were used to defend the coercion of Canada. There, also, the Fitzgibbonist doctrine of revenge and oppression by a majorityvested with power was freely used, even by Lord John Russell, in hisspeech of March 6, 1837, and of December 22 in the same year, when hespoke of the "deadly animosity" of the French and "of the wickedness ofabandoning the British to proscription, loss of property, and probablyof lives. " He ignored the fact that the same state of anarchy had beenreached in uni-racial Upper Canada as in bi-racial Canada, and that the"loyalists" in both cases were not only in the same state of unreasoningalarm for their vested rights, but, in the spirit of the Ulstermen ofthat day and ever since, were threatening to "cut the painter, " anddeclare for annexation to the United States if their ascendancy were notsustained by the Home Government. Then, as to-day, the ascendantminority were supported in their threats by a section of Britishpoliticians. Lord Stanley's speech of March 8, 1837, where he boastedthat the "loyal minority of wealth, education, and enterprise" wouldprotect themselves, and, if necessary, call in the United States, isbeing matched in speeches of to-day. In all the debates of the period itis interesting to see the ignorance which prevailed about the troublesin Upper Canada. The racial question in Lower Canada, owing to theanalogy with Ireland, was seized on to the exclusion of the underlyingand far more important political question in both Provinces. 

Against the policy of the two great political parties in England thelittle group of Radicals struggled manfully, and in the long run not invain, although for years they had to submit to insult and contumely intheir patriotic efforts to expose the vices of the colonialadministration and to avert the rebellion they foresaw in the Canadas. What they feared, with only too good cause, was that the American andIrish precedents would be followed, and war made for the coercion of theCanadas, to be followed, if successful, by a still more despotic form ofgovernment, which would in its turn provoke a new revolt. Rather thanthat such a catastrophe should take place, they went, rightly, to theextreme point of saying that an "amicable separation" should bearranged, maintaining, what is indisputable, that the claims of humanityshould supersede the claims of possession. With Russell himselfdeclaring till the eleventh hour that responsible government was out ofthe question because it meant "separation, " they were quite justified indemanding that separation, if indeed inevitable, should come about byagreement, not as the possible result of a fratricidal war. For such awar, though Russell could not see it until Durham made him see it, wasthe only alternative to the grant of responsible government. But theRadicals never used this argument unless circumstances forced them to. Molesworth, in a debate of March 6, 1838, denounced the prevailing viewof the Colonies, insisted that we should be proud of them and studytheir interests, that reform, not separation, should be our aim. TheRadicals were fully aware of the alternatives, and were unwearied inpointing out the justice and policy, in the Imperial interests, ofacceding to the colonial popular demands. Grote had expressed the truthin the December debate of 1837, when he implored the House "not to use atone of triumph at the superior power of England, " but to remember thatthe colonists, "though freemen, like ourselves, " desired to remain, "ifthey could do so with honour, in connection with England as the MotherCountry. " He was followed by a gentleman named Inglis, who said that "itwas in Canada as in Ireland, " a faction called itself Canada, and thatwe must bring "back the colonists, " like the Irish, "to subordination. "

Roebuck, who led the Radicals in Canadian matters, had some of thefaults of Papineau and Mackenzie; yet posterity should give him and hiscomrades credit for a constructive Imperialism which the great men ofhis day lacked. It is now known that he and Sir William Molesworthpowerfully influenced Durham's policy. In a paper he drew up at Durham'srequest on the eve of that nobleman's departure for Canada he sketched aplan, imperfect in some details, but wise in broad conception, forpacifying the Canadas, and went further in elaborating a scheme, alsodefective, for the Confederation of British North America under theCrown on the lines conceived by the despised demagogue, Mackenzie. [27]But the two men who, by influencing Durham, probably did most to saveCanada for the Empire and to lay the foundations of the present Imperialstructure, were Charles Buller, the Radical M. P. , and Edward GibbonWakefield, both of whom accompanied the new Governor-General to Canada, and who are generally believed to have inspired, if they did notactually write, the greater part of the celebrated Report which becamethe Magna Charta of the self-governing Colonies of the Empire. 

A word about the events which ended in the publication of this Report. Durham reached Canada at the end of May, 1838, and in November wasrecalled in disgrace for exceeding--strange as it seems!--the almostabsolute powers temporarily entrusted to him. He was an extraordinarymixture of a despot and a democrat, an extreme Radical in politics, anautocrat in manners, as vain and tactless as he was generous andsincere, making bitter enemies and warm friends in turn. He began bywinning and ended by estranging almost every class in both Provinces ofCanada, and returned to England to all appearances a spent andextinguished meteor. There is some truth, perhaps, in Greville'sobservation that, had he been "plain John Lambton, " he would never havebeen chosen for Canada. It is certain that those who sent him therelittle dreamed of the consequences of their action. Lord Melbourne, thePrime Minister, in a letter to the Queen, charged him with magnifyingthe Canadian troubles "in order to give greater _éclat_ to his owndeparture. "[28] Still, he did his work of investigation faithfully, andformed his conclusions sanely, and there were plain men of greaterability at his elbow in the persons of Wakefield and Buller, by whoseadvice he was wise enough to be guided. All opinion was against him whennews came of his recall, and even Roebuck was denouncing him in the_Spectator_ for his autocratic excesses; but a brilliant article by JohnStuart Mill in the _Westminster Review_, pleading for time andconfidence, arrested the tide of obloquy. 

Durham's long Report, and the events which followed it, ought to bestudied carefully by every voter, however lowly, who has a voice indeciding the fate of Irish Home Rule. After an exhaustive discussion ofthe causes of disorder in Canada, Durham made two recommendations, thefirst of incalculable importance, and proved by subsequent experience tobe right; the second of minor consequence, and proved by subsequentexperience to be wrong. 

The first was that responsible government should be inaugurated both inCanada and in the Maritime Provinces of North America, whoseconstitutional troubles Durham also discussed. His proposal was that theGovernor should govern in accordance with advice given by ColonialMinisters in whom the popular Assembly reposed confidence, and who, through that Assembly, were in touch with popular opinion; for it was tothe strangulation of popular opinion that Durham attributed all thedisorders and disasters of the past. This recommendation was eventuallyadopted, not in the Act subsequently passed, but by instructions to theGovernors concerned; instructions which were first interpreted in thefull liberal spirit by Lord Elgin in 1847. The Maritime Provinces atvarious dates and under various Governors received full responsiblegovernment by 1854. Responsible government proved the salvation ofCanada and the Empire, as it would have proved, if given the chance, thesalvation of Ireland and a source of immensely enhanced strength to theEmpire. 

The second and less important recommendation, afterwards embodied in theAct of 1840, was the Union of the two Provinces of Upper and LowerCanada. Here Lord Durham, misled unhappily by the Irish precedent, fellinto an error. During his visit to Canada he came near to acceptingthat higher conception of a Federal Union with local Home Rule for eachProvince, outlined by Roebuck and Mackenzie, and eventually consummatedthirty years later. When he came home to London he made a _volte face_, rejecting the Federal idea and accepting its antitype, that Legislativeand Administrative Union of the two Provinces which had been rejected byPitt in 1791. There were, of course, economic arguments for Union apartfrom the racial factor; but they do not seem to have been decisive withDurham. At the last moment he gave way to a dread of predominant Frenchinfluence in Lower Canada, similar at bottom to his dread of theunchecked influence of the British minority. While he feared that thelatter, if let alone, would inaugurate a reign of terror, he added also:"Never again will the present generation of French-Canadians yield aloyal submission to a British Government. " The argument is inconsistentwith the whole spirit of the Report, which attributes the friction inboth Provinces to bad political institutions. It is probable that Durhamwas really more influenced by the quite reasonable recognition that theFrench were relatively backward in civilization and ideas. He sought, therefore, both to disarm them politically and to anglicize themsocially, by amalgamating their political system with that of whollyBritish Upper Canada. His calculation was that in a joint assembly theBritish would have a small but sufficient majority. The estimatedpopulation of Lower Canada was 550, 000, of whom 450, 000 were French, and100, 000 British and Irish; that of Upper Canada 400, 000, all British andIrish. That is to say, that in both Provinces together there was aBritish and Irish majority of 100, 000. The calculation over-estimatedthe British element, but in the event this mistake proved to beimmaterial. Though Durham himself appears to have intendedrepresentation to be in strict accordance with population, the UnionAct, passed in 1840, allotted an equal number of representatives in theJoint Assembly to each of the old Provinces. The assumption here wasthat the British Members from Upper Canada would unite with those of oldLower Canada to vote down the French, just as the Ulster Protestantsvoted with English members to vote down the Irish majority. 

In practice the Union, after lasting twenty-six years, eventually brokedown. Durham's fear of French disloyalty proved to be as groundless ashis ideal of complete anglicization was futile. It was neithernecessary, sensible, nor possible to extinguish French sentiment, andhuman nature triumphed over this half-hearted effort to apply indilution the medicine of Fitzgibbonism to the Colonies. Little harm wasdone, because the introduction of responsible government, fartranscending the Union in importance, worked irresistibly for good. Parties did not run wholly on racial lines, but racialism was encouragedby the equal representation of the two Provinces in the Assembly, inspite of the greater growth of population in the Upper Province. Thesystem was unhealthy, and at last produced a state of deadlock, in whichtwo exactly equal parties were balanced, and a stable Governmentimpossible. When that point was reached, men began to observe the strongand supple Constitution of the adjacent United States, and to recognizethat a politically feeble Canada was courting an absorption from thatquarter which all Canadians disliked. The Legislative Union wasdissolved by the mutual consent of the Provinces with the approval ofthe Mother Country, and in 1867, under the British North America Act, the Federal Union was formed which exists in such strength and stabilityto-day. Fear of French disloyalty or tyranny was a night-mare of thepast, even with the British minority in Lower Canada. It was realizedthat French national sentiment was perfectly consistent with racialharmony under the British flag. Upper Canada became Ontario, LowerCanada Quebec. Each Province reserved a local autonomy for itself, andeach at the same moment voluntarily surrendered certain high powers to asupreme centralized Government, in which both had confidence. Such apolitical system is capable of indefinite expansion. Nova Scotia and NewBrunswick joined the Federation at the outset, Prince Edward Island andBritish Columbia a little later, and were followed in turn by thesuccessively developed Provinces which now form the united and powerfulDominion of Canada. 

Turn back to Ireland and weigh well the analogy. _Mutatis mutandis_, almost every paragraph of the Durham Report applied with greater forceto the Ireland of his day. The ascendancy of a caste and creed minorityin Upper Canada; of a race minority in Lower Canada; "the conflict ofraces, not of principles"; the consequent obliteration of naturalpolitical divisions, and the substitution of unnatural and vindictiveantagonisms demoralizing both sides to every quarrel; the universaldisgust with and distrust of the British Government, though for reasonsdiametrically opposite; the hopelessness of true reforms; theperpetuation of abuses; the stagnation of trade and agriculture; there-emigration to America, and the abuses of a Church Establishment withendowments from sources by right public--all these phenomena and manyothers had their counterpart in Ireland. Some have disappeared. TheChurch is disestablished. The land question is on the way to settlement. The old ascendancy is mitigated. But many of the political, and all thepsychological, features of the situation which Durham described do, alas! exist to-day in Ireland. Ireland, like the Canada of 1838, is aland of bewildering paradox. There is a similarly unwholesome arrest offree political life, the same unnatural division of parties, the samesuppression of moderate opinion, and the same inevitable maintenance ofa Home Rule agitation, harmful in itself, because it retards the countryand accentuates for the time being the very divisions it seeks to cure, but absolutely necessary for the final salvation of Ireland. Durham, inthe case of Canada, saw the truth, and swept into the limbo ofdiscredited bogies the old figments of the coercionists. In a singularlynoble and profound passage (p. 229), revealing the ethical basis onwhich his philosophy rested, he declared that even if the politicalfreedom of the Colony were to lead in the distant future to herseparation from the Empire, she nevertheless had an indefeasible moralright to the blessings of freedom; but he prophesied correctly that theconnection with the Empire "would only become more durable andadvantageous by having more of equality, of freedom, and of localadministration. "

If only Irish and British Unionists would realize that these words camefrom a profound knowledge of human nature in the mass, and areapplicable to Irishmen in Ireland just as much as to Irish, British, French, and Dutch in the Colonies!

The tenacity of the old superstition is extraordinary, and we can see itin the case of Canada. It remains a wonder to this day how responsiblegovernment was ever introduced. There can be no question that the Act of1840 only secured a smooth passage because, in providing for the Unionof the French and British Provinces, it represented a superficialanalogy to that Union of Britain and Ireland which had paralyzed Irishaspirations. Durham himself had actually quoted both the Irish andScotch Unions as successful expedients for "compelling the obedience ofa refractory population, " and thus arrived at the outstanding andsolitary defect of his otherwise noble scheme. And O'Connell, in adebate upon the Report on June 3, 1839, opposed the Canadian Union forIrish reasons, and in language which after-experience proved to beperfectly correct. Happily, as we have seen, the defect was small andcurable, because the analogy with Ireland, where there was noresponsible, but, on the contrary, a separate and wholly irresponsibleExecutive Government, and whose interests were upheld by only 100Members in a House of 670, was exceedingly remote. On responsiblegovernment itself the Canadian Act of 1840 was entirely silent. We maythank Providence for the fact. Durham's cardinal proposals had receivedunbridled vituperation as sentimental rubbish where they were nottreasonable poison, the whole controversy taking precisely the same formas in 1886 and 1893 over Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bills for Ireland. The _Quarterly Review_ spoke of "this rank and infectious Report, "though it is fair to say that Peel and Wellington did not join in suchwild language. Five months after the issue of Lord Durham's Report, LordJohn Russell, in the debate of June 3, was denying, with the approval ofall but the Radicals, the possibility of responsible government asemphatically as ever. Durham seems to have partially converted him inthe summer, for in introducing the Act itself in 1840 he cautiouslycommitted himself to the plan of instructing the Canadian Governor toinclude in his Executive Council, or Cabinet, men expressly chosenbecause they possessed the confidence of the Assembly. But the Act as itstood, ignoring this vital change, was impeccably Conservative, and onthat account went through. In some points it seemed, without goodreason, to be even reactionary, and was regarded in that light withdispleasure by the Radicals, with satisfaction by Whigs and Tories. While confirming the control of revenue by the Assembly, in return for afixed civil list, it took away from the Assembly, and vested in theExecutive, the power of recommending money votes, and it also retainedthe Legislative Council or Upper Chamber as a nominated, not as anelective, body. Provided that the Executive had the confidence of therepresentative Assembly or Lower House, the first point was perfectlysound, and the second was not vital; but there was no security for thecondition precedent other than Russell's vague outline of subsequentpolicy. While the supreme power of the King, acting with or without theGovernor, was reaffirmed in the most vigorous terms, there was not aword in the Act about the composition of the Executive Council or itsrelation to the Assembly. 

In Canada much the same misconceptions prevailed, and promoted theacceptance of the Act by the supporters of the old ascendancies. Thequestion of the Union and the question of responsible government, bothraised by Lord Durham's Report, became inextricably confused, and thevarious petitions and resolutions of the time reflect this confusion. The French opposed the Union and supported responsible government on thesame grounds, and in almost identical terms, as the Irish opposed, andstill oppose, their Union with Great Britain, and ask for responsiblegovernment in Ireland. Moderate Britishers supported both proposals, butthe extremists of the old ascendancy bitterly denounced the whole theoryof responsible government, Union or no Union. Their views are ably andincisively set forth by a Committee of the old Legislative Council ofUpper Canada, that is, by the members of the "family compact, " in aprotest signed and transmitted to London, where it was quoted withapproval by Lord John Russell. It may be found, together with otherpetitions of the time, in the "Canadian Constitutional Development" ofMessrs. Grant and Egerton. With a few unessential changes andmodifications, the whole document might be signed to-day by a Committeeof Ulster Unionists, and I heartily wish that every Ulsterman would readit in a spirit of reason and generosity, and observe how every line ofit was falsified by history, before he declares that the situation ofUlster is peculiar, and sets his hand or gives his adhesion to asimilar document. The signatories, who, it must be remembered, were asmall ruling minority of the colonists, whose power was artificiallysustained by the British Governor, claim that they alone, in glorifyingand in battling for "colonial dependence, " are the true Imperialists. They hold dear the "unity of the Empire. " Responsible government withintheir own Colony would lead to the "overthrowal" of that Empire, and thereduction of Britain to a "second-rate Power. " A colonial Cabinet isabsurd; the local and sectional interests are too strong; the BritishGovernment must remain as "umpire" to keep the parties from flying atone another's throats. The majority, who are themselves a prey todivisions (and one thinks of Nationalist splits), are seeking only forillegitimate power; the minority are for "justice and protection, andimpartial government. " Yet in the same breath we are told that all ishappy and peaceable as it is. Why subject the Colony to the dissensionsof party? Why foster a spirit of undying enmity among a people disposedto dwell together in harmony? The signatories argue from the history ofIreland and Scotland, "which never had responsible government, yetgovernment became impracticable the moment it approached to equalrights. " Hence a Union, because "government must be conducted with aview to some supreme ruling power, which is not practicable with severalindependent Legislatures. " Finally, Loyalists and Imperialists as theyare, they are not going to stand an attempt to "force independence" onthem. They will take the matter into their own hands, and, if necessary, call in the United States to "replace the British influence needlesslyoverthrown. "

I do not quote this sort of thing in order to add any tinge ofbitterness to present controversies. The signatories lived to see theirerrors and to be ashamed of what they wrote. They, like the IrishUnionist leaders of to-day, were able and sincere men, unconscious, wemay assume, that their pessimism about the tendencies of theirfellow-citizens was really due to the defective institutions which theythemselves were upholding, and to the forcible suppression of the finerattributes of human nature; unconscious, we may also assume, ofidentifying loyalty with privilege, and "the supreme ruling power" withtheir own ruling power; unconscious that what they called "ImperialUnity" was in reality on the verge of producing Imperial disruption; andwholly unconscious, certainly, of the ghastly irony of their analogydrawn from the brutally misgoverned, job-ridden, tithe-ridden, rack-rented Ireland of their day, living, for no fault of its own, undera condition of intermittent martial law, and hurrying at that momenttowards the agony of the famine years. Less severe in degree, analogousabuses perpetuated in their own interest existed in their own Colony, and were only abolished under the new régime which they attacked withsuch vehemence before it came, and which, because it transformed andelevated their own character and that of their fellow-citizens, whiledrawing them closer to the old country, they afterwards learned toregard with pride and thankfulness. 

As an effective contrast to the mistaken views of the Upper Canadianstatesmen, the reader cannot do better than study the letters of JosephHowe, the brilliant Nova Scotia "agitator, " to Lord John Russell, inanswer to that statesman's speech of June 3, 1839, when he arguedagainst responsible government, and quoted the Upper Canadian manifestoas his text. These letters make a wonderful piece of sustained andhumorous satire, of which every word was true and every word applicableto Ireland. Howe's portrait, for example, of the average ColonialGovernor applies line for line to the average Chief Secretary, coming atan hour's notice to a country he has never seen, and knows nothing of, vested with absolute powers of patronage, and often pledged to carry outa policy in direct conflict with the wishes of the vast majority of thepeople whose interests he is supposed to guard. 

The Act of 1840 went through, but it had little to do with theregeneration and reconciliation of Canada. Poulett Thompson, the firstGovernor, peremptorily declined to admit the principle of Ministerialresponsibility. Some good reforms were, indeed, made in the early years, but the Act was on the verge of breaking down when Lord Elgin, Durham'sson-in-law, came to Canada as Governor-General in 1847. After many partychanges and combinations, French influence was temporarily in theascendant, and in 1849 a Bill was on the stocks for compensating Frenchas well as British subjects for losses in the rebellion of 1837. Elgin, following the advice of his Ministers, of whom Baldwin was one, Lafontaine another, gave the Royal Assent to the Bill. The British, withthe old cry of "loyalism, " and with Orangemen in the van, rioted, mobbedthe Governor, and burnt down the Parliament House at Montreal. Elgin, expostulating with Lord John Russell, who was as pessimistic as ever, and threatened with recall, stuck to his guns under fierce obloquy, andthe principle of responsible government was definitely established. Itwas applied at about the same period to the other British Provinces ofNorth America, with the ulterior results I have described, and in a fewyears to Australia. 

The great year, then, was 1847, the year of the Irish famine, and theyear before the pitiful rebellion of Smith O'Brien, surrendering in thehistoric cabbage-garden. Our thoughts go back sixty-four years to 1783, when the American War of Independence ended; when, as a result of thatwar, British Canada and Australia were founded, and when, at thecrisis--premature, alas!--of Ireland's fortunes, the Volunteers in vaindemanded the Reform which might have saved their country. Look intohistorical details, read contemporary debates, and watch the contrast. Within five years of responsible government Canada solved all the greatquestions which had been convulsing society for so long, and turned herliberated energies towards economic development. In Ireland the abusesof ages lingered to a point which seems incredible. The Church was notdisestablished, amid outcries of imminent ruin and threats of aProtestant rebellion, till 1869, when Canada had already become aFederated Dominion. The Irish land question, dating from the seventeenthcentury, was not seriously tackled until 1881, not drastically and onthe right lines till 1903. Education languishes at the present day. Canada started an excellent system of municipal and local government inthe forties. In Ireland, while the minority, in Greville's words, were"bellowing spoliation and revolution, " an Act was passed in 1840 withthe utmost difficulty, removing an infinitesimal part of the grossabuses of municipal government under the ascendancy system, and it wasnot till 1898 that the people at large are admitted to a full share incounty and town government. Even this step inverted the natural order ofthings, for the new authorities are hampered in their work by theincessant political agitation for the Home Rule which should havepreceded their establishment, as it preceded it in Great Britain andCanada. Home Rule, the tried specific, was resisted, as those who readthe debates of 1886 and 1893 will recognize, on the same grounds asCanadian Home Rule, in the same spirit, and often in terms absolutelyidentical. 

Was it because Ireland, unlike Canada, was "so near"? Let us reflect. Did Durham advocate Canadian Home Rule because Canada was "so far"? Onthe contrary, it was a superficial inference, drawn not merely fromIreland, but from Scotland, and since proved to be false both in Canadaand South Africa, that made him shrink from the full application of aphilosophy which was already far in advance of the political thought andmorality of his day. Is it to be conceived that if he had lived to seethe Canadian Federation, the domestic and Imperial results of SouthAfrican Home Rule, and the consequences of seventy more years ofcoercive government in Ireland, he would still have regarded the UnitedKingdom in the light of a successful expedient for "compelling theobedience of refractory populations"? In truth, Durham, like ninety-nineout of a hundred Englishmen of his day, knew nothing of Ireland, noteven that her political system differed, as it still differs, _totocoelo_ from that of Scotland, and came into being under circumstanceswhich had not the smallest analogy in Scotland. So far as his knowledgewent, he was a student of human nature as affected by politicalinstitutions. Wakefield, who advised him, was a doctrinaire theorist whoput his preconceived principles into highly successful practice both inAustralia and Canada. They said: "Your coercive system degrades andestranges your own fellow-citizens. Change it, and you will make themfriendly, manly, and prosperous. " They were right, and one reflects oncemore on the terrible significance of Mr. Chamberlain's admission in1893, that "if Ireland had been a thousand miles away, she would havewhat Canada had had for fifty years. "

FOOTNOTES:

[20] "The Irishman in Canada" (N. F. Davin), a book to which the authoris indebted for much information of the same character. 

[21] "William Pitt and the National Revival. "

[22] Canadian Archives, 1905; "History of Prince Edward Island, " D. Campbell; "History of Canada, " C. D. G. Roberts. In 1875, after a longperiod of agitation and discontent, the Land Purchase Act was passed, and the Dominion Government asked Mr. Hugh Childers to adjudicate on theland-sale expressly on the ground that he had been associated with theIrish Land Act of 1870 ("Life of Mr. Childers, " by Lieut. -Col. SpencerChilders, vol. I. , p. 232). 

[23] Canadian Archives, 1900. Note B. Emigration (1831-1834). Irishimmigrants in 1829, 9, 614; in 1830, 18, 300; in 1831, 34, 155; in 1832, 28, 024; in 1833, 12, 013; in 1834, 19, 206: about double the immigrationof English and Scottish together in the same period. 

[24] "Self-government in Canada, " F. Bradshaw, p. 96 _et seq_. 

[25] "Durham Report, " p. 130. 

[26] Hansard, January 23. 

[27] "Self-government in Canada, " F. Bradshaw, p. 17. 

[28] "Letters of Queen Victoria, " vol. I. , November 22, 1838. 

CHAPTER VI

AUSTRALIA AND IRELAND

I have described the Canadian crisis at considerable length because itwas the turning-point in Imperial policy. Yet policy is scarcely theright word. The Colonists themselves wrenched the right toself-government from a reluctant Mother Country, and the Mother Countryherself was hardly conscious of the loss of her prerogatives until itwas too late to regret or recall them. The men who on principle believedin and laboured for Home Rule for Canada were a mere unconsideredhandful in the country, while most of those who voted for the Act of1840 thought that it killed Home Rule. No general election was held toobtain the "verdict of the predominant partner" on the real question atissue, with the cry of "American dollars" (which had, in fact, beenpaid); with lurid portraits of Papineau and Mackenzie levying black-mailon the Prime Minister, and quotations from their old speeches to showthat they were traitors to the Empire; with jeremiads about the terrorsof Rome, the abandonment of the loyal minority, and the dismemberment ofthe Empire, to shake the nerves and stimulate the slothful conscience ofan ignorant electorate. Had there been any such opportunity we know itwould have been used, and we can guess what the result would have been;for nothing is easier, alas! than to spur on a democracy with such criesas these to the exercise of the one function it should refrainfrom--interference with another democracy, be it in Ireland or anywhereelse. As it was, a merciful veil fell over Canada; Lord Elgin's actionin 1849 passed with little notice, and a mood of weary indifference tocolonial affairs, for which, in default of any Imperial idealism, wecannot be too thankful, took possession of Parliament and the nation. 

It was in this mood that the measures conferring self-government on theAustralasian Colonies, 12, 000 miles away from the Mother Country, andexciting proportionately less concern than Canada, were passed a fewyears later. 

From the landing of the first batch of convicts at Botany Bay in 1788, New South Wales, the Mother Colony, was a penal settlement pure andsimple, under military Government, for some thirty years. The islandColony, Tasmania, founded under the name of Van Diemen's Land in 1803, was used for the same purpose. Victoria, originally Port Phillip, justescaped a like fate in 1803, and remained uncolonized till 1835, whenthe free settlers set their faces against the penal system, and in 1845, acting like the Bostonians of 1774 with the famous cargo of tea, refusedto allow a cargo of convicts to land. South Australia, first settled in1829, also escaped; so did New Zealand, which was annexed to the Crownin 1839. Western Australia, dating from 1826, proceeded on the oppositeprinciple to that of Victoria. Free from convicts until 1849, whentransportation to other Colonies was checked at their own repeatedrequest, and came to an end in 1852, this Colony, owing to a chronicshortage of labour, actually petitioned the Home Government to divertthe stream of criminals to its shores, with the result that in tenyears' time nearly half the male adults in the Colony, and more thanhalf in the towns, were, or had been, convicts. It was not until 1865, under strong pressure from the other Colonies, that the system wasfinally abolished which threw Western Australia forty years behind itssister Colonies in the attainment of Home Rule. 

The transportation policy has been unmercifully criticized, and with allthe more justice in that Pitt, when the American war closed thetraditional dumping-ground for criminals, had the chance of employingthe exiled loyalists of America, many of whom were starving in London, as pioneers of the new lands in the Antipodes. "The outcasts of an oldsociety cannot form the foundations of a new one, " said a ParliamentaryReport of July 28, 1785. But they could do so, and did do so. Ruskin'ssaying, _à propos_ of Australia, that "under fit conditions the humanrace does not degenerate, but wins its way to higher levels, " comesnearer the truth. In an amazingly short time after the transportationpolicy was reversed the taint disappeared. We must remember, however, that, sheer refuse as some of the convicts were, especially in the laterperiod, a large number of the earlier convicts were the product of that"stupid severity of our laws" which the Vicar of Wakefield deplored, andto this category belonged many an unhappy Irish peasant, sound incharacter, but driven into Whiteboyism, or into the rebellions of 1798and 1803 by some of the worst laws the human brain ever conceived. Hundreds of these men survived the barbarous and brutalizing ordeal of apenal imprisonment to become prosperous and industrious citizens. 

It was not until 1825, or thereabouts, that free white settlers, manyIrishmen among them, came in any substantial number to the Mother Colonyof New South Wales, and not until 1832 that these men began to pressclaims for the management of their own affairs, under the inspiration ofan Irish surgeon's son, William Wentworth, the Hampden of Australia. Thelater Colonies rapidly came into line, Western Australia, for the reasongiven above, remaining stationary. The first representative institutionswere granted in 1842 to New South Wales, and in 1850 to Victoria, SouthAustralia, and Tasmania. At that date, therefore, these settlementsstood in much the same constitutional position as the Canadas had stoodin 1791 (although technically their Constitutions were of a differentkind), but with this important difference, that the Act of 1850, "forthe better Government of Her Majesty's Australian Colonies, " gave powerto those Colonies to frame new Constitutions for themselves. This theysoon proceeded to do, each constructing its own, but all keeping in viewthe same model, the British Constitution itself, and aiming at the sameideal, responsible Government by a Colonial Cabinet under a Governmentrepresenting the Crown. Since responsible Government in Great Britainitself was not a matter of legal enactment, but the product of slowlyevolved conventions and precedents, to which political scientists hadnot yet given a scientific form, it is no wonder that the colonialConstitution-makers found great difficulty in expressing exactly whatthey wanted in legal terms, and, indeed, none of them came nearsucceeding; but time, their own political instinct, a succession ofsensible Governors, and the forbearance of the Home Government solvedthe problem, and evolved home-ruled States legally subordinate to theCrown, but with a Constitution closely resembling our own. TheConstitutions became law by Acts of the Imperial Parliament passed by aLiberal Ministry in 1855. They are of unusual interest because theyrepresent the first rude attempt to put into legal language a small partof the theory of the British Constitution as applied to dependencies ofthe Crown. 

In the most vital point of all, the relation of the dependency to theHome Government (as distinguished from questions of internal politicalstructure), they are almost as reserved as the Canadian Act of 1840, which, as we have seen, did not recognize by a word the duty of theGovernor to govern through a Colonial Cabinet. In certain clauses theyhint, by distant implication, at the existence of such a Cabinet, responsible to the colonial popular Legislature--the Canadian Act didnot assume even that--but they do not anywhere imply that the Governoris bound normally to place himself in the hands of that Cabinet, whilethey expressly and rightly reaffirm the supreme power of the Crown, whether acting through the Governor or not, over colonial legislation. 

How far this reticence about responsible Government facilitated thepassage of the Australian Acts in the British Parliament, as itcertainly facilitated the Canadian Act of 1840, it is difficult todecide. It was probably a factor of some importance. At any rate, it istrue to say that Home Rule, as in Canada, was mainly a result ofpractice rather than of statutory enactment. The case of New Zealand isa striking example of this. In 1852 New Zealand obtained from a ToryGovernment a Constitutional Act, which resembles the Canadian Act of1840 in abstaining from any expression, direct or indirect which impliesthe existence of a Colonial Cabinet, and it is probable that the framersof the Act intended no such development, but on the contrarycontemplated a permanent, irremovable Executive. But the Act was nosooner passed than an agitation began for responsible government, underthe leadership of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, part-author of the DurhamReport, and at that time a member of the New Zealand Assembly. By 1855, when the Australian Acts were passed, New Zealand, without furtherlegislation, had obtained what she wanted. 

To complete the story, Queensland, carved out of New South Wales in1859, entered upon full responsible government at once, and WesternAustralia, retarded for so long by the servile system of convict-labour, gained the same rights in 1890. 

Reading the debates of the middle of the nineteenth century, one is leftwith the impression that the Australasian Colonies obtained Home Rule byvirtue of their distance, and because most politicians at home could notbe bothered to fight hard against a principle which at bottom theydisliked as heartily for the Colonies as for Ireland. The views of thevarious parties were not much changed since the days of the crisis inCanada. There were some able Colonial Secretaries who thoroughlyunderstood and believed in the principle of responsible government. Onthe other hand, some Liberals were not yet converted, though LiberalGovernments fathered the Constitutional Acts of 1850 and 1855. Disraeli's well-known saying in 1852 that "these wretched Colonies willall be independent, too, in a few years, and are a mill-stone round ournecks, " was typical of the Tory attitude. [29] Lord John Russell, in thesame year, 1852, was complaining, as Lord Morley tells us, [30] that wewere "throwing the shields of our authority away, " and leaving "themonarchy exposed in the Colonies to the assaults of democracy. " A groupof Radicals, headed by Sir William Molesworth and Hume in Parliament, and by Wakefield from outside, still pushed the policy of emancipationenergetically and persistently on the principle which they had urged inthe case of Canada, that freedom was better both for the Colonies andthe Mother Country. 

But Molesworth and Wakefield gained one illustrious convert andcoadjutor in the person of Mr. Gladstone, whose speeches on the Coloniesat this period, 1849 to 1855, placed him, in regard to that topic, inthe Radical ranks, and in veiled opposition to the Whig leaders. LordMorley quotes a minute from his hand, written in 1852 in answer to theview of Lord John Russell, referred to above, where he says "that thenominated Council and independent Executive were not 'shields ofauthority, ' but sources of weakness, disorder, disunion, anddisloyalty. " His Parliamentary and platform speeches, passing withlittle notice at the time, nevertheless remain the most eloquent andexalted expression of wise colonial policy that is to be found in ourlanguage. If it was not till a generation later that he applied the samearguments to the case of Ireland, the arguments nevertheless did applyto Ireland almost word for word. Proximity to the Mother Country doesnot affect them. Mr. Gladstone attacks the problem on its human side, showing that coercive government is always and everywhere bad for thosewho administer it, and bad for those who live under it, expensive, inefficient, demoralizing, and that the longer it is maintained the moredifficult it is to remove. He condemns the fallacy of preparing men byslow degrees for freedom, and the "miserable jargon about fitting themfor the privileges thus conferred, while in point of fact every year andevery month during which they are retained under the administration of adespotic Government renders them less fit for free institutions. " As tocost, "no consideration of money ought to induce Parliament to sever theconnection between any one of the Colonies and the Mother Country, " butthe greater part of the cost, he urged, was due to the despotic systemitself. His words are more applicable to the Ireland of to-day than theIreland of the middle of the nineteenth century, for it is one of themany painful anomalies of Irish history that that country, at the lowestpoint of its economic misery, was paying a relatively enormouscontribution to Imperial funds, and, incidentally, to the colonial vote, while the Colonies were maintained at a loss correspondingly large, andat times even larger. [31] But cost is, after all, a very small matter. The first consideration is the character and happiness of human beings, and here Gladstone's words, like Durham's, have a universal application. If the reader cannot study them at length in Hansard, he should readthe great speech on the New Zealand Bill in 1852, and Lord Morley'smasterly summary of others. I conclude with a passage quoted by him froma platform speech at Chester in 1855, the year when the AustralianConstitutions were sanctioned. "Experience has proved that if you wantto strengthen the connection between the Colonies and this country, ifyou want to see British law held in respect, and British institutionsadopted and beloved in the Colonies, never associate with them the hatedname of force and coercion exercised by us at a distance over theirrising fortunes. Govern them upon a principle of freedom. " At thatmoment, after half a century of coercion and neglect under what wascalled the "Union, " Ireland was bleeding, as it seemed, to death. Scarcely recovered from the stunning blow of the famine, she wasundergoing in a fresh dose of clearances and evictions the result ofthat masterpiece of legislative unwisdom, the Encumbered Estates Act. Her people were leaving her by hundreds of thousands, cursing the nameof England as bitterly as the evicted Ulster farmers and the ruinedweavers of the eighteenth century had cursed it, and bearing theirwrongs and hatred to the same friendly shore, America. For the mainstream of emigration, which before the Union had set towards theAmerican States, and from the Union until the famine towards Canada, reverted after the famine towards the United States, impregnating thatnation with an hostility to Great Britain which in subsequent yearsbecame a grave international danger, and which, though greatlydiminished, still remains an obstacle to the closer union of theEnglish-speaking races. On the other hand, it is interesting to observethat among the Irish emigrants to countries within the Empire, and avery important part of this emigration was to Australasia, theanti-British sentiment was far less tenacious, though the affection fortheir own native country was no less passionate. 

Whatever we may conclude about the motives behind the concession of HomeRule to Australia and New Zealand, we may regard it as fortunate thatthey lay too far away for any close criticism from statesmen at home, whether before or after the attainment of self-government. Most of thesestatesmen would have been scandalized by the manner in which thesevigorous young democracies, destitute of the patrician element, shapedtheir own political destiny by the light of nature and in the teeth ofgreat difficulties. Almost to a man their leaders in this great workwould have been regarded as "turbulent demagogues and dangerousagitators, " and often were so regarded, when the rumour of theiractivities penetrated to far-off London. The old catchwords ofrevolution, spoliation and treason, consecrated to the case of Ireland, would have been applied here with equal vehemence, and were in factapplied by the official classes in the Colonies themselves, round whomsmall anti-democratic groups, calling themselves "loyal, " crystallized, as in the Provinces of Upper Canada and in Ireland, and with whom theruling classes at home were in instinctive sympathy. There were stormy, agitated times, there were illegal movements against the reception ofconvicts, struggles over land questions, religious questions, financialquestions, the emancipation of ex-convicts, and the many difficultproblems raised by the discovery of gold and the mushroom growth ofdigger communities in remote places. There was in the air more genuinelawlessness--irrespective, I mean, of revolt against bad laws--than everexisted in Ireland, though there was never at any time any practicalgrievance approaching in magnitude to the practical grievances ofIreland at the same period. But, could the spirit of Englishstatesmanship towards analogous problems in Ireland have been maintainedin Australasia, systematically translated into law and enforced with thehelp of coercion acts by soldiers and police, communities would havebeen artificially produced presenting all the lawless and retrogradefeatures of Ireland. 

The famous affair of the Eureka Stockade in 1854 is an interestingillustration. A great mass of diggers collected in the newly discoveredBallarat goldfields had petitioned repeatedly against the Governmentregulations about mining licences, for which extortionate fees werelevied. This was before responsible government. The goldfields were notrepresented in the Legislature, and there was no constitutional methodof redress. The authorities held obstinately to their obsolete andirritating regulations, and eventually the miners revolted under theleadership of an Irishman, Peter Lalor, and with the watchword "VinegarHill. " There was a pitched battle with the military forces of theCrown, ending after much bloodshed in the victory of the soldiers. Lalorwas wounded, and carried into hiding by his friends. Other capturedrioters were tried for "high treason" before juries of townsmen pickedby the Crown on the lines long familiar in Ireland; but even thesejuries refused to convict, as they so often refused to convict in casesof agrarian crime in Ireland. The State trials were then abandoned, aRoyal Commission reported against the licence system, and Parliamentaryrepresentation was given to the goldfields. It came to be universallyacknowledged that the talk of "treason" was nonsense, that the outbreakhad been provoked by laws which could not be constitutionally changed, and that the moral was to change them, not to expatriate and persecutethose who had suffered under them. Lalor reappeared, entered politicallife, became Speaker of the reformed Assembly of 1856, and lived anddied respected by everyone. He now appears as a prominent figure in alittle book entitled "Australian Heroes, " and it is admitted that thewhole episode powerfully assisted the movement for responsiblegovernment in the Colony. Smith O'Brien, Meagher, Mitchell, and othersconcerned in the Irish rebellion of 1848 were at that moment languishingin the penal settlement of Tasmania for sedition provoked by laws fiftytimes worse; laws, too, that a Royal Commission three years earlier hadshown to be inconsistent with social peace, and which otherssubsequently condemned in still stronger terms. From their firstestablishment far back in the seventeenth century it took two centuriesto abolish these laws. In the Australian case it took one year. 

As for the Irishmen of all creeds and classes who took such an importantpart in the splendid work of building up these new communities, and whoare still estimated to constitute a quarter of the population, one canonly marvel at the intensity of the prejudice which declared these men"unfit" for self-government at home, and which is not yet dissipated bythe discovery that they were welcomed under the Southern Cross, not onlyas good workaday citizens in town, bush, or diggings, but as barristers, judges, bankers, stock-owners, mine-owners, as honoured leaders inmunicipal and political life, as Speakers of the RepresentativeAssemblies, and as Ministers and Prime Ministers of the Crown. [32] istrue, and the fact cannot surprise us, that the intestinal divisions ofrace and creed in Ireland itself, stereotyped there by ages of badgovernment, were at first to a certain extent reproduced in Australia, as in Canada. Aggressive Orangeism was to be found sowing discord whereno cause for discord existed. But the common sense of the community andthe pure air of freedom tended to sterilize, though they have not tothis day wholly killed, these germs of disease. A career was opened toevery deserving Irishman, whether Catholic or Protestant. Hungry, hopeless, listless cottiers from Munster and Connaught built upnourishing towns like Geelong and Kilmore. Two Irishmen, Dunne andConnor, were the first discoverers of the Ballarat goldfields. AnIrishman, Robert O'Hara Burke, led the first transcontinentalexpedition, and another Irishman, Ambrose Kyte, financed it; Wentworthwas the father of Australian liberties. An Irish Roman Catholic, SirRedmond Barry, founded the Public Library, Museum, and University ofMelbourne. In the political annals of Victoria and New South Wales thenames of Irish Catholics, men to whom no worthy political career wasopen in their own country, were prominent. Sir John O'Shanassy, forexample, was three times Prime Minister of Victoria, Sir BrianO'Loughlen once. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, a member of O'Shanassy'sCabinets, and at last Prime Minister himself, is the colonial statesmanwhose career and personality are the best proof of what Ireland has lostin high-minded, tolerant, constructive statesmanship, through a systemwhich silenced or drove from her shores the men who loved her most, whosaw her faults and needs with the clearest eyes, and who sought to uniteher people on a footing of self-reliance and mutual confidence. One ofthe ablest of O'Connell's young adjutants, editor and founder of the_Nation_, part-organizer of the Young Ireland Movement which united menof opposite creeds in one of the finest national movements everorganized in any country, Duffy's central aim had been to give Ireland anative Parliament, where Irishmen could solve their own problems forthemselves. He saw the rebellion of 1848 fail, and Mitchell, SmithO'Brien, Meagher, McManus, and O'Donoghue transported to Tasmania; helaboured on himself in Ireland for seven years at land reform and otherobjects, and in 1855 gave up the struggle against such hopeless odds, and reached Melbourne early in 1856 in time to sit in the firstVictorian Parliament returned under the constitutional Act of 1855. Fromthe beginning to the end of an honourable political career which lastedthirty years, he made it his dominant purpose to ensure that Australiashould be saved from the evils which cursed Ireland; from government bya favoured class, from land monopoly, and from religious inequality andthe venomous bigotries it engenders, and he took a large share inbringing about their exclusion. His Land Act of 1862, for example, wherehe had another Roman Catholic Irishman, Judge Casey, as an auxiliary, put an end in those districts where it was fairly worked to the graveabuses caused by the speculative acquisition of immense tracts of landby absentee owners, and promoted the closer settlement of the country byyeoman farmers. 

In Australia, as in Canada, we see the vital importance of good landlaws, and can measure the misery which resulted in Ireland from anagrarian system incalculably more absurd and unjust than anything knownin any other part of the Empire. The stagnation of Western Australia wasoriginally due to the cession of huge unworkable estates to a handful ofmen. South Australia was retarded for some little time from the samecause, and Victoria and New South Wales were all hampered in the sameway. It was not a question, as in Ireland, and to a less degree inPrince Edward Island, of the legal relations between the landlord andtenant of lands originally confiscated, but of the grant and sale ofCrown lands. Yet the after-results, especially in the check to tillageand the creation of vast pasture ranches, were often very similar. [33]

Duffy was not the only colonial statesman to apply Irish experience tothe problems of newly settled countries. An Englishman who became one ofthe greatest of colonial statesmen and administrators, the RadicalImperialist, Sir George Grey, began life as a Lieutenant on militaryservice in Ireland in the year 1829, and came away sick with the sceneshe had witnessed at the evictions and forced collections of titheswhere his troops were employed to strengthen the arm of the law. "Ireland, " his biographer, Professor Henderson, tells us, [34] "was tohim a tragedy of unrealized possibilities. " The people had "goodcapacities for self-government, " but Englishmen "showed a vicioustendency to confuse cause and effect, " and attributed to inherentlawlessness what was a revolt against bad economic conditions. "All thatthey or their children could hope for was to obtain, after the keenestcompetition, the temporary use of a spot of land on which to exercisetheir industry"; "for the tenant's very improvements went to swell theaccumulations of the heirs of an absentee, not of his own. " "Haunted bythe Irish problem, " Grey made it his effort first in South Australia, and afterwards in New Zealand, where he was both Governor and Premier atvarious times, to secure the utmost possible measure of Home Rule forthe colonists, and, in pursuance of a policy already inaugurated byEdward Gibbon Wakefield, to establish a land system based, not onextravagant free grants, or on private tenure, but on sales by the Stateto occupiers at fair prices. The aim was to counteract that excessiveaccumulation of people in the large cities which, thanks to imperfectlegislation, still exists in most of the Australian States. SubsequentNew Zealand land policy has been generally in the right direction, andis acknowledged to be highly successful. In the Australian mainlandStates the absentee and the squatter caused constant difficulties andoccasional disorder. The Commonwealth at the present day is sufferingfor past neglect, and has found itself within the last year compelled toimitate New Zealand in placing taxes on undeveloped land, with a higherpercentage against absentees. 

Let us add that Grey, like Duffy and most of the strongest advocates ofHome Rule for the Colonies, was a Federalist long before Federationbecame practical politics, seeing in that policy the best means ofachieving the threefold aim of giving each Colony in a group ample localfreedom, of binding the whole group together into a compact, coherentState, and of strengthening the connection between that State and theMother Country. As Governor at the Cape from 1854 to 1861 he vainlyurged the Home Government to promote a Federal Union of the variousSouth African States, Dutch and British, in order, as he said, to create"an United South Africa under the British flag, " a scheme which, it isgenerally agreed, could then have been carried out, and which would havesaved South Africa from terrible disasters. And he wished to apply thesame Federal principle to the Australian Colonies, and to the case ofIreland and Great Britain. 

He realized earlier than most men that the talk of "separation" and"disloyalty" was, in his own words already quoted, the result of a"vicious tendency to confuse cause and effect, " and that to govern menby their own consent, to let them work out their own ideals in their ownway, to encourage, not to repress, their sense of nationality, is thebest way to gain their affection, or, if we choose to use that verymisleading word, their loyalty. 

Australia and New Zealand present remarkable examples of this beneficentprocess, Australia in particular, because there, for a long time evenafter the introduction of responsible government and, indeed, until adozen years ago, there was a large party of so-called "disloyalists" whowere never weary of decrying British influences and upholding Australiannationality. Mr. Jebb, in his "Colonial Nationalism, " gives aninteresting account of this movement and of its organ, the widelycirculated _Sydney Bulletin_, with its furiously anti-British views, itsRadicalism, its Republicanism, and what not. He shows amusingly howentirely harmless the propaganda really was, and what a healthy effectit actually had in promoting an independence of feeling and nationalself-respect among Australians, to such a degree that when the SouthAfrican War broke out, there was a universal outburst of patriotism anda universal desire, which was realized, to share to the full as a nationin the expense, danger, and hardships of the war. Mr. Jebb adds theinteresting suggestion that the reluctance of New Zealand to enter theAustralian Federation may be partly due to the strong individualsentiment of nationality evoked within her by the war and theexceptional exertions she made to aid the Imperial troops. 

His book is a psychological study of men in the mass. What he sets outto prove, and what he does successfully prove, is that the encouragementof minor nationalities is not merely consistent with, but essential to, the unity of the Empire. Yet he never mentions Ireland, not even for thepurpose of proving her an exception to the rule, and I do not think Iever gauged the full extent of the prejudice against that country untilI realized that in such a book such a topic did not receive even a lineof notice; yet one would naturally suppose that it was as important tothe Empire, morally and strategically, to possess the affection andrespect of four and a half million citizens within 60 miles of theBritish coast as of the same number of citizens at the Antipodes. 

Mr. Jebb is a Unionist. How he reaches his conclusion I do not know. Itwould seem to be beyond human power to construct a case against HomeRule for Ireland, with its strongly marked individuality of characterand sentiment, which did not textually stultify his case for the moredistant dependencies. His party generally is in sympathy with the viewsexpressed in his book, and has done much to further them. How do theyreconcile them with opposition to Home Rule for Ireland? How do theyexplain away the support for that policy in the Dominions? It seems tome that their only resource would be to say: "We are bound to maintain, and we have the necessary physical force to maintain, the presentpolitical system in Ireland, because to alter it would impair the formallegislative 'unity' of the United Kingdom; but let us frankly admit thatas long as we take this view there can be no 'Union' in the highestsense of the word. Ireland must be retarded and estranged. We cannotraise Territorial Volunteers within her borders; on the contrary, wemust keep and pay for a standing army of police to preserve ourauthority there. Her population must diminish, her vital energy ebb awayto other lands; as a market for our goods and as a source of revenue forImperial purposes she must remain undeveloped and unprogressive. Shewill continue rightly to agitate for Home Rule, and this agitation willalways be baneful both to her and to us. It will distract her energiesfrom her own economic and social problems. It will embitter and degradeour politics, and dislocate our Parliamentary institutions. She mustsuffer, we must suffer, the Empire must suffer. It is sad, butinevitable. "

Morality aside, is that common sense? Is it strange that the Coloniesthemselves regard such logic, when applied to Ireland, as perverted andabsurd?

Before leaving Australia we have only to recall the fact that at theclose of the last century, after a generation of controversy andnegotiation, the Canadian example of 1867 was at length imitated, andthe Federal Union formed which amalgamated all the mainland States, together with Tasmania, in the Commonwealth of Australia, and that theUnion was sanctioned and legalized by the Imperial Act of 1900. NewZealand preferred to remain a distinct State. The Australians departedin some important respects from the Canadian model, the main differencebeing that a greater measure of independence was retained by theindividual States, and smaller powers delegated to the centralGovernment. This was a matter of voluntary arrangement as between theStates themselves, the Home Government standing wholly aside on thesound principle that Australia knew its own interests best, and thatwhat was best for Australia was best for the Empire. 

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Letter to Lord Malmesbury, August 13, 1852 ("Memoirs of anEx-Minister, " by the Earl of Malmesbury, vol. I. , p. 344). 

[30] "Life of Gladstone, " vol. I. , p. 363. 

[31] Annual Treasury Returns ["Imperial Revenue (Collection andExpenditure)"]. According to these returns, Ireland's Imperialcontribution in 1839, before the famine, was £3, 626, 322; in 1849, afterthe famine, £2, 613, 778, and in 1859-60 no less than £5, 396, 000. At thelatter date the Colonies were estimated to cost three and a halfmillions a year, of which nine-tenths were contributed by the taxpayersat home, British and Irish. 

[32] Full information may be found in "The Irish in Australia, " by J. F. Hogan. 

[33] For an excellent historical description of the various Australianland systems, see the official "Year-Book of the Commonwealth, " 1909. 

[34] "Life of Sir George Grey, " Professor G. C. Henderson. 

CHAPTER VII

SOUTH AFRICA AND IRELAND

In the years 1836-37, when Wentworth was agitating for self-governmentin New South Wales, and when Canada was in rebellion for the lack of it, thousands of waggons, driven by men smarting under the same sort ofgrievance, were jolting northward across the South African veld bearingDutch families from the British Colony of the Cape of Good Hope to thenew realms we now know as the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal. The"Great Trek" was a form of protest against bad government to which wehave no parallel in the Empire save in the wholesale emigrations fromIreland at various periods of her history--after the Treaty of Limerick, again after the destruction of the wool trade, again in 1770-1777, afterthe Ulster evictions, and lastly after the great famine. The trekkers, like the Irish emigrants, nursed a resentment against the BritishGovernment which was a source of untold expense and suffering in thefuture. Indeed, the whole history of South Africa bears a closeresemblance to the history of Ireland. In no other part of the Empire, save in Ireland, was the policy of the Home Government so persistentlymisguided, in spite of constantly recurring opportunities for the repairof past errors. Fatality seems from first to last to have dogged thefootsteps of those who tried to govern there. Before the Britishconquest the Dutch East India Company and the Netherlands Governmentwere as unsuccessful as their British successors, whose legal claim tothe Cape, established for the second time by conquest in 1806, wasdefinitely confirmed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Dutchcolonists were a fine race of men, whose ancestors, like the Puritanfounders of New England, had fled in 1652 from religious persecution, and who retained the virile qualities of their race. Though in manyrespects they resembled the backward and intensely conservativeFrench-Canadian inhabitants, they differed from them, and resembledtheir closer relatives in race, the New Englanders, in an innate passionfor free representative government. They had rebelled repeatedly againsttheir Dutch oppressors, and had gone through a brief Republican phase. It is an example, therefore, of the thoughtless inconsequence of our oldcolonial policy that we gave the French-Canadians, who were the leastdesirous of it, the form, without the spirit, of representativeinstitutions, while we denied, until it was too late to avert racialdiscord, even the form to the Cape Dutch. In truth, the Colony seems tohave been regarded purely in the light of a naval station, while theBritish and Irish inflow of settlers, dating from about the year 1820, contemporaneously with the advent of free settlers in Australia, suggested the possibility of racial oppression by the Dutch majority. Yet if there was little real reason to fear oppression by the French inCanada, there was still less reason to fear such oppression in the Cape, where Dutch ideals and civilization were far more similar to those ofthe British. In America the absorption of the Dutch Colonies in theseventeenth century had led to the peaceful fusion of both races, norwas there any reason why, under wise rule, the same fusion should nothave occurred in South Africa. Until 1834 authority was purely militaryand despotic. In that year was established a small Legislative Councilof officials and nominated members, with no representative element. In1837 came the Great Trek. 

No one disputes that the Dutch colonists had grievances, without themeans of redress. As usual, we find a land question in the shape ofenhanced rents charged by Government after the British occupation; theDutch language was excluded from official use, and English localinstitutions were introduced with unnecessary abruptness; but theprincipal grievance concerned the native tribes. Slavery existed in theColony, and its borders were continually threatened by these tribes. TheDutch colonists were often terribly brutal to the natives; neverthelessthere is little doubt that a tactful and sympathetic policy could easilyhave secured for them a more humane treatment, and the abolition ofslavery without economic dislocation. But a strong humanitariansentiment was sweeping over England at the time, including in its rangethe negro slaves of Jamaica and the unconquered Kaffirs of South Africa, but absolutely ignoring, let us note in passing, the economic serfdom ofthe half-starved Irish peasantry at our very doors. Members of thisschool took too little account of the tremendous difficulties faced inSouth Africa by small handfuls of white colonists in contact with hordesof savages. The Colonial Government, with a knowledge of the conditionsgained only from well-meaning but somewhat prejudiced missionaries, endeavoured from 1815 onwards to enforce an impracticable equalitybetween white and coloured men, and abolished slavery at one suddenstroke in 1833 without reasonable compensation. A large number of theDutch, unable to tolerate this treatment, deserted the British flag. Those that remained were under suspicion for more than thirty years, sothat political progress was very slow. It was not till 1854 that theColony received a Representative Assembly, and not until 1872, eighteenyears later than in Australia, and twenty-five years later than inCanada, that full responsible government was established. 

Piet Retief, one of the leaders of the voluntary exiles, had published aproclamation in the following terms before he joined the trek: "We quitthis Colony under the full assurance that the English Government hasnothing more to require of us, and will allow us to govern ourselveswithout its interference in the future. We are now leaving the fruitfulland of our birth, in which we have suffered enormous losses andcontinual vexation, and are about to enter a strange and dangerousterritory; but we go with a firm reliance on an all-seeing, just, andmerciful God, whom we shall always fear and humbly endeavour to obey. "This was high language, yet after-events proved that a steady, consistently fair treatment on our part would even then have reconciledthese men to a permanent continuance of British sovereignty. Unfortunately, our policy oscillated painfully between irritatinginterference and excessive timidity. First of all attempts were made tostop the trek by force, then to compel the trekkers to return by cuttingoff their supplies and ammunition, then to throttle their development ofthe new lands north of the Orange and Vaal Rivers by calling into beingfictitious native States on a huge scale in the midst of and aroundthem, then tardily to repair the disastrous effects of this policy; butnot before it had led to open hostilities (1845). Hostilities, however, had this temporarily good result, in that it brought to the front one ofthe ablest and wisest of the Cape Governors, Sir Harry Smith, whodefeated the Boers at Boomplatz in 1848, established what went by thename of the Orange River Sovereignty, and in a year or two secured suchgood and peaceful government within its borders as to attractconsiderable numbers of English and Scotch colonists. The malcontentsretired across the Vaal. Then came an abrupt change of policy in theHome Government, a sudden desire actuated mainly by fear of more nativewars, to cancel all that was possible of our commitments in SouthAfrica. The Transvaal, by the Sand River Convention, was declaredindependent in 1852, the Orange Free State, by the Convention ofBloemfontein, in 1854. This was to rush from one extreme to the other. It was as though in 1847 we had erected Quebec into a sovereign Stateinstead of giving it responsible government under the Crown, or as if in1843 we had been so deeply convinced by O'Connell's second agitation forrepeal that we had leapt straight from coercive government to thefoundation of an independent Republic in Ireland, instead of giving herthe kind of Home Rule which she was asking for. 

It was not yet too late to mend. In 1854, when the cession of the FreeState had just been carried out, Sir George Grey, whom we have met within Australia and New Zealand, came as High Commissioner to the Cape. In1859 he made the proposal I alluded to in the last chapter forfederating all the South African States, including the two newRepublics. There is little doubt that the scheme was feasible then. TheOrange Free State was willing to join, and, indeed, had initiatedproposals for Federation. Its adhesion would have compelled theTransvaal, always more hostile to British rule, to come in eventually, if not at once; for the relations of the two Republics were friendlyenough at the time to permit one man, Pretorius, to be President of bothStates. 

The scheme was rejected by Lord Derby's Tory Cabinet, and Grey, a"dangerous man, " as Lord Carnarvon, the Colonial Secretary, dubbed him, was recalled. 

Sixteen years later, in 1875, Lord Carnarvon himself, as a member of theDisraeli Ministry, revived the project. Converted in his views of theColonies, like many of his Tory colleagues at this period, he hadcarried through Parliament the Federation of Canada in 1867, and hopedto do the same with South Africa. But it was too late. The CapeParliament, now in possession of a responsible Ministry, was hostile, while twenty years of self-government, for the most part under the greatPresident Brand, had changed the sentiments of the Free State. Federation, then, was impossible. On the other hand, the Transvaal wasin a state of political unrest and of danger from native aggression, which gave a pretext for reversion to the long-abandoned policy ofannexation, and to that extreme Carnarvon promptly went in April, 1877. He took this dangerous course without ascertaining the considered wishesof the majority of the Boers, acting through his emissary, Sir T. Shepstone, on the informal application of a minority of townsmen whohonestly wished to come under British rule. 

Rash as the measure was, lasting good might have come of it had theessential step been taken of preserving representative government. Thepromise was given and broken. For three years the Assembly, orVolksraad, was not summoned. Once more home statesmanship was blind, andlocal administration blunderingly oppressive. Shepstone was the wrongman for the post of Administrator. Sir Owen Lanyon, his successor, wasan arrogant martinet of the stamp familiar in Canada before 1840, andpainfully familiar in Ireland. The refusal of an Assembly naturallystrengthened the popular demand for a reversal of the annexation, andthis demand, twice pressed in London through a deputation headed by PaulKruger, obscured the whole issue, and raised a question of Britishnational pride, with all its inevitable consequences, where none needhave been raised. There was a moment of hope when Sir Bartle Frere, whostands, perhaps, next to Sir George Grey on the roll of eminent HighCommissioners, endeavoured to pacify the Boer malcontents, and draftedthe scheme of a liberal Constitution for the Transvaal. But one of thelast acts of the Tory Government, at the end of 1879, was to recallFrere for an alleged transgression of his powers in regard to the ZuluWar, and to pigeon-hole his scheme. Mr. Gladstone, who in oppositionhad denounced the annexation with good enough justification, though interms which under the circumstances were immoderate, found himselfcompelled to confirm it when he took office in April, 1880. But he, too, allowed the liberal Constitution to sleep in its pigeon-hole. He wasassured by the officials on the spot that there was no danger, that themajority were loyal, and only a minority of turbulent demagoguesdisloyal; and in December, 1880, the rebellion duly broke out, and theTransvaal Republic was proclaimed. What followed we know, war, Laing'sNek, Majuba, and one more violent oscillation of policy in theconcession of a virtual independence to the Transvaal. 

Whatever we may think of the policy of this concession, and Lord Morleyhas made the best case that can be made for Mr. Gladstone's action, itis certain that it was only a link in a long chain of blunders for whichboth great political parties had been equally responsible, and of whichthe end had not yet come. The nation at large, scarcely alive until nowto the existence of the Colonies, was stung into Imperial consciousnessby a national humiliation, for so it was not unnaturally regarded, coming from an obscure pastoral community confusedly identified assomething between a Colony, a foreign power, and a troublesome nativetribe. The history of the previous seventy years in South Africa waseither unknown or forgotten, and Mr. Gladstone, who in past years hadpreached to indifferent hearers the soundest and sanest doctrine ofenlightened Imperialism, suddenly appeared, and for ever after remainedin the eyes of a great body of his countrymen, as a betrayer of thenation's honour. Resentment was all the greater in that it wasuniversally believed that Laing's Nek and Majuba were unlucky littleaccidents, and that another month or two of hostilities would havehumbled the Boers to the dust. 

This illusion, which is not yet eradicated, and which has coloured allsubsequent discussion of the subject, lasted unmodified until the firstmonths of the war in 1899, when events took place exactly similar toLaing's Nek and Majuba, and were followed by a campaign lasting nearlythree years, requiring nearly 500, 000 men for its completion, and theco-operation of the whole Empire. It is impossible to estimate thecourse events would have taken in 1881 had the war been prolonged. Ifthe Free State had joined the Transvaal, it may be reasonablyconjectured that we should have been weaker, relatively, than in 1899. Though the Boers were less numerous, less well organized, and lessunited as a nation in 1881, they were even better shots and stalkersthan in 1899, because they had had more recent practice against game andnatives; nor was there a large British population in the Transvaal tocounteract their efforts and supply magnificent corps like the ImperialLight Horse for service in arms against them. Our army, just as brave, was in every other respect, especially in the matter of mounted men andmarksmanship, less fitted for such a peculiar campaign, and could havecounted with far less certainty upon that assistance from mountedcolonial troops without which the war of 1899-1902 could never have beenfinished at all. Our command of the sea was less secure; the EgyptianWar of 1882 was brewing, and Ireland, where the Great Land Act of 1881was not yet law, was seething with crime and disorder littledistinguishable from war itself, and demanding large bodies of troops. 

