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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Against Home Rule (1912), by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Against Home Rule (1912)
+       The Case for the Union
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor:   S. Rosenbaum
+
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2005 [EBook #15450]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGAINST HOME RULE (1912) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Aldarondo and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AGAINST HOME RULE
+
+THE CASE FOR THE UNION
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR J. BALFOUR, M.P.; J. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.;
+WALTER LONG, M.P.; GEORGE WYNDHAM, M.P.;
+LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, M.P.; J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.;
+GERALD W. BALFOUR; THOMAS SINCLAIR;
+MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY;
+EARL PERCY; L.S. AMERY, M.P.; GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.;
+GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.,
+&c.
+
+
+WITH INTRODUCTION BY
+SIR EDWARD CARSON, K.C., M.P.
+
+
+AND PREFACE BY
+A. BONAR LAW, M.P.
+
+
+EDITED BY
+S. ROSENBAUM
+
+
+LONDON
+FREDERICK WARNE & CO,
+AND NEW YORK
+1912
+
+IRISH ESSAYS COMMITTEE
+
+Chairman.
+THE RT. HON. SIR EDWARD CARSON, M.P.
+
+Vice-Chairman.
+GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.
+
+Committee.
+L.S. AMERY, M.P.
+GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.
+THE RT. HON. J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.
+A.L. HORNER, K.C., M.P.
+A.D. STEEL-MAITLAND, M.P.
+A.W. SAMUELS, K.C.
+P. CAMBRAY
+
+Secretary & Editor.
+S. ROSENBAUM, M.SC., F.S.S.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. A. BONAR LAW, M.P.
+
+
+This book, for which I have been asked to write a short preface,
+presents the case against Home Rule for Ireland. The articles are
+written by men who not only have a complete grasp of the subjects upon
+which they write, but who in most cases, from their past experience and
+from their personal influence, are well entitled to outline the Irish
+policy of the Unionist Party.
+
+Ours is not merely a policy of hostility to Home Rule, but it is, as it
+has always been, a constructive policy for the regeneration of Ireland.
+
+We are opposed to Home Rule because, in our belief, it would seriously
+weaken our national position; because it would put a stop to the
+remarkable increase of prosperity in Ireland which has resulted from the
+Land Purchase Act; and because it would inflict intolerable injustice on
+the minority in Ireland, who believe that under a Government controlled
+by the men who dominate the United Irish League neither their civil nor
+their religious liberty would be safe.
+
+To create within the United Kingdom a separate Parliament with an
+Executive Government responsible to that Parliament would at the best
+mean a danger of friction. But if we were ever engaged in a great war,
+and the men who controlled the Irish Government took the view in regard
+to that war which was taken by the same men in regard to the Boer War;
+if they thought the war unjust, and if, as under the last Home Rule
+Bill they would have the right to do, they passed resolutions in the
+Irish Parliament in condemnation of the war, and even sent embassies
+carrying messages of good-will to our enemy, then this second Government
+at the heart of the Empire would be a source of weakness which might be
+fatal to us.
+
+The ameliorative measures originated by Mr. Balfour when he was Chief
+Secretary, and which culminated in the Wyndham Purchase Act, have
+created a new Ireland. Mr. Redmond, speaking a year or two ago, said
+that Ireland "was studded with the beautiful and happy homes of an
+emancipated peasantry." It is a true picture, but it is a picture of the
+result of Unionist policy in Ireland, a policy which Mr. Redmond and his
+friends, including the present Government, have done their best to
+hamper. The driving power of the agitation for Home Rule has always been
+discontent with the land system of Ireland, and just in proportion as
+land purchase has extended, the demand for Home Rule has died down. The
+Nationalist leaders, realising this, and regarding political agitation
+as their first object, have compelled the Government to put
+insurmountable obstacles in the way of land purchase--not because it had
+not been successful, but because it had been too successful.
+
+The prosperity and the peace of Ireland depend upon the completion of
+land purchase, and it can only be completed by the use of British
+credit, which in my belief can and ought only to be freely given so long
+as Ireland is in complete union with the rest of the United Kingdom. In
+the present deplorable position of British credit the financing of land
+purchase would be difficult; but it is not unreasonable to hope that the
+return to power of a Government which would adopt sane financial
+methods would restore our credit; and in any case, the object is of such
+vital importance that, whatever the difficulties, it must be our policy
+to complete with the utmost possible rapidity the system of land
+purchase in Ireland.
+
+It will also be our aim to help to the utmost, in the manner suggested
+in different articles in this book, in the development of the resources
+of Ireland. The Nationalist policy, which is imposed also on the Radical
+Party, is in fact more politics and less industry. Our policy is more
+industry and less politics.
+
+The strongest objection, however, and, in my opinion, the insurmountable
+obstacle to Home Rule, is the injustice of attempting to impose it
+against their will upon the Unionists of Ulster. The only intelligible
+ground upon which Home Rule can now be defended is the nationality of
+Ireland. But Ireland is not a nation; it is two nations. It is two
+nations separated from each other by lines of cleavage which cut far
+deeper than those which separate Great Britain from Ireland as a whole.
+Every argument which can be adduced in favour of separate treatment for
+the Irish Nationalist minority as against the majority of the United
+Kingdom, applies with far greater force in favour of separate treatment
+for the Unionists of Ulster as against the majority of Ireland.
+
+To the majority in Ireland Home Rule may seem to be a blessing, but to
+the minority it appears as an intolerable curse. Their hostility to it
+is quite as strong as that which was felt by many of the Catholics of
+Ireland to Grattan's Parliament. They, too, would say, as the Catholic
+Bishop of Waterford said at the time of the Union, that they "would
+prefer a Union with the Beys and Mamelukes of Egypt to the iron rod of
+the Mamelukes of Ireland."
+
+The minority which holds this view is important in numbers, for it
+comprises at the lowest estimate more than a fourth of the population of
+Ireland. From every other point of view it is still more important, for
+probably the minority pays at least half the taxes and does half the
+trade of Ireland. The influence and also the power of the minority is
+enormously increased by the way in which its numbers are concentrated in
+Belfast and the surrounding counties.
+
+The men who compose this minority ask no special privilege. They demand
+only--and they will not demand in vain--that they should not be deprived
+against their will of the protection of British law and of the rights of
+British citizenship.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law, M.P._
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Carson, K.C., M.P._
+
+
+HISTORICAL
+
+I. A NOTE ON HOME RULE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P._
+
+II. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
+
+_By J.R. Fisher_
+
+
+CRITICAL
+
+III. THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
+
+_By George Cave, K.C., M.P._
+
+IV. HOME RULE FINANCE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. J. Austen Chamberlain, M.P._
+
+V. HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL ANALOGY
+
+_By L.S. Amery, M.P._
+
+VI. THE CONTROL OF JUDICIARY AND POLICE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. J.H. Campbell, K.C., M.P._
+
+VII. THE ULSTER QUESTION
+
+_By the Marquis of Londonderry, K.G._
+
+VIII. THE POSITION OF ULSTER
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. Thomas Sinclair._
+
+IX. THE SOUTHERN MINORITIES
+
+_By Richard Bagwell, M.A._
+
+X. HOME RULE AND NAVAL DEFENCE
+
+_By Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, M.P._
+
+XI. THE MILITARY DISADVANTAGES OF HOME RULE
+
+_By the Earl Percy._
+
+XII. THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE
+
+(i.) The Church View
+
+_By the Rt. Rev. C.F. D'Arcy, Bishop of Down._
+
+(ii.) The Nonconformist View
+
+_By Rev. Samuel Prenter, M.A., D.D. (Dublin)._
+
+
+CONSTRUCTIVE
+
+XIII. UNIONIST POLICY IN RELATION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRELAND
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. Gerald Balfour._
+
+XIV. THE COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham, M.P._
+
+XV. POSSIBLE IRISH FINANCIAL REFORMS UNDER THE UNION
+
+_By Arthur Warren Samuels, K.C._
+
+XVI. THE ECONOMICS OF SEPARATISM
+
+_By L.S. Amery, M.P._
+
+XVII. PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. Walter Long, M.P._
+
+XVIII. IRISH POOR LAW REFORM
+
+_By John E. Healy, Editor of the "Irish Times."_
+
+XIX. IRISH EDUCATION UNDER THE UNION
+
+_By Godfrey Locker Lampson, M.P._
+
+XX. THE PROBLEM OF TRANSIT AND TRANSPORT IN IRELAND
+
+_By an Irish Railway Director._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR EDWARD CARSON, M.P.
+
+
+The object of the various essays collected in this book is to set out
+the case against Home Rule for Ireland, and to re-state Unionist policy
+in the light of the recent changes in that country. The authors are not,
+however, to be regarded as forming anything in the nature of a corporate
+body, and no collective responsibility is to be ascribed to them. Each
+writer is responsible for the views set out in his own article, and for
+those alone. At the same time, they are all leaders of Unionist thought
+and opinion, and their views in the main represent the policy which the
+Unionist Government, when returned to power, will have to carry into
+effect.
+
+Among the contributors to the book are an ex-Premier, four ex-Chief
+Secretaries for Ireland, an ex-Lord Lieutenant, two ex-Law officers, and
+a number of men whose special study of the Irish question entitles them
+to have their views most carefully considered when the time comes for
+restoring to Ireland those economic advantages of which she has been
+deprived by political agitation and political conspiracy. At the present
+moment the discussion of the Irish question is embittered by the
+pressing and urgent danger to civil and religious liberties involved in
+the unconditional surrender of the Government to the intrigues of a
+disloyal section of the Irish people. It is the object of writers in
+this book to raise the discussions on the Home Rule question above the
+bitter conflict of Irish parties, and to show that not only is Unionism
+a constructive policy and a measure of hope for Ireland, but that in
+Unionist policy lies the only alternative to financial ruin and
+exterminating civil dissensions.
+
+We who are Unionists believe first and foremost that the Act of Union
+is required--in the words made familiar to us by the Book of Common
+Prayer--"for the safety, honour and welfare, of our Sovereign and his
+dominions." We are not concerned with the supposed taint which marred
+the passing of that Act; we are unmoved by the fact that its terms have
+undergone considerable modification. We do not believe in the plenary
+inspiration of any Act of Parliament. It is not possible for the living
+needs of two prosperous countries to be bound indefinitely by the "dead
+hand" of an ancient statute, but we maintain that geographical and
+economic reasons make a legislative Union between Great Britain and
+Ireland necessary for the interests of both. We see, as Irish Ministers
+saw in 1800, that there can be no permanent resting place between
+complete Union and total separation. We know that Irish Nationalists
+have not only proclaimed separatist principles, but that they have
+received separatist money, on the understanding that they would not
+oppose a movement to destroy whatever restrictions and safeguards the
+Imperial Parliament might impose upon an Irish Government.
+
+The first law of nature with nations and governments, as with
+individuals, is self-preservation. It was the vital interests of
+national defence that caused Pitt to undertake the difficult and
+thankless task of creating the legislative union. If that union was
+necessary for the salvation of England and the foundation of the British
+Empire, it is assuredly no less necessary for the continued security of
+the one and the maintenance and prestige of the other.
+
+Mr. J.R. Fisher, in his historical retrospect, shows us how bitter
+experience convinced successive generations of English statesmen of the
+dangers that lay in an independent Ireland. One of the very earliest
+conflicts between the two countries was caused by the action of the
+Irish Parliament in recognising and crowning a Pretender in Dublin
+Castle. Then the fact that the Reformation, which soon won the adherence
+of the English Government and the majority of the English people, never
+gained any great foothold in Ireland, caused the bitter religious wars
+which devastated Europe to be reproduced in the relations of the two
+countries. When England was fighting desperately with the Spanish
+champions of the Papacy, Spanish forces twice succeeded in effecting a
+landing on the Irish coast, and were welcomed by the people. Later on,
+by the aid of subsidies from an Irish Parliament, Strafford raised
+10,000 men in Ireland in order to support Charles I. in his conflict
+with the English people. Cromwell realised that the only remedy for the
+intrigues and turbulence of the Irish Parliament lay in a legislative
+union. But, unfortunately, his Union Parliament was terminated by the
+Restoration. Then, again, when France became the chief danger that
+England had to face, Tyrconnel, with the aid of French troops and French
+subsidies, endeavoured to make Ireland a base for the invasion of
+England. Under the Old Pretender again, another effort was made to make
+the Irish Parliament a medium for the destruction of English liberties.
+
+In these long-continued and bitter struggles we see the excuse, if not
+the justification, for the severe penal laws which were introduced in
+order to curb the power of the Irish chieftains. We see also the
+beginning of the feud between Ulster and the other provinces in Ireland,
+which has continued in a modified form to the present day. Strafford
+found that, in order to bolster up the despotism of the Stuarts, he had
+not only to invade England, but to expel the Scottish settlers from the
+Northern province. The Irish Parliament in the time of Tyrconnel again
+began to prepare for the invasion of England by an attempt to destroy
+the Ulster plantation. The settlers had their estates confiscated, the
+Protestant clergy were driven out and English sympathisers outlawed by
+name, in the "hugest Bill of Attainder which the world has seen."
+
+Admiral Lord Charles Beresford points out the danger from a naval point
+of view of the French attempts to use Ireland as a base for operations
+against England, both under Louis XIV. and under the Republican
+Directory. He quotes Admiral Mahan as saying that the movement which
+designed to cut the English communications in St. George's Channel
+while an invading party landed in the south of Ireland was a strictly
+strategic movement and would be as dangerous to England now as it was in
+1690. When Grattan extorted from England's weakness the unworkable and
+impracticable constitution of 1782, the danger which had always been
+present became immensely increased. In less than three years from the
+period of boasted final adjustment, Ireland came to a breach with
+England on the important question of trade and navigation. Then, again,
+at the time of the Regency, the Irish Parliament was actually ready to
+choose a person in whom to rest the sovereign executive power of the
+nation, different from him whom the British Parliament were prepared to
+designate.
+
+In 1795, when the French had made themselves masters of Brabant,
+Flanders, and Holland, the rebel government of United Irishmen was so
+well-established in Ireland that, as Lord Clare, the Irish Chancellor,
+subsequently admitted in the House of Lords, Ireland was for some weeks
+in a state of actual separation from Great Britain. When the great
+Rebellion of 1798 broke out, the French Directory sent assistance to the
+Irish rebels in order to facilitate the greater scheme--the conquest of
+England and of Europe. When we come to estimate the danger which the
+grant of Home Rule to Ireland would bring to the safety of England, we
+are faced with two considerations. In the first place, the movements of
+the French in the past were, as we have said, strategic. Given an Irish
+Parliament that was hostile to England, or at least dubious in her
+loyalty to this country, the movement of a hostile fleet against our
+communications would be as dangerous now as it was in the past.
+
+When we try to estimate what would be the feelings of an Irish
+Government when England was at war, we have to consider not only the
+speeches of avowed enemies of the Empire like Major McBride and the
+Irish Americans, but we have also to remember the attitude adopted upon
+all questions of foreign policy by the more responsible Nationalists of
+the type of Mr. Dillon. Not only have the Irish Nationalist party
+consistently opposed every warlike operation that British Governments
+have found to be necessary, but they have also fervently attacked the
+Powers on the Continent of Europe that have been suspected of friendship
+to England. We have only to imagine the element of weakness and disunion
+which would be introduced into our foreign policy by an Irish Parliament
+that passed resolutions regarding the policy of the Governments, say, of
+Russia and of France, in order to realise the immense dangers of setting
+up such a Parliament when we are again confronted with a mighty
+Confederation of opponents in Europe. It is admitted that the next
+European war will be decided by the events of the first few days. In
+order to succeed, we shall have to strike and strike quickly. But in
+order that there should be swift and effective action, there should be
+only one Government to be consulted. The Irish Ministry that was not
+actively hostile, but only unsympathetic and dilatory, might, in many
+ways, fatally embarrass Ministers at Westminster.
+
+Moreover, another complication has been introduced by the dependence of
+England upon Irish food supplies. Lord Percy points out that there are
+two stages in every naval war; first, the actual engagement, and then
+the blockade or destruction of the ships of the defeated country. He
+points out that, even after the destruction of the French Navy at
+Trafalgar, the damage done to British oversea commerce was very great.
+Modern conditions of warfare have made blockade an infinitely more
+difficult and precarious operation, and we must therefore face the
+certainty that hostile cruisers will escape and interfere with our
+oversea supplies of food. Since Ireland lies directly across our trade
+routes, it is probable that the majority of our food supplies will be
+derived from Ireland or carried through that country. But Irish
+Ministers would not have forgotten the lesson of the famine, when food
+was exported from Ireland though the people starved. Curious as it may
+seem, Ireland, though a great exporting country, does not under present
+conditions feed herself, and therefore an Irish Ministry would
+certainly lay in a large stock of the imported food supplies before they
+were brought to England, in order first of all absolutely to secure the
+food of their own people. It would be open for them at any time, by
+cutting off our supplies, our horses and our recruits, to extract any
+terms they liked out of the English people or bring this country to its
+knees. "England's difficulty" would once again become "Ireland's
+opportunity." The experience of 1782 would be repeated. Resistance to
+Ireland's demands for extended powers would bring about war between the
+two countries. In the striking phrase of Mr. Balfour's arresting
+article, "The battle of the two Parliaments would become the battle of
+the two peoples." It is only necessary to refer briefly to the fact that
+the active section of the Nationalist party has continually and
+consistently opposed recruiting for the British Army. It is perfectly
+certain that, under Home Rule, this policy would be accentuated rather
+than reversed. We now draw recruits from Ireland out of all proportion
+to its population. Under Home Rule, the difficulties of maintaining a
+proper standard of men and efficiency must be immensely increased.
+
+If there were no other arguments against Home Rule, the paramount
+necessities of Imperial defence would demand the maintenance of the
+Union. But the opposition to the proposed revolution in Ireland is based
+not only on the considerations of Imperial safety, but also on those of
+national honour. The historical bases of Irish nationalism have been
+destroyed by the arguments summarised in this book by Mr. Fisher and Mr.
+Amery. It was the existence of a separate Parliament in Dublin that made
+Ireland, for so many centuries, alike a menace to English liberty and
+the victim of English reprisals. Miss A.E. Murray has pointed out[1]
+that experience seemed to show to British statesmen that Irish
+prosperity was dangerous to English liberty. It was the absence of
+direct authority over Ireland which made England so nervously anxious
+to restrict Irish resources in every direction in which they might, even
+indirectly, interfere with the growth of English power. Irish industries
+were penalised and crippled, not from any innate perversity on the part
+of English statesmen, or from any deliberate desire to ruin Ireland, but
+as a natural consequence of exclusion from the Union under the economic
+policy of the age. The very poverty of Ireland, as expressed in the
+lowness of Irish wages, was a convenient and perfectly justifiable
+argument for exclusion. Mr. Amery shows that the Protestant settlers of
+Ulster were penalised even more severely than the intriguing Irish
+chieftains against whom they were primarily directed.
+
+It was the consciousness of the natural result of separation that caused
+the Irish Parliament, upon two separate occasions, to petition for that
+union with England which was delayed for over a century. The action of
+Grattan and his supporters in wresting the impossible Constitution of
+1782, from the harassed and desperate English Government, began that
+fatal policy of substituting political agitation for economic reform
+which has ever since marred the Irish Nationalist movement. John
+Fitzgibbon[2] pointed out in the Irish House of Commons that only two
+alternatives lay before his country--Separation or Union. Under
+Separation an Irish Parliament might be able to pursue an economic
+policy of its own; under Union the common economic policy of the two
+countries might be adjusted to the peculiar interests of each.
+
+Pitt, undoubtedly, looked forward to a Customs Union with internal free
+trade as the ultimate solution of the difficulty, but a Customs Union
+was impossible without the fullest kind of legislative unity. It is true
+that the closing years of the eighteenth century were years of
+prosperity to certain classes and districts in Ireland, but Mr. Fisher
+has shown beyond dispute that this prosperity neither commenced with
+Grattan's Parliament nor ended with its fall. It was based upon the
+peculiar economic conditions which years of war and preparations for
+war had fostered in England; it was bound in any case to disappear with
+the growing concentration of industrial interests which followed the
+general introduction of machinery. The immediate result of the passing
+of the Act of Union was to increase the Irish population and Irish
+trade.
+
+But to a certain extent that prosperity was fictitious and doomed to
+failure so soon as peace and the introduction of scientific methods of
+industry had caused the concentration of the great manufactures. Then
+came the great economic disaster for Ireland--the adoption of free trade
+by England. The Irish famine of 1849 was not more severe than others
+that had preceded it, but its evil effects were accentuated by the
+policy of the English Government. The economists decided that the State
+ought to do nothing to interfere with private enterprise in feeding the
+starving people, and as there was no private enterprise in the country,
+where all classes were involved in the common ruin, the people were left
+to die of hunger by the roadside. The lands the potato blight spared
+were desolated by the adoption of free trade. The exploitation of the
+virgin lands of the American West gradually threw the fertile midlands
+of Ireland from tillage into grass. A series of bad harvests aggravated
+the evil. The landlords and the farmers of Ireland were divided into two
+political camps, and, instead of uniting for their common welfare, each
+attempted to cast upon the other the burden of the economic catastrophe.
+To sum up in the words of Mr. Amery--
+
+     "The evils of economic Separatism, aggravated by social evils
+     surviving from the Separatism of an earlier age, united to revive a
+     demand for the extension and renewal of the very cause of those
+     evils."
+
+The political demand for the repeal of the Act of Union, which had lain
+dormant for so many years, was revived by the energies of Isaac Butt. He
+found in the Irish landlords, smarting under the disestablishment of the
+Irish Church, a certain amount of sympathy and assistance, but the
+"engine" for which Finton Lalor had asked in order to draw the "repeal
+train," was not discovered until Parnell linked the growing agrarian
+unrest to the Home Rule Campaign. This is not the place to tell again
+the weary story of the land war or to show how the Irish Nationalists
+exploited the grievances of the Irish tenants in order to encourage
+crime and foment disloyalty in the country. It is sufficient to say that
+this conflict--the conduct of which reflects little credit either upon
+the Irish protagonists or the British Government which alternately
+pampered and opposed it--was ended, for the time at least, by the
+passing of Mr. Wyndham's Land Act. We look forward in perfect confidence
+to the time when that great measure shall achieve its full result in
+wiping out the memory of many centuries of discord and hatred. But the
+Separatist movement, which has always been the evil genius of Irish
+politics, has not yet been completely exorcised. The memory of those
+past years when the minority in Ireland constituted the only bulwark of
+Irish freedom and of English liberty, has not yet passed away. The Irish
+Nationalist party since Parnell have spared no exertions to impress more
+deeply upon the imaginations of a sentimental race the memory of those
+"ancient weeping years." They have preached a social and a civil war
+upon all those in Ireland who would not submit their opinions and
+consciences to the uncontrolled domination of secret societies and
+leagues.
+
+The articles upon the Ulster question by Lord Londonderry and Mr.
+Sinclair show that the Northern province still maintains her historic
+opposition to Irish Separatism and Irish intrigue. She stands firmly by
+the same economic principles which have enabled her, in spite of
+persecution and natural disadvantages, to build up so great a
+prosperity. She knows well that the only chance for the rest of Ireland
+to attain to the standard of education, enlightenment and independence
+which she has reached, is to free itself from the sinister domination
+under which it lies, and to assert its right to political and religious
+liberty. Ulster sees in Irish Nationalism a dark conspiracy, buttressed
+upon crime and incitement to outrage, maintained by ignorance and
+pandering to superstition. Even at this moment the Nationalist leagues
+have succeeded in superseding the law of the land by the law of the
+league. We need only point to the remarks which the Lord Chief Justice
+of Ireland and Mr. Justice Kenny have been compelled to make to the
+Grand Juries quite recently, to show what Nationalist rule means to the
+helpless peasants in a great part of the country.
+
+But the differences which still sever the two great parties in Ireland
+are not only economic but religious. The general slackening of
+theological dispute which followed the weary years of religious warfare
+after the Reformation, has never brought peace to Ireland. In England
+the very completeness of the defeat of Roman Catholicism has rendered
+the people oblivious to the dangers of its aggression. The Irish
+Unionists are not monsters of inhuman frame; they are men of like
+passions with Englishmen. Though they hold their religious views with
+vigour and determination, there is nothing that they would like more
+than to be able to forget their points of difference from those who are
+their fellow Christians. It is perhaps necessary to point out once again
+that the Roman Catholic Church is a political, as well as a religious,
+institution, and to remind Englishmen that it is by the first law of its
+being an intolerant and aggressive organisation. All Protestants in
+Ireland feel deep respect for much of the work which is carried on by
+the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. They gladly acknowledge the
+influence of its priesthood in maintaining and upholding the traditional
+morality and purity of the Irish race. They venerate the memories of
+those brave Irish priests who defied persecution in order to bring
+succour to their flocks in time of need. But they are bound to deal with
+the present political situation as they find it. They are determined
+that no Church, however admirable, and no creed, however lofty, should
+be forced upon them against their wills. There is a dark side to the
+picture, on which it is unnecessary to dwell. We have only to ask the
+Nonconformists of England what would be their feelings were a Roman
+Catholic majority returned to the British House of Commons.
+
+In most of the articles in this book which deal with the religious
+question; special stress is laid upon recent Papal legislation. The _Ne
+Temere_ and the _Motu Proprio_ decrees have constituted an invasion of
+the rights hitherto enjoyed by the minority in Ireland, and they are
+even more significant as an illustration of the policy of the Roman
+curia. Those who have watched the steady increase of Roman aggression in
+every Roman Catholic country, followed as it has been by passionate
+protest and determined action by the civil Governments, must realise the
+danger which Home Rule would bring to the faith and liberty of the
+people of Ireland. It is not inconsistent to urge, as many of us have
+urged, that Home Rule would mean alike a danger to the Protestant faith
+and a menace to Catholic power. The immediate result of successful Papal
+interference with civil liberties in every land has been a sweeping
+movement among the people which has been, not Protestant, but
+anti-Christian in its nature. If we fear the tyranny which the Roman
+Catholic Church has established under British rule in Malta and in
+Quebec, may we not fear also the reaction from such tyranny which has
+already taken place in France and Portugal.
+
+But we are told that there are to be in the new Home Rule Bill
+safeguards which will protect the minority from any interference with
+their civil and religious liberties. It is not necessary for me to go
+over again in detail the ground which is so admirably covered by Mr.
+George Cave and Mr. James Campbell. They show clearly that the existence
+of restrictions and limitations upon the activities of a Dublin
+Parliament, whether they are primarily intended to safeguard the British
+connection or to protect the liberties of minorities, cannot be worth
+the paper on which they are printed. Let us take, for instance, an
+attempt to prevent the marriages of Irish Protestants from being
+invalidated by an Irish Parliament. We may point out that an amendment
+to the 1893 Home Rule Bill, designed to safeguard such marriages, was
+rejected by the vote of the Irish Nationalist party. But even were
+legislation affecting the marriage laws of the minority to be placed
+outside the control of a Dublin Parliament, the effect would not be to
+reassure the Protestant community. Mr. James Campbell mentions a case
+which has profoundly stirred the Puritan feelings of Irish
+Protestantism. A man charged with bigamy has been released without
+punishment because the first marriage, although in conformity with the
+law of the land, was not recognised by the Roman Catholic Church.
+However justifiable that course may have been in the exceptional
+circumstances of that particular case, the precedent obviously prepares
+the way for a practical reversal of the law by executive or judicial
+action. We must remember that, since the _Ne Temere_ decree has come
+into force, the marriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics are held by
+the Roman Catholic Church to be absolutely null and void unless they are
+celebrated in a Roman Catholic Church. We have also to bear in mind that
+these marriages will not be permitted by the priesthood except under
+conditions which many Irish Protestants consider humiliating and
+impossible. No more deadly attack upon the faith of the Protestant
+minority in the three provinces in Ireland can be imagined than to make
+a denial of their faith the essential condition to the enjoyment of the
+highest happiness for which they may look upon this earth.
+
+The second decree prohibits, under pain of excommunication, any Roman
+Catholic from bringing an ecclesiastical officer before a Court of
+Justice. Even under the Union Government this decree is a danger to the
+liberty of the subject. Under an independent Irish Government, nothing
+except that vast anti-clerical revolution which some people foresee
+could possibly reassure the people as to the attitude of the Executive
+Government in dealing with a large and privileged class. These
+considerations make one more reason for refusing the Colonial analogy
+which is so ingeniously pressed by such apologists for Home Rule as Mr.
+Erskine Childers. Mr. Amery analyses the confusion of thought between
+Home Rule as meaning responsible Government and Home Rule as meaning
+separate government which underlies the arguments of Liberal Home
+Rulers. Ireland has Home Rule in the sense of having free representative
+institutions. She is prevented by geographical and economic conditions
+from enjoying separate government under the same terms on which the
+Colonies possess it. As Mr. Amery points out, the United Kingdom is
+geographically a single island group. No part of Ireland is so
+inaccessible from the political centre of British power as the remoter
+parts of the Highlands, while racially no less than physically Ireland
+is an integral part of the United Kingdom. Economically also the two
+countries are bound together in a way which makes a common physical
+policy absolutely necessary for the welfare of both countries. The
+financial arguments which might have made it possible to permit an
+independent fiscal policy for Ireland under free trade, have disappeared
+with the certain approach of a revision of the tariff policies of
+England. There can be no separate tariffs for the two countries, or even
+a common tariff, without a common Government to negotiate and enforce
+it. If there were no other objection to the establishment of a separate
+Government in Dublin, it would be impossible because legislative
+autonomy can only be coupled with financial independence.
+
+The financial difficulties in the way of any grant of Home Rule are
+fully explained by Mr. Austen Chamberlain. Three attempts at framing
+schemes for financing Home Rule were made by Mr. Gladstone in the past.
+All the powers of this great and resourceful dialectician were employed
+in defending these various schemes in turn. He was not deterred from
+pressing any scheme by the fact that in important details it was
+inconsistent with or even opposed to what had been previously
+recommended. But if there was one principle on which Mr. Gladstone never
+turned his back it was in demanding a contribution from Ireland for
+Imperial services. At one time he demanded a cash payment, at another
+the assignment of the Customs, and on yet another occasion the payment
+to the Imperial Exchequer of a quota--one-third--of the tax-revenue in
+Ireland.
+
+The effect of recent social legislation, such as Old Age Pensions,
+Labour Exchanges, and Sickness and Unemployment Insurance has been to
+confer on Ireland benefits much greater in value than the Irish
+contribution in respect of the new taxation imposed. In consequence of
+this change the present Irish revenue falls short of the expenditure
+incurred for Irish purposes in Ireland. Mr. Chamberlain shows that if
+any scheme even remotely resembling any of those put forward on previous
+occasions by Mr. Gladstone is embodied in the new Bill, and if a
+moderate contribution for Imperial services is included, the Irish
+deficit must range from £2,500,000 to £3,500,000. If by any process of
+juggling with the figures the Irish Parliament is again to be started
+with a surplus the deficit must have been made good by charging it
+against the Imperial taxpayer. But again there is no permanence in such
+a surplus. It must disappear if the ameliorative measures which are long
+overdue in Ireland are undertaken by an Irish Parliament; and previous
+experience has already illustrated that even without the adoption of any
+such new schemes surpluses would long ago have made room for deficits.
+It will be the duty of the Nationalists party to say definitely what are
+the fiscal reserves upon which they can draw in order to establish
+permanent equilibrium between revenue and expenditure in Ireland.
+
+Not only does Unionist policy for Ireland involve considerations of
+national safety and national honour, but it is also necessary for the
+economic welfare of both countries. The remarkable success which has
+attended Mr. Wyndham's Land Act of 1903 has alarmed the political party
+in Ireland, which depends for its influence on the poverty and
+discontent of the rural population of Ireland. Mr. Wyndham in his
+article upon Irish Land Purchase shows clearly the blessings which have
+followed wherever his Act has been given fair play, and the evils which
+have resulted in the suppression of Land Purchase by Mr. Birrell's Act
+of 1909. The dual ownership created by Mr. Gladstone's ill-advised and
+reckless legislation led to Ireland being starved both in capital and
+industry and brought the whole of Irish agriculture to the brink of
+ruin, and under these circumstances, Conservative statesmen determined,
+in accordance with the principles of the Act of Union, to use a joint
+exchequer for the purpose of relieving Irish distress. Credit of the
+State was employed to convert the occupiers of Irish farms into the
+owners of the soil. The policy of the Ashbourne Acts was briefly that
+any landlord could agree with any tenant on the purchase price of his
+holding. The State then advanced the credit sum to the landlord in cash,
+while the tenant paid an instalment of 4 per cent. for forty-nine years.
+It is important to notice that the landlord received cash and that the
+tenants paid interest at the then existing rate of interest on Consols,
+namely, 3 per cent. The great defect in these Acts was that they applied
+only to separate holdings and not to estates as a whole; but their
+success can be estimated by the fact that under them twenty-seven
+thousand tenants became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to
+over ten million pounds. Under Mr. Balfour's Acts of 1891 and 1896, the
+landlord was paid in stock instead of cash, and the tenants still paid 4
+per cent., the interest being reduced to the then rate on Consols--2-3/4
+per cent.--and the Sinking Fund being proportionately increased. It will
+be noticed that these Acts began the practise of paying the landlord in
+stock, though at that time Irish Land Stock with a face value of £100
+became worth as much as £114. The exchequer was, moreover, permitted to
+retain grants due for various purposes in Ireland and to recoup itself
+out of them in case of any combined refusal to repay on the part of
+tenants.
+
+The Irish Land Act of 1903 was the product of the experience gained
+during eighteen years of the operation of the preceding Purchase Acts.
+It was founded upon an agreement made in 1902 between representatives of
+Irish landlords and tenants. Cash payments were resumed to the
+landlords, the tenants' instalments were reduced to 3-1/4 per cent., and
+a bonus, as it was called, of twelve millions of money was made
+available to bridge the gap between the landlords and the tenants at the
+rate of 12 per cent, on the amount advanced. That Act possessed the
+additional advantage of dealing with the estates as a whole instead of
+with individual holdings, and it substituted the principle of speedy
+purchase for that of dilatory litigation. This remarkable and generous
+measure initiated a great and beneficent revolution, but every popular
+and useful feature of the Act of 1903 was distorted or destroyed in the
+Land Act which the present Government passed at the instigation of the
+Irish Nationalist Party in 1909. In Mr. Wyndham's words "a solemn treaty
+framed in the interest of Ireland was torn up to deck with its tatters
+the triumph of Mr. Dillon's unholy alliance with the British Treasury."
+Under the Act of 1909, landlords, instead of cash payments, are to
+receive stock at 3 per cent. issued on a falling market. This stock
+cannot possibly appreciate because owing to the embarrassment of Irish
+estates a large proportion of each issue is thrown back upon the market
+at the redemption of mortgages. The tenant's annuity is raised from
+3-1/4 per cent, to 3-1/2 per cent., a precedent not to be found in any
+previous experiment under Irish Land Purchase finance. The bonus is
+destroyed and litigation is substituted for security and speed. The
+results of the two Acts are instructive. Under the 1903 Act the
+potential purchasers amounted to nearly a quarter of a million; under
+the 1909 Act the applications in respect of direct sales being less than
+nine thousand. It is hardly necessary to go into the reasons advanced
+for this disastrous change. It has been brought about not in order to
+relieve the British Treasury, but in order to rescue from final
+destruction the waning influence of Irish Nationalism. Mr. Wyndham has
+the authority of the leader of the Unionist Party for his statement that
+the first constructive work of the Unionist Party in Ireland must be to
+resume the Land policy of 1903 and to pursue the same objects by the
+best methods until they have all been fully and expeditiously achieved.
+Unionist policy cannot, however, be confined to the restoration of Land
+Purchase. The ruin which Free Trade finance has inflicted upon Irish
+agriculture can only be remedied, as Mr. Childers saw at the time of the
+Financial Relations Commission in 1895, by a readjustment of the fiscal
+system of the United Kingdom.
+
+Mr. Gerald Balfour shows us in one of the most able papers in the book
+the extraordinary development which has been seen in recent years in
+Irish agricultural methods. The revival of Irish rural industries dates
+from Mr. Balfour's chief-secretaryship. The Parliament which set up in
+Ireland the Congested Districts Board and sanctioned the building of
+light railways at the public expense, also witnessed the formation in
+Ireland of a Society which was destined to work great changes in the
+social conditions of the country. The Irish Agricultural Organisation
+Society represents the fruit of a work begun in the face of incredible
+difficulties and remorseless opposition by Sir Horace Plunkett in 1889.
+"Better farming, better business, better living"--these were the
+principles which he and Mr. Anderson set out to establish in Ireland.
+Their representatives were described as monsters in human shape, and
+they were adjured to cease their "hellish work." Now the branches of the
+Society number nearly 1000, with an annual turnover of upwards of 2-1/2
+millions, and they include creameries, village banks, and societies for
+the purchase of seeds and manure and for the marketing of eggs. It is
+not necessary to tell again the story of the Recess Committee and the
+formation of the Department of Agriculture. The result of its work,
+crowned as it was by Mr. Wyndham's Purchase Act, is shown by the fact
+that Irish trade has increased from 103 millions in 1904 to 130 millions
+in 1910. The steady object which Sir Horace Plunkett has set before him
+is to counteract the demoralising effect of paternal legislation on the
+part of the Government, by reviving and stimulating a policy of
+self-help. The I.A.O.S. has done valuable work in enabling the Irish
+farmers, by co-operating, to secure a more stable position in the
+English market, to secure themselves against illegitimate and fraudulent
+competition and to standardise the quality of their product, but even
+more important has been the work of the Society in releasing the farmers
+from the bondage of the "Gombeen" man who has for so many years been the
+curse of Irish agriculture. The "Gombeen" man is alike trader, publican,
+and money-lender, and he is the backbone of official Nationalist
+influence. By lending money to the peasant proprietors at exorbitant
+rates, by selling inferior seeds and manures and by carrying on his
+transactions with the farmers chiefly in kind, the "Gombeen" man has
+grown fat upon the poverty and despair of the farmer. It is not
+surprising that he views the liberating work of the I.A.O.S. with the
+bitterest hostility--an hostility which has been translated into
+effective action by the Nationalist Party in Parliament.
+
+Sir Horace Plunkett was driven from office on the pretext that it should
+be held by a member of Parliament. His successor, Mr. T.W. Russell, lost
+his seat in the General Election of 1910, but he was retained in power
+since he was willing to lend himself to the destructive intrigues of the
+"Molly Maguires." The Unionist Party does not intend to interfere with
+the independence of the I.A.O.S. which constitutes in their eyes its
+greatest feature, but they are determined that it shall have fair play,
+and that the hundred thousand Irish farmers which constitutes its
+membership shall be enabled to increase their prosperity by co-operative
+action. The Unionist Party will also have to undertake more active
+measures in order to restore to Irish agriculture the position of
+supremacy for which it is naturally fitted. Mr. Amery and Mr. Samuels
+both discuss in outline the effects of Tariff Reform upon the future of
+Ireland.
+
+I do not intend at the present moment to go further into the details of
+the policy which the Unionist Government will be likely to adopt on this
+question. I think, however, it would be desirable to point out that in
+dairy produce and poultry, in barley and oats, in hops, tobacco,
+sugar-beet, vegetables and fruit, in all of which Ireland is especially
+interested, Irish products would have free entry into the protected
+markets of Great Britain, Canadian and Australian products would of
+course have such a preference over foreign competitors as a Home Rule
+Ireland might claim, but it is only under the Union that Ireland could
+expect complete freedom of access to our markets. Mr. Amery sees in the
+train ferry a possible bridge over the St. George's Channel and looks
+forward to the time when the west coast of Ireland will be the starting
+point of all our fast mail and passenger steamers across the Atlantic.
+Two schemes with this object have received the attention of Parliament.
+How far the present practical difficulties can be surmounted it is not
+very easy to say, but it is certain that if Home Rule were granted the
+Blacksod Bay and the Galway Bay Atlantic routes would have to be
+abandoned.
+
+These conditions naturally raise the whole transport problem in Ireland.
+Mr. Arthur Samuels suggests a scheme of State assistance to a cheap
+transport which may require attention later on, though it can only form
+part of a larger scheme of traffic reorganisation. The Nationalist Party
+seems definitely to have pledged itself to a scheme of nationalisation.
+This policy has been urged in season and out of season upon an apathetic
+Ireland by the _Freeman's Journal._ The cost of the nationalisation of
+Irish railways could not be less than fifty millions, while the annual
+charge on the Exchequer was assessed by the Irish Railways Commission at
+£250,000, and it was anticipated that a further recourse to Irish rates
+might be required. It would be obviously impossible to ask the British
+Treasury to advance such an enormous sum of money to an independent
+Irish Government.
+
+At what rate could an Irish government raise the money? The present
+return on Irish Railway capital is 3.77 per cent., and thus, to borrow
+fifty millions at 4 per cent, will involve an annual loss of over
+£300,000 a year, even without a sinking fund. It is extremely doubtful
+whether the credit of an Irish Government would be better than that of
+Hungary or Argentina. If anything more surely led an Irish Government
+to financial disaster it would be the working of railways. As the
+Majority Report of the Railway Commission recommended on other than
+commercial lines, the 25 per cent. reduction in rates and fares
+suggested by Nationalist witnesses would involve a loss of more than
+half a million a year. We see, therefore, immediately, that if anything
+is to be done at all to improve Irish transport it must be done by a
+Government that has the confidence of the money market. The railway
+director who contributes the principal article on this subject in the
+book calculates that a public grant of two millions, and a guaranteed
+loan of eight millions would suffice to carry out all the reforms that
+are necessary in order to place Irish railways in a thoroughly sound
+position.
+
+It is obvious that with the development of trade which will follow on
+the adoption of Tariff Reform by England, Irish companies will be in a
+better position to help themselves, and the increase in the wealth and
+prosperity of Ireland must soon enable the railways to carry out
+constructive works which they all admit to be necessary.
+
+Mr. Locker Lampson's article on education undoubtedly shows the Irish
+Government in its less favourable light. The neglect and starvation of
+Irish education has been a reproach to the intelligence and humanity of
+successive Irish administrations. Mr. Locker Lampson shows, however,
+that financially and politically it would be impossible for any Irish
+administration to carry out the great and sweeping reforms in Irish
+education as are still necessary. The mischievous principle of paying
+fees by results, although it has disappeared from the National schools,
+still clings to intermediate education in Ireland. Before any other kind
+of reform is even considered the intermediate system in Ireland should
+be placed upon a proper foundation. The secondary system is also
+deficient because--what Mr. Dillon called "gaps in the law"--there is no
+co-ordination between the primary and the secondary schools. The
+establishment of higher grade schools in large centres and the
+institution of advanced departments in connection with selected primary
+schools in rural districts would only cost about £25,000 a year, and
+would go far to meet the disastrous effects of the present system. But
+no system of education can possibly be successful that does not place
+the teachers in a position of dignity and comfort. At the present moment
+the salaries of the secondary teachers are miserable; lay assistants in
+secondary schools are paid about £80 a year. They have no security of
+tenure; they have no register of teachers as a guarantee of efficiency.
+
+The other problems which immediately confront the Irish government are
+the establishment of a private bill legislation and a reform of the
+Irish Poor Law. With regard to the private bill legislation I will say
+no more than that it has always formed part of the Unionist policy for
+Ireland, and that I agree fully with the arguments by which Mr. Walter
+Long shows the necessity and justice for such a reform.
+
+Finally, having given to the Irish farmers the security of a freehold in
+their holdings at home, and a free entrance into the protected markets
+of Great Britain; having assisted the development of rural industries of
+the country; having placed Irish education on a sound and intelligible
+basis, it would be necessary for the Unionist Party to undertake a
+reform of the Poor Law in Ireland. Whether this reform will be
+undertaken the same time as the larger social problems of England, with
+which the party is pledged to deal, may be a matter of political
+expediency, but there is no reason why the reform which is so urgently
+required in Ireland should have to await the adoption of a scheme for
+England. In outlining the problems, the supreme necessity is the
+abolition of the present workhouse system. The Vice-Regal Commission and
+the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws are in agreement as to the guiding
+principles of reform. They recommend classification by institutions of
+all the present inmates of the workhouses; the sick in the hospital, the
+aged and infirm in alms-houses; the mentally defective in asylums. They
+suggest the bringing together into one institution of all the inmates of
+one class from a number of neighbouring workhouses. The sick should be
+sent to existing Poor Law or County hospitals, strengthened by the
+addition of cottage hospitals in certain districts, while children must
+be boarded out. The able-bodied paupers, if well conducted, might be
+placed in labour colonies; if ill conducted, in detention colonies. If
+these are established, they must be controlled by the State and not by
+County authorities. Of course, the resources of the existing Unions are
+much too limited to undertake such sweeping reforms, and the county must
+be substituted for the Union as the area of charge. The establishment of
+the Public Assistance authority will relieve us from the greatest
+scandal which now mars the administration of the Poor Law reform in
+Ireland--the corrupt appointment of officers in the Poor Law medical
+service. If we cannot have a State medical service, we can at all events
+ensure that appointments under the Poor Law shall be placed in
+incorruptible hands.
+
+It is not to be assumed that this short sketch of policy is exhaustive,
+or that it touches even in outline upon all that the Unionist Party
+might fairly hope to do in Ireland. It is designed to show only that
+financially and politically, every step which can be taken to relieve
+the poverty and oppression which has too long continued in Ireland must
+be taken by a Unionist Parliament and a Government pledged to secure the
+administration of law and order in Ireland.
+
+I desire on behalf of the Committee under whose auspices this work has
+been prepared to thank Mr. S. Rosenbaum for the ability and zeal he has
+shown in editing the book and in preparing it for publication. I wish
+also to acknowledge my personal debt to Mr. G. Locker Lampson, M.P.,
+who, as Vice-Chairman of the Committee, has shown so much zeal and
+assiduity in connection with this important work.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: "Commercial Relations Between England and Ireland." By Miss
+A.E. Murray (P.S. King & Sons).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Attorney General in the Irish Parliament, and later Earl of
+Clare.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A NOTE ON HOME RULE
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. A.J. BALFOUR, M.P.
+
+
+The greater part of the present volume is devoted to showing why this
+country should not adopt Home Rule; but it is perhaps worth while for
+the ordinary British citizen to ask himself a preliminary question,
+namely, why he should be pressed even to consider it. That the
+establishment of an Irish Parliament must involve doubtful and
+far-reaching consequences is denied by no one. What then is the _primâ
+facie_ case which has induced many Englishmen and Scotchmen to think
+that it ought to be seriously debated? If we could erase the past and
+approach the problem of framing representative institutions in their
+most practicable shape for the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, who
+would think it wise to crowd into these small Islands two, or, as some
+would have it, three, four, or five separate Parliaments, with their
+separate elections, their separate sets of ministers and Offices, their
+separate party systems, their divergent policies? Distances are, under
+modern conditions, so small, our population is so compact, the interests
+of its component parts are so intimately fused together, that any device
+at all resembling Home Rule would seem at the best cumbersome, costly,
+and ineffective; at the worst, perilous to the rights of minorities, the
+peace of the country, and the unity of the Kingdom. If, then, these
+common-sense considerations are thrust on one side by so many
+well-meaning persons, it must surely be because they think that for the
+destruction of our existing system there is to be found a compelling
+justification in the history of the past:
+
+I am well aware that many of the persons of whom I am thinking profess
+to base their approval of Home Rule on purely administrative grounds.
+The Parliament of the United Kingdom, they say, is overweighted; it has
+more to do than it can manage; we must diminish its excessive burdens;
+and we can only do so by throwing them in part upon other and
+subordinate assemblies. But this, if it be a reason at all, is certainly
+a most insufficient one. Would any human being, anxious merely to give
+relief to the House of Commons, adopt so illogical a scheme as one which
+involves a provincial Parliament in Ireland, and no provincial
+Parliaments anywhere else; which puts Ireland under two Parliaments, and
+left the rest of the country under one; which, if Irishmen are to be
+admitted to the Imperial Parliament, would give Ireland privileges and
+powers denied to England and Scotland, and, if they are to be excluded
+from the Imperial Parliament, would deprive Ireland of rights which
+surely she ought to possess?
+
+Again, if the "administrative" argument was really more than an ornament
+of debate, would any one select Ireland as the administrative district
+in which to make trial of the new system? Would any one, in his desire
+to relieve the Imperial Parliament of some of its functions, select as
+an area of self-government a region where one part is divided against
+another by passions, and, if you will, by prejudices, more violent, and
+more deeply-rooted than those which afflict any other fraction of the
+United Kingdom, choose that other fraction where, and how, you will?
+
+I take it, then, as certain that in the mind of the ordinary British
+Home Ruler the justification for Home Rule is not administrative but
+historical. He pictures Ireland before the English invasion as an
+organised and independent State, happy in the possession of a native
+polity which Englishmen have ruthlessly destroyed, now suffering under
+laws and institutions forced upon her by the conquerors, suitable it may
+be to men of Anglo-Saxon descent, but utterly alien to the genius and
+temper of a Celtic population. To him, therefore, Home Rule presents
+itself as an act of National restitution.
+
+Personally, I believe this to be a complete misreading of history. It is
+not denied--at least I do not deny--that both the English and British
+Governments, in their dealings with Ireland have done many things that
+were stupid, and some things that were abominable. But among their
+follies or their crimes is not to be counted the destruction of any such
+State as I have described; for no such State existed. They did not
+uproot one type of civilisation in order to plant another. The Ireland
+with which England had to deal had not acquired a national organisation,
+and when controversialists talk of "restoring" this or that institution
+to Ireland, the only institutions that can possibly be "restored" are in
+their origin importations from England.
+
+This does not, of course, mean that the English were a superior race
+dealing with an inferior one. Indeed, there is, in my view, no sharp
+division of race at all. In the veins of the inhabitants of these
+Islands runs more than one strain of blood. The English are not simply
+Teutonic--still less are the Irish Celtic. We must conceive the
+pre-historic inhabitants both of Britain and of Ireland as subject to
+repeated waves of invasion from the wandering peoples of the Continent.
+The Celt preceded the Teuton; and in certain regions his language still
+survives. The Teuton followed him in (as I suppose) far greater numbers,
+and his language has become that of a large fraction of the civilised
+world. But in no part of the United Kingdom is the Teutonic strain free
+from either the Celtic or pre-Celtic strain; nor do I believe that the
+Celtic strain has anywhere a predominance such as that which, speaking
+very roughly, the Teutonic strain possesses in the East of these
+Islands, or the pre-Celtic strain in the West.
+
+There is, therefore, no race frontier to be considered, still less is
+there any question of inferiority or superiority. The Irish difficulty,
+historically considered, arises in the main from two circumstances. The
+first of these, to which I have just referred, is that when England
+began to intervene in the welter of Irish inter-tribal warfare, she was
+already an organised State, slowly working its way through feudal
+monarchy to constitutional freedom. The second is that while the
+religious revolution of the sixteenth century profoundly and permanently
+affected the larger Island, it left the smaller Island untouched. The
+result of the first of these has been that Irish institutions, Irish
+laws, Irish forms of local government, and Irish forms of parliamentary
+government are necessarily of the English type. The result of the second
+has been that while no sharp divisions of race exist, divisions of
+religion have too often taken their place; that in the constitutional
+struggles of the seventeenth century Ireland was not the partner but the
+victim of English factions; and that civil war in its most brutal form,
+with the confiscations and penal laws which followed in its train, have
+fed, have indeed created, the bitter fiction that Ireland was once a
+"nation" whose national life has been destroyed by its more powerful
+neighbour.
+
+To all this it will perhaps be replied that even if the general accuracy
+of the foregoing statement be admitted (and nothing about Ireland ever
+_is_ admitted), it is quite irrelevant to the question of Home Rule;
+because what is of importance to practical statesmanship is not what did
+actually happen in the past, but what those who live in the present
+suppose to have happened. If, therefore, to the imagination of
+contemporary Irishmen, Ireland appears a second Poland, statesmen must
+act as if the dream were fact.
+
+In such a contention there is some element of truth. But it must be
+observed in the first place that dreams, however vivid, are not eternal;
+and, in the second place, that while this particular dream endures it
+supplies a practical argument against Home Rule, the full force of which
+is commonly under-rated. For what are the main constitutional dangers of
+creating rival Parliaments in the same State? They are--friction,
+collision of jurisdiction, and, in the end, national disintegration. Of
+these, friction is scarcely to be avoided. I doubt whether it has been
+wholly avoided in any State where the system, either of co-equal or of
+subordinate Parliaments, has been thoroughly tried. It certainly was not
+avoided in the days past when Ireland had a Parliament of its own. It is
+incredible that it should be avoided in the future, however elaborate be
+the safeguards which the draughtsman's ingenuity can devise. But
+friction, in any case inevitable, becomes a peril to every community
+where the rival assemblies can appeal to nationalist sentiment. The sore
+gets poisoned. What under happier conditions might be no more than a
+passing storm of rhetoric, forgotten as soon as ended, will gather
+strength with time. The appetite for self-assertion, inherent in every
+assembly, and not likely to be absent from one composed of orators so
+brilliantly gifted as the Irish, will take the menacing form of an
+international quarrel. The appeal will no longer be to precedents and
+statutes, but to patriotism and nationality, and the quarrel of two
+Parliaments will become the quarrel of two peoples. What will it avail,
+when that time comes, that in 1912 the Irish leaders declared themselves
+content with a subordinate legislature? It is their earlier speeches of
+a very different tenour that will be remembered; and it will be asked,
+with a logic that may well seem irresistible, by what right Irish
+"nationality" was ever abandoned by Irish representatives.
+
+On these dangers I do not in this brief note propose to dwell, though it
+seems to me insane either to ignore them or to belittle them. The point
+on which I desire to insist is that they arise not from the
+establishment of a subordinate Parliament alone, nor from the existence
+of a "nationalist" sentiment alone, but from the action and reaction of
+the sentiment upon the institution, and of the institution upon the
+sentiment.
+
+Let me conclude by asking whether Irish history does not support to the
+full these gloomy prognostications. The Parliament that came to an end
+at the Union was a Parliament utterly antagonistic to anything that now
+goes by the name of Irish Nationalism. In every sphere, except the
+economic sphere, it represented the forces, political and religious,
+which the Irish Nationalist now regards as English and alien, and
+against which, for many years, he has been waging bitter warfare. Yet
+this Parliament, representing only a small minority of the inhabitants
+of Ireland, found its position of subordination intolerable. It chose a
+moment of national disaster to assert complete equality, and so used its
+powers that at last the Union became inevitable. It is surely no remedy
+for the ancient wrongs of Ireland--real, alas! though they were--that we
+should compel her again to tread the weary round of constitutional
+experiment, and that, in the name of Irish Nationalism, we should again
+make her the victim of an outworn English scheme, which has been tried,
+which has failed, which has been discarded, and which, in my judgment,
+ought never to be revived.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
+
+BY J.R. FISHER
+
+(Author of "The End of the Irish Parliament"; Editor of the _Northern
+Whig_)
+
+
+When Pitt commended his proposals for the Union to "the dispassionate
+and sober judgment of the Parliament of Ireland," he argued that such a
+measure was at once "transcendently important" to the Empire, and
+"eminently useful" to the true interests of Ireland. Lord Clare, as an
+Irishman, naturally reversed the order, but his compelling points were
+the same:--To Ireland the Union was a "vital interest," which at the
+same time "intimately affected the strength and prosperity of the
+British Empire." From that day to this the two fundamental arguments for
+the Union of Great Britain and Ireland have remained unchanged, and they
+apply with ever-growing force to the existing situation at home and
+abroad. But the argument from history has, perhaps, been a little
+neglected of late, and calls for at least a passing notice.
+
+Popular oratory will have it that England has always been keen and
+aggressive in regard to the incorporation of Ireland within the Empire,
+but as a matter of fact, the very opposite has been the case. From the
+time of Pope Adrian's Bull, _Laudabiliter_, in 1154, which granted to
+Henry II. the Lordship of Ireland, but which Henry left unemployed for
+seventeen years, to that of the Irish petition for a legislative Union
+in 1703, which remained unanswered for nearly a century, vacillation and
+hesitation rather than eagerness for aggression have been the
+characteristic marks of English policy in Ireland. Far-sighted statesmen
+could point out the benefits to Ireland from such a connection, but as
+a rule it was the presence of actual foreign danger that forced the
+British Parliament to act. For four centuries the Lordship of the
+English Kings over Ireland was largely nominal. It was only when the
+religious quarrels of the sixteenth century became acute that the
+Tudors--already alarmed at the action of the Irish Parliament in
+recognising and crowning a pretender in Dublin Castle--found themselves
+compelled to assert direct Kingship.
+
+From that time till the legislative Union every enemy of England could
+safely count on finding a foothold and active friends in Ireland. It is
+much too late in the day to indulge in any recriminations on this score.
+The issues were the most tremendous that have divided Europe; each side
+was passionately convinced of the rightness and justice of its cause.
+There were, in Pitt's words relating to a later day, "dreadful and
+inexcusable cruelties" on the one side, and "lamentable severities" upon
+the other, just as there were all over Europe. But in the case of
+Ireland every evil was exaggerated and every danger intensified by the
+system of dualism which encouraged resistance from within and invited
+interference from without. For England and English liberty it was more
+than once a question of existence or extinction, and the knowledge of
+the constant danger from the immediate west did not tend to sweeten the
+situation.
+
+In Elizabeth's time the menace was from Spain; Spanish forces twice
+succeeded in effecting a landing on the Irish coast, and were welcomed
+by the inhabitants. Spain was then the most powerful enemy of England
+and of civil and religious liberty all the world over; Elizabeth was
+declared by the Pope to have forfeited the crown of England, and if the
+Armada had been successful at sea, the Spanish army in England would
+have found enthusiastic supporters in Ireland. Later on it was in
+Ireland, and by the aid of subsidies from an Irish Parliament, that
+Strafford raised 10,000 men to invade Scotland and England in support of
+Charles I. against his Parliament, and, incidentally, to drive the
+Scottish settlers out of Ulster. As the Articles of Impeachment put it,
+his object in raising the Irish army was "for the ruin and destruction
+of England and of his Majesty's subjects, and altering and subverting
+the fundamental laws and established Government of this Kingdom."
+Strafford fell, but the insurrection and massacre of 1641 were the
+natural result of his intrigues with the Irish Parliament and the Irish
+chiefs. It was under the impression of this manifest danger that
+Cromwell--a century and a half before his time--abolished the Dublin
+Parliament and summoned Irish representatives to the first United
+Parliament at Westminster.
+
+As the power of Spain declined, France came to be the chief menace to
+England and to the peace of Europe. Again Ireland instinctively allied
+herself with the enemy. Tyrconnel now played the part of Strafford, and
+with the aid of French troops and French subsidies, and a sympathetic
+Irish Parliament, endeavoured to destroy the Ulster Plantation, and make
+Ireland a jumping-off place for the invasion of England. The Irish
+Parliament, in the meantime, did its part by confiscating the estates of
+the settlers, driving out the Protestant clergy, and outlawing English
+sympathisers by name in "the hugest Bill of Attainder which the world
+has seen."[3] It was the successful defence of Derry and Enniskillen by
+the Scotch and English colonists that saved Ireland and gave King
+William and his troops the foothold that enabled them to save England,
+too, in the Irish campaign of the following year.
+
+Not the least remarkable instance of the use to which separate
+Parliaments within the Kingdom could be put for the ruin of England
+occurred during the activity of James the Second's son, the so-called
+"Old Pretender." In 1723 his chief adviser, the Earl of Mar, presented
+to the Regent of France a memorial setting out in detail a project for
+betraying Britain into the power of France by dismembering the British
+Parliament.[4] The Irish Parliament, in close alliance with a restored
+Scottish Parliament, was to be used to curb the power of England. "The
+people of Ireland and Scotland," according to Mar, "are of the same
+blood and possess similar interests," and they should thus always be
+allied against England and oppose their "united strength"--backed, of
+course, by that of France--to any undue growth of the English power. The
+scheme came to nothing, but if the Pretender had possessed a little more
+energy and capacity; if the French Court had been in earnest, and if
+Ireland and Scotland had each possessed a separate Parliament, "with an
+executive responsible to it," and with the control of a national
+militia, the story of 1745 might have ended differently.
+
+It is necessary that these facts should be kept in mind when complaint
+is made of the oppressive and demoralising Irish Penal Code. That Code
+no one defends now, although it was lauded at the time by Swift as a
+bulwark of the Church against the Catholics on the one hand, and the
+Presbyterians on the other. It was the product of a cruel and bigoted
+age, and at its worst it was less severe than similar laws prevailing
+against Protestants in those parts of the Continent where the Roman
+Church held sway.[5] Spain and France were at that time vastly more
+powerful, populous, and wealthy countries than England: England was
+never free from the dread of foreign invasion, and to the would-be
+invader Ireland always held a guiding light and an open door.
+
+Finally, it must also be remembered that at a time when the chances
+seemed fairly even, as between William and England on the one hand, and
+James and France on the other, the Prince of Orange, accustomed to the
+German way of settling such differences, had made formal offer to
+Tyrconnel of a working compromise--the free exercise of their religion
+to the Irish Catholics: half the Churches of the Kingdom: half the
+employments, civil and military, if they pleased, and even the moiety of
+their ancient properties. "These proposals," says the Chevalier Wogan,
+Tyrconnel's nephew and confidant, who is our informant, "though they
+were to have had an English Act of Parliament for their sanction, were
+refused with universal contempt." In other words, the party which with
+the assistance of France still hoped to obtain all, refused to be
+content with half. It is true that Wogan, in the letter from which we
+have quoted,[6] after stating that the exiles, "in the midst of their
+hard usage abroad, could not be brought to repent of their obstinacy,"
+justifies their refusal by the way in which the Articles of Limerick
+were afterwards disregarded by the Irish Parliament. But this is
+evidently an argument of retrospective invention, and it may fairly be
+argued that the position would have been very different if peace on
+equal terms had been made on the direct authority of the King before
+Aughrim rather than by his deputies after Limerick.
+
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+And if the separatist theory has involved, as we have seen, such
+external dangers to the Empire, the case for the old Irish Parliament
+from the point of the "vital interests" of Ireland itself is even
+weaker. By it the bulk of the Irish people were treated for a century in
+a fashion described by an Irish Chief Secretary as "ingrafting absurdity
+on the wisdom of England and tyranny on the religion that professes
+humanity." It was conspicuous for its corruption even in a corrupt age,
+and, as was inevitable, it involved Ireland in constant conflicts with
+England, conflicts that were vexatious and injurious to both countries.
+Swift, who, amongst those who have not read his works, passes for an
+Irish patriot, is at his savagest when inveighing against this sham
+Parliament.[7]
+
+Its members are, he says--
+
+    "...three hundred brutes
+    All involved in wild disputes,
+    Roaring till their lungs are spent
+      Privilege of Parliament'!"
+
+And if only the Devil were some day to come "with poker fiery red,"
+and--
+
+    "When the den of thieves is full,
+    Quite destroy the harpies' nest,
+    How might then our Isle be blest!"
+
+Capable observers, from Swift to Arthur Young, bear continuous testimony
+to the systematic and habitual corruption of the Irish Parliament.
+Offices were multiplied and were distributed among clamorous applicants
+on the ground of family or personal influence, or political
+support--never by any chance on the ground of merit or capacity. Public
+money was squandered for private purposes. Sir George Macartney, himself
+an Irishman and a Member of Parliament, in his "Account of Ireland,"
+speaking of the year 1745, says--[8]
+
+     "The House of Commons now began to appropriate a considerable part
+     of the additional duties to their own use. This was done under
+     pretence of encouraging public works such as inland navigation,
+     collieries, and manufactories of different kinds; but the truth is
+     that most of these public works were private jobs carried on under
+     the direction and for the advantage of some considerable gentlemen
+     in the House of Commons."
+
+Arthur Young, whose careful and impartial study of the state of affairs
+in Ireland under the Dublin Parliament has become a classic, speaks of
+the same class of transaction,[9]
+
+     "The members of the House of Commons at the conclusion of the
+     sessions met for the purpose of voting the uses to which this money
+     should be applied: the greater part of it was amongst themselves,
+     their friends or dependants, and though some work of apparent use
+     to the public was always the plea, yet under the sanction there
+     were a great number of very scandalous jobs."
+
+Young admits that some useful public work was done, but that most of the
+money was misappropriated was matter of common report. After a
+reference to the construction of a certain canal he adds--
+
+     "Some gentlemen I have talked with on this subject have replied,
+     'It is a job: 'twas meant as a job: you are not to consider it as a
+     canal of trade, but as a canal for public money!' ... Sorry I am to
+     say that a history of public works in Ireland would be a history of
+     jobs."
+
+Money was voted, he says elsewhere, for--
+
+     "Collieries where there is no coal, for bridges where there are no
+     rivers, navigable cuts where there is no water, harbours where
+     there are no ships, and churches where there are no congregations."
+
+And when the Union was finally on its way, Hamilton Rowan, one of the
+founders of the United Irishmen, then in exile in America, wrote home to
+his father: "I congratulate you on the report which spreads here that a
+Union is intended. In that measure I see the downfall of one of the most
+corrupt assemblies, I believe, that ever existed."[10]
+
+It is little wonder that men of good will in Ireland prayed to be
+delivered from such a Parliament. Molyneux, the first of the Irish
+Parliamentary patriots, whose book, "The Case of Ireland's being
+Governed by Laws made in England Stated," was burnt by the common
+hangman, pleaded indeed for a reformed and independent Parliament, but
+only because fair representation in the English Parliament was at the
+time "a happiness they could hardly hope for." And a few years later the
+Irish House, in congratulating Queen Anne on the Union of England and
+Scotland, added, "May God put it into your royal heart to add greater
+strength and lustre to your Crown by a yet more comprehensive Union."
+
+The English Parliament, through sheer lethargy and carelessness, missed
+at this time an opportunity which would have peacefully launched Ireland
+on her career on an equality with Scotland and England, and must have
+profoundly modified the relations of the two countries. Immediate
+prosperity, in the case of a land wasted by a century of strife and
+bloodshed, was not indeed to be hoped for any more than in the case of
+Scotland, which had still two armed rebellions, and much bickering and
+jealousy in store before settling down to peaceful development. But if
+Ireland had been granted her petitions for Union in 1703 and 1707, and
+had thus secured equal laws and equal trading privileges, she would at
+any rate have emerged from her period of trial and discord not later
+than Scotland, and would have anticipated the economic and social
+advantages predicted by Adam Smith,[11] when he says--
+
+     "By a union with Great Britain, Ireland would gain, besides the
+     freedom of trade, other advantages much more important, and which
+     would much more than compensate any increase of taxes that might
+     accompany that union. By the union with England, the middling and
+     inferior ranks of people in Scotland gained a complete deliverance
+     from the power of an aristocracy which had always before oppressed
+     them. By a union with Great Britain, the greater part of the people
+     of all ranks in Ireland would gain an equally complete deliverance
+     from a much more oppressive aristocracy, an aristocracy not
+     founded, like that of Scotland, in the natural and respectable
+     distinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of all
+     distinctions, those of religious and political prejudices....
+     Without a union with Great Britain, the inhabitants of Ireland are
+     not likely, for many ages, to consider themselves as one people."
+
+Pitt, who was proud to proclaim himself the pupil of Adam Smith in
+politics and in economics, found himself, a quarter of a century after
+these words were written, in a position to carry out, in face of great
+difficulties and dangers at home and abroad, the beneficent reform
+advocated by his great master--a reform which, as we have seen, could
+have been carried a century earlier without any difficulty whatever. But
+the century that had been wasted involved many concurrent miseries and
+misfortunes: social and economic stagnation, an intensification of
+religious and racial bitterness, conspiracy, and invasion; savage
+outbreaks savagely repressed. When the time comes to measure up the
+rights and wrongs of those dark days, the judgment on England will
+assuredly be that her fault was not the carrying of the Union, but the
+delaying of that great measure of reform and emancipation until it was
+almost too late.
+
+The story of the Union has been told and retold in the utmost detail
+throughout the century. The present writer has attempted quite recently
+to summarise it,[12] and there is little to add. The charge that it was
+carried by corruption is simply another way of saying that it had,
+constitutionally, to be passed through the Dublin Parliament, that body
+which, from the days of Swift's invective to those of its final
+condemnation, lived and moved and had its being solely in and by
+corruption. As Lord Castlereagh, who had charge of the Bill in the Irish
+House of Commons, put it, the Government was forced to recognise the
+situation and its task was "to buy out and secure to the Crown forever
+the fee simple of Irish corruption, which has so long enfeebled the
+power of Government and endangered the connection."
+
+
+THE UNION.
+
+The Irish Parliament had run its course, and had involved the unhappy
+country in chaos, bankruptcy, revolution, and bloodshed. Lord Clare--a
+late and reluctant convert to the policy of the Union--said in the Irish
+House of Lords (Feb. 10, 1800)--
+
+     "We have not three years of redemption from bankruptcy, intolerable
+     taxation, nor one hour's security against the renewal exterminating
+     civil war. Session after session have you been compelled to enact
+     laws of unexampled rigour and novelty to repress the horrible
+     excesses of the mass of your people: and the fury of murder and
+     pillage and desolation have so outrun all legislative exertions
+     that you have been at length driven to the hard necessity of
+     breaking down the pale of municipal law, and putting your courage
+     under the ban of military government--and in every little circle of
+     dignity and independence we hear whispers of discontent at the
+     temperate discretion with which it is administered.... Look to your
+     civil and religious dissensions. Look to the fury of political
+     faction and the torrents of human blood that stain the face of your
+     country, and of what materials is that man composed who will not
+     listen with patience and good will to any proposition that can be
+     made to him for composing the distractions and healing the wounds
+     and alleviating the miseries of this devoted nation?"
+
+Lord Clare's words--unanswered and unanswerable then and now--constitute
+a sufficient comment on the foolish fable of later invention, that
+Ireland was a land of peace and harmony, of orderly government and
+abounding prosperity, when a wicked English minister came and "stole
+away the Parliament House"--since which all has been decay and
+desolation. The halcyon period is generally made to coincide with that
+of "Grattan's Parliament"--of the semi-independent and quite unworkable
+Constitution of 1782, which had been extorted from England's weakness
+when Ireland was denuded of regular troops, and at the mercy of a
+Volunteer National Guard, when Cornwallis had just surrendered at
+Yorktown, and Spain and France were once more leagued with half Europe
+for the destruction of the British Empire.
+
+It is quite true that the latter part of the eighteenth century was, on
+the whole, a time of considerable prosperity to certain classes in
+Ireland--a prosperity varied by periods of acute depression and
+distress. But that prosperity, such as it was, neither began with
+Grattan's Parliament nor ended with it--had, indeed, no more connection
+with the Irish Parliament in any of its phases than had the Goodwin
+Sands with Tenterden steeple. With the exception of the respite between
+the Treaty of Versailles and the outbreak of the French Revolution,
+England was almost constantly at war, or feverishly preparing for war.
+Simultaneously came the unprecedented increase of urban industry,
+following on the invention of the steam-engine and spinning machinery.
+The result was an enormous and growing demand for corn, beef, and pork,
+sailcloth, stores of all kinds for our armies and fleets, a demand which
+England, owing to the growth of her town population and the consequent
+growth of the home demand, was unable adequately to meet.
+
+Ireland reaped the benefit. As a largely agricultural country, she was
+as yet little influenced by the discoveries of Watt, of Hargreaves, of
+Arkwright, or of Crompton. But her long-rested soil could produce in
+apparently unlimited quantities those very products of which the British
+forces stood most in need. The fleets were victualled and fitted out at
+Cork, and they carried thence a constant stream of supplies of all sorts
+for our armies in the field. Indeed, so keen was the demand that it was
+soon discovered that not only our own troops, but those of the enemy,
+were receiving Irish supplies, and smugglers on the south and west
+coasts reaped a rich harvest.
+
+The result was obvious. Cattle graziers and middlemen made enormous
+profits, rents were doubled and trebled. Dublin, Cork, Waterford,
+Limerick and Belfast flourished exceedingly on war prices and war
+profits. But there is no evidence that the mass of the people in their
+degraded and debased condition shared to any extent in this prosperity.
+It was at this very period that Arthur O'Connor spoke of them as "the
+worst clad, the worst fed, the worst housed people in Europe."
+Whiteboyism, outrage and lawlessness spread over the face of the
+country, and, as Lord Clare reminded Parliament, "session after session
+have you been compelled to enact laws of unexampled rigour and novelty
+to repress the horrible excesses of the mass of your people." It has
+been made a charge against the Union that during some disturbed periods
+of the nineteenth century the United Parliament had to pass "Coercion"
+Acts at the rate of nearly one every session. The complainants should
+look nearer home and they would find from the records of the Irish
+Legislature that during the "halcyon" days of "Grattan's
+Parliament"--the eighteen years between 1782 and the Union--no less than
+fifty-four Coercion Acts were passed, some of them of a thoroughness and
+ferocity quite unknown in later legislation. The close of the nineteenth
+century and the opening of the twentieth were, in reality, in spite of a
+certain amount of agrarian crime, organised and subsidised from abroad,
+a period of much greater peace and more widespread prosperity than the
+bloodstained years that marked the close of the eighteenth century--and
+of the Irish Parliament.
+
+Another fiction regarding the Union may perhaps be worth notice. It has
+sometimes been suggested that it was carried by a venal oligarchy in
+opposition to the will of the great mass of the population, of the Roman
+Catholic population in particular. This is precisely the reverse of the
+truth. The oligarchy controlled the Parliament, and it therefore
+followed that the uniformly corrupt traditions of the Irish Parliament
+had to be observed in carrying the Union as in carrying every other
+Government Bill throughout the century. But, so far from the Act of
+Union being carried by landowners and Protestants against the will of
+the Catholics, it was, as a matter of fact, carried with the ardent and
+unanimous assent and support of the Catholic hierarchy, and against the
+embittered opposition of the old ascendancy leaders, who feared the loss
+of their influence of power.
+
+The evidence on this point is documentary and precise. Indeed, no one
+thought of doubting or challenging it at the time; Grattan contented
+himself with denouncing the Catholic Bishops as "a band of prostituted
+men." Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, was, as his correspondence shows,
+a warm, consistent and active supporter of the Union. Dr. Dillon,
+Archbishop of Tuam, wrote in September, 1799, that he had had an
+opportunity during his recent visitation "of acquiring the strongest
+conviction that this measure alone can restore harmony and happiness to
+our unhappy country." His neighbour, Dr. Bodkin, Bishop Galway, wrote
+that the Union was the only measure to save "poor infatuated Ireland"
+from "ruin and destruction." Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, was equally
+emphatic. "I am perfectly satisfied," he says, "that it is impossible to
+extinguish the feuds and animosities which disgrace this Kingdom, nor
+give it the advantages of its natural local situation, without a Union
+with Great Britain. God grant that it may soon take place!"
+
+As for the feeling of the rank and file of the electors--under a very
+widely extended franchise--two examples will suffice. In two cases--in
+the County of Kerry and the borough of Newry--both open
+constituencies--by-elections occurred during the passing of the Union
+legislation. In both instances the Roman Catholic vote predominated, and
+in both the feeling was so strong in favour of the Union that no
+opponent dared to face the poll. In after years Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald,
+the Knight of Kerry, recounted his experiences. "Having accepted
+office," he says, "as a supporter of the Union, I went to two elections
+pending the measure and was returned without opposition in a county
+where the Roman Catholic interest greatly preponderated, and a
+declaration almost unanimous in favour of the Union proceeded from the
+County of Kerry. One of my most strenuous supporters in bringing forward
+that declaration was Mr. Maurice O'Connell, uncle of Mr. Daniel
+O'Connell, and my most active partisan was Mr. John O'Connell, brother
+of Mr. Daniel O'Connell."
+
+In Newry an attempt was made to put up an anti-Unionist candidate, but
+the Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Lennan, met and repulsed the intruder in
+militant fashion. "Mr. Bell," he reports to Archbishop Troy, "declined
+the poll, and surrendered yesterday. The Catholics stuck together like
+the Macedonian phalanx, and with ease were able to turn the scale in
+favour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer."
+
+To the Irish Catholic at the time of the Union, the Dublin legislature
+was, indeed, in the words of Mr. Denys Scully, a leading Catholic
+layman, "not our Parliament, for we had no share in it, but their
+Club-house."
+
+The summing up of the whole matter is perhaps best expressed in the
+measured judgment of Mr. John Morley in his study of the life of Edmund
+Burke. Burke, in an evil moment for himself and for Ireland, had lent
+himself in 1785 to what Mr. Morley called the "factious" and
+"detestable" course of Fox and the English Whig leaders in destroying
+Pitt's Commercial Propositions.
+
+     "Had it not been for what he himself called the delirium of the
+     preceding session" (writes Burke's biographer)[13] "he would have
+     seen that Pitt was in truth taking his first measures for the
+     emancipation of Ireland from an unjust and oppressive subordination
+     and for her installation as a corporate member of the Empire--the
+     only position permanently possible for her.... A substantial boon
+     was sacrificed amid bonfires and candles to the phantom of Irish
+     Legislative Independence. The result must have convinced Pitt more
+     firmly than ever that his great master, Adam Smith, was right in
+     predicting that nothing short of the Union of the two countries
+     would deliver Ireland out of the hands of her fatuous chiefs and of
+     their too worthy followers."
+
+What would Mr. John Morley, the historian who wrote those words in the
+prime of his intellectual strength and judgment, have said if any one
+had told him that in his old age Lord Morley, the politician, would have
+been actively engaged in assisting another generation of "fatuous
+chiefs" and still more worthy followers to sacrifice the true interests
+of Ireland in the pursuit of "the phantom of Irish Legislative
+Independence"?
+
+
+AFTER THE UNION.
+
+That the Union to some extent failed in the beneficent effects which it
+was calculated to produce in Ireland is only another instance of the
+working of the "curse of mis-chance" which has so often, before and
+since, interposed to thwart the intentions of statesmen in their
+dealings with the two countries. Pitt, Castlereagh, and Cornwallis, the
+three men chiefly concerned in planning the change, were all agreed in
+explaining that the Union was not a policy complete in itself, but was
+only the necessary foundation upon which a true remedial policy was to
+be based. As Lord Cornwallis said at the time, "the word 'Union' will
+not cure the ills of this wretched country. It is a necessary
+preliminary, but a great deal more remains to be done." Catholic
+Emancipation, a series of parliamentary, educational, financial, and
+economic reforms, and the abolition of the Viceroyalty, the visible
+symbol of separatism and dependence, were all essential portions of
+Pitt's scheme. But Pitt was destined to sink into an early grave without
+seeing any of them materially furthered. Treacherous colleagues and the
+threatened insanity of the King blocked the way of some of them:
+England's prolonged struggle for existence against the power of
+Napoleon, involving as it did financial embarrassment and a generation
+of political reaction, accounted for the rest.
+
+Pitt and Castlereagh resigned on the King's refusal to accept their
+advice, "and so," as Lord Rosebery says,[14] "all went wrong." It was
+"like cutting the face out of a portrait and leaving the picture in the
+frame. The fragment of policy flapped forlornly on the deserted mansions
+of the capital." A generation of agitation, strife, and discontent was
+to pass before Emancipation was carried, and the reforms had to wait
+still longer. Meanwhile a wonderful change of front had taken place. The
+leading opponents of the Union--Plunket, Foster, Beresford--even Grattan
+himself--came to accept it, and, in some cases, figured as its warmest
+defenders. And the Catholic Party, whom we have seen so strongly
+supporting the Union, gradually grew into opponents. Daniel O'Connell,
+whose brother and uncle were the leading supporters of the Union
+candidate for Kerry, started a formidable agitation first for
+Emancipation and then for Repeal of the Union. In the former he
+succeeded because enlightened public opinion in both countries was on
+his side: in the latter he failed utterly, both parties in Great Britain
+and a large section in Ireland being inflexibly opposed to any such
+reactionary experiment. In the end O'Connell died disillusioned and
+broken-hearted, and the Repeal movement disappeared from the field of
+Irish politics till revived many years later in the form of Home Rule.
+
+But whilst recognising the fact that the Union, owing to the causes
+stated, failed partially, and for a time, to respond to all the
+anticipations of its authors, readers must be warned against accepting
+the wild and woeful tales of decay and ruin that were recklessly
+circulated for propagandist purposes by O'Connell and the Repealers.
+Many people who are content to take their facts at second hand have thus
+come to believe that the legislative Union changed a smiling and
+prosperous Kingdom into a blighted province where manufactures and
+agriculture, commerce and population fell into rapid and hopeless
+decline. Needless to say, things do not happen in that way: economic
+changes, for better or for worse, are slow and gradual and depend on
+natural causes, not on artificial. Ireland has not, as a whole, kept in
+line with nineteenth-century progress, and her population, after a
+striking increase for over forty years, showed under peculiar causes an
+equally striking decrease; but to assert that her course has been one of
+universal decay and of decay dating from the Union is to say what is
+demonstrably untrue.
+
+It was inevitable that a city of very limited industry like Dublin
+should suffer from the disappearance of its Parliament, which brought
+into residence for some months in every year some hundreds of persons of
+wealth and distinction. It was also inevitable that the mechanical
+inventions to which we have already alluded--the steam-engine, the
+"spinning jenny," and the "mule"--which revolutionised the world's
+industry, should have their effect in Ireland also. Under primitive
+conditions, with lands almost roadless and communications slow,
+difficult and costly, the various districts of any country had of
+necessity to produce articles of food and clothing to satisfy their
+requirements, or they had to go without. With the progress of invention,
+and with the opening up of the world by roads and canals, a totally
+different state of things presents itself. Industries tend to become
+centralised--the fittest survive and grow, the unfit wither away. This
+is what occurred in many districts of England and Scotland, and the
+course of events was naturally the same in Ireland.
+
+When we read of small towns now lying idle, which in the eighteenth
+century produced woollen cloth, linen, cotton, fustian, boots, hats,
+glass, beer, and food products, it simply means that a more highly
+organised system of industry has in its progress left such districts
+behind in the race. The woollen manufacture has centred in Yorkshire,
+cotton in Lancashire, linen in Belfast, and so forth--one district
+dwindled as others advanced and tended to monopolise production, without
+the legislature having anything to say to it. To say that this or that
+manufacture is not so prosperous in Ireland as it was a century ago
+before power looms, spindles, steamships, and railways came to
+revolutionise industry, is simply to say that Ireland, like other
+countries, has had its part, for better or for worse, in the great
+world-movement of nineteenth-century industry.
+
+The figures of Irish exports and imports lend no countenance to the
+story of decay setting in with the Union. Taking the two decennial
+periods, before and after the Union, the figures are as follows:--[15]
+
+                      Total value      Total value
+                      of imports.      of exports.
+
+1790-1801  ...   ...  £49,000,000      £51,000,000
+1802-1813  ...   ...  £74,000,000      £63,000,000
+                      -----------      -----------
+        Increase ...  £25,000,000      £12.000,000
+
+an increase of over fifty per cent. in imports, and over twenty-three
+per cent. in exports in the ten years after the Union as compared with
+the ten years before it.
+
+Taking single years the result is similar. The amalgamation of the two
+Exchequers and the financial re-arrangements that followed, put an end
+to the accurate record of exports and imports until quite recently, but
+the increase during the early years of the Union and also over the whole
+country is unmistakable. The average annual value of Irish exports at
+the time of the Union was, according to Mr. Chart.[16] £4,000,000. In
+1826 they had increased to £8,000,000, a corresponding increase being
+recorded in imports. Coming down to the period of the Financial
+Relations Commission (1895), that very cautious and painstaking
+statistician, the late Sir Robert Giffen,[17] roughly estimated Irish
+imports at £25,000,000 and exports at £20,000,000. Since that time the
+Irish Agricultural Department has been created, and has undertaken the
+collection and tabulation of such statistics. Turning to their latest
+report we find that the imports had in 1910 attained the relatively
+enormous figure of £65,000,000, and the exports £65,800,000, a total of
+over £130,000,000 in place of nine or ten millions, at the very outside,
+of the time of the Union. And it is worth noting in addition that, for
+the first time in these recorded tables, Ireland's exports exceed her
+imports.
+
+But we are assured with triumphant and invincible despondency that
+population has decreased alarmingly. The movements of population since
+the time of the Union have been, it may be admitted, very remarkable,
+but the figures are double-edged and require a more careful handling
+than they generally receive. If we are to assume, as the prophets of
+gloom will have it, that increase and decrease of population are an
+infallible test of a country's growth or decay, then Ireland for nearly
+half a century after the Union must have been the most prosperous
+country in Europe. The population of Ireland, which in 1792 was
+estimated at 4,088,226, had increased in 1814 to 5,937,856, in 1821 to
+6,801,827, and in 1841 to 8,196,597. In other words, the population,
+like the trade, of the doomed island had more than doubled since the
+Union. We doubt if any European country could say as much.
+
+Then came the great disaster, the potato famine of 1846-47, which,
+undoubtedly, dealt a stunning blow to Irish agriculture. It was not the
+first, nor the worst, of Irish famines--there is evidence that the
+famines of 1729 and 1740 were, proportionately, more widespread and more
+appalling in their effects. But, occurring as it did, in the middle of
+the nineteenth century, with the press of the world as witnesses, it
+attracted immense attention, and the nations, whom England, then high
+and mighty in the undisputed supremacy of the doctrines of _laissez
+faire_ and free trade, were not slow in retorting on their mentor. The
+State, it was laid down dogmatically by the economists, must not do
+anything to feed the starving people, because that would interfere with
+the principle of private enterprise; and as there was naturally no
+private enterprise in wide stretches of country where landlord and
+tenant, shopkeeper and labourer, were involved in common ruin, the
+people starved. For the same reason, the sufferers must not be paid to
+do useful work, so they were set to make roads that led to nowhere--and
+that have been grass-grown ever since--and to build walls that had to be
+pulled down again.
+
+It was a ghastly specimen of doctrinaire dogmatism run mad, and though
+it was not the fault of the Government so much as of the arid doctrines
+of ill-understood economics which then prevailed in the schools, it did
+more than anything to embitter the relations between the Irish people
+and the Imperial Government. The death-rate from famine and famine-fever
+was appalling. The poor law system--then a new experiment in
+Ireland--broke down hopelessly, and agitators were not slow to improve
+the occasion by denouncing the "callousness" of the Imperial Government.
+
+Nations, as a rule, recover from such calamities as famine, war, and
+pestilence with surprising quickness; but there were certain incidents
+connected with the famine of 1846-47 that intensified and perpetuated
+the evil in the case of Ireland. We have already referred to the
+high-and-dry doctrines of _laissez faire_ then in the ascendant, and any
+real or permanent recovery of Irish agriculture was rendered practically
+impossible by England's adhesion to the doctrine of free imports, by the
+abolition of the Corn Laws, and by the crushing increase of taxation
+under Mr Gladstone's budgets of 1853 and the succeeding years.
+
+Ireland was entitled under the Act of Union to "special exemptions and
+abatements" in taxation, in consideration of her backward economic
+condition. All Chancellors of the Exchequer till Mr. Gladstone's time
+respected these exemptions, and although no one could suggest, in view
+of Ireland's recent progress, that she could have been permanently
+exempted from the burdens imposed on the British taxpayer, it will be
+admitted that the time chosen by Mr. Gladstone for abruptly raising the
+taxation of Ireland from 14_s._ 9_d._ per head to 26_s._ 7_d._ was
+inopportune, not to say ungenerous.
+
+Sir David Barbour, in his minority report on the Financial Relations
+Commission, perhaps the most carefully thought out and the most
+practical of all the many reports emanating from that heterogeneous
+body, gives a table of the "estimated true revenue" extracted from Great
+Britain and Ireland respectively from 1819 to 1894. This table shows
+that the revenue raised from Ireland was increased between 1849-50 and
+1859-60 from £4,861,465 to £7,700,334, and he adds: "It will be observed
+that a great and rapid rise took place in the taxation of Ireland during
+the decade 1850-1860. This great increase was due to the equalisation of
+the spirit duties in the two countries, and the extension of the Income
+Tax to Ireland. The special circumstances of Ireland do not appear to
+have received due consideration at this time. Many arguments of a
+general character might be employed to justify the equalisation of the
+spirit duties, and the imposition of an Income Tax, but Ireland was
+entitled under the Act of Union to such exemptions and abatements as her
+circumstances might require, and the time was not opportune for imposing
+additional burdens upon her."
+
+Irish Agriculture was thus almost simultaneously struck down by the
+greatest famine of the century, which swept away two million of the
+population, disabled for resuming the competition by the free admission
+of foreign grain, which in the long run rendered successful corn-growing
+in Ireland impossible, and saddled with an additional two and a quarter
+millions of taxation. When remonstrated with, Mr. Gladstone retorted
+flippantly that he could not see that it was any part of the rights of
+man that an Irishman should be able to make himself drunk more cheaply
+than the inhabitant of Great Britain. The taunt would have possessed
+more relevance if whisky had been an article of importation. Seeing,
+however, that it was an article of manufacture and export, employing
+directly or indirectly much capital and labour, the injury to Irish
+industry was very serious, many distilleries and breweries being obliged
+to close their doors.
+
+As Miss Murray says in her masterly work on Irish commerce[18]:--
+
+     "Just as the country was thoroughly exhausted from the effects of
+     the famine, the whole financial policy adopted towards Ireland
+     changed, and Irish taxation began to be rapidly assimilated to
+     British at a time when great prosperity had come to Great Britain,
+     and the reverse to Ireland. The repeal of the Corn Laws had
+     stimulated the commercial prosperity of Britain; large cities were
+     expanding, railways were developing, and the foreign trade of the
+     country was increasing by leaps and bounds. But Ireland had just
+     passed through the awful ordeal of famine: her population had
+     suddenly diminished by one fourth, there had been a universal
+     decline in Irish manufactures, the repeal of the Corn Laws had
+     begun the destruction of the Irish export trade in cereals, and
+     the extension of the Poor Law system to Ireland had greatly
+     increased the local rates. Just as the famine subsided the results
+     of free trade began to take effect. Wheat-growing decayed; local
+     industries were destroyed by the competition of large
+     manufacturing towns in Great Britain; every class of Irish
+     producers saw ruin staring him in the face, while landlords and
+     farmers were further impoverished by the huge poor-rates, which
+     sometimes reached 20_s._ in the £. The misery and poverty of the
+     country could hardly have been greater, and to us at the present
+     day it seems extraordinary that just at this inopportune time the
+     Government should have thought fit to go back from the
+     conciliatory fiscal policy which had existed since 1817."
+
+It is not to be wondered at that Gladstonian finance was ever after
+looked at with well-grounded suspicion in Ireland.
+
+Another circumstance that has had a serious and lasting effect on Irish
+population has still to be mentioned. At first the emigration movement
+was largely a flight from starvation, a movement that would have come to
+an end under normal circumstances with the end of the famine crisis. But
+as we have seen, the conditions were not normal; the crisis was
+artificially protracted by injurious financial legislation. And, in
+addition, although many of them perished by the way owing to the
+abominably insanitary conditions of the coffin ships employed for the
+journey, the emigrants arriving at New York or Boston soon found
+conditions unexpectedly favourable for the class of labour which they
+were best qualified to supply. America was just then opening up and
+turning to the new West, and the demand for unskilled labour for railway
+work was unlimited. The Irish emigrant seldom or never takes to the land
+when he goes to America, and navvy work just suited him. To a man
+accustomed to sixpence a day the wages offered seemed to represent
+unbounded wealth, and as the news spread in Ireland the move to America,
+which at the first seemed hopeless exile, presented itself as a highly
+desirable step towards social betterment. Emigration is now the result
+of attraction from America rather than of repulsion from Ireland, a fact
+which explains the failure of more than one well-meant attempt to check
+the movement by action on this side of the Atlantic.
+
+
+ULSTER'S DEVELOPMENT.
+
+A word should perhaps be given to the position of the industrial portion
+of Ulster, which has flourished so remarkably since the Union. This of
+itself affords sufficient proof that that Act, whatever its defects,
+cannot be held accountable for any lack of prosperity that may still
+exist in other parts of Ireland. It is sometimes stated that Ulster was
+favoured at the time when the commercial jealousy of certain English
+cities succeeded in securing a prohibition of the Irish woollen
+industry. The southern wool, it is alleged, was checked, and the Belfast
+linen was favoured--hence the prosperity of the northern capital. This
+is a really curious perversion of quite modern history. The linen
+industry was at the time in question in no sense confined to the North
+and was by no means prominent in Belfast. It was distributed over many
+districts of Ireland, for whilst Louis Crommelin was sent to Lisburn to
+look after the French colony settled there, and to improve and promote
+the industry, his brother William was sent on a similar errand to
+Kilkenny, and stations were also started at Rathkeale, Cork and
+Waterford. When, later on, the Irish Parliament distributed bounties
+through the Linen Board, the seat of that Board was in Dublin, and its
+operations included every county in Ireland.
+
+At the time of the Union, indeed, the linen manufacture was almost
+unknown in Belfast, the "manufacturers" or handloom weavers in the
+North, as elsewhere, living mostly in the smaller country towns and
+bringing their webs in for sale on certain market days. From Benn's
+"History of the Town of Belfast," published early in the century, we
+learn that at that time the principal manufacture of the town was
+"cotton in its various branches." This industry had been introduced in
+1777, we are told, to give employment in the poorhouse, but it caught on
+and spread amazingly. "In many of the streets and populous roads in the
+suburbs of the town, particularly at Ballymacarrett, the sound of the
+loom issues almost from every house, and all, with very few exceptions,
+are employed in the different branches of the cotton trade. In the year
+1800 this business engaged in Belfast and its neighbourhood 27,000
+persons." In 1814 there were eight cotton mills at work with steam power
+driving 99,000 spindles. On the other hand, "there is very little linen
+cloth woven in this town or parish. In 1807 Belfast contained 723 looms,
+only four of which were for weaving linen."
+
+The story of the sudden change from cotton to linen is an instructive
+one. Cotton appears to have forced itself to the front because cotton
+spinning could be carried on by machinery whilst the linen weavers were
+still dependent on the spinning wheel for their yarn. It was Andrew
+Mulholland, the owner of the York Street cotton mill, who first took
+note of the fact that while the supply of hand-made linen yarn was quite
+insufficient to justify the manufacture of linen on a large scale in
+Belfast, quantities of flax were shipped from Belfast to Manchester to
+be spun there and reimported as yarn. Mulholland determined to try if he
+could not spin yarn as well as the Manchester people, and accordingly in
+1830, "the first bundle of linen yarn produced by machinery in Belfast
+was thrown off from the York Street mill." That, and not legislation nor
+any system of State bounties or State favour, was the beginning of the
+Belfast linen industry in which the York Street mill still maintains its
+deserved pre-eminence. When the critical moment arrived, as it does in
+the case of all industries, when manufacturers must adapt themselves to
+new methods or succumb, the Belfast leaders of industry rose to the
+occasion and secured for themselves the chief share in the linen trade.
+In the rest of Ireland, it is true, the manufacture dwindled and
+disappeared, but whatever may have been the cause of that disappearance,
+it was certainly not the Act of Union.
+
+
+THE LAND QUESTION.
+
+The agrarian problem has caused more trouble in Ireland than any other,
+and statesmen have long recognised that on its definite settlement
+depends the hope of permanent peace and progress over the greater part
+of the country. It is not, and never has been, the real cause of rural
+depopulation, for, as we have seen, the increase of the rural population
+was most rapid at the time when agrarian conditions were at their very
+worst, whilst on the other hand emigration continues almost unchecked in
+counties where the question has been virtually settled. And in 1881 the
+late Mr. J.H. Tuke discovered by an analysis of the census returns that
+the only "townlands" in which the rural population was actually
+increasing were those scattered along the western seaboard of Ireland,
+where the tenure and the conditions of existence seemed most hopeless.
+But, as the Devon Commission announced in 1845, it was an essentially
+defective system of land tenure that lay at the root of the perennial
+discontent with which Ireland was troubled, and things went from bad to
+worse until the Party organised for the defence of the Union and the
+social betterment of Ireland took up the task of settling the question
+by the transfer on fair terms of the ownership of the soil from the
+large landowners to the tenants.
+
+The system of land tenure in England has been the growth of custom
+gradually hardening into law; in Ireland the traditional custom was
+suddenly abolished, and English law substituted in its place. The
+English law was no doubt a better law, and one more fitted to a
+progressive community; but in Ireland it violently upset the traditional
+law of the country, and, consequently, was met with sullen and
+unremitting hostility. By Irish law, the tribe was owner; the tribesmen
+were joint proprietors, and the forfeiture of the chief did not involve
+the forfeiture of the land occupied by the tribesmen. By English law,
+however, these latter, such of them as were not expelled or exiled,
+suddenly found themselves transformed from joint-owners into tenants at
+will. Further, the difficulty of dealing direct with tenants,
+experienced by landlords who were in very many cases absentees, led to
+the abominable "middleman" system by which the owner leased great
+stretches of land to some one who undertook to "manage" it for him, and
+who in turn sub-let it in smaller patches at rack-rents to those who, to
+get back their money, had to sub-let again at still higher rents. The
+result was, as an official report in the eighteenth century states: "It
+is well known that over the most part of the country, the lands are
+sub-let six deep, so that those who actually labour it are squeezed to
+the very utmost." And Lord Chesterfield, when Viceroy, complained of the
+oppression of the people by "deputies of deputies of deputies." The
+eighteenth-century policy of checking or suppressing the industrial
+enterprises of the English colony aggravated the evil until, as Lord
+Dufferin expressed it: "Debarred from every other industry, the entire
+nation flung itself back upon the land, with as fatal an impulse as when
+a river whose current is suddenly impeded, rolls back and drowns the
+valley it once fertilised."
+
+In time the middleman tended to die out, but the evil results of the
+system in preventing direct and friendly and helpful relations between
+landlord and tenant remained. Here and there, even in Arthur Young's
+time, enterprising and devoted landlords had established something like
+the "English system" on their estates, but, as a rule, the landlord
+remained a mere rent charger. The report of the Devon Commission says:--
+
+     "It is admitted on all hands that, according to the general
+     practice in Ireland, the landlord neither builds dwelling-houses
+     nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, etc., in good order
+     before he lets his land to a tenant. The cases where a landlord
+     does any of these things are the exception. In most cases, whatever
+     is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant,
+     and in the ordinary language of the country, dwelling-houses, farm
+     buildings, and even the making of fences, are described by the
+     general word, 'improvements,' which is thus employed to denote the
+     necessary adjuncts of a farm without which in England or Scotland
+     no tenant would be found to rent it."
+
+In a word, as one who owned land both in England and in Ireland put it,
+"In England we let farms, in Ireland we let land." And by law an unjust
+landlord had the power at any moment to expel a tenant or a group of
+tenants, although no rent was owing, and without giving any compensation
+for the "improvements" which were the sole work of the tenant. Most
+landlords acted reasonably and equitably in such matters, but,
+especially among the new class of purely mercantile purchasers who came
+in under the Landed Estates Court after the great famine of 1846, there
+were too many who insisted on their extreme legal rights, thus
+disturbing the peace of the country and producing the Irish Land
+Question in an acute form that called for State interference.
+
+The systems of "compensation for improvements" (1870), and of rent
+fixing by itinerant tribunals (1881), were tried in turn, but each was
+found to raise more difficulties than it settled, until finally Mr.
+Parnell and his Land League set the whole country in a flame, and
+produced a series of strikes against the payment of any rent. For some
+years it is hardly too much to say that the law of the League, with its
+purely revolutionary propaganda, supplanted the law of the land and
+reduced large areas to a condition of chaos, the decrees of the "village
+ruffians," who ruled the situation, being enforced by systematic outrage
+and assassination.
+
+The first statesman who made a really serious attempt to meet this
+appalling state of things was Mr. Arthur Balfour, who, as Chief
+Secretary for Ireland, resolutely took up the task, first of repressing
+crime and enforcing the law, and then of recasting the whole land system
+in such a way that the tenant, transformed into an owner, would for the
+first time feel it his interest to range himself on the side of the law
+and of orderly government. At the same time, a systematic attempt was
+made to deal with the question of perennial poverty in the extreme West
+of Ireland in what came to be known as the "Congested Districts." The
+construction of railways and piers, the draining of land, and the
+provision of instruction in agriculture, fisheries, etc., speedily gave
+promise of a new era in the economic history of a hitherto helpless and
+hopeless population.
+
+All this was done by Mr. Balfour and his successors in spite of
+opposition and obstruction of a kind such as no Chief Secretary had ever
+before had to encounter. Formerly, all through the centuries, whenever a
+Viceroy or Chief Secretary was face to face with an organised outbreak
+of crime and sedition in Ireland, both British parties united in
+supporting and strengthening the hands of the executive as representing
+the Crown. Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary reversal of policy and
+principle in the winter of 1885-86 put an end to all this, and gravely
+increased the difficulties of the Irish Government.
+
+When Mr. Gladstone was first confronted with the demand for Home Rule,
+even in the mild and constitutional form advocated by Mr. Isaac Butt,
+and his Home Government Association, founded in the autumn of 1870, he
+promptly declared, like Mr. John Morley, that legislative Union with
+Great Britain was the only position permanently possible for an island
+situated as Ireland is. In a speech at Aberdeen[19] he indignantly
+asked--
+
+     "Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this
+     time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to
+     disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the
+     purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind
+     and crippling any powers we possess for conferring benefits on the
+     country to which we belong."
+
+And for fifteen years, in power or in opposition, Mr. Gladstone preached
+and acted upon the same doctrine. When the Land League was founded he
+denounced it as an organisation whose steps were "dogged with crime,"
+and whose march was "through rapine to the dismemberment of the Empire."
+The League was finally "proclaimed" by his Government as a criminal
+conspiracy and its members, from Mr. Parnell downwards, arrested and
+imprisoned without trial as being "reasonably suspected" of criminal
+practices.
+
+This continued until in an unfortunate moment for himself Mr. Gladstone
+discovered, in November, 1885, that the votes of Mr. Parnell and his
+eighty-six colleagues were necessary for his own return to power as
+Prime Minister, whereupon he entered into negotiations which resulted,
+on the one hand, in his securing the necessary votes, and on the other
+in his accepting the principles and the policy of those whom until then
+he had denounced and imprisoned as instigators to crime and sedition. He
+rightly recognised that there was no half-way house, and that he could
+not become a Home Ruler without accepting and defending the actions of
+the Home Rulers. He worshipped what he had formerly burnt, and he burned
+what he had hitherto worshipped. The result was that for several years
+England beheld for the first time the scandalous spectacle of men who
+had held high office under the Crown openly defending--and even
+instigating--lawlessness and disorder, shielding and excusing criminals,
+proved such before the courts, and thwarting, misrepresenting, and
+obstructing those whose duty it was to restore order and legality in
+Ireland.
+
+Such were the difficulties that confronted Mr. Arthur Balfour as Chief
+Secretary for Ireland from 1887 to 1891, difficulties which he
+surmounted with such resolution and such statesmanship that he retired
+from an office that has been called "the grave of reputations" with a
+reputation so much enhanced as to ensure him the leadership of his party
+and the gratitude of Irishmen of all classes for generations to come.
+And yet his method was a supremely simple one--to reassert the supremacy
+of the law, to neglect, almost ostentatiously, all merely political
+cries, and to set himself seriously to deal with the real Irish
+question, that of conferring some measure of security and prosperity on
+a population which over wide districts had known too little of such
+things.
+
+Occupying ownership of Irish land by means of State credit was not, of
+course, a new policy in Mr. Balfour's day. The Bright clauses (1869)
+had introduced the principle into the Statute-book, and Lord Ashbourne's
+Act (1885) had carried it several steps further. But it was Mr. Arthur
+Balfour and his successors, Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. George Wyndham,
+who carried it by a series of boldly conceived steps almost within sight
+of completion. So thorough was the success of this policy of land
+purchase, and so marked was the cessation of crime and outrage and
+seditious agitation in every district into which it was carried, that
+those who made their living by agitation grew alarmed, and did all in
+their power to stop the working of the Purchase Acts. One Nationalist
+member declared that the process had gone "quite far enough," and that
+he wished it could be stopped. The farmers who had purchased their
+holdings were declared to have become selfish, and "as bad as the
+landlords." In other words, they had become orderly and industrious, and
+had ceased to subscribe for the upkeep of the United Irish League and
+its salaried agitators.
+
+The unhappy result of this outcry on the part of those whose occupation
+would be gone, and who would be compelled to resort to honest industry
+should Ireland become peaceful and prosperous, was the passing of Mr.
+Birrell's "amending" Bill, which has practically stopped for the present
+the beneficent working of the Wyndham Act of 1903. Under the various
+purchase Acts over 180,000 Irish farmers have become the owners of their
+holdings, thanks to over one hundred millions of public money advanced
+on Imperial credit for the purpose. The first task of a Unionist
+government, when again in power, must be the resumption of this policy
+of State-aided land-purchase--the only completely and unquestionably
+successful and pacifying piece of agrarian legislation in the history of
+English rule in Ireland.
+
+Other writers will give, later on, a more detailed account of various
+branches of Unionist practical policy in Ireland. The story of the
+Congested Districts Board, Mr. Arthur Balfour's special work, is a
+romance in itself. So well, in fact, has it accomplished its immediate
+task that the time has probably come when it could with advantage be
+merged in the later-created Department of Agriculture and Technical
+Instruction. This department, which has been linked up with the County
+or Borough Councils, by the legislation of Mr. Gerald Balfour, has done
+an immense amount of educational and practical work in connection with
+agriculture in all its branches, including dairying, poultry rearing,
+fruit-growing, and other rural industries, not to speak of technical
+instruction in matters suited for artisans and town workers.
+
+These remarkable achievements, the work of successive Unionist
+Governments from 1896 to 1906, have revolutionised the face of the
+country, and are bringing about a new Ireland. The chief danger now lies
+in the intrigues of discredited politicians, whose object is to divert
+the eyes of the people from practical, remedial, and constructive
+legislation, and to keep them fixed upon what Mr. John Morley has called
+"the phantom of Irish legislative independence."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 3: J.R. Green, "Short History," chap. ix. sec. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Dict. Nat. Biog.," sub.-tit. "Erskine, John, Earl of Mar,"
+p. 430.]
+
+[Footnote 5: "England," says Mr. James Bryce in his Introduction to "Two
+Centuries of Irish History," "acted as conquering nations do act, and
+better than some nations of that age."]
+
+[Footnote 6: Wogan to Swift, Feb. 27th, 1732.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Swift, "The Legion Club."]
+
+[Footnote 8: "Life of Macartney," vol. ii, p. 136.]
+
+[Footnote 9: "Tour in Ireland," vol. ii., p. 123 ff.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Hamilton Rowan's "Autobiography," p. 340.]
+
+[Footnote 11: "Wealth of Nations," Book V., Chap. III.]
+
+[Footnote 12: "The End of the Irish Parliament," 1911, Edward Arnold.]
+
+[Footnote 13: "Edmund Burke, a Historical Study," by John Morley, pp.
+286 ff.]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Pitt," by Lord Rosebery, p. 155.]
+
+[Footnote 15: From the official returns embodied in "A Statement to the
+Prime Minister," Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, Dublin, 1886.]
+
+[Footnote 16: "Ireland from the Union to Catholic Emancipation," by D.
+A. Chart, M.A. A most valuable and instructive work.]
+
+[Footnote 17: It is, I hope, no reflection on the memory of an eminent
+public servant to suggest that in this, as in too many of the estimated
+figures contained in his evidence before the Commission, and upon which
+the Majority Report of the Commission was largely based, Sir Robert
+seriously under-estimated the resources of Ireland. It is obvious when
+the ascertained figures of 1910 are compared with the estimated figures
+of 1895 that Sir Robert Giffen must have been several millions below the
+truth. The steady nature of the growth of Irish commerce is shown by the
+following figures taken from the Official Report for the year ended
+December 31, 1910.
+
+            Imports,    Exports,    Total,
+            Mill. £.    Mill. £.    Mill. £.
+
+1904          54          49          103
+1905          55          51          106
+1906          57          56          113
+1907          61          59          120
+1908          59          57          116
+1909          63          61          124
+1910          65          65          130
+]
+
+[Footnote 18: "A History of the Commercial Relations between Great
+Britain and Ireland," by Alice E. Murray, D.Sc.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Sept. 26, 1871.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CRITICAL
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
+
+BY GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+Few things are more remarkable in the Parliamentary history of the Home
+Rule movement than the complete absence from the counsels of the English
+advocates of Home Rule of any definite and settled policy as to the form
+of self-government to be offered to Ireland, and their consequent
+oscillation between proposals radically differing from one another.
+Since the "new departure" initiated by Davitt and Devoy in 1878,[20] it
+has been the deliberate practice of Irish Nationalists to abstain from
+defining the Nationalist demand and to ask in general terms for
+"self-government," doubtless with the object of attracting the support
+of all who favour any change which could be described by that very
+elastic term. Such a policy has its advantages. But confusion of
+thought, however favourable to popular agitation, is a disadvantage when
+the moment for legislation arrives; and uncertainty as to the aim goes
+far to explain the vacillation in Home Rule policy.
+
+Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 would have given to Ireland the
+substance of "responsible" or colonial self-government, subject only to
+certain reservations and restrictions, the value of which will be
+considered later in this chapter, and would have excluded the Irish
+members and representative peers from the Parliament of the United
+Kingdom. By the Bill of 1893 the reservations and restrictions were
+increased, and representatives of Ireland were to be permitted to sit at
+Westminster--by the Bill as introduced for some purposes, and by the
+Bill as passed by the House of Commons for all purposes.
+
+After the defeat of this second Bill, a "cold fit" appears to have
+seized the Liberal Party. Lord Rosebery, in 1894, declared that before
+Home Rule could be carried England, as the predominant partner, must be
+convinced. Sir Edward Grey in 1905 declared that his party on its return
+to power would "go on with Sir Anthony MacDonnell's policy," which he
+rightly described as a policy of large administrative reforms; and Mr.
+Asquith "associated himself entirely and unreservedly with every word"
+of Sir Edward Grey's speech.[21] Accordingly the Irish Council Bill
+proposed by Mr. Asquith's Government in 1907 was purely a measure of
+devolution, certain administrative functions only being put under the
+control of an Irish Council, subject to the veto of the Lord Lieutenant,
+and the whole legislative power remaining in the Parliament of the
+United Kingdom. This proposal, having been condemned by a National
+Convention at Dublin, was incontinently withdrawn.
+
+In the years succeeding this fiasco the Liberal policy for Ireland
+appeared to be at the mercy of shifting winds. For some time Liberal
+speakers contented themselves with vague declarations in favour of
+Federalism or "Home Rule all round"--phrases which may mean much or
+little according to the sense in which they are used. More recently an
+able writer,[22] while admitting that "there is no public opinion in
+Ireland as to the form of the Irish Constitution," has argued in a work
+of 350 pages in favour of the grant to Ireland of full legislative,
+administrative and financial autonomy; while a member of the
+Government[23] declared that fiscal autonomy for all practical purposes
+means separation and the disintegration of the United Kingdom. In a
+publication recently issued by a committee of Liberals, comprising
+several members of the present Government,[24] two views directly
+contrary to one another are put forward, one writer arguing for a
+devolution to an Irish body of "definite and defined powers only," and
+another for the grant of the widest possible form of Home Rule and the
+exclusion from Westminster of all Irish representation. The latest
+official pronouncements indicate that the Government have it in their
+minds to revert to the Gladstonian form of Home Rule; but even now[25]
+no one outside the Cabinet, and possibly few inside that inner circle,
+would venture on a confident prophecy even as to the broad lines of the
+measure which in a few days may be submitted to Parliament as
+representing the urgent and considered demand of public opinion.
+
+Franklin said truly that--
+
+     "those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not
+     generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into
+     execution new projects."
+
+But surely on a question of such vital moment to the Empire as the
+revision of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the bases, if not
+the details, of the contemplated change are deserving of prolonged
+consideration and even of some public and ordered discussion. The
+British North America Act, 1867, by which the relation of the Dominion
+of Canada to its provinces is regulated, was the result, not only of
+years of preliminary debate in the provincial Legislatures and
+elsewhere, but of a formal conference at Quebec in 1864, followed by the
+appointment of delegates to confer with the Imperial Government on the
+matter. In Australia the proposal for union, agitated at intervals since
+1846, was canvassed in every detail at inter-colonial Conferences or
+Conventions in 1883, in 1891, and in 1897-8, as well as in the several
+colonial Legislatures, before it was embodied in the Australia
+Constitution Act, 1900. And although in the case of South Africa, owing
+to the urgency of the question of union, the time occupied in the
+discussion was less than in the other great dominions, yet in the
+Convention of 1908-9 the best brains in the country were occupied for
+months in considering every detail of the proposal for union before it
+was submitted to the Colonial and Imperial Parliaments for their
+sanction.[26] And yet in the Mother Country, where centuries of military
+and political conflict have given us the Union, it is considered that a
+few weeks' consideration by a committee of the Cabinet, without advice
+from independent constitutional experts,[27] and without formal
+consultation even with the Government's own supporters outside the
+Ministry, is sufficient to determine both the general form and the
+details of a proposal for its dissolution.
+
+In the confusion so engendered it may be useful to consider in some
+detail the different proposals which have been or may be made under the
+name of Home Rule, their special qualities and dangers, and the results
+to which they may severally lead.
+
+
+RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT.
+
+A proposal to give to Ireland full "responsible" government, without any
+other limitations than such as are imposed on our self-governing
+Colonies, would find few supporters in this country. Under such a
+constitution an Irish Government would have power to forbid or restrict
+recruiting for the Imperial forces in Ireland, and to raise and train a
+force of its own. It might establish or subsidise a religion, make
+education wholly denominational, levy customs duties on imports from
+Great Britain and give fiscal advantages to a foreign power, confiscate
+or transfer property without payment, and deprive individuals of
+nationality, franchise, liberty, or life without process of law. However
+improbable some of these contingencies may appear, it is right on a
+matter of so much moment to consider possibilities and not probabilities
+only. Such powers as these could not without serious risk be conceded to
+any part of the kingdom, and in the case of Ireland there would be a
+special danger in granting them to a popularly elected body.
+
+In the first place, the national safety would be involved. Englishmen
+were at one time too fond of saying that the great Colonies might, if
+they chose, sever the link which binds them to the Mother Country.
+Happily, in their case, no such catastrophe need now be considered. But
+it would be folly to shut our eyes to the fact that to many Irishmen
+national independence appears to be the only goal worth striving for. If
+the concession of full responsible government should be followed (at
+whatever interval) by an assertion of complete independence, we may
+assume that Great Britain would follow the example of Federal America
+and re-establish the Union by force of arms, but at how great a cost!
+Those who deny the possibility of a serious movement towards separation
+would do well to remember Mr. Gladstone's reference[28] to the position
+of Norway and Sweden, then united under one crown:--
+
+     "Let us look to those two countries, neither of them very large,
+     but yet countries which every Englishman and every Scotchman must
+     rejoice to claim his kin--I mean the Scandinavian countries of
+     Sweden and Norway. Immediately after the great war the Norwegians
+     were ready to take sword in hand to prevent their coming under the
+     domination of Sweden. But the Powers of Europe undertook the
+     settlement of that question, and they united those countries upon a
+     footing of strict legislative independence and co-equality.... And
+     yet with two countries so united, what has been the effect? Not
+     discord, not convulsions, not danger to peace, not hatred, not
+     aversion, but a constantly growing sympathy; and every man who
+     knows their condition knows that I speak the truth when I say that
+     in every year that passes the Norwegians and the Swedes are more
+     and more feeling themselves to be the children of a common country,
+     united by a tie which never is to be broken."
+
+The tie was broken within twenty years.
+
+It may be that the Nationalist leaders, or some of them, do not desire
+separation; but it by no means follows that a concession of their
+demands would not lead to that result. Franklin, in 1774, had an
+interview with Chatham, in which he says--
+
+     "I assured him that, having more than once travelled almost from
+     one end of the continent (of America) to the other, and kept a
+     great variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with
+     them freely, I never had heard in any conversation from any person,
+     drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or
+     a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America."[29]
+
+And yet independence came within ten years.
+
+In the case of the United Kingdom there is no need to consider in detail
+how serious would be the effects--naval, military, and economic--of
+separation, for the gravity of such a contingency is admitted by all.
+Admiral Mahan, the American naval expert, writes that--
+
+     "the ambition of the Irish separatists, realised, might be even
+     more threatening to the national life of Great Britain than the
+     secession of the South was to that of the American Union.... The
+     instrument for such action in the shape of an independent
+     Parliament could not safely be trusted even to avowed friends."
+
+Some Home Rulers are able to--
+
+     "rise superior to the philosophy, as fallacious in fact as it is
+     base and cowardly in purpose, which sets the safety of a great
+     nation above the happiness and prosperity of a small one,"[30]
+
+but to less lofty souls it appears that the safety of the nation is
+paramount, and that upon it depends the prosperity of each of its
+component parts.
+
+In the next place, in considering whether complete "colonial"
+self-government can be conceded to Ireland, it must not be forgotten
+that the island is bi-racial, that the two races differ widely in
+character, in politics, and in religion, and that the differences are
+apt to find vent in violent conflict or secret attacks. Further, Ireland
+has for generations been the scene of a revolt against one particular
+species of property, the ownership of land; and although under the
+operation of the Land Purchase Acts this cause of conflict tends to
+abate, it still breaks out from time to time in the form of cattle
+drives and attacks on "land grabbers."[31] Hitherto we have, broadly
+speaking, kept the peace. That we should now forsake this duty, and,
+washing our hands of Ireland, leave the Protestant and the landowner, at
+or small, to his fate is unthinkable.
+
+In connection with the question last-mentioned it may be necessary at
+some time to consider how far it is the constitutional right of this
+country to impose upon the minority in Ireland the new obligations
+implied in a grant to the whole island of colonial Home Rule. It may be
+that the Imperial Parliament can disallow the claim of a section of the
+population of Ireland to remain subject to its own control. But it is
+one thing to reject the allegiance of a community, it is quite another
+thing forcibly to transfer that allegiance to a practically independent
+legislature; and this is especially the case when the transfer may
+involve the use against a loyal population of coercion in its extreme
+form.
+
+
+CHECKS AND SAFEGUARDS.
+
+In every formal proposal for Home Rule in Ireland, weight has been given
+to the above considerations, and attempts have been made to meet them by
+qualifying the grant of responsible Government. The qualifications
+suggested have taken the form of _(a)_ the reservation of certain
+powers to the Imperial Parliament, or (_b_) the restriction of the
+powers granted to the Irish legislature by prohibiting their exercise in
+certain specific ways, or (_c_) the provision of some form of Imperial
+veto or control. It is important to consider whether and how far such
+checks or "safeguards" are likely to prove effective and lasting.
+
+The "safeguards" proposed by the Government of Ireland Bill, 1886, were
+somewhat extended by the Bill of 1893; and the proposals shortly to be
+submitted to Parliament, so far as they can be gathered from recent
+speeches of Ministers, will not in this respect differ materially from
+those contained in the latter Bill. It will therefore be convenient to
+take as a basis for discussion the provisions of the Bill of 1893, as
+passed by the House of Commons.
+
+The Bill of 1893, after stating in a preamble that it was "expedient
+that without impairing or restricting the supreme authority of
+Parliament an Irish Legislature should be created for such purposes in
+Ireland as in this Act mentioned," proposed to set up in Ireland a
+Legislature[32] consisting of the Sovereign and two Houses, namely a
+Legislative Council of 48 members to be returned under a restricted
+franchise by the Irish counties and the boroughs of Dublin and Belfast,
+and a Legislative Assembly of 103 members to be returned by the existing
+parliamentary constituencies in Ireland. A Bill introduced into the
+Irish Legislature was to pass both Houses; but in the event of
+disagreement the proposals of the Legislative Assembly were to be
+submitted, after a dissolution or a delay of two years, to a joint
+Session of the two Houses. The executive power was to remain in the
+Crown, aided and advised by an Irish Ministry (called an Executive
+Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland), and the assent of the Crown
+to Irish legislation was to be given or withheld on the advice of this
+Executive Committee subject to any instructions given by the Sovereign.
+
+The specific reservations and restrictions were contained in clauses 3
+and 4 of the Bill, which were as follows:--
+
+     "3. The Irish Legislature shall not have power to make laws in
+     respect of the following matters or any of them:--
+
+     "(1) The Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency; or
+     the Lord Lieutenant as representative of the Crown; or
+
+     "(2) The making of peace or war or matters arising from a state of
+     war; or the regulation of the conduct of any portion of Her
+     Majesty's subjects during the existence of hostilities between
+     foreign States with which Her Majesty is at peace, in respect of
+     such hostilities; or
+
+     "(3) Navy, army, militia, volunteers, and any other military
+     forces, or the defence of the realm, or forts, permanent military
+     camps, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful
+     buildings, or any places purchased for the erection thereof; or
+
+     "(4) Authorising either the carrying or using of arms for military
+     purposes, or the formation of associations for drill or practice
+     in the use of arms for military purposes; or
+
+     "(5) Treaties or any relations with foreign States or the
+     relations between different parts of Her Majesty's dominions, or
+     offences connected with such treaties or relations, or procedure
+     connected with the extradition of criminals under any treaty; or
+
+     "(6) Dignities or titles of honour; or
+
+     "(7) Treason, treason-felony, alienage, aliens as such, or
+     naturalisation; or
+
+     "(8) Trade with any place out of Ireland; or quarantine, or
+     navigation, including merchant shipping (except as respects inland
+     waters and local health or harbour regulations); or
+
+     "(9) Lighthouses, buoys, or beacons within the meaning of the
+     Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, and the Acts amending the same
+     (except so far as they can consistently with any general Act of
+     Parliament be constructed or maintained by a local harbour
+     authority); or
+
+     "(10) Coinage; legal tender; or any change in the standard of
+     weights and measures; or
+
+     "(11) Trade marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright, or
+     patent rights.
+
+     "Provided always, that nothing in this section shall prevent the
+     passing of any Irish Act to provide for any charges imposed by Act
+     of Parliament, or to prescribe conditions regulating importation
+     from any place outside Ireland for the sole purpose of preventing
+     the introduction of any contagious disease.
+
+     "It is hereby declared that the exceptions from the powers of the
+     Irish Legislature contained in this section are set forth and
+     enumerated for greater certainty, and not so as to restrict the
+     generality of the limitation imposed in the previous section on
+     the powers of the Irish Legislature.
+
+     "Any law made in contravention of this section shall be void.
+
+     "4. The powers of the Irish Legislature shall not extend to the
+     making of any law--
+
+     "(1) Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion,
+     whether directly or indirectly, or prohibiting the free exercise
+     thereof; or
+
+     "(2) Imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege,
+     advantage, or benefit, on account of religious belief, or raising
+     or appropriating directly or indirectly, save as heretofore, any
+     public revenue for any religious purpose, or for the benefit of
+     the holder of any religious office as such; or
+
+     "(3) Diverting the property, or, without its consent, altering the
+     constitution of any religious body; or
+
+     "(4) Abrogating or prejudicially affecting the right to establish
+     or maintain any place of denominational education, or any
+     denominational institution or charity; or
+
+     "(5) Whereby there may be established or endowed out of public
+     funds any theological professorship, or any university or college
+     in which the conditions set out in the University of Dublin Tests
+     Acts, 1873, are not observed; or
+
+     "(6) Prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend a
+     school receiving public money without attending the religious
+     instruction at that school; or
+
+     "(7) Directly or indirectly imposing any disability or conferring
+     any privilege, benefit, or advantage upon any subject of the Crown
+     on account of his parentage or place of birth, or of the place
+     where any part of his business is carried on, or upon any
+     corporation or institution constituted or existing by virtue of
+     the law of some part of the Queen's dominions, and carrying on
+     operations in Ireland, on account of the persons by whom or in
+     whose favour, or the place in which any of its operations are
+     carried on; or
+
+     "(8) Whereby any person may be deprived of life, liberty, or
+     property without due process of law in accordance with settled
+     principles and precedents, or may be denied the equal protection
+     of the laws, or whereby private property may be taken without just
+     compensation; or
+
+     "(9) Whereby any existing corporation incorporated by Royal
+     Charter or by any local or general Act of Parliament may, unless
+     it consents, or the leave of Her Majesty is first obtained on
+     address from the two Houses of the Irish Legislature, be deprived
+     of its rights, privileges, or property without due process of law
+     in accordance with settled principles and precedents, and so far
+     as respects property without just compensation. Provided nothing
+     in this sub-section shall prevent the Irish Legislature from
+     dealing with any public department, municipal corporation, or
+     local authority, or with any corporation administering for public
+     purposes taxes, rates, cess, dues, or tolls, so far as concerns
+     the same. Any law made in contravention of this section shall be
+     void."
+
+The power to impose taxation other than duties of custom and excise was
+to be transferred, subject to a short delay as to existing taxes and to
+a special provision in respect of taxes for war expenditure, to the
+Irish Legislature (clause II). Two judges of the Supreme Court in
+Ireland, to be called "Exchequer Judges," were to be appointed under the
+Great Seal of the United Kingdom, and to be removable only on an address
+from the Imperial Parliament; and proceedings relating to the reserved
+powers or to the customs or excise duties were to be determined by such
+judges (clause 19). Appeals from the Courts in Ireland were to lie to
+the Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council (clause 21); and
+any question as to the powers of the Irish Legislature could be referred
+to the same Committee (clause 22). The Royal Irish Constabulary and
+Dublin Metropolitan Police Force were gradually to disappear, and police
+matters to be regulated by the Irish Legislature and Executive (clause
+29). The Irish Legislature was to be prohibited from passing land
+legislation for a period of three years (clause 34).
+
+As to these proposals the first observation that occurs is that, in
+addition to the matters proposed to be reserved, there are others in
+which legislative uniformity throughout the kingdom is greatly to be
+desired. To mention but a few such matters, questions of status,
+contract and succession, of international trade and navigation, of the
+regulation of railways and of industrial labour, and of the criminal
+law, should not be differently determined in different parts of the
+kingdom; and as life becomes more complex, the number of subjects in
+which diversity of laws is a hindrance continues to increase.
+
+In the next place, it is to be noted that the checks proposed affect
+legislation only and not administration. If the Bill of 1893 or any
+similar Bill should become law, the whole executive power in Ireland
+will be in an Irish Ministry responsible to an Irish Assembly; and it is
+obvious that many of the wrongs against which the restrictive clauses of
+the Bill were directed may be inflicted by administrative act or
+omission as effectively as by legislation. To quote a work of
+authority[33]--
+
+     "An independent Irish Executive will possess immense power. It will
+     be able by mere administrative action or inaction, without passing
+     a single law which infringes any restriction to be imposed by the
+     Irish Government Act, 1893, to effect a revolution. Let us consider
+     for a moment a few of the things which the Irish Cabinet might do
+     if it chose. It might confine all political, administrative, or
+     judicial appointments to Nationalists, and thus exclude Loyalists
+     from all positions of public trust. It might place the bench, the
+     magistracy, the police, wholly in the hands of Catholics; it might,
+     by encouragement of athletic clubs where the Catholic population
+     were trained to the use of arms, combined with the rigorous
+     suppression of every Protestant association suspected, rightly or
+     not, of preparing resistance to the Parliament at Dublin, bring
+     about the arming of Catholic, and the disarming of Protestant,
+     Ireland, and, at the same time, raise a force as formidable to
+     England as an openly enrolled Irish army. But the mere inaction of
+     the executive might in many spheres produce greater results than
+     active unfairness. The refusal of the police for the enforcement of
+     evictions would abolish rent throughout the country. And the same
+     result might be attained by a more moderate course. Irish Ministers
+     might in practice draw a distinction between 'good' landlords and
+     'bad' landlords, and might grant the aid of the police for the
+     collection of 'reasonable,' though refusing it for the collection
+     of 'excessive,' rents."
+
+Irish Ministers might even refuse actively to oppose the "moral claim"
+of the Irish Catholics to the use of the cathedrals and of the
+accumulated capital of the Irish Church.[34]
+
+To contemplate the possibility of action or calculated inaction of the
+character above described is not to attribute to Irishmen any special
+measure of original sin. In every case where the executive power is
+divorced from the ultimate legislative authority such divergencies are
+likely to recur; and more than one instance may be found in our own
+recent history. In 1859 the Canadian Government warned the Home
+Government that any attempt to interfere with the customs policy of the
+Dominion was inadmissible, unless the home authorities were prepared to
+undertake the responsibility of administering the whole government of
+Canada. The Home Government gave way.[35] In 1878 the Governor of Cape
+Colony proposed to place the colonial forces under the control of the
+officer commanding the Imperial forces. The Cape Government resisted,
+and refused to resign; and eventually the Governor, on the advice of the
+Home Government, dismissed his ministers. In this case a change of
+government occurred after the general election, but in the end the claim
+put forward by the Imperial authorities had to be withdrawn.[36] In 1906
+the Natal Government proclaimed martial law, and ordered the execution
+of twelve natives on charges of murder. The Imperial Government
+intervened, and suggested the suspension of the order pending further
+consideration. The Natal Ministry immediately resigned; and as there was
+no chance of the formation of a new Government, the Imperial authorities
+hastily withdrew.[37]
+
+Differences have arisen even on so grave a matter as the succession to
+the throne. The union of England and Scotland in 1707 was preceded and
+hastened by the so-called Act of Security, by which the Scottish Estates
+asserted the right to name a successor to the throne of Scotland, who
+should not (except under certain specified conditions) be the person
+designated as sovereign by the English law. And during the illness of
+King George III. in the year 1788, Grattan, in defiance of the views of
+Pitt and of the majority in both Houses of the Imperial Parliament,
+carried in the Irish Parliament an address to the Prince of Wales,
+calling upon him (without waiting for a Regency Bill) to assume the
+Government of the Irish nation, "and to exercise and administer all
+legal power, jurisdiction and prerogatives to the Crown and Government
+thereof belonging"--words borrowed from the address by which in the
+Revolution of 1688 William of Orange was requested to assume the Crown.
+Happily, the Viceroy declined to present the address, and a deputation
+sent from Ireland to present it found on their arrival that the king had
+recovered; but the incident might have led to a conflict upon a matter
+so important as the exercise of the royal power.
+
+The fact is that the word "supremacy," so often used in this
+controversy, is one of ambiguous meaning. Parliament is supreme in the
+United Kingdom, Parliament is likewise supreme in New Zealand; but the
+two supremacies are of widely different kinds. Supremacy consists of two
+ingredients--authority to enact and power to enforce; and without the
+latter the former is little more than a legal figment, which may have no
+more practical importance than the theoretical right of veto which is
+retained by the Crown. Mr. Balfour, speaking on the second reading
+debate of the 1893 Bill, referred to this matter as follows:--
+
+     "Legally, of course, the Imperial Parliament would be supreme: no
+     one has doubted it. But what layman takes the slightest interest
+     in these paper supremacies? For my part I take no more interest in
+     the question of whether the Imperial Parliament is on paper
+     superior to the Irish Parliament, than I do as to the order of
+     precedence at a London dinner party. The thing is of no public
+     interest or importance whatever. What we want to know is where the
+     power lies. Who is going to exercise supremacy? Who is going to be
+     the _de facto_ ruler of Ireland?"
+
+Special importance attaches to these considerations owing to the heavy
+liabilities undertaken by this country in respect of land purchase in
+Ireland. At the present time many millions of British money are sunk in
+Irish land, and the amount may increase to a sum approaching two hundred
+millions. The tenants now pay their annuities because, in the last
+resort, the Government can turn them out. Under Home Rule the powers of
+Government would rest with men who have led "no rent" agitations in the
+past, and who would be dependent upon the votes of those personally
+interested in repudiating the debt. The British Treasury can hardly run
+such a risk; and some sort of concurrent control, with all its evils and
+risks, seems to be necessary. And yet financial independence is the
+first essential to genuine autonomy.
+
+But, it may be said, if the Irish Government go beyond the law, the
+Irish Courts may be asked to interfere; and in the event of their
+refusal, the Bill provides an appeal to the Judicial Committee in
+London. No doubt it does, but in practice the person aggrieved might
+have very great difficulty in making the remedy effective. He must
+obtain a decision in his favour from the Judicial Committee of the Privy
+Council, at no small cost of money and personal odium; and the decision
+of that "alien" tribunal (as it would be called) must then be enforced
+under the jurisdiction of a Government which (on the hypothesis which we
+are considering) would be unfriendly, by judges and executive officers
+appointed and perhaps removable by that authority, and in the midst of a
+population hostile to "foreign" interference. Is it extravagant to
+suppose that the complainant would not gain much by his appeal to
+Cæsar?
+
+And even if we suppose the Irish Legislature and Executive to confine
+themselves within the letter of the Act, are the checks of any real
+value? The Irish Parliament might still interfere with contracts, or
+might validate contracts now held to be void as contrary to public
+policy. They might defeat the Mortmain Acts. They might deal as they
+thought fit with internal trade; and the great industries of Belfast and
+its neighbourhood might find their views on trade questions of no avail.
+The Irish Legislature might create new offences and institute new
+tribunals; and the reference in the Bill to "due process of law" would
+not necessarily secure trial by jury or by an impartial tribunal.[38]
+
+It is said that legislation of this character would be subject to the
+veto of the Crown. But that veto is to be exercised on the advice of the
+Irish Ministry subject to any instructions given by the Sovereign; and
+so long as an Irish Legislature is entitled to withhold Irish supply, a
+veto against the advice of the Irish ministry would surely tend to
+become impossible.
+
+Again, it is said that an unjust law passed by the Irish Parliament
+might be repealed by the Imperial Parliament. Doubtless the technical
+right would exist, as in the case of the Colonies; but no one dreams
+that, with "responsible" government existing in Ireland and Irish
+representatives at Westminster, it would in practice be used. The
+Imperial Government has never been known to interfere with the
+legislation of a self-governing colony except where Imperial interests
+are concerned, or where a fraud on the colony can be established;[39]
+and the same rule would obtain in the case of Ireland.
+
+Lastly, it is said that in the last resort there is the British Army.
+But if the civil power in Ireland does not call in the military force,
+how can the latter be used to enforce the law? Are the forces to be
+controlled from England, and what is this but a counter revolution? It
+is hardly worth while to liberate Ireland from the peaceful rule of the
+Imperial Government in order to govern her by military force.
+
+But in fact the so-called "safeguards" would not last. Professor
+Dicey[40] and Professor Morgan,[41] writing from opposite sides of the
+controversy, agree in holding that no colony would tolerate them for a
+moment; and it is incredible that Ireland, with a Parliament of her own,
+would submit to them for more than a few years.[42] Suppose the majority
+of the Irish Legislature to grow weary of the "safeguards," and to
+demand their repeal. The Imperial ministry might refuse, but the reply
+of the Irish ministry (if in command of a majority in the Irish House of
+Commons) would be to resign and to make the government of Ireland
+impossible except by force. And if Ireland were still represented in the
+Imperial Parliament, the new "sorrows of Ireland" would find eloquent
+and insistent expression there. What, then, would England do? What could
+she do, except, after a futile struggle, to give way? The truth is, that
+if you part with the executive power, all checks and "safeguards" are
+futile. Mr. Redmond[43] eagerly "accepts every one of them," and will
+accept others if desired; for he knows that they must prove ineffective.
+"If," said Lord Derby in 1887, "Ireland and England are not to be one,
+Ireland must be treated like Canada or Australia. All between is
+delusion or fraud."
+
+
+IRISH REPRESENTATION AT WESTMINSTER.
+
+The hybrid form of government proposed in the Home Rule Bills of 1886
+and 1893 gave rise to a further difficulty, and one which went far
+towards wrecking them both. Should Ireland under Home Rule be
+represented at Westminster by its members and representative peers?
+Under a system of Gladstonian Home Rule there appear to be only three
+possible answers to this question. The Irish representatives may be
+excluded altogether, they may be retained altogether, or they may be
+retained in diminished numbers and with some limitation on their voting
+powers.
+
+The total exclusion clause in the Bill of 1886 was one of the most
+unpopular parts of an unpopular Bill. It was immediately urged that this
+arrangement was virtually equivalent to separation, and Mr. Gladstone
+admitted[44] that the argument had force. Since 1886 public sentiment
+has advanced in the direction of a closer Imperial unity, and it is
+unlikely that the country will recur in 1912 to a proposal which in 1886
+was admitted to be intolerable. Moreover, if the British Parliament is
+to retain control of the whole foreign policy of the kingdom, and--what
+is likely to be of enormous importance in the future--of its whole
+fiscal policy, it would be manifestly unjust to deny to Ireland a voice
+and vote in such matters. How would it be possible, for instance, to
+discuss the effect upon agriculture of a Tariff Reform Budget in the
+absence of competent representatives of the Irish farmers, or to
+consider the yearly grant to be made (as it is said) in aid of Irish
+finance without the assistance of any representatives of Ireland?
+
+A recognition of the difficulties in the way of total exclusion led Mr.