If the further course of a war in 1881 is a matter of speculation, whatwe all know for certain is, first, that the conditions which led to warwere produced by seventy years of vacillating policy, and, second, thatwar itself would have been a useless waste of life and treasure, unlesssuccess in it had been followed, as in 1906, by the grant of thatresponsible Government which all along had been the key to the wholedifficulty, the condition precedent to a Federal Union of the SouthAfrican States, and to their closer incorporation in the Empire. 

Few persons realized this at the time. The whole situation changeddisastrously for the worse. Arrogance and mutual contempt embittered therelations of the races. Then came a crucial test for the Boer capacityfor enlightened and generous statesmanship. Gold was discovered in theTransvaal, and a large British population flocked in. The same problem, with local modifications, faced the Boers as had been faced in Upper andLower Canada, and for centuries past in Ireland. Were they to trust orsuspect, to admit or to exclude from full political rights, thenew-comers? Was it to be the policy of the Duke of Wellington or of theEarl of Durham, of Fitzgibbon or the Volunteers? They chose the wrongcourse, and set up an oligarchical ascendancy like the "family compact"of Upper Canada and Nova Scotia. Can we be surprised that they, a rude, backward race, failed under the test where we ourselves, with far lessjustification, had failed so often? Their experience of our methods hadbeen bad from first to last. Their latest taste of our rule had been thecoercive system of Lanyon, and they feared, with only too good reason, as events after the second war proved, that any concession would lead toa counter-ascendancy of British interests in a country which was legallytheir own, not a portion of the British dominions. We had sufferednothing, and had no reason to fear anything, from the Irish andFrench-Canadian Catholics, nor from the Nonconformist Radicals of UpperCanada. It would have been well if a small fraction of the abuselavished on the tyrannical Boer oligarchy six thousand miles away hadbeen diverted into criticism of the government of a country within sixtymiles of our shores, where a large majority of the inhabitants had beenfor generations asking for the same thing as the Uitlander minority inthe Transvaal--Home Rule--and were stimulated to make that demand bygrievances of a kind unknown in the Transvaal. 

But the British blood was up; the Boer blood was up. Such an atmosphereis not favourable to far-seeing statesmanship, and it would have takenstatesmanship on both sides little short of superhuman to avert anotherwar. The silly raid of 1895 and its condonation by public opinion inEngland hastened the explosion. Can anyone wonder that public opinion inIreland was instinctively against that war? Only a pedant will seize onthe supposed paradox that a war for equal rights for white men shouldhave met with reprobation from an Ireland clamouring for Home Rule. Irish experience amply justified Irishmen in suspecting precisely whatthe Boers suspected, a counter-ascendancy in the gold interest, and inseeing in a war for the conquest of a small independent country by amighty foreign power an analogy to the original conquest of Ireland bythe same power. It is hard to speak with restraint of the educatedmen--men with books and time to read them, with brains and the wealthand leisure to develop them--who to this very day abuse their talents inencouraging among the ignorant multitude the belief that the Irishleaders of that day were, to use the old hackneyed phrase, "traitors tothe Empire. " If we look at the whole of these events in justperspective, if we search coolly and patiently for abiding principlesbeneath the sordid din and confusion of racial strife, we shall agreethat in some respects Irishmen were better friends to the Empire thanthe politicians who denounced them, and sounder judges of its needs. Yetthere can be no doubt that the Transvaal complications, followedunhappily by the Gordon episode in the Soudan, reacted fatally onIreland, and that the Irish problem in its turn reacted with bad effecton the Transvaal. When the statesman who refused to avenge Majuba in1881 proposed his Irish Home Rule Bills in 1886 and 1893, it was easyfor prejudiced minds to associate the two policies as harmonious partsof one great scheme of national dismemberment and betrayal. Boers, Irish, and Soudanese savages, all were confusedly lumped together asdangerous people whom it was England's duty to conquer and coerce. 

The South African War of 1899-1902 came and passed. People will discussto the end of time whether or not it could have been avoided. Partieswill differ to the end of time about its moral justification. For my ownpart, I think it is pleasanter to dwell on the splendid qualities itevoked in both races, and above all on the mutual respect which replacedthe mutual contempt of earlier days. I myself am disposed to think thatat the pass matters had reached in 1896 nothing but open war could haveset the relations of the two races on a healthy footing. 

But bold and generous statesmanship was needed if the fruits of thismutual respect were to be reaped. The defeated Republics were nowBritish Colonies, their inhabitants British subjects. After manyvicissitudes we were back once more in the old political situation of1836 before the Great Trek, and the policy which was right then wasright now. Bitter awakening as it was to our proud people after a warinvolving such colossal sacrifices, it was still just as true as of oldthat in Ireland, Canada, Australia, South Africa, or anywhere else, itis utterly impossible for one white democracy to rule another properlyon the principle of ascendancy. It was physically possible, thanks toIreland's proximity, to deny that country Home Rule, but it would nothave been even physically possible in the Transvaal and Orange RiverColony. Yet the idea was conceived and the policy strongly backed whichcould only have had the disastrous effect of bringing into being twoIrelands in the midst of our South African dominions. It is not yetgenerally recognized that we owe the defeat of this policy in the firstinstance to Lord Kitchener. From the moment he took the supreme militarycommand in South Africa at the end of 1900, while prosecuting the warwith iron severity and sleepless energy, he insisted on and worked for asettlement by consent, with a formal promise of future self-governmentto the Boers. In this he was in sharp opposition to Lord Milner, whodesired to extort an unconditional surrender. Of these two strong, able, high-minded men, the soldier, curiously enough, was the betterstatesman. In temperament he recalls the General Abercromby of 1797 onthe eve of the Irish rebellion, still more perhaps General Carleton, whoadministered French Canada in the critical period after its conquest andduring the American War. Lord Milner, in political theory, not inpersonality, corresponds to Fitzgibbon. His view was that Britishprestige and authority could only be maintained in the future by thushumbling the national pride of our adversaries, who, moreover, by theformal annexations of 1900, carried into effect when the war was stillyoung, were by a legal fiction rebels, not belligerents. Lord Kitchener, besides seeing, as the responsible soldier in the field, the sheerphysical impossibility of lowering the Boer national pride by anymilitary operations he had the power to undertake, from the beginning ofthe guerilla war onwards, was a truer judge of human nature and a betterImperialist at heart in realizing that the self-respect of the Boers wasa precious asset, not a dangerous menace to the Empire, and that thewhole fate of South Africa depended on a racial reconciliation on thebasis of equal political rights, which would be for ever precluded bycompelling the Boers to pass under the Caudine Forks. 

Fortunately Lord Kitchener was supported by the Home Government, and thePeace of Vereeniging took the form of a surrender on terms, or, virtually, of a treaty, formally guaranteeing, among other things, theconcession "when circumstances should permit" of "representativeinstitutions leading up to self-government. " The next ordeal of Britishstatesmanship came when the time arrived in 1905 to redeem this promise. There were two distinctly defined alternatives: one, to profit byexperience and to give responsible government at once; the other, forthe time being, to copy one of the constitutional models which had longbeen obsolete curiosities in the history of all the white Colonies, which had never failed to produce mischievous results, whether in abi-racial or a uni-racial community, and which were in reality suitedonly to groups of officials and traders living in the midst ofuneducated coloured races in tropical lands. The Government, and wecannot doubt that their traditional policy toward Ireland warped theirviews, declared for the latter alternative, and issued under LettersPatent a Constitution which happily never came into force. Like the Actof Union with Ireland, it gave the shadow of freedom without thesubstance. It set up a single Legislative Chamber, four-fifths elective, but containing, as _ex-officio_ members, the whole of the ExecutiveCouncil as nominated by the Crown. Executive power, therefore, togetherwith the last word in all legislation, was to remain wholly in the handsof the Crown, acting through a Ministry not responsible to the people'srepresentatives. It would have been difficult to design a plan morecertain to promote friction, racialism, and an eventual deadlock, necessitating either a humiliating surrender by the Government underpressure of the refusal of supplies, or a reversion to despoticgovernment which would have produced another war. With wide differencesof detail and with the added risk of financial deadlock, it was soughtto establish the kind of political situation prevalent in Ireland afterthe Act of Union. The executive power in that country, and, with theexception of the Department of Agriculture, the policy and personnel ofthe host of nominated Boards through which its affairs are administered, still stand wholly outside popular control, while legislation inaccordance with Irish views is only possible when, in the fluctuation ofthe British party balance, a British Ministry happens to be in sympathywith these views, and only too often not even then. 

Statesmen who looked with complacency on the history of a century inIreland under such a system naturally took a similar view of theTransvaal, deriving it from the same low estimate of human tendencies. The literature, despatches, and speeches of the period carry us straightback to the Canadian controversies of 1837-1840, and beyond them to theUnion controversy of 1800. In one respect the parallel with the IrishUnion is closer, because, while British opinion in Lower Canada waspredominantly against responsible government, there was in Ireland astrong current of unbribed Protestant opinion against the Union. Similarly, in the Transvaal, there was a strong feeling among a sectionof the British population, coinciding with the general wishes of theDutch population, in favour of full responsible government. In otherwords, the mere prospect of self-government lessened racial cleavage, brought men of the two races together, and began the evolution of a newparty cleavage on the normal lines natural to modern communities. Thewhole question was keenly canvassed at public meetings and in the Pressfrom November, 1904, to February 5, 1905, and in Johannesburg a Britishparty of considerable strength took the lead in demanding the fullerpolitical rights, and formed the Responsible Government Association. Thecontroversy was embodied in a Blue-Book laid before Parliament, [35] andat every stage of its progress the facts were cabled home by Lord Milnerto the Government, who thus had the whole situation before them whenthey came to their decision. 

It would be worth the reader's while to study with some care the termsof the despatch announcing that decision. [36] He will feel himself incontact with fundamental principles, undisturbed by individual bias; forno one could suspect Mr. Lyttelton, the genial and popular Secretary ofState who penned the despatch, of any violent prejudices. Yet the spiritof the whole despatch, though gentle and persuasive in its terms, is thespirit of Fitzgibbon's brutally outspoken argument for the extinction ofthe Irish Parliament, and the complete exclusion of Irish RomanCatholics from influence over their country's affairs. The despatchbegins, it is true, by explaining that the proposed Constitution is onlyintended to be temporary; that it had been the invariable custom togrant freedom to the Colonies by degrees, and that the custom must befollowed; but the reasons adduced for following it, if we consider thatthey were adduced in the year 1905, instead of a century and a halfback, constitute one of the strangest of all the strange inversions ofhistorical cause and effect which a Home Rule controversy has eversuggested to the human brain. Instead of inferring from our bitterexperiences in Upper and Lower Canada, which are mentioned in thedespatch, and in Ireland, which is not, that race distinctions increaseinstead of lessening the necessity for responsible government, Mr. Lyttelton complacently quotes bi-racial Lower Canada as a precedent forhis Transvaal Constitution. Quite frankly, though in curiouslymisleading terms, [37] he records the fact that a similar Constitutionthere led to deadlock and rebellion. Without intention to deceive, heignores the fact that wholly British Upper Canada reached the same passfor the same reasons; and he appears to look forward with equanimity tothe passage of the unfortunate Transvaal through an identically painfulphase of history toward the same sanguinary climax. The radical errorin the official version of events in Canada appears in the comparisonbetween the rebellions of 1837 and the South African War of 1899-1902. To contrast the "brief armed rising" in Canada with the three years' warin South Africa, and to argue that a degree of freedom could safely begiven after the former, which would involve great danger after thelatter, was to show ignorance of the chain of historical events andblindness to their true moral. The underlying idea is the one applied tothe old American Colonies and for centuries to Ireland, namely, that themore mutinous a dependency is, the less reason for giving it Home Rule, with the paradoxical corollary applied even to this day in Ireland, thatif it is not disorderly it does not need Home Rule. So from age to agestatesmen run their heads against facts, perpetuate the errors of theirforefathers, and do their unconscious best to intensify the evils theydeplore. It was erroneous to regard either the Canadian Rebellions orthe Boer War as events which rendered responsible government more orless dangerous. Each of these events was itself the climax of a longperiod of irresponsible misgovernment dating from about the same period, the second decade of the nineteenth century, and demanding the sameremedy. In the Boer case, continuity was twice broken by grants ofindependence, and the climax proportionally delayed, but the origin ofthe trouble was the same. If the Boers had not trekked _en masse_ fromCape Colony in order to escape from misgovernment, both movements--inthe Cape and Canada--might have come to a head in exactly the same year, 1837. 

In sober, weighty, tactful phrases, carefully chosen to avoid givingneedless offence to the Dutch, the despatch laboriously overthrows theLiberal theory of government, and works out the negation of all Imperialexperience. It deplores the "bitter memories" of war, which freeinstitutions, by tending to "emphasize and stereotype the racial line, "will make more, not less bitter, and which can be effaced only by the"healing effect of time. " We think of the Durham Report, of Ireland, andmarvel. We recollect the bulky Blue-Book at Mr. Lyttelton's elbow as hewrote, full of speeches and articles by Englishmen, showing quitecorrectly, as has since been proved, that the "racial line" inJohannesburg was growing fainter daily with the mere prospect ofresponsible government. These men were not afraid of the Dutch, and saidso. The answer was that they ought to be, or, in the persuasive languageof diplomacy, as follows:

"His Majesty's Government trust that those of British origin in theTransvaal who, with honest conviction, have advocated the immediateconcession of full responsible government, will recognize the soundnessand cogency of the reasons, both in their own interests and in those ofthe Empire, for proceeding more cautiously and slowly, and that under apolitical system which admittedly has its difficulties they will, notwithstanding a temporary disappointment, do their best to promote thewelfare of the country and the smooth working of its institutions. "

Then came a chivalrous compliment to the Dutch for their "gallantstruggle" in the war, coupled with a reminder that they are not to betrusted with political power, a reminder so courteously worded that it, too, becomes a compliment:

"The inhabitants of Dutch origin have recently witnessed, after theirgallant struggle against superior power, the fall of the Republicfounded by the valour and sufferings of their ancestors, and cannot beexpected, until time has done more to heal the wound, to entertain themost cordial feelings towards the Government of the Transvaal. But fromthem also, as from a people of practical genius, who have learned bylong experience to make the best of circumstances, His Majesty'sGovernment expect co-operation in the task of making their race, nolonger in isolated independence, a strong pillar in the fabric of aworld-wide Empire. That this should be the result, and that a completereconciliation between men of two great and kindred races should, underthe leading of Divine Providence, speedily come to pass, is the ardentdesire of His Majesty the King and of His Majesty's Government. "

The tone recalls the tone of Pitt and Castlereagh in proposing theUnion. But Fitzgibbon went more directly to the point in saying outrightthat, Ireland having been conquered and confiscated, the colonists "wereat the mercy of the old inhabitants of the island, " and that laws mustbe framed by an external power to "meet the vicious propensities ofhuman nature. " Let us recognize unreservedly that the words of theTransvaal despatch were the outcome of deep and sincere conviction. Thatis the worst of it. From age to age Ireland has to suffer for the depthand sincerity of these convictions. There, too, the cleavage of race andreligion, never complete, always defying the official efforts to"stereotype and emphasize it, " to quote the despatch of 1905, growsfainter with time, and will grow fainter as long as the nationalmovement lives to draw men together in the common interest of Ireland. The Volunteers, Wolfe Tone, Emmet, many of the Young Irelanders, IsaacButt, Parnell, were Protestants. And there is a strong band ofProtestant Home Rulers to-day in Ulster and out of it, landlords, tenants, capitalists, labourers, Members of Parliament, and clergymen, who declare that they are not afraid of Catholic oppression, and who aretold by Unionists that they ought to be. And in Ireland, too, the RomanCatholic majority are told, rarely, it is true, in the courteous phrasesof Mr. Lyttelton's despatch, that they "cannot be expected to entertainthe most cordial feelings towards the Government. " In Ireland, also, isa "political system which admittedly has its difficulties, " ironicaleuphemism for a system whose analogue in the Transvaal could have beenused by the subject race, had they so willed, to bring civil governmentto a standstill, without the means of furnishing anything better, andwhich under the Act of Union can be, and has been, used to dislocate theParliamentary life of the United Kingdom. The Boers were asked "as apeople of practical genius" to assist the "smooth working" of anunworkable Constitution, so as to promote the "reconciliation of twogreat and kindred races. " The Irish are pursued with invective forlegitimately using the constitutional power given them in order, whilefreeing Parliament from an intolerable incubus, to gain the right toelicit character and responsibility in themselves by shouldering theirown burdens and saving their own souls. 

If the official view of the Transvaal was mistaken, the summit of errorwas reached in the view taken of the Orange River Colony. In thatColony, which was almost wholly pastoral and Dutch, and which until thewar had enjoyed free institutions uninterruptedly for half a century, and had made remarkably good vise of them, representative government, even of the illusory kind designed for the Transvaal, was to beindefinitely postponed, postponed at any rate until the results of the"experiment" in the Transvaal had been observed. 

The Government "recognize that there are industrial and economicconditions peculiar to the Transvaal, which make it very desirable inthat Colony to have at the earliest possible date some better means ofascertaining the views of the different sections of the population thanthe present system affords. The question as regards the Orange RiverColony being a less urgent one, it appears to them that there will beadvantage in allowing a short period to intervene before electiverepresentative institutions are granted to the last-named Colony, because this will permit His Majesty's Government to observe theexperiment, and, if need be, to profit by the experience so gained. "

What is the train of reasoning in this strange specimen of politicalargument? It was important to "ascertain the views" of the bi-racialTransvaal, but needless to ascertain the views of the practicallyhomogeneous Orange River Colony. The "question" there is a "less urgentone. " What question? Why less urgent? Is it that the British minority, being so very small, is more liable to oppression by the Dutch? That isa tenable point, though by parity of reasoning it would seem to make thequestion more, not less, urgent, and the importance of "ascertaining theviews" of the different sections of the population, greater, not less. Or is it the diametrically opposite train of thought, namely, that anassumed improbability of disorder owing to the homogeneity of thepopulation is a reason, not for giving Home Rule, but for withholdingit? These contradictions and confusions are painfully familiar inanti-Home Rule dialectics all over the world. A quiet Ireland does notwant Home Rule; a turbulent Ireland is not fit for it. If the Unionistelement in Ireland is strong, that is clearly an argument forwithholding Home Rule in deference to the wishes of a strong minority. If the minority, on the other hand, is proved to be small, all thegreater reason for withholding it, because oppression by the majoritywill be easier. So the sterile argument swings back and forth, and menstill talk of "experiments" and "profiting by experience, " while thedemonstration of their errors is written in the blood and tears ofcenturies, and while masses of facts accumulate, demonstrating the greattruth that free democratic government, whatever its disadvantages anddangers--and it has both--is the best resource for uniting, strengthening, and enriching a community of white men. 

The Transvaal Constitution of 1905 was cancelled on the incoming of theLiberal Ministry at the end of that year, and in the following year fullresponsible government was granted both to the Transvaal and OrangeRiver Colony, with the results that we know. Instantaneously therepermeated the bi-racial urban society in the Transvaal a new sense ofbrotherhood. Men of different race, as far apart in spirit as themembers of the Kildare Street Club, the Orange Societies, and theAncient Order of Hibernians, met and made friends because it was notonly natural but necessary to make friends, since on all alike lay theburden of doing their best for their country on a basis of equalcitizenship. Nobody out there called the new system an "experiment. " Thewrench once over, the thing once done, there was general unanimity thatwhatever the difficulties--and there were great difficulties--it was theright thing to be done under the circumstances, and if this unanimitywas combined, rightly or wrongly, with a good deal of resentment againstthe Liberal attitude at home towards Chinese labour, nobody is any theworse for that. The day will come when even that burning question willbe seen in its true perspective as an infinitesimally small point besidethe great principle of responsible government, which includes thedecision of labour questions, together with all other branches ofdomestic policy. 

Conservative opinion at home has been slower to change than Britishopinion in the Transvaal. But, again, this was natural. Parties had longbeen divided on the South African question. The abrupt reversal ofpolicy was felt as a humiliation, and the ingrained mental habitsengendered by the traditional policy towards Ireland yielded slowly, grudgingly, and fearfully to the proof of error in South Africa. It isnot for the sake of opening an old wound, but solely because it isabsolutely necessary for the completion of my argument, that I have torecall the angry and violent speeches which followed the announcement ofthe new policy; the dogmatic prognostications of Imperial disruption, offinancial collapse, and of a cruel Boer tyranny in the emancipatedColonies; the charges of wanton betrayal of loyalists, of disgracefulsurrender to "the enemy. " Some of the leading actors in these scenes, notably Mr. Balfour and Mr. Lyttelton, have since acknowledged that theywere wrong, while apparently feeling it their duty as honourable andloyal men to give a somewhat misleading turn to an old controversy intheir praise of Lord Milner's services to South Africa. That LordMilner, in his administration during and after the war, did, indeed, doa vast amount of sound and lasting work for South Africa is perfectlytrue, and he deserves all honour for it. Probably no public servant ofthe Empire ever laboured in its service with more unstinted devotion anda higher sense of duty. But good administration is not an adequatesubstitute for knowledge of men, and that knowledge Lord Milner lacked. He did no service to the British colonists of South Africa in tellingthem that they had been shamefully betrayed by the Home Government in1906. It would have been wiser to advise them to rely on themselves andon the justice and wisdom of their Dutch fellow-citizens. His violentspeeches in 1906-1908 about the calamitous results of permitting Dutchinfluences free play in South Africa--speeches breathing the essentialspirit of Fitzgibbonism--would have wrought incalculable mischief hadthey coincided with effective British policy; while his view, asexpressed in the House of Lords, [38] that a preparatory régime ofbenevolent despotism, showing "the obvious solicitude of the Governmentfor the welfare of the people, " and taking shape "in a hundred and oneworks of material advancement, " would "win us friends and diminish ourenemies, " evinces an ignorance of the ordinary motives influencing theconduct of white men, which would be incredible if we had not Irishexperience before us. "Twenty years of resolute government, " said LordSalisbury. "Home Rule will be killed by kindness, " said many of hissuccessors. In later chapters I shall have to show what well-meantkindness and resolute government have done for Ireland. If even at thislate hour Lord Milner would frankly acknowledge his error, I believe hewould enormously enhance his reputation in the eyes of the whole Empire. 

As practical men, let us remember that the Constitutions of 1906 wouldnot have become law if, instead of being issued under Letters Patent, they had had to pass through Parliament in the form of a Bill. The wholeConservative party, following Lord Milner, was vehemently against theLetters Patent. Those who witnessed the debate upon them in the House ofCommons will not forget the scene. I recall this fact without any desireto entangle myself in the current controversy about the Upper House, butwith the strictly practical object of showing that because a Home RuleBill is defeated in Parliament, as the Irish Bills of 1886 and 1893 weredefeated, it does not necessarily follow that its policy is wrong. Nordoes it follow that its policy is wrong if that defeat in Parliament isconfirmed by a General Election. Home Rule for Canada never had to pass, and would not have passed even the Parliamentary test. Skilful anddetermined organization could have wrecked even the AustralianConstitutions. No one, certainly, could have guaranteed a favourableresult of a General Election taken expressly upon the Transvaal andOrange River Constitutions of 1906, with the whole machinery of one ofthe great parties thrown into the scale against them. We know the casemade against Ireland on such occasions, and the case against theconquered Republics was made in Parliament with ten times greater force. If anyone doubts this, let him compare the speeches on Ireland in 1886and 1893 with the speeches on South Africa in 1905-06. With thealteration of a name or two, with the substitution, for example, ofJohannesburg for Ulster, the speeches against South African and IrishHome Rule might be almost interchangeable. For electioneering purposes, evidences, in word and act, of Boer treason, rapacity, andvindictiveness, could have been made by skilful orators to seem damningand unanswerable. All the arts for inflaming popular passion under thepretext of "patriotism" would have been used, and we know thatpatriotism sometimes assumes strange disguises. The material would havebeen rich and easily accessible. Instead of having to ransack ancientnumbers of Irish or American newspapers for incautious phrases droppedby Mr. Redmond or Mr. O'Brien in moments of unusual provocation, thespeeches of Botha, Steyn, and De Wet, during the war, and even at thePeace Conference, would have been ready for the hoardings and thefly-sheets, and they would have had an appreciable effect. 

Am I weakening the case for democracy itself in pressing this view?Surely not. One democracy is incapable of understanding the domesticneeds and problems of another. Whenever, therefore, a democracy findsitself responsible for the adjudication of a claim for Home Rule fromwhite men, it should limit itself to ascertaining whether the claim isgenuine and sincere. If it is, the claim should be granted, and aConstitution constructed in friendly concert with the men who are tolive under it. That way lies safety and honour, and, happily, thedemocracy is being educated to that truth. If this be a counsel ofperfection; if the difficult and delicate task of settling the detailsof Irish Home Rule is to be hampered and complicated by theresuscitation of those time-honoured discussions over abstractprinciples which ought long ago to have been buried and forgotten, letevery patriotic and enlightened man at any rate do his best to sweetenand mollify the controversy, to extirpate its grosser manifestations, and to substitute reason for passion. 

The grant of responsible government to the Transvaal and Orange RiverColony reacted with amazing rapidity on South African politics as awhole. It took the Canadian Provinces twenty-seven years (if we reckonfrom 1840), and the Australian States forty-five years (if we reckonfrom 1855), to reach a Federal Union. Hardly a minute was wasted inSouth Africa. Under very able guidance, the scheme was canvassed almostfrom the first, and in two years trusted leaders of both races, representing Natal, Cape Colony, and two newly emancipatedColonies--men, some of whom had been shooting at one another only fiveyears before--were sitting at a table together hammering out the detailsof a South African Union. Here, indeed, was shown the "practical genius"which the Government of 1905 had piously invoked for their abortiveConstitution. In the spirit of forbearance, of sympathy, of wisecompromise, which governed the proceedings of this famous Conference, was to be found the measure of the longing of all parties to extinguishracialism and make South Africa truly a nation. The Imperial Actlegalizing the arrangements ultimately arrived at by the agreement ofthe colonists was passed in 1909. The political system constructedcannot be called Federal. The framers rejected the Australian model, andwent much beyond the Canadian model in centralizing authority anddiminishing local autonomy; nor can there be any doubt that thestrongest motive behind that policy was that of securing the harmony ofthe two white races. 

All this was the result of trusting the Dutch in 1906. "We cannot expectyou to trust us, and we shall not trust you, " said the despatch of 1905. We know what the consequences of that policy would have been. It is nota question of imagination or hypothesis. It is a question of theoperation of certain unchanging laws in the conduct of all white men. Good or bad, our government would have been detested. We should havemanufactured sedition, lawlessness, and discord. Then the tendency wouldhave been strong to follow the old Irish precedent, and make the evilsymptoms we had ourselves educed the pretext for tightening the screw ofanti-popular government. It would have been said that we must sustainour prestige to the end and at all costs, a phrase which often cloaksthe obstinacy of moral cowardice. Or, too late to escape the contempt ofthe Boers, we might have abruptly surrendered to clamour. It would havetaken a long time to reach union then. Contempt is a bad foundation. 

It brings one near despair to see the Union of South Africa used by menwho should know better as an argument against Irish Home Rule. The chainof causation is so clear, one would think, as to be incapable ofmisconstruction. But there seems to be no limit in certain minds to theprejudice against the principle of Home Rule. If it is seen to workwell, the phenomenon is hurriedly swept into oblivion, and its resultsattributed with feverish ingenuity to any cause but the true one. Thevery speed with which the antidote pervades the body politic and expelsthe old poison helps these untiring propagators of error to suppress thehistory of recuperation, and to ascribe the cure of the patient to atreatment which, if applied long enough, would have killed him. TheConservative party appear to have now reached this amazing conclusion:that they and Lord Milner were the authors of the South African Union, and that that Union is a weapon sent them by Providence for combatingthe Irish claims. This is what Ireland has to pay for being the sport ofBritish parties. Individual statesmen may point at past mistakes; but aparty, as a party, can never admit error: it is against the rules. Tomake things easier, there is that question-begging phrase, the "Union. "If South Africa, like Australia, had been federalized, this windfallwould have been lost, because the word "Federal" might have suggestedsome form of Federal Home Rule for Ireland. Labels mean an enormousamount in politics. 

There is not the slightest doubt that Mr. Walter Long, and even LordSelborne, who, as High Commissioner, actually witnessed the wholeevolution from responsible government in the two conquered States to theUnion of South Africa, are perfectly sincere in their opposition toIrish Home Rule. But, I would respectfully suggest, it is their duty touse their knowledge and convictions in the right and fair way. Let themsay, if they will, ignoring the intermediate and indispensable phase ofHome Rule in South Africa: "Here are two Unions; never mind how theyarose. Both are good: all Unions are good. The modern tendency to unifyis sound; do not let us react to devolution. " Let them, in other words, confine their argument to the domain of political science. What, Isubmit, they should refrain from, is the imputation of sordid motives toNationalist leaders, the prognostications of religious and racialtyranny in Ireland, and all those inflammatory arguments against theprinciple of Home Rule which have been used all the world over, fromtime immemorial, for the maintenance of Unions based on legal, not onmoral, ties, which were used against responsible government for theTransvaal, and which, I venture to affirm, degrade our public life. 

I am assuming for the moment that most Conservatives will elect to usethe South African parallel in the way that Mr. Long and Lord Selbornehave used it, that is, while tacitly approving in retrospect of the HomeRule of 1906, to argue from Union to Union. But it is of no use to blinkthe fact that there are pessimists who will put forward an antitheticalcase, boldly declaring that we were wrong ever to trust the Boers, thatracialism is as bad as ever, that General Botha's loyalty is cant, theCullinan diamond an insult, and that South Africa will go from bad toworse under a Dutch tyranny. Party propaganda is quite elastic enough topermit the two opposite views to be used to convince the same electorateat the same election. Pessimists are always active in these affairs, andthey can always produce something in the nature of a plausible case, because it stands to reason that the evils of generations cannot beswept away in a moment, either in South Africa or Ireland. Miracles donot happen, and the pessimists, who are the curse of Ireland to-day, will be able to demonstrate with ease that the free Ireland of to-morrowwill not enter instantaneously upon a millennium. It is useless toattempt to convert these extremists. For a century back, Hansard and thecolumns of daily papers have been full of their unfulfilled jeremiadsabout Canada, about Australia, and about the very smallest and mosttardy attempts to give a little responsibility to the majority ofcitizens in Ireland. The vocabulary of impending ruin has been exhaustedlong ago; there is nothing new to be said. But those who care to studyin a cool temper the course of recent South African politics in thecolumns of the _Times_, or, better still, in those of that excellentmagazine for the discussion of Imperial affairs, the _Round Table_, willconclude that extraordinary progress has been made towards racialreunion, and that in this respect no serious peril threatens SouthAfrica. The settlement, by friendly compromise at the end of the lastsession, of the very thorny question of language in the education ofchildren, is a good example of what good-will can accomplish under freeinstitutions. By a laboured construction of fragments of speeches culledfrom the utterances of exceptionally vehement partisans, it would bestill possible to make up a theory of the "disloyalty" of the SouthAfrican Dutch. It would have been equally possible for a painstakingBritish student of the _Sydney Bulletin_ within recent memory to start apanic over the imminent "loss" of Australia. Some people think thatCanada is as good as "lost" now. Yet the Empire has never been so strongor so united as to-day. 

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Cd. 2479, 1905. 

[36] Cd. 2400, 1905. 

[37] "It is true that in the case of Canada full responsible governmentwas conceded, a few years after a troublous period culminating in abrief armed rising, to a population composed of races then not veryfriendly to each other, though now long since happily reconciled. Butthe Canadas had by that time enjoyed representative institutions forover fifty years, the French-Canadians had since the year 1763 beencontinuously British subjects, and the disorders which preceded LordDurham's Mission and the subsequent grant of self-government could notcompare in any way with a war like that of 1899-1902. It is also thefact that in the United Colony of Upper and Lower Canada, during theperiod of 1840-1867, parties were formed mainly upon the lines of races, and that, as the representatives of the races were in number nearlybalanced, stability of Government was not attained, a difficulty whichwas not overcome until the Federation of 1867, accompanied by therelegation of provincial affairs to provincial Legislatures, placed thewhole political Constitution of Canada upon a wider basis. "

Few would gather from the first sentence that the races were "not veryfriendly to each other" precisely because they lived under a coercivepolitical system; and that, in the long-run, they were "happilyreconciled" because they received responsible government. Nor could itbe deduced from the obscure reference lower down to the union of the twoProvinces that the Union was the one blot upon Durham's scheme, the onepoint in which, fearing the predominance of a French majority in LowerCanada, he shrank from his own principles and recommended an unworkableUnion which tended to encourage the formation "of parties on the linesof races. " From the further allusion to the Federal Union of 1867, noone would imagine that that great scheme was founded on a cessation ofracial antipathy inside the Quebec Province, and on a voluntaryrecognition among all races and parties that it was best for thatProvince to have a local autonomy of its own, parallel with that of theOntario Province and under the supreme central authority of theDominion. 

[38] February 26, March 27, 1906. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE ANALOGY

Let the reader endeavour to see the closely related stories of Irelandand of these more distant communities as a whole, undistracted by thevarying degrees of their proximity to the Mother Country, making hisstudy one of men and laws, and remembering that Ireland was the firstand nearest of the British Colonies. Does not she become a convexmirror, in which, swollen to unnatural proportions, the mistakes of twocenturies are reflected? Principles of government universal in theirnature, transcending geography, and painfully evolved in more distantparts of the Empire, we have thrown to the winds in Ireland. Economicevils, resembling, in however distant a degree, those of Ireland, haveirritated and retarded every community in which they have been allowedto take root. A sound agrarian system has been the primary need of everycountry. To take the closest parallel, if absentee proprietorship andinsecurity of tenure kept little Prince Edward Island, peacefully andlegally settled, backward and disturbed for a century, it is notsurprising that Ireland, submitted to confiscation, the Penal Code, andcommercial rum, did not flourish under a land system beside which thatof Prince Edward Island was a paradise. Tardy redress of the worst Irishabuses is no defence of the system which created them and sustained themwith such ruinous results. No white community of pride and spirit wouldwillingly tolerate the grotesque form of Crown Colony administration, founded on force, and now tempered by a kind of paternal StateSocialism, under which Ireland lives to-day. Unionism for Ireland isanti-Imperialist. Its upholders strenuously opposed colonial autonomy, and but yesterday were passionately opposing South African autonomy. To-day colonial autonomy is an axiom. But Ireland is a measure of thedepth of these convictions. There would be no Empire to idealize iftheir Irish principles had been applied just a little longer to any ofthe oversea States which constitute the self-governing Colonies ofto-day. As it is, these principles have wrought great and perhapslasting mischief which, in the righteous glow of self-congratulationupon what we are accustomed to call our constructive political genius, we are too apt to overlook. It was bad for America to pass through thatphase of agitation and discord which preceded the revolutionary war. Itwas demoralizing for the Canadas to be driven into rebellion by thevices of ascendancy government. Mr. Gladstone, speaking of Australianautonomy, was right in satirizing the "miserable jargon" about fittingmen for political privileges, and in demonstrating the harm done bywithholding those privileges. And the Irish race all over the world, fine race as it is, would be finer still if Ireland had been free. 

The political habits formed in dealing with Ireland have disastrouslyinfluenced Imperial policy in the past. Cannot we, by a supreme nationaleffort, reverse the mental process, and, if we have always failed in thepast to learn from Irish lessons how not to treat the Colonies, at anyrate learn, even at the eleventh hour, from our colonial lessons how totreat Ireland? Must we for ever sound the old alarms about "disloyalty"and "dismemberment" and "abandonment of the loyal minority to the tendermercies of their foes"; phrases as old as the Stamp Act of 1765? Must wecarry the "gentle art of making enemies, " practised to the last point ofdanger in the Colonies, to the preposterous pitch of estranging men atour very doors, while pluming ourselves on the friendship of peoples12, 000 miles away? These are anxious times. We have a mighty rival inEurope, and we need the co-operation of all our hands and brains. On abasis of mere profit and loss, is it sensible to maintain a system inIreland which weakens both Ireland and the whole United Kingdom, clogsthe delicate machinery of Parliamentary government, and, worked out inhard figures of pounds, shillings, and pence, has ceased even to show apecuniary advantage?

Have Unionists really no better prescription for the constitutionaldifficulties caused by the Union than to reduce the representation ofIreland in Parliament so as to give Ireland still less control than atpresent over her own affairs? Is that seriously their last word instatesmanship, to exasperate Nationalist Ireland without even providingin any appreciable degree a mechanical remedy for disordered politicalfunctions? The idea has only to be stated to be dismissed. It is noteven practical politics. Some things are sheer impossibilities; and toleave the Union system as it is, while reducing representation, is oneof them. 

We revert, then, to a contemplation of the well-tried expedient, "Trust, and you will be trusted. " But then we have to meet pessimists of twodescriptions, the honest and the merely cynical. The honest pessimist(often, unhappily, an educated Irishman) says: "The Irish in Ireland arean incurably criminal race. They differ from Irishmen elsewhere and fromAnglo-Saxons everywhere. Air and soil are unaccountable. The Unionpolicy has been, and remains, a painful but a quite inevitablenecessity. It is sound, now and for all time. " The cynical pessimist, onthe other hand, admits the errors of past policy, but says frankly thatit is too late to change. "We have gone too far, raised passions wecannot allay. " I shall not try further to confute the honest pessimist. The preceding chapters have been written in vain if they do not shatterthe theory of original sin. And to the cynical pessimist, who is areincarnation of our old friend Fitzgibbon (for that clear-headedstatesman frankly imputed original sin to the conquerors of Ireland, aswell as to the conquered), I would only say: "Use your common sense. "These panics over the vagaries and excesses of an Irish Parliament, always groundless, are beginning to look highly ridiculous. In 1893, when the last Home Rule Bill was being discussed, a Franco-Irishalliance was the fear. Now it is the other way, and the _Spectator_ hasbeen writing solemn articles to warn its readers that Mr. Dillon, in aspeech on foreign policy, has shown ominous signs of hostility toFrance. In the election of January, 1910, an ex-Cabinet Ministerinformed the public that Home Rule meant the presence of a German fleetin Belfast Lough--at whose invitation he did not explain, though heprobably did not intend to insult Ulster. This wild talk has not eventhe merit of a strategical foundation. It belongs to another age. Ireland has neither a fleet nor the will or money to build one. Ourfleet, in which large numbers of Irishmen serve, guarantees the securityof New Zealand, and if it cannot maintain the command of home waters, including St. George's Channel, our situation is desperate, whetherIreland is friendly or hostile. We guarantee the independent existenceof the kingdom of Belgium, which is as near as Ireland, with militaryliabilities vastly more serious than any which Ireland could conceivablyentail; but we do not claim, as a consequence, to control the Executiveof Belgium and remove her Parliament to Westminster, in order to bequite sure that the Belgians are not intriguing against us with Germany. Germany, our alarmists fear, is to invade Ireland, and Ireland is togreet the invaders with open arms. The same prophecy was being made notmore than three years ago of the South African Dutch. After asking for acentury and a half to manage her own affairs, the Irish are not likelyto ask to be ruled by Germans. The German strategists are men of commonsense. If they were fortunate enough to gain the command of the sea, they could make no worse mistake than to dissipate their energies onIreland. 

Perhaps it is a waste of time to attempt to destroy these foolish myths. Let those that are sceptical about the effect of Home Rule in producingfriendlier feelings between Ireland and Great Britain consider in areasonable spirit the commonplace question of mutual interests. What isthe really practical significance of Ireland's proximity to England?This, that their material interests are indissociably intertwined. If itis "safe, " as the phrase goes, to entrust Australia with Home Rule, surely it is safer still to entrust Ireland with it. Has Irelandanything to gain by separation? Clearly nothing. Has she anything tolose? Much. Most of her trade is with Great Britain. British credit isof enormous value to her. The Imperial forces are of less proportionatevalue to her because her external trade is small; but she willinglysupplies a large and important part of their personnel; she shares intheir glorious traditions; and if it is a case of protection for hertrade, she will get no protection elsewhere. 

How idle are these calculations of profit and loss! The truth is thatIreland has taken her full share in winning and populating the Empire. The result is hers as much as Britain's. Mr. Redmond spoke for hiscountrymen last May[39] in saying: "We, as Irishmen, are not prepared tosurrender our share in the heritage [that is, the British Empire] whichour fathers created. " That is sound sentiment and sound sense. It is theview taken by the Colonies, where Irishmen are known, respected, andunderstood, and where the support for Home Rule, based on personalexperience of its blessings, has been, and remains, consistent andstrong. Indeed, we miss the significance of that support if we do notrealize that Irish Home Rule is an indispensable preliminary to thecloser union of the various parts of the Empire. Let us add the widergeneralization that it is an indispensable preliminary to the closerunion of all the English-speaking races. It may be fairly computed thata fifth of the present white population of the United States is of Irishblood. [40] American opinion, as a whole, so far as it is directedtowards Ireland and away from a host of absorbing domestic problems, isfavourable to Home Rule. Irish-American opinion has never swerved, although it has become more sober, as the material condition of Irelandhas improved, and the interests of Irish-Americans themselves havebecome more closely identified with those of their adopted country. Fenianism is altogether extinct. The extreme claim for the totalseparation of Ireland from Great Britain is now no more than asentimental survival among a handful of the older men, of the fiercehatreds provoked by the miseries and horrors of an era which has passedaway. [41] Even Mr. Patrick Ford and the _Irish World_ have moderatedtheir tone, and where that tone is still inflammatory it is notrepresentative of Irish-American opinion. I have studied with a gooddeal of care the columns of that journal for some months back, smilingover the imaginary terrors of the nervous people on this side of theAtlantic who are taught by their party Press to believe that Mr. PatrickFord is going to dynamite them in their beds. Any liberal-minded studentof history and human nature would pronounce the whole propagandaperfectly harmless. But the sane instinct that Ireland should have alocal autonomy of her own, an instinct common to the whole brotherhoodof nations which have sprung from these shores, lasts undiminished andtakes shape, quite rightly and naturally, as it takes shape in theColonies, in financial support of the Nationalist party in Ireland. Anti-British sentiment in the United States, once a grave internationaldanger, is that no longer; but it does still represent an obstacle tothe complete realization of an ideal which all patriotic men should aimat: the formation of indestructible bonds of friendship between GreatBritain and the United States. Nor must it be forgotten that the calmand reasonable character of Irish-American opinion is due in a largedegree to confidence in the ultimate success of the constitutionalmovement here for Home Rule. Every successive defeat of that policytends to embitter feeling in America. 

Oh, for an hour of intelligent politics! The old choice is before us--tomake the best or the worst of the state of opinion in America; todisinter from ancient files of the _Irish World_ sentences calculated toinflame an ignorant British audience; or to say in sensible and manlyterms: "The situation is more favourable than it has been for a centurypast for the settlement of just Irish claims. "

FOOTNOTES:

[39] At Woodford, May 27, 1911. 

[40] This is a very general statement. No figures exist for an accuratecomputation. The Census of 1910 gives the total population of the UnitedStates, white and coloured, as 91, 272, 266, of whom nearly 9, 000, 000 arenegroes. The figures about countries of origin are not yet available. The statistical abstract of the United States (1908) gives the totalnumber of immigrants from Ireland from 1821 to 1908 as 4, 168, 747 (thelarge majority of whom must have been of marriageable age), but does notestimate the subsequent increase by marriage, and takes no account ofthe immigration prior to 1821, which was very large, especially in theperiod preceding the Revolutionary War of 1775-1782. At the Census of1900 Irishmen actually _born in Ireland_ and then resident in the UnitedStates are stated to have been 1, 618, 567, as compared with 93, 682 fromWales, 233, 977 from Scotland, and 842, 078 from England. 

[41] I am especially indebted for information to Mr. Hugh Sutherland, ofthe _North American_ (Philadelphia), to Mr. Rodman Wanamaker, of thesame city, to Mr. Frank Sanborn, of Concord, and to Mr. JohnO'Callaghan, of Boston. 

CHAPTER IX

IRELAND TO-DAY

Why does present-day Ireland need Home Rule? I put the question in thatway because I am not going to question the fact that she wants HomeRule. She has always said she wanted it: she says so still, and that isenough. There is a powerful minority in Ireland against Home Rule. Therealways have been minorities more or less powerful against Home Rule inall ages and places. That does not alter the national character of theclaim. If once we go behind the voice of a people, constitutionallyexpressed, we court endless risks. National leaders have always beencalled "agitators, " which, of course, they are, and non-representativeagitators, which they are not. To deny the genuineness of a claim whichis feared is an invariable feature of oppositions to measures of HomeRule. The denial is generally irreconcilable with the case made for thedangers of Home Rule, and that contradiction in its most glaring shapecharacterizes the present opposition to the Irish claims. But Unionistsshould elect to stand on one ground or the other, and for my part Ishall assume that the large majority of Irishmen, as shown by successiveelectoral votes, want Home Rule. Precisely what form of Home Rule theywant is another and by no means so clear a matter, on which I shallpresently have a word to say. But they want, in the general sense, tomanage their own local affairs. Her best friends would despair ofIreland if that was not her desire. 

What, in the Colonies, Ireland, and everywhere else, is the deepspiritual impulse behind the desire for Home Rule? A craving forself-expression, self-reliance. Home Rule is synonymous with the growthof independent character. That is why Ireland instinctively andpassionately wants it, that is why she needs it, and that is why GreatBritain, for her own sake, and Ireland's, should give it. If that is notthe reason, it is idle to talk about Home Rule; but it is the reason. 

Character is the very foundation of national prosperity and happiness, and we are blind to the facts of history if we cannot discern theprofound effect of political institutions upon human character. Self-government in the community corresponds to free will in theindividual. I am far from saying that self-government is everything. ButI do say that it is the master-key. It is fundamental. Giveresponsibility and you will create responsibility. Through politicalresponsibility only can a society brace itself to organized effort, findout its own opinions on its own needs, test its own capabilities, andelicit the will, the brains, and the hands to solve its own problems. 

These are such commonplaces in every other part of the Empire, which hasan individual life of its own, that men smile if you suggest thecontrary. But ordinary reasoning is rarely applied to Ireland. There"good government" has been held to be "a substitute for self-government"and a régime of benevolent paternalism to be a full and sufficientcompensation for cruel coercion and crueller neglect. In this paternalrégime it is impossible to include those great measures of land reformpassed in 1870, 1881, and 1887, which revolutionized the agrariansystem, and converted the cottier tenant into a judicial tenant. [42]Although these measures, which fall into an altogether differentcategory from the subsequent policy of State-aided Land Purchase, [43]were inspired by an earnest desire to mitigate frightful social evils, they cannot be regarded as voluntary. They were extorted, shocking asthe reflection is, by crime and violence, by the spectacle of a wholesocial order visibly collapsing, and by the desperate efforts of ahandful of Irishmen, determined at any cost, by whatever means, to savethe bodies and souls of their countrymen. The methods of these men weredestructive. They were constructive only in this, the highest sense ofall, that while battling against concrete economic evils, they sought toobtain for Ireland the right to control her own affairs and cure her owneconomic evils. It is often said that Parnell gave a tremendous impetusto the Home Rule movement by harnessing it to the land question. True;but what a strange way of expressing a truth! Anywhere outside Irelandmen would say that self-government was the best road to the reform of abad land system. 

With the tranquillity which was slowly restored by the alterations inagrarian tenure and the immense economic relief derived from thelowering of rents, a change came over the spirit of Britishstatesmanship. With the exception of the short Liberal Government of1892-1895, which failed for the second time to carry Home Rule, Conservatives were responsible for Ireland from 1886 to 1905. They feltthat opposition to Home Rule could be justified only by a strenuouspolicy of amelioration in Ireland, and the efforts of three ChiefSecretaries, Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. Gerald Balfour, and Mr. GeorgeWyndham--efforts often made in the teeth of bitter opposition from IrishUnionists--to carry out this policy, were sincere and earnest. The Actof 1891, with its grants for light railways, its additional facilitiesfor Land Purchase, and its establishment of the Congested DistrictsBoard to deal with the terrible poverty of certain districts in thewest, may be said to mark the beginning of the new era. The Land Act of1896 was another step, and the establishment of a complete system ofIrish Local Government in 1898 another. In the following year came theAct setting up the Department of Agriculture, and in 1903 Mr. Wyndham'sgreat Land Purchase Act. Then came the strange "devolutionist" episode, arising from the appointment of Sir Antony (now Lord) MacDonnell to thepost of Under-Secretary at Dublin Castle, the Government who selectedhim being fully aware that he was in favour of some change in thegovernment of Ireland. He entered into relations with a group ofprominent Irishmen, headed by Lord Dunraven, who were thinking out ascheme for a mild measure of devolution. When the fact became known, there was an explosion of anger among Irish Unionists. Mr. Wyndham, whohad been a popular Chief Secretary, resigned office, and was succeededby Mr. Walter Long; perhaps the most dramatic and significant example inmodern times of the policy of governing Ireland in deliberate and directdefiance of the wishes and sentiments of the vast majority of Irishmen. 

The Liberal Government of 1906, coming into office under a pledge torefrain from a full Home Rule measure, confined itself to theintroduction of the Irish Council Bill of 1907, which, rightly, in myopinion, was repudiated by the Irish people, and accordingly dropped. But the Government was in general sympathy with Nationalist Ireland, sothat a number of useful measures were added to the statute books; forexample, the Labourers (Ireland) Act of 1906, empowering Rural Councils, with the aid of State credit, to acquire land for labourers' plots andcottages; the Town Tenants Act, extending the principle of compensationfor improvements at the termination of a lease to the urban tenant; thevery important Irish Universities Act of 1908, which gave to RomanCatholics facilities for higher education which they had lacked forcenturies, and, lastly, Mr. Birrell's Land Act of 1909, which wasdesigned partly to meet the imminent collapse of Land Purchase, owing tothe failure of the financial arrangements made under the Wyndham Act of1903, and partly to extend the powers of the Congested Districts Board. 

To these measures must be added another which was not confined toIreland, but which has exercised a most potent influence, and by nomeans a wholly beneficial influence, on Irish life and Irish finance, the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908, under which the enormous sum of twoand three-quarter millions is now allocated to Ireland. [44]

The best that can be said of the legislation since 1881 is that it haslaid the foundations of a new social order. Agrarian crime hasdisappeared and material prosperity has greatly increased. Government inthe interests of a small favoured class has almost vanished. It survivesto this extent, that civil administration and patronage, which arestill, be it remembered, removed from popular control, remain, in fact, in Protestant and Unionist hands to an extent altogetherdisproportionate to the distribution of creeds, classes, and opinions. And, of course, in the major matter of Home Rule, the power of theUnionist minority, as represented in the Commons by seventeen out of thethirty-three Ulster representatives, and in the House of Lords by anoverwhelming preponderance of Unionist peers, is still enormous. Butwithin Ireland itself, central administration apart, the exceptionalprivileges and exceptional political power of Protestants and landlords, which lasted almost intact until forty years ago, is now non-existent. The Disestablishment Act of 1869, while immensely enhancing the moralpower and religious zeal of the Church of Ireland, and evenstrengthening its financial position, took away its political monopoly, and through the final abolition of tithes, its baneful and irritatinginterference with economic life. The successive measures of landlegislation, culminating in the transfer of half the land of Irelandfrom landlord to peasant proprietorship, and the Local Government Act of1898, surrendering at a stroke the whole local administration of thecountry into popular control, destroyed the exceptional politicalprivileges of the landlord class. 

Ascendancy, then, in the old sense, is a thing of the past. What hastaken its place? What is the ruling power within Ireland? Is it a publicopinion derived from the vital contact of ideas and interests, andtaking shape in a healthy and normal distribution of parties? Is thoughtfree? Has merit its reward? Is there any unity of national purpose, transcending party divisions? If it were necessary to give a categorical"Yes" or "No" to these questions, the answer would be "No. " Saneenergizing politics, and the sovereign ascendancy of a sane publicopinion, are absolutely unattainable in Ireland or anywhere else withoutHome Rule. It is all the more to the credit of Irishmen that, in theface of stupendous difficulties, and in a marvellously short space oftime since the attainment, barely twenty years ago, of the elementaryconditions of social peace, they have gone so far as they have gonetowards the creation of a self-reliant, independently thinking, unitedIreland. The whole weight of Imperial authority has been thrown into thescale against them. Whatever the mood and policy of British upholders ofthe Union, whether sympathetic or hostile, wise or foolish, theirconstant message to both parties in Ireland has been, "Look to us. Trustin us. You are divided. We are umpires, " and the reader will no doubtremember that the theory of "umpirage" was used in exactly the same wayin the Colonies, notably in Upper Canada, [45] to thwart the tendencytowards a reconciliation of creeds, races, and classes. Fortunately, there have been Irishmen who have laboured to counteract the effects ofthis enervating policy, and to reconstruct, by native effort fromwithin, a new Ireland on the ruins of the old. Whether or not they haveconsciously aimed at Home Rule matters not a particle. Some have, somehave not; but the result of these efforts has been the same, to pullIrishmen together and to begin the creation of a genuinely nationalatmosphere. 

It is not part of my scheme to describe in detail the various movements, agricultural, industrial, economic, literary, political, which in thelast twenty years have contributed to this national revival. Some have aworld-wide fame, all have been excellently described at one time oranother by writers of talent and insight. [46] My purpose is to notetheir characteristics and progress, and to estimate their politicalsignificance. In the first place it must be remembered that some of themost important of the modern legislative measures have been initiatedand promoted by Home Rulers and Unionists, Roman Catholics andProtestants, acting in friendly co-operation and throwing aside theirpolitical and religious antagonisms. Such was the origin of the greatLand Purchase Act of 1903, which Mr. Wyndham drafted on the basis of anagreement reached at a friendly conference of landlords andrepresentatives of tenants. But a far more interesting and hopefulinstance of co-operation had taken place seven years earlier. One of thevery few really constructive measures of the last twenty years, the Actof 1899 for setting up the Department of Agriculture and TechnicalInstruction, was the direct outcome of the recommendations of the RecessCommittee brought together in 1895 and 1896 by Sir Horace Plunkett; aCommittee containing Nationalist and Unionist Members of the House ofCommons, Tory and Liberal Unionist peers, Ulster captains of industry, the Grand Master of the Belfast Orangemen, and an eminent Jesuit. [47] Inits reunion of men divided by bitter feuds, it was just the kind ofConference that assembled in Durban in 1908, six years after adevastating war, to discuss and to create the framework of South AfricanUnion. That Conference was the natural outcome of the grant of Home Ruleto the defeated Boer States. The Irish Conference, succeeding a land-warfar more destructive and demoralizing, was brought together in spite ofthe absence of Home Rule, and the prejudice it had to overcome, [48] is ameasure of the fantastically abnormal conditions produced by the denialof self-government. There lay Ireland, an island with a rich soil and aclever population, yet terribly backward, far behind England, far behindall the progressive nations of Europe in agriculture and industry, herpopulation declining, her land passing out of cultivation, [49] herstrongest sons and daughters hurrying away to enrich with their wits andsinews distant lands. There, in short, lay a country groaning forintelligent development by the concentrated energies of her own people. 

"We have in Ireland, " runs the first paragraph of the Report of theCommittee, "a poor country practically without manufactures--except forthe linen and shipbuilding of the north, and the brewing and distillingof Dublin--dependent upon agriculture, with its soil imperfectly tilled, its area under cultivation decreasing, and a diminishing populationwithout industrial habits or technical skill. "

The leeway to make up was enormous. To go no farther back than theinstitution of the Penal Code and the deliberate destruction of thewoollen industry, two centuries of callous repression at the hands of anexternal authority had maimed and exhausted the country whose conditionthe Committee had met to consider. These facts the members of theCommittee frankly recognized in that part of the Report which isentitled with gentle irony "Past Action of the State. " Here, then, was apurely Irish problem, intimately concerning every Irishman, poor orrich, Roman Catholic or Protestant, a problem of which Great Britain, though responsible both for its existence and its solution, knew andcared little. The really strange thing is, not that representativeIrishmen should have met together to consider and prescribe for thedeplorable economic condition of their country, but that they should notalso, like the South African Conference, have drafted a Constitution forIreland, on the sound ground that a system of government which hadpromoted and sustained the evils they described could never, with thebest will in the world, become a good government for Ireland. Yet for abrief space of time these men actually had Home Rule, and by virtue ofthat privilege they did better work for Ireland in six months than hadbeen done in two centuries. 

What is more, they used the Home Rule principle in their recommendationsfor the establishment of a Department of Agriculture and TechnicalInstruction. "We think it essential, " they reported on p. 101, "that thenew Department should be in touch with the public opinion of the classeswhom its work concerns, and should rely largely for its success upontheir active assistance and co-operation. " Its chief, they added, shouldbe a Minister directly responsible to Parliament, and on p. 103 theyadvocated a Consultative Council, whose functions should be--(1) To keepthe Department in direct touch with the public opinion of those classeswhom the work of the Ministry concerns; and (2) to distribute some ofthe responsibility for administration amongst those classes. Now these, in Ireland, were revolutionary proposals. The idea of any part of theGovernment "being in touch with public opinion" was wholly new. The ideaof "distributing responsibility for administration" amongst the subjectsof administration was startlingly novel. Ireland, both before and afterthe Union, had always been governed on a diametrically oppositeprinciple. Since the Union, when Irish departmental Ministers, neverresponsible to the people, disappeared, not one of the host of nominatedIrish Boards was legally amenable to Irish public opinion. Not one hada separate Minister responsible even to the Parliament at Westminster, which was not an Irish Parliament. _A fortiori_, not one relied on theco-operation and advice of the classes for whose benefit it was supposedto exist. 

Proposed, nevertheless, by a group of representative Irishmen, thescheme for a democratically constituted Department of Agriculture passedsmoothly into law as soon as the machinery for ascertaining publicopinion on the matters at issue had been brought into existence. Mr. Gerald Balfour, the Chief Secretary, was engaged at the time upon hismeasure for the extension of Local Government to Ireland. This measurebecame law in 1898, and the Department Act in 1899. Under that Act, theduty was laid upon each of the new County Councils of electing twomembers to serve upon a Consultative Council of Agriculture, to which aminority of nominated members was added, and this Council in its turnelects two-thirds of the members of an Agricultural Board, and suppliesfour representatives to a Board of Technical Instruction, which, likethe Council and the Agricultural Board, has a predominantly popularcharacter. [50]

At the summit stands the Minister, or Vice-President, as he is called(for in accordance with ancient custom, the Chief Secretary is nominallyin supreme control of this as of all other Irish Departments), and alarge and efficient staff of permanent officials. He and his staff havea large centralized authority, but this authority is subject to aconstitutional check in the shape of a veto wielded by the Boards overthe expenditure of the Endowment Fund. What is more important, policytends to be shaped in accordance with popular views by the existence ofthe Council and the Boards. 

Here, then, is the germ of responsible government. At first sight acritic might exclaim: "Why, here is democracy pushed to a point unknowneven in Great Britain, where Government Departments are whollyindependent of Local Councils. " That is in a limited sense true, and itis quite arguable that British Departments would be the better for aninfusion of local control. But we must not be misled by a false analogy. Great Britain reaches the Irish ideal by other means. Her departmentalMinisters are directly responsible to a predominantly British House ofCommons where a hostile vote can at any moment eject them fromoffice. [51] There is no Irish Parliament, nor any kind of predominantlyIrish body which is vested with the same power. The Vice-President ofthe Irish Department of Agriculture, an institution concernedexclusively with Irish affairs, whether he sits in the House of Commonsor not (and for two years Mr. T. W. Russell had not a seat atWestminster), could not be ejected from office even by a unanimous voteof Irish Members of the House, with the moral backing of a unanimousIrish people. [52] That is one of the anomalous results of the Union, andit was a recognition, though rather a confused one, of this anomaly, that inspired the ingenious compromise invented by the Recess Committeefor introducing an element of popular control. But what a light thecompromise throws on the anomaly which evoked it! Is it common sense tomake these elaborate arrangements for promoting an Irish Department onan Irish popular basis while recoiling in terror from the prospect ofcrowning them with a Minister responsible to ah Irish Parliament? Theconsequence is that even in this solitary example of an IrishDepartment under semi-popular control we see the subtle taint of CrownColony Government. Popular opinion, acting indirectly, first through theCouncil and then through the Boards, can legally paralyze the Departmentby declining to appropriate money in the way it prescribes, whilepossessing no legal power to enforce a different policy or change thepersonnel of administration. This is only an object-lesson. I hasten toadd that such a paralysis has never taken place, though some acrimoniouscontroversy, natural enough under the anomalous state of things, hasarisen over the office of Vice-President. There is now only one means bywhich Irish opinion can, if it be so disposed, displace the holder ofthe office, and that is a thoroughly unreliable and unhealthy means, namely, through pressure brought to bear by one or other of the IrishParliamentary parties upon a newly elected British Ministry. [53] But whyin the world should the British party pendulum determine an importantIrish matter like this? Why, _a fortiori_, should it determine theappointment to the office of Chief Secretary, the irresponsible PrimeMinister, or, rather the autocrat of Ireland? It is the _reductio adabsurdum_ of the Union. 

The Department commands a large measure of confidence. It would commandfar greater confidence if it were responsible to an Irish Parliament;but Irishmen are sensible enough to perceive that as long as the Unionlasts, everyone is interested in making the existing system worksmoothly and well. The general policy as laid down in the firstinstance, by the first Vice-President, Sir Horace Plunkett, has beensound and wise;[54] to proceed slowly, while building up a staff oftrained instructors, inspectors, organizers; to devote money and labourmainly to education, both industrial and agricultural, and to evokeself-reliance and initiative in the people by, so far as possible, spending money locally only where a local contribution is raised and alocal scheme prepared. The last aim met with a fine response. EveryCounty Council in Ireland raises a rate, and has a scheme foragricultural and technical instruction. I can only enumerate some of themultifarious functions which the Department evolved for itself or tookover from various other unrelated Boards and concentrated under singlecontrol. It gives instruction in agriculture and rural domestic economy(horticulture, butter-making, bee-keeping, poultry-keeping, etc. )through schools, colleges, or agricultural stations under its owndirection, through private schools for both sexes, and through anextensive system of itinerant courses conducted (in 1909) by 128 trainedinstructors. It gives premiums for the breeding of horses, cattle, asses, poultry, swine. It conducts original research, it experiments incrops, and, among other things, is slowly resuscitating the depressedindustry of flax-growing, and starting a wholly new industry in thesouthern counties, that of early potatoes. It sprays potatoes, prescribes for the diseases of trees, crops, and stock, advises onmanures and feeding-stuffs, teaches forestry, and gives scholarships atvarious colleges for proficiency in agricultural science. On the side ofTechnical Instruction it teaches and encourages all manner of smallindustries, such as lace-making. It superintends all technicalinstruction in secondary schools, and organizes and subsidizes similarinstruction in a multitude of different subjects under schemes preparedby local authorities, while at the same time carrying on an importantand extensive system of training teachers. It also superintendssea-fisheries and improves harbours. 

The material results have been great; the moral results perhaps evengreater. Just as we should expect, wherever education goes, and wherevermen work together for economic improvement, unnatural antagonisms ofrace and religion tend to disappear. This is not the result of anydirect influence wielded by the Department, which never finds itnecessary to lecture people on the duty of mutual tolerance; it is theresult of common sense and a small experience in Home Rule. Highofficials of the Department have informed me that their work, for allintents and purposes, is unhampered by local religious prejudices. Aspirit of keen and wholesome rivalry permeates the people. County andBorough Committees in districts almost wholly Roman Catholic, with largepowers of patronage, almost invariably appoint the best men, regardlessof creed and local influence. Anyone who wishes to gain a glimpse of thereal Belfast of the present and the future, as distinguished from theugly, bigoted caricature of a great city which some even of its owncitizens perversely insist on displaying to their English friends, aBelfast as tolerant and generous as it is energetic and progressive, should visit the magnificent Municipal Technical Institute, where 6, 000boys and girls, Roman Catholic and Protestant, mix together on equalterms, and derive the same benefit from an extraordinary variety ofeducational courses in a building furnished with lecture-rooms, laboratories, experimental plant, and gymnasia, of a perfection hardlyto be surpassed in any city of the United Kingdom. 

Here is something grand and fruitful accomplished in eleven years, andit is the outcome, be it remembered, of original, constructive thoughtdevoted by Irishmen to the needs of their own country. 

Let us also remember that it represents the application of State-aid toeconomic development. But with the utmost caution, and the utmostefforts to elicit self-help, one may go too far in the direction ofState-aid, and even in this sphere it is by no means certain thatIreland is free from danger. Let us pass to another movement whoseessence is self-help: I mean the movement for Agricultural Co-operation. Here again Sir Horace Plunkett was the originator. Indeed, with him andhis able associates and advisers, of whom Lord Monteagle and Mr. R. A. Anderson, the Secretary of the I. A. O. S. , were the first, the twin aimsof self-help and State-aid were combined as they should be, in one big, harmonious policy. Self-help must, indeed, they held, be antecedent to, and preparatory for, State-aid. The position confronting them was thathalf a million unorganized tenant farmers, for the most part cultivatingexcessively small holdings, and just beginning to emerge aftergenerations of agrarian war from an economic serfdom, were face to facewith the competition of highly organized European countries, and of vastand rapidly developing territories of North and South America. It was asfar back as 1889 that the first propaganda was begun, and in 1894, ayear before the Recess Committee met, the Irish AgriculturalOrganization Society was formed. By unwearied pains and patience, seemingly hopeless obstacles had been overcome, apathy, ignorance, andoften contemptuous opposition from men of both political parties. For, with that ruinous pessimism always endemic in countries not politicallyfree, and exactly paralleled in the Canada described by the DurhamReport of 1839, extremists were inclined to suspect any movement whichdrew recruits from both political camps. Nevertheless, the island is nowcovered with a network of 886 co-operative societies, creameries, agricultural societies (for selling implements, foodstuffs, etc. ), credit banks, poultry societies, and other miscellaneous organizations. The total membership is nearly 100, 000, the total turnover nearly twoand a half millions. [55] Nearly half the butter exported from Ireland ismade in the 392 co-operative creameries, and at the other end of thescale extraordinarily valuable work is done by the 237 agriculturalcredit banks, which supply small loans, averaging only £4 apiece, forstrictly productive purposes on a system of mutual credit. 

Moral and material regeneration go together. The aim is to build up anew rural civilization, to put life, heart, and hope into the monotonyof country life and unite all classes in the strong bonds of sympathyand interest: a splendid ideal, applicable not to Ireland alone, but toall countries, and Ireland may truly be said to be pointing the way tomany another country, Great Britain included. 

The Co-operative movement attracts the most intelligent and progressiveelements of the rural population. Strictly non-political itself, itunites creeds and parties. It is as strong in predominantly RomanCatholic districts as in predominantly Protestant districts, strongestof all in Catholic Wexford. Probably two-thirds or more of theco-operators are Home Rulers, but that only accidentally reflects thedistribution of Irish parties. On the local committees political animusis unknown. The governing body contains members, lay and clerical, ofall shades of opinion. Step into Plunkett House, that hospitableheadquarters of the Organization Society, and if you have been nurturedin legends about inextinguishable class and creed antipathies, which aresupposed to render Home Rule impossible and the eternal "umpirage" ofGreat Britain inevitable, you will soon learn to marvel that anyone canbe found to propagate them. Here, just because men are working togetherin a practical, self-contained, home-ruled organization for the good ofthe whole country, you will find liberality, open-mindedness, brotherhood, and keen, intelligent patriotism from Ulsterman andSoutherners alike. The atmosphere is not political. But you will comeaway with a sense of the absurdity, of the insolence, of saying that acountry which can produce and conduct fine movements like this is_unfit_ for self-government. I should add a word about a neworganization which only came into being this year, and which also hasits home at Plunkett House, the United Irishwomen, whose aim, in theirown words, is to "unite Irishwomen for the social and economic advantageof Ireland. " "They intend to organize the women of all classes in everyrural district in Ireland for social service. These bodies will discuss, and, if need be, take action upon any and every matter which concernsthe welfare of society in their several localities. So far as women'sknowledge and influence will avail, they will strive for a higherstandard of material comfort and physical well-being in the countryhome, a more advanced agricultural economy, and a social existence alittle more in harmony with the intellect and temperament of ourpeople. " Anyone who wants to understand something of the spirit of thenew self-reliant Ireland which is springing up to-day should read thethrilling little pamphlet (I cannot describe it otherwise) from which Iquote these words, and which introduced the United Irish-women to theworld, with its preface by Father T. A. Finlay, and its essays by Mrs. Ellice Pilkington, Sir Horace Plunkett, and Mr. George W. Russell, better known as "Æ, " poet, painter, and Editor of the Co-operativeweekly, the _Irish Homestead_. Nor can I leave this part of my subjectwithout referring to that amazing little journal. No other newspaper inthe world that I know of bears upon it so deep an impress of genius. There are no "politics, " in the Irish sense, in it. It would beimpossible to infer from its pages how the Editor voted. What fascinatesthe reader is the shrewd and witty analysis of Irish problems, the highrange of vision which exposes the shortcomings and reveals theillimitable possibilities of a regenerated Ireland and the ceaseless andimplacable war waged by the Editor upon all pettiness, melancholy, andpessimism. 

What the Agricultural Organization Society is doing for agriculture theIndustrial Development Associations, formed only in quite recent years, are doing, in a different way, for the encouragement of Irishindustries. The Associations of Belfast, Cork, and other cities work inharmony, and meet in an annual All-Ireland Industrial Conference. Theireffort is to secure the concentration of Irish brains and capital onIrish industrial questions, to promote the sale of Irish goods, both inIreland, Great Britain, and foreign countries, and to protect thesegoods against piracy and illicit competition. [56] Here againco-operation for Irish welfare brings together the creeds and races, andtends to extinguish old bigotries and antipathies. Here again the truthis recognized that Ireland is a distinct economic entity whoseconditions and needs demand special study from her citizens. In acountry of which that basal truth is recognized it would seeminexplicable that Protestants and Catholics who meet in committee-roomsand on platforms to promote, outside Parliament, the common interests ofIreland, should not unite as one man to demand an Irish Legislature inwhich to focus those interests and make them the subjects of directlegislative enactment, free both from the paternal and the coerciveinterference of a country differently situated, and absorbed in its ownaffairs. 

I pass from the agricultural and industrial movements to anotherpowerful factor in the reconstruction of Ireland, namely, the GaelicLeague, founded in 1893, whose success under the Presidency of Dr. Douglas Hyde in reviving the old national language, culture, andamusements, is attracting the attention of the world. Fortunately theLeague encountered some ridicule at the outset and prosperedproportionately. Some of its work is not above criticism, but fewpersons--and none who have the least knowledge of such intellectualrevivals elsewhere--now care to laugh at it. The League is non-politicaland non-sectarian. Strange, is it not, that such a movement should haveto emphasize the fact? Strange paradox that in a country which is beingre-born into a consciousness of its own individuality, which isregaining its own pride and self-respect, recovering its lost literatureand culture, and vibrating to that "iron string, Trust thyself, " theconflict for self-government, that elementary symbol of self-trust, should still retain enough intestinal bitterness to compel men to labelnational movements as non-political and non-sectarian! It would be idle, of course, to pretend that this national movement, like all others inIreland, does not strengthen, especially among the younger generation, which grows increasingly Nationalist, the sentiment for Home Rule. If itdid not, we should indeed be in the presence of something miraculouslyabnormal. 

Meanwhile the Celtic revival does visible good. The language is nolonger a fad; it is an envied accomplishment, a mark of distinction andeducation. Wherever it goes, North and South, it obliterates race andcreed distinctions, and all the terrible memories associated with them. There are Ulstermen of Saxon or Scottish stock in whom the fascinationof Irish art and literature has extirpated every trace of Orangeism andall implied in it. The language revivifies traditions, as beautiful asthey are glorious, of an Ireland full of high passions and stormydomestic feuds, but united in sentiment, breeding warriors, poets, lawgivers, saints, and fertilizing Europe with her missionary genius. However far those times are, however grim and pitiful the havoc wroughtby the race war, it is nevertheless a fact for thinkers and statesmento ponder over, not a phantasy to sneer at, that Celtic Ireland lives. Anglicization has failed, not because Celts cannot appreciate thenoblest manifestations of English genius in art, letters, science, war, colonization, but because to repress their own culture and nationalityis at the same time to repress their power of appreciation andassimilation. Until comparatively recent times, it was only the worst ofEnglish literature and music, the cheapest newspaper twaddle, theinanest music-hall songs, which penetrated beyond a limited circle ofculture into the life of the country. The revolt against thissterilizing and belittling side of anglicization is strong and healthy. It affects all classes. Farmers, labourers, small tradesmen, who hadnever conceived the idea of learning for learning's sake, and who hadgrown up, thanks to the national system of education, in all butcomplete ignorance of their own country's history and literature, spendtime on reading and study and in the practice of the old indigenousdances and music, which was formerly wasted in idleness or dissipation. Temperance and social harmony are irresistibly forwarded. Nor is it aquestion of a few able men imposing their will on the many, or of anartificial, State-aided process. Though the language has obtained afooting in more than a third of the State schools and in the NationalUniversity, [57] the motive force behind it comes from the peoplethemselves. In the country district, with which I am best acquainted, boys and girls from very poor families are clubbing together to payinstructors in the Irish language and dances, and the same thing isgoing on all over Ireland. 

The brilliant modern school of poets and playwrights who, steeped in theold Celtic thought and culture, have found for it such an exquisitevehicle in the English tongue, speak for themselves and are winningtheir own way to renown. The only criticism I venture to make is thatsome of them are too much inclined to look backward instead of forward, to idealize the far past rather than to illuminate the future, and todelineate the deformities of national character produced by ages ofrepression, rather than to aid in conjuring into being a virile, normalnation. 

The name of the last movement to be referred to sums up all the others, Sinn Fein. Unlike the others, it had a purely political origin, and forthat reason, probably, never made the same progress. Yet the explanationis simple. In pursuance of the general purpose of inspiring Irishmen torely on themselves for their own salvation, economic and spiritual, SinnFeiners, like John Mitchel and others in the past, and like theHungarian patriots, attacked, with much point and satire, the wholepolicy of constitutional and Parliamentary agitation for Home Rule. Thepolicy, they said, had failed for half a century; it was not onlynegative and barren, but positively harmful. Nationalists should refuseto send Members to Westminster and abide by the consequences. Sensiblyenough, most Irishmen, while recognizing that there was an element ofindisputable and valuable truth in this bold diagnosis, decided that itwas premature to adopt the prescription. Public opinion in Britain wasslowly changing, and confidence existed that this opinion would befinally converted. If the Sinn Fein alternative meant anything at all, it meant complete separation, which Ireland does not want, and a finalabandonment of constitutional methods. If another Home Rule Bill were tofail, Sinn Fein would undoubtedly redouble its strength. Its ideas aresane and sound. They are at bottom exactly the ideas which actuate everyprogressive and spirited community, and which in Ireland animate theIndustrial Development Associations, the Co-operative movement, thethirst for technical instruction, the Gaelic League, the literaryrevival, and the work of the only truly Irish organ of government, theDepartment of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. 

Now, where do we stand? Are the phenomena I have reviewed arguments forHome Rule or against Home Rule? Do they tend to show that Ireland is"fitter" now for Home Rule, or that she manages very well without HomeRule? These are superfluous questions. They are never asked save ofcountries obviously designed to govern themselves and obstinately deniedthe right. Who would say now of Canada or Australia that they ought tohave solved their economic, agrarian, and religious problems and haveevolved an indigenous literature before they were declared fit for HomeRule, or--still more unreasonable proposition--that their strenuousefforts after self-help and internal harmony in the teeth of politicaldisabilities proved, in so far as they were successful, that externalgovernment was a success?

Yet these questions were, as a fact, asked of the Colonies, as they areasked of Ireland. And misgovernment increased, and passions rose, andblood flowed, while, in the guise of dispassionate psychologists, agreat many narrow, egotistical, and bullying people at home propoundedthese arid conundrums. Where is our common sense? The Irish phenomena Ihave described arise in spite of the absence of Home Rule, and thedenial of Home Rule sets an absolute and final bar to progress beyond acertain point. 

That is certain; one cannot live in Ireland with one's eyes and earsopen without realizing it. All social and economic effort, successful asit is up to a certain point, and strong as its tendency is to promotenationalist feeling of the noblest kind, has to struggle desperatelyagainst the benumbing influence of abstract "politics. " Suspicion comesfrom both sides. Both Unionists and Nationalists, for example, at onetime or another have looked askance on the Co-operative movement and onthe Department of Agriculture as being too Nationalist or too Unionistin tendency. Unionists caused Sir Horace Plunkett to lose his seat inParliament in 1905; and Nationalists, though with some constitutionaljustification, secured his removal from office in 1907. At this momentthere is friction and suspicion in this particular matter which seems tothe impartial observer to be artificial, and which would not exist, orwould be transmuted into something perfectly harmless, and probablyhighly beneficial, were there any normal political life in Ireland and acentral organ of public opinion. As long as Great Britain insists, toher own infinite inconvenience, upon deciding Irish questions by partymajorities fluctuating from Toryism to Radicalism, and thereby compelsIreland to send parties to Westminster whose _raison d'être_ is, not torepresent crystallized Irish opinion on Irish domestic questions--thatis at present wholly impossible--but to assert or deny the fundamentalright for Ireland to settle her own domestic questions, so long willthese dislocations continue, to the grave prejudice of Ireland and thedeep discredit of Great Britain. Ireland, like Canada in 1838, has noorganic national life. Apart from the abstract but paramount question ofHome Rule, there are no formed political principles or parties. Suchparties as there are have no relation to the economic life of thecountry, and all interests suffer daily in consequence. In a normalcountry you would find urban and agricultural interests distinctlyrepresented, but not in Ireland. We should expect to rind clear-cutopinions on Tariff Reform and Free Trade. No such opinions exist. On theother hand, agreement on important industrial and agricultural questionsfinds not the smallest reflection in Parliamentary representation. Education, and other latent issues of burning importance, are notpolitical issues. A Budget may cause almost universal dissatisfaction, but it goes through, and the amazing thing is that Unionists complain ofits going through! Most of the Parliamentary elections are uncontested, though everybody knows that a dozen questions would set up a salutaryferment of opinion if they were not stifled by the refusal of Home Rule. The Protestant tenant-farmers of Ulster have identical interests withthose of other Provinces, and have profited largely by the legislationextorted by Nationalists; but for the most part, though by no meanswholly, they vote Unionist. The two great towns, Dublin and Belfast, aredivided by the most irrational antagonism. Labourers, both rural andurban, have distinct and important interests; the rural labourers haveno spokesman, the town-labourers only one. It was admitted to me by aUnionist organizer in Belfast that that city, but for the Home Ruleissue, would probably return four labour members. Nor have parties anyclose relation to the distribution of wealth. In the matter of incomesthe prosperous traders of Cork, Limerick, and Waterford are in the samecase as regards taxation with those of Londonderry and Belfast. Publicans are Unionists in England, Nationalists in Ireland, both inUlster and elsewhere. Before the Home Rule issue was raised, Ulster waslargely Liberal. Ulster Liberalism is almost dead. Extreme Socialism mayalmost be said to be non-existent in Ireland, yet Ireland is not onlyadministered on semi-collectivist principles, but continually runs therisk of being involved in legislation of a Socialistic kind, which, rightly or wrongly, she heartily dislikes. 

As for the landed aristocracy all over Ireland, their historic alliancewith the intensely democratic tenant-farmers of one small corner ofIreland, North-East Ulster, against those of all the rest, presentedstrange enough features in the past, and is now becoming artificial inthe highest degree. Thanks to Land Purchase, no landed aristocracy inthe world now has a better chance of throwing its wealth andintelligence into public life for the good of the whole country, ofthinking out problems, of conciliating factions, and of ennobling publiclife. The landlord who has sold his land is a free man, far freer thanthe English landlord from misgivings caused by divergency of interest. The opportunity is still there. Will they profit by it? One thing isessential: they must become Nationalists, and in breathing that phrase, one is conscious of all the misleading implications and the bitterhistorical feuds it suggests. Yet a small but powerful group oflandlords is already leading the way. And the way, even before HomeRule, in reality is so simple. I speak from close observation. If a manis a good man, and worthy to represent a constituency, he has only todeclare his belief that he thinks that he and his own fellow-citizensare fit to govern themselves. Irishmen, especially in Roman Catholicdistricts, and, indeed, as an indirect result of Catholicism, have neverlost their belief in aristocracy. When a landlord, or any otherProtestant, comes forward as a Nationalist, he is welcomed. Hisreligion, whatever it may be, does not count. Parnell and Smith O'Brienwere Protestant landlords. Many of the most trusted popular leaders, Tone, Robert Emmet, John Mitchel, Isaac Butt, and others in the pasthave been Protestants. Ten Members of the present Nationalist party areProtestants. The Home Rule issue would have lost some of its bitternessif a Unionist electorate had ever elected a Catholic to Parliament. 

Still, it is unfortunately true that the great bulk of the landlords andex-landlords stand aloof from the Home Rule movement. The collateralresult is that far too many of them instinctively stand aloof even fromthose purely economic and intellectual movements which tend to make aliving united Ireland out of chaos. The national loss is heavy; thewaste of talent and of driving-power, for Ireland needs driving-powerfrom her leisured and cultured classes, is melancholy to contemplate. 

Everywhere one sees waste of talent in Ireland. The land abounds in menwith ideas and potentialities waiting for those normal chances ofdevelopment which self-governed countries provide. Much of this goodmaterial is crushed under unnatural political tyrannies caused byceaseless agitation for and against an abstract aim which should havebeen satisfied long ago, so that the energies it absorbed might havebeen diverted into practical channels. There is too much moralcowardice, too little bold, independent thought and action. Nobody knowswhat Ireland really is, and of what she is capable. Nobody can knowuntil she has responsibility for her own fate. 

Local government, where popular opinion is nominally free, suffers fromthe absence of free central government. Is it not on the face of itpreposterous to give complete powers of local taxation andadministration to a country while withholding from it, as unsafe andimproper, central co-ordinating control? For any country but Ireland--atany rate, in the British self-governing Colonies and the UnitedStates--such a policy would be regarded as crazy. Still moreunreasonable is it to complain that local authorities under such asystem spend part of the energy which should be devoted wholly to localaffairs in abstract politics. I forbear from engaging in the statisticalwar over the numbers of Catholics and Protestants employed and electedby local bodies. One must remember, what Unionists sometimes forget, that Ireland is, broadly speaking, a Roman Catholic country, and thatuntil thirteen years ago local administration and patronage were almostexclusively in Protestant hands. We should naturally expect a markedchange; but, with that reminder, I prefer to appeal to the reader'scommon sense. Deny national Home Rule, and give local Home Rule. Whatwould one expect to happen? What would have happened in any Colony? Whatwould Mr. Arthur Balfour himself have prophesied with certainty in thecase of any other country but Ireland? Why, this, that each little localbody would become an outlet for suppressed agitation, and that nationalor anti-national politics, not urgent local necessities, would enterinto local elections and influence the composition of local bodies. Andwhat would be the further consequence? That numbers of the best localmen would stand aloof or be rejected, and that favouritism would find acongenial soil. 

In point of fact, Irish local authorities, under the circumstances, arewonderfully free from these evils, only another proof of the resilienceand vitality of the country under persistent mismanagement. On the wholethey bear comparison with British local authorities in thrift, purity, and efficiency. None of them has ever yet had a scandal like that ofPoplar. All of them have shown sense and spirit in forwarding sanitationand technical education. They vary widely, of course, the lowest unitsin the scale being the least efficient, as in England. County Councils, for example, are better than Rural District Councils. On the other hand, Dublin Corporation, though not so bad as it is sometimes painted, occasionally sets a very bad example. The standard of efficiency ishigher in the Protestant north than in the Catholic south, the standardof religious toleration lower. But at bottom it is not a question oftheology, as every well-informed person knows, but a question ofpolitics. The same causes that keep the landed gentry out of Parliamentkeep them, although not to the same degree, out of local politics. Sometimes this is their own fault, for declining to take part in them;for many of the Protestant upper class in Nationalist districts obtainelection in spite of being Unionists. Tolerance is slowly growing inNationalist, though not, it is to be feared, in Unionist, districts;again a quite intelligible fact. [58] But when all is said and done, itis an undeniable fact that Irish local authorities, especially those inthe poverty-stricken west, where all social activities are moreretrograde than elsewhere, are capable of great improvement, and thatimprovement can come only by allowing them to concentrate on localaffairs, and obtain the co-operation of all classes and religions. Thevery existence of a central Government of which Irishmen were proudwould influence the tone and standard of all minor authorities to thebottom of the scale. 

Meanwhile, obvious and urgent problems, which no Parliament but an IrishParliament can deal with, cry aloud for settlement. The Poor Law, railways, arterial drainage, afforestation, are questions which I needonly refer to by name, confining myself to the greater issues. Education, primary and intermediate, is perhaps the greatest. Thepresent system is almost universally condemned, and its bad results arerecognized. It has got to be reformed. By no possibility can it bereformed so long as the Union lasts, not only because the Boards, National and Intermediate, which control education, are composed ofunelected amateurs, but because there is no means of finding out whatthe national opinion is as to the course reform is to take. Meanwhilethe children and the country suffer. The Intermediate Board is a purelyexamining and prize-giving body, and its system by general agreement isimperfect. In the National or Primary schools the percentage of averagedaily attendance (71. 1 per cent. ), though slowly improving, is stillvery bad. [59] Many of the school-houses are, in the words of theCommissioners, "mere hovels, " unsanitary, leaky, ill-ventilated. Thedistribution of schools and funds is chaotic and wasteful. Out of 8, 401schools (in 1909-10)[60] nearly two hundred have an average dailyattendance of less than fifteen pupils. In 1730 the number is less thanthirty, and it is not only in sparsely inhabited country districts, butin big towns, that the distribution is bad. The power of theCommissioners to stop the creation of unduly small schools, and evensemi-bogus establishments which come into being in the great cities, isimperfect. Another example of the curious mixture of anarchy anddespotism that the system of Irish government presents may be seen inthe Annual Report of the Commissioners. With a mutinous audacity whichwould be laughable, if the case were one for laughing, the Commissionersopenly rail at the Treasury for the parsimony of its grants, and, inorder to stir its compassion, paint the condition of Irish education inblack colours. Imagine the various Departmental Ministers in GreatBritain publicly attacking in their Annual Reports the Cabinet of whichthey were members! The Treasury, needless to say, is not to blame. Itpays out of the common Imperial purse all but a negligible fraction ofthe cost of primary education in Ireland. Nothing is raised by rates, and only £141, 096 (in 1909-10) from voluntary and local sources, ascompared with £1, 688, 547 from State grants. The Treasury has noguarantee that this money is well spent; on the contrary, it knows fromthe Reports of the Commissioners themselves that a great deal of it isvery badly spent. The business is a comic opera, but it has a tragicsignificance for Ireland. Primary education is so bad that a greatnumber of the pupils are absolutely unfit to receive the expensive andexcellent technical instruction organized by the Department ofAgriculture and Technical Instruction, and contributed to by theratepayers. The Belfast Technical Institute, for example, has to gooutside its proper functions, and spend from its too small stock inproviding introductory courses in elementary subjects, so as to equipchildren for the reception of higher knowledge. [61] All over the countrythe complaint is the same. No machinery whatever exists forco-ordinating primary, secondary, technical, and University education, and opportioning funds in an economical and profitable manner. 

Religion is the immediate cause of the trouble; absence of popularcontrol the fundamental cause. The national system of primary education, designed originally in 1831 to be undenominational, has become rigidlydenominational. Out of 8, 401 primary schools, 2, 461 only are attended byboth Protestants and Roman Catholics. The rest are of an exclusivelysectarian character. Even the Protestants do not combine. The Church ofIreland, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and other smallerdenominations, frequently have small separate schools in the sameparish. The management (save in the model schools, which are attendedonly by Protestants) is exclusively sectarian, the local clergyman, Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, or Nonconformist having almostautocratic control over the school. 

This education question has got to be thrashed out by a Home RuledIreland, and the sooner the better. After Home Rule the Treasury grantwill stop, and Ireland will have to raise and apportion the fundsherself, and set her house in order. At whatever sacrifice of religiousscruples, and, it is needless to add that to the Roman Catholichierarchy the sacrifice will be the greatest, the Irish people mustcontrol and finance its schools, whether through a central departmentalone, or through local authorities as well. There is no reason in theworld why a compromise should not be arrived at which would securevastly increased efficiency and leave the teaching of denominationalreligion uninjured. Other countries, where the same religions exist sideby side, have attained that compromise. Ireland will be judged by hersuccess in attaining it. 

Another important question is the treatment of the Congested Districts. More than a third of Ireland is now under the benevolent jurisdiction ofa despotic Board. [62] So long as its funds are raised from generalImperial taxation, the inevitable tendency is to shirk the thoroughdiscussion of this grave subject, to lay the responsibility on GreatBritain, to acquiesce in a policy of extreme paternalism, and to appealfor higher and higher doles from the Treasury. This cannot go on. Whoever, in the eyes of Divine Justice, was originally responsible forthe condition of the submerged west, and for the ruin of the evictedtenants, Ireland, if she wants Home Rule, must shoulder theresponsibility herself, and think out the whole question independently. The Congested Districts Board has done, and continues to do, good workin the purchase and resettlement of estates; but even in this spherethere are wide differences of opinion as to the proper methods andpolicy to be employed, especially with regard to the division ofgrasslands and the migration of landless men. Its other remedial work(part of which is now taken over by the Department of Agriculture underthe Land Act of 1909), in encouraging fisheries, industries, and farmimprovements out of State money, is open to criticism on the ground ofits tendency to pauperize and weaken character. I do not care topronounce on the controversy, though I think that there is much to besaid for the view that money is best spent by encouraging agriculturalco-operation. Many able and distinguished men have devoted their mindsto the subject, but it is plain that Ireland as a whole has not thought, and cannot think, the matter out in a responsible spirit, and that theonly way of reaching a truly Irish decision is through an IrishParliament, which both raises and votes money for the purpose. [63] Thereinstatement of evicted tenants teems with practical difficulties whichcan only be solved in the same way. As long as Great Britain remainsresponsible, errors are liable to be made which one day may be deeplyregretted. 

The same observation applies to all future land legislation, notexcepting Land Purchase, which I deal with fully in a later chapter. [64]That great department of administration must, for financial reasons, beworked in harmonious consultation with the British Government; but itought to be controlled by Ireland, and a free and normal outlet given tocriticisms like those emanating from Mr. William O'Brien, whatever theintrinsic value of these criticisms. Purchase itself settles nothingbeyond the bare ownership of the land. It leaves the distribution anduse of the land, except in the "resettled" districts, where it was, witha third or a quarter of the holdings so small as to be classed as"uneconomic. " Ireland is not as yet awake to the possibilities of thesilent revolution proceeding from the erection of a small peasantproprietorship. The sense of responsibility in these new proprietorswill be quickened and the interests of the whole country forwarded by aNational Parliament. 

Temperance will never be tackled thoroughly but by an Irish Parliament. All Irishmen are ashamed in their hearts of the encouragement given todrunkenness by the still grossly excessive number of licensed houses, which in 1909 was 22, 591, and of the National Drink Bill, which in thesame year was £13, 310, 469, [65] or £3 11d. Per head of a population notrich in this world's goods. Temperance is not really a party or asectarian question. All the Churches make noble efforts to forwardreform, and in a rationally governed Ireland reform would be consideredon its merits. At present it is inextricably mixed up with Nationalistand anti-Nationalist politics, and with irrelevant questions of Imperialtaxation. 

The latest examples of the embarrassment into which Ireland without HomeRule is liable to drift from the absence of a formed public opinion andthe means to give it effect, are the labour troubles and the NationalInsurance scheme. There are signs that English labour is thrustingforward Irish labour in advance of its own will and in advance ofgeneral Irish opinion. In all labour questions Ireland's position as anagricultural country is totally different from that of Great Britain. The same legislation cannot be applicable to both. Ireland should frameher own. Under present conditions it is impossible to know theconsidered judgment of Ireland. There is certainly much opposition toInsurance, and if all Irishmen thoroughly realized that the scheme mightcomplicate the finance of Home Rule and involve a greater financialdependence on Great Britain than exists even at present, they wouldstudy it with still more critical eyes, [66] as they would certainly havestudied the Old Age Pensions scheme with more critical eyes. 

Here I am led naturally to the great and all-embracing questions ofIrish finance and expenditure, which lie behind all the topics alreadydiscussed and many others. The subject is far too important andinterwoven with history to be dealt with otherwise than as an historicalwhole, and that course I propose to take in a later part of the book. Itis enough to say that all the arguments for Home Rule are summed up inthe fiscal argument. Every Irishman worth his salt ought to be ashamedand indignant at the present position. 

The whole machinery of Irish Government, and the whole fiscal systemunder which Ireland lives, need to be thoroughly overhauled by Irishmenin their own interests, and in the interests of Great Britain. Amongmany other writers, Mr. Barry O'Brien, in his "Dublin Castle and theIrish People, " Lord Dunraven in "The Outlook in Ireland, " and Mr. G. F. H. Berkeley in a paper contributed to "Home Rule Problems, " have lucidlyand wittily described the wonderful collection of sixty-sevenirresponsible and unrelated Boards nominated by the Chief Secretary, orLord-Lieutenant, which, with the official services beneath them, constitute the colonial bureaucracy of Ireland; the extravagance of thejudicial and other salaries, and the total lack of any central controlworthy of the name. By omitting a number of insignificant littlebureaux, the figure 67, according to Mr. Berkeley's classification, maybe reduced to 42, of which 26 are directly under Castle influence, andthe rest either branches of British Departments or directly under theTreasury. In 1906, out of 1, 611 principal official posts, 626 wereobtained purely by nomination, and 766 by a qualifying examination only. In an able-bodied male population, which we may estimate at a million, there are reckoned to be about 60, 000 persons employed by the State, or1 in 18. If we add 180, 000 Old Age Pensioners, we reach the figure ofnearly a quarter of a million persons, out of a total population ofunder four and a half millions, dependent wholly or partially for theirliving on the State, exclusive of Army and Navy pensioners; again about1 in 18. Four millions of money are paid in salaries or pensions toState employees, and two and three-quarter millions to Old AgePensioners. 

It is so easy to make fun about Irish administration that one has to becautious not to mistake the nature or exaggerate the dimensions of theevil. The great defect is that the expenditure is not controlled byIreland and has no relation to the revenue derived from Ireland. TheCastle is not the odious institution that it was in the dark days of theland war; but it is still a foreign, not an Irish institution, working, like the Government of the most dependent of Crown Colonies, in a worldof its own, with autocratic powers, and immunity from all popularinfluence. Beyond the criticism that one religious denomination, theChurch of Ireland, is rather unduly favoured in patronage, there is nopersonal complaint against the officials. They are as able, kindly, hard-working, and courteous as any other officials. Some of theprincipal posts are held by men of the highest distinction, who will beas necessary to the new Government as to the old. It is absolutelyessential, but it will not be easy, to make substantial administrativeeconomies at the outset, not only from the additional stress of novelwork which will be thrown upon a Home Rule Government, but from thewidespread claims of vested interests. It will require courageousstatesmanship, backed by courageous public opinion, to overhaul abureaucracy so old and extensive. Take the police, for example, thefirst and most urgent subject for reduction. Adding the Royal IrishConstabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police together, we have aforce of no less than 12, 000 officers and men, a force twice as numerousin proportion to population as those of England and Wales, and costingthe huge sum of a million and a half; and this in a country which now isunusually free from crime, and which at all times has been naturallyless disposed to crime than any part of Great Britain. It is theforcible maintenance of bad economic conditions that has produced Irishcrime in the past. Irishmen hotly resent that symbol of coercion, theswollen police force, which is as far removed from their own control asa foreign army of occupation. On the other hand, the force itself iscomposed of Irishmen, and is a considerable, though an unhealthy, economic factor in the life of the country. It performs some minorofficial duties outside the domain of justice; it is efficient, and itsindividual members are not unpopular. Reduction will be difficult. Butdrastic reduction, at least by a half, must eventually be brought aboutif Ireland is to hold up her head in the face of the world. 

The difficulty will extend through all the ramifications of publicexpenditure. Ireland, through no fault of her own, against herpersistent protests, has been retained in a position which isdestructive to thrifty instincts. A rain of officials has produced anunhealthy thirst for the profits of officialdom. No one feelsresponsibility for the money spent for national purposes, because no onein Ireland _is_, in any real sense, responsible. There is no IrishBudget or Irish Exchequer to make a separate Irish Government logicallydefensible. The people are heavily taxed, but, rightly, they do notconnect their taxes with the expenditure going on around them. On thecontrary, their mental habit is to look to Great Britain as the sourceof grants, salaries, pensions. 

And the worst of it is that they are now at the point of beingfinancially dependent on Great Britain. After more than a century ofUnion finance, after contributing, all told, over three hundred andtwenty millions of money to the Imperial purse over and aboveexpenditure in Ireland, they have now ceased to contribute a penny, andare a little in debt. As we shall see, when I come to a closerexamination of finance, the main factor in producing this result hasbeen the Old Age Pensions. The application of the British scale, unmodified, to Ireland is the kind of blunder which the Unionencourages. Ireland, where wages and the standard of living are farlower than in England, does not need pensions on so high a scale, andalready suffers too much from benevolent paternalism. It was anunavoidable blunder, given a joint financial system, but it has gravelycompromised Home Rule finance. 

For acquiescing in this and similar grants, beyond the ascertainedtaxable resources of the country; for the general deficiency of publicspirit and matured public opinion in Ireland; for the backwardness ofeducation, temperance legislation, and other important reforms, theIrish Parliamentary parties cannot be held responsible. They areabnormal in their composition and aims, and, beyond a certain limitedpoint, they are powerless, even if they had the will, to promote Irishpolicies. That is the pernicious result of an unsatisfied claim forself-government. It is the same everywhere else. While an agitation forself-government lasts, a country is stagnant, retrograde, or, likeIreland, progressive only by dint of extraordinary native exertions. Read the Durham report on the condition of the Canadas during the longagitation for Home Rule, and you will recognize the same state ofthings. The leaders of the agitation have to concentrate on the abstractand primary claim for Home Rule, and are reluctant to dissipate theirenergies on minor ends. Yet they, too, are liable to irrational andpainful divisions, like that which divides Mr. O'Brien from Mr. Redmond;symptoms of irritation in the body politic, not of political sanity. They cannot prove their powers of constructive statesmanship, becausethey are not given the power to construct or the responsibility whichevokes statesmanship. The anti-Home Rule partisans degenerate intoviolent but equally sincere upholders of a pure negation. 

Many of the able men who belong to both the Irish parties will, it isto be hoped, soon be finding a far more fruitful and practical field fortheir abilities in a free Ireland. But the parties, as such, willdisappear, on condition that the measure of Home Rule given to Irelandis adequate. On that point I shall have more to say later. If it isadequate, and Irish politicians are absorbed in vital Irish politics, the structure of the existing parties falls to pieces, to the immenseadvantage both of Ireland--including the Protestant sections ofUlster--and of Great Britain. At present both parties, divided normallyby a gulf of sentiment, do combine for certain limited purposes of Irishlegislation, but both are, in different degrees and ways, sterile. Thepolicy of the Nationalist party has been positive in the past, becauseit wrung from Parliament the land legislation which saved a perishingsociety. It is essentially positive still in that it seeks Home Rule, which is the condition precedent to practical politics in Ireland. More, the party is independent, in a sense which can be applied to no otherparty in the United Kingdom. Its Members accept no offices or titles, the ordinary prizes of political life. But they themselves could notcontend that they are truly representative of three-quarters of Irelandin any other sense than that they are Home Rulers. Half of the wit, brains, and eloquence of their best men runs to waste. Some of them aremerely nominated by the party machine, to represent, not local needs, but a paramount principle which the electors insist rightly on settingabove immediate local needs. 

The purpose of the Irish Unionist party in the Commons is purelynegative, to defeat Home Rule. It does not represent North-East Ulster, or any other fragment of Ireland, in any sense but that. It ispassionately sentimental and absolutely unrepresentative of thepractical, virile genius of Ulster industry. The Irish Unionist peers, in addition to voicing the same negative, are for the most part thespokesmen of a small minority of Irishmen in whom the long habit ofupholding landlord interests has begun to outlive the need. 

I have said little directly about the problem of modern Ulster, notbecause I underrate its importance, which is very great, but because Ihave some hope that my arguments up to this point may be perceived tohave a strong, though indirect, bearing upon it. [67] The religiousquestion I leave to others, with only these few observations. It isimpossible to make out a historical case for the religious intoleranceof Roman Catholics in Ireland, or a practical case for the likelihood ofa Roman Catholic tyranny in the future. No attempt which can bedescribed as even plausible has ever been made in either direction. Thelate Mr. Lecky, a Unionist historian, and one of the most eminentthinkers and writers of our time, has nobly vindicated Catholic Ireland, banishing both the theory and the fear into the domain of myth. [68]

He has shown, what, indeed, nobody denies, that, from the measures whichprovoked the Rebellion of 1641, through the Penal Code, to the middle ofthe nineteenth century, intolerance, inspired by supposed politicalnecessities, and of a ferocity almost unequalled in history, came fromthe Protestant colonists. In that brilliant little essay of hisNationalist youth, "Clerical Influences" (1861), he described thesectarian animosity which was raging at that period as "the direct andinevitable consequence of the Union, " and wrote as follows: "Much hasbeen said of the terrific force with which it would rage were the IrishParliament restored. We maintain, on the other hand, that no truth ismore clearly stamped upon the page of history, and more distinctlydeducible from the constitution of the human mind, than that a nationalfeeling is the only check to sectarian passions. " He was himself ananti-Catholic extremist in the sense of holding (with many others) that"the logical consequences of the doctrines of the Church of Rome wouldbe fatal to an independent and patriotic policy in any land. " But heinsists in the same passage "that nothing is more clear than that inevery land where a healthy national feeling exists, Roman Catholicpoliticians are both independent and patriotic. "

He never recanted these opinions (which are confirmed by the subsequentcourse of events) even after his conversion to Unionism, but derived hisopposition to Home Rule from a dread of all democratic tendencies, [69]the only ground on which, if men would be willing to confess the nakedtruth, it can be opposed. There the matter ought to rest. If thedoctrines of the Church of Rome are, in fact, inconsistent withpolitical freedom--I myself pronounce no opinion on that point--it isplain to the most superficial observer that the Church, as a factor inpolitics, stands to lose rather than to gain by Home Rule. Britishstatesmen have often accepted that view, and have endeavoured to use theRoman Catholic hierarchy against popular movements, just as theyenlisted its influence to secure the Union. The Roman Catholic laityhave often subsequently rejected what they have considered to be unduepolitical dictation from the seat of authority in Rome. 

If I may venture an opinion, I believe that both of these mutuallyirreconcilable propositions--that Home Rule means Rome Rule, and thatRome is the enemy to Home Rule--are wrong. [70] Such ludicrouscontradictions only help to destroy the case against trusting a freeIreland to give religion its legitimate, and no more than legitimate, position in the State. Ireland is intensely religious, and it would be adisaster of the first magnitude if the Roman Catholic masses were tolose faith in their Church. The preservation of that faith depends onthe political Liberalism of the Church. 

Corresponding tolerance will be demanded of Ulster Protestants. Atpresent passion, not reason, governs the religious side of theiropposition to Home Rule. It is futile to criticize Ulster Unionists formaking the religious argument the spear-head of their attack on HomeRule. The argument is one which especially appeals to portions of theBritish electorate, and the rules of political warfare permit free useof it. It was pushed beyond the legitimate point, to actual violence, inthe Orange opposition to responsible government in Canada in 1849. Andit has more than once inflamed and embittered Australian politics, as itinflames the politics of certain English constituencies. But it ishardly to be conceived that Ulster Unionists really fear Roman Catholictyranny. The fear is unmanly and unworthy of them. To anyone who haslived in an overwhelmingly Catholic district, and seen the completetranquillity and safety in which Protestants exercise their religion, itseems painfully abnormal that a great city like Belfast, with apopulation more than two-thirds Protestant, should become hystericalover Catholic tyranny. It would be physically impossible to enforce anytyrannical law in Ulster or anywhere else, even if such a law wereproposed, and many leading Protestants from all parts of Ireland havestated publicly that they have no fear of any such result from HomeRule. [71]

"Loyalty" to the Crown is a false issue. Disloyalty to the Crown is anegligible factor in all parts of Ireland. Loyalty or disloyalty to acertain political system is the real matter at issue. At the present daythe really serious objections to Home Rule on the part of the leadingUlster Unionists seem to be economic. They have built up thriving tradesunder the Union. They have the closest business connections with GreatBritain, and a mutual fabric of credit. They cherish sincere andprofound apprehensions that their business prosperity will suffer by anychange in the form of government. To scoff at these apprehensions isabsurd and impolitic in the last degree. But to reason against them isalso an almost fruitless labour. Those who feel them vaguely picture anIrish Parliament composed of Home Rulers and Unionists, in the sameproportion to population as at present, and divided by the same bitterand demoralizing feuds. But there will be no Home Rulers after HomeRule, that is to say, if the Home Rule conceded is sufficient. I believethat Ulster Unionists do not realize either the beneficenttransformation which will follow a change from sentimental to practicalpolitics in Ireland, as it has followed a similar change in every othercountry in the Empire, or the enormous weight which their own finequalities and strong economic position will give them in the settlementof Irish questions. 

Nor do they realize, I venture to think, that any Irish Government, however composed, will be a patriotic Government pledged and compelledfor its own credit and safety to do its best for the interests ofIreland. I have never met an Irishman who was not proud of the northernindustries, and it is obvious that the industrial prosperity of thenorth is vital to the fiscal and general interests of Ireland, just asthe far more wealthy mining interests of the Rand are vital to thestability and prosperity of the Transvaal, and were regarded as such andtreated as such by the farmer majority of the Transvaal after the grantof Home Rule. Those interests have prospered amazingly since, and inthat country, be it remembered, volunteer British corps raised on theRand had been the toughest of all the British foes which the peasantcommandos had to meet in a war ended only four years before. 

If the fears of Ulster took any concrete form, it would be easier tocombat them; but they are unformulated, nebulous. Meanwhile, it is hardto imagine what measure of oppression could possibly be invented by themost malignant Irish Government which would not recoil like a boomerangupon those in whose supposed interests it was framed. I shall have todeal with this point again in discussing taxation, and need here onlyremind the reader that Ulster is not a Province, any part of which couldpossibly be injured by any form of taxation which did not hit otherProvinces equally. 

It is the belief of Ulster Unionists that their prosperity depends onthe maintenance of the Union, but the belief rests on no soundfoundation. Rural emigration from Ulster, even from the Protestantparts, has been as great as from the rest of Ireland. [72] It is easy topoint to a fall in stocks when the Home Rule issue is uppermost, butsuch phenomena occur in the case of big changes of government in anycountry. They merely reflect the fact that certain moneyed interests do, in fact, fear a change of government, and whether those fears areirrational or not, the effect is the same. It is an historical fact, onthe other hand, that political freedom in a white country, in the longrun invariably promotes industrial expansion and financial confidence. Canada is one remarkable example, Australia is another. The BalkanStates are others. Not that I wish to push the colonial example toextremes. Vast undeveloped territories impair the analogy to Ireland;but it is none the less true that when a country with a separateeconomic life of its own obtains rulers of its own choice, and gains anational pride and responsibility, it goes ahead, not backward. 

Intense, indeed, must be the racial prejudice which can cause Ulstermento forget the only really glorious memories of their past. Orangememories are stirring, but they are not glorious beside the traditionsof the Volunteers. The Orange flag is the symbol of conquest, confiscation, racial and religious ascendancy. It is not noble forIrishmen to celebrate annually a battle in which Ireland was defeated, or to taunt their Catholic compatriots with agrarian lawlessness towhich their own forefathers were forced to resort, in order to obtain aprivileged immunity from the same scandalous land laws. Ulstermenreached spiritual greatness when, like true patriots, they stood fortolerance, Parliamentary reform, and the unity of Ireland. They fell, surely, when they consented to style themselves a "garrison" under theshelter of an absentee Parliament, which, through the enslavement anddegradation of the old Irish Parliament, had driven tens of thousands oftheir own race into exile and rebellion. 

They cherish the Imperial tradition, but let them love its sublime andreject its ignoble side. It is sublime where it stands for liberty;ignoble--and none knew this better than the Ulster-Americanrebels--where it stands for government based on the dissensions of thegoverned. 

The verdict of history is that for men in the position of the UlsterUnionists, the path of honour and patriotism, and the path of trueself-interest, lies in co-operation with their fellow-citizens for theattainment of political freedom under the Crown. It is not as if theyhad to create a tradition. The tradition lives. 

FOOTNOTES:

[42] See pp. 13-17 and 66-71. 

[43] Dealt with fully in Chapter XIV. 

[44] In 1910-11, £2, 408, 000 (Treasury Return No. 220, 1911); plus£225, 000 estimated increase owing to removal of Poor Lawdisqualification (Answer to Question in House of Commons, February 15, 1911). 

[45] See p. 101. 

[46] See particularly "Ireland in the New Century, " Sir Horace Plunkett;"Contemporary Ireland, " E. Paul-Dubois; "The New Ireland, " SydneyBrooks. 

[47] "Report of the Recess Committee, " New Edition (Fisher Unwin). 

[48] Colonel Saunderson, for example, the leader of the Irish Unionistsin the Commons, refused publicly to be a member of a committee on whichMr. Redmond sat. Mr. John Redmond himself wrote that he could not take avery sanguine view of the Conference, but that he was "unwilling to takethe responsibility of declining to aid in any effort to promote usefullegislation in Ireland. "

[49] Area under cultivation in 1875, 5, 332, 813 acres; in 1894, 4, 931, 011acres (in 1899, 4, 627, 545 acres; in 1900, on a system of classificationdividing arable land more accurately from pasture, there were only3, 100, 397 acres arable, and in 1905 the figures were 2, 999, 082 acres)(Official Returns). Population in 1841, 8, 175, 124; in 1851, 6, 552, 385;in 1861, 5, 798, 976; in 1871, 5, 412, 377; in 1881, 5, 174, 836; in 1891, 4, 704, 750; in 1892, 4, 633, 808; in 1893, 4, 607, 462; in 1894, 4, 589, 260;in 1895, 4, 559, 936 (in 1901, 4, 458, 775; in 1905, 4, 391, 543). --CensusReturns and _Thoms' Directory_. 

[50] _Council of Agriculture_: 68 members elected by County Councils; 84appointed by the Department from the various provinces. Total 102. 

_Board of Agriculture_: 8 members elected by Council of Agriculture; 4appointed by the Department. Total 12. 

_Board of Technical Instruction_: 10 members appointed by CountyBoroughs; 4 elected by Council of Agriculture; 6 appointed by thevarious Government Departments; 1 by a joint Committee of DublinDistrict Councils. Total 21. 

[51] I am not forgetting Scotland. Her few local departments aretheoretically, but not practically, at the mercy of English votes andinfluence. Scotch opinion, broadly speaking, governs Scotch affairs. Precisely to the extent to which it does not so govern them, is a demandfor Home Rule likely to grow. 

[52] Even the Recess Committee (and we cannot wonder) but dimly graspedthe constitutional position when they laid stress on the necessity foran Agricultural Minister "directly responsible to Parliament. "Logically, they should have first recommended the establishment of anIrish Parliament to which the Minister should be responsible. To makehim responsible to the House of Commons was absurd; and a DepartmentalCommittee of 1907 has, in fact, recommended that the Vice-Presidentshould not have a seat in Parliament, but should remain in his properplace, Ireland. Meanwhile, the original mistake has caused friction andcontroversy. Soon after the Liberal Ministry took office in 1906, SirHorace Plunkett, the first Vice-President, as a Unionist, was replacedby Mr. T. W. Russell, a Home Ruler. On the assumption that such an Officewas Parliamentary, its holder standing or falling with the BritishMinistry of the day, the step was quite justifiable, and even necessary. On the opposite assumption, confirmed by the Departmental Committee, thestep was unjustifiable, that is, on the theory of the Union. An IrishParliament alone should have the power of displacing Irish Ministers. 

[53] See footnote, p. 159. 

[54] "Organization and Policy of the Department, " Official Pamphlet. 

[55]

STATISTICS OF THE IRISH AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION MOVEMENT TO DECEMBER31, 1909, WITH NUMBER OF SOCIETIES IN EXISTENCE ON DECEMBER 31, 1910(SUPPLIED BY THE I. A. O. S. ):

---------------------------------------------------------------------Description. |Number of |Membership. |Paid-up |Loan |Turnover. |Societies. | |Shares. |Capital. | |-----------| | | | |1910. |1909. | | | |---------------------------------------------------------------------Creameries | 392 | 380 | 44, 213 | 138, 354 | 111, 365 | 1, 841, 400Agricultural | 169 | 155 | 16, 050 | 6, 253 | 40, 326 | 112, 222Credit | 237 | 234 | 18, 422 | -- | 56, 469 | 57, 641Poultry | 18 | 18 | 6, 152 | 2, 292 | 4, 026 | 64, 342Industries | 21 | 21 | 1, 375 | 1, 267 | 1, 450 | 7, 666Miscellaneous| 37 | 15 | 4, 633 | 15, 015 | 2, 864 | 48, 987Flax | 9 | 9 | 589 | 482 | 5, 796 | 2, 286Federations | 3 | 3 | 227 | 6, 753 | 6, 360 | 259, 925--------------------------------------------------------------------- | 886 | 835 | 91, 661 | 170, 416 | 228, 656 | 2, 394, 469---------------------------------------------------------------------

[56] An Irish Trademark has been secured, and has proved of great value"Irish Weeks, " for the furtherance of the sale of Irish products, areheld. The organ of the Association is the _Irish Industrial Journal_, published weekly in Dublin. 

[57] On December 31, 1909, Irish was taught as an "extra subject" in3, 006 primary schools out of 8, 401, and in 161 schools in Irish-speakingdistricts in the West a bi-lingual programme of instruction was in force(Report of Committee of National Education, 1910). Forty-six thousandpupils passed the test of the inspectors. Irish in 1910 was made acompulsory subject for matriculation at the National University. 

[58] The election by Nationalist votes of Lord Ashtown, a militantUnionist peer of the most uncompromising type, in the spring of 1911 toone of the Galway District Councils is a good recent example of thistendency. 

[59] Permissive powers exist for County Councils to enforce compulsoryattendance. 

[60] Including 342 convent, 54 monastery, 125 workhouse, and 71 modelschools. 

[61] See "Prospectus of the Municipal Technical Institute, Belfast, "1910-11, pp. 55 and 57-58. Reading, Grammar, and Simple Arithmetic aretaught. 

[62] See Report of the Congested Districts Board, 1909-11. 

[63] See Report of Royal Commission on Congestion in Ireland (Cd. 4097);especially a Memorandum by Sir Horace Plunkett, published as a separatepamphlet by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. 

[64] See Chapter XIV. 

[65] Annual Report (1910) of the "Irish Association for the Preventionof Intemperance. " The estimate is that of Dr. Dawson Burns. By theLicensing (Ireland) Act of 1902, the issue of any new licenses wasprohibited. 

[66] I write before the scheme has been fully discussed in Parliament. 

[67] It is scarcely necessary for me to remind the reader that the word"Ulster, " as used in current political dialectics, is misleading. Partof Ulster is overwhelmingly Catholic; in part the population is dividedbetween the two creeds, and in two counties it is overwhelminglyProtestant. In the whole province the Protestants are in a majority of150, 000, but since a number of Protestants vote Nationalist, therepresentation of the province is almost equal, the Unionists holdingseventeen seats out of thirty-three. 

[68] "Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, " "Leaders of Public Opinion inIreland, " "Clerical Influences. "

[69] See "Democracy and Liberty. "

[70] Many Unionists are to be found in the same breath prophesyingCatholic tyranny under Home Rule and averring without any evidence thatclerical influence caused the repudiation in 1907 of the Council Bill, because it placed education under a semi-popular body. 

[71] "Religious Intolerance under Home Rule: Some Opinions of LeadingIrish Protestants, " pamphlet (1911) compiled by J. McVeagh, M. P. 

[72] The Census of 1911 shows that the population of Ireland is stillfalling. The province of Leinster, mainly Catholic, alone shows a smallincrease, derived from the counties of Dublin (including Dublin City)and Kildare. In Ulster, Down and Antrim, which include the city ofBelfast, alone show an increase, but not so great as that of CountyDublin. 

CHAPTER X

THE FRAMEWORK OF HOME RULE

I. 

THE ELEMENTS OF THE PROBLEM. 

It was not only to support the principle of Home Rule for Ireland that Ifollowed in some detail the growth of the Liberal principle ofgovernment as applied to outlying portions of the British Empire. Thehistorical circumstances which moulded the form of each individualColonial Constitution, the Constitutions themselves, and themodifications they have subsequently undergone, supply a mass ofmaterial rich in interest and instruction for the makers of an IrishConstitution. Nor is the analogy academical. Ireland is at this momentunder a form of government unique, so far as I know, in the whole world, but resembling more closely than anything else that of a British CrownColony where the Executive is outside popular control, and theLegislature is only partially within it; with this additional andcrowning inconvenience, that the Irish Crown Colony can obstruct thebusiness of the Mother Country. What we have to do is to liberate GreatBritain and to give Ireland a rational Constitution--not pedanticallyadhering to any colonial model, but recognizing that, however closelyher past history resembles that of a Colony, Ireland, by hergeographical position, has a closer community of interest with GreatBritain than that of any Colony. 

Three main difficulties have to be contended with: first, that thesystem to be overthrown is so ancient, and the prejudice against HomeRule so inveterate; second, the Irish are not agreed upon anyconstructive scheme; third, the confusion in the popular mind between"Federal" and other systems of Home Rule. 

A. 

With regard to the first of these obstacles, we have got to make a bignational effort to take a sensible and dispassionate view of the wholeproblem. We must cease to regard Ireland as an insubordinate captive, asa "possession" to be exploited for profit, or as a child to be humouredand spoiled. All this is _vieux jeu_. It belongs to an utterlydiscredited form of so-called Imperialism, which might more fitly becalled Little Englandism, masquerading in the showy trappings ofBismarckian philosophy. We have gone too far in the "dismemberment" ofour historic Empire, and near enough to the dismemberment of whatremains, to apply this worn-out metaphor to the process of makingIreland politically free. 

In Ireland we must build on trust, or we build on sand. 

What is best for Ireland will be best for the Empire. 

Let us firmly grasp these principles, or we shall fail. They may becarried to the extreme point. If it were for Ireland's moral andmaterial good to become an independent nation, it would be GreatBritain's interest to encourage her to secede and assume the position ofa small State like Belgium, whose independence in our own interests weguarantee. Since nobody of sense, in or out of Ireland supposes that herinterest lies in that direction, we need not consider the point; but itis just as well to bear in mind that a prosperous and friendly neighbouron a footing of independence is better than a discontented and backwardneighbour on a footing of dependence. The corollary is this--that anyrestrictions or limitations upon the subordinate Irish Government andParliament which are not scientifically designed to secure the easyworking of the whole Imperial machinery, but are the outcome ofsuspicion and distrust, will serve only to aggravate existing evils. When the supreme object of a Home Rule measure is to create a sense ofresponsibility in the people to whom it is extended, what could be moreperversely unwise than to accompany the gift with a declaration of theincompetence of the people to exercise responsibility, and withrestraints designed to prevent them from proving the contrary?

Centuries of experience have not yet secured general acceptation forthis simple principle. In this domain of thought the tenacity of erroris marvellous, even if we make full allowance for the disturbing effecton men's minds of India and other coloured dependencies where despotic, or semi-despotic, systems are in vogue. Since the expansion of Englandbegan in the seventeenth century, it cannot be said that the principleof trusting white races to manage their own affairs has ever receivedthe express and conscious sanction of a united British people. It hasbeen repeatedly repudiated by Governments in the most categorical terms, and repudiated sometimes to the point of bloodshed. In other cases ithas met with lazy retrospective acquiescence on the discovery thatpowers surreptitiously obtained or granted without formal legislationhad not been abused. The Australian Acts of 1850 and 1855 were the firstapproach to a spontaneous application of the full principle; but eventhen many statesmen were not fully alive to the consequences of theiraction, while there was no public interest, and very littleParliamentary interest, in the fate of these remote dependencies. Thefully developed modern doctrine of comradeship with the greatself-governing Dominions, a doctrine which we may date from theaccession of Mr. Chamberlain to Colonial Secretaryship in 1895, was notthe natural outcome of a belief in self-government, but a sudden andeffusive acceptation of its matured results in certain definite cases. Irish Home Rule itself had, in the preceding decade, twice been rejectedby the nation. With the first opportunity, after 1895, of testing beliefin the principle, namely, in the Transvaal Constitution of 1905, theGovernment failed. Finally, in 1906, when, to redeem that failure, forthe first time in the whole history of the Empire a Cabinetspontaneously and unreservedly declared its full belief in theprinciple, and translated that belief into law, the whole of theOpposition, representing nearly half the electorate, washed their handsof the policy, and, if the constitutional means had existed, would, admittedly, have defeated it, as they had defeated the Home Rule Billsof 1886 and 1893. The change of national opinion has, I believe, beenconsiderable; but the circumstances remain ominous for the dispassionatediscussion of the Irish Constitution. Patriotic people can only do theirbest to ensure that the grant of Home Rule shall not be nullified byrestrictions and limitations which, if they are designed merely toappease opposition, are destined to create friction and discontent. 

I am far from implying that restrictions are bad things in themselves. All Constitutions, whether the sole work of the men who are to liveunder them, like that of the United States, or the gift of a SovereignState to a dependency, or the joint work of a Sovereign and a dependentState, contain restrictions designed for the common good. The criterionof their value is the measure of consent they meet with from those whohave to live under and work the Constitution, and it is thatcircumstance which makes it urgent that Irish opinion should be evokedupon their future Constitution, and that the Irish Nationalist partyshould think out its own scheme of Home Rule. The Constitution of theUnited States contains many self-imposed restrictions upon the powersboth of the Central and the State Governments, in the interest ofminorities; and nobody accuses the Americans of having insultedthemselves. 

It will be no slur on Ireland, for example, if the most elaboratesafeguards against the oppression of the Protestant minority areinserted in the Bill, provided that Nationalist Ireland, recognizing thefears of the minority, spontaneously recommends, or, at any rate, freelyconsents to their insertion--a consent which could not, of course, beexpected if their tendency was to derange the functions of Government orcripple the Legislature. 

On the other hand, it would be a slur on Ireland which she would justlyresent, besides being a highly impolitic step, to deny to the IrishExecutive an important power, such, for example, as the control of itsown police. 

B. 

It is a grave difficulty that there is no public opinion in Ireland asto the form of the Irish Constitution. That is an almost inevitableresult of political conditions past and present. Violent intestinalantagonisms are not favourable to constructive thought. The best men ofa country, working in harmony, are needed to devise a good Constitution, and if any Irishman could succeed in convening a Conference like thatwhich created the South African Union, he would be famous and honouredfor ever in the annals of the future Ireland. That Conference, we mustremember, was itself the result of the grants of Home Rule two yearspreviously, and these grants in their turn were greatly facilitated bythe co-operation of Britons and Dutchmen. [73] Canada, in 1840, is awarning of the errors made in constructing a Constitution without suchco-operation. Eventually it had to be torn up and refashioned. The bestway of avoiding any such error in Ireland's case is to expel the spiritof distrust which animated the framers of the Canadian Union Act of1840. 

C. 

So much for the spirit in which we should approach the problem, and Ipass to the consideration of the problem itself. What is to be theframework of Home Rule? I take it for granted that there must, in thebroad sense, be responsible government, that is to say, an IrishLegislature, with an Irish Cabinet responsible to that Legislature, and, through the Lord-Lieutenant, to the Crown. So much is common ground withnearly all advocates of Home Rule, for I take it that there is noquestion of reverting to anything in the nature of the abortive IrishCouncil Bill of 1907. [74] But agreement upon responsible government doesnot carry us far enough. What are to be the relations between thesubordinate Irish Parliament and Government, and the Imperial Parliamentand Government?

We immediately feel the need of a scientific nomenclature. In popularparlance, two possible types of Home Rule are recognized--"Federal" and"Colonial. " Both, of course, may be "Colonial, " because there areColonial Federations as well as Colonial Unitary States. But, nomenclature apart, the two possible types of Irish Home Rule correspondto two distinct types of subordinate Constitution. The "Colonial" typeis peculiar to the British Empire, the other is to be found in manyparts of the world--the United States, for example, and Germany, andSwitzerland. 

Let us examine these types a little more closely, confining ourselves asfar as possible to the British Empire, past and present, because withinit we can find nearly all the instruction we need. As I showed in mysketch of the growth of Colonial Home Rule, all the Colonies now classedas self-governing, together with the American Colonies before theirindependence, were originally unitary States, subordinate to the Crown, each looking directly to Great Britain, possessing no constitutionalrelation with one another, and gradually obtaining their individuallocal autonomies under the name of "Responsible Government. " New Zealandand Newfoundland alone have maintained their original individualities, and their Constitutions, from an historical standpoint, are the bestexamples of the first of the two types we are considering. Now for theFederal type. Very early in the history of the American Colonies (in1643) the New England group formed amongst themselves a looseconfederation, which was not formally recognized by the BritishGovernment, and which perished in 1684. In the next century the War ofIndependence produced the confederation of all the thirteen Colonies, but this was little more in effect than a very badly contrived alliancefor military purposes, and it was a keen sense of the inadequacy of thebond that stimulated the construction of the Great Constitution of 1787, the first Federal Union ever devised by the English-speaking race. Allthe States combined to confer certain defined powers upon a FederalParliament, to which each sent representatives, and upon a FederalExecutive whose head, the President, all shared in electing. At the sametime, each State preserved its own Constitution and the power to amendit, with the one broad condition that it must be Republican, and subjectto any limitation upon its powers which the Federal Constitutionimposed. 