+Gladstone to propose, in 1893, what was known as the "popping-in-and-out
+clause," under which Irish members would have sat at Westminster, but
+would have voted only on Imperial measures. The best criticism of this
+attempt to distinguish between local and Imperial matters was supplied
+on another occasion by Mr. Gladstone himself:--
+
+     "I have thought much, reasoned much, and inquired much with regard
+     to that distinction, but I have arrived at the conclusion that it
+     cannot be drawn. I believe it passes the wit of man."
+
+To distinguish between matters which might and those which could not
+affect Ireland was impossible to the ordinary man, and the device of
+committing all matters of special difficulty to the decision of Mr.
+Speaker had not then its present vogue. Further, it was obvious that
+under such a system a British Ministry might have on one day, when
+English or Scottish affairs were under discussion, a commanding
+majority; but on the next, when a vote possibly affecting the sister
+island was in question, might find itself labouring in the trough of the
+sea; while on the third day, that vote having been disposed of and the
+Irish members having taken their leave, it might rise once more on the
+crest of the wave. The proposal was too ludicrous to be long defended.
+The sense of humour of the House prevailed over Mr. Gladstone's
+earnestness, and he fell back on inclusion for all purposes.
+
+But inclusion for all purposes had its own difficulties. Under the
+Gladstonian system the Imperial Parliament would have considered, not
+only matters affecting the whole kingdom, but also purely English or
+purely Scottish affairs; and to give to the Irish representatives the
+control in their own Parliament of purely Irish affairs, and also a
+voice at Westminster on matters affecting England or Scotland only, was
+obviously unjust. Such a power would have been used, not for the benefit
+of England or Scotland, but as an instrument for wresting further
+concessions for Ireland.
+
+     "I will never be a party," said Mr. Gladstone at one time, "to
+     allowing the Irish members to manage their own affairs in Dublin,
+     and at the same time to come over here and manage British affairs.
+     Such an arrangement would not be a Bill to grant self-government to
+     Ireland, but one to remove self-government from England; it would
+     create a subordinate Parliament indeed, but it would be the one at
+     Westminster, and not that in Dublin."[45]
+
+The problem seems insoluble because, under a hybrid (or Gladstonian)
+system of Home Rule, it is insoluble. If a clear line is taken, there
+is no difficulty under this head. If full "responsible" or colonial
+government is granted, clearly representation in the Imperial Parliament
+(I do not now speak of a federal assembly) is an anomaly. On the other
+hand, if nothing more is in question than the extension of local
+government generally known as Devolution, then adequate representation
+in the Imperial Parliament is a matter of course. If a federal
+government is established, each member of the Federation must needs be
+represented in the federal Parliament; but in that case there must be no
+attempt to entrust to the same assembly both the duties of the federal
+Parliament and those of a Legislature for one of the federating states.
+It was this attempt to treat the Imperial Parliament as the local or
+state Legislature for Great Britain, and also as the federal Parliament
+for Great Britain and Ireland, which was fatal to Mr. Gladstone's
+proposals.
+
+
+FEDERALISM.
+
+These considerations bring us face to face with Federalism, or, to use
+the phrase which to so many perplexed Liberals has seemed to point the
+way to safety, "Home Rule all round." The expression covers a wide
+field, and before any opinion can be pronounced upon the proposal, it is
+essential to know what its advocates in fact desire.
+
+To some the phrase means nothing less than Gladstonian Home Rule "all
+round," in other words that we should meet the objections to dissolving
+the legislative and executive Union with Ireland by dissolving also the
+older Union with Scotland, and even (for some do not shrink from the
+_reductio ad absurdum_) the yet older unity of England and Wales.
+Consider what this means. For more than two hundred years the English
+and Scottish races have been united by a constitutional bond
+strengthened by mutual respect and good feeling, and Scotsmen, like
+Englishmen, have taken their part in the government of these islands. If
+in the division of labour and of honours there has been a balance of
+advantage, it has not been against the virile Scottish race, from which
+have sprung so many of our great soldiers and administrators, so many
+leaders of the nation. And such a combination is to be broken up, and
+Scotland to become a colony, because Ireland, unwilling to bear her
+share in the duties of government, desires to be reduced to that status!
+To such a proposal Mr. Gladstone's phrase about Home Rule applies in all
+its force:--
+
+     "Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this
+     time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to
+     disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the
+     purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind,
+     and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits through
+     legislation on the country to which we belong?"
+
+The proposal would be incredibly stupid, if it were not recklessly
+mischievous.
+
+But to most advocates of the federal system the word means less than
+this; and the conception, usually vaguely expressed, is that the
+relations of England, Scotland, and Ireland, should be something like
+those of the communities which make up (to quote instances commonly
+given) the German Empire, the Swiss Federation, the United States of
+America, or the British self-governing dominions of Canada, Australia,
+and South Africa. So expressed, the aspiration for a federal union
+deserves respectful consideration.
+
+In the first place, it must not be forgotten that no proposal of this
+nature has yet been put forward, even in general terms, by any English
+or Irish Party. Mr. John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Nationalists,
+has indeed said that he and his friends "were only asking what had
+already been given in twenty-eight different portions of the
+Empire:"[46] and a speaker usually more careful in his language[47]
+lately suggested to his audience that they should
+
+     "ask the twenty-eight Home Rule Parliaments if the Empire would be
+     split in pieces if there were a twenty-ninth."
+
+But in order to make up the number of Parliaments and Legislatures
+within the Empire to twenty-eight it is necessary to include in one
+category the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the colonial Parliaments
+of Newfoundland and New Zealand, the federal Parliaments of Canada and
+Australia, the provincial or state Legislatures (widely differing from
+one another in their constitution and powers) comprised in those
+Federations, the Union of South Africa and its constituent provinces,
+and the tiny assemblies surviving in the Channel Islands and the Isle of
+Man. From a reference so vague and confused no inference as to the real
+meaning or desire of either speaker can safely be drawn.[48]
+
+But let us put aside, with the foreign confederacies (which have in most
+cases been achieved or maintained by armed conflict), the practically
+independent Parliaments within the British Empire, and confine ourselves
+to the Federations of Canada and Australia, and to the Union (sometimes
+incorrectly called a Federation) of South Africa.
+
+In the first place, it is not immaterial to observe that each of the
+Legislatures here referred to resulted, not from the dissolution of an
+existing union, but from the voluntary assumption by communities
+formerly independent of one another of a closer bond. In other words,
+there was in each case a real _Jædus_ or treaty, not imposed by the
+Imperial power, but having a local origin and springing from the need of
+common action. The operative force was centripetal; and as the force
+continues to operate, the tendency of the mass is towards a chemical in
+lieu of a mechanical fusion.[49] But in the case of the United Kingdom a
+change from organic union to Federation would be the beginning of
+dissolution; and the centrifugal force, once set in motion, might lead
+further in the same direction.
+
+Again, there can be no true federation without (1) provincial
+legislatures and executives, (2) a central Parliament and executive, (3)
+a careful definition of the powers of each, and (4) a federal court to
+which should be entrusted the duty of determining questions arising
+between the federal and provincial governments and legislatures. If,
+therefore, provincial or state Governments are created for Ireland and
+for Scotland, a like Government should logically be created for England.
+Are we prepared to see four (or, if Wales be added, five) legislatures,
+and four (or five) executives, in these islands? Have we considered the
+possible effect on our whole system of government, on the theory of
+Cabinet responsibility to Parliament, on the powers of the House of
+Commons over grievance and supply? Must not each unit in a Federation be
+put as regards financial matters upon a like footing; and, if so, can
+Ireland bear her share? Is federation consistent with the predominance
+of one state, England, in wealth and population? These questions are
+vital, and none of them have received consideration. By declaring in
+general terms for Federalism you go but a little way.
+
+And if we treat the proposal for Federation as indicating a desire to
+adopt a constitution under which the relations of the United Kingdom to
+each of its constituent parts would be as the relation of some one of
+the three self-governing Dominions to the states or provinces of which
+it is composed, the question remains, which of those Dominions should be
+adopted as a model? For they differ not only in form but in essence.
+
+Under the British North America Act, 1867, and the amending statutes,
+there is "one Parliament for Canada" (sect. 17), while each province has
+its Legislature. Each provincial Legislature is empowered exclusively to
+make laws in relation to certain specified subjects (including property
+and civil rights and the administration of justice), and also in
+relation to "all matters of a merely local or private nature in the
+province"; while the Dominion Parliament may "make laws for the peace,
+order, and good government of Canada in relation to all matters not
+coming within" the classes of subjects assigned exclusively to the
+provincial Legislatures. The division of functions has given rise to
+much confusion and litigation; but, speaking generally, the trend of
+judicial decision has been towards a wide interpretation of the
+provincial powers. The "residuary powers" are in the Dominion
+Parliament.
+
+The constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, as defined by the
+Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, is of a different
+character. The Federal Parliament is entrusted with power to make laws
+with respect to a number of subjects divided into no less than 39
+classes (sect. 51); the State Legislatures have concurrent powers of
+legislation, but in case of conflict the law of the Commonwealth is to
+prevail over the State law (sect. 109). The "residuary powers" are in
+this case left to the States. There is power to alter the Constitution
+with the consent of a majority of the electors in a majority of the
+States and of a majority of the electors of the Commonwealth (sect.
+123)--a power which has been freely used.
+
+The case of South Africa is sometimes cited as a precedent for loosening
+the bonds in the United Kingdom. It is a strong precedent for closer
+union. The South Africa Act, 1909, created in fact as well as in name,
+not a Federation but a true Legislative Union. Under the Act, the South
+African colonies were "united in a legislative union under one
+government under the name of the Union of South Africa" (sect. 4). The
+legislative power is vested in the Parliament of the Union (sect. 19),
+which has full power to make laws for the peace, order, and good
+government of the Union (sect. 59). In each province (formerly a colony)
+there is an administrator appointed by the Governor-General of the Union
+in Council (sect. 68), and a Provincial Council (sect. 70); but the
+powers of the Provincial Councils are confined within narrow limits
+(sect. 85), and their ordinances (they are not called laws) have effect
+within the province as long as and so far as they are not repugnant to
+any Act of the Union Parliament (sect. 86). The Supreme Courts of the
+old colonies become provincial divisions of the Supreme Court of South
+Africa (sect. 98), and the colonial property and debts are transferred
+to the Union (sects. 121-124). In fact, in South Africa, where, as in
+Ireland, the distinction in the past has been racial and not
+territorial, Union and not Federation has gained the day. It is safe to
+prophesy that the coming proposals of the Government will not follow the
+South African plan.
+
+
+DEVOLUTION.
+
+The South African precedent leads naturally to a few observations on the
+proposals for the extension of local self-government, usually classified
+under the head of Devolution. These proposals differ, not in degree only
+but in kind, from schemes for the granting of responsible government, or
+Gladstonian Home Rule. Under all devolutionary schemes, properly
+so-called, the central Parliament and executive remain the ultimate
+depositaries of power; and the powers entrusted to local bodies are
+administrative only, and can be resumed at will. The Acts by which
+County Councils were set up, first in Great Britain and afterwards in
+Ireland, were steps in this direction. The Welsh Intermediate Education
+Act, 1889, was another. The establishment by the Agriculture and
+Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, of a Council of Agriculture,
+as Agricultural Board, and a Board of Technical Instruction, was a
+third. By these statutes wide powers are delegated to representative
+bodies directly or indirectly elected by popular vote; but in each case
+the delegated powers are strictly defined, their exercise is made
+subject to central control, and the right of Parliament to modify or
+withdraw any of them is absolute and unquestioned. The appointment by
+the House of Commons of a Grand Committee for Scottish Bills is another
+experiment of a similar character, though on different lines. Such
+delegations of power are consistent with the maintenance in its entirety
+of the Union of the Kingdom, and there is no reason whatever why
+further progress should not be made in the same direction. The events of
+1907 are evidence that Devolution, regarded merely as a means of
+satisfying the political cry for Home Rule, is indeed "dead." But when
+the din of political battle has once more passed by, it may be possible
+to obtain consideration for a moderate and clearly defined scheme of
+delegation which, if applied not exclusively to Ireland, but to the
+whole country, might relieve the House of Commons of much of its work,
+and strengthen the habit of local self-government throughout the United
+Kingdom.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 20: See "_Times_ Special Commission," vol. v. p. 175, and
+"Home Rule. What is it?" by A.W. Samuels, K.C. (Simpkin Marshall, 1911),
+p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 21: See No. 213 of the Liberal League publications.]
+
+[Footnote 22: Erskine Childers, "The Framework of Home Rule" (Arnold,
+1911).]
+
+[Footnote 23: See speech of J.M. Robertson, M.P., London, January 11,
+1912.]
+
+[Footnote 24: "Home Rule Problems" (P.S. King & Son, 1911).]
+
+[Footnote 25: Written in March, 1912.]
+
+[Footnote 26: See Egerton, "Federations and Unions in the British
+Empire" (Clarendon Press, 1911). Introduction.]
+
+[Footnote 27: On the financial questions involved the Government have
+been advised by a Committee containing financial experts; but the Report
+of this Committee is withheld from publication, and it is believed that
+its advice will not be followed.]
+
+[Footnote 28: House of Commons, April 8, 1886.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Quoted in "The True History of the American Revolution,"
+by S.G. Fisher (Lippincott, 1903).]
+
+[Footnote 30: Childers, p. 340.]
+
+[Footnote 31: See Cambray, "Irish Affairs and the Irish Question"
+(Murray, 1911), p. 146.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Mr. Gladstone always declined to call it a "Parliament,"
+but some Ministers of to-day are less scrupulous.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Dicey, "A Leap in the Dark" (Murray, 1911), p. 71.]
+
+[Footnote 34: See "The Church of Ireland and Home Rule," by J.H.
+Bernard, D.D., Bishop of Ossory, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote 35: House of Commons Papers, 1864, xli. 79.]
+
+[Footnote 36: Parliamentary Papers, 2079.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Parliamentary Papers (Cd. 2905).]
+
+[Footnote 38: "Home Rule Problems," p. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 39: See the Newfoundland railway case of 1898 (Parliamentary
+Papers, Cd. 8867, 9137).]
+
+[Footnote 40: "A Leap in the Dark," p. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 41: "Home Rule Problems," p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Mr. Redmond rejected the provisions of the 1893 Bill,
+saying in the House of Commons on August 30, 1893, that "as the Bill now
+stands, no man in his senses can any longer regard it as a full, final,
+or satisfactory settlement of the Irish Nationalist question."]
+
+[Footnote 43: Speech at Belfast, February 8, 1912.]
+
+[Footnote 44: July 18, 1886, at Cockermouth.]
+
+[Footnote 45: See "The Perils of Home Rule," by P. Kerr-Smiley (Cassell,
+1911), p. 45, where Lord Morley's opinion to the same effect is quoted.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Speech at Whitechapel (_Times_, October 11, 1911).]
+
+[Footnote 47: Sir John Simon at Dewsbury (_Times_, February 8, 1912).]
+
+[Footnote 48: No such charge of ambiguity applies to the forcible
+letters of "Pacificus" on "Federalism and Home Rule" (Murray, 1910).]
+
+[Footnote 49: The changes in the Australian Constitution have been in
+favour of greater unity.]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+HOME RULE FINANCE
+
+By THE RIGHT HON. J. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.
+
+
+The financial problems connected with the grant of Home Rule in 1912 are
+among the most complicated that call for solution, and differ
+fundamentally from those which faced the Governments of 1886 and 1893.
+And by common consent, the problems are not merely different; they are
+immensely more difficult. No clauses in the earlier Bills lent
+themselves more readily to destructive criticism; and though the
+provisions of the new scheme are still shrouded in mystery, it is
+inherent in the conditions under which it must be framed that the
+financial clauses will prove to be even less defensible on the grounds
+of logic or equity than those of either of its predecessors.
+
+Since the first Home Rule Bill was introduced the interests of
+Ireland--social, economic, industrial, and political--have become
+increasingly identified with those of the other parts of the United
+Kingdom. The commercial, banking, and railway systems of Ireland are
+intimately associated with those of the greater and more firmly
+established systems of Great Britain. Irish railways are so largely
+controlled at the present time by British concerns, and there exist so
+many agreements and understandings between them and British companies as
+to facilities and rates, that they might be regarded as part of the same
+network of communications. Hardly less close are the relations which now
+exist between British and Irish banks.
+
+It is not, however, on the commercial side only that greater intimacy
+and more firmly established relations exist now than formerly. Irish
+industries are agricultural, dairying and manufacturing. In each of
+these branches the country is increasingly dependent on the markets of
+England and Scotland; while reciprocally the products of the factories
+and workshops of Great Britain find in Ireland one of their most
+important markets. We do not always sufficiently realise that on the
+other side of the St. George's Channel lies a country whose annual
+imports amount to sixty-five millions sterling. Even less do we realise
+that one-half (thirty-two millions sterling) is the value of the imports
+of manufactures, mainly British, into Ireland. This trade in
+manufactured goods is not only already enormous; it is rapidly growing.
+It has increased by more than four millions in four years. Any
+ill-considered legislative measure which interfered with or disturbed
+this great volume of trade would no doubt cause serious loss to Ireland;
+but it would bring bankruptcy and disaster to many British firms and
+their workmen.
+
+It is, nevertheless, in respect of the political changes and the
+legislative measures passed in the last quarter of a century that the
+most serious obstacles will be found in the way of framing any
+satisfactory scheme for financing a measure of Home Rule. The Irish
+Local Government system, framed on the British model by the Act of 1898,
+the Congested Districts Board, and the Department of Agriculture, have
+hitherto depended financially, either wholly or in part, on Imperial
+grants in aid. Local taxation payments alone from the Imperial Exchequer
+amounted in 1910-11 to £1,478,000. The financial scheme under Home Rule
+must obviously contemplate and provide for the continuance of those
+grants. Land Purchase schemes have been enacted which have already had
+the effect of converting a quarter of a million tenants into owners
+under a contingent liability of 120 millions sterling guaranteed by the
+Imperial Exchequer. No financial scheme can ignore the fact that the
+earliest of the annuities created under the Wyndham Act will not expire
+before 1972, so that the Imperial liability for the payment of the bulk
+of the annuities already created will continue for at least seventy
+years more.
+
+Finally, we are faced with the fact that in the last twenty-five years
+the relations of the State to its citizens have been completely
+reformed and extended. Social reform is now in the programme of all
+parties. Education costs several times as much as in 1885. The aged poor
+have been provided with pensions by the State, and the Insurance Act of
+last year will shortly call for additional subventions from the Imperial
+Treasury.
+
+In addition to the new duties thus undertaken by the State, the cost of
+Defence and of the Civil Services has grown by leaps and bounds. We need
+not look too closely into the apportionment of these charges whilst we
+remain partners in a United Kingdom, but if the partnership is to be
+dissolved at the suit of Irish Nationalism, a new balance must be
+struck, and on any fair basis the contribution of Ireland under
+present-day conditions should far exceed the amount under either of the
+schemes for which Mr. Gladstone made himself responsible. Both schemes
+recognised the equity of some contribution for these services from
+Ireland, and it must be assumed that the same broad principles will be
+applied in any scheme which may be framed hereafter.
+
+By way of introduction to any adequate discussion of the possible
+financial proposals of any Home Rule measure, it is desirable to set out
+in some detail the existing financial relations of Ireland and Great
+Britain. The Treasury calculations on this subject are embodied in two
+White Papers which have been prepared and published annually during the
+last eighteen years. It is true that doubts have from time to time been
+cast on the accuracy of these calculations and of the methods by which
+the materials on which they are based have been collected. As to this,
+it is only necessary to say that the information in the possession of
+the Treasury officials is infinitely more voluminous and likely to be
+more accurate than any in the possession of private individuals; and
+there is no reason to suppose the succession of eminent public servants,
+who have been in turn responsible for the preparation of these returns
+have been moved in one direction or the other by prepossessions or bias.
+Their one attempt has been throughout to present a statement, as
+accurate as it is possible to make it on the one hand of the cost of
+the existing administration in Ireland and the expenditure incurred
+there, and on the other of the revenue derived from persons or property
+living or situated in that country. As the Prime Minister said on
+November 27 of last year--
+
+     "The utmost pains have been taken to make the estimates of 'true'
+     revenue approximately correct, and it is believed that the total
+     revenue as given in the revised returns approximates closely to the
+     facts."[50]
+
+So long as Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, such an
+investigation has mainly an academic interest. The State is a
+homogeneous entity; the taxes imposed on individuals similarly
+circumstanced are the same (with some trifling exceptions--all in favour
+of Ireland) in whatever quarter of the United Kingdom the individual
+resides. But the case is wholly different when a proposal is made to
+split up the State into its constituent parts. It then becomes necessary
+to inquire if there is any prospect that the constituent parts will have
+resources sufficient for the various services, commitments and
+liabilities--present and contingent--which do or will belong to them.
+And the beginning of any such inquiry is, as has been already said, the
+present Irish revenue and expenditure.
+
+The essential figures for such an investigation are contained in the
+following statement. This shows separately the expenditure on the
+various items which have been the subject of discussion or special
+mention in the different financial schemes proposed in connection with
+Home Rule. On the revenue side the effect of the delayed collection of
+duties under the Budget of 1909-10 has been eliminated by taking the
+average revenue in the two years in certain items. The figures of
+expenditure relate to the year 1910-11. The corresponding figures for
+both collection and contribution are set out in this table in
+consequence of the suggestion made in some quarters that we should
+revert to the Gladstonian proposal of 1886 and credit Ireland with the
+full revenue as collected. Though any such proposal is patently absurd
+it is mentioned here for the sake of completeness.
+
+STATEMENT SHOWING ESTIMATED REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE IN IRELAND (BASED ON
+WHITE PAPERS 220 AND 221 OF 1911).
+
+  Revenue
+                                 As collected.  As contributed.
+                                       £             £
+1. Customs[A]                      2,922,000     2,866,000
+2. Excise (_ex._ licences)[A]      4,872,000     2,952,000
+3. Licence Duties[A]                 284,000       284,000
+4. Estate, etc.[A]                   914,000       914,000
+5. General Stamps[A]                 310,000       333,000
+6. Income Tax[A]                   1,106,000     1,307,000
+7. Postal Services                 1,155,000     1,155,000
+8. Miscellaneous                     139,000       139,000
+
+   Total                         £11,702,000    £9,950,000
+
+[A] = Average of two years, 1909-10 and 1910-11.
+
+
+         Expenditure.
+                                                     £
+1. Civil list and miscellaneous charges
+  (_ex._ Lord-Lieutenant's salary)                 118,500
+2. Lord-Lieutenant's salary                         20,000
+3. Local Taxation Payments                       1,477,500
+4. Public Works                                    415,500
+5. Civil Service Departments                       289,500
+6. Department of Agriculture                       415,000
+7. Police                                        1,464,500
+8. Judiciary, etc.                                 924,000
+9. Education, etc.                               1,805,000
+10. Old Age Pensions                             2,408,000
+11. Superannuation, etc.                           103,000
+12. Ireland Development Grant                      191,500
+13. Miscellaneous                                   12,000
+14. Revenue Departments                            298,000
+15. Postal Services                              1,404,500
+
+Total                                          £11,346,500
+
+The first striking fact in the foregoing statement is the large
+difference between "contributions" and "collections," _i.e._ between the
+"true" revenue derived from Ireland and the sums merely collected there.
+During the last two financial years this difference amounted to an
+average of £1,752,000. The excise collections alone represent an excess
+of £1,920,000 over the actual contribution. This, of course, arises from
+the movements of duty-paid spirits and beer between different parts of
+the United Kingdom. The last Report of the Commissioners of Customs and
+Excise (Cd. 5827) gives the amount of home-made spirits on which duty
+has been paid in Ireland at 5,209,000 proof gallons, whereas the
+quantity retained for consumption was only 2,776,000 proof gallons. A
+similar but smaller difference exists in the case of beer. To credit
+Ireland with the full amounts of the duties collected in Ireland, as was
+done by Mr. Gladstone in 1886, and as is now proposed in some quarters,
+would, in effect, amount to a gift from the British Exchequer of
+£1,750,000 a year. And there is obviously no security that the Irish
+Exchequer could rely on this boon being continued for more than a short
+time. There would be nothing to prevent the British spirit merchant from
+removing his spirits to this country in bond and paying the duty here
+after arrival. It is obvious that the Treasury would be compelled to
+grant facilities for this course. The present system is merely one of
+book-keeping and administrative convenience, but as the withdrawal of
+this sum from the British Exchequer to which it properly belongs would
+have to be made good from other British sources, there would be every
+inducement for the British merchant to effect such slight changes of
+method as would transfer the whole of this sum from the Irish to the
+British Exchequer. Having regard to the fact that on the other sources
+of revenue the collections in Ireland are estimated to fall short of the
+actual contributions by nearly £200,000, and that these are in the main
+direct taxes paid by the individuals concerned, it is not unlikely that
+a scheme which gave to Ireland the full benefit of her revenues as
+collected would in a short time be converted from a gain of some
+£1,700,000 to a loss of £100,000 to £200,000 to the Irish taxpayer.
+Stability in the tax system and reliability upon the realisation of the
+estimated revenue could not be assumed if "collections" instead of
+"contributions" were to be made the basis of any financial arrangements.
+
+Turning next to the contributed revenue upon which alone an Irish
+Parliament could rely, we note first the large proportion of the revenue
+represented by Customs and Excise. Contrasted with the figures for Great
+Britain, it is seen by the following table that whereas in Ireland the
+revenue from Customs and Excise amounts to 60 per cent. of the total, in
+Great Britain the proportion was not more than 36 per cent.
+
+PERCENTAGE OF REVENUE FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES CONTRIBUTED BY IRELAND AND
+GREAT BRITAIN RESPECTIVELY IN TWO YEARS ENDING MARCH 31, 1911.[51]
+
+                              Ireland.    Great Britain.
+                              Per cent.   Per cent.
+
+Customs                        29          18-1/2
+Excise (_ex._ licences)        30          17-1/2
+Estate, etc., duties            9          14-1/2
+Income tax                     13          23-1/2
+Postal, etc.                   11          15
+Other sources                   8          11
+                              ---         ---
+                              100         100
+
+Exclusive of the licence duties the average yield (contribution) of
+Customs and Excise in Great Britain amounted in the last two years to
+£55,900,000, or at the rate of £1 7_s._ 5_d._ per head; in Ireland the
+average yield was £5,800,000, or at the rate of £1 7_s._ 10_d._ per
+head. The incidence of our consumption taxes is thus seen to be at the
+present time practically the same in Ireland as in Great Britain; and
+the much larger proportion of the Irish revenue obtained from them is
+due to the smaller relative yield of direct taxes. Ireland being mainly
+an agricultural country, income tax, death duties, and stamps yield much
+less per head of the population there than in Great Britain. Such
+conditions are highly suggestive of inelasticity. An Irish Chancellor of
+the Exchequer will find no such fiscal reserves in direct taxes as does
+his more fortunate British colleague. This conclusion should give pause
+to those who think that if the Customs and Excise continued to be
+controlled from Westminster, it would be still possible to extract the
+larger revenue needed for the growing expenditure of Ireland by higher
+rates of income tax and death duties. Such a course would increase the
+burdens of the direct taxpayers of Ireland, but it would not fill the
+Irish Treasury. On the other hand, it is clear that there is no chance
+of relief being afforded to the Irish indirect taxpayer under Home Rule,
+supposing Customs and Excise were handed over to the Irish Parliament.
+Yet whenever a British Chancellor of the Exchequer has found it
+necessary to increase any of the taxes on consumption, the protests from
+the Irish benches have been invariably both loud and vehement. Irish
+members have pointed to the low wages earned in Ireland, the greater
+addiction of the people to tea and spirits, and the higher toll of their
+earnings consequently extracted by the Exchequer. The yield of existing
+taxes, therefore, whether direct or indirect, is not elastic in Ireland.
+Neither of them afford sufficient resources to meet the necessities of
+an Irish Parliament.
+
+There are, of course, other reasons why there should be no delegation of
+the power to impose Customs and Excise. The constitutional objections to
+such a course are overwhelming. It would involve the abandonment of the
+plea that Home Rule for Ireland was the prelude to Home Rule all round;
+in other words, that separation was the condition precedent to
+federalism. In every federal system in the world the control of Customs
+and Excise has been retained by the central authority. This is true not
+only of the quasi-federations within the British Empire; it is equally
+true of the United States, Germany, and Switzerland. One can scarcely be
+surprised at the emphatic repudiation which such a proposal received at
+the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. J.M.
+Robertson) when, on February 7, 1912, in a speech at Lincoln, he said--
+
+     "There was, however, just one thing that must remain one for three
+     kingdoms, and that was the fiscal system, Customs and Excise. _It
+     was a federal union we want, a federal state._ If they were to do
+     as some of his unreflecting Home Rule friends, Irish and English,
+     have done, and demand that Ireland should not only have power to
+     lay taxes but to fix Customs and Excise then they had no State left
+     at all."
+
+Another obvious objection to such a course is that it necessitates the
+erection of a Customs barrier between Ireland and Great Britain. Tariff
+Reformers are ready to admit that the present fiscal system is at least
+as injurious to Ireland as to other portions of the United Kingdom. The
+power to impose Customs duties on British goods--and the proportion of
+British total imports is so large that if this power were limited to
+foreign goods it would be financially valueless--would no doubt provide
+the Irish Exchequer with considerable funds and might be used to develop
+her prosperity. But the separation of the Customs systems for the
+purpose of enabling Ireland to impose tariffs in her own interests would
+necessarily be followed by a demand for treaty-making powers such as
+have been successfully claimed and are now enjoyed by British Dominions
+overseas. Under a general tariff for the United Kingdom the same
+advantages would accrue to Ireland without any corresponding damage to
+British or Imperial interests.
+
+Thus, whether Customs and Excise are handed over to the Irish Parliament
+or retained by the Imperial Parliament, the consequences are equally
+embarrassing. In the one case Ireland would be deprived of the control
+of some 60 per cent. of her present revenue, and of all power of
+expansion; in the other, British trade with Ireland might be gravely
+injured by hostile legislation, and the union of the three kingdoms in
+financial and commercial policy would be destroyed. But this is not
+federation, nor is it a step towards it. It is separation pure and
+simple. Unless we are prepared to accept separation as the end of our
+policy the control of Customs and therefore of Excise, must remain an
+Imperial affair.
+
+There can, therefore, be no justification for taking the control of the
+Customs and Excise from the Imperial Parliament. The Irish Parliament
+would thus be left with some 40 per cent. of present revenue under her
+own control. But the power to raise further revenue within the limits
+legally reserved to the Irish Parliament would be even less than this
+figure would imply. For of the £4,100,000 of revenue other than Customs
+and Excise, nearly £1,200,000 comes from the Postal Services; and even
+if these services were controlled by Ireland, it may be taken that the
+rates charged will be the same as in Great Britain. Of the remaining
+£2,900,000 nearly one-half comes from income tax. It has already been
+pointed out that its yield cannot be materially increased. There are
+only two ways by which an Irish Chancellor might attempt such a task. He
+might raise the rate of income tax or he might lower the exemption
+limit. The former course would almost certainly be followed by two
+equally undesirable results. So far as the tax continued to be paid in
+Ireland it would fall with crushing force on the already
+heavily-burdened agricultural industry. Still, from the point of view of
+the Exchequer, there might be some additional revenue on this account.
+On the other hand, there would be a check to the investment of capital
+in Ireland--and no country needs capital more--and a powerful temptation
+to transfer it where the tax would be lower. It may be seriously
+questioned, therefore, whether any increase in the income tax above the
+British rate is practicable. The other alternative, namely, the lowering
+of the exemption limit, would be so unpopular that no Irish Chancellor
+is ever likely to consider it seriously.
+
+Passing from the consideration of revenue it is necessary to examine the
+relation of present revenue to present expenditure. The first table in
+the present article shows that the ascertainable expenditure for Irish
+purposes in 1910-11 was about £1,400,000 more than the revenue. To this
+expenditure must be added about £300,000 for the State Share of the
+benefits under Part I. of the National Insurance Act, about £50,000 in
+respect of Part II., and about £100,000 for cost of administration of
+both parts, increasing the immediate deficit to about £1,550,000. This
+calculation, moreover, includes no charge against Irish revenue on
+account of Imperial Services--navy and army; National Debt, interest and
+management; the diplomatic services, and so forth. The equity of such
+payments has been consistently recognised in the two Bills and the three
+financial schemes submitted by Mr. Gladstone. However moderate the scale
+of contribution it would in the present case double or treble the margin
+between Irish revenue and Irish expenditure for local purposes. If, for
+example, the precedent of the 1886 Bill were followed, and Ireland
+charged with a contribution for Imperial services in proportion to the
+estimated relative taxable capacities, the additional charges on the
+Irish Exchequer would amount to not less than about £4,000,000 on the
+1910-11 figures if the taxable capacity of Ireland be taken at
+one-twenty-fifth, and to nearly £3,500,000 if it be taken at
+one-thirtieth.
+
+It may be worth while here to refer to the amazing statement that Great
+Britain has made a large "profit out of the Union." At the last meeting
+of the British Association, Prof. Oldham affected to prove that Ireland
+"in the course of one hundred years ... had sent across the Channel as
+her contribution to the British Exchequer a clear net payment of about
+330 millions sterling." The same contention has been urged by Lord
+MacDonnell. This calculation ignores the fact that even the Irish
+Parliament between 1782 and 1800 acknowledged its obligation to
+contribute to Imperial services, and voted contributions for Imperial
+purposes, besides raising and maintaining in Ireland a force of 12,000
+to 15,000 men, some of whom were available for foreign service. It makes
+no allowance also for the debt which Ireland brought into the Union
+when the Exchequers were amalgamated in 1817. The importance of the last
+item may be judged from the fact that if the whole of the so-called
+contribution to Imperial services, _i.e._ the excess of true revenue
+over local expenditure, had been employed since 1817 in paying interest
+at 3 per cent. on the old Irish debt and the whole of any balance
+remaining after payment of interest had been used for redemption of the
+capital, this debt would only have been extinguished in 1886. If a
+contribution of only 1 per cent. to the cost of Imperial services had
+been previously charged against this excess, there would be a large
+balance of the Irish debt still outstanding. As a matter of fact, in the
+same period that Ireland is said to have contributed £330,000,000, Great
+Britain may be shown by a precisely similar calculation to have
+contributed no less than £5,800,000,000 for Imperial purposes. The
+measure of "injustice to Ireland" meted out by unsympathetic Britons in
+respect to the Imperial contribution extracted from Ireland may be seen
+from the following comparison for different dates in the last century.
+
+RATIOS OF POPULATIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO IMPERIAL SERVICES
+OF IRELAND AND GREAT BRITAIN AT DECENNIAL INTERVALS.
+
+                   Ratio of British to           Ratio of British to
+                   Irish Populations.            Irish Contributions.
+
+1819-20                  2·1                             12·7
+1829-30                  2·1                             10·9
+1839-40                  2·3                             11·5
+1849-50                  3·2                             17·6
+1859-60                  4·0                              9·8
+1869-70                  4·8                             12·3
+1879-80                  5·7                             16·3
+1889-90                  7·0                             22·6
+1899-00                  8·9                             46·5
+1909-10                  9·3                             [52]
+
+The truth is that from a financial point of view Ireland has no valid
+complaint to make on the score of her contributions for Imperial
+purposes. Between 1820 and 1840 the Irish population was a little less
+than one-half of the population of Great Britain; her contribution for
+Imperial Services varied from one-eleventh to one-thirteenth. In
+1899-1900 the British contribution was 46-1/2 times the Irish, though
+the population was less than nine times as large. If any contribution
+for Imperial Services from Ireland is justified, and Mr. Gladstone at
+least acknowledged it, no one can say that the contribution actually
+taken from Ireland has been excessive.
+
+As already stated we are still without any information as to the
+financial proposals to be included in the Home Rule Bill of 1912. The
+Government have appointed a Committee to advise them upon this subject.
+Though the cost of the Committee has been met out of public funds, and
+sources of information were laid open to them which are not readily
+available to the public, the Prime Minister has steadily refused to
+supply to Parliament any information as to the results of their
+labours.[53] The terms of reference to the Commission; the witnesses
+examined by them; the information placed at their disposal; the
+character of the conclusions and recommendations; these have, all alike,
+been refused to the House of Commons. But while Parliament has been
+denied this information, there is every reason to believe that the
+leaders of the Nationalist Party have been taken fully into the
+confidence of the Government. We do not know whether, for example, the
+Customs or Excise or both will be imposed and collected by the future
+Irish Parliament. We do not know whether any contribution will be
+required for the Irish share of Imperial services. We are equally
+uncertain whether any and what purely Irish services will be retained by
+the Imperial Parliament, and charged on the Imperial Exchequer. And
+lastly, the intentions of the Government in regard to the payment of a
+subsidy from the Imperial Exchequer to the Irish Parliament, with which
+rumour is busy, are as yet unrevealed.
+
+In spite of this lamentable paucity of information as to the Government
+plan, I think it can be safely said that no scheme even remotely
+resembling any of those presented in connection with the two previous
+Bills can be put forward now. Each of those schemes would involve the
+Irish Parliament in a huge deficit from the very outset. Even if the
+schemes were adapted to the changed modern conditions the same
+impassable gap between available revenue and certain expenditure
+remains. Those schemes presumably embodied principles which the
+Governments of 1886 and 1893, and the Nationalist parties of those dates
+regarded as adequate. It would be strange if it were otherwise, seeing
+that an examination and comparison of the separate schemes can discover
+no other consistent principles except the solitary one of juggling with
+the revenues, expenditures, and contributions in such manner as would
+start the Irish Parliament with a small surplus. In view of the
+importance of these earlier attempts to secure an approximation to
+financial equilibrium, it appears desirable to examine how Ireland would
+fare in modern conditions under each of them.
+
+The essential features of the 1886 scheme were as follows:--
+
+1. Customs and Excise to be under the complete control of the Imperial
+Parliament.
+
+2. Irish Parliament to have power to levy any other taxes.
+
+3. Ireland to contribute annually to the Consolidated Fund of the United
+Kingdom.
+
+(_a_) £1,466,000 for interest and management of Irish share of National
+Debt.
+
+(_b_) £1,466,000 for contribution to Imperial Defence.
+
+(_c_) £110,000 for contribution to Imperial Civil Services.
+
+(_d_) £1,000,000 for Irish Constabulary.
+
+4. Contributions 3 (_a_) to 3 (_d_) were not to be increased for thirty
+years, but might be diminished.
+
+5. Irish share of National Debt to be reckoned at £48,000,000, and Irish
+Sinking Fund to begin at £360,000, increasing by amount of interest
+released on redeemed portion of debt.
+
+6. Contribution to Imperial Defence and Civil Services not to exceed
+one-fifteenth of the total cost in any year.
+
+7. Irish contribution to be credited with receipts on account of Crown
+Revenues in Ireland.
+
+8. If expenditure on Constabulary fell below £1,000,000, contribution 3
+(_d_) to be correspondingly reduced.
+
+9. Customs and Excise _collected_ in Ireland were to be subject to
+following charges:--
+
+(_a_) Cost of collection, not more than 4 per cent.
+
+(_b_) Contributions to Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.
+
+(_c_) Payments to National Debt Commissioners.
+
+(_d_) Any sums required under the Land Act of that Session the balance
+being paid over to the Irish Government.
+
+10. The Lord Lieutenant's salary not to fall on the Irish Exchequer.
+
+Broadly the scheme gave to the Irish Government credit for the Customs
+and Excise _collected_ in Ireland and charged it with annual payments of
+£4,502,000 in addition to the cost of collection. It is clear that Mr.
+Gladstone, at the time when the Irish population was about one-eighth of
+the United Kingdom, assumed Ireland to have a taxable capacity of
+one-fifteenth. If such a scheme were introduced at the present moment it
+is obvious that, owing to the further decline in the population of
+Ireland, a smaller figure for taxable capacity must be taken. What that
+figure should be it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide
+satisfactorily. It is generally assumed that on the basis of the
+calculations made by the Financial Relations Commission in 1896, the
+present relative taxable capacity for Ireland would be about
+one-twenty-fifth that of the United Kingdom. In the last two financial
+years the Irish contribution to Income Tax has been one-twenty-eighth,
+and the contribution to Estate Duties one-twenty-sixth of the total
+collection in the United Kingdom. These proportions, taken as measures
+of taxable capacity must be exceptionally favourable to Ireland, where
+the proportion of Income Tax payers and of persons possessing property
+paying Death Duties is relatively to the total population smaller than in
+the United Kingdom as a whole. If, therefore, for the sake of the present
+calculations the mean of two proportions--_i.e._ one-twenty-seventh
+deducible from the Income Tax and Death Duty contributions is assumed,
+we employ a figure exceptionally favourable to Ireland. The financial
+statement on the next page showing the 1886 scheme applied to present
+conditions has been drawn up on this basis. The revenue is here assumed
+to come in at the average rate of the last two years (1909-10 and
+1910-11) and the expenditure is taken as that of 1910-11.
+
+The state of the Irish Exchequer under the foregoing scheme would be
+indeed a parlous one. It would start with a deficit of £3,200,000, and
+with a prospective immediate increase by about £450,000 on account of
+the Insurance Act. The actual budget deficit would thus be about
+£3,650,000. The Imperial Parliament would collect about £7,794,000, and
+after deducting £5,346,000 would hand back to the Irish Exchequer the
+difference of £2,458,000. The revenues upon which the Chancellor in the
+Irish Parliament could rely would be, therefore, £6,366,000. Out of this
+an expenditure of £9,562,000 would have to be met. The postal services
+would probably not stand any increased charges; there is left,
+therefore, only £5,211,000 of free revenue, and only £2,753,000 under
+the unrestricted control of the Irish Parliament. With such resources it
+would be obviously impossible to make good a deficit of £3,206,000 by
+any increase of taxation. It must not be overlooked, also, that the
+effect of crediting Ireland with Customs and Excise as "collected"
+instead of as "contributed" is practically to make the Irish Parliament
+a further free gift of nearly £2,000,000.
+
+A totally different scheme accompanied the Home Rule Bill of 1893 as
+introduced. The principal features of the new scheme were as follows:--
+
+1. Customs, excise, and postage to be imposed by the Imperial
+Parliament.
+
+2. Excise and postage to be collected and managed by the Irish
+Parliament.
+
+3. Customs to be collected and retained by the Imperial Parliament in
+view of contribution to Imperial services.
+
+4. Excise duties collected in Ireland on articles consumed in Great
+Britain to be handed over to Imperial Exchequer.
+
+5. If Excise duties be increased the yield of the excess duties to be
+handed over to the Imperial Exchequer.
+
+6. If Excise duties be reduced and Irish revenue diminished, the
+deficiency to be made good to Irish revenue.
+
+7. Two-thirds of the cost of the Constabulary to be repaid to the
+Imperial Exchequer.
+
+Some of the provisions of this scheme are of exceptional interest. If it
+had ever been in operation the plan, for example, of adjusting the
+payments from one exchequer to the other in the event of changes being
+enacted by the Imperial Parliament in the Excise duties must have been
+fruitful of difficulties and created much friction. If the duties had
+been reduced there might have been an increased consumption. Who can say
+how much of the revenue lost to the Irish Exchequer in the event of a
+reduction of duties would have been due to the reduced rates of duty,
+and how much had been regained by increased consumption. Again, if the
+Excise duties had been increased, as in the Budget of 1909, to such a
+degree that the total revenue at the higher duty was less than the total
+revenue from the lower duty, who could have determined whether this was
+a case requiring a payment from the Irish to the British Exchequer, or
+from the British to the Irish Exchequer.
+
+Perhaps the most striking novelty of the first scheme of 1893 was the
+retention of the Customs duties in lieu of Ireland's contribution to
+Imperial Services. At that time the estimated value of the Customs
+contributed by Ireland was £2,400,000, and seeing that in 1886 her
+reasonable share of liability on account of Imperial Services was put at
+£4,600,000, the very large gift to Ireland represented by this scheme
+may be readily imagined. Even with the full advantage of this gift the
+estimated Irish surplus was put at £500,000. During the discussions of
+the Bill an error in the Excise contributions, reducing the revenue
+available to the Irish Exchequer by £356,000 was discovered. The reduced
+surplus of £144,000 was regarded by Mr. Gladstone as "cutting it too
+fine," and the financial scheme was completely recast. Before explaining
+the third scheme it might be well to examine as before how the original
+scheme of 1893 would work out at the present time. This is shown in the
+following balance sheet.
+
+SCHEME B (BASED ON BILL OF 1893, AS INTRODUCED).
+
+REVENUE.                      £       EXPENDITURE.                   £
+
+1.  Excise (true revenue              1. Civil Government
+        _ex._ licences)    2,952,000     charges (_ex._ Constabulary
+2.  Local Taxes--                        and Lord
+       (_a_) Stamps          333,000     Lieutenant's salary)     6,952,000
+       (_b_) Death Duties    914,000  2. Collection of Ireland
+       (_c_) Income Tax    1,307,000     Revenues, etc.             298,000
+       (_d_) Excise licences 284,000  3. Postal Services          1,404,000
+3. Postal Revenue          1,155,000  4. Contribution to Constabulary
+4. Miscellaneous             150,000     (2/3rds of
+                           ---------     £1,464,500)                976,000
+                           7,095,000
+   Deficit                 2,535,000
+                           ---------                              ---------
+                           9,630,000                              9,630,000
+
+The narrow surplus of £144,000 has disappeared, and instead there is on
+present-day figures the substantial deficit of £2,535,000. Here again it
+may be observed that the Excise duties are fixed by the Imperial
+Parliament, and the Postal charges are presumably also invariable. The
+first Budget deficit would, as before, be not less than £3,000,000. The
+taxes within the absolute control of the Irish Parliament would have
+been producing a revenue of £2,838,000. It is within this range of
+taxation, or by the imposition of new direct taxes, that the Irish
+Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been compelled to raise an
+additional £3,000,000 in order to make the two sides of his account
+balance.
+
+Owing to the mistake already referred to, Mr. Gladstone prepared and
+presented a third scheme, whose principal features were as follows:--
+
+1. Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure to be one-third of
+the true revenue of taxes levied in Ireland.
+
+2. Ireland to be credited with miscellaneous receipts and surplus (if
+any) arising from postal services.
+
+3. Ireland to pay out of revenues credited to her, two-thirds of the
+cost of the Constabulary, all Civil Government charges and any deficit
+on postal services.
+
+4. The Customs and Inland Revenue duties and the rates for Postal
+charges to be fixed and collected by Imperial Parliament.
+
+5. After six years (1) Irish contribution to Imperial Services to be
+revised; (2) the collection of Inland Revenue duties to be undertaken by
+Irish Government; (3) Irish legislation to impose the stamp duties,
+income tax, and excise licences. The financial clauses as thus
+remodelled and simplified were expected to produce a surplus of
+£512,000. The characteristic feature of this arrangement was the
+provision for handing over to the Imperial Exchequer one-third of the
+Irish true tax revenue as Ireland's payment on account of Imperial
+Services. How matters would stand if this arrangement were applied to
+the present financial situation in Ireland may be seen from the
+following table.
+
+SCHEME C (BASED ON BILL OF 1893, AS AMENDED).
+
+REVENUE.                          £           EXPENDITURE            £
+
+1. Customs                     2,866,000  1. Civil Government
+2. Excise (_ex._ licence                       Charges            6,952,000
+     duties)                   2,952,000  2. Constabulary (2/3rds
+3. Stamps                        333,000       of £1,464,000)       976,000
+4. Death duties                  914,000  3. Estimated deficit on
+5. Licence duties                284,000       Postal Services      249,000
+6. Income Tax                  1,307,000
+7. Crown Lands, etc.              25,000
+                               ---------
+                               8,681,000
+                               ---------
+8. 2/3rds of £8,965,000        5,757,000
+9. Miscellaneous Receipts
+                                 115,000
+                               ---------
+                               5,902,000
+   Deficit                     2,275,000
+                               ---------                          ---------
+   Total                       8,177,000       Total              8,177,000
+                               ---------                          ---------
+
+The main Irish objection to a scheme of this description is that,
+whatever tax be imposed, the amount taken from the Irish taxpayer would
+be 50 per cent. greater than the amount going into the Irish Exchequer.
+It is easy to foresee that such an arrangement would have led to much
+friction and difficulty, and that it could not have lasted even the six
+years for which it was provisionally fixed. If applied to the present
+situation Ireland would have been contributing less than £3,000,000 for
+Imperial services, although a very moderate estimate of what her
+contribution should be would require her to pay at least £5,000,000. In
+spite of this modest payment, however, this scheme would have confronted
+the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer with a deficit of more than
+£2,250,000 rising at once to £2,700,000 in consequence of the Insurance
+Act.
+
+In reviewing the three financial schemes which have previously seen the
+light, the following facts stand out clearly:--
+
+1. Some contribution was expected from Ireland for Imperial services in
+each scheme.
+
+2. The rates of customs, excise, and postage were in all cases to be
+controlled by the Imperial Parliament.
+
+3. The customs were in every case to be collected by officers of the
+Imperial Exchequer.
+
+4. In the two schemes of 1893 "true" revenue and not "collected" revenue
+was the basis of the financial arrangement.
+
+5. Each of these schemes would involve the Irish Parliament from the
+outset in a huge deficit.
+
+In view of these facts it is certain that any arrangement which
+pretended to give a Budget surplus to the Irish Parliament would
+involve, overtly or covertly, the payment of a large subsidy to Ireland
+out of the Imperial Exchequer. Such a contingency is not likely to make
+Home Rule more acceptable, or the path of any Bill through Parliament
+more easy.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 50: See Parliamentary Debates.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Based on White Papers 233 (1910) and 220 (1911).]
+
+[Footnote 52: No contribution from Ireland in this year; local
+expenditure is estimated to have been in excess of revenue contributed.]
+
+[Footnote 53: Since the above was written, Mr. Birrell has promised
+(March 27, 1912) to publish the report "some time" after the
+introduction of the Home Rule Bill.]
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL ANALOGY.
+
+BY L.S. AMERY, M.P.
+
+
+There is no argument in favour of Home Rule for Ireland which is more
+frequently used to-day than that which is based on the analogy of our
+Colonial experience. In the history of every one of our Colonies--so
+runs one variant of the argument--from Lord Durham's report on Canada
+down to the grant of responsible government to the Transvaal, "Home
+Rule" has turned disaffection into loyalty, and has inaugurated a career
+of prosperity. Why should we then hesitate to apply to Irish discontent
+the "freedom" which has proved so sovereign a remedy elsewhere? Again,
+if our Dominions have been able to combine local Home Rule with national
+unity--so runs another variant--why should a policy which works
+successfully in Canada or Australia not work in the United Kingdom?
+Another suggestion freely thrown out is that Home Rule is only the
+beginning of a process of federalisation which is to bring us to the
+goal of Imperial Federation. In one form or another the Colonial Analogy
+occupies the foreground of almost every speech or article in favour of
+Irish Home Rule. The ablest, as well as the most courageous, piece of
+Home Rule advocacy which has so far appeared, Mr. Erskine Childers's
+"Framework of Home Rule," is based from first to last on this analogy
+and on little else.
+
+That the argument is effective cannot be gainsaid. It is the argument
+which appeals most strongly to the great body of thoughtful Liberals who
+from every other point of view look upon the project with unconcealed
+misgiving. It is the argument which has appealed to public opinion in
+the Dominions, and has there secured public resolutions and private
+subscriptions for the Nationalist cause. In one of its forms it appealed
+to the imagination of an Imperialist like Cecil Rhodes. In another it
+has, undoubtedly, in recent years attracted not a few Unionists who have
+been prepared to approach with, at any rate, an open mind the
+consideration of a federal constitution for the United Kingdom. And,
+indeed, if the analogy really applied, it would be difficult to resist
+the conclusion. If Ireland has really been denied something which has
+proved the secret of Colonial loyalty and prosperity, what Englishman
+would be so short-sighted as to wish to deprive her of it for the mere
+sake of domination? If Home Rule were really a stepping-stone towards
+Imperial Federation, how insincere our professions of "thinking
+Imperially," if we are not prepared to sacrifice a merely local
+sentiment of union for a great all-embracing ideal!
+
+But, as a matter of fact, there is no such analogy bearing on the
+question which, here and now, is at issue. On the contrary the whole
+trend of Colonial experience confirms, in the most striking fashion, the
+essential soundness of the position which Unionists have maintained
+throughout, that the material, social and moral interests, alike of
+Ireland and of Great Britain, demand that they should remain members of
+one effective, undivided legislative and administrative organisation.
+
+The whole argument, indeed, plausible as it is, is based on a series of
+confusions, due, in part, to deliberate obscuring of the issue, in part
+to the vagueness of the phrase "Home Rule," and to the general ignorance
+of the origin and real nature of the British Colonial system. There are,
+indeed, three main confusions of thought. There is, first of all, the
+confusion between "free" or "self-governing" institutions, as contrasted
+with unrepresentative or autocratic rule, and separate government,
+whether for all or for specified purposes, as contrasted with a common
+government. In the next place there is the confusion between the status
+of a self-governing Dominion, in its relations to the Imperial
+Government, and the status of a Colonial state or provincial government
+towards the Dominion of which it forms a part. A truly inimitable
+instance of this confusion has been provided by Mr. Redmond in a
+declaration made on more than one occasion that all that Ireland asks
+for, is, "What has already been given to twenty-eight different portions
+of the Empire."[54] Considering that the "portions" thus enumerated
+include practically sovereign nation states like Canada, provinces like
+those of the South African Union, with little more than county council
+powers, and stray survivals, like the Isle of Man, of an earlier system
+of government, based on the same principle of ascendency and
+interference as the government of Ireland under Poynings's Act, it is
+difficult to know which to admire most, Mr. Redmond's assurance, or his
+cynical appreciation of the ignorance or capacity for deliberate
+self-deception of those with whom he has to deal. The third confusion is
+that between Imperial functions and national or Dominion functions, due
+to the fact that the two are combined in the United Kingdom Parliament,
+which is also, under present conditions, the Imperial Parliament, and to
+the consequent habitual use of the word "Imperial" in two quite
+different senses. It is this last confusion which makes such a
+declaration as Mr. Asquith's about safeguarding "the indefeasible
+authority of the Imperial Parliament" a mere equivocation, for it
+affords no indication as to whether the supremacy retained is the
+effective and direct control maintained by Canada over Ontario, or the
+much slighter and vaguer supremacy exercised by the United Kingdom over
+the Dominions. It is this same confusion, too, which is responsible for
+the notion that the problem of creating a true Imperial Parliament or
+Council by a federation of the Dominions would be assisted, either by
+creating an additional Dominion in the shape of Ireland, or by
+arranging the internal constitution of the United Kingdom, as one of the
+federating Dominions, on a federal rather than on a unitary basis.
+
+The confusion of ideas between self-government and separate government
+pervades the whole argument that the granting of "Home Rule" to Ireland
+would be analogous to the grant of responsible institutions to the
+Colonies. The essence of Home Rule is the creation of a separate
+government for Ireland. The essence of our Colonial policy has been the
+establishment of popular self-government in the Colonies. That this
+self-government has been effected through local parliaments and local
+executives, and not by representation in a common parliament, is a
+consequence of the immense distances and the profound differences in
+local conditions separating the Dominions from the Mother Country. It is
+an adaptation of the policy to peculiar conditions, and not an essential
+principle of the policy itself.
+
+This is obvious from any consideration of the circumstances under which
+the policy of Colonial self-government originated. Under the old
+Colonial system which preceded it, the Governor not only controlled the
+executive government, whose members were simply his official
+subordinates, but also controlled legislation through a nominated Upper
+Chamber or Legislative Council. The object of this restrictive policy
+was not interference with local affairs, but the supposed necessity of
+safeguarding general Imperial interests. Local affairs were, in the
+main, left to the local government. But the peculiar constitution of
+that government rendered it almost inevitable that the practical control
+of those affairs should fall into the hands of a narrowly limited class,
+clustering round the Governor and his circle, and by its privileges and
+prejudices creating in those excluded from that class a spirit of
+opposition, which extended from its members to the whole Imperial system
+which they were supposed to personify. In each of the North American
+Colonies a small oligarchy, generally known as the "Family Compact,"
+was able to "monopolise the Executive Council, the Legislative Council,
+the Bench, the Bar, and all offices of profit." It was against this
+system, and not against the Imperial connection or even against undue
+interference from England, that the Canadian rebellion of 1837 was
+directed. In 1838 Lord Durham made his famous report in which he
+attributed the troubles to their true cause, the disregard of public
+opinion, and proposed that the Governor should in future govern, in
+local affairs, in accordance with the advice given by Colonial Ministers
+enjoying the confidence of the popular Assembly. A few years later his
+policy was put into execution by Lord Elgin in Canada, and rapidly
+extended to other Colonies. Five years ago the same system of government
+was applied to the Transvaal and to the Orange River Colony.[55]
+
+From the foregoing brief summary, it is sufficiently clear that the
+really vital feature of the policy inaugurated by Lord Durham was the
+acceptance of responsible popular government in local affairs, and not
+the separation of Colonial government from Imperial control. The policy
+did not involve the setting up of new legislative machinery or a new
+definition of Imperial relations. For an existing system of separate
+government in local affairs, which created friction and discontent, it
+simply substituted a new system which has, in the main, worked smoothly
+up to the present. From the success of this policy, what possible direct
+inference can be drawn as to the effect of setting up in Ireland, not a
+similar system of government, for Ireland already enjoys political
+institutions as fully representative as those of any Colony, or of any
+other portion of the United Kingdom, but a separate centre of
+government?
+
+At the same time the success of responsible government in the Colonies
+is, on closer examination, by no means without bearing on the problem of
+Ireland. That system of Colonial responsible government which seems to
+us so simple and obvious is, on the contrary, one of the most artificial
+systems the world has ever known, based as it is upon conditions which
+have never been present before in the world's history, and which are now
+rapidly disappearing, never, perhaps, to recur. That a popular assembly
+in complete control of the executive, should respect an unwritten
+convention limiting its powers and rights to purely local affairs, and
+submit to a purely external control of its wider interests and
+destinies, seemed to most of Lord Durham's contemporaries almost
+unthinkable. Not only those who opposed the policy, but many of those
+who advocated it, were convinced that it would lead to complete
+separation. Nor were their fears or hopes by any means ill-grounded.
+That they were not justified by the event was due to an altogether
+exceptional combination of factors. The first of these was the
+overwhelming supremacy of the United Kingdom in commerce and naval
+power, and its practical monopoly of political influence in the outer
+world. Sheltered by an invincible navy, far removed from the sound of
+international conflict, the Colonies had no practical motive for
+concerning themselves with foreign affairs, or with any but purely local
+measures of defence. Even when, as in 1854, they were technically
+involved by the United Kingdom in war with a great Power, they were not
+so much as inconvenienced. The United Kingdom, on the other hand,
+incurred no serious expenditure for their defence beyond what was in any
+case required for the defence of its sea-borne commerce, nor was its
+foreign policy at any time seriously deflected by regard for Colonial
+considerations. Even when the Colonies encroached on the original limits
+set them, and began to establish protectionist tariffs against the
+Mother Country, British manufacturers could afford to disregard a
+handicap of which they were at first scarcely sensible, while British
+statesmen smiled condescendingly at the harmless aberrations of Colonial
+inexperience. Another factor was the very fact that it was colonies that
+the United Kingdom was dealing with, new countries where every other
+interest was secondary to that of opening up and developing the untamed
+wilderness, to creating the material framework which, in fulness of
+time, might support a complete national life. There was consequently
+little real interest in external policy in the Colonial assemblies,
+little leisure for criticism of the Imperial authorities, little desire
+to assert any particular point of view. Last, but not least, was the
+factor of distance, interposing a veil of obscurity between the
+different communities in the Empire; mitigating minor causes of
+friction, keeping Colonial politics free from being entangled in the
+British Party system.
+
+The British system of Colonial self-government has so far proved
+workable because of the exceptional circumstances in which it
+originated. But its success cannot be regarded as wholly unqualified.
+The failure to provide any direct representation of Colonial interests
+and aspirations in the Imperial Parliament may not have mattered as far
+as foreign policy and defence were concerned. But it did affect the
+colonies most seriously from the economic point of view, for it
+precluded them from pressing with any effect for the development of
+inter-Imperial communications, or from resisting the abolition of the
+system of preferential trade which meant so much to their prosperity.
+Under the influence of a narrowly selfish and short-sighted policy,
+inspired by English manufacturing interests, Canada saw the stream of
+commerce and population pass by her shores on its way to the United
+States. The relative progress of the British Colonies and of the United
+States since the abolition of preference is some measure of the economic
+weakness of a political system which has no common trade policy. In any
+case the British Colonial system, as we have known it is inevitably
+moving towards its crisis. The conditions under which it originated are
+fast disappearing. The commercial and political expansion of Europe, of
+America, of Asia, are bringing the Dominions more and more into the
+arena of international conflict. The growth of foreign navies is forcing
+them to realise the necessity of taking a larger part in their own
+defence. Their growing national self-consciousness demands not only that
+they should cease to be dependent on the Mother Country for their
+safety, but also that they should exercise control over the foreign
+policy of which defence is merely the instrument. There are only two
+possible solutions to the problem which is now developing: the one is
+complete separation, the other is partnership in an Imperial Union in
+which British subjects in the Dominions shall stand on exactly the same
+footing, and enjoy the same powers and privileges in Imperial affairs,
+as British subjects in the United Kingdom.
+
+The conditions--geographical, economic, political--which, in the
+Colonies, made the grant of free institutions, unaccompanied by some
+form of political federation or union, even a temporary success, were,
+indeed, exceptional. None of them were present in the circumstances of
+Ireland before the Union. They are not present to-day. Geographically
+the United Kingdom is a single compact island group, of which Ireland is
+by no means the most outlying portion. No part of Ireland is to-day, or
+ever was, as inaccessible from the political centre of British power as
+the remoter parts of the Highlands, not to speak of the Shetlands or
+Hebrides. Racially, no less than physically, Ireland is an integral part
+of the United Kingdom, peopled as it is with the same mixture of racial
+elements as the main island of the group. The blend of Celt with Dane,
+with Normans and English of the Pale, with English citizens of the
+seaports and Cromwellian settlers, which constitutes Celtic Ireland,
+so-called, is less Celtic both in speech and in blood than either Wales
+or the Highlands. Religion alone has maintained a difference between a
+predominantly Celtic and a predominantly Teutonic Ireland which would
+otherwise have disappeared far more completely than the difference
+between Celtic and Teutonic Scotland. Economically, the connection
+between Ireland and Great Britain, always close, has become such that
+to-day Ireland subsists almost wholly upon the English market. In these
+respects, at least, there is no resemblance between the conditions of
+Ireland and that of any of the Colonies.
+
+On the other hand, politically, Ireland was for centuries treated as a
+colony--"the first and nearest of the Colonies," as Mr. Childers puts
+it. The difficulties and defects of early Colonial government were
+intensified by the great conflict of the Reformation, which made Ireland
+a centre of foreign intrigue, and by the long religious and
+constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century, which fell with
+terrible severity upon a population which had throughout espoused the
+losing cause. Cromwell; realising that "if there is to be a prosperous,
+strong and United Kingdom there must be one Parliament and one
+Parliament only," freed Ireland from the Colonial status. Unfortunately,
+his policy was reversed in 1660, and for over a century Ireland endured
+the position of "least favoured Colony"--least favoured, partly because,
+with the possible exception of linen, all her industries were
+competitive with, and not complementary to English industries, and so
+were deliberately crushed in accordance with the common economic policy
+of the time, partly because the memories of past struggles kept England
+suspicious and jealous of Irish prosperity. Every evil under which the
+old colonial system laboured in Canada before the rebellion was
+intensified in Ireland by the religious and racial feud between the mass
+of the people and the ascendant caste. The same solvent of free
+government that Durham recommended was needed by Ireland. In view of the
+geographical and economic position of Ireland, and in the political
+circumstances of the time, it could only be applied through union with
+Great Britain. Union had been vainly prayed for by the Irish Parliament
+at the time of the Scottish Union. Most thoughtful students, not least
+among them Adam Smith,[56] had seen in it the only cure for the evils
+which afflicted the hapless island.
+
+Meanwhile, in 1782, the dominant caste utilised the Ulster volunteer
+movement to wrest from Great Britain, then in the last throes of the war
+against France, Spain, and America, the independence of the Irish
+Parliament. Theoretically co-equal with the British Parliament,
+Grattan's Parliament was, in practice, kept by bribery in a position
+differing very little from that of Canada before the rebellion. Still
+the new system in Ireland might, under conditions resembling those of
+Canada in 1840, have gradually evolved into a workable scheme of
+self-government. But the conditions were too different. A temporary
+economic revival, indeed, followed the removal of the crippling
+restrictions upon Irish trade. But, politically, the new system began to
+break down almost from the start. Its entanglement in English party
+politics, which geography made inevitable, lead to deadlocks over trade
+and over the regency question, the latter practically involving the
+right to choose a separate sovereign. The same geographical conditions
+made it impossible for Ireland to escape the influence of the French
+Revolution. The factious spirit and the oppression of the ruling caste
+did the rest. There is no need to dwell here on the horrors of the
+rising of 1798, and of its repression, or on the political and financial
+chaos that marked the collapse of an ill-starred experiment. England,
+struggling for her existence, had had enough of French invasion, civil
+war, and general anarchy on her flank. The Irish Parliament died, as it
+had lived, by corruption, and Castlereagh and Pitt conferred upon
+Ireland the too long delayed boon of equal partnership in the United
+Kingdom.
+
+The mistakes which, for a century, deprived the Union of much of its
+effect--the delay in granting Catholic emancipation, the folly of Free
+Trade, acquiesced in by Irish members, by which agrarian strife was
+intensified, and through which Ireland again lost the increase of
+population which she had gained in the first half century of Union--need
+not be discussed here. The fact remains that to-day Ireland is
+prosperous, and on the eve of far greater prosperity under a sane
+system of national economic policy. What is more, Ireland is in the
+enjoyment of practically every liberty and every privilege that is
+enjoyed by any other part of the United Kingdom, of greater liberty and
+privilege than is enjoyed by Dominions which have no control of Imperial
+affairs. The principle which in the case of the Colonies was applied
+through separate governments has, in her case, been applied through
+Union. It could only have been applied through Union in 1800. It can
+only be applied through Union to-day. Railways and steamships have
+strengthened the geographical and economic reasons for union;
+train-ferries and aircraft will intensify them still further. Meanwhile
+the political and strategical conditions of these islands in the near
+future are far more likely to resemble those of the great Napoleonic
+struggle than those of the Colonial Empire in its halcyon period.
+
+In one aspect, then, the Union was the only feasible way of carrying out
+the principle which underlay the successful establishment of Colonial
+self-government. In another aspect it was the last step of a natural
+and, indeed, inevitable process for which the history of the British
+Colonies since the grant of self-government has furnished analogies in
+abundance. It has furnished none for the reversal of that process. It is
+only necessary to consider the reasons which, in various degrees,
+influenced the several groups of independent Colonies in North America,
+Australia, and South Africa to unite under a single government, whether
+federal or unitary, thus wholly or partially surrendering the "Home
+Rule" previously enjoyed by them, in order to see how close is the
+parallel. The weak and scattered North American Colonies were at a
+serious disadvantage in all political and commercial negotiations with
+their powerful neighbour, the United States, a fact very clearly
+emphasised by the termination of Lord Elgin's reciprocity treaty in
+1864. None of them was in a position to deal with the vast territories
+of the North-West, undeveloped by the Hudson's Bay Company, and in
+imminent danger of American occupation. A common trade policy, a common
+railway policy, and a common banking system were essential to a rapid
+development of their great resources, and only a common government could
+provide them. In Australia the chief factor in bringing about federation
+was the weakness and want of influence of the separate Colonies in
+dealing with problems of defence and external policy, impressed upon
+them by German and French colonial expansion in the Pacific, and by the
+growth of Japan. In South Africa, on the other hand, the factors were
+mainly internal. The constant friction over railway and customs
+agreements, continually on the verge of breaking down, embittered the
+relations of the different Colonies and maintained an atmosphere of
+uncertainty discouraging to commercial enterprise. Four different
+governments dealt with a labour supply mainly required in one colony.
+Four agricultural departments dealt with locusts and cattle plagues,
+which knew no political boundaries, and which could only be stamped out
+by the most prompt and determined action. Four systems of law and four
+organisations for defence secured, as Lord Selborne pointed out in a
+striking Memorandum (Blue Book Cd. 3564) a minimum of return for a
+maximum of expense. A native rising in Natal warned South Africans that
+the mistake of a single Colony might at any moment set the whole of
+South Africa ablaze with rebellion. In the absence of larger issues
+local politics in each Colony turned almost exclusively on the racial
+feud. A comprehensive union alone could bring commercial stability and
+progressive development, mitigate race hatred, and pave the way to a
+true South African nationality.
+
+All the weakness in external relations, all the internal friction and
+impediment to progress, all the bitterness and pettiness of local
+politics, which marked the absence of union among neighbouring colonies,
+also characterised the relations of Great Britain and Ireland in the
+eighteenth century. But there was this difference: the immense
+disproportion in wealth and power, and the political control exercised
+by the greater state, caused all the evils of disunion to concentrate
+with intensified force upon the smaller state. To undo the mischief of
+eighteenth century disunion required at least a generation. A series of
+political mistakes and mischances, and a disastrous economic policy,
+have left the healing task of union incomplete after a century. But
+renewed disunion to-day would only mean a renewal of old local feuds to
+the point of civil war, a renewal of old economic friction, in which
+most of the injury would be suffered by the weaker combatant, the
+indefinite postponing for Ireland of the prospect, now so hopeful, of
+national development and social amelioration, a weakening of the whole
+United Kingdom for diplomacy or for defence. It is a policy which no
+Dominion in the Empire would dream of adopting--a policy which every
+Dominion would most certainly resist by force, just as the United States
+resisted it when attempted, with more than a mere pretext of
+constitutional justification, by the Southern States.
+
+Now for the "exception which proves the rule": there is one Colonial
+analogy for what would be the position of Ireland under Home Rule,
+namely, the position of Newfoundland outside the confederation of the
+other North American Colonies.[57] The analogy is only partial, for this
+reason, that whereas Ireland is almost wholly dependent economically on
+Great Britain, Newfoundland has little direct trade with Canada, and
+moreover enjoys a virtual monopoly of one particular commodity, namely
+codfish, by which it manages to support its small population.
+Nevertheless, no one can doubt that with its favoured geographical
+position, and with its great natural resources, Newfoundland would have
+been developed in a very different fashion if for the last forty years
+it had been an integral part of the Dominion. Nor is the loss all on the
+side of Newfoundland, as the history of even the last few years has
+shown. In 1902, Newfoundland negotiated a commercial Convention with the
+United States which, in return for a free entry for Newfoundland fish
+into the United States, practically gave the Newfoundland market to
+American manufacturers, and explicitly forbade the granting of any trade
+preference to the United Kingdom or to Canada. When, fortunately, the
+American Senate rejected the Convention, Newfoundland embarked on a
+course of legislative reprisal against American fishing. But this
+involved the Imperial Government in a diplomatic conflict which, but for
+the excellent relations subsisting with the United States, might easily
+have led to a grave crisis. The inconveniences and dangers which Irish
+trade policy might lead to under Home Rule can easily be inferred from
+this single example, all the more if Irish policy should be influenced,
+as Newfoundland's policy certainly was not, by a bias of hostility to
+the Empire.
+
+So much for the first confusion, that which would base the case for a
+_separate government_ in Ireland on the success of _free institutions_
+in the Colonies, entirely ignoring the whole movement for union, which
+has made every geographical group of Colonies follow the example of the
+Mother Country. We must now deal with the second confusion, that which
+is based on a hazy notion that Home Rule is only a preliminary step to
+endowing the United Kingdom as a whole with a working federal
+constitution like that of Canada or Australia. Ireland, in fact, so runs
+the pleasing delusion, is to be set up as an experimental Quebec, and
+the other provinces will follow suit shortly. Not all Home Rulers,
+indeed, are obsessed by this confusion. Mr. Childers, for instance,
+makes short work of what he calls the "federal chimera," dismissing the
+idea as "wholly impracticable," and pointing out that Home Rule must be
+"not merely non-federal, but anti-federal." But the great majority of
+Liberals to-day are busy deluding themselves or each other, and the
+Nationalists are, naturally, not unwilling to help them in that task,
+with the idea of Home Rule for Ireland followed by "Home Rule all
+round."
+
+The new Home Rule Bill has not yet appeared, but certain main features
+of it can be taken for granted. It will be a Bill which, save possibly
+for a pious expression of hope in the preamble, will deal with Ireland
+only. It will set up in Ireland an Irish legislature and executive
+responsible for the "peace, order, and good government" of Ireland,
+subject to certain restrictions and limitations. It will assign to
+Ireland the whole of the Irish revenues, though probably retaining the
+control of customs and excise, and in that case retaining some Irish
+representatives at Westminster. So far from fixing any contribution to
+Imperial expenditure from Ireland, it will, apparently, include the
+provision of an Imperial grant in aid towards Land Purchase and Old Age
+Pensions. Any such measure is wholly incompatible with even the loosest
+federal system. A federal scheme postulates the existence over the whole
+confederation of two concurrent systems of government, each exercising
+direct control over the citizens within its own sphere, each having its
+legislative and executive functions, and its sources of revenue, clearly
+defined. The Home Rule Bill will certainly not set up any such division
+of government and its functions in Great Britain. Nor will it, in
+reality, set up any such effective double system of government in
+Ireland. What it will set up will be a national or Dominion government
+in Ireland, separate and exclusive, but subject to certain restrictions
+and interferences which it will be the first business of the Irish
+representatives, in Dublin or Westminster, to get rid of. Long before
+Scotland or Wales, let alone England, get any consideration of their
+demand for Home Rule, if demand there be, the last traces of any
+quasi-federal element the Bill may contain will have been got rid of.
+
+In a federation every citizen, in whatever state or province he resides,
+is as fully a citizen of the federation as every other citizen. He not
+only has the same federal vote, and pays the same federal taxes, but he
+has the same access to the federal courts, and the same right to the
+direct protection of the federal executive. In what sense are any of
+these conditions likely to be true of, let us say, an Irish landlord
+under this Home Rule Bill? Again, federalism implies that all the
+subordinate units are in an equal position relatively to the federal
+authority. Is this Bill likely to be so framed that its provisions can
+be adapted unchanged to Scotland, Wales, or England? And if they could,
+what sort of a residuum of a United Kingdom government would be left
+over? Take finance alone: if every unit under "Home Rule all round" is
+to receive the whole product of its taxation, what becomes of the
+revenue on which the general government of the United Kingdom will have
+to subsist? The fact is that the creation of a federal state, whether by
+confederation or by devolution of powers, must be, in the main, a
+simultaneous act. Additional subordinate units may subsequently join the
+confederation under the conditions of the federal constitution. Backward
+areas which are unable to provide for an efficient provincial
+expenditure, over and above their contribution to federal expenditure,
+may be held back as territories directly controlled by the federal
+authorities till they are financially and in other respects ripe for the
+grant of provincial powers. If a federal scheme were really seriously
+contemplated by the present Government they would have to adopt one of
+two courses. They would either have to establish it simultaneously for
+the whole United Kingdom, and in that case limit the powers and
+functions of the provinces so narrowly as to make it possible for
+Ireland to raise its provincial revenue without undue difficulty, the
+rest of Ireland's needs being met by a substantial federal expenditure
+carried out by federal officials. Or else they might begin by the
+creation of a federal constitution with considerable provincial powers
+for England, Scotland, and Wales, keeping back Ireland as a federal
+territory till its economic and social conditions justified the
+establishment of provincial institutions. The converse policy of
+treating the case of Ireland as "prior in point of time and
+urgency,"[58] of giving the poorest and most backward portion of the
+United Kingdom the whole of its revenue and a practically unfettered
+control of its territory, is, indeed, "not merely non-federal, but
+anti-federal."
+
+The truth is that the federal element in this Home Rule Bill, as in that
+of 1893, will be merely a pretence, designed to keep timid and
+hesitating Home Rulers in line--a tactical manoeuvre of much the same
+character as the talk about a reformed Second Chamber which preceded the
+Parliament Act, and found due burial in the preamble to that Act. In
+essence the Bill will set up Ireland as an entirely separate state
+subject to certain restrictions which the Government have no serious
+intention of enforcing, and the Irish every intention of disregarding,
+or abolishing as the outcome of further agitation. For this policy of
+pretence there is one admirable parallel in our Colonial history--the
+policy by which "Home Rule" was "given" to the Transvaal after Majuba.
+It was the same policy of avoiding expense and trouble, political or
+military--the policy, in fact, of "cutting the loss"--tricked out with
+the same humbug about "magnanimity" and "conciliation," about trust in
+Boer (or Nationalist) moderation when in power, the same contemptuous
+passing over of the loyalists as persons of "too pronounced" views, or
+as "interested contractors and stock-jobbers."[59] It was embodied in a
+Convention by which the "inhabitants of the Transvaal territory" were
+"accorded complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her
+Majesty" under a series of limitations which, if enforced, would have
+implied a measure of British control in many respects greater than that
+exercised over a self-governing Colony, and with a number of guarantees
+to protect the loyalists. The Government was able to "save its face,"
+while its hesitating followers were able to quiet their consciences, by
+the reassuring phrases of the Convention. The Boer Volksraad frankly
+declared itself still dissatisfied, but ratified the Convention,
+"maintaining all objections to the Convention ... and for the purpose of
+showing to everybody that the love of peace and unity inspires it, for
+the time being, and provisionally submitting the articles of the
+Convention to a practical test." If any Nationalist Convention in Dublin
+should accept the new Home Rule Bill, we can take it for granted that it
+will be in exactly the same spirit, and possibly in almost the same
+phraseology.[60]
+
+From the first the limitations of the Convention were disregarded. Short
+of armed intervention there was no machinery for enforcing them, and the
+Boers knew perfectly well that there was no real desire on the part of
+an embarrassed Government to raise a hornet's nest by making the
+attempt. The British resident, with his nominally autocratic powers, was
+a mere impotent laughing stock. The ruined loyalists left the country,
+or remained to become the most embittered enemies of the British
+Government. In three years a new Convention was drafted--an even greater
+masterpiece of make-believe than the first--which could be expounded to
+Parliament as a mere modification of certain unworkable provisions, but
+which the Boers took as a definite surrender of all claims to
+suzerainty, and as a definite recognition of their position as an
+"independent sovereign state," bound temporarily by the provisions of a
+treaty, which could have no permanent force in "fixing the boundary to
+the march of a nation." So far from being reconciled they were only
+emboldened to embark on a policy of aggression, which in 1885 involved
+the British Government in military measures costing nearly as much as
+would have been required to suppress the whole rising in 1881. For the
+time being the stagnation and chronic bankruptcy which followed the
+removal of British rule and the exodus of the loyalists limited
+Transvaal ambitions. The gold discoveries both increased that ambition
+by furnishing it with revenue, and at the same time brought about a
+close economic intercourse with the neighbouring colonies which, under
+the political conditions of disunion, was bound to create friction. In
+the end the policy of make-believe and "cutting the loss" had to be
+redeemed at the cost of 20,000 lives and of £200,000,000.
+Reconciliation, in large measure, has come since. But it has only come
+because British statesmen showed, firstly, in the war, their inflexible
+resolution to stamp out the policy of separation, and secondly, after
+the war, their devotion to the real welfare of South Africa in a policy
+of economic reconstruction, and in the establishment of those free and
+equal British institutions under which--by the final dying out of a
+spurious nationalism based on racial prejudice and garbled
+history--South Africa may become a real, living nation.
+
+The reservations and guarantees which this Home Rule Bill may contain
+cannot possibly constitute the framework of a federal constitution. All
+they can guarantee is a period of friction and agitation which will
+continue till Ireland has secured a position of complete separation from
+the United Kingdom. At the best the Home Rule experiment would then
+reduce Ireland to the position of another Newfoundland; at the worst it
+might repeat all the most disastrous features of the history of "Home
+Rule" in the Transvaal. At the same time it may be worth inquiring how
+far there would really be any valid Colonial analogy for the
+introduction of a federal system of "Home Rule all round" if such a
+scheme had been honestly contemplated. The first thing to keep in mind
+is that the internal constitution of the Dominions presents a whole
+gradation of constitutional types. There is the loose federal system of
+Australia, in which the Commonwealth powers are strictly limited and
+defined, and all residuary powers left to the States. There is the close
+confederation of Canada in which all residuary powers are vested in the
+Dominion. There is the non-federal unitary government of South Africa
+with a system of provincial local governments with somewhat wide county
+council powers. There is, lastly, the purely unitary government of the
+two islands of New Zealand. Each of these types is the outcome of
+peculiar geographical, economic, and historical conditions. To
+understand the federal system of Australia it is essential to remember
+that till comparatively recent times Australia consisted, to all
+intents, of four or five seaport towns, each with its own tributary
+agricultural and mining area, strung out, at distances varying from 500
+to 1300 miles, along the southern and eastern third of a coast line of
+nearly 9000 miles looped round an unexplored and reputedly uninhabitable
+interior. Each of these seaports traded directly with the United Kingdom
+and Europe in competition with the others. With economic motives for
+union practically non-existent, with external factors awakening a
+general apprehension rather than confronting Australia with any
+immediate danger, it was impossible to find the driving power to
+overcome local jealousies sufficiently to secure more than a minimum of
+union. The Commonwealth Constitution is a makeshift which, as the
+internal trade of Australia grows and as railway communications are
+developed, will inevitably be amended in the direction of increasing the
+power of the Commonwealth and diminishing that of the States. In Canada
+the economic link between Canada proper and the Maritime Provinces was,
+before Confederation, almost as weak as that of Australia. British
+Columbia, which it was hoped to include in the Confederation, was then
+separated by a journey of months from Eastern Canada, and was, indeed,
+much nearer to Australia or New Zealand. Quebec, with its racial and
+religious peculiarities, added another problem. That the Confederation
+was nevertheless such a close and strong one was due both to the menace
+of American power in the south, and to the terrible example of the
+weakness of the American constitution as made manifest by the Civil War.
+Yet even so, Sir John Macdonald, the father of Confederation, frankly
+declared the federal constitution a necessary evil--
+
+     "As regards the comparative advantages of a Legislative and a
+     Federal Union I have never hesitated to state my own opinions....
+     I have always contended that if we could agree to have one
+     government and one Parliament ... it would be the best, the
+     cheapest, the most vigorous, the strongest system of government we
+     could adopt."
+
+This also was the view of the framers of the South African Union. The
+circumstances of South Africa enabled them to carry it into effect. For
+all its extent, South Africa is geographically a single, homogeneous
+country with no marked internal boundaries. It is peopled by two white
+races everywhere intermixed in varying proportions and nowhere separated
+into large compact blocks. The immense preponderance and central
+position of the Rand mining industry makes South Africa practically a
+single economic system. The very bitterness of the long political and
+racial struggle which had preceded intensified the argument for really
+effective union.
+
+If we compare the conditions in the United Kingdom with those of the
+Dominions it is obvious at once that there is no possible analogy with
+the conditions of Canada or Australia, but a considerable analogy with
+South Africa and New Zealand. The British Isles are but little larger
+than the New Zealand group, and much more compact and homogeneous. Their
+close economic intercourse, the presence of two races with a history of
+strife behind them, but compelled by their inextricable geographical
+blending to confront the necessity of union, are reproduced in the
+conditions of South Africa. In so far then as the Colonial analogy bears
+upon the question at all, it cannot be said to be in favour of Federal
+Home Rule any more than of Separatist Home Rule. The most it can fairly
+be said to warrant is the establishment of provincial councils with
+powers akin to those of the South African Councils. For such councils,
+built up by the federation of adjoining counties and county boroughs,
+carrying out more effectively some of the existing powers of those
+bodies, and adding to them such other powers, legislative or
+administrative, as it may be convenient to bestow on them, a very strong
+case may be made on the grounds of the congestion of Parliamentary
+business. But that has nothing to do with Home Rule, either Separatist
+or Federal.
+
+But if the congestion of Parliamentary business might be appreciably
+relieved by some such provincial bodies--larger "national" bodies would
+only duplicate work, not relieve it--the true remedy for the confusion
+of principles and objectives which, rather than the mere waste of time,
+is the chief defect of our Parliamentary system, lies in a proper
+separation of the local affairs of the United Kingdom from the general
+work of the Empire, in other words, in some form of Imperial federation.
+What is needed is not the creation of separate parliaments _within_ the
+United Kingdom, but the creation of a separate Parliament _for_ the
+United Kingdom, a Parliament which should deal with the affairs of the
+United Kingdom considered as one of the Dominions, leaving the general
+problems of Imperial policy to a common Imperial Parliament or Council
+equally representative of the citizens of every Dominion. No form of
+Home Rule can in any sense advance that desirable solution of our
+Imperial problems. The creation of an additional Dominion in the shape
+of Ireland would merely add one to the number of units to be considered,
+and would be contrary to the spirit of the resolution passed at the 1897
+Conference, that it was desirable "wherever and whenever practicable, to
+group together under a federal union those Colonies which are
+geographically united." The problem would be no more affected by the
+setting up of a federal constitution for the United Kingdom, than it
+would be if South Africa decided, after all, to give her provinces
+federal powers, or Australia carried unification by a referendum. The
+notion that the Dominions could simply come inside the United Kingdom
+federation, though it sometimes figures in Home Rule speeches, is merely
+a product of the third form of confusion of ideas previously referred
+to, and is a sheer absurdity. The terms and conditions of a United
+Kingdom federation would necessarily differ in almost every respect from
+those of an Imperial Federation, and a constitution framed for the one
+object would be unworkable for the other. Nor would it ever be
+acceptable to the Dominions, which regard themselves as potentially, if
+not actually, the equals of the United Kingdom as a whole. From their
+point of view the United Kingdom might almost as well be asked to step
+inside the Australian Commonwealth on the footing of Tasmania, as that
+they should be asked to join in, in the capacity of an additional
+Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, under any scheme of "Home Rule all round."
+
+It should be sufficiently clear from the foregoing analysis that the
+vague and confused claim that the success of British Colonial policy is
+an argument for the Home Rule Bill has no shadow of justification. It
+has been shown, first of all, that the factor of success in our Colonial
+policy was not the factor of separatism implied in Home Rule, but the
+factor of responsible government already secured for Ireland by the
+Union. It has been shown, secondly, that the experience of the Colonies
+since the establishment of responsible government has in every case
+forced union upon them, and union in the closest form which the facts of
+trade and geography permitted of. Colonial experience is thus no
+argument even for a federal scheme of "Home Rule all round," if such a
+scheme could possibly result from an Irish Home Rule Bill, which it
+cannot. The disadvantages and dangers of the contrary policy of disunion
+have been shown, in their least noxious form in the case of
+Newfoundland, which has simply remained outside the adjoining Dominion,
+and in their deadliest form in the case of the Transvaal, where "Home
+Rule" was given in 1881, as it would be given to Ireland to-day, if the
+Government succeeded, not from conviction and whole-heartedly, but as a
+mean-spirited concession, made to save trouble, and under the most
+disingenuous and least workable provisions. Lastly, it has been made
+clear that Home Rule cannot possibly assist, but can only obscure and
+confuse, the movement for the establishment of a true Imperial Union.
+Unionists and Imperialists can choose no better ground for their
+resistance to Home Rule than the wide and varied field of Colonial
+experience.
+
+But Colonial experience can give us more than that. It can provide us
+not only with an immense mass of arguments and instances against
+disruption, but with invaluable instances of what can be done to
+strengthen and build up the Union against all possible future danger of
+disruptive tendencies. The confederation of Canada was accomplished in
+the teeth of all the geographical and economic conditions of the time.
+Canadian statesmanship thereupon set itself to transform geography, and
+to divert the course of trade in order to make the Union a reality. The
+Intercolonial Railway, the Canadian Pacific, the Grand Trunk Pacific,
+the proposed Hudson Bay Railway, and the Georgian Bay Canal schemes, all
+these have been deliberate instruments of policy, aiming, first of all,
+at bridging the wilderness between practically isolated settlements
+scattered across a continent, and creating a continuous Canada, east and
+west; and, secondly, at giving that continuous strip depth as well as
+extension. Hand in hand with the policy of constructing the internal
+framework of transportation, which is the skeleton of the economic and
+social life of a nation, went the policy of maintaining a national
+tariff to clothe that skeleton with the flesh and blood of production
+and exchange, and, as far as possible, to clothe it evenly. Australia,
+too, is waking, though somewhat hesitatingly, to the need of
+transcontinental railways, for the protection of new industries and for
+the even development and filling up of all her territories. In South
+Africa the economic process preceded the political. It was the dread of
+the breakdown of a temporary customs union already in existence that
+precipitated the discussion of union. And it was the development of the
+Rand as the great internal market of South Africa, and the competitive
+construction of railway lines from the coast, that really decided the
+question of legislative union against federation. All three instances
+lead to the same conclusion that union to be really effective and stable
+needs three things: firstly, a developed system of internal
+communications reducing all natural barriers to social, political, and
+commercial intercourse to the very minimum; secondly, a national tariff,
+protective or otherwise, sufficient at least to encourage the fullest
+flow of trade along those communications rather than outside of them;
+thirdly, a deliberate use of the tariff and of the national expenditure
+to secure, as far as possible, the even development of every portion of
+the national territory.
+
+In the United Kingdom all these instruments for making the Union real
+are still unutilised. The system of _laisser faire_ in the matter of
+internal communications has allowed St. George's Channel still to remain
+a real barrier. A dozen train-ferries, carrying not only the railway
+traffic between Great Britain and Ireland, but enabling the true west
+coast of the United Kingdom to be used for transatlantic traffic, would
+obliterate that strip of sea which a British minister recently urged as
+an insuperable objection to a democratic union.[61] To construct them
+would not be doing as much, relatively, as little Denmark has long since
+done, by the same means, to unite her sea-divided territory. The
+creation of a tariff which shall assist not only manufactures, but
+agriculture and rural industries, is another essential step. In view of
+Ireland's undeveloped industrial condition the giving of bounties to the
+establishment in Ireland of new industries, such as the silk industry,
+would be a thoroughly justifiable extension of the Unionist policy
+carried out through the Congested Districts Board and the Department of
+Agriculture. The diversion to Ireland of a larger part of the general
+national and Imperial expenditure, whether by the establishment of a
+naval base, or the giving out of battleship contracts, or even only of
+contracts for Army uniforms, would also be of appreciable assistance to
+Ireland and to the Union. Ireland suffers to-day economically and
+politically, from the legacy of political separation in the eighteenth
+century, and of economic disunion in the nineteenth. It is the business
+of Unionists not only to maintain the legal framework of the Union, but
+to give it a vitality and fulness of content which it has never
+possessed.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 54: Speech at Whitechapel, Oct. 10, 1911. There is an almost
+identical passage in Mr. Redmond's article in _McClure's Magazine_ for
+October, 1910. Sir J. Simon, the Solicitor-General, has since
+perpetrated the same absurdity (Dewsbury, Feb. 6, 1912).]
+
+[Footnote 55: The usual rhetorical appeal to "What Home Rule has done in
+South Africa" presents, indeed, a most perfect specimen of the confusion
+of thought which it is here attempted to analyse. For no sooner had the
+Transvaal received "Home Rule" (_i.e._ responsible government) than it
+surrendered the "Home Rule" (_i.e._ separate government) which it had
+previously enjoyed in order to enter the South African Union. Stripped
+of mere verbal confusion the argument from the Transvaal analogy then
+runs somewhat as follows: "The Transvaal is now contented because it
+enjoys free representative institutions as an integral portion of a
+United South Africa; therefore, Ireland cannot be contented until she
+ceases to be a freely represented integral portion of the United
+Kingdom!"]
+
+[Footnote 56: Quoted on p. 54.]
+
+[Footnote 57: The position of New Zealand, outside the Australian
+Commonwealth, is no parallel. New Zealand is almost as far from
+Australia as Newfoundland is from the British Isles; it differs from
+Australia in every climatic and physical feature; there is comparatively
+little trade between them.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Mr. Asquith at St. Andrews, Dec. 7, 1910.]
+
+[Footnote 59: See "The _Times_' History of the South African War," vol.
+I. pp. 67 _et seq._]
+
+[Footnote 60: _Cf_. Mr. J. Redmond on the third reading of the Home Rule
+Bill of 1893. "The word 'provisional,' so to speak, has been stamped in
+red ink across every page of the Bill. I recognise that the Bill is
+offered as a compromise and accepted as such.... England has no right to
+ask from Irish members any guarantee of finality in its acceptance."]
+
+[Footnote 61: Colonel Seely at Newry, December 9, 1911.]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE CONTROL OF JUDICIARY AND POLICE
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.
+
+
+The various forecasts, inspired and uninspired, of the new Home Rule
+Bill which have been given to us, have shed little light upon the future
+of the Irish Judiciary and Police. The two previous Bills contemplated
+the handing over of the control of the whole administration of justice
+in Ireland to the Irish Executive after an interval, in the first case
+of two years, and in the later Bill, of six years. We may assume that,
+whatever period of grace may be allowed to us under the coming measure,
+it will propose to vest this control in the Irish Government within six
+years. The interposition of any interval at all will probably be
+regarded by Ministers as a concession to Unionist fears and as one of
+the "safeguards" in which the minority will be urged to place its trust.
+It must be realised at once that, so far from this interval making the
+transition from British justice to Irish intrigue easier and more safe,
+it may have precisely the contrary effect. Once the Irish police are
+convinced that they are about to be delivered into the hands of the
+secret organisations who have been the most successful and relentless
+enemies of public order in Ireland, a paralysis must fall upon the
+force. During the closing years of the transition, at all events, the
+Royal Irish Constabulary will be given nominal responsibility for the
+peace of the country without any opportunity effectually to preserve it.
+It would be fairer and better to cast upon puppet nominees of the
+Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood the
+responsibility and odium of controlling the passions that they have
+helped to raise. The present judges would of course continue to do
+their duty without fear or favour, but it is impossible that the
+sentence passed upon them and the system of law and government for which
+they stand could leave their authority unimpaired. We have recently seen
+in England how easy it may be to stir up popular clamour against judges
+who administer the law without regard to the prejudices of any political
+party. Directly the Irish Courts sought to translate the paper
+safeguards of the Home Rule Bill into practical effect, they would be
+faced by the violent hostility of an ignorant and excitable assembly
+stimulated by an irresponsible and inexperienced executive. The result
+would be recriminations and friction which must deplorably injure and
+lower the reputation and prestige of both the Executive and the
+Judiciary.
+
+The first thing necessary for securing public and private liberty in a
+country like Ireland, where party feeling runs high and internal
+disputes have a bitterness from which more fortunate countries are free,
+is a strong independent and impartial administration of the law. This
+can only be secured by freeing the Courts from any kind of interference
+or control on the part of the Executive, and by ensuring that the whole
+armed forces of the Executive should be at the disposal of the Courts
+for executing and enforcing their decrees. Let us only assume a case to
+arise after the statutory period had elapsed, such as is now of frequent
+occurrence in the Irish Courts. The Land Judge, for instance, or the
+Judge of the Court of Bankruptcy, finds it necessary to order the arrest
+of the chairman and secretary of a local branch of the United Irish
+League for interfering by gross intimidation with a sale under the order
+of his Court. The case excites a good deal of local feeling and the
+arrests can only be effected by the employment of a large force of armed
+police. The question is raised on a motion for adjournment in the Irish
+House of Commons. The majority of the members owe their seats to the
+intervention of the United Irish League, many of them--perhaps
+most--have themselves been in similar conflicts with the Court. The
+result is that Ministers have to choose between a refusal of the police
+and expulsion from office. Once the Government could decide which
+decrees of the Judiciary it would enforce and which it would not, the
+technical immovability of the Judges would be irrelevant, since the real
+control of justice would be vested, not in the courts but in the
+executive Ministers in Dublin Castle. The very existence of the
+limitations and safeguards foreshadowed in the coming Home Rule Bill
+would naturally tempt the Irish Government to adopt a policy which would
+reduce to a minimum the effective power of these restraints upon the
+popular will. The most obvious way of attaining this result would be to
+keep the police, and with them the judicature, in a position of greater
+dependence upon the Executive than is consistent with the supremacy of
+law and the safety of private rights and individual freedom.
+
+We must remember that the men who would have the control of the new
+Irish Government would be those who have spent the greater part of their
+lives in violent conflict with the attempts of the Irish Courts to
+secure respect for the elementary rights of property and of personal
+freedom in Ireland. Power which has been won by the open violation of
+every principle of English law, is not likely either to assert the
+authority it has lived by defying to maintaining the independence of the
+courts and institutions which have been its deadliest opponents. The
+corruption of judicial authority and prestige in Ireland will be
+accomplished by entrenching the Executive behind large and shadowy
+discretionary powers, and also by manipulating the personnel and
+jurisdiction of the judges and magistracy throughout the country. The
+most deplorable movement in modern Nationalism is the attempt to
+introduce into Irish politics the worst methods of American political
+corruption. There have recently sprung into prominence in Ireland two
+societies which are in some respects the most sinister, the most
+immoral, and the most destructive of those which have corrupted and
+infected public life in the country. These two--the Ancient Order of
+Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood--have in common the
+secrecy of their operations and the destructiveness of their aims. Their
+influence is marked not only by despotic and tyrannical government, but,
+what may be even more mischievous from the point of view of the
+community, by the deliberate persecution and suppression of all
+independent thought. Those who have watched the proceedings of the
+Dublin Corporation have felt the increasing strength of an influence
+proceeding from Belfast--an influence which is threatening to control
+the whole course of Nationalist politics in Dublin and the south. The
+forces of influence, combination, and intimidation which forced the
+Budget on a reluctant Ireland and routed the Roman Catholic Hierarchy
+over the Insurance Bill will not be disbanded under Home Rule. On the
+contrary, they are now being exercised so as to enable the Board of Erin
+to absorb the older organisations and to place in the hands of its
+leaders--or rather in those of a single man--the nomination of most, if
+not all, the representatives of the Nationalist party in Ireland. Mr.
+Joseph Devlin, who seeks to build this vast power, is a politician of
+American ideals and sympathies, and under the guidance of his
+organisation politics in Ireland would be shaped after the model of
+Tammany Hall rather than that of St. Stephen's. The party which appoints
+the municipal officers of Dublin in secret caucus, meeting for reasons
+which are never avowed and after debates which are never published, is
+only waiting to extend its operations. Even now it is notorious that the
+magistrates' bench in Ireland is regularly and systematically "packed"
+whenever licensing or agrarian cases are under discussion. The
+scandalous inaction of the present Irish Executive in reference to
+cattle driving and other forms of organised intimidation, the failure to
+enforce the law and the absolute immunity which the present Chief
+Secretary has persistently allowed to Nationalist Members of Parliament
+and paid organisers in incitement to outrage and intimidation, have
+paralysed the administration of justice and disheartened and disgusted
+the Judiciary, the Magistrates, and the Police. But under Home Rule the
+measure of protection which is still afforded by a strong and
+independent Bench would be removed. The Resident Magistrate would be as
+much under the heel of the caucus as the local justice; the Recorder's
+Bench and even the High Court would be constantly subjected to
+influences of a mischievous and incalculable kind. Whatever may be said
+against the present occupants of the Judicial Bench, their integrity and
+fairness have never been seriously questioned. Since the days when the
+Irish judges issued a writ of _habeas corpus_ for the release of Wolfe
+Tone, while the Irish Rebellion was actually in progress, they have
+consistently held an even balance between the two parties. Their
+learning, their impartiality and their wit have rightly made Irish
+judges respected throughout the world. Their reputation and their
+services alike demand that they shall not be set aside wantonly or
+without consideration. But there is no doubt that Home Rule must mean
+the end of the Irish Bench as we have seen it in history. The men who
+have been proud to represent the British Crown would resent with
+indignation the idea that they should become the tools of the Hibernian
+caucus. They realise that the judges who oppose the lawless will of
+popular ministers will have to face obloquy and perhaps direct attack in
+the Irish Parliament. Even if the concurrence of both Houses in the
+Irish Parliament were made necessary for the removal of judges, it would
+not adequately safeguard their independence. The lower House would be
+composed of the men whom Nationalist constituencies already return to
+Parliament--excitable, fierce partisans, always ready to subordinate
+private convictions to the exigencies of party discipline. Nor would
+there be in Ireland under Home Rule any power or influence, either of
+property or station, sufficiently strong to furnish a constituency which
+would return a senate representing interests, opinions, or desires
+substantially distinct from those of the more powerful House elected
+upon the wider suffrage.
+
+The situation has been strongly complicated by the promulgation of the
+_Motu Proprio_ decree, and the refusal of the authorities of the Roman
+Catholic Church to say definitely whether it applies to Ireland or not.
+We may assume that, if Archbishop Walsh could have given a categorical
+denial to the statement that the decree must operate in Ireland under
+Home Rule, he would have done so. The decree _Motu Proprio_ forbids any
+Roman Catholic to bring his priest or bishop into court under pain of
+excommunication. The Roman Catholic Church has made many similar efforts
+during history to oust the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, and each
+attempt has had to be sharply and sternly resisted by the civil
+authorities of Roman Catholic countries. We need not discuss how much
+there may be said from a theological standpoint for the decree; we are
+only concerned to show that it raises pretensions which no State can
+possibly permit to be recognised. There have been too many attempts,
+successful and unsuccessful, to oust the jurisdiction of the King's
+Courts in Ireland, for this new attempt to be viewed with equanimity.
+The United Irish League has set up courts which try men for imaginary
+offences committed during the exercise of their ordinary civil rights,
+and pass illegal sentences and inflict illegal punishments. Under the
+reign of Liberal Governments the writ of these courts runs where the
+King's writ cannot run, and the law of the League has been allowed in
+great measure to supersede the law of the land. We have also an
+increasing force in Irish Nationalism which seeks to paralyse the
+government of Ireland by means of the general or sympathetic strike.
+This organisation seeks to establish courts in Ireland in opposition to
+the ordinary law courts, and to enforce their decrees by means of
+illegal intimidation and outrage. The people of Ireland have therefore
+been familiarised with the idea of courts competing in authority with
+those of the King's Government. Supposing under Home Rule the Judiciary
+proved less pliable than was expected or desired, the development of
+such competing authorities would be facilitated by a complaisant
+Cabinet in Dublin. But of all attempts to over-ride the authority of law
+this conspiracy to exempt ecclesiastical persons from its scope is the
+most insidious and dangerous. The existence of a class of men answerable
+for their actions, not to any domestic tribunal, but to a foreign
+ecclesiastical court, cannot now be tolerated by any self-respecting
+Government. Yet it is not easy to see how an Irish Cabinet could refuse
+to make, by executive if not by legislative action, what is now the law
+of the Church eventually the law of Ireland. Against this danger no
+safeguards can be devised. If the Administration refuses to put the law
+into effective operation against a certain class of offender or abuses
+the prerogative of mercy in his favour, there is no power in the
+constitution to coerce it. A few years ago we saw in Ireland the
+extraordinary spectacle of persons being prosecuted for cattle-driving
+and similar offences, while those who openly incited them to crime
+escaped with impunity. We saw judges from the Bench complaining in vain
+that the real offenders were not brought before them, and criticising
+openly the negligence and partiality of the Crown. If the Nationalists,
+whose influence then paralysed the aims of the Government, ever get
+supreme control of the Executive, we are certain to see these abuses
+revived on a still more shocking scale. The operation of the new decree
+places the Roman Catholic minister or law officer who is called upon to
+administer justice under the terms of his oath in a position of cruel
+embarrassment. As a law officer it might be his duty to order the
+prosecution of some clerical offender; as a Roman Catholic compliance
+with his duty to the State must entail the awful consequences of
+excommunication. It needs no elaboration to show that what may be a
+grave embarrassment under the rule of impartial British Ministers, must
+under a local Irish Government develop into a danger to the State. A
+case recently tried at the Waterford Assizes establishes a precedent
+which may prove most mischievous. Recent illustrations in Ireland of the
+working of the _Temere_ decree have secured for it a sort of
+quasi-legality and provided a great argument to those devout Churchmen
+who, under Home Rule, would naturally desire to carry the process a
+further step.
+
+We have proceeded on the assumption that the Irish Parliament
+would--formally, at least--confine itself within the limits prescribed
+by the law of its creation. But it is necessary at least to contemplate
+the possibility that it would prove less complaisant. The safeguards and
+limitations inserted in any Act of the kind must of necessity be couched
+in general terms. The constitutional history of the United States and
+other countries is full of cases showing how difficult it is to define
+in practice where the border line between _intra_ and _ultra vires_
+comes. It is the custom of all Governments, if there is any possible
+room for debate as to their competence to take any particular line of
+action, to give themselves the fullest benefit of the doubt, and the
+Irish Government is unlikely to prove any exception to the rule. When
+the Judicature and all the forces of Executive Government, except the
+direct command of troops, is in their hands, the laws passed by the
+Irish Parliament could be put in force in Ireland. The British
+Government could not intervene except by acts which would amount to open
+war between the two countries. We must remember that this enforcement of
+Irish laws by Irish police in spite of the decisions of a "foreign"
+Government at Westminster is openly advocated and contemplated by the
+large and active section of the Nationalists who have adopted as their
+watchword the motto "Ourselves alone" (_Sinn Fein_). Nothing could be
+more futile than the idea that the judgments of the Judicial Committee
+of the Privy Council would ever be accepted as final by the Nationalist
+majority, or that the royal assent could ever be withheld from an Act
+constitutionally passed by the Irish Legislature, without precipitating
+a crisis. The result of applying the veto of the House of Lords in
+England to the measures of Liberal Ministers was the agitation for
+removing the veto. The Nationalists took part in that agitation and have
+learned its lesson. Directly the British Government asserts its
+technical right of veto, a similar agitation to get rid of all
+obnoxious restraints would arise in Ireland.
+
+If anything could increase the danger of friction, it would be the
+scheme favoured by Mr. Erskine Childers and other Liberals of submitting
+constitutional questions to the decision of the British Privy Council
+reinforced by Irish judges. Either these judges would concur in verdicts
+given against the pretensions of the Irish Parliament or they would not.
+If they did concur, there would be a fierce outcry against the right of
+judges appointed under the Union Government to nullify Acts of the Irish
+Legislature. But if they did not concur, the patriotic indignation with
+which a decision over the heads of the Irish representatives would be
+received is easy to foresee. It would be a matter of the greatest
+difficulty to enforce any such decision when the Irish Government,
+supported by an agitation in the country, refused to be bound by it. The
+situation thus created has no parallel in the case of the colonies. In
+Canada or Australia, where the legislative power is divided between
+federal and provincial Parliaments, a decision that the one legislature
+is incompetent affirms the competence of the other. Both legislatures
+have on the spot proper means of enforcing, by judicial and executive
+authority, decisions which are within their powers. The case of Ireland
+is fundamentally different. There can be no half-way house between
+keeping Ireland a partner in all our legislative and judicial
+activities, or giving to her with a separate Executive uncontrolled and
+unchecked rights of internal sovereignty.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE ULSTER QUESTION
+
+BY THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY, K.G.
+
+
+In the Home Rule controversy to-day Ulster occupies the place of public
+interest. Lord Rosebery upon one occasion committed himself to the
+opinion that, before Home Rule was conceded by the Imperial Parliament,
+England, as the predominant member of the partnership of the three
+kingdoms, would have to be convinced of its justice.[62] He did not
+foresee that the party of which he was then the leader would, under
+duress, abandon even the pretence of consulting the "predominant
+partner," much less be guided by its wishes. But it has come to pass:
+and Ulster alone remains the stumbling-block to the successful issue of
+the plot against the Constitution. By Ulster we do not mean, as Mr.
+Sinclair points out, the geographical area, but the district which
+historical events have made so different in every respect from the rest
+of Ireland.
+
+In the Act of Union I have a personal interest from family connection. I
+am convinced that Lord Castlereagh was absolutely right on both Imperial
+and Irish grounds. I feel that so far as Ireland is concerned the
+conditions and position of Ulster to-day afford ample confirmation: and
+of Ulster I may claim to have some knowledge. I represented County Down
+in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster before it was divided into
+constituencies, and in my later days I have maintained my close interest
+in Ulster. At the least, then, I may say that the temperament, the
+political and religious convictions, and the character of Ulster
+Unionists are not unknown to me.
+
+I often read of "the Ulster bogey;" and I believe Mr. John Redmond once
+devoted an article in a Sunday paper to elaborate statistical
+calculations from which he drew the deduction that there was no Ulster
+question. Other Home Rulers, by an expert use of figures, show that
+there is a Home Rule majority in Ulster itself. To those who know Ulster
+their efforts fail to carry the slightest conviction. Figures, however
+skilfully chosen, articles in the press, however cleverly written,
+cannot destroy the facts of Ulster Unionist opposition to Home Rule, the
+intensity and seriousness of which is, I believe, only now beginning to
+be appreciated by His Majesty's Ministers.
+
+I hear of "Ulster bigots," "Ulster deadheads," and assertions made that
+the opposition only proceeds from a few aristocratic Tory landlords.
+Hard words do us no harm; but abusive epithets will not lessen Ulster
+opposition. Indeed the more we are reviled by our opponents, the more we
+believe they recognize the futility of persuading us to accept Home
+Rule.
+
+We read of the intense anxiety of Irish Nationalists on English
+platforms lest even the suspicion of intolerance should cloud their
+administration and legislation under Home Rule, with interest but
+without respect. We do not believe in these sudden repentances, and we
+have heard these professions time and again when the exigencies of the
+moment demanded them.
+
+The spirit of change has even affected the Government. At first Ulster
+was to be ignored; now it is to be conciliated. There is no safeguard
+that they will not insert in the Bill at our request. The First Lord of
+the Admiralty has a list already prepared; and they will welcome
+additions. Mr. Redmond accepts them all; and the fact that he does it
+readily raises our suspicions of their worth. Has not Mr. John Dillon
+said that artificial guarantees in an Act of Parliament were no real
+protection,[63] and for once it is possible to agree with him.
+
+Why should "bigots" be conciliated; or "deadheads" receive so much
+consideration? Why should the opposition of aristocratic Tory landlords
+be thought worthy of respect? Whenever have they been treated in this
+manner before by the Government in their schemes of legislation?
+
+That our views receive so much attention is indeed the proof of the
+falsity of these hard names. Opposition to Home Rule in Ulster proceeds
+not from "bigots" or "deadheads," not from "Tories," or "aristocrats,"
+or "landlords" exclusively. It is neither party question, nor class
+question. It has destroyed all differences between parties and classes.
+I doubt if there are any more democratic organizations than those of the
+Ulster Unionist Council, the Unionist Clubs, and the Orangemen. Nor are
+the religious bodies less popularly organized--the Church of Ireland,
+the Presbyterians, and other Protestant denominations have no class
+restrictions in their government. And as for party distinctions, those
+of us who took part in the old political contests before Home Rule
+became an urgent danger are now side by side in this greater fight for
+our very existence.
+
+What stronger evidence that opposition to Home Rule in Ulster is no
+party question is to be found than in the disappearance of the Liberal
+Party. I can remember when it was powerful; but it has vanished before
+the threat of Home Rule. All attempts to resuscitate the corpse have
+failed, and a Liberal Party, independent of the Nationalists,
+representing Ulster constituencies in the House of Commons, in spite of
+repeated efforts, does not exist.
+
+Let me impress upon the people of Great Britain that Ulster opposition
+to Home Rule is no party matter. It is an uprising of a people against
+tyranny and coercion; against condemnation to servitude; against
+deprivation of the right of citizens to an effective voice in the
+government of the country.
+
+Mr. Birrell said recently at Bristol that Ulster would be right to fight
+if it were oppressed in its religion or despoiled of its property. We
+welcome his conversion. When he pleads for Ulster to wait until it is
+plain that oppression has come, we recall to mind the phrase so often on
+Liberal lips, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and we say
+that we should be false to ourselves and to our trust if we were
+unprepared for what the future will bring under Home Rule.
+
+For our opposition to Home Rule we are condemned by the Irish
+Nationalists as the enemies of our country. We believe ourselves to be
+its best friends. We believe Home Rule to be the greatest obstacle to
+Irish progress and prosperity. Irish Nationalists have made Home Rule
+their only idol and denounce every one who will not worship at its
+shrine. Every reform, unless they thought that it tended to advance Home
+Rule or magnify their powers, has received their hostility, sometimes
+open and avowed, at other times secret and working through devious ways.
+
+No one who reads the history of Ulster can doubt that its inhabitants
+have not as much love of Ireland and as much wish to see her prosperous
+as the Nationalists. They indeed attribute all Irish shortcomings to the
+Union. Ulstermen, bearing in mind their own progress since the Union,
+not unnaturally decline to accept so absurd an argument. The Union has
+been no obstacle to their development: why should it have been the
+barrier to the rest of Ireland? Ulstermen believe that the Union with
+Great Britain has assisted the development of their commerce and
+industry. They are proud of the progress of Belfast and of her position
+in the industrial and shipping world. Without great natural advantages
+it has been built up by energy, application, clearheadedness and hard
+work. The opposition to Home Rule is the revolt of a business and
+industrial community against the domination of men who have shown no
+aptitude for either. The United Irish League, the official organization
+of the Home Rule Party, is, as a Treasurer once confessed, remarkably
+lacking in the support of business men, merchants, manufacturers,
+leaders of industry, bankers, and men who compose a successful and
+progressive community.[64] In the management of their party funds, their
+impending bankruptcy but a few years ago, the mad scheme of New
+Tipperary, and the fiasco of the Parnell Migration Company there is the
+same monotonous story of failure. Can surprise be felt that Ulstermen
+refuse to place the control of national affairs in the hands of those
+who have shown little capacity in the direction of their own personal
+concerns. What responsible statesman would suggest that the City of
+London, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, or any advancing
+industrial and commercial centre in Great Britain should be ruled and
+governed and taxed, without the hope of effective intervention, by a
+party led by Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Lansbury? Yet Home Rule means much
+like that for Ulstermen, and the impossibility of the scheme is
+emphasized in the example of Ireland by religious differences which have
+their roots in Irish history.
+
+Ulster's opposition to Home Rule is no unreasoning hate. It proceeds not
+from the few; it is not the outcome of political prejudice; it is the
+hostility of a progressive and advancing people who have made their
+portion of their country prosperous and decline to hand it over to the
+control of representatives from the most backward and unprogressive
+counties.
+
+They are actuated by love of their country. They yield to no one in
+their patriotism and their desire for Ireland's welfare. They have
+always given their support to movements which have had for their objects
+the improvement of Irish conditions and the increase of Irish
+well-being. Their sympathies are with Irish social reform--and the
+sympathies of many of them with social reform of an advanced character.
+Contrast their attitude with that of the Irish Nationalist Party in
+respect of reforms which have proceeded from the Imperial Parliament and
+movements within Ireland herself.
+
+Take the Irish Land Act of 1903, accepted by both political parties in
+Great Britain as affording the real solution of the Irish agrarian
+problem. What has been the Irish Nationalist attitude? Praise for it on
+platforms in the United States when it was essential to reach the
+pockets of subscribers by recounting a record of results gained from
+the expenditure of American donations; but in Ireland itself opposition
+to its effective working. Read Nationalist speeches and there is always
+running through them the fear that the Act by solving the land question
+would remove the real motive power which made Home Rule a living issue.
+Hence the interference to prevent landlords and tenants coming to an
+agreement over sales without outside assistance. So to-day Irish
+Nationalists are still endeavouring to keep alive the old bad feeling
+between landlord and tenant which they so successfully created in the
+seventies and eighties. What better proof of this deliberate attempt to
+prevent the success of a great reform is to be found than the frank
+utterance of Mr. John Dillon at Swinford.[65] "It has been said," he
+declared, "that we have obstructed the smooth working of the Act. I wish
+to heaven we had the power to obstruct the smooth working of the Act
+more than we did. It has worked too smoothly--far too smoothly to my
+mind.... Some men have complained with the past year that the Land Act
+was not working fast enough. For my part I look upon it as working a
+great deal too fast, and at a pace which has been ruinous to the
+people." What have the Ulster people done which can compare with this
+opposition to a measure that has admittedly effected a beneficial
+revolution in Irish agrarian life? Yet Mr. John Dillon is acclaimed as a
+true Irish patriot and we are denounced as the enemies of our country!
+
+What greater blow to the continuance of land purchase than the Birrell
+Act of 1909. Granted that some revision of the law was necessary in
+respect of finance; yet, the Act of 1909 went far beyond finance. Any
+one with a knowledge of land purchase law knows that the measure of 1909
+contained innumerable provisions of a technical character calculated to
+make the free sale between landlord and tenant difficult, and in respect
+of a large portion of Ireland impossible. No wonder it was welcomed by
+the Irish Nationalist Party, since it did so much to restore them to
+their self-elected position of counsellors and arbiters in the affairs
+of the tenants. And Ulster Unionists for declining to accede to this
+re-establishment of the old supremacy of the agitators are regarded as
+the opponents of liberty and freedom!
+
+The same sad story of Nationalist opposition to Irish progress meets the
+student of the co-operative movement at every period of its existence.
+No one who knows Sir Horace Plunkett will believe for a moment that he
+was actuated by other than the sole desire to do something for Ireland's
+benefit. From the leaders of the Nationalist Party he has had no
+assistance, although they claim to be the only workers for Irish
+progress, and the co-operative movement was intended to complete the
+agrarian revolution. In more recent times the hostility of the
+Nationalist leaders has become bolder as they found a ready instrument
+in Mr. T. W. Russell in his official capacity as Vice-President of the
+Department of Agriculture.
+
+The co-operative movement is flourishing in spite of the opposition of
+the Nationalist leaders. From Ulster it has received considerable
+support for the reason that Ulstermen believed it to be for the benefit
+of Irish agriculture. Their support, unlike Nationalist hostility, has
+not arisen from political motives. They do not believe that Sir Horace
+Plunkett has given a moment's thought to politics in their relation to
+the co-operative movement, and they have appreciated his movement either
+as co-operators or as supporters and members of the Irish Agricultural
+Organization Society. Contrast the Ulster welcome with the Nationalist
+opposition, and ask why we should be denounced as bad Irishmen and the
+Nationalists receive praise as true lovers of Ireland.
+
+The co-operative movement has brought into existence another movement
+which has for its object the prosperity of Irish industries. The
+Industrial Development movement which seeks to bring before the people
+of Ireland and the Irish public bodies the excellence of Irish
+manufactures is as yet in its infancy. It has no political character,
+yet I should hesitate to say that official Irish Nationalism gives it
+hearty support. In Belfast, however, it has made great strides. It gains
+its support in Ulster not for any political reason, but simply and
+solely because the North of Ireland thinks that the industrial movement
+is to Ireland's advantage.
+
+Where in these instances is our "bigotry" or our hostility to Irish
+progress? Does not the balance of credit when the comparison is made
+with the Nationalists come on the side of Ulster? The Nationalists show
+their unreasoning opposition by proclaiming that they would rather see
+Ireland in rags and poverty than abate their demand for Home Rule.
+Ulster Unionists desire to see Ireland prosperous and contented. For
+that reason they welcome all reforms and movements from whatever quarter
+which have this excellent end in view. They intend to offer the
+strongest and most unrelenting opposition to Home Rule not as political
+partisans for party gain, but as Irishmen determined to resist so
+reactionary a measure which they firmly believe will prove of the
+greatest evil to their unhappy country.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 62: House of Lords, March 12, 1894.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Salford, November 21, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote 64: Mr. A.J. Kettle, _Freeman's Journal,_ July 18, 1907.]
+
+[Footnote 65: September 10, 1906.]
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE POSITION OF ULSTER
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. THOS. SINCLAIR
+
+
+By Ulster, I mean the six counties, Antrim, Down, Londonderry, Armagh,
+Tyrone, Fermanagh, with the important adjacent Unionist sections of
+Monaghan, Cavan, and Donegal, in all of which taken together the
+Unionist population is in an unmistakable majority, and in which the
+commercial and manufacturing prosperity of the province is maintained by
+Unionist energy, enterprise, and industry.
+
+The relation of Ulster to a separate Irish Parliament, with an Executive
+responsible to it, is a question which demands the most serious
+consideration on the part of English and Scotch electors. The Ulster
+Scot is not in Ireland to-day upon the conditions of an ordinary
+immigrant. His forefathers were "planted" in Ulster in the troublous
+times of the seventeenth century. Although at the end of the reign of
+Queen Elizabeth peace had been secured all over Ireland, war was renewed
+in the Northern province early in the seventeenth century. The uprising
+was speedily crushed, and the lands of several of the rebellious nobles
+forfeited to the Crown. In order to prevent a repetition of lawlessness,
+the forfeited estates were entrusted to undertakers, on whom the
+obligation rested of peopling them with settlers from Great Britain.
+This scheme was devised in the hope that through the industry,
+character, and loyalty of the new population, the Northern province at
+all events should enjoy peace and prosperity, and become an attached
+portion of the King's dominions; and that eventually its influence would
+be usefully felt throughout the rest of Ireland. This policy was carried
+out under the rule of an English King, himself a Scot--James VI. of
+Scotland and I. of England. Large numbers of settlers were brought over
+to Ulster, many of them English, but the majority Scotch. We Ulster
+Unionists who inhabit the province to-day, or at least the greater
+number of us, are descendants of these settlers. The overwhelming
+majority are passionately loyal to the British Throne and to the
+maintenance of the integrity of the United Kingdom.
+
+These things being so, it seems to Ulster Unionists that a grave
+responsibility rests on their English and Scottish fellow-citizens, with
+regard to our position, should any constitutional changes be imposed
+upon our country. We are in Ireland as their trustees, having had
+committed to us, through their and our forefathers, the development of
+the material resources of Ulster, the preservation of its loyalty, and
+the discharge of its share of Imperial obligations.
+
+It cannot be denied, on an examination of the history of the last three
+centuries, and especially of that of the one hundred and ten years since
+the establishment of the Legislative Union, that, through good report
+and ill report, and allowing for all our shortcomings, we have not
+unsuccessfully fulfilled our trust. Our forefathers found a province,
+the least favoured by nature of the four of which Ireland consists, and
+it is to-day the stronghold of Irish industry and commerce. Its capital,
+Belfast, stands abreast of the leading manufacturing centres in Great
+Britain; it contains the foremost establishments in Europe, in respect
+of such undertakings as linen manufacturing, ship-building, rope-making,
+etc. It is the fourth port in the United Kingdom in respect of revenue
+from Customs, its contributions thereto being £2,207,000 in 1910, as
+compared with £1,065,000 from the rest of Ireland. Ulster's loyalty to
+the British King and Constitution is unsurpassed anywhere in His
+Majesty's dominions.
+
+The North of Ireland has contributed to Imperial service some of its
+greatest ornaments. England owes to Ulster Governors-General like Lord
+Dufferin and Lord Lawrence; soldiers like John Nicholson and Sir George
+White; administrators like Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Robert Montgomery;
+great judges like Lord Cairns and Lord Macnaghten. At the recent Delhi
+Durbar the King decorated three Ulster men, one of them being Sir John
+Jordan, British Ambassador at Pekin. Ulster produced Sir Robert Hart,
+the incomparable Chinese administrator, who might also have been our
+Ambassador to China had he accepted the position.
+
+The Ulster plantation is the only one which has fulfilled the purpose
+for which Irish plantations were made. The famous colonisation on both
+sides of the Shannon by Cromwell entirely failed of its design, the
+great proportion of its families having, through inter-marriage, become
+absorbed in the surrounding population.
+
+Ulster Unionists, therefore, having conspicuously succeeded in
+maintaining the trust committed to their forefathers, and constituting
+as they do a community intensely loyal to the British connection,
+believe that they present a case for the unimpaired maintenance of that
+connection which is impregnable on the grounds of racial sentiment,
+inherent justice, social well-being, and the continued security of the
+United Kingdom and of the Empire. They cannot believe that their British
+fellow-citizens will, at this crisis, turn a deaf ear to this claim.
+Three or four decades after the Ulster plantation, when, in the midst of
+the horrors of 1641, the Scotch colony in Ulster was threatened with
+extermination, it appealed for help to its motherland. It did not appeal
+in vain. A collection for its benefit was made in the Scottish churches,
+supplies of food and several regiments of Scottish soldiers were sent to
+its aid, and its position was saved. We are confident that the
+descendants of these generous helpers will be no less true to their
+Ulster kith and kin to-day.
+
+The history and present condition of Ulster throw an important light on
+what is currently described as the national demand of Ireland for Home
+Rule. There is no national Irish demand for Home Rule, because there
+never has been and there is no homogeneous Irish nation. On the
+contrary, as Mr. Chamberlain long ago pointed out, Ireland to-day
+consists of two nations. These two nations are so utterly distinct in
+their racial characteristics, in their practical ideals, in their
+religious sanctions, and in their sense of civic and national
+responsibility that they cannot live harmoniously side by side unless
+under the even-handed control of a just central authority, in which at
+the same time they have full co-partnership. Ireland, accordingly,
+cannot make a claim for self-government on the ground that she is a
+political unit. She consists of two units, which owe their distinctive
+existence, not to geographical boundaries, but to inherent and
+ineradicable endowments of character and aims. If, then, it is claimed
+that the unit of Nationalist Ireland is to be entitled to choose its
+particular relation to the British Constitution, the same choice
+undoubtedly belongs to the Unionist unit.
+
+But Mr. Birrell, for example, would tell us that the Nationalist unit in
+Ireland is three times as large as the Unionist unit, and that therefore
+the smaller entity should submit, because, as he has cynically observed,
+"minorities must suffer, for that is the badge of their tribe." But a
+minority in the United Kingdom is not to be measured by mere numbers;
+its place in the Constitution is to be estimated by its contribution to
+public well-being, by its relation to the industries and occupations of
+its members, by its association with the upbuilding of national
+character, by its fidelity to law and order, and by its sympathy with
+the world mission of the British Empire in the interests of civil and
+religious freedom. Tried by all these tests, Ulster is entitled to
+retain her full share in every privilege of the whole realm. Tried by
+the same tests the claim of 3,000,000 Irish Nationalists to break up the
+constitution of the United Kingdom, of whose population they constitute
+perhaps one-fifteenth, is surely unthinkable.
+
+Other writers in this volume have discussed Home Rule as it affects
+various vital interests in Ireland as a whole. It remains for me briefly
+to point out its special relation to the Northern province--
+
+1. _Home Rule, in the judgment of Ulster, would degrade the status of
+Ulster citizenship by impairing its relationship to Imperial
+Parliament._ This would be effected both by lessening or extinguishing
+the representation of Ulster in that Parliament, and by removing the
+control of Ulster rights and liberties from Imperial Parliament and
+entrusting it to a hostile Parliament in Dublin. Ulstermen would thus
+stand on a dangerously lower plane of civil privilege than their
+fellow-citizens in Great Britain. To place them in this undeserved
+inferiority, they hold to be unjust and cruel.
+
+2. _Home Rule would gravely imperil our civil and religious liberties._
+Ireland is pre-eminently a clerically controlled country, the number of
+Roman Catholic priests being per head greater than that of any country
+in Europe. Her staff of members of religious orders, male and female, is
+also enormous, their numbers having increased during the last fifty
+years 150 per cent., while the population has decreased 30 per cent. It
+is undeniable, therefore, that in a Dublin Parliament, the overwhelming
+majority of whose members would be adherents of the Roman Catholic
+faith, the Roman ecclesiastical authority, which claims the right to
+decide as to what questions come within the region of faith and morals
+would be supreme. Great stress has lately been laid in Nationalist
+speeches from British platforms on the tolerant spirit towards
+Protestants which animates Irish Roman Catholics. We gladly acknowledge
+that in most parts of Ireland Protestants and Roman Catholics, as
+regards the ordinary affairs of life, live side by side on friendly
+neighbourly terms. Indeed, that spirit, as a consequence of the growing
+prosperity of Ireland, had been steadily increasing, till the recent
+revival of the Home Rule proposal, with its attendant fears of
+hierarchical ascendency, as illustrated by the promulgation of the _Ne
+Temere_ decree, suddenly interrupted it. But the fundamental fact of the
+case is, that in the last resort, it is not with their Roman Catholic
+neighbours, or even with their hierarchy, that Irish Protestants have to
+reckon; it is rather with the Vatican, the inexorable power behind them
+all, whose decrees necessarily over-ride all the good-will which
+neighbourly feeling might inspire in the Roman Catholic mind. The _Ne
+Temere_ decree affords a significant premonition of the spirit which
+would direct Home Rule legislation. It is noteworthy that no Nationalist
+member has protested against the cruelties of that decree as shown in
+the M'Cann case, and Mr. Devlin, M.P., even defended what was done from
+his place in Parliament. This action is all the more significant in view
+of the fact that during the Committee stage of the 1893 Home Rule Bill
+Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Redmond, and his Irish Nationalist colleagues voted
+against, and defeated, an Ulster amendment which proposed to exempt
+marriage and other religious ceremonies from the legislative powers of
+the Dublin Parliament. It would be intolerable that such litigation as
+in the Hubert case at present in progress in Montreal, arising out of
+the Marriage Law of the Province of Quebec, should be made possible in
+Ireland. No paper safeguards in a Home Rule Bill could prevent it.
+
+Again, a most serious peril has just been disclosed in the publication
+of the _Motu Proprio_ Papal Decree, under which the bringing by a Roman
+Catholic layman of a clergyman of his Church into any civil or criminal
+procedure in a court of law, whether as defendant or witness, without
+the sanction previously ob tamed of his bishop, involves to that layman
+the extreme penalty of excommunication. The same penalty appears to be
+incurred _ipso facto_ by any Roman Catholic Member of Parliament who
+takes part in passing, and by every executive officer of the Government
+who takes part in promulgating, a law or decree which is held to invade
+the liberty or rights of the Church of Rome. This is a matter of supreme
+importance in our civil life. It was one of the questions which, in
+Reformation times, led to the breach between Henry VIII. and the Pope.
+In a Dublin Parliament no power could resist the provisions of this
+decree from becoming law. As a matter of fact, the liberty of speech and
+voting attaching to every member of the Roman Catholic majority in a
+Dublin Parliament would be under the absolute control of their
+hierarchy. Each Roman Catholic member would be bound to act under the
+dread of excommunication if he voted for or condoned any legislation
+contrary to the asserted rights of his Church, or which conflicted with
+its claims. Not only would the legislative independence of a Dublin
+Parliament be thus destroyed, but the administration of justice would be
+affected on every Bench in the country, from the Supreme Court of Appeal
+down to ordinary petty sessions. A grievous wrong would be inflicted on
+Roman Catholic judges and law officers, some of whom are unsurpassed for
+integrity and legal ability. It is contrary to every principle of
+justice to place these honourable men in a position in which they would
+have to choose between their oath to their King and their
+duty--arbitrarily imposed upon them--to their Church. Jurymen and
+witnesses would be equally brought under the sinister influences of the
+decree, and confidence in just administration of the law, which is at
+the root of civil well-being, would be fatally destroyed.
+
+3. _Home Rule would involve the entire denominationalising, in the
+interests of the Roman Catholic Church, of Irish education in all its
+branches._ To secure this result has long been the great educational aim
+of the Irish hierarchy. How they have succeeded as regards higher
+education Mr. Birrell's Irish Universities Act (1908) gives abundant
+evidence. The National University of Ireland, created by that Act, which
+on paper was represented to Nonconformists in England as having a
+constitution free from religious tests, is now, according to the recent
+boast of Cardinal Logue, thoroughly Roman Catholic, in spite of all
+paper safeguards to the contrary. Persistent attempts have been made to
+sectarianise the Irish primary National School system, founded seventy
+years ago, and which now receives an annual State endowment of
+£1,621,921, with the object of safeguarding the faith of the children of
+minorities, on the principle of united secular and separate religious
+instruction. That system worked so satisfactorily through many decades
+that Lord O'Hagan, the eminent first Roman Catholic Lord Chancellor of
+Ireland, declared that under it, up till his time, no case whatever of
+proselytism to any Church had occurred. But gradually a sectarian system
+of education under the Roman Catholic Church was developed through the
+teaching order of Christian Brothers, whose schools are now to be found
+all over Ireland, and which in many places now supplant the
+non-sectarian schools of the National Board. The strongest efforts were
+made to bring these sectarian schools into the system of the National
+Board, and thus entitle them to a share of the State annual endowment.
+There is no greater peril to the religious faith of Protestant
+minorities in the border counties of Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland
+than the sectarianising of primary schools by Roman Catholics. A few
+years ago a Protestant member of a public service was transferred upon
+promotion from Belfast to a Roman Catholic district, in which his boys
+had no available school but that of the Christian Brothers, and his
+girls none but that of the local convent. I shall never forget the
+expression of that man's face or the pathos in his voice while he
+pressed me to help him to obtain a transfer to a Protestant district, as
+otherwise he feared his children would be lost to the faith of their
+fathers. Given a Parliament in Dublin, the management of education would
+be so conducted as gradually to extinguish Protestant minorities in the
+border counties of Ulster and in the other provinces of Ireland. It is
+here that a chief danger to Protestantism lies.
+
+4. _Home Rule will seriously injure Ulster's material
+prosperity--industrial, commercial, agricultural._ The root of the evil
+will lie in the want of credit of an Irish Exchequer in the money
+markets of the world. The best financial authorities agree that if
+Ireland should be left to her own resources, there would be, on the
+present basis of taxation, and after providing for a fair Irish
+contribution towards Imperial defence, an annual deficit in the Irish
+Exchequer of £3,000,000 to £4,000,000. An Irish Government in such
+circumstances--consols themselves being now some £23 under par--could
+not borrow money at any reasonable rate of interest. Ever; if the
+British taxpayer were compelled to provide for the deficiency, either
+by an annual grant or by payment of a divorce penalty of £15,000,000 to
+£20,000,000, or by both, a prudent investor would fear that the annual
+dole might at any moment be withdrawn should, for instance, John Bull
+become irritated by the action of a Dublin Parliament, say, in declaring
+enlisting in His Majesty's forces a criminal act; or that the capital
+gift would soon be frittered away in the interests of agitators and
+their friends. He would simply refuse to invest in Irish stock.
+
+Now, a fundamental condition of commercial and industrial well-being is
+financial confidence. If the Public Exchequer of a country lacks
+confidence, it is a truism to say that consequently commercial
+confidence must be gravely impaired. The magnates of Lombard Street and
+Wall Street would view their Irish clients with unpleasant reserve.
+Irish bankers would in turn restrict advances to their customers, and
+these again would limit the credit of those with whom they transacted
+business. Curtailment of industrial enterprise, the shutting down of
+many manufacturing concerns, with consequent depreciation of buildings
+and plant, as well as increase of unemployment, would follow. Already,
+since the present Home Rule crisis has become acute, the handwriting on
+the wall has been made evident in the depreciation of leading Irish
+stocks to the extent of 15 to 20 per cent. Every one in trade would
+suffer from the diminution of purchasing power, capital would shrink,
+income and wages decrease, and the incentives to emigration, which is
+already depriving our population of some of its most hopeful elements,
+would be dangerously increased.
+
+All these tendencies would be stimulated by the social disorganisation
+which would certainly follow Home Rule. Unionist Ulster, from the Ulster
+Convention of 1892, to the Craigavon demonstration of 1911, has been
+consistent in her loyal determination that no Parliament but the
+Imperial Parliament shall control her destinies. It is an ignorant
+mistake to say that she is weakening in this resolve. The steadily
+increasing Unionist majorities in contested Ulster seats at both
+elections in 1910 conclusively prove that she is more staunch than ever
+in her Unionist faith. She would certainly resist the decrees of a
+Dublin Parliament and refuse to pay its taxes. The result of its passive
+resistance would be civil disorder, which would certainly gravely injure
+her industrial welfare, especially that of her artisan and working
+population. But Ulstermen ask, What is industrial prosperity without
+freedom? And if, in defence of freedom, they should suffer disaster, the
+responsibility would lie with their fellow-citizens in Great Britain who
+would impose a hostile yoke upon them.
+
+Under Home Rule, agricultural Ulster would also suffer. Very many Ulster
+farmers are now occupying owners. But a large number have not yet
+succeeded in purchasing, and these eagerly desire the privilege of doing
+so. Mr. Birrell's 1909 Act has already practically strangled further
+land purchase in Ireland, and if he intends that its completion should
+be the work of a Home Rule Parliament, the Ulster tenants ask where
+would the £75,000,000 to £100,000,000 necessary to accomplish the
+process, come from?[66] They know that the procuring of such a sum from
+an Irish Government would be hopeless, for they are aware that
+Englishmen have better judgment than to allow their Parliament to lend
+further money to a country over which they had relinquished direct
+Parliamentary authority, and whose Exchequer would be bankrupt. Home
+Rule would thus permanently relegate the agricultural population, not
+only of Ulster, but of Ireland generally, into two classes living side
+by side with each other--one consisting of occupying owners, the other
+of rent-payers without hope of ownership. The evil results in
+discontent, friction, deterioration of agricultural methods and lessened
+production would inflict serious injury on Ulster prosperity.
+
+Again, Home Rule would involve Ulster industry and commerce in excessive
+taxation. No one who is aware of the passionate desire amongst Irish
+agitators and their friends for lucrative jobs, of the efforts that
+would be made to subsidise industries with Government funds, of the
+determination of the clergy to have their monastic, Christian Brothers',
+monastic and convent schools largely supported by the State, and of the
+impossibility, in view of the social disorder all over Ireland that
+would follow Home Rule, of reducing further the police force or the
+Judiciary, entertains any doubt that retrenchment in Irish expenditure
+would be impossible. On the contrary, Irish taxation would increase, and
+as recent legislation has placed upon Irish farmers imposts greater than
+they think they can bear, the additional revenue would be sought for
+mainly from the industrial North. But with business disorganised,
+incomes decreased and unemployment increased, the yield of taxation
+would be much reduced, and the rate must therefore be made higher. All
+this would fortify Ulster in her determined refusal to pay Home Rule
+taxation, and the bankruptcy of the Dublin Exchequer would be complete.
+
+It is from having regard to considerations such as I have outlined, and
+of the validity of which she is profoundly convinced, that Ulster has
+registered the historic Convention declaration, "We will not have Home
+Rule." Her position is plain and intelligible. She demands no separation
+from her Nationalist countrymen. On the contrary, she wishes, under the
+protection of the Legislative Union, to live side by side with them in
+peaceful industry and neighbourly fellowship, with the desire that they
+and we may in common partake of the benefits conferred on Ireland by
+generous Imperial legislation and repay it by sympathetic and energetic
+contribution to the service of the Empire.
+
+But if Home Rule legislation should be passed contrary to Ulster's
+earnest and patriotic pleading, then she claims--not a separate
+Parliament for herself, but that she may remain as she is in the
+unimpaired enjoyment of her position as an integral portion of the
+United Kingdom and with unaltered representation in Imperial Parliament.
+She wishes to continue as an Irish Lancashire, or an Irish Lanarkshire.
+In this relationship to Great Britain she is confident she will best
+preserve, not only her own interests, but also those of her fellow
+loyalists, Roman Catholic as well as Protestants, whose lot is cast in
+the other provinces and whose welfare will always be her responsible and
+earnest concern.
+
+But if this demand--based on loyalty to the King and Constitution, and
+founded on the elementary right of British citizens to the unimpaired
+protection of Imperial Parliament--be refused, then the only alternative
+is the Ulster Provincial Government, which will be organised to come
+into operation on the day that a Home Rule Bill should receive the Royal
+Assent; and under that Provisional Government we shall continue to
+support our King, and to render the same services' to the United Kingdom
+and to the Empire as have characterised the history of Ulster during the
+past three hundred years.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 66: See Mr. Wyndham's article, p. 249.]
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE SOUTHERN MINORITIES
+
+BY RICHARD BAGWELL, M.A.
+
+
+At the present moment no county or borough in the three southern
+provinces of Ireland returns a Unionist member. There are substantial
+minorities in many places, but very few in which there would be any
+chance of a successful contest. The University of Dublin sends two
+conspicuous Unionists to Parliament, who represent not only a
+constituency of graduates, but the vast majority of educated and
+thinking people. The bearing of the question on religious interests will
+be dealt with by others, but it may be said here that the Protestant
+community is Unionist. The exceptions are few, and are much more than
+counter-balanced by the Roman Catholic opponents of Home Rule, who for
+obvious reasons are less outspoken, but are quite as anxious to avert
+the threatened revolution.
+
+The great bone of contention has always been the land, the cause of
+various wars and of ceaseless civil disputes. Parnell saw and said that
+purely political Nationalism was weak by itself, and he took up the land
+question to get leverage. For many years it has been evident that the
+only feasible solution was to convert occupiers into owners, and a very
+long step was made by the Purchase Act of 1903. Progress has now been
+arrested, for the Act of 1909 does not work. The vendors or expropriated
+owners, whichever is the more correct term, are expected to take a lower
+price and to be paid in depreciated paper. The minorities to be most
+immediately affected by legislation consist of landlords who are unable,
+though willing, to sell, and of tenants who are unable but very anxious
+to buy. The present deadlock is disastrous, for many tenants think they
+ought not to pay more than their neighbours, and demand reductions of
+rent without considering that the owner has received no part of his
+capital and dares not destroy the basis on which he hopes to be
+ultimately paid. It has been an essential part of the purchase policy
+that the instalment due by the occupier to recoup the State advance
+should be less than the rent. This has been made possible by the magic
+of British credit, and if that is withheld the confusion in Ireland will
+be worse than ever. The Exchequer has lost little or nothing, and even
+at much greater cost it would be the cheapest money that England ever
+spent. More than half the tenanted land has now passed to the occupiers,
+and it would be the most cruel injustice to leave the remaining
+landlords without power either to sell their property or to collect
+rents judicially fixed and refixed. They would fare badly with an Irish
+legislature and an Irish executive. They are, for the most part, poor
+but loyal men, and have exercised a great civilising influence. Are they
+to be deserted and ruined to keep an English party in place by the votes
+of men who have never pretended to be anything but England's enemies?
+
+Irish Unionists laugh at the idea of a local Parliament being kept
+subordinate. It will have the power of making laws for everything Irish,
+that is, for everything that immediately concerns those that live in
+Ireland. There will be ceaseless efforts to enlarge its sphere of
+action, and if Irish members continue to sit at Westminster they will be
+as troublesome as ever there. If there are to be no Irish members
+Ireland will be a separate nation. Even candid Home Rulers confess that
+statutory safeguards would be of none effect. Hedged in by British
+bayonets the Lord Lieutenant may exercise his veto, but upon whose
+advice will he do it? If on that of an Irish Ministry the minority will
+have no protection at all, and does any one suppose it possible to go
+back to the practice of the seventeenth century, when all Irish Bills
+were settled in the English Privy Council, and could not be altered in a
+Dublin Parliament? Orators declaim about our lost legislature, but they
+take good care not to say what it was. In the penultimate decade of the
+eighteenth century the trammels were taken off, and a Union was soon
+found necessary. During the short interval of Independence there were
+two French invasions and a bloody rebellion. Protestant ascendency,
+though used as a catchword, is a thing long past. Roman Catholic
+ascendency would be a very real thing under Home Rule. The supremacy of
+the Imperial Parliament alone makes both the one and the other
+impossible.
+
+If a legislature is established it must be given the means of enforcing
+its laws. We do not know what the present Government propose to do with
+the Irish police, but whatever the law says in practice, they will be
+under the local executive. Unpopular people will not be protected, and
+many of them will be driven out of the country. Parliamentary Home
+Rulers draw rosy pictures of the future Arcadia; but they will not be
+able to fulfil their own prophecies. Apart from the agrarian question,
+there is the party of revolutionists in Ireland whose headquarters are
+in America. They have furnished the means for agitation, and will look
+for their reward. The Fenian party has less power in the United States
+than it used to have, but there will be congenial work to do in Ireland.
+A violent faction can be kept in order where there is a strong
+government, but in a Home Rule Ireland it would not be strong for any
+such purpose. Appeals to cupidity and envy would find hearers, and there
+could be no effective resistance. The French Jacobins were a minority
+but they swept all before them. In the end better counsels might
+prevail, but the mischief done would be great, and much of it
+irreparable.
+
+The justice dealt out by the superior courts in Ireland is as good as it
+is anywhere. A judge in the last resort has the whole force of the State
+behind him, and no one dreams of resistance. With an Irish Parliament
+and an Irish Executive this would hardly be the case. The judges would
+still be lawyers, but their power would be greatly impaired. In Ireland
+popular feeling is always against creditors, and it would be very hard
+indeed either to execute a writ of ejectment or a seizure of goods. If
+the sanction of the law is weakened, public respect for it is lessened,
+and the result will be a general relaxation of the bonds which draw
+society together. There is nothing in the antecedents of the Home Rule
+Party to make one suppose that it contains the materials of a good and
+impartial government.
+
+Home Rule politicians are talkative and pertinacious. As members of
+Parliament they are of course listened to, while Unionists outside
+Ulster make little noise; it is, therefore, constantly said that they
+acquiesce in the inevitable change. Unrepresented men cannot easily make
+themselves heard, but they have done what they could. An enormous
+meeting has been held in Dublin, and the building, which contains some
+7000, was filled in a quarter of an hour. There has since been a large
+gathering of young men who wish to remain full citizens of the Empire in
+which they were born, and others are to follow. In rural districts it is
+almost impossible to collect people in winter. Days are short and
+distances are long. Unionist farmers cannot forget the outrages that
+prevailed some years ago, and are not yet unknown. In the native land of
+boycotting and cattle-driving it is not surprising that they do not wish
+to be conspicuous. The difficulty extends to the towns, in many of which
+it would be almost impossible to hire a room for Unionist purposes.
+Hotel keepers object to risking their business and their windows, for a
+mob is easily excited to riot on patriotic grounds. Shopkeepers also
+have to be cautious in a country which has been wittily described as a
+land of liberty where no one can do as he likes, but where every one
+must do exactly what everybody else likes. In the summer people can meet
+in the open air, and there will, no doubt, be abundant protests from
+Southern Unionists. There will then be something definite to talk about.
+
+It is often said that the County Councils have done well, and that
+therefore there is no danger in an Irish Parliament, but the two things
+are different in kind. County or District Councils, or Boards of
+Guardians, are constituted by Acts of the Imperial Parliament to
+administer Acts of the same, and are subject to constant supervision by
+the Local Government Board, and to the peremptory action of the King's
+Bench. A Parliament is by nature supreme within its sphere of action,
+and its constant effort would be to enlarge that field. The men who aim
+at independence would have the easy part to play, for no one in or out
+of Ulster, former Unionist or confirmed Nationalist, would have any
+interest in opposing them. In the meantime local councils have taught us
+what is likely to happen. Minorities are virtually excluded from them
+and from paid places in their gift. Of Protestants holding local office
+the great majority are survivals from the old Grand Jury system.
+Political discussions are frequent, but they are all among Nationalists.
+Intolerance of independent opinion and impatience of criticism are
+everywhere noticeable, and the Corporation of Dublin does not show a
+good example. It is intolerance of this kind rather than any approach to
+religious persecution that Protestants suffer from in the present and
+fear for the future.
+
+Men who have something to lose dread the idea of Home Rule, including
+farmers who have bought their holdings, but as yet this has not been
+allowed time to work. There is a long way between not caring to support
+a Nationalist and voting for a Unionist. The chief employers of labour
+are mostly for the Union, but few are in a position to help the Unionist
+cause effectively, for they have to deal with strike makers and possible
+boycotters. When Labour troubles come, Nationalist politicians try to
+make out that they are caused by English agitators, and that there would
+be none under Home Rule. The probability is all the other way. There
+could be nothing in the existence of an Irish Parliament to prevent
+English Socialists from crossing the Channel, and some Labour leaders in
+England are Irish. We have heard a great deal lately about the union of
+the two democracies, and that is the point where they would unite.
+Passing from labour to land, which is after all the great interest of
+Southern and Western Ireland, the danger is even greater. With the loss
+of British credit it would be almost impossible to carry out the plan of
+occupying ownership without the grossest injustice, and the mischief
+would not stop there. An Irish Government would be poor, but would be
+expected to do all and more than all that the united government has
+done. At first the gap might be stopped by extravagant super-income tax,
+by half-compensated seizures of demesne land, and by penalising the
+owners of ground rents and town property. Confiscation is not a
+permanent source of wealth, for it soon kills the goose that laid the
+golden egg. Then the turn of the large farmer would come.
+
+Most Unionists, and many who call themselves Home Rulers, are satisfied
+with the form of government they now have. The country has prospered
+wonderfully, and it will continue to prosper if the land purchase system
+is carried out to the end in a liberal spirit. The worst danger comes
+from the check given to the process by the present Ministry. But the
+national feelings of Ireland must not be ignored. Her far-back history,
+bad in itself, but represented worse by unscrupulous writers, makes it
+necessary to maintain an impartial power above the warring elements. In
+a pastoral country people have much time on their hands, and are apt to
+spend it in brooding over bygone wrongs. But over the past not Jove
+himself hath power, and it is for the future that we are responsible.
+From Wellington onwards Ireland has given many great soldiers to the
+British Army, and it is the classes from which they spring that it is
+now proposed to abandon. Under Home Rule the flag would be a foreign
+emblem, useless to protect the weak in Ireland, and perhaps available to
+oppress them. England would have cast off her friends and gained none in
+exchange. Nothing will conciliate the revolutionary faction in Ireland,
+and there is every reason to think that it would become the strongest.
+Modern Ireland is the creation of English policy, and many wrong things
+were formerly done, but for a long time amends have been making. If
+England, from weariness or for the sake of Party advantage, abandons her
+supporters, they will have no successors. Ireland will be more
+troublesome than ever, and the crime will receive its fitting
+punishment.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+HOME RULE AND NAVAL DEFENCE
+
+BY ADMIRAL LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, M.P.
+
+
+Ireland under Home Rule must, in the event of war, be regarded as a
+potentially hostile country.
+
+In this statement resides the dominant factor of the situation viewed
+from the naval and military point of view. It is not asserted that the
+government of Ireland would be disloyal; but it is asserted that the
+authorities charged with the defence of his Majesty's dominions cannot
+afford to take risks when the safety of the country is at stake. That
+such risks must exist under the circumstances indicated, is obvious to
+all those who have studied the speeches of the leaders of the Irish
+Nationalist party, in which they have unequivocally declared their
+intention to rid Ireland of English rule, and in which they extol as
+heroes such men as Theobald Wolfe Tone, who intrigued with France
+against England in order to achieve Irish independence, and who took his
+own life rather than receive the just reward of his deeds. That some
+among the Irish Nationalist leaders have recently professed their
+devotion to the British Empire cannot be regarded by serious persons as
+a relevant consideration. The demand for Home Rule is in fact a demand
+for separation from the United Kingdom or it is nothing. Naval officers
+are accustomed to deal with facts rather than with words.
+
+In the great sea-wars of the past, Ireland has always been regarded by
+the enemy as providing the base for a flank attack upon England. Had
+King Louis XIV. rightly used his opportunities, the army of King William
+would have been cut off from its base in England, and would have been
+destroyed by reinforcements arriving from France to assist King James
+II. There is no more concise presentment of the case than the account of
+it given by Admiral Mahan in "The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
+1660-1783."
+
+     "The Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an
+     estuary than an actual division; but history has shown the danger
+     from it to the United Kingdom. In the days of Louis XIV., when the
+     French navy nearly equalled the combined English and Dutch, the
+     gravest complications existed in Ireland, which passed almost
+     wholly under the control of the natives and the French.
+     Nevertheless, the Irish Sea was rather a danger to the English--a
+     weak point in their communications--than an advantage to the
+     French. The latter did not venture their ships-of-the-line in its
+     narrow waters, and expeditions intending to land were directed upon
+     the ocean ports in the south and west. At the supreme moment the
+     great French fleet was sent upon the south coast of England, where
+     it decisively defeated the allies, and at the same time twenty-five
+     frigates were sent to St. George's Channel, against the English
+     communications. In the midst of a hostile people the English army
+     in Ireland was seriously imperilled, but was saved by the battle of
+     the Boyne and the flight of James II. _This movement against the
+     enemy's communications was strictly strategic, and would be just as
+     dangerous to England now as in 1690_[67]....
+
+     "There can be little doubt that an effective co-operation of the
+     French fleet in the summer of 1689 would have broken down all
+     opposition to James in Ireland, by isolating that country from
+     England, with corresponding injury to William's power....
+
+     "The battle of the Boyne, which from its peculiar religious
+     colouring has obtained a somewhat factitious celebrity, may be
+     taken as the date at which the English crown was firmly fixed on
+     William's head. Yet it would be more accurate to say that the
+     success of William, and with it the success of Europe, against
+     Louis XIV. in the war of the League of Augsburg, was due to the
+     mistakes and failure of the French naval campaign in 1690; though
+     in that campaign was won the most conspicuous single success the
+     French have ever gained at sea over the English."
+
+Every great naval power has gone to school to Admiral Mahan; and this
+country can hardly expect again to profit by those mistakes in strategy
+which the gifted American writer has so lucidly exposed.
+
+Ireland, lying on the western flank of Great Britain, commands on the
+south the approaches to the Channel, on the west the North Atlantic; and
+on the east the Irish Sea, all sea-roads by which millions of pounds'
+worth of supplies are brought to England. On every coast Ireland has
+excellent harbours. There are Lough Swilly on the north, Blacksod Bay on
+the west, Bantry Bay, Cork Harbour and Waterford Harbour on the south,
+Kingstown Harbour and Belfast Lough on the east--to name but
+these--besides numerous lesser inlets which can serve as shelter for
+small craft and destroyers. It should here be noted that Belfast
+Harbour, owing to the enterprise of the Harbour Board, now possesses a
+channel and dock capable of accommodating a ship of the Dreadnought
+type[68].
+
+There is no necessity to presuppose an actively hostile Ireland; but an
+Ireland ruled by a disloyal faction would easily afford shelter to the
+warships of the enemy in her ports, whence they could draw supplies,
+where they could execute small repairs, and could coal from colliers
+despatched there for the purpose or captured. Thus lodged, a fleet or a
+squadron would command the main trade routes to England; and might
+inflict immense damage in a short time. Intelligence of its position
+could be prevented from reaching England by the simple method of
+destroying wireless stations and cutting cables.
+
+These considerations would necessarily impose upon the Navy the task of
+detaching a squadron of watching cruisers charged with the duty of
+keeping guard about the whole of Ireland.
+
+Is the Admiralty prepared to discharge this office in the event of war?
+
+If not, there falls to be considered the further danger of the invasion
+of Ireland. That such a peril is not imaginary, is proved by the fact
+that Ireland has been invaded in the past.
+
+The attempt of Hoche and Grouchy to land in Bantry Bay in 1796 failed
+ignominiously; and the next expedition designed to invade Ireland was
+defeated at Camperdown. But in 1798, the year of the Great Rebellion in
+Ireland, three French frigates evaded the British cruisers, and on
+August 22 dropped anchor in Killala Bay. General of Brigade, Jean Joseph
+Amable Humbert, landed with his second in command, General Sarazin,
+several rebel Irish leaders, 1700 men and 82 officers.
+
+On August 27 Humbert defeated the British troops at Castlebar "Races."
+On September 8, his forces surrendered at Ballinamuck to Lord
+Cornwallis. General Humbert was carried to England; and it is worth
+noting that while he was on his way, Admiral Bompard set sail from Brest
+with a ship of the line and three frigates, carrying 2587 men and 172
+officers, commanded by General Hardy and the notorious Wolfe Tone
+(called General Smith for the occasion). Bompard was turned back by an
+English fleet of forty-two sail. The obvious conclusion of the whole
+matter is that the fleet can stop an invasion, always provided that the
+ships thereof are the right number in the right place at the right time.
+
+The Irish Rebellion of 1798 is often discussed as though it was wholly
+bred of the corruption of Ireland itself. The fact was, of course, that
+it was an offshoot of the French Revolution, and that the condition of
+Ireland at the time was no more than a contributory cause. My Lords
+Cornwallis, Castlereagh, and Clare, in combating the forces of the
+Rebellion, were actually in conflict with the vast insurrections of the
+French nation. The design of the Irish rebels was to enlist the mighty
+destructive force of France to serve their own ends.
+
+Wolfe Tone and his colleague Lewens, in 1796, had succeeded in
+persuading Carnot and the French Directory to embrace the cause of
+Ireland. When the Rebellion of 1798 broke out, Lewens wrote to the
+Directory reminding them that they had promised that France should
+postulate the conferring of independence upon Ireland as the condition
+of making peace with England, and specifying five thousand troops of all
+arms, and thirty thousand muskets with artillery and ammunition, as
+sufficient to ensure the success of the Rebellion.
+
+The attitude of the Directory is defined in the despatch addressed to
+General Hardy (upon whom the supreme command of the Humbert expedition
+at first devolved) by Bruix, Minister of Marine, dated July 30, 1798.
+
+"The executive Directory is busily engaged in arranging to send help to
+the Irish who have taken up arms to sever the yoke of British rule. It
+is for the French Government to second the efforts of a brave people who
+have too long suffered under oppression."
+
+In other words, the Directory regarded the achievement of her
+independence by Ireland as an enterprise incidental to the greater
+scheme of the conquest of England and of Europe.
+
+It was further laid down in the despatch that "it is most important to
+take every possible means to arouse the public spirit of the country,
+and particularly to foster sedulously its hatred of the English name ...
+There has never been an expedition whose result might more powerfully
+affect the political situation in Europe, or could more advantageously
+assist the Republic...."
+
+Irish conspirators have never risen to play any part higher than the
+office of cat's-paw to a foreign nation. To-day, they are content--at
+present--to bribe with votes a political party in England. But it is
+none the less essential to remember that, as in 1688 and as in 1798 a
+great and militant foreign Power used the weapon of Irish sedition
+against England, so in 1912 the same instrument lies ready to hand. For
+the Home Rule conspiracy of to-day is nothing but the lees of the evil
+heritage bequeathed by the French Revolution.
+
+It is the business of the naval officer, who is not concerned with party
+politics, to estimate the posture of international affairs solely in
+relation to the security of the State. The condition of Ireland at this
+moment, when the Home Rule issue has been wantonly revived, would, in
+the event of a war occurring between Great Britain and a foreign Power,
+involve the necessity of regarding Ireland as a strategic base of
+essential value, a part of whose inhabitants might combine with the
+hostile forces by giving them shelter and supplies, and even by inviting
+them to occupy the country. Elsewhere in these pages, Lord Percy has
+pointed out that the necessity of holding a disaffected Ireland by
+garrisoning the country would totally disorganise our military
+preparations for war--such as they are.
+
+These considerations must materially affect strategical dispositions in
+the event of war, involving the establishment and maintenance of a
+separate force of cruisers charged with the duty of patrolling the sea
+routes which converge upon Ireland, and of watching the harbours of her
+coasts. As matters stand at present, such a force does not exist.
+
+It may, of course, be urged that a strategical plan designed for the
+double purpose of surveying the movements of a hostile battle-fleet and
+of guarding the trade-routes, must of necessity cover the coasts of
+Ireland, on the principle that the greater includes the less. The
+argument, however, omits the essential qualification that a part of the
+Irish population cannot be trusted. It is this additional difficulty
+which has been introduced into the problem of naval defence by the
+revival by politicians of the agitation of 1798, under another name.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 67: The writer's italics.]
+
+[Footnote 68: According to _The Daily Telegraph_ of January 22, 1912.]
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE MILITARY DISADVANTAGES OF HOME RULE
+
+BY THE EARL PERCY
+
+
+The problems of Imperial defence have become of late years extremely
+complex, owing to the rise of a great European naval power, and also to
+the predominance of Japan in the Pacific. These two factors, combined
+with the invention of the Dreadnought type of ship which is now being
+built by other powers whose navies we could formerly afford to ignore,
+have rendered our position in the world more precarious, more dependent
+upon foreign alliances and _ententes_, and have rendered combination for
+defence far more essential. No Home Rule scheme can be judged without
+taking into consideration what its effect will be on this situation. It
+is proposed to consider it first in the light of the more pressing
+European danger, and next to examine how it will affect the wider
+problem of the future, namely, the co-operation of all parts of the
+British Empire for defence.
+
+But first it is of course necessary to find out what Home Rule means,
+and what the internal state of Ireland will be if it passes. On this
+point there is at present no certainty. We can dismiss at once Mr.
+Redmond's picture of a serenely contented and grateful Ireland, only
+desirous of helping her benefactor, and, under a strong and
+incorruptible government, engaged in setting its house in order. The
+presence of a strong Protestant community, the history of the Roman
+Catholic Church in all countries, and the deliberate fostering of
+separatist national ideals preclude the possibility of anything but a
+prolonged period of unrest, which, on the most favourable hypothesis,
+can only cease altogether when the present generation has passed away.
+This unrest may take two forms; either civil war, or a condition where
+the rousing of old animosities, religious and otherwise, leads to
+internal disturbances of all kinds. It is not proposed to deal here with
+the consequences involved by the calling in of troops to suppress by
+force of arms an insurrectionary movement against the Government of
+Ireland. In view of the present state of affairs in Ulster, such an
+event seems extremely probable, but the disastrous results of passing
+Home Rule in face of it are so patent to all that it is unnecessary to
+enlarge upon them here. We have, therefore, to consider a condition of
+things in which old mutual hatreds have re-awakened, in which Ireland
+will be governed by men who have up till now preached sedition, have
+done their best to check recruiting, who have deliberately set up an
+ideal of "complete separation" as their ultimate goal, and whose motto
+has always been "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity."
+
+It is conceivable, of course, though it is extremely improbable, that
+these aims and ideals may be abjured in course of time, but the gravity
+of these risks must be taken into account in examining Ireland's
+position in any scheme of national and Imperial defence both now and in
+the future.
+
+And in this connection it may be remarked that an almost exact analogy
+to the situation which will probably result from this measure may be
+seen in the events which preceded the Boer war, and it seems somewhat
+remarkable that those who endeavour to justify Home Rule by the supposed
+Colonial analogy should overlook a warning so evident and so recent in
+the history of our oversea dominions.
+
+A Separatist party in Ireland would be enabled to work for ultimate
+independence as did President Kruger, and by the same methods, the same
+secret acquisition of arms and implements of war, the same building of
+fortresses with a view to a declaration of independence when a suitable
+opportunity arrived; and this would be all the more likely to occur if
+Ulster were exempted from a Home Rule Parliament. In this case Ulstermen
+would occupy exactly the same position as did the Uitlanders from 1895
+to 1899. The same arguments for granting independence to Ireland are
+used now, the same talk of injustice towards those who are disloyal with
+equal disregard of the loyalist section, and the results will be the
+same. Would independence have been granted to the Transvaal or Orange
+Free State had their use of it been foreseen? Taking the factors in both
+cases into account, is there anything to justify the doubt that a
+repetition of that situation will occur, with the only difference that
+eventual rupture will probably entail the dismemberment of the Empire?
+
+It is universally acknowledged that this country is at present faced
+with a more critical European situation than any we have experienced for
+a hundred years. It has tied our fleet to home waters, and has induced a
+very large and influential section of our people to advocate the
+necessity of compulsory military service. Our military organisation is
+on the face of it a makeshift, and the makeshift is not even complete,
+for in the Territorial Army and the Special Reserve alone there is a
+shortage of more than 80,000 men.
+
+Now, our foreign policy of _ententes_ and the needs of our oversea
+territories have necessitated a military organisation, the foundation of
+which is readiness to undertake an oversea expedition as well as to
+provide for home defence. The critical situation in Europe especially
+will demand the instant despatch of our Expeditionary Force on the
+outbreak of war, in which case there will be left in these islands the
+following forces after deducting 10 per cent, for casualties:--
+
+About 55,000 Regulars, of whom 30,000 will be under 20 years of age.
+
+About 30,000 Reservists. These will be required to reinforce the
+Expeditionary Force.
+
+About 60,000 Special Reservists. Some 30,000 of these are under 20. This
+force is to be used to reinforce the troops abroad.
+
+About 245,000 Territorials. 72,000 of these are under 20.
+
+In all there are some 400,000 men, of whom 130,000 are boys and 60,000
+will leave the country soon after war breaks out. This will leave some
+210,000 men to provide for the defence of England, Scotland, and
+Ireland, supplemented by 130,000 boys. These troops will be deprived of
+practically all Regular and even Reserve officers, and will have to
+provide for coast defence, for the security of law and order, and for
+the numbers required for a central field force. By means of juggling
+with figures, by the registration of names in what is called the
+National Reserve, but has no organisation or corporate existence, and by
+similar means, the seriousness of this situation has been concealed to
+some extent, but it is generally recognised as being little short of a
+national scandal, and would not be tolerated were it not for the general
+ignorance of our people concerning the exigencies of war and their blind
+belief in the omnipotence of the navy. This defencelessness has two
+dangers: firstly, the chance of a successful raid or invasion. As long
+as our navy is not defeated, no invading force of more than 70,000 men
+is supposed to be capable of landing. The second danger is that the mere
+fear of such an event will prevent the despatch of the Expeditionary
+Force and the fulfilment of our oversea obligations.
+
+It must be obvious that in the precarious state of our national defence
+anything which renders either of these dangers more probable should be
+avoided at all costs. If, for instance, the condition of Ireland should
+demand the maintenance of a larger garrison in that country, the whole
+of our present organisation for defence falls to pieces. Looking only at
+the present foreign situation, and the ever-growing menace of increasing
+armaments, if the passing of Home Rule should require the retention of a
+single extra soldier in Ireland, it is perfectly certain that nothing
+could justify the adoption of such a measure. It is not intended to
+convey the impression that there is any fear of Ireland repeating the
+history of 1796 and welcoming a foreign invasion, although it is
+impossible to ignore the anti-English campaign of agitation, or to say
+to what length it will go; but the mere fact of internal dissension in
+that country will give an enemy exactly the chance he looks for. Many of
+those best qualified to judge are of opinion that Germany is only
+waiting to free herself of an embarrassing situation, until one power of
+the Triple Entente is for the time being too much occupied to intervene
+in a Continental struggle. We have had one warning when, in September,
+1911, a railway strike at home coincided with a foreign crisis. Are we
+deliberately to take a step which will almost certainly involve us in a
+similar dilemma?
+
+This is the more immediate danger, but, apart from this, the strategical
+value of Ireland will be profoundly affected by its separation from
+England, and this constitutes a grave source of weakness, even if
+internal trouble be avoided, and a comparatively loyal government be
+installed. Ireland lies directly across all the trade routes by which
+nearly all our supplies of food and raw material are brought, and it
+covers the principal trade centres of the Midlands and the South of
+Scotland. In any attack by an enemy on our commerce, Ireland will become
+of supreme importance. There are two stages in every naval war: first,
+the engagement between the two navies; second, the blockade or
+destruction of the ships of the beaten side. This was the method by
+which we fought Napoleon, but even then we could not prevent the enemy's
+ships escaping from time to time; and even after we had destroyed their
+navy at Trafalgar, the damage to our oversea commerce was enormous.
+Nowadays, torpedoes, submarines, and floating mines have rendered
+blockade infinitely more precarious, and consequently we have to take
+into account the extreme probability, and indeed, certainty, of hostile
+cruisers escaping and menacing our oversea supplies. This danger will be
+increased tenfold if Germany has been able to defeat France, and use
+French, Dutch, and Belgian ports for privateering purposes. In the
+second, if not in the first, stage of European war, therefore, the
+closest co-operation between the governments of Ireland and England will
+be essential. In this case, Queenstown and Lough Swilly will be the
+bases for our own protecting cruisers, and on their success will depend
+the issues of life and death for our people. As the West of Ireland is
+the nearest point in these islands to America, it is probable that
+cargoes destined for English ports will reach them _via_ Ireland to
+avoid the longer sea-transit. Lord Wolseley has even gone so far as to
+minimise the dangers of blockade, because the Irish coast offered such
+facilities for blockade-running. It is certain that in our greatest need
+Ireland might well prove our salvation, provided we had not absolutely
+lost command of the sea, and this advantage a Liberal Government is
+prepared to jeopardise for reasons, which, compared with the interests
+at stake, are little less than sordid.
+
+But even if Ireland be less directly affected by war than in this case,
+and even if its internal condition should give little anxiety, the very
+nature of its resources should prevent us taking a step which may
+deprive us of them in emergency or, at least, render them less readily
+available. Not only do we draw a number of our soldiers from there, out
+of all proportion to the quotas provided by the populations of England
+and Scotland, but we are absolutely dependent for our mounted branches
+on Irish horses. For our supplies in time of stress, for our horses, and
+for a great and valuable recruiting area, we shall be forced to rely on
+a government whose future is wrapped in the deepest obscurity, and which
+at the best is hardly likely to give us enthusiastic support.
+
+Our whole military organisation is becoming more decentralised and more
+dependent on voluntary effort; it is devolving more and more upon
+Territorial Associations and local bodies of all kinds. We do not
+possess the reserves of horses and transport which continental nations
+hold ready for use on mobilisation, and, as a substitute, we have had to
+fall back on a system of registration which demands care, zeal, and
+energy on the part of these civilian bodies. How will an Irish
+Government and its officials fulfil a duty which will be distorted by
+every Nationalist into an attempt to employ the national resources for
+the sole benefit of England?
+
+War is a stern taskmaster, demanding long years of preparation and
+combination of effort for one end. The political separation of the two
+countries does not alter the fact that they are, in the military sense,
+one area of operations and of supply, and, at a time like the present,
+when the mutual dependence of all parts of the Empire is gradually being
+realised; when the dominions are building navies, and all our
+dependencies are co-operating in one scheme of defence for the whole;
+when the elaboration of the details of this scheme are the pressing need
+of the hour, the dissolution of the Union binding together the very
+heart of the Empire, is a strategic mistake, the disastrous significance
+of which it is impossible to exaggerate. For it must be remembered that
+here is no analogy to a federation of semi-independent provinces as in
+Canada, where national defence is equally the interest of the whole.
+Ireland has never recognised this community of interest with England.
+Quebec, it is true, stands aloof and indifferent to the ideals of the
+sister provinces; but there is no bitter religious hatred, no fierce,
+anti-national aims fostered by ancient traditions, life-long feuds and
+unscrupulous agitation, and every Canadian knows that Quebec would fight
+to the last against American aggression, if only to preserve her
+religious independence. There is no such bond here--or, at least, the
+Irish Nationalist has refused to acknowledge it.
+
+The year 1912 has opened amid signs of unrest and change, the meaning or
+the end of which no man can know. In the Far East and the Near East
+political and religious systems are disappearing, and chaos is steadily
+increasing. In Europe the nations have set out on the march to
+Armageddon, and there is no staying the progress of their armaments. In
+Great Britain alone the question of preparation for war is shirked on
+the plea that it is one for experts, and even soldiers and sailors,
+drawn into the political vortex, make light of our necessities,
+believing in the hopelessness of ever convincing the people of the truth
+until "a white calamity of steel and iron, the bearing of burdens and
+the hot rage of insult," fall upon us. It is for this reason that we see
+the extraordinary phenomenon of men denying the necessity for becoming
+a nation in arms, and yet urging our Government to contract no
+friendships abroad, and to interfere on behalf of every petty princedom
+oppressed by a powerful neighbour, and every downtrodden subject of some
+foreign power. It is these same men who wish to dissolve the Union, and
+to impose obligations at home upon an inadequate army which would leave
+us powerless abroad. And the longer war delays in coming, the greater
+will be the danger when it comes. With the increase in armaments, this
+country must undergo a proportionate sacrifice. If compulsory service
+should be adopted, it must apply to Ireland as well as the United
+Kingdom. But how will an independent government in Dublin view the
+compulsory enrolment of the manhood of Ireland, two-thirds of which have
+been taught to regard England as the national and hereditary enemy? The
+Irish are, above all, a military race. Had we been able to enforce such
+service within the Union, whatever temporary opposition it might have
+encountered, it might ultimately have proved an indissoluble bond of
+friendship.
+
+The future is very dark, and it is all important that we should face it
+with open eyes. War cannot long be delayed, and there is too little time
+left to put our house in order. Even if Home Rule could be shown to be
+an act of justice due to a wronged people who have proved themselves
+capable of self-government, even then it could not be justified in the
+present crisis abroad. But it is not so. Ulster will fight for the same
+cause as did the Northern States of America, and may well show the same
+self-sacrifice. It will be civil war in a country peculiarly adapted to
+the movements of irregular troops, well acquainted with its features; it
+will be accompanied by atrocities which will be remembered for
+centuries. And this is the tremendous risk we are deliberately running,
+when we only possess six divisions of regular troops to support our
+allies on the continent and to safeguard the interests of the whole
+British Empire.
+
+It is for the British people to decide whether the thin red line is to
+be still thinner in the day of battle, and whether those who should be
+fighting side by side shall be embittered and divided, or whether they
+will rather believe the words of the greatest naval expert living[69]:
+
+     "It is impossible for a military man or a statesman with
+     appreciation of military conditions, to look at the map and not
+     perceive that the ambition of the Irish separatists, realised,
+     would be even more threatening to the national life than the
+     secession of the South was to that of the American Union."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 69: Admiral Mahan.]
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE
+
+(i) THE CHURCH VIEW
+
+BY THE RT. REV. C. F. D'ARCY, BISHOP OF DOWN
+
+
+Irish Unionists are determined in their opposition to Home Rule by many
+considerations. But deepest of all is the conviction that, on the
+establishment of a separate legislature and executive for Ireland, the
+religious difficulty, which is ever with us here, would be increased
+enormously. Occasionally, in English newspapers and in Irish political
+speeches, there occur phrases which imply that the Protestant
+ascendency, as it was called, still exists in Ireland. Those who know
+Ireland are well aware that this is not merely false: it is impossible.
+Even in Belfast, as a recent controversy proved, Roman Catholics get
+their full share of whatever is to be had. There are no Roman Catholic
+disabilities. The majority has every means of making its power felt. At
+the present moment, the most impossible of all things in Ireland is that
+Roman Catholics, as such, should be oppressed or unfairly treated.
+
+It used to be imagined that when this happy condition was attained there
+would be no more religious disagreement in Ireland. But events have
+shown the exact opposite to be the case. There never was a time when
+there was in the minds of Irish Protestants so deep a dread of Roman
+aggression, and so firm a conviction that the object of that aggression
+is the complete subjection of this country to Roman domination.
+Recalling very distinctly the events and discussions of 1886 and 1893,
+when Home Rule for Ireland seemed so near accomplishment under Mr.
+Gladstone's leadership, the writer has no hesitation in saying that the
+dread of Roman tyranny is now far more vivid and, as a motive, far more
+urgent than it was at those epochs. Protestants are now convinced, as
+never before, that Home Rule must mean Rome Rule, and that, should it be
+forced upon them, in spite of all their efforts, they will be face to
+face with a struggle for liberty and conscience such as this land has
+not witnessed since the year 1690. That such should be the conviction of
+one-fourth of the people of Ireland, and that fourth by far the most
+energetic portion of its inhabitants, is a fact which politicians may
+well lay to heart.
+
+Approaching this subject as one whose duties give him the spiritual
+oversight of more than 200,000 of the Protestants of Ireland--members of
+the Church of Ireland, and who has had twenty-seven years of experience
+as a clergyman in Ireland, both in the north and in the south, the
+writer may venture to speak with some confidence as to the mind of the
+people among whom he has worked for so long. In doing so, he feels at
+liberty to say that he is one who has always avoided religious
+controversy, and who has ever made it his endeavour to be tolerant and
+considerate of the feelings and convictions of others. He has a deep
+regard for his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, and recognises to the
+full their many excellent qualities and the sincerity of their religion.
+
+It is possible to bring to a single point the reasons which make Irish
+Unionists so apprehensive as regards the religious difficulty under Home
+Rule. Their fears are not concerned with any of the special dogmas of
+the Roman Church. But they recognise, as people in England do not, the
+inevitable tendency of the consistent and immemorial policy of the
+Church of Rome in relation to persons who refuse to submit to her
+claims. They know that policy to be one of absolute and uncompromising
+insistence on the exacting of everything which she regards as her right
+as soon as she possesses the power. They know that, for her, toleration
+is only a temporary expedient. They know that professions and promises
+made by individual Roman Catholics and by political leaders, statements
+which to English ears seem a happy augury of a good time coming, are of
+no value whatever. They do not deny that such promises and guarantees
+express a great deal of good intention, but they know that above the
+individual, whether he be layman or ecclesiastic, there is a system
+which moves on, as soon as such movement becomes possible, in utter
+disregard of his statements. At the time when Catholic emancipation was
+in view, high Roman authorities gave the most emphatic guarantees that
+the position of the then Established Church in Ireland would never be
+endangered, so far as their Church and people were concerned. But when
+the time came, such promises proved absolutely worthless. Whether the
+disestablishment of the Irish Church was a good thing or not, is not the
+question here. The essential point, for our present purpose, is that the
+guarantees of individual Roman Catholics, no matter how positively or
+how confidently stated, are of no account as against the steady age-long
+policy of the Roman Church.
+
+It is well known to all students that, while other religious bodies
+have, both in theory and in practice, renounced certain old methods of
+persuasion, the Roman Church still formally claims the power to control
+states, to depose princes, to absolve subjects from their allegiance, to
+extirpate heresy. She has never accepted the modern doctrine of
+toleration. But there are many who think that these ancient claims,
+though not renounced, are so much out-of-date in the modern world that
+they mean practically nothing. Such is the opinion of the average
+Englishman, and the mild and cultivated form of Romanism which is to be
+met with usually in England lends colour to the opinion. In Ireland we
+know better.
+
+The recent Papal Decree, termed _Ne Temere_, regulating the
+solemnisation of marriages, has been enforced in Ireland in a manner
+which must seem impossible to Englishmen.
+
+According to this Decree, "No marriage is valid which is not contracted
+in the presence of the (Roman) parish priest of the place, or of the
+Ordinary, or of a priest deputed by them, and of two witnesses at
+least." This rule is binding on all Roman Catholics.
+
+It is easy to see what hardship and wrong must follow the observance of
+this rule in the case of mixed marriages.
+
+As a result, it is now the case that, in Ireland, marriages which the
+law of the land declares to be valid are declared null and void by the
+Church of Rome, and the children of them are pronounced illegitimate.
+Nor is this a mere academic opinion: such is the power of the Roman
+Church in this country that she is able to enforce her laws without
+deference to the authority of the State.
+
+The celebrated McCann case is the most notable illustration. Even in the
+Protestant city of Belfast we have seen a faithful wife deserted and her
+children spirited away from her, in obedience to this cruel decree. And
+we have seen an executive afraid to do its duty, because Rome had spoken
+and justified the outrage. Those who know intimately what is happening
+here are aware of case after case in which husband or wife is living in
+daily terror of similar interference, and also know that Protestants
+married to Roman Catholics, and living in the districts where the latter
+are in overwhelming majority, often find it impossible to stand against
+the odium arising from a bigoted and hostile public opinion. Nor does
+such interference stop here. Only a few weeks ago the kidnapping of a
+young wife by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics was prevented only by the
+brave and prompt action of her husband. In this case a sworn deposition,
+made in the presence of a well-known magistrate and fully attested, has
+been published, and no attempt at contradiction or explanation has been
+made. Let none imagine the _Ne Temere_ question is extinct in Ireland.
+It is at this moment a burning question. Under Home Rule it would create
+a conflagration. And surely there is reason for the indignation of
+Protestants. Here we see the most solemn contract into which a man or
+woman can enter broken at the bidding of a system which claims supreme
+control over all human relations, public and private; and this, not for
+the maintenance of any moral principle, but to secure obedience to a
+disciplinary regulation which is regarded as of so little moral value
+that it is not enforced in any country in which the Government is strong
+enough to protect its subjects.
+
+As if to define with perfect clearness, in the face of the modern world,
+the traditional claim of the Roman See, there has issued from the
+Vatican, within the last few weeks, a Decree which sets the Roman clergy
+above the law of the land. This ordinance, which is issued _motu
+proprio_ by the Pope, is the re-enactment and more exact definition of
+an old law. It lays down the rule that whoever, without permission from
+any ecclesiastical authority, summons any ecclesiastical persons to a
+lay tribunal and compels them to attend publicly such a court, incurs
+instant excommunication. The excommunication is automatic, and
+absolution from it is specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff. This fact
+adds enormously to the terror of it, especially among a people like the
+Irish Roman Catholics. Great discussion has taken place as to the
+countries in which this Decree is in force. No one was surprised to hear
+that Germany was exempt. Archbishop Walsh, the Roman Catholic Archbishop
+of Dublin, in an elaborate discussion, gives the opinion that the Decree
+is abrogated under British law by the custom of the country, which has
+in the past rendered impossible the observance of the strict
+ecclesiastical rule in this matter, but is careful to add that this is
+only his opinion as a canonist, and is subject to the decision of the
+Holy See. When this plea is examined, it is found to mean simply this,
+that the law is not strictly observed in case of necessity. That this is
+the meaning of Archbishop Walsh's plea is proved by a quotation which he
+makes from Pope Benedict XIV. The principle laid down by Pope Benedict
+is that when it became impossible to resist the encroachment of adverse
+customs, the Popes shut their eyes to what was going on, and tolerated
+what they had no power to prevent. It is exactly the principle of
+toleration as a temporary expedient. The re-enactment of the law by the
+present Pope means surely, if it means anything, that such toleration
+is to cease wherever and whenever the law can be enforced. But, be it
+observed, this necessity is entirely dependent on the strength of the
+authority which administers the civil law. The moment the civil
+authority grows weak in its assertion of its supremacy, the plea of
+necessity fails, and the ecclesiastical law must be enforced. Those who
+know Ireland are well aware that this is exactly what would happen under
+Home Rule. Here is the crowning proof of the truth that, above all the
+well-intentioned persons who give assurances of the peace and goodwill
+that would flourish under Home Rule, there is a power which would bring
+all their good intentions to nothing.
+
+But what of the Church of Ireland under Home Rule? Formerly the
+Established Church of the country, and as such occupying a position of
+special privilege, she still enjoys something of the traditional
+consideration which belonged to that position, and is more than ever
+conscious of her unbroken ecclesiastical descent from the Ancient Church
+of Ireland. Her adherents number 575,000, of whom 366,000 are in Ulster.
+As part of her heritage she holds nearly all the ancient ecclesiastical
+sites and the more important of the ancient buildings which still
+survive. These possessions, thus inherited from an immemorial past, were
+secured to her by the Act of Disestablishment. For the rest, the
+endowments which she enjoys at the present time have been created since
+1870 by the self-denial and generosity of her clergy and laity. Under
+British law, her position is secure. But would she be secure under Home
+Rule? Those of her advisers who have most right to speak with authority
+are convinced that she would not. The Bishop of Ossory, in an able and
+very moderate statement made at the meeting of the Synod of that
+Diocese, last September, showed that both the principal churches and the
+endowments now held by the Church of Ireland have been claimed
+repeatedly by prominent representatives of the Church of Rome. It is
+stated that the Church sites and buildings belong to the Roman Communion
+in Ireland because, on Roman Catholic principles, that communion truly
+represents the ancient Irish Church, and no lapse of time can invalidate
+the Church's title; and that the endowments belong to the same communion
+because they "represent moneys derived from pre-Disestablishment days,
+which were, in their turn, the alienated possessions of the Roman
+Church" (see Bishop of Ossory's Synod Address, p. 7). As regards this
+last statement, it must be noted that the only sense in which it can be
+truly said that the endowments represent moneys derived from
+pre-Disestablishment days is that the foundation of the new financial
+system was laid by the generosity of the clergy in office at the time.
+They entrusted to the Representative Body of the Church the capitalised
+value of the life-interests secured to them by the Act. The money was
+their private property, and their action one which involved great
+self-denial, for they gave up the security offered by the State. The
+money was so calculated that the whole should be exhausted when all
+payments were made. By good management, however, it yielded considerable
+profit, and meanwhile formed a foundation on which to build. It was,
+however, in no sense an endowment given by the State, nor was it a fund
+on which any but the legal owners (_i.e._ the clergy of the time) had a
+justifiable claim.
+
+The Bishop of Ossory's statement excited much discussion, but, though
+many Roman Catholic apologists endeavoured to laugh away his fears as
+groundless, not one denied the validity of his argument. The fact that,
+as he showed, the Church of Ireland holds her churches by exactly the
+same title as that by which the English Church holds Westminster Abbey,
+and that, for the Irish Church, there is the additional security of the
+Act of 1869, count for nothing in the eye of Roman Canon Law.
+
+In an Ireland ruled by a Parliament of which the vast majority would be
+Roman Catholics, devout and sincere, representing constituencies peopled
+by devout and sincere persons who believe that the laws of the Vatican
+are the laws of God, with a clergy lifted above the civil law by the
+operation of the recent _Motu Proprio_ Decree, an Ireland in which even
+the school catechisms (see the "Christian Brothers' Catechism," quoted
+by the Bishop of Ossory, _op. cit._ p. 8) teach that an alien Church
+unlawfully excludes "the Catholics" from their own churches, how long
+would it be before a movement, burning with holy zeal and pious
+indignation, against the usurpers, would sweep away every barrier and
+drive out "the heretics" from the ancient shrines?
+
+Irish Churchmen who know their country are aware that even the most
+stringent guarantees would be worthless in such a case, as they proved
+worthless in the Act of Union, and at the time of Catholic emancipation.
+
+Some English Liberals imagine that Home Rule would be followed by an
+uprising of popular independence which would destroy the power of the
+Roman Church in Ireland. Let those who think this consider that the more
+independent spirits among the Irish Roman Catholics go to America, and
+let them further consider what has happened in the Province of Quebec in
+Canada. The immense strength of the bonds--religious, social, and
+educational--by which the mass of the people in the South and West of
+Ireland are held in the grip of the Roman ecclesiastical system, and the
+power which would be exerted by the central authority of that system by
+means of the recent decrees, make it certain that clerical domination
+would, from the outset, be the ruling principle of an Irish Parliament.
+
+There is no desire nearer to the hearts of the clergy and people who
+form the Church to which the writer belongs than that they should be
+enabled to live at peace with their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen,
+and work in union with them, for the good of their country and the
+promotion of that new prosperity which recent years have brought. They
+dread Home Rule, because they know that, instead of peace, it would
+bring a sword, and plunge their country once again into all the horrors
+of civil and religious strife.
+
+
+
+
+THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE
+
+(ii) THE NONCONFORMIST VIEW
+
+BY REV. SAMUEL PRENTER, M.A., D.D. (DUBLIN),
+
+_Moderator of General Assembly of Presbyterian Church in Ireland in_
+1904-5.
+
+
+For obvious reasons, the Religious Difficulty under Home Rule does not
+receive much attention on the political platform in Great Britain. But
+in Ireland a religious problem flames at the heart of the whole
+controversy. This religious problem creates the cleavage in the Irish
+population, and is the real secret of the intense passion on both sides
+with which Home Rule is both prosecuted and resisted. Irishmen
+understand this very well; but as Home Rule, on its face value, is only
+a question of a mode of civil government, it is almost impossible to
+make the matter clear to British electors. They say, What has religion
+got to do with Home Rule? Home Rule is a pure question of politics, and
+it must be solved on exclusively political lines. Even if this were so,
+might not Englishmen remember that the Nationalist Members of Parliament
+have been controlled by the Church of Rome in their votes on the English
+education question? I mention this to show that under the disguise of
+pure politics ecclesiastical authority may stalk in perfect freedom
+through the lobbies of the House of Commons. Is it, then, an absolutely
+incredible thing that what has been done in the English Parliament in
+the name of politics may be done openly and undisguised in the name of
+politics in a Home Rule Parliament? That such will be the case I shall
+now attempt to show.
+
+Let us begin with the most elementary facts. According to the official
+census of 1911 the population of Ireland is grouped as follows:--
+
+Roman Catholics                      3,238,656
+Irish Church                           575,489
+Presbyterians                          439,876
+Methodists                              61,806
+All other Christian denominations       57,718
+Jews                                     5,101
+Information refused                      3,305
+
+I beg the electors of Great Britain to look steadily into the above
+figures, and to ask themselves who are the Home Rulers and who are the
+Unionists in Ireland. Irish Home Rulers are almost all Roman Catholics,
+and the Protestants and others are almost all stout Unionists. Does this
+fact suggest nothing? How is it that the line of demarcation in Irish
+politics almost exactly coincides with the line of demarcation in
+religion? Quite true, there are a few Irish Roman Catholics who are
+Unionists, and a few Protestants who are Home Rulers. But they are so
+few and so uninfluential on both sides that the exception only serves to
+prove the rule. These exceptions, no doubt, have been abundantly
+exploited, and the very most has been made of them. But the great
+elementary fact remains, that one-fourth of the Irish people, mostly
+Protestant, are resolutely, and even passionately, opposed to Home Rule;
+and the remarkable thing is that the most militant Irish Unionists for
+the past twenty years have not been the members of the Irish Church who
+might be suspected of Protestant Ascendency prejudices, but they are the
+Presbyterians and Methodists who never belonged to the old Protestant
+Ascendency party. It is of Irish Presbyterians that I can speak with the
+most ultimate knowledge. Their record in Ireland requires to be made
+perfectly clear. In 1829 they were the champions of Catholic
+Emancipation. In 1868 they supported Mr. Gladstone in his great Irish
+reforms. They have been at all times the advocates of perfect equality
+in religion, and of unsectarianism in education. They stand firm and
+staunch on these two principles still. But they are the sternest and
+strongest opponents of Home Rule, and their reason is because Home Rule
+spells for Ireland a new religious ascendency and the destruction of the
+unsectarian principle in education.
+
+I ask on these grounds that English and Scottish electors should pause
+for a moment, and open their minds to the fact that there is a great
+religious problem at the heart of Home Rule. Irish Presbyterians claim
+that they know what they are doing, and that they are not the blind
+dupes of religious prejudice and political passion. It is for a great
+something that they have embarked in this conflict; they are determined
+to risk everything in this resistance, and in proportion as the danger
+approaches, in like proportion does their hostility to the Home Rule
+claim increase.
+
+What, then, is the secret of this determination? It lies in a nutshell.
+A Parliament in Dublin would be under the control and domination of the
+Church of Rome. Two facts in Irish life render this not only likely and
+probable, but inevitable and certain. The first fact is that
+three-fourths of the members would be Roman Catholic, and the second
+fact is that the Irish people are the most devoted Roman Catholics at
+present in Christendom. No one disputes the first fact, but the second
+requires to be made clear to the electors of Great Britain. Let no one
+suppose that I am finding fault with Irishmen for being devoted Roman
+Catholics. What I wish to show is that the Church of Rome would be
+supreme in the new Parliament, and that she is not a good guardian of
+Protestant liberties and interests. Ireland has been for the last two
+generations brought into absolute captivity to the principles of
+ultramontanism. When Italy asserted her nationality, and fought for it
+in 1870, Ireland sent out a brigade to fight on the side of the Pope.
+When France, a few years ago, broke up in that land the bondage of
+Ecclesiasticism, the streets of Dublin were filled Sunday after Sunday
+for weeks with crowds of Irishmen, headed by priests, shouting for the
+Pope against France. The Church first, nationality afterwards, is the
+creed of the ultramontane; and it is the avowed creed of the Irish
+people. But this would be changed in an Irish Parliament, British
+electors affirm. Let us hear what Mr. John Dillon, M.P., says on the
+point. Speaking about a year ago in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester,
+Mr. Dillon said--
+
+     "I assert, and it is the glory of our race, that we are to-day the
+     right arm of the Catholic Church throughout the world ... we stand
+     to-day as we have stood throughout, without abating one jot or
+     tittle of that faith, the most Catholic nation on the whole earth."
+
+What Mr. Dillon says is perfectly true. The Irish Parliament would be
+constituted on the Roman model. If there were none but Roman Catholics
+in Ireland, Ireland would rapidly become a "State of the Church." But
+how would Protestants fare? Just as they fared in old Papal days in
+Italy under the temporal rule of the Vatican. But it may still be said
+that Irishmen themselves would curb the ecclesiastical power. This is
+one of the delusions by which British electors conceal from themselves
+the peril of Home Rule to Irish Protestants. They forget that Irishmen
+are, if possible, more Roman than Rome herself. I take the following
+picture of the Romanised condition of Ireland from a Roman Catholic
+writer--
+
+     "Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell, who 'believes in the Papal Church in
+     every point, who accepts her teaching from Nicaea to Trent, and
+     from Trent to the Vatican,' says, 'While the general population of
+     Ireland has been going down by leaps and bounds to the abyss, the
+     clerical population has been mounting by cent. per cent. during the
+     same period....' A short time ago, when an Austrian Cabinet was
+     being heckled by some anti-clerical opponents upon its alleged
+     encouragement of an excessive number of clerical persons in
+     Austria, the Minister replied, 'If you want to know what an
+     excessive number of the clergy is like go to Ireland. In proportion
+     to their population the Irish have got ten priests and nuns to the
+     one who exists in Austria. I do not prejudge the question. They may
+     be wanted in Ireland. But let not honourable members talk about
+     over-clericalism in Austria until they have studied the clerical
+     Statistics of Ireland.' A Jesuit visitor to Ireland, on returning
+     to his English acquaintances, and being asked how did he find the
+     priests in Ireland, replied, 'The priests in Ireland! There is
+     nobody but priests in Ireland. Over there they are treading on one
+     another's heels.' While the population of Ireland has diminished
+     one-half, the population of the Presbyteries and convents has
+     multiplied threefold or more. Comparisons are then instituted
+     between the Sacerdotal census of Ireland, and that of the European
+     Papal countries. I shall state results only. Belgium has only one
+     Archbishop and five Bishops; but if it were staffed with prelates
+     on the Irish scale it would have nine or ten Archbishops and some
+     sixty Bishops. I suppose the main army of ecclesiastics in the two
+     countries is in the same grossly incongruous proportions--ten or
+     twelve priests in Ireland for every one in Belgium! The German
+     Empire, with its 21,000,000 Roman Catholics, has actually fewer
+     mitred prelates than Ireland with its 3,000,000 of Roman Catholics.
+     The figures of Austria-Hungary with its Roman Catholic population
+     of 36,000,000 are equally impressive. It has eleven Archbishops,
+     but if it were staffed on the Irish scale it would have
+     forty-eight. It has forty Bishops, but if it were like Ireland it
+     would have 288. Mr. O'Donnell goes on: 'This enormous population of
+     Churchmen, far beyond the necessities and even the luxuries of
+     religious worship and service, would be a heavy tax upon the
+     resources of great and wealthy lands. What must it be for Ireland
+     to have to supply the Episcopal villas, the new Cathedrals, and
+     handsome Presbyteries, and handsome incomes of this enormous and
+     increasing host of reverend gentlemen, who, as regards five-sixths
+     of their number, contribute neither to the spiritual nor temporal
+     felicity of the Island? They are the despotic managers of all
+     primary schools, and can exact what homage they please from the
+     poor serf-teachers, whom they dominate and whom they keep eternally
+     under their thumb. They absolutely own and control all the
+     secondary schools, with all their private profits and all their
+     Government grants. In the University what they do not dominate they
+     mutilate. Every appointment, from dispensary doctors to members of
+     Parliament, must acknowledge their ownership, and pay toll to their
+     despotism. The County Councils must contribute patronage according
+     to their indications; the parish committees of the congested
+     districts supplement their pocket-money. They have annexed the
+     revenues of the industrial schools. They are engaged in
+     transforming the universal proprietary of Ireland in order to add
+     materials for their exactions from the living and the moribund. I
+     am told that not less than £5,000,000 are lifted from the Irish
+     people every year by the innumerable agencies of clerical suction
+     which are at work upon all parts of the Irish body, politic and
+     social. Nor can it be forgotten that the material loss is only a
+     portion of the injury. The brow-beaten and intimidated condition of
+     the popular action and intelligence which is necessary to this
+     state of things necessarily communicates its want of will and
+     energy to every function of the community.'"
+
+Of course Mr. F.H. O'Donnell has been driven out of public life in
+Ireland for plain speaking like this; and so would every man be who
+ventured to cross swords with his Church. It aggravates the situation
+immensely when we take another fact in Irish life into account.
+
+In quite recent months Mr. Devlin, M.P., has brought into prominence a
+society called the Ancient Order of Hibernians (sometimes called the
+Molly Maguires) which, according to the late Mr. Michael Davitt, is "the
+most wonderful pro-Celtic organisation in the world." This is a secret
+society which at one time was under the ban of the Church; but quite
+recently the ban has been removed, and priests are now allowed to join
+the order. The present Pope is said to be its most powerful friend. It
+has branches in many lands, and it is rapidly gathering into it all the
+great mass of the Irish Roman Catholic people. This is the most
+wonderful political machine in Ireland.
+
+Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., has recently given an account of this society
+which has never been seriously questioned.
+
+     "The fundamental object of the Hibernian Society is to give
+     preference to its own members first and Catholics afterwards as
+     against Protestants on all occasions. Whether it is a question of
+     custom, office, public contracts, or positions on Public Boards,
+     Molly Maguires are pledged always to support a Catholic as against
+     a Protestant. If Protestants are to be robbed of their business, if
+     they are to be deprived of public contracts, if they are to be shut
+     out of every office of honour or emolument, what is this but
+     extermination? The domination of such a society would make this
+     country a hell. It would light the flame of civil war in our midst,
+     and blight every hope of its future prosperity."
+
+And now we reach the core of the question. It is perfectly clear that
+Home Rule would create a Roman Catholic ascendency in Ireland, but
+still it might be said that the Church of Rome would be tolerant. On
+that point we had best consult the Church of Rome herself. Has she ever
+said that she would practise toleration towards Protestants when she was
+in power? Never; on the contrary, she declares most clearly that
+toleration of error is a deadly sin. In this respect the Church of Rome
+claims to differ _toto coelo_ from the churches of the Reformation. In
+Ireland she has passed through all the stages of ecclesiastical
+experience from the lowest form of disability to the present claim of
+supremacy. In the dark days of her suffering she cried for toleration,
+and as the claim was just in Protestant eyes she got it. Then as she
+grew in strength she stretched forth her hands for equality, and as this
+too was just, she gradually obtained it. At present she enjoys equality
+in every practical right and privilege with her Protestant neighbours.
+But in the demand for Home Rule there is involved the claim of exerting
+an ecclesiastical ascendency not only over her own members but over
+Irish Protestants, and this is the claim which is unjust and which ought
+not to be granted. Green, the historian, points out that William Pitt
+made the Union with England the ground of his plea for Roman Catholic
+emancipation, as it would effectually prevent a Romish ascendency in
+Ireland. Home Rule in practice will destroy the control of Great
+Britain, and, therefore, involves the removal of the bulwark against
+Roman Catholic ascendency.
+
+The contention of the Irish Protestants is that neither their will nor
+their religious liberties would be safe in the custody of Rome. In an
+Irish Parliament civil allegiance to the Holy See would be the test of
+membership, and would make every Roman Catholic member a civil servant
+of the Vatican. That Parliament would be compelled to carry out the
+behests of the Church. The Church is hostile to the liberty of the
+Press, to liberty of public speech, to Modernism in science, in
+literature, in philosophy; is bound to exact obedience from her own
+members and to extirpate heresy and heretics; claims to be above Civil
+Law, and the right to enforce Canon Law whenever she is able. There are
+simply no limits even of life or property to the range of her
+intolerance. This is not an indictment; it is the boast of Rome. She
+plumes herself upon being an intolerant because she is an infallible
+Church, and her Irish claim, symbolised by the Papal Tiara, is supremacy
+over the Church, supremacy over the State, and supremacy over the
+invisible world. Unquestioning obedience is her law towards her own
+subjects, and intolerance tempered with prudence is her law towards
+Protestants. It is a strange hallucination to find that there are
+politicians to-day who think that Rome will change her principles at the
+bidding of Mr. Redmond, or to please hard-driven politicians, or to make
+Rome attractive to a Protestant Empire. Rome claims supremacy, and she
+tells us quite candidly what she will do when she gets it.
+
+Here is our difficulty under Home Rule. Irish Protestants see that they
+must either refuse to go into an Irish Parliament, or else go into it as
+a hopeless minority, and turn it into an arena for the maintenance of
+their most elementary rights; in which case the Irish Parliament would
+be simply a cockpit of religio-political strife. But it would be a great
+mistake to suppose that the religious difficulty is confined to Irish
+Protestants. It is a difficulty which would become in time a crushing
+burden to Roman Catholics themselves. The yoke of Rome was found too
+heavy for Italy, and in a generation or two it would be found too heavy
+for Ireland. But for the creation of the Papal ascendency in Ireland,
+the responsibility must rest, in the long run, on Great Britain herself.
+England and Scotland, the most favoured lands of the Reformation, by
+establishing Home Rule in Ireland, will do for Rome what no other
+country in the world would do for her. They would entrust her with a
+legislative machine which she could control without check, hand over to
+her tender mercies a million of the best Protestants of the Empire, and
+establish at the heart of the Empire a power altogether at variance with
+her own ideals of Government, fraught with danger, and a good base of
+operations for the conquest of England. Can this be done with impunity?
+Can Great Britain divest herself of a religious responsibility in
+dealing with Home Rule? Is there not a God in Heaven who will take note
+of such national procedure? Are electors not responsible to Him for the
+use they make of their votes? If they sow to the wind, must they not
+reap the whirlwind?
+
+In brief compass, I hope I have made it quite clear what the Religious
+Difficulty in Ireland under Home Rule is. It is not a mere accident of
+the situation; it does not spring from any question of temper, or of
+prejudice, or of bigotry. The Religious Difficulty is created by the
+essential and fundamental genius of Romanism. Her whole ideal of life
+differs from the Protestant ideal. It is impossible to reconcile these
+two ideals. It is impossible to unite them in any amalgam that would not
+mean the destruction of both. Under Imperial Rule these ideals have
+discovered a decently working _modus vivendi_. Mr. Pitt's contention
+that the union with Great Britain would be an effectual barrier against
+Romanism has held good. But if you remove Imperial Rule than you create
+at a stroke the ascendency of Rome, and under that ascendency the
+greatest injustice would be inflicted on the Protestant minority.
+Questions of public situations and of efficient patronage are of very
+subordinate importance indeed. Mr. Redmond demands that Irish
+Protestants must be included in his Home Rule scheme, and threatens that
+if they object they must be dealt with "by the strong hand," and his
+Home Rule Parliament would be subservient to the Church of Rome. Does
+any one suppose that a million of the most earnest Protestants in the
+world are going to submit to such an arrangement? Neither Englishmen nor
+Scotsmen would be willing themselves to enter under such a yoke, and why
+should they ask Irishmen to do so?
+
+It is contended, indeed, that the power of the priest in Ireland is on
+the wane. This is partly true and partly not true. It is true that he is
+not quite the political and social autocrat that he once was. But it is
+not true that the Church of Rome is less powerful in Ireland than she
+was. On the contrary, as an ecclesiastical organisation Rome was never
+so compact in organisation, never so ably manned by both regular and
+secular clergy, never so wealthy nor so full of resource, never so
+obedient to the rule of the Vatican, as at the present moment. Give her
+an Irish Parliament, and she will be complete; she will patiently subdue
+all Ireland to her will. Emigration has drained the country of the
+strong men of the laity, who might be able to resist her encroachments.
+Dr. Horton truly says: "The Roman Church dominates Ireland and the Irish
+as completely as Islam dominates Morocco." By Ireland and the Irish Dr.
+Horton, of course, means Roman Catholic Ireland. Are you now going to
+place a legislative weapon in her hand whereby she will be able to
+dominate Protestants also? It is bad statesmanship; bad politics; bad
+religion. For Ireland it can bring nothing but ruin; and for the Empire
+nothing but terrible retribution in the future.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONSTRUCTIVE
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+UNIONIST POLICY IN RELATION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRELAND
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. GERALD BALFOUR
+
+
+"_For the last two and twenty years, at first a few and now a goodly
+company of rural reformers with whom I have been associated, and on
+whose behalf I write, have been steadily working out a complete scheme
+of rural development, their formula being better farming, better
+business, better living."_--SIR H. PLUNKETT, letter to the _Times_,
+December, 1911.
+
+"_Ireland would prefer rags and poverty rather than surrender her
+national spirit."_--MR. JOHN REDMOND, speech at Buffalo, September 27,
+1910.
+
+It should never be forgotten that the maintenance of the legislative
+Union between Ireland and Great Britain is defended by Unionists no less
+in the interests of Ireland than in that of the United Kingdom and of
+the Empire. That the ills from which Ireland has admittedly suffered in
+the past, and for which she still suffers, though in diminished measure,
+in the present, are economic and social rather than political, is a
+fundamental tenet of Unionism. Unionists also believe that economic and
+social conditions in Ireland can be more effectively dealt with under
+the existing political constitution than under any form of Home Rule.
+Ireland is a poor country, and needs the financial resources which only
+the Imperial Parliament can provide. She is, moreover, a country divided
+into hostile camps marked by strong racial and religious differences. As
+Sir George Trevelyan long ago pointed out, there is not one Ireland,
+there are two Irelands; and only so far as Ireland continues an
+integral part of a larger whole can the antagonism between the two
+elements be prevented from forming a dangerous obstacle to all real
+progress.
+
+Nationalist politicians, of course, diagnose the situation very
+differently. Apply suitable remedial measures, say the Unionists, to the
+social and economic conditions of the country, and it is not
+unreasonable to hope that political discontent--or, in other words, the
+demand for Home Rule--will gradually die away of itself. Give us Home
+Rule, say the Nationalists, and all other things will be added to us.
+
+The main object of the present paper is to give a bird's eye view of
+Unionist policy in relation to rural development in Ireland during the
+eventful years 1885-1905. It does not pretend to deal with the larger
+issue raised between Unionism and Nationalism; but incidentally, it will
+be found to throw some interesting side lights upon it.
+
+The Irish Question in its most essential aspect is a Farmers' Question.
+The difficulties which it presents have their deepest roots in an
+unsatisfactory system of land tenure, excessive sub-division of
+holdings, and antiquated methods of agricultural economy.
+
+Mr. Gladstone endeavoured to deal with the system of land tenure in the
+two important Acts of 1870 and 1881; but the system of dual ownership
+which those Acts set up introduced, perhaps, as many evils as they
+removed. It became more and more evident that the only effectual remedy
+lay in the complete transference of the ownership of the land from the
+landlord to the occupying tenant. The successful application of this
+remedy with anything like fairness to both sides absolutely demanded the
+use of State credit on a large scale. The plan actually adopted in a
+succession of Land Acts passed by Unionist Governments, beginning with
+the Ashbourne Act of 1885, and ending with the Wyndham Act of 1903, is
+broadly speaking as follows:--The State purchases the interest of the
+landlord outright and vests the ownership in the occupying tenant
+subject to a fixed payment for a definite term of years. These annual
+payments are not in the nature of rent: they represent a low rate of
+interest on the purchase money, plus such contribution to a sinking fund
+as will repay the principal in the term of years for which the annual
+payments are to run. The practical effect of this arrangement is that
+the occupier becomes the owner of his holding, subject to a terminable
+annual payment to the State of a sum less in amount than the rent he has
+had to pay heretofore.
+
+The successful working of the scheme obviously depends on the credit of
+the State, in other words, its power of borrowing at a low rate of
+interest. In this respect the Imperial Government has an immense
+advantage over any possible Home Rule Government: indeed, it is doubtful
+whether any Home Rule Government could have attempted this great reform
+without wholesale confiscation of the landlords' property. Here then in
+Land Purchase and the abolition of dual ownership, we have one of the
+twin pillars on which, on its constructive side, the Irish policy of the
+Unionist party rests. But to solve the problem of rural Ireland--which,
+as I have said, is _the_ Irish problem--more is required than the
+conversion of the occupying tenant into a peasant proprietor. The sense
+of ownership may be counted on to do much; but it will not make it
+possible for a family to live in decent comfort on an insufficient
+holding; neither will it enable the small farmer to compete with those
+foreign rivals who have at their command improved methods of production,
+improved methods of marketing their produce, facilities for obtaining
+capital adequate to their needs, and all the many advantages which
+superior education and organised co-operation bring in their train.
+
+Looking back to-day, the wide field that in these directions was open to
+the beneficent action of the State, and to the equally beneficent action
+of voluntary associations, seems evident and obvious. It was by no means
+so evident or obvious twenty years ago. At that time the traditional
+policy of _laisser faire_ had still a powerful hold over men's minds,
+and to abandon it even in the case of rural Ireland was a veritable new
+departure in statesmanship. The idea of establishing a voluntary
+association to promote agricultural co-operation was even more remote;
+and, as will be seen in the sequel, it was to the insight and devoted
+persistence of a single individual that its successful realisation has
+been ultimately due.
+
+So far as State action was concerned, a beginning was naturally made
+with the poorest parts of the country. Mr. Arthur Balfour led the way
+with two important measures. One of these was the construction of light
+railways in the most backward tracts on the western seaboard. These
+railways were constructed at the public expense, but worked by existing
+railway companies, and linked up with existing railway systems. The
+benefits conferred on those parts of the country through which they
+passed have been great and lasting.
+
+Mr. Balfour's second contribution to Irish rural development was the
+creation of the Congested Districts Board in 1891. The "congested
+districts" embraced the most poverty-stricken areas in the western
+counties, and the business of the Board was to devise and apply, within
+those districts, schemes for the amelioration of the social and economic
+condition of the population comprised in them. For this purpose, the
+Board was invested with very wide powers of a paternal character, and an
+annual income of upwards of £40,000 was placed at their free disposal, a
+sum which has been largely increased by subsequent Acts.
+
+The experiment was an absolutely novel one, but no one who is able to
+compare the improved condition of the congested districts to-day with
+the state of things that prevailed twenty years ago can doubt that it
+has been amply justified by results.
+
+Every phase of the life of the Irish peasant along the whole of the
+western seaboard has been made brighter and more hopeful by the
+beneficent operations of the Board. Its activities have been manifold,
+including the purchase and improvement of estates prior to re-sale to
+the tenants; the re-arrangement and enlargement of holdings; the
+improvement of stock; the provision of pure seeds and high-class
+manures; practical demonstration of various kinds, all educational in
+character; drainage; the construction of roads; improvement in the
+sanitary conditions of the people's dwellings; assistance to provide
+proper accommodation for the livestock of the farm, which too frequently
+were housed with the people themselves; the development of sea
+fisheries; the encouragement of many kinds of home industries for women
+and girls; the quarrying of granite; the making of kelp; the promotion
+of co-operative credit; and many other schemes which had practical
+regard to the needs of the people, and have contributed in a variety of
+ways to raise the standard of comfort of the inhabitants of these
+impoverished areas.
+
+It will be noticed that among the other activities of the Congested
+Districts Board, I have specially mentioned the work of promoting
+co-operative credit by means of village banks managed on the Raffeisen
+system. The actual work of organising these co-operative banking
+associations has not been carried out directly by the Board, but through
+the agency of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (generally
+known by the shorter title of the I.A.O.S.), to which the Board has for
+many years past paid a small subsidy--a subsidy which might well have
+been on a more generous scale, having regard to the immense advantages
+which co-operation is capable of conferring on the small farmer.
+
+The I.A.O.S. is a voluntary association of a strictly non-political
+character. "Business, not politics," has been its principle of action;
+and partly, perhaps, for this very reason it may claim to have
+contributed more than any other single agency towards the prosperity of
+rural Ireland. To its work I now turn.
+
+
+THE I.A.O.S.
+
+The movement which the I.A.O.S. represents was started by Sir Horace
+Plunkett, and he has remained the most prominent figure in it ever
+since. Sir Horace Plunkett bears an honoured name wherever the rural
+problem is seriously studied; but, like other prophets, he has received
+perhaps less honour in his own country than elsewhere. At all events, in
+the task to which he has devoted his life, he has had to encounter the
+tacit, and indeed at times the open opposition, of powerful sections of
+Nationalist opinion. Happily he belongs to the stamp of men whom no
+obstacles can discourage, and who find in the work itself their
+sufficient reward.
+
+Sir Horace Plunkett's leading idea was a simple one, and has become
+to-day almost a commonplace. He compared the backward state of
+agriculture in Ireland with the great advance that had been made in
+various continental countries, where the natural conditions were not
+dissimilar to those of Ireland, and asked himself the secret of the
+difference. That secret he found in the word _organisation_, and he set
+himself to organise. The establishment of co-operative creameries seemed
+to afford the most hopeful opening, and it was to this that Sir Horace
+Plunkett and a few personal friends, in the year 1889, directed their
+earliest missionary efforts. The difficulties to be overcome were at
+first very great. "My own diary," writes Sir Horace, "records attendance
+at fifty meetings before a single society had resulted therefrom. It was
+weary work for a long time. These gatherings were miserable affairs
+compared with those which greeted our political speakers."
+
+The experiences[70] of another of the little band of devoted workers,
+Mr. R.A. Anderson, now Secretary of the I.A.O.S., throw an interesting
+light upon the nature of some of the obstacles which the new movement
+had to encounter.
+
+     "It was hard and thankless work. There was the apathy of the
+     people, and the active opposition of the Press and the politicians.
+     It would be hard to say now whether the abuse of the Conservative
+     _Cork Constitution_, or that of the Nationalist _Eagle_ of
+     Skibbereen, was the louder. We were 'killing the calves,' we were
+     'forcing the young women to emigrate,' we were 'destroying the
+     industry.' Mr. Plunkett was described as a 'monster in human
+     shape,' and was adjured to 'cease his hellish work.' I was
+     described as his 'man Friday,' and as 'Roughrider Anderson.' Once
+     when I thought I had planted a creamery within the town of
+     Rathkeale, my co-operative apple-cart was upset by a local
+     solicitor, who, having elicited the fact that our movement
+     recognised neither political nor religious differences--that the
+     Unionist-Protestant cow was as dear to us as her
+     Nationalist-Catholic sister--gravely informed me that our programme
+     would not suit Rathkeale. 'Rathkeale,' said he pompously, 'is a
+     Nationalist town--Nationalist to the backbone--and every pound of
+     butter made in this creamery must be made on Nationalist
+     principles, or it shan't be made at all.' This sentiment was
+     applauded loudly, and the proceedings terminated."
+
+Eventually, however, the zeal of the preachers, coupled with the
+economic soundness of the doctrine, prevailed over all difficulties. By
+1894 the movement had outgrown the individual activities of the
+founders, and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society was
+established in Dublin in order to promote and direct its further
+progress. That progress has been rapid and continuous, and to-day the
+co-operative societies connected with the I.A.O.S. number nearly 1000,
+with an annual turnover of upwards of 2-1/2 millions. They extend over
+the length and breadth of the land, and include creameries, agricultural
+societies (whose main business is the purchase of seeds and manure for
+distribution to the members), credit societies (village banks), poultry
+keepers' societies (for the marketing of eggs), flax societies,
+industries societies, as well as other societies of a miscellaneous
+character.
+
+In 1892 the Liberal Party came into power. During their three years'
+tenure of office a Home Rule Bill was introduced and passed through the
+House of Commons, but little or nothing was attempted by the Government
+for the economic regeneration of the country.
+
+The Unionist Party came back with a large majority in 1896, and the
+attention of the new Irish Government, in which the post of Lord
+Lieutenant was held by Lord Cadogan and that of Chief Secretary by the
+present writer, was from the first directed to the condition of the
+Irish farmer. The session of 1896 was largely devoted to the passing of
+a Bill for amending the Land Acts, and for further facilitating the
+conversion of occupying tenants into owners of their holdings. Time,
+however, was also found for a new Light Railways Act, under the
+provision of which railway communication has been opened up at the
+expense of the State in the poorest parts of North-West Ireland.
+
+It was in the following year that the first attempt was made to
+establish an Irish Department of Agriculture. The Bill was not carried
+beyond a first reading, because it was ultimately decided that a Local
+Government Act should have precedence of it. But the project was only
+put aside for a time, and it was always looked upon by me as an integral
+part of our legislative programme. In framing the Bill of 1897, and also
+the later Bill of 1899, which passed into law, we received the greatest
+assistance from the labours of a body known as the Recess Committee,
+concerning which a few words must now be said.
+
+
+THE RECESS COMMITTEE.
+
+To be the founder of agricultural co-operation in Ireland was Sir Horace
+Plunkett's first great achievement; the bringing together of the Recess
+Committee was his second. He conceived the idea of inviting a number of
+the most prominent men in Ireland, irrespective of religious or
+political differences, to join in an inquiry into the means by which the
+Government could best promote the development of the agricultural and
+industrial resources of Ireland. This idea he propounded in an open
+letter published in August, 1895. The proposal was a bold one--how bold
+no one unacquainted with Ireland will easily realise. Amongst
+Nationalist politicians the majority fought shy of it. Mr. Justin
+McCarthy, the leader of the party, could only see in Sir Horace's letter
+"the expression of a belief that if your policy could be successfully
+carried out, the Irish people would cease to desire Home Rule." "I do
+not feel," he added, "that I could possibly take part in any
+organisation which had for its object the seeking of a substitute for
+that which I believe to be Ireland's greatest need--Home Rule."
+Fortunately, then as now, the Irish party was divided into two camps,
+and Mr. Redmond, at the head of a small minority of "Independents," was
+at liberty to take a different line. "I am unwilling," he wrote, "to
+take the responsibility of declining to aid in any effort to promote
+useful legislation in Ireland."
+
+Ultimately, Sir Horace Plunkett's strong personality, his manifest
+singleness of purpose, and the intrinsic merits of his proposal carried
+the day. A committee, truly representative of all that was best in Irish
+life, was brought together, and commissioners were despatched to the
+Continent to report upon those systems of State aid linked with
+voluntary organisation which appeared to have revolutionised agriculture
+in countries not otherwise more favoured than Ireland itself. A large
+mass of most valuable information was collected. In less than a year the
+committee reported. The substance of the recommendation was
+
+     "That a Department of Government should be specially created, with
+     a minister directly responsible to Parliament at its head. The
+     Central Body was to be assisted by a Consultative Council
+     representative of the interests concerned. The Department was to be
+     adequately endowed from the Imperial Treasury, and was to
+     administer State aid to agriculture and industries in Ireland upon
+     principles which were fully described."[71]
+
+With the general policy of these recommendations the Irish Government
+were in hearty sympathy, and the Bill of 1897, already referred to, was
+a first attempt to give effect to it. But in the absence of popularly
+elected local authorities an important part of the machinery for
+carrying out the proposals was wanting.
+
+
+IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT.
+
+A reform of local government in Ireland had long been given a place in
+the Unionist programme, but the magnitude of the undertaking and the
+pressure of other business had hitherto stood in its way. It was now
+decided to take up this task in earnest, on the understanding that other
+measures relating to Ireland should be postponed in the meantime. The
+Irish Local Government Bill was accordingly introduced and passed in the
+following session (1898).
+
+Of this Act, which involved not merely the creation of new popular
+Authorities, but also an entire re-arrangement of local taxation, and
+some important changes in the system of poor relief, I will only say
+here that it must be counted as another of the great remedial measures
+which Ireland owes to the Unionist Party, and which it would have been
+difficult, if not impossible, to carry out in a satisfactory manner
+without assistance on a generous scale from the ample resources of the
+Imperial Exchequer.
+
+
+IRISH DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION.
+
+The way was now open for the measure to which I had looked forward from
+the first moment of my going to Ireland, and which was to constitute the
+final abandonment of the old _laissez faire_ policy in connection with
+Irish agriculture and industries. Great care and labour were devoted to
+the framing of the new Bill, and I was in constant touch throughout with
+members of the Recess Committee. It contained clauses dealing with urban
+as well as rural industries, but these lie outside my present subject,
+and I shall not refer to them further here. On the side of rural
+development the Bill embodied a novel experiment in the art of
+government--novel at all events in British or Irish experience, though
+something like it had already been tried with conspicuous success in
+various countries on the Continent. It was the continental example which
+had inspired the Report of the Recess Committee, and it was the
+recommendations of the Recess Committee which in their turn suggested
+the main features of the Bill of 1899.
+
+There was indeed one body in Ireland whose functions corresponded in
+some degree with those of the Authority it was now proposed to set up.
+This body was the Congested Districts Board; and it might be said with
+some approximation to the truth that the object we had in view was to do
+for the rest of Ireland, _mutatis mutandis_, what the Congested
+Districts Board was intended to do for the poverty-stricken districts of
+the West. But there was this very important difference. The operations
+of the Congested Districts Board were carried out, and necessarily
+carried out, on strictly "paternal" lines; the dominant note in the new
+departure was to be the encouragement of self-help. This difference
+carried with it an equally important difference in the constitution and
+methods of the administering Authority.
+
+Out of a total endowment of £166,000 a year, a sum of over £100,000 was
+placed at the disposal of the Department to be applied to the "purposes
+of agriculture and other rural industries." These "purposes" are defined
+in the Act as including--
+
+     "the aiding, improving, and developing of agriculture,
+     horticulture, forestry, dairying, the breeding of horses, cattle,
+     and other live stock and poultry, home and cottage industries, the
+     preparation and cultivation of flax, inland fisheries, and any
+     industries immediately connected with and subservient to any of the
+     said matters, and any instruction relating thereto, and the
+     facilitating of the carriage and distribution of produce."
+
+This part of the Endowment Fund was, in short, a grant to the Department
+to be applied to what may be described as rural development in the
+widest sense of the term. As to the methods, little or no restriction
+was imposed upon the scope of its powers; and in the expenditure of the
+money it was to be as free from Treasury control as the Congested
+Districts Board itself.
+
+On the other hand, the Congested Districts Board was not only free from
+Treasury control, it was free from any control whatever. It was an
+unpaid Board, and it could spend its money where it pleased and how it
+pleased, and there was nobody to say it nay. True, its members were
+appointed by Government, and the Chief Secretary was _ex-officio_ a
+member of the Board; but he had no greater authority given to him than
+any of his colleagues, and in case of any difference of opinion the
+decision was that of the majority of the Board. No single member of the
+Board could be held responsible for any of its acts; and accordingly,
+although the vote for the Board came annually before Parliament, of real
+Parliamentary responsibility there was none.
+
+Such an arrangement was not without its disadvantages even as regards
+the Congested Districts Board itself: its adoption in the case of the
+Authority to be created under the Agriculture and Industries Bill would
+have been open to yet greater objection.
+
+A further point was this. The Congested Districts Board was an unpaid
+body. An unpaid body consisting of busy men cannot be in perpetual
+session. The Congested Districts Board, as a matter of fact, met only
+once a month; and in the intervals of its meeting there was no one with
+full authority to act on its behalf.
+
+The problem, then, in connection with the expenditure of the Endowment
+Fund was to provide for its administration by an efficient and
+promptly-acting executive, responsible to Parliament on the one hand,
+and on the other hand brought by the very nature of its administrative
+machinery into the closest possible touch with the new local
+Authorities, as well as with the voluntary organisations which were now
+springing up all over the country.
+
+In order to satisfy these requirements, the Bill provided that the
+control of the Endowment Fund should be vested not in a Board attached
+to the new Department, but in the Department itself; that is to say, in
+a Minister appointed by the Government of the day. The Chief Secretary
+was to be the titular head of the Department, but it was not intended
+that he should intervene in its ordinary administrative business. The
+real working head was to be the Vice-President, a new Minister with
+direct responsibility to Parliament. So far as related to certain powers
+and duties transferred from existing departments of the Irish
+Government, and similar to the powers and duties of the English Board of
+Agriculture, the new Minister was to have complete executive authority.
+But as regards the administration of the Endowment Fund, a different
+arrangement was proposed--an arrangement without precedent, so far as I
+know, in any previous legislation in this country.
+
+In order to bring the Department into close touch with local bodies, the
+Bill attached to it a "Council of Agriculture" and an "Agricultural
+Board." One-third of the members of each of these bodies were to be
+nominated by the Department, and the intention was that in making these
+nominations due regard should be had to the representation of voluntary
+organisations. The remaining two-thirds were to be elected in the case
+of the "Council of Agriculture" by the newly created County Councils, in
+the case of the "Agricultural Board" by the "Council of Agriculture,"
+divided for this purpose into four "Provincial Committees." In addition
+to the functions of an electoral college thus entrusted to its four
+provincial committees, the business of the "Council of Agriculture" as a
+whole was to meet together, at least once a year, for the discussion of
+questions of general interest in connection with the provisions of the
+Act; but its powers were only advisory. The "Board," on the other hand,
+was more than an advisory body; for it was given a veto on any
+expenditure of money out of the Agricultural Endowment Fund. The
+application of the Endowment Fund was thus made dependent on the
+_concurrence_ of the "Agricultural Board" and of the minister in charge
+of the Department--an entirely novel plan which, although it might
+clearly result in a deadlock as regards any particular application of
+money from the fund, has nevertheless, I believe, worked extremely well,
+and answered the purpose for which it was devised of reconciling
+ministerial and executive responsibility with a reasonable power of
+control given to local bodies.
+
+Finally, with a view to stimulating local effort and the spirit of
+self-help, a provision was inserted in the Bill to which I attached the
+greatest importance. Power was given to the Council of any county or of
+any urban district, or to two or more public bodies jointly, to appoint
+committees composed partly of members of the local bodies and partly of
+co-opted persons, for the purpose of carrying out such of the
+Department's schemes as were of local rather than of general interest.
+But in such cases, it was laid down that
+
+     "the Department shall not, in the absence of any special
+     considerations, apply or approve of the application of money ... to
+     schemes in respect of which aid is not given out of money provided
+     by local authorities, or from other local sources."
+
+To meet this requirement, the local authorities were given the power of
+raising a limited rate for the purposes of the Act.
+
+That the Act of 1899 has in the main answered the expectations formed of
+it by those who were responsible for its introduction there can, I
+think, be no doubt. The Act itself, as well as the methods of
+administration adopted in carrying out its provisions, have been the
+subject of a full inquiry by a Departmental Committee which reported in
+1907. Their report must be regarded as on the whole eminently
+favourable. In one point only has any important change been recommended.
+The Committee suggest that the post of Vice-President of the Department
+should not be held by a Minister with a seat in Parliament, nor yet by a
+regular civil servant, but should be an office _sui generis_ tenable
+for five years with power of reappointment. No effect has so far been
+given to this proposal by legislation.
+
+
+THE UNIONIST ATTITUDE.
+
+In this brief sketch of the measures passed by Unionist Governments
+since 1886 with the object of promoting the material prosperity of
+Ireland, many points of interest have been necessarily omitted; but what
+has been said will suffice to show how baseless is the assertion, so
+frequently urged as an argument for Home Rule, that the Imperial
+Parliament is incapable of legislating successfully for Irish wants.[72]
+Nothing could be more futile than to represent Irish problems, and
+especially the problems of Irish rural life, as so unique that only a
+Parliament sitting in Dublin can hope to solve them satisfactorily. As a
+matter of fact, the rural question in Ireland is, in most of its
+essential features, very similar to the rural question in other
+countries, of which Denmark is perhaps the best example; and the
+methods which have been successful there are already proving successful
+here. Single ownership of the land by the cultivator; State aid,
+encouraging and supplemementing co-operation and self-help; co-operation
+and self-help providing suitable opportunities for the fruitful
+application of State aid--these are the principles by which Unionist
+legislation for Ireland has been guided, and they are the principles
+which any wise legislation must follow, whether it emanate from an Irish
+or from the Imperial Parliament. Indeed, if there is anything "unique"
+in the Irish case, it is the deep division of sentiment inherited from
+the unhappy history of the country and reinforced by those differences
+of race and creed to which I have already alluded as making two Irelands
+out of one. But the remedy for this is not to cut Ireland adrift and
+leave the two sections to fight it out alone, but rather to maintain the
+existing constitution as the best guarantee that the balance will be
+held even between them.
+
+Sir Horace Plunkett has well summed up the real needs of rural Ireland
+in the formula "better farming, better business, better living." He has
+himself done more than any other single man to bring the desired
+improvement about. I am not ashamed to acknowledge myself his disciple,
+and in the measures for which I was responsible during my time in
+Ireland, I ever kept the practical objects for which he has striven
+steadily in view. In a speech which I made shortly after taking office I
+used the phrase "killing Home Rule with kindness." This phrase has been
+repeatedly quoted since, as if it had been a formal declaration on the
+part of the incoming Irish Government that to "kill Home Rule" was the
+Alpha and the Omega of their policy. What I really said was that we
+intended to promote measures having for their object an increase in the
+material prosperity of the country; that if we could thereby kill Home
+Rule with kindness, so much the better; but that the policy stood on its
+own merits, irrespective of any ulterior consequences.
+
+In my view that is the only true attitude for a Unionist Government to
+take up. But in our efforts to improve material conditions and to remove
+grievances, how small is the encouragement or help that we have received
+from leaders of the Nationalist Party! "Their aim," said Goldwin Smith
+long ago, "has always been to create a Nationalist feeling, which would
+end in political separation, not the redress of particular wrongs and
+grievances, or the introduction of practical improvements." I should
+imagine that there has seldom, if ever, been an important political
+party which has exhibited so little constructive ability as the Irish
+Parliamentarians. Their own legislative proposals during the last thirty
+years have been a negligible quantity; and I think I am justified in
+saying that there is not one of the great measures passed by Unionist
+Governments since 1886 which has not been either opposed by the
+accredited leaders of the Party, or, at best, received with carping and
+futile, rather than helpful, criticism. I must personally
+acknowledge--and I do so gladly--that I received useful assistance and
+valuable criticism from the Messrs. Healy in conducting the Local
+Government Bill through the House of Commons; and credit must also be
+given to Mr. John Redmond for the part he took in aiding to bring
+together the Recess Committee. But the Messrs. Healy have always acted
+independently; and Mr. John Redmond was, at the time referred to, leader
+of only a small minority of the Irish Nationalists. The feeling of the
+majority, and certainly of the leaders of the majority, was reflected,
+as we have seen, in the refusal of Mr. Justin McCarthy to have anything
+to do with the movement.
+
+Mr. Dillon in particular has shown a disposition to regard minor
+political grievances, and even poverty and discontent, as so much fuel
+wherewith to stoke the lagging engine of Home Rule. Remedial measures
+short of Home Rule seem to take in his eyes the character of attempts to
+deprive the Irish Party of so many valuable assets. Nor is this spirit
+of tacit or open hostility confined to acts of the legislature. Of all
+the social and economic movements in Ireland during recent years, the
+spread of agricultural co-operation has been without doubt among the
+greatest and the most beneficial. It has never found a friend in Mr.
+Dillon. In the movement itself and in the Irish Agricultural
+Organisation Society, founded expressly to promote it, he can only see a
+cunning device of the enemy to undermine Nationalism. In this matter Mr.
+Dillon's attitude is also the official attitude of the Irish Party. Thus
+Mr. Redmond (now reconciled with Mr. Dillon and become leader of the
+main body of Nationalists), in a letter to Mr. Patrick Ford, dated
+October 4, 1904, does not scruple to say of Sir Horace Plunkett's truly
+patriotic work:--
+
+     "I myself, indeed, at one time entertained some belief in the good
+     intentions of Sir Horace Plunkett and his friends, but recent
+     events have entirely undeceived me; and Sir Horace Plunkett's
+     recent book, full as it is of undisguised contempt for the Irish
+     race, makes it plain to me that the real object of the movement in
+     question is to undermine the National Party and divert the minds of
+     our people from Home Rule, which is the only thing that can ever
+     lead to a real revival of Irish industries."
+
+Those who have read Sir H. Plunkett's "Ireland in the New Century" will
+hardly know which most to wonder at in these words, the extraordinary
+misdescription of the whole spirit of his book, or the total failure to
+realise the absolute necessity to Irish farming of a movement which not
+only has its counterpart all over the Continent of Europe, but has since
+inspired similar action in the United States, in India, and quite
+recently in Great Britain as well.
+
+
+NATIONALIST HOSTILITY.
+
+Nationalist hostility to the I.A.O.S. has not been confined to words.
+When the Agriculture and Technical Instruction Bill was passing through
+the House of Commons, Mr. Dillon endeavoured to secure an undertaking
+from me that public moneys should not be employed to subsidise the work
+of the Society. I naturally refused to give any such undertaking.[73] I
+had followed the efforts of the Society very closely; I was deeply
+impressed with the value of the results which it had accomplished; but
+its field of activity was limited by the narrowness of its resources. In
+my opinion, a subsidy to the Society from the Endowment Fund of the
+Department would be a useful and proper application of public money. At
+the same time I pointed out that if the Agricultural Board, which in the
+main represented the popularly-elected local authorities, thought
+differently, they had a power of veto and could use it in this case.
+
+Sir Horace Plunkett held the position of Vice-President of the
+Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction from 1899 to 1907,
+and during his tenure of office, as I had always expected and intended,
+there was close co-operation between the Department and the I.A.O.S.
+During that period a sum amounting in all to less than £30,000 was paid
+by the Department to the I.A.O.S., of which more than half was for
+technical instruction, while the balance represented contributions to
+the work of co-operative organisation.[74]
+
+When Sir H. Plunkett was replaced by Mr. T. W. Russell, the pressure of
+the Irish Parliamentary Party immediately began to make itself felt. The
+new vice-president informed the Council of Agriculture that he had made
+up his mind to withdraw the subsidy, but he undertook to continue a
+diminishing grant for three years, £3000 for the first year, £2000 for
+the second, and £1000 for the third. The I.A.O.S. were not seriously
+opposed to the gradual withdrawal of the subsidy, the loss of which they
+hoped to be able to cover in course of time by increased voluntary
+subscriptions.
+
+The opposition of the Nationalist Party was, however, not yet
+exhausted. In the _Freeman's Journal _of January 21, 1908, there
+appeared a letter from Mr. John Redmond enclosing a copy of a letter
+from Mr. T. W. Rolleston to a correspondent at St. Louis. Mr. Rolleston
+accompanied his letter with a copy of a speech by Sir Horace Plunkett.
+In his letter he remarked plainly upon the antagonism displayed by the
+Irish Nationalists to the co-operative movement. Although Sir Horace
+Plunkett declared that he had nothing whatever to do with the letter,
+the Irish Parliamentarians professed to find in it abundant proof of an
+intention to destroy Nationalism. "That correspondence," said Mr. T. W.
+Russell,"[75] compelled me to take action. Mr. John Redmond made it
+imperative upon me by his letter--I mean a public letter to the
+Press--and as so much was involved, I took the precaution of convening a
+special meeting of the Agricultural Board." The Board decided that the
+subsidy should be withdrawn at the end of the year 1908.
+
+The last act in this drama of hostility to Sir Horace Plunkett and all
+his works is still in the course of being played. Under the provisions
+of the Development Fund Act of 1909, the Development Commissioners were
+empowered to make advances for the organisation of co-operation, either
+"to a Government Department or through a Government Department to a
+voluntary association not trading for profit." During the Report stage
+of the Development Fund Bill, Mr. Dillon tried to get a ruling from the
+Solicitor-General that the I.A.O.S. would be excluded from receiving
+grants from the fund, thus repeating the manoeuvre which he had already
+unsuccessfully attempted in connection with the Agriculture and
+Technical Instruction (Ireland) Bill of 1899.
+
+In accordance with this provision, the three Agricultural Organisation
+Societies for England, Scotland, and Ireland, each applied for a grant
+in aid. The applications were referred in due course for report to the
+Government Departments concerned--that is to say, to the Board of
+Agriculture and Fisheries for the English and Scottish applications, and
+to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for that from
+the I.A.O.S. The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries reported favourably,
+and the British and Scottish Organisation Societies are to have their
+grant. But the I.A.O.S. had to reckon with Mr. T. W. Russell, behind
+whom stood Mr. Dillon and the politicians. The report of the Irish
+Department on the Irish application was adverse, but the Commissioners
+do not appear to have found the reasons given convincing. Much delay
+ensued, but, ten months after the application was sent in, the matter
+was submitted to the Council of Agriculture.
+
+The machinery of the United Irish League was brought into action to
+influence the votes of this body. Mr. Russell delivered an impassioned
+harangue, and eventually the Council was induced to endorse his action
+by a majority of 47 to 33.
+
+Any grant in aid of agricultural co-operation is to be administered, if
+Mr. Russell has his way, not by the society which has already been
+instrumental in establishing nearly a thousand co-operative associations
+in Ireland, and has served as a model on which the corresponding English
+and Scottish Organisation Societies, now in the enjoyment of a State
+subsidy, have been founded, but by the Department, which has hitherto
+had no experience whatever of such work. Moreover, the co-operation
+promoted by the Department is to be "non-competitive," by which I
+suppose is meant, that it is not to affect any existing trading
+interest. It is safe to say that agricultural co-operation, which has
+_no_ effect upon any trading interest, will have very little effect upon
+the farmers' interests either. So far as I know, the Development
+Commissioners have not decided what course to take in this strange
+situation. It may be that Ireland will lose the grant altogether; but in
+any case I can well believe that they must hesitate to reverse the
+policy already approved for England and Scotland, and in the face of
+all experience commit the work of organising agricultural co-operation
+to a State Department rather than to a voluntary association possessing
+such a record as the I.A.O.S. has placed to its credit.
+
+If now we ask what are the grounds of the hostility of the Nationalist
+Party to the most hopeful Irish movement of recent years, the answer
+appears to be twofold. The first is economic, or purports to be
+economic: the second is frankly political.
+
+1. Co-operation, it is urged, injures the middleman and the small
+trader.
+
+To encourage farmers to do well and economically for themselves what is
+now done indifferently and expensively for them by the middleman, must
+of course act injuriously on some existing interests. This is not
+disputed. But the change is absolutely necessary for the regeneration of
+rural Ireland, and this objection cannot be allowed to stand in the way.
+Looked at in its broader and more enduring aspects, co-operation is
+bound to stimulate and improve general trade by increasing the spending
+power of the farmers. The Chambers of Commerce of Dublin and Belfast
+have not been slow to perceive this, and have warmly endorsed the
+Society's application for a grant from the Development Commissioners.
+
+2. The political objection to the movement, so far as it takes the
+definite form of charging the I.A.O.S. with being a propagandist body
+aiming under the mask of economic reform at the covert spread of
+Unionist opinions, will not stand a moment's examination. There is not a
+particle of evidence in support of such a charge, and the presumption
+against it is overwhelming. To mix political propagandism with
+organisation would be the certain ruin of the movement. The Committee of
+the I.A.O.S. consists of men of all shades of political faith. These men
+could never have joined hands except on the basis that politics should
+be rigidly excluded from the work of the Society. The members of the
+co-operative societies founded by the I.A.O.S. number nearly 100,000.
+Probably at least three-fourths of these are Nationalists.
+
+In order, however, that all doubt on the subject might be finally
+removed, the I.A.O.S. issued a circular to all its societies, in which
+the following question was directly put:--
+
+     "Has the I.A.O.S., as a body, or the Committee acting for it, done,
+     in your opinion, any act in the interest of any political party, or
+     any act calculated to offend the political principles of any
+     section of your members?"
+
+The answers received have been published and form very interesting
+reading. Not a single society, of the many hundreds that have replied
+from all parts of Ireland, has been found to assert that politics have
+ever been mentioned by the agents of the parent association.
+
+The hostility of the politicians to the co-operative movement rests, it
+is safe to surmise, upon some other foundation than these flimsy charges
+against the I.A.O.S.
+
+In itself the movement is vital to the prosperity of rural Ireland. The
+disfavour shown to it arises from apprehensions respecting its
+_indirect_ bearing upon the great issue between Unionism and
+Nationalism. Home Rulers who oppose the co-operative movement find
+themselves in this dilemma: either they hold that nothing in the way of
+material improvement could affect the demand for Home Rule, or else they
+are really afraid lest "better farming, better business, and better
+living," should weaken the attractions of their own political nostrum.
+In the former case, they are left without a shadow of justification for
+their attitude towards the I.A.O.S.; in the latter, they tacitly admit
+that the interests of the farming classes must suffer in order that the
+cause of Home Rule may be promoted.
+
+Unionists are in no such difficulty. Our policy is clear and consistent.
+Improvement in the social and economic condition of the people must be
+our first object. It is an end to be pursued for its own sake, whatever
+the indirect consequences may be. But the indirect consequences need
+cause us no anxiety. Increased material prosperity, and the contentment
+which inevitably accompanies it, whatever their other effects may be,
+are not likely to strengthen the demand for constitutional changes.
+Successful resistance to Home Rule at the present crisis may well mean
+the saving of the Union for good and all.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 70: Originally published in the _Irish Homestead_, and quoted
+in Sir Horace Plunkett's "Ireland in the New Century," p. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 71: "Ireland in the New Century," p. 220.]
+
+[Footnote 72: In this connection attention may be called to the
+remarkable increase of wealth in Ireland in the past twenty years. The
+deposits in the Joint Stock Banks have increased from £33,700,000 in
+1891 to £56,011,000 in 1911, the balances in the Post Office Savings
+Banks in Ireland from £3,878,000 in 1891 to £12,253,000 in 1911, and the
+number of accounts from 261,352 in 1891 to 662,589 at the end of 1910.
+Irish investments in Government Funds, India Stocks, and Guaranteed Land
+Stock have increased from £26,609,000 in 1891 to £41,363,000 in 1911.
+But more noteworthy still, perhaps, is the increase in Irish trade.
+Figures are only available since 1904, but in that period Irish imports
+have increased from £54,078,399 to £65,044,477--an increase of
+£10,966,078 in seven years. Irish exports have increased in the same
+period from £49,712,400 to £65,844,255, or an increase of £16,131,155.
+Or, if we take the aggregate trade, there has been an increase from
+£103,790,799 in 1904 to £130,888,732 in 1910, an increase of
+£27,097,933. In other words, the aggregate import and export trade in
+Ireland in the year 1910 amounted to nearly £28 sterling per head of
+population, while the corresponding figure for Great Britain is just
+over £20. These figures are, I submit, eloquent testimony that the
+general policy of the Imperial Parliament in relation to Ireland during
+recent years has been wisely conceived, and that the successful solution
+of the "Irish Problem" is to be found in the steady pursuit of methods
+which have already achieved such striking results.]
+
+[Footnote 73: It appears that Mr. Dillon was under a misapprehension on
+this point. He thought he had obtained an amendment to the Bill which
+prevented the I.A.O.S. from getting a subsidy. This, however, was an
+entire mistake. See App. B. to the Report of the Committee on the Dept.
+of Agriculture. Cd. 3573 of 1907.]
+
+[Footnote 74: The _voluntary_ contributions to the I.A.O.S. for the work
+of organisation amounted to no less than £100,000.]
+
+[Footnote 75: See his evidence before the House of Lords Committee on
+the Thrift and Credit Bank Bill (Paper 96 of 1910).]
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE WYNDHAM, M.P.
+
+
+The case for resisting all attempts at impairing the Union between Great
+Britain and Ireland can be made unimpeachable without reference to the
+Irish Land Question. It would be our duty to defend the Union as a
+bulwark of national safety, an instalment of Imperial consolidation, and
+a protection to the freedom of minorities in Ireland, even if it could
+be shown that agriculture, the chief industry of Ireland, had little to
+gain under the Union and nothing to lose under Home Rule. Fortunately,
+this cannot be alleged except by those who shut their eyes to the
+results of State-aided Land Purchase in Ireland, and refuse to consider
+the consequences of tampering with the mainspring of that beneficent
+operation: I mean the credit of a joint exchequer under one Parliament
+for both countries. "England's Case against Home Rule" coincides with
+Ireland's need for retaining the prosperity that has come to her, after
+long waiting, under, and because of, the Union. It is, therefore,
+fitting that a place should be found in this book for a brief account of
+what Irish agriculture may hope from the Union and must fear from Home
+Rule.
+
+The history of Irish Agriculture until recent years differed from the
+history of English Agriculture at many points, and always to the marked
+disadvantage of Ireland. Dynastic and religious controversies which--if
+we except the suppression of monasteries and the exile of a few
+Jacobites--left English countrysides untouched, in Ireland carried with
+them the confiscation of vast territories and the desolating Influence
+of Penal Laws. Changes in economic theory contributed even more sharply
+to the decay of Irish enterprise. When England favoured Protection Irish
+industry was handicapped out of manufactures. When England adopted Free
+Trade Irish agriculture, on which the hopes of Ireland had perforce been
+fixed, suffered in a greater degree. The doctrine of _laisser faire_
+wrought little but wrong when applied by absentee buyers of bankrupt
+estates to tracts hardly susceptible of development by capital, amid a
+peasantry wedded to continuity of tenure, and justified in that
+tradition by the fact that they and their forbears had executed nearly
+all the improvements on their holdings. Most of the nation were
+restricted to agriculture under conditions that spelt failure, and
+imposed exile as the penalty for failure, since other avenues to
+competence were closed. The climax of misfortune was reached a
+generation after the triumph of Free Trade. Ireland, being almost wholly
+an agricultural country, suffered as a whole, whereas England, an
+industrial country, suffered only in districts, from the collapse of
+agricultural prices in 1879. That catastrophe in rural life precipitated
+Mr. Gladstone's Land Law Act (Ireland), 1881. Being precluded by his
+political tenets from protecting Irish agriculture against foreign
+competition, or assisting it with the resources of the State, Mr.
+Gladstone aimed at alleviating the distress due to the decadence of a
+national industry by defining with meticulous nicety the respective
+shares which the two parties engaged in agriculture--landlord and
+tenant--were to derive from its dwindling returns. He believed that the
+proportion of diminishing profits due to the landlord, because of the
+inherent capabilities of his property, and to the tenant, because of his
+own and his predecessors' exertions, could be roughly determined by a
+few leading cases in the Land Court; and, further, that landlords and
+tenants throughout Ireland would conform to such guidance as these
+decisions might afford. In this anticipation he ignored the vital
+function of agriculture in Irish life, and the effect which the growing
+stringency of agricultural conditions would have on a population that
+loved the land and rejoiced in litigation. He created dual-ownership
+throughout Ireland, and this led, as Lord Dufferin and other far-seeing
+statesmen had foretold, to the land being starved of both capital and
+industry. Irish agriculture was brought to the brink of ruin. The misery
+of those involved in that pass was exploited to engineer an attack on
+the fabric of social order, and the lawlessness so engendered was
+adduced as an argument for dissolving the Union under which such
+tragedies could occur.
+
+The leaders of the Conservative Party, when confronted with this
+situation, determined that their duty, in accordance with the spirit of
+the Act of Union, demanded some use of the resources of a joint
+exchequer for ministration to the peculiar needs of Ireland. They
+decided that the credit of the State should be employed to effect the
+abolition of dual-ownership by converting the occupiers of Irish farms
+into owners of the soil. Let it be granted that this policy had been
+advocated by John Bright and enshrined in the Land Law Acts of 1870 and
+1881. It must be added that these pious intentions remained a "dead
+letter" until adequate machinery for giving them effect was provided by
+the Land Purchase Acts, commonly called the Ashbourne Acts, of 1885 and
+1889. The method pursued was as follows. Any individual landlord could
+agree with any individual tenant on the price which he would accept for
+the extinction of his interest in that tenant's holding. The State
+facilitated the transaction by advancing that amount to the landlord in
+_cash_ whenever the holding offered sufficient security, and accepting
+from the tenant an undertaking to pay an instalment of £4 a year for
+every £100 advanced over a period of forty-nine years. The instalment
+comprised £3 for interest, 2_s._ 6_d._ for expenses, and 17_s._ 6_d._
+for sinking fund. The loan from the exchequer was secured against
+individual failures to pay by the realisable value of the holdings.
+
+The salient features in this procedure were that the landlord received
+cash and that the tenant paid interest at the then existing rate on
+Consols, viz. 3 per cent. Both these features are important. A payment
+in cash, or its equivalent, is preferable for such transactions to a
+payment in stock, with a fluctuating value, because, if the stock
+appreciates the landlord gets more than he bargained for, and this, by
+arousing the suspicions of other would-be tenant-purchasers, produces a
+disinclination on their part to buy. Again, if the stock depreciates,
+the landlord cannot carry out contemplated redemptions of mortgages on
+his property, and this produces a disinclination on the part of other
+landlords to sell. In the second place it is difficult to persuade Irish
+tenants that the State is assisting them if they, the poor, are asked to
+pay higher interest for the State's credit than the State pays for the
+credit of the rich. The chief defect in this procedure lay in its
+restriction to separate bargains in respect of single holdings. It made
+a patchwork, whereas the untoward results of the historic and economic
+causes on which I have touched demanded the wholesale treatment of
+convenient areas.
+
+Under these Acts, in the course of six years, more than 27,000 tenants
+became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to over £10,000,000.
+The largest number of applications for purchase in any one year was
+6,195 for £2,271,569 in 1887, and the average price for all the holdings
+bought under these Acts was £396.
+
+When the sums provided by the Ashbourne Acts were exhausted, Mr. Arthur
+Balfour carried the Act of 1891, subsequently amended by the Act of
+1896. Under these Acts the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash.
+The tenant still paid an instalment of £4, which was, ultimately,
+divided into £1 5_s._ for sinking fund and £2 15_s._ for interest. This
+large sinking fund, £1 5_s._ instead of 17_s._ 6_d._, was retained after
+interest had been reduced to the rate on Consols, 2-3/4 per cent.,
+chiefly to avoid a discrepancy in the total of annual instalments as
+between purchasers under the Act of 1891 and purchasers under the
+Ashbourne Acts. Difficulties were feared if the earlier purchasers were
+to pay £4 and the later purchasers only £3 15_s._ for each £100
+advanced, so the spare five shillings was put in the sinking fund. This
+speculative difficulty was afterwards discounted in order to deal with
+one of a more practical character. Under Mr. Gladstone's Land Law Act of
+1881, which dealt with rent-fixing, statutory rents were revised every
+fifteen years, and the second term rents, beginning in 1896, seemed
+certain to reveal considerable reductions on the rents payable during
+the first period. It was felt that the security for the earlier advances
+would be endangered if rents throughout Ireland fell below the level of
+the purchase-instalments, and that purchase would be retarded if the
+purchaser did not obtain immediate relief by agreeing to buy. To meet
+this practical difficulty Mr. Gerald Balfour, in 1896, permitted the
+purchaser to write off the amount repaid by sinking fund during the
+first and two successive periods of ten years. These "decadal
+reductions" were optional. If the purchaser forewent them he paid £4 per
+£100, and extinguished his debt in 42-1/2 years. If he availed himself
+of them he paid £3 8_s. 7d._ per £100 after the first ten years, and
+continued to pay, with two further reductions in prospect, till the debt
+was extinguished in a period undefined, but estimated at about 72-1/2
+years. But this privilege was made retrospective, so that purchasers
+under the Ashbourne Acts could also reduce their instalments of £4 to £3
+11_s. 10d._
+
+The salient features in the procedure of the Acts of 1891 and 1896 were
+that, (1) the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash. But owing to
+the rise in the value of gilt-edged securities, Irish Land Stock, with a
+face value of £100, became at one moment worth as much as £114; (2) the
+purchaser's interest was at 2-3/4 per cent. _i.e._ the existing rate on
+Consols; but (3) his instalment, prospectively fined down by decadal
+reductions, enabled him to offer an acceptable price and yet pay far
+less to the State, by way of instalment, after purchase than was due to
+his landlord, by way of rent, before purchase. The operation of purchase
+was still confined, almost wholly, to single bargains. But in Mr. Arthur
+Balfour's Act of 1891 a new departure was authorised which, after
+development in Mr. Gerald Balfour's Act of 1896, has led to important
+and far-reaching consequences. The Congested Districts Board was
+established to deal with scheduled areas in the West of Ireland that
+comprised a large number of holdings at once too limited in area, and
+too poor in soil, for any one of them to support a family by farming or
+to afford security to the State, under existing facilities for purchase,
+in the event of the occupier wishing to become the owner. A select
+committee of the House of Commons, so long ago as in 1878 (No. 249, pp.
+4 and 5), when Disraeli was Prime Minister, had recommended that a
+properly constituted body should be empowered to purchase, not single
+farms, but whole estates, and to re-sell them after amalgamating,
+enlarging, and re-distributing what are now called "uneconomic"
+holdings. Provisions to this end had been inserted in earlier Acts, but,
+in the absence of administrative machinery and financial resources, they
+remained abortive. It had for long been evident that the small,
+impoverished holdings, which had supported a dense population before the
+famine, stood in need of fundamental remodelling if they were to support
+even a largely reduced population. The efforts made by wealthy Irish
+landlords in this direction were arrested by the Land Law Act of 1870
+and rendered impossible by the Land Law Act of 1881. With the Purchase
+Acts of 1891 and 1896 a beginning was made.
+
+Another feature must be noted. In addition to the value of any one
+holding, as a security against individual failure, a further security
+was provided against the risk of a combined refusal to repay. The
+Exchequer was empowered to retain grants due for various purposes in
+Ireland and to recoup itself in proportion to the defalcation in any
+county. It should be added that individual failures have been rare to
+the point of insignificance, and that no combined refusal has been
+attempted, or advocated, even during periods of agricultural unrest.
+
+Under the Acts of 1891 and 1896 in the course of just over twelve years
+more than 44,000 tenants became owners by virtue of advances which
+amounted to over £13,000,000. Here we must note that the success of
+these Acts coincided with, and depended on, a rise in the price of
+gilt-edged securities. The number of applications rose from 1503 in the
+year ending March 31, 1896, to 6911 in the year ending March 31, 1900.
+But, with the fall in the price of stock, land purchase showed signs of
+coming to a standstill. By 1902 it was evident that new legislation was
+needed, and in the next year the Irish Land Act of 1903 was carried.
+
+The Irish Land Act of 1903 was not, as some suggest, a short cut to the
+millennium, evolved on the spur of the moment, and translated into
+fantastic finance. It had two bases, the one practical, the other moral.
+In the first place, it was founded on the ripe experience garnered
+during eighteen years from the operation of preceding purchase Acts. In
+the second place, it was founded on the historic agreement spontaneously
+arrived at in 1902 by accredited representatives of Irish landlords and
+tenants. They resolved that dual ownership ought to be abolished
+throughout Ireland, and that this primary policy should be accompanied
+by effective remedies for the uneconomic conditions prevalent in the
+West, but existing elsewhere, though sporadically, to a limited extent.
+This agreement, in itself unprecedented, was rendered the more
+remarkable by the fact that the signatories assumed the responsibility
+of telling the Government how the first object could be achieved. They
+advised that landlords could not be expected to sell, as a class, unless
+the price paid to them in cash would yield from sound securities 90 per
+cent. of their income in terms of a rent that had been twice revised
+under the Land Law Act of 1881; and that tenants could not be expected
+to buy, as a class, unless their instalments due to the Treasury after
+purchase were from 15 per cent. to 25 per cent. less than such rents so
+revised. They invited the Government to give effect to that agreement.
+The Government accepted and, in the Act of 1903, tendered the costly
+but, under the circumstances, not extravagant _imprimatur_ of the
+Treasury on a political treaty thenceforward to be binding on all three
+contracting parties: landlords, tenants, and the State. The Nationalist
+members, as spokesmen for the tenants, and the representatives of the
+landlords, subscribed to the provisions offered, and the reports of the
+Estates Commissioners prove that these have been fulfilled so exactly
+that, in the case of second term rents, landlords and tenants have
+obtained average incomes and reductions that differ only by a decimal
+from the mean advocated at the Conference.
+
+The objects of the Irish Land Act were, in conformity with the
+conclusions of the Conference, to abolish dual ownership rapidly and, at
+the same time, to deal systematically with "agricultural slums." Its
+salient features fall under four heads.
+
+A. _State assistance to voluntary bargaining._ For this purpose it was
+provided that (1) cash payments should be resumed to the landlords; (2)
+that the tenants' instalments should be £3 5_s._ for each £100 advanced,
+divided into £2 15_s._ (2-3/4 per cent.) for interest and 10_s._ for
+sinking fund. This was not, as the able and well-informed special
+correspondent of the _Times_ suggests (February 9, 1912) a sudden
+departure from an instalment of £4. "Decadal reductions" under the Act
+of 1896 had, as I have said, diminished the instalments of purchasers
+under the Act of 1891 to £3 8_s. 7d._ after ten years with further
+prospective diminutions, and subjected the instalments of purchasers
+under earlier Acts to a similar process. A wholesale expansion of
+purchase was impossible unless would-be purchasers were offered terms
+comparable to those accorded to their predecessors. For this reason the
+tenantry of Ireland were offered repayment at £3 5_s._ per £100 for a
+period of about 62 years, in lieu, under the Act of 1896, of repayment
+at £3 8_s. 9d._, with further reductions, for about 72-1/2 years, and
+their representatives accepted the offer. They would certainly have
+refused, and rightly, the offer substituted by Mr. Birrell in the Act of
+1909, viz. an instalment of £3 10_s._ with the same sinking
+fund--10_s._--and interest increased to £3. The third feature to be
+noted under this head is, that the terms agreed to by representatives of
+landlords and tenants at the conference could not be ratified unless
+the State added some help by way of cash to the assistance of its
+credit. It was agreed by all parties that £12,000,000 should be
+available to bridge the gap, at the rate of 12 per cent. on the amount
+advanced, with the right to revise that rate after five years, but _only
+for the purpose of extending the bonus_--as it was called--_to all
+future transactions_. It was an integral part of a solemn covenant that
+the bonus should not be diverted to any object other than the abolition
+of dual ownership and the remedy of "congestion."
+
+B. _The substitution of speedy purchase for dilatory litigation._ To all
+members of the Conference of 1902 and of the House of Commons in 1903,
+with, I believe, the exception of Mr. Dillon, who was away in America
+while the Conference sat, it was evident that, if dual ownership was to
+be abolished, our choice was confined to two courses. We could, on the
+one hand, pursue, under the guise of purchase, the metaphysical and
+costly distinctions between landlord-right and tenant-right, which Mr.
+Gladstone had established under the guise of rent-fixing; or else, as
+the only alternative, we had "to cut the cackle" and get to business.
+Under this head the House of Commons--Mr. Dillon ingeminating
+dissent--decided in so far as landlords and tenants were concerned, two
+things: (1) It was agreed that where the tenant-purchaser's instalment,
+after purchase, was substantially less than his statutory rent revised
+at great cost--£140,000 a year for Land Courts--then, in those cases the
+State needed not to inquire at further cost and delay into either its
+own security in the holding, or the metaphysical distinction between
+value due to the landlord's ownership of the soil and value due to the
+tenant's improvement of the soil. This close approximation to unanimity
+will not surprise those who grasp that every landlord and tenant was to
+make a voluntary bargain on precisely those terms which the
+representatives of their classes had combined to obtain from the State.
+The alternative method of delay and litigation had been further
+discounted, for everybody except Mr. Dillon, by the fact that in the
+classic case--_Adams_ v. _Dunseath_--tried out in accordance with Mr.
+Gladstone's panacea, Adams, after repeated lawsuits, improved his
+financial position by an infinitesimal sum per annum without becoming an
+owner of his farm. It was also agreed that the Estates Commissioners
+appointed to administer the Act, should be administrative officials
+under the Government, and not amateur judges. This was essential, not
+only to substitute cheap speed for costly delay, but also to ensure that
+the benefits offered by the State should not be absorbed, say, in the
+rich province of Leinster to the detriment of the poorer province of
+Connaught, or--for who knows what may happen in Ireland?--absorbed in
+the Home Rule province of Connaught to the detriment of the Unionist
+province of Ulster.
+
+C. _Dealing with Estates as a whole instead of with single holdings._
+This process, till then applied tentatively in the congested districts
+of the West, became the general method throughout Ireland, and was
+assisted by the provision of working capital for carrying out necessary
+amalgamations and improvements before resale.
+
+D. _Increase in the 'borrowing power and funds of the Congested
+Districts Board,_ for the purpose of dealing systematically with
+"agricultural slums."
+
+The features of the Irish Land Act (1903), founded, as they were, on
+experience and the consent of all parties concerned, became widely
+popular in Ireland. But, by Mr. Birrell's Act of 1909, they were all
+distorted or destroyed. A solemn treaty, framed in the interest of
+Ireland, was torn up to deck with its tatters the triumph of Mr.
+Dillon's unholy alliance with the British Treasury. The effect of this
+betrayal on the prospects of Irish agriculture will appear from a
+recital of the changes made by Mr. Birrell's Act, followed by a
+comparison of the results obtained under the two Acts. From that
+comparison I shall proceed to an examination of the reasons alleged for
+the breach of faith, and a statement of the Unionist party's pledge to
+continue their policy of 1903. I shall then conclude by inviting all
+who care for Ireland to weigh the prospects of Irish Agriculture under
+the Union against its prospects under Home Rule.
+
+_Changes made by the Act of _1909.--(1) Instead of cash payments
+landlords are to receive stock at three per cent. issued on a falling
+market, and this stock cannot appreciate because, owing to the
+embarrassment of Irish estates, about half of each issue must be thrown
+back on the market for the redemption of mortgages; a result fatal to
+land purchase and detrimental to the credit of the State. (2) Instead of
+paying £3 5_s._ per £100, tenants are to pay £3 10_s._ without any
+reduction in the period of repayment. The sinking fund remains at 10_s._
+and the interest £3 is, for the first time since land purchase was
+attempted, placed at a higher rate than in the preceding Purchase Act,
+whilst the whole instalment of £3 10_s._ is raised, not only above the
+rate of the Act of 1903, but also above the rates, diminished by decadal
+reductions, of purchasers under still earlier Acts. This again, in view
+of these reductions and of periodic revisions of _rent_ under the Land
+Law Act of 1881, is fatal to purchase. (3) The bonus of £12,000,000--on
+the application of which all parties agreed in 1903--was diverted from
+the unanimous policy of that year and brought in aid of Mr. Dillon's
+hobby, which all parties then rejected. Mr. Dillon is at liberty to
+rejoice over the ruin of one landlord more than over the salvation of
+99,000 tenants. The laws of lunacy do not, and ought not to, touch him.
+But there is no reason why taxpayers should minister to his peculiar
+pleasure, with the result of postponing indefinitely any settlement of
+the Irish land question. (4) By reverting to inspection for security
+delay is substituted for speed, and speed is necessary in the conclusion
+of bargains that are themselves the result of prolonged negotiations;
+the more so when, as now, owing to the substitution of stock for cash,
+the seller cannot know what his bargain will turn out to be; and the
+buyer, owing to the block in agreements under the Act of 1903, cannot
+know when his bargain will take effect. In most cases it will not do so
+for from six to eight years, which must be added to the period of
+repayment, although his instalment has been increased. (5) The reversion
+to attempts at defining the metaphysical rights of the landlords and
+tenants revives the social poison of litigation of which, in 1903, every
+one but Mr. Dillon was weary. (6) The revival of litigation in respect
+of single holdings defeats the policy of dealing with convenient areas.
+(7) By transforming the Estates Commissioners, much I imagine to their
+disgust, from administrative officers into amateur judges, a further
+premium is put on litigation and delay, whilst the interests of one
+province as against the interests of another, are left without
+protection from the State. (8) Although more than half the holdings of
+Ireland are valued at less than £10 a year, a presumption is created
+that all holdings below that value are to be deemed "uneconomic." The
+whole of Connaught with the counties of Donegal and Kerry and part of
+County Cork are branded as "congested," and the Board, charged with
+conducting purchase in that area, is swollen to unmanageable size,
+whilst three commissioners are held sufficient for the rest of Ireland,
+which is twice as large.
+
+To these eight changes, all inimical, and, as I believe, fatal to the
+abolition of dual ownership, two have been added of a more insidious
+effect. Compulsion has been adopted. This of itself checks voluntary
+purchase. It kills it when, as under this Act, compulsory purchases are
+to be paid for in cash and voluntary purchases in depreciated stock.
+Finally, the Act contemplates diverting the resources, applied under the
+treaty of 1903 to the abolition of dual ownership and the remedy of
+congestion, to a new purpose, for which Ireland can make no special
+claim. I mean the creation, over all Ireland, of new tenancies, to be
+sold to new men, who have never suffered from dual ownership or
+uneconomic conditions, and may be presumed to be ignorant of farming.
+This new policy amounts to a repeal of the policy sanctioned by all,
+viz. of giving special State aid to meet the peculiar needs of Ireland.
+
+_A comparison of the results obtained under the Acts of_ 1903 _and_
+1909.--In order to gauge the respective efficacy of these two Acts for
+the purpose of abolishing dual ownership, it is necessary to distinguish
+between applications for purchase, and advances actually made in respect
+of completed transactions. The applications exhibit the comparative
+popularity and convenience of the two Acts. The advances exhibit only
+the readiness of the Government to proceed with purchase. They pertain
+to the financial, rather than the political, aspect of the problem, and
+may be examined later together with the reasons alleged for the delay of
+its solution. The fact of the delay appears from the following
+figures:--
+
+Under the Irish Land Act (1903) the number of purchase agreements lodged
+in respect of direct sales by landlords to tenants was 217,299 in the
+course of less than six years from November 1, 1903, to September 15,
+1909. To these should be added proposed purchasers in other categories,
+viz. in respect of estates sold to the Land Commission for subsequent
+re-sale, or to the Congested Districts Board, or in the Court of the
+Land Judge, or in respect of offers to evicted tenants. These bring the
+total of potential purchasers up to 248,109. Under the Act of 1909, in
+two years from December 3, 1909, to December 1, 1911, the number of
+applications in respect of direct sales stands at 8,992. In the other
+categories the number of potential purchasers amounted to 373 up to
+March 31, 1911. Since then tentative negotiations have been essayed,
+under the threat of compulsion and the menace of Home Rule, which
+suggest a far larger figure. But these transactions--to which I shall
+return--are of an eminently dubious character. We are on safe ground if
+we compare the number of tenants who were ready under the two Acts to
+acquire their holdings. After discounting whatever may be claimed on the
+score that the operation of the Act of 1903 was expedited by the fear of
+its destruction, a comparision of 217,299 would-be purchasers in six
+years with 8,992 in two years demonstrates that the abolition of dual
+ownership has been thrown back to the conditions which called for the
+Treaty of 1903. Furthermore, it is proper to discount, in turn, even the
+meagre total of 8,992. For it includes the remainders of estates, other
+parts of which had been sold under the Act of 1903 and the spurt of
+applications expedited, in this case, by the revolution of last August.
+To the over-sanguine and the over-timid this seemed to foreshadow the
+rapid passage of Home Rule, and, bad as are the terms of the Act of
+1909, they are estimated to be better than any obtainable after the
+Union has been thrown on the scrap-heap of the Constitution. One other
+comparison may be noted. It was part of the Treaty of 1903 that
+landlords should be encouraged to remain in their native land by
+assistance in the repurchase of their demesnes--that is, homes--after
+selling their properties. Under the Act of 1903 the advances on resale
+to owners sanctioned by the Land Commission numbered 205. Under the Act
+of 1909 they number two.
+
+It will readily be inferred, even by those unacquainted with Ireland;
+that a process for healing ancient wounds has been turned into a process
+for exasperating future conflicts. A blister has been substituted for a
+poultice on the sores of centuries. Existing agreements are blocked.
+Future agreements--for this is their appropriate, if cynical--designation,
+are relegated to a future which few can foresee. Landlords who have
+contracted to sell are threatened with bankruptcy by the foreclosure of
+mortgages. Tenants who have contracted to buy see their hopes deferred
+with sick hearts. Whilst to owners and occupiers who have not completed
+their bargains "no hope comes at all." The newly won prosperity of
+Ireland is doomed because the Nationalist party and British Government
+have not kept faith; and with prosperity peace is departing. The
+environment that breeds agrarian disorder and crime has been restored,
+and agitators, in expectation of Home Rule, are already at "their dirty
+work again." A new plan of campaign menaces the peace of Ireland in
+those districts whose past records are most darkly stained.
+
+_Examination of the reasons alleged for tearing up the Treaty of
+1903_.--The Government defended their reversal of the policy of 1903,
+and departure from their pledges to carry out that policy, by making two
+assertions. They asserted (1) that the size of the problem, which all
+parties undertook to solve, would exceed by far the speculative estimate
+put forward in 1903; (2) that the credit of the British Exchequer, which
+they have depressed, would prove unequal to the burden foreshadowed by
+the new dimensions, which they have assigned. (1) _Size of the problem_.
+The first assertion, that much nearer £200,000,000 than £100,000,000
+must be borrowed in order to complete purchase, is based on two
+assumptions explicitly stated in the Return presented to Parliament (Cd.
+4412 of 1908) as follows: "It will be observed that the purchase money
+of the agricultural land not yet brought before the Commissioners for
+sale under the Land Purchase Acts has been estimated _on the assumption
+that it will be all sold_ and that _it will be sold on an average at the
+price for which lands had been sold up to 30th April last, under the
+Irish Land Act_ (1903)." The assumptions on which the Government
+proceeded are not, therefore, in doubt, but the validity of those
+assumptions, on which the whole case of the Government depends, is
+refuted by the ascertained facts of Irish agriculture. The census shows
+that the number of agricultural holdings in Ireland is about 490,000,
+including nearly 19 million acres. The whole area of Ireland includes
+some 21 million acres, apportioned to 3-1/2 million acres under crops, 6
+million acres of waste, and 11-1/2 million acres under grass. The Return
+to which I have referred (Cd. 4412 of 1908) cavils at the figures given
+in the census on the ground that the 490,000 "holdings" are more
+accurately 490,000 "land-holders," since a tenant holding "half a dozen
+farms in the same county is returned as having a single holding." But it
+is right to take "holders" when, as under the Act of 1903, the limit on
+advances applies to the person who receives them. Again, the Return
+throws over the census for figures supplied by the Department of
+Agriculture. But it is wrong to use these figures, for they include
+holdings not exceeding one acre, of which there are 80,000 in Ireland,
+and many more that cannot be described as "in the main agricultural or
+pastoral." No special pleading on the part of the Government can alter
+the fact that the 490,000 holdings given by the census include all the
+lands under crops and grass and two-thirds of the waste. They embrace 19
+million acres, and more than cover the ground. For the purpose of an
+estimate it is an outside figure, the more so since, in respect of grass
+lands the value of a single farm may exceed the limit of any one
+advance, and it is not uncommon for a large grazier to rent many grass
+farms. If the Government, by conferring a judicial status on the Estate
+Commissioners, surrendered their control over the amounts of single
+advances; and again, if the Government, at the dictation of Mr. Dillon,
+embarked on a new policy of creating tenancies in grass land and selling
+them to new men, they are debarred from increasing the estimate to cover
+their own misfeasance. In tendering the speculative estimate of 1903, it
+was clearly laid down that the amount of one advance was only to be
+increased in rare cases, and the sub-division of permanent pasture was
+denounced as a "form of economic insanity." It was also explained that
+deductions must be made from the 490,000 holdings in respect of small
+town plots, accommodation plots, and market gardens; nor are these
+insignificant, for to the 80,000 holdings not exceeding one acre we must
+add 62,000 of from 1 to 5 acres. In the face of these facts, the
+assumption that "all agricultural land"--as defined in the Return--will
+be sold, is not only unsound but preposterous.
+
+The second assumption, that the average price of future transactions
+will equal that of past transactions is opposed to the presumption that
+better, and therefore dearer farms, came into the market before worse
+and therefore cheaper farms. I am not referring to the number of years'
+purchase offered, a point on which I have never expressed an opinion,
+but to the value of the property which passes. It is with farms as with
+oranges, the good ones go first. The pertinence of this maxim to land
+purchase is proved by the reports of the Estates Commissioners. These
+contradict the Government's second assumption, for they exhibit a
+steady and continuous decline in the average of advances that have been
+made. The average amount of advances under the Act of 1903 to March 31,
+1908, was in round numbers £361. On some such figures the second
+assumption rests. I ventured at the time to assert that the average in
+the future would not exceed £300. This estimate has been confirmed, for
+the average advances from March 31, 1908, to September 15, 1909--when
+the Act ceased to operate--was £287. A further reduction may be
+confidently expected, since the progress of purchase in the richer
+provinces has by far exceeded its progress in Connaught. In Leinster
+over 53,000 agreements have been lodged at an average price of over
+£481; in Munster over 58,000 at an average of over £420; in Ulster over
+84,000 at an average of over £226; whilst in Connaught only some 26,000
+at an average of just under £200.
+
+The reasons alleged in defence of the Act of 1909 failed to justify, or
+even to explain, the changes it imposed. An explanation must be sought
+in the real reasons, and they are not far to seek. The first was that
+the old methods of litigation and delay, abjured by all parties in 1903,
+were substituted for the new methods of speed and ease, because Mr.
+Dillon so willed it; and the second, that the policy of abolishing dual
+ownership, to which Mr. Redmond stood pledged, had to be ousted, again
+at Mr. Dillon's dictation, to make way for the folly of creating new
+tenancies, of symmetrical size, throughout all Ireland. The Treaty was
+torn up because Mr. Dillon, acting as deputy for Mr. Birrell (whose main
+argument for Home Rule is that it bores him to be Chief Secretary),
+ordered Mr. Redmond to eat his words.
+
+From this examination of the reasons for destroying the Act of 1903, the
+true size and nature of the financial problem emerges. From the total of
+some 490,000 holdings substantial reductions must be made in respect of
+waste lands, grass lands, and accommodation plots, and, again, in view
+of the limitation on the amount that may be advanced to one person. We
+ought probably to deduct 20 per cent., but if, to be on the safe side,
+we deduct only 15 per cent., 416,000 are left. These, however, include
+some 80,000 sold before the Act of 1903, or under the Land Commissioners
+as distinct from the Estates Commissioners. In respect of the 336,500
+remaining, 257,474 agreements have been lodged under all categories in
+the Acts of 1903 and 1909. Indeed, a larger number have been lodged, for
+in most cases our information is only to March 31, 1911, leaving less
+than 79,000 holdings that may still come into the market. This is an
+outside figure, provided always that the policy of 1903 be adhered to,
+viz. that advances are made to _occupiers_ and not to new men, except as
+under the Act of that year (sect. 2 (I) _b_ and _d_, and sect. 75) in
+rare cases, rigidly defined, of the sons of tenants and of evicted
+tenants.