Eighty years elapsed before any similar Federal Union was formed byColonies within the British Empire. As we have seen, all the variousNorth American Colonies which received Constitutions in the last quarterof the eighteenth century, and all the Australasian Colonies similarlyhonoured in the nineteenth century, were placed in direct relation tothe British Crown and in isolation from one another. Upper Canada had nopolitical ties with Lower Canada, Nova Scotia none with New Brunswick, Victoria none with Tasmania. Several abortive schemes were proposed atone time or another for the Federation of the North American Colonies, but the first measure of amalgamation, namely, the union of the twoCanadas in 1840, was a step in the wrong direction, and bore, as I haveshown, a marked resemblance, particularly in the motives which dictatedit, to the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. It was a compulsoryUnion, imposed by the Mother Country, and founded on suspicion of theFrench. So far from being Federal, it was a clumsy and unworkableLegislative Union of the two Provinces, which lasted as long as it didonly because the principle of responsible government, established in1847, covered a multitude of sins. The somewhat similar attempt inAustralia in 1843 to amalgamate the two settlements of Port Phillip, afterwards Victoria, and New South Wales, at a time when each hadevolved a distinct individuality of its own, was defeated by thestrenuous opposition of the Port Phillip colonists, and revoked in 1850. 

Meanwhile, all aspirations after Federation in the outlying parts of theEmpire were discouraged by the home authorities. The most practical planof all, Sir George Grey's great scheme of South African Federation in1859, was nipped in the bud. Canada eventually led the way. The failureof the Canadian Union brought about its dissolution in 1867 by theProvinces concerned, under the sanction of Great Britain (an example ofreally sensible "dismemberment"), and their voluntary Federation asOntario and Quebec, together with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, underthe collective title of the Dominion of Canada, and the subsequentinclusion in this Federation of all the North American Provinces withthe exception of Newfoundland. 

Note, at the outset, that this Federation differed from that of theUnited States in being founded on the recognition of an organic relationwith an external suzerain authority--an authority which the Americanshad abjured in framing their independent Republic. In the matter ofconstitutional relations with Great Britain, the Dominion of Canada nowassumed, in its collective capacity, the position formerly held by eachindividual Province, and still held by Newfoundland. Direct relationsbetween the individual Provinces of the Federation and the MotherCountry practically ceased, and were replaced by a Federal relation withthe Dominion. Provincial Lieutenant-Governors are appointed by theDominion Government acting in the name of the Governor-General, notdirectly by the British Government, [75] and, although in constitutionaltheory the Crown, as in every least fraction of the Empire, is the soleand immediate source of executive authority, and an indispensable agentin all legislation, not only in the Dominion, but in the Provinces, [76]in actual practice the only organic connection left between a Provinceand Great Britain is the right of appeal directly to the King inCouncil, that is, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, without the intervention of the Supreme Court of Canada. 

So much for the external relations of the Dominion. In respect to thedomestic relations between the Provinces and the Dominion, the Federalprinciple used in Canada is fundamentally the same as that which obtainsin the United States and in every true Federation in the world, whetherMonarchical or Republican, whether self-contained, like the UnitedStates, Germany, and Switzerland, or linked, as in the British Empire, to a supreme and sovereign Government centred in London. Each Province, as in every genuine Federation, is an _imperium in imperio_, possessinga Constitution of its own, and delegating central powers to a FederalGovernment. The nature and extent of the powers thus delegated orreserved, and the character of the Federal Constitution itself, varywidely in different Federations, but we need not consider thesedifferences in any detail. Let us remark generally, however, that thepowers of the Canadian Province are much smaller than those of theAmerican State, and that what lawyers call "the residuary powers"--thatis, all powers not specifically allotted--belong to the Dominion, whereas in the United States and Switzerland they belong to the State orCanton. 

The Australian Commonwealth of 1900 came into being in the same way asthe Dominion of Canada, by the voluntary act of the several Coloniesconcerned--Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, WesternAustralia, Queensland--under the sanction of the British Crown andParliament. New Zealand stood out, and remained, like Newfoundland, aunitary State directly subordinate to Great Britain. Nor, in the matterof relations with the Mother Country, were the federating Coloniesmerged so completely in the Commonwealth as the Provinces of Canada inthe Dominion. The Canadians had not only to construct the DominionConstitution, but new Constitutions for two of the federatingProvinces--Ontario and Quebec--and it was natural, therefore, that theyshould identify the Provinces more closely with the Dominion. TheAustralians, having to deal with six ready-made State Constitutions, left them as they were, subject only to the limitations imposed by theCommonwealth Constitution. One of the results is that the StateGovernors are still appointed directly by the British Government, not bythe Commonwealth. This constitutional arrangement, however, has no verypractical significance. The right of appeal direct from a State Court tothe King in Council, without the intervention of the High Court ofAustralia, remains, as in Canada, the only direct link between theindividual States and the British Government. 

The Federal tie between the States and the Commonwealth, as defined inthe Act of 1900, is looser than that between the Provinces of Canada andthe Dominion, and bears more resemblance to the relation between a Stateand the Federal Government of the United States. As in that country andin Switzerland, residuary powers rest with the State or CantonGovernments, not with the Federal Government. 

The South African Union of 1909, comprising the Colonies of the Cape ofGood Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony, had aFederal origin, so to speak, in that the old Colonies agreed to abandona great part of their autonomies to a central Government andLegislature; but the spirit of unity carried them so far as almost toannul State rights. The powers now retained by the provincialLegislatures are so small, and the control of the Union Government is sofar-reaching, that the whole system is rightly described as a Union, notas a Federation. The Provinces, which are really little more thanmunicipalities, have no longer any relation except in remotestconstitutional theory with the Mother Country, their Administrators areappointed by the Union, and, unlike the Provinces of Canada and theStates of Australia, they have not even an internal system ofresponsible government. [77] No direct appeal lies to the King in Councilfrom the provincial Courts, which are now, in fact, only "divisions" ofthe Supreme Court of South Africa. The Provinces, in short, do notpossess "Constitutions" at all. Their powers can be extinguished withouttheir individual assent by an Act of the Union Parliament, whereas theCanadian Dominion has no power to amend either the Dominion or theProvincial Constitutions, and in Australia constitutional amendmentsmust be agreed to by the States separately as well as by theCommonwealth Parliament. But these revolutionary changes in the statusof the old South African Colonies were brought about, let us remember, by the free consent of the inhabitants of South Africa, after prolongeddeliberation. 

The United States, the Australian Commonwealth, and the CanadianDominion are, then, the three genuine Federations which theEnglish-speaking races have constructed. The two last are included inthe present British Empire, and they stand side by side with the threeunitary Colonies--South Africa, New Zealand, and Newfoundland. Theconstitutional relation of each of these five bodies to the MotherCountry is precisely the same, although they differ widely in internalstructure, as in wealth and population. Within each of the twoFederations, as we have seen, there exists a nexus of minorConstitutions, State or Provincial, which have virtually no relationswith the Mother Country, but are integral parts of the major Federation. 

II. 

FEDERAL OR COLONIAL HOME RULE?

We are now in a position to pose our main question, and the simplestcourse is to pose it in an illustrative form. Broadly speaking, is therelation between Ireland and Great Britain to resemble that between theProvince of Quebec and the Dominion of Canada, or that between theDominion of Canada and the United Kingdom? One might equally wellcontrast the relation of Victoria to the Australian Commonwealth withthe relation of New Zealand or Newfoundland to the United Kingdom. Ichoose the Canadian illustration because it is more compact andstriking, and because it corresponds more closely to the history and tothe realities of the case. Moreover, Quebec, although she had a no morestormy domestic history, owing to lack of Home Rule, than Ontario, isbi-racial, and on that account underwent in 1840 compulsory amalgamationwith her wholly British neighbour, just as Ireland, originallybi-racial, was forcibly amalgamated with Great Britain in 1800. TheCanadian partners agreed to break this bond, to fashion a better one onthe Federal principle, in the manner vaguely adumbrated by advocates ofthe "Federal" principle for Irish Home Rule, and, as regards theirrelations with the Mother Country, to pool their interests and acceptrepresentation by the Dominion alone. 

Quebec Home Rule or Dominion Home Rule? Needless to say, these are onlybroad types chosen expressly to illustrate two possible types ofrelation between Ireland and Great Britain, which I shall henceforthrefer to as "Federal" and "Colonial. " There is no reason why we shouldnot profit in other respects by both examples, nor is there anypossibility of copying either faithfully. 

Both types fulfil the fundamental condition laid down at the beginningof our discussion--both, that is to say, are consistent with responsiblegovernment in Ireland. Quebec, in its inner working, is a microcosm ofthe Dominion, and the Dominion system of responsible government isalmost an exact copy of the unwritten British Constitution. In Quebec(as in all the Provinces and States of Canada and Australia) there is aCabinet, headed by a Prime Minister, composed of Members of theLegislature, and responsible at once to that Legislature and to theLieutenant-Governor as representing the Crown. Ireland, under a similarsystem (and, _a fortiori_, if she were put in the position of theDominion), would have a Cabinet responsible at once to the IrishLegislature and to the Lord-Lieutenant representing the Crown. Theparallel is more apposite in the case of the Province of Quebec than inthe case of an Australian State, because, as I noted above, theprovincial Lieutenant-Governor is actually appointed by the DominionGovernment, and is in his turn responsible in the first instance to thatGovernment, just as the Irish Governor, or Lord-Lieutenant, who, underHome Rule, will for the first time justify his existence, is, and willstill be, appointed by the British Government. 

But with the possibility of responsible government granted, it must beconfessed that the arguments against "Quebec Home Rule" as a measure ofpractical politics at the present moment, are insuperable. In the firstplace there is no question in the coming Bill of federalizing the UnitedKingdom on the lines of the Dominion of Canada--that is, of constructinga new Federal Parliament elected by the whole realm, together with newlocal Legislatures elected by the various fractions of the realm. Scottish and Welsh Home Rule are in the air, but they are not practicalissues. English Home Rule is not even in the air. I mean thatEnglishmen, whatever their views on the congestion of Parliamentarybusiness owing to the pressure of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish affairs, have not seriously considered the idea of a subordinate Legislatureexclusively English, which would be just as essential a feature of acompletely federalized kingdom as subordinate Legislatures exclusivelyIrish, Scottish, and Welsh. 

Not that it is essential to the federalization of the United Kingdomthat Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, should all have separateLegislature. Any one of these fractions could coalesce with another orothers in a joint Legislature. It would be technically possible, thoughhighly unreasonable, to go to the extreme of giving Great Britain, regarded as one Province, a separate Legislature; Ireland, regarded asanother Province, a separate Legislature; and, above these twosubordinate bodies, a new Imperial Parliament representing the wholerealm. Such a dual Federation was nearly coming about in Canada, whenOntario and Quebec dissolved their Union and resolved to federate. Itbecame a quadruple Federation, owing to the adhesion of Nova Scotia andNew Brunswick; but in a dual form it would have worked just as well. Itis scarcely necessary to say that the disparity in population, resources, and power between Ireland and Great Britain render a dualFederation, which, of course, involves three Legislatures, chimerical. What I want to insist on is that, whatever subdivisions are adopted, itis absolutely essential to every Federation that there should be adivision of powers between a central and at least two localLegislatures--three altogether. That is the minimum. Other things arealso essential, but for the moment we can confine ourselves to theoutstanding requirement. Now, there is no question in the coming Bill ofany such Federation. Later years may see such a development, whetherfrom pressure of work on the Imperial Parliament or from irresistibledemand for Home Rule from Scotland or Wales, or both, but not next year. The Bill will contemplate two Parliaments, not three, namely, theexisting Imperial Parliament and the Irish Legislature. There is, therefore, no question of Federal Home Rule, and the term "Federal, " asapplied to Irish Home Rule at the present time, is meaningless. 

Nor can the coming Bill for Ireland make any preparation, technically, for a general Federation. Morally, as I shall show, it might have animportant effect in stimulating local sentiment, not only in England, Scotland, and Wales, but in Ireland, towards a general Federation in thefuture, but in its mechanical structure it must be not merelynon-Federal, but anti-Federal. One often hears it carelessly propoundedthat Irish Home Rule, so devised as to be applicable in later years, ifthey so desire, to Scotland, Wales, and England, will give us by smoothmechanical means a General Federation. This is a fallacy. At one stageor another, the earliest or the latest, we should have to create atotally new central Parliament, still elected by the whole people, butexclusively devoted to Imperial affairs, and wholly exempt from localbusiness, before we possessed anything in the nature of a Federation. But, whatever the future has in store, it would be a scandal if IrishHome Rule were to be hampered or delayed by the existence of Scotch orWelsh claims, and it is earnestly to be hoped that no action of thatkind will be taken. The case of Ireland is centuries old, and moreurgent than ever. It differs radically from any case that can possiblybe made for Scotland and Wales. 

The Bill, I repeat, must be anti-Federal, centrifugal. In the case ofIreland we have first to dissolve an unnatural union, and then to revivean old right to autonomy, before we can reach a healthy Federal Union. Such, exactly, was the history of Canada. If, in that case, thedissolution of the Legislative Union and the construction of the FederalUnion were consummated simultaneously in the British North America Actof 1867, they were nevertheless two distinct phases, and of these twophases the first, implying the revival of the old separate autonomies, was the indispensable precursor of Federal Union. This antecedentrecognition of autonomy was not peculiar to Canada. Every Federation inthe world arose in the same way, by the voluntary act of States underone Crown or suzerainty, but independent of one another, and it is ofthe essence of Federalism that this psychological condition shouldexist. Compulsory Federation would not last a year. It would indeed bepracticable to federalize the United Kingdom by one Legislative Act, butthe prior right to and fitness for complete Home Rule on the part ofeach of the component parts would have to be implicitly recognized. 

It needs only a moment's consideration of Anglo-Irish history to see thespecial applicability of the psychological rule to Ireland. The evils ofthe Canadian Union, during the twenty-seven years of its duration, areinfinitesimal beside the mischief, moral and material, which have beencaused to both partners by the forcible amalgamation of Great Britainand Ireland; the waste of indigenous talent, industrial and political;the dispersion all over the globe of Irishmen; the conversion of friendsinto enemies, of peaceable citizens into plotters of treason, of farmersinto criminals, of poets and statesmen into gaolbirds; the check to theproduction of wealth and Anglo-Irish commerce; the dislocation anddemoralization of Parliamentary life; and, saddest results of all, thereactionary effect upon British statesmanship, domestic and Imperial, and the deterioration of Irish character within Ireland. The voluntaryprinciple--at any rate, among the English-speaking races--is asessential to a true Union, like that of the South African Colonies orthat of Scotland and England, as to a Federation. It is a sheerimpossibility to create a perfect, mechanical Union on a basis of hatredand coercion; witness the strangely anomalous colonial featuressurviving in Irish Government--the Lord-Lieutenancy, the separateadministration, and the standing army of police. 

Persons inclined to reckon the advantages, whether of Federation or ofUnion, in pounds, shillings, and pence, may regard the psychologicalrequirement as fanciful. It is not fanciful; on the contrary, it isrelated in the clearest way to the concrete facts of the situation. Before there is any question of Federation Ireland needs to findherself, to test her own potentialities, to prove independence ofcharacter, thought, and action, and to discover what she can do by herown unaided will with her own resources. As I endeavoured to show in thelast chapter, these are the true reasons for Home Rule. 

Home Rule is neither a luxury nor a plaything, but a tremendouslyexacting duty which must be undertaken by every country conscious ofrepression and valuing its self-respect, and which Ireland is praying tobe allowed to undertake. When a people has learnt to understand theextent of its own powers and limitations, then it can safely andhonourably co-operate on a Federal basis with other peoples, and, in theinterests of efficiency and economy, can delegate to a centralGovernment, partly of its own choice, functions hitherto locallyexercised. Once more, that is the origin of all true Federations, British and foreign, in all parts of the world. 

If, then, the Home Rule Bill cannot in legal form be a federating orunifying measure, it must be one of a precisely opposite character, anda measure of devolution. It is a proof of the need for a scientificnomenclature that the word "devolution" has to Irish ears come to meansomething similar in kind to "Federal" Home Rule, but less in degree, and something different in kind from "Colonial" Home Rule, andinfinitely less in degree. What a tangle of truth and fallacy from themisuse of a single word! It is associated rightly with the ill-starredIrish Council Bill of 1907, and it has been universally but wrongly usedto indicate a small measure of local government in contradistinction tothe Home Rule Bills of Mr. Gladstone and, _a fortiori_, to any moreliberal schemes. 

Nevertheless, the problem before us is one of devolution pure andsimple, and the question is, how far is devolution to go? It may go tothe full length of Colonial Home Rule, that is, Ireland may be vestedwith the full freedom now enjoyed by a self-governing Colony (for thegrants of Colonial Home Rule were measures of devolution), or it mightat the other extreme take the form of a petty municipal government. Byhypothesis, however, we are precluded from considering any scheme whichdoes not admit of responsible government in Ireland. That conditioncommits us to something in the nature of "Colonial" Home Rule, nowenjoyed by States widely varying in size, wealth, and population, fromthe Dominion of Canada, with over seven million inhabitants, toNewfoundland, with under a quarter of a million inhabitants and veryslender resources. It is worth notice also (to shift our analogy for themoment) that little Newfoundland, which, owing to divergency ofinterest, has declined both federation with the Dominion and union withany of the constituent parts of the Dominion, subsists happily andpeacefully by the side of her powerful neighbour; and that New Zealand, for the same reason, prefers to occupy the same independent position bythe side of Australia. 

III. 

THE EXCLUSION OR RETENTION OF IRISH MEMBERS AT WESTMINSTER. [78]

We have discarded the "Federal" solution as wholly impracticable, andhave arrived at the "Colonial" solution. And at this point I feel itnecessary to plead for the reader's patient, if reluctant, attention towhat follows. The solution I suggest is unpopular, mainly, I believe, because prejudice has so beclouded the issue in the past, and becausefor the eighteen years since the last Home Rule Bill, while prejudicehas diminished, the subject of Irish Home Rule has ceased to be studiedwith scientific care. 

Where is the crux of the problem? In what provision of the coming Billwill the difference between Federal Home Rule and Colonial Home Rulearise? The answer is clear: in the retention or exclusion of IrishMembers at Westminster. No Colony has representatives at Westminster. The Federal solution, on the other hand, whether it be applied to thewhole Empire or to the United Kingdom alone, involves an exclusivelyFederal Parliament unconcerned with State or provincial affairs. That wehave not got. What we have got is an absolutely supreme and sovereignParliament which has legal authority, not only over all Imperial affairswithin and without the United Kingdom, but over the minutest localaffairs. Unrepresented though the Colonies are, they can legally betaxed, coerced, enslaved at any moment by an Act passed by a partymajority in this Parliament. Such measures, though legal, would beunconstitutional; but, both by law and custom, and in actual dailypractice, Parliament passes and enforces certain Acts affecting theself-governing Colonies, and wields potential and actual authority ofall-embracing extent over the Empire and over the local affairs of theUnited Kingdom. 

When we set up an Irish Legislature, then, we have to contemplate fourdifferent classes of affairs in a descending scale: (1) Affairs ofcommon interest to the whole Empire; (2) affairs of exclusive interestto the United Kingdom; (3) affairs exclusively British; (4) affairsexclusively Irish. 

With regard to (1), the prospects of Imperial Federation do not affectthe Irish issue. It is no doubt illogical and sometimes highlyinconvenient that the British Cabinet and Parliament, representingBritish and Irish electors only, should decide matters which deeplyconcern the whole Empire, including the self-governing Colonies, but itis the fact. In the meantime we are securing very effective consultationwith the self-governing Colonies by the method of Imperial Conference. AFederal Parliament for the whole Empire is a possible though a remotealternative to that system. Colonial representation in the presentImperial Parliament is an altogether impracticable alternative. Thesuggestion had often been made for the American Colonies at the heightof their discontent, later for Canada as an alternative to the Act of1791, and in recent times also. The same fallacious idea underlay theUnion of Ireland with Great Britain and her representation inParliament, while retaining colonial institutions. At present theprospects of Imperial Federation seem to be indifferent. On the otherhand, the affection between all branches of our race which is theindispensable groundwork of Federation becomes visibly stronger, andwill become stronger, provided that we do not revert to the ancient anddiscredited policy either of dictating to the Colonies or taking sideswith one or another of the parties within them, provided also that theColonies in their growing strength do not dictate to us or take sideswith one or other of our parties. 

But, whatever the prospects of Imperial Federation, so long as thepresent situation lasts, there is no reason for giving a self-governingIreland more control over Imperial matters affecting the self-governingColonies than the self-governing Colonies themselves possess. Thepresent position is illogical enough; that would be to render it doublyillogical. Representation of Ireland, therefore, at Westminster, on theground that she should take part in settling matters of the widestImperial purport, is indefensible. The alternative and much moreeffectual method, as with the Colonies, is Conference. 

(2-4) But it is when we come to regard the United Kingdom as aself-contained entity that the difficulty of retaining Irish Members atWestminster appears most formidable. If we discard the Federal solutionwe must discard it wholeheartedly, not from a pedantic love of logic, but to avoid real, practical anomalies which might cause the wholepolitical machine to work even worse than it does at present. From whatI have written, it will be seen at once that to retain the Irish Membersin the House of Commons, while giving Ireland responsible government, would be to set up a kind of hybrid system, retaining the disadvantagesof the Union without gaining the advantages of Federalism. A Federalsystem needs a Federal Parliament, which we have not got, and shall notget for a long time yet. To introduce into it a quasi-Federal element isto mix oil with water. 

I state the proposition in this broad way at first in order to push homethe truth that Irish representation at Westminster will involveanomalies and dangers which, beyond a certain very limited point, cannotbe mitigated. Methods of mitigation I will deal with in a moment. Let meremark first upon the strange history of this question of Irishrepresentation at Westminster. Obviously it is the most fundamentalquestion of all in the matter of Home Rule. The whole structure of theBill hangs on it. It affects every provision, and particularly thefinancial provisions. Yet Mr. Gladstone went no farther than to call itan "organic detail, " and in popular controversy it is still generallyregarded in that light, or even in a less serious light. As a matter ofhistory, however, it has proved to be a factor of importance in decidingthe fate of the Home Rule Bills. In 1886 Mr. Gladstone, in proposing toexclude Irish Members altogether, roused a storm of purely sentimentalopposition. In 1893, in proposing to retain them--first with limitedfunctions, then on the old terms of complete equality with BritishMembers--he met with opposition even more formidable, because it was notmerely sentimental, but unanswerably practical. On both occasions Mr. Chamberlain took a prominent part in the opposition: in 1886 because hewas then a Federalist, advocating "Quebec" Home Rule for Ireland, andregarding the exclusion of Irish Members from Westminster ascontravening the Federal principle; in 1893 because, having ceased to bea Home Ruler, he had no difficulty in showing that the retention ofIrish Members, either with full or limited functions, was neitherFederation nor Union, but an unworkable mixture of the two. 

These facts should be a warning to those who trifle thoughtlessly withwhat they call "Federal" Home Rule. It was through a desperate desire toconciliate that Mr. Gladstone caught at the Federal chimera in 1893, andproduced a scheme which he himself could not defend. And it was one ofthe very statesmen that he sought to conciliate--a statesman, moreover, possessing one of the keenest and strongest intellects of the time--whosnatched at the chimera in 1886, and argued it out of existence in 1893. We Home Rulers do not want a repetition of those events. We want HomeRule, and if we are to be defeated, let us be defeated on a simplestraightforward issue, not on an indefensible complication of our owndevising. 

Now to details. There are five ways of dealing with the question, and ofthese I will take first the four different ways of including IrishMembers in the House of Commons, leaving their total _exclusion_ to thelast. 

1. Inclusion of Irish Members in their full numbers for allpurposes--that is, with a right to vote upon all questions--British, Irish, and Imperial. [By "full numbers" I mean, not the existing figureof 103, but numbers fully, and no more than fully, warrantable accordingto the latest figures of population--say 70. ]

2. Inclusion in full numbers for limited purposes. 

3. Inclusion in reduced numbers for all purposes. [By "reduced numbers"I mean in numbers less than population would warrant. ]

4. Inclusion in reduced numbers for limited purposes. 

Now (4) I only set out for symmetry. It has never been proposed byanybody, and hardly needs notice. 

The three others are alike in two respects--that they leave untouchedthe question of representation in the House of Lords, and that theydirectly infringe both the Federal principle and the Union principle bygiving representation, both in a unitary and a subordinate Legislature, to one portion of the realm. 

Let us look at No. 1--inclusion in full numbers for all purposes. Thiswas Mr. Gladstone's revised proposal of 1893, and it formed part of theBill thrown out by the Lords. The number of Irish Members was to havebeen 80. But reduction, as Mr. Gladstone admitted, would scarcely affectthe inherent difficulties of inclusion. Nor must it be forgotten thatreduction from 103 to 70 can be justified only by the concession of alarge measure of Home Rule. It is one of the paradoxes of an unnaturalUnion that, over-represented as Ireland is, she has not now power enoughto secure her own will. To reduce her numbers, while retaining largepowers over Irish affairs at Westminster, would be unjust. For the timebeing I shall defer the consideration of those powers, and argue thematter on broad principle, assuming that the powers retained in Imperialhands are small enough to warrant a reduction from 103 to 70. 

Now let us apply our touchstone to this question of inclusion in "full"numbers. Will it be good for Ireland? Surely not. 

(_a_) It will be bad for Ireland, in the first place, to have herenergies weakened at the outset by having to find two complete sets ofrepresentatives, when she will be in urgent need of all her best men todo her own work. There is no analogy with Quebec, Victoria, Massachusetts, or Würtemburg, which had all been accustomed toself-government before they entered their respective Federations. Ireland has to find her best men, create her domestic policies, reconstruct her administration, and the larger the reservoir of talentshe has to draw from the better. When true Federation becomes practicalpolitics it will be another matter. By that time she will have men tospare. 

(_b_) More serious objection still, retention in full numbers will, itis to be feared, tend to counteract the benefits of Home Rule in Irelandby keeping alive old dissensions and bad political habits. If, afterlong and hot controversy, a system is set up under which Great Britaincan still be regarded as a pacificator--half umpire and halfpoliceman--of what Peel called the "warring sects" of Ireland, it is tobe feared that the Members sent to London may fall into the oldunnatural party divisions; a Protestant minority seeking to revoke orcurtail Home Rule, and a Nationalist majority--paradoxical survival of apre-national period--seeking to maintain or enlarge Home Rule. Theseunhappy results would react in their turn upon the Irish Legislature, impairing the value of Home Rule, and making Ireland, as of old, thecockpit of sectarian and sentimental politics. The same results wouldhave happened if, simultaneously with the concession of Home Rule toCanada, Australia and South Africa, these Colonies had been givenrepresentation in the British Parliament. 

(_c_) Whatever the extent of the danger I have indicated, inclusion infull numbers will tend to keep alive the habit of dependence on GreatBritain for financial aid, a habit so ingrained, through no fault ofIreland's, that it will be difficult to break if the Parliamentaryleverage is left intact. If ever there was a country which needed, asfar as humanly possible, to be thrown for a time--not necessarily for along time--upon its own resources, it is Ireland. Every otherself-governing Colony in the Empire has gone through that bracing andpurifying ordeal, accepting from the Mother Country, without repayment, only the loan of military and naval defence, and Ireland can imitatethem without dishonour. 

What is bad for Ireland is sure to be bad for Great Britain, too, andthe bad effect in this case is sufficiently apparent. Imagine the resultif Quebec, besides having her own Legislature and her ownrepresentatives in the Dominion Parliament, were to be represented alsoin the Ontario Legislature. Ireland, besides controlling her ownaffairs, free from British interference, would have a voice in Britishaffairs, and sometimes a deciding voice. "If you keep the Irish in, "said Mr. John Morley in 1886--and he meant in their full numbers--"theywill be what they have ever been in the past--the arbitrators andmasters of English policy, of English legislative business, and of therise and fall of British administrations. " That is a rather exaggeratedaccount of the past, for had it been literally true Ireland would havehad Home Rule long ago; and it was unduly pessimistic about the future, for it hardly made sufficient allowance for a change in Irish spirit asa result of Home Rule; but there is a truth in the words which everybodyrecognizes and whose recognition is one of the great motive forcesbehind Home Rule. Even a total change in Irish sentiments and partieswould not remove the danger, and might intensify it by producing atWestminster a solid instead of, as at present, a divided, Irish vote. Itwould be truer, perhaps, to say what I said above, that retention ofMembers would tend to stereotype Irish parties and the mutual antipathyof Ireland and Great Britain. 

2. Inclusion in full numbers (say 70) for limited purposes. This (withthe figure of 80) was Mr. Gladstone's original proposal of 1893, and ittook the form of a clause known as the "In and Out Clause, " whichpurported to divide all Parliamentary business into Imperial, Irish, andnon-Irish business, and to give Irish Members the right to vote only onImperial and Irish subjects. Mr. Gladstone never disguised his view thata sound classification was impracticable, and put forward the clause, frankly, as a tentative scheme for the discussion of the House. Like itssuccessor, the "Omnes omnia" Clause, it was riddled with criticism, andit was eventually withdrawn. Without investigating details, the readerwill perceive at once the hopeless confusion arising from an attempt toinject a tincture of Federalism into a unitary Parliament, forming partof an unwritten Constitution of great age and infinite delicacy. It isnot merely that it is absolutely impossible to distinguish rigidlybetween Imperial, Irish, and British business. The great objection isthat there would be two alternating majorities in an Assembly which is, and must be, absolutely governed by a party majority, and which, throughthat majority, controls the Executive. It "passed the wit of man, " saidMr. Gladstone, to separate in practice the Legislative and Executivefunctions in the British Constitution. At present a hostile vote in theHouse of Commons overturns the Ministry of the day and changes the wholeBritish and Imperial administration. A hostile vote, therefore, determined by the Irish Members, on a question affecting Ireland, suchas the application to Ireland of a British Bill, would seriouslyembarrass the Ministry, if it did not overturn it. The log-rolling andillicit pressure which this state of things would encourage may beeasily imagined. A Ministry might find itself after a General Electionin the position of having a majority for some purposes and not forothers. That was actually the case in 1893, when Mr. Gladstone, with amajority, including the Irish Nationalists, of only 40, was carrying hisBill through Parliament. It is actually the case now, in the sense thatif the Irish Nationalists voted with the Opposition, the Ministry wouldbe defeated. Any change for the better in Irish sentiment towards GreatBritain would _pro tanto_ mitigate the difficulty, but would not removeit, and might, as I suggested above, increase it, by the creation of asolid Irish vote. If Great Britain resents the present system, she aloneis to blame. As long as she insists on keeping the Irish Members out ofIreland, where they ought to be, she thoroughly deserves their tyranny, and would be wise to get rid of it by the means they suggest. Until theyare given Home Rule, they are not only justified in using their power, but are bound, in duty and honour, to use it. To reproduce in the HomeRule Bill, albeit in a modified form, conditions which might lead to thesame results as before would surely be a gratuitous act of unwisdom. 

3. Inclusion in reduced numbers for all purposes. By "reduced numbers"is meant numbers less than the population of Ireland warrants. For thesake of argument we may assume the number to be 35, that is, approximately half the proper proportion; but directly we desert ascientific principle of allocation, the exact figure we adopt is amatter of arbitrary choice. 

Mr. Gladstone appears to have contemplated this plan for a brief periodin 1889; but he dropped it. Clearly it cannot be defended on any logicalgrounds, but only as a compromise designed, as it avowedly was, toconciliate British opinion. It would minimize but not remove thedifficulties inherent in No. 1; and so far as it did lessen thesedifficulties, the representation given would be impotent andsuperfluous. That is why I have taken it last in order of the threepossible methods of inclusion. It raises in the sharpest and clearestform the important question underlying the whole of the discussion wehave just been through--namely, what are to be the powers delegated tothe Irish Parliament and Executive, and what are to be the powersreserved to the Imperial Parliament and Executive?

If the powers reserved are small, it will be possible to justify notmerely a small Irish representation in the House of Commons, but evenunder certain conditions the total exclusion of Irish members. Indeed, if the figure 35 corresponded to the facts of the case, one might aswell abandon these painful efforts to "conciliate British opinion, "accept total exclusion, and substitute Conference for representation. Ifthe powers reserved are large, full representation in spite of all thecrushing objections to it, will be absolutely necessary, in order tosafeguard Irish interests. Here is the grand dilemma, and it says littlefor our common sense as a nation that we should submit to be puzzled andworried by it any longer. Half the worry arises from the old andinfinitely pernicious habit of regarding Ireland as outside the pale ofpolitical science, of ignoring in her case what Lord Morley has calledthe "fundamental probabilities of civil society. " Let us break thishabit once and for all and take the logical and politic course of totalexclusion, with its logical and politic accompaniment, a measure of HomeRule wide enough to justify the absence of Irish representation atWestminster. That will be found to be the path both of duty and ofsafety. 

Let it be clearly understood that lapse of time has not diminishedappreciably the power of the arguments against the inclusion of IrishMembers in the House of Commons. On their merits, these arguments arestill unanswerable, and we had better recognize the fact. Mr. Balfoursaid, in 1893, "Those questions" (of representation at Westminster) "arenot capable of solution, and the very fact that they are incapable ofsolution affords, in our opinion, a conclusive argument against thewhole scheme, of which one or other of the plans in question must form apart. " Speaking as a Unionist, Mr. Balfour was right, and, as HomeRulers, we should be wise to remember it. 

Lastly, even if the question of inclusion in the House of Commons were"capable of solution, " as it is not, there would remain the problemraised by the House of Lords. It is idle to ignore the fact that thebulk of the Irish peerage, and the Assembly of which it forms part, hasbeen for a century in consistent and resolute opposition to the views ofthe vast majority of Irishmen. The recent curtailment of its powers, whether a right or a wrong measure in itself, does not make it any themore suitable as an Upper Chamber, under a Home Rule scheme, for thedecision of important Irish questions reserved for settlement atWestminster; indeed, the bare proposal is the best imaginable example ofthe extraordinary complications which would ensue from the introductionof a quasi-Federal element into a unitary Constitution. 

Federal Upper Chambers, so far from being hostile to State rights, arealmost invariably framed on the principle of giving disproportionatelylarge representation to the smaller States. In the United States andAustralia, for example, every State, however small, has an equal numberof Senators. 

It will be clear now that there are two distinct ways of approaching thequestion of the framework of Home Rule. One may begin with the natureand extent of the powers reserved or delegated, and proceed from them tothe inclusion and exclusion of Irish representation at Westminster, orone may begin with the topic of inclusion or exclusion and proceed fromit to the nature and extent of powers. While premising that we musttrust Ireland and evoke her sense of responsibility, I chose the latterof the two courses, because I believe it to be on the whole the mostilluminating and trustworthy course. It is also the more logical course, though I should not have adopted it for that reason alone; and I havealready given, I hope, some good reasons to show that in this matterlogic and policy coincide. Englishmen pride themselves on the lack oflogic which characterizes their slowly evolved institutions, but theymay easily carry that pride to preposterous extremes. Faced now with thenecessity of making a written Constitution which will stand the test ofdaily use they would commit the last of innumerable errors in Irishpolicy if, with full warning from experience elsewhere, they were toframe a measure whose unprecedented and unworkable provisions were theoutcome of a distrust of Ireland which it was the ostensible object ofthe measure itself to remove. 

IV. 

IRISH POWERS AND THEIR BEARING ON EXCLUSION. 

I pass to what I suggest to be the right solution: Total exclusion, asproposed by Mr. Gladstone in 1886, though he shrank from recommendingwhat he knew to be its financial corollary. Mr. Bright regardedexclusion as the "best clause" of a dangerous scheme, and Mr. Chamberlain has admitted that he attacked it, as he attacked theproposals for Land Purchase, which he knew to be right, in order to"kill the Bill. "[79] I propose only to recapitulate the merits ofexclusion before dealing with the alleged difficulties of that form ofHome Rule, and in particular with the point on which the controversymainly turns--Finance. 

To give Ireland Colonial Home Rule, without representation in London, isto follow the natural channel of historical development. Ireland wasvirtually a Colony, and is treated still in many respects as an inferiortype of Colony, in other respects as a partner in a vicious type ofUnion. We cannot improve the Union, and it is, admittedly, a failure. Let us, then, in broad outline, model her political system on that of aself-governing Colony. 

History apart, circumstances demand this solution. It is the bestsolution for Ireland, because she needs, precisely what the Coloniesneeded--full play for her native faculties, full responsibility for theadjustment of her internal dissensions, for the exploitation, unaided, of her own resources, and for the settlement of neglected problemspeculiar to herself. As a member of the Imperial family she will gain, not lose. And the Empire, here as everywhere else, will gain, not lose. 

These ends will be jeopardized if we continue to bind her to the BritishParliament, and restrict her own autonomy accordingly. Reciprocally, wedamage the British Parliament and gratuitously invite friction anddeadlock in the administration either of British or of Imperial affairs, or both. Of the difficulties raised we can mitigate one only by bringinganother into existence. Endeavouring to minimize them all by reducingthe Irish representation to the lowest point, we either do a grossinjustice to Ireland, by diminishing her control over interests vital toher, or, by conceding that control, remove the necessity for anyrepresentation at all. Most Irish Unionists would, I believe, preferexclusion to retention. One gathers that from the debates of 1893, andthe view is in accordance with the traditional Ulster spirit, and thespirit generally displayed by powerful minorities threatened with a HomeRule to which they object on principle. It was the spirit displayed bythe Upper Canadian minority, in 1838-39 (_vide_ p. 101), in threateningto leave the Empire rather than submit to Home Rule, and by theTransvaal minority in the lukewarm and divided support given to thehalf-baked Constitution of 1905, and in the hearty welcome given to thefull autonomy of 1906. How the Colonists expressed themselves mattersnothing. We must make generous allowance for hot party feeling and oldprejudices. The Canadian minorities did not really mean to call in theUnited States, nor does it signify a particle that some of theJohannesburgers vowed that anything could be borne which freed them fromthe interference of a Liberal Government. These opinions are transientand negligible. The spirit is essentially healthy. Paradox as it mayseem, the uncompromising attitude of Ulster Unionists, as voiced by theablest representative they ever had, Colonel Saunderson, [80] is hopefulfor the prospects of Home Rule. They fight doggedly for the Union, but Ibelieve they would prefer a real Home Rule to a half-measure, and inmaking that choice they would show their virility and courage at itstrue worth. 

Where are the dangers and difficulties of exclusion? The dangers first. I believe, from a study of events in the last twenty-five years, thatthe strongest opposition to it was founded, not so much upon areluctance to give Ireland powers full enough to render needless herrepresentation at Westminster, but on a jealous desire to keep IrishMembers under surveillance, as a dangerous and intractable body of menwho would hatch mischief against the Empire if they were allowed todisappear from sight; the same kind of instinct which urgedrevolutionary Paris to stop the flight of Louis and to keep him underlock and key. In the case of Ireland it is possible to understand theprevalence of this instinct in 1886, though even then it was irrationalenough. But in 1911 we should be ashamed to entertain it. Irish plotsagainst the Empire have passed into electoral scares, and if they hadnot, representation in London would be no safeguard. We should alsodismiss the more rational but groundless view that Imperial co-operationnecessitates representation in a joint Assembly. Conference is a bettermethod. Anyone who studies the proceedings of the last ImperialConference and observes the number and variety of the subjects discussedand the numerous and valuable decisions arrived at, will realize howmuch can be done by mutual good-will and the pressure of mutualinterest. [81]

It may be objected that, with one or two exceptions of quite recentdate, the Colonies have contributed nothing to the upkeep of the Empire, except in the very indirect form of maintaining local military forces, that their present tendency --unquestionably a sound tendency--is toco-operate, not by way of direct money contribution to Imperial funds, but by the construction of local Navies out of their own money, and, intime of peace, under their own immediate control, and that Irelandcannot be allowed to follow their example. The objection has no point. Ireland, through no fault of her own, has reached a stage (if we are totrust the Treasury figures) where she no longer pays any cashcontribution to Imperial expenses, nor is it possible to look back withany satisfaction upon the enormous total of her cash contributions inthe past. They were not the voluntary offerings of a willing partner, but the product of a joint financial system which, like all consequencesof a forced Union, was bad for Ireland. If we consider that a similarattempt to extort an Imperial contribution from the American States ledto their secession; that the principle was definitely abandoned in thecase of the later Colonies; that, on the contrary, large annual sumsraised in these islands were, until quite recent times, spent forpurposes of defence within these Colonies; that in the South African Wartwo hundred and fifty million pounds were spent in order to assistBritish subjects in the Transvaal to obtain the rights of freemen in aself-governing Colony; and that to this day indirect colonialcontributions in the shape of local expenditure are small in proportionto the immense benefit derived from the protection of the Imperial Navy, Army, and Diplomacy, and from the assistance of British credit; if wethen reflect that before the Union Ireland was, in the matter ofcontribution, somewhat in the same position as Canada or Australiato-day--that is, paying no fixed cash tribute, but voluntarily assumingthe burden, very heavy in time of war, of certain Army establishments;that for seventeen years after the Union contributions fixed on a scalegrossly inequitable drove her into bankruptcy; that from 1819 until twoyears ago, she paid, by dint of excessive taxation and in spite ofterrible economic depression, a considerable share, and sometimes morethan her proportionate share, of Imperial expenditure;[82] if, finally, we remember that, cash payments apart, Irishmen for centuries past havetaken an important part in manning the Army and Navy, have fought anddied on innumerable battle-fields in the service of the Empire, and havecontributed some of its ablest military leaders; if we consider allthese facts soberly and reasonably, we shall, I believe, agree that itwould be fair and right to place a Home Ruled Ireland in the position ofa self-governing Colony, with a moral obligation to contribute, when hermeans permit, and in proportion to her means, but without a statutoryand compulsory tribute. 

What form should that contribution eventually take? Does it necessarilyfollow that Ireland should be given power to construct her own Navy, andraise and control her own troops? Let us use our common sense, and useit, let me add, fearlessly. If Ireland really _wanted_ full colonialpowers, if, like Australia and Canada, she would be discontented andresentful at their denial, we should be wise to grant them, and rely oncommon interests and affections to secure friendly co-operation. Does itnot stand to reason that a friendly alliance even with a foreign power, such as France, to say nothing of the far more intimate relations with aconsanguineous Colony, is better business than any arrangement forcommon forces unwillingly or resentfully acceded to? But, as I pointedout in Chapter VIII. , all these uneasy speculations about independentIrish armaments are superfluous. Ireland does not want separatearmaments. The sporadic attempts to discourage enlistment in theImperial forces are, as every sensible person should recognize, theresults of refusing Home Rule. They would have occurred in every Colonyunder similar circumstances, and they do occur in one degree or anotherwherever countries agitate vainly for Home Rule. If Russia misinterpretssuch phenomena, we have, let us hope, more political enlightenment thanRussia. 

Ireland's strategical situation bears no analogy to that of Australiaand Canada, which, for geographical reasons, are compelled, as SouthAfrica will be compelled, to make a certain amount of independentprovision, not only for military, but for naval defence, and would bewanting in patriotic feeling if they did otherwise. New Zealand, on theother hand, is too small to be capable of creating a Navy, and rightlycontributes to ours. We have arrived at an interesting psychologicalpoint when Australia and Canada both seem to be inclined to reserve, intheory, a right to abstain from engaging their Navies in a warundertaken by Great Britain, but nobody will be alarmed by thistheoretical reservation. It is an insignificant matter beside the NavalAgreement reached at the last Conference (1911)--an agreement worth morethan volumes of unwritten statutes--to the effect that the personnel ofthe colonial fleets is to be interchangeable with that of the Imperialfleet and that in a joint war colonial ships are to form an integralpart of the British fleet under the control of the Admiralty. With suchan agreement in existence, it becomes superfluous to lay stress upon thefact that without formal and complete separation from the Mother Countryin time of peace, the neutrality of a Colony would not be recognized bya belligerent enemy of Great Britain in time of war. In any case thesedevelopments have no concern for Ireland, which does not want, and neednot be given, power to raise a local Navy. Nor, with regard to theregular land forces, will anything be changed. Troops quartered inIreland will be, as before, and as in the Colonies now, under completeImperial control. So will Imperial camps, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards. On the other hand, arrangements should certainly be made topermit the raising of Volunteer forces in Ireland. There are largenumbers of Irishmen in the British Territorial Army, and Ireland sentfive companies to the South African War. Though the poverty of thecountry will for a long time check the growth of Volunteer forces, it isthe Union which presents the only serious obstacle to theirestablishment. No surer proof of the need for Home Rule could be adducedthan the fact that it was held to be impossible to extend theTerritorial system to Ireland. One of the objects of Home Rule is toremove this suspicious atmosphere. Whether local power to organize andarm Volunteers in Ireland should be given to the Irish authority, or, asin the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893, reserved to the ImperialGovernment, is, if we trust Ireland, as we must, a secondary and not avital matter, which would not affect the question of representation atWestminster. [83] Probably it would be most convenient to leave thematters in the hands of the Irish Legislature. In any case, theCommand-in-Chief of all forces in Ireland, regular or volunteer, would, as in the Colonies, [84] be vested in the King. 

The control of the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin MetropolitanPolice does not affect the question of representation at Westminster. With or without representation, Ireland should be given the control ofall her own police forces from the first, without the restrictionsimposed by the Bills of 1886 and 1893 with regard to Imperial control ofthe existing forces. [85]

With the important exception of taxation, with which I shall deal last, no other power which should properly be reserved to the ImperialParliament, or delegated to the Irish Parliament, has any appreciablebearing upon the exclusion of Irish Members from the House of Commons. Nor do any of them raise issues which are likely to be troublesome. Common sense and mutual convenience should decide them. The Army, Navy, and other military forces I have already dealt with. The Crown, theLord-Lieutenant, War and Peace, Prize and Booty of War, ForeignRelations and Treaties (with the exception of commercial Treaties), Titles, Extradition, Neutrality, [86] and Treason, are subjects uponwhich the Colonies have no power to legislate or act, and of which itwould be needless, strictly, to make any formal statutory exception inthe case of Ireland, though the exception no doubt will be made in theBill. Naturalization, Coinage, Copyright, Patents, Trademarks, are allmatters in which the Colonies have local powers, whose existence, andthe limitations attaching to them, are determined either solely byconstitutional custom or with the addition of an implied or expressstatutory authority. [87] The two former would, I should think, be whollyreserved to the Imperial Parliament. In the case of the latter three, which were wholly reserved in the Bill of 1886 and 1893, Ireland mightbe placed in the position of a self-governing Colony. [88]

In Trade and Navigation it would be wise to take the same course. TheHome Rule Bill of 1886, without giving Ireland representation atWestminster, denied her all powers over Trade and Navigation. The Billof 1893 gave her powers over Trade within Ireland and Inland Navigation, and these powers at any rate should be given in the coming Bill, together with the larger functions also; though Ireland would naturallyleave in operation the great bulk of the statutes concerned, since theyintimately affect the commercial and industrial relations of the twocountries. For the rest, Ireland no more than the Colonies can be freedfrom a measure of Imperial control maintained by Acts like the MerchantShipping Act of 1894. 

The Postal Service in Ireland should, as in the Bill of 1886, come underIrish control. 

In the Home Rule Bill of 1893 (Section 34) it was laid down that forthree years the Irish Legislature should not "pass an Act respecting therelations of landlord or tenant, or the sale, purchase, or letting ofland generally. " Such a provision repeated in the coming Bill would beinconsistent with the absence of Irish Members from Westminster. But Itake it for granted that there is no question of its repetition. Atfirst it might appear that Land Purchase should be distinguished fromother branches of land legislation and reserved to the ImperialGovernment on the ground that it needs Imperial credit. I shall dealwith this point fully in Chapter XIV. , and only need here to express theview that Land Purchase cannot be separated from other branches of landlegislation, or from the Congested Districts Board, or even from thecontrol of the police, and that we are bound to give, and shall beacting wisely in giving, all these powers to the Irish Legislature fromthe first. 

It is necessary perhaps to add that non-representation at Westminsterdoes not in the smallest degree affect the complete legal supremacy ofthe Imperial Parliament over the subordinate Irish Legislature. ThisLegislature will in legal language be a "local and territorial" body, like those of the Colonies. It will be the creature of Parliament, andcould be amended or even extinguished by it in a subsequent Act. TheBill of 1886 (perhaps because it never reached the Committee stage) saidnothing explicit about the supremacy, though the Bill of 1893, whileproviding for representation at Westminster, repeatedly (and sometimesquite superfluously) affirmed it--in the Preamble, for example, and in arider to Clause 2. The King's authority, through the Lord-Lieutenant, will be supreme in Ireland, as, through the Governors, it is supreme inthe Colonies. Every Irish Bill, like every Colonial Bill, will requirethe Royal Assent, given through the Lord-Lieutenant, who will correspondto the Colonial Governors. The Lord-Lieutenant, like his colonialcounterpart, will have to exercise both his Executive and Legislativefunctions in a double capacity: in the first instance by the advice ofhis Irish Cabinet, but subject to a veto by the British Cabinet. Thisdual capacity has belonged to all Colonial Governors ever since theprinciple of responsible government was established. As I showed inearlier chapters, it was regarded even by Lord John Russell asimpossible and absurd as late as 1840; but it ought by now to beunderstood by every educated man, and we may hope to be spared thephilosophical disquisitions and hair-splitting criticisms which itevoked from men who should have known better in the Home Rule debates of1893. 

Laws framed at Westminster will be applicable to Ireland, as they arefrequently made applicable to the Colonies. [89] Conversely, only throughthe express legislative authority of Westminster will an Irish, like aColonial Act, [90] be held to operate outside the borders of Ireland. 

Apart from the strict legal omnipotence of Imperial sovereignty, it is, of course, impossible to say now what the exact constitutional positionof Ireland will be under any form of Home Rule. No Bill can state itfully in set terms. Time, custom, and judicial decisions will build up abody of doctrine. It is so with the Colonies, whose exact constitutionalrelations with the Mother Country are still a matter of juristic debate, and are only to be deduced from the study of an immense number ofjudicial decisions and of Imperial Acts passed subsequently to the grantof the original Constitutions. Some of these Acts I have alreadyillustrated. The one Act of general application, namely, the ColonialLaws Validity Act, cannot be read without the rest, though in form itappears to contain a complete set of rules. While giving general powerto a self-governing Colony "to make laws for the peace, welfare, andgood government of the Colony" (words which will also necessarily appearin the Home Rule Bill), the Act makes void all colonial laws or parts oflaws which are "repugnant to the provisions of any Act of Parliamentextending to the Colony to which such law shall relate, " and thisprovision will no doubt, be applied, _mutatis mutandis, _ to Ireland, asit was in Section 32 of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. The IrishLegislature, that is, will be able "to repeal or alter any enactments inforce in Ireland except such as either relate to matters beyond thepower of the Irish Legislature, or, being enacted by Parliament afterthe passing of this Act, may be expressly extended to Ireland. "

It will be noticed that the words "beyond the power of the IrishLegislature" referred to the subjects expressly excepted in the Billitself. This is one of the points in which the Irish Constitution willbear at any rate a superficial resemblance to that of a Province orState within a Federation rather than to that of a self-governingColony. The practice of expressly, and in the text of a Constitution, forbidding a self-governing Colony to legislate upon certain subjects, or of expressly reserving concurrent or exclusive powers of legislationto the Mother Country, has fallen into disuse since the establishment ofthe principle of responsible government. Such restrictions were insertedin the Canadian Union Act of 1840, where the old right of the MotherCountry to impose customs duties in the Colonies for the regulation ofcommerce was reaffirmed, and even in the Acts of 1855 for giving fullpowers of self-government to the Australian Colonies, which wereforbidden to impose intercolonial customs, though they were expresslygranted the power of imposing any other customs duties they pleased, [91]but they do not appear in modern Constitutions, for example in theTransvaal Constitution of 1906. As I have indicated, this implies nochange in the strict legal theory of Colonial subordination to theMother Country; for, although the tendency of modern juristic thought isto ascribe "plenary" power to a Colony, restrictions nevertheless doexist in practice, and are contained, express or implicit, in a numberof disjointed Acts. 

A Federating Colony, on the other hand, like a foreign Federation, hasin its own self-made, domestic Constitution to apportion powers withsome approach to precision between the federal and the provincialauthorities, and in this respect the Irish Bill, in reserving certainpowers to the Imperial Parliament, will resemble a federating Bill, andit should follow the American and Australian precedents in leavingresiduary powers to the subordinate or Irish Legislature, not, inaccordance with the Canadian precedent, to the Parliament atWestminster. That is an indispensable corollary of excluding IrishMembers from Westminster. 

In speaking of powers reserved or delegated, and of residuary orunallocated powers, I have thus far referred only to powers which mustbe exercised, or at any rate may need to be exercised, if not by thesubordinate legislature, then by the superior Parliament. Thoserestrictions on the Irish Legislature which are imposed in order toprotect the religious or economic interests of a minority within theState, or as a recognition that there are certain kinds of laws which itis morally wrong to pass, fall into an altogether different category. Byimplication they morally bind the superior Parliament too, and areirrelevant, therefore, to the question of representation. They will benecessary, no doubt, in the coming Irish Bill, though they need not beso extensive as those which are to be found in Clause 4 of the Bill of1893, some of which are borrowed from the famous anti-slavery amendmentsof 1865-1869 to the Constitution of the United States. [92] In insertingthem we shall again be following the "Federal" rather than the"Colonial" model. No such restrictions have been imposed by the MotherCountry upon any self-governing Colony. The nearest approach, perhaps, to such a tendency was the provision in the Transvaal Constitution of1906 (Section 39), that "any law whereby persons not of European birthor descent may be subjected or made liable to any disabilities orrestrictions to which persons of European birth or descent are not alsosubjected or made liable" should be specially "reserved"--that is, senthome by the Governor--for the signification of the Royal pleasure; butno similar provision appeared in the Act of 1909 for constituting theSouth African Union. In Federal systems, on the other hand, suchrestrictions, taking the form of self-denying ordinances, are common, whether appearing in the Federal Constitution itself or in thesubordinate State Constitutions. The Constitution of the United States, for example, in addition to the anti-slavery provisions noted above, enacts that the National Government cannot (by Amendment I. ) establishany religion or prohibit its free exercise, or (by Amendment V. ) takeprivate property for public use without just compensation, or (byArticle 1, § 9) grant a title of nobility. Neither (by Amendment XIV. And Article 1, § 10 respectively) can a State do these things. ByArticle 1, § 10, a State cannot pass a law impairing the obligation of acontract. Exactly similar restrictions appear in many of the individualState Constitutions. Others forbid the establishment of any church orsect; the introduction of armed men "for the suppression of domesticviolence"; "perpetuities or monopolies, " and a variety of other things. Analogous provisions are to be found in the British North America Act, 1867 (constituting the Dominion of Canada), where the provincialLegislatures are forbidden to interfere with certain rights andprivileges of religious bodies in the matter of education. There are nolimitations of the kind in the Australian Commonwealth Act of 1900. Australia, no doubt, correctly represents the tendency of modern thoughton this matter. Some of the American safeguards have produced greatinconvenience. Nor can it be denied that the most elaborately contrivedlegal safeguards are of less value than the moral safeguard afforded bythe sense of honour, justice, and prudence in the community. Theexistence of these qualities in Ireland, as in other white countries, isthe true foundation of Home Rule. Some day Irishmen will ask, as aunited country, for the repeal of these statutory safeguards. 

That brings me to the penultimate point of importance, which may be heldto affect the inclusion or exclusion of Irish Members at Westminster--Imean the question of future constitutional amendment. Here the colonialanalogies are a little complicated. Since the Australian Colonies Act of1850, in the new grant of a Constitution to a self-governing Colony, power has invariably been given to amend its own Constitution, without, of course, detracting from any powers specified in it for preserving thesovereignty of the Mother Country. Canada, when federating in 1867, tookthe somewhat singular course of making no provision in her FederalConstitution for its subsequent amendment, though, by Section 92 of theBritish North America Act, she gave her Provinces the exclusive right toamend their own Constitutions, a right which three of them have used toabolish their Upper Chambers. The Dominion Constitution, then, cannot beamended otherwise than by an Imperial Act. Such amending Acts arepromoted by the Dominion Government without any specially devisedmachinery for ascertaining the public opinion of Canadians. Australia, on the other hand, when federating in 1900, made elaborate arrangements, which have been put several times into operation, for the amendment ofthe Federal Constitution by the Australian people itself, without anImperial Act. Now, it will follow as a matter of course that Irelandwill be given powers, as in both the previous Bills, [93] to amend herown Constitution within certain defined limits, after a certain lapse oftime, and without encroaching upon Imperial authority. For my part Iwould strongly urge that the powers now to be conferred should be muchwider; for I believe that Ireland alone can make a really perfectConstitution for herself. But, that point apart, the question arises ofthe further amendment, outside such permissive powers, of the Home RuleAct itself, which will, of course, contain within its four corners thewhole of the Irish Constitution, so far as it can be written down. Nospecial arrangements were made for such a contingency in the Bill of1893, presumably because Ireland was to be represented at Westminsterand would have a share in the making of any amending act. In the Bill of1886, which excluded the Irish Members, Mr. Gladstone proposed (inClause 39) that no alteration of the Act should be made (apart, ofcourse, from points left for Irish alteration) except (1) by an ImperialAct formally assented to by the Irish Legislature, or (2) by an ImperialAct for the passing of which a stated number of Members of both branchesof the Irish Legislature should be summoned to sit at Westminster. 

It will be clear, I think, now, in 1911, that this latter proposal isnot worth revival. No substantial amendment of the Act should properlybe made without the formal consent of the Irish Legislature, representing Irish public opinion, and the prior consultation with theIrish Cabinet which such consent would imply. If the lamentablenecessity ever arose of amending the Act against the wishes of Ireland, the sudden invasion of Westminster by a body of angry Irish Members, toosmall to affect the result (for otherwise the attempt to amend would notbe made) and large enough to revive the old political dislocation andpassion, would not simplify the process of amendment or be of value toanybody concerned. The proposal was probably only suggested by a vagueleaning towards the Federal principle, which, in the present case, weshould certainly reject. It serves indeed as one more illustration ofthe anomalies which might result from the inclusion of Irish Members atWestminster. No more unhealthy position could be imagined than one whichwould render it possible for an amendment of the Home Rule Act, whetherin the direction of greater latitude or of stricter limitation, todepend solely upon the Irish vote in an Assembly predominatelynon-Irish. That is not to the discredit of Ireland. The system would bejust as indefensible, whatever the subordinate State concerned. It wouldbe Federalism run mad, and would make Alexander Hamilton turn in hisgrave. It is worth while to note that, even under a sane and normalFederal system, the Irish Constitution would be less easily alterable ineither direction than under the plan of treating her as a self-governingColony. In the latter case action is direct and simple, while mostFederal Constitutions are extraordinarily difficult to amend. TheDominion of Canada is only an apparent exception. 

I turn lastly to Finance, the point which most closely affectsrepresentation at Westminster, and which distinguishes any form ofquasi-Federal Home Rule most sharply from its alternative, "Colonial"Home Rule. 

All Federal systems necessarily involve a certain amount of jointfinance between the superior and the inferior Government. Thedistribution of financial powers varies widely in different Federations, but all have this feature in common--that the central or superiorGovernment controls Customs and Excise, and is to a large degreefinanced by means of the revenue derived from those sources. The UnitedStates Government, as distinguished from that of the individual States, pays in this way for almost its entire expenditure. [94] So does theDominion of Canada;[95] while in the Australian Commonwealth thereceipts from Customs and Excise alone more than cover the wholeCommonwealth expenditure. [96]

Finance makes or mars Federations. Some Federations or organic Unions ofindependent States have come into being through a strong desire in theseparate States to have, among other things, a common system of Customs, and in the case of the German Empire and the South African Union aCustoms Union or _Zollverein_ has preceded Federation. These phenomenaare the most marked illustration of the general truth that a commondesire to federate, or unite, on the part of individual States is acondition precedent to a sound Federation or Union. On the other hand, finance, especially the question of joint Customs, has sometimespresented obstacles to a Federation which, on other grounds, wasearnestly desired. The long delay in achieving the Australian Federationwas largely due to the desire of New South Wales to maintain her FreeTrade system, while the financial arrangements generally caused most ofthe practical difficulties met with in arranging the Federation both ofCanada and Australia, and in their subsequent domestic relations. NovaScotia in the former case, and Western Australia in the latter, held outto the last instant, and the former subsequently had to receiveexceptionally favourable treatment. In both Federations some measure offriction is chronic, and in neither has a perfectly satisfactory systembeen evolved. The Union of Ireland and Great Britain in 1800 was in thisrespect, as in all others, a flagrant departure from sound principle. The Customs Union which followed it was a forced Customs Union, and, together with the other financial arrangements between the twocountries, has produced results incredibly absurd and mischievous. Someof these results I briefly indicated in Chapter V. In the followingchapters I shall tell the whole story fully, and I hope to convince thereader that we should follow, not only historically, but morally andpractically, the correct line of action if, in dissolving theLegislative Union, we dissolve the Customs Union also. That wouldinvolve a virtually independent system of finance for Ireland, and placeher fiscally in the position of a self-governing Colony. If and when areal Federation of the United Kingdom becomes practical politics, shewould then have the choice of entering it in the spirit and on the termsinvariably associated with all true Federations or Unions. That is, shewould voluntarily relinquish, in her own interest, financial and otherrights to a central Government solely concerned with central affairs. 

I need scarcely point out in this connection the vital importance of thequestion of representation at Westminster. Ireland resembles theself-governing Colonies, and differs from Great Britain, in that thegreater part of the revenue raised from her inhabitants is derived fromCustoms and Excise--that is, from the indirect taxation of commoditiesof common use. If she is denied control of these sources of revenueunder the coming Bill, it will be absolutely necessary, in spite of allthe concomitant difficulties, to give her a representation atWestminster which is as effective as it can be made. But let it berealized that we could not make her control over her own finance aseffective as that exercised by a small State within a Federation, because such a State, however small, has equal, or at any ratedisproportionately large, representation in the Federal Upper Chamber, and Federal Upper Chambers can reject Money Bills. The Upper Chamber inIreland's case would be the House of Lords, where she could scarcely begiven effective representation, and which, in any case, cannot rejectMoney Bills. 

Let us now examine Ireland's claim for fiscal autonomy. 

FOOTNOTES:

[73] See p. 140. 

[74] The Bill set up a Council of eighty-two elected and twenty-fournominated members, with the Under-Secretary as an _ex-officio_ member. So far it resembled the abortive Transvaal Constitution of 1905 (see p. 130), but the Irish Council was only to be given control of certainspecified Departments, and was financed by a fixed Imperial grant. Itwas to have no power of legislation or taxation, and was under thecomplete control of the Lord-Lieutenant. 

[75] This arrangement, which is peculiar to the Canadian Federation, isregarded by some authorities as a somewhat serious infraction of theFederal principle, since it seems to imply executive control of theProvince by the central Government. The Governors of the States in theAustralian Federation are appointed by the Home Government. 

[76] The Judicial Committee has ruled "that the relation between theCrown and the Provinces is the same as that between the Crown andDominion in respect of such powers, executive and legislative, as arevested in them respectively. " (Maritime Bank of Canada _v. _Receiver-General of New Brunswick, 1892). 

[77] They are governed by Executive Committees, the members of whichneed not be members of the Councils. 

[78] In writing upon this subject, I am indebted to an able paper by Mr. Basil Williams, which is to be found in "Home Rule Problems. "

[79] "Life of Parnell, " R. Barry O'Brien, pp. 149 and 139-141. 