+
+If the average price remains at the figure for the period March 31,
+1908, to September 15, 1909--viz. £287--a further sum of £22,673,000 may
+be required in excess of £84,099,818 already required under the Acts of
+1903 and 1909; making £106,772,818. This total includes nearly
+£1,000,000 for re-sales to owners and some provision for evicted
+tenants. Under these heads it will not expand in a greater relative
+degree. It includes, also, purchase of whole estates and of untenanted
+land by the Estates Commissioners and Congested Districts Board, and
+these may involve larger sums than were originally contemplated. I
+promised to return to that point, and will now do so. Since the Return
+under these heads up to March 31, 1911, tentative negotiations have been
+made for the purchase of a number of estates and for supplying more
+evicted tenants with holdings. But this does not increase the money size
+of the problem by much, because many of these estates--if sold to the
+new Congested Districts Board--are subtracted from business that would
+have been done by the Estates Commissioners; again, it is, as we know,
+impossible to spend much money, or move many migrants, or even enlarge
+many holdings, in one year. If the new Congested Districts Board
+attempts to handle some millions' worth of land in a hurry, one of two
+things must happen, either their work will be indefinitely delayed, or
+else they will sell off "uneconomic" holdings without amending their
+defects. The business will not cost more. It will only be scamped, or
+shirked. I doubt if the additions, which do not conflict with the policy
+of 1903, will increase the amount to be borrowed in the market, though
+they may increase the sums needed for working capital. Let us add for
+these expansions, which are strictly limited by physical impediments,
+£2,000,000 or even twice that amount. It still remains obvious that,
+even after expansions, good, bad, or indifferent, of the policy of 1903,
+the total sum to be borrowed cannot exceed from £110,000,000 to
+£113,000,000, as the outside figure that need be contemplated, provided
+we refrain from the "economic insanity" of distributing eleven million
+acres of permanent pasture among shopkeepers and "Gombeen" men. This
+figure of £113,000,000, indeed, exceeds what may reasonably be expected.
+The average of advances fell from £426 on the earliest agreements, to
+£361 on all agreements to March 31, 1908, and to £287 on agreements
+between that date and September 15, 1909. We may count on a continuation
+of that fall until the average approaches £200, the price for Connaught,
+where purchase has proceeded most slowly. But let the total stand at
+£113,000,000. That sum neither warrants the breach of faith of which the
+Government and the Nationalist party have been guilty, nor does it
+present an insoluble problem to the resources of a united Exchequer.
+£41,097,939 has already been borrowed in the market, and advanced, in
+less than eight years.
+
+The policy to which the leaders of the Unionist party stand pledged may
+now be re-stated in the words which I was authorised to use by Mr.
+Arthur Balfour and Lord Lansdowne after consultation with their
+colleagues. Speaking on July 9, 1909, I said:--
+
+     "Our attitude is, that it is necessary to deal effectively with the
+     block of pending agreements, but in dealing with that block it is
+     not necessary to prejudice the interests either of the landlords or
+     tenants, who may come to terms on some future agreements. We think
+     that the spirit of the Act of 1903 must be observed in the case of
+     pending agreements, but it must not be departed from in the case of
+     future agreements."--Hansard, 1909, vol. vii. No. 93, cols. 1542,
+     1543.
+
+Mr. Bonar Law confirms this pledge. He instructs me to say that the
+Unionist party will resume the land policy of 1903, and pursue the same
+objects by the best methods until all have been fully and expeditiously
+achieved.
+
+The prospects of Irish agriculture under the Union include a return to
+the land policy of 1903, with its fair hopes of reconciliation between
+classes and creeds, and its accomplished result of abounding prosperity.
+What are the prospects of Irish agriculture under Home Rule? Of what
+Home Rule may mean in this, as in other respects, we have been told so
+little that we are driven to consider its effect on Irish agriculture in
+the light of two contingencies. It may be that the extremists, with whom
+Mr. Dillon invariably ranges himself, as a preliminary to dragging Mr.
+Redmond after him, will have their way. In that case, Ireland will exact
+complete fiscal autonomy from a Government which invariably surrenders
+to Mr. Dillon's puppet. Should this occur, land purchase will cease
+abruptly in the absence of credit for borrowing the sums it requires.
+Take the other alternative, hazily outlined by Mr. Winston Churchill at
+Belfast. We glean from his pronouncement that the Government intend--if
+they can--to refuse fiscal autonomy, and to preserve control over land
+purchase. Can it be expected that this attempt, even if it succeeds,
+will produce better results for land purchase than the pitiable failure
+of the Act of 1909? Is it not certain that less money will be raised in
+England, for Ireland, after Home Rule? And if raised in driblets, on
+what will it be spent? Obviously, not on the policy of 1903, but on the
+policy substituted by Mr. Dillon in 1909. It will be spent on expelling
+landlords and graziers to make room for subscribers to the propaganda of
+extremists. We must judge of what will happen to agriculture after Home
+Rule by what has happened since the Treaty of 1903 was repudiated. Nor
+must we forget that Mr. Dillon's destructive activity has ranged beyond
+land purchase. That policy could have achieved little but for the
+untiring and generous patriotism of Sir Horace Plunkett. He established
+the Department of Agriculture and converted his countrymen to
+co-operation, in the absence of which no system of small ownership can
+succeed. He, too, based his efforts on a conference--the Recess
+Committee. How has he been met? Mr. Redmond, a member of that Committee,
+as later of the Land Conference, has, here again, succumbed to Mr.
+Dillon, who seeks to defeat co-operation between farmers, in the
+interests of his disciples; whilst Mr. Russell, with the hectic zeal of
+a pervert, has refused Ireland's share of the new Development Grant in
+order to spite Sir Horace Plunkett.
+
+Such signs of the times are read in Ireland more quickly than in
+England, and in several ways. To this man they spell speedy triumph for
+the form of economic insanity in which he vindictively believes; to that
+man, the retention of an office won by recanting his opinions. But there
+are others in the saddest districts of Ireland who must also be taken
+into account. To the few--for they are few--who thrive by deeds of
+darkness whenever the Union is attacked, these signs of coming change
+suggest a more tragic interpretation, from which the fanatic and the
+place-hunter would recoil--when too late. The blatant publican who
+strangles a neighbourhood in the toils of usury and illicit drink, and
+the bestial survivor of half-forgotten murder-rings take note of these
+signs. The atavism of cruelty returns. Emboldened by Mr. Birrell's bland
+acquiescence in milder prologues to Home Rule, a new plan of campaign
+is, even now, being devised, charged with sinister consequences from
+which all men in 1903 trusted that Ireland would be for ever absolved.
+The prospects of Irish Agriculture under Home Rule include the return,
+after a brief chapter of "hope, and energy the child of hope," to the
+old cycle of bitterness and listlessness and despair.
+
+A consideration of these alternatives leads to this dilemma. If the
+Government concede fiscal autonomy Land Purchase ends. If they refuse
+it, and Mr. Redmond accepts a "gas-and-water" Bill, that compromise, so
+accepted, will receive from Mr. Dillon the treatment accorded to the
+recommendations of the Recess Committee and of the Land Conference. The
+compromise will be repudiated and the millions already advanced for
+purchase will be used as a lever to extort complete autonomy. The lever
+is a powerful one. All depends upon who holds the handle.
+
+It may be said in conclusion that the Unionist policy of Land Purchase
+vindicates the Union, and that the treatment it has received
+demonstrates the futility, and the tragedy, of granting Home Rule.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+POSSIBLE IRISH FINANCIAL REFORMS UNDER THE UNION
+
+BY ARTHUR WARREN SAMUELS, K.C.
+
+THE CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION.
+
+
+The best possible system for Irish financial reform is adherence to the
+principles of the Act of Union. The constitution, as settled by the Act
+of Union and the Supplementary Act for the amalgamation of the
+Exchequer, contemplated that each of the three Kingdoms should
+contribute by "equal taxes" to the Imperial Exchequer. "Equal taxes"
+were to be those which would press upon each country equitably in
+proportion to its comparative ability to bear taxation. These taxes were
+to be imposed subject to such exemptions and abatements as Scotland and
+Ireland should from time to time appear to be entitled to. If their
+circumstances should so require, they should receive special
+consideration.
+
+All the revenues of England, Scotland and Ireland, wherever and however
+raised, when paid into the common Exchequer, form one consolidated fund.
+The Act for the consolidation of the Exchequers directs that there shall
+be paid out of the common fund "indiscriminately" under the control of
+Parliament all such moneys as are required at any time and in any place
+for any of the public services in England, Scotland, Ireland or
+elsewhere in the Empire.[76] Such payments are to be made without
+consideration of anything but necessity. They are to be without
+differentiation on the ground of the locality of the expenditure, or of
+the relative amount of the contributions to the common chest of
+England, Scotland or Ireland. All expenditure is alike "common";
+whatever its object may be, civil, naval or military or foreign, it is
+all alike "Imperial," and all of it is under the constitution
+"indiscriminate." The whole United Kingdom forms one domain, and but one
+area for the purposes of expenditure. As long as the Act of Union lasts
+no one of the three Kingdoms can be said to be "run" either "at a loss"
+or "at a profit." They are all run together as one incorporate body. The
+common revenue balances the common expenditure, and they bear together
+one another's burden and the weight of Empire.
+
+
+THE VICE-TREASURERSHIP OF IRELAND.
+
+The Act for the amalgamation of the Exchequers of Great Britain and
+Ireland contained provisions for the continued representation of Ireland
+in fiscal matters at the Exchequer and in Parliament. Power was given to
+His Majesty by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Ireland to appoint
+a Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. The Vice-Treasurer could sit in Parliament,
+and appointment to the office did not vacate a seat in the House of
+Commons. This office has been allowed to fall into abeyance. The
+Exchequer is only represented in Ireland by a Treasury Remembrancer.
+Most persons who know Ireland would concur in the view that the existing
+arrangement is not satisfactory, and that it would be of great advantage
+to Great Britain, as well as to Ireland, to have in Parliament a
+Minister specially responsible for Irish finance, acting under the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Vice-Treasurership should be revived,
+and the occupant of it should be a member in touch with Irish opinion,
+understanding Ireland and her real wants, which are often very different
+from the demands upon the Exchequer that are most loudly proclaimed. The
+restoration of the office would facilitate business, and tend to remove
+many misunderstandings, and prevent many mistakes. Personal interviews
+in Ireland with such a Minister would be worth reams of correspondence,
+and would save weeks of time. Promptitude, economy and efficiency would
+be secured.
+
+
+IRISH INTERESTS UNDER TARIFF REFORM.
+
+For the purposes of a system of Tariff Reform, the revival of the Irish
+Vice-Treasurership is expedient. The peculiar circumstances, conditions,
+aptitudes, and requirements of Ireland must be regarded, inquired into,
+discussed and weighed. Her commercial, industrial, and agricultural
+interests must be specially considered. They vary in many particulars
+from those of Scotland and England. This can only be done satisfactorily
+by a responsible Irish Minister charged with the duty of protecting and
+securing her interests and harmonising them with those of the sister
+Kingdoms in the framing of a scientific scheme of Tariff Reform.
+
+If Irish interests are properly provided for, she should gain greatly
+under Tariff Reform. The effect of the Whig finance, inaugurated by
+Gladstone in 1853, accompanied by a rigid application of the Ricardian
+theories of political economy, and the continuous narrowing of the basis
+of indirect taxation, told against Ireland most severely, depleted her
+resources and retarded her progress. Sir Stafford Northcote thus
+addressed the House of Commons after twelve years' experience of the
+Gladstone Budget:--
+
+     "The upshot of our present system of taxation has been to increase
+     the taxation of the United Kingdom within the last ten or twelve
+     years by 20 per cent., and they would find that whereas the
+     taxation of England had increased by 17 per cent., that of Ireland
+     had increased no less than 52 per cent, between 1851 and 1861.
+     This disproportion had been brought about by laying upon Ireland
+     the burden of the Income-tax and by heavily increasing the spirit
+     duties, making use at the same time of these two great engines of
+     taxation to relieve the United Kingdom, but more especially
+     England, of particular fiscal impositions.... Taxation in these
+     two parts have pressed so heavily on Ireland, it was incumbent
+     upon the people of England to take into account the necessity of
+     relieving Ireland in any way they could."[77]
+
+This plea of a great Conservative financial authority for that special
+consideration for Ireland to which she is entitled in fiscal matters
+under the Act of Union was not carried into effect until the Unionist
+administration of Lord Salisbury, in 1886. Then began, under the Chief
+Secretaryship of Mr. Arthur Balfour, that practical application of the
+"Exemptions and Abatements" clause of the Act of Union in the policy of
+Constructivism which has fructified so magnificently, and which, if
+allowed to continue uninterrupted by Home Rule, will lead Ireland to
+affluence.
+
+The Lloyd George Budget penalised Ireland still further by exaggerating
+those methods of Whig finance which persistently narrowed the basis of
+indirect taxation and heaped up disproportionate imposts on a few
+selected articles--articles which are either very largely produced or
+very largely consumed in Ireland. The effect of Gladstone's Budget of
+1853 was to reduce the area under barley in Ireland by 134,000 acres in
+six years; the Lloyd George Budget has reduced the Irish barley crop by
+10,000 acres in one year. Therefore in the framing of the Tariff Reform
+Budgets of the future, Ireland's equitable claim under the Act of Union
+should be recognised and given effect to.
+
+
+REFORM OF AGRICULTURAL LAND TAXATION.
+
+Agricultural land in the hands of the farmers who have bought their
+holdings under the Irish Land Acts has been made liable to extravagant
+burdens by the Lloyd George Budget. These peasant purchasers are treated
+as if they were "Dukes." When they discover their real position, their
+resentment will be bitter. Form IV. has not yet been circulated among
+them. It has been kept back deliberately. It would not suit Mr. Redmond
+or the Ministry, should the Irish farmer discover what the actual
+working of the new Land taxes means while the legislative logs are still
+being rolled by the Radical-Socialist-Nationalist combination. When Home
+Rule is defeated Unionist finance should provide that the burden imposed
+by these taxes on agricultural progress and national prosperity shall
+be removed, and that the benefits conferred by the great Unionist policy
+of State purchase on the peasant proprietors shall not be allowed to be
+filched away by the Socialist budget, though it was by that very Irish
+party, whose first duty should have been to protect them, that the Irish
+farmers' interests have been betrayed.
+
+
+CONSTRUCTIVISM.
+
+It was found by the Financial Relations Commission that Ireland
+contributed a revenue in excess of her relative capacity. Mr. Childers,
+in his draft report, suggested that practical steps might possibly be
+taken to give Ireland relief or afford her equitable compensation in
+three different ways--[78]
+
+     (1) By so altering the general fiscal policy of the United Kingdom
+     as to make the incidence of taxation fall more lightly on Ireland.
+     It was suggested that the taxation upon tea, tobacco, and spirits,
+     which weigh more heavily on Ireland in proportion to her relative
+     capacity, because of the habits of the people, and the larger
+     proportion in Ireland of the poorer classes, might be reduced and a
+     part of the burden transferred to other commodities. It was,
+     however, felt, he said, that this would open up questions of such
+     magnitude--like Free Trade and the incidence of taxation as between
+     different classes--that it would be inexpedient to urge it, when
+     the object in view was the solution of a pressing difficulty with
+     regard to Ireland taken apart from the rest of the United Kingdom.
+     But that difficulty will be removed under Tariff Reform--one-sided
+     Free Trade is no longer a sacrosanct fetish--and the case of
+     Ireland must be taken not as apart from, but as part of, the United
+     Kingdom. Irish interests, Agricultural and Industrial, can be far
+     better promoted, furthered, and secured under a scientific tariff
+     system than under the so-called free trade system, which insists on
+     the fallacy that identity of imposts means equality of burden, and
+     concentrates its pressure on the great Irish industries of brewing,
+     distillery, and tobacco manufacturing; a system which taxes heavily
+     tea--the great article of consumption--and has brought peculiar
+     disaster on agriculture. Therefore, the remedy which Mr. Childers
+     thought impracticable in 1896 will become eminently practicable
+     with a Tariff Reform Ministry in power.
+
+     (2) The second suggestion then made was that there should be a
+     policy of distinct customs and excise for Ireland as apart from
+     Great Britain. This would involve a customs barrier between the two
+     islands. The inconvenience of such a course would be immeasurable
+     and disastrous under modern conditions. It would certainly come
+     sooner or later under Home Rule, but it would be a reversal of the
+     policy of the Union.
+
+     (3) The third method which most strongly recommended itself to Mr.
+     Childers was to give compensation to Ireland by making an
+     allocation of revenue in her favour, to be employed in promoting
+     the material prosperity and social welfare of the country.
+
+This is the course which has been pursued by Unionist statesmen, and
+finds practical expression in their Constructive policy. The results
+cannot be better proved than by the fact that within the six years from
+1904, during which the statistics of Irish Export and Import trade have
+been kept, her commerce has increased in money value by more than
+twenty-seven millions. At least four-fifths of that great increase
+represents a corresponding increase in British trade with Ireland.
+
+Mr. Childers wrote in 1896--
+
+     "Apart from the claim of Ireland to special and distinct
+     consideration under the provisions of the Act of Union, and upon
+     the ground that she has for many years been, and now is,
+     contributing towards the public revenue a share much in excess of
+     her relative taxable capacity; I think that Great Britain as a
+     manufacturing and trading country would in the course of time be
+     amply repaid by the increase of prosperity and purchasing power in
+     Ireland for any additional burdens which this annual grant to
+     Ireland might involve. Looked at simply as a matter of good policy,
+     it would be that often advocated with regard to Crown Colonies of
+     Imperial expenditure with a view to the development of a backward
+     portion of the Imperial estate. Ireland is so much nearer to and
+     more exclusively the customer of the trading and manufacturing
+     districts of Great Britain than any Colony, that this argument in
+     her case should have redoubled weight. It is at least probable
+     that, if in place of the fitful method of casual loans and grants
+     hitherto pursued, there was a steady, persevering, and
+     well-directed application of public money by way of free annual
+     grant towards increasing the productive power of Ireland, the true
+     revenue derived from that country might in time be no longer in
+     excess of its relative taxable capacity."[79]
+
+The wisdom of this Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a strange
+contrast with the folly of the Radical Chief Secretary, who tells
+England to "cut the loss" at the moment of Ireland's rapid progress
+because Irish Old Age Pensions have exceeded in number the reckless
+anticipation of the Right Hon. Mr. Lloyd George.
+
+
+A SUGGESTION FOR STATE TRANSIT OF HOME-GROWN PRODUCE.
+
+The present writer ventures to suggest that under a general scheme of
+Tariff Reform, the home-grown food supply of the United Kingdom might be
+generally increased and cheapened, and Ireland, along with the other
+agricultural districts of the United Kingdom greatly developed, by an
+extension of the principle of the Parcel Post, and the constitution of a
+great Home-Grown Commodity Consignment Service worked through
+arrangements between the Post Office, the Railway Companies, the
+Agricultural Departments and Farmers' Co-operative Associations. The
+railways already provide special rates for farm produce. But if the
+system were organised by the State in connection with the Railways and
+Agricultural Associations, and the parcel post expanded from the
+carriage of parcels of eleven pounds weight to the carriage of
+consignments of a tonnage limit to be delivered on certain days at
+depots in the large cities and centres of population, great national
+interests might be served.
+
+The value of proximity to the Home Markets which has been so depreciated
+in favour of foreign supplies by modern transit methods and quick sea
+passages, would be restored to the British and Irish farmer. If this
+were accompanied by a tariff system which would secure a preference for
+home-grown cereals such as oats and barley, a direct effect in
+stimulating agriculture, and an indirect effect in increasing winter
+dairying, cattle feeding and poultry rearing, would be produced. The
+country would become more self-sustaining. The peace food supply would
+be cheapened and the food supply in time of war augmented. The defensive
+power of the realm would be increased. If, under the new Tariff system,
+it seems not inexpedient to reimpose the small registration duty on
+imported foreign as contrasted with colonial wheat and flour, the
+revenue thus produced might, without exactly earmarking it, be applied
+partly towards encouraging and advancing agriculture in the United
+Kingdom, and partly towards financing such a Commodity Post as above
+suggested. This subvention to domestic, agricultural and pastoral
+industries would balance the tariff on foreign manufactured goods, and
+the farmer of England, Scotland and Ireland would share amply in the
+stimulus of a new fiscal policy. Tariff Reform may assist the
+manufacturer and artisan by imposing duties at the ports, and the farmer
+and agricultural labourer by cheapening transit and encouraging food
+production within the United Kingdom.
+
+
+EQUIVALENT GRANTS IN AID.
+
+In 1888 a system was inaugurated by which Grants in Aid of Local
+Purposes have been made in the Three Kingdoms on the basis that England
+should get 80 per cent., Scotland 11 per cent., and Ireland 9 per cent.,
+when such subventions are given from the Imperial Exchequer. The
+Legislation sanctioning this proportional allocation began with the
+English Local Government Act of 1888, when Grants in Aid were made out
+of the Probate Duties, and has been carried into several other Statutes
+relating to England, Scotland and Ireland. These proportions have become
+to a large extent stereotyped in the allocation of such grants. The new
+basis of contribution was originated by Mr. Goschen and was stated by
+him to depend upon the amount of the assumed contribution of each
+country to the Revenue for Common purposes. The method of calculation,
+he said, was a very complex one.[80]
+
+It was pointed out at the time that under the new system the party that
+would probably require the largest amount of the grant would be the
+poorest country, and yet the richer country would get the larger
+proportionate grants.[81] The method of segregation is as follows. The
+Revenue and Expenditure Returns divide public expenditure into four
+clauses: (a) "Imperial or Common Services," (b) "English Services," (c)
+"Scottish Services," and (d) "Irish Services"; and having treated the
+three latter as "local services" and charged the particular outlay on
+them against each of the three countries, they estimate the balance left
+in cash as "the Contribution" of England, Scotland and Ireland to the
+"Imperial" Expenditure. It is admitted that this division is absolutely
+arbitrary. It has no sanction by any Act of Parliament. It is opposed to
+the system of Finance under the Act of Union. All the revenues of
+England, Scotland or Ireland are contributed for "Common" purposes, and
+in which all expenditure of any kind in any portion of the United
+Kingdom is alike "Common" or "Imperial." The details of the division
+were never disclosed, when the proportions were originally fixed. The
+segregation of the services classified as "Imperial" is open to serious
+objections. The method of computation is empirical and unconstitutional,
+and if carried to its logical conclusion would now result in depriving
+Ireland of any share whatever in future Equivalent grants, as her
+contribution to the services thus classified as "Imperial" is
+practically a minus quantity, though the revenue actually raised in
+Ireland is much higher than it ever has been before. This method of
+Distribution of Grants in Aid has been condemned by a succession of the
+highest financial authorities. Lord Ritchie, as Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, said, "he did not think it possible really to defend in all
+its details distribution by contribution."[82]
+
+Mr. Wyndham said--
+
+     "It leads to results which all must hold to be illogical, and
+     results which everybody in Ireland holds to be unjust because the
+     greater the increase of taxation the less is the proportion that
+     comes from Ireland, the poorer partner in the business, and so the
+     less is the equivalent grant. As the evil increases the remedy
+     diminishes, and you have only to force up taxation sufficiently
+     high to extinguish the remedy altogether."[83]
+
+Mr. Asquith said--
+
+     "A more confused and illogical condition of things it is impossible
+     to imagine. The House ought really to take the opportunity of
+     threshing out the principle upon which these equivalent grants
+     ought to be distributed between the three countries."[84]
+
+Lord St. Aldwyn said--
+
+     "That he always had a very strong objection to the system of
+     Equivalent Grants, because when they had to make a grant for
+     certain purposes to England, they were obliged to make
+     proportionate grants to Ireland and Scotland quite irrespective of
+     whether they needed them or not."[85]
+
+Neither the "Imperial" contribution basis nor the "Population" basis,
+which has in some instances been resorted to for grants in aid, is
+satisfactory, nor is the method desirable of setting aside a certain
+fund raised by some particular tax to finance a particular service. For
+instance, the subvention of Education in Ireland out of the "Whisky
+money" recently broke down owing to the diminution of the Revenue from
+this source. The more sober Ireland became, the less she got for
+Education. Chaos was imminent, and finally, after much friction, a
+special grant had to be made from the Treasury to save the situation.
+There are numerous instances in which great complications have been
+caused in dealing with local authorities owing to these methods of
+making grants in aid, and the system should be reformed. The true basis
+is the basis of each Kingdom's need.... England has her needs, let them
+be supplied. Scotland has hers, let them be supplied. Ireland has hers,
+and having regard to her present comparative poverty, let them be
+supplied "not grudgingly or of necessity," but by the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer "as a cheerful giver." This is the constitutional principle
+under the Act of Union, and the soundest financial principle to observe
+for the United Kingdom.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 76: 56 Geo. III. c. 98.]
+
+[Footnote 77: "Hansard," Feb. 27, 1865, vol. 177, p. 813.]
+
+[Footnote 78: "Financial Relations Report," 1896, c. 8262, vol. iii. p.
+194.]
+
+[Footnote 79: 1896, c. 8262, p. 194.]
+
+[Footnote 80: "Hansard," 1888, vol. 327, p. 1287.]
+
+[Footnote 81: "Parl. Deb.," vol. 332, p. 790.]
+
+[Footnote 82: Ibid., vol. 120, p. 976.]
+
+[Footnote 83: "Parl. Deb.," vol. 120, p. 823.]
+
+[Footnote 84: Ibid., vol. 175, p. 1088.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Ibid., May 31, 1903.]
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE ECONOMICS OF SEPARATISM
+
+BY L. S. AMERY, M.P.
+
+
+The history of Ireland for the last two centuries and more is a
+continuous exposition of the disastrous consequences of political and
+economic separatism within an area where every natural condition, and
+the whole course of historical development, pointed to political and
+economic union. Geographically, racially and historically an integral
+part of a single homogeneous island group, Ireland has never really been
+allowed to enjoy the full advantages of political and economic union
+with the adjoining main island. Almost every misfortune which Ireland
+has suffered is directly traceable to this cause. In spite of this, it
+is now seriously proposed to subject her once again to the disadvantages
+of political separation, and that on the very eve of an inevitable
+change of economic policy, which, while it would restore real vitality
+and purpose to political union, would also once more intensify all the
+injury which economic disunion has inflicted upon Ireland in the past.
+
+In the long constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century her
+position as a separate political unit made Ireland a convenient
+instrument of Stuart policy against the English Parliament. Cromwell,
+with true insight, solved the difficulty by legislative union with
+England. But his work was undone at the Restoration, and for another 122
+years Ireland remained outside the Union as a separate and subordinate
+state. Her economic position was that of a Colony, as Colonies were then
+administered. But it was that of a "least favoured Colony." This was
+due, in part, to a real fear of Ireland as a danger to British
+constitutional liberty and British Protestantism[86] which long
+survived the occasion which has seemed to justify it. But what was a
+more serious and permanent factor was the circumstance that Ireland's
+economic development could only be on lines which competed with England,
+and not like Colonial development on lines complementary to English
+trade. One after another Irish industries were penalised and crippled by
+being forbidden all part in the export trade. A flourishing woollen
+industry, a prosperous shipping, promising cotton, silk, glass, glove
+making and sugar refining industries were all ruthlessly repressed,[87]
+not from any innate perversity on the part of English statesmen, or from
+any deliberate desire to ruin Ireland, but as a natural and inevitable
+consequence of exclusion from the Union under the economic policy of the
+age. Whatever outlet Irish economic activity took there was always some
+English trade whose interests were prejudicially affected, and which
+promptly exercised a perfectly legitimate pressure upon the Government
+to put a stop to the competition. The very poverty of Ireland, as
+expressed in the lowness of Irish wages, was an ever convenient and
+perfectly justifiable argument for exclusion. The linen industry alone
+received a certain amount of toleration, and even encouragement. These
+regulations were so little animated by direct religious or racial
+antipathy that it was upon the Protestant Scotch and English settlers
+that they fell with the greatest severity, driving them into exile by
+thousands, to become, subsequently, one of the chief factors in the
+American Revolution. But if the direct economic effect of political
+separation weighed less heavily upon the Catholic majority, they
+suffered all the more from the utter paralysis of all industry and
+enterprise consequent upon the Penal Laws. These laws, monstrous as they
+seemed even to Burke, were in their turn a natural outcome of a
+political separation which made the security of Protestantism in Ireland
+rest upon the domination of a narrow oligarchy in instant terror of
+being swamped. Under Union they would never have been devised, or could
+certainly never have endured.
+
+The revolution by which the Irish Parliament, in 1782, asserted its
+constitutional equality with the British Parliament, subject only to the
+power of bribery, direct or indirect, retained by the Crown, brought out
+in still more glaring relief the utter unsoundness of the existing
+political structure under separation. After eighteen years of ferment
+within Ireland and friction without, British and Irish statesmen, face
+to face with civil war and French invasion, realised that the sorry
+farce had to come to an end. Meanwhile the immediate economic effect of
+liberation from the direct restrictions on Irish foreign trade, already
+conceded in 1779, and helped in various directions by judicious
+bounties, was undoubtedly to give a new impetus to production in
+Ireland. The first ten years of Grattan's Parliament were, on the whole,
+years of growing prosperity. Whether, even apart from civil war and
+increasing taxation, that prosperity would have continued to increase,
+if the Union had not come about, is, however, a more doubtful matter.
+The immense industrial development of England during the next
+half-century would probably, in any case, have crushed out the smaller
+and weaker Irish industries, while the existence of a separate tariff in
+Great Britain would have been a serious obstacle to the development of
+Irish agriculture. A full customs union, with internal free trade, was
+undoubtedly the best solution of the difficulty. But Pitt's Commercial
+Propositions of 1785 failed, partly, indeed, owing to political
+intrigues, but still more owing to the fundamental impossibility of
+securing an effective customs union without some form of political
+union.
+
+When finally Ireland entered the Union it was with the severe handicap
+of an industrial system artificially repressed for over a century. The
+removal of the last traces of internal protection in 1824 only
+accelerated the process, inevitable in any case, by which Irish
+industries, with the exception of linen, were submerged. But
+manufacturing industry was at the best a small matter in Ireland
+compared with agriculture. And to Irish agriculture the Union meant an
+immense development in every direction. Unfortunately the inheritance of
+the preceding century, a vicious agrarian system and a low standard of
+living, was not easily to be eliminated, and little attempt was made to
+eliminate it. The great increase of agricultural production was
+accompanied, not by a progressive and well-diffused rise in the standard
+of national well-being, but by high rents and extravagance on the one
+side, and, on the other, the rapid multiplication of a population living
+on the very margin of subsistence. The terrible year of famine was a
+warning to British statesmanship of the need of a constructive and
+Conservative policy for the reorganisation of Irish agricultural life
+and for the broadening of the economic basis in Ireland by the
+deliberate encouragement of new industries. Under a true conception of
+Union, political and economic--and there were not wanting men like Lord
+George Bentinck and Disraeli who entertained it--Ireland might within a
+generation have been levelled up to the general standard of the United
+Kingdom.
+
+But the evil effects of political and economic separatism in the
+eighteenth century were still unremedied when the whole economic policy
+of Union was abandoned. The very principle and conception of Free Trade
+is, inherently, as opposed to the maintenance of national as of Imperial
+Union. Ireland was deprived of that position of advantage in the British
+market which was one of the implied terms of the Union, and was not
+allowed to protect her own market. Incidentally, and as a consequence of
+the new fiscal policy, Ireland was saddled with a heavy additional
+burden of taxation which only handicapped her yet further in the
+struggle to recover from the famine and to meet foreign competition. The
+full severity of that competition was, however, not experienced till
+towards the end of the seventies, when the opening up of the American
+West, coupled with the demonetisation of silver, brought down prices
+with a run. A series of bad harvests aggravated the evil. The same
+conditions were experienced all over Europe, and were everywhere met by
+raising tariffs to the level required to enable agriculture to maintain
+itself. Even in England "Fair Trade" became a burning issue. Given
+normal agrarian conditions in Ireland the Irish vote would have gone
+solid with the Fair Traders, and the United Kingdom would in all
+probability have reverted to a national system of economics a generation
+ago. As things were, landlords and farmers in Ireland, instead of
+uniting to defend their common interest, each endeavoured to thrust the
+burden of the economic _débâcle_ on the other. The bitterness of the
+agrarian struggle which ensued was skilfully engineered into the channel
+of the Home Rule agitation. In other words, the evils of economic
+separatism, aggravated by the social evils surviving from the separatism
+of an earlier age, united to revive a demand for the extension and
+renewal of the very cause of these evils.
+
+Since then the underlying conditions of Irish economic life have
+undergone a complete transformation. The wealth and credit of the United
+Kingdom have been used to inaugurate a settlement of the agrarian
+question. The productive and competitive efficiency of Irish agriculture
+has been enormously increased both by Government advice and assistance
+and by patriotic private effort. Old Age Pensions have alleviated the
+burden of an excessive residue of older persons, and irrigated the
+poorer districts with a stream of ready money. In every direction there
+is a deliberate effort to raise the economic standard of Ireland to the
+British level. Last, but by no means least, the exclusion of all foreign
+live stock from the United Kingdom, though originally designed only as a
+precautionary measure against cattle disease, has in effect protected
+one most important branch of Irish agriculture and given it a vital
+interest in the maintenance of the Union. On the eve of the revival of a
+national policy of economic development Ireland stands on a far sounder
+basis, and in a far better position to take advantage of that
+development, than in 1800. The standard of life is rising, and will of
+itself put a check on a mere multiplication of beings living on the
+margin of subsistence. For the natural increase of population, which
+will once more come about, there will be provision not only through more
+intensive cultivation and in rural industries, but also in a real,
+though possibly gradual, development of new manufacturing industries.
+Incidentally the establishment of a protective tariff for the United
+Kingdom will, by lowering the excessive duties on tea and tobacco which
+weigh so heavily upon Ireland, increase still further the local excess
+of Government expenditure over revenue and facilitate the local
+accumulation of capital, already so noticeable a feature of recent
+years, and thus provide an essential factor in stimulating new
+enterprise, whether agricultural or industrial. Nor would it be in any
+way inconsistent with a national economic policy for the United Kingdom
+as a whole to devote special sums, through bounties and in other ways,
+towards the opening up of new fields for the economic activities of the
+Irish people. For the first time in her history Ireland will have a fair
+start, and, under the Union, the twentieth century may yet prove
+Ireland's century just as Canadians claim that it will prove Canada's
+century.
+
+Now let us turn to the other side of the picture. The establishment of
+Home Rule, in other words of political separatism, must inevitably be
+followed by active economic separatism, _i.e._ by the creation of a
+completely separate fiscal system in Ireland. The idea that an Irish
+Chancellor of the Exchequer can carry on in dependence on a British
+Budget, which may at any moment upset all his calculations of revenue,
+is absurd. So is the idea that there can be separate tariffs with mutual
+Free Trade, or a common tariff without a common government to frame it.
+If Free Trade, indeed, were to be maintained in England, fiscal
+separation would be no disadvantage to Ireland. On the contrary, she
+would continue to enjoy the same access to the British market while
+giving her own industries such protection as might be convenient. It is
+one of the glaring weaknesses of the policy of Free Imports that it
+actually puts a premium on separatism. But it is impossible to discuss
+the future on that assumption. Whatever the fate of the Home Rule Bill
+may be it is certain that Free Trade is doomed, and that the United
+Kingdom, whether united or divided, will revert to a policy of national
+protection and national development.
+
+What will be the effect upon Ireland? Assuming mutual good will,
+assuming that the Irish Government will be ready to grant a substantial
+preference to British trade over foreign trade, there can be no doubt
+that Great Britain would respond and give to Irish products the same
+preference as might be extended to Canadian or Australian products. But
+the first duty of the British Government would be to British producers.
+While Empire-grown wheat, and possibly meat, would come in free, the
+British farmer would receive a measure of protection against the rest of
+the Empire in dairy products and poultry, in barley and oats, in hops,
+tobacco, sugar beet, vegetables and fruit, in all those crops, in fact,
+in which the British production could meet the British demand without an
+undue effect upon prices.
+
+Now, it is precisely by these intensive forms of production that Ireland
+stands to gain most under Union. Under Home Rule she would lose this
+advantage and have to compete on an equality with the rest of the Empire
+both in respect to these products and in respect to wheat and meat. It
+is extremely doubtful, too, whether her special privileges with regard
+to store cattle would long survive. They could no longer be defended, as
+against Canada, by the arguments now used, and as a piece of pure
+protectionism there would be no reason for Great Britain to give them a
+separate fiscal entity. And if the hopes of Irish agriculture would be
+severely checked, still more would that be true of those hopes of new
+industries already referred to. Even the great linen industry might find
+a small duty enough to transfer a large part of its production within
+the British tariff zone. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether any
+tariff that Ireland could impose, consistently either with preference or
+with reasonable prices in so small a market and on so small a scale of
+production, could be of much effect against the competition of British
+industries, strengthened and made aggressive under the stimulus of a
+national trade policy.
+
+This is the most favourable hypothesis. But it is at least conceivable
+that a Nationalist Government, whether actuated by a laudable desire to
+hurry on Irish industrial development, or influenced by the tradition of
+animosity which still plays so strong a part in Nationalist politics,
+may refuse to enter upon the policy of Imperial preference. It might
+even be tempted by various considerations to give a preference to the
+United States or to Germany. Germany is a large importer of foodstuffs.
+The establishment of a British tariff may prove a serious blow to her
+manufacturing interests. A trade agreement with Ireland might be a very
+useful temporary business expedient from the German point of view.
+Incidentally a large increase of German merchant shipping in Irish
+harbours might, in the case of possible hostilities, be of no little
+service in providing commerce destroyers with a most convenient excuse
+for being in the most favourable area for their operations. Any fiscal
+excursions of that sort would inevitably be visited upon Ireland by
+severe economic reprisals of one kind or another on the part of Great
+Britain, from which Ireland would receive permanent injury far
+outweighing any temporary advantage which might be secured from foreign
+countries.
+
+In other words, Ireland under Home Rule would be in almost every respect
+thrust back into her eighteenth century position of "least favoured
+Colony." She would, at the best, be handicapped in the British market in
+respect of those products by which she could profit most, and in those
+which she is less fitted to produce would have to compete with the
+virgin soil and competitive energy and organisation of the great
+Dominions. At the worst, her fiscal policy might invite reprisals and
+make her "least favoured" not only by her circumstances but by the
+intention of those who would frame the British tariff. It is true that
+the British Government would no longer dream of directly interdicting
+Irish exports. But in that respect modern organised capital has an
+influence to promote or kill almost as great as that of governments in
+former times. And the influence of British capital, under such
+circumstances, would certainly not tend to be directed towards the
+economic development of Ireland.
+
+But the use of the customs tariff is by no means the only great
+instrument of a national economic policy. To promote the flow of trade
+in national channels, to secure the fullest development of the national
+territory and resources, the removal of natural internal barriers is
+often even more important than the setting up of artificial external
+barriers. Statesmen who have had to face the task of giving strength and
+solidity to weak political unions have always aimed at the development
+of internal communications. Washington's first concern after the success
+of the American War of Independence was to endeavour to create a system
+of internal river and canal navigation in order to help to bind the
+loosely allied States into a real union. Bismarck used the Prussian
+railways as well as the Zollverein to build up German unity. In the
+making of Canada the Intercolonial railway and the Canadian Pacific were
+essential complements to the national tariff. Railways forced South
+Africa into union, and will gradually give Australia real cohesion and
+unity. In the United Kingdom there has been no national policy with
+regard to communications, least of all any nationally directed or
+stimulated effort to cement the political union of 1800. But such a
+policy is essential to the reality of the Union. To get rid, as far as
+possible, of the barrier which the St. George's Channel presents to-day
+both to the convenience of passenger traffic and to the direct through
+carriage of goods between internal points in the two islands should be
+one of the first objects of Unionist policy in the future. In the
+train-ferry, which has bridged the channels of sea-divided Denmark,
+which in spite of the Baltic, has made Sweden contiguous with Germany,
+which for the purposes of railway traffic, has practically abolished
+Lake Michigan, modern developments have provided us with the very
+instrument required. To Irish agriculture the gain of being put into
+direct railway communication with all England and Scotland would be
+immense. From the tourist and sporting point of view Ireland would reap
+a doubled and trebled harvest. More than that, the bridging of St.
+George's Channel will for the first time enable the west coast of
+Ireland to become what it ought to be, the true west coast of the United
+Kingdom, the starting point of all our fast mail and passenger services
+across the Atlantic.
+
+But all this implies the Union, the existence of a single Government
+interested in the development of the United Kingdom as a whole. Separate
+governments in Great Britain and Ireland would not have the same
+inducement to give financial encouragement to such schemes. Irish
+manufacturers and British farmers alike might protest against being
+taxed to facilitate the competition of rivals in their own markets. An
+Irish Government would have neither sufficient money nor sufficient
+interest to give the subsidies necessary to secure a three days' service
+across the Atlantic. A British Government would naturally develop one of
+its existing ports, or some new port on the west coast of Scotland,
+rather than build up a new source of revenue and national strength in a
+separate State. No one could blame it, any more than we could blame the
+Canadian Government for wishing to subsidise a fast service from Halifax
+or some other port in the Dominion rather than one from St. John's,
+Newfoundland. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Navigation
+Acts deliberately destroyed Irish shipping. A policy of _laisser faire_
+in matters of national communication has hitherto prevented its revival.
+To-day new ideas are in the air. Those ideas can be applied, either
+from the standpoint of the Union or from that of separatism. In the one
+case Ireland has the prospect of becoming, what her geographical
+position entitles her to be, the eastern bridge-head of the North
+Atlantic. In the other the immense power of the larger capital and
+larger subsidies of Great Britain will be as effective as any navigation
+laws of the past in leaving her a derelict by the wayside, continuing to
+wait idle and hungry, with empty harbours, while the great streams of
+commerce flow past her to north and south.
+
+And if the theory of _laisser faire_ is rapidly dying out in matters of
+trade and communications, it has already been largely superseded in
+regard to social questions. The duty of the State to expend money in
+order to level up the standard of life of its citizens, or to prevent
+their sinking below that standard, is to-day universally recognised. The
+methods by which that object is aimed at are various. There is the
+crudest form, that of direct money relief, such as is involved in Old
+Age Pensions. There is the subsidising of socially desirable economic
+operations, such as insurance against sickness or the acquisition of
+freehold by tenants. There is the expenditure of money on various forms
+of education, in the scientific assistance of industry and agriculture,
+in promotion of forestry, drainage, or the improvement of local
+communication. There is the enforcement of innumerable regulations to
+safeguard the health and safety of the working population. Nowhere has
+this conception of the duty of the State exercised a greater influence
+than in Ireland during the last twenty years. The Congested Districts
+Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Land Purchase Scheme,
+illustrate one phase of its carrying into effect. Old Age Pensions,
+cheap labourers' cottages, sickness insurance illustrate another. All
+these have been provided out of the United Kingdom exchequer. They could
+not be provided out of Irish revenues. Still less could Irish revenues
+provide for a continuous extension of this policy in order to keep on a
+level with English conditions.
+
+It has been stated by Mr. Churchill that under the Government scheme of
+Home Rule, Land Purchase and Old Age Pensions will be paid by Great
+Britain. Even if that were a workable arrangement it only covers a small
+part of the field. For the rest Home Rule would mean the complete
+abandonment of the attempt to level up the social conditions of Great
+Britain and Ireland to a common standard. The Irish Government would
+never have the means to carry out the same programme of social
+legislation as will be carried out in Great Britain. Handicapped in
+competition with British industries it would, moreover, naturally be
+disinclined, even apart from the question of cost, to apply any
+legislation or any regulations which might tend to raise the cost of
+production. There will thus not only be an inevitable falling back for
+want of means, but, in addition, a continual temptation to the weaker
+and more backward State to meet superior industrial efficiency by the
+temporary cheapness of inferior social conditions.[88]
+
+But such a policy would not only be disastrous in itself in its ultimate
+effect upon Irish national life. It would at once provide a fresh and
+valid excuse for effective fiscal differentiation against Ireland in
+Great Britain. Once again, as in the eighteenth century, Ireland would
+be penalised for being a poor and "sweated" country.
+
+So far the discussion of the economic results of separation has been
+confined to Ireland, because Ireland would undoubtedly be the chief
+sufferer. Her dependence on the English market, the smallness of her
+home market, her backward social condition, would all be insuperable
+obstacles to a really healthy development on independent lines. Great
+Britain, on the other hand, would suffer relatively much less from Home
+Rule. The immediate shrinkage of trade with Ireland, even with an Irish
+tariff to overcome, might not be very great. The real loss would be not
+so much any actual decrease of trade, as the loss judged by the
+standard of the possibilities of Irish development under the Union. The
+essence of the situation after all is that the United Kingdom is a
+single economic area. The exclusion of one part of that area from the
+political and economic life of the rest, while injurious to the rest,
+must prove disastrous above all to the part excluded. After centuries of
+alternate neglect and repression Ireland has at last been brought to a
+condition in which she is capable of taking the fullest advantage of a
+new era of progress and development for the United Kingdom as a whole.
+And this is the time which is chosen for seriously suggesting that she
+should once again be excluded from all the benefits of partnership in
+the United Kingdom and driven out into the wilderness of poverty and
+decay. The plea for this folly is an unreal sentiment which is itself
+merely the survival of the mistaken political or economic separatism of
+the past, and which is nothing to the real and justifiable sentiment of
+bitterness which would be roused in Ireland if the plea were accepted.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 86: This fear itself was the result of separatism. Miss A. E.
+Murray, in her work on "The Commercial Relations between England and
+Ireland" (p. 51), points out: "It was not so much jealousy of Ireland as
+jealousy and fear of the English Crown which influenced the English
+legislature. Experience seemed to show that Irish prosperity was
+dangerous to English liberty.... The difficulty was that Ireland was a
+separate kingdom, and that the English Parliament had no direct
+authority over her. It was this absence of direct authority which made
+England so nervously anxious to restrict Irish resources in all those
+directions in which they might even indirectly interfere with the growth
+of English power."]
+
+[Footnote 87: For details, see Miss Murray's "Commercial Relations
+between England and Ireland."]
+
+[Footnote 88: It is worth noting that in 1893 the Liberal Government
+rejected amendments moved by Mr. Whiteley to prevent existing laws for
+the protection of workers in factories, workshops, and mines, being
+repealed by the proposed Irish Legislature, and by Sir J. Gorst to
+reserve laws affecting the hours and conditions of labour to the United
+Kingdom Parliament.]
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. WALTER LONG, M.P.
+
+
+The argument so often and so plausibly presented in favour of Home Rule,
+which urges that the Imperial Parliament is overburdened with local
+affairs, contains an element of truth. It would, however, be more in
+accordance with the facts to put the case the other way round: for
+localities are much more seriously inconvenienced in certain respects by
+the necessity of referring local business to the Imperial Parliament,
+than the Imperial Parliament is inconvenienced by the transaction of
+such business, which, if we are to believe the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, it neglects (vide _Nash's Magazine_, February, 1912). At the
+same time, to affirm that, in order to remedy what is no more than a
+defect in administration, it is necessary to overturn the British
+Constitution, and to build on its ruins four semi-independent
+Legislatures and one supreme Parliament, is merely to exemplify the
+cynical imposture of partisan misrepresentation: what Mr. Balfour
+described as "the dream of political idiots."
+
+There is no impartial person who does not clearly recognise that to
+constitute a separate Parliament for Ireland (to say nothing of England,
+Wales, and Scotland) must necessarily result, not in the more efficient
+despatch of legislative and administrative business, but in perpetual
+friction, clogging the mechanism alike of the subordinate and the
+predominate body. Ireland enjoyed--or endured--an independent Parliament
+during eighteen years, from 1782 to 1800; and, in the result, the
+greatest statesmen both in Ireland and in England were forced to
+acknowledge that the system had in practice failed utterly; and that
+there remained no alternative but the Union. To that view of the
+situation the great majority of the Irish people, irrespective of race
+or creed, were converted within a year before the passing of the Act, an
+event which was hailed with rejoicing. The experience of 112 years,
+fraught as they have been with occasional calamity and burdened with
+many blunders, has not produced a single valid objection to the
+principle of the Union, unless the survival among a diminishing section
+of the population of the old, bad tradition of hatred towards England,
+and its deliberate exploitation by pledge-bound politicians, is to be
+regarded as a reason for sacrificing the welfare and the prosperity of
+both countries.
+
+The framers of the Act of Union did not, and indeed could not, provide
+for every contingency. It is therefore the business of those who are
+determined to maintain the Union, to adjust its machinery to modern
+requirements. An omission of capital import was the failure to provide
+for the efficient promotion of private Bills. The matter was, indeed,
+actually considered by the authors of the Act of Union. The Duke of
+Portland wrote to Lord Cornwallis, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, under
+date December 24, 1798, as follows:--
+
+     "One of the greatest difficulties, however, which has been
+     supposed to attend the project of union between the two kingdoms,
+     is that of the expense and trouble which will be occasioned by the
+     attendance of witnesses in trials of contested elections, or in
+     matters of private business requiring Parliamentary interposition.
+     It would, therefore, be very desirable to devise a plan (which
+     does not appear impossible) for empowering the Speaker of either
+     House of the United Parliament to issue his warrant to the
+     Chairman of the Quarter Sessions in Ireland, or to such other
+     person as may be thought more proper for the purpose, requiring
+     him to appoint a time and a place within the County for his being
+     attended by the agents of the respective parties, and reducing to
+     writing in their presence the testimony (for the consents or
+     dissents, as the case may be) of such persons as, by the said
+     agents, may be summoned to attend, being resident within the
+     County (if not there resident a similar proceeding should take
+     place in the County where they reside), and such testimony so
+     taken and reduced into writing may, by such Chairman or by the
+     Sheriff of the County, be certified to the Speaker of either
+     House, as the case may be. It seems difficult to provide a
+     detailed Article of the Union for the various regulations which
+     such a proceeding may require, but the principle might perhaps be
+     stated there, and the provisions left to be settled by the United
+     Parliament."
+
+According to Lord Ashbourne's "Life of Pitt," the Prime Minister himself
+framed a scheme for constituting a Court of Appeal in Ireland, with
+power to examine evidence and certify all preliminaries and other
+matters respecting private Bills. Why the provision was not included in
+the Act of Union is not clear. The fact of its omission, however, proves
+that the necessity of resorting to the Imperial Parliament for the
+transaction of private business was not an objection that hindered the
+passage of the Act of Union, although to-day the same omission is
+absurdly used as an argument in favour of the repeal of that measure. At
+the same time, it is true that the requirements have immensely increased
+in proportion as the resources of the country have been developed since
+1800. The introduction of railways, telegraphs, telephones and electric
+appliances, together with the grant of compulsory powers to
+municipalities, has involved the promotion of numerous private Bills at
+vast expense to Ireland. Mr. A. W. Samuels, K.C., who contributed a
+paper on the subject to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of
+Ireland in November, 1899, quoted some instances of the cost of private
+Bill legislation in Ireland:--
+
+     "The ratepayers of Dublin, of Rathmines, of Pembroke, of Clontarf,
+     and other suburbs of the city, long will feel the burden added to
+     their rates by the London litigation of the Session that has
+     passed. The Dublin Boundaries Extension Bill of 1899 has cost the
+     city, as I am informed on reliable authority, between £12,000 and
+     £13,000. There were twenty-four separate sets of opponents. The
+     cost to Rathmines of its opposition approaches, I am informed,
+     £8,000. To meet it about one shilling in the pound must be added
+     to the taxation of that township. The costs of Pembroke cannot be
+     far short of the same sum. If we add those of the oppositions of
+     Kilmainham, Drumcondra, Clontarf, and of the County of Dublin, and
+     of private persons and public bodies, the total expense to the
+     inhabitants and ratepayers of the city and its suburbs will not
+     fall short of £45,000.
+
+     "Mr. Pope, Q.C., stated before the Committee which considered the
+     Irish Railways Amalgamation Scheme of last Session, that the Bill
+     at hearing was costing £5 per minute. A high authority conversant
+     with the proceedings in this case has informed me that this was an
+     under-estimate rather than an over-estimate, having regard to the
+     fact that there were twenty-seven separate oppositions. The Bill
+     occupied twenty-seven working days of four hours each, and its
+     cost to the shareholders of the promoting Company were calculated
+     to amount to about £400 per day. What the loss was to the
+     shareholders of other Companies, and to the ratepayers represented
+     by public bodies, it would be impossible to say. The Bill probably
+     cost at least £50,000. There was a Belfast Corporation Bill. There
+     was an Armagh and Keady Railway Bill. There were several other
+     Irish Bills before the Houses, exhausting thousands more of Irish
+     capital, and diverting it from the material development of the
+     country. So abnormal was the waste of Irish money on the Railway
+     Bill that it excited general attention even in England, and became
+     the subject of comment in Parliament. Mr. J. H. Lewis, the member
+     for Flint Burghs, speaking on the 24th July, 1899, on the third
+     reading of the Scotch Private Legislation Procedure Bill, said, 'I
+     am sure everybody must have regarded with great dissatisfaction
+     the enormous expenditure to which certain Irish Railway Companies
+     were put during the last few weeks within the walls of the House.
+     Surely a better system can be devised than that which drags over
+     from different parts of the United Kingdom a host of witnesses,
+     who could be examined on the spot. I am sure all honourable
+     members deeply regret this great waste of public money.'"
+
+These disabilities have been the subject of frequent representations.
+Resolutions advocating reform have been repeatedly passed by the Irish
+Chambers of Commerce, by the Incorporated Law Society, and by local
+bodies. Leaders of the Unionist party have constantly urged the
+necessity of a provision for expediting and cheapening Private Bill
+procedure. In 1896 a deputation from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce
+laid the matter before Mr. Gerald Balfour, who was then Chief Secretary
+for Ireland. He expressed a hope that the Government would introduce a
+reform. In the Queen's speech of February, 1897, it was announced that
+Bills for amending the procedure with respect to Private Bills coming
+from Scotland and Ireland had been prepared. The opportunity for laying
+these measures before Parliament did not arise.
+
+But in 1899 a Bill amending the procedure of Scottish Private Bill
+Legislation was passed into law. The measure forms the precedent for
+future legislation. In the year 1900, Mr. Atkinson (now Lord Atkinson),
+speaking for the Government, said that the Government were--
+
+     "most favourable to the introduction and passing of a Bill dealing
+     with private Bill legislation for Ireland. He thought the real and
+     substantial difficulty was the creation of the tribunal which was
+     to sit locally and to inquire into these matters. The Irish
+     Government thought it wise to wait until they should see what
+     would be the effect of the operation of the Scotch Act."
+
+Subsequent experience has proved that the Private Legislation Procedure
+(Scotland) Act of 1899 may well be taken for the model of a similar
+measure designed to apply to Ireland. The Scottish Act substituted for
+procedure by means of a Private Bill, procedure in the first instance by
+means of a Provisional Order. Instead of applying to Parliament by a
+petition for leave to bring in a Private Bill, any public authority or
+persons desirous of obtaining parliamentary powers now proceed by
+presenting a petition to the Secretary for Scotland,
+
+     "praying him to issue a Provisional Order in accordance with the
+     terms of a draft Order submitted to him, or with such
+     modifications as shall be necessary."
+
+Before the Secretary for Scotland proceeds with the Provisional Order,
+the draft Order is considered by the Chairman of Committee of the House
+of Lords, and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons;
+and they report to the Secretary for Scotland whether or not the
+matters proposed to be dealt with by the draft Order, or any of them,
+should be dealt with by Provisional Order or by Private Bill. Should the
+Chairmen report that these matters, or any of them, should be dealt with
+by a Private Bill, the Secretary for Scotland, without further inquiry,
+refuses to issue the Provisional Order so far as it is objected to by
+the Chairmen; but the advertisements and notices already given by the
+promoters of the scheme are regarded as fulfilling (subject to Standing
+Orders) the necessary conditions to be observed prior to the
+introduction of a Private Bill. Should the Chairmen report that the
+Provisional Order, or a part of it, may proceed, the procedure is as
+follows. If there is no opposition, the Secretary for Scotland may at
+once issue the Provisional Order, which is then embodied in a
+Confirmation Bill for the assent of Parliament. If there is opposition,
+or in any case where he thinks inquiry necessary, the Secretary for
+Scotland directs an inquiry, and the Order is then considered by the
+tribunal described below; and if passed by that tribunal, with or
+without modifications, it is brought up in a Confirmation Bill for the
+assent of Parliament.
+
+It follows that in the case of unopposed schemes brought in under the
+Act, there is a great saving of time and expense as compared with the
+former system.
+
+With regard to schemes which are opposed, the judicial functions of a
+Parliamentary Committee dealing with Private Bills were transferred by
+the Act of 1899 to a special tribunal, composed of two Panels, a
+Parliamentary Panel and an Extra-Parliamentary Panel, whose members
+shall have no local or personal interest in the questions at issue. From
+these is formed a Commission of four members.
+
+Mr. A. W. Samuels, K.C., thus describes the constitution of the
+Commission:--
+
+     "In the first instance it is provided that the members shall be
+     taken--two from the Lords and two from the Commons. In the event
+     of that being found impossible, three may be taken from one House
+     and one from the other. In the next resort all may be from the
+     same House. Finally--if members cannot be procured to serve--the
+     extra Parliamentary Panel can be called upon, and the Commission
+     manned from it.
+
+     "The next great reform introduced by the measure is, that the
+     inquiry is to be held at such place, in Scotland, as may be
+     convenient. The inquiry is to be localised as far as possible. It
+     is to be held in public. The Commissioners are to settle questions
+     of _locus standi_--they can decide upon the preamble before
+     discussing clauses--and persons having a _locus standi_ can appear
+     before them in person or by counsel or agent.
+
+     "When they have heard the evidence the Commissioners are to report
+     to the Secretary of Scotland, and they can recommend that the
+     Provisional Order should be issued as prayed for, or with such
+     modifications as they may make. If there is no opposition to the
+     Provisional Order as finally settled by the Commissioners, it is
+     embodied in a Confirmation Bill by the Secretary of Scotland and
+     passed through Parliament.
+
+     "If there is opposition a petition must be presented to Parliament
+     against the Order, and then, on the second reading of the
+     Confirmation Bill, a member can move that the Bill be referred to
+     a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, and if the motion
+     is carried in the House a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons
+     shall sit, at the peril of costs to the opponents, to hear and
+     take evidence and decide upon the measure in the same way as in
+     the case of a Private Bill." (Private Bill Procedure, pp. 9 and
+     10.)
+
+In 1904, the Select Committee appointed to consider the provisions of a
+similar measure to be applied to Wales, reported that in practice the
+Scottish Act had proved a success, which they attributed largely to the
+supervision of the Provisional Orders conducted by the Scottish Office.
+
+There would seem, then, every reason to believe that a measure framed
+upon the lines of the Scottish Act, to apply to Ireland, would be
+equally successful.
+
+The remarkable increase in the prosperity of Ireland, which has occurred
+during the last twenty years, demonstrates the necessity for providing
+every means of encouraging the further development of the country.
+
+All the available statistics amply confirm and corroborate the evidence
+of this prosperity, which is known to every man with the smallest direct
+acquaintance of Ireland in recent years. The figures of savings, bank
+deposits, external trade, all alike show the exceptional advances in
+prosperity now enjoyed by Ireland.
+
+The progress of Ireland under the Union thus indicated, was inaugurated
+by Mr. Balfour, the best Chief Secretary Ireland ever had; to this day
+his name is always mentioned with respect and gratitude by the people of
+Ireland, especially by the residents in the South and West, where his
+policy produced splendid and lasting results. Insufficient credit has
+been given to the work of agricultural and commercial development
+steadily pursued by Mr. Gerald Balfour; the results upon which we
+rejoice to-day are mainly due to the policy adopted by Mr. Balfour and
+his brother. This policy, coupled with the restitution of sales under
+the Land Act of 1903, is the one which Unionists intend resolutely to
+pursue.
+
+The figures on the next page show that the increase of population in
+some important centres in the south and west is very small, and that in
+other centres there is a decrease. Ireland being mainly an agricultural
+country, the population tends to decrease owing to emigration, although
+of late years, owing to the rise in prosperity, the tendency is rather
+to remain stationary. At the same time, the increase of the population
+in the provincial towns is not commensurate with the increase of
+material wealth in the country.
+
+With regard, for instance, to the increase in the number of tourists
+visiting Ireland, both private persons and local bodies desire to extend
+existing inducements and to improve the means of transit and to raise
+the standard of accommodation. It is clear that, under a reformed method
+of procedure in respect of Private Bill Legislation, enterprise would be
+freed from the restrictions which at present hinder its free exercise,
+and a substantial and a steadily increasing benefit would accrue to
+Ireland.
+
+INCREASE AND DECREASE OF POPULATION OF CITIES AND TOWNS
+IN IRELAND HAVING IN 1901 A POPULATION EXCEEDING 10,000.
+
+(_Census of Ireland_ 1911.)
+
+Cities, towns, etc.         Percentage of increase since 1901.
+
+Rathmines and Rathgar       17·1
+Portadown                   16·2
+Pembroke                    13·4
+Belfast                     10·4
+Belfast[A]                  10·1
+Dublin                       6·4
+Lisburn                      6·2
+Ballymena                    4·5
+Lurgan                       3·0
+Sligo                        2·7
+Dublin[A]                    2·6
+Wexford                      2·6
+Waterford                    2·5
+Cork[A]                      2·3
+Londonderry[A]               2·3
+Limerick[A]                  1·2
+Clonmel                      1·1
+Cork                         0·7
+Limerick                     0·7
+Dundalk                      0·4
+Newry[A]                     5·2
+Newry                        3·6
+Drogheda                     2·6
+Galway[A]                    2·0
+Galway                       1·3
+Kilkenny[A]                  1·0
+Kingstown                    0·9
+Kilkenny                     0·9
+Waterford[A]                 0·4
+
+Those marked [A] are Parliamentary Boroughs.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+IRISH POOR LAW REFORM
+
+By JOHN E. HEALY (Editor of the _Irish Times_)
+
+
+An article on Irish Poor Law Reform written within the limits assigned
+to me can only be constructive in the broadest sense. It is a serious
+and tangled problem: the existing system has developed in a haphazard
+fashion; there is about it hardly anything that is logical, much that is
+anomalous, some things that are tragic. The present conditions of the
+Irish Poor Law system are set forth in the reports of various Royal and
+Viceregal Commissions. The most important are those of the Viceregal
+Commission on Poor Law Reform in Ireland (1906), the Departmental
+Commission on Vagrancy, the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of
+the Feeble-minded, and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws (Majority
+Report). The study of all these reports is a rather distracting
+business. They establish between them an urgent need for reform; on the
+methods, and even principles, of reform there are wide differences of
+opinion. I propose to set out here, so far as may be possible, a summary
+of those reforms on which the various reports and Irish public opinion
+are nearly, or quite, unanimous. Such a summary may at least help to
+acquaint the rank and file of the Unionist Party with the primary
+conditions and necessities of a work which, for historical, moral,
+social and political reasons, must receive the Party's early and
+practical attention when it returns to power.
+
+The Unionist Party, as representing the best elements in British
+Government, owes in this matter a great act of reparation to Ireland.
+The present Poor Law system is based on the most fatal of all
+blunders--the deliberate disregard of educated opinion in Ireland. The
+story, a very remarkable and suggestive one, is told in the Viceregal
+Commission's report. The Royal Commission of 1836 came to the conclusion
+that the English workhouse system would be unsuitable for Ireland. The
+Irish Royal Commissioners, including the famous Archbishop Whately, made
+two sets of recommendations. One set involved a compulsory provision for
+the sick, aged, lunatic and infirm. The other proposed to attack poverty
+at the root by instituting a large series of measures for the general
+development of Ireland. Looking back over nearly eighty years of Irish
+history, we must be both humbled and astonished by the almost inspired
+precision and statesmanship of these proposals. They included
+reclamation of waste land and the enforcement of drainage; an increased
+grant to the Board of Works; healthy houses for the labouring classes;
+local instruction in agriculture; the enlargement of leasing powers with
+the object of encouraging land improvement, and the transfer of the
+fiscal powers of Grand Juries to County Boards. Here we have in embryo
+the Irish Labourers Acts from 1860 to 1906, the Department of
+Agriculture and Technical Instruction, the Irish Land Acts from 1860 to
+1903, the Local Government Act of 1898--reforms which Ireland owes
+almost entirely to the statesmanship (though it seems a rather belated
+statesmanship) of Unionist Governments. These Irish recommendations were
+ignored by the Government of the day. It sent an English Poor Law
+Commissioner (Mr. Nicholls) to Ireland. He spent six weeks in the
+country. On his return he recommended the establishment of the English
+Poor Law system there, and it was accordingly established.
+
+The first Poor Law Act for Ireland was passed on July 31, 1838. Between
+that year and 1851 one hundred and sixty-three Poor Law Unions were
+created. The number is at present one hundred and fifty-nine, and they
+are administered by elected and co-opted Poor Law Guardians to the
+number of more than eight thousand. In every Union there is a workhouse,
+and in that workhouse all the various classes of destitute and poor
+persons are maintained. They include sick, aged and infirm, legitimate
+and illegitimate children, insane of all classes, sane epileptics,
+mothers of illegitimate children, able-bodied male paupers, and the
+importunate army of tramps. The mean number of such inmates in all the
+workhouses on any day is about 40,000, of whom about one-third are sick,
+one-third aged and infirm, one-seventh children, one-twentieth mothers
+of illegitimate children, and one-twelfth insane and epileptic. This
+awful confusion of infirmity and vice, this Purgatory perpetuating
+itself to the exclusion of all hope of Paradise, presents the vital
+problem of Irish Poor Law Reform.
+
+A radical solution must be found for it. On that point the reports of
+all the Commissions are unanimous. They differ, where they do differ,
+only as regards means to the end.
+
+The supreme reform which must be undertaken by any Government that seeks
+to remove this great blot on Irish administration is the abolition of
+the present workhouse system on some basis which, while effective, will
+make no addition to the rates. The two chief reports (those of the
+Viceregal Commission and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws) are in
+agreement, not merely as to this necessity, but as to the guiding
+principles of reform. They recommend classification, by institutions, of
+all the present inmates of the workhouses--the sick in hospitals, the
+aged and infirm in almshouses, the mentally defective in asylums.
+Appalling evidence was given before the Viceregal Commission and the
+Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded with
+regard to the present association of lunatics, epileptics, and imbeciles
+with sane women and children in the workhouse wards. The latter
+Commission recommended the creation of a strong central authority for
+the general protection and supervision of mentally defective persons.
+
+The reforms do not contemplate the amalgamation of Unions and the
+complete closing of only a certain number of workhouses. They suggest
+rather the bringing together into one institution of all the inmates of
+one class from a number of neighbouring workhouses, and the closing of
+all workhouses as such. The sick should be sent to existing Poor Law or
+County Hospitals, strengthened by the addition of Cottage Hospitals in
+certain districts. Children should be boarded out. The bulk of the
+remaining inmates, classified with regard to their defects and
+infirmities, should be segregated according to counties or other
+suitable areas. On the treatment of able-bodied paupers there are
+different opinions. It is suggested by the Philanthropic Reform
+Association, which includes some of the most earnest and disinterested
+philanthropists in Ireland, that the well-conducted of this class should
+be placed in labour colonies, and the ill-conducted in detention
+colonies--both classes of institutions to be maintained and controlled
+by the State, and not by the County authorities.
+
+The areas and resources of the existing Unions are in most cases too
+limited, and the numbers of necessitous persons too small, to warrant
+the present Boards of Guardians in erecting as many types of
+institutions as there are classes of inmates. The break-up of the
+workhouse system involves, of necessity, the establishment of larger
+areas of administration. It is clear that the County must be substituted
+for the Union in any radical scheme of reform. On this point the Royal
+Commissioners and the Viceregal Commissioners are agreed. County rating
+must take the place of Union rating, since the inmates of the different
+institutions would be drawn from all parts of each County or County
+Borough. Substantial economies in administration might be expected from
+this plan. Hospitals should be brought into a County Hospital System,
+with the County Infirmary as the central institution, and nurses should
+be trained there for the County District Hospitals (now Workhouse
+Infirmaries).
+
+About such a general scheme of decentralised reform there is little or
+no disagreement. There is, however, a good deal of disagreement
+concerning the control of the new institutions. The Viceregal Commission
+advocates the retention by the Poor Law Guardians of many of their
+existing functions. It suggests, for instance, that County Hospitals
+should be managed by a Committee consisting of all members of the
+present District Hospital Committees, strengthened by nine members
+appointed by the County Council; and that the Chairman of the Board of
+Guardians should be the Chairman of the District Hospital Committee. The
+Royal Commission, on the other hand, votes boldly for the abolition of
+the Boards of Guardians. It argues that, if we are to have a County
+system of institutions maintained by a County rate, we must adopt the
+logical consequence that the County Council which strikes and collects
+the rate should have the direct or indirect management of the
+institutions. It proposes that the Council should appoint a statutory
+Committee (one-half to be taken from outside its own members), to be
+called the Public Assistance Authority, and that this Authority should
+manage and control all the institutions in the County. The Philanthropic
+Reform Association, which has given much study to this question,
+suggests a _via media_ between the two official schemes. It recommends
+that all the institutions should be controlled by the County Council,
+through Committees directly responsible to it, to which persons of
+experience from outside should be added. Such committees need not be
+elected by the Poor Law Guardians, as recommended by the Viceregal
+Commission, or by the Statutory Committee of the County Council, as
+recommended by the Royal Commission. The Association desires, and it has
+a large volume of Irish opinion behind it in this, to minimise the
+existing powers, and reduce the numbers, of the Poor Law Guardians. It
+is also very earnestly impressed with the need of bringing women into
+the Poor Law administration. In this it is absolutely right. The Women's
+National Health Association and the United Irishwomen have demonstrated
+triumphantly the value of women's services in improving the social,
+economic, and sanitary conditions of rural life in Ireland. A recent Act
+of Parliament qualifies women for election to the Irish County and
+Borough Councils. No great reform of the Poor Law system can be
+effective without their aid. The Unionist Party will only be acting
+consistently with its social ideals if it encourages, by every means
+within its power, an Irish feminist movement, full of hope for the
+country and wholly dissociated from party politics.
+
+Any thorough reform of the Irish Poor Law system will demand an
+increased expenditure of Imperial funds. The growing severity of Irish
+taxation under recent Radical budgets forbids the possibility of
+addition to the ratepayer's burdens. The anomalous distribution of the
+grants in aid of Irish local taxation has done much to complicate the
+Poor Law question. The Royal Commission reported that "no account
+whatever is taken of the burden of pauperism, the magnitude of the local
+rates, or the circumstances of the ratepayers and their ability to pay
+rates in the different areas." Under this system the minimum of relief
+is extended to the districts in which the weight of taxation is most
+oppressive. The Commission proposed a scheme by which the old Union
+grants within each county would be pooled and credited to the common
+fund in aid of the poor rate in that county. The Viceregal Commission
+also complained of inequality of expenditure, and advised a
+reapportionment of the grants in aid of local taxation, on the basis of
+the recommendations of the minority of the Royal Commission on Local
+Taxation (1902). That Commission was unanimous in recommending increased
+grants for Poor Law service in Ireland. The distribution of such new
+grants would be a matter for discussion; of the necessity for them there
+is no doubt. The Unionist Party must not rest content with reforming the
+Irish Poor Law system; it must help the reformed system to pay its own
+way. No fair-minded Englishman who reads Sir George O'Farrell's evidence
+as to the distribution of the Irish Church surplus (Report of the Royal
+Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, page 468) will
+dispute his country's obligations in this matter. The cost of Irish Poor
+Law Reform is one of the strongest arguments against Home Rule. The
+Unionist Party's full and generous recognition of its duty to Ireland in
+this respect will establish a new argument for the Union.
+
+One vital factor in Poor Law Reform remains to be considered--the Poor
+Law Medical service. The 740 Dispensary districts of Ireland are now
+administered by a little more than 800 Medical Officers. The salaries of
+these doctors, amounting in all to nearly £100,000 per annum, are paid
+as to one half by the Poor Law Guardians, and as to the other half out
+of the Local Taxation (Ireland) account. Most of the doctors, in
+addition to their public duties as servants of the poor, engage in
+private practice, of which, in most of the rural areas, their official
+position gives them a monopoly. A large--perhaps, a surprisingly
+large--number of the Dispensary doctors are earnest and self-sacrificing
+men; but the system is corrupted by one radical defect. Owing to the
+security of private practice involved, there is a fierceness of
+competition for these appointments out of all proportion to their
+financial value. The elections are made by the Guardians, and it is a
+fact so notorious as even to be acknowledged by Mr. Birrell that
+flagrant canvassing and bribery are a common feature of these elections.
+Candidates have been known to distribute sums of £400 or £500 to
+Guardians, in order to secure appointments of £150 or £160 a year.
+Another serious and extending feature of the present system is the
+boycotting by the Guardians of all candidates who have not graduated at
+the new Roman Catholic University. The most highly qualified men from
+the University of Dublin have now practically abandoned competition for
+these Dispensary offices outside the Protestant counties of Ulster.
+Moreover, throughout the whole country local candidates are consistently
+preferred to superior men from outside. Both the Viceregal and Royal
+Commissions recognise the necessity of radical reform in this system,
+but they suggest different remedies. The Royal Commission proposes that
+the election and control of all the Dispensary Medical Officers of a
+County shall be vested in the Public Assistance Authority for that
+County; and that little or no change be made in the present financial
+basis of the payment of salaries. The Viceregal Commission suggests a
+bolder and more drastic remedy. It advocates the establishment of a
+State Medical service on the lines of the existing services in Egypt and
+India. This would require the payment by the State of the whole, instead
+of half, of the salaries of Medical Officers. The Commission regards it
+as proper and equitable that such a service should be, in the beginning,
+at any rate, restricted to candidates educated in Ireland. A
+representative Medical Council should elect the candidates by
+competitive examination, and deal with all important questions of
+promotion, removal and superannuation. The Commission maintains that the
+creation of a State Medical service in Ireland would mean a very small
+increase in the Parliamentary grant in comparison with the benefits
+involved. This I believe to be the ideal system, but one must recognise
+that its accomplishment is confronted with many difficulties. The Irish
+Local Authorities would not willingly relinquish a privilege which is a
+primary element in their influence and prestige. Irish medical opinion
+is acutely divided on the question, which is now further complicated by
+the prospect that the medical benefits under the National Insurance Act
+may soon be extended to Ireland. It would be outrageous to expect the
+Dispensary Officers to add the heavy medical duties under the Act to
+their present responsibilities without adequate payment. Indeed, the
+extension of the medical benefits to Ireland would make inevitable an
+early reform of the whole Poor Law system. This is one reason why the
+Unionist Party, when it returns to office, should be ready to tackle the
+subject without delay. To no department of the work will it be asked to
+apply greater sympathy, knowledge, tact and firmness, than to the
+problems of the Poor Law Medical service.
+
+During the last three years the Irish Unionist Party has made three vain
+attempts to bring the reform of the Irish Poor Law before Parliament.
+Its Bill, which now stands in the name of Sir John Lonsdale, asks for
+the appointment (as recommended by the Viceregal Commission) of a body
+of five persons with executive powers to carry out the recommendations
+made by that Commission. These temporary Commissioners would have
+authority to draft all necessary schemes, to consolidate or divide
+existing institutions, and generally to reform the whole administration
+of the Irish Poor Law service. The Bill assigns to them an executive
+lifetime of five years--hardly, perhaps, an adequate time for the
+establishment of reforms which, in their making, must affect nearly
+every aspect of Irish life, and, in their operation, may reconstitute
+the basis of Irish society. It is to be supposed that, when the whole
+Unionist Party addresses itself seriously to the question, it will give
+further and careful attention to the principles of reform before setting
+up this, or some other, executive machinery. I can think of no more
+thirsty or fruitful field in Ireland for the exercise of the highest
+constructive statesmanship that the Party may possess. The need is
+urgent, the time is ripe, all the circumstances are favourable. The Old
+Age Pensions Act and the Insurance Act, if not vitiated by further
+increases in Irish taxation, will greatly simplify the task of Poor Law
+Reform. The former Act has reduced the number of old inmates in the
+workhouses; the Insurance Act should lead to a reduction in expenditure
+on outdoor relief. Moreover, it may be hoped that the infirm and pauper
+classes will be henceforward, like the old age pensioners, a diminishing
+fraction of the population of Ireland. They are, to a large extent,
+flotsam and jetsam over the sea of Ireland's political troubles. Land
+agitation, with its attendant vices of restlessness and idleness, the
+emigration of wage-earners, the discouragement of industry under
+Governments indifferent to the administration of law and the development
+of national resources, have all contributed to the Dantean horrors of
+the Irish workhouse system. These poor people are an excrescence on the
+body of Ireland which good government, if it does not wholly remove, may
+reduce nearly to vanishing point. Hitherto the chief rewards and
+blessings of British administration in Ireland have gone to the hard
+voters and to the strong agitators. It is time for the Unionist Party to
+think of the hapless, the helpless, the voteless, and, therefore
+voiceless, elements in Irish life. Ireland, as she becomes better
+educated, gives more thought and truer thought than formerly to her
+social and economic problems. Her gratitude and loyalty will go in
+abundant measure to those who take counsel with her about these problems
+and help her to solve them. The Government which cleans up many sad
+relics of the past by a complete reform of the Irish Poor Law system
+will put all Irishmen and Irishwomen under a deep sense of obligation to
+it. Policy, not less than duty, should give this reform a place in the
+forefront of the Unionist Party's constructive programme for Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+IRISH EDUCATION UNDER THE UNION[89]
+
+BY GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.
+
+
+Education is probably the most sorrowfully dull of all dull subjects. It
+is difficult to repress a yawn when the word is mentioned. Yet we owe
+everything to it that we value most. Through it we become emancipated
+citizens of the world. Through it we are able to appreciate what is
+beautiful and what is ugly, what is right and what is wrong, what is
+permanent and what is merely transitory. If the people of a country can
+make it their boast that they are truly educated, they need boast of
+little else, for all the rest will have been added unto them.
+
+It will be found next to impossible to draw any argument for Home Rule
+from the history of Irish Education during the last decade. Indeed, if a
+Nationalist Parliament were now to be established in College Green, it
+is more than probable that the progress made by educational reformers
+since 1900 would be largely thrown away, and the prospects of still
+further improvement endangered and perhaps destroyed.
+
+What has been done in the domain of Irish Education, and what still
+remains to be done? Leaving out of account the problem of the
+Universities, which, so far as can be seen, has at any rate been
+temporarily solved--and solved, let it be marked, under the Legislative
+Union, with the participation and consent of the Nationalist
+party--there are two broad branches of the educational tree which every
+year are growing in volume and putting forth finer leaves and fruit.
+Primary and Secondary Education, by far the most important parts of the
+Irish Educational system, if only allowed to continue their development,
+tended with care by those who have the interests of the younger
+generation at heart and left unmolested by the poisonous creepers of
+political prejudice, will be found to do more for the increase of Irish
+prosperity and the establishment of national and religious concord than
+any device for legislative separation that the wit of man can frame. Not
+that educational reform is not sorely needed. Far from it. There are few
+aspects of Irish life where reform is more urgently required. But let it
+be reform, as far as possible, along existing lines of progress, and in
+full recognition of religious susceptibilities and of certain stubborn
+facts which may be deplored, but which it would be unwise to ignore. Let
+it be reform undertaken and pursued on the advice of those who
+understand this question and are in sympathy with its peculiar
+difficulties, and let not the Treasury turn a deaf ear to the demands of
+reason, when a few extra thousand pounds might make all the difference
+between failure and success. Above all, let it be reform unembittered by
+the strife of creeds warring for supremacy in an Irish House of Commons.
+Let it reap the advantages of a continuous policy undisturbed by the
+rise and fall of local Ministries and the lobbying and log-rolling of
+sects and factions. Treat it, as it is being treated to-day, in a calm
+spirit of inquiry and recommendation, and the richest blessing of the
+Legislative Union will be an Ireland at peace within herself, honoured
+for her learning, distinguished by her refinement, and intellectually
+the equal of any nation upon earth.
+
+
+PRIMARY EDUCATION.[90]
+
+The National Board which presides over Primary Education has shown
+itself, under the Union, singularly free from prejudice, either
+political or religious. During the last few years it may be said to have
+changed the face of the National schools in Ireland, and in a large
+part of the country has contributed to make primary education what it
+ought to be--not a mere glut of random scraps of knowledge, not a mere
+conglomerate of facts, dates, and figures, undigested and unassimilated,
+of no practical use to the pupil in his later life, and stifling any
+constructive powers of thought with which he might have been born, but a
+system of self-development and self-expression, with the future of the
+pupil as a citizen in view, rather than his mere monetary value in the
+shape of school fees. This in itself is a remarkable stride in advance,
+which the Separatist will find difficult to explain away. Who will be so
+bold as to calculate the harm which was inflicted by the arid and
+artificial system of "cram," introduced in 1871, but now fortunately
+abandoned in the National Schools, which had only one object in
+view--the money grant that was made proportionate to the output of
+heterogeneous lumber that could be retained by the pupil until called
+for by the examiner? Surely, the great aim of education should be
+self-culture, the development of the mind, body, and character of the
+pupil, consideration being had to the career he is likely to pursue in
+the future. This the National Board has realised in time, and it is
+owing to its efforts and the co-operation of men and women of all shades
+of opinion who labour in the schools that such signal improvement has
+taken place during the last few years.
+
+Apart from this larger question, there are various other features of the
+National Schools that ought not to be excluded from this brief review.
+Some of them are evidence of progress made, others of grievances which
+still require redress. No one will deny that, taking Ireland as a whole,
+the structural character of the school buildings has been greatly
+improved in recent years, and that the cleanliness of school premises,
+which still leaves a good deal to be desired, is attended to with far
+more care than it used to be. In days gone by, the Board could grant
+only two-thirds of the estimated cost of a new building of the cheapest
+and shabbiest description. The result was that, for a whole generation,
+a low standard of school-house was stereotyped, and the requirement of a
+local contribution entirely prevented the erection of new school-houses
+in poor districts where they were most needed. The new plans, on the
+other hand, are designed according to the most modern ideas, and as a
+local contribution is not insisted upon in impecunious districts, where
+valuation is low, the Board can grant the whole of the cost where
+necessary. It is easy to appreciate what a difference this important
+reform must make, not merely to the landscape or to the comfort and
+health of the children, but to the general efficiency of pupils and
+teachers alike. There is, however, still much room for improvement. The
+grants hitherto given have been sadly inadequate, and in order to
+provide suitable school buildings, even in those cases alone where the
+present structures are actually a danger to the health of the children,
+it would be necessary to make grants at the rate of about £100,000 a
+year for the next 4 or 5 years, after which they might be reduced to
+£50,000.
+
+Another satisfactory development is the increase of teachers' salaries
+which has taken place during the last two decades. In 1895, the average
+income from State sources of principal teachers in primary schools was
+£94 in respect of men, and £79 in respect of women. By 1910, it had
+risen to £112 and £90 respectively. Notwithstanding this, their
+financial position, especially in large and important schools in centres
+where the cost of living is high, is not yet as good as it ought to be,
+if it be compared with that of similarly situated teachers in England
+and Scotland. As for the incomes of assistant teachers, they also have
+risen in the same period from £61 for men, and £49 for women, to £81 and
+£68 respectively, and the money, though still insufficient, is now being
+paid for a better article. Readjustment of numbers in the higher grades
+of national teachers is also required, so as to enable all efficient
+teachers who have complied with the conditions of service to receive the
+increases of salary to which they are entitled. The cost of such a
+readjustment would be about £1,000 a year for the present, but the
+expense would gradually increase, and might ultimately amount to £18,000
+per annum. For the convenience of the profession, it is also desirable
+that salaries should be paid monthly, instead of quarterly, to the
+teaching staffs of the schools. The expenditure (non-recurring) required
+under this head would be about £280,000, with an additional yearly sum
+of £5,000, due to increased cost of administration. That a Dublin
+Parliament would welcome or even less be able to satisfy these various
+demands upon its purse without further taxation is extremely improbable,
+especially in view of Mr. Birrell's warning that the finances of Home
+Rule would be a very "tight fit."
+
+Since 1900, a period of training has been required from the principals,
+and this rule has recently been extended to assistant masters. In fact,
+the qualifications demanded of national teachers in Ireland are much
+higher than in England. When all the foregoing changes are considered,
+it will be quite evident that not only must the teachers benefit from
+them, but that the children cannot fail to benefit as well. Indeed, it
+is these various reforms which, in all probability, have conduced to a
+better school attendance than could be boasted of in the past. Many an
+educational reformer has had cause to wring his hands over the
+meagreness of attendance in days gone by. Even to-day it is not as it
+should be. It is lower than in England and in Scotland, but it has
+steadily risen, and continues to rise, and stands now at about 71 per
+cent., an advance of between 30 or 40 per cent. upon what it was less
+than 40 years ago; a fact which is certainly remarkable, when the
+poverty of the population and its scattered character are taken into
+account.
+
+Another evil which the Board has had to fight has been the mushroom-like
+multiplication of small schools. It is hardly necessary to emphasise
+what must be a manifest disadvantage for any authority which is trying
+to raise the standard of educational efficiency in a country. This
+multiplication was largely due to the fact that Protestant Schools were
+accustomed to receive grants when they could maintain an average
+attendance of 20 pupils, quite irrespective of how many other schools of
+the same or a similar denomination there might be in the immediate
+vicinity, and whether they were really wanted or not. How far these
+grants were conducive to unnecessary multiplication may be gauged from
+the fact that, whilst there were 6,500 schools in operation in 1871,
+when the population of Ireland was five and a half millions, there were
+8,692 in 1901, or 2,000 more, when the population was a million less.
+This vast and unprofitable growth in the numbers of educational
+establishments could be stayed only by drastic regulation. Where
+neighbouring mixed Catholic or Protestant schools cannot show an average
+attendance of 25, they are now obliged to amalgamate, and the same
+result has to follow if neighbouring boys' and girls' schools fall below
+an average attendance of 30. These regulations have had the desired
+effect, and no less than 300 superfluous schools have been absorbed in
+this manner during the last five years.
+
+Before leaving the details of the National Schools, some mention should
+be made of the conspicuous improvement in the curriculum which has taken
+place in the first decade of the new century. Formerly, it was
+hidebound, bloodless, unintelligent, and useless. Now, it does what it
+can to cater for the practical side of the pupil's future life, and is
+designed with the object of helping him to think out problems for
+himself and of equipping him with any knowledge of the historic past
+which may serve him, not as a collection of antiquities, but as example
+and precept. During the last twelve years an astonishing advance has
+been made. In 1899, Hand and Eye training (including Kindergarten) was
+taught in 448 schools, in 1910 it was taught in 6,010. In 1899,
+Elementary Science was taught in 14 schools only, in 1910 it was taught
+in 2,400. In the former year Cookery was taught in 925 schools, in the
+latter year in 2,665. In 1899, Laundry Work was taught in 11 schools, in
+1910 in 691. If this is not progression--and progression under the
+Legislative Union--to what can the predicate be more truthfully applied?
+Statistics are apt to be barren and uninforming and can be adapted, with
+almost equal plausibility, to support the arguments of either side; but
+these figures are eloquent and speak for themselves. They embody a large
+and vital portion of the history of Irish Primary Education, and are a
+proof of the interest which is being taken in it and of the activity of
+the architects behind the scenes. Long may this spirit of progress
+flourish and enlighten the generations that are yet to come!
+
+It is only fair to say that, amid a good deal of discouragement and not
+always intelligent criticism, the National Board has proved itself
+broad-minded and open to argument wherever the interests of Irish
+Education have been concerned. Although nominated by the Lord
+Lieutenant, and therefore not an elected body, it has never lagged
+behind public opinion. In the teaching of the Irish language, for
+example, it has shown itself peculiarly sympathetic. In fact, the
+experience of the Board has been, that the Irish parents are not quite
+so anxious that their children should be taught Irish as the Gaelic
+League would have us suppose. Indeed, the difficulty of the Board has
+been to maintain sufficient interest in the subject. Nevertheless, it
+has done its best. In 1899, teaching in Irish was provided in 105
+schools for 1,825 children. In 1911, it was provided for 180,000
+children in 3,066 schools, and during the same time bilingual
+instruction has been introduced into some 200 schools.
+
+In spite of what has been, and is being done, further reforms in primary
+education are still unquestionably required, and can, moreover, be
+easily effected without any of the convulsions of a constitutional
+revolution. The salaries of principals and assistants, especially in
+large and important schools, ought to be increased. In particular, the
+Pensions Act needs modification, for, under the present Act, teachers
+who retire before reaching the age qualifying for a pension receive
+gratuities considerably less than the Old Age Pensions. Even those who
+qualify for pensions are very shabbily treated if they retire before
+sixty years of age. Building grants also should be increased, so that
+the constant applications for the rebuilding of bad premises could be
+met.[91] The teaching of infants, greatly improved by the institution of
+junior assistant mistresses by Mr. Walter Long during his Chief
+Secretaryship, can be still further improved and brought up to the
+English standard; and the efficiency of primary education generally can
+be promoted in the direction of sympathetic appreciation of the real
+needs of the children, regarded from the point of view of thinking human
+beings, and not merely as recording machines.
+
+The following desirable improvements may also be mentioned:--
+
+     (_a_) Encouragement of the teaching of gardening in connection with
+     country schools for boys, at a cost of about £2000 a year.
+
+     (_b_) Provision for instruction in wood-work for pupils of urban
+     districts, at central classes in technical schools, at a cost of
+     about £4000 a year.
+
+     (_c_) The provision of medical inspection and the treatment of
+     school children, which would cost about £30,000 a year, and dental
+     inspection and clinics, which would cost another £50,000. This
+     expense should be defrayed largely out of the local rates, one
+     third, say £25,000, to come out of the estimates. There would also
+     be the cost of supervision, etc., by the Education Department,
+     amounting to about £5000 a year. Committees, as for school
+     attendance, composed partly of representatives of school managers
+     and partly of local authorities, could be formed for
+     administration.
+
+     (_d_) A considerable impetus might be given to Evening
+     Continuation Schools, on which about £10,000 a year is at present
+     spent. A beginning could be made of compulsory attendance, and the
+     amount of the grant doubled.
+
+Much might be done in all these directions. Much has been accomplished
+already. The worst that can happen is that a separate legislature should
+be set up in Dublin, devoid of the requisite means, as it would most
+certainly be (unless, indeed, it had recourse to the rates, or the
+taxpayer) of financing Irish Education; swayed from side to side by the
+exigencies of the party programme of the moment; and temperamentally
+unable to look at the educational problem from the standpoint alone of
+the needs of the country in the way that it is now regarded. At present,
+under the Union, Irish Education is fortunately liberated from all
+appeals to party passion, and organised with but one end in view, the
+upbringing of the infant race whose possession is the future.
+
+
+SECONDARY EDUCATION.
+
+The need for reform is more urgent and, in many respects, better defined
+in the system of Secondary than in that of Primary Education in Ireland.
+But the two ought to be closely interconnected, and in discussing one at
+least of the more important changes which it is desirable to introduce,
+the National Schools have as good a claim to be heard in the matter as
+their elder brethren.
+
+Since 1900 great efforts have been made by the Intermediate Board to
+promote the interests of Secondary Schools and to supply the educational
+needs of those who want to equip themselves for the struggle of life in
+its various departments. In 1900, the Board of Intermediate Education
+was empowered to appoint inspectors, but it was not until quite
+recently, after many fruitless applications and under a threat of
+resignation by the Board, that inspection was placed on a business-like
+footing and a permanent staff of six inspectors appointed. But this,
+after all, is a comparative detail, and reform will have to strike deep
+indeed if the secondary schools in Ireland are to take their place as a
+living part of a living body.
+
+The question of reform may be dealt with under three principal heads:
+(1) the abolition of the examination tests, (2) the inter-relationship
+between the Primary and Secondary systems, and (3) the position of
+teachers. Although there are other matters which will be briefly
+referred to, these are the three cardinal difficulties that beset the
+Intermediate Board to-day and obstruct the most public-spirited efforts
+to convert the Irish educational system into one organic whole.
+
+(1) Although the mischievous principle of fees by results has
+disappeared for ever from the National Schools, it still clings to
+Intermediate Education, numbing and constricting, like some remorseless
+ivy limb, the growth and free exercise of the central stem and its
+branches, and preventing the natural sap from rising and vitalising the
+whole. It is not as though the rest of the world had set the seal of its
+approval upon this kind of examination. The contrary is the fact. Almost
+every country in the world has rejected this system as wholly
+pernicious, injurious for the pupil, demoralising for the teacher, and
+wasteful for the State. To regard the youth of the Secondary Schools
+merely as the geese that lay the golden eggs when the examinations
+occur, is to destroy the true aims of education and pervert the
+principle of rational development. In fact, payments to Intermediate
+Schools ought to depend largely on the results of inspection, and much
+less on written examinations, a change which would involve the
+appointment of a larger number of inspectors than at present exist. It
+is all-important that this alteration should be undertaken without
+delay. The mechanical agglomeration of lifeless snippets of information
+which characterises the present method is an absurd and antiquated
+remnant of the bad old times, and the sooner this part of the system is
+hewn down the better it will be for the conscientious discharge of the
+teacher's duties and the self-respect of all concerned.
+
+(2) As for any proper official relationship between the Primary and
+Secondary systems, it may be said as yet to be practically non-existent.
+That co-ordination of the two is essential--nay, vital--if Irish
+education is to be placed on a sound footing, may be appreciated from
+the fact that a large proportion, or 57 per cent, of the membership of
+Intermediate Schools is recruited from the schools of the National
+Board. There seem to be only two ways in which this co-ordination can be
+satisfactorily effected. Either the pupils must transfer from the
+National to the Secondary Schools at an age when they will be young
+enough to profit by Secondary instruction, or some sort of higher
+instruction must be given in the National Schools so as to fit the
+children, when they leave the latter at rather a later age, for the
+curriculum awaiting them in the Secondary system. It is the Treasury at
+the present moment, and the Treasury alone, that blocks the way to this
+reform. Since 1902 it has been asked to sanction the establishment of
+higher grade schools in large centres; the National Board also has
+repeatedly pleaded for the institution of a "higher top," or advanced
+departments, in connection with selected Primary Schools in rural
+districts. But all these requests, founded though they have been on
+intimate knowledge of the requirements of Irish Education and a ripe
+experience ranging over many years, have been brushed aside by the
+officials at the Exchequer, although the cost would be only about
+£25,000 a year, on the very insufficient ground that the Development
+Grant has been depleted to defray the loss of flotation of stock for the
+purposes of land purchase. What, in the name of common sense, has land
+purchase to do with education? What indissoluble relationship is there
+between the two that the expenditure upon the one should be made
+dependent upon the requirements of the other? This niggardly and
+short-sighted attitude is hardly worthy of one of the richest countries
+in the world. It is but a matter of a few thousands, and surely the
+efficient training of the youth of Ireland is quite as important as
+buying out the Irish landlords and placing the Irish tenant in
+possession of the soil. The result of the present want of co-ordination
+is that the clever pupil is now kept far too long in the lower school.
+There he remains, kicking his heels until he is sent up to the
+Intermediate School at 15 or 16--much too late an age at which to begin
+the study of languages. The Primary teachers are, of course, only too
+pleased to retain the clever boys as long as possible in the National
+Schools, but it is unfair to the children, and is robbing the community
+of services which might be rendered to it by these pupils in the future
+if fair opportunities were afforded them of training themselves while
+there was yet time. Without higher grade schools, without scholarships,
+without at least some system of a "higher top" in connection with the
+Primary Schools, there can never be proper co-ordination of
+administration, and education in Ireland will never be able to progress
+beyond a certain point. The Christian Brothers have set the Treasury a
+good example in this matter. In their schools there is close
+co-ordination of primary and intermediate education. Promising boys in
+the fifth standard are removed when they are 11 or 12 years of age into
+the higher schools and thus given an opportunity, at the most receptive
+period of their lives, of acquiring knowledge which they will be able to
+turn to good account in after life. Over and over again has the National
+Board attempted to persuade the Treasury to adopt a similar system, but
+hitherto without avail. The crust of the official mind has been
+impervious to every appeal. There seems, indeed, to be now some chance
+of the establishment of scholarships for pupils in primary schools, but
+unless an intelligent mind is brought to bear upon it, and the
+scholarships limited, as in England and Scotland, to pupils under 12 or
+13 years of age, the same unfortunate result will follow, as in the case
+of the Society for Promoting Protestant Schools and other similar
+bodies, where the scholarships have turned out to be a practical
+failure. An exception, however, as suggested by Dr. Starkie, and as
+allowed in Scotland, might be made in favour of the best Primary
+Schools. That is to say, where satisfactory Secondary teaching is given
+at a Primary School, the pupil might be relieved of one or two of the
+three years he is obliged to spend in the Secondary School before he can
+compete for the Intermediate Certificate which is awarded at 15 years of
+age.
+
+The argument is sometimes used that the establishment of higher grade
+schools would lead to unfair competition with the Intermediate Schools
+already in existence. No one desires to do this. Where the Intermediate
+Schools already hold the field, such overlapping can easily be avoided
+by proper administrative co-ordination between the National and
+Secondary systems. Where, on the other hand, there is a dearth of
+Intermediate Schools, as in Connaught and Kerry, higher grade schools
+can, and should be established without any risk either of overlapping or
+competition. They would supply a want which is deplored by all
+educational reformers, and make their influence felt far outside the
+mere circle of the schoolroom. A private commercial school has already
+been founded in Kerry and has continued for some time without State
+help, but, through want of encouragement, it has recently been compelled
+to adopt the programme of the Intermediate Board, which is entirely
+unsuited to its particular aims. Surely, private enterprise of this kind
+ought not only to be welcomed, but stimulated by a State grant, and
+everything possible done to encourage schools to develop along their own
+lines. At the present moment, they are bound hand and foot by the
+examination rules of the Intermediate Board, and it is quite impossible
+for any central authority, however eagle-eyed and sympathetic, to
+appreciate the peculiar atmosphere and wants of every locality. In such
+cases, local initiative is far more valuable than red tape, and more
+likely to result in an intelligent interest in his pupils and subject on
+the part of the teacher.
+
+(3) The position of the Secondary teachers, especially of lay assistant
+teachers, cries aloud for reform. In fact, their case is an acknowledged
+scandal. How can any one expect that the training of the youth in the
+Secondary Schools can be really satisfactory when the teachers are so
+miserably underpaid, when the elements of self-respect are given no room
+in which to develop, and the whole profession are treated rather as
+beasts of burden than as a noble and responsible body to whom is
+entrusted much of the destiny of the race? The question of reform is
+here largely a question of money. There are signs that this fact is
+becoming more appreciated as the years go by, and it is devoutly to be
+hoped that before long the teaching profession in the Secondary Schools
+will have no more to complain of than the Primary teachers, or than is
+usual in even the most cared-for and prosperous professions in this our
+imperfect world. Salaries, pensions, a register, security of tenure,
+opportunities of proper training--these may be said to embody the chief
+requirements of Secondary teachers at the present moment. In existing
+circumstances there is no attraction for competent men and women to
+enter the teaching profession so far as Intermediate education is
+concerned. The most incompetent crowd into it, although there are many
+exceptions, and teaching is regarded as a stop-gap during periods of
+impecuniosity rather than as a permanent career to be proud of and to be
+worked for. The salaries are beggarly--considerably lower than the
+incomes of the teachers in the Primary Schools. In 1908, the average
+salaries of principals in the Primary Schools were £112 for men and £90
+for women, and in the County Boroughs £163 and £126 respectively, whilst
+in the Secondary Schools lay assistants were paid about £80 _per annum.
+_In view of this, surely the demand that is being made on behalf of
+highly qualified Secondary teachers is not exorbitant, namely, salaries
+of £100 to £300 for men and of £80 to £220 for women. If the maximum
+rate were £150 for men and £100 for women the cost would be £220,000 a
+year. Where is the money to come from? Will a Nationalist Parliament be
+prepared to find it, and if so, from what source? Ireland is a
+comparatively poor country and is not in a position to bear much more
+taxation. The Intermediate Board, with its present resources, cannot
+afford to step into the breach, and the only solution seems to be that
+the British Exchequer should come to the rescue and that the Board
+should be granted the means of dealing with this all-important matter,
+the neglect of which is having a most injurious effect upon the
+efficiency of the Intermediate Schools. It has been suggested that a
+half-way house might be found, that the Treasury should grant £60 for
+each assistant master and £40 for each assistant mistress, and that the
+remainder should be raised by the authorities of the schools under the
+direction of the Board. This alternative scheme would cost the State
+about £88,300 a year, but, like all makeshifts, would not effect a real
+settlement of the difficulty, creating, as it would, a patchwork system
+of payment which might break down at any moment. On the other hand, let
+the settlement be a generous one, and the return will be a hundredfold
+in added efficiency, a higher sense of duty, and an increased personal
+interest on the part of the teacher in the class of which he has charge.
+
+In close connection with the question of salaries are those of pensions
+and security of tenure. The pensions of the Primary teachers, inadequate
+though they be, would be looked upon as a provision of the most
+munificent kind by the poor men and women who enter service under the
+Intermediate system. The Primary teachers, moreover, can fall back upon
+subsidiary occupations if they find that their salaries are insufficient
+for their maintenance. They can run a little farm or keep a shop or do
+other remunerative work, but the assistants in Secondary Schools are
+debarred from these methods of supplementing their exiguous wage. Those
+terrible words might, without any extravagance, be inscribed for them
+over the doors of their schools: "All hope abandon ye who enter here."
+Something must be done. A starvation wage, with an adequate pension to
+follow, might be tolerable, a decent wage, without any pension, might be
+borne, but starvation at both ends is a disgrace to the Treasury while
+it lasts and one of the things which should be taken in hand without any
+further delay.
+
+Security of tenure is equally important. How can a teacher be expected
+to devote the whole of his mental energies to his scholastic duties, how
+can any one expect him to throw himself heart and soul into his work, if
+there is always lurking in his mind the haunting fear of dismissal
+through no fault of his own? It is unreasonable to suppose that any
+human being can give of his best under these distracting conditions. In
+the National Schools a system of appeal has been in force for some time,
+and has been carried out with fairness on the part of those in authority
+and to the apparent satisfaction of the teaching profession. The
+dismissal order of every Roman Catholic manager has to be countersigned
+by the Bishop of the Diocese, and in the case of all teachers an appeal
+is now allowed to the Board itself, and is often utilised by
+Protestants. In fact, so far as the National Schools are concerned, the
+tenure of the Primary teachers during good behaviour is practically
+secured. Why cannot similar safeguards be introduced into the
+Intermediate system? An appeal to the Board in this case is not proposed
+by those who know all the circumstances best; but teachers in Roman
+Catholic schools might have the right of appeal, in the case of Diocesan
+Colleges, to the Bishop of the Diocese, or in the case of schools under
+religious orders to the Provincials or Generals, and Protestant teachers
+might be allowed to appeal to the Board of Governors of their schools,
+or they might sign an agreement, providing for a referee, such as the
+No. 3 and 4 agreements under the National Board.
+
+A register of teachers is also required. Every existing teacher in the
+Intermediate Schools who satisfies the tests of efficiency should be
+placed upon it without delay. As far as future appointments are
+concerned, qualifications might be adopted similar to those which now
+obtain in the Scotch Department, _e.g._ (_a_) a degree in a University, or
+its equivalent; (_b_) a diploma following professional training for one
+year; and (_c_) two probationary years in a good school. Special terms
+would probably be demanded for those who, like Nuns, are precluded by
+their calling from attending lectures at a University.
+
+These are some of the reforms which could, and should be introduced to
+make the teaching profession more efficient, more attractive for
+competent and clever men and women, and more of a permanent and
+honourable career than it has been in the past. Once again, it is not
+unreasonable to ask--How will a Dublin Parliament be able to provide the
+necessary funds? An extra annual sum of roughly £300,000 is required, in
+addition to a further sum of about £330,000 to meet non-recurring
+expenditure. These are, admittedly, moderate estimates. The matter,
+anyway, is now ripe for settlement, and procrastination can only
+aggravate the financial difficulty. So far as the educational problem is
+concerned, it is a manifest obligation upon the Nationalist Party to
+outline their proposals for the redress of these grievances, and to
+indicate the means by which they can be carried out, before a separate
+Legislature is set up for the people of Ireland.
+
+Within the scope of these few pages it is not possible to comprise all
+the aspects of modern Irish Education which are worthy of discussion.
+What are most urgently needed to-day are the necessary funds to continue
+the good work which is being done, and to introduce the reforms that
+have been sketched above. Parsimony in educational matters is the most
+wasteful of all misplaced thrift. Let the reformers be dealt with wisely
+and generously, and the harvest will exceed even the expectations of
+those who are working most hopefully upon the problem. Withhold the
+funds on some niggardly and mistaken principle of petty economy, and the
+present progress will be discouraged and the educational tree become
+stunted in its growth. From an administrative point of view, nothing,
+finance apart, would contribute more to the efficiency of Irish
+Education than the amalgamation of the National and Intermediate
+systems, as well as of the Technical work at present administered by the
+Department of Agriculture and Technical Education, under one Board. The
+method of examination by the Department is far sounder than that which
+is forced upon the Intermediate Board by the Acts of Parliament under
+which it works. In the case of science, the two are to be seen working
+to-day side by side in the Secondary Schools, to the undoubted benefit
+of the scientific course, which enjoys a double subsidy from the State,
+and is subject to the superior method of examination by the Department,
+being treated as a detached subject and the candidates being passed _en
+bloc_. On the other hand, the obsolete method of examination by the
+Board tends to the serious disadvantage of the classical curriculum, the
+grants being made on the unprofitable results of a general examination
+of individual candidates, the class not being regarded as a whole, as is
+the case with the Department. By the repeal of the Intermediate Acts,
+and by the amalgamation of the various Boards into one, these anomalies
+would rapidly disappear, and for the first time a genuine system of
+co-ordination could be introduced into Irish Education, which would knit
+together the strength of all the parts and overcome many of the
+prevailing weaknesses, making the whole system what it ought to be, a
+living, growing, pulsating organism, developing and shaping itself with
+the life of the nation.
+
+Is it conceivable that all this can he accomplished if the Union between
+the countries is rent asunder? What chance will there be of effecting
+this great settlement, which requires money and, above all, requires
+peace, when Ireland is plunged once again into the old internecine
+struggles of the eighteenth century? The warning is writ very large upon
+the wall, so that he who runs may read. The best hope for education in
+Ireland are the resources of Great Britain and a uniform policy
+undisturbed by party feuds. Neither of these can be looked for under a
+separate Parliament. Under the Union Ireland can have both, for the
+welfare of her children and the building of a noble history.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 89: In writing the above I should like to acknowledge my
+indebtedness to the address published by Dr. Starkie in 1911 for many
+useful facts and figures.]
+
+[Footnote 90: See the 76th and 77th Reports of the Commissioners of
+National Education in Ireland--Cd. 5340, 1910, and Cd. 5903, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote 91: The residential buildings of the Commissioners' Training
+College in Marlborough Street, Dublin, still require to be completed by
+the addition of a new residence for women students, at a cost of about
+£50,000 spread over three or four years.]
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE PROBLEM OF TRANSIT AND TRANSPORT IN IRELAND
+
+BY AN IRISH RAILWAY DIRECTOR
+
+
+Any scheme giving self-government to Ireland must seriously affect the
+problem of local transit and transport, by rail and water, which all
+parties in Ireland agree to be pressing and important. Nor is it merely
+a local question. As recent returns show, the trade between Ireland and
+Great Britain has of late years enormously increased, to the great
+advantage of both; for if Irish farmers profit by the export of beef,
+mutton, milk, eggs, butter, bacon and other articles, Great Britain has
+the benefit of a near food supply within the United Kingdom. Nor does
+any one doubt that this trade is capable of enormous increase. The
+improvement of Irish agricultural methods, the growth in England of a
+town population, the increased price of the necessaries of life, are
+some of the factors pointing in this direction.
+
+If this trade is to expand, Irish traffic routes and facilities with
+Great Britain must be improved and increased, especially as the articles
+carried are largely of a perishable kind. Moreover, the internal traffic
+of Ireland, by rail, waterways, and canals is capable of and needs great
+development, as witness the recent Reports of the Viceregal Commission
+on Irish Railways, and of the Royal Commission on Canals and
+Waterways.[92] The problem of inland navigation is again intimately
+bound up with that of arterial drainage, as the Commissioners have
+reported. It is then strange to find, that on these pressing questions
+of first importance, there is an almost absolute silence on the part of
+those who advocate Home Rule in and out of Parliament.
+
+
+SOLUTION OF TRANSIT PROBLEM IMPOSSIBLE UNDER HOME RULE.
+
+It is true that the nationalisation of the Irish railways has in past
+years found the keenest advocates amongst individual members of the Home
+Rule Party; that the Majority Report of the late Viceregal Commission
+favouring State purchase of the Irish railways was formally approved of
+by the Parliamentary Party, and that Mr. Redmond has named "transit" as
+one of the special matters that should be left to be dealt with by an
+Irish Legislature. But there the matter ends. We are not given the
+slightest inkling what is proposed to be done on this matter, or how it
+will be done, or the slightest proof that under any system of Home Rule,
+the financial difficulties of the problem can be solved at all.
+
+The Reports of both the Commissions referred to are based, first on the
+continuance of the present system of laws and government, and secondly,
+on the use of Imperial credit to the tune of many millions. Yet amongst
+the shoals of literature on Home Rule problems and finance, I can find
+no enlightenment as to how the transit problem is to be solved under the
+new conditions; _i.e._ how any Home Rule Government, whether it has
+control of Customs and Excise or not, and however it economises, is to
+find the money necessary to buy out the Irish railways and canals. A
+Government that is faced with the problems of poverty and congestion, of
+housing, of increased educational grants, of afforestation, and of
+arterial land drainage, will have an almost impossible task in raising
+money for these purposes alone. And, let those who can, inform us how an
+Irish Parliament and Executive (with all else they will have in hand),
+will be able to raise even the £5,000,000 necessary to improve the Irish
+Light Railway System; not to speak of the sum at least tenfold greater
+which will be required for a complete purchase scheme.
+
+So far we are without that information. The Irish Parliamentary leaders
+have not touched upon the point. The pamphleteers are almost equally
+silent. Professor Kettle, in his "Home Rule Finance," mentions the
+"Nationalisation of Railways" in one line of print, merely stating that
+"the project will have to be financed by loans and not out of annual
+revenue" (p. 41); and he further remarks, generally (p. 72), "that for
+the development of any future policy, approved by her own people,
+Ireland relies absolutely on her own fiscal resources." What fiscal
+resources, and under what conditions are they obtainable?
+
+In the volume entitled "Home Rule Problems" issued by the Liberal Home
+Rule Committee, with a preface by Viscount Haldane, not one word is said
+on the subject, though there are chapters on Irish finance, and on Irish
+commercial and industrial conditions. Neither has Mr. Stephen Gwynn a
+single word on the subject in his "Case for Home Rule," though he makes
+the large assertion that "there is no country in the world where
+resources are more undeveloped than those of Ireland."
+
+Mr. Erskine Childers[93] merely refers to the Irish railway problem as
+one that is "obvious and urgent," "which no Parliament but an Irish
+Parliament can deal with, and which calls aloud for settlement."
+
+
+DETAILS OF RAILWAY TRANSIT PROBLEM.
+
+Let us now look at the problem in more detail; and first is the question
+of the railways. The property to be dealt with consists of 3411 miles of
+railway, representing a total capital of £45,163,000, of which, at the
+date of the Report of the Commission, £2,873,000 paid no dividend; the
+gross annual receipts of the whole system being £4,255,000 and the net
+receipts £1,690,000, representing a return on the whole capital of 3.77
+per cent.[94]
+
+Of these lines, the railways constructed under the Tramways and Light
+Railways Acts cover 603 miles, of which 322 are narrow gauge, involving
+a liability on various baronies which have guaranteed interest on
+capital to the amount of £36,000 per annum. To bring these light
+railways up to a proper standard and equipment; to widen the gauge in
+many cases; to provide new sheds, stations, and rolling stock, and
+redeem the guarantees, a sum of about £5,000,000 would probably be
+necessary. In addition, projects for no less than eighty-three new
+railways were brought before the Commission;[95] and it is admitted on
+all hands, and the Commission find, that practically none of these
+railway extensions would be undertaken by private enterprise, and that
+these developments need the credit, help, and direction of the State.
+Even the necessary improvement of the existing light railways cannot now
+be undertaken, for under the system of legislation under which they were
+constructed, there is no means of raising new capital.[96]
+
+Now, what is advocated by the Majority Report is the--
+
+     "compulsory purchase by the State of these railway systems great
+     and small, to be then worked and managed by an Irish elected
+     authority as one concern, mainly with a view of developing Irish
+     industries by reduction of rates and otherwise, and not strictly on
+     commercial principles."[97]
+
+This was the scheme supported by the Parliamentary Party, written up
+unceasingly by the _Freeman's Journal_, and held out under the term
+"Nationalisation of Railways," as one of the special boons which Home
+Rule will bring to Irish traders and farmers.
+
+But mark how the operation is to be carried out. The Commission
+reported that the sum required should be raised by a railway stock
+charged primarily on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, with
+recourse to Irish rates to make up possible deficiencies, and further,
+that there should be an annual grant from the Exchequer of not less than
+£250,000 to the Irish railway authority. Seeing that the Commissioners
+refer to "the financial terms prescribed by the Act of 1844" (Regulation
+of Railways Act, 7 & 8 Vict. c. 85, ss. 2-4), and that a _cash_ payment
+to shareholders was provided for by that Act, it is to be presumed that
+the Commissioners intended Irish shareholders to be paid in cash. The
+Act of 1844 provided for payment to the companies of a sum in cash equal
+to twenty-five years' purchase of the previous three years' annual
+profits; but this was the minimum only, for it was provided that the
+companies could, under arbitration, claim additional payment in respect
+of future "prospects."
+
+Now twenty-five years' purchase of the divisible profits, which at the
+date of the Commission, were £1,690,000, would amount to over
+£42,000,000, and if in addition sums had to be raised for "prospects,"
+purchase of lines paying no dividend, special provision for prior stocks
+standing at a premium, redemption of guarantees, and the large sums
+required for the extensions and improvements we have mentioned, a sum
+not less than £50,000,000, and probably nearer £55,000,000, would be
+required.[98]
+
+From the beginning to the end of the inquiry there was no suggestion
+that this immense operation could be carried out except by the use of
+Imperial credit, involving the two conditions: (1) that the Consolidated
+Fund of the United Kingdom be charged, and (2) that the British public
+be asked, and should be willing to find the money. Although the
+Majority Report contemplated an Irish elected authority to work the
+railways so purchased and amalgamated, it was never suggested that any
+such Irish authority could raise the necessary purchase capital, or,
+indeed, any portion of it. The whole scheme from beginning to end
+pre-supposed the continuance of the Union, with its advantages of credit
+and capital. Upset that Union, establish an Irish Parliament working out
+its own salvation, financially and otherwise, and the basis of the whole
+scheme of railway nationalisation vanishes.
+
+That the British Government should allow its credit to be used to the
+tune of fifty millions, after full legislative, executive and taxing
+powers were handed over to an Irish Parliament, is too fantastic to be
+considered seriously. Whether an Irish or English authority controlled
+the working of the railways would under such circumstances make little
+difference, with the Courts of Law, the Executive, and Police in other
+hands than that of the Government guaranteeing the interest. The
+security for the advance would be imperilled; and, indeed, it is
+doubtful whether a tenth of the money required would be advanced, even
+in London, on those terms. For a similar reason any formal pledge of
+Irish rates and taxes, to make up deficiencies in working, would be
+illusory. At any rate, if Irish Land Purchase is to be continued under
+British credit (and it certainly will be a prior claim and charge), it
+is idle to expect Parliament to undertake the vast additional
+obligations involved in Irish railway nationalisation. Parliament would
+pay the piper but could not call the tune.
+
+
+IRISH CREDIT NOT SUFFICIENT.
+
+There remains the alternative of the new Irish Parliament financing the
+operation. This it must do by means of payment in cash to the selling
+shareholders, for reasons which will be hereafter stated, unless it
+wishes to start its career by a scheme of spoliation, which would not
+merely rob the shareholders (who are mostly Irish), but would destroy
+the credit of the Irish Government. Mr. Redmond has recently
+acknowledged that a large number of Irish railway shareholders are good
+Nationalists; and it is certain that a great portion of the ordinary
+stock is held by Irish farmers and traders; and much of the preference
+and debenture stocks are also held by Irish charities, convents,
+diocesan trustees, and monastic institutions. These persons will expect,
+and justly expect, cash on a compulsory purchase, on basis of market
+value, or capitalisation of dividend, so as to secure the same return of
+interest.
+
+Could the Irish Government borrow £50,000,000, and at what rate? To
+borrow at a higher rate than the present return on Irish railway
+capital, namely, 3.77 per cent., would be to incur a loss on working the
+railways, from the outset, which Irish ratepayers or taxpayers would
+have to make up. The net receipts, at the time of the Commission's
+Report, were, in round figures, £1,600,000, and thus to borrow
+£50,000,000, even at 4 per cent., would mean an annual loss of £300,000
+a year, even if there were no sinking fund. A 10_s._ per cent sinking fund
+would increase the total annual loss to £550,000.
+
+But, could an Irish Government Guaranteed Railway Stock be issued at 4
+per cent.? Would Ireland's credit stand better than that of Hungary,
+whose 4 per cent. gold _rentes_ stand at 92, or of the Argentine, which
+has to borrow at nearly 5 per cent.? There are grave doubts whether the
+large sum required would be subscribed at all, at even 4 1/4 per cent,
+or 4 1/2 per cent. basis. It is not likely that English investors would
+take up such a loan, seeing that they have consistently fought shy of
+Irish investments, and they are not likely to change their views upon
+the break up of the Union.
+
+It may be said that the sum required could be raised in Ireland--that
+patriotic feeling would stimulate the operation, and the large sum of
+money (over £50,000,000), lying on deposit at the Irish banks may be
+referred to as available. Patriotism that has not financed the Irish
+Parliamentary Party will not be likely to finance a gigantic railway
+loan. Nor is the large sum appearing as banking deposits really free
+money available for investment. With increase of deposits, the items of
+loans and advances in banking accounts have also correspondingly
+increased, and they largely balance each other. Not only is the money
+deposited by one customer lent to another, and therefore already
+utilized, but, to a large extent well known to bankers, the deposits,
+_i.e._ the credits to particular accounts, represent money lent to the
+persons having these accounts, and are not, in fact, their own free
+balances. So also credits in the accounts of one bank, figure as debits
+on the balance sheet of another bank. There probably has been in recent
+years considerable saving in Ireland, but it is also certain that those
+savings have largely gone, and will continue rightly to go in
+improvements of farms, which the Land Acts and Land Purchase Acts have
+made worth improving for their possessors. Those who have not saved
+enough borrow, and the bank advances represent largely the capital
+required by farmers and traders. The deposits, therefore, are being well
+used, and are not dead money. Divert them to any large extent to another
+purpose, and there will probably be a contraction of banking credit,
+which Irish farming and industry will be the first to feel.
+
+
+PURCHASE BY STATE PAPER.
+
+It may be said that the nationalisation of railways could be carried
+out, not by a cash payment, but by a paper exchange of existing Railway
+Stocks into newly created Irish Government Stock, the amount of the
+existing net receipts being guaranteed. But, unless the Irish Government
+could actually borrow in cash the sum required, at a rate equal to that
+nominally put on the new stock, the shareholders would be robbed of a
+capital sum equal to the amount of the discount on the stock, _i.e._ the
+amount of the market quotation below par, or issue price. There will be
+sellers of the new stock from the beginning, and what the public will
+give for it, and not the nominal figure put upon it by the Irish
+Government, will be its real value. The Irish Government may issue the
+Railway Stock at 3-1/2 per cent., but if they could borrow the sum
+required only at 4-1/2 per cent., the new stock will at once find its
+level at about 77 instead of 100, and the capital value of Irish
+railways will be reduced from, say, £45,000,000 to £35,000,000, and the
+difference, £10,000,000, would come out of the pockets of Irish
+shareholders. The Irish Government would be, however, in this unpleasant
+dilemma, that if they issued the stock at a rate per cent, nominally
+higher than the present return in railway capital, namely, 3.77 per
+cent., the annual charge for interest would be greater than the net
+receipts, and so from the beginning there would be an annual loss; and
+the fact of this annual loss would be another factor tending to
+depreciate the new Railway Stock. The alternatives before an Irish Prime
+Minister, pressed to carry out a "Nationalisation" policy, are not
+enviable. He will either have to provide by taxation for the annual loss
+involved in taking over the railways on a fair basis, or to deprive the
+most thrifty and industrious classes of his fellow-countrymen of a large
+slice of their savings and investments. In either event, the new
+Government will have received a serious blow to its credit at the outset
+of its career.
+
+
+EFFECT OF REDUCTION OF RAILWAY RATES.
+
+There is, moreover, a special reason why such a stock, from its
+inception, would tend to depreciate in value; namely, that from the
+moment the Irish Government or their nominees became the owners, there
+would be almost irresistible pressure put upon them to reduce the
+railway rates, and generally (as indeed the Majority Report recommends)
+to work the railways on other than commercial lines.[99] A reduction of
+rates has been held out as the great resulting boon of nationalisation
+ever since the Irish Parliamentary Party specifically raised the
+question in Parliament in 1899. A 25 per cent. reduction in rates and
+fares (suggested by Nationalist witnesses) would involve an annual
+diminution of net receipts to the Government of over £1,000,000 per
+annum, and if the reduction were in goods rates alone, the loss would be
+£568,000 per annum. It would be years, if ever, before such a loss could
+be recouped, however the traffic was increased. Experience has shown
+that in recent years running expenses tend to increase nearly parallel
+with the gross receipts, and a large increase in gross traffic would
+involve enormous capital outlay for rolling stock, engines, sidings,
+etc. It is unnecessary to comment upon the suggestion that the railways
+should not be run on "commercial principles." The Irish ratepayers and
+taxpayers, who would have to bear the loss, would loudly call out for
+business management when it was too late.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add that another result of such an operation
+would be to prevent the Irish Government raising the very large sum
+necessary for improving and standardising the light railways and for
+extensions, except at an unremunerative rate of interest. Even if
+shareholders be put off with State paper, contractors will have to be
+paid with cash. Moreover the creation of such a large amount of debt at
+the beginning of the new regime would render it difficult, if not
+impossible, for the Irish Government to raise sums necessary for other
+public works and services of a pressing character, arterial drainage,
+canals, education, and other objects, not to speak of migration,
+congestion, and land purchase. The conclusion, in fact, is inevitable,
+that without the security of the United Kingdom, and the market of
+British investors willing to lend, it is idle to think that either State
+purchase of railways, or any other of the boons mentioned, are
+reasonably possible. Mr. Erskine Childers, though a Home Ruler, does not
+fail to perceive, to use his own words, "that financial independence
+will now mean a financial sacrifice to Ireland."[100]
+
+
+EFFECT OF NATIONALISATION ON TRADE RELATIONS.
+
+There are other important considerations which confirm the view that, if
+the control of Irish railways were taken away from the Imperial
+Parliament, and placed under a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and if the
+general code of railway legislation now binding on both countries could
+be altered by a Home Rule legislature, results disastrous to the trade
+between the two countries would probably follow, whether
+"Nationalisation" were carried out or not.
+
+The Majority Report recommends, as one of the chief objects of
+"Nationalisation" under an Irish authority, the reduction of _export_
+rates, both local and through rates, on the Irish railways, as
+"essential to the development of Irish industry," and this seems the pet
+project of a large number of witnesses, and of Irish local authorities.
+Import and export railway rates are now the same for the same classes of
+produce, and no Irish railway company could now differentiate between
+them, without being pulled up by the Railway Commission at the suit of
+British traders, or British railway companies. The policy suggested is
+practically to use railway rates as a system of local protection,
+similar to the existing practice and policy on the continental, and
+notably the Prussian State Railways. It is easy to see that without any
+Customs barrier between the two countries, such a policy would
+inaugurate practically a tariff war between Ireland and Great Britain,
+which would be disastrous to both. That such a policy should be
+subscribed to by Free-traders, and that a Free-trade Government should
+advocate a change in the relations between the two countries, under
+which such a system could be possible, is indeed surprising. To use
+Imperial credit for such a purpose would be midsummer madness. Even
+without any scheme of nationalisation, the establishment of a separate
+Executive and Legislature in Ireland might have sinister effects on
+traffic arrangements between Great Britain and Ireland and on the
+harmonious administration of the railways.
+
+
+THE RIGHT SOLUTION.
+
+The truth of the matter, and the inference to be drawn from the above
+considerations and the whole trend of modern trade, is that to break up
+the railway systems of Great Britain and Ireland into two rival and
+hostile systems of transit, working for different objects and by
+different methods, would be to stop a natural and healthy process of
+uniform working and harmony, which has enormously advanced in the last
+decade, to the great advantage of Ireland.
+
+Almost every scheme of amalgamation in Ireland has been connected with
+the opening or development of a new cross-Channel route, as the history
+of the Fishguard and Rosslare and the new Heysham routes fully shows. As
+part of this process, English companies, like the Midland and the Great
+Western, are either acquiring Irish lines or making special traffic
+arrangements with them. Enormous sums have been spent on harbours and
+steamers by English companies for the purpose of developing traffic with
+Ireland, and the increased interchange of goods has been of great
+advantage to both countries. The ideal put forward by advocates of
+railway nationalisation and Irish independence, that in respect of trade
+and traffic Ireland should be a sort of watertight compartment,
+self-supporting and self-contained, is, I submit, a mischievous delusion
+which, if put into practice, would undo much of the good progress
+Ireland has recently made. Such an ideal would also be the exact
+contrary of the line of national development as based on transit and
+transport followed in almost every other civilized country. In Germany,
+Canada, the United States, and Australia, we see the policy consistently
+pursued of amalgamation, consolidation, and facilities for long-distance
+traffic, so that between all parts of each State and Empire there shall
+be the freest and most perfect interchange of traffic. Canada and the
+United States have been so far inspired by this principle as to spend
+countless millions first on East and West (and now on North and South)
+lines, even before there was traffic to carry, and in order to create
+traffic; and the principle has been justified in its results.
+
+From this point of view St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea should be
+a means of communication, constant and in every direction, between the
+two Islands, and not a sort of boundary ditch to be deepened and
+rendered difficult of passage.
+
+If Ireland wishes to share England's prosperity she must not build up a
+wall against the credit, trade, and special products of her richer
+sister. If England wishes to have and to foster a magnificent source of
+food supply, well and strategically secured against continental foes,
+she also must do all that can be done to encourage intercourse. To
+develop traffic between Great Britain and Ireland is the policy which
+both experience and theory point to as advantageous to both countries;
+to subvert this policy and make Ireland's commerce local and
+self-sufficing, seems to be the narrow and mistaken ideal of Nationalist
+aspirations.
+
+
+UNIONIST POLICY.
+
+It follows that the Unionist Party must oppose any plan for
+"nationalising" the Irish railways, whether by the credit of the United
+Kingdom, or otherwise. The policy we advocate is to be found in the
+Minority Report of the Viceregal Commission, signed by Sir Herbert
+Jekyll, Mr. W.M. Acworth, and Mr. John Aspinall, not as politicians, but
+experts; and in the Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Inland
+Navigation dealing with the question of canals and water transport in
+Ireland.
+
+In the case of railways, the aim should be to amalgamate them into two
+or three large companies to standardise as far as possible the light
+railways, and level them in respect of gauge, gradients, works, and
+rolling stock with the larger companies. Unquestionably many of the
+smaller railways to be amalgamated, though not light railways, need
+large expenditure for the purpose of duplication of running lines,
+straightening of curves, stations, stores, and conveniences, and many
+extensions and cross-lines will also be needed to connect them with the
+trunk lines, and to open out districts now unprovided with railway
+facilities. Many of these projects, though industrially remunerative to
+Ireland and advantageous to England also as tapping new sources of food
+supply, would not be, in strictness, commercially remunerative in the
+sense of giving fair return on capital over working expenses, and it is
+idle to expect that private capital will ever be subscribed for these
+purposes. They can only be undertaken either directly by State funds, or
+by money provided by the State, and lent to the large amalgamated lines
+at low interest. This is the policy inaugurated by Mr. Arthur Balfour,
+which has been of untold benefit to many districts in Ireland. Probably
+a public grant of, say, £2,000,000, and loanable money available to the
+extent of £8,000,000, would largely solve the problem. For the reasons
+already given it is only by Imperial credit, and under the ægis of a
+united Parliament and Government, that capital on this large scale can
+be available for these purposes.
+
+
+CANALS AND NAVIGATION.
+
+The problem of canals and inland navigation in Ireland is a minor one,
+but the same principles largely apply. The Royal Commission[101]
+recommended that all the chief waterways, canals, and rivers necessary
+for inland transport should be purchased and remain under the control of
+the State, the controlling authority, however, not themselves, to become
+carriers on any waterways. At the same time, they strongly urged that
+the problem of arterial drainage and relief from floods should not be
+treated separately, but that the control of drainage works should be
+under the same central authority as that which is to control waterways
+and navigation.
+
+It is not necessary to refer in detail to the Report. Apart from the
+sum necessary to buy out the existing owners of canals and waterways,
+towards which £2,451,346 had been contributed from private sources, the
+Commissioners contemplated a further expenditure of about £200,000 on
+new works. In addition the sum of £500,000 would be required, on a
+moderate estimate for drainage and the prevention of floods. The
+pressing nature of the latter problem is once more emphatically
+evidenced by the wholesale injury to property and the public health by
+the recent flooding of the basins of the Shannon, Barrow, Bann, and
+other rivers. Here, again, we have problems which it is idle to expect
+an Irish Parliament to solve satisfactorily for years to come, or,
+indeed, ever. Ways and means must be an effectual bar. Drainage and
+navigation form only one problem out of a dozen facing a Home Rule
+Government needing the raising of enormous capital. Probably the
+Commissioners conducting the Canals inquiry, who were persons of all
+shades of political opinion, were well aware that only under the present
+system of State credit could the financial difficulties be overcome.
+According to their report, the State (_i.e._ the Government of the United
+Kingdom) were to acquire the control, which was to be carried out by an
+Act of Parliament, naming the Waterways Commissioners, "who should be
+persons disassociated from party politics."
+
+The one dissentient out of twenty-one signatories, Lord Farrer,
+significantly adds that he does not favour a "charge on the public purse
+and new Boards of Management _until a purely Irish elected authority has
+agreed to pay for them_." Precisely; Lord Farrer has looked ahead. Will
+an Irish elected authority agree to pay for these boons, and will they
+be able to pay? That is a question which will cause some searching of
+hearts amongst all interested in Ireland's welfare;--in these pages we
+have attempted to give an answer.
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+The conclusion is in fact inevitable. Ireland cannot have it both ways.
+She cannot have financial independence and financial dependence at the
+same time. No Colony has ever claimed or been granted these inconsistent
+conditions. If Colonial precedents are cited, their essential
+limitations should also be borne in mind. Colonial loans are not charged
+on the Consolidated Fund. Nor have Colonial railways been nationalised
+with the money and credit of the United Kingdom, in order to favour
+local exports at the expense of imports from England.
+
+Our examination of the question brings us to the clear conclusion that
+it is only under the existing system of a single Parliament and
+Executive for the United Kingdom that the problems of transit and
+transport in Ireland, or between Great Britain and Ireland, can be
+satisfactorily solved, whether from the point of view of finance,
+justice to shareholders, or advantage to the trade and convenience of
+both countries.
+
+     NOTE.--It has been suggested, since the above was written, that the
+     balance in the Irish Post Office Savings Banks (now about
+     £12,500,000) might be available to the new Irish Government, for
+     advances to farmers and other public purposes. The suggestion
+     involves the applicability of such advances for the purchase or
+     amalgamation of the Irish railways under an Irish public authority.
+     Such a proposal will not bear close examination.
+
+     It is an essential condition of the existence of Savings Bank
+     deposits that the deposits should be always available on the call
+     of depositors; and this condition would no longer be fulfilled if
+     the balances were locked up in Irish railways. In fact, if there
+     was any suggestion that these balances should be used for the
+     purpose of enabling the Irish Government to run the railways on
+     uncommercial principles, the deposits would very soon diminish or
+     disappear--and this apart from the question whether under Home
+     Rule, the deposits would in any event remain at anything like their
+     present high figure.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 92: Viceregal Commission on Irish Railways, Final Report, 1910
+(Cd. 5247). Final Report on the Canals and Inland Navigations of
+Ireland, 1911 (Cd. 5626).]
+
+[Footnote 93: "The Framework of Home Rule," p. 174.]
+
+[Footnote 94: Figures are taken from Viceregal Commission Reports, p.
+78, Report.]
+
+[Footnote 95: Page 78, Report.]
+
+[Footnote 96: Page 58, Report.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Final Report, pp. 76-83.]
+
+[Footnote 98: We have taken the Act of 1844 as the basis referred to by
+the Commissioners, though it is very doubtful (having regard to the
+great variety of railway share and loan capital), if the terms of sect.
+2 are now suitable; moreover sect. 4 requires a special Act of
+Parliament to be passed to raise the money, and settle the special
+conditions of the purchase option.]
+
+[Footnote 99: Majority Report, p. 76.]
+
+[Footnote 100: "Framework of Home Rule," p. 281.]
+
+[Footnote 101: Final Report on the Canals and Navigations of Ireland.
+1911. (Cd. 5626.)]
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Against Home Rule (1912), by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Against Home Rule (1912)
+       The Case for the Union
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor:   S. Rosenbaum
+
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2005 [EBook #15450]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGAINST HOME RULE (1912) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Aldarondo and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1>AGAINST HOME RULE</h1>
+
+<h2>THE CASE FOR THE UNION</h2>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<br />
+<h2>ARTHUR J. BALFOUR, M.P.; J. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.;<br />
+WALTER LONG, M.P.; GEORGE WYNDHAM, M.P.;<br />
+LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, M.P.; J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.;<br />
+GERALD W. BALFOUR; THOMAS SINCLAIR;<br />
+MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY;<br />
+EARL PERCY; L.S. AMERY, M.P.; GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.;<br />
+GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.,<br />
+&amp;c.</h2>
+<br />
+<br />
+<p class="center">WITH INTRODUCTION BY<br />
+SIR EDWARD CARSON, K.C., M.P.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+AND PREFACE BY<br />
+A. BONAR LAW, M.P.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+EDITED BY<br />
+S. ROSENBAUM<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+LONDON<br />
+FREDERICK WARNE &amp; CO,<br />
+AND NEW YORK<br />
+1912<br />
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>IRISH ESSAYS COMMITTEE</h3>
+<br />
+<b>Chairman</b>.<br />
+THE RT. HON. SIR EDWARD CARSON, M.P.<br />
+<br />
+<b>Vice-Chairman</b>.<br />
+GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.<br />
+<br />
+<b>Committee</b>.<br />
+L.S. AMERY, M.P.<br />
+GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.<br />
+THE RT. HON. J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.<br />
+A.L. HORNER, K.C., M.P.<br />
+A.D. STEEL-MAITLAND, M.P.<br />
+A.W. SAMUELS, K.C.<br />
+P. CAMBRAY<br />
+<br />
+<b>Secretary &amp; Editor</b>.<br />
+S. ROSENBAUM, M.SC., F.S.S.<br />
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE" />PREFACE</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON. A. BONAR LAW, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>This book, for which I have been asked to write a short preface,
+presents the case against Home Rule for Ireland. The articles are
+written by men who not only have a complete grasp of the subjects upon
+which they write, but who in most cases, from their past experience and
+from their personal influence, are well entitled to outline the Irish
+policy of the Unionist Party.</p>
+
+<p>Ours is not merely a policy of hostility to Home Rule, but it is, as it
+has always been, a constructive policy for the regeneration of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>We are opposed to Home Rule because, in our belief, it would seriously
+weaken our national position; because it would put a stop to the
+remarkable increase of prosperity in Ireland which has resulted from the
+Land Purchase Act; and because it would inflict intolerable injustice on
+the minority in Ireland, who believe that under a Government controlled
+by the men who dominate the United Irish League neither their civil nor
+their religious liberty would be safe.</p>
+
+<p>To create within the United Kingdom a separate Parliament with an
+Executive Government responsible to that Parliament would at the best
+mean a danger of friction. But if we were ever engaged in a great war,
+and the men who controlled the Irish Government took the view in regard
+to that war which was taken by the same men in regard to the Boer War;
+if they thought the war unjust, and if, as under the last Home Rule
+Bill they would have the right to do, they passed resolutions in the
+Irish Parliament in condemnation of the war, and even sent embassies
+carrying messages of good-will to our enemy, then this second Government
+at the heart of the Empire would be a source of weakness which might be
+fatal to us.</p>
+
+<p>The ameliorative measures originated by Mr. Balfour when he was Chief
+Secretary, and which culminated in the Wyndham Purchase Act, have
+created a new Ireland. Mr. Redmond, speaking a year or two ago, said
+that Ireland &quot;was studded with the beautiful and happy homes of an
+emancipated peasantry.&quot; It is a true picture, but it is a picture of the
+result of Unionist policy in Ireland, a policy which Mr. Redmond and his
+friends, including the present Government, have done their best to
+hamper. The driving power of the agitation for Home Rule has always been
+discontent with the land system of Ireland, and just in proportion as
+land purchase has extended, the demand for Home Rule has died down. The
+Nationalist leaders, realising this, and regarding political agitation
+as their first object, have compelled the Government to put
+insurmountable obstacles in the way of land purchase&mdash;not because it had
+not been successful, but because it had been too successful.</p>
+
+<p>The prosperity and the peace of Ireland depend upon the completion of
+land purchase, and it can only be completed by the use of British
+credit, which in my belief can and ought only to be freely given so long
+as Ireland is in complete union with the rest of the United Kingdom. In
+the present deplorable position of British credit the financing of land
+purchase would be difficult; but it is not unreasonable to hope that the
+return to power of a Government which would adopt sane financial
+methods would restore our credit; and in any case, the object is of such
+vital importance that, whatever the difficulties, it must be our policy
+to complete with the utmost possible rapidity the system of land
+purchase in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>It will also be our aim to help to the utmost, in the manner suggested
+in different articles in this book, in the development of the resources
+of Ireland. The Nationalist policy, which is imposed also on the Radical
+Party, is in fact more politics and less industry. Our policy is more
+industry and less politics.</p>
+
+<p>The strongest objection, however, and, in my opinion, the insurmountable
+obstacle to Home Rule, is the injustice of attempting to impose it
+against their will upon the Unionists of Ulster. The only intelligible
+ground upon which Home Rule can now be defended is the nationality of
+Ireland. But Ireland is not a nation; it is two nations. It is two
+nations separated from each other by lines of cleavage which cut far
+deeper than those which separate Great Britain from Ireland as a whole.
+Every argument which can be adduced in favour of separate treatment for
+the Irish Nationalist minority as against the majority of the United
+Kingdom, applies with far greater force in favour of separate treatment
+for the Unionists of Ulster as against the majority of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>To the majority in Ireland Home Rule may seem to be a blessing, but to
+the minority it appears as an intolerable curse. Their hostility to it
+is quite as strong as that which was felt by many of the Catholics of
+Ireland to Grattan's Parliament. They, too, would say, as the Catholic
+Bishop of Waterford said at the time of the Union, that they &quot;would
+prefer a Union with the Beys and Mamelukes of Egypt to the iron rod of
+the Mamelukes of Ireland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The minority which holds this view is important in numbers, for it
+comprises at the lowest estimate more than a fourth of the population of
+Ireland. From every other point of view it is still more important, for
+probably the minority pays at least half the taxes and does half the
+trade of Ireland. The influence and also the power of the minority is
+enormously increased by the way in which its numbers are concentrated in
+Belfast and the surrounding counties.</p>
+
+<p>The men who compose this minority ask no special privilege. They demand
+only&mdash;and they will not demand in vain&mdash;that they should not be deprived
+against their will of the protection of British law and of the rights of
+British citizenship.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+<p><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Carson, K.C., M.P.</i></p>
+
+
+<h4>HISTORICAL</h4>
+
+<p><a href="#I">I. A NOTE ON HOME RULE</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#II">II. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By J.R. Fisher</i></p>
+
+
+<h4>CRITICAL</h4>
+
+<p><a href="#III">III. THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By George Cave, K.C., M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#IV">IV. HOME RULE FINANCE</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. J. Austen Chamberlain, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#V">V. HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL ANALOGY</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By L.S. Amery, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#VI">VI. THE CONTROL OF JUDICIARY AND POLICE</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. J.H. Campbell, K.C., M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#VII">VII. THE ULSTER QUESTION</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Marquis of Londonderry, K.G.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#VIII">VIII. THE POSITION OF ULSTER</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. Thomas Sinclair.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#IX">IX. THE SOUTHERN MINORITIES</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By Richard Bagwell, M.A.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#X">X. HOME RULE AND NAVAL DEFENCE</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#XI">XI. THE MILITARY DISADVANTAGES OF HOME RULE</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Earl Percy.</i></p>
+
+<p>XII. THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE</p>
+
+<p><a href="#XII">(i.) The Church View</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Rev. C.F. D'Arcy, Bishop of Down.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#THE_RELIGIOUS_DIFFICULTY_UNDER_HOME_RULE">(ii.) The Nonconformist View</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By Rev. Samuel Prenter, M.A., D.D. (Dublin).</i></p>
+
+
+<h4>CONSTRUCTIVE</h4>
+
+<p><a href="#XIII">XIII. UNIONIST POLICY IN RELATION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRELAND</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. Gerald Balfour.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#XIV">XIV. THE COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#XV">XV. POSSIBLE IRISH FINANCIAL REFORMS UNDER THE UNION</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By Arthur Warren Samuels, K.C.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#XVI">XVI. THE ECONOMICS OF SEPARATISM</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By L.S. Amery, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#XVII">XVII. PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Rt. Hon. Walter Long, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#XVIII">XVIII. IRISH POOR LAW REFORM</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By John E. Healy, Editor of the &quot;Irish Times.&quot;</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#XIX">XIX. IRISH EDUCATION UNDER THE UNION</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By Godfrey Locker Lampson, M.P.</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#XX">XX. THE PROBLEM OF TRANSIT AND TRANSPORT IN IRELAND</a></p>
+
+<p><i>By an Irish Railway Director.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION" />INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR EDWARD CARSON, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The object of the various essays collected in this book is to set out
+the case against Home Rule for Ireland, and to re-state Unionist policy
+in the light of the recent changes in that country. The authors are not,
+however, to be regarded as forming anything in the nature of a corporate
+body, and no collective responsibility is to be ascribed to them. Each
+writer is responsible for the views set out in his own article, and for
+those alone. At the same time, they are all leaders of Unionist thought
+and opinion, and their views in the main represent the policy which the
+Unionist Government, when returned to power, will have to carry into
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>Among the contributors to the book are an ex-Premier, four ex-Chief
+Secretaries for Ireland, an ex-Lord Lieutenant, two ex-Law officers, and
+a number of men whose special study of the Irish question entitles them
+to have their views most carefully considered when the time comes for
+restoring to Ireland those economic advantages of which she has been
+deprived by political agitation and political conspiracy. At the present
+moment the discussion of the Irish question is embittered by the
+pressing and urgent danger to civil and religious liberties involved in
+the unconditional surrender of the Government to the intrigues of a
+disloyal section of the Irish people. It is the object of writers in
+this book to raise the discussions on the Home Rule question above the
+bitter conflict of Irish parties, and to show that not only is Unionism
+a constructive policy and a measure of hope for Ireland, but that in
+Unionist policy lies the only alternative to financial ruin and
+exterminating civil dissensions.</p>
+
+<p>We who are Unionists believe first and foremost that the Act of Union
+is required&mdash;in the words made familiar to us by the Book of Common
+Prayer&mdash;&quot;for the safety, honour and welfare, of our Sovereign and his
+dominions.&quot; We are not concerned with the supposed taint which marred
+the passing of that Act; we are unmoved by the fact that its terms have
+undergone considerable modification. We do not believe in the plenary
+inspiration of any Act of Parliament. It is not possible for the living
+needs of two prosperous countries to be bound indefinitely by the &quot;dead
+hand&quot; of an ancient statute, but we maintain that geographical and
+economic reasons make a legislative Union between Great Britain and
+Ireland necessary for the interests of both. We see, as Irish Ministers
+saw in 1800, that there can be no permanent resting place between
+complete Union and total separation. We know that Irish Nationalists
+have not only proclaimed separatist principles, but that they have
+received separatist money, on the understanding that they would not
+oppose a movement to destroy whatever restrictions and safeguards the
+Imperial Parliament might impose upon an Irish Government.</p>
+
+<p>The first law of nature with nations and governments, as with
+individuals, is self-preservation. It was the vital interests of
+national defence that caused Pitt to undertake the difficult and
+thankless task of creating the legislative union. If that union was
+necessary for the salvation of England and the foundation of the British
+Empire, it is assuredly no less necessary for the continued security of
+the one and the maintenance and prestige of the other.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. J.R. Fisher, in his historical retrospect, shows us how bitter
+experience convinced successive generations of English statesmen of the
+dangers that lay in an independent Ireland. One of the very earliest
+conflicts between the two countries was caused by the action of the
+Irish Parliament in recognising and crowning a Pretender in Dublin
+Castle. Then the fact that the Reformation, which soon won the adherence
+of the English Government and the majority of the English people, never
+gained any great foothold in Ireland, caused the bitter religious wars
+which devastated Europe to be reproduced in the relations of the two
+countries. When England was fighting desperately with the Spanish
+champions of the Papacy, Spanish forces twice succeeded in effecting a
+landing on the Irish coast, and were welcomed by the people. Later on,
+by the aid of subsidies from an Irish Parliament, Strafford raised
+10,000 men in Ireland in order to support Charles I. in his conflict
+with the English people. Cromwell realised that the only remedy for the
+intrigues and turbulence of the Irish Parliament lay in a legislative
+union. But, unfortunately, his Union Parliament was terminated by the
+Restoration. Then, again, when France became the chief danger that
+England had to face, Tyrconnel, with the aid of French troops and French
+subsidies, endeavoured to make Ireland a base for the invasion of
+England. Under the Old Pretender again, another effort was made to make
+the Irish Parliament a medium for the destruction of English liberties.</p>
+
+<p>In these long-continued and bitter struggles we see the excuse, if not
+the justification, for the severe penal laws which were introduced in
+order to curb the power of the Irish chieftains. We see also the
+beginning of the feud between Ulster and the other provinces in Ireland,
+which has continued in a modified form to the present day. Strafford
+found that, in order to bolster up the despotism of the Stuarts, he had
+not only to invade England, but to expel the Scottish settlers from the
+Northern province. The Irish Parliament in the time of Tyrconnel again
+began to prepare for the invasion of England by an attempt to destroy
+the Ulster plantation. The settlers had their estates confiscated, the
+Protestant clergy were driven out and English sympathisers outlawed by
+name, in the &quot;hugest Bill of Attainder which the world has seen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Lord Charles Beresford points out the danger from a naval point
+of view of the French attempts to use Ireland as a base for operations
+against England, both under Louis XIV. and under the Republican
+Directory. He quotes Admiral Mahan as saying that the movement which
+designed to cut the English communications in St. George's Channel
+while an invading party landed in the south of Ireland was a strictly
+strategic movement and would be as dangerous to England now as it was in
+1690. When Grattan extorted from England's weakness the unworkable and
+impracticable constitution of 1782, the danger which had always been
+present became immensely increased. In less than three years from the
+period of boasted final adjustment, Ireland came to a breach with
+England on the important question of trade and navigation. Then, again,
+at the time of the Regency, the Irish Parliament was actually ready to
+choose a person in whom to rest the sovereign executive power of the
+nation, different from him whom the British Parliament were prepared to
+designate.</p>
+
+<p>In 1795, when the French had made themselves masters of Brabant,
+Flanders, and Holland, the rebel government of United Irishmen was so
+well-established in Ireland that, as Lord Clare, the Irish Chancellor,
+subsequently admitted in the House of Lords, Ireland was for some weeks
+in a state of actual separation from Great Britain. When the great
+Rebellion of 1798 broke out, the French Directory sent assistance to the
+Irish rebels in order to facilitate the greater scheme&mdash;the conquest of
+England and of Europe. When we come to estimate the danger which the
+grant of Home Rule to Ireland would bring to the safety of England, we
+are faced with two considerations. In the first place, the movements of
+the French in the past were, as we have said, strategic. Given an Irish
+Parliament that was hostile to England, or at least dubious in her
+loyalty to this country, the movement of a hostile fleet against our
+communications would be as dangerous now as it was in the past.</p>
+
+<p>When we try to estimate what would be the feelings of an Irish
+Government when England was at war, we have to consider not only the
+speeches of avowed enemies of the Empire like Major McBride and the
+Irish Americans, but we have also to remember the attitude adopted upon
+all questions of foreign policy by the more responsible Nationalists of
+the type of Mr. Dillon. Not only have the Irish Nationalist party
+consistently opposed every warlike operation that British Governments
+have found to be necessary, but they have also fervently attacked the
+Powers on the Continent of Europe that have been suspected of friendship
+to England. We have only to imagine the element of weakness and disunion
+which would be introduced into our foreign policy by an Irish Parliament
+that passed resolutions regarding the policy of the Governments, say, of
+Russia and of France, in order to realise the immense dangers of setting
+up such a Parliament when we are again confronted with a mighty
+Confederation of opponents in Europe. It is admitted that the next
+European war will be decided by the events of the first few days. In
+order to succeed, we shall have to strike and strike quickly. But in
+order that there should be swift and effective action, there should be
+only one Government to be consulted. The Irish Ministry that was not
+actively hostile, but only unsympathetic and dilatory, might, in many
+ways, fatally embarrass Ministers at Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, another complication has been introduced by the dependence of
+England upon Irish food supplies. Lord Percy points out that there are
+two stages in every naval war; first, the actual engagement, and then
+the blockade or destruction of the ships of the defeated country. He
+points out that, even after the destruction of the French Navy at
+Trafalgar, the damage done to British oversea commerce was very great.
+Modern conditions of warfare have made blockade an infinitely more
+difficult and precarious operation, and we must therefore face the
+certainty that hostile cruisers will escape and interfere with our
+oversea supplies of food. Since Ireland lies directly across our trade
+routes, it is probable that the majority of our food supplies will be
+derived from Ireland or carried through that country. But Irish
+Ministers would not have forgotten the lesson of the famine, when food
+was exported from Ireland though the people starved. Curious as it may
+seem, Ireland, though a great exporting country, does not under present
+conditions feed herself, and therefore an Irish Ministry would
+certainly lay in a large stock of the imported food supplies before they
+were brought to England, in order first of all absolutely to secure the
+food of their own people. It would be open for them at any time, by
+cutting off our supplies, our horses and our recruits, to extract any
+terms they liked out of the English people or bring this country to its
+knees. &quot;England's difficulty&quot; would once again become &quot;Ireland's
+opportunity.&quot; The experience of 1782 would be repeated. Resistance to
+Ireland's demands for extended powers would bring about war between the
+two countries. In the striking phrase of Mr. Balfour's arresting
+article, &quot;The battle of the two Parliaments would become the battle of
+the two peoples.&quot; It is only necessary to refer briefly to the fact that
+the active section of the Nationalist party has continually and
+consistently opposed recruiting for the British Army. It is perfectly
+certain that, under Home Rule, this policy would be accentuated rather
+than reversed. We now draw recruits from Ireland out of all proportion
+to its population. Under Home Rule, the difficulties of maintaining a
+proper standard of men and efficiency must be immensely increased.</p>
+
+<p>If there were no other arguments against Home Rule, the paramount
+necessities of Imperial defence would demand the maintenance of the
+Union. But the opposition to the proposed revolution in Ireland is based
+not only on the considerations of Imperial safety, but also on those of
+national honour. The historical bases of Irish nationalism have been
+destroyed by the arguments summarised in this book by Mr. Fisher and Mr.
+Amery. It was the existence of a separate Parliament in Dublin that made
+Ireland, for so many centuries, alike a menace to English liberty and
+the victim of English reprisals. Miss A.E. Murray has pointed out<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1" /><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+that experience seemed to show to British statesmen that Irish
+prosperity was dangerous to English liberty. It was the absence of
+direct authority over Ireland which made England so nervously anxious
+to restrict Irish resources in every direction in which they might, even
+indirectly, interfere with the growth of English power. Irish industries
+were penalised and crippled, not from any innate perversity on the part
+of English statesmen, or from any deliberate desire to ruin Ireland, but
+as a natural consequence of exclusion from the Union under the economic
+policy of the age. The very poverty of Ireland, as expressed in the
+lowness of Irish wages, was a convenient and perfectly justifiable
+argument for exclusion. Mr. Amery shows that the Protestant settlers of
+Ulster were penalised even more severely than the intriguing Irish
+chieftains against whom they were primarily directed.</p>
+
+<p>It was the consciousness of the natural result of separation that caused
+the Irish Parliament, upon two separate occasions, to petition for that
+union with England which was delayed for over a century. The action of
+Grattan and his supporters in wresting the impossible Constitution of
+1782, from the harassed and desperate English Government, began that
+fatal policy of substituting political agitation for economic reform
+which has ever since marred the Irish Nationalist movement. John
+Fitzgibbon<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2" /><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> pointed out in the Irish House of Commons that only two
+alternatives lay before his country&mdash;Separation or Union. Under
+Separation an Irish Parliament might be able to pursue an economic
+policy of its own; under Union the common economic policy of the two
+countries might be adjusted to the peculiar interests of each.</p>
+
+<p>Pitt, undoubtedly, looked forward to a Customs Union with internal free
+trade as the ultimate solution of the difficulty, but a Customs Union
+was impossible without the fullest kind of legislative unity. It is true
+that the closing years of the eighteenth century were years of
+prosperity to certain classes and districts in Ireland, but Mr. Fisher
+has shown beyond dispute that this prosperity neither commenced with
+Grattan's Parliament nor ended with its fall. It was based upon the
+peculiar economic conditions which years of war and preparations for
+war had fostered in England; it was bound in any case to disappear with
+the growing concentration of industrial interests which followed the
+general introduction of machinery. The immediate result of the passing
+of the Act of Union was to increase the Irish population and Irish
+trade.</p>
+
+<p>But to a certain extent that prosperity was fictitious and doomed to
+failure so soon as peace and the introduction of scientific methods of
+industry had caused the concentration of the great manufactures. Then
+came the great economic disaster for Ireland&mdash;the adoption of free trade
+by England. The Irish famine of 1849 was not more severe than others
+that had preceded it, but its evil effects were accentuated by the
+policy of the English Government. The economists decided that the State
+ought to do nothing to interfere with private enterprise in feeding the
+starving people, and as there was no private enterprise in the country,
+where all classes were involved in the common ruin, the people were left
+to die of hunger by the roadside. The lands the potato blight spared
+were desolated by the adoption of free trade. The exploitation of the
+virgin lands of the American West gradually threw the fertile midlands
+of Ireland from tillage into grass. A series of bad harvests aggravated
+the evil. The landlords and the farmers of Ireland were divided into two
+political camps, and, instead of uniting for their common welfare, each
+attempted to cast upon the other the burden of the economic catastrophe.
+To sum up in the words of Mr. Amery&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;The evils of economic Separatism, aggravated by social evils
+     surviving from the Separatism of an earlier age, united to revive a
+     demand for the extension and renewal of the very cause of those
+     evils.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>The political demand for the repeal of the Act of Union, which had lain
+dormant for so many years, was revived by the energies of Isaac Butt. He
+found in the Irish landlords, smarting under the disestablishment of the
+Irish Church, a certain amount of sympathy and assistance, but the
+&quot;engine&quot; for which Finton Lalor had asked in order to draw the &quot;repeal
+train,&quot; was not discovered until Parnell linked the growing agrarian
+unrest to the Home Rule Campaign. This is not the place to tell again
+the weary story of the land war or to show how the Irish Nationalists
+exploited the grievances of the Irish tenants in order to encourage
+crime and foment disloyalty in the country. It is sufficient to say that
+this conflict&mdash;the conduct of which reflects little credit either upon
+the Irish protagonists or the British Government which alternately
+pampered and opposed it&mdash;was ended, for the time at least, by the
+passing of Mr. Wyndham's Land Act. We look forward in perfect confidence
+to the time when that great measure shall achieve its full result in
+wiping out the memory of many centuries of discord and hatred. But the
+Separatist movement, which has always been the evil genius of Irish
+politics, has not yet been completely exorcised. The memory of those
+past years when the minority in Ireland constituted the only bulwark of
+Irish freedom and of English liberty, has not yet passed away. The Irish
+Nationalist party since Parnell have spared no exertions to impress more
+deeply upon the imaginations of a sentimental race the memory of those
+&quot;ancient weeping years.&quot; They have preached a social and a civil war
+upon all those in Ireland who would not submit their opinions and
+consciences to the uncontrolled domination of secret societies and
+leagues.</p>
+
+<p>The articles upon the Ulster question by Lord Londonderry and Mr.
+Sinclair show that the Northern province still maintains her historic
+opposition to Irish Separatism and Irish intrigue. She stands firmly by
+the same economic principles which have enabled her, in spite of
+persecution and natural disadvantages, to build up so great a
+prosperity. She knows well that the only chance for the rest of Ireland
+to attain to the standard of education, enlightenment and independence
+which she has reached, is to free itself from the sinister domination
+under which it lies, and to assert its right to political and religious
+liberty. Ulster sees in Irish Nationalism a dark conspiracy, buttressed
+upon crime and incitement to outrage, maintained by ignorance and
+pandering to superstition. Even at this moment the Nationalist leagues
+have succeeded in superseding the law of the land by the law of the
+league. We need only point to the remarks which the Lord Chief Justice
+of Ireland and Mr. Justice Kenny have been compelled to make to the
+Grand Juries quite recently, to show what Nationalist rule means to the
+helpless peasants in a great part of the country.</p>
+
+<p>But the differences which still sever the two great parties in Ireland
+are not only economic but religious. The general slackening of
+theological dispute which followed the weary years of religious warfare
+after the Reformation, has never brought peace to Ireland. In England
+the very completeness of the defeat of Roman Catholicism has rendered
+the people oblivious to the dangers of its aggression. The Irish
+Unionists are not monsters of inhuman frame; they are men of like
+passions with Englishmen. Though they hold their religious views with
+vigour and determination, there is nothing that they would like more
+than to be able to forget their points of difference from those who are
+their fellow Christians. It is perhaps necessary to point out once again
+that the Roman Catholic Church is a political, as well as a religious,
+institution, and to remind Englishmen that it is by the first law of its
+being an intolerant and aggressive organisation. All Protestants in
+Ireland feel deep respect for much of the work which is carried on by
+the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. They gladly acknowledge the
+influence of its priesthood in maintaining and upholding the traditional
+morality and purity of the Irish race. They venerate the memories of
+those brave Irish priests who defied persecution in order to bring
+succour to their flocks in time of need. But they are bound to deal with
+the present political situation as they find it. They are determined
+that no Church, however admirable, and no creed, however lofty, should
+be forced upon them against their wills. There is a dark side to the
+picture, on which it is unnecessary to dwell. We have only to ask the
+Nonconformists of England what would be their feelings were a Roman
+Catholic majority returned to the British House of Commons.</p>
+
+<p>In most of the articles in this book which deal with the religious
+question; special stress is laid upon recent Papal legislation. The <i>Ne
+Temere</i> and the <i>Motu Proprio</i> decrees have constituted an invasion of
+the rights hitherto enjoyed by the minority in Ireland, and they are
+even more significant as an illustration of the policy of the Roman
+curia. Those who have watched the steady increase of Roman aggression in
+every Roman Catholic country, followed as it has been by passionate
+protest and determined action by the civil Governments, must realise the
+danger which Home Rule would bring to the faith and liberty of the
+people of Ireland. It is not inconsistent to urge, as many of us have
+urged, that Home Rule would mean alike a danger to the Protestant faith
+and a menace to Catholic power. The immediate result of successful Papal
+interference with civil liberties in every land has been a sweeping
+movement among the people which has been, not Protestant, but
+anti-Christian in its nature. If we fear the tyranny which the Roman
+Catholic Church has established under British rule in Malta and in
+Quebec, may we not fear also the reaction from such tyranny which has
+already taken place in France and Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>But we are told that there are to be in the new Home Rule Bill
+safeguards which will protect the minority from any interference with
+their civil and religious liberties. It is not necessary for me to go
+over again in detail the ground which is so admirably covered by Mr.
+George Cave and Mr. James Campbell. They show clearly that the existence
+of restrictions and limitations upon the activities of a Dublin
+Parliament, whether they are primarily intended to safeguard the British
+connection or to protect the liberties of minorities, cannot be worth
+the paper on which they are printed. Let us take, for instance, an
+attempt to prevent the marriages of Irish Protestants from being
+invalidated by an Irish Parliament. We may point out that an amendment
+to the 1893 Home Rule Bill, designed to safeguard such marriages, was
+rejected by the vote of the Irish Nationalist party. But even were
+legislation affecting the marriage laws of the minority to be placed
+outside the control of a Dublin Parliament, the effect would not be to
+reassure the Protestant community. Mr. James Campbell mentions a case
+which has profoundly stirred the Puritan feelings of Irish
+Protestantism. A man charged with bigamy has been released without
+punishment because the first marriage, although in conformity with the
+law of the land, was not recognised by the Roman Catholic Church.
+However justifiable that course may have been in the exceptional
+circumstances of that particular case, the precedent obviously prepares
+the way for a practical reversal of the law by executive or judicial
+action. We must remember that, since the <i>Ne Temere</i> decree has come
+into force, the marriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics are held by
+the Roman Catholic Church to be absolutely null and void unless they are
+celebrated in a Roman Catholic Church. We have also to bear in mind that
+these marriages will not be permitted by the priesthood except under
+conditions which many Irish Protestants consider humiliating and
+impossible. No more deadly attack upon the faith of the Protestant
+minority in the three provinces in Ireland can be imagined than to make
+a denial of their faith the essential condition to the enjoyment of the
+highest happiness for which they may look upon this earth.</p>
+
+<p>The second decree prohibits, under pain of excommunication, any Roman
+Catholic from bringing an ecclesiastical officer before a Court of
+Justice. Even under the Union Government this decree is a danger to the
+liberty of the subject. Under an independent Irish Government, nothing
+except that vast anti-clerical revolution which some people foresee
+could possibly reassure the people as to the attitude of the Executive
+Government in dealing with a large and privileged class. These
+considerations make one more reason for refusing the Colonial analogy
+which is so ingeniously pressed by such apologists for Home Rule as Mr.
+Erskine Childers. Mr. Amery analyses the confusion of thought between
+Home Rule as meaning responsible Government and Home Rule as meaning
+separate government which underlies the arguments of Liberal Home
+Rulers. Ireland has Home Rule in the sense of having free representative
+institutions. She is prevented by geographical and economic conditions
+from enjoying separate government under the same terms on which the
+Colonies possess it. As Mr. Amery points out, the United Kingdom is
+geographically a single island group. No part of Ireland is so
+inaccessible from the political centre of British power as the remoter
+parts of the Highlands, while racially no less than physically Ireland
+is an integral part of the United Kingdom. Economically also the two
+countries are bound together in a way which makes a common physical
+policy absolutely necessary for the welfare of both countries. The
+financial arguments which might have made it possible to permit an
+independent fiscal policy for Ireland under free trade, have disappeared
+with the certain approach of a revision of the tariff policies of
+England. There can be no separate tariffs for the two countries, or even
+a common tariff, without a common Government to negotiate and enforce
+it. If there were no other objection to the establishment of a separate
+Government in Dublin, it would be impossible because legislative
+autonomy can only be coupled with financial independence.</p>
+
+<p>The financial difficulties in the way of any grant of Home Rule are
+fully explained by Mr. Austen Chamberlain. Three attempts at framing
+schemes for financing Home Rule were made by Mr. Gladstone in the past.
+All the powers of this great and resourceful dialectician were employed
+in defending these various schemes in turn. He was not deterred from
+pressing any scheme by the fact that in important details it was
+inconsistent with or even opposed to what had been previously
+recommended. But if there was one principle on which Mr. Gladstone never
+turned his back it was in demanding a contribution from Ireland for
+Imperial services. At one time he demanded a cash payment, at another
+the assignment of the Customs, and on yet another occasion the payment
+to the Imperial Exchequer of a quota&mdash;one-third&mdash;of the tax-revenue in
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of recent social legislation, such as Old Age Pensions,
+Labour Exchanges, and Sickness and Unemployment Insurance has been to
+confer on Ireland benefits much greater in value than the Irish
+contribution in respect of the new taxation imposed. In consequence of
+this change the present Irish revenue falls short of the expenditure
+incurred for Irish purposes in Ireland. Mr. Chamberlain shows that if
+any scheme even remotely resembling any of those put forward on previous
+occasions by Mr. Gladstone is embodied in the new Bill, and if a
+moderate contribution for Imperial services is included, the Irish
+deficit must range from £2,500,000 to £3,500,000. If by any process of
+juggling with the figures the Irish Parliament is again to be started
+with a surplus the deficit must have been made good by charging it
+against the Imperial taxpayer. But again there is no permanence in such
+a surplus. It must disappear if the ameliorative measures which are long
+overdue in Ireland are undertaken by an Irish Parliament; and previous
+experience has already illustrated that even without the adoption of any
+such new schemes surpluses would long ago have made room for deficits.
+It will be the duty of the Nationalists party to say definitely what are
+the fiscal reserves upon which they can draw in order to establish
+permanent equilibrium between revenue and expenditure in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Not only does Unionist policy for Ireland involve considerations of
+national safety and national honour, but it is also necessary for the
+economic welfare of both countries. The remarkable success which has
+attended Mr. Wyndham's Land Act of 1903 has alarmed the political party
+in Ireland, which depends for its influence on the poverty and
+discontent of the rural population of Ireland. Mr. Wyndham in his
+article upon Irish Land Purchase shows clearly the blessings which have
+followed wherever his Act has been given fair play, and the evils which
+have resulted in the suppression of Land Purchase by Mr. Birrell's Act
+of 1909. The dual ownership created by Mr. Gladstone's ill-advised and
+reckless legislation led to Ireland being starved both in capital and
+industry and brought the whole of Irish agriculture to the brink of
+ruin, and under these circumstances, Conservative statesmen determined,
+in accordance with the principles of the Act of Union, to use a joint
+exchequer for the purpose of relieving Irish distress. Credit of the
+State was employed to convert the occupiers of Irish farms into the
+owners of the soil. The policy of the Ashbourne Acts was briefly that
+any landlord could agree with any tenant on the purchase price of his
+holding. The State then advanced the credit sum to the landlord in cash,
+while the tenant paid an instalment of 4 per cent. for forty-nine years.
+It is important to notice that the landlord received cash and that the
+tenants paid interest at the then existing rate of interest on Consols,
+namely, 3 per cent. The great defect in these Acts was that they applied
+only to separate holdings and not to estates as a whole; but their
+success can be estimated by the fact that under them twenty-seven
+thousand tenants became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to
+over ten million pounds. Under Mr. Balfour's Acts of 1891 and 1896, the
+landlord was paid in stock instead of cash, and the tenants still paid 4
+per cent., the interest being reduced to the then rate on Consols&mdash;2-3/4
+per cent.&mdash;and the Sinking Fund being proportionately increased. It will
+be noticed that these Acts began the practise of paying the landlord in
+stock, though at that time Irish Land Stock with a face value of £100
+became worth as much as £114. The exchequer was, moreover, permitted to
+retain grants due for various purposes in Ireland and to recoup itself
+out of them in case of any combined refusal to repay on the part of
+tenants.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish Land Act of 1903 was the product of the experience gained
+during eighteen years of the operation of the preceding Purchase Acts.
+It was founded upon an agreement made in 1902 between representatives of
+Irish landlords and tenants. Cash payments were resumed to the
+landlords, the tenants' instalments were reduced to 3-1/4 per cent., and
+a bonus, as it was called, of twelve millions of money was made
+available to bridge the gap between the landlords and the tenants at the
+rate of 12 per cent, on the amount advanced. That Act possessed the
+additional advantage of dealing with the estates as a whole instead of
+with individual holdings, and it substituted the principle of speedy
+purchase for that of dilatory litigation. This remarkable and generous
+measure initiated a great and beneficent revolution, but every popular
+and useful feature of the Act of 1903 was distorted or destroyed in the
+Land Act which the present Government passed at the instigation of the
+Irish Nationalist Party in 1909. In Mr. Wyndham's words &quot;a solemn treaty
+framed in the interest of Ireland was torn up to deck with its tatters
+the triumph of Mr. Dillon's unholy alliance with the British Treasury.&quot;
+Under the Act of 1909, landlords, instead of cash payments, are to
+receive stock at 3 per cent. issued on a falling market. This stock
+cannot possibly appreciate because owing to the embarrassment of Irish
+estates a large proportion of each issue is thrown back upon the market
+at the redemption of mortgages. The tenant's annuity is raised from
+3-1/4 per cent, to 3-1/2 per cent., a precedent not to be found in any
+previous experiment under Irish Land Purchase finance. The bonus is
+destroyed and litigation is substituted for security and speed. The
+results of the two Acts are instructive. Under the 1903 Act the
+potential purchasers amounted to nearly a quarter of a million; under
+the 1909 Act the applications in respect of direct sales being less than
+nine thousand. It is hardly necessary to go into the reasons advanced
+for this disastrous change. It has been brought about not in order to
+relieve the British Treasury, but in order to rescue from final
+destruction the waning influence of Irish Nationalism. Mr. Wyndham has
+the authority of the leader of the Unionist Party for his statement that
+the first constructive work of the Unionist Party in Ireland must be to
+resume the Land policy of 1903 and to pursue the same objects by the
+best methods until they have all been fully and expeditiously achieved.
+Unionist policy cannot, however, be confined to the restoration of Land
+Purchase. The ruin which Free Trade finance has inflicted upon Irish
+agriculture can only be remedied, as Mr. Childers saw at the time of the
+Financial Relations Commission in 1895, by a readjustment of the fiscal
+system of the United Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gerald Balfour shows us in one of the most able papers in the book
+the extraordinary development which has been seen in recent years in
+Irish agricultural methods. The revival of Irish rural industries dates
+from Mr. Balfour's chief-secretaryship. The Parliament which set up in
+Ireland the Congested Districts Board and sanctioned the building of
+light railways at the public expense, also witnessed the formation in
+Ireland of a Society which was destined to work great changes in the
+social conditions of the country. The Irish Agricultural Organisation
+Society represents the fruit of a work begun in the face of incredible
+difficulties and remorseless opposition by Sir Horace Plunkett in 1889.
+&quot;Better farming, better business, better living&quot;&mdash;these were the
+principles which he and Mr. Anderson set out to establish in Ireland.
+Their representatives were described as monsters in human shape, and
+they were adjured to cease their &quot;hellish work.&quot; Now the branches of the
+Society number nearly 1000, with an annual turnover of upwards of 2-1/2
+millions, and they include creameries, village banks, and societies for
+the purchase of seeds and manure and for the marketing of eggs. It is
+not necessary to tell again the story of the Recess Committee and the
+formation of the Department of Agriculture. The result of its work,
+crowned as it was by Mr. Wyndham's Purchase Act, is shown by the fact
+that Irish trade has increased from 103 millions in 1904 to 130 millions
+in 1910. The steady object which Sir Horace Plunkett has set before him
+is to counteract the demoralising effect of paternal legislation on the
+part of the Government, by reviving and stimulating a policy of
+self-help. The I.A.O.S. has done valuable work in enabling the Irish
+farmers, by co-operating, to secure a more stable position in the
+English market, to secure themselves against illegitimate and fraudulent
+competition and to standardise the quality of their product, but even
+more important has been the work of the Society in releasing the farmers
+from the bondage of the &quot;Gombeen&quot; man who has for so many years been the
+curse of Irish agriculture. The &quot;Gombeen&quot; man is alike trader, publican,
+and money-lender, and he is the backbone of official Nationalist
+influence. By lending money to the peasant proprietors at exorbitant
+rates, by selling inferior seeds and manures and by carrying on his
+transactions with the farmers chiefly in kind, the &quot;Gombeen&quot; man has
+grown fat upon the poverty and despair of the farmer. It is not
+surprising that he views the liberating work of the I.A.O.S. with the
+bitterest hostility&mdash;an hostility which has been translated into
+effective action by the Nationalist Party in Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Horace Plunkett was driven from office on the pretext that it should
+be held by a member of Parliament. His successor, Mr. T.W. Russell, lost
+his seat in the General Election of 1910, but he was retained in power
+since he was willing to lend himself to the destructive intrigues of the
+&quot;Molly Maguires.&quot; The Unionist Party does not intend to interfere with
+the independence of the I.A.O.S. which constitutes in their eyes its
+greatest feature, but they are determined that it shall have fair play,
+and that the hundred thousand Irish farmers which constitutes its
+membership shall be enabled to increase their prosperity by co-operative
+action. The Unionist Party will also have to undertake more active
+measures in order to restore to Irish agriculture the position of
+supremacy for which it is naturally fitted. Mr. Amery and Mr. Samuels
+both discuss in outline the effects of Tariff Reform upon the future of
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>I do not intend at the present moment to go further into the details of
+the policy which the Unionist Government will be likely to adopt on this
+question. I think, however, it would be desirable to point out that in
+dairy produce and poultry, in barley and oats, in hops, tobacco,
+sugar-beet, vegetables and fruit, in all of which Ireland is especially
+interested, Irish products would have free entry into the protected
+markets of Great Britain, Canadian and Australian products would of
+course have such a preference over foreign competitors as a Home Rule
+Ireland might claim, but it is only under the Union that Ireland could
+expect complete freedom of access to our markets. Mr. Amery sees in the
+train ferry a possible bridge over the St. George's Channel and looks
+forward to the time when the west coast of Ireland will be the starting
+point of all our fast mail and passenger steamers across the Atlantic.
+Two schemes with this object have received the attention of Parliament.
+How far the present practical difficulties can be surmounted it is not
+very easy to say, but it is certain that if Home Rule were granted the
+Blacksod Bay and the Galway Bay Atlantic routes would have to be
+abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>These conditions naturally raise the whole transport problem in Ireland.
+Mr. Arthur Samuels suggests a scheme of State assistance to a cheap
+transport which may require attention later on, though it can only form
+part of a larger scheme of traffic reorganisation. The Nationalist Party
+seems definitely to have pledged itself to a scheme of nationalisation.
+This policy has been urged in season and out of season upon an apathetic
+Ireland by the <i>Freeman's Journal.</i> The cost of the nationalisation of
+Irish railways could not be less than fifty millions, while the annual
+charge on the Exchequer was assessed by the Irish Railways Commission at
+£250,000, and it was anticipated that a further recourse to Irish rates
+might be required. It would be obviously impossible to ask the British
+Treasury to advance such an enormous sum of money to an independent
+Irish Government.</p>
+
+<p>At what rate could an Irish government raise the money? The present
+return on Irish Railway capital is 3.77 per cent., and thus, to borrow
+fifty millions at 4 per cent, will involve an annual loss of over
+£300,000 a year, even without a sinking fund. It is extremely doubtful
+whether the credit of an Irish Government would be better than that of
+Hungary or Argentina. If anything more surely led an Irish Government
+to financial disaster it would be the working of railways. As the
+Majority Report of the Railway Commission recommended on other than
+commercial lines, the 25 per cent. reduction in rates and fares
+suggested by Nationalist witnesses would involve a loss of more than
+half a million a year. We see, therefore, immediately, that if anything
+is to be done at all to improve Irish transport it must be done by a
+Government that has the confidence of the money market. The railway
+director who contributes the principal article on this subject in the
+book calculates that a public grant of two millions, and a guaranteed
+loan of eight millions would suffice to carry out all the reforms that
+are necessary in order to place Irish railways in a thoroughly sound
+position.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious that with the development of trade which will follow on
+the adoption of Tariff Reform by England, Irish companies will be in a
+better position to help themselves, and the increase in the wealth and
+prosperity of Ireland must soon enable the railways to carry out
+constructive works which they all admit to be necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Locker Lampson's article on education undoubtedly shows the Irish
+Government in its less favourable light. The neglect and starvation of
+Irish education has been a reproach to the intelligence and humanity of
+successive Irish administrations. Mr. Locker Lampson shows, however,
+that financially and politically it would be impossible for any Irish
+administration to carry out the great and sweeping reforms in Irish
+education as are still necessary. The mischievous principle of paying
+fees by results, although it has disappeared from the National schools,
+still clings to intermediate education in Ireland. Before any other kind
+of reform is even considered the intermediate system in Ireland should
+be placed upon a proper foundation. The secondary system is also
+deficient because&mdash;what Mr. Dillon called &quot;gaps in the law&quot;&mdash;there is no
+co-ordination between the primary and the secondary schools. The
+establishment of higher grade schools in large centres and the
+institution of advanced departments in connection with selected primary
+schools in rural districts would only cost about £25,000 a year, and
+would go far to meet the disastrous effects of the present system. But
+no system of education can possibly be successful that does not place
+the teachers in a position of dignity and comfort. At the present moment
+the salaries of the secondary teachers are miserable; lay assistants in
+secondary schools are paid about £80 a year. They have no security of
+tenure; they have no register of teachers as a guarantee of efficiency.</p>
+
+<p>The other problems which immediately confront the Irish government are
+the establishment of a private bill legislation and a reform of the
+Irish Poor Law. With regard to the private bill legislation I will say
+no more than that it has always formed part of the Unionist policy for
+Ireland, and that I agree fully with the arguments by which Mr. Walter
+Long shows the necessity and justice for such a reform.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, having given to the Irish farmers the security of a freehold in
+their holdings at home, and a free entrance into the protected markets
+of Great Britain; having assisted the development of rural industries of
+the country; having placed Irish education on a sound and intelligible
+basis, it would be necessary for the Unionist Party to undertake a
+reform of the Poor Law in Ireland. Whether this reform will be
+undertaken the same time as the larger social problems of England, with
+which the party is pledged to deal, may be a matter of political
+expediency, but there is no reason why the reform which is so urgently
+required in Ireland should have to await the adoption of a scheme for
+England. In outlining the problems, the supreme necessity is the
+abolition of the present workhouse system. The Vice-Regal Commission and
+the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws are in agreement as to the guiding
+principles of reform. They recommend classification by institutions of
+all the present inmates of the workhouses; the sick in the hospital, the
+aged and infirm in alms-houses; the mentally defective in asylums. They
+suggest the bringing together into one institution of all the inmates of
+one class from a number of neighbouring workhouses. The sick should be
+sent to existing Poor Law or County hospitals, strengthened by the
+addition of cottage hospitals in certain districts, while children must
+be boarded out. The able-bodied paupers, if well conducted, might be
+placed in labour colonies; if ill conducted, in detention colonies. If
+these are established, they must be controlled by the State and not by
+County authorities. Of course, the resources of the existing Unions are
+much too limited to undertake such sweeping reforms, and the county must
+be substituted for the Union as the area of charge. The establishment of
+the Public Assistance authority will relieve us from the greatest
+scandal which now mars the administration of the Poor Law reform in
+Ireland&mdash;the corrupt appointment of officers in the Poor Law medical
+service. If we cannot have a State medical service, we can at all events
+ensure that appointments under the Poor Law shall be placed in
+incorruptible hands.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be assumed that this short sketch of policy is exhaustive,
+or that it touches even in outline upon all that the Unionist Party
+might fairly hope to do in Ireland. It is designed to show only that
+financially and politically, every step which can be taken to relieve
+the poverty and oppression which has too long continued in Ireland must
+be taken by a Unionist Parliament and a Government pledged to secure the
+administration of law and order in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>I desire on behalf of the Committee under whose auspices this work has
+been prepared to thank Mr. S. Rosenbaum for the ability and zeal he has
+shown in editing the book and in preparing it for publication. I wish
+also to acknowledge my personal debt to Mr. G. Locker Lampson, M.P.,
+who, as Vice-Chairman of the Committee, has shown so much zeal and
+assiduity in connection with this important work.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1" /><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> &quot;Commercial Relations Between England and Ireland.&quot; By Miss
+A.E. Murray (P.S. King &amp; Sons).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2" /><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Attorney General in the Irish Parliament, and later Earl of
+Clare.</p></div>
+
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>HISTORICAL</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="I" id="I" />I</h2>
+
+<h2>A NOTE ON HOME RULE</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON. A.J. BALFOUR, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The greater part of the present volume is devoted to showing why this
+country should not adopt Home Rule; but it is perhaps worth while for
+the ordinary British citizen to ask himself a preliminary question,
+namely, why he should be pressed even to consider it. That the
+establishment of an Irish Parliament must involve doubtful and
+far-reaching consequences is denied by no one. What then is the <i>primâ
+facie</i> case which has induced many Englishmen and Scotchmen to think
+that it ought to be seriously debated? If we could erase the past and
+approach the problem of framing representative institutions in their
+most practicable shape for the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, who
+would think it wise to crowd into these small Islands two, or, as some
+would have it, three, four, or five separate Parliaments, with their
+separate elections, their separate sets of ministers and Offices, their
+separate party systems, their divergent policies? Distances are, under
+modern conditions, so small, our population is so compact, the interests
+of its component parts are so intimately fused together, that any device
+at all resembling Home Rule would seem at the best cumbersome, costly,
+and ineffective; at the worst, perilous to the rights of minorities, the
+peace of the country, and the unity of the Kingdom. If, then, these
+common-sense considerations are thrust on one side by so many
+well-meaning persons, it must surely be because they think that for the
+destruction of our existing system there is to be found a compelling
+justification in the history of the past:</p>
+
+<p>I am well aware that many of the persons of whom I am thinking profess
+to base their approval of Home Rule on purely administrative grounds.
+The Parliament of the United Kingdom, they say, is overweighted; it has
+more to do than it can manage; we must diminish its excessive burdens;
+and we can only do so by throwing them in part upon other and
+subordinate assemblies. But this, if it be a reason at all, is certainly
+a most insufficient one. Would any human being, anxious merely to give
+relief to the House of Commons, adopt so illogical a scheme as one which
+involves a provincial Parliament in Ireland, and no provincial
+Parliaments anywhere else; which puts Ireland under two Parliaments, and
+left the rest of the country under one; which, if Irishmen are to be
+admitted to the Imperial Parliament, would give Ireland privileges and
+powers denied to England and Scotland, and, if they are to be excluded
+from the Imperial Parliament, would deprive Ireland of rights which
+surely she ought to possess?</p>
+
+<p>Again, if the &quot;administrative&quot; argument was really more than an ornament
+of debate, would any one select Ireland as the administrative district
+in which to make trial of the new system? Would any one, in his desire
+to relieve the Imperial Parliament of some of its functions, select as
+an area of self-government a region where one part is divided against
+another by passions, and, if you will, by prejudices, more violent, and
+more deeply-rooted than those which afflict any other fraction of the
+United Kingdom, choose that other fraction where, and how, you will?</p>
+
+<p>I take it, then, as certain that in the mind of the ordinary British
+Home Ruler the justification for Home Rule is not administrative but
+historical. He pictures Ireland before the English invasion as an
+organised and independent State, happy in the possession of a native
+polity which Englishmen have ruthlessly destroyed, now suffering under
+laws and institutions forced upon her by the conquerors, suitable it may
+be to men of Anglo-Saxon descent, but utterly alien to the genius and
+temper of a Celtic population. To him, therefore, Home Rule presents
+itself as an act of National restitution.</p>
+
+<p>Personally, I believe this to be a complete misreading of history. It is
+not denied&mdash;at least I do not deny&mdash;that both the English and British
+Governments, in their dealings with Ireland have done many things that
+were stupid, and some things that were abominable. But among their
+follies or their crimes is not to be counted the destruction of any such
+State as I have described; for no such State existed. They did not
+uproot one type of civilisation in order to plant another. The Ireland
+with which England had to deal had not acquired a national organisation,
+and when controversialists talk of &quot;restoring&quot; this or that institution
+to Ireland, the only institutions that can possibly be &quot;restored&quot; are in
+their origin importations from England.</p>
+
+<p>This does not, of course, mean that the English were a superior race
+dealing with an inferior one. Indeed, there is, in my view, no sharp
+division of race at all. In the veins of the inhabitants of these
+Islands runs more than one strain of blood. The English are not simply
+Teutonic&mdash;still less are the Irish Celtic. We must conceive the
+pre-historic inhabitants both of Britain and of Ireland as subject to
+repeated waves of invasion from the wandering peoples of the Continent.
+The Celt preceded the Teuton; and in certain regions his language still
+survives. The Teuton followed him in (as I suppose) far greater numbers,
+and his language has become that of a large fraction of the civilised
+world. But in no part of the United Kingdom is the Teutonic strain free
+from either the Celtic or pre-Celtic strain; nor do I believe that the
+Celtic strain has anywhere a predominance such as that which, speaking
+very roughly, the Teutonic strain possesses in the East of these
+Islands, or the pre-Celtic strain in the West.</p>
+
+<p>There is, therefore, no race frontier to be considered, still less is
+there any question of inferiority or superiority. The Irish difficulty,
+historically considered, arises in the main from two circumstances. The
+first of these, to which I have just referred, is that when England
+began to intervene in the welter of Irish inter-tribal warfare, she was
+already an organised State, slowly working its way through feudal
+monarchy to constitutional freedom. The second is that while the
+religious revolution of the sixteenth century profoundly and permanently
+affected the larger Island, it left the smaller Island untouched. The
+result of the first of these has been that Irish institutions, Irish
+laws, Irish forms of local government, and Irish forms of parliamentary
+government are necessarily of the English type. The result of the second
+has been that while no sharp divisions of race exist, divisions of
+religion have too often taken their place; that in the constitutional
+struggles of the seventeenth century Ireland was not the partner but the
+victim of English factions; and that civil war in its most brutal form,
+with the confiscations and penal laws which followed in its train, have
+fed, have indeed created, the bitter fiction that Ireland was once a
+&quot;nation&quot; whose national life has been destroyed by its more powerful
+neighbour.</p>
+
+<p>To all this it will perhaps be replied that even if the general accuracy
+of the foregoing statement be admitted (and nothing about Ireland ever
+<i>is</i> admitted), it is quite irrelevant to the question of Home Rule;
+because what is of importance to practical statesmanship is not what did
+actually happen in the past, but what those who live in the present
+suppose to have happened. If, therefore, to the imagination of
+contemporary Irishmen, Ireland appears a second Poland, statesmen must
+act as if the dream were fact.</p>
+
+<p>In such a contention there is some element of truth. But it must be
+observed in the first place that dreams, however vivid, are not eternal;
+and, in the second place, that while this particular dream endures it
+supplies a practical argument against Home Rule, the full force of which
+is commonly under-rated. For what are the main constitutional dangers of
+creating rival Parliaments in the same State? They are&mdash;friction,
+collision of jurisdiction, and, in the end, national disintegration. Of
+these, friction is scarcely to be avoided. I doubt whether it has been
+wholly avoided in any State where the system, either of co-equal or of
+subordinate Parliaments, has been thoroughly tried. It certainly was not
+avoided in the days past when Ireland had a Parliament of its own. It is
+incredible that it should be avoided in the future, however elaborate be
+the safeguards which the draughtsman's ingenuity can devise. But
+friction, in any case inevitable, becomes a peril to every community
+where the rival assemblies can appeal to nationalist sentiment. The sore
+gets poisoned. What under happier conditions might be no more than a
+passing storm of rhetoric, forgotten as soon as ended, will gather
+strength with time. The appetite for self-assertion, inherent in every
+assembly, and not likely to be absent from one composed of orators so
+brilliantly gifted as the Irish, will take the menacing form of an
+international quarrel. The appeal will no longer be to precedents and
+statutes, but to patriotism and nationality, and the quarrel of two
+Parliaments will become the quarrel of two peoples. What will it avail,
+when that time comes, that in 1912 the Irish leaders declared themselves
+content with a subordinate legislature? It is their earlier speeches of
+a very different tenour that will be remembered; and it will be asked,
+with a logic that may well seem irresistible, by what right Irish
+&quot;nationality&quot; was ever abandoned by Irish representatives.</p>
+
+<p>On these dangers I do not in this brief note propose to dwell, though it
+seems to me insane either to ignore them or to belittle them. The point
+on which I desire to insist is that they arise not from the
+establishment of a subordinate Parliament alone, nor from the existence
+of a &quot;nationalist&quot; sentiment alone, but from the action and reaction of
+the sentiment upon the institution, and of the institution upon the
+sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Let me conclude by asking whether Irish history does not support to the
+full these gloomy prognostications. The Parliament that came to an end
+at the Union was a Parliament utterly antagonistic to anything that now
+goes by the name of Irish Nationalism. In every sphere, except the
+economic sphere, it represented the forces, political and religious,
+which the Irish Nationalist now regards as English and alien, and
+against which, for many years, he has been waging bitter warfare. Yet
+this Parliament, representing only a small minority of the inhabitants
+of Ireland, found its position of subordination intolerable. It chose a
+moment of national disaster to assert complete equality, and so used its
+powers that at last the Union became inevitable. It is surely no remedy
+for the ancient wrongs of Ireland&mdash;real, alas! though they were&mdash;that we
+should compel her again to tread the weary round of constitutional
+experiment, and that, in the name of Irish Nationalism, we should again
+make her the victim of an outworn English scheme, which has been tried,
+which has failed, which has been discarded, and which, in my judgment,
+ought never to be revived.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II" />II</h2>
+
+<h2>HISTORICAL RETROSPECT</h2>
+
+<h3>BY J.R. FISHER</h3>
+
+<h3>(Author of &quot;The End of the Irish Parliament&quot;; Editor of the <i>Northern
+Whig</i>)</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Pitt commended his proposals for the Union to &quot;the dispassionate
+and sober judgment of the Parliament of Ireland,&quot; he argued that such a
+measure was at once &quot;transcendently important&quot; to the Empire, and
+&quot;eminently useful&quot; to the true interests of Ireland. Lord Clare, as an
+Irishman, naturally reversed the order, but his compelling points were
+the same:&mdash;To Ireland the Union was a &quot;vital interest,&quot; which at the
+same time &quot;intimately affected the strength and prosperity of the
+British Empire.&quot; From that day to this the two fundamental arguments for
+the Union of Great Britain and Ireland have remained unchanged, and they
+apply with ever-growing force to the existing situation at home and
+abroad. But the argument from history has, perhaps, been a little
+neglected of late, and calls for at least a passing notice.</p>
+
+<p>Popular oratory will have it that England has always been keen and
+aggressive in regard to the incorporation of Ireland within the Empire,
+but as a matter of fact, the very opposite has been the case. From the
+time of Pope Adrian's Bull, <i>Laudabiliter</i>, in 1154, which granted to
+Henry II. the Lordship of Ireland, but which Henry left unemployed for
+seventeen years, to that of the Irish petition for a legislative Union
+in 1703, which remained unanswered for nearly a century, vacillation and
+hesitation rather than eagerness for aggression have been the
+characteristic marks of English policy in Ireland. Far-sighted statesmen
+could point out the benefits to Ireland from such a connection, but as
+a rule it was the presence of actual foreign danger that forced the
+British Parliament to act. For four centuries the Lordship of the
+English Kings over Ireland was largely nominal. It was only when the
+religious quarrels of the sixteenth century became acute that the
+Tudors&mdash;already alarmed at the action of the Irish Parliament in
+recognising and crowning a pretender in Dublin Castle&mdash;found themselves
+compelled to assert direct Kingship.</p>
+
+<p>From that time till the legislative Union every enemy of England could
+safely count on finding a foothold and active friends in Ireland. It is
+much too late in the day to indulge in any recriminations on this score.
+The issues were the most tremendous that have divided Europe; each side
+was passionately convinced of the rightness and justice of its cause.
+There were, in Pitt's words relating to a later day, &quot;dreadful and
+inexcusable cruelties&quot; on the one side, and &quot;lamentable severities&quot; upon
+the other, just as there were all over Europe. But in the case of
+Ireland every evil was exaggerated and every danger intensified by the
+system of dualism which encouraged resistance from within and invited
+interference from without. For England and English liberty it was more
+than once a question of existence or extinction, and the knowledge of
+the constant danger from the immediate west did not tend to sweeten the
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>In Elizabeth's time the menace was from Spain; Spanish forces twice
+succeeded in effecting a landing on the Irish coast, and were welcomed
+by the inhabitants. Spain was then the most powerful enemy of England
+and of civil and religious liberty all the world over; Elizabeth was
+declared by the Pope to have forfeited the crown of England, and if the
+Armada had been successful at sea, the Spanish army in England would
+have found enthusiastic supporters in Ireland. Later on it was in
+Ireland, and by the aid of subsidies from an Irish Parliament, that
+Strafford raised 10,000 men to invade Scotland and England in support of
+Charles I. against his Parliament, and, incidentally, to drive the
+Scottish settlers out of Ulster. As the Articles of Impeachment put it,
+his object in raising the Irish army was &quot;for the ruin and destruction
+of England and of his Majesty's subjects, and altering and subverting
+the fundamental laws and established Government of this Kingdom.&quot;
+Strafford fell, but the insurrection and massacre of 1641 were the
+natural result of his intrigues with the Irish Parliament and the Irish
+chiefs. It was under the impression of this manifest danger that
+Cromwell&mdash;a century and a half before his time&mdash;abolished the Dublin
+Parliament and summoned Irish representatives to the first United
+Parliament at Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>As the power of Spain declined, France came to be the chief menace to
+England and to the peace of Europe. Again Ireland instinctively allied
+herself with the enemy. Tyrconnel now played the part of Strafford, and
+with the aid of French troops and French subsidies, and a sympathetic
+Irish Parliament, endeavoured to destroy the Ulster Plantation, and make
+Ireland a jumping-off place for the invasion of England. The Irish
+Parliament, in the meantime, did its part by confiscating the estates of
+the settlers, driving out the Protestant clergy, and outlawing English
+sympathisers by name in &quot;the hugest Bill of Attainder which the world
+has seen.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3" /><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> It was the successful defence of Derry and Enniskillen by
+the Scotch and English colonists that saved Ireland and gave King
+William and his troops the foothold that enabled them to save England,
+too, in the Irish campaign of the following year.</p>
+
+<p>Not the least remarkable instance of the use to which separate
+Parliaments within the Kingdom could be put for the ruin of England
+occurred during the activity of James the Second's son, the so-called
+&quot;Old Pretender.&quot; In 1723 his chief adviser, the Earl of Mar, presented
+to the Regent of France a memorial setting out in detail a project for
+betraying Britain into the power of France by dismembering the British
+Parliament.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4" /><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The Irish Parliament, in close alliance with a restored
+Scottish Parliament, was to be used to curb the power of England. &quot;The
+people of Ireland and Scotland,&quot; according to Mar, &quot;are of the same
+blood and possess similar interests,&quot; and they should thus always be
+allied against England and oppose their &quot;united strength&quot;&mdash;backed, of
+course, by that of France&mdash;to any undue growth of the English power. The
+scheme came to nothing, but if the Pretender had possessed a little more
+energy and capacity; if the French Court had been in earnest, and if
+Ireland and Scotland had each possessed a separate Parliament, &quot;with an
+executive responsible to it,&quot; and with the control of a national
+militia, the story of 1745 might have ended differently.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary that these facts should be kept in mind when complaint
+is made of the oppressive and demoralising Irish Penal Code. That Code
+no one defends now, although it was lauded at the time by Swift as a
+bulwark of the Church against the Catholics on the one hand, and the
+Presbyterians on the other. It was the product of a cruel and bigoted
+age, and at its worst it was less severe than similar laws prevailing
+against Protestants in those parts of the Continent where the Roman
+Church held sway.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5" /><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Spain and France were at that time vastly more
+powerful, populous, and wealthy countries than England: England was
+never free from the dread of foreign invasion, and to the would-be
+invader Ireland always held a guiding light and an open door.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, it must also be remembered that at a time when the chances
+seemed fairly even, as between William and England on the one hand, and
+James and France on the other, the Prince of Orange, accustomed to the
+German way of settling such differences, had made formal offer to
+Tyrconnel of a working compromise&mdash;the free exercise of their religion
+to the Irish Catholics: half the Churches of the Kingdom: half the
+employments, civil and military, if they pleased, and even the moiety of
+their ancient properties. &quot;These proposals,&quot; says the Chevalier Wogan,
+Tyrconnel's nephew and confidant, who is our informant, &quot;though they
+were to have had an English Act of Parliament for their sanction, were
+refused with universal contempt.&quot; In other words, the party which with
+the assistance of France still hoped to obtain all, refused to be
+content with half. It is true that Wogan, in the letter from which we
+have quoted,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6" /><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> after stating that the exiles, &quot;in the midst of their
+hard usage abroad, could not be brought to repent of their obstinacy,&quot;
+justifies their refusal by the way in which the Articles of Limerick
+were afterwards disregarded by the Irish Parliament. But this is
+evidently an argument of retrospective invention, and it may fairly be
+argued that the position would have been very different if peace on
+equal terms had been made on the direct authority of the King before
+Aughrim rather than by his deputies after Limerick.</p>
+
+
+<p>THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.</p>
+
+<p>And if the separatist theory has involved, as we have seen, such
+external dangers to the Empire, the case for the old Irish Parliament
+from the point of the &quot;vital interests&quot; of Ireland itself is even
+weaker. By it the bulk of the Irish people were treated for a century in
+a fashion described by an Irish Chief Secretary as &quot;ingrafting absurdity
+on the wisdom of England and tyranny on the religion that professes
+humanity.&quot; It was conspicuous for its corruption even in a corrupt age,
+and, as was inevitable, it involved Ireland in constant conflicts with
+England, conflicts that were vexatious and injurious to both countries.
+Swift, who, amongst those who have not read his works, passes for an
+Irish patriot, is at his savagest when inveighing against this sham
+Parliament.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7" /><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>Its members are, he says&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;...three hundred brutes<br /></span>
+<span>All involved in wild disputes,<br /></span>
+<span>Roaring till their lungs are spent<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Privilege of Parliament'!&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And if only the Devil were some day to come &quot;with poker fiery red,&quot;
+and&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;When the den of thieves is full,<br /></span>
+<span>Quite destroy the harpies' nest,<br /></span>
+<span>How might then our Isle be blest!&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Capable observers, from Swift to Arthur Young, bear continuous testimony
+to the systematic and habitual corruption of the Irish Parliament.
+Offices were multiplied and were distributed among clamorous applicants
+on the ground of family or personal influence, or political
+support&mdash;never by any chance on the ground of merit or capacity. Public
+money was squandered for private purposes. Sir George Macartney, himself
+an Irishman and a Member of Parliament, in his &quot;Account of Ireland,&quot;
+speaking of the year 1745, says&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8" /><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;The House of Commons now began to appropriate a considerable part
+     of the additional duties to their own use. This was done under
+     pretence of encouraging public works such as inland navigation,
+     collieries, and manufactories of different kinds; but the truth is
+     that most of these public works were private jobs carried on under
+     the direction and for the advantage of some considerable gentlemen
+     in the House of Commons.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Arthur Young, whose careful and impartial study of the state of affairs
+in Ireland under the Dublin Parliament has become a classic, speaks of
+the same class of transaction,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9" /><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;The members of the House of Commons at the conclusion of the
+     sessions met for the purpose of voting the uses to which this money
+     should be applied: the greater part of it was amongst themselves,
+     their friends or dependants, and though some work of apparent use
+     to the public was always the plea, yet under the sanction there
+     were a great number of very scandalous jobs.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Young admits that some useful public work was done, but that most of the
+money was misappropriated was matter of common report. After a
+reference to the construction of a certain canal he adds&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Some gentlemen I have talked with on this subject have replied,
+     'It is a job: 'twas meant as a job: you are not to consider it as a
+     canal of trade, but as a canal for public money!' ... Sorry I am to
+     say that a history of public works in Ireland would be a history of
+     jobs.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Money was voted, he says elsewhere, for&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Collieries where there is no coal, for bridges where there are no
+     rivers, navigable cuts where there is no water, harbours where
+     there are no ships, and churches where there are no congregations.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>And when the Union was finally on its way, Hamilton Rowan, one of the
+founders of the United Irishmen, then in exile in America, wrote home to
+his father: &quot;I congratulate you on the report which spreads here that a
+Union is intended. In that measure I see the downfall of one of the most
+corrupt assemblies, I believe, that ever existed.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10" /><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is little wonder that men of good will in Ireland prayed to be
+delivered from such a Parliament. Molyneux, the first of the Irish
+Parliamentary patriots, whose book, &quot;The Case of Ireland's being
+Governed by Laws made in England Stated,&quot; was burnt by the common
+hangman, pleaded indeed for a reformed and independent Parliament, but
+only because fair representation in the English Parliament was at the
+time &quot;a happiness they could hardly hope for.&quot; And a few years later the
+Irish House, in congratulating Queen Anne on the Union of England and
+Scotland, added, &quot;May God put it into your royal heart to add greater
+strength and lustre to your Crown by a yet more comprehensive Union.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The English Parliament, through sheer lethargy and carelessness, missed
+at this time an opportunity which would have peacefully launched Ireland
+on her career on an equality with Scotland and England, and must have
+profoundly modified the relations of the two countries. Immediate
+prosperity, in the case of a land wasted by a century of strife and
+bloodshed, was not indeed to be hoped for any more than in the case of
+Scotland, which had still two armed rebellions, and much bickering and
+jealousy in store before settling down to peaceful development. But if
+Ireland had been granted her petitions for Union in 1703 and 1707, and
+had thus secured equal laws and equal trading privileges, she would at
+any rate have emerged from her period of trial and discord not later
+than Scotland, and would have anticipated the economic and social
+advantages predicted by Adam Smith,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11" /><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> when he says&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;By a union with Great Britain, Ireland would gain, besides the
+     freedom of trade, other advantages much more important, and which
+     would much more than compensate any increase of taxes that might
+     accompany that union. By the union with England, the middling and
+     inferior ranks of people in Scotland gained a complete deliverance
+     from the power of an aristocracy which had always before oppressed
+     them. By a union with Great Britain, the greater part of the people
+     of all ranks in Ireland would gain an equally complete deliverance
+     from a much more oppressive aristocracy, an aristocracy not
+     founded, like that of Scotland, in the natural and respectable
+     distinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of all
+     distinctions, those of religious and political prejudices....
+     Without a union with Great Britain, the inhabitants of Ireland are
+     not likely, for many ages, to consider themselves as one people.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Pitt, who was proud to proclaim himself the pupil of Adam Smith in
+politics and in economics, found himself, a quarter of a century after
+these words were written, in a position to carry out, in face of great
+difficulties and dangers at home and abroad, the beneficent reform
+advocated by his great master&mdash;a reform which, as we have seen, could
+have been carried a century earlier without any difficulty whatever. But
+the century that had been wasted involved many concurrent miseries and
+misfortunes: social and economic stagnation, an intensification of
+religious and racial bitterness, conspiracy, and invasion; savage
+outbreaks savagely repressed. When the time comes to measure up the
+rights and wrongs of those dark days, the judgment on England will
+assuredly be that her fault was not the carrying of the Union, but the
+delaying of that great measure of reform and emancipation until it was
+almost too late.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the Union has been told and retold in the utmost detail
+throughout the century. The present writer has attempted quite recently
+to summarise it,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12" /><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> and there is little to add. The charge that it was
+carried by corruption is simply another way of saying that it had,
+constitutionally, to be passed through the Dublin Parliament, that body
+which, from the days of Swift's invective to those of its final
+condemnation, lived and moved and had its being solely in and by
+corruption. As Lord Castlereagh, who had charge of the Bill in the Irish
+House of Commons, put it, the Government was forced to recognise the
+situation and its task was &quot;to buy out and secure to the Crown forever
+the fee simple of Irish corruption, which has so long enfeebled the
+power of Government and endangered the connection.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE UNION.</h4>
+
+<p>The Irish Parliament had run its course, and had involved the unhappy
+country in chaos, bankruptcy, revolution, and bloodshed. Lord Clare&mdash;a
+late and reluctant convert to the policy of the Union&mdash;said in the Irish
+House of Lords (Feb. 10, 1800)&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;We have not three years of redemption from bankruptcy, intolerable
+     taxation, nor one hour's security against the renewal exterminating
+     civil war. Session after session have you been compelled to enact
+     laws of unexampled rigour and novelty to repress the horrible
+     excesses of the mass of your people: and the fury of murder and
+     pillage and desolation have so outrun all legislative exertions
+     that you have been at length driven to the hard necessity of
+     breaking down the pale of municipal law, and putting your courage
+     under the ban of military government&mdash;and in every little circle of
+     dignity and independence we hear whispers of discontent at the
+     temperate discretion with which it is administered.... Look to your
+     civil and religious dissensions. Look to the fury of political
+     faction and the torrents of human blood that stain the face of your
+     country, and of what materials is that man composed who will not
+     listen with patience and good will to any proposition that can be
+     made to him for composing the distractions and healing the wounds
+     and alleviating the miseries of this devoted nation?&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Lord Clare's words&mdash;unanswered and unanswerable then and now&mdash;constitute
+a sufficient comment on the foolish fable of later invention, that
+Ireland was a land of peace and harmony, of orderly government and
+abounding prosperity, when a wicked English minister came and &quot;stole
+away the Parliament House&quot;&mdash;since which all has been decay and
+desolation. The halcyon period is generally made to coincide with that
+of &quot;Grattan's Parliament&quot;&mdash;of the semi-independent and quite unworkable
+Constitution of 1782, which had been extorted from England's weakness
+when Ireland was denuded of regular troops, and at the mercy of a
+Volunteer National Guard, when Cornwallis had just surrendered at
+Yorktown, and Spain and France were once more leagued with half Europe
+for the destruction of the British Empire.</p>
+
+<p>It is quite true that the latter part of the eighteenth century was, on
+the whole, a time of considerable prosperity to certain classes in
+Ireland&mdash;a prosperity varied by periods of acute depression and
+distress. But that prosperity, such as it was, neither began with
+Grattan's Parliament nor ended with it&mdash;had, indeed, no more connection
+with the Irish Parliament in any of its phases than had the Goodwin
+Sands with Tenterden steeple. With the exception of the respite between
+the Treaty of Versailles and the outbreak of the French Revolution,
+England was almost constantly at war, or feverishly preparing for war.
+Simultaneously came the unprecedented increase of urban industry,
+following on the invention of the steam-engine and spinning machinery.
+The result was an enormous and growing demand for corn, beef, and pork,
+sailcloth, stores of all kinds for our armies and fleets, a demand which
+England, owing to the growth of her town population and the consequent
+growth of the home demand, was unable adequately to meet.</p>
+
+<p>Ireland reaped the benefit. As a largely agricultural country, she was
+as yet little influenced by the discoveries of Watt, of Hargreaves, of
+Arkwright, or of Crompton. But her long-rested soil could produce in
+apparently unlimited quantities those very products of which the British
+forces stood most in need. The fleets were victualled and fitted out at
+Cork, and they carried thence a constant stream of supplies of all sorts
+for our armies in the field. Indeed, so keen was the demand that it was
+soon discovered that not only our own troops, but those of the enemy,
+were receiving Irish supplies, and smugglers on the south and west
+coasts reaped a rich harvest.</p>
+
+<p>The result was obvious. Cattle graziers and middlemen made enormous
+profits, rents were doubled and trebled. Dublin, Cork, Waterford,
+Limerick and Belfast flourished exceedingly on war prices and war
+profits. But there is no evidence that the mass of the people in their
+degraded and debased condition shared to any extent in this prosperity.
+It was at this very period that Arthur O'Connor spoke of them as &quot;the
+worst clad, the worst fed, the worst housed people in Europe.&quot;
+Whiteboyism, outrage and lawlessness spread over the face of the
+country, and, as Lord Clare reminded Parliament, &quot;session after session
+have you been compelled to enact laws of unexampled rigour and novelty
+to repress the horrible excesses of the mass of your people.&quot; It has
+been made a charge against the Union that during some disturbed periods
+of the nineteenth century the United Parliament had to pass &quot;Coercion&quot;
+Acts at the rate of nearly one every session. The complainants should
+look nearer home and they would find from the records of the Irish
+Legislature that during the &quot;halcyon&quot; days of &quot;Grattan's
+Parliament&quot;&mdash;the eighteen years between 1782 and the Union&mdash;no less than
+fifty-four Coercion Acts were passed, some of them of a thoroughness and
+ferocity quite unknown in later legislation. The close of the nineteenth
+century and the opening of the twentieth were, in reality, in spite of a
+certain amount of agrarian crime, organised and subsidised from abroad,
+a period of much greater peace and more widespread prosperity than the
+bloodstained years that marked the close of the eighteenth century&mdash;and
+of the Irish Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Another fiction regarding the Union may perhaps be worth notice. It has
+sometimes been suggested that it was carried by a venal oligarchy in
+opposition to the will of the great mass of the population, of the Roman
+Catholic population in particular. This is precisely the reverse of the
+truth. The oligarchy controlled the Parliament, and it therefore
+followed that the uniformly corrupt traditions of the Irish Parliament
+had to be observed in carrying the Union as in carrying every other
+Government Bill throughout the century. But, so far from the Act of
+Union being carried by landowners and Protestants against the will of
+the Catholics, it was, as a matter of fact, carried with the ardent and
+unanimous assent and support of the Catholic hierarchy, and against the
+embittered opposition of the old ascendancy leaders, who feared the loss
+of their influence of power.</p>
+
+<p>The evidence on this point is documentary and precise. Indeed, no one
+thought of doubting or challenging it at the time; Grattan contented
+himself with denouncing the Catholic Bishops as &quot;a band of prostituted
+men.&quot; Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, was, as his correspondence shows,
+a warm, consistent and active supporter of the Union. Dr. Dillon,
+Archbishop of Tuam, wrote in September, 1799, that he had had an
+opportunity during his recent visitation &quot;of acquiring the strongest
+conviction that this measure alone can restore harmony and happiness to
+our unhappy country.&quot; His neighbour, Dr. Bodkin, Bishop Galway, wrote
+that the Union was the only measure to save &quot;poor infatuated Ireland&quot;
+from &quot;ruin and destruction.&quot; Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, was equally
+emphatic. &quot;I am perfectly satisfied,&quot; he says, &quot;that it is impossible to
+extinguish the feuds and animosities which disgrace this Kingdom, nor
+give it the advantages of its natural local situation, without a Union
+with Great Britain. God grant that it may soon take place!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As for the feeling of the rank and file of the electors&mdash;under a very
+widely extended franchise&mdash;two examples will suffice. In two cases&mdash;in
+the County of Kerry and the borough of Newry&mdash;both open
+constituencies&mdash;by-elections occurred during the passing of the Union
+legislation. In both instances the Roman Catholic vote predominated, and
+in both the feeling was so strong in favour of the Union that no
+opponent dared to face the poll. In after years Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald,
+the Knight of Kerry, recounted his experiences. &quot;Having accepted
+office,&quot; he says, &quot;as a supporter of the Union, I went to two elections
+pending the measure and was returned without opposition in a county
+where the Roman Catholic interest greatly preponderated, and a
+declaration almost unanimous in favour of the Union proceeded from the
+County of Kerry. One of my most strenuous supporters in bringing forward
+that declaration was Mr. Maurice O'Connell, uncle of Mr. Daniel
+O'Connell, and my most active partisan was Mr. John O'Connell, brother
+of Mr. Daniel O'Connell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In Newry an attempt was made to put up an anti-Unionist candidate, but
+the Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Lennan, met and repulsed the intruder in
+militant fashion. &quot;Mr. Bell,&quot; he reports to Archbishop Troy, &quot;declined
+the poll, and surrendered yesterday. The Catholics stuck together like
+the Macedonian phalanx, and with ease were able to turn the scale in
+favour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To the Irish Catholic at the time of the Union, the Dublin legislature
+was, indeed, in the words of Mr. Denys Scully, a leading Catholic
+layman, &quot;not our Parliament, for we had no share in it, but their
+Club-house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The summing up of the whole matter is perhaps best expressed in the
+measured judgment of Mr. John Morley in his study of the life of Edmund
+Burke. Burke, in an evil moment for himself and for Ireland, had lent
+himself in 1785 to what Mr. Morley called the &quot;factious&quot; and
+&quot;detestable&quot; course of Fox and the English Whig leaders in destroying
+Pitt's Commercial Propositions.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Had it not been for what he himself called the delirium of the
+     preceding session&quot; (writes Burke's biographer)<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13" /><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> &quot;he would have
+     seen that Pitt was in truth taking his first measures for the
+     emancipation of Ireland from an unjust and oppressive subordination
+     and for her installation as a corporate member of the Empire&mdash;the
+     only position permanently possible for her.... A substantial boon
+     was sacrificed amid bonfires and candles to the phantom of Irish
+     Legislative Independence. The result must have convinced Pitt more
+     firmly than ever that his great master, Adam Smith, was right in
+     predicting that nothing short of the Union of the two countries
+     would deliver Ireland out of the hands of her fatuous chiefs and of
+     their too worthy followers.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>What would Mr. John Morley, the historian who wrote those words in the
+prime of his intellectual strength and judgment, have said if any one
+had told him that in his old age Lord Morley, the politician, would have
+been actively engaged in assisting another generation of &quot;fatuous
+chiefs&quot; and still more worthy followers to sacrifice the true interests
+of Ireland in the pursuit of &quot;the phantom of Irish Legislative
+Independence&quot;?</p>
+
+
+<h4>AFTER THE UNION.</h4>
+
+<p>That the Union to some extent failed in the beneficent effects which it
+was calculated to produce in Ireland is only another instance of the
+working of the &quot;curse of mis-chance&quot; which has so often, before and
+since, interposed to thwart the intentions of statesmen in their
+dealings with the two countries. Pitt, Castlereagh, and Cornwallis, the
+three men chiefly concerned in planning the change, were all agreed in
+explaining that the Union was not a policy complete in itself, but was
+only the necessary foundation upon which a true remedial policy was to
+be based. As Lord Cornwallis said at the time, &quot;the word 'Union' will
+not cure the ills of this wretched country. It is a necessary
+preliminary, but a great deal more remains to be done.&quot; Catholic
+Emancipation, a series of parliamentary, educational, financial, and
+economic reforms, and the abolition of the Viceroyalty, the visible
+symbol of separatism and dependence, were all essential portions of
+Pitt's scheme. But Pitt was destined to sink into an early grave without
+seeing any of them materially furthered. Treacherous colleagues and the
+threatened insanity of the King blocked the way of some of them:
+England's prolonged struggle for existence against the power of
+Napoleon, involving as it did financial embarrassment and a generation
+of political reaction, accounted for the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Pitt and Castlereagh resigned on the King's refusal to accept their
+advice, &quot;and so,&quot; as Lord Rosebery says,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14" /><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> &quot;all went wrong.&quot; It was
+&quot;like cutting the face out of a portrait and leaving the picture in the
+frame. The fragment of policy flapped forlornly on the deserted mansions
+of the capital.&quot; A generation of agitation, strife, and discontent was
+to pass before Emancipation was carried, and the reforms had to wait
+still longer. Meanwhile a wonderful change of front had taken place. The
+leading opponents of the Union&mdash;Plunket, Foster, Beresford&mdash;even Grattan
+himself&mdash;came to accept it, and, in some cases, figured as its warmest
+defenders. And the Catholic Party, whom we have seen so strongly
+supporting the Union, gradually grew into opponents. Daniel O'Connell,
+whose brother and uncle were the leading supporters of the Union
+candidate for Kerry, started a formidable agitation first for
+Emancipation and then for Repeal of the Union. In the former he
+succeeded because enlightened public opinion in both countries was on
+his side: in the latter he failed utterly, both parties in Great Britain
+and a large section in Ireland being inflexibly opposed to any such
+reactionary experiment. In the end O'Connell died disillusioned and
+broken-hearted, and the Repeal movement disappeared from the field of
+Irish politics till revived many years later in the form of Home Rule.</p>
+
+<p>But whilst recognising the fact that the Union, owing to the causes
+stated, failed partially, and for a time, to respond to all the
+anticipations of its authors, readers must be warned against accepting
+the wild and woeful tales of decay and ruin that were recklessly
+circulated for propagandist purposes by O'Connell and the Repealers.
+Many people who are content to take their facts at second hand have thus
+come to believe that the legislative Union changed a smiling and
+prosperous Kingdom into a blighted province where manufactures and
+agriculture, commerce and population fell into rapid and hopeless
+decline. Needless to say, things do not happen in that way: economic
+changes, for better or for worse, are slow and gradual and depend on
+natural causes, not on artificial. Ireland has not, as a whole, kept in
+line with nineteenth-century progress, and her population, after a
+striking increase for over forty years, showed under peculiar causes an
+equally striking decrease; but to assert that her course has been one of
+universal decay and of decay dating from the Union is to say what is
+demonstrably untrue.</p>
+
+<p>It was inevitable that a city of very limited industry like Dublin
+should suffer from the disappearance of its Parliament, which brought
+into residence for some months in every year some hundreds of persons of
+wealth and distinction. It was also inevitable that the mechanical
+inventions to which we have already alluded&mdash;the steam-engine, the
+&quot;spinning jenny,&quot; and the &quot;mule&quot;&mdash;which revolutionised the world's
+industry, should have their effect in Ireland also. Under primitive
+conditions, with lands almost roadless and communications slow,
+difficult and costly, the various districts of any country had of
+necessity to produce articles of food and clothing to satisfy their
+requirements, or they had to go without. With the progress of invention,
+and with the opening up of the world by roads and canals, a totally
+different state of things presents itself. Industries tend to become
+centralised&mdash;the fittest survive and grow, the unfit wither away. This
+is what occurred in many districts of England and Scotland, and the
+course of events was naturally the same in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>When we read of small towns now lying idle, which in the eighteenth
+century produced woollen cloth, linen, cotton, fustian, boots, hats,
+glass, beer, and food products, it simply means that a more highly
+organised system of industry has in its progress left such districts
+behind in the race. The woollen manufacture has centred in Yorkshire,
+cotton in Lancashire, linen in Belfast, and so forth&mdash;one district
+dwindled as others advanced and tended to monopolise production, without
+the legislature having anything to say to it. To say that this or that
+manufacture is not so prosperous in Ireland as it was a century ago
+before power looms, spindles, steamships, and railways came to
+revolutionise industry, is simply to say that Ireland, like other
+countries, has had its part, for better or for worse, in the great
+world-movement of nineteenth-century industry.</p>
+
+<p>The figures of Irish exports and imports lend no countenance to the
+story of decay setting in with the Union. Taking the two decennial
+periods, before and after the Union, the figures are as follows:&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15" /><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='center'>Total value</td><td align='center'>Total value</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='center'>of imports.</td><td align='center'>of exports.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1790-1801</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>...</td><td align='left'>£49,000,000</td><td align='left'>£51,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1802-1813</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>...</td><td align='left'>£74,000,000</td><td align='left'>£63,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td><td align='left'> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Increase</td><td align='left'>...</td><td align='left'>£25,000,000</td><td align='left'>£12.000,000</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>an increase of over fifty per cent. in imports, and over twenty-three
+per cent. in exports in the ten years after the Union as compared with
+the ten years before it.</p>
+
+<p>Taking single years the result is similar. The amalgamation of the two
+Exchequers and the financial re-arrangements that followed, put an end
+to the accurate record of exports and imports until quite recently, but
+the increase during the early years of the Union and also over the whole
+country is unmistakable. The average annual value of Irish exports at
+the time of the Union was, according to Mr. Chart.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16" /><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> £4,000,000. In
+1826 they had increased to £8,000,000, a corresponding increase being
+recorded in imports. Coming down to the period of the Financial
+Relations Commission (1895), that very cautious and painstaking
+statistician, the late Sir Robert Giffen,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17" /><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> roughly estimated Irish
+imports at £25,000,000 and exports at £20,000,000. Since that time the
+Irish Agricultural Department has been created, and has undertaken the
+collection and tabulation of such statistics. Turning to their latest
+report we find that the imports had in 1910 attained the relatively
+enormous figure of £65,000,000, and the exports £65,800,000, a total of
+over £130,000,000 in place of nine or ten millions, at the very outside,
+of the time of the Union. And it is worth noting in addition that, for
+the first time in these recorded tables, Ireland's exports exceed her
+imports.</p>
+
+<p>But we are assured with triumphant and invincible despondency that
+population has decreased alarmingly. The movements of population since
+the time of the Union have been, it may be admitted, very remarkable,
+but the figures are double-edged and require a more careful handling
+than they generally receive. If we are to assume, as the prophets of
+gloom will have it, that increase and decrease of population are an
+infallible test of a country's growth or decay, then Ireland for nearly
+half a century after the Union must have been the most prosperous
+country in Europe. The population of Ireland, which in 1792 was
+estimated at 4,088,226, had increased in 1814 to 5,937,856, in 1821 to
+6,801,827, and in 1841 to 8,196,597. In other words, the population,
+like the trade, of the doomed island had more than doubled since the
+Union. We doubt if any European country could say as much.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the great disaster, the potato famine of 1846-47, which,
+undoubtedly, dealt a stunning blow to Irish agriculture. It was not the
+first, nor the worst, of Irish famines&mdash;there is evidence that the
+famines of 1729 and 1740 were, proportionately, more widespread and more
+appalling in their effects. But, occurring as it did, in the middle of
+the nineteenth century, with the press of the world as witnesses, it
+attracted immense attention, and the nations, whom England, then high
+and mighty in the undisputed supremacy of the doctrines of <i>laissez
+faire</i> and free trade, were not slow in retorting on their mentor. The
+State, it was laid down dogmatically by the economists, must not do
+anything to feed the starving people, because that would interfere with
+the principle of private enterprise; and as there was naturally no
+private enterprise in wide stretches of country where landlord and
+tenant, shopkeeper and labourer, were involved in common ruin, the
+people starved. For the same reason, the sufferers must not be paid to
+do useful work, so they were set to make roads that led to nowhere&mdash;and
+that have been grass-grown ever since&mdash;and to build walls that had to be
+pulled down again.</p>
+
+<p>It was a ghastly specimen of doctrinaire dogmatism run mad, and though
+it was not the fault of the Government so much as of the arid doctrines
+of ill-understood economics which then prevailed in the schools, it did
+more than anything to embitter the relations between the Irish people
+and the Imperial Government. The death-rate from famine and famine-fever
+was appalling. The poor law system&mdash;then a new experiment in
+Ireland&mdash;broke down hopelessly, and agitators were not slow to improve
+the occasion by denouncing the &quot;callousness&quot; of the Imperial Government.</p>
+
+<p>Nations, as a rule, recover from such calamities as famine, war, and
+pestilence with surprising quickness; but there were certain incidents
+connected with the famine of 1846-47 that intensified and perpetuated
+the evil in the case of Ireland. We have already referred to the
+high-and-dry doctrines of <i>laissez faire</i> then in the ascendant, and any
+real or permanent recovery of Irish agriculture was rendered practically
+impossible by England's adhesion to the doctrine of free imports, by the
+abolition of the Corn Laws, and by the crushing increase of taxation
+under Mr Gladstone's budgets of 1853 and the succeeding years.</p>
+
+<p>Ireland was entitled under the Act of Union to &quot;special exemptions and
+abatements&quot; in taxation, in consideration of her backward economic
+condition. All Chancellors of the Exchequer till Mr. Gladstone's time
+respected these exemptions, and although no one could suggest, in view
+of Ireland's recent progress, that she could have been permanently
+exempted from the burdens imposed on the British taxpayer, it will be
+admitted that the time chosen by Mr. Gladstone for abruptly raising the
+taxation of Ireland from 14<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> per head to 26<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> was
+inopportune, not to say ungenerous.</p>
+
+<p>Sir David Barbour, in his minority report on the Financial Relations
+Commission, perhaps the most carefully thought out and the most
+practical of all the many reports emanating from that heterogeneous
+body, gives a table of the &quot;estimated true revenue&quot; extracted from Great
+Britain and Ireland respectively from 1819 to 1894. This table shows
+that the revenue raised from Ireland was increased between 1849-50 and
+1859-60 from £4,861,465 to £7,700,334, and he adds: &quot;It will be observed
+that a great and rapid rise took place in the taxation of Ireland during
+the decade 1850-1860. This great increase was due to the equalisation of
+the spirit duties in the two countries, and the extension of the Income
+Tax to Ireland. The special circumstances of Ireland do not appear to
+have received due consideration at this time. Many arguments of a
+general character might be employed to justify the equalisation of the
+spirit duties, and the imposition of an Income Tax, but Ireland was
+entitled under the Act of Union to such exemptions and abatements as her
+circumstances might require, and the time was not opportune for imposing
+additional burdens upon her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Irish Agriculture was thus almost simultaneously struck down by the
+greatest famine of the century, which swept away two million of the
+population, disabled for resuming the competition by the free admission
+of foreign grain, which in the long run rendered successful corn-growing
+in Ireland impossible, and saddled with an additional two and a quarter
+millions of taxation. When remonstrated with, Mr. Gladstone retorted
+flippantly that he could not see that it was any part of the rights of
+man that an Irishman should be able to make himself drunk more cheaply
+than the inhabitant of Great Britain. The taunt would have possessed
+more relevance if whisky had been an article of importation. Seeing,
+however, that it was an article of manufacture and export, employing
+directly or indirectly much capital and labour, the injury to Irish
+industry was very serious, many distilleries and breweries being obliged
+to close their doors.</p>
+
+<p>As Miss Murray says in her masterly work on Irish commerce<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18" /><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Just as the country was thoroughly exhausted from the effects of the
+famine, the whole financial policy adopted towards Ireland changed, and
+Irish taxation began to be rapidly assimilated to British at a time when
+great prosperity had come to Great Britain, and the reverse to Ireland.
+The repeal of the Corn Laws had stimulated the commercial prosperity of
+Britain; large cities were expanding, railways were developing, and the
+foreign trade of the country was increasing by leaps and bounds. But
+Ireland had just passed through the awful ordeal of famine: her
+population had suddenly diminished by one fourth, there had been a
+universal decline in Irish manufactures, the repeal of the Corn Laws had
+begun the destruction of the Irish export trade in cereals, and the
+extension of the Poor Law system to Ireland had greatly increased the
+local rates. Just as the famine subsided the results of free trade began
+to take effect. Wheat-growing decayed; local industries were destroyed
+by the competition of large manufacturing towns in Great Britain; every
+class of Irish producers saw ruin staring him in the face, while
+landlords and farmers were further impoverished by the huge poor-rates,
+which sometimes reached 20<i>s.</i> in the £. The misery and poverty of the
+country could hardly have been greater, and to us at the present day it
+seems extraordinary that just at this inopportune time the Government
+should have thought fit to go back from the conciliatory fiscal policy
+which had existed since 1817.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>It is not to be wondered at that Gladstonian finance was ever after
+looked at with well-grounded suspicion in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Another circumstance that has had a serious and lasting effect on Irish
+population has still to be mentioned. At first the emigration movement
+was largely a flight from starvation, a movement that would have come to
+an end under normal circumstances with the end of the famine crisis. But
+as we have seen, the conditions were not normal; the crisis was
+artificially protracted by injurious financial legislation. And, in
+addition, although many of them perished by the way owing to the
+abominably insanitary conditions of the coffin ships employed for the
+journey, the emigrants arriving at New York or Boston soon found
+conditions unexpectedly favourable for the class of labour which they
+were best qualified to supply. America was just then opening up and
+turning to the new West, and the demand for unskilled labour for railway
+work was unlimited. The Irish emigrant seldom or never takes to the land
+when he goes to America, and navvy work just suited him. To a man
+accustomed to sixpence a day the wages offered seemed to represent
+unbounded wealth, and as the news spread in Ireland the move to America,
+which at the first seemed hopeless exile, presented itself as a highly
+desirable step towards social betterment. Emigration is now the result
+of attraction from America rather than of repulsion from Ireland, a fact
+which explains the failure of more than one well-meant attempt to check
+the movement by action on this side of the Atlantic.</p>
+
+
+<h4>ULSTER'S DEVELOPMENT.</h4>
+
+<p>A word should perhaps be given to the position of the industrial portion
+of Ulster, which has flourished so remarkably since the Union. This of
+itself affords sufficient proof that that Act, whatever its defects,
+cannot be held accountable for any lack of prosperity that may still
+exist in other parts of Ireland. It is sometimes stated that Ulster was
+favoured at the time when the commercial jealousy of certain English
+cities succeeded in securing a prohibition of the Irish woollen
+industry. The southern wool, it is alleged, was checked, and the Belfast
+linen was favoured&mdash;hence the prosperity of the northern capital. This
+is a really curious perversion of quite modern history. The linen
+industry was at the time in question in no sense confined to the North
+and was by no means prominent in Belfast. It was distributed over many
+districts of Ireland, for whilst Louis Crommelin was sent to Lisburn to
+look after the French colony settled there, and to improve and promote
+the industry, his brother William was sent on a similar errand to
+Kilkenny, and stations were also started at Rathkeale, Cork and
+Waterford. When, later on, the Irish Parliament distributed bounties
+through the Linen Board, the seat of that Board was in Dublin, and its
+operations included every county in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of the Union, indeed, the linen manufacture was almost
+unknown in Belfast, the &quot;manufacturers&quot; or handloom weavers in the
+North, as elsewhere, living mostly in the smaller country towns and
+bringing their webs in for sale on certain market days. From Benn's
+&quot;History of the Town of Belfast,&quot; published early in the century, we
+learn that at that time the principal manufacture of the town was
+&quot;cotton in its various branches.&quot; This industry had been introduced in
+1777, we are told, to give employment in the poorhouse, but it caught on
+and spread amazingly. &quot;In many of the streets and populous roads in the
+suburbs of the town, particularly at Ballymacarrett, the sound of the
+loom issues almost from every house, and all, with very few exceptions,
+are employed in the different branches of the cotton trade. In the year
+1800 this business engaged in Belfast and its neighbourhood 27,000
+persons.&quot; In 1814 there were eight cotton mills at work with steam power
+driving 99,000 spindles. On the other hand, &quot;there is very little linen
+cloth woven in this town or parish. In 1807 Belfast contained 723 looms,
+only four of which were for weaving linen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The story of the sudden change from cotton to linen is an instructive
+one. Cotton appears to have forced itself to the front because cotton
+spinning could be carried on by machinery whilst the linen weavers were
+still dependent on the spinning wheel for their yarn. It was Andrew
+Mulholland, the owner of the York Street cotton mill, who first took
+note of the fact that while the supply of hand-made linen yarn was quite
+insufficient to justify the manufacture of linen on a large scale in
+Belfast, quantities of flax were shipped from Belfast to Manchester to
+be spun there and reimported as yarn. Mulholland determined to try if he
+could not spin yarn as well as the Manchester people, and accordingly in
+1830, &quot;the first bundle of linen yarn produced by machinery in Belfast
+was thrown off from the York Street mill.&quot; That, and not legislation nor
+any system of State bounties or State favour, was the beginning of the
+Belfast linen industry in which the York Street mill still maintains its
+deserved pre-eminence. When the critical moment arrived, as it does in
+the case of all industries, when manufacturers must adapt themselves to
+new methods or succumb, the Belfast leaders of industry rose to the
+occasion and secured for themselves the chief share in the linen trade.
+In the rest of Ireland, it is true, the manufacture dwindled and
+disappeared, but whatever may have been the cause of that disappearance,
+it was certainly not the Act of Union.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE LAND QUESTION.</h4>
+
+<p>The agrarian problem has caused more trouble in Ireland than any other,
+and statesmen have long recognised that on its definite settlement
+depends the hope of permanent peace and progress over the greater part
+of the country. It is not, and never has been, the real cause of rural
+depopulation, for, as we have seen, the increase of the rural population
+was most rapid at the time when agrarian conditions were at their very
+worst, whilst on the other hand emigration continues almost unchecked in
+counties where the question has been virtually settled. And in 1881 the
+late Mr. J.H. Tuke discovered by an analysis of the census returns that
+the only &quot;townlands&quot; in which the rural population was actually
+increasing were those scattered along the western seaboard of Ireland,
+where the tenure and the conditions of existence seemed most hopeless.
+But, as the Devon Commission announced in 1845, it was an essentially
+defective system of land tenure that lay at the root of the perennial
+discontent with which Ireland was troubled, and things went from bad to
+worse until the Party organised for the defence of the Union and the
+social betterment of Ireland took up the task of settling the question
+by the transfer on fair terms of the ownership of the soil from the
+large landowners to the tenants.</p>
+
+<p>The system of land tenure in England has been the growth of custom
+gradually hardening into law; in Ireland the traditional custom was
+suddenly abolished, and English law substituted in its place. The
+English law was no doubt a better law, and one more fitted to a
+progressive community; but in Ireland it violently upset the traditional
+law of the country, and, consequently, was met with sullen and
+unremitting hostility. By Irish law, the tribe was owner; the tribesmen
+were joint proprietors, and the forfeiture of the chief did not involve
+the forfeiture of the land occupied by the tribesmen. By English law,
+however, these latter, such of them as were not expelled or exiled,
+suddenly found themselves transformed from joint-owners into tenants at
+will. Further, the difficulty of dealing direct with tenants,
+experienced by landlords who were in very many cases absentees, led to
+the abominable &quot;middleman&quot; system by which the owner leased great
+stretches of land to some one who undertook to &quot;manage&quot; it for him, and
+who in turn sub-let it in smaller patches at rack-rents to those who, to
+get back their money, had to sub-let again at still higher rents. The
+result was, as an official report in the eighteenth century states: &quot;It
+is well known that over the most part of the country, the lands are
+sub-let six deep, so that those who actually labour it are squeezed to
+the very utmost.&quot; And Lord Chesterfield, when Viceroy, complained of the
+oppression of the people by &quot;deputies of deputies of deputies.&quot; The
+eighteenth-century policy of checking or suppressing the industrial
+enterprises of the English colony aggravated the evil until, as Lord
+Dufferin expressed it: &quot;Debarred from every other industry, the entire
+nation flung itself back upon the land, with as fatal an impulse as when
+a river whose current is suddenly impeded, rolls back and drowns the
+valley it once fertilised.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In time the middleman tended to die out, but the evil results of the
+system in preventing direct and friendly and helpful relations between
+landlord and tenant remained. Here and there, even in Arthur Young's
+time, enterprising and devoted landlords had established something like
+the &quot;English system&quot; on their estates, but, as a rule, the landlord
+remained a mere rent charger. The report of the Devon Commission says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;It is admitted on all hands that, according to the general
+     practice in Ireland, the landlord neither builds dwelling-houses
+     nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, etc., in good order
+     before he lets his land to a tenant. The cases where a landlord
+     does any of these things are the exception. In most cases, whatever
+     is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant,
+     and in the ordinary language of the country, dwelling-houses, farm
+     buildings, and even the making of fences, are described by the
+     general word, 'improvements,' which is thus employed to denote the
+     necessary adjuncts of a farm without which in England or Scotland
+     no tenant would be found to rent it.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>In a word, as one who owned land both in England and in Ireland put it,
+&quot;In England we let farms, in Ireland we let land.&quot; And by law an unjust
+landlord had the power at any moment to expel a tenant or a group of
+tenants, although no rent was owing, and without giving any compensation
+for the &quot;improvements&quot; which were the sole work of the tenant. Most
+landlords acted reasonably and equitably in such matters, but,
+especially among the new class of purely mercantile purchasers who came
+in under the Landed Estates Court after the great famine of 1846, there
+were too many who insisted on their extreme legal rights, thus
+disturbing the peace of the country and producing the Irish Land
+Question in an acute form that called for State interference.</p>
+
+<p>The systems of &quot;compensation for improvements&quot; (1870), and of rent
+fixing by itinerant tribunals (1881), were tried in turn, but each was
+found to raise more difficulties than it settled, until finally Mr.
+Parnell and his Land League set the whole country in a flame, and
+produced a series of strikes against the payment of any rent. For some
+years it is hardly too much to say that the law of the League, with its
+purely revolutionary propaganda, supplanted the law of the land and
+reduced large areas to a condition of chaos, the decrees of the &quot;village
+ruffians,&quot; who ruled the situation, being enforced by systematic outrage
+and assassination.</p>
+
+<p>The first statesman who made a really serious attempt to meet this
+appalling state of things was Mr. Arthur Balfour, who, as Chief
+Secretary for Ireland, resolutely took up the task, first of repressing
+crime and enforcing the law, and then of recasting the whole land system
+in such a way that the tenant, transformed into an owner, would for the
+first time feel it his interest to range himself on the side of the law
+and of orderly government. At the same time, a systematic attempt was
+made to deal with the question of perennial poverty in the extreme West
+of Ireland in what came to be known as the &quot;Congested Districts.&quot; The
+construction of railways and piers, the draining of land, and the
+provision of instruction in agriculture, fisheries, etc., speedily gave
+promise of a new era in the economic history of a hitherto helpless and
+hopeless population.</p>
+
+<p>All this was done by Mr. Balfour and his successors in spite of
+opposition and obstruction of a kind such as no Chief Secretary had ever
+before had to encounter. Formerly, all through the centuries, whenever a
+Viceroy or Chief Secretary was face to face with an organised outbreak
+of crime and sedition in Ireland, both British parties united in
+supporting and strengthening the hands of the executive as representing
+the Crown. Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary reversal of policy and
+principle in the winter of 1885-86 put an end to all this, and gravely
+increased the difficulties of the Irish Government.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Gladstone was first confronted with the demand for Home Rule,
+even in the mild and constitutional form advocated by Mr. Isaac Butt,
+and his Home Government Association, founded in the autumn of 1870, he
+promptly declared, like Mr. John Morley, that legislative Union with
+Great Britain was the only position permanently possible for an island
+situated as Ireland is. In a speech at Aberdeen<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19" /><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> he indignantly
+asked&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this
+     time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to
+     disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the
+     purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind
+     and crippling any powers we possess for conferring benefits on the
+     country to which we belong.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>And for fifteen years, in power or in opposition, Mr. Gladstone preached
+and acted upon the same doctrine. When the Land League was founded he
+denounced it as an organisation whose steps were &quot;dogged with crime,&quot;
+and whose march was &quot;through rapine to the dismemberment of the Empire.&quot;
+The League was finally &quot;proclaimed&quot; by his Government as a criminal
+conspiracy and its members, from Mr. Parnell downwards, arrested and
+imprisoned without trial as being &quot;reasonably suspected&quot; of criminal
+practices.</p>
+
+<p>This continued until in an unfortunate moment for himself Mr. Gladstone
+discovered, in November, 1885, that the votes of Mr. Parnell and his
+eighty-six colleagues were necessary for his own return to power as
+Prime Minister, whereupon he entered into negotiations which resulted,
+on the one hand, in his securing the necessary votes, and on the other
+in his accepting the principles and the policy of those whom until then
+he had denounced and imprisoned as instigators to crime and sedition. He
+rightly recognised that there was no half-way house, and that he could
+not become a Home Ruler without accepting and defending the actions of
+the Home Rulers. He worshipped what he had formerly burnt, and he burned
+what he had hitherto worshipped. The result was that for several years
+England beheld for the first time the scandalous spectacle of men who
+had held high office under the Crown openly defending&mdash;and even
+instigating&mdash;lawlessness and disorder, shielding and excusing criminals,
+proved such before the courts, and thwarting, misrepresenting, and
+obstructing those whose duty it was to restore order and legality in
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the difficulties that confronted Mr. Arthur Balfour as Chief
+Secretary for Ireland from 1887 to 1891, difficulties which he
+surmounted with such resolution and such statesmanship that he retired
+from an office that has been called &quot;the grave of reputations&quot; with a
+reputation so much enhanced as to ensure him the leadership of his party
+and the gratitude of Irishmen of all classes for generations to come.
+And yet his method was a supremely simple one&mdash;to reassert the supremacy
+of the law, to neglect, almost ostentatiously, all merely political
+cries, and to set himself seriously to deal with the real Irish
+question, that of conferring some measure of security and prosperity on
+a population which over wide districts had known too little of such
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Occupying ownership of Irish land by means of State credit was not, of
+course, a new policy in Mr. Balfour's day. The Bright clauses (1869)
+had introduced the principle into the Statute-book, and Lord Ashbourne's
+Act (1885) had carried it several steps further. But it was Mr. Arthur
+Balfour and his successors, Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. George Wyndham,
+who carried it by a series of boldly conceived steps almost within sight
+of completion. So thorough was the success of this policy of land
+purchase, and so marked was the cessation of crime and outrage and
+seditious agitation in every district into which it was carried, that
+those who made their living by agitation grew alarmed, and did all in
+their power to stop the working of the Purchase Acts. One Nationalist
+member declared that the process had gone &quot;quite far enough,&quot; and that
+he wished it could be stopped. The farmers who had purchased their
+holdings were declared to have become selfish, and &quot;as bad as the
+landlords.&quot; In other words, they had become orderly and industrious, and
+had ceased to subscribe for the upkeep of the United Irish League and
+its salaried agitators.</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy result of this outcry on the part of those whose occupation
+would be gone, and who would be compelled to resort to honest industry
+should Ireland become peaceful and prosperous, was the passing of Mr.
+Birrell's &quot;amending&quot; Bill, which has practically stopped for the present
+the beneficent working of the Wyndham Act of 1903. Under the various
+purchase Acts over 180,000 Irish farmers have become the owners of their
+holdings, thanks to over one hundred millions of public money advanced
+on Imperial credit for the purpose. The first task of a Unionist
+government, when again in power, must be the resumption of this policy
+of State-aided land-purchase&mdash;the only completely and unquestionably
+successful and pacifying piece of agrarian legislation in the history of
+English rule in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Other writers will give, later on, a more detailed account of various
+branches of Unionist practical policy in Ireland. The story of the
+Congested Districts Board, Mr. Arthur Balfour's special work, is a
+romance in itself. So well, in fact, has it accomplished its immediate
+task that the time has probably come when it could with advantage be
+merged in the later-created Department of Agriculture and Technical
+Instruction. This department, which has been linked up with the County
+or Borough Councils, by the legislation of Mr. Gerald Balfour, has done
+an immense amount of educational and practical work in connection with
+agriculture in all its branches, including dairying, poultry rearing,
+fruit-growing, and other rural industries, not to speak of technical
+instruction in matters suited for artisans and town workers.</p>
+
+<p>These remarkable achievements, the work of successive Unionist
+Governments from 1896 to 1906, have revolutionised the face of the
+country, and are bringing about a new Ireland. The chief danger now lies
+in the intrigues of discredited politicians, whose object is to divert
+the eyes of the people from practical, remedial, and constructive
+legislation, and to keep them fixed upon what Mr. John Morley has called
+&quot;the phantom of Irish legislative independence.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3" /><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> J.R. Green, &quot;Short History,&quot; chap. ix. sec. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4" /><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> &quot;Dict. Nat. Biog.,&quot; sub.-tit. &quot;Erskine, John, Earl of Mar,&quot;
+p. 430.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5" /><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> &quot;England,&quot; says Mr. James Bryce in his Introduction to &quot;Two
+Centuries of Irish History,&quot; &quot;acted as conquering nations do act, and
+better than some nations of that age.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6" /><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Wogan to Swift, Feb. 27th, 1732.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7" /><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Swift, &quot;The Legion Club.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8" /><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> &quot;Life of Macartney,&quot; vol. ii, p. 136.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9" /><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> &quot;Tour in Ireland,&quot; vol. ii., p. 123 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10" /><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Hamilton Rowan's &quot;Autobiography,&quot; p. 340.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11" /><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> &quot;Wealth of Nations,&quot; Book V., Chap. III.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12" /><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> &quot;The End of the Irish Parliament,&quot; 1911, Edward Arnold.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13" /><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> &quot;Edmund Burke, a Historical Study,&quot; by John Morley, pp.
+286 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14" /><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> &quot;Pitt,&quot; by Lord Rosebery, p. 155.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15" /><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> From the official returns embodied in &quot;A Statement to the
+Prime Minister,&quot; Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, Dublin, 1886.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16" /><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> &quot;Ireland from the Union to Catholic Emancipation,&quot; by D.
+A. Chart, M.A. A most valuable and instructive work.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17" /><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> It is, I hope, no reflection on the memory of an eminent
+public servant to suggest that in this, as in too many of the estimated
+figures contained in his evidence before the Commission, and upon which
+the Majority Report of the Commission was largely based, Sir Robert
+seriously under-estimated the resources of Ireland. It is obvious when
+the ascertained figures of 1910 are compared with the estimated figures
+of 1895 that Sir Robert Giffen must have been several millions below the
+truth. The steady nature of the growth of Irish commerce is shown by the
+following figures taken from the Official Report for the year ended
+December 31, 1910.
+</p><br />
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>Imports,</td><td align='center'>Exports,</td><td align='center'>Total,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>Mill. £.</td><td align='center'>Mill. £.</td><td align='center'>Mill. £.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1904</td><td align='center'>54</td><td align='center'>49</td><td align='center'>103</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1905</td><td align='center'>55</td><td align='center'>51</td><td align='center'>106</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1906</td><td align='center'>57</td><td align='center'>56</td><td align='center'>113</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1907</td><td align='center'>61</td><td align='center'>59</td><td align='center'>120</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1908</td><td align='center'>59</td><td align='center'>57</td><td align='center'>116</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1909</td><td align='center'>63</td><td align='center'>61</td><td align='center'>124</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1910</td><td align='center'>65</td><td align='center'>65</td><td align='center'>130</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18" /><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> &quot;A History of the Commercial Relations between Great
+Britain and Ireland,&quot; by Alice E. Murray, D.Sc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19" /><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Sept. 26, 1871.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CRITICAL</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III" />III</h2>
+
+<h2>THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION</h2>
+
+<h3>BY GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.</h3>
+
+<h4>INTRODUCTORY</h4>
+
+
+<p>Few things are more remarkable in the Parliamentary history of the Home
+Rule movement than the complete absence from the counsels of the English
+advocates of Home Rule of any definite and settled policy as to the form
+of self-government to be offered to Ireland, and their consequent
+oscillation between proposals radically differing from one another.
+Since the &quot;new departure&quot; initiated by Davitt and Devoy in 1878,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20" /><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> it
+has been the deliberate practice of Irish Nationalists to abstain from
+defining the Nationalist demand and to ask in general terms for
+&quot;self-government,&quot; doubtless with the object of attracting the support
+of all who favour any change which could be described by that very
+elastic term. Such a policy has its advantages. But confusion of
+thought, however favourable to popular agitation, is a disadvantage when
+the moment for legislation arrives; and uncertainty as to the aim goes
+far to explain the vacillation in Home Rule policy.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 would have given to Ireland the
+substance of &quot;responsible&quot; or colonial self-government, subject only to
+certain reservations and restrictions, the value of which will be
+considered later in this chapter, and would have excluded the Irish
+members and representative peers from the Parliament of the United
+Kingdom. By the Bill of 1893 the reservations and restrictions were
+increased, and representatives of Ireland were to be permitted to sit at
+Westminster&mdash;by the Bill as introduced for some purposes, and by the
+Bill as passed by the House of Commons for all purposes.</p>
+
+<p>After the defeat of this second Bill, a &quot;cold fit&quot; appears to have
+seized the Liberal Party. Lord Rosebery, in 1894, declared that before
+Home Rule could be carried England, as the predominant partner, must be
+convinced. Sir Edward Grey in 1905 declared that his party on its return
+to power would &quot;go on with Sir Anthony MacDonnell's policy,&quot; which he
+rightly described as a policy of large administrative reforms; and Mr.
+Asquith &quot;associated himself entirely and unreservedly with every word&quot;
+of Sir Edward Grey's speech.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21" /><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Accordingly the Irish Council Bill
+proposed by Mr. Asquith's Government in 1907 was purely a measure of
+devolution, certain administrative functions only being put under the
+control of an Irish Council, subject to the veto of the Lord Lieutenant,
+and the whole legislative power remaining in the Parliament of the
+United Kingdom. This proposal, having been condemned by a National
+Convention at Dublin, was incontinently withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>In the years succeeding this fiasco the Liberal policy for Ireland
+appeared to be at the mercy of shifting winds. For some time Liberal
+speakers contented themselves with vague declarations in favour of
+Federalism or &quot;Home Rule all round&quot;&mdash;phrases which may mean much or
+little according to the sense in which they are used. More recently an
+able writer,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22" /><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> while admitting that &quot;there is no public opinion in
+Ireland as to the form of the Irish Constitution,&quot; has argued in a work
+of 350 pages in favour of the grant to Ireland of full legislative,
+administrative and financial autonomy; while a member of the
+Government<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23" /><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> declared that fiscal autonomy for all practical purposes
+means separation and the disintegration of the United Kingdom. In a
+publication recently issued by a committee of Liberals, comprising
+several members of the present Government,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24" /><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> two views directly
+contrary to one another are put forward, one writer arguing for a
+devolution to an Irish body of &quot;definite and defined powers only,&quot; and
+another for the grant of the widest possible form of Home Rule and the
+exclusion from Westminster of all Irish representation. The latest
+official pronouncements indicate that the Government have it in their
+minds to revert to the Gladstonian form of Home Rule; but even now<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25" /><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>
+no one outside the Cabinet, and possibly few inside that inner circle,
+would venture on a confident prophecy even as to the broad lines of the
+measure which in a few days may be submitted to Parliament as
+representing the urgent and considered demand of public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Franklin said truly that&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not
+     generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into
+     execution new projects.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>But surely on a question of such vital moment to the Empire as the
+revision of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the bases, if not
+the details, of the contemplated change are deserving of prolonged
+consideration and even of some public and ordered discussion. The
+British North America Act, 1867, by which the relation of the Dominion
+of Canada to its provinces is regulated, was the result, not only of
+years of preliminary debate in the provincial Legislatures and
+elsewhere, but of a formal conference at Quebec in 1864, followed by the
+appointment of delegates to confer with the Imperial Government on the
+matter. In Australia the proposal for union, agitated at intervals since
+1846, was canvassed in every detail at inter-colonial Conferences or
+Conventions in 1883, in 1891, and in 1897-8, as well as in the several
+colonial Legislatures, before it was embodied in the Australia
+Constitution Act, 1900. And although in the case of South Africa, owing
+to the urgency of the question of union, the time occupied in the
+discussion was less than in the other great dominions, yet in the
+Convention of 1908-9 the best brains in the country were occupied for
+months in considering every detail of the proposal for union before it
+was submitted to the Colonial and Imperial Parliaments for their
+sanction.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26" /><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> And yet in the Mother Country, where centuries of military
+and political conflict have given us the Union, it is considered that a
+few weeks' consideration by a committee of the Cabinet, without advice
+from independent constitutional experts,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27" /><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> and without formal
+consultation even with the Government's own supporters outside the
+Ministry, is sufficient to determine both the general form and the
+details of a proposal for its dissolution.</p>
+
+<p>In the confusion so engendered it may be useful to consider in some
+detail the different proposals which have been or may be made under the
+name of Home Rule, their special qualities and dangers, and the results
+to which they may severally lead.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT.</h4>
+
+<p>A proposal to give to Ireland full &quot;responsible&quot; government, without any
+other limitations than such as are imposed on our self-governing
+Colonies, would find few supporters in this country. Under such a
+constitution an Irish Government would have power to forbid or restrict
+recruiting for the Imperial forces in Ireland, and to raise and train a
+force of its own. It might establish or subsidise a religion, make
+education wholly denominational, levy customs duties on imports from
+Great Britain and give fiscal advantages to a foreign power, confiscate
+or transfer property without payment, and deprive individuals of
+nationality, franchise, liberty, or life without process of law. However
+improbable some of these contingencies may appear, it is right on a
+matter of so much moment to consider possibilities and not probabilities
+only. Such powers as these could not without serious risk be conceded to
+any part of the kingdom, and in the case of Ireland there would be a
+special danger in granting them to a popularly elected body.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the national safety would be involved. Englishmen
+were at one time too fond of saying that the great Colonies might, if
+they chose, sever the link which binds them to the Mother Country.
+Happily, in their case, no such catastrophe need now be considered. But
+it would be folly to shut our eyes to the fact that to many Irishmen
+national independence appears to be the only goal worth striving for. If
+the concession of full responsible government should be followed (at
+whatever interval) by an assertion of complete independence, we may
+assume that Great Britain would follow the example of Federal America
+and re-establish the Union by force of arms, but at how great a cost!
+Those who deny the possibility of a serious movement towards separation
+would do well to remember Mr. Gladstone's reference<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28" /><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> to the position
+of Norway and Sweden, then united under one crown:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Let us look to those two countries, neither of them very large,
+     but yet countries which every Englishman and every Scotchman must
+     rejoice to claim his kin&mdash;I mean the Scandinavian countries of
+     Sweden and Norway. Immediately after the great war the Norwegians
+     were ready to take sword in hand to prevent their coming under the
+     domination of Sweden. But the Powers of Europe undertook the
+     settlement of that question, and they united those countries upon a
+     footing of strict legislative independence and co-equality.... And
+     yet with two countries so united, what has been the effect? Not
+     discord, not convulsions, not danger to peace, not hatred, not
+     aversion, but a constantly growing sympathy; and every man who
+     knows their condition knows that I speak the truth when I say that
+     in every year that passes the Norwegians and the Swedes are more
+     and more feeling themselves to be the children of a common country,
+     united by a tie which never is to be broken.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>The tie was broken within twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>It may be that the Nationalist leaders, or some of them, do not desire
+separation; but it by no means follows that a concession of their
+demands would not lead to that result. Franklin, in 1774, had an
+interview with Chatham, in which he says&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;I assured him that, having more than once travelled almost from
+     one end of the continent (of America) to the other, and kept a
+     great variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with
+     them freely, I never had heard in any conversation from any person,
+     drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or
+     a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29" /><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>And yet independence came within ten years.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of the United Kingdom there is no need to consider in detail
+how serious would be the effects&mdash;naval, military, and economic&mdash;of
+separation, for the gravity of such a contingency is admitted by all.
+Admiral Mahan, the American naval expert, writes that&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;the ambition of the Irish separatists, realised, might be even
+     more threatening to the national life of Great Britain than the
+     secession of the South was to that of the American Union.... The
+     instrument for such action in the shape of an independent
+     Parliament could not safely be trusted even to avowed friends.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Some Home Rulers are able to&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;rise superior to the philosophy, as fallacious in fact as it is
+     base and cowardly in purpose, which sets the safety of a great
+     nation above the happiness and prosperity of a small one,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30" /><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>but to less lofty souls it appears that the safety of the nation is
+paramount, and that upon it depends the prosperity of each of its
+component parts.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, in considering whether complete &quot;colonial&quot;
+self-government can be conceded to Ireland, it must not be forgotten
+that the island is bi-racial, that the two races differ widely in
+character, in politics, and in religion, and that the differences are
+apt to find vent in violent conflict or secret attacks. Further, Ireland
+has for generations been the scene of a revolt against one particular
+species of property, the ownership of land; and although under the
+operation of the Land Purchase Acts this cause of conflict tends to
+abate, it still breaks out from time to time in the form of cattle
+drives and attacks on &quot;land grabbers.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31" /><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Hitherto we have, broadly
+speaking, kept the peace. That we should now forsake this duty, and,
+washing our hands of Ireland, leave the Protestant and the landowner, at
+or small, to his fate is unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p>In connection with the question last-mentioned it may be necessary at
+some time to consider how far it is the constitutional right of this
+country to impose upon the minority in Ireland the new obligations
+implied in a grant to the whole island of colonial Home Rule. It may be
+that the Imperial Parliament can disallow the claim of a section of the
+population of Ireland to remain subject to its own control. But it is
+one thing to reject the allegiance of a community, it is quite another
+thing forcibly to transfer that allegiance to a practically independent
+legislature; and this is especially the case when the transfer may
+involve the use against a loyal population of coercion in its extreme
+form.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHECKS AND SAFEGUARDS.</h4>
+
+<p>In every formal proposal for Home Rule in Ireland, weight has been given
+to the above considerations, and attempts have been made to meet them by
+qualifying the grant of responsible Government. The qualifications
+suggested have taken the form of <i>(a)</i> the reservation of certain
+powers to the Imperial Parliament, or (<i>b</i>) the restriction of the
+powers granted to the Irish legislature by prohibiting their exercise in
+certain specific ways, or (<i>c</i>) the provision of some form of Imperial
+veto or control. It is important to consider whether and how far such
+checks or &quot;safeguards&quot; are likely to prove effective and lasting.</p>
+
+<p>The &quot;safeguards&quot; proposed by the Government of Ireland Bill, 1886, were
+somewhat extended by the Bill of 1893; and the proposals shortly to be
+submitted to Parliament, so far as they can be gathered from recent
+speeches of Ministers, will not in this respect differ materially from
+those contained in the latter Bill. It will therefore be convenient to
+take as a basis for discussion the provisions of the Bill of 1893, as
+passed by the House of Commons.</p>
+
+<p>The Bill of 1893, after stating in a preamble that it was &quot;expedient
+that without impairing or restricting the supreme authority of
+Parliament an Irish Legislature should be created for such purposes in
+Ireland as in this Act mentioned,&quot; proposed to set up in Ireland a
+Legislature<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32" /><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> consisting of the Sovereign and two Houses, namely a
+Legislative Council of 48 members to be returned under a restricted
+franchise by the Irish counties and the boroughs of Dublin and Belfast,
+and a Legislative Assembly of 103 members to be returned by the existing
+parliamentary constituencies in Ireland. A Bill introduced into the
+Irish Legislature was to pass both Houses; but in the event of
+disagreement the proposals of the Legislative Assembly were to be
+submitted, after a dissolution or a delay of two years, to a joint
+Session of the two Houses. The executive power was to remain in the
+Crown, aided and advised by an Irish Ministry (called an Executive
+Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland), and the assent of the Crown
+to Irish legislation was to be given or withheld on the advice of this
+Executive Committee subject to any instructions given by the Sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>The specific reservations and restrictions were contained in clauses 3
+and 4 of the Bill, which were as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;<b>3</b>. The Irish Legislature shall not have power to make laws in respect
+of the following matters or any of them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(1) The Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency; or the
+Lord Lieutenant as representative of the Crown; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(2) The making of peace or war or matters arising from a state of war;
+or the regulation of the conduct of any portion of Her Majesty's
+subjects during the existence of hostilities between foreign States with
+which Her Majesty is at peace, in respect of such hostilities; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(3) Navy, army, militia, volunteers, and any other military forces, or
+the defence of the realm, or forts, permanent military camps, magazines,
+arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, or any places
+purchased for the erection thereof; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(4) Authorising either the carrying or using of arms for military
+purposes, or the formation of associations for drill or practice in the
+use of arms for military purposes; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(5) Treaties or any relations with foreign States or the relations
+between different parts of Her Majesty's dominions, or offences
+connected with such treaties or relations, or procedure connected with
+the extradition of criminals under any treaty; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(6) Dignities or titles of honour; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(7) Treason, treason-felony, alienage, aliens as such, or
+naturalisation; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(8) Trade with any place out of Ireland; or quarantine, or navigation,
+including merchant shipping (except as respects inland waters and local
+health or harbour regulations); or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(9) Lighthouses, buoys, or beacons within the meaning of the Merchant
+Shipping Act, 1854, and the Acts amending the same (except so far as
+they can consistently with any general Act of Parliament be constructed
+or maintained by a local harbour authority); or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(10) Coinage; legal tender; or any change in the standard of weights
+and measures; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(11) Trade marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright, or patent
+rights.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Provided always, that nothing in this section shall prevent the passing
+of any Irish Act to provide for any charges imposed by Act of
+Parliament, or to prescribe conditions regulating importation from any
+place outside Ireland for the sole purpose of preventing the
+introduction of any contagious disease.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is hereby declared that the exceptions from the powers of the Irish
+Legislature contained in this section are set forth and enumerated for
+greater certainty, and not so as to restrict the generality of the
+limitation imposed in the previous section on the powers of the Irish
+Legislature.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Any law made in contravention of this section shall be void.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<b>4</b>. The powers of the Irish Legislature shall not extend to the making
+of any law&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(1) Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion, whether
+directly or indirectly, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(2) Imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege, advantage, or
+benefit, on account of religious belief, or raising or appropriating
+directly or indirectly, save as heretofore, any public revenue for any
+religious purpose, or for the benefit of the holder of any religious
+office as such; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(3) Diverting the property, or, without its consent, altering the
+constitution of any religious body; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(4) Abrogating or prejudicially affecting the right to establish or
+maintain any place of denominational education, or any denominational
+institution or charity; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(5) Whereby there may be established or endowed out of public funds any
+theological professorship, or any university or college in which the
+conditions set out in the University of Dublin Tests Acts, 1873, are not
+observed; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(6) Prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend a school
+receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at
+that school; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(7) Directly or indirectly imposing any disability or conferring any
+privilege, benefit, or advantage upon any subject of the Crown on
+account of his parentage or place of birth, or of the place where any
+part of his business is carried on, or upon any corporation or
+institution constituted or existing by virtue of the law of some part of
+the Queen's dominions, and carrying on operations in Ireland, on account
+of the persons by whom or in whose favour, or the place in which any of
+its operations are carried on; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(8) Whereby any person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property
+without due process of law in accordance with settled principles and
+precedents, or may be denied the equal protection of the laws, or
+whereby private property may be taken without just compensation; or</p>
+
+<p>&quot;(9) Whereby any existing corporation incorporated by Royal Charter or
+by any local or general Act of Parliament may, unless it consents, or
+the leave of Her Majesty is first obtained on address from the two
+Houses of the Irish Legislature, be deprived of its rights, privileges,
+or property without due process of law in accordance with settled
+principles and precedents, and so far as respects property without just
+compensation. Provided nothing in this sub-section shall prevent the
+Irish Legislature from dealing with any public department, municipal
+corporation, or local authority, or with any corporation administering
+for public purposes taxes, rates, cess, dues, or tolls, so far as
+concerns the same. Any law made in contravention of this section shall
+be void.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>The power to impose taxation other than duties of custom and excise was
+to be transferred, subject to a short delay as to existing taxes and to
+a special provision in respect of taxes for war expenditure, to the
+Irish Legislature (clause II). Two judges of the Supreme Court in
+Ireland, to be called &quot;Exchequer Judges,&quot; were to be appointed under the
+Great Seal of the United Kingdom, and to be removable only on an address
+from the Imperial Parliament; and proceedings relating to the reserved
+powers or to the customs or excise duties were to be determined by such
+judges (clause 19). Appeals from the Courts in Ireland were to lie to
+the Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council (clause 21); and
+any question as to the powers of the Irish Legislature could be referred
+to the same Committee (clause 22). The Royal Irish Constabulary and
+Dublin Metropolitan Police Force were gradually to disappear, and police
+matters to be regulated by the Irish Legislature and Executive (clause
+29). The Irish Legislature was to be prohibited from passing land
+legislation for a period of three years (clause 34).</p>
+
+<p>As to these proposals the first observation that occurs is that, in
+addition to the matters proposed to be reserved, there are others in
+which legislative uniformity throughout the kingdom is greatly to be
+desired. To mention but a few such matters, questions of status,
+contract and succession, of international trade and navigation, of the
+regulation of railways and of industrial labour, and of the criminal
+law, should not be differently determined in different parts of the
+kingdom; and as life becomes more complex, the number of subjects in
+which diversity of laws is a hindrance continues to increase.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, it is to be noted that the checks proposed affect
+legislation only and not administration. If the Bill of 1893 or any
+similar Bill should become law, the whole executive power in Ireland
+will be in an Irish Ministry responsible to an Irish Assembly; and it is
+obvious that many of the wrongs against which the restrictive clauses of
+the Bill were directed may be inflicted by administrative act or
+omission as effectively as by legislation. To quote a work of
+authority<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33" /><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;An independent Irish Executive will possess immense power. It will
+     be able by mere administrative action or inaction, without passing
+     a single law which infringes any restriction to be imposed by the
+     Irish Government Act, 1893, to effect a revolution. Let us consider
+     for a moment a few of the things which the Irish Cabinet might do
+     if it chose. It might confine all political, administrative, or
+     judicial appointments to Nationalists, and thus exclude Loyalists
+     from all positions of public trust. It might place the bench, the
+     magistracy, the police, wholly in the hands of Catholics; it might,
+     by encouragement of athletic clubs where the Catholic population
+     were trained to the use of arms, combined with the rigorous
+     suppression of every Protestant association suspected, rightly or
+     not, of preparing resistance to the Parliament at Dublin, bring
+     about the arming of Catholic, and the disarming of Protestant,
+     Ireland, and, at the same time, raise a force as formidable to
+     England as an openly enrolled Irish army. But the mere inaction of
+     the executive might in many spheres produce greater results than
+     active unfairness. The refusal of the police for the enforcement of
+     evictions would abolish rent throughout the country. And the same
+     result might be attained by a more moderate course. Irish Ministers
+     might in practice draw a distinction between 'good' landlords and
+     'bad' landlords, and might grant the aid of the police for the
+     collection of 'reasonable,' though refusing it for the collection
+     of 'excessive,' rents.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Irish Ministers might even refuse actively to oppose the &quot;moral claim&quot;
+of the Irish Catholics to the use of the cathedrals and of the
+accumulated capital of the Irish Church.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34" /><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>To contemplate the possibility of action or calculated inaction of the
+character above described is not to attribute to Irishmen any special
+measure of original sin. In every case where the executive power is
+divorced from the ultimate legislative authority such divergencies are
+likely to recur; and more than one instance may be found in our own
+recent history. In 1859 the Canadian Government warned the Home
+Government that any attempt to interfere with the customs policy of the
+Dominion was inadmissible, unless the home authorities were prepared to
+undertake the responsibility of administering the whole government of
+Canada. The Home Government gave way.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35" /><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> In 1878 the Governor of Cape
+Colony proposed to place the colonial forces under the control of the
+officer commanding the Imperial forces. The Cape Government resisted,
+and refused to resign; and eventually the Governor, on the advice of the
+Home Government, dismissed his ministers. In this case a change of
+government occurred after the general election, but in the end the claim
+put forward by the Imperial authorities had to be withdrawn.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36" /><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> In 1906
+the Natal Government proclaimed martial law, and ordered the execution
+of twelve natives on charges of murder. The Imperial Government
+intervened, and suggested the suspension of the order pending further
+consideration. The Natal Ministry immediately resigned; and as there was
+no chance of the formation of a new Government, the Imperial authorities
+hastily withdrew.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37" /><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>Differences have arisen even on so grave a matter as the succession to
+the throne. The union of England and Scotland in 1707 was preceded and
+hastened by the so-called Act of Security, by which the Scottish Estates
+asserted the right to name a successor to the throne of Scotland, who
+should not (except under certain specified conditions) be the person
+designated as sovereign by the English law. And during the illness of
+King George III. in the year 1788, Grattan, in defiance of the views of
+Pitt and of the majority in both Houses of the Imperial Parliament,
+carried in the Irish Parliament an address to the Prince of Wales,
+calling upon him (without waiting for a Regency Bill) to assume the
+Government of the Irish nation, &quot;and to exercise and administer all
+legal power, jurisdiction and prerogatives to the Crown and Government
+thereof belonging&quot;&mdash;words borrowed from the address by which in the
+Revolution of 1688 William of Orange was requested to assume the Crown.
+Happily, the Viceroy declined to present the address, and a deputation
+sent from Ireland to present it found on their arrival that the king had
+recovered; but the incident might have led to a conflict upon a matter
+so important as the exercise of the royal power.</p>
+
+<p>The fact is that the word &quot;supremacy,&quot; so often used in this
+controversy, is one of ambiguous meaning. Parliament is supreme in the
+United Kingdom, Parliament is likewise supreme in New Zealand; but the
+two supremacies are of widely different kinds. Supremacy consists of two
+ingredients&mdash;authority to enact and power to enforce; and without the
+latter the former is little more than a legal figment, which may have no
+more practical importance than the theoretical right of veto which is
+retained by the Crown. Mr. Balfour, speaking on the second reading
+debate of the 1893 Bill, referred to this matter as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Legally, of course, the Imperial Parliament would be supreme: no
+     one has doubted it. But what layman takes the slightest interest
+     in these paper supremacies? For my part I take no more interest in
+     the question of whether the Imperial Parliament is on paper
+     superior to the Irish Parliament, than I do as to the order of
+     precedence at a London dinner party. The thing is of no public
+     interest or importance whatever. What we want to know is where the
+     power lies. Who is going to exercise supremacy? Who is going to be
+     the <i>de facto</i> ruler of Ireland?&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Special importance attaches to these considerations owing to the heavy
+liabilities undertaken by this country in respect of land purchase in
+Ireland. At the present time many millions of British money are sunk in
+Irish land, and the amount may increase to a sum approaching two hundred
+millions. The tenants now pay their annuities because, in the last
+resort, the Government can turn them out. Under Home Rule the powers of
+Government would rest with men who have led &quot;no rent&quot; agitations in the
+past, and who would be dependent upon the votes of those personally
+interested in repudiating the debt. The British Treasury can hardly run
+such a risk; and some sort of concurrent control, with all its evils and
+risks, seems to be necessary. And yet financial independence is the
+first essential to genuine autonomy.</p>
+
+<p>But, it may be said, if the Irish Government go beyond the law, the
+Irish Courts may be asked to interfere; and in the event of their
+refusal, the Bill provides an appeal to the Judicial Committee in
+London. No doubt it does, but in practice the person aggrieved might
+have very great difficulty in making the remedy effective. He must
+obtain a decision in his favour from the Judicial Committee of the Privy
+Council, at no small cost of money and personal odium; and the decision
+of that &quot;alien&quot; tribunal (as it would be called) must then be enforced
+under the jurisdiction of a Government which (on the hypothesis which we
+are considering) would be unfriendly, by judges and executive officers
+appointed and perhaps removable by that authority, and in the midst of a
+population hostile to &quot;foreign&quot; interference. Is it extravagant to
+suppose that the complainant would not gain much by his appeal to
+Cæsar?</p>
+
+<p>And even if we suppose the Irish Legislature and Executive to confine
+themselves within the letter of the Act, are the checks of any real
+value? The Irish Parliament might still interfere with contracts, or
+might validate contracts now held to be void as contrary to public
+policy. They might defeat the Mortmain Acts. They might deal as they
+thought fit with internal trade; and the great industries of Belfast and
+its neighbourhood might find their views on trade questions of no avail.
+The Irish Legislature might create new offences and institute new
+tribunals; and the reference in the Bill to &quot;due process of law&quot; would
+not necessarily secure trial by jury or by an impartial tribunal.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38" /><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is said that legislation of this character would be subject to the
+veto of the Crown. But that veto is to be exercised on the advice of the
+Irish Ministry subject to any instructions given by the Sovereign; and
+so long as an Irish Legislature is entitled to withhold Irish supply, a
+veto against the advice of the Irish ministry would surely tend to
+become impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Again, it is said that an unjust law passed by the Irish Parliament
+might be repealed by the Imperial Parliament. Doubtless the technical
+right would exist, as in the case of the Colonies; but no one dreams
+that, with &quot;responsible&quot; government existing in Ireland and Irish
+representatives at Westminster, it would in practice be used. The
+Imperial Government has never been known to interfere with the
+legislation of a self-governing colony except where Imperial interests
+are concerned, or where a fraud on the colony can be established;<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39" /><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a>
+and the same rule would obtain in the case of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, it is said that in the last resort there is the British Army.
+But if the civil power in Ireland does not call in the military force,
+how can the latter be used to enforce the law? Are the forces to be
+controlled from England, and what is this but a counter revolution? It
+is hardly worth while to liberate Ireland from the peaceful rule of the
+Imperial Government in order to govern her by military force.</p>
+
+<p>But in fact the so-called &quot;safeguards&quot; would not last. Professor
+Dicey<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40" /><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> and Professor Morgan,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41" /><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> writing from opposite sides of the
+controversy, agree in holding that no colony would tolerate them for a
+moment; and it is incredible that Ireland, with a Parliament of her own,
+would submit to them for more than a few years.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42" /><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> Suppose the majority
+of the Irish Legislature to grow weary of the &quot;safeguards,&quot; and to
+demand their repeal. The Imperial ministry might refuse, but the reply
+of the Irish ministry (if in command of a majority in the Irish House of
+Commons) would be to resign and to make the government of Ireland
+impossible except by force. And if Ireland were still represented in the
+Imperial Parliament, the new &quot;sorrows of Ireland&quot; would find eloquent
+and insistent expression there. What, then, would England do? What could
+she do, except, after a futile struggle, to give way? The truth is, that
+if you part with the executive power, all checks and &quot;safeguards&quot; are
+futile. Mr. Redmond<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43" /><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> eagerly &quot;accepts every one of them,&quot; and will
+accept others if desired; for he knows that they must prove ineffective.
+&quot;If,&quot; said Lord Derby in 1887, &quot;Ireland and England are not to be one,
+Ireland must be treated like Canada or Australia. All between is
+delusion or fraud.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4>IRISH REPRESENTATION AT WESTMINSTER.</h4>
+
+<p>The hybrid form of government proposed in the Home Rule Bills of 1886
+and 1893 gave rise to a further difficulty, and one which went far
+towards wrecking them both. Should Ireland under Home Rule be
+represented at Westminster by its members and representative peers?