[80] _E. G. _, in 1893, on Clause I. Of the Home Rule Bill (Hansard, p. 490): "The Irish minority were willing to be treated on the footing of aColony, but they protested against a supremacy which would enable thehonourable gentleman who formed the Irish Government to appeal to theImperial Parliament for the assistance of the Army and Navy to compelthe Irish minority to obey their behests. "

[81] Cd. 5741, 1911. Some of the subjects discussed were CommercialRelations and Shipping, Navigation Law, Labour Exchanges, Uniformity inCopyright, etc. , Emigration, Naturalization, Compensation for Accidents, etc. 

[82] I am summarizing facts fully narrated in Chapters XI. And XII. 

[83] In the Federal Constitutions of Australia and Canada the centralFederal Parliament is responsible for the colonial defences, but theProvinces or States are, of course, represented in the FederalParliament. 

[84] Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, Sec. 58, andBritish North America Act, 1867, Sec. 15. Until quite recently it wasthe custom always to give the command of the Canadian Militia to aBritish officer lent to Canada. The present Commander, however, is aCanadian. 

[85] See Appendix. 

[86] A Colony may make local regulations to carry out an Imperial Lawabout extradition and neutrality, but may not touch the law. 

[87] For the constitutional position of self-governing Colonies, theauthor owes much to Mr. Moore's "Commonwealth of Australia. "

[88] The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, and theBritish North America Act, 1867, in order to delimit the respectivepowers of the Federal and Provincial Legislatures, set out a list ofsubjects on which the Federal Parliament has exclusive or collateralpower to legislate. There is implied, of course, a pre-existing right onthe part of the Colony, as a whole, _qua_ Colony, to legislate on thematters referred to in the list. But the pre-existing right is subjectto any pre-existing constitutional or statutory limitations. _E. G. , _"Naturalization and Aliens" is in the list of Commonwealth powers (Sec. 51, xix. ), and of the Canadian powers (Sec. 91, xxv. ), but the power ofany Colony is limited by Acts of 1847 and 1879 to giving naturalizationwithin its own borders. (At the Imperial Conference of 1911 a scheme wasforeshadowed for standardizing naturalization throughout the Empire. )

"Copyright" is also in both lists, but the colonial power is limited bythe International Copyright Act of 1886, which, by Sec. 8, implies thata "British possession" may only make laws "respecting the Copyrightwithin the limits of such possession of works produced in thatpossession. " This Copyright Act is an example of implied limitation andsanction together. The Coinage Act of 1853 is an example of impliedsanction only, in empowering a Colony to legislate as if the Act had notbeen passed. Another class of Imperial Acts confers _direct_ powers tolegislate on certain subjects--_e. G. , _ the Australian Colonies CustomDuties Act of 1873 (removing the restrictions imposed upon intercolonialduties in 1850). The Naturalization Acts are partly of this character, and other examples are the Colonial Naval Defence Act of 1865, andcertain provisions of the Army Act of 1881, and the Colonial Courts ofAdmiralty Act of 1890. 

[89] _E. G. , _ Colonial Attorneys Belief Act, 1857; Colonial Probates Act, 1892; parts of the Finance Act, 1894; and Wills Act, 1861. 

[90] _E. G. , _ Colonial Laws made under sanction of the following ImperialActs: Colonial Prisoners Removal, 1869; Merchant Shipping, 1894;Sections 478 and 736, Colonial Marriages, 1866. 

[91] _E. G. , _ 18 Vict. Ch. 55, Sections 42 and 43. 

[92] See Appendix, under the head of restrictions on "Irish Matters. "For convenience, land legislation is included in the list, though itclearly belongs to a different category, and I have so dealt with itabove. 

[93] In the Bill of 1886 (Clause 11, Subsec. 7) and in the Bill of 1893(Clause 8, Subsec. 3) power was given to alter the qualifications of thefranchise, etc. , for the Lower House--in the former Bill after the firstdissolution, in the latter after six years. 

[94] In 1910, of the total Federal revenue of 675, 511, 715 dollars, 623, 616, 963 dollars were raised in this way, or twelve-thirteenths. (Postal revenue, which balances Postal receipts, is excluded. )

[95] In 1909-10 Dominion revenue from Customs and Excise was 75, 409, 487dollars. Total ordinary expenditure (excluding capital accounts), 79, 411, 747 dollars. 

[96] Estimate for 1910-11. Total Federal revenue, £16, 841, 629; revenuefrom Customs and Excise, £111, 700, 000. Total Federal expenditure£11, 122, 297. £5, 267, 500 will be available for return to the Stateexchequers (see pp. 245-246). 

CHAPTER XI

UNION FINANCE

I ask the reader to follow with particular care the following historicalsummary of Anglo-Irish finance. None of it is irrelevant, I venture tosay. It is not possible to construct a financial scheme, or to criticizeit when framed, without a fairly accurate knowledge of the historicalfacts. 

I. 

BEFORE THE UNION. [97]

Before the Union Ireland had a fiscal system distinct from that of GreatBritain, a separate Exchequer, a separate Debt, a separate system oftaxation, a separate Budget. Yet she can never truly be said to have hadfinancial independence, because she was never a truly self-governingcountry. Until 1779, when the Protestant Volunteers protested with armsin their hands against the annihilation of Irish industries in theinterest of British merchants and growers, her external trade and, consequently, her internal production, were absolutely at the mercy ofGreat Britain. As I showed in Chapter I. , Ireland was treatedconsiderably worse than the most oppressed Colony, with permanentlyruinous results. On the other hand, her internal taxation, never above amillion a year, and her Debt, never above two millions in amount, werenot heavy. But from 1779, through Grattan's Parliament to the Union, ashort period of twenty-one years, Ireland, though still governed on theascendancy system by an unrepresentative and corrupt Parliament ofexactly the same composition as before, nevertheless had financialindependence in the sense that her Parliament had complete control ofIrish taxation, revenue, and trade. It was, moreover, in these financialmatters that the Parliament showed most genuine national patriotism, together with a greatly enhanced measure of the Imperial patriotismtraditional with it. Internal taxation, except in time of war, was stillcomparatively light; depressed home industries were judiciouslyencouraged by bounties; no attempt was made at vindictive retaliationupon British imports, though Irish exports to Great Britain were stillunmercifully penalized; and sums, growing to a relatively enormous sizeduring the French War, which began in 1793, were annually voted for theImperial forces. This voluntary contribution, which had averaged£585, 000 in the eleven years of peace, from 1783 to 1793, rose to£3, 401, 760 in 1797, [98] and in 1799, when Ireland was paying the billfor British troops called in to suppress her own Rebellion, to£4, 596, 762, out of a total Irish expenditure for the year on allpurposes, military and civil, of £6, 854, 804. Not more than half, on theaverage, of these war expenses were met out of the annual taxes. Debtwas created to meet the balance; but neither the debt, heavy as it was, nor the taxes, were intolerably burdensome--that is, if we regardIreland as financially responsible for Imperial wars and for thesuppression of a Rebellion which was provoked by scandalousmisgovernment. Tax revenue rose from £1, 106, 504 in 1783, when the freeParliament first prepared a Budget, to £3, 017, 758 in 1800, and averageda million and a half. In the same period the total amount of the fundedand unfunded Irish Debt rose from £1, 917, 784 to £28, 541, 157, almost thewhole of this increase having taken place in the seven years of warimmediately preceding the Union. In Great Britain both Debt and taxationhad risen in a larger ratio, and were relatively far greater. Forexample, in the six years, 1793-1798 inclusive, £186, 000, 000 had beenadded to the British Debt, only £14, 000, 000 to the Irish Debt. In 1801the British Debt stood at £489, 127, 057; the Irish Debt at £32, 215, 223. 

II. 

FROM THE UNION TO THE FINANCIAL RELATIONS COMMISSION OF 1894-1896. 

The Union of 1800, therefore, could not be justified on the ground thata poor country would profit by fiscal amalgamation with a rich country, and Pitt and Castlereagh, when framing the Union Act, recognized thattruth by leaving Ireland with a separate fiscal system, as before;though the administration of this system was, of course, now to bewholly in British hands. There were to be separate Exchequers, Debts, [99] taxes, and balance-sheets, with the following restrictions:That prohibitions against imports and bounties on exports (cornexcepted), should cease reciprocally in both countries; that, with theexception of 10 per cent. Ad valorem duties on a variety of articlesnamed, there should be mutual free trade; and that no tax on any articleof consumption should be higher in Ireland than in Great Britain. 

But although Pitt and Castlereagh ostensibly carried out the principleof separate fiscal systems, they laid the foundations for a fiscalamalgamation which was disastrous to Ireland. Since his CommercialPropositions of 1785, Pitt had never abandoned the idea of obtainingfrom Ireland an obligatory annual contribution to Imperial servicesbased on some fixed principle. By Clause 7 of the Act of Union heachieved his aim. It was settled that for twenty years Ireland shouldcontribute in the proportion of 1 to 71/2 (or 2 to 15)--that is, thatGreat Britain should pay 15/17, or 88. 24 per cent. , of common Imperialexpenses, including the charge for debt contracted for Imperialservices, and Ireland 2/17, or 11. 76 per cent. Nobody now denies thatthis ratio was grossly unjust to Ireland. It took no account of therelative pre-Union Debts; it took no account of the tribute of nearlyfour millions paid in rents to absentee English proprietors; it wasbased on superficial deductions from inadequate and misleading data, andthe Act was hardly passed before its absurdity became manifest. Fifteenyears of almost incessant war followed the Union. Ireland, even byraising taxation to the highest possible point, was unable to pay hercontribution without contracting a Debt colossal in proportion to herresources. While Great Britain only doubled her Debt, and paid 71 percent. Of her expenses out of current taxation, the Irish Debtquadrupled, and in 1817 reached the portentous total of £112, 634, 773;while only 49 per cent. Of Irish expenditure was paid for out ofrevenue. Here is a little table which shows the effect upon Ireland ofClause 7 of the Act of Union:

 Five Years. Average Average Revenue. Expenditure. £ £ { 1785-1790 1, 246, 000 1, 247, 000Before Union ---{ 1790-1795 1, 340, 000 1, 646, 000 { 1795-1800 2, 100, 000 4, 601, 000

 { 1801-1806 3, 643, 000 7, 270, 000After Union ---{ 1806-1811 4, 885, 000 9, 061, 000 { 1811-1816 5, 927, 424 13, 188, 000

The scandal could no longer be overlooked. It was impossible to raisethe Irish taxes. Their yield was already showing signs of diminishing. But the Act of Union had provided for the situation which had arisen. One of the sections of the famous Clause 7 enacted that if and when theseparate Debts of the two countries should reach the proportion of theirrespective Imperial contributions, Parliament might, if it thought fit, declare that all future expenses of the United Kingdom should bedefrayed indiscriminately by equal taxes imposed on the same articles inboth countries, "_subject only to such exemptions and abatements infavour of Ireland as circumstances may appear from time to time todemand_. " The framers of this section had anticipated that the EnglishDebt would sink to the level of the Irish Debt. Anglo-Irish financeteems with grim jokes of this sort; but the section was useful in eitherevent. With its terms before them, a Committee sat to consider the stateof Ireland, with the result that, by an Act which came into operation onJanuary 5, 1817, the Exchequers, Debts, revenues, and expenditures, butnot as yet the taxes, of the two countries were amalgamated. InProfessor Oldham's words, [100] "the corpse of Ireland's insolvency washuddled into the grave, and no questions were to be asked. " The wholeexpenditure, Imperial and local, of the United Kingdom, Irelandincluded, was to be defrayed out of a Consolidated Fund, and thearrangements, therefore, for a separate Irish contribution on a fixedbasis to Imperial services were cancelled. Henceforth her Imperialcontribution, for anyone who troubled to calculate it, was representedby the excess of revenue raised within Ireland over the expenditure inIreland. A mutual free trade was also established, not instantaneously, but in the course of a few years. By 1824 all duties, as between Irelandand England, had ceased, and in 1826 the custom-houses ceased to recordthe transit of goods between England and Ireland, except in articlessuch as spirits, on which a different excise duty was charged. Nostatistics were compiled, therefore, of Anglo-Irish trade until ninetyyears later, when the Irish Department of Agriculture began to preparereturns. Such was the origin of our Customs Union against the world(for, needless to say, those were still the days of high Protection), and it is instructive to compare it with the voluntary pacts of theGerman States and South African Colonies, and with their politicalresults. 

In one important point unification was left incomplete. It wasimpossible in 1817 to equalize internal taxation in the two countries, though it was held desirable to do so, because Ireland could not haveborne the higher British scale, and suffered enough under her own. Regard, too, was had at first to those important words in the Act ofUnion which guaranteed to Ireland such "exemptions and abatements" asmight appear fair. But they were soon forgotten. Without any inquiryinto the taxable capacity of Ireland, the stamp, tea, and tobacco dutieswere equalized early in the period, the enhancement in Ireland of thelast duty from 1s. To 3s. On raw tobacco, and from 1s. To 16s. Onmanufactured tobacco, laying an exceptionally heavy burden on the Irishpoor. Meanwhile the abolition, after the close of the war, of taxesrepresenting about sixteen millions a year, and purely affecting GreatBritain, gave a relief to her which Ireland did not feel. But it was notuntil 1853, when Mr. Gladstone extended the income-tax to Ireland, andraised the Irish spirit duty, that the principle of "exemptions andabatements" was most seriously infringed. Mr. Disraeli followed in 1855with a further elevation of the spirit duty, which was finally equalizedwith the British duty in 1858, at 8s. A gallon; while in 1860 bothduties were raised to 10s. In the seven years 1853-1860 the taxation ofIreland was raised by no less than two and a half millions per annum. Itwill be recalled that the great famine had taken place in 1846-47, andthat between the Census of 1841 and that of 1861 the population sankfrom eight to six millions, while the British population rose fromeighteen and a half to twenty-three millions. The statistical result ofthe increased taxes, therefore, was to show a rise in taxation per headof the Irish people from 13s. 11d. In 1849 to £1 5s. 4d. In 1859, whilein Great Britain it rose only from £2 7s. 8d. To £2 10s. During the sameperiod. Equality of taxation has never been wholly established, for tothis day a few quite unimportant taxes are not levied, or are levied ona lower scale in Ireland;[101] but from 1858 onward we may regard thetaxation of the two countries as almost identically the same. 

In the meantime a great revolution, also beginning at the time of thefamine, had taken place in the fiscal system of the United Kingdom. FreeTrade with the outside world had been established, and whatever we mayconclude about its effect, it had been established, as we know, with aspecial view to British industrial interests, and without the smallestconcern for Irish interests, which were predominantly agricultural. Itwas certainly followed by an immense industrial expansion and prosperityin Great Britain; it was certainly initiated at the lowest point ofIreland's moral and physical wretchedness. Opinions differ as to theprecise economic effect upon Ireland. Miss Murray, in her thoughtful andexhaustive study of the commercial relations between England andIreland, holds that, as agricultural producers, the Irish lost far morethan they have gained as consumers of foodstuffs, while a number ofsmall and struggling rural industries, whose powerful counterparts inGreat Britain could easily withstand foreign competition, did undeniablysuccumb in Ireland. 

My own opinion is that the past influence upon Ireland of free trade, inthe first instance with Great Britain, and later with the outside world, though a highly interesting and important topic in itself, is commonlyexaggerated, to the neglect of the vastly more important question of thetenure of land. Free trade did not cause the famine. On the contrary, the presage of the famine was one of the minor causes which induced Peelto take up Cobden's policy for the free importation of foodstuffs. Theeffect of that policy upon Ireland sinks into insignificance beside anagrarian system which had reduced the mass of the Irish peasants toserfs, kept them near the borders of destitution, and in a state ofsporadic crime for a century and a half before, and for forty yearsafter the repeal of the Corn Laws, and, at the climax of a period ofhigh protection for agricultural products, rendered it possible for amere failure of the potato-crop to cause death to three-quarters of amillion persons. These things do not happen in properly governed, inother words in self-governed, countries, whatever their fiscal system, and they have never happened to Irishmen in any other part of the worldbut in their own fertile island. Manufacturing industries stand on adifferent footing. Most of the staple industries of Ireland, notably thewoollen industry, and the aptitudes which brought them into being, weredeliberately destroyed long ago by fiscal measures imposed by England, and their destruction aggravated the misery and exhaustion produced by abad land system. How far their partial revival under the fiscal HomeRule of Grattan's Parliament was genuine, and might, with a continuanceof fiscal Home Rule, have been permanent, it is impossible to say. Theretarding effect of the Rebellion, and the long start already obtainedby Great Britain in the industrial race, are factors beyond accuratecalculation. But one thing is certain, that the revival of industrieswas, at that stage, of trivial importance beside the rural regenerationof Ireland, and that Grattan's Parliament had not the remotest influencefor good upon the land question, which it neglected as heartlessly asits predecessors for a century before and its successors for seventyyears afterwards. [102]

Industries are valuable assets for any country; but countries almostwholly agricultural, like Denmark, can prosper remarkably, and withoutProtection, provided that they possess or evolve a sound system ofagrarian tenure, in other words, a sound relation between tenant andlandlord, or, in default of that, peasant ownership. In every country inthe world that has been a _sine qua non_ of prosperity. Suppose thatEnglish labourers had built out of their own money and by their ownhands the factories, docks, and railways in which they worked, and thatthe resulting profits, wages deducted, went solely to ground landlords. That gives us some idea of the old Irish land system, whose overthrowalbegan only in 1870; a system under which the landlord put no capitalinto the land, though his rent represented the full profits of thetenant's capital and labour, less an amount equivalent to a baresubsistence wage, governed by competition. 

The present influence upon Ireland of the Imperial fiscal system, nowthat peasant proprietorship has been half accomplished, is anothermatter upon which I shall have to say more presently, when we havecompleted our review of Anglo-Irish finance. Let us return to the pointwe had reached: that free trade with the outside world and theequalization of taxation between Great Britain and Ireland approximatelycoincided in point of time, and were also contemporaneous with rapid andcontinuous growth in the wealth and population of Great Britain, and asteady and continuous decline in the Irish population. We know now, moreover, though nobody knew it then, because the calculation was notyet made, that Ireland was paying a large contribution to Imperialservices, over and above her local expenditure. In the half-centurybetween 1810 and 1860 she had paid an average yearly sum of nearly fourmillions, and a total sum of nearly two hundred millions. In the year1859-60, when the now equalized spirit duties were raised to 10s. , shepaid £5, 396, 000; a sum considerably more than double the expenditure onIrish services, and equivalent to no less than five-sevenths of therevenue raised in Ireland. 

Parliament gave no serious attention to any of these phenomena from thetime of the fiscal union in 1817 until after the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill in 1893. No settled conclusions werearrived at as to the relative wealth of the two countries, as to thecapacity of Ireland to bear the British scale of taxation, or even as tothe amount of revenue derived from and expended in the countriesrespectively, with the consequent contributions made to common Imperialservices. A Committee sat in 1864-65, which compiled some interestinginformation and heard some important witnesses, but ignored the mainquestions at issue and produced what Sir Edward Hamilton described lateras an "impotent" Report. Sir Joseph MacKenna, an able Irish banker, again and again, between 1867 and 1876, pleaded for an inquiry intoAnglo-Irish finance, alleging gross injustice in the incidence of Irishtaxation, and obtained nothing more than a rough return showing thatbetween 1841 and 1871 the gross tax revenue per head of the populationhad risen in Ireland from 9s. 6. 7d. To £1 6s. 2. 2d. And had fallen inGreat Britain from £2 9s. 9. 5d. To £2 4s. 1. 6d. For the first time alsoit was shown that the national beverages of England and Ireland, beerand whisky, respectively, were taxed in a ratio unfair to Ireland. In1886 Mr. Gladstone, in preparing his first Home Rule Bill, had tore-open the question of the relative resources of Ireland and GreatBritain for the first time since the Union, because he proposed a fixedannual contribution, unchangeable for thirty years, from Ireland towardsthe Imperial services. He fixed the contribution at one-fifteenth orapproximately half that of two-seventeenths fixed by Pitt in 1800, andthe new figure was certainly not too low. In 1888 the question was againincidentally raised by Mr. Goschen, who apportioned certain equivalentgrants towards local taxation in England, Scotland, and Ireland, in theproportion of 80, 11, 9, apparently on the principle that those were theproportions in which each country respectively contributed to Imperialexpenditure. Mr. Gladstone, in preparing the Home Rule Bill of 1893, made investigations which threw additional light on the true amount ofrevenue derived from Ireland, with allowance made for revenue fromdutiable goods taxed in Ireland but consumed in Great Britain, and _viceversa_, but his financial scheme, as revised in the course of theSession and passed by the House of Commons, evaded the crucial issue bymaking Ireland's contribution to Imperial services a quota, one-third, of her true annual revenue. This quota, moreover, was indirectlyreduced by temporary subsidies in aid of Irish charges (_e. G. _, forPolice) and was estimated, with these deductions, not to exceed at theoutset one-fortieth. 

III. 

THE FINANCIAL RELATIONS COMMISSION OF 1894-1896. 

It was now apparent that, with or without Home Rule, the whole subjectneeded serious investigation, and in 1894, after the defeat of Mr. Gladstone's Bill, a Royal Commission under the Presidency of Mr. HughChilders was appointed to consider the "Financial Relations betweenGreat Britain and Ireland. " Their Report deserves careful study, becauseit contains within it all the essential materials for forming a judgmentupon the financial problem of to-day. All that it lacks are thecomplementary figures of the subsequent seventeen years, and thesefigures, which I shall presently add, do not affect the conflict ofprinciples, though they throw into more vivid relief than ever theoutcome of conflicting principles. 

In composition it was a very strong Commission; it consulted the highestfinancial authorities in the Kingdom; it made for two years anexhaustive examination, historical and practical, of the questionssubmitted to it, and although the members disagreed on some importantpoints, the conclusions upon which they were unanimous cannot beimpugned. The terms of reference were:

"1. Upon what principles of comparison, and by the application of whatspecific standards, the relative capacity of Great Britain and Irelandto bear taxation may be most equitably determined. 

"2. What, so far as can be ascertained, is the true proportion, underthe principles and specific standards so determined, between the taxablecapacity of Great Britain and Ireland. 

"3. The history of the financial relations between Great Britain andIreland at and after the Legislative Union, the charge for Irishpurposes on the Imperial Exchequer during that period, and the amount ofIrish taxation remaining available for contribution to Imperialexpenditure; also the Imperial expenditure to which it is consideredequitable that Ireland should contribute. "

It will be observed that Questions 1 and 2 deal with abstract points, No. 3 (except the last clause) with concrete facts. [103]

In their short unanimous Report the Commissioners began by stating that"Great Britain and Ireland must, for the purposes of this inquiry, beconsidered as separate entities. "

To Question 1 they made no unanimous answer. This was immaterial, because, as a result of numerous tests (assessment to estate duties andincome-tax, consumption of commodities, population, etc. ) all arrivedunanimously at an answer to the next question. 

Answer to Question 2 (and incidentally, as will be seen, to part ofQuestion 3): "That whilst the tax revenue of Ireland is about_one-eleventh_ of that of Great Britain, the relative taxable capacityof Ireland is very much smaller, _and is not estimated by any of us asexceeding one-twentieth_. "

The wording of the answer needs to be explained by reference to the textof the Report. 

(_a_) In saying "tax revenue" the Commissioners meant to exclude non-taxrevenue--_e. G. _, Post Office receipts, etc. --but the Commissioners intheir various separate Reports generally employed the figures of totalrevenue. Taking these as our basis, the Irish revenue then raised wouldhave been nearly one-twelfth instead of one-eleventh of the Britishrevenue. In other words, of the total revenue of the United Kingdom, Ireland paid nearly _one-thirteenth_. (_b_) As to the true Irish taxablecapacity of "one-twentieth, " some confusion arises owing to the use ofthe phrase by different Commissioners in different senses. Mr. Childersand Sir David Barbour appear to have meant one-twentieth of the UnitedKingdom's taxable capacity, the others one-twentieth of GreatBritain's. In order to be on the conservative side, I shall adopt theformer estimate. The discrepancy is not material to the conclusions ofthe Commissioners, as, for reasons which I need not go into, they agreedthat the minimum amount of over-taxation was two millions andthree-quarters. 

This was the main outstanding conclusion of the Royal Commission. Translated into figures, it showed the following facts: In 1893-94 thetotal revenue of the United Kingdom from all sources was £96, 855, 627. Ofthis sum the revenue contributed by Great Britain from all sources was£89, 286, 978; by Ireland, £7, 568, 649--that is, between one-eleventh andone-twelfth of the British revenue. 

If Ireland in 1893-94 had paid in proportion to her true taxablecapacity of one-twentieth, the maximum arrived at by any member of theCommission, the revenue derived from her would have been £4, 842, 781. 

In other words, there was held to be an excess payment from Ireland of£2, 725, 868. 

It was not suggested by any member of the Commission that Ireland, sincethe Union, had grown richer at a more rapid rate than England, and wastherefore more capable of bearing taxation. On the contrary, it wasadmitted that she had grown, relatively, much poorer. On the mostmoderate estimate, therefore, the over-taxation of Ireland since theUnion, computed strictly on the principle laid down, could berepresented as amounting in 1894 to something like two hundred and fiftymillions, or, if we date from the fiscal union of 1817, two hundredmillions. 

The answer given by the Commissioners to Question 3, so far as it goes, is explanatory of the previous answer. 

"That the Act of Union imposed upon Ireland a burden which, as eventsshowed, she was unable to bear. 

"That the increase of taxation laid upon Ireland between 1853 and 1860was not justified by the then existing circumstances. "

And they added the opinion "that identity of rates of taxation does notnecessarily involve equality of burden. "

Their answers, so far as they were complete, to the other inquiriescontained in Question No. 3 about the tax revenue of Ireland and thenet contribution of Ireland in the past to Imperial services, are to befound in figures included in the body of the Report, and these figuresformed, of course, the basis of their unanimous conclusion as to theover-taxation of Ireland. 

These figures, to which I have often alluded in this volume, necessitatea short digression, because they and subsequent Returns of the same sortform the only official data upon which to estimate the present financialposition of Ireland. 

They were extracted partly from annual Returns originally issued by theTreasury for the Home Rule Bill of 1893, and entitled "FinancialRelations (England, Scotland, and Ireland), " and partly from a newdocument known as the "Pease" Return, No. 313 of 1894. These Returns, taken together, represented the first serious attempt by the Treasury toconstruct an account covering a period from 1819-20 to 1890-91, andshowing (_a_) the exact revenue derived from Ireland and Great Britainrespectively; (_b_) the local expenditure in Ireland and Great Britainrespectively, as distinguished from Imperial expenditure incurred forthe benefit of the whole United Kingdom; (_c_) the net contribution ofIreland and Great Britain respectively to this latter expenditure forImperial services only. 

Since 1894 two regular annual Returns have been compiled, the oneshowing the revenue, local expenditure, and net Imperial contribution ofScotland, Ireland, and England (including Wales), the other giving anhistorical summary of similar figures for Great Britain and Irelandonly, from 1819-20 to the current date. 

Two insoluble problems have had to be grappled with by the Treasury inpreparing these Returns: first, to differentiate Imperial expenditurefrom local expenditure; second, to arrive at the "true" net revenue ofthe partners as distinguished from the revenue collected within theirrespective limits. Both these problems arise whenever an attempt is madeto look behind a system of unitary finance into the burdens andcontributions of different portions of a united realm, and the latter, though not the former, of the two may arise in just as acute a form ifthe realm consists of federated States with a common system of Customsand Excise. 

With regard to the first problem, it is, of course, easy, in the case ofa Federation, to distinguish between central, or Federal, expenditureand local, or State, expenditure, because the functions of the FederalGovernment and State Governments are delimited in the Constitution, andthe separate expenditures form the subject of separate balance-sheets. But in a Union, and above all in a Union to which one part of the realmis an unwilling party, like that of the British Isles, it is clear thatno absolutely accurate line can be drawn between Imperial and localexpenditure. The Army, the Navy, and a number of other things areclearly enough Imperial, but there are many debatable items. Forexample, Is the upkeep of the Lord-Lieutenant an Irish or an Imperialcharge? Is a loss on Post Office business in Ireland to be chargedagainst Ireland, or should Ireland be credited with a proportion of theprofits of the whole postal business of the United Kingdom? Moresearching questions still: Is the enormous charge for the Irish Police, which is under Imperial control, and exists avowedly for the purpose offorcibly maintaining, in the Imperial interest, an unpopular form ofgovernment in Ireland, to be charged against Ireland? Or, again, shouldIreland be debited with the cost of the machinery for carrying out LandPurchase, a policy admittedly rendered necessary by the enforcedmaintenance in the past of bad land laws? Obviously such questions cannever be answered so as to satisfy both Irishmen and Englishmen, becausethey go to the root of the political relations between Ireland and GreatBritain. The Royal Commission, therefore, was naturally unable to give aunanimous answer to the last clause of Question No. 3 of their Terms ofReference--namely, "What is the Imperial expenditure to which Irelandshould equitably contribute?" Some members held that under the Unioneven a theoretical classification was unjustifiable, while it wasobvious that under the Union no effect could be given to it. Still, theclassification had to be made, in order to arrive at a theoreticalestimate of the financial situations of Great Britain and Irelandrespectively, and the Treasury, charged with the preparation of thisestimate, took the only course open to it in reckoning as Irishexpenditure all expenditure which would not have to be incurred ifIreland did not exist. It was the perfectly correct course for theTreasury to take in dealing with the task set before them, and, as weshall see, it provides the only basis on which to construct thebalance-sheet of a financially independent Ireland. 

The insolubility of the second problem--that of discovering the "true"revenue of Ireland and Great Britain respectively--arises from thedifficulty of tracing the passage of dutiable articles from one part ofthe kingdom to the other, and of tracing the incidence of direct impostssuch as income-tax and stamps. The great bulk of Irish revenue isderived from indirect taxes on commodities, liquor, tobacco, tea, sugar, etc. Since the consumer pays the tax, revenue is rightly credited to thecountry of consumption. The tax, for example, on tobacco manufactured inIreland may be collected in Ireland, but the revenue from Irish-madetobacco exported to and consumed in Great Britain is rightly credited toGreat Britain. The converse holds true. Half the tea consumed in Irelandhas paid duty in London, but the whole of the revenue from tea consumedin Ireland must be credited to Ireland. Now, since 1826, no officialrecords had been kept by the Customs-houses of the transit of goodsbetween Ireland and England, except in the solitary case of spirits. Thedata, therefore, did not exist, and do not exist now, except in the caseof spirits, for an accurate computation. This is frankly confessed bythe Treasury officials. They base their published figures on certainarbitrary methods of calculation which have never been submitted to anypublic inquiry, and which, as they admit, contain an element ofguesswork. The matter is an exceedingly important one to Ireland, because ever since 1870 an increasingly heavy deduction has been made bythe Treasury from her "collected" revenue, and her "true" revenue hasproportionately diminished. Part of this deduction is no doubt due tothe fact that her exports of tobacco and liquor have, in recent times, much exceeded her imports, but the margin for error is neverthelesslarge. Mr. Gladstone, in framing his Home Rule Bill of 1886, was sosensible of the inherent difficulties of the calculation that, whileretaining Customs and Excise under Imperial control, he credited to theIrish Exchequer the whole of the revenue collected within Ireland. Onthe balance of Anglo-Irish exchange in dutiable articles, as roughlyestimated at that time, this provision meant an annual allowance toIreland of nearly a million and a half pounds, the principal reasonbeing that Ireland, which is a larger manufacturer of spirits andtobacco, was exporting more than she consumed of these commodities. Inthe Bill of 1893, as part of a wholly different financial scheme, Mr. Gladstone abandoned the plan just described, and provided for the annualcalculation of "true" Irish revenue, as distinguished from "collected"revenue; but it is a proof of the obscurity and intricacy of the wholebusiness that the Treasury officials made a mistake of £400, 000 in theinitial calculation, with the result that Mr. Gladstone had to recasthis financial scheme from top to bottom. 

In the Return of 1894, as presented to the Royal Commission, this errorwas eliminated, but the method of calculation remained imperfect. Nobodyknows now what the true figures are, and there is good reason to thinkthat Irish revenue has always been, and still is, substantiallyunderestimated. 

The same obscurity shrouded, and still shrouds, the "true" Irish revenuefrom income-tax and stamps, whose proceeds it is exceedingly difficultto trace under a system of unitary finance, and which are traced by theTreasury in a fashion again admittedly unreliable. [104]

In regard to taxes on consumption the same difficulty has been met within Australia since the federation of the Colonies and the delegation tothe Commonwealth Government of exclusive control over Customs andExcise. The product of these duties makes up the bulk of Australianrevenue, and is far too large for the needs of the CommonwealthGovernment. The Constitution of 1900 provided that the surplus should bereturned to the individual States in proportion to their "true"contributions to the revenue, and for the calculation of these "true"contributions an elaborate system of book-keeping was instituted, inorder to trace the ultimate place of consumption of dutiable articles. Each State was then credited with its "true" revenue, and debited, amongother things, with a proportionate share of the expense of anyDepartment transferred by the Constitution from the State to theCommonwealth. The system caused general dissatisfaction, owing, as theAustralian Official Year Book puts it, "to the practical impossibilityof ensuring that in every case a consuming State will be duly creditedwith revenue collected on its behalf in a distributing State. " That isthe well-founded complaint of Ireland in regard to the Treasury returns. Hitherto in Australia efforts to change the system for anotherallocating the surplus on a basis of population have not beensuccessful. [105] The Canadian Federal Constitution uses the basis ofpopulation for the distribution of small subsidies to the Provinces, butcomplaints have arisen as to its fairness. British Columbia, forexample, for a long time complained that her subsidy was too small, oneof the grounds being that her consumption of dutiable goods wasunusually large. No means existed of verifying this complaint byfigures. [106]

With this explanatory digression about a very important feature ofAnglo-Irish finance, I return to the findings of the Royal Commission of1894-1896. The figures supplied to them were as shown on the oppositepage. 

It will be noticed that the average "true" revenue of Ireland wasstationary at a little over five millions from 1820 to 1850, rose with abound to seven and a half millions with the equalization of taxes in thedecade 1850-1860, and remained stationary at that figure for theremaining thirty-four years. Expenditure in Ireland quadrupled in thewhole sixty-four years; and the net contribution to Imperial services, after rising from three and a half millions (in round numbers) in 1820to five and a half millions in 1860, fell automatically, as theexpenditure rose, and had stood at two millions from 1890 afterwards. Population had fallen by two millions, but the "true" revenue raised perhead of population rose from 15s. 5d. In 1819 to £1 13s. 5d. In 1894, while the local expenditure rose from 4s. 7d. Per head in 1820 to £1 5s. In 1894. 

STATEMENT SHOWING THE ESTIMATED LOCAL EXPENDITURE INCURRED IN IRELAND, AND THE BALANCE OF TRUE REVENUE WHICH IS AVAILABLE FOR IMPERIAL SERVICESAFTER SUCH EXPENDITURE HAS BEEN MET:

 Revenue as Adjustment Estimated Estimated Balance Population Collected (+) or (-) True Local available Revenue Expenditures for Imperial ServicesDecadalfigures. £ £ £ £ £--------------------------------------------------------------------------------1819-20 5, 253, 909 + 2, 655 5, 256, 564 1, 564, 880 3, 691, 684 6, 801, 0001829-30 4, 161, 217 +1, 040, 908 5, 502, 125 1, 345, 579 4, 156, 576 7, 767, 4011839-40 4, 571, 150 + 841, 739 5, 412, 889 1, 789, 567 3, 626, 322 8, 175, 1241849-50 4, 338, 091 + 523, 374 4, 861, 465 2, 247, 687 2, 613, 778 6, 574, 2781859-60 7, 097, 994 + 602, 430 7, 700, 334 2, 304, 334 5, 396, 000 5, 798, 9671869-70 7, 331, 058 + 95, 274 7, 426, 332 2, 938, 122 4, 488, 210 5, 412, 3771879-80 7, 831, 316 - 550, 520 7, 280, 856 4, 054, 549 3, 226, 307 5, 174, 8361889-90 9, 005, 932 -1, 271, 254 7, 734, 678 5, 057, 708 2, 676, 970 4, 704, 750

Annualfigures. £ £ £ £ £--------------------------------------------------------------------------------1890-91 9, 301, 463 -1, 506, 988 7, 734, 475 5, 723, 399 2, 071, 076 --1891-92 9, 639, 344 -1, 671, 226 7, 968, 105 6, 021, 810 1, 946, 295 --1892-93 9, 425, 177 -1, 986, 780 7, 438, 397 5, 540, 508 1, 897, 880 --1893-94 9, 650, 649 -2, 082, 000 7, 568, 649 5, 602, 555 1, 966, 094 1, 638, 000

In 1893-94, the last year under review, Ireland, in round figures, wasproducing a net revenue of seven and a half millions, was costing fiveand a half millions, and was, therefore, contributing to Imperialservices a surplus of two millions. In the same year, while contributingher two millions, she was overtaxed, according to the lowest estimate ofthe Commissioners, by two and three-quarter millions. 

But the significance of these figures cannot be discerned without anexamination of their counterparts on the British side of the account. Inthe whole period Great Britain's "true" revenue had risen from£51, 445, 764 to £89, 286, 978; her local expenditure from £4, 439, 333 to£30, 618, 586, and her net contribution to Imperial services from£47, 006, 431 to £58, 668, 392. Her population had increased from13, 765, 000 in 1820 to 33, 469, 000 (estimated) in 1893, but her "true"revenue had _fallen_ per head of the population from £3 13s. To £2 13s. 4d. (approximately), although her local expenditure had risen from 4s. 7d. To £1 2s. (approximately). In other words, a great increase ofwealth had enabled the British taxpayer to pay far more while feelingthe burden far less. The converse was true of Ireland. 

The current state of the account in 1893-94 was as follows:

 Great Britain Ireland 1893-94 (Population, (Population, Totals. 33, 469, 000). 4, 638, 000). 

 £ £ £"True" Revenue 89, 286, 978 7, 568, 649 96, 855, 627Local Expenditure 30, 618, 586 5, 602, 555 36, 221, 141Net contribution to Imperial Services 58, 668, 392 1, 966, 094 60, 634, 486

Great Britain, though raising in "true" revenue between eleven andtwelve times as much as Ireland, was costing only between five and sixtimes as much to administer as Ireland, and was therefore contributingto Imperial services twenty-eight times as much as Ireland. 

Now the Commissioners had stated that the taxable capacity of Irelandwas not one-eleventh, but, at the utmost, one-twentieth --in otherwords, that she ought to contribute not more than one-twentieth of theUnited Kingdom revenue. On that basis she should as we have seen, havebeen showing a revenue in 1893-94 not of £7, 568, 649, but of £4, 842, 781. 

But, if her local expenditure had also been proportionate to her truetaxable capacity of one-twentieth, instead of standing at £5, 602, 555, itwould have stood at £1, 811, 057, or two-thirds less, while if her netcontribution to Imperial services had likewise been a twentieth, insteadof paying £1, 966, 094, she would have had to pay £3, 031, 724, or a millionmore. 

The conclusion, therefore, might be extracted from the figures that, although by hypothesis overtaxed, Ireland was drawing a balance ofprofit, because, by having more spent on her--or, to put it in anotherway, by costing more to govern, she paid a million less to the commonpurse than if she had been taxed according to her capacity. 

This was precisely the conclusion drawn by one member of the Commission, Sir David Barbour, and implicitly acquiesced in by one other member, SirThomas Sutherland. All the other Commissioners agreed that there wassomething seriously amiss, and declined to regard the disproportionatelyhigh expenditure on Ireland as compensation for the over-high taxation. The O'Conor Don, as successor in the chairmanship to Mr. Childers, andfour others contented themselves with setting forth the facts, but madeno recommendations, on the ground that the Commission had not been askedto make any. Mr. Childers, who died before the completion of theinquiry, left a Draft Report recommending that a special grant, amounting to two millions a year, should for the future be allocated toIreland. The other six members, dividing into two groups of three, underLord Farrer and Mr. Sexton respectively, and stating their views in twodifferent Reports, all agreed that a form of Home Rule giving financialindependence to Ireland was the only solution of the difficulty. 

The questions at issue were not at all obscure. Any apparent obscuritywas caused by the terms of reference to the Commission, which assumedthe permanence of the Union, while it was absolutely impossible for theCommission, divided though its members were in politics, to start workat all without, as they said, considering Great Britain and Ireland as"separate entities. " The reader must be on his guard againstexaggerating the "over-taxation of Ireland" in its purely cash aspect. The really important points were: (1) The suitability of the Irish taxesand the responsibility for levying them; (2) the amount and suitabilityof the expenditure in Ireland and the responsibility for itsdistribution. In order to see conflicting principles stated in theirclearest form the reader should compare the terse and vigorous reportsof Sir David Barbour on the one hand, and of Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, and Mr. Currie on the other. 

It was Sir David Barbour's great merit that he was not afraid of his ownconclusions. He frankly stated, like all the other Commissioners, thatIreland's taxation, considered by itself, without regard to Irishexpenditure, was unsuitable and unjust. He recognized that a system oftaxation which was suitable for a rich, industrial, and expandingcountry like Great Britain was unsuitable for a poor, agricultural, andeconomically stagnant country like Ireland. He had before him thefigures showing that two-thirds of the Irish population was rural, andthat between three and four-fifths of the English population wasurban. [107] He laid special stress on the fact that five-sevenths ofIrish revenue, as compared with less than half the British revenue, wasderived from taxes on commodities of general consumption, pressingheavily on the poor, and set forth the figures showing that the productof these taxes represented a charge of £1 2s. 0. 95d. Per head of thepopulation in Ireland, and £1 1s. 0. 05d. In Great Britain, although thewealth per head of Great Britain, as he admitted, "was much greater thanthe wealth of Ireland per head. "[108] His conclusion was that this stateof affairs, though regrettable, could not be helped, because, under theUnion, whose permanence he took for granted, a change of generaltaxation to suit Ireland was simply impracticable. He did, it is true, point out incidentally that the same hardship might be said to affectpoor localities in Great Britain and poor individuals in Great Britain, but he recoiled from the absurd fallacy involved in saying that on thataccount Ireland was not unjustly taxed. If he had gone to that length hecould never have signed the unanimous Report. 

I only mention this latter point because some outside critics have beenbold enough to assert the fallacy in its completeness, proving, as theyeasily can, that the purchase of a pound of tea or a pint of beer is asgreat an expense to a man with 10s. A week in Whitechapel as to a manwith 10s. A week in Connemara. Such reasoning nullifies the wholescience of taxation. It would be as sensible to say that our wholefiscal system might wisely be transplanted in its entirety to anyforeign country or to any self-governing Colony absolutely irrespectiveof their social and economic conditions and of their habits. Yet Irelandin these respects has always differed from Great Britain at least asmuch as any self-governing Colony and many European countries. Thetea-tax produces scarcely anything in France; it produces an enormousamount relatively in Ireland, and is a greater burden there than inGreat Britain. The wine-tax is not felt by Ireland; it is felt more byEngland; it would cause a revolution in France. Beer is taxed lightly inthe United Kingdom, but the Irishman drinks only half as much beer asthe Englishman. Meat is untaxed, but the Irish poor eat no meat. Spiritsand tobacco are highly taxed, and they are consumed more largely inIreland than in England. And so on. The whole Commission recognized thatthe circumstances of the two countries were different, and stated "thatidentity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involve equality ofburden. "

Nor could Sir David Barbour have dissociated himself from theseconclusions without destroying the rest of his argument. He pointed outwith truth that merely to reduce Irish taxation to its correct level, and to leave Irish expenditure where it was, would be to wipe outIreland's contribution to Imperial purposes and leave her with a subsidyfrom Great Britain of three-quarters of a million. On the other hand, heheld, as I have already indicated, that unduly heavy taxation in Irelandwas already compensated for by an excess of local expenditure in Irelandas compared with Great Britain. But how, on its merits, and apart fromthe question of taxation, could such an excess be justified? The Act ofUnion had provided for indiscriminate expenditure in the event of afiscal union. Most of the other Commissioners, indeed, had objected tothe idea of distinguishing between "Imperial" expenditure and "local"expenditure, and striking a balance called an "Imperial contribution, "without, at the same time, distinguishing politically between Irelandand Great Britain. In other words, they took up the not very logicalposition that Ireland must be considered as a separate entity forpurposes of finance owing to the phrase about "abatements andexemptions, " but not for purposes of expenditure. Whether this was acorrect interpretation of the Act of Union has always been a matter ofdispute, but the practical problem is little affected thereby. Sir DavidBarbour thought it an incorrect interpretation, and reached the morelogical position that Ireland, both for revenue and expenditure, couldbe regarded as a separate entity. This view enabled him to put forwardan argument which, while ostensibly palliating the over-taxation ofIreland, in reality condemned the whole of the political systemestablished by the Union. We can, he said, in effect, rightlydistinguish between Imperial and local expenditure, and it ispermissible to spend more on Ireland than on Great Britain. By sospending more we not only cancel our debt to Ireland, but make her apresent of a million which would otherwise go to swell her contributionto Imperial purposes. Now, to get at the pith of this argument, thereader must bear in mind what Sir David Barbour thought it needless toremark upon, that Ireland had, and has, a separate quasi-colonial systemof administration of her own, but outside her own control, a system ofwhich he approved. In other words, besides having to be considered infinance as a "separate entity, " she was to a large extent in actualfact, politically, a "separate entity, " though not a self-governingentity, to which through the channel of the Irish Government Departmentsa special large quota for local expenditure could be easily allocated. As an economist, therefore, and as an upholder of the strangelyparadoxical system set up by the so-called "Union, " Sir David Barbourwas absolutely consistent. 

So were Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, and Mr. Currie in coming todiametrically opposite conclusions. The crux of the discussion, strippedof academical reasoning, was simple. Everything turned, obviously, onthe nature, amount, and origin of Irish expenditure. Sir David Barbourhad passed lightly over these vital points, recommending only that anyfuture _saving_ of expenditure in Ireland ought to be used for Irishpurposes--a further admission of Ireland's separate politicalexistence--and shutting his eyes to future _increases_ of expenditure. Lord Farrer and his colleagues, while agreeing that it was impossible toalter the taxation of Ireland so long as the Union lasted, agreed thatadditional local expenditure in Ireland could not be regarded as aset-off to undue taxation, not only because such a doctrine wasinherently fallacious on economic grounds, and would hardly be listenedto in the case of any other country than Ireland, but because Irishexpenditure was subjected to no proper means of control. Both Irishrevenue and Irish services, the former being only theoretically, thelatter actually, distinct and separate, were outside the control ofIrishmen, who had therefore no motive for economy. Nor was there anyproper measure of determining what expenditure was good for Ireland andwhat was bad, though they held that there was reason to believe thatmuch of Irish administration was both bad and costly. With regard to theextensive system of Imperial loans, whose charge swelled the Irishexpenditure, they quoted the unchallenged evidence of Mr. MurroughO'Brien[109] to the effect that the system of Imperial loans fortemporary emergencies and charity loans--"made to keep the people quietor to keep them alive"--tends to increase the poverty of Ireland, "doesnot prevent the recurrence of famine, distress, and discontent, " andthat "a great deal of the money nominally meant to be spent onproductive works has been misspent and wasted. " They also dwelt, withemphasis, on official figures showing the extravagance of CivilGovernment in Ireland, the cost having risen from 1s. 10d. Per head ofthe population in 1820 to 19s. 7d. Per head in 1893, whereas the cost ofCivil Government in Great Britain had only risen from 1s. 7d. To 11s. 5d. The charge for legal salaries and five principal Departments inIreland was double the right figure according to population, andrepresented an excess cost of nearly £200, 000. In wealthy andprogressive Belgium, Civil Government cost 10s. Per head, or little morethan half as much per head as in Ireland. [110] The absurdity ofrepresenting such excess charges and the wasteful expenditure of ablundering philanthropy, as a recompense for over-taxation, wasmanifest. 

Meanwhile, the rise in the cost of Irish Government, coupled with astagnant revenue, had decreased the annual contribution of Ireland toImperial services, which had fallen from five and a half millions in1860 to two millions in 1894; unless, indeed, half the cost of Irishpolice, virtually a branch of the Imperial Army, and costing double theamount of Scottish and English police, were to be reckoned, not as anIrish expense, on the principle adopted by the Treasury, but as a partof Imperial expenditure. In any case both partners suffered fromexcessive and unwise expenditure in Ireland. 

The gist of their conclusions was as follows:[111]

1. It is impossible, under the Union, to vary taxation for the benefitof Ireland. 

2. Additional benevolent expenditure in Ireland is not a remedy forover-taxation. [112]

"We entertain a profound distrust of benevolences, doles, grants-in-aid, by whatever name they are called, . .. Or by whatever machinery it isproposed to distribute them, convinced, as we are, that in some form orother political influence or personal interest will creep in so as todefeat, in part at any rate, the attainment of the objects for which theexpenditure is made. "

3. "We believe that the expenditure of public funds cannot be wisely andeconomically controlled unless _those who have the disposal_ of publicmoney are made _responsible_ for raising it as well as spending it. "Grants of money "tend to weaken the spirit of independence andself-reliance, " the absence of which qualities "has been the main causeof the backward condition" of Ireland. 

4. "One sure method of redressing the inequality which has been shown toexist between Great Britain and Ireland will be to put upon the Irishpeople the duty of levying their own taxes and of providing for theirown expenditure. "

5. "If it is objected that the course we suggest may lead to theimposition of new Customs duties in Ireland, we might reply that in thiscase, as in that of the Colonies, _freedom is a greater good than freetrade. _ We doubt, however, whether Irishmen, if entrusted with their ownfinance, would attempt to raise fiscal barriers between the twocountries; for we are satisfied that Ireland, and not Great Britain, would be the loser by such a policy. The market of Great Britain is ofinfinitely greater importance to Ireland than that of Ireland to GreatBritain. " The only point on which the three Commissioners differedconcerned Ireland's contribution to Imperial services. Lord Farrer andMr. Currie, taking Home Rule as the foundation of their argument, andprophesying, quite correctly, that under the Union, in a few years, Ireland's contribution would disappear altogether, recommended that nosuch contribution should be exacted by law until Ireland's taxablecapacity approximately reached that of Great Britain. Lord Welby, regarding Home Rule as an essential but a distant ideal, was for animmediate reorganization of Anglo-Irish finances which should providefor a large reduction of Irish Civil expenditure, the saving to bedevoted, on Sir David Barbour's principle, to Irish purposes, and for afixed contribution from Ireland to the Army, Navy, National Debt, etc. How Lord Welby, consistently with his previous argument, could countupon any reduction of expenditure in Ireland under the existingpolitical system it is difficult to see. At any rate, subsequent eventsproved both him and Sir David Barbour signally wrong on this importantpoint. [113]

In every other point the wisdom of the three Commissioners has beenabundantly proved by lapse of time. Do not the conclusions set forthabove bear upon them the stamp of common sense? If it were not for theinveterate prejudice against Home Rule on other than financial grounds, no one would dream of disputing them; for they are based on principlesuniversally accepted in every part of the British Empire but Ireland, and in most parts of the civilized world. They constitute, in fact, financially, one of the strongest arguments possible for political HomeRule. 

There, at any rate, lies a clear issue. Seventeen years have not alteredthe essential principles involved. On the contrary, it will be seen thatevery year of the seventeen has strengthened the argument of Lord Farrerand his colleagues, and weakened the argument of Sir David Barbour. But, before proceeding to this final demonstration, let me in general termsdescribe what befell the Royal Commission's Report, which was publishedin 1896. For a moment all Ireland, irrespective of class or creed, wasalight with patriotic excitement. Few listened to Sir David Barbour'sview, namely, that so long as Irish expenditure came near Irish revenuethere could be no Irish grievance. Home Rulers and Unionists met onfriendly platforms to denounce the over-taxation of Ireland and todisplay figures showing the hundreds of millions of profit made byGreat Britain out of an unconscionable fiscal bargain. This criticismmissed the real point and the unanimity was short-lived. No change couldbe made in the system without Home Rule, and the dissension about HomeRule was strong enough to prevent Irishmen from uniting against a fiscalsystem which was not only unjust but demoralizing to Ireland. A UnionistGovernment was in power for nine more years after 1896, and a LiberalGovernment, pledged temporarily not to give Home Rule, for four furtheryears. The natural result was that, in default of Home Rule, all partiesin Ireland embraced Sir David Barbour's insidiously attractivereservation, and have ever since fallen into the habit of regardingadditional expenditure on Ireland, not only on its merits, but as aset-off to excessive taxation and as something having no relationwhatever to the taxable resources of the country. Nobody took seriouslySir David Barbour's counsel of perfection about the reduction of thecost of Irish Civil Government and the allocation of the saving toIreland, because such a process was, humanly speaking, impossible. Expenditure is never reduced except by those who raise the money for it. On the other hand, in the face of the findings of the Royal Commission, and in the face of Ireland's economic condition, no Government whichrefused Home Rule could have refused large additional Irish expenditure. Much of it, indeed, was merely an automatic reflection of the immensegrowth of national expenditure in the wealthy and expandingpartner-country over the water, and took the form of "equivalentgrants, " whether for the corresponding British head of expense or forsomething totally different. No doubt some of the money was well spent, but all of it came in a wrong form, through wrong channels, and wasregarded in Ireland in a false light. Lastly came Old Age Pensionsapplied on the British scale to a far poorer population. 

Every word of Lord Welby's and Lord Farrer's condemnation was justifiedby events; every prophecy they made has been fulfilled. And the worst ofit is that the delay has damaged the prospects of Home Rule. The habitof dissociating income from revenue becomes inveterate. The habit ofnursing an old grievance and of expecting "restitution" for fundsunwarrantably levied in the past is hard to shake off. Restitution hasgone too far already. Perpetuated, it would ruin Ireland. Home Rulersworth their salt must leave this cry to those Unionists who descend touse it; but it is surely amazing that any Irishman, least of all thosewho claim to represent the wealth and intelligence of the country, should tolerate a political system which inexorably involves a fiscalsystem so humiliating to Ireland. Until three years ago it could easilyhave been put an end to without affecting the independent solvency ofIreland, even on the basis of an enormously swollen civil expenditure, and with the inclusion of services strictly Imperial in origin andcharacter. Now it is a different matter, and we are faced with theopposition of British statesmen who, by sustaining the Union, droveIreland to the verge of insolvency, and now use insolvency as anargument against Home Rule. 

One respects the clean and honest side of Unionism, but there can benothing but reprobation for the meanness of this latter-day argument. For generations Ireland herself has asked to be free both from coercionand bribes, sanely conscious in her soul that both are equallydemoralizing. The aim--though in the past not generally the consciousaim--of Unionism was to sap the moral fibre of Ireland now by one means, now by the other. At last the aim is avowed, so that men who applaudedMr. Chamberlain in 1893 for sneering at Irish patriotism as a "sicklyplant which needed to be watered by British gold" merely because hercontribution under the Home Rule Bill was to be small are now urgingIreland to maintain the Union--in Mr. Walter Long's words--for its"eleemosynary benefits. "[114] Ireland herself must and will rise to ahigher moral level than that, when she is fully awake to the gravity ofthe situation. Those who love her most will not lose a minute inexplaining that situation. Too much time already has been lost. 

FOOTNOTES:

[97] The Treasury Returns of 1869, "Public Income and Expenditure, " intwo volumes, are the basis of all information up to that date. 

[98] Mr. Secretary Pelham in this year estimated that Ireland, thoughcontributing nothing in money to the Navy, had furnished no less than38, 000 men to the Navy since the beginning of the war. 

[99] Pre-Union Debts were to be separate. Post-Union Debt _contractedfor Imperial services_ was to be regarded as joint, and its charge wasto be borne by the two countries in the proportions of their respectivecontributions (see below); but post-Union Debt contracted by Ireland fordomestic services was to be kept separate. 

[100] Eight lectures delivered in the National University, Dublin, in1911. 

[101] Inhabited house duty, railway passenger tax, carriages, armorialbearings, etc. The license for dogs is half the English scale. 

[102] On Foster's Corn Law of 1784, see p. 51. 

[103] The text of the unanimous conclusions was as follows:

1. That Great Britain and Ireland must, for the purpose of this inquiry, be considered as separate entities. 

2. That the Act of Union imposed upon Ireland a burden which, as eventsshowed, she was unable to bear. 

3. That the increase of taxation laid upon Ireland between 1853 and 1860was not justified by the then existing circumstances. 

4. That identity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involveequality of burden. 

5. That, whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland is about one-eleventhof that of Great Britain, the relative taxable capacity of Ireland isvery much smaller, and is not estimated by any of us as exceedingone-twentieth. 

[104] Detailed criticism of the current Treasury accounts under thishead will be found on pp. 276-278. 

[105] A referendum taken on April 13, 1910, defeated the new proposals. See "Report of Premiers' Conference held at Brisbane, May, 1907"(Commonwealth Parliamentary Sessional Paper, No. 13, 1907), and for aclear statement of the whole subject, the "Year-Book (1911) of theCommonwealth of Australia. " (The relevant clauses of the ConstitutionalAct are Nos. 88 to 93. ) The reasons for the failure of the system weresummarized as follows:

"1. The trouble and expense which the necessary record entails. 

"2. The practical impossibility of ensuring that in every case aconsuming State will be duly credited with revenue collected on itsbehalf in a distributing State. 

"3. The difficulty involved in equitably determining the amount to bedebited to the several States in respect of general Commonwealthexpenses. 

"4. The uncertainty on the part of the State Governments as to theamount which will become available. 

"5. The impossibility of securing independent State and Commonwealthfinance. "

See also pp. 295-299. 

[106] See Proceedings of the Conference of Provincial Premiers, 1906, atOttawa (Canadian Sessional Papers, vol. Xl. ), especially McBride'sMemorandum for British Columbia. Numerous other grounds for specialtreatment were alleged--_e. G. , _ abnormal cost of civil government, dueto vast extent of Province. 

[107] Final Report, p. 24 (Census figures of 1891). 

[108] Final Report, p. 122. 

[109] Final Report, p. 50. 

[110] Ibid. , pp. 48, 49. 

[111] Ibid. , pp. 51-54. 

[112] They were at issue here with Mr. Childers, who, in his DraftReport, proposed halving the rates on Irish railways and furtherendowing the Congested Districts Board. But Mr. Childers, though a HomeRuler, felt himself bound by the Terms of Reference not to suggest aHome Rule solution. 

[113] Lord Welby (Final Report, p. 54) compared his proposal for Irelandwith the system in the Isle of Man, where the proceeds of a tariffdistinct from that of Great Britain were devoted in the first instanceto the payment of a fixed Imperial contribution and the surplus to localneeds. But in the Isle of Man the whole point was that the tariff was alocal tariff, chosen by Manxmen to suit themselves, while theadministration was under Manx control. 

[114] Letter to the _Belfast Telegraph_, October 7, 1911. 

CHAPTER XII

THE PRESENT FINANCIAL SITUATION

I. 

ANGLO-IRISH FINANCE TO-DAY. 

The finances of Ireland since the Union, when reviewed by the RoyalCommission in 1894-1896, exhibited five principal features:

1. A declining population. 

2. An estimated true taxable capacity falling as compared with that ofGreat Britain, and standing in 1893-94 at a maximum of 1 to 19. 

3. A revenue stationary for thirty-four years, and showing in 1893-94 aratio of 1 to 12 with that of Great Britain. 

4. A growing local expenditure (though stationary for the last fouryears). 

5. A dwindling net contribution to Imperial services (though stationaryfor the last four years). 

If we review the subsequent seventeen years, we find:

1. A population still declining, though at a slower rate. 

2. An estimated true taxable capacity still falling as compared withthat of Great Britain, and now standing at a maximum of 1 to 24. [115]That is, Ireland ought strictly to be paying no more thanone-twenty-fifth of the United Kingdom revenue. 

3. A revenue rising, but very slowly and inelastically as compared withthat of Great Britain, and now showing a ratio of 1 to 15; so that the"over-taxation" of Ireland, as reckoned on the Royal Commission'sprinciples, is still at least three millions. [116]

4. A local expenditure growing rapidly and disproportionately to Irishrevenue; now just double the expenditure of 1893-94. 

5. A net contribution to Imperial services automatically diminishingwith the growth of Irish expenditure, disappearing altogether in1909-10, and now converted into an adverse balance against Ireland of£1, 312, 500. 

In Great Britain during the same seventeen years, population, taxablecapacity, revenue, expenditure, and net contribution to Imperialservices have all grown steadily, and, what is more important, inhealthy proportions to one another. 

On the next page will be found the comparative figures for Ireland andGreat Britain of revenue, expenditure, and contribution for 1893-94 and1910-11. 

Let me remark at the outset _(a)_ that they and other official figuresgiven in this chapter are taken from the annual Treasury returns alludedto at p. 242, "Revenue and Expenditure (England, Scotland, and Ireland)"and "Imperial Revenue (Collection and Expenditure) (Great Britain andIreland). " For the current year 1910-11 the official numbers of theseReturns are 220 and 221, and the latter of the two is virtually acontinuation of the original return, No. 313 of 1894; _(b)_ that thenon-collection of a large part of the revenue of 1909-10, owing to thedelay in passing the Budget, makes the revenue figures of the last twoyears, regarded in isolation, misleading; those of the first year beingabnormally low, those of the last abnormally high. I therefore give themean figures of the two years. Expenditure is, of course, unaffected, _(c)_ That the Irish revenue shown as "true" is reduced by heavydeductions from the revenue as actually collected in Ireland. At p. 244I explained that this adjustment can be regarded only as approximatelycorrect, owing to the admittedly unreliable methods adopted by theTreasury, _(d)_ That the revenue shown includes non-tax as well as taxrevenue. 

 Ireland. Great Britain. 

 1893-94. 1910-11. 1893-94. 1910-11. 

Population 4, 638, 000 4, 381, 951 33, 469, 000 40, 834, 790 (estimated)

"Collected" revenue £9, 650, 649 £11, 704, 500 £88, 728, 428 £156, 574, 250(including non-tax (mean of two (mean of tworevenue) years, 1910- years, 1910- 11, 1909-10) 11, 1909-10)

"True" revenue £7, 568, 649 £10, 032, 000 £89, 286, 978 £155, 137, 250(including (mean of two (mean of twonon-tax revenue) years, 1910- years, 1910- 11, 1909-10) 11, 1909-10)

Local Expenditure £5, 602, 555 £11, 344, 500 £30, 618, 586 £60, 544, 000

Contribution to £1, 966, 094 Nil[A] £58, 668, 392 £94, 593, 250Imperial Services

[A] Local Expenditure in excess of "true" revenue (as averaged foryears, 1910-11, 1909-10): £1, 312, 500. 

Irish expenditure has been rapidly overtaking Irish revenue during thelast three years. In 1907-08 there was a balance available for Imperialservices of £1, 811, 000; in 1908-09, of only £583, 000; and in 1910-11, onthe basis of a mean of that and the previous year, the deficit shownabove of £1, 312, 500. The principal cause is the Old Age Pensions Vote, which began in 1908. 

If all the elements of the problem be considered together, it will beseen that the fiscal partnership is as ill-matched as ever, and hasproduced results increasingly anomalous. Each of the partners and theirunited interests suffer. Ireland is still more heavily taxed relativelyto Great Britain, yet Ireland's contribution to Imperial services hasbeen converted into a minus quantity. Why? Because Irish expenditure, paid out of the common purse, has doubled, while Irish revenue hasincreased by less than a third. 