+Under a system of Gladstonian Home Rule there appear to be only three
+possible answers to this question. The Irish representatives may be
+excluded altogether, they may be retained altogether, or they may be
+retained in diminished numbers and with some limitation on their voting
+powers.</p>
+
+<p>The total exclusion clause in the Bill of 1886 was one of the most
+unpopular parts of an unpopular Bill. It was immediately urged that this
+arrangement was virtually equivalent to separation, and Mr. Gladstone
+admitted<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44" /><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> that the argument had force. Since 1886 public sentiment
+has advanced in the direction of a closer Imperial unity, and it is
+unlikely that the country will recur in 1912 to a proposal which in 1886
+was admitted to be intolerable. Moreover, if the British Parliament is
+to retain control of the whole foreign policy of the kingdom, and&mdash;what
+is likely to be of enormous importance in the future&mdash;of its whole
+fiscal policy, it would be manifestly unjust to deny to Ireland a voice
+and vote in such matters. How would it be possible, for instance, to
+discuss the effect upon agriculture of a Tariff Reform Budget in the
+absence of competent representatives of the Irish farmers, or to
+consider the yearly grant to be made (as it is said) in aid of Irish
+finance without the assistance of any representatives of Ireland?</p>
+
+<p>A recognition of the difficulties in the way of total exclusion led Mr.
+Gladstone to propose, in 1893, what was known as the &quot;popping-in-and-out
+clause,&quot; under which Irish members would have sat at Westminster, but
+would have voted only on Imperial measures. The best criticism of this
+attempt to distinguish between local and Imperial matters was supplied
+on another occasion by Mr. Gladstone himself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;I have thought much, reasoned much, and inquired much with regard
+     to that distinction, but I have arrived at the conclusion that it
+     cannot be drawn. I believe it passes the wit of man.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>To distinguish between matters which might and those which could not
+affect Ireland was impossible to the ordinary man, and the device of
+committing all matters of special difficulty to the decision of Mr.
+Speaker had not then its present vogue. Further, it was obvious that
+under such a system a British Ministry might have on one day, when
+English or Scottish affairs were under discussion, a commanding
+majority; but on the next, when a vote possibly affecting the sister
+island was in question, might find itself labouring in the trough of the
+sea; while on the third day, that vote having been disposed of and the
+Irish members having taken their leave, it might rise once more on the
+crest of the wave. The proposal was too ludicrous to be long defended.
+The sense of humour of the House prevailed over Mr. Gladstone's
+earnestness, and he fell back on inclusion for all purposes.</p>
+
+<p>But inclusion for all purposes had its own difficulties. Under the
+Gladstonian system the Imperial Parliament would have considered, not
+only matters affecting the whole kingdom, but also purely English or
+purely Scottish affairs; and to give to the Irish representatives the
+control in their own Parliament of purely Irish affairs, and also a
+voice at Westminster on matters affecting England or Scotland only, was
+obviously unjust. Such a power would have been used, not for the benefit
+of England or Scotland, but as an instrument for wresting further
+concessions for Ireland.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;I will never be a party,&quot; said Mr. Gladstone at one time, &quot;to
+     allowing the Irish members to manage their own affairs in Dublin,
+     and at the same time to come over here and manage British affairs.
+     Such an arrangement would not be a Bill to grant self-government to
+     Ireland, but one to remove self-government from England; it would
+     create a subordinate Parliament indeed, but it would be the one at
+     Westminster, and not that in Dublin.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45" /><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>The problem seems insoluble because, under a hybrid (or Gladstonian)
+system of Home Rule, it is insoluble. If a clear line is taken, there
+is no difficulty under this head. If full &quot;responsible&quot; or colonial
+government is granted, clearly representation in the Imperial Parliament
+(I do not now speak of a federal assembly) is an anomaly. On the other
+hand, if nothing more is in question than the extension of local
+government generally known as Devolution, then adequate representation
+in the Imperial Parliament is a matter of course. If a federal
+government is established, each member of the Federation must needs be
+represented in the federal Parliament; but in that case there must be no
+attempt to entrust to the same assembly both the duties of the federal
+Parliament and those of a Legislature for one of the federating states.
+It was this attempt to treat the Imperial Parliament as the local or
+state Legislature for Great Britain, and also as the federal Parliament
+for Great Britain and Ireland, which was fatal to Mr. Gladstone's
+proposals.</p>
+
+
+<h4>FEDERALISM.</h4>
+
+<p>These considerations bring us face to face with Federalism, or, to use
+the phrase which to so many perplexed Liberals has seemed to point the
+way to safety, &quot;Home Rule all round.&quot; The expression covers a wide
+field, and before any opinion can be pronounced upon the proposal, it is
+essential to know what its advocates in fact desire.</p>
+
+<p>To some the phrase means nothing less than Gladstonian Home Rule &quot;all
+round,&quot; in other words that we should meet the objections to dissolving
+the legislative and executive Union with Ireland by dissolving also the
+older Union with Scotland, and even (for some do not shrink from the
+<i>reductio ad absurdum</i>) the yet older unity of England and Wales.
+Consider what this means. For more than two hundred years the English
+and Scottish races have been united by a constitutional bond
+strengthened by mutual respect and good feeling, and Scotsmen, like
+Englishmen, have taken their part in the government of these islands. If
+in the division of labour and of honours there has been a balance of
+advantage, it has not been against the virile Scottish race, from which
+have sprung so many of our great soldiers and administrators, so many
+leaders of the nation. And such a combination is to be broken up, and
+Scotland to become a colony, because Ireland, unwilling to bear her
+share in the duties of government, desires to be reduced to that status!
+To such a proposal Mr. Gladstone's phrase about Home Rule applies in all
+its force:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this
+     time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to
+     disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the
+     purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind,
+     and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits through
+     legislation on the country to which we belong?&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>The proposal would be incredibly stupid, if it were not recklessly
+mischievous.</p>
+
+<p>But to most advocates of the federal system the word means less than
+this; and the conception, usually vaguely expressed, is that the
+relations of England, Scotland, and Ireland, should be something like
+those of the communities which make up (to quote instances commonly
+given) the German Empire, the Swiss Federation, the United States of
+America, or the British self-governing dominions of Canada, Australia,
+and South Africa. So expressed, the aspiration for a federal union
+deserves respectful consideration.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it must not be forgotten that no proposal of this
+nature has yet been put forward, even in general terms, by any English
+or Irish Party. Mr. John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Nationalists,
+has indeed said that he and his friends &quot;were only asking what had
+already been given in twenty-eight different portions of the
+Empire:&quot;<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46" /><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> and a speaker usually more careful in his language<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47" /><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>
+lately suggested to his audience that they should</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;ask the twenty-eight Home Rule Parliaments if the Empire would be
+     split in pieces if there were a twenty-ninth.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>But in order to make up the number of Parliaments and Legislatures
+within the Empire to twenty-eight it is necessary to include in one
+category the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the colonial Parliaments
+of Newfoundland and New Zealand, the federal Parliaments of Canada and
+Australia, the provincial or state Legislatures (widely differing from
+one another in their constitution and powers) comprised in those
+Federations, the Union of South Africa and its constituent provinces,
+and the tiny assemblies surviving in the Channel Islands and the Isle of
+Man. From a reference so vague and confused no inference as to the real
+meaning or desire of either speaker can safely be drawn.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48" /><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p>
+
+<p>But let us put aside, with the foreign confederacies (which have in most
+cases been achieved or maintained by armed conflict), the practically
+independent Parliaments within the British Empire, and confine ourselves
+to the Federations of Canada and Australia, and to the Union (sometimes
+incorrectly called a Federation) of South Africa.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it is not immaterial to observe that each of the
+Legislatures here referred to resulted, not from the dissolution of an
+existing union, but from the voluntary assumption by communities
+formerly independent of one another of a closer bond. In other words,
+there was in each case a real <i>Jædus</i> or treaty, not imposed by the
+Imperial power, but having a local origin and springing from the need of
+common action. The operative force was centripetal; and as the force
+continues to operate, the tendency of the mass is towards a chemical in
+lieu of a mechanical fusion.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49" /><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> But in the case of the United Kingdom a
+change from organic union to Federation would be the beginning of
+dissolution; and the centrifugal force, once set in motion, might lead
+further in the same direction.</p>
+
+<p>Again, there can be no true federation without (1) provincial
+legislatures and executives, (2) a central Parliament and executive, (3)
+a careful definition of the powers of each, and (4) a federal court to
+which should be entrusted the duty of determining questions arising
+between the federal and provincial governments and legislatures. If,
+therefore, provincial or state Governments are created for Ireland and
+for Scotland, a like Government should logically be created for England.
+Are we prepared to see four (or, if Wales be added, five) legislatures,
+and four (or five) executives, in these islands? Have we considered the
+possible effect on our whole system of government, on the theory of
+Cabinet responsibility to Parliament, on the powers of the House of
+Commons over grievance and supply? Must not each unit in a Federation be
+put as regards financial matters upon a like footing; and, if so, can
+Ireland bear her share? Is federation consistent with the predominance
+of one state, England, in wealth and population? These questions are
+vital, and none of them have received consideration. By declaring in
+general terms for Federalism you go but a little way.</p>
+
+<p>And if we treat the proposal for Federation as indicating a desire to
+adopt a constitution under which the relations of the United Kingdom to
+each of its constituent parts would be as the relation of some one of
+the three self-governing Dominions to the states or provinces of which
+it is composed, the question remains, which of those Dominions should be
+adopted as a model? For they differ not only in form but in essence.</p>
+
+<p>Under the British North America Act, 1867, and the amending statutes,
+there is &quot;one Parliament for Canada&quot; (sect. 17), while each province has
+its Legislature. Each provincial Legislature is empowered exclusively to
+make laws in relation to certain specified subjects (including property
+and civil rights and the administration of justice), and also in
+relation to &quot;all matters of a merely local or private nature in the
+province&quot;; while the Dominion Parliament may &quot;make laws for the peace,
+order, and good government of Canada in relation to all matters not
+coming within&quot; the classes of subjects assigned exclusively to the
+provincial Legislatures. The division of functions has given rise to
+much confusion and litigation; but, speaking generally, the trend of
+judicial decision has been towards a wide interpretation of the
+provincial powers. The &quot;residuary powers&quot; are in the Dominion
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>The constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, as defined by the
+Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, is of a different
+character. The Federal Parliament is entrusted with power to make laws
+with respect to a number of subjects divided into no less than 39
+classes (sect. 51); the State Legislatures have concurrent powers of
+legislation, but in case of conflict the law of the Commonwealth is to
+prevail over the State law (sect. 109). The &quot;residuary powers&quot; are in
+this case left to the States. There is power to alter the Constitution
+with the consent of a majority of the electors in a majority of the
+States and of a majority of the electors of the Commonwealth (sect.
+123)&mdash;a power which has been freely used.</p>
+
+<p>The case of South Africa is sometimes cited as a precedent for loosening
+the bonds in the United Kingdom. It is a strong precedent for closer
+union. The South Africa Act, 1909, created in fact as well as in name,
+not a Federation but a true Legislative Union. Under the Act, the South
+African colonies were &quot;united in a legislative union under one
+government under the name of the Union of South Africa&quot; (sect. 4). The
+legislative power is vested in the Parliament of the Union (sect. 19),
+which has full power to make laws for the peace, order, and good
+government of the Union (sect. 59). In each province (formerly a colony)
+there is an administrator appointed by the Governor-General of the Union
+in Council (sect. 68), and a Provincial Council (sect. 70); but the
+powers of the Provincial Councils are confined within narrow limits
+(sect. 85), and their ordinances (they are not called laws) have effect
+within the province as long as and so far as they are not repugnant to
+any Act of the Union Parliament (sect. 86). The Supreme Courts of the
+old colonies become provincial divisions of the Supreme Court of South
+Africa (sect. 98), and the colonial property and debts are transferred
+to the Union (sects. 121-124). In fact, in South Africa, where, as in
+Ireland, the distinction in the past has been racial and not
+territorial, Union and not Federation has gained the day. It is safe to
+prophesy that the coming proposals of the Government will not follow the
+South African plan.</p>
+
+
+<h4>DEVOLUTION.</h4>
+
+<p>The South African precedent leads naturally to a few observations on the
+proposals for the extension of local self-government, usually classified
+under the head of Devolution. These proposals differ, not in degree only
+but in kind, from schemes for the granting of responsible government, or
+Gladstonian Home Rule. Under all devolutionary schemes, properly
+so-called, the central Parliament and executive remain the ultimate
+depositaries of power; and the powers entrusted to local bodies are
+administrative only, and can be resumed at will. The Acts by which
+County Councils were set up, first in Great Britain and afterwards in
+Ireland, were steps in this direction. The Welsh Intermediate Education
+Act, 1889, was another. The establishment by the Agriculture and
+Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, of a Council of Agriculture,
+as Agricultural Board, and a Board of Technical Instruction, was a
+third. By these statutes wide powers are delegated to representative
+bodies directly or indirectly elected by popular vote; but in each case
+the delegated powers are strictly defined, their exercise is made
+subject to central control, and the right of Parliament to modify or
+withdraw any of them is absolute and unquestioned. The appointment by
+the House of Commons of a Grand Committee for Scottish Bills is another
+experiment of a similar character, though on different lines. Such
+delegations of power are consistent with the maintenance in its entirety
+of the Union of the Kingdom, and there is no reason whatever why
+further progress should not be made in the same direction. The events of
+1907 are evidence that Devolution, regarded merely as a means of
+satisfying the political cry for Home Rule, is indeed &quot;dead.&quot; But when
+the din of political battle has once more passed by, it may be possible
+to obtain consideration for a moderate and clearly defined scheme of
+delegation which, if applied not exclusively to Ireland, but to the
+whole country, might relieve the House of Commons of much of its work,
+and strengthen the habit of local self-government throughout the United
+Kingdom.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20" /><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See &quot;<i>Times</i> Special Commission,&quot; vol. v. p. 175, and
+&quot;Home Rule. What is it?&quot; by A.W. Samuels, K.C. (Simpkin Marshall, 1911),
+p. 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21" /><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> See No. 213 of the Liberal League publications.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22" /><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Erskine Childers, &quot;The Framework of Home Rule&quot; (Arnold,
+1911).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23" /><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> See speech of J.M. Robertson, M.P., London, January 11,
+1912.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24" /><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> &quot;Home Rule Problems&quot; (P.S. King &amp; Son, 1911).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25" /><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Written in March, 1912.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26" /><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> See Egerton, &quot;Federations and Unions in the British
+Empire&quot; (Clarendon Press, 1911). Introduction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27" /><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> On the financial questions involved the Government have
+been advised by a Committee containing financial experts; but the Report
+of this Committee is withheld from publication, and it is believed that
+its advice will not be followed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28" /><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> House of Commons, April 8, 1886.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29" /><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Quoted in &quot;The True History of the American Revolution,&quot;
+by S.G. Fisher (Lippincott, 1903).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30" /><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Childers, p. 340.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31" /><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> See Cambray, &quot;Irish Affairs and the Irish Question&quot;
+(Murray, 1911), p. 146.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32" /><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Mr. Gladstone always declined to call it a &quot;Parliament,&quot;
+but some Ministers of to-day are less scrupulous.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33" /><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Dicey, &quot;A Leap in the Dark&quot; (Murray, 1911), p. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34" /><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> See &quot;The Church of Ireland and Home Rule,&quot; by J.H.
+Bernard, D.D., Bishop of Ossory, 1911.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35" /><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> House of Commons Papers, 1864, xli. 79.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36" /><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Parliamentary Papers, 2079.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37" /><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Parliamentary Papers (Cd. 2905).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38" /><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> &quot;Home Rule Problems,&quot; p. 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39" /><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> See the Newfoundland railway case of 1898 (Parliamentary
+Papers, Cd. 8867, 9137).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40" /><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> &quot;A Leap in the Dark,&quot; p. 110.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41" /><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> &quot;Home Rule Problems,&quot; p. 112.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42" /><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Mr. Redmond rejected the provisions of the 1893 Bill,
+saying in the House of Commons on August 30, 1893, that &quot;as the Bill now
+stands, no man in his senses can any longer regard it as a full, final,
+or satisfactory settlement of the Irish Nationalist question.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43" /><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Speech at Belfast, February 8, 1912.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44" /><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> July 18, 1886, at Cockermouth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45" /><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> See &quot;The Perils of Home Rule,&quot; by P. Kerr-Smiley (Cassell,
+1911), p. 45, where Lord Morley's opinion to the same effect is quoted.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46" /><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Speech at Whitechapel (<i>Times</i>, October 11, 1911).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47" /><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Sir John Simon at Dewsbury (<i>Times</i>, February 8, 1912).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48" /><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> No such charge of ambiguity applies to the forcible
+letters of &quot;Pacificus&quot; on &quot;Federalism and Home Rule&quot; (Murray, 1910).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49" /><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> The changes in the Australian Constitution have been in
+favour of greater unity.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV" />IV</h2>
+
+<h2>HOME RULE FINANCE</h2>
+
+<h3>By THE RIGHT HON. J. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The financial problems connected with the grant of Home Rule in 1912 are
+among the most complicated that call for solution, and differ
+fundamentally from those which faced the Governments of 1886 and 1893.
+And by common consent, the problems are not merely different; they are
+immensely more difficult. No clauses in the earlier Bills lent
+themselves more readily to destructive criticism; and though the
+provisions of the new scheme are still shrouded in mystery, it is
+inherent in the conditions under which it must be framed that the
+financial clauses will prove to be even less defensible on the grounds
+of logic or equity than those of either of its predecessors.</p>
+
+<p>Since the first Home Rule Bill was introduced the interests of
+Ireland&mdash;social, economic, industrial, and political&mdash;have become
+increasingly identified with those of the other parts of the United
+Kingdom. The commercial, banking, and railway systems of Ireland are
+intimately associated with those of the greater and more firmly
+established systems of Great Britain. Irish railways are so largely
+controlled at the present time by British concerns, and there exist so
+many agreements and understandings between them and British companies as
+to facilities and rates, that they might be regarded as part of the same
+network of communications. Hardly less close are the relations which now
+exist between British and Irish banks.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, however, on the commercial side only that greater intimacy
+and more firmly established relations exist now than formerly. Irish
+industries are agricultural, dairying and manufacturing. In each of
+these branches the country is increasingly dependent on the markets of
+England and Scotland; while reciprocally the products of the factories
+and workshops of Great Britain find in Ireland one of their most
+important markets. We do not always sufficiently realise that on the
+other side of the St. George's Channel lies a country whose annual
+imports amount to sixty-five millions sterling. Even less do we realise
+that one-half (thirty-two millions sterling) is the value of the imports
+of manufactures, mainly British, into Ireland. This trade in
+manufactured goods is not only already enormous; it is rapidly growing.
+It has increased by more than four millions in four years. Any
+ill-considered legislative measure which interfered with or disturbed
+this great volume of trade would no doubt cause serious loss to Ireland;
+but it would bring bankruptcy and disaster to many British firms and
+their workmen.</p>
+
+<p>It is, nevertheless, in respect of the political changes and the
+legislative measures passed in the last quarter of a century that the
+most serious obstacles will be found in the way of framing any
+satisfactory scheme for financing a measure of Home Rule. The Irish
+Local Government system, framed on the British model by the Act of 1898,
+the Congested Districts Board, and the Department of Agriculture, have
+hitherto depended financially, either wholly or in part, on Imperial
+grants in aid. Local taxation payments alone from the Imperial Exchequer
+amounted in 1910-11 to £1,478,000. The financial scheme under Home Rule
+must obviously contemplate and provide for the continuance of those
+grants. Land Purchase schemes have been enacted which have already had
+the effect of converting a quarter of a million tenants into owners
+under a contingent liability of 120 millions sterling guaranteed by the
+Imperial Exchequer. No financial scheme can ignore the fact that the
+earliest of the annuities created under the Wyndham Act will not expire
+before 1972, so that the Imperial liability for the payment of the bulk
+of the annuities already created will continue for at least seventy
+years more.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we are faced with the fact that in the last twenty-five years
+the relations of the State to its citizens have been completely
+reformed and extended. Social reform is now in the programme of all
+parties. Education costs several times as much as in 1885. The aged poor
+have been provided with pensions by the State, and the Insurance Act of
+last year will shortly call for additional subventions from the Imperial
+Treasury.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the new duties thus undertaken by the State, the cost of
+Defence and of the Civil Services has grown by leaps and bounds. We need
+not look too closely into the apportionment of these charges whilst we
+remain partners in a United Kingdom, but if the partnership is to be
+dissolved at the suit of Irish Nationalism, a new balance must be
+struck, and on any fair basis the contribution of Ireland under
+present-day conditions should far exceed the amount under either of the
+schemes for which Mr. Gladstone made himself responsible. Both schemes
+recognised the equity of some contribution for these services from
+Ireland, and it must be assumed that the same broad principles will be
+applied in any scheme which may be framed hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>By way of introduction to any adequate discussion of the possible
+financial proposals of any Home Rule measure, it is desirable to set out
+in some detail the existing financial relations of Ireland and Great
+Britain. The Treasury calculations on this subject are embodied in two
+White Papers which have been prepared and published annually during the
+last eighteen years. It is true that doubts have from time to time been
+cast on the accuracy of these calculations and of the methods by which
+the materials on which they are based have been collected. As to this,
+it is only necessary to say that the information in the possession of
+the Treasury officials is infinitely more voluminous and likely to be
+more accurate than any in the possession of private individuals; and
+there is no reason to suppose the succession of eminent public servants,
+who have been in turn responsible for the preparation of these returns
+have been moved in one direction or the other by prepossessions or bias.
+Their one attempt has been throughout to present a statement, as
+accurate as it is possible to make it on the one hand of the cost of
+the existing administration in Ireland and the expenditure incurred
+there, and on the other of the revenue derived from persons or property
+living or situated in that country. As the Prime Minister said on
+November 27 of last year&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;The utmost pains have been taken to make the estimates of 'true'
+     revenue approximately correct, and it is believed that the total
+     revenue as given in the revised returns approximates closely to the
+     facts.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50" /><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>So long as Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, such an
+investigation has mainly an academic interest. The State is a
+homogeneous entity; the taxes imposed on individuals similarly
+circumstanced are the same (with some trifling exceptions&mdash;all in favour
+of Ireland) in whatever quarter of the United Kingdom the individual
+resides. But the case is wholly different when a proposal is made to
+split up the State into its constituent parts. It then becomes necessary
+to inquire if there is any prospect that the constituent parts will have
+resources sufficient for the various services, commitments and
+liabilities&mdash;present and contingent&mdash;which do or will belong to them.
+And the beginning of any such inquiry is, as has been already said, the
+present Irish revenue and expenditure.</p>
+
+<p>The essential figures for such an investigation are contained in the
+following statement. This shows separately the expenditure on the
+various items which have been the subject of discussion or special
+mention in the different financial schemes proposed in connection with
+Home Rule. On the revenue side the effect of the delayed collection of
+duties under the Budget of 1909-10 has been eliminated by taking the
+average revenue in the two years in certain items. The figures of
+expenditure relate to the year 1910-11. The corresponding figures for
+both collection and contribution are set out in this table in
+consequence of the suggestion made in some quarters that we should
+revert to the Gladstonian proposal of 1886 and credit Ireland with the
+full revenue as collected. Though any such proposal is patently absurd
+it is mentioned here for the sake of completeness.</p>
+
+<p>STATEMENT SHOWING ESTIMATED REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE IN IRELAND (BASED ON
+WHITE PAPERS 220 AND 221 OF 1911).</p>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Revenue</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='center'>As collected.</td><td align='center'>As contributed.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='center'>£</td><td align='center'>£</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1. Customs[A]</td><td align='right'>2,922,000</td><td align='right'>2,866,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. Excise (<i>ex.</i> licences)[A]</td><td align='right'>4,872,000</td><td align='right'>2,952,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. Licence Duties[A]</td><td align='right'>284,000</td><td align='right'>284,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. Estate, etc.[A]</td><td align='right'>914,000</td><td align='right'>914,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5. General Stamps[A]</td><td align='right'>310,000</td><td align='right'>333,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6. Income Tax[A]</td><td align='right'>1,106,000</td><td align='right'>1,307,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7. Postal Services</td><td align='right'>1,155,000</td><td align='right'>1,155,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8. Miscellaneous</td><td align='right'>139,000</td><td align='right'>139,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Total</td><td align='left'>£11,702,000</td><td align='right'>£9,950,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>[A] = Average of two years, 1909-10 and 1910-11.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='center'>Expenditure.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='center'>£</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1. Civil list and miscellaneous charges</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>(<i>ex.</i> Lord-Lieutenant's salary)</td><td align='right'>118,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. Lord-Lieutenant's salary</td><td align='right'>20,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. Local Taxation Payments</td><td align='right'>1,477,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. Public Works</td><td align='right'>415,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5. Civil Service Departments</td><td align='right'>289,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6. Department of Agriculture</td><td align='right'>415,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7. Police</td><td align='right'>1,464,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8. Judiciary, etc.</td><td align='right'>924,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>9. Education, etc.</td><td align='right'>1,805,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>10. Old Age Pensions</td><td align='right'>2,408,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>11. Superannuation, etc.</td><td align='right'>103,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>12. Ireland Development Grant</td><td align='right'>191,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>13. Miscellaneous</td><td align='right'>12,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>14. Revenue Departments</td><td align='right'>298,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>15. Postal Services</td><td align='right'>1,404,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Total</td><td align='right'>£11,346,500</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The first striking fact in the foregoing statement is the large
+difference between &quot;contributions&quot; and &quot;collections,&quot; <i>i.e.</i> between the
+&quot;true&quot; revenue derived from Ireland and the sums merely collected there.
+During the last two financial years this difference amounted to an
+average of £1,752,000. The excise collections alone represent an excess
+of £1,920,000 over the actual contribution. This, of course, arises from
+the movements of duty-paid spirits and beer between different parts of
+the United Kingdom. The last Report of the Commissioners of Customs and
+Excise (Cd. 5827) gives the amount of home-made spirits on which duty
+has been paid in Ireland at 5,209,000 proof gallons, whereas the
+quantity retained for consumption was only 2,776,000 proof gallons. A
+similar but smaller difference exists in the case of beer. To credit
+Ireland with the full amounts of the duties collected in Ireland, as was
+done by Mr. Gladstone in 1886, and as is now proposed in some quarters,
+would, in effect, amount to a gift from the British Exchequer of
+£1,750,000 a year. And there is obviously no security that the Irish
+Exchequer could rely on this boon being continued for more than a short
+time. There would be nothing to prevent the British spirit merchant from
+removing his spirits to this country in bond and paying the duty here
+after arrival. It is obvious that the Treasury would be compelled to
+grant facilities for this course. The present system is merely one of
+book-keeping and administrative convenience, but as the withdrawal of
+this sum from the British Exchequer to which it properly belongs would
+have to be made good from other British sources, there would be every
+inducement for the British merchant to effect such slight changes of
+method as would transfer the whole of this sum from the Irish to the
+British Exchequer. Having regard to the fact that on the other sources
+of revenue the collections in Ireland are estimated to fall short of the
+actual contributions by nearly £200,000, and that these are in the main
+direct taxes paid by the individuals concerned, it is not unlikely that
+a scheme which gave to Ireland the full benefit of her revenues as
+collected would in a short time be converted from a gain of some
+£1,700,000 to a loss of £100,000 to £200,000 to the Irish taxpayer.
+Stability in the tax system and reliability upon the realisation of the
+estimated revenue could not be assumed if &quot;collections&quot; instead of
+&quot;contributions&quot; were to be made the basis of any financial arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>Turning next to the contributed revenue upon which alone an Irish
+Parliament could rely, we note first the large proportion of the revenue
+represented by Customs and Excise. Contrasted with the figures for Great
+Britain, it is seen by the following table that whereas in Ireland the
+revenue from Customs and Excise amounts to 60 per cent. of the total, in
+Great Britain the proportion was not more than 36 per cent.</p>
+
+<p>PERCENTAGE OF REVENUE FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES CONTRIBUTED BY IRELAND AND
+GREAT BRITAIN RESPECTIVELY IN TWO YEARS ENDING MARCH 31, 1911.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51" /><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+
+<tr><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>Ireland.</td><td align='center'>Great Britain.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>Per cent.</td><td align='center'>Per cent.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Customs</td><td align='center'>29</td><td align='center'>18-1/2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Excise (<i>ex.</i> licences)</td><td align='center'>30</td><td align='center'>17-1/2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Estate, etc., duties</td><td align='center'>9</td><td align='center'>14-1/2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Income tax</td><td align='center'>13</td><td align='center'>23-1/2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Postal, etc.</td><td align='center'>11</td><td align='center'>15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Other sources</td><td align='center'>8</td><td align='center'>11</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>---</td><td align='center'>---</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>100</td><td align='center'>100</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Exclusive of the licence duties the average yield (contribution) of
+Customs and Excise in Great Britain amounted in the last two years to
+£55,900,000, or at the rate of £1 7<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> per head; in Ireland the
+average yield was £5,800,000, or at the rate of £1 7<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i> per
+head. The incidence of our consumption taxes is thus seen to be at the
+present time practically the same in Ireland as in Great Britain; and
+the much larger proportion of the Irish revenue obtained from them is
+due to the smaller relative yield of direct taxes. Ireland being mainly
+an agricultural country, income tax, death duties, and stamps yield much
+less per head of the population there than in Great Britain. Such
+conditions are highly suggestive of inelasticity. An Irish Chancellor of
+the Exchequer will find no such fiscal reserves in direct taxes as does
+his more fortunate British colleague. This conclusion should give pause
+to those who think that if the Customs and Excise continued to be
+controlled from Westminster, it would be still possible to extract the
+larger revenue needed for the growing expenditure of Ireland by higher
+rates of income tax and death duties. Such a course would increase the
+burdens of the direct taxpayers of Ireland, but it would not fill the
+Irish Treasury. On the other hand, it is clear that there is no chance
+of relief being afforded to the Irish indirect taxpayer under Home Rule,
+supposing Customs and Excise were handed over to the Irish Parliament.
+Yet whenever a British Chancellor of the Exchequer has found it
+necessary to increase any of the taxes on consumption, the protests from
+the Irish benches have been invariably both loud and vehement. Irish
+members have pointed to the low wages earned in Ireland, the greater
+addiction of the people to tea and spirits, and the higher toll of their
+earnings consequently extracted by the Exchequer. The yield of existing
+taxes, therefore, whether direct or indirect, is not elastic in Ireland.
+Neither of them afford sufficient resources to meet the necessities of
+an Irish Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>There are, of course, other reasons why there should be no delegation of
+the power to impose Customs and Excise. The constitutional objections to
+such a course are overwhelming. It would involve the abandonment of the
+plea that Home Rule for Ireland was the prelude to Home Rule all round;
+in other words, that separation was the condition precedent to
+federalism. In every federal system in the world the control of Customs
+and Excise has been retained by the central authority. This is true not
+only of the quasi-federations within the British Empire; it is equally
+true of the United States, Germany, and Switzerland. One can scarcely be
+surprised at the emphatic repudiation which such a proposal received at
+the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. J.M.
+Robertson) when, on February 7, 1912, in a speech at Lincoln, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;There was, however, just one thing that must remain one for three
+     kingdoms, and that was the fiscal system, Customs and Excise. <i>It
+     was a federal union we want, a federal state.</i> If they were to do
+     as some of his unreflecting Home Rule friends, Irish and English,
+     have done, and demand that Ireland should not only have power to
+     lay taxes but to fix Customs and Excise then they had no State left
+     at all.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Another obvious objection to such a course is that it necessitates the
+erection of a Customs barrier between Ireland and Great Britain. Tariff
+Reformers are ready to admit that the present fiscal system is at least
+as injurious to Ireland as to other portions of the United Kingdom. The
+power to impose Customs duties on British goods&mdash;and the proportion of
+British total imports is so large that if this power were limited to
+foreign goods it would be financially valueless&mdash;would no doubt provide
+the Irish Exchequer with considerable funds and might be used to develop
+her prosperity. But the separation of the Customs systems for the
+purpose of enabling Ireland to impose tariffs in her own interests would
+necessarily be followed by a demand for treaty-making powers such as
+have been successfully claimed and are now enjoyed by British Dominions
+overseas. Under a general tariff for the United Kingdom the same
+advantages would accrue to Ireland without any corresponding damage to
+British or Imperial interests.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, whether Customs and Excise are handed over to the Irish Parliament
+or retained by the Imperial Parliament, the consequences are equally
+embarrassing. In the one case Ireland would be deprived of the control
+of some 60 per cent. of her present revenue, and of all power of
+expansion; in the other, British trade with Ireland might be gravely
+injured by hostile legislation, and the union of the three kingdoms in
+financial and commercial policy would be destroyed. But this is not
+federation, nor is it a step towards it. It is separation pure and
+simple. Unless we are prepared to accept separation as the end of our
+policy the control of Customs and therefore of Excise, must remain an
+Imperial affair.</p>
+
+<p>There can, therefore, be no justification for taking the control of the
+Customs and Excise from the Imperial Parliament. The Irish Parliament
+would thus be left with some 40 per cent. of present revenue under her
+own control. But the power to raise further revenue within the limits
+legally reserved to the Irish Parliament would be even less than this
+figure would imply. For of the £4,100,000 of revenue other than Customs
+and Excise, nearly £1,200,000 comes from the Postal Services; and even
+if these services were controlled by Ireland, it may be taken that the
+rates charged will be the same as in Great Britain. Of the remaining
+£2,900,000 nearly one-half comes from income tax. It has already been
+pointed out that its yield cannot be materially increased. There are
+only two ways by which an Irish Chancellor might attempt such a task. He
+might raise the rate of income tax or he might lower the exemption
+limit. The former course would almost certainly be followed by two
+equally undesirable results. So far as the tax continued to be paid in
+Ireland it would fall with crushing force on the already
+heavily-burdened agricultural industry. Still, from the point of view of
+the Exchequer, there might be some additional revenue on this account.
+On the other hand, there would be a check to the investment of capital
+in Ireland&mdash;and no country needs capital more&mdash;and a powerful temptation
+to transfer it where the tax would be lower. It may be seriously
+questioned, therefore, whether any increase in the income tax above the
+British rate is practicable. The other alternative, namely, the lowering
+of the exemption limit, would be so unpopular that no Irish Chancellor
+is ever likely to consider it seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Passing from the consideration of revenue it is necessary to examine the
+relation of present revenue to present expenditure. The first table in
+the present article shows that the ascertainable expenditure for Irish
+purposes in 1910-11 was about £1,400,000 more than the revenue. To this
+expenditure must be added about £300,000 for the State Share of the
+benefits under Part I. of the National Insurance Act, about £50,000 in
+respect of Part II., and about £100,000 for cost of administration of
+both parts, increasing the immediate deficit to about £1,550,000. This
+calculation, moreover, includes no charge against Irish revenue on
+account of Imperial Services&mdash;navy and army; National Debt, interest and
+management; the diplomatic services, and so forth. The equity of such
+payments has been consistently recognised in the two Bills and the three
+financial schemes submitted by Mr. Gladstone. However moderate the scale
+of contribution it would in the present case double or treble the margin
+between Irish revenue and Irish expenditure for local purposes. If, for
+example, the precedent of the 1886 Bill were followed, and Ireland
+charged with a contribution for Imperial services in proportion to the
+estimated relative taxable capacities, the additional charges on the
+Irish Exchequer would amount to not less than about £4,000,000 on the
+1910-11 figures if the taxable capacity of Ireland be taken at
+one-twenty-fifth, and to nearly £3,500,000 if it be taken at
+one-thirtieth.</p>
+
+<p>It may be worth while here to refer to the amazing statement that Great
+Britain has made a large &quot;profit out of the Union.&quot; At the last meeting
+of the British Association, Prof. Oldham affected to prove that Ireland
+&quot;in the course of one hundred years ... had sent across the Channel as
+her contribution to the British Exchequer a clear net payment of about
+330 millions sterling.&quot; The same contention has been urged by Lord
+MacDonnell. This calculation ignores the fact that even the Irish
+Parliament between 1782 and 1800 acknowledged its obligation to
+contribute to Imperial services, and voted contributions for Imperial
+purposes, besides raising and maintaining in Ireland a force of 12,000
+to 15,000 men, some of whom were available for foreign service. It makes
+no allowance also for the debt which Ireland brought into the Union
+when the Exchequers were amalgamated in 1817. The importance of the last
+item may be judged from the fact that if the whole of the so-called
+contribution to Imperial services, <i>i.e.</i> the excess of true revenue
+over local expenditure, had been employed since 1817 in paying interest
+at 3 per cent. on the old Irish debt and the whole of any balance
+remaining after payment of interest had been used for redemption of the
+capital, this debt would only have been extinguished in 1886. If a
+contribution of only 1 per cent. to the cost of Imperial services had
+been previously charged against this excess, there would be a large
+balance of the Irish debt still outstanding. As a matter of fact, in the
+same period that Ireland is said to have contributed £330,000,000, Great
+Britain may be shown by a precisely similar calculation to have
+contributed no less than £5,800,000,000 for Imperial purposes. The
+measure of &quot;injustice to Ireland&quot; meted out by unsympathetic Britons in
+respect to the Imperial contribution extracted from Ireland may be seen
+from the following comparison for different dates in the last century.</p>
+
+RATIOS OF POPULATIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO IMPERIAL SERVICES<br />
+OF IRELAND AND GREAT BRITAIN AT DECENNIAL INTERVALS.<br />
+<br />
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>Ratio of British to</td><td align='center'>Ratio of British to</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>Irish Populations.</td><td align='center'>Irish Contributions.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1819-20</td><td align='center'>2·1</td><td align='center'>12·7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1829-30</td><td align='center'>2·1</td><td align='center'>10·9</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1839-40</td><td align='center'>2·3</td><td align='center'>11·5</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1849-50</td><td align='center'>3·2</td><td align='center'>17·6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1859-60</td><td align='center'>4·0</td><td align='center'>9·8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1869-70</td><td align='center'>4·8</td><td align='center'>12·3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1879-80</td><td align='center'>5·7</td><td align='center'>16·3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1889-90</td><td align='center'>7·0</td><td align='center'>22·6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1899-00</td><td align='center'>8·9</td><td align='center'>46·5</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1909-10</td><td align='center'>9·3</td><td align='center'><a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52" /><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The truth is that from a financial point of view Ireland has no valid
+complaint to make on the score of her contributions for Imperial
+purposes. Between 1820 and 1840 the Irish population was a little less
+than one-half of the population of Great Britain; her contribution for
+Imperial Services varied from one-eleventh to one-thirteenth. In
+1899-1900 the British contribution was 46-1/2 times the Irish, though
+the population was less than nine times as large. If any contribution
+for Imperial Services from Ireland is justified, and Mr. Gladstone at
+least acknowledged it, no one can say that the contribution actually
+taken from Ireland has been excessive.</p>
+
+<p>As already stated we are still without any information as to the
+financial proposals to be included in the Home Rule Bill of 1912. The
+Government have appointed a Committee to advise them upon this subject.
+Though the cost of the Committee has been met out of public funds, and
+sources of information were laid open to them which are not readily
+available to the public, the Prime Minister has steadily refused to
+supply to Parliament any information as to the results of their
+labours.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53" /><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> The terms of reference to the Commission; the witnesses
+examined by them; the information placed at their disposal; the
+character of the conclusions and recommendations; these have, all alike,
+been refused to the House of Commons. But while Parliament has been
+denied this information, there is every reason to believe that the
+leaders of the Nationalist Party have been taken fully into the
+confidence of the Government. We do not know whether, for example, the
+Customs or Excise or both will be imposed and collected by the future
+Irish Parliament. We do not know whether any contribution will be
+required for the Irish share of Imperial services. We are equally
+uncertain whether any and what purely Irish services will be retained by
+the Imperial Parliament, and charged on the Imperial Exchequer. And
+lastly, the intentions of the Government in regard to the payment of a
+subsidy from the Imperial Exchequer to the Irish Parliament, with which
+rumour is busy, are as yet unrevealed.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this lamentable paucity of information as to the Government
+plan, I think it can be safely said that no scheme even remotely
+resembling any of those presented in connection with the two previous
+Bills can be put forward now. Each of those schemes would involve the
+Irish Parliament in a huge deficit from the very outset. Even if the
+schemes were adapted to the changed modern conditions the same
+impassable gap between available revenue and certain expenditure
+remains. Those schemes presumably embodied principles which the
+Governments of 1886 and 1893, and the Nationalist parties of those dates
+regarded as adequate. It would be strange if it were otherwise, seeing
+that an examination and comparison of the separate schemes can discover
+no other consistent principles except the solitary one of juggling with
+the revenues, expenditures, and contributions in such manner as would
+start the Irish Parliament with a small surplus. In view of the
+importance of these earlier attempts to secure an approximation to
+financial equilibrium, it appears desirable to examine how Ireland would
+fare in modern conditions under each of them.</p>
+
+<p>The essential features of the 1886 scheme were as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Customs and Excise to be under the complete control of the Imperial
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>2. Irish Parliament to have power to levy any other taxes.</p>
+
+<p>3. Ireland to contribute annually to the Consolidated Fund of the United
+Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>a</i>) £1,466,000 for interest and management of Irish share of National
+Debt.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>b</i>) £1,466,000 for contribution to Imperial Defence.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>c</i>) £110,000 for contribution to Imperial Civil Services.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>d</i>) £1,000,000 for Irish Constabulary.</p>
+
+<p>4. Contributions 3 (<i>a</i>) to 3 (<i>d</i>) were not to be increased for thirty
+years, but might be diminished.</p>
+
+<p>5. Irish share of National Debt to be reckoned at £48,000,000, and Irish
+Sinking Fund to begin at £360,000, increasing by amount of interest
+released on redeemed portion of debt.</p>
+
+<p>6. Contribution to Imperial Defence and Civil Services not to exceed
+one-fifteenth of the total cost in any year.</p>
+
+<p>7. Irish contribution to be credited with receipts on account of Crown
+Revenues in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>8. If expenditure on Constabulary fell below £1,000,000, contribution 3
+(<i>d</i>) to be correspondingly reduced.</p>
+
+<p>9. Customs and Excise <i>collected</i> in Ireland were to be subject to
+following charges:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(<i>a</i>) Cost of collection, not more than 4 per cent.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>b</i>) Contributions to Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>c</i>) Payments to National Debt Commissioners.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>d</i>) Any sums required under the Land Act of that Session the balance
+being paid over to the Irish Government.</p>
+
+<p>10. The Lord Lieutenant's salary not to fall on the Irish Exchequer.</p>
+
+<p>Broadly the scheme gave to the Irish Government credit for the Customs
+and Excise <i>collected</i> in Ireland and charged it with annual payments of
+£4,502,000 in addition to the cost of collection. It is clear that Mr.
+Gladstone, at the time when the Irish population was about one-eighth of
+the United Kingdom, assumed Ireland to have a taxable capacity of
+one-fifteenth. If such a scheme were introduced at the present moment it
+is obvious that, owing to the further decline in the population of
+Ireland, a smaller figure for taxable capacity must be taken. What that
+figure should be it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide
+satisfactorily. It is generally assumed that on the basis of the
+calculations made by the Financial Relations Commission in 1896, the
+present relative taxable capacity for Ireland would be about
+one-twenty-fifth that of the United Kingdom. In the last two financial
+years the Irish contribution to Income Tax has been one-twenty-eighth,
+and the contribution to Estate Duties one-twenty-sixth of the total
+collection in the United Kingdom. These proportions, taken as measures
+of taxable capacity must be exceptionally favourable to Ireland, where
+the proportion of Income Tax payers and of persons possessing property
+paying Death Duties is relatively to the total population smaller than
+in the United Kingdom as a whole. If, therefore, for the sake of the present
+calculations the mean of two proportions&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> one-twenty-seventh
+deducible from the Income Tax and Death Duty contributions is assumed,
+we employ a figure exceptionally favourable to Ireland. The financial
+statement on the next page showing the 1886 scheme applied to present
+conditions has been drawn up on this basis. The revenue is here assumed
+to come in at the average rate of the last two years (1909-10 and
+1910-11) and the expenditure is taken as that of 1910-11.</p>
+
+<p>The state of the Irish Exchequer under the foregoing scheme would be
+indeed a parlous one. It would start with a deficit of £3,200,000, and
+with a prospective immediate increase by about £450,000 on account of
+the Insurance Act. The actual budget deficit would thus be about
+£3,650,000. The Imperial Parliament would collect about £7,794,000, and
+after deducting £5,346,000 would hand back to the Irish Exchequer the
+difference of £2,458,000. The revenues upon which the Chancellor in the
+Irish Parliament could rely would be, therefore, £6,366,000. Out of this
+an expenditure of £9,562,000 would have to be met. The postal services
+would probably not stand any increased charges; there is left,
+therefore, only £5,211,000 of free revenue, and only £2,753,000 under
+the unrestricted control of the Irish Parliament. With such resources it
+would be obviously impossible to make good a deficit of £3,206,000 by
+any increase of taxation. It must not be overlooked, also, that the
+effect of crediting Ireland with Customs and Excise as &quot;collected&quot;
+instead of as &quot;contributed&quot; is practically to make the Irish Parliament
+a further free gift of nearly £2,000,000.</p>
+
+<p>A totally different scheme accompanied the Home Rule Bill of 1893 as
+introduced. The principal features of the new scheme were as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Customs, excise, and postage to be imposed by the Imperial
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>2. Excise and postage to be collected and managed by the Irish
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>3. Customs to be collected and retained by the Imperial Parliament in
+view of contribution to Imperial services.</p>
+
+<p>4. Excise duties collected in Ireland on articles consumed in Great
+Britain to be handed over to Imperial Exchequer.</p>
+
+<p>5. If Excise duties be increased the yield of the excess duties to be
+handed over to the Imperial Exchequer.</p>
+
+<p>6. If Excise duties be reduced and Irish revenue diminished, the
+deficiency to be made good to Irish revenue.</p>
+
+<p>7. Two-thirds of the cost of the Constabulary to be repaid to the
+Imperial Exchequer.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the provisions of this scheme are of exceptional interest. If it
+had ever been in operation the plan, for example, of adjusting the
+payments from one exchequer to the other in the event of changes being
+enacted by the Imperial Parliament in the Excise duties must have been
+fruitful of difficulties and created much friction. If the duties had
+been reduced there might have been an increased consumption. Who can say
+how much of the revenue lost to the Irish Exchequer in the event of a
+reduction of duties would have been due to the reduced rates of duty,
+and how much had been regained by increased consumption. Again, if the
+Excise duties had been increased, as in the Budget of 1909, to such a
+degree that the total revenue at the higher duty was less than the total
+revenue from the lower duty, who could have determined whether this was
+a case requiring a payment from the Irish to the British Exchequer, or
+from the British to the Irish Exchequer.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most striking novelty of the first scheme of 1893 was the
+retention of the Customs duties in lieu of Ireland's contribution to
+Imperial Services. At that time the estimated value of the Customs
+contributed by Ireland was £2,400,000, and seeing that in 1886 her
+reasonable share of liability on account of Imperial Services was put at
+£4,600,000, the very large gift to Ireland represented by this scheme
+may be readily imagined. Even with the full advantage of this gift the
+estimated Irish surplus was put at £500,000. During the discussions of
+the Bill an error in the Excise contributions, reducing the revenue
+available to the Irish Exchequer by £356,000 was discovered. The reduced
+surplus of £144,000 was regarded by Mr. Gladstone as &quot;cutting it too
+fine,&quot; and the financial scheme was completely recast. Before explaining
+the third scheme it might be well to examine as before how the original
+scheme of 1893 would work out at the present time. This is shown in the
+following balance sheet.</p>
+
+<p>SCHEME B (BASED ON BILL OF 1893, AS INTRODUCED).</p><br />
+<br />
+
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>REVENUE.</td><td align='center'>£</td><td align='left'>EXPENDITURE.</td><td align='center'>£</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1. Excise (true revenue</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>1. Civil Government</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><i>ex.</i> licences)</td><td align='right'>2,952,000</td><td align='left'>charges (<i>ex.</i> Constabulary</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. Local Taxes--</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>and Lord</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>(<i>a</i>) Stamps</td><td align='right'>333,000</td><td align='left'>Lieutenant's salary)</td><td align='left'>6,952,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>(<i>b</i>) Death Duties</td><td align='right'>914,000</td><td align='left'>2. Collection of Ireland</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>(<i>c</i>) Income Tax</td><td align='right'>1,307,000</td><td align='center'>Revenues, etc.</td><td align='right'>298,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>(<i>d</i>) Excise licences</td><td align='right'>284,000</td><td align='left'>3. Postal Services</td><td align='right'>1,404,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. Postal Revenue</td><td align='right'>1,155,000</td><td align='left'>4. Contribution to Constabulary</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. Miscellaneous</td><td align='right'>150,000</td><td align='center'>(2/3rds of</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td><td align='center'>£1,464,500)</td><td align='right'>976,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>7,095,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;Deficit</td><td align='left'>2,535,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>9,630,000</td><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>9,630,000</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The narrow surplus of £144,000 has disappeared, and instead there is on
+present-day figures the substantial deficit of £2,535,000. Here again it
+may be observed that the Excise duties are fixed by the Imperial
+Parliament, and the Postal charges are presumably also invariable. The
+first Budget deficit would, as before, be not less than £3,000,000. The
+taxes within the absolute control of the Irish Parliament would have
+been producing a revenue of £2,838,000. It is within this range of
+taxation, or by the imposition of new direct taxes, that the Irish
+Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been compelled to raise an
+additional £3,000,000 in order to make the two sides of his account
+balance.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the mistake already referred to, Mr. Gladstone prepared and
+presented a third scheme, whose principal features were as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure to be one-third of
+the true revenue of taxes levied in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>2. Ireland to be credited with miscellaneous receipts and surplus (if
+any) arising from postal services.</p>
+
+<p>3. Ireland to pay out of revenues credited to her, two-thirds of the
+cost of the Constabulary, all Civil Government charges and any deficit
+on postal services.</p>
+
+<p>4. The Customs and Inland Revenue duties and the rates for Postal
+charges to be fixed and collected by Imperial Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>5. After six years (1) Irish contribution to Imperial Services to be
+revised; (2) the collection of Inland Revenue duties to be undertaken by
+Irish Government; (3) Irish legislation to impose the stamp duties,
+income tax, and excise licences. The financial clauses as thus
+remodelled and simplified were expected to produce a surplus of
+£512,000. The characteristic feature of this arrangement was the
+provision for handing over to the Imperial Exchequer one-third of the
+Irish true tax revenue as Ireland's payment on account of Imperial
+Services. How matters would stand if this arrangement were applied to
+the present financial situation in Ireland may be seen from the
+following table.</p>
+
+<p>
+SCHEME C (BASED ON BILL OF 1893, AS AMENDED).</p><br />
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='right'>REVENUE.</td><td align='center'>£</td><td align='right'>EXPENDITURE</td><td align='center'>£</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1. Customs</td><td align='right'>2,866,000</td><td align='left'>1. Civil Government</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. Excise (<i>ex.</i> licence</td><td align='right'></td><td align='center'>Charges</td><td align='right'>6,952,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>duties)</td><td align='right'>2,952,000</td><td align='left'>2. Constabulary (2/3rds</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. Stamps</td><td align='right'>333,000</td><td align='center'>of £1,464,000)</td><td align='right'>976,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. Death duties</td><td align='right'>914,000</td><td align='left'>3. Estimated deficit on</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5. Licence duties</td><td align='right'>284,000</td><td align='center'>Postal Services</td><td align='right'>249,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6. Income Tax</td><td align='right'>1,307,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7. Crown Lands, etc.</td><td align='right'>25,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>8,681,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8. 2/3rds of £8,965,000</td><td align='right'>5,757,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>9. Miscellaneous Receipts</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>115,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>5,902,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>Deficit</td><td align='right'>2,275,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>Total</td><td align='right'>8,177,000</td><td align='right'>Total</td><td align='right'>8,177,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The main Irish objection to a scheme of this description is that,
+whatever tax be imposed, the amount taken from the Irish taxpayer would
+be 50 per cent. greater than the amount going into the Irish Exchequer.
+It is easy to foresee that such an arrangement would have led to much
+friction and difficulty, and that it could not have lasted even the six
+years for which it was provisionally fixed. If applied to the present
+situation Ireland would have been contributing less than £3,000,000 for
+Imperial services, although a very moderate estimate of what her
+contribution should be would require her to pay at least £5,000,000. In
+spite of this modest payment, however, this scheme would have confronted
+the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer with a deficit of more than
+£2,250,000 rising at once to £2,700,000 in consequence of the Insurance
+Act.</p>
+
+<p>In reviewing the three financial schemes which have previously seen the
+light, the following facts stand out clearly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Some contribution was expected from Ireland for Imperial services in
+each scheme.</p>
+
+<p>2. The rates of customs, excise, and postage were in all cases to be
+controlled by the Imperial Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>3. The customs were in every case to be collected by officers of the
+Imperial Exchequer.</p>
+
+<p>4. In the two schemes of 1893 &quot;true&quot; revenue and not &quot;collected&quot; revenue
+was the basis of the financial arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>5. Each of these schemes would involve the Irish Parliament from the
+outset in a huge deficit.</p>
+
+<p>In view of these facts it is certain that any arrangement which
+pretended to give a Budget surplus to the Irish Parliament would
+involve, overtly or covertly, the payment of a large subsidy to Ireland
+out of the Imperial Exchequer. Such a contingency is not likely to make
+Home Rule more acceptable, or the path of any Bill through Parliament
+more easy.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50" /><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> See Parliamentary Debates.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51" /><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Based on White Papers 233 (1910) and 220 (1911).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52" /><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> No contribution from Ireland in this year; local
+expenditure is estimated to have been in excess of revenue contributed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53" /><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Since the above was written, Mr. Birrell has promised
+(March 27, 1912) to publish the report &quot;some time&quot; after the
+introduction of the Home Rule Bill.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="V" id="V" />V</h2>
+
+<h2>HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL ANALOGY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY L.S. AMERY, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>There is no argument in favour of Home Rule for Ireland which is more
+frequently used to-day than that which is based on the analogy of our
+Colonial experience. In the history of every one of our Colonies&mdash;so
+runs one variant of the argument&mdash;from Lord Durham's report on Canada
+down to the grant of responsible government to the Transvaal, &quot;Home
+Rule&quot; has turned disaffection into loyalty, and has inaugurated a career
+of prosperity. Why should we then hesitate to apply to Irish discontent
+the &quot;freedom&quot; which has proved so sovereign a remedy elsewhere? Again,
+if our Dominions have been able to combine local Home Rule with national
+unity&mdash;so runs another variant&mdash;why should a policy which works
+successfully in Canada or Australia not work in the United Kingdom?
+Another suggestion freely thrown out is that Home Rule is only the
+beginning of a process of federalisation which is to bring us to the
+goal of Imperial Federation. In one form or another the Colonial Analogy
+occupies the foreground of almost every speech or article in favour of
+Irish Home Rule. The ablest, as well as the most courageous, piece of
+Home Rule advocacy which has so far appeared, Mr. Erskine Childers's
+&quot;Framework of Home Rule,&quot; is based from first to last on this analogy
+and on little else.</p>
+
+<p>That the argument is effective cannot be gainsaid. It is the argument
+which appeals most strongly to the great body of thoughtful Liberals who
+from every other point of view look upon the project with unconcealed
+misgiving. It is the argument which has appealed to public opinion in
+the Dominions, and has there secured public resolutions and private
+subscriptions for the Nationalist cause. In one of its forms it appealed
+to the imagination of an Imperialist like Cecil Rhodes. In another it
+has, undoubtedly, in recent years attracted not a few Unionists who have
+been prepared to approach with, at any rate, an open mind the
+consideration of a federal constitution for the United Kingdom. And,
+indeed, if the analogy really applied, it would be difficult to resist
+the conclusion. If Ireland has really been denied something which has
+proved the secret of Colonial loyalty and prosperity, what Englishman
+would be so short-sighted as to wish to deprive her of it for the mere
+sake of domination? If Home Rule were really a stepping-stone towards
+Imperial Federation, how insincere our professions of &quot;thinking
+Imperially,&quot; if we are not prepared to sacrifice a merely local
+sentiment of union for a great all-embracing ideal!</p>
+
+<p>But, as a matter of fact, there is no such analogy bearing on the
+question which, here and now, is at issue. On the contrary the whole
+trend of Colonial experience confirms, in the most striking fashion, the
+essential soundness of the position which Unionists have maintained
+throughout, that the material, social and moral interests, alike of
+Ireland and of Great Britain, demand that they should remain members of
+one effective, undivided legislative and administrative organisation.</p>
+
+<p>The whole argument, indeed, plausible as it is, is based on a series of
+confusions, due, in part, to deliberate obscuring of the issue, in part
+to the vagueness of the phrase &quot;Home Rule,&quot; and to the general ignorance
+of the origin and real nature of the British Colonial system. There are,
+indeed, three main confusions of thought. There is, first of all, the
+confusion between &quot;free&quot; or &quot;self-governing&quot; institutions, as contrasted
+with unrepresentative or autocratic rule, and separate government,
+whether for all or for specified purposes, as contrasted with a common
+government. In the next place there is the confusion between the status
+of a self-governing Dominion, in its relations to the Imperial
+Government, and the status of a Colonial state or provincial government
+towards the Dominion of which it forms a part. A truly inimitable
+instance of this confusion has been provided by Mr. Redmond in a
+declaration made on more than one occasion that all that Ireland asks
+for, is, &quot;What has already been given to twenty-eight different portions
+of the Empire.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54" /><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> Considering that the &quot;portions&quot; thus enumerated
+include practically sovereign nation states like Canada, provinces like
+those of the South African Union, with little more than county council
+powers, and stray survivals, like the Isle of Man, of an earlier system
+of government, based on the same principle of ascendency and
+interference as the government of Ireland under Poynings's Act, it is
+difficult to know which to admire most, Mr. Redmond's assurance, or his
+cynical appreciation of the ignorance or capacity for deliberate
+self-deception of those with whom he has to deal. The third confusion is
+that between Imperial functions and national or Dominion functions, due
+to the fact that the two are combined in the United Kingdom Parliament,
+which is also, under present conditions, the Imperial Parliament, and to
+the consequent habitual use of the word &quot;Imperial&quot; in two quite
+different senses. It is this last confusion which makes such a
+declaration as Mr. Asquith's about safeguarding &quot;the indefeasible
+authority of the Imperial Parliament&quot; a mere equivocation, for it
+affords no indication as to whether the supremacy retained is the
+effective and direct control maintained by Canada over Ontario, or the
+much slighter and vaguer supremacy exercised by the United Kingdom over
+the Dominions. It is this same confusion, too, which is responsible for
+the notion that the problem of creating a true Imperial Parliament or
+Council by a federation of the Dominions would be assisted, either by
+creating an additional Dominion in the shape of Ireland, or by
+arranging the internal constitution of the United Kingdom, as one of the
+federating Dominions, on a federal rather than on a unitary basis.</p>
+
+<p>The confusion of ideas between self-government and separate government
+pervades the whole argument that the granting of &quot;Home Rule&quot; to Ireland
+would be analogous to the grant of responsible institutions to the
+Colonies. The essence of Home Rule is the creation of a separate
+government for Ireland. The essence of our Colonial policy has been the
+establishment of popular self-government in the Colonies. That this
+self-government has been effected through local parliaments and local
+executives, and not by representation in a common parliament, is a
+consequence of the immense distances and the profound differences in
+local conditions separating the Dominions from the Mother Country. It is
+an adaptation of the policy to peculiar conditions, and not an essential
+principle of the policy itself.</p>
+
+<p>This is obvious from any consideration of the circumstances under which
+the policy of Colonial self-government originated. Under the old
+Colonial system which preceded it, the Governor not only controlled the
+executive government, whose members were simply his official
+subordinates, but also controlled legislation through a nominated Upper
+Chamber or Legislative Council. The object of this restrictive policy
+was not interference with local affairs, but the supposed necessity of
+safeguarding general Imperial interests. Local affairs were, in the
+main, left to the local government. But the peculiar constitution of
+that government rendered it almost inevitable that the practical control
+of those affairs should fall into the hands of a narrowly limited class,
+clustering round the Governor and his circle, and by its privileges and
+prejudices creating in those excluded from that class a spirit of
+opposition, which extended from its members to the whole Imperial system
+which they were supposed to personify. In each of the North American
+Colonies a small oligarchy, generally known as the &quot;Family Compact,&quot;
+was able to &quot;monopolise the Executive Council, the Legislative Council,
+the Bench, the Bar, and all offices of profit.&quot; It was against this
+system, and not against the Imperial connection or even against undue
+interference from England, that the Canadian rebellion of 1837 was
+directed. In 1838 Lord Durham made his famous report in which he
+attributed the troubles to their true cause, the disregard of public
+opinion, and proposed that the Governor should in future govern, in
+local affairs, in accordance with the advice given by Colonial Ministers
+enjoying the confidence of the popular Assembly. A few years later his
+policy was put into execution by Lord Elgin in Canada, and rapidly
+extended to other Colonies. Five years ago the same system of government
+was applied to the Transvaal and to the Orange River Colony.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55" /><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p>
+
+<p>From the foregoing brief summary, it is sufficiently clear that the
+really vital feature of the policy inaugurated by Lord Durham was the
+acceptance of responsible popular government in local affairs, and not
+the separation of Colonial government from Imperial control. The policy
+did not involve the setting up of new legislative machinery or a new
+definition of Imperial relations. For an existing system of separate
+government in local affairs, which created friction and discontent, it
+simply substituted a new system which has, in the main, worked smoothly
+up to the present. From the success of this policy, what possible direct
+inference can be drawn as to the effect of setting up in Ireland, not a
+similar system of government, for Ireland already enjoys political
+institutions as fully representative as those of any Colony, or of any
+other portion of the United Kingdom, but a separate centre of
+government?</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the success of responsible government in the Colonies
+is, on closer examination, by no means without bearing on the problem of
+Ireland. That system of Colonial responsible government which seems to
+us so simple and obvious is, on the contrary, one of the most artificial
+systems the world has ever known, based as it is upon conditions which
+have never been present before in the world's history, and which are now
+rapidly disappearing, never, perhaps, to recur. That a popular assembly
+in complete control of the executive, should respect an unwritten
+convention limiting its powers and rights to purely local affairs, and
+submit to a purely external control of its wider interests and
+destinies, seemed to most of Lord Durham's contemporaries almost
+unthinkable. Not only those who opposed the policy, but many of those
+who advocated it, were convinced that it would lead to complete
+separation. Nor were their fears or hopes by any means ill-grounded.
+That they were not justified by the event was due to an altogether
+exceptional combination of factors. The first of these was the
+overwhelming supremacy of the United Kingdom in commerce and naval
+power, and its practical monopoly of political influence in the outer
+world. Sheltered by an invincible navy, far removed from the sound of
+international conflict, the Colonies had no practical motive for
+concerning themselves with foreign affairs, or with any but purely local
+measures of defence. Even when, as in 1854, they were technically
+involved by the United Kingdom in war with a great Power, they were not
+so much as inconvenienced. The United Kingdom, on the other hand,
+incurred no serious expenditure for their defence beyond what was in any
+case required for the defence of its sea-borne commerce, nor was its
+foreign policy at any time seriously deflected by regard for Colonial
+considerations. Even when the Colonies encroached on the original limits
+set them, and began to establish protectionist tariffs against the
+Mother Country, British manufacturers could afford to disregard a
+handicap of which they were at first scarcely sensible, while British
+statesmen smiled condescendingly at the harmless aberrations of Colonial
+inexperience. Another factor was the very fact that it was colonies that
+the United Kingdom was dealing with, new countries where every other
+interest was secondary to that of opening up and developing the untamed
+wilderness, to creating the material framework which, in fulness of
+time, might support a complete national life. There was consequently
+little real interest in external policy in the Colonial assemblies,
+little leisure for criticism of the Imperial authorities, little desire
+to assert any particular point of view. Last, but not least, was the
+factor of distance, interposing a veil of obscurity between the
+different communities in the Empire; mitigating minor causes of
+friction, keeping Colonial politics free from being entangled in the
+British Party system.</p>
+
+<p>The British system of Colonial self-government has so far proved
+workable because of the exceptional circumstances in which it
+originated. But its success cannot be regarded as wholly unqualified.
+The failure to provide any direct representation of Colonial interests
+and aspirations in the Imperial Parliament may not have mattered as far
+as foreign policy and defence were concerned. But it did affect the
+colonies most seriously from the economic point of view, for it
+precluded them from pressing with any effect for the development of
+inter-Imperial communications, or from resisting the abolition of the
+system of preferential trade which meant so much to their prosperity.
+Under the influence of a narrowly selfish and short-sighted policy,
+inspired by English manufacturing interests, Canada saw the stream of
+commerce and population pass by her shores on its way to the United
+States. The relative progress of the British Colonies and of the United
+States since the abolition of preference is some measure of the economic
+weakness of a political system which has no common trade policy. In any
+case the British Colonial system, as we have known it is inevitably
+moving towards its crisis. The conditions under which it originated are
+fast disappearing. The commercial and political expansion of Europe, of
+America, of Asia, are bringing the Dominions more and more into the
+arena of international conflict. The growth of foreign navies is forcing
+them to realise the necessity of taking a larger part in their own
+defence. Their growing national self-consciousness demands not only that
+they should cease to be dependent on the Mother Country for their
+safety, but also that they should exercise control over the foreign
+policy of which defence is merely the instrument. There are only two
+possible solutions to the problem which is now developing: the one is
+complete separation, the other is partnership in an Imperial Union in
+which British subjects in the Dominions shall stand on exactly the same
+footing, and enjoy the same powers and privileges in Imperial affairs,
+as British subjects in the United Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The conditions&mdash;geographical, economic, political&mdash;which, in the
+Colonies, made the grant of free institutions, unaccompanied by some
+form of political federation or union, even a temporary success, were,
+indeed, exceptional. None of them were present in the circumstances of
+Ireland before the Union. They are not present to-day. Geographically
+the United Kingdom is a single compact island group, of which Ireland is
+by no means the most outlying portion. No part of Ireland is to-day, or
+ever was, as inaccessible from the political centre of British power as
+the remoter parts of the Highlands, not to speak of the Shetlands or
+Hebrides. Racially, no less than physically, Ireland is an integral part
+of the United Kingdom, peopled as it is with the same mixture of racial
+elements as the main island of the group. The blend of Celt with Dane,
+with Normans and English of the Pale, with English citizens of the
+seaports and Cromwellian settlers, which constitutes Celtic Ireland,
+so-called, is less Celtic both in speech and in blood than either Wales
+or the Highlands. Religion alone has maintained a difference between a
+predominantly Celtic and a predominantly Teutonic Ireland which would
+otherwise have disappeared far more completely than the difference
+between Celtic and Teutonic Scotland. Economically, the connection
+between Ireland and Great Britain, always close, has become such that
+to-day Ireland subsists almost wholly upon the English market. In these
+respects, at least, there is no resemblance between the conditions of
+Ireland and that of any of the Colonies.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, politically, Ireland was for centuries treated as a
+colony&mdash;&quot;the first and nearest of the Colonies,&quot; as Mr. Childers puts
+it. The difficulties and defects of early Colonial government were
+intensified by the great conflict of the Reformation, which made Ireland
+a centre of foreign intrigue, and by the long religious and
+constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century, which fell with
+terrible severity upon a population which had throughout espoused the
+losing cause. Cromwell; realising that &quot;if there is to be a prosperous,
+strong and United Kingdom there must be one Parliament and one
+Parliament only,&quot; freed Ireland from the Colonial status. Unfortunately,
+his policy was reversed in 1660, and for over a century Ireland endured
+the position of &quot;least favoured Colony&quot;&mdash;least favoured, partly because,
+with the possible exception of linen, all her industries were
+competitive with, and not complementary to English industries, and so
+were deliberately crushed in accordance with the common economic policy
+of the time, partly because the memories of past struggles kept England
+suspicious and jealous of Irish prosperity. Every evil under which the
+old colonial system laboured in Canada before the rebellion was
+intensified in Ireland by the religious and racial feud between the mass
+of the people and the ascendant caste. The same solvent of free
+government that Durham recommended was needed by Ireland. In view of the
+geographical and economic position of Ireland, and in the political
+circumstances of the time, it could only be applied through union with
+Great Britain. Union had been vainly prayed for by the Irish Parliament
+at the time of the Scottish Union. Most thoughtful students, not least
+among them Adam Smith,<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56" /><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> had seen in it the only cure for the evils
+which afflicted the hapless island.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in 1782, the dominant caste utilised the Ulster volunteer
+movement to wrest from Great Britain, then in the last throes of the war
+against France, Spain, and America, the independence of the Irish
+Parliament. Theoretically co-equal with the British Parliament,
+Grattan's Parliament was, in practice, kept by bribery in a position
+differing very little from that of Canada before the rebellion. Still
+the new system in Ireland might, under conditions resembling those of
+Canada in 1840, have gradually evolved into a workable scheme of
+self-government. But the conditions were too different. A temporary
+economic revival, indeed, followed the removal of the crippling
+restrictions upon Irish trade. But, politically, the new system began to
+break down almost from the start. Its entanglement in English party
+politics, which geography made inevitable, lead to deadlocks over trade
+and over the regency question, the latter practically involving the
+right to choose a separate sovereign. The same geographical conditions
+made it impossible for Ireland to escape the influence of the French
+Revolution. The factious spirit and the oppression of the ruling caste
+did the rest. There is no need to dwell here on the horrors of the
+rising of 1798, and of its repression, or on the political and financial
+chaos that marked the collapse of an ill-starred experiment. England,
+struggling for her existence, had had enough of French invasion, civil
+war, and general anarchy on her flank. The Irish Parliament died, as it
+had lived, by corruption, and Castlereagh and Pitt conferred upon
+Ireland the too long delayed boon of equal partnership in the United
+Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The mistakes which, for a century, deprived the Union of much of its
+effect&mdash;the delay in granting Catholic emancipation, the folly of Free
+Trade, acquiesced in by Irish members, by which agrarian strife was
+intensified, and through which Ireland again lost the increase of
+population which she had gained in the first half century of Union&mdash;need
+not be discussed here. The fact remains that to-day Ireland is
+prosperous, and on the eve of far greater prosperity under a sane
+system of national economic policy. What is more, Ireland is in the
+enjoyment of practically every liberty and every privilege that is
+enjoyed by any other part of the United Kingdom, of greater liberty and
+privilege than is enjoyed by Dominions which have no control of Imperial
+affairs. The principle which in the case of the Colonies was applied
+through separate governments has, in her case, been applied through
+Union. It could only have been applied through Union in 1800. It can
+only be applied through Union to-day. Railways and steamships have
+strengthened the geographical and economic reasons for union;
+train-ferries and aircraft will intensify them still further. Meanwhile
+the political and strategical conditions of these islands in the near
+future are far more likely to resemble those of the great Napoleonic
+struggle than those of the Colonial Empire in its halcyon period.</p>
+
+<p>In one aspect, then, the Union was the only feasible way of carrying out
+the principle which underlay the successful establishment of Colonial
+self-government. In another aspect it was the last step of a natural
+and, indeed, inevitable process for which the history of the British
+Colonies since the grant of self-government has furnished analogies in
+abundance. It has furnished none for the reversal of that process. It is
+only necessary to consider the reasons which, in various degrees,
+influenced the several groups of independent Colonies in North America,
+Australia, and South Africa to unite under a single government, whether
+federal or unitary, thus wholly or partially surrendering the &quot;Home
+Rule&quot; previously enjoyed by them, in order to see how close is the
+parallel. The weak and scattered North American Colonies were at a
+serious disadvantage in all political and commercial negotiations with
+their powerful neighbour, the United States, a fact very clearly
+emphasised by the termination of Lord Elgin's reciprocity treaty in
+1864. None of them was in a position to deal with the vast territories
+of the North-West, undeveloped by the Hudson's Bay Company, and in
+imminent danger of American occupation. A common trade policy, a common
+railway policy, and a common banking system were essential to a rapid
+development of their great resources, and only a common government could
+provide them. In Australia the chief factor in bringing about federation
+was the weakness and want of influence of the separate Colonies in
+dealing with problems of defence and external policy, impressed upon
+them by German and French colonial expansion in the Pacific, and by the
+growth of Japan. In South Africa, on the other hand, the factors were
+mainly internal. The constant friction over railway and customs
+agreements, continually on the verge of breaking down, embittered the
+relations of the different Colonies and maintained an atmosphere of
+uncertainty discouraging to commercial enterprise. Four different
+governments dealt with a labour supply mainly required in one colony.
+Four agricultural departments dealt with locusts and cattle plagues,
+which knew no political boundaries, and which could only be stamped out
+by the most prompt and determined action. Four systems of law and four
+organisations for defence secured, as Lord Selborne pointed out in a
+striking Memorandum (Blue Book Cd. 3564) a minimum of return for a
+maximum of expense. A native rising in Natal warned South Africans that
+the mistake of a single Colony might at any moment set the whole of
+South Africa ablaze with rebellion. In the absence of larger issues
+local politics in each Colony turned almost exclusively on the racial
+feud. A comprehensive union alone could bring commercial stability and
+progressive development, mitigate race hatred, and pave the way to a
+true South African nationality.</p>
+
+<p>All the weakness in external relations, all the internal friction and
+impediment to progress, all the bitterness and pettiness of local
+politics, which marked the absence of union among neighbouring colonies,
+also characterised the relations of Great Britain and Ireland in the
+eighteenth century. But there was this difference: the immense
+disproportion in wealth and power, and the political control exercised
+by the greater state, caused all the evils of disunion to concentrate
+with intensified force upon the smaller state. To undo the mischief of
+eighteenth century disunion required at least a generation. A series of
+political mistakes and mischances, and a disastrous economic policy,
+have left the healing task of union incomplete after a century. But
+renewed disunion to-day would only mean a renewal of old local feuds to
+the point of civil war, a renewal of old economic friction, in which
+most of the injury would be suffered by the weaker combatant, the
+indefinite postponing for Ireland of the prospect, now so hopeful, of
+national development and social amelioration, a weakening of the whole
+United Kingdom for diplomacy or for defence. It is a policy which no
+Dominion in the Empire would dream of adopting&mdash;a policy which every
+Dominion would most certainly resist by force, just as the United States
+resisted it when attempted, with more than a mere pretext of
+constitutional justification, by the Southern States.</p>
+
+<p>Now for the &quot;exception which proves the rule&quot;: there is one Colonial
+analogy for what would be the position of Ireland under Home Rule,
+namely, the position of Newfoundland outside the confederation of the
+other North American Colonies.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57" /><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The analogy is only partial, for this
+reason, that whereas Ireland is almost wholly dependent economically on
+Great Britain, Newfoundland has little direct trade with Canada, and
+moreover enjoys a virtual monopoly of one particular commodity, namely
+codfish, by which it manages to support its small population.
+Nevertheless, no one can doubt that with its favoured geographical
+position, and with its great natural resources, Newfoundland would have
+been developed in a very different fashion if for the last forty years
+it had been an integral part of the Dominion. Nor is the loss all on the
+side of Newfoundland, as the history of even the last few years has
+shown. In 1902, Newfoundland negotiated a commercial Convention with the
+United States which, in return for a free entry for Newfoundland fish
+into the United States, practically gave the Newfoundland market to
+American manufacturers, and explicitly forbade the granting of any trade
+preference to the United Kingdom or to Canada. When, fortunately, the
+American Senate rejected the Convention, Newfoundland embarked on a
+course of legislative reprisal against American fishing. But this
+involved the Imperial Government in a diplomatic conflict which, but for
+the excellent relations subsisting with the United States, might easily
+have led to a grave crisis. The inconveniences and dangers which Irish
+trade policy might lead to under Home Rule can easily be inferred from
+this single example, all the more if Irish policy should be influenced,
+as Newfoundland's policy certainly was not, by a bias of hostility to
+the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the first confusion, that which would base the case for a
+<i>separate government</i> in Ireland on the success of <i>free institutions</i>
+in the Colonies, entirely ignoring the whole movement for union, which
+has made every geographical group of Colonies follow the example of the
+Mother Country. We must now deal with the second confusion, that which
+is based on a hazy notion that Home Rule is only a preliminary step to
+endowing the United Kingdom as a whole with a working federal
+constitution like that of Canada or Australia. Ireland, in fact, so runs
+the pleasing delusion, is to be set up as an experimental Quebec, and
+the other provinces will follow suit shortly. Not all Home Rulers,
+indeed, are obsessed by this confusion. Mr. Childers, for instance,
+makes short work of what he calls the &quot;federal chimera,&quot; dismissing the
+idea as &quot;wholly impracticable,&quot; and pointing out that Home Rule must be
+&quot;not merely non-federal, but anti-federal.&quot; But the great majority of
+Liberals to-day are busy deluding themselves or each other, and the
+Nationalists are, naturally, not unwilling to help them in that task,
+with the idea of Home Rule for Ireland followed by &quot;Home Rule all
+round.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The new Home Rule Bill has not yet appeared, but certain main features
+of it can be taken for granted. It will be a Bill which, save possibly
+for a pious expression of hope in the preamble, will deal with Ireland
+only. It will set up in Ireland an Irish legislature and executive
+responsible for the &quot;peace, order, and good government&quot; of Ireland,
+subject to certain restrictions and limitations. It will assign to
+Ireland the whole of the Irish revenues, though probably retaining the
+control of customs and excise, and in that case retaining some Irish
+representatives at Westminster. So far from fixing any contribution to
+Imperial expenditure from Ireland, it will, apparently, include the
+provision of an Imperial grant in aid towards Land Purchase and Old Age
+Pensions. Any such measure is wholly incompatible with even the loosest
+federal system. A federal scheme postulates the existence over the whole
+confederation of two concurrent systems of government, each exercising
+direct control over the citizens within its own sphere, each having its
+legislative and executive functions, and its sources of revenue, clearly
+defined. The Home Rule Bill will certainly not set up any such division
+of government and its functions in Great Britain. Nor will it, in
+reality, set up any such effective double system of government in
+Ireland. What it will set up will be a national or Dominion government
+in Ireland, separate and exclusive, but subject to certain restrictions
+and interferences which it will be the first business of the Irish
+representatives, in Dublin or Westminster, to get rid of. Long before
+Scotland or Wales, let alone England, get any consideration of their
+demand for Home Rule, if demand there be, the last traces of any
+quasi-federal element the Bill may contain will have been got rid of.</p>
+
+<p>In a federation every citizen, in whatever state or province he resides,
+is as fully a citizen of the federation as every other citizen. He not
+only has the same federal vote, and pays the same federal taxes, but he
+has the same access to the federal courts, and the same right to the
+direct protection of the federal executive. In what sense are any of
+these conditions likely to be true of, let us say, an Irish landlord
+under this Home Rule Bill? Again, federalism implies that all the
+subordinate units are in an equal position relatively to the federal
+authority. Is this Bill likely to be so framed that its provisions can
+be adapted unchanged to Scotland, Wales, or England? And if they could,
+what sort of a residuum of a United Kingdom government would be left
+over? Take finance alone: if every unit under &quot;Home Rule all round&quot; is
+to receive the whole product of its taxation, what becomes of the
+revenue on which the general government of the United Kingdom will have
+to subsist? The fact is that the creation of a federal state, whether by
+confederation or by devolution of powers, must be, in the main, a
+simultaneous act. Additional subordinate units may subsequently join the
+confederation under the conditions of the federal constitution. Backward
+areas which are unable to provide for an efficient provincial
+expenditure, over and above their contribution to federal expenditure,
+may be held back as territories directly controlled by the federal
+authorities till they are financially and in other respects ripe for the
+grant of provincial powers. If a federal scheme were really seriously
+contemplated by the present Government they would have to adopt one of
+two courses. They would either have to establish it simultaneously for
+the whole United Kingdom, and in that case limit the powers and
+functions of the provinces so narrowly as to make it possible for
+Ireland to raise its provincial revenue without undue difficulty, the
+rest of Ireland's needs being met by a substantial federal expenditure
+carried out by federal officials. Or else they might begin by the
+creation of a federal constitution with considerable provincial powers
+for England, Scotland, and Wales, keeping back Ireland as a federal
+territory till its economic and social conditions justified the
+establishment of provincial institutions. The converse policy of
+treating the case of Ireland as &quot;prior in point of time and
+urgency,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58" /><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> of giving the poorest and most backward portion of the
+United Kingdom the whole of its revenue and a practically unfettered
+control of its territory, is, indeed, &quot;not merely non-federal, but
+anti-federal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The truth is that the federal element in this Home Rule Bill, as in that
+of 1893, will be merely a pretence, designed to keep timid and
+hesitating Home Rulers in line&mdash;a tactical manoeuvre of much the same
+character as the talk about a reformed Second Chamber which preceded the
+Parliament Act, and found due burial in the preamble to that Act. In
+essence the Bill will set up Ireland as an entirely separate state
+subject to certain restrictions which the Government have no serious
+intention of enforcing, and the Irish every intention of disregarding,
+or abolishing as the outcome of further agitation. For this policy of
+pretence there is one admirable parallel in our Colonial history&mdash;the
+policy by which &quot;Home Rule&quot; was &quot;given&quot; to the Transvaal after Majuba.
+It was the same policy of avoiding expense and trouble, political or
+military&mdash;the policy, in fact, of &quot;cutting the loss&quot;&mdash;tricked out with
+the same humbug about &quot;magnanimity&quot; and &quot;conciliation,&quot; about trust in
+Boer (or Nationalist) moderation when in power, the same contemptuous
+passing over of the loyalists as persons of &quot;too pronounced&quot; views, or
+as &quot;interested contractors and stock-jobbers.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59" /><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> It was embodied in a
+Convention by which the &quot;inhabitants of the Transvaal territory&quot; were
+&quot;accorded complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her
+Majesty&quot; under a series of limitations which, if enforced, would have
+implied a measure of British control in many respects greater than that
+exercised over a self-governing Colony, and with a number of guarantees
+to protect the loyalists. The Government was able to &quot;save its face,&quot;
+while its hesitating followers were able to quiet their consciences, by
+the reassuring phrases of the Convention. The Boer Volksraad frankly
+declared itself still dissatisfied, but ratified the Convention,
+&quot;maintaining all objections to the Convention ... and for the purpose of
+showing to everybody that the love of peace and unity inspires it, for
+the time being, and provisionally submitting the articles of the
+Convention to a practical test.&quot; If any Nationalist Convention in Dublin
+should accept the new Home Rule Bill, we can take it for granted that it
+will be in exactly the same spirit, and possibly in almost the same
+phraseology.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60" /><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>
+
+<p>From the first the limitations of the Convention were disregarded. Short
+of armed intervention there was no machinery for enforcing them, and the
+Boers knew perfectly well that there was no real desire on the part of
+an embarrassed Government to raise a hornet's nest by making the
+attempt. The British resident, with his nominally autocratic powers, was
+a mere impotent laughing stock. The ruined loyalists left the country,
+or remained to become the most embittered enemies of the British
+Government. In three years a new Convention was drafted&mdash;an even greater
+masterpiece of make-believe than the first&mdash;which could be expounded to
+Parliament as a mere modification of certain unworkable provisions, but
+which the Boers took as a definite surrender of all claims to
+suzerainty, and as a definite recognition of their position as an
+&quot;independent sovereign state,&quot; bound temporarily by the provisions of a
+treaty, which could have no permanent force in &quot;fixing the boundary to
+the march of a nation.&quot; So far from being reconciled they were only
+emboldened to embark on a policy of aggression, which in 1885 involved
+the British Government in military measures costing nearly as much as
+would have been required to suppress the whole rising in 1881. For the
+time being the stagnation and chronic bankruptcy which followed the
+removal of British rule and the exodus of the loyalists limited
+Transvaal ambitions. The gold discoveries both increased that ambition
+by furnishing it with revenue, and at the same time brought about a
+close economic intercourse with the neighbouring colonies which, under
+the political conditions of disunion, was bound to create friction. In
+the end the policy of make-believe and &quot;cutting the loss&quot; had to be
+redeemed at the cost of 20,000 lives and of £200,000,000.
+Reconciliation, in large measure, has come since. But it has only come
+because British statesmen showed, firstly, in the war, their inflexible
+resolution to stamp out the policy of separation, and secondly, after
+the war, their devotion to the real welfare of South Africa in a policy
+of economic reconstruction, and in the establishment of those free and
+equal British institutions under which&mdash;by the final dying out of a
+spurious nationalism based on racial prejudice and garbled
+history&mdash;South Africa may become a real, living nation.</p>
+
+<p>The reservations and guarantees which this Home Rule Bill may contain
+cannot possibly constitute the framework of a federal constitution. All
+they can guarantee is a period of friction and agitation which will
+continue till Ireland has secured a position of complete separation from
+the United Kingdom. At the best the Home Rule experiment would then
+reduce Ireland to the position of another Newfoundland; at the worst it
+might repeat all the most disastrous features of the history of &quot;Home
+Rule&quot; in the Transvaal. At the same time it may be worth inquiring how
+far there would really be any valid Colonial analogy for the
+introduction of a federal system of &quot;Home Rule all round&quot; if such a
+scheme had been honestly contemplated. The first thing to keep in mind
+is that the internal constitution of the Dominions presents a whole
+gradation of constitutional types. There is the loose federal system of
+Australia, in which the Commonwealth powers are strictly limited and
+defined, and all residuary powers left to the States. There is the close
+confederation of Canada in which all residuary powers are vested in the
+Dominion. There is the non-federal unitary government of South Africa
+with a system of provincial local governments with somewhat wide county
+council powers. There is, lastly, the purely unitary government of the
+two islands of New Zealand. Each of these types is the outcome of
+peculiar geographical, economic, and historical conditions. To
+understand the federal system of Australia it is essential to remember
+that till comparatively recent times Australia consisted, to all
+intents, of four or five seaport towns, each with its own tributary
+agricultural and mining area, strung out, at distances varying from 500
+to 1300 miles, along the southern and eastern third of a coast line of
+nearly 9000 miles looped round an unexplored and reputedly uninhabitable
+interior. Each of these seaports traded directly with the United Kingdom
+and Europe in competition with the others. With economic motives for
+union practically non-existent, with external factors awakening a
+general apprehension rather than confronting Australia with any
+immediate danger, it was impossible to find the driving power to
+overcome local jealousies sufficiently to secure more than a minimum of
+union. The Commonwealth Constitution is a makeshift which, as the
+internal trade of Australia grows and as railway communications are
+developed, will inevitably be amended in the direction of increasing the
+power of the Commonwealth and diminishing that of the States. In Canada
+the economic link between Canada proper and the Maritime Provinces was,
+before Confederation, almost as weak as that of Australia. British
+Columbia, which it was hoped to include in the Confederation, was then
+separated by a journey of months from Eastern Canada, and was, indeed,
+much nearer to Australia or New Zealand. Quebec, with its racial and
+religious peculiarities, added another problem. That the Confederation
+was nevertheless such a close and strong one was due both to the menace
+of American power in the south, and to the terrible example of the
+weakness of the American constitution as made manifest by the Civil War.
+Yet even so, Sir John Macdonald, the father of Confederation, frankly
+declared the federal constitution a necessary evil&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;As regards the comparative advantages of a Legislative and a
+     Federal Union I have never hesitated to state my own opinions....
+     I have always contended that if we could agree to have one
+     government and one Parliament ... it would be the best, the
+     cheapest, the most vigorous, the strongest system of government we
+     could adopt.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>This also was the view of the framers of the South African Union. The
+circumstances of South Africa enabled them to carry it into effect. For
+all its extent, South Africa is geographically a single, homogeneous
+country with no marked internal boundaries. It is peopled by two white
+races everywhere intermixed in varying proportions and nowhere separated
+into large compact blocks. The immense preponderance and central
+position of the Rand mining industry makes South Africa practically a
+single economic system. The very bitterness of the long political and
+racial struggle which had preceded intensified the argument for really
+effective union.</p>
+
+<p>If we compare the conditions in the United Kingdom with those of the
+Dominions it is obvious at once that there is no possible analogy with
+the conditions of Canada or Australia, but a considerable analogy with
+South Africa and New Zealand. The British Isles are but little larger
+than the New Zealand group, and much more compact and homogeneous. Their
+close economic intercourse, the presence of two races with a history of
+strife behind them, but compelled by their inextricable geographical
+blending to confront the necessity of union, are reproduced in the
+conditions of South Africa. In so far then as the Colonial analogy bears
+upon the question at all, it cannot be said to be in favour of Federal
+Home Rule any more than of Separatist Home Rule. The most it can fairly
+be said to warrant is the establishment of provincial councils with
+powers akin to those of the South African Councils. For such councils,
+built up by the federation of adjoining counties and county boroughs,
+carrying out more effectively some of the existing powers of those
+bodies, and adding to them such other powers, legislative or
+administrative, as it may be convenient to bestow on them, a very strong
+case may be made on the grounds of the congestion of Parliamentary
+business. But that has nothing to do with Home Rule, either Separatist
+or Federal.</p>
+
+<p>But if the congestion of Parliamentary business might be appreciably
+relieved by some such provincial bodies&mdash;larger &quot;national&quot; bodies would
+only duplicate work, not relieve it&mdash;the true remedy for the confusion
+of principles and objectives which, rather than the mere waste of time,
+is the chief defect of our Parliamentary system, lies in a proper
+separation of the local affairs of the United Kingdom from the general
+work of the Empire, in other words, in some form of Imperial federation.
+What is needed is not the creation of separate parliaments <i>within</i> the
+United Kingdom, but the creation of a separate Parliament <i>for</i> the
+United Kingdom, a Parliament which should deal with the affairs of the
+United Kingdom considered as one of the Dominions, leaving the general
+problems of Imperial policy to a common Imperial Parliament or Council
+equally representative of the citizens of every Dominion. No form of
+Home Rule can in any sense advance that desirable solution of our
+Imperial problems. The creation of an additional Dominion in the shape
+of Ireland would merely add one to the number of units to be considered,
+and would be contrary to the spirit of the resolution passed at the 1897
+Conference, that it was desirable &quot;wherever and whenever practicable, to
+group together under a federal union those Colonies which are
+geographically united.&quot; The problem would be no more affected by the
+setting up of a federal constitution for the United Kingdom, than it
+would be if South Africa decided, after all, to give her provinces
+federal powers, or Australia carried unification by a referendum. The
+notion that the Dominions could simply come inside the United Kingdom
+federation, though it sometimes figures in Home Rule speeches, is merely
+a product of the third form of confusion of ideas previously referred
+to, and is a sheer absurdity. The terms and conditions of a United
+Kingdom federation would necessarily differ in almost every respect from
+those of an Imperial Federation, and a constitution framed for the one
+object would be unworkable for the other. Nor would it ever be
+acceptable to the Dominions, which regard themselves as potentially, if
+not actually, the equals of the United Kingdom as a whole. From their
+point of view the United Kingdom might almost as well be asked to step
+inside the Australian Commonwealth on the footing of Tasmania, as that
+they should be asked to join in, in the capacity of an additional
+Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, under any scheme of &quot;Home Rule all round.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It should be sufficiently clear from the foregoing analysis that the
+vague and confused claim that the success of British Colonial policy is
+an argument for the Home Rule Bill has no shadow of justification. It
+has been shown, first of all, that the factor of success in our Colonial
+policy was not the factor of separatism implied in Home Rule, but the
+factor of responsible government already secured for Ireland by the
+Union. It has been shown, secondly, that the experience of the Colonies
+since the establishment of responsible government has in every case
+forced union upon them, and union in the closest form which the facts of
+trade and geography permitted of. Colonial experience is thus no
+argument even for a federal scheme of &quot;Home Rule all round,&quot; if such a
+scheme could possibly result from an Irish Home Rule Bill, which it
+cannot. The disadvantages and dangers of the contrary policy of disunion
+have been shown, in their least noxious form in the case of
+Newfoundland, which has simply remained outside the adjoining Dominion,
+and in their deadliest form in the case of the Transvaal, where &quot;Home
+Rule&quot; was given in 1881, as it would be given to Ireland to-day, if the
+Government succeeded, not from conviction and whole-heartedly, but as a
+mean-spirited concession, made to save trouble, and under the most
+disingenuous and least workable provisions. Lastly, it has been made
+clear that Home Rule cannot possibly assist, but can only obscure and
+confuse, the movement for the establishment of a true Imperial Union.
+Unionists and Imperialists can choose no better ground for their
+resistance to Home Rule than the wide and varied field of Colonial
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>But Colonial experience can give us more than that. It can provide us
+not only with an immense mass of arguments and instances against
+disruption, but with invaluable instances of what can be done to
+strengthen and build up the Union against all possible future danger of
+disruptive tendencies. The confederation of Canada was accomplished in
+the teeth of all the geographical and economic conditions of the time.
+Canadian statesmanship thereupon set itself to transform geography, and
+to divert the course of trade in order to make the Union a reality. The
+Intercolonial Railway, the Canadian Pacific, the Grand Trunk Pacific,
+the proposed Hudson Bay Railway, and the Georgian Bay Canal schemes, all
+these have been deliberate instruments of policy, aiming, first of all,
+at bridging the wilderness between practically isolated settlements
+scattered across a continent, and creating a continuous Canada, east and
+west; and, secondly, at giving that continuous strip depth as well as
+extension. Hand in hand with the policy of constructing the internal
+framework of transportation, which is the skeleton of the economic and
+social life of a nation, went the policy of maintaining a national
+tariff to clothe that skeleton with the flesh and blood of production
+and exchange, and, as far as possible, to clothe it evenly. Australia,
+too, is waking, though somewhat hesitatingly, to the need of
+transcontinental railways, for the protection of new industries and for
+the even development and filling up of all her territories. In South
+Africa the economic process preceded the political. It was the dread of
+the breakdown of a temporary customs union already in existence that
+precipitated the discussion of union. And it was the development of the
+Rand as the great internal market of South Africa, and the competitive
+construction of railway lines from the coast, that really decided the
+question of legislative union against federation. All three instances
+lead to the same conclusion that union to be really effective and stable
+needs three things: firstly, a developed system of internal
+communications reducing all natural barriers to social, political, and
+commercial intercourse to the very minimum; secondly, a national tariff,
+protective or otherwise, sufficient at least to encourage the fullest
+flow of trade along those communications rather than outside of them;
+thirdly, a deliberate use of the tariff and of the national expenditure
+to secure, as far as possible, the even development of every portion of
+the national territory.</p>
+
+<p>In the United Kingdom all these instruments for making the Union real
+are still unutilised. The system of <i>laisser faire</i> in the matter of
+internal communications has allowed St. George's Channel still to remain
+a real barrier. A dozen train-ferries, carrying not only the railway
+traffic between Great Britain and Ireland, but enabling the true west
+coast of the United Kingdom to be used for transatlantic traffic, would
+obliterate that strip of sea which a British minister recently urged as
+an insuperable objection to a democratic union.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61" /><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> To construct them
+would not be doing as much, relatively, as little Denmark has long since
+done, by the same means, to unite her sea-divided territory. The
+creation of a tariff which shall assist not only manufactures, but
+agriculture and rural industries, is another essential step. In view of
+Ireland's undeveloped industrial condition the giving of bounties to the
+establishment in Ireland of new industries, such as the silk industry,
+would be a thoroughly justifiable extension of the Unionist policy
+carried out through the Congested Districts Board and the Department of
+Agriculture. The diversion to Ireland of a larger part of the general
+national and Imperial expenditure, whether by the establishment of a
+naval base, or the giving out of battleship contracts, or even only of
+contracts for Army uniforms, would also be of appreciable assistance to
+Ireland and to the Union. Ireland suffers to-day economically and
+politically, from the legacy of political separation in the eighteenth
+century, and of economic disunion in the nineteenth. It is the business
+of Unionists not only to maintain the legal framework of the Union, but
+to give it a vitality and fulness of content which it has never
+possessed.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54" /><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Speech at Whitechapel, Oct. 10, 1911. There is an almost
+identical passage in Mr. Redmond's article in <i>McClure's Magazine</i> for
+October, 1910. Sir J. Simon, the Solicitor-General, has since
+perpetrated the same absurdity (Dewsbury, Feb. 6, 1912).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55" /><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> The usual rhetorical appeal to &quot;What Home Rule has done in
+South Africa&quot; presents, indeed, a most perfect specimen of the confusion
+of thought which it is here attempted to analyse. For no sooner had the
+Transvaal received &quot;Home Rule&quot; (<i>i.e.</i> responsible government) than it
+surrendered the &quot;Home Rule&quot; (<i>i.e.</i> separate government) which it had
+previously enjoyed in order to enter the South African Union. Stripped
+of mere verbal confusion the argument from the Transvaal analogy then
+runs somewhat as follows: &quot;The Transvaal is now contented because it
+enjoys free representative institutions as an integral portion of a
+United South Africa; therefore, Ireland cannot be contented until she
+ceases to be a freely represented integral portion of the United
+Kingdom!&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56" /><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Quoted on p. 54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57" /><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> The position of New Zealand, outside the Australian
+Commonwealth, is no parallel. New Zealand is almost as far from
+Australia as Newfoundland is from the British Isles; it differs from
+Australia in every climatic and physical feature; there is comparatively
+little trade between them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58" /><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Mr. Asquith at St. Andrews, Dec. 7, 1910.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59" /><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> See &quot;The <i>Times</i>' History of the South African War,&quot; vol.
+I. pp. 67 <i>et seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60" /><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <i>Cf</i>. Mr. J. Redmond on the third reading of the Home Rule
+Bill of 1893. &quot;The word 'provisional,' so to speak, has been stamped in
+red ink across every page of the Bill. I recognise that the Bill is
+offered as a compromise and accepted as such.... England has no right to
+ask from Irish members any guarantee of finality in its acceptance.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61" /><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Colonel Seely at Newry, December 9, 1911.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI" />VI</h2>
+
+<h2>THE CONTROL OF JUDICIARY AND POLICE</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON. J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The various forecasts, inspired and uninspired, of the new Home Rule
+Bill which have been given to us, have shed little light upon the future
+of the Irish Judiciary and Police. The two previous Bills contemplated
+the handing over of the control of the whole administration of justice
+in Ireland to the Irish Executive after an interval, in the first case
+of two years, and in the later Bill, of six years. We may assume that,
+whatever period of grace may be allowed to us under the coming measure,
+it will propose to vest this control in the Irish Government within six
+years. The interposition of any interval at all will probably be
+regarded by Ministers as a concession to Unionist fears and as one of
+the &quot;safeguards&quot; in which the minority will be urged to place its trust.
+It must be realised at once that, so far from this interval making the
+transition from British justice to Irish intrigue easier and more safe,
+it may have precisely the contrary effect. Once the Irish police are
+convinced that they are about to be delivered into the hands of the
+secret organisations who have been the most successful and relentless
+enemies of public order in Ireland, a paralysis must fall upon the
+force. During the closing years of the transition, at all events, the
+Royal Irish Constabulary will be given nominal responsibility for the
+peace of the country without any opportunity effectually to preserve it.
+It would be fairer and better to cast upon puppet nominees of the
+Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood the
+responsibility and odium of controlling the passions that they have
+helped to raise. The present judges would of course continue to do
+their duty without fear or favour, but it is impossible that the
+sentence passed upon them and the system of law and government for which
+they stand could leave their authority unimpaired. We have recently seen
+in England how easy it may be to stir up popular clamour against judges
+who administer the law without regard to the prejudices of any political
+party. Directly the Irish Courts sought to translate the paper
+safeguards of the Home Rule Bill into practical effect, they would be
+faced by the violent hostility of an ignorant and excitable assembly
+stimulated by an irresponsible and inexperienced executive. The result
+would be recriminations and friction which must deplorably injure and
+lower the reputation and prestige of both the Executive and the
+Judiciary.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing necessary for securing public and private liberty in a
+country like Ireland, where party feeling runs high and internal
+disputes have a bitterness from which more fortunate countries are free,
+is a strong independent and impartial administration of the law. This
+can only be secured by freeing the Courts from any kind of interference
+or control on the part of the Executive, and by ensuring that the whole
+armed forces of the Executive should be at the disposal of the Courts
+for executing and enforcing their decrees. Let us only assume a case to
+arise after the statutory period had elapsed, such as is now of frequent
+occurrence in the Irish Courts. The Land Judge, for instance, or the
+Judge of the Court of Bankruptcy, finds it necessary to order the arrest
+of the chairman and secretary of a local branch of the United Irish
+League for interfering by gross intimidation with a sale under the order
+of his Court. The case excites a good deal of local feeling and the
+arrests can only be effected by the employment of a large force of armed
+police. The question is raised on a motion for adjournment in the Irish
+House of Commons. The majority of the members owe their seats to the
+intervention of the United Irish League, many of them&mdash;perhaps
+most&mdash;have themselves been in similar conflicts with the Court. The
+result is that Ministers have to choose between a refusal of the police
+and expulsion from office. Once the Government could decide which
+decrees of the Judiciary it would enforce and which it would not, the
+technical immovability of the Judges would be irrelevant, since the real
+control of justice would be vested, not in the courts but in the
+executive Ministers in Dublin Castle. The very existence of the
+limitations and safeguards foreshadowed in the coming Home Rule Bill
+would naturally tempt the Irish Government to adopt a policy which would
+reduce to a minimum the effective power of these restraints upon the
+popular will. The most obvious way of attaining this result would be to
+keep the police, and with them the judicature, in a position of greater
+dependence upon the Executive than is consistent with the supremacy of
+law and the safety of private rights and individual freedom.</p>
+
+<p>We must remember that the men who would have the control of the new
+Irish Government would be those who have spent the greater part of their
+lives in violent conflict with the attempts of the Irish Courts to
+secure respect for the elementary rights of property and of personal
+freedom in Ireland. Power which has been won by the open violation of
+every principle of English law, is not likely either to assert the
+authority it has lived by defying to maintaining the independence of the
+courts and institutions which have been its deadliest opponents. The
+corruption of judicial authority and prestige in Ireland will be
+accomplished by entrenching the Executive behind large and shadowy
+discretionary powers, and also by manipulating the personnel and
+jurisdiction of the judges and magistracy throughout the country. The
+most deplorable movement in modern Nationalism is the attempt to
+introduce into Irish politics the worst methods of American political
+corruption. There have recently sprung into prominence in Ireland two
+societies which are in some respects the most sinister, the most
+immoral, and the most destructive of those which have corrupted and
+infected public life in the country. These two&mdash;the Ancient Order of
+Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood&mdash;have in common the
+secrecy of their operations and the destructiveness of their aims. Their
+influence is marked not only by despotic and tyrannical government, but,
+what may be even more mischievous from the point of view of the
+community, by the deliberate persecution and suppression of all
+independent thought. Those who have watched the proceedings of the
+Dublin Corporation have felt the increasing strength of an influence
+proceeding from Belfast&mdash;an influence which is threatening to control
+the whole course of Nationalist politics in Dublin and the south. The
+forces of influence, combination, and intimidation which forced the
+Budget on a reluctant Ireland and routed the Roman Catholic Hierarchy
+over the Insurance Bill will not be disbanded under Home Rule. On the
+contrary, they are now being exercised so as to enable the Board of Erin
+to absorb the older organisations and to place in the hands of its
+leaders&mdash;or rather in those of a single man&mdash;the nomination of most, if
+not all, the representatives of the Nationalist party in Ireland. Mr.
+Joseph Devlin, who seeks to build this vast power, is a politician of
+American ideals and sympathies, and under the guidance of his
+organisation politics in Ireland would be shaped after the model of
+Tammany Hall rather than that of St. Stephen's. The party which appoints
+the municipal officers of Dublin in secret caucus, meeting for reasons
+which are never avowed and after debates which are never published, is
+only waiting to extend its operations. Even now it is notorious that the
+magistrates' bench in Ireland is regularly and systematically &quot;packed&quot;
+whenever licensing or agrarian cases are under discussion. The
+scandalous inaction of the present Irish Executive in reference to
+cattle driving and other forms of organised intimidation, the failure to
+enforce the law and the absolute immunity which the present Chief
+Secretary has persistently allowed to Nationalist Members of Parliament
+and paid organisers in incitement to outrage and intimidation, have
+paralysed the administration of justice and disheartened and disgusted
+the Judiciary, the Magistrates, and the Police. But under Home Rule the
+measure of protection which is still afforded by a strong and
+independent Bench would be removed. The Resident Magistrate would be as
+much under the heel of the caucus as the local justice; the Recorder's
+Bench and even the High Court would be constantly subjected to
+influences of a mischievous and incalculable kind. Whatever may be said
+against the present occupants of the Judicial Bench, their integrity and
+fairness have never been seriously questioned. Since the days when the
+Irish judges issued a writ of <i>habeas corpus</i> for the release of Wolfe
+Tone, while the Irish Rebellion was actually in progress, they have
+consistently held an even balance between the two parties. Their
+learning, their impartiality and their wit have rightly made Irish
+judges respected throughout the world. Their reputation and their
+services alike demand that they shall not be set aside wantonly or
+without consideration. But there is no doubt that Home Rule must mean
+the end of the Irish Bench as we have seen it in history. The men who
+have been proud to represent the British Crown would resent with
+indignation the idea that they should become the tools of the Hibernian
+caucus. They realise that the judges who oppose the lawless will of
+popular ministers will have to face obloquy and perhaps direct attack in
+the Irish Parliament. Even if the concurrence of both Houses in the
+Irish Parliament were made necessary for the removal of judges, it would
+not adequately safeguard their independence. The lower House would be
+composed of the men whom Nationalist constituencies already return to
+Parliament&mdash;excitable, fierce partisans, always ready to subordinate
+private convictions to the exigencies of party discipline. Nor would
+there be in Ireland under Home Rule any power or influence, either of
+property or station, sufficiently strong to furnish a constituency which
+would return a senate representing interests, opinions, or desires
+substantially distinct from those of the more powerful House elected
+upon the wider suffrage.</p>
+
+<p>The situation has been strongly complicated by the promulgation of the
+<i>Motu Proprio</i> decree, and the refusal of the authorities of the Roman
+Catholic Church to say definitely whether it applies to Ireland or not.
+We may assume that, if Archbishop Walsh could have given a categorical
+denial to the statement that the decree must operate in Ireland under
+Home Rule, he would have done so. The decree <i>Motu Proprio</i> forbids any
+Roman Catholic to bring his priest or bishop into court under pain of
+excommunication. The Roman Catholic Church has made many similar efforts
+during history to oust the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, and each
+attempt has had to be sharply and sternly resisted by the civil
+authorities of Roman Catholic countries. We need not discuss how much
+there may be said from a theological standpoint for the decree; we are
+only concerned to show that it raises pretensions which no State can
+possibly permit to be recognised. There have been too many attempts,
+successful and unsuccessful, to oust the jurisdiction of the King's
+Courts in Ireland, for this new attempt to be viewed with equanimity.
+The United Irish League has set up courts which try men for imaginary
+offences committed during the exercise of their ordinary civil rights,
+and pass illegal sentences and inflict illegal punishments. Under the
+reign of Liberal Governments the writ of these courts runs where the
+King's writ cannot run, and the law of the League has been allowed in
+great measure to supersede the law of the land. We have also an
+increasing force in Irish Nationalism which seeks to paralyse the
+government of Ireland by means of the general or sympathetic strike.
+This organisation seeks to establish courts in Ireland in opposition to
+the ordinary law courts, and to enforce their decrees by means of
+illegal intimidation and outrage. The people of Ireland have therefore
+been familiarised with the idea of courts competing in authority with
+those of the King's Government. Supposing under Home Rule the Judiciary
+proved less pliable than was expected or desired, the development of
+such competing authorities would be facilitated by a complaisant
+Cabinet in Dublin. But of all attempts to over-ride the authority of law
+this conspiracy to exempt ecclesiastical persons from its scope is the
+most insidious and dangerous. The existence of a class of men answerable
+for their actions, not to any domestic tribunal, but to a foreign
+ecclesiastical court, cannot now be tolerated by any self-respecting
+Government. Yet it is not easy to see how an Irish Cabinet could refuse
+to make, by executive if not by legislative action, what is now the law
+of the Church eventually the law of Ireland. Against this danger no
+safeguards can be devised. If the Administration refuses to put the law
+into effective operation against a certain class of offender or abuses
+the prerogative of mercy in his favour, there is no power in the
+constitution to coerce it. A few years ago we saw in Ireland the
+extraordinary spectacle of persons being prosecuted for cattle-driving
+and similar offences, while those who openly incited them to crime
+escaped with impunity. We saw judges from the Bench complaining in vain
+that the real offenders were not brought before them, and criticising
+openly the negligence and partiality of the Crown. If the Nationalists,
+whose influence then paralysed the aims of the Government, ever get
+supreme control of the Executive, we are certain to see these abuses
+revived on a still more shocking scale. The operation of the new decree
+places the Roman Catholic minister or law officer who is called upon to
+administer justice under the terms of his oath in a position of cruel
+embarrassment. As a law officer it might be his duty to order the
+prosecution of some clerical offender; as a Roman Catholic compliance
+with his duty to the State must entail the awful consequences of
+excommunication. It needs no elaboration to show that what may be a
+grave embarrassment under the rule of impartial British Ministers, must
+under a local Irish Government develop into a danger to the State. A
+case recently tried at the Waterford Assizes establishes a precedent
+which may prove most mischievous. Recent illustrations in Ireland of the
+working of the <i>Temere</i> decree have secured for it a sort of
+quasi-legality and provided a great argument to those devout Churchmen
+who, under Home Rule, would naturally desire to carry the process a
+further step.</p>
+
+<p>We have proceeded on the assumption that the Irish Parliament
+would&mdash;formally, at least&mdash;confine itself within the limits prescribed
+by the law of its creation. But it is necessary at least to contemplate
+the possibility that it would prove less complaisant. The safeguards and
+limitations inserted in any Act of the kind must of necessity be couched
+in general terms. The constitutional history of the United States and
+other countries is full of cases showing how difficult it is to define
+in practice where the border line between <i>intra</i> and <i>ultra vires</i>
+comes. It is the custom of all Governments, if there is any possible
+room for debate as to their competence to take any particular line of
+action, to give themselves the fullest benefit of the doubt, and the
+Irish Government is unlikely to prove any exception to the rule. When
+the Judicature and all the forces of Executive Government, except the
+direct command of troops, is in their hands, the laws passed by the
+Irish Parliament could be put in force in Ireland. The British
+Government could not intervene except by acts which would amount to open
+war between the two countries. We must remember that this enforcement of
+Irish laws by Irish police in spite of the decisions of a &quot;foreign&quot;
+Government at Westminster is openly advocated and contemplated by the
+large and active section of the Nationalists who have adopted as their
+watchword the motto &quot;Ourselves alone&quot; (<i>Sinn Fein</i>). Nothing could be
+more futile than the idea that the judgments of the Judicial Committee
+of the Privy Council would ever be accepted as final by the Nationalist
+majority, or that the royal assent could ever be withheld from an Act
+constitutionally passed by the Irish Legislature, without precipitating
+a crisis. The result of applying the veto of the House of Lords in
+England to the measures of Liberal Ministers was the agitation for
+removing the veto. The Nationalists took part in that agitation and have
+learned its lesson. Directly the British Government asserts its
+technical right of veto, a similar agitation to get rid of all
+obnoxious restraints would arise in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>If anything could increase the danger of friction, it would be the
+scheme favoured by Mr. Erskine Childers and other Liberals of submitting
+constitutional questions to the decision of the British Privy Council
+reinforced by Irish judges. Either these judges would concur in verdicts
+given against the pretensions of the Irish Parliament or they would not.
+If they did concur, there would be a fierce outcry against the right of
+judges appointed under the Union Government to nullify Acts of the Irish
+Legislature. But if they did not concur, the patriotic indignation with
+which a decision over the heads of the Irish representatives would be
+received is easy to foresee. It would be a matter of the greatest
+difficulty to enforce any such decision when the Irish Government,
+supported by an agitation in the country, refused to be bound by it. The
+situation thus created has no parallel in the case of the colonies. In
+Canada or Australia, where the legislative power is divided between
+federal and provincial Parliaments, a decision that the one legislature
+is incompetent affirms the competence of the other. Both legislatures
+have on the spot proper means of enforcing, by judicial and executive
+authority, decisions which are within their powers. The case of Ireland
+is fundamentally different. There can be no half-way house between
+keeping Ireland a partner in all our legislative and judicial
+activities, or giving to her with a separate Executive uncontrolled and
+unchecked rights of internal sovereignty.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII" />VII</h2>
+
+<h2>THE ULSTER QUESTION</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY, K.G.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the Home Rule controversy to-day Ulster occupies the place of public
+interest. Lord Rosebery upon one occasion committed himself to the
+opinion that, before Home Rule was conceded by the Imperial Parliament,
+England, as the predominant member of the partnership of the three
+kingdoms, would have to be convinced of its justice.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62" /><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> He did not
+foresee that the party of which he was then the leader would, under
+duress, abandon even the pretence of consulting the &quot;predominant
+partner,&quot; much less be guided by its wishes. But it has come to pass:
+and Ulster alone remains the stumbling-block to the successful issue of
+the plot against the Constitution. By Ulster we do not mean, as Mr.
+Sinclair points out, the geographical area, but the district which
+historical events have made so different in every respect from the rest
+of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>In the Act of Union I have a personal interest from family connection. I
+am convinced that Lord Castlereagh was absolutely right on both Imperial
+and Irish grounds. I feel that so far as Ireland is concerned the
+conditions and position of Ulster to-day afford ample confirmation: and
+of Ulster I may claim to have some knowledge. I represented County Down
+in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster before it was divided into
+constituencies, and in my later days I have maintained my close interest
+in Ulster. At the least, then, I may say that the temperament, the
+political and religious convictions, and the character of Ulster
+Unionists are not unknown to me.</p>
+
+<p>I often read of &quot;the Ulster bogey;&quot; and I believe Mr. John Redmond once
+devoted an article in a Sunday paper to elaborate statistical
+calculations from which he drew the deduction that there was no Ulster
+question. Other Home Rulers, by an expert use of figures, show that
+there is a Home Rule majority in Ulster itself. To those who know Ulster
+their efforts fail to carry the slightest conviction. Figures, however
+skilfully chosen, articles in the press, however cleverly written,
+cannot destroy the facts of Ulster Unionist opposition to Home Rule, the
+intensity and seriousness of which is, I believe, only now beginning to
+be appreciated by His Majesty's Ministers.</p>
+
+<p>I hear of &quot;Ulster bigots,&quot; &quot;Ulster deadheads,&quot; and assertions made that
+the opposition only proceeds from a few aristocratic Tory landlords.
+Hard words do us no harm; but abusive epithets will not lessen Ulster
+opposition. Indeed the more we are reviled by our opponents, the more we
+believe they recognize the futility of persuading us to accept Home
+Rule.</p>
+
+<p>We read of the intense anxiety of Irish Nationalists on English
+platforms lest even the suspicion of intolerance should cloud their
+administration and legislation under Home Rule, with interest but
+without respect. We do not believe in these sudden repentances, and we
+have heard these professions time and again when the exigencies of the
+moment demanded them.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of change has even affected the Government. At first Ulster
+was to be ignored; now it is to be conciliated. There is no safeguard
+that they will not insert in the Bill at our request. The First Lord of
+the Admiralty has a list already prepared; and they will welcome
+additions. Mr. Redmond accepts them all; and the fact that he does it
+readily raises our suspicions of their worth. Has not Mr. John Dillon
+said that artificial guarantees in an Act of Parliament were no real
+protection,<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63" /><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> and for once it is possible to agree with him.</p>
+
+<p>Why should &quot;bigots&quot; be conciliated; or &quot;deadheads&quot; receive so much
+consideration? Why should the opposition of aristocratic Tory landlords
+be thought worthy of respect? Whenever have they been treated in this
+manner before by the Government in their schemes of legislation?</p>
+
+<p>That our views receive so much attention is indeed the proof of the
+falsity of these hard names. Opposition to Home Rule in Ulster proceeds
+not from &quot;bigots&quot; or &quot;deadheads,&quot; not from &quot;Tories,&quot; or &quot;aristocrats,&quot;
+or &quot;landlords&quot; exclusively. It is neither party question, nor class
+question. It has destroyed all differences between parties and classes.
+I doubt if there are any more democratic organizations than those of the
+Ulster Unionist Council, the Unionist Clubs, and the Orangemen. Nor are
+the religious bodies less popularly organized&mdash;the Church of Ireland,
+the Presbyterians, and other Protestant denominations have no class
+restrictions in their government. And as for party distinctions, those
+of us who took part in the old political contests before Home Rule
+became an urgent danger are now side by side in this greater fight for
+our very existence.</p>
+
+<p>What stronger evidence that opposition to Home Rule in Ulster is no
+party question is to be found than in the disappearance of the Liberal
+Party. I can remember when it was powerful; but it has vanished before
+the threat of Home Rule. All attempts to resuscitate the corpse have
+failed, and a Liberal Party, independent of the Nationalists,
+representing Ulster constituencies in the House of Commons, in spite of
+repeated efforts, does not exist.</p>
+
+<p>Let me impress upon the people of Great Britain that Ulster opposition
+to Home Rule is no party matter. It is an uprising of a people against
+tyranny and coercion; against condemnation to servitude; against
+deprivation of the right of citizens to an effective voice in the
+government of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Birrell said recently at Bristol that Ulster would be right to fight
+if it were oppressed in its religion or despoiled of its property. We
+welcome his conversion. When he pleads for Ulster to wait until it is
+plain that oppression has come, we recall to mind the phrase so often on
+Liberal lips, &quot;Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,&quot; and we say
+that we should be false to ourselves and to our trust if we were
+unprepared for what the future will bring under Home Rule.</p>
+
+<p>For our opposition to Home Rule we are condemned by the Irish
+Nationalists as the enemies of our country. We believe ourselves to be
+its best friends. We believe Home Rule to be the greatest obstacle to
+Irish progress and prosperity. Irish Nationalists have made Home Rule
+their only idol and denounce every one who will not worship at its
+shrine. Every reform, unless they thought that it tended to advance Home
+Rule or magnify their powers, has received their hostility, sometimes
+open and avowed, at other times secret and working through devious ways.</p>
+
+<p>No one who reads the history of Ulster can doubt that its inhabitants
+have not as much love of Ireland and as much wish to see her prosperous
+as the Nationalists. They indeed attribute all Irish shortcomings to the
+Union. Ulstermen, bearing in mind their own progress since the Union,
+not unnaturally decline to accept so absurd an argument. The Union has
+been no obstacle to their development: why should it have been the
+barrier to the rest of Ireland? Ulstermen believe that the Union with
+Great Britain has assisted the development of their commerce and
+industry. They are proud of the progress of Belfast and of her position
+in the industrial and shipping world. Without great natural advantages
+it has been built up by energy, application, clearheadedness and hard
+work. The opposition to Home Rule is the revolt of a business and
+industrial community against the domination of men who have shown no
+aptitude for either. The United Irish League, the official organization
+of the Home Rule Party, is, as a Treasurer once confessed, remarkably
+lacking in the support of business men, merchants, manufacturers,
+leaders of industry, bankers, and men who compose a successful and
+progressive community.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64" /><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> In the management of their party funds, their
+impending bankruptcy but a few years ago, the mad scheme of New
+Tipperary, and the fiasco of the Parnell Migration Company there is the
+same monotonous story of failure. Can surprise be felt that Ulstermen
+refuse to place the control of national affairs in the hands of those
+who have shown little capacity in the direction of their own personal
+concerns. What responsible statesman would suggest that the City of
+London, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, or any advancing
+industrial and commercial centre in Great Britain should be ruled and
+governed and taxed, without the hope of effective intervention, by a
+party led by Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Lansbury? Yet Home Rule means much
+like that for Ulstermen, and the impossibility of the scheme is
+emphasized in the example of Ireland by religious differences which have
+their roots in Irish history.</p>
+
+<p>Ulster's opposition to Home Rule is no unreasoning hate. It proceeds not
+from the few; it is not the outcome of political prejudice; it is the
+hostility of a progressive and advancing people who have made their
+portion of their country prosperous and decline to hand it over to the
+control of representatives from the most backward and unprogressive
+counties.</p>
+
+<p>They are actuated by love of their country. They yield to no one in
+their patriotism and their desire for Ireland's welfare. They have
+always given their support to movements which have had for their objects
+the improvement of Irish conditions and the increase of Irish
+well-being. Their sympathies are with Irish social reform&mdash;and the
+sympathies of many of them with social reform of an advanced character.
+Contrast their attitude with that of the Irish Nationalist Party in
+respect of reforms which have proceeded from the Imperial Parliament and
+movements within Ireland herself.</p>
+
+<p>Take the Irish Land Act of 1903, accepted by both political parties in
+Great Britain as affording the real solution of the Irish agrarian
+problem. What has been the Irish Nationalist attitude? Praise for it on
+platforms in the United States when it was essential to reach the
+pockets of subscribers by recounting a record of results gained from
+the expenditure of American donations; but in Ireland itself opposition
+to its effective working. Read Nationalist speeches and there is always
+running through them the fear that the Act by solving the land question
+would remove the real motive power which made Home Rule a living issue.
+Hence the interference to prevent landlords and tenants coming to an
+agreement over sales without outside assistance. So to-day Irish
+Nationalists are still endeavouring to keep alive the old bad feeling
+between landlord and tenant which they so successfully created in the
+seventies and eighties. What better proof of this deliberate attempt to
+prevent the success of a great reform is to be found than the frank
+utterance of Mr. John Dillon at Swinford.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65" /><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> &quot;It has been said,&quot; he
+declared, &quot;that we have obstructed the smooth working of the Act. I wish
+to heaven we had the power to obstruct the smooth working of the Act
+more than we did. It has worked too smoothly&mdash;far too smoothly to my
+mind.... Some men have complained with the past year that the Land Act
+was not working fast enough. For my part I look upon it as working a
+great deal too fast, and at a pace which has been ruinous to the
+people.&quot; What have the Ulster people done which can compare with this
+opposition to a measure that has admittedly effected a beneficial
+revolution in Irish agrarian life? Yet Mr. John Dillon is acclaimed as a
+true Irish patriot and we are denounced as the enemies of our country!</p>
+
+<p>What greater blow to the continuance of land purchase than the Birrell
+Act of 1909. Granted that some revision of the law was necessary in
+respect of finance; yet, the Act of 1909 went far beyond finance. Any
+one with a knowledge of land purchase law knows that the measure of 1909
+contained innumerable provisions of a technical character calculated to
+make the free sale between landlord and tenant difficult, and in respect
+of a large portion of Ireland impossible. No wonder it was welcomed by
+the Irish Nationalist Party, since it did so much to restore them to
+their self-elected position of counsellors and arbiters in the affairs
+of the tenants. And Ulster Unionists for declining to accede to this
+re-establishment of the old supremacy of the agitators are regarded as
+the opponents of liberty and freedom!</p>
+
+<p>The same sad story of Nationalist opposition to Irish progress meets the
+student of the co-operative movement at every period of its existence.
+No one who knows Sir Horace Plunkett will believe for a moment that he
+was actuated by other than the sole desire to do something for Ireland's
+benefit. From the leaders of the Nationalist Party he has had no
+assistance, although they claim to be the only workers for Irish
+progress, and the co-operative movement was intended to complete the
+agrarian revolution. In more recent times the hostility of the
+Nationalist leaders has become bolder as they found a ready instrument
+in Mr. T. W. Russell in his official capacity as Vice-President of the
+Department of Agriculture.</p>
+
+<p>The co-operative movement is flourishing in spite of the opposition of
+the Nationalist leaders. From Ulster it has received considerable
+support for the reason that Ulstermen believed it to be for the benefit
+of Irish agriculture. Their support, unlike Nationalist hostility, has
+not arisen from political motives. They do not believe that Sir Horace
+Plunkett has given a moment's thought to politics in their relation to
+the co-operative movement, and they have appreciated his movement either
+as co-operators or as supporters and members of the Irish Agricultural
+Organization Society. Contrast the Ulster welcome with the Nationalist
+opposition, and ask why we should be denounced as bad Irishmen and the
+Nationalists receive praise as true lovers of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>The co-operative movement has brought into existence another movement
+which has for its object the prosperity of Irish industries. The
+Industrial Development movement which seeks to bring before the people
+of Ireland and the Irish public bodies the excellence of Irish
+manufactures is as yet in its infancy. It has no political character,
+yet I should hesitate to say that official Irish Nationalism gives it
+hearty support. In Belfast, however, it has made great strides. It gains
+its support in Ulster not for any political reason, but simply and
+solely because the North of Ireland thinks that the industrial movement
+is to Ireland's advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Where in these instances is our &quot;bigotry&quot; or our hostility to Irish
+progress? Does not the balance of credit when the comparison is made
+with the Nationalists come on the side of Ulster? The Nationalists show
+their unreasoning opposition by proclaiming that they would rather see
+Ireland in rags and poverty than abate their demand for Home Rule.
+Ulster Unionists desire to see Ireland prosperous and contented. For
+that reason they welcome all reforms and movements from whatever quarter
+which have this excellent end in view. They intend to offer the
+strongest and most unrelenting opposition to Home Rule not as political
+partisans for party gain, but as Irishmen determined to resist so
+reactionary a measure which they firmly believe will prove of the
+greatest evil to their unhappy country.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62" /><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> House of Lords, March 12, 1894.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63" /><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Salford, November 21, 1911.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64" /><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Mr. A.J. Kettle, <i>Freeman's Journal,</i> July 18, 1907.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65" /><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> September 10, 1906.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII" />VIII</h2>
+
+<h2>THE POSITION OF ULSTER</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON. THOS. SINCLAIR</h3>
+
+
+<p>By Ulster, I mean the six counties, Antrim, Down, Londonderry, Armagh,
+Tyrone, Fermanagh, with the important adjacent Unionist sections of
+Monaghan, Cavan, and Donegal, in all of which taken together the
+Unionist population is in an unmistakable majority, and in which the
+commercial and manufacturing prosperity of the province is maintained by
+Unionist energy, enterprise, and industry.</p>
+
+<p>The relation of Ulster to a separate Irish Parliament, with an Executive
+responsible to it, is a question which demands the most serious
+consideration on the part of English and Scotch electors. The Ulster
+Scot is not in Ireland to-day upon the conditions of an ordinary
+immigrant. His forefathers were &quot;planted&quot; in Ulster in the troublous
+times of the seventeenth century. Although at the end of the reign of
+Queen Elizabeth peace had been secured all over Ireland, war was renewed
+in the Northern province early in the seventeenth century. The uprising
+was speedily crushed, and the lands of several of the rebellious nobles
+forfeited to the Crown. In order to prevent a repetition of lawlessness,
+the forfeited estates were entrusted to undertakers, on whom the
+obligation rested of peopling them with settlers from Great Britain.
+This scheme was devised in the hope that through the industry,
+character, and loyalty of the new population, the Northern province at
+all events should enjoy peace and prosperity, and become an attached
+portion of the King's dominions; and that eventually its influence would
+be usefully felt throughout the rest of Ireland. This policy was carried
+out under the rule of an English King, himself a Scot&mdash;James VI. of
+Scotland and I. of England. Large numbers of settlers were brought over
+to Ulster, many of them English, but the majority Scotch. We Ulster
+Unionists who inhabit the province to-day, or at least the greater
+number of us, are descendants of these settlers. The overwhelming
+majority are passionately loyal to the British Throne and to the
+maintenance of the integrity of the United Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>These things being so, it seems to Ulster Unionists that a grave
+responsibility rests on their English and Scottish fellow-citizens, with
+regard to our position, should any constitutional changes be imposed
+upon our country. We are in Ireland as their trustees, having had
+committed to us, through their and our forefathers, the development of
+the material resources of Ulster, the preservation of its loyalty, and
+the discharge of its share of Imperial obligations.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be denied, on an examination of the history of the last three
+centuries, and especially of that of the one hundred and ten years since
+the establishment of the Legislative Union, that, through good report
+and ill report, and allowing for all our shortcomings, we have not
+unsuccessfully fulfilled our trust. Our forefathers found a province,
+the least favoured by nature of the four of which Ireland consists, and
+it is to-day the stronghold of Irish industry and commerce. Its capital,
+Belfast, stands abreast of the leading manufacturing centres in Great
+Britain; it contains the foremost establishments in Europe, in respect
+of such undertakings as linen manufacturing, ship-building, rope-making,
+etc. It is the fourth port in the United Kingdom in respect of revenue
+from Customs, its contributions thereto being £2,207,000 in 1910, as
+compared with £1,065,000 from the rest of Ireland. Ulster's loyalty to
+the British King and Constitution is unsurpassed anywhere in His
+Majesty's dominions.</p>
+
+<p>The North of Ireland has contributed to Imperial service some of its
+greatest ornaments. England owes to Ulster Governors-General like Lord
+Dufferin and Lord Lawrence; soldiers like John Nicholson and Sir George
+White; administrators like Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Robert Montgomery;
+great judges like Lord Cairns and Lord Macnaghten. At the recent Delhi
+Durbar the King decorated three Ulster men, one of them being Sir John
+Jordan, British Ambassador at Pekin. Ulster produced Sir Robert Hart,
+the incomparable Chinese administrator, who might also have been our
+Ambassador to China had he accepted the position.</p>
+
+<p>The Ulster plantation is the only one which has fulfilled the purpose
+for which Irish plantations were made. The famous colonisation on both
+sides of the Shannon by Cromwell entirely failed of its design, the
+great proportion of its families having, through inter-marriage, become
+absorbed in the surrounding population.</p>
+
+<p>Ulster Unionists, therefore, having conspicuously succeeded in
+maintaining the trust committed to their forefathers, and constituting
+as they do a community intensely loyal to the British connection,
+believe that they present a case for the unimpaired maintenance of that
+connection which is impregnable on the grounds of racial sentiment,
+inherent justice, social well-being, and the continued security of the
+United Kingdom and of the Empire. They cannot believe that their British
+fellow-citizens will, at this crisis, turn a deaf ear to this claim.
+Three or four decades after the Ulster plantation, when, in the midst of
+the horrors of 1641, the Scotch colony in Ulster was threatened with
+extermination, it appealed for help to its motherland. It did not appeal
+in vain. A collection for its benefit was made in the Scottish churches,
+supplies of food and several regiments of Scottish soldiers were sent to
+its aid, and its position was saved. We are confident that the
+descendants of these generous helpers will be no less true to their
+Ulster kith and kin to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The history and present condition of Ulster throw an important light on
+what is currently described as the national demand of Ireland for Home
+Rule. There is no national Irish demand for Home Rule, because there
+never has been and there is no homogeneous Irish nation. On the
+contrary, as Mr. Chamberlain long ago pointed out, Ireland to-day
+consists of two nations. These two nations are so utterly distinct in
+their racial characteristics, in their practical ideals, in their
+religious sanctions, and in their sense of civic and national
+responsibility that they cannot live harmoniously side by side unless
+under the even-handed control of a just central authority, in which at
+the same time they have full co-partnership. Ireland, accordingly,
+cannot make a claim for self-government on the ground that she is a
+political unit. She consists of two units, which owe their distinctive
+existence, not to geographical boundaries, but to inherent and
+ineradicable endowments of character and aims. If, then, it is claimed
+that the unit of Nationalist Ireland is to be entitled to choose its
+particular relation to the British Constitution, the same choice
+undoubtedly belongs to the Unionist unit.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Birrell, for example, would tell us that the Nationalist unit in
+Ireland is three times as large as the Unionist unit, and that therefore
+the smaller entity should submit, because, as he has cynically observed,
+&quot;minorities must suffer, for that is the badge of their tribe.&quot; But a
+minority in the United Kingdom is not to be measured by mere numbers;
+its place in the Constitution is to be estimated by its contribution to
+public well-being, by its relation to the industries and occupations of
+its members, by its association with the upbuilding of national
+character, by its fidelity to law and order, and by its sympathy with
+the world mission of the British Empire in the interests of civil and
+religious freedom. Tried by all these tests, Ulster is entitled to
+retain her full share in every privilege of the whole realm. Tried by
+the same tests the claim of 3,000,000 Irish Nationalists to break up the
+constitution of the United Kingdom, of whose population they constitute
+perhaps one-fifteenth, is surely unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p>Other writers in this volume have discussed Home Rule as it affects
+various vital interests in Ireland as a whole. It remains for me briefly
+to point out its special relation to the Northern province&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>Home Rule, in the judgment of Ulster, would degrade the status of
+Ulster citizenship by impairing its relationship to Imperial
+Parliament.</i> This would be effected both by lessening or extinguishing
+the representation of Ulster in that Parliament, and by removing the
+control of Ulster rights and liberties from Imperial Parliament and
+entrusting it to a hostile Parliament in Dublin. Ulstermen would thus
+stand on a dangerously lower plane of civil privilege than their
+fellow-citizens in Great Britain. To place them in this undeserved
+inferiority, they hold to be unjust and cruel.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>Home Rule would gravely imperil our civil and religious liberties.</i>
+Ireland is pre-eminently a clerically controlled country, the number of
+Roman Catholic priests being per head greater than that of any country
+in Europe. Her staff of members of religious orders, male and female, is
+also enormous, their numbers having increased during the last fifty
+years 150 per cent., while the population has decreased 30 per cent. It
+is undeniable, therefore, that in a Dublin Parliament, the overwhelming
+majority of whose members would be adherents of the Roman Catholic
+faith, the Roman ecclesiastical authority, which claims the right to
+decide as to what questions come within the region of faith and morals
+would be supreme. Great stress has lately been laid in Nationalist
+speeches from British platforms on the tolerant spirit towards
+Protestants which animates Irish Roman Catholics. We gladly acknowledge
+that in most parts of Ireland Protestants and Roman Catholics, as
+regards the ordinary affairs of life, live side by side on friendly
+neighbourly terms. Indeed, that spirit, as a consequence of the growing
+prosperity of Ireland, had been steadily increasing, till the recent
+revival of the Home Rule proposal, with its attendant fears of
+hierarchical ascendency, as illustrated by the promulgation of the <i>Ne
+Temere</i> decree, suddenly interrupted it. But the fundamental fact of the
+case is, that in the last resort, it is not with their Roman Catholic
+neighbours, or even with their hierarchy, that Irish Protestants have to
+reckon; it is rather with the Vatican, the inexorable power behind them
+all, whose decrees necessarily over-ride all the good-will which
+neighbourly feeling might inspire in the Roman Catholic mind. The <i>Ne
+Temere</i> decree affords a significant premonition of the spirit which
+would direct Home Rule legislation. It is noteworthy that no Nationalist
+member has protested against the cruelties of that decree as shown in
+the M'Cann case, and Mr. Devlin, M.P., even defended what was done from
+his place in Parliament. This action is all the more significant in view
+of the fact that during the Committee stage of the 1893 Home Rule Bill
+Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Redmond, and his Irish Nationalist colleagues voted
+against, and defeated, an Ulster amendment which proposed to exempt
+marriage and other religious ceremonies from the legislative powers of
+the Dublin Parliament. It would be intolerable that such litigation as
+in the Hubert case at present in progress in Montreal, arising out of
+the Marriage Law of the Province of Quebec, should be made possible in
+Ireland. No paper safeguards in a Home Rule Bill could prevent it.</p>
+
+<p>Again, a most serious peril has just been disclosed in the publication
+of the <i>Motu Proprio</i> Papal Decree, under which the bringing by a Roman
+Catholic layman of a clergyman of his Church into any civil or criminal
+procedure in a court of law, whether as defendant or witness, without
+the sanction previously ob tamed of his bishop, involves to that layman
+the extreme penalty of excommunication. The same penalty appears to be
+incurred <i>ipso facto</i> by any Roman Catholic Member of Parliament who
+takes part in passing, and by every executive officer of the Government
+who takes part in promulgating, a law or decree which is held to invade
+the liberty or rights of the Church of Rome. This is a matter of supreme
+importance in our civil life. It was one of the questions which, in
+Reformation times, led to the breach between Henry VIII. and the Pope.