Let me give the final survey of Anglo-Irish finance since the Union, inthe tabular form shown by Professor Oldham at the meeting of the BritishAssociation in September, 1911:

 NET BALANCES PAID BY IRELAND TO GREAT BRITAIN. 

 Single Irish "True" Expenditure Balance Decadal Year. Revenue. In Ireland. One Year. Balance. £ £ £ £ 1819-20 5, 256, 564 1, 564, 880 3, 691, 684 36, 916, 840 1829-30 5, 502, 125 1, 345, 549 4, 156, 576 41, 565, 760 1839-40 5, 415, 889 1, 789, 567 3, 626, 322 36, 263, 220 1849-50 4, 861, 465 2, 247, 687 2, 613, 778 26, 137, 780 1859-60 7, 700, 334 2, 304, 334 5, 396, 000 53, 960, 000 1869-70 7, 426, 332 2, 938, 122 4, 488, 210 44, 882, 100 1879-80 7, 280, 856 4, 054, 549 3, 226, 307 32, 263, 070 1889-90 7, 734, 678 5, 057, 708 2, 676, 970 26, 769, 700 1899-1900 8, 664, 500 6, 980, 000 1, 684, 500 16, 845, 000

 Averaged Balances for 90 years 315, 603, 470 Add, Actual Balances, 1900-09 16, 214, 000

 Net Payments, in 99 years 331, 817, 470 Deduct Drawings, deficit of 1909-10 2, 357, 500

 Net Payments, in 100 years 329, 459, 970 Add, Actual Balance, 1910-11 321, 000

Net Balances paid by Ireland to Great Britain, 1809-1911 329, 780, 970

What has become of Sir David Barbour's argument in favour of theexisting fiscal system? He admitted that Ireland was overtaxed by twomillions and three-quarters. But he showed, it will be remembered, thatif not only the revenue, but the expenditure and contribution toImperial services had all been in proportion to Ireland's real taxablecapacity of one-twentieth, she would have been a loser by amillion. [117] Ireland, therefore, he argued, had certainly no grievance, while Great Britain received the substantial, though not strictlysufficient, sum of two millions as Ireland's contribution to Imperialexpenses. 

Let us apply the same reasoning to the present situation. Ireland, byhypothesis, is "overtaxed" by three millions, [118] but if not only therevenue, but the expenditure and contribution to Imperial services ofIreland were all in proportion to her real taxable capacity, which wemay estimate now at one-twenty-fifth, we find that she would be a loserby five millions. Her "true" revenue from all sources _ought_ on thissupposition to be £6, 605, 900; it _is_ £10, 032, 000. Her local expenditure_ought_ to be £2, 875, 540; it _is_ £11, 344, 500. Her contribution toImperial services _ought_ to be £3, 730, 360; it _is_ a minus quantity of£1, 312, 500. Sir David Barbour's reasoning, then, leads us to thisastounding paradox, that Ireland, while overtaxed by three millions, gains five millions by the arrangement. Moreover, whether we accept SirDavid Barbour's reasoning or not, it is a fact that to-day Ireland, which contributed to Imperial services five and a half millions in 1860, and two millions in 1894, now, so far from contributing anything, costsa million and a quarter more than she brings in. This, certainly, wasnot a result he either anticipated or would have approved of. On thecontrary, he anticipated a reduction in Irish civil expenditure, to besaved for Irish purposes, without prejudice to the Imperialcontribution. It makes the brain dizzy to compare his anticipation withthe reality. 

How, on the other hand, stands the argument of Lord Farrer and Mr. Currie? They prophesied a great increase in Irish expenditure and thedisappearance of the contribution to Imperial services. That has cometrue. Lord Welby (and indeed the majority of the Commission) was withthem in declining to regard excessive local expenditure as a set-off toexcessive and unsuitable taxation, and in condemning root and branch thesystem of grants, aids, and doles as wasteful in itself and as sappingthe self-reliance of Irishmen. There again they were right. They were atone with all their colleagues in holding that under the Union it wasimpossible to differentiate between the taxation of Ireland and GreatBritain, and they prescribed, as the only sound remedy, Home Rule. Oncemore they were right. 

The figures of to-day constitute the _reductio ad absurdum_ of theUnion. For over a century in Ireland we have defied the laws ofpolitical economy, but they have conquered us at last. Sound financedemands that revenue and expenditure should be co-related. Ireland'seconomic circumstances are widely different from those of Great Britain, but she has been included, without any regard to her needs and withoutany reference to Irish expenditure, in a system of taxation designedexclusively for the capacities and needs of Great Britain. Hence Irishrevenue is both excessive and inadequate. 

"Excessive"? "Inadequate"? What do these terms really mean? Let us onceand for all clear our minds of all obscurity and look the facts in theface. No one knows what Irish revenue and expenditure ought to be, orwould be, if Irishmen had controlled their own destinies. It is uselessto parade immense sums as the cash equivalent of over-taxation; it isidle to array against them rival figures of over-expenditure. NormalIrish revenue and normal Irish expenditure are matters of speculation. For all we know, Ireland, had she been permitted normal politicaldevelopment, would be raising a larger revenue, and feeling it less;while it is absolutely certain that she would be paying her own way andcontributing to Imperial services more, in proportion to her resources, than she did before the Union. The political and therefore the economicdevelopment of Ireland have been deliberately and forcibly arrested. Ido not say malignantly, because there was no malignant intention. Butthe action, if mistaken, was deliberately and consistently sustained. Much of Irish industrial talent was lost irrevocably before the oldindustrial restrictions were removed. There remained the land, animmense source of potential wealth, if properly developed under arational system of agrarian tenure. For the best part of a century afterthe Union, the agrarian tenure, dating from the first genuinecolonization of Ireland, when the land was confiscated wholesale and thepeasantry enslaved, was maintained by force of arms. Thirty years ago(if we date from the Land Act of 1881) we began to change this tenureinto another equally defective, though far more favourable to thetenant. A little later, but only eight years ago, on a thorough andsystematic scale, we began the parallel policy of Land Purchase. Evennow, having transferred half the land to peasant ownership, and placedthe other half under judicial rents, many of our statesmen are unwillingto give Ireland the control of its own affairs. On the contrary, stepby step with the economic enfranchisement of the farmers, has gone thepolicy of destroying their personal and political independence, andforcing them to look outside their own country for financial aid, byspending money upon Ireland which Irishmen have no direct responsibilityfor raising. What a travesty of statesmanship! First, having assistedthe farmer to buy his own land, to clap him on the back with "Now, myfine fellow, you are a free man. " In the same breath to tell him that heis not fit to have a direct voice in the management of his own country'saffairs, and to try and reconcile him to this insult by sapping thatvery independence of character which the acquirement of a freehold hasbegun to instil in him. 

I described in Chapter IX. How a number of patriotic Irishmen, workingboth at industrial and agricultural development, have striven tocounteract this fatal tendency, and to persuade their countrymen to relyon themselves alone. But I venture to repeat what I said then, thatwithout the bracing discipline of Home Rule, and, above all, of thefinancial Home Rule, these efforts are doomed to comparative failure. 

It is absolutely necessary to produce an equilibrium between revenue andexpenditure in Ireland, as in every other country in the world. Whateverthe temporary strain upon Ireland, whatever the sacrifices involved, thething must be done, and done now or never. Great Britain's interest issomething, but it is trivial beside that of Ireland. The situation isgrowing worse, not better, and Irishmen should unite to insist that thewhole system should stop. 

II. 

IRISH EXPENDITURE. 

Let us look a little more closely at Irish expenditure, as disclosed inthe Treasury returns. 

For purposes of comparison, I set out first the main heads of CivilExpenditure for England, Scotland, and Ireland in the year 1910-11:[119]

 Population. England, Scotland, Ireland, 36, 075, 269. 4, 759, 521. 4, 381, 951. 

 £ £ £Civil Government Charges, 1910-11: (_a_) On Consolidated Fund: (1) Civil List, Salaries, Pensions, and Miscellaneous Charges 340, 500 148, 000 138, 500 (2) Development and Road Improvement Funds (3) Payments to Local Taxation Accounts, etc. 7, 199, 500 1, 204, 500 1, 477, 500 (_b_) Voted 26, 121, 500 4, 180, 500 8, 026, 000

Total Civil Government Charges 33, 661, 500 5, 533, 000 9, 642, 000

Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue 3, 157, 000 464, 000 298, 000Post Office Services 15, 798, 500 1, 930, 000 1, 404, 500

Total Expenditure 52, 617, 000 7, 927, 000 11, 344, 500

 £ s. D. £ s. D. £ s. D. Per head of population 1 9 2 1 13 31/2 2 11 9

The totals, if we consider relative populations, appear startling. 

Look at the third, or Irish, column, and set aside the two last items, "Customs, Excise, and Inland Revenue, " and "Post-Office Services, " whichrepresent the cost of collecting Irish Revenue and maintaining the Irishpostal, telegraph, and telephone services. We may note in passing, however, that the Post-Office receipts in Ireland in 1910-11, accordingto the Treasury estimate, were less than the outgoings by £249, 000(receipts, £1, 155, 500; outgoings, £1, 404, 500). 

The Civil Government Charges are the most important heads of expense, and these are divided into two main classes: (_a_) charged onConsolidated Fund; (_b_) Voted. 

Class (_a_) consists of (1) Salaries, Pensions, etc. ; (2) Developmentand Road Improvement Funds; (3) Payments to Local Taxation Accounts. 

In other parts of Return No. 220 will be found the details ofexpenditure in these various classes:

(1) The Salaries and Pensions need not detain us long. The principalitem is judicial salaries, £102, 000, as compared with £282, 000 forEngland, which has more than eight times the population of Ireland. Another item, £20, 000 for the Lord-Lieutenant, is double the sumallotted to any Colonial Governor, even of the Dominion of Canada, whichhas nearly twice the population of Ireland. But the extravagance lies, not in the cash amount, but in the fact that the Irish Lord-Lieutenancyis, under present conditions, an anomalous institution. No Irishmanwould grudge a penny of the sum if the Lord-Lieutenant, like a ColonialGovernor, presided over a responsibly governed Ireland. 

(2) Road Improvement and Development Funds. This category is blank forthe year 1910-11. There will be payments for the current year which willswell the Irish expenditure. 

(3) Payments to Local Taxation Accounts, £1, 477, 500. This raises anintricate subject, into which I cannot enter in great detail. It is wellknown that the whole system of relieving local taxation out of Imperialtaxation needs thorough revision. Meanwhile Ireland, like other parts ofGreat Britain, has been allotted at various times a multitude ofdifferent grants under various Acts, but principally under the LocalGovernment (Ireland) Act, 1898, and the Finance Acts of recent years. 

Local Government on the British pattern was, as I have alreadydescribed, extended to Ireland only in 1898. The money now raised inIreland by Local Taxation is about £4, 800, 000, exclusive of the Grantsin Aid which we are now considering, and which appear, rightly, on thenational balance-sheet because they come from the common purse. [120]They are based on different principles, and originated in many differentways. Some are fixed annual sums, determined either by some arbitrarystandard or (as in the case of the Licence Duty grants and the Customsand Excise grants[121]) on the Irish proceeds of certain duties in ayear taken as standard. The Estate Duty grants still vary with the totalproduct of duties in the United Kingdom, and are still allocated on theproportion settled by Mr. Goschen in 1888--namely, 9 parts to Ireland, 11 to Scotland, and 80 to England. [122] If the proportion were to berevised now, and, on Mr. Goschen's method, made to correspond to therespective estimated contributions to Imperial Services, Ireland, instead of getting £418, 000, would get nothing at all. The largest itemin the list--namely, the "Agricultural Grant, " a fixed annual sum of£728, 000, dating from the Local Government Act of 1898--was designedpartly to reconcile Irish landlords to the passage of that Act. Nearlyhalf of it represented the remission of the landlord's half-share of thepoor-rate on agricultural land, as estimated in the standard year1896-97. The English precedent for this was the Agricultural Rates Actof 1896, which relieved the English owner of agricultural land in asimilar way. Irish conditions were so different, however, that it wasfelt necessary in this case to balance the landlord's boon with anequivalent boon to the tenant; so that half the tenant's share of thecounty cess was also remitted. The result was a disproportionately largegrant as compared with those received by England and Scotland. [123] Wemust remark, as one of the minor intricacies of Irish finance, that allthese grants do not actually go in relief of Local Taxation. Some ofthem are diverted to public Departments, such as the Board ofIntermediate Education, the Congested Districts Board, and theDepartment of Agriculture. 

All these grants will cease, as such, after Home Rule, while theiramount must be reckoned as part of the cost of Irish Government. TheIrish Parliament will have to revise the whole system of relief to LocalTaxation and establish it on some simple and rational basis. Meanwhile, it is important to remember that the Irish grants form the major part ofthe Guarantee Fund set up by the Land Purchase Acts, and, until the lastamending Land Act of 1909, were chargeable--the Estate Duties Grant, hithe first instance, the Agricultural Grant in the second instance--withthe increasingly heavy losses incurred in floating Land Stock below par. In 1908-09 the sums so withdrawn amounted to £90, 000. That liability wasremoved by Mr. Birrell's Act, and they now remain chargeable only withany arrears in the annuities paid by the purchasing tenants. This is anegligible liability, and should properly be placed upon the IrishGovernment as a whole, which, if it pleased, could recover the moneyfrom localities. [124]

We now reach the category _(b)_ "Voted, " and find in the Irish columnthe truly enormous sum of £8, 026, 000--nearly double that of Scotland(£4, 180, 500), which has a population slightly greater, and more than athird of that of England (£26, 121, 500), which has a population eighttimes as great. 

When we search the various tables of detailed expenditure, threeprominent items arrest our attention:

Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police[125] £1, 464, 500Old Age Pensions £2, 408, 000Public (_i. E. _, Primary) Education £1, 632, 000

 £5, 504, 500

Those three items may be said to epitomize the history of Ireland underthe Union--coercion, pauperization, deficient education. The first twoare, of course, intimately connected. The existing cost of police, surviving needlessly at the monstrous figure shown, represents the pastcost of enforcing laws economically hurtful to Ireland. The economichurt is reflected in the cost of Old Age Pensions paid to adisproportionately large number of old people, below the officialstandard of wealth, in a country drained by emigration for seventy yearspast of its strongest sons and daughters. Police in Ireland costs twiceas much as in England and Scotland, where (with the exception of the_London Metropolitan Police_) it is a local, not a national charge, while Irish Old Age Pensions cost in 1910-11 more than twice as much asScottish Pensions, and amounted to two-fifths of English Pensions. [126]With full allowance for excess payments owing to the lack of all birthrecords prior to a certain date, the Irish figure is relativelyenormous. It is £100, 000 greater than the whole cost of Irish Governmentin 1860, and, with the addition made in the estimates of the presentyear, it is just a million more than what, according to Sir DavidBarbour's reasoning, would have been the whole cost of Irish Governmentin 1893-94, had Irish expenditure, like Irish revenue, been inproportion to the taxable capacity of Ireland. 

I touched upon the Irish aspect of the policy of Old Age Pensions at p. 181. Whatever the pecuniary charge, I suggest that it is absolutelynecessary for Ireland in the future to control both payment and policy, and she might find it in her best interest, with due notice and dueregard to present interests, to halve the scale of pensions. It is not aquestion of the general policy of Old Age Pensions, but of theapplicability of a certain scale to Ireland, where agricultural wages(for example) average only 11s. 3d. As compared with 18s. 4d. ForEngland, and 19s. 7d. For Scotland. [127] Of all ways of remedying abackward economic condition, that of excessive pensions is the worst. 

The cost of Irish Primary Education--£1, 632, 000, as I pointed out inChapter IX. --is at once too high and too low; too high in the sense thatmuch of it is wasted owing to the lack of popular control, too low inthe sense that it is a scandal to spend nearly as much on police as onthe education of children, and £800, 000 more on Old Age Pensions than onthe education of children. If part or even the whole of the additionalexpense eventually necessary is raised by rates, so much the better. Accurate comparison is difficult with the English and Scottishexpenditure on elementary education, because the greater part of thecost in those countries is borne by private endowments and local rates, whereas in Ireland no local rate is raised for elementary education, there are no endowments, and private subscriptions are very small. [128]It is certain, however, that far greater sums, in proportion topopulation, are spent in England and Scotland than in Ireland. This islittle to be wondered at if we consider the painful history of educationin Ireland; but we cannot recall the past, and, as I urged in ChapterIX. , one of the first duties of a free Ireland will be to improve theeducation of the children. 

The Irish vote for Universities and Colleges, £166, 000, has been swelledby the recent establishment of the National University. No item in thewhole list represents money better spent. 

With regard to other Irish services, I shall make use, with ProfessorOldham's consent, of some interesting tables compiled by him, showingthe principal variations in Irish expenditure since the year1891-92. [129]

They include certain expenses which I have already alluded to, andothers which I shall have to remark upon further, besides giving ageneral view of the growth in the cost of Irish government. Neither oflists A or B is exhaustive:

A. INCREASES OF EXPENDITURE. 

 1910-11. 1891-92. £ £1. Old Age Pensions 2, 408, 000 --2. Primary Education 1, 632, 000 843, 7553. Universities and Colleges 166, 000 26, 0004. Payments to Local Taxation Account 1, 477, 500 399, 260

5. Ireland Development Grant 191, 500 --

6. Post Office 1, 404, 500 749, 0467. Cost of collecting Irish Revenue 298, 000 223, 3628. Surveys of the United Kingdom 81, 000 47, 603

9. Land Commission 414, 500 91, 82610. Department of Agriculture 415, 000 44, 63011. Other items (five[130]) 240, 500 172, 918 --------- --------- 8, 728, 500 2, 598, 400

Nos. 1 to 4 I have already dealt with, but it is interesting to note thecontrasting figures of 1893-94. 

No. 5. The Ireland Development Grant of £191, 500 is interesting as anexample of the haphazard methods of Anglo-Irish finance. It is an annualsum voted for various development purposes, and was originallyestablished (at the figure of £185, 000) in 1903 as an equivalent for thecapitation grants for school attendance in England, given under theEducation Act of 1902 in lieu of school fees. In allotting the Irishequivalent, Mr. Goschen's proportion of 80, 11, 9 was for the first timecondemned by all parties. What the proportion ought to be was a matterof dispute, but it was fixed in this case on the basis of population. Since the English grant has now risen to £2, 500, 000, the Irishproportion therefore is now, strictly speaking, inadequate. 

Nos. 6, 7, and 8 are examples of charges debited by the Treasury againstIreland which are open to criticism as long as the Union lasts, andwhich meet with much complaint in Ireland. Obviously, however, the firsttwo at any rate are charges which an Ireland financially independentwould have to bear. 

No. 9. The Land Commission vote of £414, 500 is of course the directresult of an abnormally bad system, necessitating abnormal and costlyremedial administration. Ireland herself is not morally responsible fora penny of it, but if she is wise she will shoulder the cost as acorollary of responsible government. Small administrative economies maybe made, and the cost will disappear altogether with the completion ofLand Purchase, say in fifteen years, but in the immediate future noreduction can be counted on with certainty. The figure given includesthe cost of the Land Commission proper, which deals with Judicial Rentsand manages finance, as well as the cost of the Estates Commissionerswho conduct the machinery of Land Purchase. It also includes losses onthe flotation of Land Stock at a discount, and the interest andsinking-fund on the Stock raised to pay the bonus to landlords. 

No. 10. The vote of £415, 000 for the Department of Agriculture, whoseorigin and functions I described in Chapter IX. , does not accuratelyshow the actual cost of the Department, because it excludes the greaterpart of an Endowment Income of £166, 000 a year, derived partly from theIrish Church Fund, partly from the Irish Local Taxation Account, andpartly from the interest on a capital endowment of £200, 000, as well asother small miscellaneous grants. But it includes a sum of about £44, 000for some museums, colleges, gardens, etc. , whose English counterpartsare subsidized under different votes, as well as the sum of £144, 000for the Congested Districts Board. [131] Nor does this latter sumrepresent the full cost of the Congested Districts Board, which has alsoan Endowment Income from the Irish Church Fund of £41, 250, a subsidyfrom the Ireland Development Grant, and a fluctuating income fromvarious sources--rents, etc. 

Part of the expense of the Department itself must be regarded asabnormal, in view of the extraordinarily backward economic condition ofthe country when it was founded. Nor, valuable as the Department's workis, can it be safely assumed that the cost is not extravagant. As longas any Department relies on an Imperial vote there can be no certaintythat the expenditure will be economical. The whole cost of the CongestedDistricts Board is abnormal. Its very existence is evidence of thefailure of external government in Ireland, and, as I urged in ChapterIX. , the whole question of the treatment of the congested districtsneeds thorough investigation at the hands of a responsible IrishGovernment. 

 B. REDUCTIONS IN EXPENDITURE. 

 1910-11. 1891-92. 

 £ £1. Relief of Distress 5, 000 183, 6752. Pauper Lunatics Grant 111, 6553. Teachers' Pensions Grant 90, 0004. Railways (Ireland) Grant 61, 000 341, 9345. Local Government Board 92, 500 132, 7486. Chief Secretary's Offices 27, 500 39, 6817. Registrar-General's Office 13, 000 29, 9268. Justice and Police 2, 090, 500 2, 129, 849 --------- --------- 2, 289, 500 3, 059, 468

Most of these reductions are deceptive. No. 1 is the saving of anabnormal grant, Nos. 2 and 5 signify mere transfers to Grants in Aid ofLocal Taxation, No. 7 a transfer of duties to the Department ofAgriculture. 

The table shows a total reduction of £769, 968, while Table A shows atotal increase of £6, 130, 000. Together they account for an increasesince 1891-92 of £5, 360, 032. 

Here is a similar table, confined to Justice and Police:

C. EXPENDITURE ON JUSTICE AND POLICE. 

 1910-11. 1891-92. £ £1. Judicial Salaries . .. . .. . .. 102, 000 110, 2442. Dublin Metropolitan Police . .. 93, 500 91, 9983. Royal Irish Constabulary . .. . .. 1, 371, 000 1, 362, 3484. Judicial Pensions, etc. . .. . .. 15, 000 18, 6565. Law Charges . .. . .. . .. . .. 65, 500 71, 9776. Superior Courts Offices . .. . .. 110, 500 116, 8517. County Courts Offices . .. . .. 109, 000 112, 8958. Prisons, etc. . .. . .. . .. . .. 112, 000 134, 4299. Reformatories, etc. . .. . .. . .. 112, 000 110, 451

 2, 090, 500 2, 129, 849

To Nos. 1, 2, and 3 I have already referred. The whole charge of twomillions, though it shows a slight decrease in twenty years, is grosslyout of proportion to the resources of Ireland. Under heads 6 and 7 areincluded a number of posts which are notoriously little more thansinecures. 

To sum up once more, the cost of the Irish Government as paid out of thecommon purse in the last completed financial year was £11, 344, 500, or £211s. 9d. Per head of the population, as compared with a cost per head of£1 9s. 2d. In England, and in Scotland of £1 13s. 31/2d. But this is notthe minimum figure with which we have to reckon in considering the HomeRule scheme; some items show a marked increase in the Estimates of thecurrent year: (1) The increase in Old Age Pensions, not certain yet, will be at least £250, 000. (2) The Land Commission is £544, 000, ascompared with £414, 500. (3) Universities and Colleges, £186, 256, ascompared with £166, 000. (4) Department of Agriculture, £426, 609, ascompared with £415, 000. (5) Registrar-General's Office, £29, 020, ascompared with £13, 000. (6) Valuation and Boundary Survey, £44, 581, ascompared with £30, 000. (7) Public Works and Buildings in Ireland, £273, 370, as compared with £215, 000. Even with allowance forover-estimates, especially in the last of these items, [132] we mustanticipate an increase of nearly half a million under the above heads, to which we must add £150, 000 recently allocated by the Road Board toIreland for the year 1911-12, and £34, 750 already allocated by theDevelopment Commissioners. If Ireland comes prematurely into theNational Insurance scheme, and assumes eventual financial responsibilityfor her share of the cost, that will be an additional source of expense;but it is to be hoped that her leaders, in common prudence, willhenceforth endeavour to stem the rising flood of Irish expenditure, andso facilitate the retrenchments imperatively necessary under Home Rule. As it is, the total outgoings of the current year (1911-12), swelled bythe increases shown above, will probably amount to £12, 000, 000, whilethis total will in its turn be added to by the office costs of the IrishLegislature and the salaries of Ministers. 

The scheme framed cannot assume immediate economies, and a responsibleIreland alone can decide the nature and extent of the drastic economieswhich must be made in the future. Beyond the brief remarks and hintsmade in the course of this chapter, I myself venture only to lay downthe broad proposition that, to the last farthing, Irish revenue mustgovern and limit Irish expenditure. For any hardship entailed inachieving that aim Ireland will find superabundant compensation in themoral independence which is the foundation of national welfare. She willbe sorely tempted to sell part of her freedom for a price. At whatevercost, she will be wise to resist. 

If Irish revenue is to be the measure of Irish expenditure, it followsthat it must be wholly, or at any rate predominately, under Irishcontrol. Let us look a little more closely, therefore, into its amountand composition. 

III. 

IRISH REVENUE. 

As I have already pointed out, in order to arrive at the present revenueof Ireland, our best course is to take the mean tax revenue of the twoyears 1909-10 and 1910-11, and to add to it the non-tax revenue of1910-11, which was, of course, unaffected by the delay in passing theBudget of 1909. For clearness, however, I first set out separately theIrish figures of these two years, distinguishing between tax revenue andnon-tax revenue, and giving the "collected" revenue and the "true"revenue in different columns:

 1909-10. 1910-11. 

 Revenue as Revenue as Collected. "True. " Collected. "True"

TAX REVENUE. £ £ £ £Customs 2, 742, 000 2, 755, 000 3, 103, 000 2, 977, 000Excise 4, 487, 000 2, 898, 000 5, 826, 000 3, 734, 000Estate, etc. , Duties 684, 000 684, 000 1, 144, 000 1, 144, 000Stamps 293, 000 315, 000 326, 000 351, 000Income Tax 388, 000 451, 000 1, 825, 000 2, 164, 000Land Value Duties -- -- 1, 000 1, 000

Total Irish Revenue fromTaxes 8, 594, 000 7, 103, 000 12, 225, 000 10, 371, 000

NON-TAX REVENUE. Postal Service 900, 000 900, 000 935, 000 935, 000Telegraph Service 180, 000 180, 000 185, 500 185, 500Telephone Service 30, 000 30, 000 35, 000 35, 000Crown Lands 26, 000 26, 000 24, 500 24, 500Miscellaneous 116, 000 116, 000 114, 500 114, 500

Total Irish Non-TaxRevenue 1, 252, 000 1, 252, 000 1, 294, 500 1, 294, 500

Aggregate Irish 9, 846, 000 8, 355, 000 13, 519, 500 11, 665, 500Revenue

Percentage of the AggregateRevenue of theUnited Kingdom 7. 52 6. 38 6. 57 5. 67

On p. 276 are the details of the mean tax revenue, "collected" and"true, " of the two years 1909-10, 1910-11, with the non-tax revenue ofthe latest year, 1910-11, added to them. 

PRESENT IRISH REVENUE (MEAN OF THE LAST TWO YEARS). 

Details of Revenue. Mean Collected Mean "True" or Tax "Contributed" Tax Revenue of the Revenue of the Years 1909-10, Years 1909-10, 1910-11. 1910-11. 

 TAX REVENUE. £ £Indirect{Customs 2, 922, 500 2, 866, 000Taxation{Excise 5, 156, 500 3, 316, 000 (incl. Licences £284, 500)

Total Indirect Taxation 8, 079, 000 6, 182, 000

 {Estate Duties 914, 000 914, 000Direct Taxation{Stamps 309, 500 333, 000 {Income Tax 1, 106, 500 1, 307, 500 {Land Value Duties 1, 000 1, 000

Total Direct Taxation 2, 331, 000 2, 555, 500

Total Tax Revenue 10, 410, 000 8, 737, 500

NON TAX REVENUE (1910 11). Postal Service 935, 000 935, 000Telegraph Service 185, 500 185, 500Telephone Service 35, 000 35, 000Crown Lands 24, 000 24, 500Miscellaneous 114, 500 114, 500

Total Non Tax Revenue (1910 11) 1, 294, 500 1, 294, 500

 Collected "True" or Revenue "Contributed" at the Revenue at the Present Day. Present Day, Aggregates 11, 704, 500 10, 032, 000

The two aggregate figures at the bottom, £11, 704, 500 and £10, 032, 000, approximately represent the Treasury estimate of the "collected" and the"true" revenue of Ireland, respectively, at the present day. They areconfirmed by the figures of previous years; for the average revenue ofthe five years, 1904-09, was as follows: "collected, " £11, 320, 000;"true" or "contributed, " £9, 612, 400, the new taxation of 1909-10 havingadded £500, 000 to the "true" revenue. I must again remind the reader, however, that the figures are open to the criticism that the adjustmentbetween the "collected" tax revenue and the "true" revenue is inaccurateowing to the methods employed by the Treasury. It will be observed thatthe resulting net deduction from the "collected" tax revenue of to-day, a deduction attributable, on the balance of the various figures, almostexclusively to Excise, [133] and mainly to the Excise duty on spirits, amounts to £1, 672, 500, and makes all the difference between the solvencyand insolvency of Ireland regarded as an independent financial unit. Herexpenditure, it will be remembered, was £11, 344, 500, her "collected"revenue £11, 704, 500, leaving a surplus of £360, 000, which becomes adeficit of £1, 312, 500 if we reckon only the "true" or "contributed"revenue of £10, 032, 000. On the other hand, the principle, asdistinguished from the methods of adjustment, is perfectly sound if wewish to arrive at a correct idea of the financial position of Ireland. The £1, 672, 500 virtually represents the duties on goods exported fromIreland, and consumed in Great Britain, or rather the excess of theseduties over those levied on goods exported from Great Britain andconsumed in Ireland. The consumer pays the tax on dutiable commodities, and a financially independent Ireland could not raise revenue twice overfrom the same commodity. She would, for example, have to give a drawbackfrom the Excise duty on spirits exported to England, since a Customsduty would be levied on its import into England. On the other hand, shewould be entitled to every penny of revenue derived from the tea andsugar imported into and consumed within her borders, and to the fullincome tax on property held by Irishmen. 

Now, for two reasons, I do not propose to make any exhaustive inquiryinto the accuracy of Treasury adjustments for "true" revenue. My firstreason is, that full material for calculation cannot be obtained by anyprivate individual, and could not be obtained and worked up even by theTreasury without an enormous expenditure of time and trouble. The mostcareful inquiry I have seen is embodied in an exceedingly able pamphletby "an Irishman, " entitled "The Financial Relations of Ireland with theImperial Exchequer, " and I mention below a few of the criticisms made bythe writer. His and other investigations seem to prove that Irishrevenue is considerably underestimated, perhaps by half a million. [134]My second reason is that errors of adjustment in either direction cannotaffect in any substantial way the kind of financial scheme we are toadopt in the Home Rule Bill. 

Let us fix our attention, then, on the second of the two columns in thetable on p. 276, showing the aggregate "true" revenue of Ireland at thepresent day. Disregard the non-tax revenue from the various postalservices (which represents payment for services rendered, and isswallowed up by an excess on the expenditure side of £249, 000), andexamine the heads of tax revenue shown in the upper half of the column. It will be seen that 70-75 per cent. Of Irish "true" revenue is derivedfrom Customs and Excise duties, which, with the exception perhaps oflicence duties, may be classed as indirect taxation. The deduction for"true" revenue, it will be observed, has considerably modified theproportion, which for "collected" revenue works out at 77. 61 per cent. , or nearly four-fifths. 

As the reader is aware, this is not a new feature in Irish finance. Itformed the basis of the Report of the Financial Relations Commissionwith regard to the over-taxation of Ireland. Much the greater part ofIrish revenue, even since the abolition of protective duties and thesubstitution of direct taxation, has always been derived from taxes onarticles of common consumption, the simple reason being that Ireland isa country where there is little accumulated wealth from which to extractdirect taxation. In Great Britain, whose circumstances dictate thefinance of the United Kingdom, no less than 54. 79 per cent. Of the taxrevenue is derived from direct taxation, only 45. 21 per cent. FromCustoms and Excise. [135]

The Irish figures show that to retain in the hands of the ImperialParliament the control of Irish Customs and Excise will be to retainalmost paramount control over Irish revenue; to deny Ireland the mainlever she needs for co-ordinating her expenditure and her revenue, andfor making her taxation suitable to her economic conditions. It will beto preserve the framework of a fiscal system which the highest financialauthorities have pronounced to be unfair to Ireland, and whichincontrovertible facts show to be uneconomical both for Ireland andGreat Britain. 

Meanwhile that system has at length produced a deficit, with which Ishall deal in the next chapter. Its amount, probably exaggerated, mustnecessarily remain uncertain under the present fiscal Union. One thingalone is certain, that it will grow as long as that Union lasts. 

FOOTNOTES:

[115] _I. E. _, on the generally accepted basis of (1) assessment to deathduties, (2) assessment to income-tax. With regard to (1), in the lastreport of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, the figure for the UnitedKingdom was £371, 808, 534; for Ireland, £15, 872, 302, or 1/234. Withregard to (2), the figure for the United Kingdom was 1009. 9 millions;for Ireland, 39. 7 millions, or 1/254. Deduct a small allowance for thedifference between resources and taxable capacity, and the resultapproximately is one-twenty-fifth. 

[116]

Total revenue (including non-tax revenue) of United Kingdom (mean of two years. 1909-10, 1910-11) £165, 147, 500One-twenty-fifth £6, 605, 900Actual "true" revenue contributed by Ireland (mean of two years, 1909-10, 1910-11) £10, 032, 000 -----------"Over-taxation" £3, 426, 100

If only the tax-revenue be taken, the over-taxation amounts to£3, 109, 800 (total revenue for United Kingdom, £140, 680, 000;one-twenty-fifth=£5, 627, 200; actual Irish revenue, £8, 737, 000). Somemembers of the Royal Commission made certain allowances for educationgrants, etc. , which it would be useless to parallel now. 

[117] See pp. 248-249. 

[118] See p. 259, footnote. 

[119] Treasury Return, No. 220, 1911. 

[120] A list is given at p. 10 of Return 220 (1911), and an admirableexposition of the whole subject from the Irish standpoint will be foundin Professor Oldham's seventh published lecture on the "Public Financesof Ireland" (1911). 

[121] The "Whisky Money" was so treated under the Finance Act of 1910. 

[122] See p. 238. 

[123] Between 1896 and 1898 the equivalent grants to Scotland andIreland were based on the Goschen proportion, 80, 11, 9, the Englishgrant being taken as standard. Scotch grants are now determined byspecial legislation. 

[124] See Chapter XIV. 

[125] Only part of the Dublin Metropolitan Police is paid out of StateFunds, the rest by the City of Dublin. 

[126] The relative figures were: Ireland, £2, 408, 000; Scotland, £1, 064, 000; England, £6, 325, 500. The recent removal of thedisqualification for Poor Law Relief adds considerably to these amounts. 

[127] In the poorest parts of Ireland they range as low as 9s. 

[128] See pp. 174-176. In 1908, England and Wales spent £21, 987, 004 onelementary education, and raised £10, 467, 804 for it in rates. Of therest, £11, 104, 305 came from Parliamentary grants. Fees and endowmentincomes of voluntary schools are not included (Statistical Abstract ofUnited Kingdom, 1910). 

The actual Parliamentary Votes, as they appear in the accounts for1910-11, are: England (Class IV. ), "Board of Education, " £14, 166, 500;Scotland, "Public Education, " £2, 250, 000; Ireland, "Public Education, "£1, 632, 000. But the English Votes include sums devoted to technicaleducation, museums, etc. , whose counterparts in Ireland come under otherdepartments. 

[129] Two years earlier than the date I have chiefly used for thepurposes of comparison, but the difference is not material. In point offact, the expenditure was £300, 000 less in the later than in the earlieryear. 

[130] (1) Rates on Government Buildings; (2) Superannuation; (3)Government Printing; (4) Board of Works; (5) Home Office. 

[131] Department of Agriculture, Endowment Fund:

 { (1) Local Taxation Account £78, 000 Income from --{ (2) Irish Church Fund £70, 000 (3) Interest on Capital sum of £200, 000. 

 Also (in 1909-10): From Ireland Development Fund £7, 000 Under an Act of 1902 £5, 000

[132] The amount _voted_ for Public Works in 1910-11 was £259, 848 [see"Civil Service Estimates" for 1911-12 (No. 63--1911)]; the amount_spent_, according to Return No. 220, £215, 000. 

[133] Under the heads of Excise, the principal deduction is in Spirits(£1, 793, 000 in 1910-11) and Beer (£309, 000 in 1910-11). 

The items of Irish tax revenue in which the Treasury make _no_adjustment are: Excise Licenses (£356, 000 in 1910-11); Club Duty (£2, 000in 1910-11); "other items" (£10, 000 in 1910-11); Cards and PatentMedicines (£10, 000 in 1910-11); "Estate, etc. , Duties" (£1, 144, 000 in1910-11); Income Tax (Schedules A and B) (£694, 000 in1910-11--abnormally large figure owing to non-collection in previousyear); Land Value Duties (£1, 000 in 1910-11). 

All the heads of Customs revenue are subject to adjustment, though thetotal result is only a small deduction from Ireland (£126, 000 in1910-11). In all but two the adjustment is in favour of Ireland. The twoexceptions are "Foreign Spirits, " where a deduction of £25, 000 is madein 1910-11, and Tobacco, where a deduction of £620, 000 is made in1910-11. 

[134] _Income Tax_, Schedules C and D (dividends from Government Stocks, public companies, foreign dividends, etc. ). The Treasury estimate (asstated in a side-note to the Return) is based on statistics of _EstateDuty_ for the five years ending 1908. But what light can Estate Dutythrow on (for example) the dividends collected at the source fromBritish or foreign securities held by Irish banks? Schedule C deals with"Government Stocks, etc. , " Schedule D with "Public Companies, ForeignDividends, etc. , " but in the adjustment for "true" revenue nodistinction is made between them. Now the Banking Statistics (Ireland)of 1910 show that dividends were payable at the Bank of Ireland on£38, 732, 000 of Government securities, and that, in addition, a debtbearing interest was due to the Bank from the Government of 21/2 millions. Income Tax on these items alone would be £65, 000, less rebates; but thewhole of Schedule C, which includes Foreign and Colonial GovernmentStocks, is given in 1909-10 as only £30, 000. 

No attempt is made to credit Ireland with a share of the profits made byEnglish and Scottish companies through business done in Ireland. 

The only reliable items in Income Tax are those of A and B (Land, Houses, and Occupation of Land), where in 1908-09 Ireland contributedabout 6 per cent. Of the total; under other heads, according to theTreasury, only 3. 5 per cent. The writer estimates the true contributionas several hundred thousand pounds more. 

_Post Office_. --The Treasury give no clue as to how they calculate theprofit and loss on Postal Services. Figures of letters, telegrams, parcels, etc. , delivered in Ireland are known from thePostmaster-General's report, but the report does not distinguish Irishfrom English postal orders, of which 1211/2 millions were issued in theUnited Kingdom in 1909-10. There is good reason to believe that a partof the postal profit now wholly credited to England should in reality becredited to Ireland. 

_Stamps_. --Far too little allowance is made by the Treasury for stampson transfers executed through English and Scottish exchanges for sharesbought or sold by Irishmen, and for bonds, deeds, insurances, issues ofcapital, etc. 

_Tea and Sugar_. --The Treasury base their calculation "on quantitiesinter-changed between Great Britain and Ireland in 1903-04, " and I learnfrom the Inland Revenue Department that by this means the consumptionper head of the population was arrived at, and that the present officialfigures are based on the assumption that the relation of consumption perhead in Ireland to consumption per head in the United Kingdom as a wholehas not altered since 1903-04. The unreliability of this assumption ismanifest. It is probable that the heavy additional duty on spirits hasraised the consumption of tea in Ireland more than in Great Britain, andthe figures of Imports compiled by the Department of Agriculture seem toconfirm this view. 

[135] On the basis of the mean revenue of 1909-10 and 1910-11. 

CHAPTER XIII

FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE

I. 

THE ESSENCE OF HOME RULE. 

Let us now sum up this financial question, and give its place in thegeneral problem of Home Rule. In Chapter X. I argued that, on broadgrounds of political policy, Ireland, in her own interest, and in thegeneral interest of the United Kingdom, should have "Colonial" Home Rulewithout representation in the Imperial Parliament. Leaving financetemporarily aside, while observing that any substantial Imperial controlover Irish finance would defeat the "colonial" solution of the problem, I endeavoured to show that there were no tenable grounds of anon-financial character for retaining Irish Members at Westminster, norany dangers to be feared from excluding them. I have now reviewed thehistory of Anglo-Irish finance up to the present day, and I hope in sodoing to have proved that, so far from presenting an obstacle to"Colonial" Home Rule, the financial conditions demand such a solution. Finance and policy are inseparably one. All the considerations whichrender Home Rule desirable lead irresistibly to the financialindependence of Ireland, with complete control assigned to her over allbranches of taxation. Without financial independence it is impossible torealize the objects of Home Rule. It would be a miracle were the caseotherwise. Ireland would, indeed, be abnormal if, after her history, shecould reach prosperity and stability without passing through a phase offinancial independence. No parallel, even in the most distant degree, could be found for any such metamorphosis in the whole of the BritishEmpire. 

If we study Ireland's interest, we shall promote Imperial interests. Themain object of Home Rule is to make Ireland self-reliant. Lord Welby andhis colleagues were right in 1896 when they declared that ideal to beimpracticable without giving Ireland entire responsibility both for herrevenue and her expenditure. This declaration is as true as ever. Thesituation has changed only in one respect: that financial independencewill now mean a financial sacrifice to Ireland, whereas in 1896 it wouldhave meant a financial gain to Ireland--that is, if Lord Welby'srecommendation in favour of remitting the Irish contribution to Imperialservices had been carried out. At that time Ireland contributed twomillions. Now Great Britain contributes over a million to Ireland. Sooner or later that subsidy must stop, and the sooner it stops thebetter. 

But it is of vital importance that Ireland should understand thesituation. The present position is dangerous, because the Irish peopleat large are ignorant of the facts, and their leaders are taking nosteps to enlighten them. The reasons are intelligible, but they are notsound reasons. Paced with the facts and the choice, Ireland would nothesitate, but she must know the facts and understand the nature of thechoice. 

II. 

THE DEFICIT. 

Let us deal at once with the question of the deficit. It isinconceivable surely that the existence of a deficit should be used asan argument against financial independence, much less as an argumentagainst Home Rule in general. Will anyone be found to say that an islandwith a fertile soil, several nourishing industries, and a cleverpopulation of four and a half millions, is to be regarded, whatever itspast history, as incapable of supporting a Government of its own out ofits own resources? Let nobody be tempted by the fallacy that, giventime, Ireland will regain financial stability under the fiscal Union, and at a later stage, perhaps, be more fitted to bear the burden offiscal independence. The supposition is chimerical. The present system, besides being radically vicious in a purely scientific sense, underminesthe moral power of Ireland to secure her own regeneration. 

It is now 1911. The deficit, once a large surplus, came into being onlytwo years ago. It was the direct and inevitable result of a fiscal Unionagainst which Ireland has for generations unceasingly protested, and itwas a result actually foretold in 1896 by Lord Welby and his twocolleagues. It could have been averted, as they pointed out, only by aform of Home Rule giving financial independence to Ireland. But thewarning was older than the Report of the Financial Relations Commission. Mr. Gladstone told the House of Commons in 1886, when introducing hisHome Rule Bill, that no limit could be set to Irish expenditure underthe Union; he and Sir William Harcourt repeated the warning in 1893, andif the reader will study the debates on the financial clauses of theBill of 1893, [136] he will find pages of bitter diatribe founded on thesmall net contribution from Ireland to Imperial services for which therevised financial scheme provided. Ireland, said the Opposition, was tomake money out of Great Britain, and escape her fair proportion ofImperial charges. Mr. Chamberlain showed that, with allowance forpayment from the Imperial purse of part of the cost of Irish police, thenet initial contribution was about one-fortieth, and asked: "Is Irishpatriotism a plant of such sickly growth that it has to be watered withBritish gold?" The taunt was as pointless as it was cruel, for althoughthe Union had kept Ireland poor, Irish leaders, in spite of thatpoverty, had asked for a financial independence which Mr. Gladstone inneither of his Bills felt disposed to give her. Mr. Chamberlain had hisway; the Union was maintained, and as a result Ireland's actualcontribution of two millions at that date has been replaced by a subsidyfrom Great Britain. Are we to be told now by Unionists that the Unionmust be maintained in order to maintain this subsidy? or by Home Rulersthat the Irish deficit is an argument for the perpetuation of thefinancial dependence which caused it, and an insuperable bar to thefinancial independence which alone can extinguish it?

No; let us look the facts in the face. Here is a deficit officiallygiven as £1, 312, 000. It is probably less, owing to an underestimate ofIrish revenue. But it may grow to be more, even with allowance for anautomatic growth of revenue, owing to the increased votes of the presentyear, and the expenses peculiar to the establishment of the new IrishLegislature and Government. What her really healthy and normal revenueshould be only Ireland herself can discover in the future. What herright expenditure should be she alone can determine. We can only workupon the data we have before us. Economy cannot be instantaneous, eitherin Ireland or anywhere else. Assume, then, an initial deficit in theIrish balance-sheet on the basis of present taxation. Its exact sizecannot affect the manner of dealing with it. How are we to deal with it?

Let us dismiss at once the theory of "restitution" with the earnest hopethat we shall hear nothing of it in the coming controversy. No Irishmanwill argue that a subsidy to the extent of, or exceeding the deficit, isa good thing in itself, and should be large and lasting because it willrepresent compensation for money unfairly exacted in the past. It is, indeed, true that the Union impoverished Ireland, but the most grievouswrong was moral, and for that wrong alone is reparation possible. HomeRule is not worth fighting for if it has not as its end and aim aself-reliant and self-supporting Ireland. Nor does it improve theargument in the least to represent the subsidy as productive expenditurefor the purpose of raising Ireland's taxable capacity and improving hereconomic position. No money raised outside of Ireland will have thateffect. Once admit the principle of restitution, and where are you tostop? What rational or scientific limit can be set to it? More pertinentquestion still, what are the conditions which will inevitably be imposedin exchange? Ireland cannot have it both ways. She must either hold outfor financial independence or, for every financial boon, submit to acorresponding deduction from her political liberty. 

If there were no alternative between financial independence without afarthing of temporary aid, and permanent financial dependence with apermanent loss of liberty, it would pay Ireland a thousandfold in thefuture to choose the former scheme, remodel taxation promptly to meetthe initial deficit, and with equal promptitude set on foot such adrastic reduction of expenditure as would ensure the rapid attainment ofa proper financial equilibrium. When once the Irish realized the issue, they would accept the responsibility with all its attendant sacrifices, which would no doubt be severe. 

But there is an alternative, and that is to make good the initialdeficit, whatever the financial authorities finally pronounce it to be, with an initial subsidy of equal size, or perhaps of somewhat greatersize so as to admit of a small initial surplus, _but destined todiminish by stated amounts, and within a few years to terminate_. Tosuch assistance, given unconditionally, Ireland has an unanswerableclaim, and to such assistance she ought, in my opinion, to limit herclaim. Until two years ago she contributed uninterruptedly, andsometimes excessively, to the support of the Empire. With men and moneyshe has made efforts for the common weal which no self-governing Colonyhas made, though she has been treated, politically and financially, asnot even a Crown Colony has been treated. Just at the point where theself-governing Colonies, thanks to the liberty allowed them, arebeginning to contribute indirectly to the defence of the Empire, Ireland, as the ultimate result of a century of coercive government, ceases to contribute. She can claim honourably, if she wills, to beplaced, by temporary financial aid from the authority which isresponsible for her undoing, in the financial position of aself-governing Colony. 

From the British point of view it is difficult to see any validobjection to the course suggested. There will be no stinginess in thesettlement. Even if there were any disposition in that direction, itwould be idle to grudge the initial subsidy, because an equivalent sumis already being paid. The Union will infallibly continue to accentuatethe deficit and increase the resulting burden on the taxpayers of GreatBritain. The plan proposed would eventually remove that burden. But, obviously, its success hinges on the concession of full financial powersto an Ireland unrepresented at Westminster. In their own interests, ifnot for very shame, Englishmen should decline to make use of the oldadage, that "he who pays the piper should call the tune. " For more thana century Ireland paid the piper and England called the tune--and what atune, and with what results! Representation has nothing to do with thecase. Precedents are needless, but there are, as a fact, many. CrownColonies have frequently received free grants for the relief ofdistress--Jamaica and other West Indian islands, for example. TheTransvaal and Orange River Colony received several millions after thewar to enable the ruined farmers to start business on a footing ofsolvency. During the whole period of their adolescence, and, indeed, until quite a recent date, all the self-governing Colonies werevirtually subsidized by the allocation of British forces for localdefence, maintained at the Imperial charge. And Ireland paid her shareof this charge. Similar garrisons were, are, and will be, maintained inIreland. Yes, but Ireland contributed to their cost, and in course oftime will, it is to be hoped, resume her contributions with a gladderheart and a freer conscience than ever before. 

Canada was economically stagnant under coercion. If, in her case, we hadcarried coercion as far as we carried it in Ireland, it would have beennecessary to give her a temporary subsidy in order to enable her toassume the position of a self-governing Colony. Ireland's proximity doesnot alter economic laws. "Facts are stubborn things, " and these are theIrish facts. Duty apart, no more profitable investment could possibly bemade by the British tax-payer than a subsidy designed to enable Irelandto stand on her legs again. The present tribute to her is a dead loss. 

The subsidy, if given, ought, I submit, on no account to be earmarked, on the bad precedent set by the Bills of 1886 and 1893, [137] for anyparticular head of expenditure in Ireland, as for Police, Pensions, LandCommission, or Education. As I have shown previously, nothing is easierthan to pick out items of excessive expenditure, or ofunder-expenditure, for which Ireland is not herself responsible. But toallocate a grant specially to any of these purposes would be superfluousunless the intention were to maintain Imperial control over the servicein question. As I urged in Chapter X. , none of the services mentionedabove ought to be retained under Imperial control. Extravagance in thefirst three will not be properly checked, save by a responsible Ireland. Nor will extra money on Education be properly spent until it is raisedand spent by Ireland. There are no other services, with the possibleexception of Posts, to which a subsidy could possibly be applicable. Even in that case an earmarked subsidy would be out of place. But Postsare outside the point we are discussing. If for mutual convenience theywere to be kept under Imperial control--a step which would not renderimperative Irish representation at Westminster--their finance wouldremain, as at present, common to the whole United Kingdom. There isofficially held, on bad evidence, to be a loss on Irish Posts of£249, 000, and this loss is debited against Ireland, and goes to swellthe deficit we have been considering. With the Posts under Imperialcontrol, the initial deficit to be made good by subsidy would be reducedby the amount of the loss. Should it, however, be decided that Irelandis fairly entitled to a share of the large general profit earned by thePostal Services of the United Kingdom, the annual profit so attributableto Ireland would be set off against the annual subsidy as long as thesubsidy lasted, and after it was at an end would be a clear item ofrevenue to Ireland. My own opinion, as I stated in Chapter X. , is thatthe Irish postal system, whether standing by itself it shows a profit ora loss, ought to be under Irish control. 

III. 

FUTURE CONTRIBUTION TO IMPERIAL SERVICES. 

This must be left a voluntary matter for Ireland, as it is for theself-governing Colonies. There is no contribution from Ireland atpresent, and to fix a future date at which a fixed contribution, likethat from the Isle of Man, should begin, is a course hardly practicableeven if it were desirable. 

IV. 

IRELAND'S SHARE OF THE NATIONAL DEBT. 

Until two years ago Ireland, of course, contributed, _inter alia_, tothe annual interest and sinking fund, amounting in 1910-11 to£24, 554, 000, on the National Debt of the United Kingdom. It isimpossible to estimate her share of the capital of the Debt, and Iscarcely think that anyone would seriously propose to encumber the newIreland with an old Debt, based on some arbitrary estimate. For thegreat bulk of Debt created in the past she has little moralresponsibility--no more, at any rate, than the self-governing Colonies. In this respect she must begin, like them, with a clean sheet. 

V. 

IRELAND'S SHARE OF IMPERIAL MISCELLANEOUS REVENUE. 

On the other hand, Ireland, in consideration of the remissionsmentioned, must renounce the share to which she is technically entitledof the Imperial Miscellaneous Revenue, derived mainly from Suez Canalshares and the Mint, and amounting altogether in 1910-11 to£2, 769, 500. [138]

VI. 

IRISH CONTROL OF CUSTOMS AND EXCISE. 

Let us now come to close quarters with this important issue. The grandargument on the affirmative side is that the products of these dutiesrepresent nearly four-fifths of the tax revenue collected in Ireland. What are the objections?

We need scarcely consider the general objection, sometimes madeostensibly in the interests of Ireland, that her public men have littlefinancial experience. The fact is true, and it is not their fault. Butthe financial scheme cannot reasonably be based on a recognition of atemporary lack of experience. 

I place Customs and Excise together because I believe there is noserious question of making a distinction between the two, and ofallowing Ireland to levy and collect her own Excise duties, whiledenying her authority over Customs. It is true that until 1860 such adistinction was made, and a lower Excise duty levied upon Irish thanupon British spirits;[139] but the tendency in all modern States is tomake the authority over Customs the same as that over Excise, and anydeparture from that principle, in the case of modern Ireland, is likelyto cause considerable inconvenience. License Duties, which are includedunder the head of Excise, may, no doubt, without much inconvenience, bedifferentiated from the rest, but their Irish proceeds (£284, 000) aretoo small to influence the question. 

Excise, then, follows Customs. What are the objections to givingIreland, like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, control over herown Customs? Without doubt, the establishment of a new Customs barrierbetween Ireland and Great Britain is in itself a drawback. TheCustom-house machinery exists, of course, at present, because Ireland isan island; nor would the additional function of checking British as wellas foreign imports into Ireland cause any great increase of expense; butsince the great bulk of Irish external trade is with Great Britain, there will unquestionably be a certain amount of inconvenience andexpense both to Ireland and Great Britain in submitting merchandise onboth sides of the Irish Channel to the passage of a Customs barrier. 

That seems to be the limit to which criticism can justly go in the caseof Ireland and Great Britain. That is as far as it goes in the analogouscase of New Zealand and the Australian Commonwealth, where a smallisland State has a separate Customs system from that of a large, wealthy, and populous neighbour of the same race, and with manyidentical interests. That is as far as it goes in the parallel case oflittle Newfoundland and the great Dominion of Canada. Neither theDominion nor the Commonwealth claim that proximity, power, and racialidentity give them the right to control the trade and taxation of theirsmall independent neighbours, nor does the smallest friction result fromthe mutual independence. On the contrary, both the Dominions and theCommonwealth were founded on that vital principle of a pre-existentState independence surrendered voluntarily for larger ends. The wholeEmpire depends on the principle of local autonomy, and, above all, onthe principle of local financial autonomy. Endeavours in America tosustain the opposite theory led to disaster. We have for generationsregarded it as perfectly natural that the self-governing Colonies shouldhave Customs systems of their own, even when they are used for thepurpose of imposing heavy duties on goods coming from the MotherCountry, and we know that that liberty has borne fruit a hundredfold inaffection and loyalty to the Imperial Government. Until the Union ofGreat Britain and Ireland it was regarded as equally natural thatIreland should have control of her own Customs, along with all otherbranches of revenue. Even after the Union, although there was no Irishcontrol over anything Irish, it was recognized, until the fiscalunification of the two countries in 1817, that Irish conditions requireda separate Customs system, which, in fact, existed until 1826. [140] Howfiscal unification and the subsequent abolition of separate Customs wasbrought about I have told in Chapter XI. It is not a pleasant story. Tosay the least, the conditions, moral and material, were not such as towarrant the inference that there is any inherent necessity for jointCustoms between Ireland and Great Britain. The presumption raised by allsubsequent events is in the opposite direction. 

But the tradition of unified Customs, now nearly a century old, hasimmense potency, and unless it is fearlessly scrutinized and challenged, may be able, reinforced by the passions excited by the great controversyover Free Trade and Protection, to defy the warnings writ large upon thepage of history. The tradition must be so challenged. Say what we willabout the proximity of Ireland and Great Britain, descant as we will inlaw-books, pamphlets, leading articles, debates, on what oughttheoretically to be the fiscal relations of the two countries, we cannotescape from the fact that, in this as in so many other respects, boththe human and economic problem before us is fundamentally a colonialproblem, and that its being so is not the fault of Ireland, but of GreatBritain. 

Belief in Home Rule seems to me necessarily to involve a willingness togive Ireland her Customs. Great Britain has no moral right to lay itdown that her views about trade shall govern the course of Irish policy;and if Great Britain believes sincerely in Home Rule, she should bewilling to trust Ireland, regardless of the economic consequences, andregardless of the effect upon the great Tariff controversy. 

The effect upon that controversy I shall not discuss. It seems to me topossess only a tactical and electioneering interest, and that side ofthe Home Rule problem I have rigidly avoided, while expressing ingeneral terms my belief that sound policy and sound tactics in realitycoincide. The Home Rule Bill is far more likely to be wrecked bytimidity than by boldness, by precautions and compromises than by afearless accommodation of British policy to Irish facts and needs. 

As to the danger to Great Britain of separate Irish Customs, it seemsto me to be greatly exaggerated. Ireland's own interests will primarilydictate her action. What she will decide her interest to be, nobody canforetell with certainty beyond a limited point, because Irish publicopinion is not formed. Ireland has taken little or no part in the fiscalcontroversy, for the simple reason that she has been absorbed in thetask of getting Home Rule, and until she gets it she is precluded fromformulating a trustworthy national opinion on most of the great subjectswhich agitate modern societies. There is, however, no tradition infavour of high Protection, even from Grattan's commercially freeParliament. The question of a low protective or purely revenue tariff onimports has not received any serious investigation. Let us frankly admitat the outset that no country in the world, economically situated asIreland is, dispenses with a general tariff of some sort, andundoubtedly there are to-day a good many Irishmen outside political lifewho advocate the encouragement of infant Irish manufacturing industriesby sufficient protective duties directed against Great Britain as wellas against the outside world. It would be strange if there were not, inview of the distressing past history of Ireland's throttled industries, and in view of the strenuous efforts now being made by the DevelopmentAssociations to push the manufacture and sale of Irish goods in allparts of the world. There are many avowed Free Traders also; nor are theDevelopment Associations themselves officially protectionist. Theopinion is sometimes expressed that Ireland, which could easily beself-supporting in the matter of food, occupies an unhealthy position inexporting a large proportion of her own agricultural produce, butter, bacon, meat, etc. , and in importing for her own consumption inferiorBritish and foreign qualities of some of the principal foodstuffs; but, so far as it is possible to ascertain it, the predominant opinion seemsto be that an agricultural tariff would not be a good remedy for thisweakness, if it be one, and that Ireland's future development, like thatof Denmark, lies in the increasingly scientific organization of heragricultural industries, and in the better cultivation of her own soil. "Better farming, better business, better living, " to use the admirablemotto invented by Sir Horace Plunkett for the I. A. O. S. In the absence ofan Irish Legislature, no special importance can be attached toindividual expressions of opinion. Yet a measure of prophecy ispermissible. The Irish Legislature will have to study the nationalinterest, and it is possible to say with certainty at least this--thatIreland's interest lies in maintaining close and friendly traderelations with Great Britain. Unfortunately, we have no means ofaccurately ascertaining the amount of trade done by Ireland with GreatBritain and with foreign and colonial countries respectively. Irishcommerce takes, of course, three forms: _(a)_ Direct trade withcountries outside Great Britain; _(b)_ indirect trade with thesecountries via Great Britain; _(c)_ direct local trade with GreatBritain. The statisticians of the Irish Department of Agriculture makeonly an imperfect attempt to distinguish between these classes, buttheir figures, so far as they go, prove beyond question that the greatbulk of Irish external commerce belongs to Class _(c)_--local trade withGreat Britain. The total value of Irish trade in 1909 is estimated at£125, 675, 847, of which £63, 947, 155 was for imports, £61, 728, 692 forexports. Probably 80 per cent. , at least, of this trade was strictlylocal. Certainly Great Britain is the market for very nearly the wholeof Irish agricultural produce, and for most of her exports of linen, ships, tobacco, liquor, etc. Any aggressive action likely to provoke atariff war would be ruinous to Ireland, while it would hurt GreatBritain far less in proportion. But, in fact, both countries wouldsuffer, Great Britain from the loss of an easily accessible food-supplyof extraordinary value, not only for economic, but for strategicalreasons; Ireland from the loss of an excellent and indispensablecustomer. 

On the other hand, whatever Ireland's trade policy may be, she certainlyneeds the power of fixing her own duties upon commodities like tea andsugar, which are of foreign origin, and are now merely transported toher through British ports. Taxation of this sort is a matter of thedeepest concern to a country where agricultural wages average onlyeleven shillings a week, and which cannot reduce its exorbitant Old AgePensions Bill without giving some compensatory relief to the classesconcerned. Tobacco, of which in its manufactured forms Ireland is aconsiderable producer as well as a large consumer, belongs to the samecategory. Liquor is an important article of production in Ireland, aswell as of consumption, and the Irish Legislature ought to be able toform and carry out its own liquor policy. Ireland is just as able andwilling to promote temperance as Great Britain, and just as competent toreconcile a temperance policy with due regard to producing anddistributing interests. 

The Customs tariff is an Irish question, not an Ulster question. Theinterests of the Protestant farmers of North-East Ulster are identicalwith those of the rest of Ireland, and obviously it will be a matter ofthe profoundest importance for Ireland as a whole to safeguard theinterests of the shipbuilding and linen industries in the North inwhatever way may seem best. The Industrial Development Associations, which are affiliated in a national organization, and are far above pettysectarian jealousies, may be trusted to see that Ireland steers a safefinancial course in her trade policy. 

If there is little or no danger that a Home-Ruled Ireland will committariff follies of her own, she has unquestionably a right to escape fromfurther entanglement in the tariff policy of Great Britain. What may bethe issue of Great Britain's great fiscal controversy nobody canforetell. But as long as a protective tariff remains the cardinal pointin the constructive policy of one of the British parties, there is astrong likelihood of such a tariff, which would be uniform for the wholeUnited Kingdom, being carried into law. Free Traders, like myself, maydeplore the possibility, but we cannot shut our eyes to it. That tariff, if and when it is framed, will, like the Free Trade tariff of the past, be framed without regard to Irish interests, which are predominantlyagricultural, and with exclusive regard to British interests, which aremainly industrial. Whatever may have been the original ideal of theConservative Protectionists, however highly they may once have valuedthe protection of agriculture, irresistible political forces have driventhem in the direction of a tariff framed mainly to secure the adhesionof the great manufacturing towns. The electoral power of these towns, the growing resentment of the working classes in most parts of the worldat the increasing cost of living, the fact that Great Britain cannotunder any conceivable circumstances feed her own population, have beenreflected in the definite abandonment by the party leaders of theproposed small duty against colonial imports, and in the admission byMr. Bonar Law at Manchester, during the last General Election, that theproposed tariff would not benefit the farmers. Nor will the failure ofthe Reciprocity Agreement between Canada and the United Statesappreciably diminish the obstacles to food-taxes in the United Kingdom. Any practicable protective tariff, therefore, on the ground of itsinjustice to Ireland, would cause strong and legitimate resentment inthat country, which is subjected to the most formidable competition fromforeign and colonial foodstuffs, but whose great competition inmanufactured goods is Great Britain herself. The one Irish industrywhich might favour it is the linen industry of the North. It would haveno attraction for the shipbuilding industry, which in no part of theBritish Isles has anything to gain by Protection, as I believe allparties to the controversy agree. Other small manufacturing industrieswould complain that they gained nothing; while the agriculturalpopulation would complain that, as consumers, they would be damaged byhigher prices for clothing and other manufactured articles, while asproducers they were ignored. 