+In a Dublin Parliament no power could resist the provisions of this
+decree from becoming law. As a matter of fact, the liberty of speech and
+voting attaching to every member of the Roman Catholic majority in a
+Dublin Parliament would be under the absolute control of their
+hierarchy. Each Roman Catholic member would be bound to act under the
+dread of excommunication if he voted for or condoned any legislation
+contrary to the asserted rights of his Church, or which conflicted with
+its claims. Not only would the legislative independence of a Dublin
+Parliament be thus destroyed, but the administration of justice would be
+affected on every Bench in the country, from the Supreme Court of Appeal
+down to ordinary petty sessions. A grievous wrong would be inflicted on
+Roman Catholic judges and law officers, some of whom are unsurpassed for
+integrity and legal ability. It is contrary to every principle of
+justice to place these honourable men in a position in which they would
+have to choose between their oath to their King and their
+duty&mdash;arbitrarily imposed upon them&mdash;to their Church. Jurymen and
+witnesses would be equally brought under the sinister influences of the
+decree, and confidence in just administration of the law, which is at
+the root of civil well-being, would be fatally destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>Home Rule would involve the entire denominationalising, in the
+interests of the Roman Catholic Church, of Irish education in all its
+branches.</i> To secure this result has long been the great educational aim
+of the Irish hierarchy. How they have succeeded as regards higher
+education Mr. Birrell's Irish Universities Act (1908) gives abundant
+evidence. The National University of Ireland, created by that Act, which
+on paper was represented to Nonconformists in England as having a
+constitution free from religious tests, is now, according to the recent
+boast of Cardinal Logue, thoroughly Roman Catholic, in spite of all
+paper safeguards to the contrary. Persistent attempts have been made to
+sectarianise the Irish primary National School system, founded seventy
+years ago, and which now receives an annual State endowment of
+£1,621,921, with the object of safeguarding the faith of the children of
+minorities, on the principle of united secular and separate religious
+instruction. That system worked so satisfactorily through many decades
+that Lord O'Hagan, the eminent first Roman Catholic Lord Chancellor of
+Ireland, declared that under it, up till his time, no case whatever of
+proselytism to any Church had occurred. But gradually a sectarian system
+of education under the Roman Catholic Church was developed through the
+teaching order of Christian Brothers, whose schools are now to be found
+all over Ireland, and which in many places now supplant the
+non-sectarian schools of the National Board. The strongest efforts were
+made to bring these sectarian schools into the system of the National
+Board, and thus entitle them to a share of the State annual endowment.
+There is no greater peril to the religious faith of Protestant
+minorities in the border counties of Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland
+than the sectarianising of primary schools by Roman Catholics. A few
+years ago a Protestant member of a public service was transferred upon
+promotion from Belfast to a Roman Catholic district, in which his boys
+had no available school but that of the Christian Brothers, and his
+girls none but that of the local convent. I shall never forget the
+expression of that man's face or the pathos in his voice while he
+pressed me to help him to obtain a transfer to a Protestant district, as
+otherwise he feared his children would be lost to the faith of their
+fathers. Given a Parliament in Dublin, the management of education would
+be so conducted as gradually to extinguish Protestant minorities in the
+border counties of Ulster and in the other provinces of Ireland. It is
+here that a chief danger to Protestantism lies.</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>Home Rule will seriously injure Ulster's material
+prosperity&mdash;industrial, commercial, agricultural.</i> The root of the evil
+will lie in the want of credit of an Irish Exchequer in the money
+markets of the world. The best financial authorities agree that if
+Ireland should be left to her own resources, there would be, on the
+present basis of taxation, and after providing for a fair Irish
+contribution towards Imperial defence, an annual deficit in the Irish
+Exchequer of £3,000,000 to £4,000,000. An Irish Government in such
+circumstances&mdash;consols themselves being now some £23 under par&mdash;could
+not borrow money at any reasonable rate of interest. Ever; if the
+British taxpayer were compelled to provide for the deficiency, either
+by an annual grant or by payment of a divorce penalty of £15,000,000 to
+£20,000,000, or by both, a prudent investor would fear that the annual
+dole might at any moment be withdrawn should, for instance, John Bull
+become irritated by the action of a Dublin Parliament, say, in declaring
+enlisting in His Majesty's forces a criminal act; or that the capital
+gift would soon be frittered away in the interests of agitators and
+their friends. He would simply refuse to invest in Irish stock.</p>
+
+<p>Now, a fundamental condition of commercial and industrial well-being is
+financial confidence. If the Public Exchequer of a country lacks
+confidence, it is a truism to say that consequently commercial
+confidence must be gravely impaired. The magnates of Lombard Street and
+Wall Street would view their Irish clients with unpleasant reserve.
+Irish bankers would in turn restrict advances to their customers, and
+these again would limit the credit of those with whom they transacted
+business. Curtailment of industrial enterprise, the shutting down of
+many manufacturing concerns, with consequent depreciation of buildings
+and plant, as well as increase of unemployment, would follow. Already,
+since the present Home Rule crisis has become acute, the handwriting on
+the wall has been made evident in the depreciation of leading Irish
+stocks to the extent of 15 to 20 per cent. Every one in trade would
+suffer from the diminution of purchasing power, capital would shrink,
+income and wages decrease, and the incentives to emigration, which is
+already depriving our population of some of its most hopeful elements,
+would be dangerously increased.</p>
+
+<p>All these tendencies would be stimulated by the social disorganisation
+which would certainly follow Home Rule. Unionist Ulster, from the Ulster
+Convention of 1892, to the Craigavon demonstration of 1911, has been
+consistent in her loyal determination that no Parliament but the
+Imperial Parliament shall control her destinies. It is an ignorant
+mistake to say that she is weakening in this resolve. The steadily
+increasing Unionist majorities in contested Ulster seats at both
+elections in 1910 conclusively prove that she is more staunch than ever
+in her Unionist faith. She would certainly resist the decrees of a
+Dublin Parliament and refuse to pay its taxes. The result of its passive
+resistance would be civil disorder, which would certainly gravely injure
+her industrial welfare, especially that of her artisan and working
+population. But Ulstermen ask, What is industrial prosperity without
+freedom? And if, in defence of freedom, they should suffer disaster, the
+responsibility would lie with their fellow-citizens in Great Britain who
+would impose a hostile yoke upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Under Home Rule, agricultural Ulster would also suffer. Very many Ulster
+farmers are now occupying owners. But a large number have not yet
+succeeded in purchasing, and these eagerly desire the privilege of doing
+so. Mr. Birrell's 1909 Act has already practically strangled further
+land purchase in Ireland, and if he intends that its completion should
+be the work of a Home Rule Parliament, the Ulster tenants ask where
+would the £75,000,000 to £100,000,000 necessary to accomplish the
+process, come from?<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66" /><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> They know that the procuring of such a sum from
+an Irish Government would be hopeless, for they are aware that
+Englishmen have better judgment than to allow their Parliament to lend
+further money to a country over which they had relinquished direct
+Parliamentary authority, and whose Exchequer would be bankrupt. Home
+Rule would thus permanently relegate the agricultural population, not
+only of Ulster, but of Ireland generally, into two classes living side
+by side with each other&mdash;one consisting of occupying owners, the other
+of rent-payers without hope of ownership. The evil results in
+discontent, friction, deterioration of agricultural methods and lessened
+production would inflict serious injury on Ulster prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>Again, Home Rule would involve Ulster industry and commerce in excessive
+taxation. No one who is aware of the passionate desire amongst Irish
+agitators and their friends for lucrative jobs, of the efforts that
+would be made to subsidise industries with Government funds, of the
+determination of the clergy to have their monastic, Christian Brothers',
+monastic and convent schools largely supported by the State, and of the
+impossibility, in view of the social disorder all over Ireland that
+would follow Home Rule, of reducing further the police force or the
+Judiciary, entertains any doubt that retrenchment in Irish expenditure
+would be impossible. On the contrary, Irish taxation would increase, and
+as recent legislation has placed upon Irish farmers imposts greater than
+they think they can bear, the additional revenue would be sought for
+mainly from the industrial North. But with business disorganised,
+incomes decreased and unemployment increased, the yield of taxation
+would be much reduced, and the rate must therefore be made higher. All
+this would fortify Ulster in her determined refusal to pay Home Rule
+taxation, and the bankruptcy of the Dublin Exchequer would be complete.</p>
+
+<p>It is from having regard to considerations such as I have outlined, and
+of the validity of which she is profoundly convinced, that Ulster has
+registered the historic Convention declaration, &quot;We will not have Home
+Rule.&quot; Her position is plain and intelligible. She demands no separation
+from her Nationalist countrymen. On the contrary, she wishes, under the
+protection of the Legislative Union, to live side by side with them in
+peaceful industry and neighbourly fellowship, with the desire that they
+and we may in common partake of the benefits conferred on Ireland by
+generous Imperial legislation and repay it by sympathetic and energetic
+contribution to the service of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>But if Home Rule legislation should be passed contrary to Ulster's
+earnest and patriotic pleading, then she claims&mdash;not a separate
+Parliament for herself, but that she may remain as she is in the
+unimpaired enjoyment of her position as an integral portion of the
+United Kingdom and with unaltered representation in Imperial Parliament.
+She wishes to continue as an Irish Lancashire, or an Irish Lanarkshire.
+In this relationship to Great Britain she is confident she will best
+preserve, not only her own interests, but also those of her fellow
+loyalists, Roman Catholic as well as Protestants, whose lot is cast in
+the other provinces and whose welfare will always be her responsible and
+earnest concern.</p>
+
+<p>But if this demand&mdash;based on loyalty to the King and Constitution, and
+founded on the elementary right of British citizens to the unimpaired
+protection of Imperial Parliament&mdash;be refused, then the only alternative
+is the Ulster Provincial Government, which will be organised to come
+into operation on the day that a Home Rule Bill should receive the Royal
+Assent; and under that Provisional Government we shall continue to
+support our King, and to render the same services' to the United Kingdom
+and to the Empire as have characterised the history of Ulster during the
+past three hundred years.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66" /><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> See Mr. Wyndham's article, p. 249.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX" />IX</h2>
+
+<h2>THE SOUTHERN MINORITIES</h2>
+
+<h3>BY RICHARD BAGWELL, M.A.</h3>
+
+
+<p>At the present moment no county or borough in the three southern
+provinces of Ireland returns a Unionist member. There are substantial
+minorities in many places, but very few in which there would be any
+chance of a successful contest. The University of Dublin sends two
+conspicuous Unionists to Parliament, who represent not only a
+constituency of graduates, but the vast majority of educated and
+thinking people. The bearing of the question on religious interests will
+be dealt with by others, but it may be said here that the Protestant
+community is Unionist. The exceptions are few, and are much more than
+counter-balanced by the Roman Catholic opponents of Home Rule, who for
+obvious reasons are less outspoken, but are quite as anxious to avert
+the threatened revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The great bone of contention has always been the land, the cause of
+various wars and of ceaseless civil disputes. Parnell saw and said that
+purely political Nationalism was weak by itself, and he took up the land
+question to get leverage. For many years it has been evident that the
+only feasible solution was to convert occupiers into owners, and a very
+long step was made by the Purchase Act of 1903. Progress has now been
+arrested, for the Act of 1909 does not work. The vendors or expropriated
+owners, whichever is the more correct term, are expected to take a lower
+price and to be paid in depreciated paper. The minorities to be most
+immediately affected by legislation consist of landlords who are unable,
+though willing, to sell, and of tenants who are unable but very anxious
+to buy. The present deadlock is disastrous, for many tenants think they
+ought not to pay more than their neighbours, and demand reductions of
+rent without considering that the owner has received no part of his
+capital and dares not destroy the basis on which he hopes to be
+ultimately paid. It has been an essential part of the purchase policy
+that the instalment due by the occupier to recoup the State advance
+should be less than the rent. This has been made possible by the magic
+of British credit, and if that is withheld the confusion in Ireland will
+be worse than ever. The Exchequer has lost little or nothing, and even
+at much greater cost it would be the cheapest money that England ever
+spent. More than half the tenanted land has now passed to the occupiers,
+and it would be the most cruel injustice to leave the remaining
+landlords without power either to sell their property or to collect
+rents judicially fixed and refixed. They would fare badly with an Irish
+legislature and an Irish executive. They are, for the most part, poor
+but loyal men, and have exercised a great civilising influence. Are they
+to be deserted and ruined to keep an English party in place by the votes
+of men who have never pretended to be anything but England's enemies?</p>
+
+<p>Irish Unionists laugh at the idea of a local Parliament being kept
+subordinate. It will have the power of making laws for everything Irish,
+that is, for everything that immediately concerns those that live in
+Ireland. There will be ceaseless efforts to enlarge its sphere of
+action, and if Irish members continue to sit at Westminster they will be
+as troublesome as ever there. If there are to be no Irish members
+Ireland will be a separate nation. Even candid Home Rulers confess that
+statutory safeguards would be of none effect. Hedged in by British
+bayonets the Lord Lieutenant may exercise his veto, but upon whose
+advice will he do it? If on that of an Irish Ministry the minority will
+have no protection at all, and does any one suppose it possible to go
+back to the practice of the seventeenth century, when all Irish Bills
+were settled in the English Privy Council, and could not be altered in a
+Dublin Parliament? Orators declaim about our lost legislature, but they
+take good care not to say what it was. In the penultimate decade of the
+eighteenth century the trammels were taken off, and a Union was soon
+found necessary. During the short interval of Independence there were
+two French invasions and a bloody rebellion. Protestant ascendency,
+though used as a catchword, is a thing long past. Roman Catholic
+ascendency would be a very real thing under Home Rule. The supremacy of
+the Imperial Parliament alone makes both the one and the other
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>If a legislature is established it must be given the means of enforcing
+its laws. We do not know what the present Government propose to do with
+the Irish police, but whatever the law says in practice, they will be
+under the local executive. Unpopular people will not be protected, and
+many of them will be driven out of the country. Parliamentary Home
+Rulers draw rosy pictures of the future Arcadia; but they will not be
+able to fulfil their own prophecies. Apart from the agrarian question,
+there is the party of revolutionists in Ireland whose headquarters are
+in America. They have furnished the means for agitation, and will look
+for their reward. The Fenian party has less power in the United States
+than it used to have, but there will be congenial work to do in Ireland.
+A violent faction can be kept in order where there is a strong
+government, but in a Home Rule Ireland it would not be strong for any
+such purpose. Appeals to cupidity and envy would find hearers, and there
+could be no effective resistance. The French Jacobins were a minority
+but they swept all before them. In the end better counsels might
+prevail, but the mischief done would be great, and much of it
+irreparable.</p>
+
+<p>The justice dealt out by the superior courts in Ireland is as good as it
+is anywhere. A judge in the last resort has the whole force of the State
+behind him, and no one dreams of resistance. With an Irish Parliament
+and an Irish Executive this would hardly be the case. The judges would
+still be lawyers, but their power would be greatly impaired. In Ireland
+popular feeling is always against creditors, and it would be very hard
+indeed either to execute a writ of ejectment or a seizure of goods. If
+the sanction of the law is weakened, public respect for it is lessened,
+and the result will be a general relaxation of the bonds which draw
+society together. There is nothing in the antecedents of the Home Rule
+Party to make one suppose that it contains the materials of a good and
+impartial government.</p>
+
+<p>Home Rule politicians are talkative and pertinacious. As members of
+Parliament they are of course listened to, while Unionists outside
+Ulster make little noise; it is, therefore, constantly said that they
+acquiesce in the inevitable change. Unrepresented men cannot easily make
+themselves heard, but they have done what they could. An enormous
+meeting has been held in Dublin, and the building, which contains some
+7000, was filled in a quarter of an hour. There has since been a large
+gathering of young men who wish to remain full citizens of the Empire in
+which they were born, and others are to follow. In rural districts it is
+almost impossible to collect people in winter. Days are short and
+distances are long. Unionist farmers cannot forget the outrages that
+prevailed some years ago, and are not yet unknown. In the native land of
+boycotting and cattle-driving it is not surprising that they do not wish
+to be conspicuous. The difficulty extends to the towns, in many of which
+it would be almost impossible to hire a room for Unionist purposes.
+Hotel keepers object to risking their business and their windows, for a
+mob is easily excited to riot on patriotic grounds. Shopkeepers also
+have to be cautious in a country which has been wittily described as a
+land of liberty where no one can do as he likes, but where every one
+must do exactly what everybody else likes. In the summer people can meet
+in the open air, and there will, no doubt, be abundant protests from
+Southern Unionists. There will then be something definite to talk about.</p>
+
+<p>It is often said that the County Councils have done well, and that
+therefore there is no danger in an Irish Parliament, but the two things
+are different in kind. County or District Councils, or Boards of
+Guardians, are constituted by Acts of the Imperial Parliament to
+administer Acts of the same, and are subject to constant supervision by
+the Local Government Board, and to the peremptory action of the King's
+Bench. A Parliament is by nature supreme within its sphere of action,
+and its constant effort would be to enlarge that field. The men who aim
+at independence would have the easy part to play, for no one in or out
+of Ulster, former Unionist or confirmed Nationalist, would have any
+interest in opposing them. In the meantime local councils have taught us
+what is likely to happen. Minorities are virtually excluded from them
+and from paid places in their gift. Of Protestants holding local office
+the great majority are survivals from the old Grand Jury system.
+Political discussions are frequent, but they are all among Nationalists.
+Intolerance of independent opinion and impatience of criticism are
+everywhere noticeable, and the Corporation of Dublin does not show a
+good example. It is intolerance of this kind rather than any approach to
+religious persecution that Protestants suffer from in the present and
+fear for the future.</p>
+
+<p>Men who have something to lose dread the idea of Home Rule, including
+farmers who have bought their holdings, but as yet this has not been
+allowed time to work. There is a long way between not caring to support
+a Nationalist and voting for a Unionist. The chief employers of labour
+are mostly for the Union, but few are in a position to help the Unionist
+cause effectively, for they have to deal with strike makers and possible
+boycotters. When Labour troubles come, Nationalist politicians try to
+make out that they are caused by English agitators, and that there would
+be none under Home Rule. The probability is all the other way. There
+could be nothing in the existence of an Irish Parliament to prevent
+English Socialists from crossing the Channel, and some Labour leaders in
+England are Irish. We have heard a great deal lately about the union of
+the two democracies, and that is the point where they would unite.
+Passing from labour to land, which is after all the great interest of
+Southern and Western Ireland, the danger is even greater. With the loss
+of British credit it would be almost impossible to carry out the plan of
+occupying ownership without the grossest injustice, and the mischief
+would not stop there. An Irish Government would be poor, but would be
+expected to do all and more than all that the united government has
+done. At first the gap might be stopped by extravagant super-income tax,
+by half-compensated seizures of demesne land, and by penalising the
+owners of ground rents and town property. Confiscation is not a
+permanent source of wealth, for it soon kills the goose that laid the
+golden egg. Then the turn of the large farmer would come.</p>
+
+<p>Most Unionists, and many who call themselves Home Rulers, are satisfied
+with the form of government they now have. The country has prospered
+wonderfully, and it will continue to prosper if the land purchase system
+is carried out to the end in a liberal spirit. The worst danger comes
+from the check given to the process by the present Ministry. But the
+national feelings of Ireland must not be ignored. Her far-back history,
+bad in itself, but represented worse by unscrupulous writers, makes it
+necessary to maintain an impartial power above the warring elements. In
+a pastoral country people have much time on their hands, and are apt to
+spend it in brooding over bygone wrongs. But over the past not Jove
+himself hath power, and it is for the future that we are responsible.
+From Wellington onwards Ireland has given many great soldiers to the
+British Army, and it is the classes from which they spring that it is
+now proposed to abandon. Under Home Rule the flag would be a foreign
+emblem, useless to protect the weak in Ireland, and perhaps available to
+oppress them. England would have cast off her friends and gained none in
+exchange. Nothing will conciliate the revolutionary faction in Ireland,
+and there is every reason to think that it would become the strongest.
+Modern Ireland is the creation of English policy, and many wrong things
+were formerly done, but for a long time amends have been making. If
+England, from weariness or for the sake of Party advantage, abandons her
+supporters, they will have no successors. Ireland will be more
+troublesome than ever, and the crime will receive its fitting
+punishment.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="X" id="X" />X</h2>
+
+<h2>HOME RULE AND NAVAL DEFENCE</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ADMIRAL LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ireland under Home Rule must, in the event of war, be regarded as a
+potentially hostile country.</p>
+
+<p>In this statement resides the dominant factor of the situation viewed
+from the naval and military point of view. It is not asserted that the
+government of Ireland would be disloyal; but it is asserted that the
+authorities charged with the defence of his Majesty's dominions cannot
+afford to take risks when the safety of the country is at stake. That
+such risks must exist under the circumstances indicated, is obvious to
+all those who have studied the speeches of the leaders of the Irish
+Nationalist party, in which they have unequivocally declared their
+intention to rid Ireland of English rule, and in which they extol as
+heroes such men as Theobald Wolfe Tone, who intrigued with France
+against England in order to achieve Irish independence, and who took his
+own life rather than receive the just reward of his deeds. That some
+among the Irish Nationalist leaders have recently professed their
+devotion to the British Empire cannot be regarded by serious persons as
+a relevant consideration. The demand for Home Rule is in fact a demand
+for separation from the United Kingdom or it is nothing. Naval officers
+are accustomed to deal with facts rather than with words.</p>
+
+<p>In the great sea-wars of the past, Ireland has always been regarded by
+the enemy as providing the base for a flank attack upon England. Had
+King Louis XIV. rightly used his opportunities, the army of King William
+would have been cut off from its base in England, and would have been
+destroyed by reinforcements arriving from France to assist King James
+II. There is no more concise presentment of the case than the account of
+it given by Admiral Mahan in &quot;The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
+1660-1783.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;The Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an
+     estuary than an actual division; but history has shown the danger
+     from it to the United Kingdom. In the days of Louis XIV., when the
+     French navy nearly equalled the combined English and Dutch, the
+     gravest complications existed in Ireland, which passed almost
+     wholly under the control of the natives and the French.
+     Nevertheless, the Irish Sea was rather a danger to the English&mdash;a
+     weak point in their communications&mdash;than an advantage to the
+     French. The latter did not venture their ships-of-the-line in its
+     narrow waters, and expeditions intending to land were directed upon
+     the ocean ports in the south and west. At the supreme moment the
+     great French fleet was sent upon the south coast of England, where
+     it decisively defeated the allies, and at the same time twenty-five
+     frigates were sent to St. George's Channel, against the English
+     communications. In the midst of a hostile people the English army
+     in Ireland was seriously imperilled, but was saved by the battle of
+     the Boyne and the flight of James II. <i>This movement against the
+     enemy's communications was strictly strategic, and would be just as
+     dangerous to England now as in 1690</i><a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67" /><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a>....</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;There can be little doubt that an effective co-operation of the
+     French fleet in the summer of 1689 would have broken down all
+     opposition to James in Ireland, by isolating that country from
+     England, with corresponding injury to William's power....</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;The battle of the Boyne, which from its peculiar religious
+     colouring has obtained a somewhat factitious celebrity, may be
+     taken as the date at which the English crown was firmly fixed on
+     William's head. Yet it would be more accurate to say that the
+     success of William, and with it the success of Europe, against
+     Louis XIV. in the war of the League of Augsburg, was due to the
+     mistakes and failure of the French naval campaign in 1690; though
+     in that campaign was won the most conspicuous single success the
+     French have ever gained at sea over the English.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Every great naval power has gone to school to Admiral Mahan; and this
+country can hardly expect again to profit by those mistakes in strategy
+which the gifted American writer has so lucidly exposed.</p>
+
+<p>Ireland, lying on the western flank of Great Britain, commands on the
+south the approaches to the Channel, on the west the North Atlantic; and
+on the east the Irish Sea, all sea-roads by which millions of pounds'
+worth of supplies are brought to England. On every coast Ireland has
+excellent harbours. There are Lough Swilly on the north, Blacksod Bay on
+the west, Bantry Bay, Cork Harbour and Waterford Harbour on the south,
+Kingstown Harbour and Belfast Lough on the east&mdash;to name but
+these&mdash;besides numerous lesser inlets which can serve as shelter for
+small craft and destroyers. It should here be noted that Belfast
+Harbour, owing to the enterprise of the Harbour Board, now possesses a
+channel and dock capable of accommodating a ship of the Dreadnought
+type<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68" /><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>There is no necessity to presuppose an actively hostile Ireland; but an
+Ireland ruled by a disloyal faction would easily afford shelter to the
+warships of the enemy in her ports, whence they could draw supplies,
+where they could execute small repairs, and could coal from colliers
+despatched there for the purpose or captured. Thus lodged, a fleet or a
+squadron would command the main trade routes to England; and might
+inflict immense damage in a short time. Intelligence of its position
+could be prevented from reaching England by the simple method of
+destroying wireless stations and cutting cables.</p>
+
+<p>These considerations would necessarily impose upon the Navy the task of
+detaching a squadron of watching cruisers charged with the duty of
+keeping guard about the whole of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Is the Admiralty prepared to discharge this office in the event of war?</p>
+
+<p>If not, there falls to be considered the further danger of the invasion
+of Ireland. That such a peril is not imaginary, is proved by the fact
+that Ireland has been invaded in the past.</p>
+
+<p>The attempt of Hoche and Grouchy to land in Bantry Bay in 1796 failed
+ignominiously; and the next expedition designed to invade Ireland was
+defeated at Camperdown. But in 1798, the year of the Great Rebellion in
+Ireland, three French frigates evaded the British cruisers, and on
+August 22 dropped anchor in Killala Bay. General of Brigade, Jean Joseph
+Amable Humbert, landed with his second in command, General Sarazin,
+several rebel Irish leaders, 1700 men and 82 officers.</p>
+
+<p>On August 27 Humbert defeated the British troops at Castlebar &quot;Races.&quot;
+On September 8, his forces surrendered at Ballinamuck to Lord
+Cornwallis. General Humbert was carried to England; and it is worth
+noting that while he was on his way, Admiral Bompard set sail from Brest
+with a ship of the line and three frigates, carrying 2587 men and 172
+officers, commanded by General Hardy and the notorious Wolfe Tone
+(called General Smith for the occasion). Bompard was turned back by an
+English fleet of forty-two sail. The obvious conclusion of the whole
+matter is that the fleet can stop an invasion, always provided that the
+ships thereof are the right number in the right place at the right time.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish Rebellion of 1798 is often discussed as though it was wholly
+bred of the corruption of Ireland itself. The fact was, of course, that
+it was an offshoot of the French Revolution, and that the condition of
+Ireland at the time was no more than a contributory cause. My Lords
+Cornwallis, Castlereagh, and Clare, in combating the forces of the
+Rebellion, were actually in conflict with the vast insurrections of the
+French nation. The design of the Irish rebels was to enlist the mighty
+destructive force of France to serve their own ends.</p>
+
+<p>Wolfe Tone and his colleague Lewens, in 1796, had succeeded in
+persuading Carnot and the French Directory to embrace the cause of
+Ireland. When the Rebellion of 1798 broke out, Lewens wrote to the
+Directory reminding them that they had promised that France should
+postulate the conferring of independence upon Ireland as the condition
+of making peace with England, and specifying five thousand troops of all
+arms, and thirty thousand muskets with artillery and ammunition, as
+sufficient to ensure the success of the Rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>The attitude of the Directory is defined in the despatch addressed to
+General Hardy (upon whom the supreme command of the Humbert expedition
+at first devolved) by Bruix, Minister of Marine, dated July 30, 1798.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The executive Directory is busily engaged in arranging to send help to
+the Irish who have taken up arms to sever the yoke of British rule. It
+is for the French Government to second the efforts of a brave people who
+have too long suffered under oppression.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In other words, the Directory regarded the achievement of her
+independence by Ireland as an enterprise incidental to the greater
+scheme of the conquest of England and of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>It was further laid down in the despatch that &quot;it is most important to
+take every possible means to arouse the public spirit of the country,
+and particularly to foster sedulously its hatred of the English name ...
+There has never been an expedition whose result might more powerfully
+affect the political situation in Europe, or could more advantageously
+assist the Republic....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Irish conspirators have never risen to play any part higher than the
+office of cat's-paw to a foreign nation. To-day, they are content&mdash;at
+present&mdash;to bribe with votes a political party in England. But it is
+none the less essential to remember that, as in 1688 and as in 1798 a
+great and militant foreign Power used the weapon of Irish sedition
+against England, so in 1912 the same instrument lies ready to hand. For
+the Home Rule conspiracy of to-day is nothing but the lees of the evil
+heritage bequeathed by the French Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>It is the business of the naval officer, who is not concerned with party
+politics, to estimate the posture of international affairs solely in
+relation to the security of the State. The condition of Ireland at this
+moment, when the Home Rule issue has been wantonly revived, would, in
+the event of a war occurring between Great Britain and a foreign Power,
+involve the necessity of regarding Ireland as a strategic base of
+essential value, a part of whose inhabitants might combine with the
+hostile forces by giving them shelter and supplies, and even by inviting
+them to occupy the country. Elsewhere in these pages, Lord Percy has
+pointed out that the necessity of holding a disaffected Ireland by
+garrisoning the country would totally disorganise our military
+preparations for war&mdash;such as they are.</p>
+
+<p>These considerations must materially affect strategical dispositions in
+the event of war, involving the establishment and maintenance of a
+separate force of cruisers charged with the duty of patrolling the sea
+routes which converge upon Ireland, and of watching the harbours of her
+coasts. As matters stand at present, such a force does not exist.</p>
+
+<p>It may, of course, be urged that a strategical plan designed for the
+double purpose of surveying the movements of a hostile battle-fleet and
+of guarding the trade-routes, must of necessity cover the coasts of
+Ireland, on the principle that the greater includes the less. The
+argument, however, omits the essential qualification that a part of the
+Irish population cannot be trusted. It is this additional difficulty
+which has been introduced into the problem of naval defence by the
+revival by politicians of the agitation of 1798, under another name.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67" /><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> The writer's italics.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68" /><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> According to <i>The Daily Telegraph</i> of January 22, 1912.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI" />XI</h2>
+
+<h2>THE MILITARY DISADVANTAGES OF HOME RULE</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE EARL PERCY</h3>
+
+
+<p>The problems of Imperial defence have become of late years extremely
+complex, owing to the rise of a great European naval power, and also to
+the predominance of Japan in the Pacific. These two factors, combined
+with the invention of the Dreadnought type of ship which is now being
+built by other powers whose navies we could formerly afford to ignore,
+have rendered our position in the world more precarious, more dependent
+upon foreign alliances and <i>ententes</i>, and have rendered combination for
+defence far more essential. No Home Rule scheme can be judged without
+taking into consideration what its effect will be on this situation. It
+is proposed to consider it first in the light of the more pressing
+European danger, and next to examine how it will affect the wider
+problem of the future, namely, the co-operation of all parts of the
+British Empire for defence.</p>
+
+<p>But first it is of course necessary to find out what Home Rule means,
+and what the internal state of Ireland will be if it passes. On this
+point there is at present no certainty. We can dismiss at once Mr.
+Redmond's picture of a serenely contented and grateful Ireland, only
+desirous of helping her benefactor, and, under a strong and
+incorruptible government, engaged in setting its house in order. The
+presence of a strong Protestant community, the history of the Roman
+Catholic Church in all countries, and the deliberate fostering of
+separatist national ideals preclude the possibility of anything but a
+prolonged period of unrest, which, on the most favourable hypothesis,
+can only cease altogether when the present generation has passed away.
+This unrest may take two forms; either civil war, or a condition where
+the rousing of old animosities, religious and otherwise, leads to
+internal disturbances of all kinds. It is not proposed to deal here with
+the consequences involved by the calling in of troops to suppress by
+force of arms an insurrectionary movement against the Government of
+Ireland. In view of the present state of affairs in Ulster, such an
+event seems extremely probable, but the disastrous results of passing
+Home Rule in face of it are so patent to all that it is unnecessary to
+enlarge upon them here. We have, therefore, to consider a condition of
+things in which old mutual hatreds have re-awakened, in which Ireland
+will be governed by men who have up till now preached sedition, have
+done their best to check recruiting, who have deliberately set up an
+ideal of &quot;complete separation&quot; as their ultimate goal, and whose motto
+has always been &quot;England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is conceivable, of course, though it is extremely improbable, that
+these aims and ideals may be abjured in course of time, but the gravity
+of these risks must be taken into account in examining Ireland's
+position in any scheme of national and Imperial defence both now and in
+the future.</p>
+
+<p>And in this connection it may be remarked that an almost exact analogy
+to the situation which will probably result from this measure may be
+seen in the events which preceded the Boer war, and it seems somewhat
+remarkable that those who endeavour to justify Home Rule by the supposed
+Colonial analogy should overlook a warning so evident and so recent in
+the history of our oversea dominions.</p>
+
+<p>A Separatist party in Ireland would be enabled to work for ultimate
+independence as did President Kruger, and by the same methods, the same
+secret acquisition of arms and implements of war, the same building of
+fortresses with a view to a declaration of independence when a suitable
+opportunity arrived; and this would be all the more likely to occur if
+Ulster were exempted from a Home Rule Parliament. In this case Ulstermen
+would occupy exactly the same position as did the Uitlanders from 1895
+to 1899. The same arguments for granting independence to Ireland are
+used now, the same talk of injustice towards those who are disloyal with
+equal disregard of the loyalist section, and the results will be the
+same. Would independence have been granted to the Transvaal or Orange
+Free State had their use of it been foreseen? Taking the factors in both
+cases into account, is there anything to justify the doubt that a
+repetition of that situation will occur, with the only difference that
+eventual rupture will probably entail the dismemberment of the Empire?</p>
+
+<p>It is universally acknowledged that this country is at present faced
+with a more critical European situation than any we have experienced for
+a hundred years. It has tied our fleet to home waters, and has induced a
+very large and influential section of our people to advocate the
+necessity of compulsory military service. Our military organisation is
+on the face of it a makeshift, and the makeshift is not even complete,
+for in the Territorial Army and the Special Reserve alone there is a
+shortage of more than 80,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>Now, our foreign policy of <i>ententes</i> and the needs of our oversea
+territories have necessitated a military organisation, the foundation of
+which is readiness to undertake an oversea expedition as well as to
+provide for home defence. The critical situation in Europe especially
+will demand the instant despatch of our Expeditionary Force on the
+outbreak of war, in which case there will be left in these islands the
+following forces after deducting 10 per cent, for casualties:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>About 55,000 Regulars, of whom 30,000 will be under 20 years of age.</p>
+
+<p>About 30,000 Reservists. These will be required to reinforce the
+Expeditionary Force.</p>
+
+<p>About 60,000 Special Reservists. Some 30,000 of these are under 20. This
+force is to be used to reinforce the troops abroad.</p>
+
+<p>About 245,000 Territorials. 72,000 of these are under 20.</p>
+
+<p>In all there are some 400,000 men, of whom 130,000 are boys and 60,000
+will leave the country soon after war breaks out. This will leave some
+210,000 men to provide for the defence of England, Scotland, and
+Ireland, supplemented by 130,000 boys. These troops will be deprived of
+practically all Regular and even Reserve officers, and will have to
+provide for coast defence, for the security of law and order, and for
+the numbers required for a central field force. By means of juggling
+with figures, by the registration of names in what is called the
+National Reserve, but has no organisation or corporate existence, and by
+similar means, the seriousness of this situation has been concealed to
+some extent, but it is generally recognised as being little short of a
+national scandal, and would not be tolerated were it not for the general
+ignorance of our people concerning the exigencies of war and their blind
+belief in the omnipotence of the navy. This defencelessness has two
+dangers: firstly, the chance of a successful raid or invasion. As long
+as our navy is not defeated, no invading force of more than 70,000 men
+is supposed to be capable of landing. The second danger is that the mere
+fear of such an event will prevent the despatch of the Expeditionary
+Force and the fulfilment of our oversea obligations.</p>
+
+<p>It must be obvious that in the precarious state of our national defence
+anything which renders either of these dangers more probable should be
+avoided at all costs. If, for instance, the condition of Ireland should
+demand the maintenance of a larger garrison in that country, the whole
+of our present organisation for defence falls to pieces. Looking only at
+the present foreign situation, and the ever-growing menace of increasing
+armaments, if the passing of Home Rule should require the retention of a
+single extra soldier in Ireland, it is perfectly certain that nothing
+could justify the adoption of such a measure. It is not intended to
+convey the impression that there is any fear of Ireland repeating the
+history of 1796 and welcoming a foreign invasion, although it is
+impossible to ignore the anti-English campaign of agitation, or to say
+to what length it will go; but the mere fact of internal dissension in
+that country will give an enemy exactly the chance he looks for. Many of
+those best qualified to judge are of opinion that Germany is only
+waiting to free herself of an embarrassing situation, until one power of
+the Triple Entente is for the time being too much occupied to intervene
+in a Continental struggle. We have had one warning when, in September,
+1911, a railway strike at home coincided with a foreign crisis. Are we
+deliberately to take a step which will almost certainly involve us in a
+similar dilemma?</p>
+
+<p>This is the more immediate danger, but, apart from this, the strategical
+value of Ireland will be profoundly affected by its separation from
+England, and this constitutes a grave source of weakness, even if
+internal trouble be avoided, and a comparatively loyal government be
+installed. Ireland lies directly across all the trade routes by which
+nearly all our supplies of food and raw material are brought, and it
+covers the principal trade centres of the Midlands and the South of
+Scotland. In any attack by an enemy on our commerce, Ireland will become
+of supreme importance. There are two stages in every naval war: first,
+the engagement between the two navies; second, the blockade or
+destruction of the ships of the beaten side. This was the method by
+which we fought Napoleon, but even then we could not prevent the enemy's
+ships escaping from time to time; and even after we had destroyed their
+navy at Trafalgar, the damage to our oversea commerce was enormous.
+Nowadays, torpedoes, submarines, and floating mines have rendered
+blockade infinitely more precarious, and consequently we have to take
+into account the extreme probability, and indeed, certainty, of hostile
+cruisers escaping and menacing our oversea supplies. This danger will be
+increased tenfold if Germany has been able to defeat France, and use
+French, Dutch, and Belgian ports for privateering purposes. In the
+second, if not in the first, stage of European war, therefore, the
+closest co-operation between the governments of Ireland and England will
+be essential. In this case, Queenstown and Lough Swilly will be the
+bases for our own protecting cruisers, and on their success will depend
+the issues of life and death for our people. As the West of Ireland is
+the nearest point in these islands to America, it is probable that
+cargoes destined for English ports will reach them <i>via</i> Ireland to
+avoid the longer sea-transit. Lord Wolseley has even gone so far as to
+minimise the dangers of blockade, because the Irish coast offered such
+facilities for blockade-running. It is certain that in our greatest need
+Ireland might well prove our salvation, provided we had not absolutely
+lost command of the sea, and this advantage a Liberal Government is
+prepared to jeopardise for reasons, which, compared with the interests
+at stake, are little less than sordid.</p>
+
+<p>But even if Ireland be less directly affected by war than in this case,
+and even if its internal condition should give little anxiety, the very
+nature of its resources should prevent us taking a step which may
+deprive us of them in emergency or, at least, render them less readily
+available. Not only do we draw a number of our soldiers from there, out
+of all proportion to the quotas provided by the populations of England
+and Scotland, but we are absolutely dependent for our mounted branches
+on Irish horses. For our supplies in time of stress, for our horses, and
+for a great and valuable recruiting area, we shall be forced to rely on
+a government whose future is wrapped in the deepest obscurity, and which
+at the best is hardly likely to give us enthusiastic support.</p>
+
+<p>Our whole military organisation is becoming more decentralised and more
+dependent on voluntary effort; it is devolving more and more upon
+Territorial Associations and local bodies of all kinds. We do not
+possess the reserves of horses and transport which continental nations
+hold ready for use on mobilisation, and, as a substitute, we have had to
+fall back on a system of registration which demands care, zeal, and
+energy on the part of these civilian bodies. How will an Irish
+Government and its officials fulfil a duty which will be distorted by
+every Nationalist into an attempt to employ the national resources for
+the sole benefit of England?</p>
+
+<p>War is a stern taskmaster, demanding long years of preparation and
+combination of effort for one end. The political separation of the two
+countries does not alter the fact that they are, in the military sense,
+one area of operations and of supply, and, at a time like the present,
+when the mutual dependence of all parts of the Empire is gradually being
+realised; when the dominions are building navies, and all our
+dependencies are co-operating in one scheme of defence for the whole;
+when the elaboration of the details of this scheme are the pressing need
+of the hour, the dissolution of the Union binding together the very
+heart of the Empire, is a strategic mistake, the disastrous significance
+of which it is impossible to exaggerate. For it must be remembered that
+here is no analogy to a federation of semi-independent provinces as in
+Canada, where national defence is equally the interest of the whole.
+Ireland has never recognised this community of interest with England.
+Quebec, it is true, stands aloof and indifferent to the ideals of the
+sister provinces; but there is no bitter religious hatred, no fierce,
+anti-national aims fostered by ancient traditions, life-long feuds and
+unscrupulous agitation, and every Canadian knows that Quebec would fight
+to the last against American aggression, if only to preserve her
+religious independence. There is no such bond here&mdash;or, at least, the
+Irish Nationalist has refused to acknowledge it.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1912 has opened amid signs of unrest and change, the meaning or
+the end of which no man can know. In the Far East and the Near East
+political and religious systems are disappearing, and chaos is steadily
+increasing. In Europe the nations have set out on the march to
+Armageddon, and there is no staying the progress of their armaments. In
+Great Britain alone the question of preparation for war is shirked on
+the plea that it is one for experts, and even soldiers and sailors,
+drawn into the political vortex, make light of our necessities,
+believing in the hopelessness of ever convincing the people of the truth
+until &quot;a white calamity of steel and iron, the bearing of burdens and
+the hot rage of insult,&quot; fall upon us. It is for this reason that we see
+the extraordinary phenomenon of men denying the necessity for becoming
+a nation in arms, and yet urging our Government to contract no
+friendships abroad, and to interfere on behalf of every petty princedom
+oppressed by a powerful neighbour, and every downtrodden subject of some
+foreign power. It is these same men who wish to dissolve the Union, and
+to impose obligations at home upon an inadequate army which would leave
+us powerless abroad. And the longer war delays in coming, the greater
+will be the danger when it comes. With the increase in armaments, this
+country must undergo a proportionate sacrifice. If compulsory service
+should be adopted, it must apply to Ireland as well as the United
+Kingdom. But how will an independent government in Dublin view the
+compulsory enrolment of the manhood of Ireland, two-thirds of which have
+been taught to regard England as the national and hereditary enemy? The
+Irish are, above all, a military race. Had we been able to enforce such
+service within the Union, whatever temporary opposition it might have
+encountered, it might ultimately have proved an indissoluble bond of
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>The future is very dark, and it is all important that we should face it
+with open eyes. War cannot long be delayed, and there is too little time
+left to put our house in order. Even if Home Rule could be shown to be
+an act of justice due to a wronged people who have proved themselves
+capable of self-government, even then it could not be justified in the
+present crisis abroad. But it is not so. Ulster will fight for the same
+cause as did the Northern States of America, and may well show the same
+self-sacrifice. It will be civil war in a country peculiarly adapted to
+the movements of irregular troops, well acquainted with its features; it
+will be accompanied by atrocities which will be remembered for
+centuries. And this is the tremendous risk we are deliberately running,
+when we only possess six divisions of regular troops to support our
+allies on the continent and to safeguard the interests of the whole
+British Empire.</p>
+
+<p>It is for the British people to decide whether the thin red line is to
+be still thinner in the day of battle, and whether those who should be
+fighting side by side shall be embittered and divided, or whether they
+will rather believe the words of the greatest naval expert living<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69" /><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;It is impossible for a military man or a statesman with
+     appreciation of military conditions, to look at the map and not
+     perceive that the ambition of the Irish separatists, realised,
+     would be even more threatening to the national life than the
+     secession of the South was to that of the American Union.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69" /><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Admiral Mahan.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII" />XII</h2>
+
+<h2>THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE</h2>
+
+<h2>(i) THE CHURCH VIEW</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RT. REV. C. F. D'ARCY, BISHOP OF DOWN</h3>
+
+
+<p>Irish Unionists are determined in their opposition to Home Rule by many
+considerations. But deepest of all is the conviction that, on the
+establishment of a separate legislature and executive for Ireland, the
+religious difficulty, which is ever with us here, would be increased
+enormously. Occasionally, in English newspapers and in Irish political
+speeches, there occur phrases which imply that the Protestant
+ascendency, as it was called, still exists in Ireland. Those who know
+Ireland are well aware that this is not merely false: it is impossible.
+Even in Belfast, as a recent controversy proved, Roman Catholics get
+their full share of whatever is to be had. There are no Roman Catholic
+disabilities. The majority has every means of making its power felt. At
+the present moment, the most impossible of all things in Ireland is that
+Roman Catholics, as such, should be oppressed or unfairly treated.</p>
+
+<p>It used to be imagined that when this happy condition was attained there
+would be no more religious disagreement in Ireland. But events have
+shown the exact opposite to be the case. There never was a time when
+there was in the minds of Irish Protestants so deep a dread of Roman
+aggression, and so firm a conviction that the object of that aggression
+is the complete subjection of this country to Roman domination.
+Recalling very distinctly the events and discussions of 1886 and 1893,
+when Home Rule for Ireland seemed so near accomplishment under Mr.
+Gladstone's leadership, the writer has no hesitation in saying that the
+dread of Roman tyranny is now far more vivid and, as a motive, far more
+urgent than it was at those epochs. Protestants are now convinced, as
+never before, that Home Rule must mean Rome Rule, and that, should it be
+forced upon them, in spite of all their efforts, they will be face to
+face with a struggle for liberty and conscience such as this land has
+not witnessed since the year 1690. That such should be the conviction of
+one-fourth of the people of Ireland, and that fourth by far the most
+energetic portion of its inhabitants, is a fact which politicians may
+well lay to heart.</p>
+
+<p>Approaching this subject as one whose duties give him the spiritual
+oversight of more than 200,000 of the Protestants of Ireland&mdash;members of
+the Church of Ireland, and who has had twenty-seven years of experience
+as a clergyman in Ireland, both in the north and in the south, the
+writer may venture to speak with some confidence as to the mind of the
+people among whom he has worked for so long. In doing so, he feels at
+liberty to say that he is one who has always avoided religious
+controversy, and who has ever made it his endeavour to be tolerant and
+considerate of the feelings and convictions of others. He has a deep
+regard for his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, and recognises to the
+full their many excellent qualities and the sincerity of their religion.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible to bring to a single point the reasons which make Irish
+Unionists so apprehensive as regards the religious difficulty under Home
+Rule. Their fears are not concerned with any of the special dogmas of
+the Roman Church. But they recognise, as people in England do not, the
+inevitable tendency of the consistent and immemorial policy of the
+Church of Rome in relation to persons who refuse to submit to her
+claims. They know that policy to be one of absolute and uncompromising
+insistence on the exacting of everything which she regards as her right
+as soon as she possesses the power. They know that, for her, toleration
+is only a temporary expedient. They know that professions and promises
+made by individual Roman Catholics and by political leaders, statements
+which to English ears seem a happy augury of a good time coming, are of
+no value whatever. They do not deny that such promises and guarantees
+express a great deal of good intention, but they know that above the
+individual, whether he be layman or ecclesiastic, there is a system
+which moves on, as soon as such movement becomes possible, in utter
+disregard of his statements. At the time when Catholic emancipation was
+in view, high Roman authorities gave the most emphatic guarantees that
+the position of the then Established Church in Ireland would never be
+endangered, so far as their Church and people were concerned. But when
+the time came, such promises proved absolutely worthless. Whether the
+disestablishment of the Irish Church was a good thing or not, is not the
+question here. The essential point, for our present purpose, is that the
+guarantees of individual Roman Catholics, no matter how positively or
+how confidently stated, are of no account as against the steady age-long
+policy of the Roman Church.</p>
+
+<p>It is well known to all students that, while other religious bodies
+have, both in theory and in practice, renounced certain old methods of
+persuasion, the Roman Church still formally claims the power to control
+states, to depose princes, to absolve subjects from their allegiance, to
+extirpate heresy. She has never accepted the modern doctrine of
+toleration. But there are many who think that these ancient claims,
+though not renounced, are so much out-of-date in the modern world that
+they mean practically nothing. Such is the opinion of the average
+Englishman, and the mild and cultivated form of Romanism which is to be
+met with usually in England lends colour to the opinion. In Ireland we
+know better.</p>
+
+<p>The recent Papal Decree, termed <i>Ne Temere</i>, regulating the
+solemnisation of marriages, has been enforced in Ireland in a manner
+which must seem impossible to Englishmen.</p>
+
+<p>According to this Decree, &quot;No marriage is valid which is not contracted
+in the presence of the (Roman) parish priest of the place, or of the
+Ordinary, or of a priest deputed by them, and of two witnesses at
+least.&quot; This rule is binding on all Roman Catholics.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see what hardship and wrong must follow the observance of
+this rule in the case of mixed marriages.</p>
+
+<p>As a result, it is now the case that, in Ireland, marriages which the
+law of the land declares to be valid are declared null and void by the
+Church of Rome, and the children of them are pronounced illegitimate.
+Nor is this a mere academic opinion: such is the power of the Roman
+Church in this country that she is able to enforce her laws without
+deference to the authority of the State.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated McCann case is the most notable illustration. Even in the
+Protestant city of Belfast we have seen a faithful wife deserted and her
+children spirited away from her, in obedience to this cruel decree. And
+we have seen an executive afraid to do its duty, because Rome had spoken
+and justified the outrage. Those who know intimately what is happening
+here are aware of case after case in which husband or wife is living in
+daily terror of similar interference, and also know that Protestants
+married to Roman Catholics, and living in the districts where the latter
+are in overwhelming majority, often find it impossible to stand against
+the odium arising from a bigoted and hostile public opinion. Nor does
+such interference stop here. Only a few weeks ago the kidnapping of a
+young wife by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics was prevented only by the
+brave and prompt action of her husband. In this case a sworn deposition,
+made in the presence of a well-known magistrate and fully attested, has
+been published, and no attempt at contradiction or explanation has been
+made. Let none imagine the <i>Ne Temere</i> question is extinct in Ireland.
+It is at this moment a burning question. Under Home Rule it would create
+a conflagration. And surely there is reason for the indignation of
+Protestants. Here we see the most solemn contract into which a man or
+woman can enter broken at the bidding of a system which claims supreme
+control over all human relations, public and private; and this, not for
+the maintenance of any moral principle, but to secure obedience to a
+disciplinary regulation which is regarded as of so little moral value
+that it is not enforced in any country in which the Government is strong
+enough to protect its subjects.</p>
+
+<p>As if to define with perfect clearness, in the face of the modern world,
+the traditional claim of the Roman See, there has issued from the
+Vatican, within the last few weeks, a Decree which sets the Roman clergy
+above the law of the land. This ordinance, which is issued <i>motu
+proprio</i> by the Pope, is the re-enactment and more exact definition of
+an old law. It lays down the rule that whoever, without permission from
+any ecclesiastical authority, summons any ecclesiastical persons to a
+lay tribunal and compels them to attend publicly such a court, incurs
+instant excommunication. The excommunication is automatic, and
+absolution from it is specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff. This fact
+adds enormously to the terror of it, especially among a people like the
+Irish Roman Catholics. Great discussion has taken place as to the
+countries in which this Decree is in force. No one was surprised to hear
+that Germany was exempt. Archbishop Walsh, the Roman Catholic Archbishop
+of Dublin, in an elaborate discussion, gives the opinion that the Decree
+is abrogated under British law by the custom of the country, which has
+in the past rendered impossible the observance of the strict
+ecclesiastical rule in this matter, but is careful to add that this is
+only his opinion as a canonist, and is subject to the decision of the
+Holy See. When this plea is examined, it is found to mean simply this,
+that the law is not strictly observed in case of necessity. That this is
+the meaning of Archbishop Walsh's plea is proved by a quotation which he
+makes from Pope Benedict XIV. The principle laid down by Pope Benedict
+is that when it became impossible to resist the encroachment of adverse
+customs, the Popes shut their eyes to what was going on, and tolerated
+what they had no power to prevent. It is exactly the principle of
+toleration as a temporary expedient. The re-enactment of the law by the
+present Pope means surely, if it means anything, that such toleration
+is to cease wherever and whenever the law can be enforced. But, be it
+observed, this necessity is entirely dependent on the strength of the
+authority which administers the civil law. The moment the civil
+authority grows weak in its assertion of its supremacy, the plea of
+necessity fails, and the ecclesiastical law must be enforced. Those who
+know Ireland are well aware that this is exactly what would happen under
+Home Rule. Here is the crowning proof of the truth that, above all the
+well-intentioned persons who give assurances of the peace and goodwill
+that would flourish under Home Rule, there is a power which would bring
+all their good intentions to nothing.</p>
+
+<p>But what of the Church of Ireland under Home Rule? Formerly the
+Established Church of the country, and as such occupying a position of
+special privilege, she still enjoys something of the traditional
+consideration which belonged to that position, and is more than ever
+conscious of her unbroken ecclesiastical descent from the Ancient Church
+of Ireland. Her adherents number 575,000, of whom 366,000 are in Ulster.
+As part of her heritage she holds nearly all the ancient ecclesiastical
+sites and the more important of the ancient buildings which still
+survive. These possessions, thus inherited from an immemorial past, were
+secured to her by the Act of Disestablishment. For the rest, the
+endowments which she enjoys at the present time have been created since
+1870 by the self-denial and generosity of her clergy and laity. Under
+British law, her position is secure. But would she be secure under Home
+Rule? Those of her advisers who have most right to speak with authority
+are convinced that she would not. The Bishop of Ossory, in an able and
+very moderate statement made at the meeting of the Synod of that
+Diocese, last September, showed that both the principal churches and the
+endowments now held by the Church of Ireland have been claimed
+repeatedly by prominent representatives of the Church of Rome. It is
+stated that the Church sites and buildings belong to the Roman Communion
+in Ireland because, on Roman Catholic principles, that communion truly
+represents the ancient Irish Church, and no lapse of time can invalidate
+the Church's title; and that the endowments belong to the same communion
+because they &quot;represent moneys derived from pre-Disestablishment days,
+which were, in their turn, the alienated possessions of the Roman
+Church&quot; (see Bishop of Ossory's Synod Address, p. 7). As regards this
+last statement, it must be noted that the only sense in which it can be
+truly said that the endowments represent moneys derived from
+pre-Disestablishment days is that the foundation of the new financial
+system was laid by the generosity of the clergy in office at the time.
+They entrusted to the Representative Body of the Church the capitalised
+value of the life-interests secured to them by the Act. The money was
+their private property, and their action one which involved great
+self-denial, for they gave up the security offered by the State. The
+money was so calculated that the whole should be exhausted when all
+payments were made. By good management, however, it yielded considerable
+profit, and meanwhile formed a foundation on which to build. It was,
+however, in no sense an endowment given by the State, nor was it a fund
+on which any but the legal owners (<i>i.e.</i> the clergy of the time) had a
+justifiable claim.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop of Ossory's statement excited much discussion, but, though
+many Roman Catholic apologists endeavoured to laugh away his fears as
+groundless, not one denied the validity of his argument. The fact that,
+as he showed, the Church of Ireland holds her churches by exactly the
+same title as that by which the English Church holds Westminster Abbey,
+and that, for the Irish Church, there is the additional security of the
+Act of 1869, count for nothing in the eye of Roman Canon Law.</p>
+
+<p>In an Ireland ruled by a Parliament of which the vast majority would be
+Roman Catholics, devout and sincere, representing constituencies peopled
+by devout and sincere persons who believe that the laws of the Vatican
+are the laws of God, with a clergy lifted above the civil law by the
+operation of the recent <i>Motu Proprio</i> Decree, an Ireland in which even
+the school catechisms (see the &quot;Christian Brothers' Catechism,&quot; quoted
+by the Bishop of Ossory, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 8) teach that an alien Church
+unlawfully excludes &quot;the Catholics&quot; from their own churches, how long
+would it be before a movement, burning with holy zeal and pious
+indignation, against the usurpers, would sweep away every barrier and
+drive out &quot;the heretics&quot; from the ancient shrines?</p>
+
+<p>Irish Churchmen who know their country are aware that even the most
+stringent guarantees would be worthless in such a case, as they proved
+worthless in the Act of Union, and at the time of Catholic emancipation.</p>
+
+<p>Some English Liberals imagine that Home Rule would be followed by an
+uprising of popular independence which would destroy the power of the
+Roman Church in Ireland. Let those who think this consider that the more
+independent spirits among the Irish Roman Catholics go to America, and
+let them further consider what has happened in the Province of Quebec in
+Canada. The immense strength of the bonds&mdash;religious, social, and
+educational&mdash;by which the mass of the people in the South and West of
+Ireland are held in the grip of the Roman ecclesiastical system, and the
+power which would be exerted by the central authority of that system by
+means of the recent decrees, make it certain that clerical domination
+would, from the outset, be the ruling principle of an Irish Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>There is no desire nearer to the hearts of the clergy and people who
+form the Church to which the writer belongs than that they should be
+enabled to live at peace with their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen,
+and work in union with them, for the good of their country and the
+promotion of that new prosperity which recent years have brought. They
+dread Home Rule, because they know that, instead of peace, it would
+bring a sword, and plunge their country once again into all the horrors
+of civil and religious strife.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_RELIGIOUS_DIFFICULTY_UNDER_HOME_RULE" id="THE_RELIGIOUS_DIFFICULTY_UNDER_HOME_RULE" />THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE</h2>
+
+<h2>(ii) THE NONCONFORMIST VIEW</h2>
+
+<h3>BY REV. SAMUEL PRENTER, M.A., D.D. (DUBLIN),</h3>
+
+<h3><i>Moderator of General Assembly of Presbyterian Church in Ireland in</i>
+1904-5.</h3>
+
+
+<p>For obvious reasons, the Religious Difficulty under Home Rule does not
+receive much attention on the political platform in Great Britain. But
+in Ireland a religious problem flames at the heart of the whole
+controversy. This religious problem creates the cleavage in the Irish
+population, and is the real secret of the intense passion on both sides
+with which Home Rule is both prosecuted and resisted. Irishmen
+understand this very well; but as Home Rule, on its face value, is only
+a question of a mode of civil government, it is almost impossible to
+make the matter clear to British electors. They say, What has religion
+got to do with Home Rule? Home Rule is a pure question of politics, and
+it must be solved on exclusively political lines. Even if this were so,
+might not Englishmen remember that the Nationalist Members of Parliament
+have been controlled by the Church of Rome in their votes on the English
+education question? I mention this to show that under the disguise of
+pure politics ecclesiastical authority may stalk in perfect freedom
+through the lobbies of the House of Commons. Is it, then, an absolutely
+incredible thing that what has been done in the English Parliament in
+the name of politics may be done openly and undisguised in the name of
+politics in a Home Rule Parliament? That such will be the case I shall
+now attempt to show.</p>
+
+<p>Let us begin with the most elementary facts. According to the official
+census of 1911 the population of Ireland is grouped as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Roman Catholics</td><td align='right'>3,238,656</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Irish Church</td><td align='right'>575,489</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Presbyterians</td><td align='right'>439,876</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Methodists</td><td align='right'>61,806</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>All other Christian denominations</td><td align='right'>57,718</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jews</td><td align='right'>5,101</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Information refused</td><td align='right'>3,305</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>I beg the electors of Great Britain to look steadily into the above
+figures, and to ask themselves who are the Home Rulers and who are the
+Unionists in Ireland. Irish Home Rulers are almost all Roman Catholics,
+and the Protestants and others are almost all stout Unionists. Does this
+fact suggest nothing? How is it that the line of demarcation in Irish
+politics almost exactly coincides with the line of demarcation in
+religion? Quite true, there are a few Irish Roman Catholics who are
+Unionists, and a few Protestants who are Home Rulers. But they are so
+few and so uninfluential on both sides that the exception only serves to
+prove the rule. These exceptions, no doubt, have been abundantly
+exploited, and the very most has been made of them. But the great
+elementary fact remains, that one-fourth of the Irish people, mostly
+Protestant, are resolutely, and even passionately, opposed to Home Rule;
+and the remarkable thing is that the most militant Irish Unionists for
+the past twenty years have not been the members of the Irish Church who
+might be suspected of Protestant Ascendency prejudices, but they are the
+Presbyterians and Methodists who never belonged to the old Protestant
+Ascendency party. It is of Irish Presbyterians that I can speak with the
+most ultimate knowledge. Their record in Ireland requires to be made
+perfectly clear. In 1829 they were the champions of Catholic
+Emancipation. In 1868 they supported Mr. Gladstone in his great Irish
+reforms. They have been at all times the advocates of perfect equality
+in religion, and of unsectarianism in education. They stand firm and
+staunch on these two principles still. But they are the sternest and
+strongest opponents of Home Rule, and their reason is because Home Rule
+spells for Ireland a new religious ascendency and the destruction of the
+unsectarian principle in education.</p>
+
+<p>I ask on these grounds that English and Scottish electors should pause
+for a moment, and open their minds to the fact that there is a great
+religious problem at the heart of Home Rule. Irish Presbyterians claim
+that they know what they are doing, and that they are not the blind
+dupes of religious prejudice and political passion. It is for a great
+something that they have embarked in this conflict; they are determined
+to risk everything in this resistance, and in proportion as the danger
+approaches, in like proportion does their hostility to the Home Rule
+claim increase.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is the secret of this determination? It lies in a nutshell.
+A Parliament in Dublin would be under the control and domination of the
+Church of Rome. Two facts in Irish life render this not only likely and
+probable, but inevitable and certain. The first fact is that
+three-fourths of the members would be Roman Catholic, and the second
+fact is that the Irish people are the most devoted Roman Catholics at
+present in Christendom. No one disputes the first fact, but the second
+requires to be made clear to the electors of Great Britain. Let no one
+suppose that I am finding fault with Irishmen for being devoted Roman
+Catholics. What I wish to show is that the Church of Rome would be
+supreme in the new Parliament, and that she is not a good guardian of
+Protestant liberties and interests. Ireland has been for the last two
+generations brought into absolute captivity to the principles of
+ultramontanism. When Italy asserted her nationality, and fought for it
+in 1870, Ireland sent out a brigade to fight on the side of the Pope.
+When France, a few years ago, broke up in that land the bondage of
+Ecclesiasticism, the streets of Dublin were filled Sunday after Sunday
+for weeks with crowds of Irishmen, headed by priests, shouting for the
+Pope against France. The Church first, nationality afterwards, is the
+creed of the ultramontane; and it is the avowed creed of the Irish
+people. But this would be changed in an Irish Parliament, British
+electors affirm. Let us hear what Mr. John Dillon, M.P., says on the
+point. Speaking about a year ago in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester,
+Mr. Dillon said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;I assert, and it is the glory of our race, that we are to-day the
+     right arm of the Catholic Church throughout the world ... we stand
+     to-day as we have stood throughout, without abating one jot or
+     tittle of that faith, the most Catholic nation on the whole earth.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>What Mr. Dillon says is perfectly true. The Irish Parliament would be
+constituted on the Roman model. If there were none but Roman Catholics
+in Ireland, Ireland would rapidly become a &quot;State of the Church.&quot; But
+how would Protestants fare? Just as they fared in old Papal days in
+Italy under the temporal rule of the Vatican. But it may still be said
+that Irishmen themselves would curb the ecclesiastical power. This is
+one of the delusions by which British electors conceal from themselves
+the peril of Home Rule to Irish Protestants. They forget that Irishmen
+are, if possible, more Roman than Rome herself. I take the following
+picture of the Romanised condition of Ireland from a Roman Catholic
+writer&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell, who 'believes in the Papal Church in
+     every point, who accepts her teaching from Nicaea to Trent, and
+     from Trent to the Vatican,' says, 'While the general population of
+     Ireland has been going down by leaps and bounds to the abyss, the
+     clerical population has been mounting by cent. per cent. during the
+     same period....' A short time ago, when an Austrian Cabinet was
+     being heckled by some anti-clerical opponents upon its alleged
+     encouragement of an excessive number of clerical persons in
+     Austria, the Minister replied, 'If you want to know what an
+     excessive number of the clergy is like go to Ireland. In proportion
+     to their population the Irish have got ten priests and nuns to the
+     one who exists in Austria. I do not prejudge the question. They may
+     be wanted in Ireland. But let not honourable members talk about
+     over-clericalism in Austria until they have studied the clerical
+     Statistics of Ireland.' A Jesuit visitor to Ireland, on returning
+     to his English acquaintances, and being asked how did he find the
+     priests in Ireland, replied, 'The priests in Ireland! There is
+     nobody but priests in Ireland. Over there they are treading on one
+     another's heels.' While the population of Ireland has diminished
+     one-half, the population of the Presbyteries and convents has
+     multiplied threefold or more. Comparisons are then instituted
+     between the Sacerdotal census of Ireland, and that of the European
+     Papal countries. I shall state results only. Belgium has only one
+     Archbishop and five Bishops; but if it were staffed with prelates
+     on the Irish scale it would have nine or ten Archbishops and some
+     sixty Bishops. I suppose the main army of ecclesiastics in the two
+     countries is in the same grossly incongruous proportions&mdash;ten or
+     twelve priests in Ireland for every one in Belgium! The German
+     Empire, with its 21,000,000 Roman Catholics, has actually fewer
+     mitred prelates than Ireland with its 3,000,000 of Roman Catholics.
+     The figures of Austria-Hungary with its Roman Catholic population
+     of 36,000,000 are equally impressive. It has eleven Archbishops,
+     but if it were staffed on the Irish scale it would have
+     forty-eight. It has forty Bishops, but if it were like Ireland it
+     would have 288. Mr. O'Donnell goes on: 'This enormous population of
+     Churchmen, far beyond the necessities and even the luxuries of
+     religious worship and service, would be a heavy tax upon the
+     resources of great and wealthy lands. What must it be for Ireland
+     to have to supply the Episcopal villas, the new Cathedrals, and
+     handsome Presbyteries, and handsome incomes of this enormous and
+     increasing host of reverend gentlemen, who, as regards five-sixths
+     of their number, contribute neither to the spiritual nor temporal
+     felicity of the Island? They are the despotic managers of all
+     primary schools, and can exact what homage they please from the
+     poor serf-teachers, whom they dominate and whom they keep eternally
+     under their thumb. They absolutely own and control all the
+     secondary schools, with all their private profits and all their
+     Government grants. In the University what they do not dominate they
+     mutilate. Every appointment, from dispensary doctors to members of
+     Parliament, must acknowledge their ownership, and pay toll to their
+     despotism. The County Councils must contribute patronage according
+     to their indications; the parish committees of the congested
+     districts supplement their pocket-money. They have annexed the
+     revenues of the industrial schools. They are engaged in
+     transforming the universal proprietary of Ireland in order to add
+     materials for their exactions from the living and the moribund. I
+     am told that not less than £5,000,000 are lifted from the Irish
+     people every year by the innumerable agencies of clerical suction
+     which are at work upon all parts of the Irish body, politic and
+     social. Nor can it be forgotten that the material loss is only a
+     portion of the injury. The brow-beaten and intimidated condition of
+     the popular action and intelligence which is necessary to this
+     state of things necessarily communicates its want of will and
+     energy to every function of the community.'&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Of course Mr. F.H. O'Donnell has been driven out of public life in
+Ireland for plain speaking like this; and so would every man be who
+ventured to cross swords with his Church. It aggravates the situation
+immensely when we take another fact in Irish life into account.</p>
+
+<p>In quite recent months Mr. Devlin, M.P., has brought into prominence a
+society called the Ancient Order of Hibernians (sometimes called the
+Molly Maguires) which, according to the late Mr. Michael Davitt, is &quot;the
+most wonderful pro-Celtic organisation in the world.&quot; This is a secret
+society which at one time was under the ban of the Church; but quite
+recently the ban has been removed, and priests are now allowed to join
+the order. The present Pope is said to be its most powerful friend. It
+has branches in many lands, and it is rapidly gathering into it all the
+great mass of the Irish Roman Catholic people. This is the most
+wonderful political machine in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., has recently given an account of this society
+which has never been seriously questioned.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;The fundamental object of the Hibernian Society is to give
+     preference to its own members first and Catholics afterwards as
+     against Protestants on all occasions. Whether it is a question of
+     custom, office, public contracts, or positions on Public Boards,
+     Molly Maguires are pledged always to support a Catholic as against
+     a Protestant. If Protestants are to be robbed of their business, if
+     they are to be deprived of public contracts, if they are to be shut
+     out of every office of honour or emolument, what is this but
+     extermination? The domination of such a society would make this
+     country a hell. It would light the flame of civil war in our midst,
+     and blight every hope of its future prosperity.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>And now we reach the core of the question. It is perfectly clear that
+Home Rule would create a Roman Catholic ascendency in Ireland, but
+still it might be said that the Church of Rome would be tolerant. On
+that point we had best consult the Church of Rome herself. Has she ever
+said that she would practise toleration towards Protestants when she was
+in power? Never; on the contrary, she declares most clearly that
+toleration of error is a deadly sin. In this respect the Church of Rome
+claims to differ <i>toto coelo</i> from the churches of the Reformation. In
+Ireland she has passed through all the stages of ecclesiastical
+experience from the lowest form of disability to the present claim of
+supremacy. In the dark days of her suffering she cried for toleration,
+and as the claim was just in Protestant eyes she got it. Then as she
+grew in strength she stretched forth her hands for equality, and as this
+too was just, she gradually obtained it. At present she enjoys equality
+in every practical right and privilege with her Protestant neighbours.
+But in the demand for Home Rule there is involved the claim of exerting
+an ecclesiastical ascendency not only over her own members but over
+Irish Protestants, and this is the claim which is unjust and which ought
+not to be granted. Green, the historian, points out that William Pitt
+made the Union with England the ground of his plea for Roman Catholic
+emancipation, as it would effectually prevent a Romish ascendency in
+Ireland. Home Rule in practice will destroy the control of Great
+Britain, and, therefore, involves the removal of the bulwark against
+Roman Catholic ascendency.</p>
+
+<p>The contention of the Irish Protestants is that neither their will nor
+their religious liberties would be safe in the custody of Rome. In an
+Irish Parliament civil allegiance to the Holy See would be the test of
+membership, and would make every Roman Catholic member a civil servant
+of the Vatican. That Parliament would be compelled to carry out the
+behests of the Church. The Church is hostile to the liberty of the
+Press, to liberty of public speech, to Modernism in science, in
+literature, in philosophy; is bound to exact obedience from her own
+members and to extirpate heresy and heretics; claims to be above Civil
+Law, and the right to enforce Canon Law whenever she is able. There are
+simply no limits even of life or property to the range of her
+intolerance. This is not an indictment; it is the boast of Rome. She
+plumes herself upon being an intolerant because she is an infallible
+Church, and her Irish claim, symbolised by the Papal Tiara, is supremacy
+over the Church, supremacy over the State, and supremacy over the
+invisible world. Unquestioning obedience is her law towards her own
+subjects, and intolerance tempered with prudence is her law towards
+Protestants. It is a strange hallucination to find that there are
+politicians to-day who think that Rome will change her principles at the
+bidding of Mr. Redmond, or to please hard-driven politicians, or to make
+Rome attractive to a Protestant Empire. Rome claims supremacy, and she
+tells us quite candidly what she will do when she gets it.</p>
+
+<p>Here is our difficulty under Home Rule. Irish Protestants see that they
+must either refuse to go into an Irish Parliament, or else go into it as
+a hopeless minority, and turn it into an arena for the maintenance of
+their most elementary rights; in which case the Irish Parliament would
+be simply a cockpit of religio-political strife. But it would be a great
+mistake to suppose that the religious difficulty is confined to Irish
+Protestants. It is a difficulty which would become in time a crushing
+burden to Roman Catholics themselves. The yoke of Rome was found too
+heavy for Italy, and in a generation or two it would be found too heavy
+for Ireland. But for the creation of the Papal ascendency in Ireland,
+the responsibility must rest, in the long run, on Great Britain herself.
+England and Scotland, the most favoured lands of the Reformation, by
+establishing Home Rule in Ireland, will do for Rome what no other
+country in the world would do for her. They would entrust her with a
+legislative machine which she could control without check, hand over to
+her tender mercies a million of the best Protestants of the Empire, and
+establish at the heart of the Empire a power altogether at variance with
+her own ideals of Government, fraught with danger, and a good base of
+operations for the conquest of England. Can this be done with impunity?
+Can Great Britain divest herself of a religious responsibility in
+dealing with Home Rule? Is there not a God in Heaven who will take note
+of such national procedure? Are electors not responsible to Him for the
+use they make of their votes? If they sow to the wind, must they not
+reap the whirlwind?</p>
+
+<p>In brief compass, I hope I have made it quite clear what the Religious
+Difficulty in Ireland under Home Rule is. It is not a mere accident of
+the situation; it does not spring from any question of temper, or of
+prejudice, or of bigotry. The Religious Difficulty is created by the
+essential and fundamental genius of Romanism. Her whole ideal of life
+differs from the Protestant ideal. It is impossible to reconcile these
+two ideals. It is impossible to unite them in any amalgam that would not
+mean the destruction of both. Under Imperial Rule these ideals have
+discovered a decently working <i>modus vivendi</i>. Mr. Pitt's contention
+that the union with Great Britain would be an effectual barrier against
+Romanism has held good. But if you remove Imperial Rule than you create
+at a stroke the ascendency of Rome, and under that ascendency the
+greatest injustice would be inflicted on the Protestant minority.
+Questions of public situations and of efficient patronage are of very
+subordinate importance indeed. Mr. Redmond demands that Irish
+Protestants must be included in his Home Rule scheme, and threatens that
+if they object they must be dealt with &quot;by the strong hand,&quot; and his
+Home Rule Parliament would be subservient to the Church of Rome. Does
+any one suppose that a million of the most earnest Protestants in the
+world are going to submit to such an arrangement? Neither Englishmen nor
+Scotsmen would be willing themselves to enter under such a yoke, and why
+should they ask Irishmen to do so?</p>
+
+<p>It is contended, indeed, that the power of the priest in Ireland is on
+the wane. This is partly true and partly not true. It is true that he is
+not quite the political and social autocrat that he once was. But it is
+not true that the Church of Rome is less powerful in Ireland than she
+was. On the contrary, as an ecclesiastical organisation Rome was never
+so compact in organisation, never so ably manned by both regular and
+secular clergy, never so wealthy nor so full of resource, never so
+obedient to the rule of the Vatican, as at the present moment. Give her
+an Irish Parliament, and she will be complete; she will patiently subdue
+all Ireland to her will. Emigration has drained the country of the
+strong men of the laity, who might be able to resist her encroachments.
+Dr. Horton truly says: &quot;The Roman Church dominates Ireland and the Irish
+as completely as Islam dominates Morocco.&quot; By Ireland and the Irish Dr.
+Horton, of course, means Roman Catholic Ireland. Are you now going to
+place a legislative weapon in her hand whereby she will be able to
+dominate Protestants also? It is bad statesmanship; bad politics; bad
+religion. For Ireland it can bring nothing but ruin; and for the Empire
+nothing but terrible retribution in the future.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONSTRUCTIVE</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII" />XIII</h2>
+
+<h2>UNIONIST POLICY IN RELATION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRELAND</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON. GERALD BALFOUR</h3>
+
+
+<p>&quot;<i>For the last two and twenty years, at first a few and now a goodly
+company of rural reformers with whom I have been associated, and on
+whose behalf I write, have been steadily working out a complete scheme
+of rural development, their formula being better farming, better
+business, better living.&quot;</i>&mdash;SIR H. PLUNKETT, letter to the <i>Times</i>,
+December, 1911.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Ireland would prefer rags and poverty rather than surrender her
+national spirit.&quot;</i>&mdash;MR. JOHN REDMOND, speech at Buffalo, September 27,
+1910.</p>
+
+<p>It should never be forgotten that the maintenance of the legislative
+Union between Ireland and Great Britain is defended by Unionists no less
+in the interests of Ireland than in that of the United Kingdom and of
+the Empire. That the ills from which Ireland has admittedly suffered in
+the past, and for which she still suffers, though in diminished measure,
+in the present, are economic and social rather than political, is a
+fundamental tenet of Unionism. Unionists also believe that economic and
+social conditions in Ireland can be more effectively dealt with under
+the existing political constitution than under any form of Home Rule.
+Ireland is a poor country, and needs the financial resources which only
+the Imperial Parliament can provide. She is, moreover, a country divided
+into hostile camps marked by strong racial and religious differences. As
+Sir George Trevelyan long ago pointed out, there is not one Ireland,
+there are two Irelands; and only so far as Ireland continues an
+integral part of a larger whole can the antagonism between the two
+elements be prevented from forming a dangerous obstacle to all real
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>Nationalist politicians, of course, diagnose the situation very
+differently. Apply suitable remedial measures, say the Unionists, to the
+social and economic conditions of the country, and it is not
+unreasonable to hope that political discontent&mdash;or, in other words, the
+demand for Home Rule&mdash;will gradually die away of itself. Give us Home
+Rule, say the Nationalists, and all other things will be added to us.</p>
+
+<p>The main object of the present paper is to give a bird's eye view of
+Unionist policy in relation to rural development in Ireland during the
+eventful years 1885-1905. It does not pretend to deal with the larger
+issue raised between Unionism and Nationalism; but incidentally, it will
+be found to throw some interesting side lights upon it.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish Question in its most essential aspect is a Farmers' Question.
+The difficulties which it presents have their deepest roots in an
+unsatisfactory system of land tenure, excessive sub-division of
+holdings, and antiquated methods of agricultural economy.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone endeavoured to deal with the system of land tenure in the
+two important Acts of 1870 and 1881; but the system of dual ownership
+which those Acts set up introduced, perhaps, as many evils as they
+removed. It became more and more evident that the only effectual remedy
+lay in the complete transference of the ownership of the land from the
+landlord to the occupying tenant. The successful application of this
+remedy with anything like fairness to both sides absolutely demanded the
+use of State credit on a large scale. The plan actually adopted in a
+succession of Land Acts passed by Unionist Governments, beginning with
+the Ashbourne Act of 1885, and ending with the Wyndham Act of 1903, is
+broadly speaking as follows:&mdash;The State purchases the interest of the
+landlord outright and vests the ownership in the occupying tenant
+subject to a fixed payment for a definite term of years. These annual
+payments are not in the nature of rent: they represent a low rate of
+interest on the purchase money, plus such contribution to a sinking fund
+as will repay the principal in the term of years for which the annual
+payments are to run. The practical effect of this arrangement is that
+the occupier becomes the owner of his holding, subject to a terminable
+annual payment to the State of a sum less in amount than the rent he has
+had to pay heretofore.</p>
+
+<p>The successful working of the scheme obviously depends on the credit of
+the State, in other words, its power of borrowing at a low rate of
+interest. In this respect the Imperial Government has an immense
+advantage over any possible Home Rule Government: indeed, it is doubtful
+whether any Home Rule Government could have attempted this great reform
+without wholesale confiscation of the landlords' property. Here then in
+Land Purchase and the abolition of dual ownership, we have one of the
+twin pillars on which, on its constructive side, the Irish policy of the
+Unionist party rests. But to solve the problem of rural Ireland&mdash;which,
+as I have said, is <i>the</i> Irish problem&mdash;more is required than the
+conversion of the occupying tenant into a peasant proprietor. The sense
+of ownership may be counted on to do much; but it will not make it
+possible for a family to live in decent comfort on an insufficient
+holding; neither will it enable the small farmer to compete with those
+foreign rivals who have at their command improved methods of production,
+improved methods of marketing their produce, facilities for obtaining
+capital adequate to their needs, and all the many advantages which
+superior education and organised co-operation bring in their train.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back to-day, the wide field that in these directions was open to
+the beneficent action of the State, and to the equally beneficent action
+of voluntary associations, seems evident and obvious. It was by no means
+so evident or obvious twenty years ago. At that time the traditional
+policy of <i>laisser faire</i> had still a powerful hold over men's minds,
+and to abandon it even in the case of rural Ireland was a veritable new
+departure in statesmanship. The idea of establishing a voluntary
+association to promote agricultural co-operation was even more remote;
+and, as will be seen in the sequel, it was to the insight and devoted
+persistence of a single individual that its successful realisation has
+been ultimately due.</p>
+
+<p>So far as State action was concerned, a beginning was naturally made
+with the poorest parts of the country. Mr. Arthur Balfour led the way
+with two important measures. One of these was the construction of light
+railways in the most backward tracts on the western seaboard. These
+railways were constructed at the public expense, but worked by existing
+railway companies, and linked up with existing railway systems. The
+benefits conferred on those parts of the country through which they
+passed have been great and lasting.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Balfour's second contribution to Irish rural development was the
+creation of the Congested Districts Board in 1891. The &quot;congested
+districts&quot; embraced the most poverty-stricken areas in the western
+counties, and the business of the Board was to devise and apply, within
+those districts, schemes for the amelioration of the social and economic
+condition of the population comprised in them. For this purpose, the
+Board was invested with very wide powers of a paternal character, and an
+annual income of upwards of £40,000 was placed at their free disposal, a
+sum which has been largely increased by subsequent Acts.</p>
+
+<p>The experiment was an absolutely novel one, but no one who is able to
+compare the improved condition of the congested districts to-day with
+the state of things that prevailed twenty years ago can doubt that it
+has been amply justified by results.</p>
+
+<p>Every phase of the life of the Irish peasant along the whole of the
+western seaboard has been made brighter and more hopeful by the
+beneficent operations of the Board. Its activities have been manifold,
+including the purchase and improvement of estates prior to re-sale to
+the tenants; the re-arrangement and enlargement of holdings; the
+improvement of stock; the provision of pure seeds and high-class
+manures; practical demonstration of various kinds, all educational in
+character; drainage; the construction of roads; improvement in the
+sanitary conditions of the people's dwellings; assistance to provide
+proper accommodation for the livestock of the farm, which too frequently
+were housed with the people themselves; the development of sea
+fisheries; the encouragement of many kinds of home industries for women
+and girls; the quarrying of granite; the making of kelp; the promotion
+of co-operative credit; and many other schemes which had practical
+regard to the needs of the people, and have contributed in a variety of
+ways to raise the standard of comfort of the inhabitants of these
+impoverished areas.</p>
+
+<p>It will be noticed that among the other activities of the Congested
+Districts Board, I have specially mentioned the work of promoting
+co-operative credit by means of village banks managed on the Raffeisen
+system. The actual work of organising these co-operative banking
+associations has not been carried out directly by the Board, but through
+the agency of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (generally
+known by the shorter title of the I.A.O.S.), to which the Board has for
+many years past paid a small subsidy&mdash;a subsidy which might well have
+been on a more generous scale, having regard to the immense advantages
+which co-operation is capable of conferring on the small farmer.</p>
+
+<p>The I.A.O.S. is a voluntary association of a strictly non-political
+character. &quot;Business, not politics,&quot; has been its principle of action;
+and partly, perhaps, for this very reason it may claim to have
+contributed more than any other single agency towards the prosperity of
+rural Ireland. To its work I now turn.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE I.A.O.S.</h4>
+
+<p>The movement which the I.A.O.S. represents was started by Sir Horace
+Plunkett, and he has remained the most prominent figure in it ever
+since. Sir Horace Plunkett bears an honoured name wherever the rural
+problem is seriously studied; but, like other prophets, he has received
+perhaps less honour in his own country than elsewhere. At all events, in
+the task to which he has devoted his life, he has had to encounter the
+tacit, and indeed at times the open opposition, of powerful sections of
+Nationalist opinion. Happily he belongs to the stamp of men whom no
+obstacles can discourage, and who find in the work itself their
+sufficient reward.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Horace Plunkett's leading idea was a simple one, and has become
+to-day almost a commonplace. He compared the backward state of
+agriculture in Ireland with the great advance that had been made in
+various continental countries, where the natural conditions were not
+dissimilar to those of Ireland, and asked himself the secret of the
+difference. That secret he found in the word <i>organisation</i>, and he set
+himself to organise. The establishment of co-operative creameries seemed
+to afford the most hopeful opening, and it was to this that Sir Horace
+Plunkett and a few personal friends, in the year 1889, directed their
+earliest missionary efforts. The difficulties to be overcome were at
+first very great. &quot;My own diary,&quot; writes Sir Horace, &quot;records attendance
+at fifty meetings before a single society had resulted therefrom. It was
+weary work for a long time. These gatherings were miserable affairs
+compared with those which greeted our political speakers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The experiences<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70" /><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> of another of the little band of devoted workers,
+Mr. R.A. Anderson, now Secretary of the I.A.O.S., throw an interesting
+light upon the nature of some of the obstacles which the new movement
+had to encounter.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;It was hard and thankless work. There was the apathy of the
+     people, and the active opposition of the Press and the politicians.
+     It would be hard to say now whether the abuse of the Conservative
+     <i>Cork Constitution</i>, or that of the Nationalist <i>Eagle</i> of
+     Skibbereen, was the louder. We were 'killing the calves,' we were
+     'forcing the young women to emigrate,' we were 'destroying the
+     industry.' Mr. Plunkett was described as a 'monster in human
+     shape,' and was adjured to 'cease his hellish work.' I was
+     described as his 'man Friday,' and as 'Roughrider Anderson.' Once
+     when I thought I had planted a creamery within the town of
+     Rathkeale, my co-operative apple-cart was upset by a local
+     solicitor, who, having elicited the fact that our movement
+     recognised neither political nor religious differences&mdash;that the
+     Unionist-Protestant cow was as dear to us as her
+     Nationalist-Catholic sister&mdash;gravely informed me that our programme
+     would not suit Rathkeale. 'Rathkeale,' said he pompously, 'is a
+     Nationalist town&mdash;Nationalist to the backbone&mdash;and every pound of
+     butter made in this creamery must be made on Nationalist
+     principles, or it shan't be made at all.' This sentiment was
+     applauded loudly, and the proceedings terminated.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Eventually, however, the zeal of the preachers, coupled with the
+economic soundness of the doctrine, prevailed over all difficulties. By
+1894 the movement had outgrown the individual activities of the
+founders, and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society was
+established in Dublin in order to promote and direct its further
+progress. That progress has been rapid and continuous, and to-day the
+co-operative societies connected with the I.A.O.S. number nearly 1000,
+with an annual turnover of upwards of 2-1/2 millions. They extend over
+the length and breadth of the land, and include creameries, agricultural
+societies (whose main business is the purchase of seeds and manure for
+distribution to the members), credit societies (village banks), poultry
+keepers' societies (for the marketing of eggs), flax societies,
+industries societies, as well as other societies of a miscellaneous
+character.</p>
+
+<p>In 1892 the Liberal Party came into power. During their three years'
+tenure of office a Home Rule Bill was introduced and passed through the
+House of Commons, but little or nothing was attempted by the Government
+for the economic regeneration of the country.</p>
+
+<p>The Unionist Party came back with a large majority in 1896, and the
+attention of the new Irish Government, in which the post of Lord
+Lieutenant was held by Lord Cadogan and that of Chief Secretary by the
+present writer, was from the first directed to the condition of the
+Irish farmer. The session of 1896 was largely devoted to the passing of
+a Bill for amending the Land Acts, and for further facilitating the
+conversion of occupying tenants into owners of their holdings. Time,
+however, was also found for a new Light Railways Act, under the
+provision of which railway communication has been opened up at the
+expense of the State in the poorest parts of North-West Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the following year that the first attempt was made to
+establish an Irish Department of Agriculture. The Bill was not carried
+beyond a first reading, because it was ultimately decided that a Local
+Government Act should have precedence of it. But the project was only
+put aside for a time, and it was always looked upon by me as an integral
+part of our legislative programme. In framing the Bill of 1897, and also
+the later Bill of 1899, which passed into law, we received the greatest
+assistance from the labours of a body known as the Recess Committee,
+concerning which a few words must now be said.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE RECESS COMMITTEE.</h4>
+
+<p>To be the founder of agricultural co-operation in Ireland was Sir Horace
+Plunkett's first great achievement; the bringing together of the Recess
+Committee was his second. He conceived the idea of inviting a number of
+the most prominent men in Ireland, irrespective of religious or
+political differences, to join in an inquiry into the means by which the
+Government could best promote the development of the agricultural and
+industrial resources of Ireland. This idea he propounded in an open
+letter published in August, 1895. The proposal was a bold one&mdash;how bold
+no one unacquainted with Ireland will easily realise. Amongst
+Nationalist politicians the majority fought shy of it. Mr. Justin
+McCarthy, the leader of the party, could only see in Sir Horace's letter
+&quot;the expression of a belief that if your policy could be successfully
+carried out, the Irish people would cease to desire Home Rule.&quot; &quot;I do
+not feel,&quot; he added, &quot;that I could possibly take part in any
+organisation which had for its object the seeking of a substitute for
+that which I believe to be Ireland's greatest need&mdash;Home Rule.&quot;
+Fortunately, then as now, the Irish party was divided into two camps,
+and Mr. Redmond, at the head of a small minority of &quot;Independents,&quot; was
+at liberty to take a different line. &quot;I am unwilling,&quot; he wrote, &quot;to
+take the responsibility of declining to aid in any effort to promote
+useful legislation in Ireland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ultimately, Sir Horace Plunkett's strong personality, his manifest
+singleness of purpose, and the intrinsic merits of his proposal carried
+the day. A committee, truly representative of all that was best in Irish
+life, was brought together, and commissioners were despatched to the
+Continent to report upon those systems of State aid linked with
+voluntary organisation which appeared to have revolutionised agriculture
+in countries not otherwise more favoured than Ireland itself. A large
+mass of most valuable information was collected. In less than a year the
+committee reported. The substance of the recommendation was</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;That a Department of Government should be specially created, with
+     a minister directly responsible to Parliament at its head. The
+     Central Body was to be assisted by a Consultative Council
+     representative of the interests concerned. The Department was to be
+     adequately endowed from the Imperial Treasury, and was to
+     administer State aid to agriculture and industries in Ireland upon
+     principles which were fully described.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71" /><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>With the general policy of these recommendations the Irish Government
+were in hearty sympathy, and the Bill of 1897, already referred to, was
+a first attempt to give effect to it. But in the absence of popularly
+elected local authorities an important part of the machinery for
+carrying out the proposals was wanting.</p>
+
+
+<h4>IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT.</h4>
+
+<p>A reform of local government in Ireland had long been given a place in
+the Unionist programme, but the magnitude of the undertaking and the
+pressure of other business had hitherto stood in its way. It was now
+decided to take up this task in earnest, on the understanding that other
+measures relating to Ireland should be postponed in the meantime. The
+Irish Local Government Bill was accordingly introduced and passed in the
+following session (1898).</p>
+
+<p>Of this Act, which involved not merely the creation of new popular
+Authorities, but also an entire re-arrangement of local taxation, and
+some important changes in the system of poor relief, I will only say
+here that it must be counted as another of the great remedial measures
+which Ireland owes to the Unionist Party, and which it would have been
+difficult, if not impossible, to carry out in a satisfactory manner
+without assistance on a generous scale from the ample resources of the
+Imperial Exchequer.</p>
+
+
+<h4>IRISH DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION.</h4>
+
+<p>The way was now open for the measure to which I had looked forward from
+the first moment of my going to Ireland, and which was to constitute the
+final abandonment of the old <i>laissez faire</i> policy in connection with
+Irish agriculture and industries. Great care and labour were devoted to
+the framing of the new Bill, and I was in constant touch throughout with
+members of the Recess Committee. It contained clauses dealing with urban
+as well as rural industries, but these lie outside my present subject,
+and I shall not refer to them further here. On the side of rural
+development the Bill embodied a novel experiment in the art of
+government&mdash;novel at all events in British or Irish experience, though
+something like it had already been tried with conspicuous success in
+various countries on the Continent. It was the continental example which
+had inspired the Report of the Recess Committee, and it was the
+recommendations of the Recess Committee which in their turn suggested
+the main features of the Bill of 1899.</p>
+
+<p>There was indeed one body in Ireland whose functions corresponded in
+some degree with those of the Authority it was now proposed to set up.
+This body was the Congested Districts Board; and it might be said with
+some approximation to the truth that the object we had in view was to do
+for the rest of Ireland, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, what the Congested
+Districts Board was intended to do for the poverty-stricken districts of
+the West. But there was this very important difference. The operations
+of the Congested Districts Board were carried out, and necessarily
+carried out, on strictly &quot;paternal&quot; lines; the dominant note in the new
+departure was to be the encouragement of self-help. This difference
+carried with it an equally important difference in the constitution and
+methods of the administering Authority.</p>
+
+<p>Out of a total endowment of £166,000 a year, a sum of over £100,000 was
+placed at the disposal of the Department to be applied to the &quot;purposes
+of agriculture and other rural industries.&quot; These &quot;purposes&quot; are defined
+in the Act as including&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;the aiding, improving, and developing of agriculture,
+     horticulture, forestry, dairying, the breeding of horses, cattle,
+     and other live stock and poultry, home and cottage industries, the
+     preparation and cultivation of flax, inland fisheries, and any
+     industries immediately connected with and subservient to any of the
+     said matters, and any instruction relating thereto, and the
+     facilitating of the carriage and distribution of produce.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>This part of the Endowment Fund was, in short, a grant to the Department
+to be applied to what may be described as rural development in the
+widest sense of the term. As to the methods, little or no restriction
+was imposed upon the scope of its powers; and in the expenditure of the
+money it was to be as free from Treasury control as the Congested
+Districts Board itself.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the Congested Districts Board was not only free from
+Treasury control, it was free from any control whatever. It was an
+unpaid Board, and it could spend its money where it pleased and how it
+pleased, and there was nobody to say it nay. True, its members were
+appointed by Government, and the Chief Secretary was <i>ex-officio</i> a
+member of the Board; but he had no greater authority given to him than
+any of his colleagues, and in case of any difference of opinion the
+decision was that of the majority of the Board. No single member of the
+Board could be held responsible for any of its acts; and accordingly,
+although the vote for the Board came annually before Parliament, of real
+Parliamentary responsibility there was none.</p>
+
+<p>Such an arrangement was not without its disadvantages even as regards
+the Congested Districts Board itself: its adoption in the case of the
+Authority to be created under the Agriculture and Industries Bill would
+have been open to yet greater objection.</p>
+
+<p>A further point was this. The Congested Districts Board was an unpaid
+body. An unpaid body consisting of busy men cannot be in perpetual
+session. The Congested Districts Board, as a matter of fact, met only
+once a month; and in the intervals of its meeting there was no one with
+full authority to act on its behalf.</p>
+
+<p>The problem, then, in connection with the expenditure of the Endowment
+Fund was to provide for its administration by an efficient and
+promptly-acting executive, responsible to Parliament on the one hand,
+and on the other hand brought by the very nature of its administrative
+machinery into the closest possible touch with the new local
+Authorities, as well as with the voluntary organisations which were now
+springing up all over the country.</p>
+
+<p>In order to satisfy these requirements, the Bill provided that the
+control of the Endowment Fund should be vested not in a Board attached
+to the new Department, but in the Department itself; that is to say, in
+a Minister appointed by the Government of the day. The Chief Secretary
+was to be the titular head of the Department, but it was not intended
+that he should intervene in its ordinary administrative business. The
+real working head was to be the Vice-President, a new Minister with
+direct responsibility to Parliament. So far as related to certain powers
+and duties transferred from existing departments of the Irish
+Government, and similar to the powers and duties of the English Board of
+Agriculture, the new Minister was to have complete executive authority.
+But as regards the administration of the Endowment Fund, a different
+arrangement was proposed&mdash;an arrangement without precedent, so far as I
+know, in any previous legislation in this country.</p>
+
+<p>In order to bring the Department into close touch with local bodies, the
+Bill attached to it a &quot;Council of Agriculture&quot; and an &quot;Agricultural
+Board.&quot; One-third of the members of each of these bodies were to be
+nominated by the Department, and the intention was that in making these
+nominations due regard should be had to the representation of voluntary
+organisations. The remaining two-thirds were to be elected in the case
+of the &quot;Council of Agriculture&quot; by the newly created County Councils, in
+the case of the &quot;Agricultural Board&quot; by the &quot;Council of Agriculture,&quot;
+divided for this purpose into four &quot;Provincial Committees.&quot; In addition
+to the functions of an electoral college thus entrusted to its four
+provincial committees, the business of the &quot;Council of Agriculture&quot; as a
+whole was to meet together, at least once a year, for the discussion of
+questions of general interest in connection with the provisions of the
+Act; but its powers were only advisory. The &quot;Board,&quot; on the other hand,
+was more than an advisory body; for it was given a veto on any
+expenditure of money out of the Agricultural Endowment Fund. The
+application of the Endowment Fund was thus made dependent on the
+<i>concurrence</i> of the &quot;Agricultural Board&quot; and of the minister in charge
+of the Department&mdash;an entirely novel plan which, although it might
+clearly result in a deadlock as regards any particular application of
+money from the fund, has nevertheless, I believe, worked extremely well,
+and answered the purpose for which it was devised of reconciling
+ministerial and executive responsibility with a reasonable power of
+control given to local bodies.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, with a view to stimulating local effort and the spirit of
+self-help, a provision was inserted in the Bill to which I attached the
+greatest importance. Power was given to the Council of any county or of
+any urban district, or to two or more public bodies jointly, to appoint
+committees composed partly of members of the local bodies and partly of
+co-opted persons, for the purpose of carrying out such of the
+Department's schemes as were of local rather than of general interest.
+But in such cases, it was laid down that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;the Department shall not, in the absence of any special
+     considerations, apply or approve of the application of money ... to
+     schemes in respect of which aid is not given out of money provided
+     by local authorities, or from other local sources.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>To meet this requirement, the local authorities were given the power of
+raising a limited rate for the purposes of the Act.</p>
+
+<p>That the Act of 1899 has in the main answered the expectations formed of
+it by those who were responsible for its introduction there can, I
+think, be no doubt. The Act itself, as well as the methods of
+administration adopted in carrying out its provisions, have been the
+subject of a full inquiry by a Departmental Committee which reported in
+1907. Their report must be regarded as on the whole eminently
+favourable. In one point only has any important change been recommended.
+The Committee suggest that the post of Vice-President of the Department
+should not be held by a Minister with a seat in Parliament, nor yet by a
+regular civil servant, but should be an office <i>sui generis</i> tenable
+for five years with power of reappointment. No effect has so far been
+given to this proposal by legislation.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE UNIONIST ATTITUDE.</h4>
+
+<p>In this brief sketch of the measures passed by Unionist Governments
+since 1886 with the object of promoting the material prosperity of
+Ireland, many points of interest have been necessarily omitted; but what
+has been said will suffice to show how baseless is the assertion, so
+frequently urged as an argument for Home Rule, that the Imperial
+Parliament is incapable of legislating successfully for Irish wants.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72" /><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>
+Nothing could be more futile than to represent Irish problems, and
+especially the problems of Irish rural life, as so unique that only a
+Parliament sitting in Dublin can hope to solve them satisfactorily. As a
+matter of fact, the rural question in Ireland is, in most of its
+essential features, very similar to the rural question in other
+countries, of which Denmark is perhaps the best example; and the
+methods which have been successful there are already proving successful
+here. Single ownership of the land by the cultivator; State aid,
+encouraging and supplemementing co-operation and self-help; co-operation
+and self-help providing suitable opportunities for the fruitful
+application of State aid&mdash;these are the principles by which Unionist
+legislation for Ireland has been guided, and they are the principles
+which any wise legislation must follow, whether it emanate from an Irish
+or from the Imperial Parliament. Indeed, if there is anything &quot;unique&quot;
+in the Irish case, it is the deep division of sentiment inherited from
+the unhappy history of the country and reinforced by those differences
+of race and creed to which I have already alluded as making two Irelands
+out of one. But the remedy for this is not to cut Ireland adrift and
+leave the two sections to fight it out alone, but rather to maintain the
+existing constitution as the best guarantee that the balance will be
+held even between them.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Horace Plunkett has well summed up the real needs of rural Ireland
+in the formula &quot;better farming, better business, better living.&quot; He has
+himself done more than any other single man to bring the desired
+improvement about. I am not ashamed to acknowledge myself his disciple,
+and in the measures for which I was responsible during my time in
+Ireland, I ever kept the practical objects for which he has striven
+steadily in view. In a speech which I made shortly after taking office I
+used the phrase &quot;killing Home Rule with kindness.&quot; This phrase has been
+repeatedly quoted since, as if it had been a formal declaration on the
+part of the incoming Irish Government that to &quot;kill Home Rule&quot; was the
+Alpha and the Omega of their policy. What I really said was that we
+intended to promote measures having for their object an increase in the
+material prosperity of the country; that if we could thereby kill Home
+Rule with kindness, so much the better; but that the policy stood on its
+own merits, irrespective of any ulterior consequences.</p>
+
+<p>In my view that is the only true attitude for a Unionist Government to
+take up. But in our efforts to improve material conditions and to remove
+grievances, how small is the encouragement or help that we have received
+from leaders of the Nationalist Party! &quot;Their aim,&quot; said Goldwin Smith
+long ago, &quot;has always been to create a Nationalist feeling, which would
+end in political separation, not the redress of particular wrongs and
+grievances, or the introduction of practical improvements.&quot; I should
+imagine that there has seldom, if ever, been an important political
+party which has exhibited so little constructive ability as the Irish
+Parliamentarians. Their own legislative proposals during the last thirty
+years have been a negligible quantity; and I think I am justified in
+saying that there is not one of the great measures passed by Unionist
+Governments since 1886 which has not been either opposed by the
+accredited leaders of the Party, or, at best, received with carping and
+futile, rather than helpful, criticism. I must personally
+acknowledge&mdash;and I do so gladly&mdash;that I received useful assistance and
+valuable criticism from the Messrs. Healy in conducting the Local
+Government Bill through the House of Commons; and credit must also be
+given to Mr. John Redmond for the part he took in aiding to bring
+together the Recess Committee. But the Messrs. Healy have always acted
+independently; and Mr. John Redmond was, at the time referred to, leader
+of only a small minority of the Irish Nationalists. The feeling of the
+majority, and certainly of the leaders of the majority, was reflected,
+as we have seen, in the refusal of Mr. Justin McCarthy to have anything
+to do with the movement.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dillon in particular has shown a disposition to regard minor
+political grievances, and even poverty and discontent, as so much fuel
+wherewith to stoke the lagging engine of Home Rule. Remedial measures
+short of Home Rule seem to take in his eyes the character of attempts to
+deprive the Irish Party of so many valuable assets. Nor is this spirit
+of tacit or open hostility confined to acts of the legislature. Of all
+the social and economic movements in Ireland during recent years, the
+spread of agricultural co-operation has been without doubt among the
+greatest and the most beneficial. It has never found a friend in Mr.
+Dillon. In the movement itself and in the Irish Agricultural
+Organisation Society, founded expressly to promote it, he can only see a
+cunning device of the enemy to undermine Nationalism. In this matter Mr.
+Dillon's attitude is also the official attitude of the Irish Party. Thus
+Mr. Redmond (now reconciled with Mr. Dillon and become leader of the
+main body of Nationalists), in a letter to Mr. Patrick Ford, dated
+October 4, 1904, does not scruple to say of Sir Horace Plunkett's truly
+patriotic work:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;I myself, indeed, at one time entertained some belief in the good
+     intentions of Sir Horace Plunkett and his friends, but recent
+     events have entirely undeceived me; and Sir Horace Plunkett's
+     recent book, full as it is of undisguised contempt for the Irish
+     race, makes it plain to me that the real object of the movement in
+     question is to undermine the National Party and divert the minds of
+     our people from Home Rule, which is the only thing that can ever
+     lead to a real revival of Irish industries.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Those who have read Sir H. Plunkett's &quot;Ireland in the New Century&quot; will
+hardly know which most to wonder at in these words, the extraordinary
+misdescription of the whole spirit of his book, or the total failure to
+realise the absolute necessity to Irish farming of a movement which not
+only has its counterpart all over the Continent of Europe, but has since
+inspired similar action in the United States, in India, and quite
+recently in Great Britain as well.</p>
+
+
+<h4>NATIONALIST HOSTILITY.</h4>
+
+<p>Nationalist hostility to the I.A.O.S. has not been confined to words.
+When the Agriculture and Technical Instruction Bill was passing through
+the House of Commons, Mr. Dillon endeavoured to secure an undertaking
+from me that public moneys should not be employed to subsidise the work
+of the Society. I naturally refused to give any such undertaking.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73" /><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> I
+had followed the efforts of the Society very closely; I was deeply
+impressed with the value of the results which it had accomplished; but
+its field of activity was limited by the narrowness of its resources. In
+my opinion, a subsidy to the Society from the Endowment Fund of the
+Department would be a useful and proper application of public money. At
+the same time I pointed out that if the Agricultural Board, which in the
+main represented the popularly-elected local authorities, thought
+differently, they had a power of veto and could use it in this case.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Horace Plunkett held the position of Vice-President of the
+Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction from 1899 to 1907,
+and during his tenure of office, as I had always expected and intended,
+there was close co-operation between the Department and the I.A.O.S.
+During that period a sum amounting in all to less than £30,000 was paid
+by the Department to the I.A.O.S., of which more than half was for
+technical instruction, while the balance represented contributions to
+the work of co-operative organisation.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74" /><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p>
+
+<p>When Sir H. Plunkett was replaced by Mr. T. W. Russell, the pressure of
+the Irish Parliamentary Party immediately began to make itself felt. The
+new vice-president informed the Council of Agriculture that he had made
+up his mind to withdraw the subsidy, but he undertook to continue a
+diminishing grant for three years, £3000 for the first year, £2000 for
+the second, and £1000 for the third. The I.A.O.S. were not seriously
+opposed to the gradual withdrawal of the subsidy, the loss of which they
+hoped to be able to cover in course of time by increased voluntary
+subscriptions.</p>
+
+<p>The opposition of the Nationalist Party was, however, not yet
+exhausted. In the <i>Freeman's Journal</i> of January 21, 1908, there
+appeared a letter from Mr. John Redmond enclosing a copy of a letter
+from Mr. T. W. Rolleston to a correspondent at St. Louis. Mr. Rolleston
+accompanied his letter with a copy of a speech by Sir Horace Plunkett.
+In his letter he remarked plainly upon the antagonism displayed by the
+Irish Nationalists to the co-operative movement. Although Sir Horace
+Plunkett declared that he had nothing whatever to do with the letter,
+the Irish Parliamentarians professed to find in it abundant proof of an
+intention to destroy Nationalism. &quot;That correspondence,&quot; said Mr. T. W.
+Russell,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75" /><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> compelled me to take action. Mr. John Redmond made it
+imperative upon me by his letter&mdash;I mean a public letter to the
+Press&mdash;and as so much was involved, I took the precaution of convening a
+special meeting of the Agricultural Board.&quot; The Board decided that the
+subsidy should be withdrawn at the end of the year 1908.</p>
+
+<p>The last act in this drama of hostility to Sir Horace Plunkett and all
+his works is still in the course of being played. Under the provisions
+of the Development Fund Act of 1909, the Development Commissioners were
+empowered to make advances for the organisation of co-operation, either
+&quot;to a Government Department or through a Government Department to a
+voluntary association not trading for profit.&quot; During the Report stage
+of the Development Fund Bill, Mr. Dillon tried to get a ruling from the
+Solicitor-General that the I.A.O.S. would be excluded from receiving
+grants from the fund, thus repeating the manoeuvre which he had already
+unsuccessfully attempted in connection with the Agriculture and
+Technical Instruction (Ireland) Bill of 1899.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with this provision, the three Agricultural Organisation
+Societies for England, Scotland, and Ireland, each applied for a grant
+in aid. The applications were referred in due course for report to the
+Government Departments concerned&mdash;that is to say, to the Board of
+Agriculture and Fisheries for the English and Scottish applications, and
+to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for that from
+the I.A.O.S. The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries reported favourably,
+and the British and Scottish Organisation Societies are to have their
+grant. But the I.A.O.S. had to reckon with Mr. T. W. Russell, behind
+whom stood Mr. Dillon and the politicians. The report of the Irish
+Department on the Irish application was adverse, but the Commissioners
+do not appear to have found the reasons given convincing. Much delay
+ensued, but, ten months after the application was sent in, the matter
+was submitted to the Council of Agriculture.</p>
+
+<p>The machinery of the United Irish League was brought into action to
+influence the votes of this body. Mr. Russell delivered an impassioned
+harangue, and eventually the Council was induced to endorse his action
+by a majority of 47 to 33.</p>
+
+<p>Any grant in aid of agricultural co-operation is to be administered, if
+Mr. Russell has his way, not by the society which has already been
+instrumental in establishing nearly a thousand co-operative associations
+in Ireland, and has served as a model on which the corresponding English
+and Scottish Organisation Societies, now in the enjoyment of a State
+subsidy, have been founded, but by the Department, which has hitherto
+had no experience whatever of such work. Moreover, the co-operation
+promoted by the Department is to be &quot;non-competitive,&quot; by which I
+suppose is meant, that it is not to affect any existing trading
+interest. It is safe to say that agricultural co-operation, which has
+<i>no</i> effect upon any trading interest, will have very little effect upon
+the farmers' interests either. So far as I know, the Development
+Commissioners have not decided what course to take in this strange
+situation. It may be that Ireland will lose the grant altogether; but in
+any case I can well believe that they must hesitate to reverse the
+policy already approved for England and Scotland, and in the face of
+all experience commit the work of organising agricultural co-operation
+to a State Department rather than to a voluntary association possessing
+such a record as the I.A.O.S. has placed to its credit.</p>
+
+<p>If now we ask what are the grounds of the hostility of the Nationalist
+Party to the most hopeful Irish movement of recent years, the answer
+appears to be twofold. The first is economic, or purports to be
+economic: the second is frankly political.</p>
+
+<p>1. Co-operation, it is urged, injures the middleman and the small
+trader.</p>
+
+<p>To encourage farmers to do well and economically for themselves what is
+now done indifferently and expensively for them by the middleman, must
+of course act injuriously on some existing interests. This is not
+disputed. But the change is absolutely necessary for the regeneration of
+rural Ireland, and this objection cannot be allowed to stand in the way.
+Looked at in its broader and more enduring aspects, co-operation is
+bound to stimulate and improve general trade by increasing the spending
+power of the farmers. The Chambers of Commerce of Dublin and Belfast
+have not been slow to perceive this, and have warmly endorsed the
+Society's application for a grant from the Development Commissioners.</p>
+
+<p>2. The political objection to the movement, so far as it takes the
+definite form of charging the I.A.O.S. with being a propagandist body
+aiming under the mask of economic reform at the covert spread of
+Unionist opinions, will not stand a moment's examination. There is not a
+particle of evidence in support of such a charge, and the presumption
+against it is overwhelming. To mix political propagandism with
+organisation would be the certain ruin of the movement. The Committee of
+the I.A.O.S. consists of men of all shades of political faith. These men
+could never have joined hands except on the basis that politics should
+be rigidly excluded from the work of the Society. The members of the
+co-operative societies founded by the I.A.O.S. number nearly 100,000.
+Probably at least three-fourths of these are Nationalists.</p>
+
+<p>In order, however, that all doubt on the subject might be finally
+removed, the I.A.O.S. issued a circular to all its societies, in which
+the following question was directly put:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Has the I.A.O.S., as a body, or the Committee acting for it, done,
+     in your opinion, any act in the interest of any political party, or
+     any act calculated to offend the political principles of any
+     section of your members?&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>The answers received have been published and form very interesting
+reading. Not a single society, of the many hundreds that have replied
+from all parts of Ireland, has been found to assert that politics have
+ever been mentioned by the agents of the parent association.</p>
+
+<p>The hostility of the politicians to the co-operative movement rests, it
+is safe to surmise, upon some other foundation than these flimsy charges
+against the I.A.O.S.</p>
+
+<p>In itself the movement is vital to the prosperity of rural Ireland. The
+disfavour shown to it arises from apprehensions respecting its
+<i>indirect</i> bearing upon the great issue between Unionism and
+Nationalism. Home Rulers who oppose the co-operative movement find
+themselves in this dilemma: either they hold that nothing in the way of
+material improvement could affect the demand for Home Rule, or else they
+are really afraid lest &quot;better farming, better business, and better
+living,&quot; should weaken the attractions of their own political nostrum.
+In the former case, they are left without a shadow of justification for
+their attitude towards the I.A.O.S.; in the latter, they tacitly admit
+that the interests of the farming classes must suffer in order that the
+cause of Home Rule may be promoted.</p>
+
+<p>Unionists are in no such difficulty. Our policy is clear and consistent.
+Improvement in the social and economic condition of the people must be
+our first object. It is an end to be pursued for its own sake, whatever
+the indirect consequences may be. But the indirect consequences need
+cause us no anxiety. Increased material prosperity, and the contentment
+which inevitably accompanies it, whatever their other effects may be,
+are not likely to strengthen the demand for constitutional changes.
+Successful resistance to Home Rule at the present crisis may well mean
+the saving of the Union for good and all.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70" /><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Originally published in the <i>Irish Homestead</i>, and quoted
+in Sir Horace Plunkett's &quot;Ireland in the New Century,&quot; p. 190.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71" /><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> &quot;Ireland in the New Century,&quot; p. 220.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72" /><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> In this connection attention may be called to the
+remarkable increase of wealth in Ireland in the past twenty years. The
+deposits in the Joint Stock Banks have increased from £33,700,000 in
+1891 to £56,011,000 in 1911, the balances in the Post Office Savings
+Banks in Ireland from £3,878,000 in 1891 to £12,253,000 in 1911, and the
+number of accounts from 261,352 in 1891 to 662,589 at the end of 1910.
+Irish investments in Government Funds, India Stocks, and Guaranteed Land
+Stock have increased from £26,609,000 in 1891 to £41,363,000 in 1911.
+But more noteworthy still, perhaps, is the increase in Irish trade.
+Figures are only available since 1904, but in that period Irish imports
+have increased from £54,078,399 to £65,044,477&mdash;an increase of
+£10,966,078 in seven years. Irish exports have increased in the same
+period from £49,712,400 to £65,844,255, or an increase of £16,131,155.
+Or, if we take the aggregate trade, there has been an increase from
+£103,790,799 in 1904 to £130,888,732 in 1910, an increase of
+£27,097,933. In other words, the aggregate import and export trade in
+Ireland in the year 1910 amounted to nearly £28 sterling per head of
+population, while the corresponding figure for Great Britain is just
+over £20. These figures are, I submit, eloquent testimony that the
+general policy of the Imperial Parliament in relation to Ireland during
+recent years has been wisely conceived, and that the successful solution
+of the &quot;Irish Problem&quot; is to be found in the steady pursuit of methods
+which have already achieved such striking results.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73" /><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> It appears that Mr. Dillon was under a misapprehension on
+this point. He thought he had obtained an amendment to the Bill which
+prevented the I.A.O.S. from getting a subsidy. This, however, was an
+entire mistake. See App. B. to the Report of the Committee on the Dept.
+of Agriculture. Cd. 3573 of 1907.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74" /><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> The <i>voluntary</i> contributions to the I.A.O.S. for the work
+of organisation amounted to no less than £100,000.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75" /><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> See his evidence before the House of Lords Committee on
+the Thrift and Credit Bank Bill (Paper 96 of 1910).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV" />XIV</h2>
+
+<h2>THE COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE WYNDHAM, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The case for resisting all attempts at impairing the Union between Great
+Britain and Ireland can be made unimpeachable without reference to the
+Irish Land Question. It would be our duty to defend the Union as a
+bulwark of national safety, an instalment of Imperial consolidation, and
+a protection to the freedom of minorities in Ireland, even if it could
+be shown that agriculture, the chief industry of Ireland, had little to
+gain under the Union and nothing to lose under Home Rule. Fortunately,
+this cannot be alleged except by those who shut their eyes to the
+results of State-aided Land Purchase in Ireland, and refuse to consider
+the consequences of tampering with the mainspring of that beneficent
+operation: I mean the credit of a joint exchequer under one Parliament
+for both countries. &quot;England's Case against Home Rule&quot; coincides with
+Ireland's need for retaining the prosperity that has come to her, after
+long waiting, under, and because of, the Union. It is, therefore,
+fitting that a place should be found in this book for a brief account of
+what Irish agriculture may hope from the Union and must fear from Home
+Rule.</p>
+
+<p>The history of Irish Agriculture until recent years differed from the
+history of English Agriculture at many points, and always to the marked
+disadvantage of Ireland. Dynastic and religious controversies which&mdash;if
+we except the suppression of monasteries and the exile of a few
+Jacobites&mdash;left English countrysides untouched, in Ireland carried with
+them the confiscation of vast territories and the desolating Influence
+of Penal Laws. Changes in economic theory contributed even more sharply
+to the decay of Irish enterprise. When England favoured Protection Irish
+industry was handicapped out of manufactures. When England adopted Free
+Trade Irish agriculture, on which the hopes of Ireland had perforce been
+fixed, suffered in a greater degree. The doctrine of <i>laisser faire</i>
+wrought little but wrong when applied by absentee buyers of bankrupt
+estates to tracts hardly susceptible of development by capital, amid a
+peasantry wedded to continuity of tenure, and justified in that
+tradition by the fact that they and their forbears had executed nearly
+all the improvements on their holdings. Most of the nation were
+restricted to agriculture under conditions that spelt failure, and
+imposed exile as the penalty for failure, since other avenues to
+competence were closed. The climax of misfortune was reached a
+generation after the triumph of Free Trade. Ireland, being almost wholly
+an agricultural country, suffered as a whole, whereas England, an
+industrial country, suffered only in districts, from the collapse of
+agricultural prices in 1879. That catastrophe in rural life precipitated
+Mr. Gladstone's Land Law Act (Ireland), 1881. Being precluded by his
+political tenets from protecting Irish agriculture against foreign
+competition, or assisting it with the resources of the State, Mr.
+Gladstone aimed at alleviating the distress due to the decadence of a
+national industry by defining with meticulous nicety the respective
+shares which the two parties engaged in agriculture&mdash;landlord and
+tenant&mdash;were to derive from its dwindling returns. He believed that the
+proportion of diminishing profits due to the landlord, because of the
+inherent capabilities of his property, and to the tenant, because of his
+own and his predecessors' exertions, could be roughly determined by a
+few leading cases in the Land Court; and, further, that landlords and
+tenants throughout Ireland would conform to such guidance as these
+decisions might afford. In this anticipation he ignored the vital
+function of agriculture in Irish life, and the effect which the growing
+stringency of agricultural conditions would have on a population that
+loved the land and rejoiced in litigation. He created dual-ownership
+throughout Ireland, and this led, as Lord Dufferin and other far-seeing
+statesmen had foretold, to the land being starved of both capital and
+industry. Irish agriculture was brought to the brink of ruin. The misery
+of those involved in that pass was exploited to engineer an attack on
+the fabric of social order, and the lawlessness so engendered was
+adduced as an argument for dissolving the Union under which such
+tragedies could occur.</p>
+
+<p>The leaders of the Conservative Party, when confronted with this
+situation, determined that their duty, in accordance with the spirit of
+the Act of Union, demanded some use of the resources of a joint
+exchequer for ministration to the peculiar needs of Ireland. They
+decided that the credit of the State should be employed to effect the
+abolition of dual-ownership by converting the occupiers of Irish farms
+into owners of the soil. Let it be granted that this policy had been
+advocated by John Bright and enshrined in the Land Law Acts of 1870 and
+1881. It must be added that these pious intentions remained a &quot;dead
+letter&quot; until adequate machinery for giving them effect was provided by
+the Land Purchase Acts, commonly called the Ashbourne Acts, of 1885 and
+1889. The method pursued was as follows. Any individual landlord could
+agree with any individual tenant on the price which he would accept for
+the extinction of his interest in that tenant's holding. The State
+facilitated the transaction by advancing that amount to the landlord in
+<i>cash</i> whenever the holding offered sufficient security, and accepting
+from the tenant an undertaking to pay an instalment of £4 a year for
+every £100 advanced over a period of forty-nine years. The instalment
+comprised £3 for interest, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> for expenses, and 17<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>
+for sinking fund. The loan from the exchequer was secured against
+individual failures to pay by the realisable value of the holdings.</p>
+
+<p>The salient features in this procedure were that the landlord received
+cash and that the tenant paid interest at the then existing rate on
+Consols, viz. 3 per cent. Both these features are important. A payment
+in cash, or its equivalent, is preferable for such transactions to a
+payment in stock, with a fluctuating value, because, if the stock
+appreciates the landlord gets more than he bargained for, and this, by
+arousing the suspicions of other would-be tenant-purchasers, produces a
+disinclination on their part to buy. Again, if the stock depreciates,
+the landlord cannot carry out contemplated redemptions of mortgages on
+his property, and this produces a disinclination on the part of other
+landlords to sell. In the second place it is difficult to persuade Irish
+tenants that the State is assisting them if they, the poor, are asked to
+pay higher interest for the State's credit than the State pays for the
+credit of the rich. The chief defect in this procedure lay in its
+restriction to separate bargains in respect of single holdings. It made
+a patchwork, whereas the untoward results of the historic and economic
+causes on which I have touched demanded the wholesale treatment of
+convenient areas.</p>
+
+<p>Under these Acts, in the course of six years, more than 27,000 tenants
+became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to over £10,000,000.
+The largest number of applications for purchase in any one year was
+6,195 for £2,271,569 in 1887, and the average price for all the holdings
+bought under these Acts was £396.</p>
+
+<p>When the sums provided by the Ashbourne Acts were exhausted, Mr. Arthur
+Balfour carried the Act of 1891, subsequently amended by the Act of
+1896. Under these Acts the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash.
+The tenant still paid an instalment of £4, which was, ultimately,
+divided into £1 5<i>s.</i> for sinking fund and £2 15<i>s.</i> for interest. This
+large sinking fund, £1 5<i>s.</i> instead of 17<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, was retained after
+interest had been reduced to the rate on Consols, 2-3/4 per cent.,
+chiefly to avoid a discrepancy in the total of annual instalments as
+between purchasers under the Act of 1891 and purchasers under the
+Ashbourne Acts. Difficulties were feared if the earlier purchasers were
+to pay £4 and the later purchasers only £3 15<i>s.</i> for each £100
+advanced, so the spare five shillings was put in the sinking fund. This
+speculative difficulty was afterwards discounted in order to deal with
+one of a more practical character. Under Mr. Gladstone's Land Law Act of
+1881, which dealt with rent-fixing, statutory rents were revised every
+fifteen years, and the second term rents, beginning in 1896, seemed
+certain to reveal considerable reductions on the rents payable during
+the first period. It was felt that the security for the earlier advances
+would be endangered if rents throughout Ireland fell below the level of
+the purchase-instalments, and that purchase would be retarded if the
+purchaser did not obtain immediate relief by agreeing to buy. To meet
+this practical difficulty Mr. Gerald Balfour, in 1896, permitted the
+purchaser to write off the amount repaid by sinking fund during the
+first and two successive periods of ten years. These &quot;decadal
+reductions&quot; were optional. If the purchaser forewent them he paid £4 per
+£100, and extinguished his debt in 42-1/2 years. If he availed himself
+of them he paid £3 8<i>s. 7d.</i> per £100 after the first ten years, and
+continued to pay, with two further reductions in prospect, till the debt
+was extinguished in a period undefined, but estimated at about 72-1/2
+years. But this privilege was made retrospective, so that purchasers
+under the Ashbourne Acts could also reduce their instalments of £4 to £3
+11<i>s. 10d.</i></p>
+
+<p>The salient features in the procedure of the Acts of 1891 and 1896 were
+that, (1) the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash. But owing to
+the rise in the value of gilt-edged securities, Irish Land Stock, with a
+face value of £100, became at one moment worth as much as £114; (2) the
+purchaser's interest was at 2-3/4 per cent. <i>i.e.</i> the existing rate on
+Consols; but (3) his instalment, prospectively fined down by decadal
+reductions, enabled him to offer an acceptable price and yet pay far
+less to the State, by way of instalment, after purchase than was due to
+his landlord, by way of rent, before purchase. The operation of purchase
+was still confined, almost wholly, to single bargains. But in Mr. Arthur
+Balfour's Act of 1891 a new departure was authorised which, after
+development in Mr. Gerald Balfour's Act of 1896, has led to important
+and far-reaching consequences. The Congested Districts Board was
+established to deal with scheduled areas in the West of Ireland that
+comprised a large number of holdings at once too limited in area, and
+too poor in soil, for any one of them to support a family by farming or
+to afford security to the State, under existing facilities for purchase,
+in the event of the occupier wishing to become the owner. A select
+committee of the House of Commons, so long ago as in 1878 (No. 249, pp.
+4 and 5), when Disraeli was Prime Minister, had recommended that a
+properly constituted body should be empowered to purchase, not single
+farms, but whole estates, and to re-sell them after amalgamating,
+enlarging, and re-distributing what are now called &quot;uneconomic&quot;
+holdings. Provisions to this end had been inserted in earlier Acts, but,
+in the absence of administrative machinery and financial resources, they
+remained abortive. It had for long been evident that the small,
+impoverished holdings, which had supported a dense population before the
+famine, stood in need of fundamental remodelling if they were to support
+even a largely reduced population. The efforts made by wealthy Irish
+landlords in this direction were arrested by the Land Law Act of 1870
+and rendered impossible by the Land Law Act of 1881. With the Purchase
+Acts of 1891 and 1896 a beginning was made.</p>
+
+<p>Another feature must be noted. In addition to the value of any one
+holding, as a security against individual failure, a further security
+was provided against the risk of a combined refusal to repay. The
+Exchequer was empowered to retain grants due for various purposes in
+Ireland and to recoup itself in proportion to the defalcation in any
+county. It should be added that individual failures have been rare to
+the point of insignificance, and that no combined refusal has been
+attempted, or advocated, even during periods of agricultural unrest.</p>
+
+<p>Under the Acts of 1891 and 1896 in the course of just over twelve years
+more than 44,000 tenants became owners by virtue of advances which
+amounted to over £13,000,000. Here we must note that the success of
+these Acts coincided with, and depended on, a rise in the price of
+gilt-edged securities. The number of applications rose from 1503 in the
+year ending March 31, 1896, to 6911 in the year ending March 31, 1900.
+But, with the fall in the price of stock, land purchase showed signs of
+coming to a standstill. By 1902 it was evident that new legislation was
+needed, and in the next year the Irish Land Act of 1903 was carried.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish Land Act of 1903 was not, as some suggest, a short cut to the
+millennium, evolved on the spur of the moment, and translated into
+fantastic finance. It had two bases, the one practical, the other moral.
+In the first place, it was founded on the ripe experience garnered
+during eighteen years from the operation of preceding purchase Acts. In
+the second place, it was founded on the historic agreement spontaneously
+arrived at in 1902 by accredited representatives of Irish landlords and
+tenants. They resolved that dual ownership ought to be abolished
+throughout Ireland, and that this primary policy should be accompanied
+by effective remedies for the uneconomic conditions prevalent in the
+West, but existing elsewhere, though sporadically, to a limited extent.
+This agreement, in itself unprecedented, was rendered the more
+remarkable by the fact that the signatories assumed the responsibility
+of telling the Government how the first object could be achieved. They
+advised that landlords could not be expected to sell, as a class, unless
+the price paid to them in cash would yield from sound securities 90 per
+cent. of their income in terms of a rent that had been twice revised
+under the Land Law Act of 1881; and that tenants could not be expected
+to buy, as a class, unless their instalments due to the Treasury after
+purchase were from 15 per cent. to 25 per cent. less than such rents so
+revised. They invited the Government to give effect to that agreement.
+The Government accepted and, in the Act of 1903, tendered the costly
+but, under the circumstances, not extravagant <i>imprimatur</i> of the
+Treasury on a political treaty thenceforward to be binding on all three
+contracting parties: landlords, tenants, and the State. The Nationalist
+members, as spokesmen for the tenants, and the representatives of the
+landlords, subscribed to the provisions offered, and the reports of the
+Estates Commissioners prove that these have been fulfilled so exactly
+that, in the case of second term rents, landlords and tenants have
+obtained average incomes and reductions that differ only by a decimal
+from the mean advocated at the Conference.</p>
+
+<p>The objects of the Irish Land Act were, in conformity with the
+conclusions of the Conference, to abolish dual ownership rapidly and, at
+the same time, to deal systematically with &quot;agricultural slums.&quot; Its
+salient features fall under four heads.</p>
+
+<p>A. <i>State assistance to voluntary bargaining.</i> For this purpose it was
+provided that (1) cash payments should be resumed to the landlords; (2)
+that the tenants' instalments should be £3 5<i>s.</i> for each £100 advanced,
+divided into £2 15<i>s.</i> (2-3/4 per cent.) for interest and 10<i>s.</i> for
+sinking fund. This was not, as the able and well-informed special
+correspondent of the <i>Times</i> suggests (February 9, 1912) a sudden
+departure from an instalment of £4. &quot;Decadal reductions&quot; under the Act
+of 1896 had, as I have said, diminished the instalments of purchasers
+under the Act of 1891 to £3 8<i>s. 7d.</i> after ten years with further
+prospective diminutions, and subjected the instalments of purchasers
+under earlier Acts to a similar process. A wholesale expansion of
+purchase was impossible unless would-be purchasers were offered terms
+comparable to those accorded to their predecessors. For this reason the
+tenantry of Ireland were offered repayment at £3 5<i>s.</i> per £100 for a
+period of about 62 years, in lieu, under the Act of 1896, of repayment
+at £3 8<i>s. 9d.</i>, with further reductions, for about 72-1/2 years, and
+their representatives accepted the offer. They would certainly have
+refused, and rightly, the offer substituted by Mr. Birrell in the Act of
+1909, viz. an instalment of £3 10<i>s.</i> with the same sinking
+fund&mdash;10<i>s.</i>&mdash;and interest increased to £3. The third feature to be
+noted under this head is, that the terms agreed to by representatives of
+landlords and tenants at the conference could not be ratified unless
+the State added some help by way of cash to the assistance of its
+credit. It was agreed by all parties that £12,000,000 should be
+available to bridge the gap, at the rate of 12 per cent. on the amount
+advanced, with the right to revise that rate after five years, but <i>only
+for the purpose of extending the bonus</i>&mdash;as it was called&mdash;<i>to all
+future transactions</i>. It was an integral part of a solemn covenant that
+the bonus should not be diverted to any object other than the abolition
+of dual ownership and the remedy of &quot;congestion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>B. <i>The substitution of speedy purchase for dilatory litigation.</i> To all
+members of the Conference of 1902 and of the House of Commons in 1903,
+with, I believe, the exception of Mr. Dillon, who was away in America
+while the Conference sat, it was evident that, if dual ownership was to
+be abolished, our choice was confined to two courses. We could, on the
+one hand, pursue, under the guise of purchase, the metaphysical and
+costly distinctions between landlord-right and tenant-right, which Mr.
+Gladstone had established under the guise of rent-fixing; or else, as
+the only alternative, we had &quot;to cut the cackle&quot; and get to business.
+Under this head the House of Commons&mdash;Mr. Dillon ingeminating
+dissent&mdash;decided in so far as landlords and tenants were concerned, two
+things: (1) It was agreed that where the tenant-purchaser's instalment,
+after purchase, was substantially less than his statutory rent revised
+at great cost&mdash;£140,000 a year for Land Courts&mdash;then, in those cases the
+State needed not to inquire at further cost and delay into either its
+own security in the holding, or the metaphysical distinction between
+value due to the landlord's ownership of the soil and value due to the
+tenant's improvement of the soil. This close approximation to unanimity
+will not surprise those who grasp that every landlord and tenant was to
+make a voluntary bargain on precisely those terms which the
+representatives of their classes had combined to obtain from the State.
+The alternative method of delay and litigation had been further
+discounted, for everybody except Mr. Dillon, by the fact that in the
+classic case&mdash;<i>Adams</i> v. <i>Dunseath</i>&mdash;tried out in accordance with Mr.
+Gladstone's panacea, Adams, after repeated lawsuits, improved his
+financial position by an infinitesimal sum per annum without becoming an
+owner of his farm. It was also agreed that the Estates Commissioners
+appointed to administer the Act, should be administrative officials
+under the Government, and not amateur judges. This was essential, not
+only to substitute cheap speed for costly delay, but also to ensure that
+the benefits offered by the State should not be absorbed, say, in the
+rich province of Leinster to the detriment of the poorer province of
+Connaught, or&mdash;for who knows what may happen in Ireland?&mdash;absorbed in
+the Home Rule province of Connaught to the detriment of the Unionist
+province of Ulster.</p>
+
+<p>C. <i>Dealing with Estates as a whole instead of with single holdings.</i>
+This process, till then applied tentatively in the congested districts
+of the West, became the general method throughout Ireland, and was
+assisted by the provision of working capital for carrying out necessary
+amalgamations and improvements before resale.</p>
+
+<p>D. <i>Increase in the 'borrowing power and funds of the Congested
+Districts Board,</i> for the purpose of dealing systematically with
+&quot;agricultural slums.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The features of the Irish Land Act (1903), founded, as they were, on
+experience and the consent of all parties concerned, became widely
+popular in Ireland. But, by Mr. Birrell's Act of 1909, they were all
+distorted or destroyed. A solemn treaty, framed in the interest of
+Ireland, was torn up to deck with its tatters the triumph of Mr.
+Dillon's unholy alliance with the British Treasury. The effect of this
+betrayal on the prospects of Irish agriculture will appear from a
+recital of the changes made by Mr. Birrell's Act, followed by a
+comparison of the results obtained under the two Acts. From that
+comparison I shall proceed to an examination of the reasons alleged for
+the breach of faith, and a statement of the Unionist party's pledge to
+continue their policy of 1903. I shall then conclude by inviting all
+who care for Ireland to weigh the prospects of Irish Agriculture under
+the Union against its prospects under Home Rule.</p>
+
+<p><i>Changes made by the Act of</i> 1909.&mdash;(1) Instead of cash payments
+landlords are to receive stock at three per cent. issued on a falling
+market, and this stock cannot appreciate because, owing to the
+embarrassment of Irish estates, about half of each issue must be thrown
+back on the market for the redemption of mortgages; a result fatal to
+land purchase and detrimental to the credit of the State. (2) Instead of
+paying £3 5<i>s.</i> per £100, tenants are to pay £3 10<i>s.</i> without any
+reduction in the period of repayment. The sinking fund remains at 10<i>s.</i>
+and the interest £3 is, for the first time since land purchase was
+attempted, placed at a higher rate than in the preceding Purchase Act,
+whilst the whole instalment of £3 10<i>s.</i> is raised, not only above the
+rate of the Act of 1903, but also above the rates, diminished by decadal
+reductions, of purchasers under still earlier Acts. This again, in view
+of these reductions and of periodic revisions of <i>rent</i> under the Land
+Law Act of 1881, is fatal to purchase. (3) The bonus of £12,000,000&mdash;on
+the application of which all parties agreed in 1903&mdash;was diverted from
+the unanimous policy of that year and brought in aid of Mr. Dillon's
+hobby, which all parties then rejected. Mr. Dillon is at liberty to
+rejoice over the ruin of one landlord more than over the salvation of
+99,000 tenants. The laws of lunacy do not, and ought not to, touch him.
+But there is no reason why taxpayers should minister to his peculiar
+pleasure, with the result of postponing indefinitely any settlement of
+the Irish land question. (4) By reverting to inspection for security
+delay is substituted for speed, and speed is necessary in the conclusion
+of bargains that are themselves the result of prolonged negotiations;
+the more so when, as now, owing to the substitution of stock for cash,
+the seller cannot know what his bargain will turn out to be; and the
+buyer, owing to the block in agreements under the Act of 1903, cannot
+know when his bargain will take effect. In most cases it will not do so
+for from six to eight years, which must be added to the period of
+repayment, although his instalment has been increased. (5) The reversion
+to attempts at defining the metaphysical rights of the landlords and
+tenants revives the social poison of litigation of which, in 1903, every
+one but Mr. Dillon was weary. (6) The revival of litigation in respect
+of single holdings defeats the policy of dealing with convenient areas.
+(7) By transforming the Estates Commissioners, much I imagine to their
+disgust, from administrative officers into amateur judges, a further
+premium is put on litigation and delay, whilst the interests of one
+province as against the interests of another, are left without
+protection from the State. (8) Although more than half the holdings of
+Ireland are valued at less than £10 a year, a presumption is created
+that all holdings below that value are to be deemed &quot;uneconomic.&quot; The
+whole of Connaught with the counties of Donegal and Kerry and part of
+County Cork are branded as &quot;congested,&quot; and the Board, charged with
+conducting purchase in that area, is swollen to unmanageable size,
+whilst three commissioners are held sufficient for the rest of Ireland,
+which is twice as large.</p>
+
+<p>To these eight changes, all inimical, and, as I believe, fatal to the
+abolition of dual ownership, two have been added of a more insidious
+effect. Compulsion has been adopted. This of itself checks voluntary
+purchase. It kills it when, as under this Act, compulsory purchases are
+to be paid for in cash and voluntary purchases in depreciated stock.
+Finally, the Act contemplates diverting the resources, applied under the
+treaty of 1903 to the abolition of dual ownership and the remedy of
+congestion, to a new purpose, for which Ireland can make no special
+claim. I mean the creation, over all Ireland, of new tenancies, to be
+sold to new men, who have never suffered from dual ownership or
+uneconomic conditions, and may be presumed to be ignorant of farming.