The difficulty is only one further proof of the dissimilarity ofeconomic conditions between Great Britain and Ireland, and of theartificial and unnatural character of the present fiscal union. Justiceto Ireland demands its dissolution. The dangers are imaginary. Liberals, however firm their belief in Free Trade, should hold, with Lord Welbyand his Home Rule colleagues on the Financial Relations Commission, that"even if Ireland initiates a protective policy, in this case, as in thatof the Colonies, freedom is a greater good than Free Trade. " As for theProtectionists, I have never seen an argument from that source, and I donot see how any consistent or plausible argument could possibly beframed, to show that a uniform tariff for the United Kingdom could befair to Ireland. Professor Hewins, the leading Tariff Reform economist, virtually acknowledges the impossibility in his Introduction to MissMurray's "Commercial Relations between England and Ireland. " There weretwo sound lines of policy, he points out, which might have been adoptedtowards Ireland in the period prior to the Union: (1)To have placed heron a level of equality with the Colonies, applying the mercantilesystem indiscriminately and impartially to the Colonies and to her; or(2) to have aimed from the first at the financial and commercial unityof the British Isles. Neither of these courses was taken. Ireland, whilekept financially and commercially separate, "was in a less favourableposition than that of a Colony. " With regard to the present, "Most ofthe difficulties of an economic character, " says the Professor, "in thefinancial relations between England and Ireland, arise from thedifferences of economic structure and organization between the twocountries. If Ireland were a highly organized, populous, manufacturingcountry, the present fiscal system would probably work out no worse thanit does in the urban districts of Great Britain. But whatever be thevirtues or demerits of that system, it was certainly not framed with anyreference to the economic conditions which prevail in Ireland. " We waitfor the seemingly unavoidable political inference, but in vain. Professor Hewins is a Unionist. "A 'national' policy for Ireland . .. Isnever likely to be possible. " Well, that is plain speaking, and the moreplainly these things are said the better. Let Unionists, if they will, tell Ireland frankly that she must eternally suffer for the Union, butlet them not pretend, as they do pretend, that Ireland profits by theUnion. 

VII. 

FEDERAL FINANCE. 

Directly we leave the simple path of financial independence, andendeavour to construct schemes which on the one hand disguise thefinancial difficulties of Ireland, and on the other provide for Imperialcontrol of Irish Customs and Excise, we involve ourselves in a tangle ofdifficulties. A brief examination of these schemes will throw into stillstronger relief the merits of the simpler solution. 

First of all, let us dispose finally of the Federal analogy. In ChapterX. I showed that the framework of Home Rule cannot be Federal, becausethe conditions of Federation do not exist in the United Kingdom. One ofthe invariable features of a Federation is the Federal control ofCustoms and Excise, but I pointed out that an equally invariablecondition precedent to Federation was the willingness on the part of aself-supporting State, previously possessing complete financialindependence, to abandon its individual control over this realm oftaxation to a Federal Government of its own choosing, [141] and that nosuch condition existed in the case of Ireland. But some features ofFederal finance undoubtedly may be made to show a superficial analogy toAnglo-Irish conditions, and may therefore have an attraction for thosewho shrink from giving Ireland financial independence. In the firstplace, it is possible to find Federal precedents for the payment out ofthe common purse of certain large items of Irish expenditure. There isno precedent for the payment of Police, but Old Age Pensions, forexample, are paid in Australia by the Commonwealth, not by the States. The chief point of interest, however, is the mechanism of Federalfinance. The Australian and Canadian Federations are the only two whichsuggest even a remote parallel. There the subordinate States areactually "subsidized" by regular annual payments out of Federalrevenues, mainly derived from Customs and Excise, and in the case ofAustralia, as I observed at p. 245, the process at present entails anelaborate system of bookkeeping to distinguish between the "collected"and "true" revenue of the several States, similar in kind to thecalculations now made by the Treasury for ascertaining the "collected"and "true" revenue derived from Ireland, Scotland, and England. [142]

In Australia this system of bookkeeping is discredited, although therecent attempt by a Commonwealth Referendum to abolish both it and thefinancial system of which it forms a part just failed. It is to be hopedthat, whatever financial scheme is adopted for Ireland, this badcolonial precedent, together with the precedent of the Home Rule Bill of1893, will not be made pretexts for perpetuating a system whose defectsare so glaring, and which is a source of continual dissatisfaction toIreland. If Irish Customs and Excise are to be outside Irish control, while their proceeds are to be credited to Ireland, let her wholecollected revenue from those sources be credited to her, in spite of theexcessive allocation that step would involve. 

Apart from this point of similarity in mechanism, the Australian andCanadian subsidies to the States and Provinces respectively are of novalue as models for a Home Rule Bill. Let us examine the case ofAustralia. There the Commonwealth, besides having exclusive control ofCustoms and Excise, has general powers of taxation concurrently with theStates, though in practice Commonwealth taxation is almost entirelyconfined to Customs and Excise. All surplus Commonwealth revenue is, bythe present law, returnable to the States, and the total annual amountso returned must not be less than three-fourths of the total proceeds ofCustoms and Excise; so large are these proceeds, and so small, relatively, the expenses of the Commonwealth Government. [143] Here atthe outset is a feature which places Australian Federal Finance in analtogether different category to that of the United Kingdom, where only47. 6 per cent, of the revenue is from Customs and Excise. Nor are thedistributions of surplus revenue to the States really "subsidies, " evenin the case of the poorest States, but repayments, on a method laid downin the Constitution, of that part of the State contribution to Federalservices which the Federal Government does not want. Here the system ofbookkeeping is of some service to us, because it reveals, approximately, at any rate, both the contribution and the actual repayment, which isbased on a calculation of the amount saved to the State by thetransference of certain departments to the Federal Government, set offby a _per capita_ charge for new Federal expenditure, as, for example, for Old Age Pensions (see Table on p. 297). 

The great bulk of the tax revenue shown comes, as I have said, fromCustoms and Excise, and it is unnecessary to set out the respectivefigures of revenue derived from these duties. [144] It will be seen, after deducting repayments from contributions, that even the poorestStates make a substantial net contribution to Federal purposes. On theother hand, the relative proportion of revenue contributed by WesternAustralia and Tasmania is diminishing. In Western Australia it was 12-49per cent. Of the whole in 1905, 8-13 per cent. Of the whole in 1909. Inthe same period, not only relatively, but actually, the grosscontribution of Western Australia has diminished from £1, 431, 624 in 1905to £1, 166, 126 in 1909, while the repayment to her has also diminishedfrom £1, 031, 223 in 1905 to £627, 933. Tasmania's repayment is alsodiminishing, though her gross contribution has increased. Thesecircumstances suggest a slight resemblance to the growing disproportionbetween the resources of Ireland and Great Britain, but they do notassist us towards a solution of the Irish problem. Each AustralianState, while contributing the whole of its Customs and Excise to theFederal Government, receives back at least half, and in some casestwo-thirds, [146] and adds that sum to its own independent revenue forthe maintenance of the State Government. The sum refunded amounts onthe average to a little below a quarter of the total State revenue--tobe accurate, 23. 01 per cent. Of the remaining 76. 99 per cent. , only 10per cent, on the average is derived from direct taxation; 10. 10 per centfrom public lands, 4. 15 per cent, from miscellaneous services, and noless than 52. 55 per cent, from Public Works--railways, tramways, harbours, etc. 

CONTRIBUTIONS OF, AND REPAYMENTS TO, THE STATES OF THE AUSTRALIANCOMMONWEALTH, 1908-09. [145]

----------------------------------------------------------- Contributions to Repayments from Revenue. Commonwealth. ----------------------------------------------------------- £ £New South Wales 5, 621, 958 3, 326, 276Victoria 3, 750, 161 1, 987, 435Queensland 1, 989, 540 1, 027, 047South Australia 1, 307, 621 716, 957Western Australia 1, 166, 126 627, 938Tasmania 515, 387 244, 747 ------------------------------- Total Common- Total wealth Revenue. Repayments. -------------------------------- 14, 350, 793 7, 930, 395-----------------------------------------------------------

Here are the details of revenue for 1908-1909 in the richest and thepoorest State, respectively:

Particulars. New South Wales. Tasmania. £ £Refunded by the Commonwealth 3, 377, 213 232, 342Taxation (direct) 907, 249 250, 835Public Works and Services 7, 309, 062 329, 192Land 1, 778, 002 96, 519Miscellaneous 274, 600 25, 017

Totals 13, 646, 126 934, 405

Now, Ireland raises no public revenues at all from Public Works, only£24, 500 out of a total of ten millions from public lands; while 29. 25per cent, of her "true" tax revenue comes from direct taxation and 70. 75per cent, from Customs and Excise. To take away even a third of herreceipts from Customs and Excise would be to leave her with a deficit ofthree millions and a half, which would have to be made up by additionsto a direct taxation, which is already vastly higher than in any part ofAustralia. She needs every penny of her revenue from whatever sourcederived, and there is no possibility of extracting from her acontribution to Imperial services, unless it be an illusory contributionbased on faked figures. 

The real moral to be derived from the Australian comparison is that bothAustralia and Ireland are countries where accumulated wealth iscomparatively small, and where the importance of indirect taxation isvery great. All the more reason for giving Ireland control of her ownindirect taxation. Canada, and, indeed, all the self-governing Colonies, suggest the same moral. In Canada the Federal or Dominion Parliament hasan unlimited power of taxation, the Provinces being vested only with theconcurrent right of direct taxation within their respective borders(B. N. America Act, Clauses 91 and 92). In practice, nearly the wholeFederal tax revenue is derived from Customs and Excise. We have nomaterials for a comparison of gross and net provincial contributions, because no records are compiled. Under an Act of 1907, revising theformer arrangements, two small subsidies, forming a fixed charge on thegross Federal revenue, and bearing no specific proportion to the incomefrom Customs and Excise, are given to each Province. 

1. A subsidy (from £20, 000 to £40, 000) based on the total provincialpopulation. 

2. A payment of 80 cents per head of the provincial population. 

Both together are very small by comparison with the Australian payments. Neither is really a subsidy, though it is given that name, but thereturn of a surplus indirectly contributed. It is, indeed, conceivablethat a new and poor Province might actually contribute less than shereceived back. One Province, British Columbia, having long complainedthat she contributed far more than her share, and received back toolittle, obtained an exceptional grant of £20, 000 under the Act of1907. [147] The sums raised independently in each Province for thesupport of the provincial administration are, as in Australia, derivedto a very slight extent from direct taxation, and to a very large extentfrom public property; not, as in Australia, from railways, tramways, etc. , but mainly from vast tracts of public land. In this respect theProvinces resemble the Dominion, which derives a large revenue from thesame source. 

In three vital points, then, Anglo-Irish finance differs from that ofthe Colonial Federations. Ireland's whole net income comes from taxes;she needs it all; and her economic conditions are totally different fromthose of Great Britain. So far from borrowing anything from Federalfinance, we should deduce from it the moral of financial independencefor Ireland. With all the powerful centripetal forces, moral andmaterial, which originally united, and now hold together, the federatedStates of Australia and Canada, there is continual controversy, andsometimes considerable friction, over finance, generally in connectionwith the position of the poorer Provinces or States. Some problems arestill unsolved. Good authorities, among them Sir Arthur Bourinot, thinkthat the Canadian subsidies are unsound. Australia is dissatisfied withher system. The American States, while giving up Customs and Excise, areself-supporting entities; but that system has its drawback, in Federalextravagance. We must remember, too, that even if these examples were ofany use to us, the weak States or Provinces in a Federation have agreater control over Federal financial policy than Ireland could haveunder any scheme which reserved Customs and Excise to the ImperialParliament; because the Federal principle, partially infringed only inthe case of Canada, is to give them disproportionately highrepresentation in the Upper Federal chamber, which can reject moneyBills. [148]

On all counts, Ireland's position is that of a country whichimperatively needs fiscal isolation similar to that enjoyed by Statesprior to Federation, before it can dream of embarking on the periloussea of quasi-Federal finance. Trouble enough comes from the presentjoint system. We should make a clean sweep of it, permit Ireland, with aminimum of temporary assistance, to find her own financial equilibrium, and so lay the foundation, perhaps, for a genuine Federation in thefuture. 

VIII. 

ALTERNATIVE SCHEMES OF HOME RULE FINANCE[149]

Historically, these fall into two classes; though, as I shall show, theyare for all intents and purposes merged in one to-day. 

The two classes are--(1) The Gladstonian; (2) the "Contract. "

1. _Mr. Gladstone's Schemes_. --It is unnecessary to examine these inclose detail, though, if the reader cares to do so, he will find detailsset forth in the Appendix. Four outstanding features were common to theschemes both of 1886 and 1893: (_a_) Permanent Imperial control over theimposition of Customs and Excise; (_b_) Irish control over all othertaxation; (_c_) an annual Irish contribution to Imperial expenditure;(_d_) Imperial payment of part cost of the Irish Police. 

With regard to (_a_), the most important point of difference in the twoBills was that under the first Ireland was credited with her whole"collected" revenue from Customs and Excise, under the second (asamended) with only her "true" revenue, which was less than the former by£1, 700, 000. Another point in which the two Bills differed was thepermission to Ireland, under the Bill of 1893, after six years, tocollect her own Excise. Both imposition and collection were whollyreserved under the Bill of 1886. I have already given grounds for theimpolicy of retaining control over Customs and Excise. Let me only askthe reader, in conclusion, to figure the situation. How could Irelandframe a financial policy? Three-quarters of the revenue, as at presentlevied, of a country profoundly dissimilar economically from GreatBritain, and in need of drastic reforms of expenditure and markedchanges in taxation, would be permanently outside the reach of an IrishChancellor of the Exchequer, and, in spite of the representation atWestminster which Imperial control would entail, would in the long-runfluctuate according to British needs and notions. In the long-run, Irepeat; but incidentally there would be sharp and damaging conflicts. Occasions might occur like that of 1909, when the majority of Irishmen, rightly or wrongly, resented the form of new taxation, and would havesecured the rejection of the Budget had not that step been hurtful tothe prospects of Home Rule. It will be useless to blame either Irelandor Great Britain. Every country is bound to study its own circumstances. A similar crisis would have imperilled even the strongest Federation. Weare not in the least concerned at the moment with the goodness orbadness of that famous Budget. We are concerned with the effect on therelations of the two countries, and with the indefeasible right ofIreland and Great Britain to do what they consider best for their owninterests. 

With regard to (_b_), the Bill of 1893 differed from that of 1886 in theprovision of a suspensory period of six years, during which all existingtaxation in Ireland was to be under Imperial control, though Irelandcould impose additional taxes of her own. After six years--and, underthe Bill of 1886, from the outset--Ireland was to have control over alltaxation other than Customs and Excise. Where is the wisdom inselecting direct taxation as peculiarly suitable to Irish control? It isalready higher in Ireland than in any country economically situated asIreland is. Yet Ireland's power to reduce it will be very small and verydifficult to use, if she is rigidly excluded from changes in theindirect taxation which presses mainly on the poor. Would she naturallybe inclined to increase direct taxation? Land Value Duties produce nextto nothing in Ireland, and their extension would be unpopular. Theexisting rates of Income-Tax and Estate Duties cannot be raised, thoughtheir incidence might be extended to cover poorer elements of thepopulation, as, for example, the small farmers. That is a kind ofmeasure which the farmers would, if necessary, willingly agree to, inorder to balance the accounts of a financially independent Ireland, butit is not the kind of measure they would care about when their nationalfinance was dictated by Great Britain. If one cared to make adialectical point, one could add that a common argument against HomeRule is a fear of oppressive taxation of the rich or oppressive taxationof North-East Ulster, at the hands of an Irish Parliament, through highdirect imposts. The fear is one of those which scarcely need seriousdiscussion. If Irish statesmen were as black as their most industrioustraducers paint them, they could not by any ingenuity invent any newdirect tax which would not hit all the provinces equally, saving perhapsa tax on pasture ranches, which would hit North-East Ulster least; whilesuper-taxes on the exceptionally rich, if they were worth the trouble ofcollecting, would drive wealth out of a poor country at the very momentwhen it was most urgently necessary to gain the confidence of investorsand the few wealthy residents. 

With regard to (c), Mr. Gladstone's various devices for obtaining fromIreland a contribution to Imperial services possess now only amelancholy and academical interest, because, without an elaboratemanipulation of the accounts, so as to disguise their true significance, no such contribution can possibly be obtained. In 1886 Mr. Gladstoneprovided for an annual payment from Ireland, fixed in amount for thirtyyears; in 1893 for the contribution of a _quota_--namely, one-third--ofher "true" annual revenue from Imperial taxes, to run for six years, andthen to be revised. His calculations were conditioned to some extent by_(d), _ the part payment from the Imperial purse of the cost of IrishPolice, coupled, of course, with continued Imperial control of thatPolice, pending its replacement by a new civil force. It is easy enoughin ways like this to show a balance in Ireland's favour, and, at thesame time, to cripple the responsibility of the Irish Legislature bytransferring selected services from the Irish to the Imperial side ofthe account. We can extend the process to Old Age Pensions, the LandCommission, and what not. As I have repeatedly urged, this course isradically unsound. As for the Police, there can be no responsiblegovernment without control of the agents of law and order. 

By crediting Ireland with her whole "collected" revenue, we can give herat once a balance of half a million. By freeing her from the payment ofOld Age Pensions, we can make the balance three millions. With theelimination of the Land Commission and the Police, we can make it fivemillions. Then we can postulate an imaginary taxable capacity, an idealcontribution to Imperial services, and a hypothetical share of theNational Debt, and so arrive at a Budget which will look well on paper, but which will deceive nobody, and be open to crushing criticism. 

2. "_Contract_" _Finance_. --It will be seen that both Mr. Gladstone'sschemes set up in Ireland--though under the Bill of 1893 only after sixyears--a dual system of taxation, Imperial and Irish, after the Federalmodel. The revenue, "collected" or "true, " derived from Imperial taxeslevied in Ireland, was to be paid, after the deduction of sums due tothe Imperial Government on various accounts, into the Irish Exchequer. And into the same Exchequer went the proceeds of taxes levied by Irelandherself. The distinguishing feature of "Contract" finance is that itmaintains the fiscal unity of the British Isles. All taxation in Irelandwould be permanently levied and collected, as before, by the ImperialParliament, Ireland being allowed only the barren and illusory privilegeof levying new additional taxes of her own. Out of the ImperialExchequer a lump sum of fixed amount, or a sum equivalent to the revenue_collected_ in Ireland, would be handed over to Ireland, by contract, asit were, for the maintenance of the Administration. 

The simplicity of this scheme seems to me to be its only merit. Itdisposes of all complicated bookkeeping, all heart-burnings over "true"and "collected" revenue, and all controversies, for a long time at anyrate, over an Irish contribution to the Empire; while it involves andimmensely facilitates a subsidy based on the reservation of selectedIrish services for Imperial management and payment. On the other hand, it is not Home Rule. It annihilates the responsibility of Ireland forher own fortunes, and is, indeed, altogether incompatible with what weknow as responsible government. Its germ appeared in the Irish CouncilBill of 1907--a Bill which did not pretend to set up anythingapproaching responsible government, and to which the scheme wastherefore in a sense appropriate, though it must, I think, have producedmischievous results if it had been carried into law. [150]

I wish to speak with the utmost respect of Lord MacDonnell and the otherpatriotic Irishmen who have advocated this kind of financial solution. There was a time when it might have been good policy for Ireland toobtain any--even the smallest--financial powers of her own as a lever, though a very bad lever, for the attainment of more. But we ought now tomake a sound and final settlement, and I do earnestly urge upon allthose who have Irish interests at heart to reject schemes which merelyevade, if they do not actually aggravate, some of the pressingdifficulties of the Irish problem of to-day. The fact that Contractfinance works well in India is _prima facie_ a reason why it should notwork well in Ireland. It does not exist, and it could not be made toshow good results, in any community of white men. If anyone is disposedto trace a faint analogy--which in any case would be a falseanalogy--with the lesser of the two small subsidies given by theDominion of Canada in aid of the Provincial administrations, [151] lethim imagine what the moral and practical consequences would be if, instead of constituting a small fraction of the provincial income, thissubsidy were increased to a lump sum calculated by the DominionGovernment as correct and sufficient for the whole internal governmentof the Province. And the pernicious results in a Canadian Province wouldbe trivial beside the pernicious results in Ireland, where the wholesystem of expenditure and revenue needs to be recast; where largeeconomies are needed, together with additional outlay on education; andwhere above all, the sense of national responsibility, deliberatelystifled for centuries, needs to be evoked. Nothing could be more cruelto Ireland than to give her a fictitious financial freedom, and then tocomplain that she did not use it well. No nation could use freedom wellunder the Contract system of finance, whether based on a fixed grant oron revenue derived from Ireland. It is not in human nature to reduceexpenditure unless the reduction is reflected in reduced taxation. Everyofficial threatened with retrenchment, even in the services under Irishcontrol and, _a fortiori, _ in the services outside Irish control, wouldhave a grievance in which the public would sympathize, while resentmentat an unequal fiscal union would be unabated. Irish statesmen, like anyother men in the same position, would be exposed unfairly to thecontinual temptation of preserving institutions and payments as theywere, of making changes only of personnel, and of annually appealing toGreat Britain for more money for new expenditure. These appeals couldnot possibly be refused. If Great Britain chooses to place Ireland in aposition of financial dependence, she must take the consequences and paythe bill, as in the past, even if the bill exceeds the revenue derivedfrom Ireland. But, indeed, under Contract finance, attempts to makeIrish expenditure conform to Irish revenue would necessarily beabandoned. 

Bad as the results must be, we are inexorably driven to some form ofContract finance directly we relinquish its anti-type, financialindependence. There is very little practical difference between theGladstonian and later plans. We may be drawn along the downward patheither by considerations of revenue, or considerations of expenditure, or by both combined. To retain Imperial control of Customs and Excise, while crediting the Irish proceeds to Ireland, is in itself equivalentto making three-quarters of Irish tax revenue take the form of an annualmoney grant fixed by Great Britain. If Englishmen also want to retaincontrol over Irish Police, and Irishmen are short-sighted enough todesire Imperial control, as a corollary of Imperial payment, of Old AgePensions, National Insurance, or Land Purchase, there at once are fourmillions, or more than a third of present Irish expenditure, withheldfrom Irish authority. To cover the remaining seven millions by aContract allowance, instead of going through the pretence of allottingitems of revenue and of deducting a contribution to Imperial services, is a step which is only too likely to commend itself to harassedstatesmen. But it would not be Home Rule. 

This is not a matter of speculation, but of experience. As long ago as1818, in the case of Canada, we discarded as vicious the old doctrinethat a dependency ought not to be allowed to provide for the whole costof government out of its own taxes, for fear that its Legislature wouldcontrol policy. If we are going to remove features which make Irelandresemble a Crown Colony now, do not let us import others which recallthe ancient fallacies of a century ago. 

There remains to be considered the important question of loans, and tothat I shall devote a separate chapter. 

FOOTNOTES:

[136] Hansard, July 21 and 25, 1893. 

[137] Both Bills provided for part payment of the cost of Irish Policefrom Imperial funds. 

[138] Return No. 220. 

[139] See p. 234. 

[140] See p. 234. 

[141] I need scarcely point out that the newly-created Provinces of theDominion of Canada are exceptions to this rule. But there is no analogywith Ireland. Such Provinces are carved out of newly settled publicterritory and given local government. 

[142] See pp. 244-245, and 277-278. 

[143] Until two years ago even the remaining one-fourth, added to othersmall items of Commonwealth revenue, was too large for the expenditure, and a part of it was returned annually to the States. 

[144] The other principal source of revenue is from Posts, but that isalmost exactly balanced by expenditure, so that it barely affects theamount of the repayment to the States. 

[145] These figures are taken from the Official Year-Book of theCommonwealth of Australia, No. 3, 1901-1909. 

[146] It must be understood that the law requiring three-quarters of theCommonwealth revenue from Customs and Excise to be returned to theStates does not imply that each State should have three-quarters of itscontribution returned, but that the total amount returned should be atleast three-quarters. 

[147] See p. 244. 

[148] Except perhaps in the case of Canada. 

[149] The Author is indebted, here and elsewhere, to papers by Messrs. C. R. Buxton, P. MacDermot, and R. C. Phillimore, in "Home Rule Problems. "

[150] By Clause 5 the following sums were allocated to the Irish Councilfor five years: (1) £3, 750, 000 for the maintenance of eight GovernmentDepartments; (2) £300, 000 for public works; (3) £114, 000 supplemental. 

[151] See p. 299. Under the Act of 1867, No. 2 was earmarked for thispurpose. 

CHAPTER XIV

LAND PURCHASE FINANCE[152]

I. LAND PURCHASE LOANS. 

The data of the land problem are as follows:

The superficial area of Ireland is 20, 350, 725 acres, and in 1909 it wasutilized as follows:[153]

 Acres. Percentage. 

Area under tillage, hay and fruit 4, 582, 697 22. 5Area under pasture 9, 997, 445 61. 6Grazed mountain land 2, 548, 569Woods, etc. 301, 444 1. 5

Bog, barren mountain, water, roads, townlands, etc. 2, 925, 570 14. 4

Total 20, 350, 725 100. 0

The agricultural area, calculated by the exclusion of the last item inthe above column, works out at 17, 425, 155 acres, but since bog formspart of a large number of farms, we may, for the purposes of LandPurchase, place the agricultural area of Ireland at 18, 739, 644 acres, the figure given in the Census of 1901, and its annual value for ratingpurposes, as given in the same census, at £10, 061, 667. 

This area is divided into 603, 827 agricultural holdings, which are inthe hands of 554, 060 occupiers, and vary in size from vast pastureranches to the tiny plots of miserable rock-sown soil, which abound inthe congested districts of the west. 

But small holdings largely predominate. More than two-thirds do notexceed 30 acres; 153, 565 are between 5 and 15 acres, and 147, 580 arebelow 5 acres. 

Size, however, is by itself an imperfect index to value. The effects ofthe ancient confiscations and of the extraordinarily unequaldistribution of land which they and the bad Irish agrarian systemproduced may be gauged by the valuation figures of the Census of 1901, which showed that 335, 491, or 68. 5 per cent, of the total number ofholdings had an annual value (for rating purposes) not exceeding £15, while they covered only a little more than a third of the totalagricultural area; 134, 182 of these holdings were rated below £4, andcovered only 1, 360, 000 acres. 

All farms rated below £4, and a large number of those below £15, may beregarded as "uneconomic"--that is, incapable by themselves of supplyinga decent living to the farmer and his family. 

I shall say no more here about the legislation beginning forty yearsago, which revolutionized the agrarian tenure derived directly from thePenal Code, and converted the Irish tenant into a "judicial" tenant witha rent fixed by the Land Commission, with security of tenure, and freesale of the tenant-right. [154] There are now in Ireland two distinctclasses of occupying tenants, "judicial" tenants, and purchasingtenants, and it is upon the question of the State-aided transference ofthe land from the landlord to the tenant that I wish to concentrate thereader's attention. 

The principle of Land Purchase is this: The State advances money, raisedby a public loan, to the tenant, who pays off the landlord with it, andbecomes for a fixed period the tenant of the State. During this periodhe pays, in lieu of rent, an annuity, which represents both interest andsinking-fund on the capital sum advanced to him. At the end of theperiod, which, of course, will vary with the fixed annual amount of thesinking-fund, he becomes owner in fee-simple of his farm. 

There is no charity to the tenant. He borrows the money and pays it backin a perfectly regular way, and the State has made a temporaryinvestment of a profitable character. 

And now, for the last time, I must trouble the reader with a littleindispensable history. There are four phases in the history of IrishLand Purchase. 

1. John Bright was the first British statesman to maintain that nohealthy and lasting readjustment of the relations between landlord andtenant in Ireland could ever be made by law. He advocated State-aidedpurchase; and in the Church Disestablishment Act of 1869 and the LandActs of 1870 and 1881, clauses were inserted allowing the State toadvance money for Land Purchase. The conditions, however, were soonerous, both to landlord and tenant, that only 7, 665 tenants out ofmore than half a million were able to avail themselves of these purchaseclauses. 

2. The Ashbourne Act of 1885 was the first successful measure of thekind. Five millions were advanced under it, and five millions more underan extending Act of 1887. Next came the Act of 1891, empowering the loanof thirty-three millions, followed by the amending and simplifying Actof 1896. These Acts form a body of legislation by themselves, of which Ineed refer only to a few salient characteristics. They were all alike insettling the tenant's annuity (in lieu of rent) at 4 per cent, on thepurchase money, though the proportions allocated to interest andsinking-fund varied. Under the first two Acts the period for finalredemption of his loan by the tenant was forty-nine years, under thethird forty-two years, though this period was extended to seventy yearsif the tenant availed himself of decadal reductions in the annuity, proportionate to the capital paid off by the sinking-fund. 

The average price of the holdings sold under these Acts representedseventeen and a half years' purchase, and the tenant's great inducementto buy was that, by the aid of cheap State credit, the annuity he paid, even over so short a period as forty-nine years, represented a reductionof more than 20 per cent, on his existing judicial rent. 

Under the first Act, that of 1885, the landlord received the purchasemoney in cash, under the other two, in guaranteed 3 per cent, or 2| percent, stock, an arrangement which suited him very well as long asGovernment stocks maintained the high level which they reached in theperiod preceding the South African War. With the heavy fall in stocksduring and after the war, purchase came to a standstill. The net resultof the operations under the Acts of 1885 to 1896 was that close upontwenty-four million pounds were advanced to 72, 000 tenants, occupyingabout two and a half million acres, out of the total of 18, 739, 644acres which constitute the agricultural area of Ireland. 

3. Once begun, purchase had to be continued, if for no other reason thanthat a purchasing tenant paid in annuity a substantially lower sum thanthe non-purchasing judicial tenant paid in rent, with the additional, ifdistant, prospect of an absolute fee-simple in the future. 

Mr. Wyndham, acting on the recommendation of a friendly Conferencebetween landlords and tenants, took the bull by the horns in 1903, andcarried the great Land Act of that year. Under the Wyndham Act thesystem of cash payment to the landlord, dropped since 1891, was resumed, on a basis calculated to give a selling landlord a sum which, investedin gilt-edged 3 or 31/4 per cent. Stocks, would yield him as much as thesecond term judicial rents on the holdings sold, less 10 per cent. , representing his former cost of collection; while the annuity payable bythe tenant in lieu of rent was reduced from 4 to 31/4 per cent. , of which21/2 per cent, was interest on the purchase money advanced, and 1/2 percent, was sinking-fund. This reduction involved an extension of theperiod of redemption from forty-nine to sixty-eight and a half years. The annuity was calculated to represent an average reduction of from 15to 25 per cent, on second-term judicial rents. Since the gross income ofthe landlord was to be reduced only by 10 per cent. On a basis of 3 percent. Investments, while the annual payment by the tenant was to bereduced by an average of 20 per cent. , clearly there was a gap to befilled up, and this gap was filled by a State bonus to the sellinglandlord of 12 per cent, on the purchase money, a bonus which wentwholly to him personally, clear of all reversionary rights undersettlements. A sum of twelve millions altogether was to be expended onthe bonus. 

In addition to direct sales between landlord and tenant through theEstates Commissioners, large powers were also given both to the LandCommission and the Congested Districts Board for the purchase and resaleof certain classes of estates--land in congested districts, untenantedland, etc. 

The Act was enormously popular. The landlord, in view of the manifoldinsecurities of land tenure in Ireland, made an excellent bargain, andthe tenant, tempted by the immediate transformation of his rent into anannuity of reduced amount, ignored the extension by twenty years of theperiod of redemption, and was willing to agree at high prices for thepurchase of his land. The average price of land sold rose from theseventeen and a half years' purchase under the old Acts to over twentyyears' purchase, and the soil of Ireland rapidly began to change hands. But the Act broke down on finance, as adapted to what were thenestimated as the requirements of the purchase operation. The estimatefor the total sum required was one hundred millions, and the purchasemoney was to be raised by successive issues of 2-3/4 per cent. Guaranteed Land Stock. Sums needed from time to time for payment of thelandlord's bonus were also raised by stock, and were placed to anaccount known as the Land Purchase Aid Fund. 

Now, any loss on flotation, due to stock being issued at a discount, wasto be borne, in the first instance, by the Ireland DevelopmentGrant, [155] and, if and when that was exhausted, by the ratepayers ofIreland through deduction from the grants in aid of Local Taxation. [156]The stock, like all Government stocks at that period, fell heavily fromthe first, and in 1908 the point was reached when further issues wouldhave entailed a heavy loss payable out of Irish rates, growingultimately, as it was calculated, to an annual charge of more than halfa million. The infliction of such a burden upon the ratepayers ofIreland was felt to be inequitable. Ireland was not responsible for theevils which necessitated purchase, and even if she were, the ratepayerswere not the right persons to be mulcted. Meanwhile, purchase was at acomplete standstill. 

4. This serious situation led to Mr. Birrell's Land Act of 1909, whichwas based upon the Report of a Treasury Committee which sat in theprevious year. [157] The problem was twofold: (a) how to deal with futureagreements to purchase, between landlord and tenant;(6) how to deal withagreements to purchase pending under the Act of 1903, but as yetuncompleted. 

(a) With regard to future agreements, there are four main points:(1) Theold policy of payment in stock, instead of in cash, is reverted to, andthe stock is a 3 per cent. Stock. 

(2) The tenant's annuity is raised from 31/4 to 31/2 per cent. 

(3) The period of redemption is reduced from sixty-eight and a halfyears to sixty-five and a half years. (4) The landlord's bonus isallocated on a graduated scale, under which the higher the price theland is sold at, the less is the bonus conferred. These changes, thoughno doubt somewhat prejudicial to the prospects of Land Purchase, wereabsolutely necessary, owing to a cause beyond human control--thecondition of the money-market. 

(b) In regard to pending purchase agreements arrived at under the oldAct, no alteration is made in the terms of the bargains alreadyconcluded between landlord and tenant; but changes are made in themethod of financing these agreed sales. Briefly, parties can obtainpriority in treatment among the enormous mass of cases awaiting thedecision of the Land Commission by agreeing to accept 2-3/4 per cent. Stock at a price not lower than 92 per cent, (which means, at presentprices, that the loss on flotation is split between the landlord and theState), or, by waiting their turn, they can obtain half the price instock at 92, and half in cash. Payments elected to be made wholly incash come last of all. Bonus to be paid in cash as before. 

Losses caused by the flotation of stock at a discount no longer fallupon the Irish rates. Any loss not capable of being borne by the IrelandDevelopment Grant is to be borne by the Imperial Exchequer. 

Other important clauses gave compulsory powers of purchase to theCongested Districts Board, and, in the case of "congested estates" anduntenanted land outside the jurisdiction of the Board, to the EstatesCommissioners. Otherwise Purchase and Sale remained voluntary. 

So much for the history of Land Purchase. How exactly do we stand at thepresent moment?

In round numbers, nearly 24 millions have actually been advanced underthe old Acts prior to 1903, and up to March of this year (1911) afurther sum of 421/4 millions had actually been advanced under the WyndhamAct of 1903 and the Birrell Act of 1909. [158]

That makes a total of 661/2 millions actually advanced to 165, 133 tenantsup to March of 1911, covering the purchase of nearly 6 million acres ofland, or nearly a third of the total agricultural area of Ireland. Thetenants of the land are now quasi-freeholders, and will eventually becomplete freeholders. In addition, agreements for the purchase ofproperties by 150, 490 tenants, under the Wyndham and Birrell Acts, at atotal price of 461/2 millions, for 41/2 million acres, were pending inMarch, 1911, though the sale and vesting were not yet completed. Theproperties represented by these agreements will be duly transferred inthe course of the next few years, though the congestion of business isvery great. 

That will make a total of 113 millions advanced to 315, 623 tenants forthe purchase of 11 million acres under all Acts up to and including thatof 1909. Now, how much more will be required? We have only one recentofficial estimate--that made by the Land Commission in 1908 for theTreasury Committee which sat to consider the crisis in Land Purchase. Itdid not pretend to give an accurate forecast, but only to estimate themaximum amount which would be needed, on the assumption that all unsoldland would eventually be sold at the average price reached under the Actof 1903. [159] It is certain that the amount so calculated, covering asit does all classes and descriptions of agricultural land, and includingland farmed by the landlord himself, as well as short-term pasturetenancies, [160] will considerably exceed the actual requirements. Someof the unsold land, especially of the pasture land, will never need tobe sold; nor is the average purchase price likely to remain permanentlyas high as that obtained under the Act of 1903. 

Still, this speculative estimate gives us an outside figure which isuseful. The conclusion from it is that 95 millions may be required tofinance all future sales initiated under the Act of 1909. 

But if we want to know how much cash may be wanted, dating from March, 1911, onwards, to finance Land Purchase, we must add the 461/2 millionsneeded for sales now agreed upon, and waiting to be carried through, butnot yet completed. That brings the total to 1411/2 millions. 

For the reasons given above, I think we might very well strike off 20from the 95 millions of future sales, and so reduce the total to 1211/2millions. 

Two further questions remain to be considered: (1) Can we assume that inthe future purchase will proceed smoothly? (2) Who pays for themachinery of Land Purchase, and what is the security for the moneyadvanced?

1. The Act of 1909 is still young. At the end of March, 1911, applications had been lodged for the direct sale of 5, 477 holdings at aprice of £1, 623, 526, representing an average of 20-8 years' purchase, and negotiations were in progress for the purchase by the CongestedDistricts Board of estates worth another 11/2 millions. Total, a littleover 3 millions--a substantial amount of business in view of theartificial acceleration caused by events in 1907 and 1908, thesubsequent reaction, and the enormous arrears of business stillremaining to be cleared up. 

We should naturally expect a slight check to purchase under the Act of1909, since the inducement both to landlord and tenant is less. Thetenant would be inclined to hold out for a lower price because hisannuity is higher (though signs of this check are not yet apparent), andthe landlord is paid in a stock whose market price seems to be slowlybut steadily falling. It is now (November, 1911) at 861/4. On the otherhand, the wise change in the allocation of the bonus places amuch-needed premium on sales of poor land at low prices, and reversesthe process by which a wealthy landlord of good land sometimes obtainedthe largest reward for submission to sale. [161] Moreover, there isconstant pressure towards purchase owing to the better financialposition of the purchasing tenant over the non-purchasing or judicialtenant, while the fear in the landlord's mind of further periodicalreductions in the judicial rents tends to induce him to meet thispressure halfway. 

Still, there is a point beyond which such pressure might not be strongenough to carry on voluntary Purchase, especially if the 3 per cent, stock continued to fall. Wide powers of compulsion, [162] coveringconsiderably more than a third of Ireland, and including the poorestareas, where purchase is most needed, already exist under the Act of1909. Some think that general compulsion will be needed. Otherwell-informed men count with confidence on completing all the necessarypart of the purchase of Irish land in from twelve to fifteen years underthe existing system. On the other hand, it is necessary to contemplatethe possible need for universal compulsion. 

2. Cost of the working of Land Purchase, and security for the moneyadvanced. It is just as well to make these points perfectly clear, inview of the legends which obtain circulation about the "giving" ofBritish money for the purchase of Irish land. 

The cost of the Land Purchase machinery falls at present on thetaxpayers of the whole United Kingdom, including, of course, those ofIreland. It amounted in 1909-10, as I showed in the last chapter, to£414, 500, and for 1911 the estimate is £544, 395. This sum includes theadministrative cost of the Land Commission and Estates Commissioners, the temporary losses on flotation caused in financing, under the Act of1909, the balance of agreements made under the Act of 1903, and thebonus to landlords. 

The Treasury, in their returns estimating the revenue and expenditure ofvarious parts of the United Kingdom, debit the whole of this sum againstIreland, and, moral responsibility apart, I regard it as necessary that, under Home Rule, Ireland should assume both the cost and the managementof Purchase. 

Apart from the annual vote I have mentioned, Land Purchase pays foritself. The security for the individual holders of the Guaranteed LandStock by means of which the purchase money is raised is the ConsolidatedFund of the United Kingdom, but the Consolidated Fund has never beencalled upon for a penny, either for interest or capital, and never willbe. 

At present the initial security of the Government which controls theConsolidated Fund--in other words, the initial security of the UnitedKingdom taxpayers--is the Irish rates; for the grants in aid of Irishlocal taxation still form a guarantee fund chargeable with the unpaidannuities of defaulting tenants, though they have escaped the liabilityfor losses on the notation of stock at a discount. The ultimate securityis the purchased land itself; for, in the last resort, a defaultingtenant who, it must be remembered, is a State tenant, can be sold up. But the really important security is the tenant himself. The Irishtenants, treated properly, pay their debts as honestly and punctually asany other class of men in the world. Annuities in arrear are negligible. The last Report of the Land Commission shows that out of two millionpounds of annuities due from 165, 133 purchasing tenants, and close uponanother two millions of interest (in lieu of rent) upon holdings agreedto be purchased by 150, 490 tenants--a total of nearly four millionpounds--only £28, 084 were uncollected on March 31 last. The cases ofhopeless default, leading to a sale of the land, were only fifty-four. Not a penny has actually been lost. 

The State, then, or, if we choose so to put it, the United Kingdomtaxpayers, are safe from loss, and make a good investment. There hasnever been the faintest symptom of a strike against annuities, and theonly cause which could conceivably ever suggest such a strike would bethe irritation provoked by a persistent refusal to grant Home Rule. Eventhat possibility I regard as out of the question, because there is asanctity attaching to annuities which it would be hard to impair. Still, to speak broadly, it is true that Home Rule will improve a securityalready good, and that Home Rule, with financial independence, will makeit absolutely impregnable. 

Let me sum up. 

More than half the agricultural land of Ireland is sold to the tenants, or agreed to be sold. Eleven million acres out of 183/4 million acres havechanged hands, or will soon change hands; 315, 623 out of 554, 060occupiers now pay annuities or interest in lieu of rent, to the amountof nearly 4 million pounds. In regard to value, out of a total value of208 millions for the whole agricultural land of Ireland, 661/2 millionshave actually been advanced for purchase, 461/2 millions are due to beadvanced under signed agreements; and, on the extreme estimate of theLand Commission, based on the supposition that all the remaining landwill ultimately be sold, 95 millions more will have to be advanced. Total future liability on the extreme estimate, 1411/2 millions; or, if wetake the more moderate and reasonable figure I suggested, 1211/2 millions. 

Now, two conditions must be laid down--

 1. Purchase ought to continue. 

 2. Cheap Imperial credit is necessary for it. 

These conditions ought not to entail, beyond a strictly limited point, the continued control of Purchase by the Imperial Government. That step, as I suggested at p. 221, might involve Imperial control over (1) theCongested Districts Board; (2) the whole work of the Land Commission, outside Purchase, and all Irish land legislation; (3) the Irish police;because the power of distraint for annuities, the last resource of thecreditor Government, rests, of course, with the arm of the law. 

Any one of these consequences, as I have urged, would be inconsistentwith responsible government in Ireland. 

What are the objections to Irish control over Purchase, with itscorollary, Irish payment of the running costs of Purchase? Two distinctinterests have to be considered: (1) That of the British taxpayer; (2)that of the landlord. 

1. If we carry out the plan I have advocated, the British taxpayer, assoon as he ceases to contribute to the diminishing subsidy suggested atp. 284 in order to meet the initial deficit in the national Irishbalance-sheet, will cease to contribute anything towards the runningcosts, landlord's bonus, and flotation losses of a Purchase operationfor the necessity of which Great Britain, in the past, was in realityresponsible. Great Britain is under a moral obligation to continue tosupport Land Purchase with her national credit, which is indispensable. She is also entitled to demand whatever reasonable conditions she thinksfit, for example, a share in the nomination of Land and EstatesCommissioners; while any new legislation will, in the ordinary course, need her assent. The security, as I said above, will be impregnable. Thepurchasing tenant would become the tenant of the Irish State. The IrishGovernment, as a whole, instead of the individual annuitants, would, ofcourse, be responsible to the Imperial Government, would collect theannuities itself, and bear any contingent loss by their non-payment. Torepudiate a public obligation of that sort would be as ruinous toIreland as the repudiation of a public debt is to any State in theworld. 

In point of fact, the Irish Government would find it good policy topopularize Irish Land Stock in Ireland. At present prices the 3 percent, stock is among the cheapest and safest in the world, and wouldreturn to the farmer thrice as much interest as the average bank depositwhich he now favours. 

Mercifully, there is no exact historical precedent for such a case asIreland, though, on a small scale, Prince Edward Island is aninstructive parallel. [163] But if precedents, in the shape of guaranteedloans to self-governing Colonies, are needed, they exist. The mostrelevant and recent is the Imperial guaranteed loan of 35 millions madeto the Transvaal by Mr. Balfour's Government in 1903 after the greatwar. Why it should be a heresy to do for Ireland what we did for theTransvaal, I am at a loss to conceive. The loan became, of course, anobligation of the Colony when it received Home Rule, and in 1907 afurther guaranteed loan of 5 millions was authorized, of which 4millions has been issued. Like Irish Land Stock, these loans are securedon the Consolidated Fund; but I do not think a fear is now suggestedthat the Consolidated Fund is in danger on that account. Prophecies ofthat sort were common enough in the mouths of those who opposedTransvaal Home Rule, but they did not long survive its enactment. 

Another precedent is a guaranteed railway loan to Canada in 1873 of£3, 600, 000, which is just now becoming redeemable, while the CrownColony of Mauritius received a guaranteed loan of £600, 000 in 1892. TheBritish and Irish taxpayers have also made themselves responsible for£9, 424, 000 on account of Egypt; £6, 023, 700 on account of Greece; and£5, 000, 000 on account of Turkey. The total nominal amount of theguaranteed loans to countries, colonial or foreign, outside the UnitedKingdom is £63, 647, 700. The total amount outstanding on March 31, 1911, was £59, 474, 200, and the Government holds securities only to the valueof £4, 800, 556 against these liabilities, leaving the net liability ofthe taxpayer at £54, 673, 644. 

The net liability of the taxpayer at the same date on account of IrishGuaranteed Land Stocks of all descriptions was £65, 764, 054. [164] Irelandhas a claim to Imperial credit far superior to any of the Colonies, dependencies, or foreign Powers mentioned, and the credit should notentail control, or the representation of Ireland at Westminster. 

Incidentally, it goes without saying that Ireland, in common with theColonies, should receive the very valuable privilege of havingindependent loans raised by herself inscribed at the Bank of England, and made trustee securities. 

2. It may be argued that the Congested Districts Board and the LandCommission, and through them Irish statesmen, may be subjected to localpressure hostile to the landlord's interests, and that the IrishGovernment would feel itself more free for social and other reforms ifthe land question were placed legally outside their purview. My answeris, in the first place, that Great Britain would cease to lend if herconditions were unfulfilled; in the second place, that in this, as inall matters, we are bound to place faith in the self-respect and senseof justice of a free Ireland--in its common prudence, too; for it wouldbe a disaster whose magnitude is universally recognized in Ireland ifany course were to be taken which prevented the landlord class fromjoining in the great work of making a new Ireland. Fair treatment of thelandlords by a free Ireland, as distinguished from fair treatment at thehands of an external authority, would do more than anything else tobring about a reconciliation. That is human nature all the world over. 

II. MINOR LOANS TO IRELAND. 

It remains only to refer briefly to two other cases where Irelandbenefits from Imperial credit. 

(1) The Labourers (Ireland) Act of 1906 sanctioned the advance of moneythrough the Land Commission to Rural Councils for building labourers'cottages--a class of loans previously made by the Public WorksCommissioners of Ireland. £3, 111, 816 had been advanced under this headon March 31, 1911, and £1, 138, 184 had been applied for. The money israised by guaranteed 23/4 per cent, stock in the same way as the money forLand Purchase. 

(2) In addition, there are the loans granted by the Irish Commissionersof Public Works. In their capacity as lenders, which is only one of amultitude of capacities, the Commissioners are really a subordinatebranch of the Treasury, and fulfil the same function as the Public WorksLoans Commissioners in Great Britain. They lend principally to localauthorities for all manner of public works and public healthrequirements, also to private individuals, mainly for the improvement ofland, and, to a small extent, to Arterial Drainage Boards and torailways. They get their money from the National Debt Commissioners, andin 1909-10 issued loans to the amount of £293, 233--a figure which showsa considerable reduction on that of the previous two years. [165] Thetotal amount of 35, 000 outstanding loans on March 31, 1910, was£9, 608, 110, of which between two-thirds and three-quarters were due fromlocal authorities. The interest varies, as in Great Britain, from 23/4 to5 per cent. , according to the nature of the security, and in 1909-10averaged £3 10s. 6d. Most of the loans are secured on local rates, wherethe interest payable is either 31/2 or 33/4 per cent. , according to theperiod of the loan; others on undertakings such as harbours; and otherson the land for the improvement of which the money is borrowed. 

Here, then, are two small and secondary problems. Under Home RuleIreland will have no claim to further Imperial credit for loans ofeither of the above classes. On the other hand, there is no reason whythe Treasury, if it pleases, and on its own terms, should not lend asbefore, though not directly, as it virtually does now, but indirectly, by loan to the Irish Government. The security will be just as good, andprobably better. If a negligent Local Government Board under Irishcontrol sanctions reckless loans by local authorities, and a negligentIrish Government advances for such loans money borrowed from GreatBritain, the Irish Treasury will suffer. Such eventualities need notseriously be considered. The analogy with the Transvaal and Canadaloans, which were mainly for public works, is very close. 

FOOTNOTES:

[152] Parts of this chapter have appeared in a paper by the Author in"Home Rule Problems. "

[153] Agricultural Statistics of Ireland, 1909. 

[154] See pp. 10-17, 66-71. 

[155] See p. 270-271. 

[156] See p. 267. 

[157] Cd. 4005, 1908. 

[158] This and subsequent figures are taken from an answer to questionin the House of Commons, July 25, 1911, and from the current Exports ofthe Land Commission and Estates Commissioners. 

[159] Cd. 4412, 1908. The basis taken was the Poor Law valuation of thelands unsold, multiplied by the number of years purchase of the landssold under the Act of 1903. On this basis the value of the land neithersold nor agreed to be sold in 1908 was £103, 931, 848. On the basis ofacreage, the estimate worked out at £102, 078, 448, and on the basis ofholdings (regarded as unreliable by the Commissioners) at £92, 660, 694. The total sum required from first to last, including sums alreadyadvanced under all the various Acts, was £208, 366, 175. 

[160] Pasture land let on eleven months' tenancies (a common form oftenure) counts as untenanted land, and is subject to purchase by theLand Commissioners, compulsorily, if necessary. 

[161] But not always. Heavily mortgaged landlords profited most, perhaps, under the Act of 1903. 

[162] Only once exercised up to October, 1911: over Lord Inchiquin'sestate in Clare, to be acquired for the relief of congestion. 

[163] See p. 75. There the loan for compulsory Land Purchase wasultimately raised by the Dominion of Canada, as one of the conditionsupon which Prince Edward Island entered the Federation in 1873. Underthe Land Purchase Act, passed in 1875 by the Island Legislature, withthe assent of the Dominion, three Commissioners adjudicated upon thesales; representing the Island Government, the Landlords, and theDominion Government respectively. 

[164] Finance accounts of the United Kingdom, 1911. 

[165] Report of the Commissioners of Public Works, 1910. The amount in1907-08 was £434, 796; in 1908-09, £361, 282. The Commissioners have beenlending since 1819, and have lent since that date £48, 792, 319. 

CHAPTER XV

THE IRISH CONSTITUTION[166]

I have dealt with the major issues of Home Rule. The exclusion orretention of Irish Members at Westminster, and the powers--above all, the financial powers--of the Irish State, are the two points of cardinalimportance. As I have shown, they are inseparably connected, and form, in reality, one great question. 

I have endeavoured to prove that from whatever angle we approach thatcentral issue, whether we argue from representation to powers, or frompowers to representation, and whether the particular powers we arguefrom be financial, legislative, or executive; whether we place Irish, British, or Imperial interests in the forefront of our exposition--weare led irresistibly to the colonial solution--that is, to the cessationof Irish representation at Westminster, coupled with a concession toIreland of the full legislative and executive authority appropriate tothat measure of independence, and, above all, with fiscal autonomy. 

All the other provisions of the Bill are secondary. They may be dividedinto two categories, which necessarily overlap:

1. Provisions concerning Ireland only. 

2. Provisions defining the Imperial authority over Ireland. 

The structure of the Irish Legislature, the position of the IrishJudiciary, the safeguards for minorities, the provision made forexisting servants of the State, the statutory arrangements, if any, forthe future reorganization of the Irish Police--these and other questionsare of great intrinsic importance, and need the most careful discussion;but they are altogether subordinate to those we have already considered. If it be over-sanguine to hope, in Ireland's interest, that they will bediscussed in a calm and dispassionate way, we can at least demand thatthose provisions belonging to the second category, which present noappreciable difficulty, will not excite bitter and barren disputes likethose of 1893. 

It is not within the scope of this volume to discuss exhaustively thesecondary provisions of the Bill, or to suggest the exact statutory formwhich those provisions, major or minor, should take. In this chapter Ishall deal briefly with matters which I have hitherto left aside, andincidentally give more precision to the points upon which I have alreadysuggested a conclusion, in both cases indicating, so far as possible, the most useful precedents and parallels from other Constitutions. Theresult will be the rough sketch of a Home Rule Bill. 

PREAMBLE. 

"Whereas it is expedient that _without impairing or restricting thesupreme authority of Parliament_, an Irish Legislature should becreated, etc. " So ran the opening sentence of the Home Rule Bill of1893. The words I have italicized are harmless but superfluous. Theyhave never appeared in the Constitutions granted to Colonies, even atperiods when the Colonies were most distrusted. Nothing can impair thesupreme authority of Parliament. 

EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. 

In all parts of the Empire, power emanates from the Sovereign, and iswielded locally in his name. 

Section 9 of the British North America Act of 1867 runs as follows: "TheExecutive Government and authority of and over Canada is hereby declaredto continue and be vested in the Queen. " Similar words are used in theSouth Africa Act of 1909, and in the Commonwealth of AustraliaConstitution Act of 1900. Curiously enough, these were Acts to legalizethe Federation, or Union, of separate Colonies, and were passed at atime when the principle embodied needed no affirmation. In earlier Actsfor granting Colonial Constitutions, the principle was taken forgranted, and implied in numerous provisions, but not stated explicitly. The most recent unitary Constitution, that of the Transvaal (Section47), was even more reticent, though the principle was none the lessclear. The point is unimportant, and the words used in the Home RuleBills of 1886 and 1893 (Clauses 5 and 7 respectively), modified to meeta change of Sovereign, will serve very well: "The Executive power inIreland (or the Executive Government of Ireland) shall continue vestedin His Majesty. .. . "

Thereon follow the provisions for delegation of the Royal authority, first to the Sovereign's personal Representative in Ireland, and thenthrough him to the members of the Irish Executive. The simpler theseprovisions are, the better. What we know as responsible government hasnever been defined in any Act of Parliament. The phrase "responsiblegovernment" has only once appeared in any Constitution--namely, in thepreamble of the Transvaal Constitution granted in 1906, and even then noattempt was made at definition, though certain sections, like certainsections in the Australian Constitutions of 1855 and in the laterFederal Acts, inferentially suggested features of responsiblegovernment. 

The system is two-sided. Ministers are responsible on the one hand tothe King direct, as in Great Britain, or to the King's Representative, as in the Colonies, and, on the other hand, to the elected Legislature. Ireland will resemble a Colony in being a dependent State under aRepresentative of the King--namely, the Lord-Lieutenant. This personage, corresponding to the Colonial Governor, will also have to act in a dualcapacity. On the one hand he will be responsible to the King, or, virtually, to the British Cabinet, and, on the other hand, he will bebound by an unwritten law to nominate for the Government of Irelandpersons acceptable to the elected Legislature, and in Irish matters toact by their advice in all normal circumstances. 

Let us dispose first of the relation of the Ministers and of otherpublic officials to the Legislature. There will be no question, presumably, of giving statutory power to this relation. It is anunwritten custom--(1) that Ministers must be members of one branch ofthe Legislature; (2) that they must hold the confidence of the electedbranch; (3) that, as a Cabinet, they stand or fall together; and, lastly, (4) that all non-political officials are excluded from theLegislature. The first and the last of these conventions have takenlegal form in some isolated cases;[167] the other two appear in nostatute that has yet been framed. [168]

Neither have the functions in practice exercised by the Ministry orCabinet, nor the relations which in practice exist between it and theKing's Representative, ever had statutory definition. Whatever form theHome Rule Bill takes, it cannot give legal precision to these things. The King's Representative always nominates an Executive Council--thatis, a Cabinet to "advise" him in the Government, and whether, as in theBill of 1893, that Council is called an Executive Committee of the PrivyCouncil of Ireland by analogy with the Dominion of Canada, where it isthe "King's Privy Council for Canada, " or whether it is merely anExecutive Council is immaterial. That it is, nominally, theconstitutional duty of the King's Representative (like that of the Kinghimself) to perform executive acts on the advice of his Ministers isnever stated expressly. He is always, and generally in the text of theConstitution, vested with the power of summoning, proroguing, anddissolving the Legislature, and of giving or withholding the RoyalAssent to Bills. He also, by unwritten law, wields the prerogative ofPardon, and appoints all public servants; and in all these cases, exceptin the case of appointing non-political officials, he occasionally hasto act on his own personal responsibility. 

This personal responsibility cannot be distinguished in practice fromhis responsibility to the Crown, which appoints and can remove him. Cases have arisen where the Governor of a self-governing Colony haswritten home for special guidance on some specific point, and where theanswer given has been that he must act on his own responsibility, orfollow the advice of his Ministers. All Colonial Governors, however, whether or not their powers are defined in the Constitution, areappointed by Commission from the Crown with powers defined in LettersPatent and Instructions as to their exercise. These Letters Patent andInstructions are not of much importance in the case of a self-governingColony where responsible advice so largely controls the action of theGovernor. Sometimes the executive powers given by Instructions to theGovernor are indirectly alluded to in the Constitution, as in the SouthAfrica Act of 1909, where, by Clause 9, under the head of "ExecutiveGovernment, " the Governor-General is "to exercise such powers andfunctions of the King as His Majesty may be pleased to assign to him. "In the Australian and Canadian Acts of 1900 and 1867 respectively, thewords do not appear. I name this point because in Clause 5 of the HomeRule Bill of 1893, and Clause 7 of the Bill of 1886, a similar coursewas taken in providing that the Lord-Lieutenant should "exercise anyprerogatives, or other executive power of the Queen, the exercise ofwhich may be delegated to him by Her Majesty. " The words are notstrictly necessary. The Lord-Lieutenant will, of course, have hisLetters Patent and Instructions, but the powers of the Crown aretheoretically absolute. If the Crown, acting under responsible Britishadvice, should wish to defy the Irish Legislature, it could do sowhatever the terms of the Bill. 

Naturally, there will be certain Imperial and non-Irish matters in whichthe Lord-Lieutenant will act primarily under the orders of the BritishCabinet, and the Departmental British Minister primarily responsible forIrish-Imperial matters would be the Home Secretary. [169]

The question may be raised, as in 1893 (July 3, Hansard), whether astaff of Imperial officials ought not to be set up to conduct anyImperial business which has to be done in Ireland, on the analogy of theFederal staff in the United States. I hope Mr. Gladstone's answer willstill hold good--that no such staff is needed; that the Irish officialswill be responsible, and ought, on the Home Rule principle, to betrusted, as they are trusted in the Colonies. 

The Royal Assent to Bills is always a matter for express enactment inthe Constitution, but here the "instructions" of the Governor, and evenhis personal "discretion, " have generally been alluded to in recentConstitutions, whether conferred by Act or Letters Patent. The typicalform of words is that the Governor "shall declare his Assent accordingto his discretion, but subject to His Majesty's instructions. "[170] TheHome Rule Bill of 1893 left out reference to "discretion, " and, on theother hand, is, I think, the only document of the kind in which the"advice of the Executive Council" has ever been expressly alluded to, although the practice, of course, is that the Assent, normally, is givenor withheld on that advice. The Transvaal Constitution of 1906 (Section39) was unique in prescribing that special instructions must be receivedby the Governor in the case of each proposed law, before the Assent isgiven. I hope that will not be made a precedent for Ireland. Suchprecautions only irritate the law-makers, and serve no useful purpose. 

Colonial Governors, besides the power of Assent and Veto, may "reserve"Bills for the Royal pleasure, which is to be signified within two years. Moreover, Bills which have received the Governor's Assent may bedisallowed within one or two years. [171] Neither of these provisionsappeared in the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893, and neither appear tobe strictly necessary, owing to the proximity of Ireland. Whatever isdone, we may hope that the practice now established in Canada, where theFederal Government never disallows a provincial law on any other groundthan that it is _ultra vires_, and, _a fortiori_, the similar practiceas between Great Britain and the Dominions, may be imitated in the caseof Ireland. 

To sum up, the terse and simple words of the Bill of 1886 reallyenunciate all that is necessary:

[Sidenote: Constitution of the Executive Authority. ]

"7. --(1) The Executive Government of Ireland shall continue vested in(Her) Majesty, and shall be carried on by the Lord-Lieutenant on behalfof (Her) Majesty with the aid of such officers and such council as toHer Majesty may from time to time seem fit. 

 "(2) Subject to any instructions which may from time to time be given by (Her) Majesty, the Lord-Lieutenant shall give or withhold the assent of (Her) Majesty to Bills passed by the Irish Legislative Body, and shall exercise the prerogatives of (Her) Majesty in respect of the summoning, proroguing, and dissolving of the Irish Legislative Body, and any prerogatives the exercise of which may be delegated to him by (Her) Majesty. "

LORD-LIEUTENANT AND CIVIL LIST. 

The restriction as to the religion of the Lord-Lieutenant will, ofcourse, be removed. There is no reason why his term of office should belimited by law. His salary, payable by Ireland, should perhaps be statedin the Act, as in the case of Canada and South Africa, though not inthat of Australia. Australia, on the other hand, has a statutory CivilList, and a fixed Civil List was an invariable feature of the oldConstitutions given to self-governing Colonies. Canada and South Africaare under no such restrictions, and it would be very inexpedient toimpose them upon Ireland. 

LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY. 

The Irish Legislature will be given power, according to the historicphrase, "to make laws for the peace, order, and good government ofIreland, " subject to restrictions afterwards named. That the laws shouldbe only "in respect of matters exclusively relating to Ireland or somepart thereof" goes without saying, and need not be copied from the Billof 1893 (Clause 2). Nor need the superfluous proviso in the same clausebe reproduced, asserting the "supreme power and authority of theParliament of the United Kingdom. " The supreme power becomes none themore supreme for such assertions. Clause 2 of the Bill of 1886 is simpleand decisive:

 "2. With the exceptions of and subject to the restrictions in this Act mentioned, it shall be lawful for (Her) Majesty (the Queen), by and with the advice of the Irish Legislative Body, to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland, and by any such law to alter and repeal any law in Ireland. "

With the restrictions on the powers of the Legislature I dealt fullyenough in Chapter X. , [172] and I need only summarize my conclusions:

1. _Reservations of Imperial Authority. _--The Irish Legislature should_not_ have power to make laws upon--

{The Crown or a Regency. {Making of War or Peace. {Prize and Booty of War. {Army or Navy. {Foreign Relations and Treaties (excepting Commercial Treaties). {Conduct as Neutrals. {Titles and Dignities. {Extradition. {Treason. Coinage. Naturalization and Alienage. 

Reservation of the nine subjects included in the bracket is implied, without enactment, in all colonial Constitutions, but in the Irish Billit is no doubt necessary that all reserved powers should be formallyspecified. 

All powers not specifically reserved will belong to the IrishLegislature, subject to those restrictions, constitutional or statutory, which in matters like Trade and Navigation, Copyright, Patents, etc. , bind the whole Empire. 

Section 32 of the Bill of 1893, borrowed from the Colonial Laws ValidityAct, will no doubt be applied. 

2. _Minority Safeguards_. --This point, too, I dealt with in ChapterX. [173] Let the Nationalist Members come forward and frankly accept anyprohibitory clauses which the fears of the minority may suggest, provided that they do not impair the ordinary legislative power whichevery efficient Legislature must enjoy. Almost every conceivablesafeguard for the protection of religion, denominational education, andcivil rights was inserted in the Bill of 1893, including even some ofthe "slavery" Amendments to the United States Constitution. The list mayrequire revision--(_a_) in view of the recent establishment of theNational University, and the disappearances of all apprehension aboutthe status of Trinity College, Dublin; (_b_) in regard to anextraordinarily wide Sub-clause (No. 9) about interference withCorporations; (_c_) in regard to the words, "in accordance with settledprinciples and precedents, " which appeared in Sub-clause (No. 8)(Legislature to make no law "Whereby any person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law[174] _in accordance withsettled principles and precedents_, " etc. ). A debate on this questionmay be found in Hansard, May 30, 1893. The words italicized were addedin Committee on the motion of Mr. Gerald Balfour, though theAttorney-General declared that they gave no additional strength to thephrase "due process of law, " while they certainly appear calculated toprovoke litigation. Sir Henry James appeared to think that they made thesuspension of the Habeas Corpus Act _ultra vires. _ If that is theireffect, there is no reason why they should be inserted. Even a CanadianProvince, whose powers are more limited than those of the subordinateStates in any other Federation, has "exclusive" powers within its ownborders over "property and civil rights, "[175] and can, beyond anydoubt, suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, if it pleases. 

The same superfluous words appeared in Sub-clause (No. 9) aboutCorporations. 

THE IRISH LEGISLATURE. [176]

As I urged in Chapter X. , this is a subject in which large powers ofconstitutional revision--much larger than those contained in either ofthe Home Rule Bills--should be given to the Irish Legislature itself, corresponding to the powers given by statute to the self-governingColonies, and to the powers always held by the constituent States of aFederation. In the Bill itself it would be wisest to follow beatentracks as far as possible, and not to embark on experiments. Presentconditions are, unhappily, very unfavourable for the elaboration of anyscheme ideally fit for Ireland. 

_A Bi-Cameral Legislature. _--Working on this principle, we must affirmthat Ireland's position, without representation in the ImperialParliament, would certainly make a Second Chamber requisite. Three ofthe Provinces within the Federation of Canada (Manitoba, BritishColumbia, and Ontario) prefer to do without Second Chambers--so do mostof the Swiss Cantons--but all the Federal Legislatures of the world arebi-cameral, and all the unitary Constitutions of self-governing Colonieshave been, or are, bi-cameral. 

_The Upper Chamber. _--One simple course would be to constitute the UpperChamber of a limited number of Irish Peers, chosen by the whole of theirnumber, as they are chosen at present for representation in the House ofLords. Historical and practical considerations render this course out ofthe question, though some people would be fairly sanguine about thesuccess of such a body in commanding confidence, on the indispensablecondition that all representation at Westminster were to cease. It hasbeen membership, before the Union of an ascendency Parliament, and afterthe Union of an absentee Parliament, which has kept the bulk of theIrish peerage in violent hostility to the bulk of the Irish people. Those Peers who seek and obtain a career in an Irish popularLegislature--to both branches of which they will, of course, beeligible--will be able to do valuable service to their country. The sameapplies to all landlords. Now that land reform is converting Irelanditself into a nation of small landholders, who, in most countries, arevery Conservative in tendency, the ancient cleavage is likely todisappear. Indeed, an ideal Second Chamber ought perhaps to give specialweight to urban and industrial interests, while aiming, not at anobstructive, but at a revising body of steady, moderate, highly-educatedbusiness men. 

We have to choose one of two alternatives: a nominated or an electivechamber. The choice is difficult, for second chambers all over the worldmay be said to be on their trial. On the other hand, nothing vitaldepends upon the choice, for experience proves that countries canflourish equally under every imaginable variety of second chamber, provided that means exist for enabling popular wishes, in the long-run, to prevail. The European and American examples are of little use to us, and the widely varied types within the Empire admit of no sureinferences. Allowance must be made for the effect of the Referendumwherever it exists (as in Australia and Switzerland), as a force tendingto weaken both Chambers, but especially the Upper Chamber of aLegislature. It does, indeed, seem to be generally admitted, even byCanadians, that the nominated Senate of the Dominion of Canada, which isadded to on strict party principles by successive Governments, is not asuccess, and it was so regarded by the Australian Colonies when theyentered upon Federation, and set up an elective Senate. The SouthAfrican statesmen, who had to reckon with racial divisions similar tothose in Ireland, compromised with a Senate partly nominated, partlyelected, but made the whole arrangement revisable in ten years. [177]

It would be desirable, perhaps, on similar grounds of immediate policy, to let those who now represent the minority in Ireland have a decidingvoice in the matter. No arrangement made otherwise than by a freeIreland herself can be regarded as final, and I suggest only that anominated Chamber would be the best expedient at the outset, or in thealternative a partly nominated, partly elected Chamber. 

If and in so far as the Upper Chamber is elective, should election bedirect or indirect? There is a somewhat attractive Irish precedent forindirect election, namely, the present highly successful Department ofAgriculture, whose Council and Boards the County Councils have a sharein constituting, [178] and I have seen and admired a most ingeniousscheme of Irish manufacture for constructing the whole Irish Legislatureand Ministry on this principle. But the objections appear to beconsiderable. Local bodies in the future should not be mixed up innational politics. That has been their bane in the past. Besides, theprinciple of indirect election is under a cloud everywhere, most of allin the United States. Australia rejected it in 1900, and the SouthAfricans, while giving it partial recognition in the Senate, made theexpedient provisional. 

_The Lower House_. --The Lower House might very well be elected on thesame franchise and from the same constituencies as at present, subjectto any small redistributional modifications necessitated by changes ofpopulation. This is certainly a matter which Ireland should have fullpower to settle for itself subsequently. 

Lord Courtney's proposals for Proportional Representation[179] meritclose consideration and possess great attractions, especially in view oftheir very favourable reception from Nationalists in Ireland. My ownfeeling is that such novel proposals may overload a Bill which, howeversimply it be framed, will provoke very long and very warm discussion. Ifthe system were to be regarded by the present minority as a realsafeguard for their interests, its establishment, on tactical groundsalone, would be worth any expenditure of time and trouble; but, if theyaccept the assumption that existing parties in Ireland are going to bestereotyped under Home Rule, and then point to the paucity of Unionistsin all parts of Ireland but the north-east of Ulster, they candemonstrate that no _practicable_ enlargement of constituencies couldseriously influence the results of an election. My own view, alreadyexpressed, is that, provided we give Ireland sufficient freedom, whollynew parties must, within a short time, inevitably be formed in Ireland, and the old barriers of race and religion be broken down, and, therefore, that all expedients devised on the contrary hypothesis willeventually prove to be needless and might even prove unpopular andinconvenient. On the other hand, merits are claimed, with a great showof reason, for Proportional Representation, which are altogetherindependent of the protection of minorities from oppression. It isclaimed that the system brings forward moderate men of all shades ofopinion, checks party animus, and steadies the policy of the State. ButI think that a free Ireland should be the judge of these merits. Atpresent the bulk of the people do not understand the subject, and needmuch education before they can appreciate the issue. 

Meanwhile, the conventional party system, based on conventionalconstituencies, will, to say the least, do no more harm to Ireland thanto any other State in the Empire. Any minor defects will beinfinitesimal beside the vast and beneficial change wrought byresponsible government. 

DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN THE TWO HOUSES. 

It is essential to provide for this, and it would be difficult to betterthe proposal in the Bill of 1893: that after two years, or anintervening dissolution, the question should be decided by a joint votein joint session. 

MONEY BILLS AND RESOLUTIONS. 

To originate in the Lower House on the motion of a Minister. 

POLICE. 

The Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police should beunder Irish control from the first. The former force will undoubtedlyhave to be reconstituted, and its reconstitution, as an ordinary CivilPolice, ought to be undertaken by the Irish Government, but thefinancial interests of "retrenched" officers and men should besafeguarded in the Bill itself. 

JUDGES. 

All future appointments should be made by the Irish Government, withoutthe suspensory period of six years named in the Bill of 1893. PresentIrish Judges should retain their appointments, as in both previousBills. The precedent of Canada, where provincial Judges, unlike theState Judges of Australia, are appointed and paid by the FederalGovernment, is certainly not relevant. 

LAW COURTS. 

The Federal analogy, except in one particular noticed under the nextheading, has no application to Ireland. Only one provision of anyimportance is needed, namely, that Appeals, in the last resort, shouldbe to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council instead of to theHouse of Lords. The Judicial Committee is the final Court of Appeal forthe whole Empire, and, strengthened by one or more Irish Judges, shouldhear Irish Appeals. It is true that the tribunal has been subjected tosome criticism lately, especially from Australia. Federal Statesnaturally wish to secure pre-eminent authority for their own SupremeCourts. But the tribunal is, on the whole, popular with the colonialdemocracies, and the argument from distance and expense does not applyto Ireland. At the end of an interesting discussion at the last ImperialConference, in which suggestions were put forward for strengthening theJudicial Committee by Colonial Judges, it was agreed that new proposalsshould be made by the Imperial Government for an Imperial Final Court ofAppeal in two divisions, one for the United Kingdom, another for theColonies. If that step is taken, the position of Ireland will need freshconsideration. [180]

DECISION OF CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS. [181]

The validity of an Irish Act which has received the Royal Assent will, like that of a Colonial Act which has received the Royal Assent, bedetermined in the ordinary course by the Irish Courts, with an ultimateappeal to the Judicial Committee, which should be strengthened for theoccasion by one or more Irish Judges. But both the previous Home RuleBills made the convenient provision that the Lord-Lieutenant should havethe power of referring questions of validity arising on a Bill, beforeits enactment, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for finaldecision. There is a useful Canadian precedent for this provision, inthe Imperial Act passed in 1891, for giving the Governor-General inCouncil power, in the widest terms, to refer, _inter alia_, questionstouching provincial legislation to the Supreme Court of Canada, with anappeal from it to the Judicial Committee. [182] To follow this precedentwould not involve any Federal complications. 

EXCHEQUER JUDGES. 

If Ireland controls her own Customs and Excise, no provision for thistribunal appears to be necessary, unless it be that some counterpart isneeded for the Colonial Courts of Admiralty. [183] The Bill of 1886(Clause 20) limited the jurisdiction to revenue questions. The Bill of1893 (Clause 19) widened it to include "any matter not within the powerof the Irish Legislature, " or "any matter affected by a law which theIrish Legislature have not power to repeal or alter. " The minds of theauthors of this clause were evidently affected by the Federal principlewhich involves two judicial authorities--one for Federal, one forprovincial matters. There seems to be no reason for embarking on anysuch complications in the case of Ireland. 

SAFEGUARDS FOR EXISTING PUBLIC SERVANTS IN IRELAND. [184]

Retrenchment, and in some departments drastic retrenchment, will beneeded in the Irish public service, just as it was needed in theTransvaal after the grant of Home Rule to that Colony. It is highlydesirable that statutory provision should be made safeguarding existinginterests. No such provision was made in the case of the Transvaal, andsome bad feeling resulted. The past responsibility for excessive Civilexpenditure lies, of course, on Great Britain, as it lay in the case ofthe Transvaal, and on grounds of abstract justice it would have beenfair in that case for Great Britain to have assumed a limited part ofthe expense of compensating retrenched public servants. The practicalobjections to such a policy are, however, very great. In this, as in allmatters, Ireland will gain more by independence than by financial aid, however strongly justified. All payments should be a direct charge uponthe Irish Exchequer, not, as in some cases under the Bill of 1893, uponthe Imperial Exchequer in the first instance, with provision forrepayment from Ireland. 

FINANCE. 

I summarize the conclusions already indicated in previous chapters:

1. Fiscal independence, with complete control over all Irish taxationand expenditure. 

2. Initial deficit to be supplied by a grant-in-aid, diminishingannually and terminable in a short period, say, seven years. 

3. Future contribution to Imperial services to be voluntary. 

4. Remission to Ireland of her share of the National Debt, andrelinquishment by Ireland of her share of the Imperial MiscellaneousRevenue. 

5. Imperial credit for Land Purchase to be extended as before, by loansguaranteed on the Consolidated Fund, under any conditions now orhereafter to be made by the Imperial authorities. 

Loans to the Public Works Commissioners to be optional. 

REPRESENTATION AT WESTMINSTER. 

To cease. 

CONFERENCE BETWEEN THE IRISH AND IMPERIAL AUTHORITIES. 

This is a very important point, because friendly consultation, as atpresent with the Colonies, will take the place of Irish representationin the Imperial Parliament, and will prove a far more satisfactory meansof securing harmony and co-operation. Arrangements similar to those ofthe Imperial Conference, only more precise and efficient, and of apermanent character, should be made for consultation between the Irishand British authorities on all subjects where the interests of the twocountries touch one another. The need for more frequent consultationwith the Colonies is being felt with increasing force, and although nopermanent consultation body has yet been created, special _ad hoc_conferences have recently been held--for Defence in 1909, and forCopyright in 1910--in addition to the quadrennial meetings, where a vastamount of varied topics are discussed, and the most valuable decisionsarrived at. [185]

What the precise machinery should be in the case of Anglo-Irishrelations I do not venture to say. The Ministers of the respectivecountries will be so easily accessible to one another that there wouldseem to be no need for the frequent attendance of a powerful personnelat joint meetings. But a Standing Committee, with a small officialstaff, would be necessary. 

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. [186]

For amendment of the Home Rule Act itself it is not possible to make anystatutory provision. Like all Constitutional Acts, it will only bealterable by another Imperial statute, which, if it were needed, shouldbe promoted by Ireland. But one of the most important clauses in the Actitself will be that defining Ireland's power to amend her ownConstitution without coming to Parliament. I venture to repeat the viewthat this power should be as wide as possible, consistently with themaintenance of the Imperial authority, and subject, of course, toprovisions prescribing--(1) a time-limit for the initial arrangements;(2) the method of ascertaining Irish opinion; and (3) the majority inthe Legislature, or in the electorate, or in both, necessary to sanctiona constitutional change. [187] If a Home Rule Constitution, passed intolaw in the heat of a party fight at Westminster, proves to be perfect, amiracle will have been performed unparalleled in the history of theEmpire. At this moment a Committee of Ireland's ablest men of allparties should be at work upon it, with an instructed public opinionbehind them. So only are good Constitutions made, and even the very bestneed subsequent amendment. 

FOOTNOTES:

[166] For details of prior Home Rule Bills, see the Appendix. 

[167] The Victorian and South Australian Constitutions of 1855 state inclear terms that the Ministry must be members of the Legislature, andall the Australian Constitutions of the same date, except that ofTasmania, formally exclude all other officials from the Legislature. TheTransvaal Constitution of 1906 made no reference to either point; nor dothe Federating Acts of 1867, 1900, and 1909 for Canada, Australia, andSouth Africa. 

[168] A fifth custom, very common, of compelling new Ministers to seekre-election is incorporated in most of the Australian Constitutions, butwas expressly ruled out in Section 47 of the Transvaal Constitution of1906. 

[169] See Hansard, July 3, 1893, Speech of Mr. John Morley. 

[170] The words "subject to this Constitution" or "subject to this Act"are sometimes added, but have no special significance. The AustralianCommonwealth Constitution Act does not mention the Governor's"instructions, " but only his "discretion. "

[171] British North America Act, 1867, Sects. 55-57; Commonwealth ofAustralia Constitution Act, 1900, Sects. 58-60. 

[172] See especially pp. 213-229. 

[173] See pp. 223-225. 

[174] Taken from Amendment XIV. To the United States Constitution, passed July 28, 1866. 

[175] British North America Act, 1867, Sect. 92 (13). But the Provincemay not encroach on powers reserved to the Dominion--e. G. , in bankruptcy(Gushing v. Depuy [before Jud. Comm. Of Privy Council]). See the"Constitution of Canada, " J. E. C. Munro, pp. 247-253. There has been muchlitigation over points where Dominion and Federal powers overlapped. (See "Federations and Unions of the British Empire, " H. E. Egerton, pp. 151-153). 

[176] For the proposals of the Bills of 1886 and 1893, see Appendix. 

[177] South Africa Act, 1909, Sects. 24 and 25. 

[178] See pp. 155-162. 

[179] See Pamphlet No. 17, published by Proportional RepresentationSociety, and an excellent paper by Mr. J. F. Williams in "Home RuleProblems. "

[180] Cd. 5741, 1911, pp. 46-51. 

[181] See Appendix and the Bill of 1886, Clause 25; Bill of 1893, Clause22. 

[182] 54 and 55 Vict. , Ch. 25, Sect. 4. 

[183] Courts of Admiralty in the Colonies are regulated by ImperialActs, though by an Act of 1890 large powers were conferred on theColonies of declaring ordinary Courts to be Courts of Admiralty (seeMoore's "Commonwealth of Australia, " pp. 11 and 251). 

[184] See Clauses 27-30 of the Bill of 1886, and Clauses 25-28 of theBill of 1893. 

[185] See the Precis of Proceedings, Cd. 5741, 1911. 

[186] See pp. 225-227. 

[187] See Section 128 of the Australia Constitution Act, 1900, andSection 152 of the South Africa Act, 1909. 

CONCLUSION

Is it altogether idle to hope that some such body will yet come intoexistence, if not in time to influence the drafting of the Bill, at anyrate to bring to bear upon its provisions the sober wisdom, not of oneparty only in the State, but of all; and so, if it were possible, togive to the charter of Ireland in her "new birth of freedom" thesanction of a united people?

Home Rule will eventually come. Within the Empire, the utmost achievedby the government of white men without their own consent is to weakentheir capacity to assume the sacred responsibility of self-government. It is impossible to kill the idea of Home Rule, though it is possible, by retarding its realization, to pervert some of its strength andbeauty, and to diminish the vital energy on which its fruition depends. And it is possible in the case of Ireland, up to and in the very hour ofher emancipation, after a struggle more bitter and exhausting than anyin the Empire, to heap obstacles in the path of the men who have carriedher to the goal, and on whom in the first instance must fall theextraordinarily difficult and delicate task of political reconstruction. They will be on their mettle in the eyes of the world to prove that theprophets of evil were wrong, to show sympathy and inspire confidence inthe very quarters where they have been most savagely traduced and leasttrusted, and they will have to exhibit dauntless courage in attackingold abuses and promoting new reforms. They will need their handsstrengthened in every possible way. 

The help must come--and it cannot come too soon--from the workingoptimists of Ireland, from the hundreds of men and women, of bothparties and creeds, who are labouring outside politics to extirpate thatstifling undergrowth of pessimism which runs riot in countries deniedthe light and air of freedom. All these people agree on the axiom thatIreland has a distinct individual existence, and that her future dependsupon herself. No one should dare to stop there. Let him who feelsimpelled to stop there at any rate act with open eyes. In expecting torealize social reconstruction without political reconstruction--howeverdivergent the aims may now seem to be--he expects to achieve what hasnever been achieved in any country in the Empire, and to achieve thismiracle in the very country which has suffered most from politicalrepression, and possesses the most fantastic system of government to befound in the King's dominions. The thing is impossible, and if at bottomhe feels it to be so, and inclines sadly to the view that politicalservitude is but the least of two evils, I would only venture to suggestthis: Is it not a finer course to stake something on a risk run in everywhite community but Ireland rather than to face the certainty of halfachievement? And is it not, after all, a sound risk to trust the verymen who now respond to the appeal for self-reliance, mutual tolerance, and united effort in their private affairs, not to renounce thesequalities and abuse the rights of citizenship when the public affairs oftheir country are under their own control?

As for the risk to Great Britain, I have only this last word to say: Lether people, not for the first time, show that they can rise superior tothe philosophy, as fallacious in effect as it is base and cowardly inpurpose, which sets the safety of a great nation above the happiness andprosperity of a small one. Within the last few weeks the wheel hasturned full circle, and the almost inexplicable contradiction which hasexisted for so long between Unionism and Imperialism has beenilluminated with a frank cynicism rare in our public life. It is beingsaid that the freedom given to Canada cannot be given to Ireland, because the separation from the Empire theoretically rendered possibleby such a step would be immaterial in the case of Canada, which isdistant, but perilous in the case of Ireland, which is near. If this beImperialism, it should stink in the nostrils of every decent citizen athome and abroad. 

It is true, to our shame, that, by little more than an accident, Canadaobtained the freedom which gave her people harmony, energy, and wealthin the teeth of this mean and selfish doctrine. But Lord Durham took ahigher view. Let me recall the memorable words which he added to hislong and brilliant argument for liberty as a source, not only ofdomestic regeneration, but of affection and loyalty to the Motherland:"_But at any rate our first duty is to secure the well-being of ourcolonial countrymen;_ and if, in the hidden decrees of that wisdom bywhich this world is ruled, it is written that these countries are notfor ever to remain portions of the Empire, we owe it to our honour totake good care that, when they separate from us, they should not be theonly countries on the American continent in which the Anglo-Saxon raceshall be found unfit to govern itself. "

Lord Durham was doubly right; in his prophecy of the closer unionliberty would promote, and in elementary law which he laid down, ofmoral obligation which, whatever the result, he held superior todynastic calculations. It is a fact of ominous significance that theintellectual successors of the men who most hotly repudiated both thesedoctrines in 1838 are being driven by pressure of their Irish views torevive that repudiation in 1911, and to revive it in the midst of themost effusive protestations of the need for still closer union with aColony which would either have undergone the fate of Ireland or haveceased to be a member of the Empire if their philosophy had triumphed. Ido not believe there is any conscious cant in that flagrantcontradiction, but I do firmly believe that so long as their error aboutIreland poisons in them the springs of Imperial thought, some element offallacy lies in any Imperial policy they undertake. In common prudence, at any rate, they should avoid telling Canada, while beckoning hernearer to the heart of the Empire, that they only gave her freedombecause she was so far. 

But I rely still on an awakening, on a fundamental change of spirit. TheEmpire owes everything to those who have disputed, sometimes at the costof their lives, illegitimate authority. Some day the politicians who nowspend sleepless nights with paste and scissors in ransacking the ancientfiles of the world's Press for proofs that Mr. Redmond once used wordssignifying that he aimed at "separation"--whatever that phrase maymean--will regret that they ever demeaned themselves by such pettylabour, and will place Mr. Redmond among the number of those who havesaved the Empire from the consequences of its own errors. 

APPENDIX

COMPARATIVE TABLE, SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL PROVISIONS OF THE HOME RULEBILLS OF 1886 AND 1893

HOME RULE BILL OF 1886. HOME RULE BILL OF 1893. 

 THE IRISH LEGISLATURE. 

To consist of the Crown and _Two To consist of the Crown andOrders_, sitting together, and _Two Houses_, sitting separately. Unless either Order demands aseparate vote, voting together. 

1. _First Order_, to consist of 1. _Council_, of 48 Councillors_(a)_ 75 members elected on a £25 elected on a £20 franchise fromfranchise from a new set of a new set of constituencies. Constituencies. Term of office, Term of office, eight years. Ten years. _(b)_ 28 Peeragemembers, to give place bydegrees to elective members as in_(a)_. 

_2. Second Order_, 204 members 2. _Assembly_ of 103 memberselected as at present. Two from each elected as at present. Constituency (with an alterationin the case of Cork). 

Dissolution at least every five Dissolution at least every fiveyears. Years. 

 _Money Bills_ and votes to originate in the Assembly. 

 DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN ORDERS OR HOUSES. 

After three years or a After two years or adissolution question to be dissolution question to bedecided by joint vote. Decided by joint vote in joint session. 

 ESTRICTIONS ON IRISH LEGISLATURE. 

 1. _Imperial Matters_. 

_No power to make laws about_-- _Nor_ with: the Lord-Lieutenant, The Crown, War or Peace, Army or conduct as Neutrals, Extradition, Navy, Volunteers or Militia, Trade-marks, nor (for six years)Prize or Booty of War, Treaties, Post Office in or out ofTitles, Treason, Naturalization, Ireland. Trade or Navigation, Lighthouses, etc. , Coinage, But Trade _within Ireland_ andCopyright, Patents, Post Office _inland_ Navigation conceded to(except within Ireland). Ireland. 

 2. _Irish Matters. 

No power to make laws for the purpose of_--

(1) _Establishing or endowing (1) Ditto, ditto, but moreany religion_ or imposing explicit and far-reaching. Disabilities or conferringprivileges on account of_religion_, or affecting theundenominational constitutionof National schools, etc. 

(2) Impairing rights or property (2) Ditto, ditto, or "withoutof corporations, without address for due process of law" andboth Orders and consent of Crown. Compensation. 

 (3) Depriving anyone of _life, liberty, or property_ without due process of law in accordance with settled precedents, or denying _equal protection of laws_, or taking property without _just compensation_. 

 (4) Imposing disabilities or conferring privileges on account of _birth, parentage, or place of business_. 

 (5) (_For three years_) respecting relations of _landlord and tenant_ or the purchase and letting of _land_ generally. 

 IRISH REPRESENTATION IN IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT. 

To cease altogether (except in Ireland to send 80 members tothe case of a proposed Westminster (instead of 103). Alteration of the Home Rule Act). Peers as before. 

 EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. 

The Crown, as represented by the Lord-Lieutenant, acting in Irishaffairs with the advice of an Irish Cabinet responsible to the IrishLegislature. 

 POWER OF VETO ON IRISH LEGISLATION. 

To be held by Lord-Lieutenant To be held by Lord-Lieutenant, (acting normally on the advice _acting on advice of Irishof Irish Cabinet?), but subject Cabinet_, but subject toto instructions from Imperial instructions from ImperialGovernment. Government. 

 FINANCE. 

 1. _Taxation_. 

_Customs and Excise_ still to be (1) _For six years_ all existinglevied by Imperial Parliament and taxes to continue to be imposedcollected by Imperial officers. By Imperial Parliament andAll other taxes to be under Irish collected by Imperial officers. Control. 

 Ireland to have power to impose additional taxes of her own. 

 (2) _After six years_, Customs and Excise to remain Imperial taxes; all others to be under Irish control. But Excise to be collected, though not levied, by Ireland. 

 2. _Ireland's Revenue_. 

_Gross_ revenue collected in (1) _True_ Irish revenue fromIreland from Imperial and Irish Imperial taxes (_i. E. _, withtaxes and Crown Lands, etc. ; allowance made for duties_plus_ an Imperial grant towards collected in Ireland onthe cost of Irish Police. (Total articles consumed in Greatcost at that time £1, 500, 000: Britain, and _vice versa_). Ireland to pay £1, 000, 000, Treasury any surplus over (2) Revenue from Irish taxes£1, 000, 000, until cost reduced and Crown Lands. To that point. ) (3) Imperial grant of one-third of annual cost of Irish Police (equal in first year to £486, 000). 

 3. _Ireland's Contribution to Imperial Exchequer_. 

(1) _For thirty years_ Ireland (1) _For six years_ Ireland toto pay fixed annual maximum sums, pay _one-third of the "true"representing Ireland's share of revenue raised in Ireland from(a) Army, Navy, Civil List, etc. ; Imperial taxes and Crown(b) National Debt. Payments not Lands_. (Estimated share forto be increased, but might be first year, £2, 276, 000, ordiminished. Share for Army, Navy, about one-twenty-eighth ofetc. , never to exceed total Imperial expenditure. )one-fifteenth of total cost. Total payments under these headsfor first year, £3, 242, 000. 

(2) _After thirty years_, (2) _After six years_, bothcontribution _to be revisable_. Method and amount of Ireland's contribution to be revised and settled afresh. 

 4. _Contribution to Special War Taxes_. 

Optional to Ireland. For six years compulsory on Ireland to pay her proportional share of any such tax levied. 

 _5. Post Office_. 

To be taken over by Ireland For six years to remain underunder Irish Act. Imperial control. Profit or loss on Irish posts to be credited to or debited _against_ Ireland. 

 POLICE. 

Dublin Police to be under Both Dublin Police andImperial control for two years. Constabulary, as long as theyConstabulary, "while that force should exist, to be undersubsists, " to be under Imperial Imperial control. Control, but Ireland to havepower to create a new force Meanwhile an ordinary locallyunder control of local controlled civil police to beauthorities. Gradually established by Irish Government, and to take the place of the old forces. 

 But _for six years_, Imperial Government to have the power to maintain in existence the old forces, if considered expedient. 

 JUDGES. 

 _Present Irish Judges to Remain_. 

All future Irish Judges to be For six years future Irishappointed by Irish Government. Supreme Court Judges (not County Court Judges, etc. ) to be appointed by Imperial Government. After six years by Irish Government. 

 LAW COURTS. 

 _Constitution to Remain the Same_. 

 But appeals to the House of Lords to cease; instead, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. 

 CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS. 

 _(As to Validity of Irish Laws, etc. )_. 

To be decided by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (includingone or more Irish Judges). 

 EXCHEQUER JUDGES. 

Legal proceedings in Ireland All legal proceedings inor against Imperial revenue land Ireland _which touch anyauthorities to be referred, if matter_ (financial oreither party wishes, to the otherwise) _not within theExchequer Division Judges of power of the Irishthe United Kingdom. Legislature_ to be referred, if either party wishes, to two Exchequer Judges appointed and paid by the Imperial Government. Appeal to be to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. 

 LORD-LIEUTENANT

 _Might be of any Religion_. 

Term of office indefinite. Term of office six years. 

 CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. 

After the first dissolution, After six years, LegislatureLegislature to have power to to have power to reconstitutereconstitute Second Order. Assembly. 

REMARKS ON THE FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS. 

The arrangements differed widely in the two Bills. 

The main points of likeness were: (1) That from the first there was tobe a _separate Irish Exchequer_; (2) that for all time Ireland was to be_denied control over the imposition of Customs and Excise_--that is tosay, over about _three-quarters of her revenue_ as then raised; (3) thatabout _a third of the cost of the Irish Police_ was to be paid by theImperial Government; (4) that payments due from Ireland to the ImperialGovernment were to be made a first charge on proceeds of Imperial taxesin Ireland. 

The principal points of difference were:

1. Under the Bill of 1886, apart from the very important restriction ofCustoms and Excise, Ireland was at once to have freedom to control herown taxation. 

Under the Bill of 1893 (as amended) there was to be a suspensory periodof six years during which all existing taxes were to continue to beimposed by the Imperial Government; but with power to Ireland to addtaxes of her own. _Amounts_ of Imperial taxes might be varied, but _nonew ones_ imposed, except specially for war. After six years, financialfreedom, except in Customs and Excise. Excise, however, was to be_collected_, though not levied, by Ireland. 

2. "_Collected" and "True" Revenue_. --In 1886, Ireland was credited withall the revenue _collected in Ireland_ from Customs and Excise _(i. E. , _the "gross" revenue from those taxes), but she had to pay the cost ofcollection herself. 

In 1893 allowance was made for duties collected in Ireland on articlesconsumed in Great Britain, and _vice versa, _ Ireland being credited onlywith her "true" revenue--that is, revenue from dutiable articles_consumed in Ireland. _ Similar allowances made in the Income Taxaccount. A joint Anglo-Irish Committee was to settle these adjustments. This system involved a deduction from the first year's gross Irishrevenue of nearly two millions. (In 1886 the corresponding sum, creditedto Ireland, was £1, 400, 000. ) On the other hand, in 1893 the greater partof the cost of collection (£235, 000) was not to be borne by Ireland. 

3. _Imperial Contribution by Ireland. _--In 1886, a fixed annual maximum, which might be diminished, but could not be exceeded, revisable inthirty years. 

In 1893 (for six years) an annually ascertained _quota_--namely, a thirdof Ireland's "true" revenue (exclusive of taxes imposed by herself). 

4. _Ireland's Budget. _--Note the important point that under both Billsthree-quarters of Irish revenue was derived from Customs and Excise, over which, in 1886, Ireland could exercise no control; in 1903 only thecontrol given by the presence of eighty members in the House of Commons. In both cases Ireland was to be wholly responsible for her own civilexpenditure (except for the existing Police). Under both Bills Irelandwas intended to start with a surplus of about half a million, which maybe regarded roughly as the equivalent, in both cases, of the Imperialshare of the cost of the Irish Police. But note that, in 1886, Irelandbeing pledged to pay a fixed million of the cost of Police, would obtainno relief until the cost was reduced below a million; while in 1893, paying two-thirds of the annually ascertained cost, she would obtainrelief from any annual reduction. The Police referred to was, of course, the then existing Police, imperially organized and controlled. The newcivil Police eventually set up in substitution would be financed andcontrolled by the Irish Government. The charges, therefore, on theBritish taxpayer would, it was expected, be a rapidly diminishing one. 

The loss on Irish posts in 1893, debited against Ireland, was estimatedat £52, 000. 

5. _Special War Taxes. _--Ireland's contribution optional in 1886; in1893, compulsory (at any rate, for six years, which would have includedthe beginning of the South African War). 

INDEX

Abercromby, Sir R. , 57, 129Absentee taxes, in Ireland, 23-30; in Australasia, 116Absenteeism, in Ireland, 12, 51; in Prince Edward Island, 75-76; in Upper Canada, 80; in Lower Canada, 85; in Australia, 110Acadia. See Maritime ProvincesAct of Union, 1800, 60-64, 232-233Administrators, in South Africa, 197Agricultural Co-operation. See Irish Agricultural Organization Society, also 168, 177Agricultural Grant, Ireland, 267Agricultural Rates Act, 1896, 267Agricultural Statistics, Ireland, 150, 306-308Amendment of Constitution, Ireland, 225-227, 338; Colonies, 225-226, 338American Colonies, colonization of, 8-9; land tenure in (see Land Tenure); mercantile system, 17-18, 30; government of, 22-23, 33; Revolution in, 30-35, 72, 74. See also United StatesAnglo-Normans, in Ireland, 6-7Annuities, tenant's. See Land PurchaseArmagh, Peep o' Day Boys in, 55Army Act, 1881, 220 (footnote)Army and Navy, 218-219, 329Arnold, Benedict, 40Ashbourne Act, 1885, 309. See also Land ActsAustralian Colonies Act, 1850, 107, 225Australian Colonies Customs Duties Act, 1873, 220, footnoteAustralian Colonies, history of, See Chapter VI. , and under names of the various States; federation of, as Commonwealth of Australia, 119, 196, 198; finance in, 227-228, 245-246, 288, 295-298. See also Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, Constitutions, Federal Systems, Customs and Excise, Subsidies

Baldwin, Robert, in Upper Canada, 82, 103Balfour, Arthur, 138, 152, 172, 212Balfour, Gerald, 152, 158, 338Baltimore, Lord, 21Barbour, Sir David, on Anglo-Irish Finance, 249-257Barry, Sir Redmond, 114Belfast, 45, 146, 162, 170, 175Belgium, cost of Government in, 253Berkeley, G. F. H. , 178Bidwell, B. , in Upper Canada, 82Birrell, Augustine, his Land Act of 1909. See Land Acts, Land Tenure, Land PurchaseBloemfontein, Convention of, 123Boer War of 1880-1881, 125; of 1899-1902, 128-129, 133, 216Bonus to landlords, 310-312, 317. See also Land PurchaseBoomplatz, battle of, 1848, 123Botha, General, 143Brand, President, 124Bright, John, 69, 71, 213, 308British Columbia, finances of, 246, 299; Upper Chamber in, 331British North America Act, 1867, citations from, 219, 220 (footnote), 225, 299, 323, 325 (footnote), 327, 330 (footnote); 1891, 335. See also CanadaBuller, Charles, 87, 89, 94-95Burgh, Hussey, 36Burke, Edmund, 12, 27-29, 34, 59, 74, 77Burke, Robert O'Hara, 114Butt, Isaac, 71, 135, 171

Canada, Upper and Lower, history of, (see Chapter V. And Introduction, viii, 340-341); relations of, with American Colonies, 72; with United States, 80, 87, 92, 101; Union of the two Provinces proposed, 76-78, carried out, 96-104, 106, 192, 194, 198, 200-201, 223, and Introduction, viii; comparison of history with that of Transvaal, 132-135; confederation of, as the Dominion of Canada, proposed, 82, 96, carried out (1867), 97, 193-196; finance in, 227-228, 298-299, 304. See also Constitutions, Federal Systems, Customs and Excise, Subsidies, Guaranteed Loans, British North America Acts, 1867, 1891Carleton, Sir Guy, 73, 129Carnarvon, Lord, 123-124Carolina, plantation of, 9, 10, 23Carson, Sir Edward, Introduction, xCasey, Judge, 115Castlereagh, Lord, 62, 134, 135Catholic Relief Act, 1778, 36; 1793, 52-53, 55Chamberlain, Joseph, 1-4, 11, 103, 206, 257, 282Channel Islands, finance, 288Charlemont, Lord, 16, 46-47, 61Charles II. , King, 9Chartist movement, 88Chatham, Lord, 27, 29-31, 34, 74Chief Secretary, 64, 160; compared with Canadian Governor, 102Childers, Hugh, in Prince Edward Island, 76 (footnote); as Chairman of Royal Commission on finance, 239-257Church Funds, Irish, 271-272Civil List, 328Civil servants, Ireland, 336; Transvaal, 336Clare, Earl of, See FitzgibbonClergy Reserves, Upper Canada, 82; Lower Canada, 84-85Cockburn, Sir John, 85Coinage, colonial and Irish powers over, 219, 220 (footnote); Act of 1853, 220 (footnote)Collins, Francis, in Upper Canada, 82Colonial Attorneys Relief Act, 1857, 222 (footnote)Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, 220 (footnote), 336 (and footnote)Colonial Defence forces, 215-219 (and footnote)Colonial Laws Validity Act, 222Colonial Marriages Act, 1866, 222 (footnote)Colonial Naval Defence Act, 1865, 220 (footnote)Colonial Office, 79Colonial Prisoners' Removal Act, 1869, 222 (footnote)Colonial Probates Act, 1892, 222 (footnote)Commercial Propositions of 1785, 43, 232Commercial Restrictions, Ireland, 17-19, 30, 37, 236, 294; American Colonies, 17-18, 30; Canada, 78Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, citations from, 219, 220 (footnote), 296, 324-325 (footnote), 338 (footnote), 332Conferences, Imperial, 205, 215, 337; suggestions for, with Ireland under Home Rule, 205, 215, 337Congested Districts Board, 152, 176-167; in Land Purchase, 310, 314; under Home Rule, 176-177, 317, 319Connecticut, 8-9, 23Constitutional Act, 1791, Canada, 76-79, 80Constitutional Doubts, settlement of, 335Constitution, Irish, summary of proposed, Chapter XV. Constitutions: Transvaal, of 1905, 130-137; of 1906, 137-139, 223-224, 323-324, 325 (footnote); United States, 191, 193-197, 224-225, 227; Dominion of Canada, 219, 220, 227, 327, 328, 330, 331, 334; Australian States, 107-108, 325 (footnote); Commonwealth of Australia, 196, 213, 219, 220, 227, 332; South African Union, 197, 224. See also Federal Systems and individual ColoniesContinental Congress. 1774, 35"Contract" finance, 300, 303-306Contribution of Ireland to Imperial services; in the eighteenth century, 26, 231; during the Union, 216, 234, 237-239, 247, 253-254, 282; under Home Rule, 216, 282, 286-287, 302-303, 337Convict system, Australia, 74Copyright, 219-20 (footnote); Imperial Conference on, 337Corn Laws, Repeal of, 236Cornwallis, Lord, 35, 62Courtney, Lord, 333Cromwell, Oliver, 9Crown Colony, features of, in Irish Government, 1-2, 64, 144, 157, 179, 188, 213, 284, 306Crown Lands, revenue from, 275Currie, B. W. , 249, 252Customs and Excise, Ireland, control of, under Home Rule, 227-229, 231-234, 275-279, 287-294, 300-301; Australia, 227-228, 245-246, 288, 295-299; Canada, 227-228; United States, 227-228; in Colonies generally, 254, 288. See also Finance, Federal SystemsDebt, Irish public, until 1816, 230-233Danish invasions, 6Declaration of Independence, Irish, 38; American, 35Declaratory Acts for America and Ireland, 23-24, 31, 34, 45Defender Society, 55-56Deficit, in Irish Revenue, amount of, 259-260, 277, 279; method of dealing with, 281-286, 337Denmark, agricultural policy in, 237, 290Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, 152; founding of, 155-162; allusions to, 234, 274, 291, 332Derby, Lord, 123Derry, Bishop of, 47Development Commissioners, grants to Ireland, 274Devolution movement, 152Devon Commission, 1845, 69Dillon, John, 146Disagreement between two Chambers of Irish Legislature, 334Disestablishment of Irish Church, 70, 103, 154Disraeli, Benjamin, 109, 235Dissenters, in Ireland, 9, 19-20, 24, 31; in American Colonies, 9, 20; in Canada, 80-82Dublin, 170, 173, 186Duffy, Sir C. Gavan, 114-116Dunraven, Lord, 152, 178Durban, Conference at, for Closer Union, 156-157, 192Durham, Lord, Introduction, viii, 88-91, 94-99, 104, 126Durham Report, 94-99, 104, 133Dutch East India Company, 120

Education, Ireland, 71, 170, 174-176, 285; finance of, 268-269; England, 269; Scotland, 269Egerton, H. E. , 31, 330Elgin, Lord, 93, 102-103, 105Emancipation, Catholic, 52-53, 57, 62-63, 88Emigration, from Ireland, 19-20, 31, 87, 111, 148, 156, 186Emmett, Robert, 83, 86, 135, 171Encumbered Estates Act, 1849, 69, 111Equalization of taxes, in Ireland and Great Britain, 234-235, 246Estate duties, assessment to, as test of taxable capacity, 240, 238; yield of, in Ireland, 275-276Estates Commissioners. See Land PurchaseEureka Stockade, 1854, 112-113Evicted tenants, 177Executive authority, in Colonies, 221-222, 323-328; in Ireland, under Home Rule, 221-222, 323-328Executive Council, in Upper Canada, 79, 81, 100; in Lower Canada, 79, 84, 100Extradition, Colonial powers over, 219 (and footnote); Irish powers over, 219, 329

"Family Compact, " in Upper Canada, 81; in the Maritime Provinces, 88Famine, Irish, 1847, 69, 103, 236Farrer, Lord, 249, 252-256"Federal" Home Rule, 188, 192-206, 226-227, 294-300Federal systems, in general, 192-197; Upper Chamber in, 212-213, 229, 300, 331-332; division of powers, as in Home Rule Bill, 223, 330; Amendment of Constitution, 225-227; finance, 227-229, 242-246, 294-300; judiciary, 334-336; settlement of constitutional questions, 335. See also Canada, Australian Colonies, South Africa, United States, Switzerland, Germany, ConstitutionsFenianism, 70Financial relations of Ireland and Great Britain (see Chapters XI. , XII. , XIII. ); before the Union, 230-231, 290; from the Union to 1896, 232-57; Royal Commission on, 1894-1896, 239-57; present situation, 178-181, and Chapters XII. And XIII. Finance, of the Home Rule Bill, Chapter XIII. , and summary, 337Finance, Colonial. See Federal Systems, and under names of ColoniesFinance Act, 1894, 222 (footnote)Finance Act, 1909, 259, 301Finlay, Father T. A. , 165Fiscal amalgamation, 1817, 233, 289Fisher, J. , author of "The End of the Irish Parliament, " 13, 54Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare, Introduction, xi, and 49, 58-9, 60, 62, 65, 97, 126, 131, 134, 146Fitzgibbon, James, 81Fitzwilliam, Lord, 53-54Flood, Henry, 46-47Ford, Patrick, 149Fortescue, Hon. J. W. , 39-40Foster's Corn Law, 51, 236 (footnote)Fox, Charles James, on Canada, 78-79; on Ireland, 91France, Seven Years' War with, 26; in Canada, 72-73; in American War of Independence, 35; effect of, on Ireland, 35; effect of French Revolution on Ireland, 54-55; invasions of Ireland, 56Franklin, Benjamin, 31, 33-34Free Trade, opinion in Ireland on, 170, 290; influence of, on Ireland, 235-237. See also Tariff Reform, Customs and ExciseFrench-Canadians. See Chapter V. , especially pages 72-78, 83-87, 96-97; also 121Frere, Sir Bartle, 124

Gaelic League, 166-168Geelong, 114Georgia, 9, 21Germany, 147; Federal Constitution of, 195, 228 (Zollverein)Gladstone, W. E. , Irish land reform, 68, 70, 99; on colonial liberty, 109-111; his Transvaal and Irish policies, 125, 128; on representation of Ireland at Westminster, 203-211; taxation of Ireland, 234-235; on Irish expenditure, 282; financial schemes in the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893, 300-303, and Appendix; for details of the Bills generally, see Appendix and in the text _passim_Gourlay, William, in Upper Canada, 82Governors, in American Colonies, 23, 33; in the Canadas, 79, 102; in the Dominion of Canada, 195, 199; in the Commonwealth of Australia, 195 (footnote), 196, 221Grattan, Henry, 44, 45, 46, 50, 53Grattan's Parliament, Chapter III. Greene, General, 40Greville's "Memoirs, " 94, 103Grey, Sir George, in Australasia, 115-117; in South Africa, 123-124, 194Grote, George, 89, 92Guarantee Fund, 267. See also Land PurchaseGuaranteed Loans, to Ireland (see Land Purchase); to the Transvaal and Canada, 318; to Crown Colonies and Foreign Powers, 318-319

Habeas Corpus Act, 330Hamilton, Sir Edward, 238Hancock, John, 35Henderson, Professor G. C. , 116Henry VIII. , Ireland in the reign of, 8Hewins, Professor W. A. S. , 293-294Holland, Bernard, 33Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893. For details, see Appendix, allusions in text _passim_"Home Rule Problems, " edited by Basil Williams, Introduction, xiv, and pp. 178, 203, 307, 333House of Lords: under the Union, 64; after Home Rule, 212, 229, 300Howe, Joseph, in Nova Scotia, 88Hume, philosophy of, 59Hume, Joseph, 89, 90, 109Hyde, Dr. Douglas, 166

Imperial Federation, 204-205"In and Out" Clause, 209Income Tax, first imposition of, in Ireland, 234-235; assessment to, as test of taxable capacity, 240, 258; yield of, in Ireland, 275-276; errors in computing Irish yield, 278 (footnote)India, 12Indians, in America, 10Industrial Development Associations, 165, 168, 290, 292Insurance, National, 178, 274, 306International Copyright Act, 1886, 220 (footnote)Ireland Development Grant, 311Irish Agricultural Organization Society, 162-165Irish Council Bill, 1907, 192, 304_Irish Homestead_, 165Irish Members at Westminster. See Representation at WestminsterIrish Universities Act, 1908, 153, 173Isle of Man, finance of, 255, 288Jamaica, 1, 284James, Sir Henry, 330Jebb, Richard, 117-118Johannesburg, 131, 133Judges, Irish, under Home Rule, 334-5; Exchequer Judges, 336Judicial salaries, Ireland, 273

Kilmore, 114Kitchener, Lord, 129Kruger, President Paul, 124Kyte, Ambrose, 114

Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, 153, 320Labour questions, in Ireland, 170, 178Lafontaine, Sir Louis, 103Laing's Nek, 125Lalor, Peter, 112-113Land Acts, Irish, of 1870, 16-17, 68, 70-71, 151, 309; 1881, 16-17, 70, 103, 151, 309; 1885, 309; 1887, 70, 151; 1891, 70, 152, 309-310; 1896, 70, 152, 309; 1903, 71, 103, 152-153, 155, 310-321; 1909, 153, 311-321. See also Land Tenure, Land PurchaseLand Commission, 70; cost and control of, 273, 303, 317-319Land League, 70Land Purchase in Ireland, Chapter XIV. , 71, 151, 152-153, 177, 243, 285, 337; in Prince Edward Island, 75, 318Land Tenure, in Ireland, 11-17, 51, 55-57, 65, 66-70, 143, 151-152, 177, 236-237; in America, 10, 15; in Prince Edward Island, 13, 75-76, 115, 143; in Upper Canada, 80; in Lower Canada, 84-85; in Australia, 115-116; in New Zealand, 116. See also Land Acts, Land PurchaseLanyon, Sir Owen, 124, 127Law, Bonar, 293Law Courts, Ireland, 334-335Lecky, Professor W. H. , Introduction, vi and ix, and 6, 13, 16, 19, 29, 49, 57, 183Legislative Councils, in America, 23; in Upper Canada, 79, 81, 100-102; in Lower Canada, 79, 84, 100Legislature, Irish, powers of, general, 213-229, 328-330; financial powers, Chapter XIII. , and 317-321, 337; composition of, 330-334. For restrictions on, see also Safeguards for MinoritiesLegislatures, Colonial, powers and limitations of, general, 215-229. See also Constitutions, Federal Systems, and under names of ColoniesLeinster, plantations in, 9Lieutenant-Governors, in Dominion of Canada, 195, 221Limerick, Treaty of, 12, 63Local Government Board, cost of, 272Local Government, working of, in Ireland, 103, 172-174Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, 103, 154, 158Local taxation, Ireland, 266; grants in aid of, 266-267, 311Locker-Lampson, G. , Introduction, vi, and 65Londonderry, Lord, 61Long, Walter, Introduction, x, xi, and 142, 152Lord-Lieutenant, before the Union, 22-23, 32-33; under the Union, 64; under Home Rule, 192, 199, 219, 221, 266, 324-327, 328, 335Louisburg, capture of, 73Lyttelton, Mr. Alfred, 131-132, 135

MacDonnell, Lord, 61, 152, 304Mackenzie, W. L. , in Upper Canada, 74, 82, 86-87, 94, 105McKenna, Sir J. , 238McManus, T. B. , 115Maine, 8Majuba, 125, 128Malta, 1Manitoba, 331Maritime Provinces, 72, 75, 88, 95, and Chapter V. See also Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward IslandMaryland, 8-9, 21Massachusetts, 8, 10, 22-23 (and footnote), 35Meagher, T. F. , 113-114Melbourne, Lord, 94Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, 220, 222Mill, John Stuart, 67, 69, 89, 95Milner, Lord, 129, 131, 138-139, 142Miscellaneous revenue, Imperial, Ireland's share of, 286-287Mitchel, John, 113-114Molesworth, Sir William, 89, 93-94, 109Molyneux, on Irish liberty, 31Montreal, 74-75, 103Montgomery, General, 35, 75Moore, W. Harrison, author of "The Commonwealth of Australia, " 219Morgan's Riflemen, 73Morley, Lord, his "Life of Gladstone, " Introduction, x, and 109, 125; on Irish Members at Westminster, 209; on Clause 7 of the Bill of 1886, 326Municipal Technical Institute, Belfast, 162, 175Municipal Reform Act, 1840, 103Munster, plantations in, 9Murray, Miss A. E. , 17, 235, 293

Natal, 140, 196National Debt, Ireland's contribution to, 286-287, 337Naturalization, 219, 220 (footnote), 329Naval Agreement, 1911, 218Navigation Acts, 17-18Navies, Colonial. See Colonial Defence ForcesNeilson, John, in Lower Canada, 85Nelson, Wilfred, in Lower Canada, 85Netherlands Government, 121Neutrality, 219, 329New Brunswick, Chapter V. , and 72, 75-76, 88, 97, 194New England, 9, 21, 120Newfoundland, 73, 193-197, 288New Haven, 8New Netherlands, plantation of, 9New South Wales, 106-107, 114, 117, 120, 194, 196; finance in, 297-298, 300New Zealand, 106, 108, 115-117, 147, 193, 197, 217, 288Ninety-two Resolutions, Lower Canada, 86Nixon, Captain John, 35North Carolina, 21 (footnote)Nova Scotia, Chapter V. , and 72, 76, 88, 97, 102, 194

Oakboys, in Ulster, 16O'Brien, Barry, 178, 213O'Brien, Murrough, 253O'Brien, Smith, 83, 103, 114, 171O'Brien, William, 177, 181O'Callaghan, Dr. , in Lower Canada, 85O'Connell, Daniel, 70-71, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 99, 123O'Conor Don, the, 249Octennial Act, 168, 357O'Hara, James, 81Old Age Pensions, 153, 178-179, 181, 273, 285, 291, 303Oldham, Professor C. H. , on Irish finance, 234, 262, 270O'Loughlen, Sir Brian, in Victoria, 114"Omnes Omnia" Clause, 209Ontario, Province of, prior to 1867, See Canada; after 1867, see Canada, Confederation of, and 194, 196, 331Orange Free State, 120, 123-124, 126, 135, 196, 285Orange Society, in Ireland, 55, 137, 155, 184, 187; in Canada, 87, 103, 184; in Australia, 114, 184O'Shanassy, Sir John, in Victoria, 114

Paley, Dr. , Philosophy of, 59Papineau, Louis, in Lower Canada, 47, 85-87, 94, 105Parliamentary parties, Irish, 181-182Parliament, Irish (pre-Union), 24, 43, 50-58, 61, 62; finance under, 230-231, 290Parnell, Charles Stewart, 135, 151, 171Patents, 219Peace of Paris, 26Peel, Sir Robert, on the Repeal of the Union, 91-92, 99, 236Peep o' Day Boys, 55Penal Code, 12-14, 26, 36, 55, 57, 65, 72, 156, 183, 308Penn, William, 9Pennsylvania, 9, 21Pilkington, Mrs. , 165Pitt, William, 50, 53, 54, 62, 74, 96, 106, 135, 232Plantations, of Ireland and America, 8-9Plunkett House, 164Plunkett, Sir Horace, 155, 159 (footnote), 160, 165Police, Irish, present position and cost of, 253, 273; under Home Rule, 180, 219, 285, 334Poor Law (Ireland), 71, 174Port Phillip. See VictoriaPostal Services, Irish, powers over, 220; loss on, 243, 275, 286Poynings' Act, 24, 45Preamble, Home Rule Bill, 323Prince Edward Island, 13, 72, 74, 88, 97, 115. See also Land Tenure, Land PurchasePrize and Booty of War, 219, 329Proportional Representation, 333Proprietary Colonies of America, 10, 23Public Works, Commissioners of, Ireland, 319-321, 337

Quakers, 9, 21_Quarterly Review_, 99Quebec, town of, 74Quebec, Province of, prior to 1791, 72-78; from 1791 to 1867, see under names of Lower Canada and Canada; after 1867, see Canada, Confederation of, and 194, 196, 198-200, 208; present Constitution of, compared with Irish Home Rule, 198-200, 206, 209Quebec Act, 1774, 73-74Queensland, 109, 196; finance in, 297

Railways, Ireland, 71, 174Raleigh, Sir Walter, 8Rebellions, Irish, of 1798, 55, 56; of 1848, 83, 103Recess Committee, action and report of, 155-162Reciprocity Agreement, 293Redmond, John, 141, 148, 156, 181, 341Reform, Parliamentary (Ireland), 45-46, 50-58; Great Britain, 48, 53, 59, 88Repeal of the Union, 70, 91Representation at Westminster, of Ireland, 203-229, 284, 337; of American Colonies (proposals for), 34, 205; of Canada (proposals for), 77Residuary powers, under Home Rule, 223. See also Federal SystemsRetief, Piet, 122Revenue, from Ireland. See Financial Relations, Estate Duties, Income Tax, Customs and ExciseRevenue, "true" and "collected, " method of estimating in United Kingdom, 242-246, 275-278 (and footnotes); in Australia, 242-246, 296Revolution, Irish, 1780-2, Chapter II. ; American, 1775, Chapter IIRhode Island, 8, 23 (footnote)Road Board, grants to Ireland, 274Roebuck, J. A. , 89, 90, 94Rose, Holland, 75Royal Assent, 221, 326-327Ruskin, John, 106Russell, George W. , 165Russell, Lord John, on Canada, 87, 90, 91, 92, 99, 100, 102, 221; on Australia, 109-110Russell, T. W. , 159 (and footnote)Rutland, Lord, 54, 77

Safeguards for Minorities, Ireland, 191, 223-225, 329-330; United States, 224, 329-330; Canada, 225; Australia, 225St. Lawrence, River, 75Salaberry, Colonel, 83Sand River Convention, 1852, 123Saunderson, Colonel, 156 (footnote), 215 (and footnote)Scotland, 104, 159 (footnote); Home Rule for, 200-203; revenue from, and expenditure on, 238, 242; police in, 253; education in, 269Selborne, Lord, 142Seventh Report of Grievances (Upper Canada), 82, 86Seven Years' War, 26, 72Sexton, T. , 249Shepstone, Sir T. , 124Sinn Fein, 168Smith, Adam, 51Smith, Sir Harry, 123Socialism, in Ireland, Introduction, xiv, 144, 170South Africa Act, 1909, citations from, 140-141, 323, 326, 332, 338South African Colonies, history of, see Chapter VII. , and under Cape of Good Hope, Transvaal, Orange Free State, Natal; Federal Union, proposed (1859), 117, 123; Conference for Closer Union (1908), 140, 156-157; Union of 1909, 140-143, 196-197; see also South Africa Act, 1900, Constitutions, Federal SystemsSouth Australia, 106-107, 116, 196; finance in, 297Spanish Colonies, 25Spirit duty, 234-235, 237-238, 244Stamp Act (1765), and Revenue Duties (America), 27, 34-35, 72Stanley, Lord, 90-92Steelboys, in Ulster, 16Subsidies, to Ireland, under Home Rule, 281-286, 337; to Colonies, 284-285; by Federal Governments to subordinate States or Provinces, 296-300, 304Suez Canal shares, revenue from, 287Supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, 204, 221-225, 323, 328Supreme Court, of Australia, 196, 334-335; of South Africa, 197, 334-335; of Canada, 195, 334-335Sutherland, Sir T. , 249Swift, Dean, 32Switzerland, Federal Constitution of, 195, 331_Sydney Bulletin_, 117, 143

Tariff Reform, opinion in Ireland on, 170; effect of, on Ireland, 289, 292-293; opinion of Professor Hewins on, for Ireland, 293-294Tariffs. See Customs and Excise, Free Trade, Tariff ReformTasmania, 106-107, 113, 196; finance in, 297-298, 300Taxable capacity of Ireland: in 1800, 232; in 1894, 238-257; in 1911, 258-260Technical Instruction, Ireland, 161, 175Temperance Reform, Ireland, 177-178, 292Tenant League, 70Ten Resolutions (1837), 87Territorials, Ireland, 118, 218Thompson, Poulett, Lord Sydenham, 102Titles, power of conferring, 219, 329Tone, Wolfe, 54, 56, 57, 62, 73, 76, 86, 135Toronto, 81Townshend, Lord, 25, 32Townshend, Charles, 27Town Tenants Act, 153Trade, external, of Ireland, 147-148, 291Trade and Navigation, Colonial and Irish powers over, 220, 329Trade-mark, Irish, 165; Colonial and Irish powers over, 219Transvaal, Introduction, xiv, 120, 123-143, 196, 318, 336, and whole of Chapter VII. See also South African Colonies, ConstitutionsTreason, 219, 329Treasury, Committee on Land Purchase, 1908, 311; Returns (Financial Relations), 242-246, 259-260, 264-279Treaties, power of making, 219, 329Trek, the Great, 120-123, 128, 133Trimleston, Lord, 25

Ulster, plantation of, 8, 9; land tenure in, 15, 52, 55-7; emigration from, 15, 19-20, 31, 186; Orange Society in (see Orange Society); comparison with Canadian minorities, 92, 97-9, 100-2, 214; with Transvaal minority, 139, 186, 214; views of, with regard to representation at Westminster, 214-215; under Home Rule, Introduction, x, xii, 170, 182-187, 302, 333Ulster Custom. See Ulster, Land Tenure in"Umpirage, " of Great Britain, in Canada, 101, 155; in Ireland, 155, 208"Undertakers, " 25, 81Union, of Ireland and Great Britain, Chapter IV. ; compared with that of the two Canadas, Introduction, viii, 77-78, 96-104, 106, 192, 194, 198, 200-201; of the Canadas (see Canada)United Empire Loyalists, 74-75, 80United Irishmen, 54, 56, 76United States, relations with Canada, 80, 87, 92, 101; emigration to, from Ireland, 111, 148; feeling towards Ireland, 148-149; Constitution of, 193-195. See also Federal Systems, Constitutions, Safeguards for Minorities, Customs, and ExciseUniversities, Irish, 153, 273, 329Upper Chamber, Irish, under Home Rule, 331-332. See also Federal Systems

Van Diemen's Land. See TasmaniaVereeniging, Peace of, 129Victoria, Chapter V. , and 106-107, 114-115, 194, 196, 198, 208; finance in, 297Virginia, 8, 22Volksraad, 124Volunteers, Ireland (1778-1783), 37, 44-45, 52, 54, 60-61, 73, 103, 135, 187, 230. See also Territorials

Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, in Canada, 89, 94-95, 104; in Australia, 108-109, 116Wakefield, Vicar of, 107Wales, Home Rule for, 199-200War and Peace, power of making, 219, 329Washington, General George, 40Welby, Lord, on Anglo-Irish finance, 249-256, 280-281, 282, 293Wellington, Duke of, on Ireland and Canada, 70, 88, 90, 126Wentworth, William, in Australia, 107, 114, 120Western Australia, 106-108, 115, 196, and Chapter V. West Indies, banishment of Irish to, 9; grants-in-aid to, 284Whiteboys, 16, 51, 56, 67, 107Willcocks, Stephen, in Upper Canada, 82William IV. , on Canada, 99Williams, Basil, Editor of "Home Rule Problems, " Introduction, xiv, 203Wills Act, 1861, 222 (footnote)Wilmot, Samuel, in New Brunswick, 88Wyndham, George, 152; his Land Act of 1903, 71, 152, 310, etc. 

Young, Arthur, on Ireland, 14, 32, 69Young Ireland movement, 71, 114, 135