+This new policy amounts to a repeal of the policy sanctioned by all,
+viz. of giving special State aid to meet the peculiar needs of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p><i>A comparison of the results obtained under the Acts of</i> 1903 <i>and</i>
+1909.&mdash;In order to gauge the respective efficacy of these two Acts for
+the purpose of abolishing dual ownership, it is necessary to distinguish
+between applications for purchase, and advances actually made in respect
+of completed transactions. The applications exhibit the comparative
+popularity and convenience of the two Acts. The advances exhibit only
+the readiness of the Government to proceed with purchase. They pertain
+to the financial, rather than the political, aspect of the problem, and
+may be examined later together with the reasons alleged for the delay of
+its solution. The fact of the delay appears from the following
+figures:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Under the Irish Land Act (1903) the number of purchase agreements lodged
+in respect of direct sales by landlords to tenants was 217,299 in the
+course of less than six years from November 1, 1903, to September 15,
+1909. To these should be added proposed purchasers in other categories,
+viz. in respect of estates sold to the Land Commission for subsequent
+re-sale, or to the Congested Districts Board, or in the Court of the
+Land Judge, or in respect of offers to evicted tenants. These bring the
+total of potential purchasers up to 248,109. Under the Act of 1909, in
+two years from December 3, 1909, to December 1, 1911, the number of
+applications in respect of direct sales stands at 8,992. In the other
+categories the number of potential purchasers amounted to 373 up to
+March 31, 1911. Since then tentative negotiations have been essayed,
+under the threat of compulsion and the menace of Home Rule, which
+suggest a far larger figure. But these transactions&mdash;to which I shall
+return&mdash;are of an eminently dubious character. We are on safe ground if
+we compare the number of tenants who were ready under the two Acts to
+acquire their holdings. After discounting whatever may be claimed on the
+score that the operation of the Act of 1903 was expedited by the fear of
+its destruction, a comparision of 217,299 would-be purchasers in six
+years with 8,992 in two years demonstrates that the abolition of dual
+ownership has been thrown back to the conditions which called for the
+Treaty of 1903. Furthermore, it is proper to discount, in turn, even the
+meagre total of 8,992. For it includes the remainders of estates, other
+parts of which had been sold under the Act of 1903 and the spurt of
+applications expedited, in this case, by the revolution of last August.
+To the over-sanguine and the over-timid this seemed to foreshadow the
+rapid passage of Home Rule, and, bad as are the terms of the Act of
+1909, they are estimated to be better than any obtainable after the
+Union has been thrown on the scrap-heap of the Constitution. One other
+comparison may be noted. It was part of the Treaty of 1903 that
+landlords should be encouraged to remain in their native land by
+assistance in the repurchase of their demesnes&mdash;that is, homes&mdash;after
+selling their properties. Under the Act of 1903 the advances on resale
+to owners sanctioned by the Land Commission numbered 205. Under the Act
+of 1909 they number two.</p>
+
+<p>It will readily be inferred, even by those unacquainted with Ireland;
+that a process for healing ancient wounds has been turned into a process
+for exasperating future conflicts. A blister has been substituted for a
+poultice on the sores of centuries. Existing agreements are blocked.
+Future agreements&mdash;for this is their appropriate, if cynical&mdash;designation,
+are relegated to a future which few can foresee. Landlords who have
+contracted to sell are threatened with bankruptcy by the foreclosure of
+mortgages. Tenants who have contracted to buy see their hopes deferred
+with sick hearts. Whilst to owners and occupiers who have not completed
+their bargains &quot;no hope comes at all.&quot; The newly won prosperity of
+Ireland is doomed because the Nationalist party and British Government
+have not kept faith; and with prosperity peace is departing. The
+environment that breeds agrarian disorder and crime has been restored,
+and agitators, in expectation of Home Rule, are already at &quot;their dirty
+work again.&quot; A new plan of campaign menaces the peace of Ireland in
+those districts whose past records are most darkly stained.</p>
+
+<p><i>Examination of the reasons alleged for tearing up the Treaty of
+1903</i>.&mdash;The Government defended their reversal of the policy of 1903,
+and departure from their pledges to carry out that policy, by making two
+assertions. They asserted (1) that the size of the problem, which all
+parties undertook to solve, would exceed by far the speculative estimate
+put forward in 1903; (2) that the credit of the British Exchequer, which
+they have depressed, would prove unequal to the burden foreshadowed by
+the new dimensions, which they have assigned. (1) <i>Size of the problem</i>.
+The first assertion, that much nearer £200,000,000 than £100,000,000
+must be borrowed in order to complete purchase, is based on two
+assumptions explicitly stated in the Return presented to Parliament (Cd.
+4412 of 1908) as follows: &quot;It will be observed that the purchase money
+of the agricultural land not yet brought before the Commissioners for
+sale under the Land Purchase Acts has been estimated <i>on the assumption
+that it will be all sold</i> and that <i>it will be sold on an average at the
+price for which lands had been sold up to 30th April last, under the
+Irish Land Act</i> (1903).&quot; The assumptions on which the Government
+proceeded are not, therefore, in doubt, but the validity of those
+assumptions, on which the whole case of the Government depends, is
+refuted by the ascertained facts of Irish agriculture. The census shows
+that the number of agricultural holdings in Ireland is about 490,000,
+including nearly 19 million acres. The whole area of Ireland includes
+some 21 million acres, apportioned to 3-1/2 million acres under crops, 6
+million acres of waste, and 11-1/2 million acres under grass. The Return
+to which I have referred (Cd. 4412 of 1908) cavils at the figures given
+in the census on the ground that the 490,000 &quot;holdings&quot; are more
+accurately 490,000 &quot;land-holders,&quot; since a tenant holding &quot;half a dozen
+farms in the same county is returned as having a single holding.&quot; But it
+is right to take &quot;holders&quot; when, as under the Act of 1903, the limit on
+advances applies to the person who receives them. Again, the Return
+throws over the census for figures supplied by the Department of
+Agriculture. But it is wrong to use these figures, for they include
+holdings not exceeding one acre, of which there are 80,000 in Ireland,
+and many more that cannot be described as &quot;in the main agricultural or
+pastoral.&quot; No special pleading on the part of the Government can alter
+the fact that the 490,000 holdings given by the census include all the
+lands under crops and grass and two-thirds of the waste. They embrace 19
+million acres, and more than cover the ground. For the purpose of an
+estimate it is an outside figure, the more so since, in respect of grass
+lands the value of a single farm may exceed the limit of any one
+advance, and it is not uncommon for a large grazier to rent many grass
+farms. If the Government, by conferring a judicial status on the Estate
+Commissioners, surrendered their control over the amounts of single
+advances; and again, if the Government, at the dictation of Mr. Dillon,
+embarked on a new policy of creating tenancies in grass land and selling
+them to new men, they are debarred from increasing the estimate to cover
+their own misfeasance. In tendering the speculative estimate of 1903, it
+was clearly laid down that the amount of one advance was only to be
+increased in rare cases, and the sub-division of permanent pasture was
+denounced as a &quot;form of economic insanity.&quot; It was also explained that
+deductions must be made from the 490,000 holdings in respect of small
+town plots, accommodation plots, and market gardens; nor are these
+insignificant, for to the 80,000 holdings not exceeding one acre we must
+add 62,000 of from 1 to 5 acres. In the face of these facts, the
+assumption that &quot;all agricultural land&quot;&mdash;as defined in the Return&mdash;will
+be sold, is not only unsound but preposterous.</p>
+
+<p>The second assumption, that the average price of future transactions
+will equal that of past transactions is opposed to the presumption that
+better, and therefore dearer farms, came into the market before worse
+and therefore cheaper farms. I am not referring to the number of years'
+purchase offered, a point on which I have never expressed an opinion,
+but to the value of the property which passes. It is with farms as with
+oranges, the good ones go first. The pertinence of this maxim to land
+purchase is proved by the reports of the Estates Commissioners. These
+contradict the Government's second assumption, for they exhibit a
+steady and continuous decline in the average of advances that have been
+made. The average amount of advances under the Act of 1903 to March 31,
+1908, was in round numbers £361. On some such figures the second
+assumption rests. I ventured at the time to assert that the average in
+the future would not exceed £300. This estimate has been confirmed, for
+the average advances from March 31, 1908, to September 15, 1909&mdash;when
+the Act ceased to operate&mdash;was £287. A further reduction may be
+confidently expected, since the progress of purchase in the richer
+provinces has by far exceeded its progress in Connaught. In Leinster
+over 53,000 agreements have been lodged at an average price of over
+£481; in Munster over 58,000 at an average of over £420; in Ulster over
+84,000 at an average of over £226; whilst in Connaught only some 26,000
+at an average of just under £200.</p>
+
+<p>The reasons alleged in defence of the Act of 1909 failed to justify, or
+even to explain, the changes it imposed. An explanation must be sought
+in the real reasons, and they are not far to seek. The first was that
+the old methods of litigation and delay, abjured by all parties in 1903,
+were substituted for the new methods of speed and ease, because Mr.
+Dillon so willed it; and the second, that the policy of abolishing dual
+ownership, to which Mr. Redmond stood pledged, had to be ousted, again
+at Mr. Dillon's dictation, to make way for the folly of creating new
+tenancies, of symmetrical size, throughout all Ireland. The Treaty was
+torn up because Mr. Dillon, acting as deputy for Mr. Birrell (whose main
+argument for Home Rule is that it bores him to be Chief Secretary),
+ordered Mr. Redmond to eat his words.</p>
+
+<p>From this examination of the reasons for destroying the Act of 1903, the
+true size and nature of the financial problem emerges. From the total of
+some 490,000 holdings substantial reductions must be made in respect of
+waste lands, grass lands, and accommodation plots, and, again, in view
+of the limitation on the amount that may be advanced to one person. We
+ought probably to deduct 20 per cent., but if, to be on the safe side,
+we deduct only 15 per cent., 416,000 are left. These, however, include
+some 80,000 sold before the Act of 1903, or under the Land Commissioners
+as distinct from the Estates Commissioners. In respect of the 336,500
+remaining, 257,474 agreements have been lodged under all categories in
+the Acts of 1903 and 1909. Indeed, a larger number have been lodged, for
+in most cases our information is only to March 31, 1911, leaving less
+than 79,000 holdings that may still come into the market. This is an
+outside figure, provided always that the policy of 1903 be adhered to,
+viz. that advances are made to <i>occupiers</i> and not to new men, except as
+under the Act of that year (sect. 2 (I) <i>b</i> and <i>d</i>, and sect. 75) in
+rare cases, rigidly defined, of the sons of tenants and of evicted
+tenants.</p>
+
+<p>If the average price remains at the figure for the period March 31,
+1908, to September 15, 1909&mdash;viz. £287&mdash;a further sum of £22,673,000 may
+be required in excess of £84,099,818 already required under the Acts of
+1903 and 1909; making £106,772,818. This total includes nearly
+£1,000,000 for re-sales to owners and some provision for evicted
+tenants. Under these heads it will not expand in a greater relative
+degree. It includes, also, purchase of whole estates and of untenanted
+land by the Estates Commissioners and Congested Districts Board, and
+these may involve larger sums than were originally contemplated. I
+promised to return to that point, and will now do so. Since the Return
+under these heads up to March 31, 1911, tentative negotiations have been
+made for the purchase of a number of estates and for supplying more
+evicted tenants with holdings. But this does not increase the money size
+of the problem by much, because many of these estates&mdash;if sold to the
+new Congested Districts Board&mdash;are subtracted from business that would
+have been done by the Estates Commissioners; again, it is, as we know,
+impossible to spend much money, or move many migrants, or even enlarge
+many holdings, in one year. If the new Congested Districts Board
+attempts to handle some millions' worth of land in a hurry, one of two
+things must happen, either their work will be indefinitely delayed, or
+else they will sell off &quot;uneconomic&quot; holdings without amending their
+defects. The business will not cost more. It will only be scamped, or
+shirked. I doubt if the additions, which do not conflict with the policy
+of 1903, will increase the amount to be borrowed in the market, though
+they may increase the sums needed for working capital. Let us add for
+these expansions, which are strictly limited by physical impediments,
+£2,000,000 or even twice that amount. It still remains obvious that,
+even after expansions, good, bad, or indifferent, of the policy of 1903,
+the total sum to be borrowed cannot exceed from £110,000,000 to
+£113,000,000, as the outside figure that need be contemplated, provided
+we refrain from the &quot;economic insanity&quot; of distributing eleven million
+acres of permanent pasture among shopkeepers and &quot;Gombeen&quot; men. This
+figure of £113,000,000, indeed, exceeds what may reasonably be expected.
+The average of advances fell from £426 on the earliest agreements, to
+£361 on all agreements to March 31, 1908, and to £287 on agreements
+between that date and September 15, 1909. We may count on a continuation
+of that fall until the average approaches £200, the price for Connaught,
+where purchase has proceeded most slowly. But let the total stand at
+£113,000,000. That sum neither warrants the breach of faith of which the
+Government and the Nationalist party have been guilty, nor does it
+present an insoluble problem to the resources of a united Exchequer.
+£41,097,939 has already been borrowed in the market, and advanced, in
+less than eight years.</p>
+
+<p>The policy to which the leaders of the Unionist party stand pledged may
+now be re-stated in the words which I was authorised to use by Mr.
+Arthur Balfour and Lord Lansdowne after consultation with their
+colleagues. Speaking on July 9, 1909, I said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Our attitude is, that it is necessary to deal effectively with the
+     block of pending agreements, but in dealing with that block it is
+     not necessary to prejudice the interests either of the landlords or
+     tenants, who may come to terms on some future agreements. We think
+     that the spirit of the Act of 1903 must be observed in the case of
+     pending agreements, but it must not be departed from in the case of
+     future agreements.&quot;&mdash;Hansard, 1909, vol. vii. No. 93, cols. 1542,
+     1543.</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Bonar Law confirms this pledge. He instructs me to say that the
+Unionist party will resume the land policy of 1903, and pursue the same
+objects by the best methods until all have been fully and expeditiously
+achieved.</p>
+
+<p>The prospects of Irish agriculture under the Union include a return to
+the land policy of 1903, with its fair hopes of reconciliation between
+classes and creeds, and its accomplished result of abounding prosperity.
+What are the prospects of Irish agriculture under Home Rule? Of what
+Home Rule may mean in this, as in other respects, we have been told so
+little that we are driven to consider its effect on Irish agriculture in
+the light of two contingencies. It may be that the extremists, with whom
+Mr. Dillon invariably ranges himself, as a preliminary to dragging Mr.
+Redmond after him, will have their way. In that case, Ireland will exact
+complete fiscal autonomy from a Government which invariably surrenders
+to Mr. Dillon's puppet. Should this occur, land purchase will cease
+abruptly in the absence of credit for borrowing the sums it requires.
+Take the other alternative, hazily outlined by Mr. Winston Churchill at
+Belfast. We glean from his pronouncement that the Government intend&mdash;if
+they can&mdash;to refuse fiscal autonomy, and to preserve control over land
+purchase. Can it be expected that this attempt, even if it succeeds,
+will produce better results for land purchase than the pitiable failure
+of the Act of 1909? Is it not certain that less money will be raised in
+England, for Ireland, after Home Rule? And if raised in driblets, on
+what will it be spent? Obviously, not on the policy of 1903, but on the
+policy substituted by Mr. Dillon in 1909. It will be spent on expelling
+landlords and graziers to make room for subscribers to the propaganda of
+extremists. We must judge of what will happen to agriculture after Home
+Rule by what has happened since the Treaty of 1903 was repudiated. Nor
+must we forget that Mr. Dillon's destructive activity has ranged beyond
+land purchase. That policy could have achieved little but for the
+untiring and generous patriotism of Sir Horace Plunkett. He established
+the Department of Agriculture and converted his countrymen to
+co-operation, in the absence of which no system of small ownership can
+succeed. He, too, based his efforts on a conference&mdash;the Recess
+Committee. How has he been met? Mr. Redmond, a member of that Committee,
+as later of the Land Conference, has, here again, succumbed to Mr.
+Dillon, who seeks to defeat co-operation between farmers, in the
+interests of his disciples; whilst Mr. Russell, with the hectic zeal of
+a pervert, has refused Ireland's share of the new Development Grant in
+order to spite Sir Horace Plunkett.</p>
+
+<p>Such signs of the times are read in Ireland more quickly than in
+England, and in several ways. To this man they spell speedy triumph for
+the form of economic insanity in which he vindictively believes; to that
+man, the retention of an office won by recanting his opinions. But there
+are others in the saddest districts of Ireland who must also be taken
+into account. To the few&mdash;for they are few&mdash;who thrive by deeds of
+darkness whenever the Union is attacked, these signs of coming change
+suggest a more tragic interpretation, from which the fanatic and the
+place-hunter would recoil&mdash;when too late. The blatant publican who
+strangles a neighbourhood in the toils of usury and illicit drink, and
+the bestial survivor of half-forgotten murder-rings take note of these
+signs. The atavism of cruelty returns. Emboldened by Mr. Birrell's bland
+acquiescence in milder prologues to Home Rule, a new plan of campaign
+is, even now, being devised, charged with sinister consequences from
+which all men in 1903 trusted that Ireland would be for ever absolved.
+The prospects of Irish Agriculture under Home Rule include the return,
+after a brief chapter of &quot;hope, and energy the child of hope,&quot; to the
+old cycle of bitterness and listlessness and despair.</p>
+
+<p>A consideration of these alternatives leads to this dilemma. If the
+Government concede fiscal autonomy Land Purchase ends. If they refuse
+it, and Mr. Redmond accepts a &quot;gas-and-water&quot; Bill, that compromise, so
+accepted, will receive from Mr. Dillon the treatment accorded to the
+recommendations of the Recess Committee and of the Land Conference. The
+compromise will be repudiated and the millions already advanced for
+purchase will be used as a lever to extort complete autonomy. The lever
+is a powerful one. All depends upon who holds the handle.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said in conclusion that the Unionist policy of Land Purchase
+vindicates the Union, and that the treatment it has received
+demonstrates the futility, and the tragedy, of granting Home Rule.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV" />XV</h2>
+
+<h2>POSSIBLE IRISH FINANCIAL REFORMS UNDER THE UNION</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ARTHUR WARREN SAMUELS, K.C.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The best possible system for Irish financial reform is adherence to the
+principles of the Act of Union. The constitution, as settled by the Act
+of Union and the Supplementary Act for the amalgamation of the
+Exchequer, contemplated that each of the three Kingdoms should
+contribute by &quot;equal taxes&quot; to the Imperial Exchequer. &quot;Equal taxes&quot;
+were to be those which would press upon each country equitably in
+proportion to its comparative ability to bear taxation. These taxes were
+to be imposed subject to such exemptions and abatements as Scotland and
+Ireland should from time to time appear to be entitled to. If their
+circumstances should so require, they should receive special
+consideration.</p>
+
+<p>All the revenues of England, Scotland and Ireland, wherever and however
+raised, when paid into the common Exchequer, form one consolidated fund.
+The Act for the consolidation of the Exchequers directs that there shall
+be paid out of the common fund &quot;indiscriminately&quot; under the control of
+Parliament all such moneys as are required at any time and in any place
+for any of the public services in England, Scotland, Ireland or
+elsewhere in the Empire.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76" /><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> Such payments are to be made without
+consideration of anything but necessity. They are to be without
+differentiation on the ground of the locality of the expenditure, or of
+the relative amount of the contributions to the common chest of
+England, Scotland or Ireland. All expenditure is alike &quot;common&quot;;
+whatever its object may be, civil, naval or military or foreign, it is
+all alike &quot;Imperial,&quot; and all of it is under the constitution
+&quot;indiscriminate.&quot; The whole United Kingdom forms one domain, and but one
+area for the purposes of expenditure. As long as the Act of Union lasts
+no one of the three Kingdoms can be said to be &quot;run&quot; either &quot;at a loss&quot;
+or &quot;at a profit.&quot; They are all run together as one incorporate body. The
+common revenue balances the common expenditure, and they bear together
+one another's burden and the weight of Empire.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE VICE-TREASURERSHIP OF IRELAND.</h4>
+
+<p>The Act for the amalgamation of the Exchequers of Great Britain and
+Ireland contained provisions for the continued representation of Ireland
+in fiscal matters at the Exchequer and in Parliament. Power was given to
+His Majesty by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Ireland to appoint
+a Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. The Vice-Treasurer could sit in Parliament,
+and appointment to the office did not vacate a seat in the House of
+Commons. This office has been allowed to fall into abeyance. The
+Exchequer is only represented in Ireland by a Treasury Remembrancer.
+Most persons who know Ireland would concur in the view that the existing
+arrangement is not satisfactory, and that it would be of great advantage
+to Great Britain, as well as to Ireland, to have in Parliament a
+Minister specially responsible for Irish finance, acting under the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Vice-Treasurership should be revived,
+and the occupant of it should be a member in touch with Irish opinion,
+understanding Ireland and her real wants, which are often very different
+from the demands upon the Exchequer that are most loudly proclaimed. The
+restoration of the office would facilitate business, and tend to remove
+many misunderstandings, and prevent many mistakes. Personal interviews
+in Ireland with such a Minister would be worth reams of correspondence,
+and would save weeks of time. Promptitude, economy and efficiency would
+be secured.</p>
+
+
+<h4>IRISH INTERESTS UNDER TARIFF REFORM.</h4>
+
+<p>For the purposes of a system of Tariff Reform, the revival of the Irish
+Vice-Treasurership is expedient. The peculiar circumstances, conditions,
+aptitudes, and requirements of Ireland must be regarded, inquired into,
+discussed and weighed. Her commercial, industrial, and agricultural
+interests must be specially considered. They vary in many particulars
+from those of Scotland and England. This can only be done satisfactorily
+by a responsible Irish Minister charged with the duty of protecting and
+securing her interests and harmonising them with those of the sister
+Kingdoms in the framing of a scientific scheme of Tariff Reform.</p>
+
+<p>If Irish interests are properly provided for, she should gain greatly
+under Tariff Reform. The effect of the Whig finance, inaugurated by
+Gladstone in 1853, accompanied by a rigid application of the Ricardian
+theories of political economy, and the continuous narrowing of the basis
+of indirect taxation, told against Ireland most severely, depleted her
+resources and retarded her progress. Sir Stafford Northcote thus
+addressed the House of Commons after twelve years' experience of the
+Gladstone Budget:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;The upshot of our present system of taxation has been to increase the
+taxation of the United Kingdom within the last ten or twelve years by 20
+per cent., and they would find that whereas the taxation of England had
+increased by 17 per cent., that of Ireland had increased no less than 52
+per cent, between 1851 and 1861. This disproportion had been brought
+about by laying upon Ireland the burden of the Income-tax and by heavily
+increasing the spirit duties, making use at the same time of these two
+great engines of taxation to relieve the United Kingdom, but more
+especially England, of particular fiscal impositions.... Taxation in
+these two parts have pressed so heavily on Ireland, it was incumbent
+upon the people of England to take into account the necessity of
+relieving Ireland in any way they could.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77" /><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This plea of a great Conservative financial authority for that special
+consideration for Ireland to which she is entitled in fiscal matters
+under the Act of Union was not carried into effect until the Unionist
+administration of Lord Salisbury, in 1886. Then began, under the Chief
+Secretaryship of Mr. Arthur Balfour, that practical application of the
+&quot;Exemptions and Abatements&quot; clause of the Act of Union in the policy of
+Constructivism which has fructified so magnificently, and which, if
+allowed to continue uninterrupted by Home Rule, will lead Ireland to
+affluence.</p>
+
+<p>The Lloyd George Budget penalised Ireland still further by exaggerating
+those methods of Whig finance which persistently narrowed the basis of
+indirect taxation and heaped up disproportionate imposts on a few
+selected articles&mdash;articles which are either very largely produced or
+very largely consumed in Ireland. The effect of Gladstone's Budget of
+1853 was to reduce the area under barley in Ireland by 134,000 acres in
+six years; the Lloyd George Budget has reduced the Irish barley crop by
+10,000 acres in one year. Therefore in the framing of the Tariff Reform
+Budgets of the future, Ireland's equitable claim under the Act of Union
+should be recognised and given effect to.</p>
+
+
+<h4>REFORM OF AGRICULTURAL LAND TAXATION.</h4>
+
+<p>Agricultural land in the hands of the farmers who have bought their
+holdings under the Irish Land Acts has been made liable to extravagant
+burdens by the Lloyd George Budget. These peasant purchasers are treated
+as if they were &quot;Dukes.&quot; When they discover their real position, their
+resentment will be bitter. Form IV. has not yet been circulated among
+them. It has been kept back deliberately. It would not suit Mr. Redmond
+or the Ministry, should the Irish farmer discover what the actual
+working of the new Land taxes means while the legislative logs are still
+being rolled by the Radical-Socialist-Nationalist combination. When Home
+Rule is defeated Unionist finance should provide that the burden imposed
+by these taxes on agricultural progress and national prosperity shall
+be removed, and that the benefits conferred by the great Unionist policy
+of State purchase on the peasant proprietors shall not be allowed to be
+filched away by the Socialist budget, though it was by that very Irish
+party, whose first duty should have been to protect them, that the Irish
+farmers' interests have been betrayed.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CONSTRUCTIVISM.</h4>
+
+<p>It was found by the Financial Relations Commission that Ireland
+contributed a revenue in excess of her relative capacity. Mr. Childers,
+in his draft report, suggested that practical steps might possibly be
+taken to give Ireland relief or afford her equitable compensation in
+three different ways&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78" /><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>(1) By so altering the general fiscal policy of the United Kingdom
+     as to make the incidence of taxation fall more lightly on Ireland.
+     It was suggested that the taxation upon tea, tobacco, and spirits,
+     which weigh more heavily on Ireland in proportion to her relative
+     capacity, because of the habits of the people, and the larger
+     proportion in Ireland of the poorer classes, might be reduced and a
+     part of the burden transferred to other commodities. It was,
+     however, felt, he said, that this would open up questions of such
+     magnitude&mdash;like Free Trade and the incidence of taxation as between
+     different classes&mdash;that it would be inexpedient to urge it, when
+     the object in view was the solution of a pressing difficulty with
+     regard to Ireland taken apart from the rest of the United Kingdom.
+     But that difficulty will be removed under Tariff Reform&mdash;one-sided
+     Free Trade is no longer a sacrosanct fetish&mdash;and the case of
+     Ireland must be taken not as apart from, but as part of, the United
+     Kingdom. Irish interests, Agricultural and Industrial, can be far
+     better promoted, furthered, and secured under a scientific tariff
+     system than under the so-called free trade system, which insists on
+     the fallacy that identity of imposts means equality of burden, and
+     concentrates its pressure on the great Irish industries of brewing,
+     distillery, and tobacco manufacturing; a system which taxes heavily
+     tea&mdash;the great article of consumption&mdash;and has brought peculiar
+     disaster on agriculture. Therefore, the remedy which Mr. Childers
+     thought impracticable in 1896 will become eminently practicable
+     with a Tariff Reform Ministry in power.</p>
+
+<p>     (2) The second suggestion then made was that there should be a
+     policy of distinct customs and excise for Ireland as apart from
+     Great Britain. This would involve a customs barrier between the two
+     islands. The inconvenience of such a course would be immeasurable
+     and disastrous under modern conditions. It would certainly come
+     sooner or later under Home Rule, but it would be a reversal of the
+     policy of the Union.</p>
+
+<p>     (3) The third method which most strongly recommended itself to Mr.
+     Childers was to give compensation to Ireland by making an
+     allocation of revenue in her favour, to be employed in promoting
+     the material prosperity and social welfare of the country.</p></div>
+
+<p>This is the course which has been pursued by Unionist statesmen, and
+finds practical expression in their Constructive policy. The results
+cannot be better proved than by the fact that within the six years from
+1904, during which the statistics of Irish Export and Import trade have
+been kept, her commerce has increased in money value by more than
+twenty-seven millions. At least four-fifths of that great increase
+represents a corresponding increase in British trade with Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Childers wrote in 1896&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;Apart from the claim of Ireland to special and distinct
+     consideration under the provisions of the Act of Union, and upon
+     the ground that she has for many years been, and now is,
+     contributing towards the public revenue a share much in excess of
+     her relative taxable capacity; I think that Great Britain as a
+     manufacturing and trading country would in the course of time be
+     amply repaid by the increase of prosperity and purchasing power in
+     Ireland for any additional burdens which this annual grant to
+     Ireland might involve. Looked at simply as a matter of good policy,
+     it would be that often advocated with regard to Crown Colonies of
+     Imperial expenditure with a view to the development of a backward
+     portion of the Imperial estate. Ireland is so much nearer to and
+     more exclusively the customer of the trading and manufacturing
+     districts of Great Britain than any Colony, that this argument in
+     her case should have redoubled weight. It is at least probable
+     that, if in place of the fitful method of casual loans and grants
+     hitherto pursued, there was a steady, persevering, and
+     well-directed application of public money by way of free annual
+     grant towards increasing the productive power of Ireland, the true
+     revenue derived from that country might in time be no longer in
+     excess of its relative taxable capacity.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79" /><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>The wisdom of this Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a strange
+contrast with the folly of the Radical Chief Secretary, who tells
+England to &quot;cut the loss&quot; at the moment of Ireland's rapid progress
+because Irish Old Age Pensions have exceeded in number the reckless
+anticipation of the Right Hon. Mr. Lloyd George.</p>
+
+
+<h4>A SUGGESTION FOR STATE TRANSIT OF HOME-GROWN PRODUCE.</h4>
+
+<p>The present writer ventures to suggest that under a general scheme of
+Tariff Reform, the home-grown food supply of the United Kingdom might be
+generally increased and cheapened, and Ireland, along with the other
+agricultural districts of the United Kingdom greatly developed, by an
+extension of the principle of the Parcel Post, and the constitution of a
+great Home-Grown Commodity Consignment Service worked through
+arrangements between the Post Office, the Railway Companies, the
+Agricultural Departments and Farmers' Co-operative Associations. The
+railways already provide special rates for farm produce. But if the
+system were organised by the State in connection with the Railways and
+Agricultural Associations, and the parcel post expanded from the
+carriage of parcels of eleven pounds weight to the carriage of
+consignments of a tonnage limit to be delivered on certain days at
+depots in the large cities and centres of population, great national
+interests might be served.</p>
+
+<p>The value of proximity to the Home Markets which has been so depreciated
+in favour of foreign supplies by modern transit methods and quick sea
+passages, would be restored to the British and Irish farmer. If this
+were accompanied by a tariff system which would secure a preference for
+home-grown cereals such as oats and barley, a direct effect in
+stimulating agriculture, and an indirect effect in increasing winter
+dairying, cattle feeding and poultry rearing, would be produced. The
+country would become more self-sustaining. The peace food supply would
+be cheapened and the food supply in time of war augmented. The defensive
+power of the realm would be increased. If, under the new Tariff system,
+it seems not inexpedient to reimpose the small registration duty on
+imported foreign as contrasted with colonial wheat and flour, the
+revenue thus produced might, without exactly earmarking it, be applied
+partly towards encouraging and advancing agriculture in the United
+Kingdom, and partly towards financing such a Commodity Post as above
+suggested. This subvention to domestic, agricultural and pastoral
+industries would balance the tariff on foreign manufactured goods, and
+the farmer of England, Scotland and Ireland would share amply in the
+stimulus of a new fiscal policy. Tariff Reform may assist the
+manufacturer and artisan by imposing duties at the ports, and the farmer
+and agricultural labourer by cheapening transit and encouraging food
+production within the United Kingdom.</p>
+
+
+<h4>EQUIVALENT GRANTS IN AID.</h4>
+
+<p>In 1888 a system was inaugurated by which Grants in Aid of Local
+Purposes have been made in the Three Kingdoms on the basis that England
+should get 80 per cent., Scotland 11 per cent., and Ireland 9 per cent.,
+when such subventions are given from the Imperial Exchequer. The
+Legislation sanctioning this proportional allocation began with the
+English Local Government Act of 1888, when Grants in Aid were made out
+of the Probate Duties, and has been carried into several other Statutes
+relating to England, Scotland and Ireland. These proportions have become
+to a large extent stereotyped in the allocation of such grants. The new
+basis of contribution was originated by Mr. Goschen and was stated by
+him to depend upon the amount of the assumed contribution of each
+country to the Revenue for Common purposes. The method of calculation,
+he said, was a very complex one.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80" /><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was pointed out at the time that under the new system the party that
+would probably require the largest amount of the grant would be the
+poorest country, and yet the richer country would get the larger
+proportionate grants.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81" /><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> The method of segregation is as follows. The
+Revenue and Expenditure Returns divide public expenditure into four
+clauses: (a) &quot;Imperial or Common Services,&quot; (b) &quot;English Services,&quot; (c)
+&quot;Scottish Services,&quot; and (d) &quot;Irish Services&quot;; and having treated the
+three latter as &quot;local services&quot; and charged the particular outlay on
+them against each of the three countries, they estimate the balance left
+in cash as &quot;the Contribution&quot; of England, Scotland and Ireland to the
+&quot;Imperial&quot; Expenditure. It is admitted that this division is absolutely
+arbitrary. It has no sanction by any Act of Parliament. It is opposed to
+the system of Finance under the Act of Union. All the revenues of
+England, Scotland or Ireland are contributed for &quot;Common&quot; purposes, and
+in which all expenditure of any kind in any portion of the United
+Kingdom is alike &quot;Common&quot; or &quot;Imperial.&quot; The details of the division
+were never disclosed, when the proportions were originally fixed. The
+segregation of the services classified as &quot;Imperial&quot; is open to serious
+objections. The method of computation is empirical and unconstitutional,
+and if carried to its logical conclusion would now result in depriving
+Ireland of any share whatever in future Equivalent grants, as her
+contribution to the services thus classified as &quot;Imperial&quot; is
+practically a minus quantity, though the revenue actually raised in
+Ireland is much higher than it ever has been before. This method of
+Distribution of Grants in Aid has been condemned by a succession of the
+highest financial authorities. Lord Ritchie, as Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, said, &quot;he did not think it possible really to defend in all
+its details distribution by contribution.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82" /><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wyndham said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;It leads to results which all must hold to be illogical, and
+     results which everybody in Ireland holds to be unjust because the
+     greater the increase of taxation the less is the proportion that
+     comes from Ireland, the poorer partner in the business, and so the
+     less is the equivalent grant. As the evil increases the remedy
+     diminishes, and you have only to force up taxation sufficiently
+     high to extinguish the remedy altogether.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83" /><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Asquith said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;A more confused and illogical condition of things it is impossible
+     to imagine. The House ought really to take the opportunity of
+     threshing out the principle upon which these equivalent grants
+     ought to be distributed between the three countries.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84" /><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Lord St. Aldwyn said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;That he always had a very strong objection to the system of
+     Equivalent Grants, because when they had to make a grant for
+     certain purposes to England, they were obliged to make
+     proportionate grants to Ireland and Scotland quite irrespective of
+     whether they needed them or not.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85" /><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Neither the &quot;Imperial&quot; contribution basis nor the &quot;Population&quot; basis,
+which has in some instances been resorted to for grants in aid, is
+satisfactory, nor is the method desirable of setting aside a certain
+fund raised by some particular tax to finance a particular service. For
+instance, the subvention of Education in Ireland out of the &quot;Whisky
+money&quot; recently broke down owing to the diminution of the Revenue from
+this source. The more sober Ireland became, the less she got for
+Education. Chaos was imminent, and finally, after much friction, a
+special grant had to be made from the Treasury to save the situation.
+There are numerous instances in which great complications have been
+caused in dealing with local authorities owing to these methods of
+making grants in aid, and the system should be reformed. The true basis
+is the basis of each Kingdom's need.... England has her needs, let them
+be supplied. Scotland has hers, let them be supplied. Ireland has hers,
+and having regard to her present comparative poverty, let them be
+supplied &quot;not grudgingly or of necessity,&quot; but by the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer &quot;as a cheerful giver.&quot; This is the constitutional principle
+under the Act of Union, and the soundest financial principle to observe
+for the United Kingdom.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76" /><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> 56 Geo. III. c. 98.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77" /><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> &quot;Hansard,&quot; Feb. 27, 1865, vol. 177, p. 813.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78" /><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> &quot;Financial Relations Report,&quot; 1896, c. 8262, vol. iii. p.
+194.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79" /><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> 1896, c. 8262, p. 194.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80" /><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> &quot;Hansard,&quot; 1888, vol. 327, p. 1287.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81" /><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> &quot;Parl. Deb.,&quot; vol. 332, p. 790.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82" /><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Ibid., vol. 120, p. 976.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83" /><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> &quot;Parl. Deb.,&quot; vol. 120, p. 823.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84" /><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Ibid., vol. 175, p. 1088.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85" /><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Ibid., May 31, 1903.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI" />XVI</h2>
+
+<h2>THE ECONOMICS OF SEPARATISM</h2>
+
+<h3>BY L. S. AMERY, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The history of Ireland for the last two centuries and more is a
+continuous exposition of the disastrous consequences of political and
+economic separatism within an area where every natural condition, and
+the whole course of historical development, pointed to political and
+economic union. Geographically, racially and historically an integral
+part of a single homogeneous island group, Ireland has never really been
+allowed to enjoy the full advantages of political and economic union
+with the adjoining main island. Almost every misfortune which Ireland
+has suffered is directly traceable to this cause. In spite of this, it
+is now seriously proposed to subject her once again to the disadvantages
+of political separation, and that on the very eve of an inevitable
+change of economic policy, which, while it would restore real vitality
+and purpose to political union, would also once more intensify all the
+injury which economic disunion has inflicted upon Ireland in the past.</p>
+
+<p>In the long constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century her
+position as a separate political unit made Ireland a convenient
+instrument of Stuart policy against the English Parliament. Cromwell,
+with true insight, solved the difficulty by legislative union with
+England. But his work was undone at the Restoration, and for another 122
+years Ireland remained outside the Union as a separate and subordinate
+state. Her economic position was that of a Colony, as Colonies were then
+administered. But it was that of a &quot;least favoured Colony.&quot; This was
+due, in part, to a real fear of Ireland as a danger to British
+constitutional liberty and British Protestantism<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86" /><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> which long
+survived the occasion which has seemed to justify it. But what was a
+more serious and permanent factor was the circumstance that Ireland's
+economic development could only be on lines which competed with England,
+and not like Colonial development on lines complementary to English
+trade. One after another Irish industries were penalised and crippled by
+being forbidden all part in the export trade. A flourishing woollen
+industry, a prosperous shipping, promising cotton, silk, glass, glove
+making and sugar refining industries were all ruthlessly repressed,<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87" /><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a>
+not from any innate perversity on the part of English statesmen, or from
+any deliberate desire to ruin Ireland, but as a natural and inevitable
+consequence of exclusion from the Union under the economic policy of the
+age. Whatever outlet Irish economic activity took there was always some
+English trade whose interests were prejudicially affected, and which
+promptly exercised a perfectly legitimate pressure upon the Government
+to put a stop to the competition. The very poverty of Ireland, as
+expressed in the lowness of Irish wages, was an ever convenient and
+perfectly justifiable argument for exclusion. The linen industry alone
+received a certain amount of toleration, and even encouragement. These
+regulations were so little animated by direct religious or racial
+antipathy that it was upon the Protestant Scotch and English settlers
+that they fell with the greatest severity, driving them into exile by
+thousands, to become, subsequently, one of the chief factors in the
+American Revolution. But if the direct economic effect of political
+separation weighed less heavily upon the Catholic majority, they
+suffered all the more from the utter paralysis of all industry and
+enterprise consequent upon the Penal Laws. These laws, monstrous as they
+seemed even to Burke, were in their turn a natural outcome of a
+political separation which made the security of Protestantism in Ireland
+rest upon the domination of a narrow oligarchy in instant terror of
+being swamped. Under Union they would never have been devised, or could
+certainly never have endured.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution by which the Irish Parliament, in 1782, asserted its
+constitutional equality with the British Parliament, subject only to the
+power of bribery, direct or indirect, retained by the Crown, brought out
+in still more glaring relief the utter unsoundness of the existing
+political structure under separation. After eighteen years of ferment
+within Ireland and friction without, British and Irish statesmen, face
+to face with civil war and French invasion, realised that the sorry
+farce had to come to an end. Meanwhile the immediate economic effect of
+liberation from the direct restrictions on Irish foreign trade, already
+conceded in 1779, and helped in various directions by judicious
+bounties, was undoubtedly to give a new impetus to production in
+Ireland. The first ten years of Grattan's Parliament were, on the whole,
+years of growing prosperity. Whether, even apart from civil war and
+increasing taxation, that prosperity would have continued to increase,
+if the Union had not come about, is, however, a more doubtful matter.
+The immense industrial development of England during the next
+half-century would probably, in any case, have crushed out the smaller
+and weaker Irish industries, while the existence of a separate tariff in
+Great Britain would have been a serious obstacle to the development of
+Irish agriculture. A full customs union, with internal free trade, was
+undoubtedly the best solution of the difficulty. But Pitt's Commercial
+Propositions of 1785 failed, partly, indeed, owing to political
+intrigues, but still more owing to the fundamental impossibility of
+securing an effective customs union without some form of political
+union.</p>
+
+<p>When finally Ireland entered the Union it was with the severe handicap
+of an industrial system artificially repressed for over a century. The
+removal of the last traces of internal protection in 1824 only
+accelerated the process, inevitable in any case, by which Irish
+industries, with the exception of linen, were submerged. But
+manufacturing industry was at the best a small matter in Ireland
+compared with agriculture. And to Irish agriculture the Union meant an
+immense development in every direction. Unfortunately the inheritance of
+the preceding century, a vicious agrarian system and a low standard of
+living, was not easily to be eliminated, and little attempt was made to
+eliminate it. The great increase of agricultural production was
+accompanied, not by a progressive and well-diffused rise in the standard
+of national well-being, but by high rents and extravagance on the one
+side, and, on the other, the rapid multiplication of a population living
+on the very margin of subsistence. The terrible year of famine was a
+warning to British statesmanship of the need of a constructive and
+Conservative policy for the reorganisation of Irish agricultural life
+and for the broadening of the economic basis in Ireland by the
+deliberate encouragement of new industries. Under a true conception of
+Union, political and economic&mdash;and there were not wanting men like Lord
+George Bentinck and Disraeli who entertained it&mdash;Ireland might within a
+generation have been levelled up to the general standard of the United
+Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>But the evil effects of political and economic separatism in the
+eighteenth century were still unremedied when the whole economic policy
+of Union was abandoned. The very principle and conception of Free Trade
+is, inherently, as opposed to the maintenance of national as of Imperial
+Union. Ireland was deprived of that position of advantage in the British
+market which was one of the implied terms of the Union, and was not
+allowed to protect her own market. Incidentally, and as a consequence of
+the new fiscal policy, Ireland was saddled with a heavy additional
+burden of taxation which only handicapped her yet further in the
+struggle to recover from the famine and to meet foreign competition. The
+full severity of that competition was, however, not experienced till
+towards the end of the seventies, when the opening up of the American
+West, coupled with the demonetisation of silver, brought down prices
+with a run. A series of bad harvests aggravated the evil. The same
+conditions were experienced all over Europe, and were everywhere met by
+raising tariffs to the level required to enable agriculture to maintain
+itself. Even in England &quot;Fair Trade&quot; became a burning issue. Given
+normal agrarian conditions in Ireland the Irish vote would have gone
+solid with the Fair Traders, and the United Kingdom would in all
+probability have reverted to a national system of economics a generation
+ago. As things were, landlords and farmers in Ireland, instead of
+uniting to defend their common interest, each endeavoured to thrust the
+burden of the economic <i>débâcle</i> on the other. The bitterness of the
+agrarian struggle which ensued was skilfully engineered into the channel
+of the Home Rule agitation. In other words, the evils of economic
+separatism, aggravated by the social evils surviving from the separatism
+of an earlier age, united to revive a demand for the extension and
+renewal of the very cause of these evils.</p>
+
+<p>Since then the underlying conditions of Irish economic life have
+undergone a complete transformation. The wealth and credit of the United
+Kingdom have been used to inaugurate a settlement of the agrarian
+question. The productive and competitive efficiency of Irish agriculture
+has been enormously increased both by Government advice and assistance
+and by patriotic private effort. Old Age Pensions have alleviated the
+burden of an excessive residue of older persons, and irrigated the
+poorer districts with a stream of ready money. In every direction there
+is a deliberate effort to raise the economic standard of Ireland to the
+British level. Last, but by no means least, the exclusion of all foreign
+live stock from the United Kingdom, though originally designed only as a
+precautionary measure against cattle disease, has in effect protected
+one most important branch of Irish agriculture and given it a vital
+interest in the maintenance of the Union. On the eve of the revival of a
+national policy of economic development Ireland stands on a far sounder
+basis, and in a far better position to take advantage of that
+development, than in 1800. The standard of life is rising, and will of
+itself put a check on a mere multiplication of beings living on the
+margin of subsistence. For the natural increase of population, which
+will once more come about, there will be provision not only through more
+intensive cultivation and in rural industries, but also in a real,
+though possibly gradual, development of new manufacturing industries.
+Incidentally the establishment of a protective tariff for the United
+Kingdom will, by lowering the excessive duties on tea and tobacco which
+weigh so heavily upon Ireland, increase still further the local excess
+of Government expenditure over revenue and facilitate the local
+accumulation of capital, already so noticeable a feature of recent
+years, and thus provide an essential factor in stimulating new
+enterprise, whether agricultural or industrial. Nor would it be in any
+way inconsistent with a national economic policy for the United Kingdom
+as a whole to devote special sums, through bounties and in other ways,
+towards the opening up of new fields for the economic activities of the
+Irish people. For the first time in her history Ireland will have a fair
+start, and, under the Union, the twentieth century may yet prove
+Ireland's century just as Canadians claim that it will prove Canada's
+century.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us turn to the other side of the picture. The establishment of
+Home Rule, in other words of political separatism, must inevitably be
+followed by active economic separatism, <i>i.e.</i> by the creation of a
+completely separate fiscal system in Ireland. The idea that an Irish
+Chancellor of the Exchequer can carry on in dependence on a British
+Budget, which may at any moment upset all his calculations of revenue,
+is absurd. So is the idea that there can be separate tariffs with mutual
+Free Trade, or a common tariff without a common government to frame it.
+If Free Trade, indeed, were to be maintained in England, fiscal
+separation would be no disadvantage to Ireland. On the contrary, she
+would continue to enjoy the same access to the British market while
+giving her own industries such protection as might be convenient. It is
+one of the glaring weaknesses of the policy of Free Imports that it
+actually puts a premium on separatism. But it is impossible to discuss
+the future on that assumption. Whatever the fate of the Home Rule Bill
+may be it is certain that Free Trade is doomed, and that the United
+Kingdom, whether united or divided, will revert to a policy of national
+protection and national development.</p>
+
+<p>What will be the effect upon Ireland? Assuming mutual good will,
+assuming that the Irish Government will be ready to grant a substantial
+preference to British trade over foreign trade, there can be no doubt
+that Great Britain would respond and give to Irish products the same
+preference as might be extended to Canadian or Australian products. But
+the first duty of the British Government would be to British producers.
+While Empire-grown wheat, and possibly meat, would come in free, the
+British farmer would receive a measure of protection against the rest of
+the Empire in dairy products and poultry, in barley and oats, in hops,
+tobacco, sugar beet, vegetables and fruit, in all those crops, in fact,
+in which the British production could meet the British demand without an
+undue effect upon prices.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is precisely by these intensive forms of production that Ireland
+stands to gain most under Union. Under Home Rule she would lose this
+advantage and have to compete on an equality with the rest of the Empire
+both in respect to these products and in respect to wheat and meat. It
+is extremely doubtful, too, whether her special privileges with regard
+to store cattle would long survive. They could no longer be defended, as
+against Canada, by the arguments now used, and as a piece of pure
+protectionism there would be no reason for Great Britain to give them a
+separate fiscal entity. And if the hopes of Irish agriculture would be
+severely checked, still more would that be true of those hopes of new
+industries already referred to. Even the great linen industry might find
+a small duty enough to transfer a large part of its production within
+the British tariff zone. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether any
+tariff that Ireland could impose, consistently either with preference or
+with reasonable prices in so small a market and on so small a scale of
+production, could be of much effect against the competition of British
+industries, strengthened and made aggressive under the stimulus of a
+national trade policy.</p>
+
+<p>This is the most favourable hypothesis. But it is at least conceivable
+that a Nationalist Government, whether actuated by a laudable desire to
+hurry on Irish industrial development, or influenced by the tradition of
+animosity which still plays so strong a part in Nationalist politics,
+may refuse to enter upon the policy of Imperial preference. It might
+even be tempted by various considerations to give a preference to the
+United States or to Germany. Germany is a large importer of foodstuffs.
+The establishment of a British tariff may prove a serious blow to her
+manufacturing interests. A trade agreement with Ireland might be a very
+useful temporary business expedient from the German point of view.
+Incidentally a large increase of German merchant shipping in Irish
+harbours might, in the case of possible hostilities, be of no little
+service in providing commerce destroyers with a most convenient excuse
+for being in the most favourable area for their operations. Any fiscal
+excursions of that sort would inevitably be visited upon Ireland by
+severe economic reprisals of one kind or another on the part of Great
+Britain, from which Ireland would receive permanent injury far
+outweighing any temporary advantage which might be secured from foreign
+countries.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, Ireland under Home Rule would be in almost every respect
+thrust back into her eighteenth century position of &quot;least favoured
+Colony.&quot; She would, at the best, be handicapped in the British market in
+respect of those products by which she could profit most, and in those
+which she is less fitted to produce would have to compete with the
+virgin soil and competitive energy and organisation of the great
+Dominions. At the worst, her fiscal policy might invite reprisals and
+make her &quot;least favoured&quot; not only by her circumstances but by the
+intention of those who would frame the British tariff. It is true that
+the British Government would no longer dream of directly interdicting
+Irish exports. But in that respect modern organised capital has an
+influence to promote or kill almost as great as that of governments in
+former times. And the influence of British capital, under such
+circumstances, would certainly not tend to be directed towards the
+economic development of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>But the use of the customs tariff is by no means the only great
+instrument of a national economic policy. To promote the flow of trade
+in national channels, to secure the fullest development of the national
+territory and resources, the removal of natural internal barriers is
+often even more important than the setting up of artificial external
+barriers. Statesmen who have had to face the task of giving strength and
+solidity to weak political unions have always aimed at the development
+of internal communications. Washington's first concern after the success
+of the American War of Independence was to endeavour to create a system
+of internal river and canal navigation in order to help to bind the
+loosely allied States into a real union. Bismarck used the Prussian
+railways as well as the Zollverein to build up German unity. In the
+making of Canada the Intercolonial railway and the Canadian Pacific were
+essential complements to the national tariff. Railways forced South
+Africa into union, and will gradually give Australia real cohesion and
+unity. In the United Kingdom there has been no national policy with
+regard to communications, least of all any nationally directed or
+stimulated effort to cement the political union of 1800. But such a
+policy is essential to the reality of the Union. To get rid, as far as
+possible, of the barrier which the St. George's Channel presents to-day
+both to the convenience of passenger traffic and to the direct through
+carriage of goods between internal points in the two islands should be
+one of the first objects of Unionist policy in the future. In the
+train-ferry, which has bridged the channels of sea-divided Denmark,
+which in spite of the Baltic, has made Sweden contiguous with Germany,
+which for the purposes of railway traffic, has practically abolished
+Lake Michigan, modern developments have provided us with the very
+instrument required. To Irish agriculture the gain of being put into
+direct railway communication with all England and Scotland would be
+immense. From the tourist and sporting point of view Ireland would reap
+a doubled and trebled harvest. More than that, the bridging of St.
+George's Channel will for the first time enable the west coast of
+Ireland to become what it ought to be, the true west coast of the United
+Kingdom, the starting point of all our fast mail and passenger services
+across the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>But all this implies the Union, the existence of a single Government
+interested in the development of the United Kingdom as a whole. Separate
+governments in Great Britain and Ireland would not have the same
+inducement to give financial encouragement to such schemes. Irish
+manufacturers and British farmers alike might protest against being
+taxed to facilitate the competition of rivals in their own markets. An
+Irish Government would have neither sufficient money nor sufficient
+interest to give the subsidies necessary to secure a three days' service
+across the Atlantic. A British Government would naturally develop one of
+its existing ports, or some new port on the west coast of Scotland,
+rather than build up a new source of revenue and national strength in a
+separate State. No one could blame it, any more than we could blame the
+Canadian Government for wishing to subsidise a fast service from Halifax
+or some other port in the Dominion rather than one from St. John's,
+Newfoundland. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Navigation
+Acts deliberately destroyed Irish shipping. A policy of <i>laisser faire</i>
+in matters of national communication has hitherto prevented its revival.
+To-day new ideas are in the air. Those ideas can be applied, either
+from the standpoint of the Union or from that of separatism. In the one
+case Ireland has the prospect of becoming, what her geographical
+position entitles her to be, the eastern bridge-head of the North
+Atlantic. In the other the immense power of the larger capital and
+larger subsidies of Great Britain will be as effective as any navigation
+laws of the past in leaving her a derelict by the wayside, continuing to
+wait idle and hungry, with empty harbours, while the great streams of
+commerce flow past her to north and south.</p>
+
+<p>And if the theory of <i>laisser faire</i> is rapidly dying out in matters of
+trade and communications, it has already been largely superseded in
+regard to social questions. The duty of the State to expend money in
+order to level up the standard of life of its citizens, or to prevent
+their sinking below that standard, is to-day universally recognised. The
+methods by which that object is aimed at are various. There is the
+crudest form, that of direct money relief, such as is involved in Old
+Age Pensions. There is the subsidising of socially desirable economic
+operations, such as insurance against sickness or the acquisition of
+freehold by tenants. There is the expenditure of money on various forms
+of education, in the scientific assistance of industry and agriculture,
+in promotion of forestry, drainage, or the improvement of local
+communication. There is the enforcement of innumerable regulations to
+safeguard the health and safety of the working population. Nowhere has
+this conception of the duty of the State exercised a greater influence
+than in Ireland during the last twenty years. The Congested Districts
+Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Land Purchase Scheme,
+illustrate one phase of its carrying into effect. Old Age Pensions,
+cheap labourers' cottages, sickness insurance illustrate another. All
+these have been provided out of the United Kingdom exchequer. They could
+not be provided out of Irish revenues. Still less could Irish revenues
+provide for a continuous extension of this policy in order to keep on a
+level with English conditions.</p>
+
+<p>It has been stated by Mr. Churchill that under the Government scheme of
+Home Rule, Land Purchase and Old Age Pensions will be paid by Great
+Britain. Even if that were a workable arrangement it only covers a small
+part of the field. For the rest Home Rule would mean the complete
+abandonment of the attempt to level up the social conditions of Great
+Britain and Ireland to a common standard. The Irish Government would
+never have the means to carry out the same programme of social
+legislation as will be carried out in Great Britain. Handicapped in
+competition with British industries it would, moreover, naturally be
+disinclined, even apart from the question of cost, to apply any
+legislation or any regulations which might tend to raise the cost of
+production. There will thus not only be an inevitable falling back for
+want of means, but, in addition, a continual temptation to the weaker
+and more backward State to meet superior industrial efficiency by the
+temporary cheapness of inferior social conditions.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88" /><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p>
+
+<p>But such a policy would not only be disastrous in itself in its ultimate
+effect upon Irish national life. It would at once provide a fresh and
+valid excuse for effective fiscal differentiation against Ireland in
+Great Britain. Once again, as in the eighteenth century, Ireland would
+be penalised for being a poor and &quot;sweated&quot; country.</p>
+
+<p>So far the discussion of the economic results of separation has been
+confined to Ireland, because Ireland would undoubtedly be the chief
+sufferer. Her dependence on the English market, the smallness of her
+home market, her backward social condition, would all be insuperable
+obstacles to a really healthy development on independent lines. Great
+Britain, on the other hand, would suffer relatively much less from Home
+Rule. The immediate shrinkage of trade with Ireland, even with an Irish
+tariff to overcome, might not be very great. The real loss would be not
+so much any actual decrease of trade, as the loss judged by the
+standard of the possibilities of Irish development under the Union. The
+essence of the situation after all is that the United Kingdom is a
+single economic area. The exclusion of one part of that area from the
+political and economic life of the rest, while injurious to the rest,
+must prove disastrous above all to the part excluded. After centuries of
+alternate neglect and repression Ireland has at last been brought to a
+condition in which she is capable of taking the fullest advantage of a
+new era of progress and development for the United Kingdom as a whole.
+And this is the time which is chosen for seriously suggesting that she
+should once again be excluded from all the benefits of partnership in
+the United Kingdom and driven out into the wilderness of poverty and
+decay. The plea for this folly is an unreal sentiment which is itself
+merely the survival of the mistaken political or economic separatism of
+the past, and which is nothing to the real and justifiable sentiment of
+bitterness which would be roused in Ireland if the plea were accepted.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86" /><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> This fear itself was the result of separatism. Miss A. E.
+Murray, in her work on &quot;The Commercial Relations between England and
+Ireland&quot; (p. 51), points out: &quot;It was not so much jealousy of Ireland as
+jealousy and fear of the English Crown which influenced the English
+legislature. Experience seemed to show that Irish prosperity was
+dangerous to English liberty.... The difficulty was that Ireland was a
+separate kingdom, and that the English Parliament had no direct
+authority over her. It was this absence of direct authority which made
+England so nervously anxious to restrict Irish resources in all those
+directions in which they might even indirectly interfere with the growth
+of English power.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87" /><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> For details, see Miss Murray's &quot;Commercial Relations
+between England and Ireland.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88" /><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> It is worth noting that in 1893 the Liberal Government
+rejected amendments moved by Mr. Whiteley to prevent existing laws for
+the protection of workers in factories, workshops, and mines, being
+repealed by the proposed Irish Legislature, and by Sir J. Gorst to
+reserve laws affecting the hours and conditions of labour to the United
+Kingdom Parliament.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII" />XVII</h2>
+
+<h2>PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON. WALTER LONG, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The argument so often and so plausibly presented in favour of Home Rule,
+which urges that the Imperial Parliament is overburdened with local
+affairs, contains an element of truth. It would, however, be more in
+accordance with the facts to put the case the other way round: for
+localities are much more seriously inconvenienced in certain respects by
+the necessity of referring local business to the Imperial Parliament,
+than the Imperial Parliament is inconvenienced by the transaction of
+such business, which, if we are to believe the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, it neglects (vide <i>Nash's Magazine</i>, February, 1912). At the
+same time, to affirm that, in order to remedy what is no more than a
+defect in administration, it is necessary to overturn the British
+Constitution, and to build on its ruins four semi-independent
+Legislatures and one supreme Parliament, is merely to exemplify the
+cynical imposture of partisan misrepresentation: what Mr. Balfour
+described as &quot;the dream of political idiots.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There is no impartial person who does not clearly recognise that to
+constitute a separate Parliament for Ireland (to say nothing of England,
+Wales, and Scotland) must necessarily result, not in the more efficient
+despatch of legislative and administrative business, but in perpetual
+friction, clogging the mechanism alike of the subordinate and the
+predominate body. Ireland enjoyed&mdash;or endured&mdash;an independent Parliament
+during eighteen years, from 1782 to 1800; and, in the result, the
+greatest statesmen both in Ireland and in England were forced to
+acknowledge that the system had in practice failed utterly; and that
+there remained no alternative but the Union. To that view of the
+situation the great majority of the Irish people, irrespective of race
+or creed, were converted within a year before the passing of the Act, an
+event which was hailed with rejoicing. The experience of 112 years,
+fraught as they have been with occasional calamity and burdened with
+many blunders, has not produced a single valid objection to the
+principle of the Union, unless the survival among a diminishing section
+of the population of the old, bad tradition of hatred towards England,
+and its deliberate exploitation by pledge-bound politicians, is to be
+regarded as a reason for sacrificing the welfare and the prosperity of
+both countries.</p>
+
+<p>The framers of the Act of Union did not, and indeed could not, provide
+for every contingency. It is therefore the business of those who are
+determined to maintain the Union, to adjust its machinery to modern
+requirements. An omission of capital import was the failure to provide
+for the efficient promotion of private Bills. The matter was, indeed,
+actually considered by the authors of the Act of Union. The Duke of
+Portland wrote to Lord Cornwallis, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, under
+date December 24, 1798, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote"><p>&quot;One of the greatest difficulties, however, which has been supposed to
+attend the project of union between the two kingdoms, is that of the
+expense and trouble which will be occasioned by the attendance of
+witnesses in trials of contested elections, or in matters of private
+business requiring Parliamentary interposition. It would, therefore, be
+very desirable to devise a plan (which does not appear impossible) for
+empowering the Speaker of either House of the United Parliament to issue
+his warrant to the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions in Ireland, or to
+such other person as may be thought more proper for the purpose,
+requiring him to appoint a time and a place within the County for his
+being attended by the agents of the respective parties, and reducing to
+writing in their presence the testimony (for the consents or dissents,
+as the case may be) of such persons as, by the said agents, may be
+summoned to attend, being resident within the County (if not there
+resident a similar proceeding should take place in the County where they
+reside), and such testimony so taken and reduced into writing may, by
+such Chairman or by the Sheriff of the County, be certified to the
+Speaker of either House, as the case may be. It seems difficult to
+provide a detailed Article of the Union for the various regulations
+which such a proceeding may require, but the principle might perhaps be
+stated there, and the provisions left to be settled by the United
+Parliament.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>According to Lord Ashbourne's &quot;Life of Pitt,&quot; the Prime Minister himself
+framed a scheme for constituting a Court of Appeal in Ireland, with
+power to examine evidence and certify all preliminaries and other
+matters respecting private Bills. Why the provision was not included in
+the Act of Union is not clear. The fact of its omission, however, proves
+that the necessity of resorting to the Imperial Parliament for the
+transaction of private business was not an objection that hindered the
+passage of the Act of Union, although to-day the same omission is
+absurdly used as an argument in favour of the repeal of that measure. At
+the same time, it is true that the requirements have immensely increased
+in proportion as the resources of the country have been developed since
+1800. The introduction of railways, telegraphs, telephones and electric
+appliances, together with the grant of compulsory powers to
+municipalities, has involved the promotion of numerous private Bills at
+vast expense to Ireland. Mr. A. W. Samuels, K.C., who contributed a
+paper on the subject to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of
+Ireland in November, 1899, quoted some instances of the cost of private
+Bill legislation in Ireland:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;The ratepayers of Dublin, of Rathmines, of Pembroke, of Clontarf, and
+other suburbs of the city, long will feel the burden added to their
+rates by the London litigation of the Session that has passed. The
+Dublin Boundaries Extension Bill of 1899 has cost the city, as I am
+informed on reliable authority, between £12,000 and £13,000. There were
+twenty-four separate sets of opponents. The cost to Rathmines of its
+opposition approaches, I am informed, £8,000. To meet it about one
+shilling in the pound must be added to the taxation of that township.
+The costs of Pembroke cannot be far short of the same sum. If we add
+those of the oppositions of Kilmainham, Drumcondra, Clontarf, and of the
+County of Dublin, and of private persons and public bodies, the total
+expense to the inhabitants and ratepayers of the city and its suburbs
+will not fall short of £45,000.</p></div>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Pope, Q.C., stated before the Committee which considered the Irish
+Railways Amalgamation Scheme of last Session, that the Bill at hearing
+was costing £5 per minute. A high authority conversant with the
+proceedings in this case has informed me that this was an under-estimate
+rather than an over-estimate, having regard to the fact that there were
+twenty-seven separate oppositions. The Bill occupied twenty-seven
+working days of four hours each, and its cost to the shareholders of the
+promoting Company were calculated to amount to about £400 per day. What
+the loss was to the shareholders of other Companies, and to the
+ratepayers represented by public bodies, it would be impossible to say.
+The Bill probably cost at least £50,000. There was a Belfast Corporation
+Bill. There was an Armagh and Keady Railway Bill. There were several
+other Irish Bills before the Houses, exhausting thousands more of Irish
+capital, and diverting it from the material development of the country.
+So abnormal was the waste of Irish money on the Railway Bill that it
+excited general attention even in England, and became the subject of
+comment in Parliament. Mr. J. H. Lewis, the member for Flint Burghs,
+speaking on the 24th July, 1899, on the third reading of the Scotch
+Private Legislation Procedure Bill, said, 'I am sure everybody must have
+regarded with great dissatisfaction the enormous expenditure to which
+certain Irish Railway Companies were put during the last few weeks
+within the walls of the House. Surely a better system can be devised
+than that which drags over from different parts of the United Kingdom a
+host of witnesses, who could be examined on the spot. I am sure all
+honourable members deeply regret this great waste of public money.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>These disabilities have been the subject of frequent representations.
+Resolutions advocating reform have been repeatedly passed by the Irish
+Chambers of Commerce, by the Incorporated Law Society, and by local
+bodies. Leaders of the Unionist party have constantly urged the
+necessity of a provision for expediting and cheapening Private Bill
+procedure. In 1896 a deputation from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce
+laid the matter before Mr. Gerald Balfour, who was then Chief Secretary
+for Ireland. He expressed a hope that the Government would introduce a
+reform. In the Queen's speech of February, 1897, it was announced that
+Bills for amending the procedure with respect to Private Bills coming
+from Scotland and Ireland had been prepared. The opportunity for laying
+these measures before Parliament did not arise.</p>
+
+<p>But in 1899 a Bill amending the procedure of Scottish Private Bill
+Legislation was passed into law. The measure forms the precedent for
+future legislation. In the year 1900, Mr. Atkinson (now Lord Atkinson),
+speaking for the Government, said that the Government were&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;most favourable to the introduction and passing of a Bill dealing with
+private Bill legislation for Ireland. He thought the real and
+substantial difficulty was the creation of the tribunal which was to sit
+locally and to inquire into these matters. The Irish Government thought
+it wise to wait until they should see what would be the effect of the
+operation of the Scotch Act.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Subsequent experience has proved that the Private Legislation Procedure
+(Scotland) Act of 1899 may well be taken for the model of a similar
+measure designed to apply to Ireland. The Scottish Act substituted for
+procedure by means of a Private Bill, procedure in the first instance by
+means of a Provisional Order. Instead of applying to Parliament by a
+petition for leave to bring in a Private Bill, any public authority or
+persons desirous of obtaining parliamentary powers now proceed by
+presenting a petition to the Secretary for Scotland,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;praying him to issue a Provisional Order in accordance with the terms
+of a draft Order submitted to him, or with such modifications as shall
+be necessary.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Before the Secretary for Scotland proceeds with the Provisional Order,
+the draft Order is considered by the Chairman of Committee of the House
+of Lords, and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons;
+and they report to the Secretary for Scotland whether or not the
+matters proposed to be dealt with by the draft Order, or any of them,
+should be dealt with by Provisional Order or by Private Bill. Should the
+Chairmen report that these matters, or any of them, should be dealt with
+by a Private Bill, the Secretary for Scotland, without further inquiry,
+refuses to issue the Provisional Order so far as it is objected to by
+the Chairmen; but the advertisements and notices already given by the
+promoters of the scheme are regarded as fulfilling (subject to Standing
+Orders) the necessary conditions to be observed prior to the
+introduction of a Private Bill. Should the Chairmen report that the
+Provisional Order, or a part of it, may proceed, the procedure is as
+follows. If there is no opposition, the Secretary for Scotland may at
+once issue the Provisional Order, which is then embodied in a
+Confirmation Bill for the assent of Parliament. If there is opposition,
+or in any case where he thinks inquiry necessary, the Secretary for
+Scotland directs an inquiry, and the Order is then considered by the
+tribunal described below; and if passed by that tribunal, with or
+without modifications, it is brought up in a Confirmation Bill for the
+assent of Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>It follows that in the case of unopposed schemes brought in under the
+Act, there is a great saving of time and expense as compared with the
+former system.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to schemes which are opposed, the judicial functions of a
+Parliamentary Committee dealing with Private Bills were transferred by
+the Act of 1899 to a special tribunal, composed of two Panels, a
+Parliamentary Panel and an Extra-Parliamentary Panel, whose members
+shall have no local or personal interest in the questions at issue. From
+these is formed a Commission of four members.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. A. W. Samuels, K.C., thus describes the constitution of the
+Commission:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;In the first instance it is provided that the members shall be
+taken&mdash;two from the Lords and two from the Commons. In the event of
+that being found impossible, three may be taken from one House and one
+from the other. In the next resort all may be from the same House.
+Finally&mdash;if members cannot be procured to serve&mdash;the extra Parliamentary
+Panel can be called upon, and the Commission manned from it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The next great reform introduced by the measure is, that the inquiry is
+to be held at such place, in Scotland, as may be convenient. The inquiry
+is to be localised as far as possible. It is to be held in public. The
+Commissioners are to settle questions of <i>locus standi</i>&mdash;they can decide
+upon the preamble before discussing clauses&mdash;and persons having a <i>locus
+standi</i> can appear before them in person or by counsel or agent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When they have heard the evidence the Commissioners are to report to
+the Secretary of Scotland, and they can recommend that the Provisional
+Order should be issued as prayed for, or with such modifications as they
+may make. If there is no opposition to the Provisional Order as finally
+settled by the Commissioners, it is embodied in a Confirmation Bill by
+the Secretary of Scotland and passed through Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If there is opposition a petition must be presented to Parliament
+against the Order, and then, on the second reading of the Confirmation
+Bill, a member can move that the Bill be referred to a Joint Committee
+of both Houses of Parliament, and if the motion is carried in the House
+a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons shall sit, at the peril of costs
+to the opponents, to hear and take evidence and decide upon the measure
+in the same way as in the case of a Private Bill.&quot; (Private Bill
+Procedure, pp. 9 and 10.)</p></div>
+
+<p>In 1904, the Select Committee appointed to consider the provisions of a
+similar measure to be applied to Wales, reported that in practice the
+Scottish Act had proved a success, which they attributed largely to the
+supervision of the Provisional Orders conducted by the Scottish Office.</p>
+
+<p>There would seem, then, every reason to believe that a measure framed
+upon the lines of the Scottish Act, to apply to Ireland, would be
+equally successful.</p>
+
+<p>The remarkable increase in the prosperity of Ireland, which has occurred
+during the last twenty years, demonstrates the necessity for providing
+every means of encouraging the further development of the country.</p>
+
+<p>All the available statistics amply confirm and corroborate the evidence
+of this prosperity, which is known to every man with the smallest direct
+acquaintance of Ireland in recent years. The figures of savings, bank
+deposits, external trade, all alike show the exceptional advances in
+prosperity now enjoyed by Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>The progress of Ireland under the Union thus indicated, was inaugurated
+by Mr. Balfour, the best Chief Secretary Ireland ever had; to this day
+his name is always mentioned with respect and gratitude by the people of
+Ireland, especially by the residents in the South and West, where his
+policy produced splendid and lasting results. Insufficient credit has
+been given to the work of agricultural and commercial development
+steadily pursued by Mr. Gerald Balfour; the results upon which we
+rejoice to-day are mainly due to the policy adopted by Mr. Balfour and
+his brother. This policy, coupled with the restitution of sales under
+the Land Act of 1903, is the one which Unionists intend resolutely to
+pursue.</p>
+
+<p>The figures on the next page show that the increase of population in
+some important centres in the south and west is very small, and that in
+other centres there is a decrease. Ireland being mainly an agricultural
+country, the population tends to decrease owing to emigration, although
+of late years, owing to the rise in prosperity, the tendency is rather
+to remain stationary. At the same time, the increase of the population
+in the provincial towns is not commensurate with the increase of
+material wealth in the country.</p>
+
+<p>With regard, for instance, to the increase in the number of tourists
+visiting Ireland, both private persons and local bodies desire to extend
+existing inducements and to improve the means of transit and to raise
+the standard of accommodation. It is clear that, under a reformed method
+of procedure in respect of Private Bill Legislation, enterprise would be
+freed from the restrictions which at present hinder its free exercise,
+and a substantial and a steadily increasing benefit would accrue to
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>
+INCREASE AND DECREASE OF POPULATION OF CITIES AND TOWNS<br />
+IN IRELAND HAVING IN 1901 A POPULATION EXCEEDING 10,000.<br />
+<br />
+(<i>Census of Ireland</i> 1911.)<br />
+</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Cities, towns, etc.</td><td align='left'>Percentage of increase since 1901.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Rathmines and Rathgar</td><td align='left'>17·1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Portadown</td><td align='left'>16·2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Pembroke</td><td align='left'>13·4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Belfast</td><td align='left'>10·4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Belfast[A]</td><td align='left'>10·1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Dublin</td><td align='left'>6·4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lisburn</td><td align='left'>6·2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Ballymena</td><td align='left'>4·5</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lurgan</td><td align='left'>3·0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sligo</td><td align='left'>2·7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Dublin[A]</td><td align='left'>2·6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wexford</td><td align='left'>2·6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Waterford</td><td align='left'>2·5</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cork[A]</td><td align='left'>2·3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Londonderry[A]</td><td align='left'>2·3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Limerick[A]</td><td align='left'>1·2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Clonmel</td><td align='left'>1·1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cork</td><td align='left'>0·7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Limerick</td><td align='left'>0·7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Dundalk</td><td align='left'>0·4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Newry[A]</td><td align='left'>5·2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Newry</td><td align='left'>3·6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Drogheda</td><td align='left'>2·6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Galway[A]</td><td align='left'>2·0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Galway</td><td align='left'>1·3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kilkenny[A]</td><td align='left'>1·0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kingstown</td><td align='left'>0·9</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kilkenny</td><td align='left'>0·9</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Waterford[A]</td><td align='left'>0·4</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Those marked [A] are Parliamentary Boroughs.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII" />XVIII</h2>
+
+<h2>IRISH POOR LAW REFORM</h2>
+
+<h3>By JOHN E. HEALY (Editor of the <i>Irish Times</i>)</h3>
+
+
+<p>An article on Irish Poor Law Reform written within the limits assigned
+to me can only be constructive in the broadest sense. It is a serious
+and tangled problem: the existing system has developed in a haphazard
+fashion; there is about it hardly anything that is logical, much that is
+anomalous, some things that are tragic. The present conditions of the
+Irish Poor Law system are set forth in the reports of various Royal and
+Viceregal Commissions. The most important are those of the Viceregal
+Commission on Poor Law Reform in Ireland (1906), the Departmental
+Commission on Vagrancy, the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of
+the Feeble-minded, and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws (Majority
+Report). The study of all these reports is a rather distracting
+business. They establish between them an urgent need for reform; on the
+methods, and even principles, of reform there are wide differences of
+opinion. I propose to set out here, so far as may be possible, a summary
+of those reforms on which the various reports and Irish public opinion
+are nearly, or quite, unanimous. Such a summary may at least help to
+acquaint the rank and file of the Unionist Party with the primary
+conditions and necessities of a work which, for historical, moral,
+social and political reasons, must receive the Party's early and
+practical attention when it returns to power.</p>
+
+<p>The Unionist Party, as representing the best elements in British
+Government, owes in this matter a great act of reparation to Ireland.
+The present Poor Law system is based on the most fatal of all
+blunders&mdash;the deliberate disregard of educated opinion in Ireland. The
+story, a very remarkable and suggestive one, is told in the Viceregal
+Commission's report. The Royal Commission of 1836 came to the conclusion
+that the English workhouse system would be unsuitable for Ireland. The
+Irish Royal Commissioners, including the famous Archbishop Whately, made
+two sets of recommendations. One set involved a compulsory provision for
+the sick, aged, lunatic and infirm. The other proposed to attack poverty
+at the root by instituting a large series of measures for the general
+development of Ireland. Looking back over nearly eighty years of Irish
+history, we must be both humbled and astonished by the almost inspired
+precision and statesmanship of these proposals. They included
+reclamation of waste land and the enforcement of drainage; an increased
+grant to the Board of Works; healthy houses for the labouring classes;
+local instruction in agriculture; the enlargement of leasing powers with
+the object of encouraging land improvement, and the transfer of the
+fiscal powers of Grand Juries to County Boards. Here we have in embryo
+the Irish Labourers Acts from 1860 to 1906, the Department of
+Agriculture and Technical Instruction, the Irish Land Acts from 1860 to
+1903, the Local Government Act of 1898&mdash;reforms which Ireland owes
+almost entirely to the statesmanship (though it seems a rather belated
+statesmanship) of Unionist Governments. These Irish recommendations were
+ignored by the Government of the day. It sent an English Poor Law
+Commissioner (Mr. Nicholls) to Ireland. He spent six weeks in the
+country. On his return he recommended the establishment of the English
+Poor Law system there, and it was accordingly established.</p>
+
+<p>The first Poor Law Act for Ireland was passed on July 31, 1838. Between
+that year and 1851 one hundred and sixty-three Poor Law Unions were
+created. The number is at present one hundred and fifty-nine, and they
+are administered by elected and co-opted Poor Law Guardians to the
+number of more than eight thousand. In every Union there is a workhouse,
+and in that workhouse all the various classes of destitute and poor
+persons are maintained. They include sick, aged and infirm, legitimate
+and illegitimate children, insane of all classes, sane epileptics,
+mothers of illegitimate children, able-bodied male paupers, and the
+importunate army of tramps. The mean number of such inmates in all the
+workhouses on any day is about 40,000, of whom about one-third are sick,
+one-third aged and infirm, one-seventh children, one-twentieth mothers
+of illegitimate children, and one-twelfth insane and epileptic. This
+awful confusion of infirmity and vice, this Purgatory perpetuating
+itself to the exclusion of all hope of Paradise, presents the vital
+problem of Irish Poor Law Reform.</p>
+
+<p>A radical solution must be found for it. On that point the reports of
+all the Commissions are unanimous. They differ, where they do differ,
+only as regards means to the end.</p>
+
+<p>The supreme reform which must be undertaken by any Government that seeks
+to remove this great blot on Irish administration is the abolition of
+the present workhouse system on some basis which, while effective, will
+make no addition to the rates. The two chief reports (those of the
+Viceregal Commission and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws) are in
+agreement, not merely as to this necessity, but as to the guiding
+principles of reform. They recommend classification, by institutions, of
+all the present inmates of the workhouses&mdash;the sick in hospitals, the
+aged and infirm in almshouses, the mentally defective in asylums.
+Appalling evidence was given before the Viceregal Commission and the
+Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded with
+regard to the present association of lunatics, epileptics, and imbeciles
+with sane women and children in the workhouse wards. The latter
+Commission recommended the creation of a strong central authority for
+the general protection and supervision of mentally defective persons.</p>
+
+<p>The reforms do not contemplate the amalgamation of Unions and the
+complete closing of only a certain number of workhouses. They suggest
+rather the bringing together into one institution of all the inmates of
+one class from a number of neighbouring workhouses, and the closing of
+all workhouses as such. The sick should be sent to existing Poor Law or
+County Hospitals, strengthened by the addition of Cottage Hospitals in
+certain districts. Children should be boarded out. The bulk of the
+remaining inmates, classified with regard to their defects and
+infirmities, should be segregated according to counties or other
+suitable areas. On the treatment of able-bodied paupers there are
+different opinions. It is suggested by the Philanthropic Reform
+Association, which includes some of the most earnest and disinterested
+philanthropists in Ireland, that the well-conducted of this class should
+be placed in labour colonies, and the ill-conducted in detention
+colonies&mdash;both classes of institutions to be maintained and controlled
+by the State, and not by the County authorities.</p>
+
+<p>The areas and resources of the existing Unions are in most cases too
+limited, and the numbers of necessitous persons too small, to warrant
+the present Boards of Guardians in erecting as many types of
+institutions as there are classes of inmates. The break-up of the
+workhouse system involves, of necessity, the establishment of larger
+areas of administration. It is clear that the County must be substituted
+for the Union in any radical scheme of reform. On this point the Royal
+Commissioners and the Viceregal Commissioners are agreed. County rating
+must take the place of Union rating, since the inmates of the different
+institutions would be drawn from all parts of each County or County
+Borough. Substantial economies in administration might be expected from
+this plan. Hospitals should be brought into a County Hospital System,
+with the County Infirmary as the central institution, and nurses should
+be trained there for the County District Hospitals (now Workhouse
+Infirmaries).</p>
+
+<p>About such a general scheme of decentralised reform there is little or
+no disagreement. There is, however, a good deal of disagreement
+concerning the control of the new institutions. The Viceregal Commission
+advocates the retention by the Poor Law Guardians of many of their
+existing functions. It suggests, for instance, that County Hospitals
+should be managed by a Committee consisting of all members of the
+present District Hospital Committees, strengthened by nine members
+appointed by the County Council; and that the Chairman of the Board of
+Guardians should be the Chairman of the District Hospital Committee. The
+Royal Commission, on the other hand, votes boldly for the abolition of
+the Boards of Guardians. It argues that, if we are to have a County
+system of institutions maintained by a County rate, we must adopt the
+logical consequence that the County Council which strikes and collects
+the rate should have the direct or indirect management of the
+institutions. It proposes that the Council should appoint a statutory
+Committee (one-half to be taken from outside its own members), to be
+called the Public Assistance Authority, and that this Authority should
+manage and control all the institutions in the County. The Philanthropic
+Reform Association, which has given much study to this question,
+suggests a <i>via media</i> between the two official schemes. It recommends
+that all the institutions should be controlled by the County Council,
+through Committees directly responsible to it, to which persons of
+experience from outside should be added. Such committees need not be
+elected by the Poor Law Guardians, as recommended by the Viceregal
+Commission, or by the Statutory Committee of the County Council, as
+recommended by the Royal Commission. The Association desires, and it has
+a large volume of Irish opinion behind it in this, to minimise the
+existing powers, and reduce the numbers, of the Poor Law Guardians. It
+is also very earnestly impressed with the need of bringing women into
+the Poor Law administration. In this it is absolutely right. The Women's
+National Health Association and the United Irishwomen have demonstrated
+triumphantly the value of women's services in improving the social,
+economic, and sanitary conditions of rural life in Ireland. A recent Act
+of Parliament qualifies women for election to the Irish County and
+Borough Councils. No great reform of the Poor Law system can be
+effective without their aid. The Unionist Party will only be acting
+consistently with its social ideals if it encourages, by every means
+within its power, an Irish feminist movement, full of hope for the
+country and wholly dissociated from party politics.</p>
+
+<p>Any thorough reform of the Irish Poor Law system will demand an
+increased expenditure of Imperial funds. The growing severity of Irish
+taxation under recent Radical budgets forbids the possibility of
+addition to the ratepayer's burdens. The anomalous distribution of the
+grants in aid of Irish local taxation has done much to complicate the
+Poor Law question. The Royal Commission reported that &quot;no account
+whatever is taken of the burden of pauperism, the magnitude of the local
+rates, or the circumstances of the ratepayers and their ability to pay
+rates in the different areas.&quot; Under this system the minimum of relief
+is extended to the districts in which the weight of taxation is most
+oppressive. The Commission proposed a scheme by which the old Union
+grants within each county would be pooled and credited to the common
+fund in aid of the poor rate in that county. The Viceregal Commission
+also complained of inequality of expenditure, and advised a
+reapportionment of the grants in aid of local taxation, on the basis of
+the recommendations of the minority of the Royal Commission on Local
+Taxation (1902). That Commission was unanimous in recommending increased
+grants for Poor Law service in Ireland. The distribution of such new
+grants would be a matter for discussion; of the necessity for them there
+is no doubt. The Unionist Party must not rest content with reforming the
+Irish Poor Law system; it must help the reformed system to pay its own
+way. No fair-minded Englishman who reads Sir George O'Farrell's evidence
+as to the distribution of the Irish Church surplus (Report of the Royal
+Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, page 468) will
+dispute his country's obligations in this matter. The cost of Irish Poor
+Law Reform is one of the strongest arguments against Home Rule. The
+Unionist Party's full and generous recognition of its duty to Ireland in
+this respect will establish a new argument for the Union.</p>
+
+<p>One vital factor in Poor Law Reform remains to be considered&mdash;the Poor
+Law Medical service. The 740 Dispensary districts of Ireland are now
+administered by a little more than 800 Medical Officers. The salaries of
+these doctors, amounting in all to nearly £100,000 per annum, are paid
+as to one half by the Poor Law Guardians, and as to the other half out
+of the Local Taxation (Ireland) account. Most of the doctors, in
+addition to their public duties as servants of the poor, engage in
+private practice, of which, in most of the rural areas, their official
+position gives them a monopoly. A large&mdash;perhaps, a surprisingly
+large&mdash;number of the Dispensary doctors are earnest and self-sacrificing
+men; but the system is corrupted by one radical defect. Owing to the
+security of private practice involved, there is a fierceness of
+competition for these appointments out of all proportion to their
+financial value. The elections are made by the Guardians, and it is a
+fact so notorious as even to be acknowledged by Mr. Birrell that
+flagrant canvassing and bribery are a common feature of these elections.
+Candidates have been known to distribute sums of £400 or £500 to
+Guardians, in order to secure appointments of £150 or £160 a year.
+Another serious and extending feature of the present system is the
+boycotting by the Guardians of all candidates who have not graduated at
+the new Roman Catholic University. The most highly qualified men from
+the University of Dublin have now practically abandoned competition for
+these Dispensary offices outside the Protestant counties of Ulster.
+Moreover, throughout the whole country local candidates are consistently
+preferred to superior men from outside. Both the Viceregal and Royal
+Commissions recognise the necessity of radical reform in this system,
+but they suggest different remedies. The Royal Commission proposes that
+the election and control of all the Dispensary Medical Officers of a
+County shall be vested in the Public Assistance Authority for that
+County; and that little or no change be made in the present financial
+basis of the payment of salaries. The Viceregal Commission suggests a
+bolder and more drastic remedy. It advocates the establishment of a
+State Medical service on the lines of the existing services in Egypt and
+India. This would require the payment by the State of the whole, instead
+of half, of the salaries of Medical Officers. The Commission regards it
+as proper and equitable that such a service should be, in the beginning,
+at any rate, restricted to candidates educated in Ireland. A
+representative Medical Council should elect the candidates by
+competitive examination, and deal with all important questions of
+promotion, removal and superannuation. The Commission maintains that the
+creation of a State Medical service in Ireland would mean a very small
+increase in the Parliamentary grant in comparison with the benefits
+involved. This I believe to be the ideal system, but one must recognise
+that its accomplishment is confronted with many difficulties. The Irish
+Local Authorities would not willingly relinquish a privilege which is a
+primary element in their influence and prestige. Irish medical opinion
+is acutely divided on the question, which is now further complicated by
+the prospect that the medical benefits under the National Insurance Act
+may soon be extended to Ireland. It would be outrageous to expect the
+Dispensary Officers to add the heavy medical duties under the Act to
+their present responsibilities without adequate payment. Indeed, the
+extension of the medical benefits to Ireland would make inevitable an
+early reform of the whole Poor Law system. This is one reason why the
+Unionist Party, when it returns to office, should be ready to tackle the
+subject without delay. To no department of the work will it be asked to
+apply greater sympathy, knowledge, tact and firmness, than to the
+problems of the Poor Law Medical service.</p>
+
+<p>During the last three years the Irish Unionist Party has made three vain
+attempts to bring the reform of the Irish Poor Law before Parliament.
+Its Bill, which now stands in the name of Sir John Lonsdale, asks for
+the appointment (as recommended by the Viceregal Commission) of a body
+of five persons with executive powers to carry out the recommendations
+made by that Commission. These temporary Commissioners would have
+authority to draft all necessary schemes, to consolidate or divide
+existing institutions, and generally to reform the whole administration
+of the Irish Poor Law service. The Bill assigns to them an executive
+lifetime of five years&mdash;hardly, perhaps, an adequate time for the
+establishment of reforms which, in their making, must affect nearly
+every aspect of Irish life, and, in their operation, may reconstitute
+the basis of Irish society. It is to be supposed that, when the whole
+Unionist Party addresses itself seriously to the question, it will give
+further and careful attention to the principles of reform before setting
+up this, or some other, executive machinery. I can think of no more
+thirsty or fruitful field in Ireland for the exercise of the highest
+constructive statesmanship that the Party may possess. The need is
+urgent, the time is ripe, all the circumstances are favourable. The Old
+Age Pensions Act and the Insurance Act, if not vitiated by further
+increases in Irish taxation, will greatly simplify the task of Poor Law
+Reform. The former Act has reduced the number of old inmates in the
+workhouses; the Insurance Act should lead to a reduction in expenditure
+on outdoor relief. Moreover, it may be hoped that the infirm and pauper
+classes will be henceforward, like the old age pensioners, a diminishing
+fraction of the population of Ireland. They are, to a large extent,
+flotsam and jetsam over the sea of Ireland's political troubles. Land
+agitation, with its attendant vices of restlessness and idleness, the
+emigration of wage-earners, the discouragement of industry under
+Governments indifferent to the administration of law and the development
+of national resources, have all contributed to the Dantean horrors of
+the Irish workhouse system. These poor people are an excrescence on the
+body of Ireland which good government, if it does not wholly remove, may
+reduce nearly to vanishing point. Hitherto the chief rewards and
+blessings of British administration in Ireland have gone to the hard
+voters and to the strong agitators. It is time for the Unionist Party to
+think of the hapless, the helpless, the voteless, and, therefore
+voiceless, elements in Irish life. Ireland, as she becomes better
+educated, gives more thought and truer thought than formerly to her
+social and economic problems. Her gratitude and loyalty will go in
+abundant measure to those who take counsel with her about these problems
+and help her to solve them. The Government which cleans up many sad
+relics of the past by a complete reform of the Irish Poor Law system
+will put all Irishmen and Irishwomen under a deep sense of obligation to
+it. Policy, not less than duty, should give this reform a place in the
+forefront of the Unionist Party's constructive programme for Ireland.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX" />XIX</h2>
+
+<h2>IRISH EDUCATION UNDER THE UNION<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89" /><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></h2>
+
+<h3>BY GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Education is probably the most sorrowfully dull of all dull subjects. It
+is difficult to repress a yawn when the word is mentioned. Yet we owe
+everything to it that we value most. Through it we become emancipated
+citizens of the world. Through it we are able to appreciate what is
+beautiful and what is ugly, what is right and what is wrong, what is
+permanent and what is merely transitory. If the people of a country can
+make it their boast that they are truly educated, they need boast of
+little else, for all the rest will have been added unto them.</p>
+
+<p>It will be found next to impossible to draw any argument for Home Rule
+from the history of Irish Education during the last decade. Indeed, if a
+Nationalist Parliament were now to be established in College Green, it
+is more than probable that the progress made by educational reformers
+since 1900 would be largely thrown away, and the prospects of still
+further improvement endangered and perhaps destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>What has been done in the domain of Irish Education, and what still
+remains to be done? Leaving out of account the problem of the
+Universities, which, so far as can be seen, has at any rate been
+temporarily solved&mdash;and solved, let it be marked, under the Legislative
+Union, with the participation and consent of the Nationalist
+party&mdash;there are two broad branches of the educational tree which every
+year are growing in volume and putting forth finer leaves and fruit.
+Primary and Secondary Education, by far the most important parts of the
+Irish Educational system, if only allowed to continue their development,
+tended with care by those who have the interests of the younger
+generation at heart and left unmolested by the poisonous creepers of
+political prejudice, will be found to do more for the increase of Irish
+prosperity and the establishment of national and religious concord than
+any device for legislative separation that the wit of man can frame. Not
+that educational reform is not sorely needed. Far from it. There are few
+aspects of Irish life where reform is more urgently required. But let it
+be reform, as far as possible, along existing lines of progress, and in
+full recognition of religious susceptibilities and of certain stubborn
+facts which may be deplored, but which it would be unwise to ignore. Let
+it be reform undertaken and pursued on the advice of those who
+understand this question and are in sympathy with its peculiar
+difficulties, and let not the Treasury turn a deaf ear to the demands of
+reason, when a few extra thousand pounds might make all the difference
+between failure and success. Above all, let it be reform unembittered by
+the strife of creeds warring for supremacy in an Irish House of Commons.
+Let it reap the advantages of a continuous policy undisturbed by the
+rise and fall of local Ministries and the lobbying and log-rolling of
+sects and factions. Treat it, as it is being treated to-day, in a calm
+spirit of inquiry and recommendation, and the richest blessing of the
+Legislative Union will be an Ireland at peace within herself, honoured
+for her learning, distinguished by her refinement, and intellectually
+the equal of any nation upon earth.</p>
+
+
+<h4>PRIMARY EDUCATION.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90" /><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></h4>
+
+<p>The National Board which presides over Primary Education has shown
+itself, under the Union, singularly free from prejudice, either
+political or religious. During the last few years it may be said to have
+changed the face of the National schools in Ireland, and in a large
+part of the country has contributed to make primary education what it
+ought to be&mdash;not a mere glut of random scraps of knowledge, not a mere
+conglomerate of facts, dates, and figures, undigested and unassimilated,
+of no practical use to the pupil in his later life, and stifling any
+constructive powers of thought with which he might have been born, but a
+system of self-development and self-expression, with the future of the
+pupil as a citizen in view, rather than his mere monetary value in the
+shape of school fees. This in itself is a remarkable stride in advance,
+which the Separatist will find difficult to explain away. Who will be so
+bold as to calculate the harm which was inflicted by the arid and
+artificial system of &quot;cram,&quot; introduced in 1871, but now fortunately
+abandoned in the National Schools, which had only one object in
+view&mdash;the money grant that was made proportionate to the output of
+heterogeneous lumber that could be retained by the pupil until called
+for by the examiner? Surely, the great aim of education should be
+self-culture, the development of the mind, body, and character of the
+pupil, consideration being had to the career he is likely to pursue in
+the future. This the National Board has realised in time, and it is
+owing to its efforts and the co-operation of men and women of all shades
+of opinion who labour in the schools that such signal improvement has
+taken place during the last few years.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from this larger question, there are various other features of the
+National Schools that ought not to be excluded from this brief review.
+Some of them are evidence of progress made, others of grievances which
+still require redress. No one will deny that, taking Ireland as a whole,
+the structural character of the school buildings has been greatly
+improved in recent years, and that the cleanliness of school premises,
+which still leaves a good deal to be desired, is attended to with far
+more care than it used to be. In days gone by, the Board could grant
+only two-thirds of the estimated cost of a new building of the cheapest
+and shabbiest description. The result was that, for a whole generation,
+a low standard of school-house was stereotyped, and the requirement of a
+local contribution entirely prevented the erection of new school-houses
+in poor districts where they were most needed. The new plans, on the
+other hand, are designed according to the most modern ideas, and as a
+local contribution is not insisted upon in impecunious districts, where
+valuation is low, the Board can grant the whole of the cost where
+necessary. It is easy to appreciate what a difference this important
+reform must make, not merely to the landscape or to the comfort and
+health of the children, but to the general efficiency of pupils and
+teachers alike. There is, however, still much room for improvement. The
+grants hitherto given have been sadly inadequate, and in order to
+provide suitable school buildings, even in those cases alone where the
+present structures are actually a danger to the health of the children,
+it would be necessary to make grants at the rate of about £100,000 a
+year for the next 4 or 5 years, after which they might be reduced to
+£50,000.</p>
+
+<p>Another satisfactory development is the increase of teachers' salaries
+which has taken place during the last two decades. In 1895, the average
+income from State sources of principal teachers in primary schools was
+£94 in respect of men, and £79 in respect of women. By 1910, it had
+risen to £112 and £90 respectively. Notwithstanding this, their
+financial position, especially in large and important schools in centres
+where the cost of living is high, is not yet as good as it ought to be,
+if it be compared with that of similarly situated teachers in England
+and Scotland. As for the incomes of assistant teachers, they also have
+risen in the same period from £61 for men, and £49 for women, to £81 and
+£68 respectively, and the money, though still insufficient, is now being
+paid for a better article. Readjustment of numbers in the higher grades
+of national teachers is also required, so as to enable all efficient
+teachers who have complied with the conditions of service to receive the
+increases of salary to which they are entitled. The cost of such a
+readjustment would be about £1,000 a year for the present, but the
+expense would gradually increase, and might ultimately amount to £18,000
+per annum. For the convenience of the profession, it is also desirable
+that salaries should be paid monthly, instead of quarterly, to the
+teaching staffs of the schools. The expenditure (non-recurring) required
+under this head would be about £280,000, with an additional yearly sum
+of £5,000, due to increased cost of administration. That a Dublin
+Parliament would welcome or even less be able to satisfy these various
+demands upon its purse without further taxation is extremely improbable,
+especially in view of Mr. Birrell's warning that the finances of Home
+Rule would be a very &quot;tight fit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Since 1900, a period of training has been required from the principals,
+and this rule has recently been extended to assistant masters. In fact,
+the qualifications demanded of national teachers in Ireland are much
+higher than in England. When all the foregoing changes are considered,
+it will be quite evident that not only must the teachers benefit from
+them, but that the children cannot fail to benefit as well. Indeed, it
+is these various reforms which, in all probability, have conduced to a
+better school attendance than could be boasted of in the past. Many an
+educational reformer has had cause to wring his hands over the
+meagreness of attendance in days gone by. Even to-day it is not as it
+should be. It is lower than in England and in Scotland, but it has
+steadily risen, and continues to rise, and stands now at about 71 per
+cent., an advance of between 30 or 40 per cent. upon what it was less
+than 40 years ago; a fact which is certainly remarkable, when the
+poverty of the population and its scattered character are taken into
+account.</p>
+
+<p>Another evil which the Board has had to fight has been the mushroom-like
+multiplication of small schools. It is hardly necessary to emphasise
+what must be a manifest disadvantage for any authority which is trying
+to raise the standard of educational efficiency in a country. This
+multiplication was largely due to the fact that Protestant Schools were
+accustomed to receive grants when they could maintain an average
+attendance of 20 pupils, quite irrespective of how many other schools of
+the same or a similar denomination there might be in the immediate
+vicinity, and whether they were really wanted or not. How far these
+grants were conducive to unnecessary multiplication may be gauged from
+the fact that, whilst there were 6,500 schools in operation in 1871,
+when the population of Ireland was five and a half millions, there were
+8,692 in 1901, or 2,000 more, when the population was a million less.
+This vast and unprofitable growth in the numbers of educational
+establishments could be stayed only by drastic regulation. Where
+neighbouring mixed Catholic or Protestant schools cannot show an average
+attendance of 25, they are now obliged to amalgamate, and the same
+result has to follow if neighbouring boys' and girls' schools fall below
+an average attendance of 30. These regulations have had the desired
+effect, and no less than 300 superfluous schools have been absorbed in
+this manner during the last five years.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving the details of the National Schools, some mention should
+be made of the conspicuous improvement in the curriculum which has taken
+place in the first decade of the new century. Formerly, it was
+hidebound, bloodless, unintelligent, and useless. Now, it does what it
+can to cater for the practical side of the pupil's future life, and is
+designed with the object of helping him to think out problems for
+himself and of equipping him with any knowledge of the historic past
+which may serve him, not as a collection of antiquities, but as example
+and precept. During the last twelve years an astonishing advance has
+been made. In 1899, Hand and Eye training (including Kindergarten) was
+taught in 448 schools, in 1910 it was taught in 6,010. In 1899,
+Elementary Science was taught in 14 schools only, in 1910 it was taught
+in 2,400. In the former year Cookery was taught in 925 schools, in the
+latter year in 2,665. In 1899, Laundry Work was taught in 11 schools, in
+1910 in 691. If this is not progression&mdash;and progression under the
+Legislative Union&mdash;to what can the predicate be more truthfully applied?
+Statistics are apt to be barren and uninforming and can be adapted, with
+almost equal plausibility, to support the arguments of either side; but
+these figures are eloquent and speak for themselves. They embody a large
+and vital portion of the history of Irish Primary Education, and are a
+proof of the interest which is being taken in it and of the activity of
+the architects behind the scenes. Long may this spirit of progress
+flourish and enlighten the generations that are yet to come!</p>
+
+<p>It is only fair to say that, amid a good deal of discouragement and not
+always intelligent criticism, the National Board has proved itself
+broad-minded and open to argument wherever the interests of Irish
+Education have been concerned. Although nominated by the Lord
+Lieutenant, and therefore not an elected body, it has never lagged
+behind public opinion. In the teaching of the Irish language, for
+example, it has shown itself peculiarly sympathetic. In fact, the
+experience of the Board has been, that the Irish parents are not quite
+so anxious that their children should be taught Irish as the Gaelic
+League would have us suppose. Indeed, the difficulty of the Board has
+been to maintain sufficient interest in the subject. Nevertheless, it
+has done its best. In 1899, teaching in Irish was provided in 105
+schools for 1,825 children. In 1911, it was provided for 180,000
+children in 3,066 schools, and during the same time bilingual
+instruction has been introduced into some 200 schools.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of what has been, and is being done, further reforms in primary
+education are still unquestionably required, and can, moreover, be
+easily effected without any of the convulsions of a constitutional
+revolution. The salaries of principals and assistants, especially in
+large and important schools, ought to be increased. In particular, the
+Pensions Act needs modification, for, under the present Act, teachers
+who retire before reaching the age qualifying for a pension receive
+gratuities considerably less than the Old Age Pensions. Even those who
+qualify for pensions are very shabbily treated if they retire before
+sixty years of age. Building grants also should be increased, so that
+the constant applications for the rebuilding of bad premises could be
+met.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91" /><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> The teaching of infants, greatly improved by the institution of
+junior assistant mistresses by Mr. Walter Long during his Chief
+Secretaryship, can be still further improved and brought up to the
+English standard; and the efficiency of primary education generally can
+be promoted in the direction of sympathetic appreciation of the real
+needs of the children, regarded from the point of view of thinking human
+beings, and not merely as recording machines.</p>
+
+<p>The following desirable improvements may also be mentioned:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>a</i>) Encouragement of the teaching of gardening in connection with
+     country schools for boys, at a cost of about £2000 a year.</p>
+
+<p>     (<i>b</i>) Provision for instruction in wood-work for pupils of urban
+     districts, at central classes in technical schools, at a cost of
+     about £4000 a year.</p>
+
+<p>     (<i>c</i>) The provision of medical inspection and the treatment of
+     school children, which would cost about £30,000 a year, and dental
+     inspection and clinics, which would cost another £50,000. This
+     expense should be defrayed largely out of the local rates, one
+     third, say £25,000, to come out of the estimates. There would also
+     be the cost of supervision, etc., by the Education Department,
+     amounting to about £5000 a year. Committees, as for school
+     attendance, composed partly of representatives of school managers
+     and partly of local authorities, could be formed for
+     administration.</p>
+
+<p>     (<i>d</i>) A considerable impetus might be given to Evening
+     Continuation Schools, on which about £10,000 a year is at present
+     spent. A beginning could be made of compulsory attendance, and the
+     amount of the grant doubled.</p></div>
+
+<p>Much might be done in all these directions. Much has been accomplished
+already. The worst that can happen is that a separate legislature should
+be set up in Dublin, devoid of the requisite means, as it would most
+certainly be (unless, indeed, it had recourse to the rates, or the
+taxpayer) of financing Irish Education; swayed from side to side by the
+exigencies of the party programme of the moment; and temperamentally
+unable to look at the educational problem from the standpoint alone of
+the needs of the country in the way that it is now regarded. At present,
+under the Union, Irish Education is fortunately liberated from all
+appeals to party passion, and organised with but one end in view, the
+upbringing of the infant race whose possession is the future.</p>
+
+
+<h4>SECONDARY EDUCATION.</h4>
+
+<p>The need for reform is more urgent and, in many respects, better defined
+in the system of Secondary than in that of Primary Education in Ireland.
+But the two ought to be closely interconnected, and in discussing one at
+least of the more important changes which it is desirable to introduce,
+the National Schools have as good a claim to be heard in the matter as
+their elder brethren.</p>
+
+<p>Since 1900 great efforts have been made by the Intermediate Board to
+promote the interests of Secondary Schools and to supply the educational
+needs of those who want to equip themselves for the struggle of life in
+its various departments. In 1900, the Board of Intermediate Education
+was empowered to appoint inspectors, but it was not until quite
+recently, after many fruitless applications and under a threat of
+resignation by the Board, that inspection was placed on a business-like
+footing and a permanent staff of six inspectors appointed. But this,
+after all, is a comparative detail, and reform will have to strike deep
+indeed if the secondary schools in Ireland are to take their place as a
+living part of a living body.</p>
+
+<p>The question of reform may be dealt with under three principal heads:
+(1) the abolition of the examination tests, (2) the inter-relationship
+between the Primary and Secondary systems, and (3) the position of
+teachers. Although there are other matters which will be briefly
+referred to, these are the three cardinal difficulties that beset the
+Intermediate Board to-day and obstruct the most public-spirited efforts
+to convert the Irish educational system into one organic whole.</p>
+
+<p>(1) Although the mischievous principle of fees by results has
+disappeared for ever from the National Schools, it still clings to
+Intermediate Education, numbing and constricting, like some remorseless
+ivy limb, the growth and free exercise of the central stem and its
+branches, and preventing the natural sap from rising and vitalising the
+whole. It is not as though the rest of the world had set the seal of its
+approval upon this kind of examination. The contrary is the fact. Almost
+every country in the world has rejected this system as wholly
+pernicious, injurious for the pupil, demoralising for the teacher, and
+wasteful for the State. To regard the youth of the Secondary Schools
+merely as the geese that lay the golden eggs when the examinations
+occur, is to destroy the true aims of education and pervert the
+principle of rational development. In fact, payments to Intermediate
+Schools ought to depend largely on the results of inspection, and much
+less on written examinations, a change which would involve the
+appointment of a larger number of inspectors than at present exist. It
+is all-important that this alteration should be undertaken without
+delay. The mechanical agglomeration of lifeless snippets of information
+which characterises the present method is an absurd and antiquated
+remnant of the bad old times, and the sooner this part of the system is
+hewn down the better it will be for the conscientious discharge of the
+teacher's duties and the self-respect of all concerned.</p>
+
+<p>(2) As for any proper official relationship between the Primary and
+Secondary systems, it may be said as yet to be practically non-existent.
+That co-ordination of the two is essential&mdash;nay, vital&mdash;if Irish
+education is to be placed on a sound footing, may be appreciated from
+the fact that a large proportion, or 57 per cent, of the membership of
+Intermediate Schools is recruited from the schools of the National
+Board. There seem to be only two ways in which this co-ordination can be
+satisfactorily effected. Either the pupils must transfer from the
+National to the Secondary Schools at an age when they will be young
+enough to profit by Secondary instruction, or some sort of higher
+instruction must be given in the National Schools so as to fit the
+children, when they leave the latter at rather a later age, for the
+curriculum awaiting them in the Secondary system. It is the Treasury at
+the present moment, and the Treasury alone, that blocks the way to this
+reform. Since 1902 it has been asked to sanction the establishment of
+higher grade schools in large centres; the National Board also has
+repeatedly pleaded for the institution of a &quot;higher top,&quot; or advanced
+departments, in connection with selected Primary Schools in rural
+districts. But all these requests, founded though they have been on
+intimate knowledge of the requirements of Irish Education and a ripe
+experience ranging over many years, have been brushed aside by the
+officials at the Exchequer, although the cost would be only about
+£25,000 a year, on the very insufficient ground that the Development
+Grant has been depleted to defray the loss of flotation of stock for the
+purposes of land purchase. What, in the name of common sense, has land
+purchase to do with education? What indissoluble relationship is there
+between the two that the expenditure upon the one should be made
+dependent upon the requirements of the other? This niggardly and
+short-sighted attitude is hardly worthy of one of the richest countries
+in the world. It is but a matter of a few thousands, and surely the
+efficient training of the youth of Ireland is quite as important as
+buying out the Irish landlords and placing the Irish tenant in
+possession of the soil. The result of the present want of co-ordination
+is that the clever pupil is now kept far too long in the lower school.
+There he remains, kicking his heels until he is sent up to the
+Intermediate School at 15 or 16&mdash;much too late an age at which to begin
+the study of languages. The Primary teachers are, of course, only too
+pleased to retain the clever boys as long as possible in the National
+Schools, but it is unfair to the children, and is robbing the community
+of services which might be rendered to it by these pupils in the future
+if fair opportunities were afforded them of training themselves while
+there was yet time. Without higher grade schools, without scholarships,
+without at least some system of a &quot;higher top&quot; in connection with the
+Primary Schools, there can never be proper co-ordination of
+administration, and education in Ireland will never be able to progress
+beyond a certain point. The Christian Brothers have set the Treasury a
+good example in this matter. In their schools there is close
+co-ordination of primary and intermediate education. Promising boys in
+the fifth standard are removed when they are 11 or 12 years of age into
+the higher schools and thus given an opportunity, at the most receptive
+period of their lives, of acquiring knowledge which they will be able to
+turn to good account in after life. Over and over again has the National
+Board attempted to persuade the Treasury to adopt a similar system, but
+hitherto without avail. The crust of the official mind has been
+impervious to every appeal. There seems, indeed, to be now some chance
+of the establishment of scholarships for pupils in primary schools, but
+unless an intelligent mind is brought to bear upon it, and the
+scholarships limited, as in England and Scotland, to pupils under 12 or
+13 years of age, the same unfortunate result will follow, as in the case
+of the Society for Promoting Protestant Schools and other similar
+bodies, where the scholarships have turned out to be a practical
+failure. An exception, however, as suggested by Dr. Starkie, and as
+allowed in Scotland, might be made in favour of the best Primary
+Schools. That is to say, where satisfactory Secondary teaching is given
+at a Primary School, the pupil might be relieved of one or two of the
+three years he is obliged to spend in the Secondary School before he can
+compete for the Intermediate Certificate which is awarded at 15 years of
+age.</p>
+
+<p>The argument is sometimes used that the establishment of higher grade
+schools would lead to unfair competition with the Intermediate Schools
+already in existence. No one desires to do this. Where the Intermediate
+Schools already hold the field, such overlapping can easily be avoided
+by proper administrative co-ordination between the National and
+Secondary systems. Where, on the other hand, there is a dearth of
+Intermediate Schools, as in Connaught and Kerry, higher grade schools
+can, and should be established without any risk either of overlapping or
+competition. They would supply a want which is deplored by all
+educational reformers, and make their influence felt far outside the
+mere circle of the schoolroom. A private commercial school has already
+been founded in Kerry and has continued for some time without State
+help, but, through want of encouragement, it has recently been compelled
+to adopt the programme of the Intermediate Board, which is entirely
+unsuited to its particular aims. Surely, private enterprise of this kind
+ought not only to be welcomed, but stimulated by a State grant, and
+everything possible done to encourage schools to develop along their own
+lines. At the present moment, they are bound hand and foot by the
+examination rules of the Intermediate Board, and it is quite impossible
+for any central authority, however eagle-eyed and sympathetic, to
+appreciate the peculiar atmosphere and wants of every locality. In such
+cases, local initiative is far more valuable than red tape, and more
+likely to result in an intelligent interest in his pupils and subject on
+the part of the teacher.</p>
+
+<p>(3) The position of the Secondary teachers, especially of lay assistant
+teachers, cries aloud for reform. In fact, their case is an acknowledged
+scandal. How can any one expect that the training of the youth in the
+Secondary Schools can be really satisfactory when the teachers are so
+miserably underpaid, when the elements of self-respect are given no room
+in which to develop, and the whole profession are treated rather as
+beasts of burden than as a noble and responsible body to whom is
+entrusted much of the destiny of the race? The question of reform is
+here largely a question of money. There are signs that this fact is
+becoming more appreciated as the years go by, and it is devoutly to be
+hoped that before long the teaching profession in the Secondary Schools
+will have no more to complain of than the Primary teachers, or than is
+usual in even the most cared-for and prosperous professions in this our
+imperfect world. Salaries, pensions, a register, security of tenure,
+opportunities of proper training&mdash;these may be said to embody the chief
+requirements of Secondary teachers at the present moment. In existing
+circumstances there is no attraction for competent men and women to
+enter the teaching profession so far as Intermediate education is
+concerned. The most incompetent crowd into it, although there are many
+exceptions, and teaching is regarded as a stop-gap during periods of
+impecuniosity rather than as a permanent career to be proud of and to be
+worked for. The salaries are beggarly&mdash;considerably lower than the
+incomes of the teachers in the Primary Schools. In 1908, the average
+salaries of principals in the Primary Schools were £112 for men and £90
+for women, and in the County Boroughs £163 and £126 respectively, whilst
+in the Secondary Schools lay assistants were paid about £80 <i>per annum.
+</i>In view of this, surely the demand that is being made on behalf of
+highly qualified Secondary teachers is not exorbitant, namely, salaries
+of £100 to £300 for men and of £80 to £220 for women. If the maximum
+rate were £150 for men and £100 for women the cost would be £220,000 a
+year. Where is the money to come from? Will a Nationalist Parliament be
+prepared to find it, and if so, from what source? Ireland is a
+comparatively poor country and is not in a position to bear much more
+taxation. The Intermediate Board, with its present resources, cannot
+afford to step into the breach, and the only solution seems to be that
+the British Exchequer should come to the rescue and that the Board
+should be granted the means of dealing with this all-important matter,
+the neglect of which is having a most injurious effect upon the
+efficiency of the Intermediate Schools. It has been suggested that a
+half-way house might be found, that the Treasury should grant £60 for
+each assistant master and £40 for each assistant mistress, and that the
+remainder should be raised by the authorities of the schools under the
+direction of the Board. This alternative scheme would cost the State
+about £88,300 a year, but, like all makeshifts, would not effect a real
+settlement of the difficulty, creating, as it would, a patchwork system
+of payment which might break down at any moment. On the other hand, let
+the settlement be a generous one, and the return will be a hundredfold
+in added efficiency, a higher sense of duty, and an increased personal
+interest on the part of the teacher in the class of which he has charge.</p>
+
+<p>In close connection with the question of salaries are those of pensions
+and security of tenure. The pensions of the Primary teachers, inadequate
+though they be, would be looked upon as a provision of the most
+munificent kind by the poor men and women who enter service under the
+Intermediate system. The Primary teachers, moreover, can fall back upon
+subsidiary occupations if they find that their salaries are insufficient
+for their maintenance. They can run a little farm or keep a shop or do
+other remunerative work, but the assistants in Secondary Schools are
+debarred from these methods of supplementing their exiguous wage. Those
+terrible words might, without any extravagance, be inscribed for them
+over the doors of their schools: &quot;All hope abandon ye who enter here.&quot;
+Something must be done. A starvation wage, with an adequate pension to
+follow, might be tolerable, a decent wage, without any pension, might be
+borne, but starvation at both ends is a disgrace to the Treasury while
+it lasts and one of the things which should be taken in hand without any
+further delay.</p>
+
+<p>Security of tenure is equally important. How can a teacher be expected
+to devote the whole of his mental energies to his scholastic duties, how
+can any one expect him to throw himself heart and soul into his work, if
+there is always lurking in his mind the haunting fear of dismissal
+through no fault of his own? It is unreasonable to suppose that any
+human being can give of his best under these distracting conditions. In
+the National Schools a system of appeal has been in force for some time,
+and has been carried out with fairness on the part of those in authority
+and to the apparent satisfaction of the teaching profession. The
+dismissal order of every Roman Catholic manager has to be countersigned
+by the Bishop of the Diocese, and in the case of all teachers an appeal
+is now allowed to the Board itself, and is often utilised by
+Protestants. In fact, so far as the National Schools are concerned, the
+tenure of the Primary teachers during good behaviour is practically
+secured. Why cannot similar safeguards be introduced into the
+Intermediate system? An appeal to the Board in this case is not proposed
+by those who know all the circumstances best; but teachers in Roman
+Catholic schools might have the right of appeal, in the case of Diocesan
+Colleges, to the Bishop of the Diocese, or in the case of schools under
+religious orders to the Provincials or Generals, and Protestant teachers
+might be allowed to appeal to the Board of Governors of their schools,
+or they might sign an agreement, providing for a referee, such as the
+No. 3 and 4 agreements under the National Board.</p>
+
+<p>A register of teachers is also required. Every existing teacher in the
+Intermediate Schools who satisfies the tests of efficiency should be
+placed upon it without delay. As far as future appointments are
+concerned, qualifications might be adopted similar to those which now
+obtain in the Scotch Department, <i>e.g.</i> (<i>a</i>) a degree in a University, or
+its equivalent; (<i>b</i>) a diploma following professional training for one
+year; and (<i>c</i>) two probationary years in a good school. Special terms
+would probably be demanded for those who, like Nuns, are precluded by
+their calling from attending lectures at a University.</p>
+
+<p>These are some of the reforms which could, and should be introduced to
+make the teaching profession more efficient, more attractive for
+competent and clever men and women, and more of a permanent and
+honourable career than it has been in the past. Once again, it is not
+unreasonable to ask&mdash;How will a Dublin Parliament be able to provide the
+necessary funds? An extra annual sum of roughly £300,000 is required, in
+addition to a further sum of about £330,000 to meet non-recurring
+expenditure. These are, admittedly, moderate estimates. The matter,
+anyway, is now ripe for settlement, and procrastination can only
+aggravate the financial difficulty. So far as the educational problem is
+concerned, it is a manifest obligation upon the Nationalist Party to
+outline their proposals for the redress of these grievances, and to
+indicate the means by which they can be carried out, before a separate
+Legislature is set up for the people of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Within the scope of these few pages it is not possible to comprise all
+the aspects of modern Irish Education which are worthy of discussion.
+What are most urgently needed to-day are the necessary funds to continue
+the good work which is being done, and to introduce the reforms that
+have been sketched above. Parsimony in educational matters is the most
+wasteful of all misplaced thrift. Let the reformers be dealt with wisely
+and generously, and the harvest will exceed even the expectations of
+those who are working most hopefully upon the problem. Withhold the
+funds on some niggardly and mistaken principle of petty economy, and the
+present progress will be discouraged and the educational tree become
+stunted in its growth. From an administrative point of view, nothing,
+finance apart, would contribute more to the efficiency of Irish
+Education than the amalgamation of the National and Intermediate
+systems, as well as of the Technical work at present administered by the
+Department of Agriculture and Technical Education, under one Board. The
+method of examination by the Department is far sounder than that which
+is forced upon the Intermediate Board by the Acts of Parliament under
+which it works. In the case of science, the two are to be seen working
+to-day side by side in the Secondary Schools, to the undoubted benefit
+of the scientific course, which enjoys a double subsidy from the State,
+and is subject to the superior method of examination by the Department,
+being treated as a detached subject and the candidates being passed <i>en
+bloc</i>. On the other hand, the obsolete method of examination by the
+Board tends to the serious disadvantage of the classical curriculum, the
+grants being made on the unprofitable results of a general examination
+of individual candidates, the class not being regarded as a whole, as is
+the case with the Department. By the repeal of the Intermediate Acts,
+and by the amalgamation of the various Boards into one, these anomalies
+would rapidly disappear, and for the first time a genuine system of
+co-ordination could be introduced into Irish Education, which would knit
+together the strength of all the parts and overcome many of the
+prevailing weaknesses, making the whole system what it ought to be, a
+living, growing, pulsating organism, developing and shaping itself with
+the life of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>Is it conceivable that all this can he accomplished if the Union between
+the countries is rent asunder? What chance will there be of effecting
+this great settlement, which requires money and, above all, requires
+peace, when Ireland is plunged once again into the old internecine
+struggles of the eighteenth century? The warning is writ very large upon
+the wall, so that he who runs may read. The best hope for education in
+Ireland are the resources of Great Britain and a uniform policy
+undisturbed by party feuds. Neither of these can be looked for under a
+separate Parliament. Under the Union Ireland can have both, for the
+welfare of her children and the building of a noble history.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89" /><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> In writing the above I should like to acknowledge my
+indebtedness to the address published by Dr. Starkie in 1911 for many
+useful facts and figures.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90" /><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> See the 76th and 77th Reports of the Commissioners of
+National Education in Ireland&mdash;Cd. 5340, 1910, and Cd. 5903, 1911.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91" /><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> The residential buildings of the Commissioners' Training
+College in Marlborough Street, Dublin, still require to be completed by
+the addition of a new residence for women students, at a cost of about
+£50,000 spread over three or four years.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XX" id="XX" />XX</h2>
+
+<h2>THE PROBLEM OF TRANSIT AND TRANSPORT IN IRELAND</h2>
+
+<h3>BY AN IRISH RAILWAY DIRECTOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>Any scheme giving self-government to Ireland must seriously affect the
+problem of local transit and transport, by rail and water, which all
+parties in Ireland agree to be pressing and important. Nor is it merely
+a local question. As recent returns show, the trade between Ireland and
+Great Britain has of late years enormously increased, to the great
+advantage of both; for if Irish farmers profit by the export of beef,
+mutton, milk, eggs, butter, bacon and other articles, Great Britain has
+the benefit of a near food supply within the United Kingdom. Nor does
+any one doubt that this trade is capable of enormous increase. The
+improvement of Irish agricultural methods, the growth in England of a
+town population, the increased price of the necessaries of life, are
+some of the factors pointing in this direction.</p>
+
+<p>If this trade is to expand, Irish traffic routes and facilities with
+Great Britain must be improved and increased, especially as the articles
+carried are largely of a perishable kind. Moreover, the internal traffic
+of Ireland, by rail, waterways, and canals is capable of and needs great
+development, as witness the recent Reports of the Viceregal Commission
+on Irish Railways, and of the Royal Commission on Canals and
+Waterways.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92" /><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> The problem of inland navigation is again intimately
+bound up with that of arterial drainage, as the Commissioners have
+reported. It is then strange to find, that on these pressing questions
+of first importance, there is an almost absolute silence on the part of
+those who advocate Home Rule in and out of Parliament.</p>
+
+
+<h4>SOLUTION OF TRANSIT PROBLEM IMPOSSIBLE UNDER HOME RULE.</h4>
+
+<p>It is true that the nationalisation of the Irish railways has in past
+years found the keenest advocates amongst individual members of the Home
+Rule Party; that the Majority Report of the late Viceregal Commission
+favouring State purchase of the Irish railways was formally approved of
+by the Parliamentary Party, and that Mr. Redmond has named &quot;transit&quot; as
+one of the special matters that should be left to be dealt with by an
+Irish Legislature. But there the matter ends. We are not given the
+slightest inkling what is proposed to be done on this matter, or how it
+will be done, or the slightest proof that under any system of Home Rule,
+the financial difficulties of the problem can be solved at all.</p>
+
+<p>The Reports of both the Commissions referred to are based, first on the
+continuance of the present system of laws and government, and secondly,
+on the use of Imperial credit to the tune of many millions. Yet amongst
+the shoals of literature on Home Rule problems and finance, I can find
+no enlightenment as to how the transit problem is to be solved under the
+new conditions; <i>i.e.</i> how any Home Rule Government, whether it has
+control of Customs and Excise or not, and however it economises, is to
+find the money necessary to buy out the Irish railways and canals. A
+Government that is faced with the problems of poverty and congestion, of
+housing, of increased educational grants, of afforestation, and of
+arterial land drainage, will have an almost impossible task in raising
+money for these purposes alone. And, let those who can, inform us how an
+Irish Parliament and Executive (with all else they will have in hand),
+will be able to raise even the £5,000,000 necessary to improve the Irish
+Light Railway System; not to speak of the sum at least tenfold greater
+which will be required for a complete purchase scheme.</p>
+
+<p>So far we are without that information. The Irish Parliamentary leaders
+have not touched upon the point. The pamphleteers are almost equally
+silent. Professor Kettle, in his &quot;Home Rule Finance,&quot; mentions the
+&quot;Nationalisation of Railways&quot; in one line of print, merely stating that
+&quot;the project will have to be financed by loans and not out of annual
+revenue&quot; (p. 41); and he further remarks, generally (p. 72), &quot;that for
+the development of any future policy, approved by her own people,
+Ireland relies absolutely on her own fiscal resources.&quot; What fiscal
+resources, and under what conditions are they obtainable?</p>
+
+<p>In the volume entitled &quot;Home Rule Problems&quot; issued by the Liberal Home
+Rule Committee, with a preface by Viscount Haldane, not one word is said
+on the subject, though there are chapters on Irish finance, and on Irish
+commercial and industrial conditions. Neither has Mr. Stephen Gwynn a
+single word on the subject in his &quot;Case for Home Rule,&quot; though he makes
+the large assertion that &quot;there is no country in the world where
+resources are more undeveloped than those of Ireland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine Childers<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93" /><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> merely refers to the Irish railway problem as
+one that is &quot;obvious and urgent,&quot; &quot;which no Parliament but an Irish
+Parliament can deal with, and which calls aloud for settlement.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4>DETAILS OF RAILWAY TRANSIT PROBLEM.</h4>
+
+<p>Let us now look at the problem in more detail; and first is the question
+of the railways. The property to be dealt with consists of 3411 miles of
+railway, representing a total capital of £45,163,000, of which, at the
+date of the Report of the Commission, £2,873,000 paid no dividend; the
+gross annual receipts of the whole system being £4,255,000 and the net
+receipts £1,690,000, representing a return on the whole capital of 3.77
+per cent.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94" /><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of these lines, the railways constructed under the Tramways and Light
+Railways Acts cover 603 miles, of which 322 are narrow gauge, involving
+a liability on various baronies which have guaranteed interest on
+capital to the amount of £36,000 per annum. To bring these light
+railways up to a proper standard and equipment; to widen the gauge in
+many cases; to provide new sheds, stations, and rolling stock, and
+redeem the guarantees, a sum of about £5,000,000 would probably be
+necessary. In addition, projects for no less than eighty-three new
+railways were brought before the Commission;<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95" /><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> and it is admitted on
+all hands, and the Commission find, that practically none of these
+railway extensions would be undertaken by private enterprise, and that
+these developments need the credit, help, and direction of the State.
+Even the necessary improvement of the existing light railways cannot now
+be undertaken, for under the system of legislation under which they were
+constructed, there is no means of raising new capital.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96" /><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a></p>
+
+<p>Now, what is advocated by the Majority Report is the&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;compulsory purchase by the State of these railway systems great
+     and small, to be then worked and managed by an Irish elected
+     authority as one concern, mainly with a view of developing Irish
+     industries by reduction of rates and otherwise, and not strictly on
+     commercial principles.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97" /><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>This was the scheme supported by the Parliamentary Party, written up
+unceasingly by the <i>Freeman's Journal</i>, and held out under the term
+&quot;Nationalisation of Railways,&quot; as one of the special boons which Home
+Rule will bring to Irish traders and farmers.</p>
+
+<p>But mark how the operation is to be carried out. The Commission
+reported that the sum required should be raised by a railway stock
+charged primarily on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, with
+recourse to Irish rates to make up possible deficiencies, and further,
+that there should be an annual grant from the Exchequer of not less than
+£250,000 to the Irish railway authority. Seeing that the Commissioners
+refer to &quot;the financial terms prescribed by the Act of 1844&quot; (Regulation
+of Railways Act, 7 &amp; 8 Vict. c. 85, ss. 2-4), and that a <i>cash</i> payment
+to shareholders was provided for by that Act, it is to be presumed that
+the Commissioners intended Irish shareholders to be paid in cash. The
+Act of 1844 provided for payment to the companies of a sum in cash equal
+to twenty-five years' purchase of the previous three years' annual
+profits; but this was the minimum only, for it was provided that the
+companies could, under arbitration, claim additional payment in respect
+of future &quot;prospects.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now twenty-five years' purchase of the divisible profits, which at the
+date of the Commission, were £1,690,000, would amount to over
+£42,000,000, and if in addition sums had to be raised for &quot;prospects,&quot;
+purchase of lines paying no dividend, special provision for prior stocks
+standing at a premium, redemption of guarantees, and the large sums
+required for the extensions and improvements we have mentioned, a sum
+not less than £50,000,000, and probably nearer £55,000,000, would be
+required.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98" /><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p>
+
+<p>From the beginning to the end of the inquiry there was no suggestion
+that this immense operation could be carried out except by the use of
+Imperial credit, involving the two conditions: (1) that the Consolidated
+Fund of the United Kingdom be charged, and (2) that the British public
+be asked, and should be willing to find the money. Although the
+Majority Report contemplated an Irish elected authority to work the
+railways so purchased and amalgamated, it was never suggested that any
+such Irish authority could raise the necessary purchase capital, or,
+indeed, any portion of it. The whole scheme from beginning to end
+pre-supposed the continuance of the Union, with its advantages of credit
+and capital. Upset that Union, establish an Irish Parliament working out
+its own salvation, financially and otherwise, and the basis of the whole
+scheme of railway nationalisation vanishes.</p>
+
+<p>That the British Government should allow its credit to be used to the
+tune of fifty millions, after full legislative, executive and taxing
+powers were handed over to an Irish Parliament, is too fantastic to be
+considered seriously. Whether an Irish or English authority controlled
+the working of the railways would under such circumstances make little
+difference, with the Courts of Law, the Executive, and Police in other
+hands than that of the Government guaranteeing the interest. The
+security for the advance would be imperilled; and, indeed, it is
+doubtful whether a tenth of the money required would be advanced, even
+in London, on those terms. For a similar reason any formal pledge of
+Irish rates and taxes, to make up deficiencies in working, would be
+illusory. At any rate, if Irish Land Purchase is to be continued under
+British credit (and it certainly will be a prior claim and charge), it
+is idle to expect Parliament to undertake the vast additional
+obligations involved in Irish railway nationalisation. Parliament would
+pay the piper but could not call the tune.</p>
+
+
+<h4>IRISH CREDIT NOT SUFFICIENT.</h4>
+
+<p>There remains the alternative of the new Irish Parliament financing the
+operation. This it must do by means of payment in cash to the selling
+shareholders, for reasons which will be hereafter stated, unless it
+wishes to start its career by a scheme of spoliation, which would not
+merely rob the shareholders (who are mostly Irish), but would destroy
+the credit of the Irish Government. Mr. Redmond has recently
+acknowledged that a large number of Irish railway shareholders are good
+Nationalists; and it is certain that a great portion of the ordinary
+stock is held by Irish farmers and traders; and much of the preference
+and debenture stocks are also held by Irish charities, convents,
+diocesan trustees, and monastic institutions. These persons will expect,
+and justly expect, cash on a compulsory purchase, on basis of market
+value, or capitalisation of dividend, so as to secure the same return of
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>Could the Irish Government borrow £50,000,000, and at what rate? To
+borrow at a higher rate than the present return on Irish railway
+capital, namely, 3.77 per cent., would be to incur a loss on working the
+railways, from the outset, which Irish ratepayers or taxpayers would
+have to make up. The net receipts, at the time of the Commission's
+Report, were, in round figures, £1,600,000, and thus to borrow
+£50,000,000, even at 4 per cent., would mean an annual loss of £300,000
+a year, even if there were no sinking fund. A 10<i>s.</i> per cent sinking fund
+would increase the total annual loss to £550,000.</p>
+
+<p>But, could an Irish Government Guaranteed Railway Stock be issued at 4
+per cent.? Would Ireland's credit stand better than that of Hungary,
+whose 4 per cent. gold <i>rentes</i> stand at 92, or of the Argentine, which
+has to borrow at nearly 5 per cent.? There are grave doubts whether the
+large sum required would be subscribed at all, at even 4 1/4 per cent,
+or 4 1/2 per cent. basis. It is not likely that English investors would
+take up such a loan, seeing that they have consistently fought shy of
+Irish investments, and they are not likely to change their views upon
+the break up of the Union.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said that the sum required could be raised in Ireland&mdash;that
+patriotic feeling would stimulate the operation, and the large sum of
+money (over £50,000,000), lying on deposit at the Irish banks may be
+referred to as available. Patriotism that has not financed the Irish
+Parliamentary Party will not be likely to finance a gigantic railway
+loan. Nor is the large sum appearing as banking deposits really free
+money available for investment. With increase of deposits, the items of
+loans and advances in banking accounts have also correspondingly
+increased, and they largely balance each other. Not only is the money
+deposited by one customer lent to another, and therefore already
+utilized, but, to a large extent well known to bankers, the deposits,
+<i>i.e.</i> the credits to particular accounts, represent money lent to the
+persons having these accounts, and are not, in fact, their own free
+balances. So also credits in the accounts of one bank, figure as debits
+on the balance sheet of another bank. There probably has been in recent
+years considerable saving in Ireland, but it is also certain that those
+savings have largely gone, and will continue rightly to go in
+improvements of farms, which the Land Acts and Land Purchase Acts have
+made worth improving for their possessors. Those who have not saved
+enough borrow, and the bank advances represent largely the capital
+required by farmers and traders. The deposits, therefore, are being well
+used, and are not dead money. Divert them to any large extent to another
+purpose, and there will probably be a contraction of banking credit,
+which Irish farming and industry will be the first to feel.</p>
+
+
+<h4>PURCHASE BY STATE PAPER.</h4>
+
+<p>It may be said that the nationalisation of railways could be carried
+out, not by a cash payment, but by a paper exchange of existing Railway
+Stocks into newly created Irish Government Stock, the amount of the
+existing net receipts being guaranteed. But, unless the Irish Government
+could actually borrow in cash the sum required, at a rate equal to that
+nominally put on the new stock, the shareholders would be robbed of a
+capital sum equal to the amount of the discount on the stock, <i>i.e.</i> the
+amount of the market quotation below par, or issue price. There will be
+sellers of the new stock from the beginning, and what the public will
+give for it, and not the nominal figure put upon it by the Irish
+Government, will be its real value. The Irish Government may issue the
+Railway Stock at 3-1/2 per cent., but if they could borrow the sum
+required only at 4-1/2 per cent., the new stock will at once find its
+level at about 77 instead of 100, and the capital value of Irish
+railways will be reduced from, say, £45,000,000 to £35,000,000, and the
+difference, £10,000,000, would come out of the pockets of Irish
+shareholders. The Irish Government would be, however, in this unpleasant
+dilemma, that if they issued the stock at a rate per cent, nominally
+higher than the present return in railway capital, namely, 3.77 per
+cent., the annual charge for interest would be greater than the net
+receipts, and so from the beginning there would be an annual loss; and
+the fact of this annual loss would be another factor tending to
+depreciate the new Railway Stock. The alternatives before an Irish Prime
+Minister, pressed to carry out a &quot;Nationalisation&quot; policy, are not
+enviable. He will either have to provide by taxation for the annual loss
+involved in taking over the railways on a fair basis, or to deprive the
+most thrifty and industrious classes of his fellow-countrymen of a large
+slice of their savings and investments. In either event, the new
+Government will have received a serious blow to its credit at the outset
+of its career.</p>
+
+
+<h4>EFFECT OF REDUCTION OF RAILWAY RATES.</h4>
+
+<p>There is, moreover, a special reason why such a stock, from its
+inception, would tend to depreciate in value; namely, that from the
+moment the Irish Government or their nominees became the owners, there
+would be almost irresistible pressure put upon them to reduce the
+railway rates, and generally (as indeed the Majority Report recommends)
+to work the railways on other than commercial lines.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99" /><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> A reduction of
+rates has been held out as the great resulting boon of nationalisation
+ever since the Irish Parliamentary Party specifically raised the
+question in Parliament in 1899. A 25 per cent. reduction in rates and
+fares (suggested by Nationalist witnesses) would involve an annual
+diminution of net receipts to the Government of over £1,000,000 per
+annum, and if the reduction were in goods rates alone, the loss would be
+£568,000 per annum. It would be years, if ever, before such a loss could
+be recouped, however the traffic was increased. Experience has shown
+that in recent years running expenses tend to increase nearly parallel
+with the gross receipts, and a large increase in gross traffic would
+involve enormous capital outlay for rolling stock, engines, sidings,
+etc. It is unnecessary to comment upon the suggestion that the railways
+should not be run on &quot;commercial principles.&quot; The Irish ratepayers and
+taxpayers, who would have to bear the loss, would loudly call out for
+business management when it was too late.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to add that another result of such an operation
+would be to prevent the Irish Government raising the very large sum
+necessary for improving and standardising the light railways and for
+extensions, except at an unremunerative rate of interest. Even if
+shareholders be put off with State paper, contractors will have to be
+paid with cash. Moreover the creation of such a large amount of debt at
+the beginning of the new regime would render it difficult, if not
+impossible, for the Irish Government to raise sums necessary for other
+public works and services of a pressing character, arterial drainage,
+canals, education, and other objects, not to speak of migration,
+congestion, and land purchase. The conclusion, in fact, is inevitable,
+that without the security of the United Kingdom, and the market of
+British investors willing to lend, it is idle to think that either State
+purchase of railways, or any other of the boons mentioned, are
+reasonably possible. Mr. Erskine Childers, though a Home Ruler, does not
+fail to perceive, to use his own words, &quot;that financial independence
+will now mean a financial sacrifice to Ireland.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100" /><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p>
+
+
+<h4>EFFECT OF NATIONALISATION ON TRADE RELATIONS.</h4>
+
+<p>There are other important considerations which confirm the view that, if
+the control of Irish railways were taken away from the Imperial
+Parliament, and placed under a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and if the
+general code of railway legislation now binding on both countries could
+be altered by a Home Rule legislature, results disastrous to the trade
+between the two countries would probably follow, whether
+&quot;Nationalisation&quot; were carried out or not.</p>
+
+<p>The Majority Report recommends, as one of the chief objects of
+&quot;Nationalisation&quot; under an Irish authority, the reduction of <i>export</i>
+rates, both local and through rates, on the Irish railways, as
+&quot;essential to the development of Irish industry,&quot; and this seems the pet
+project of a large number of witnesses, and of Irish local authorities.
+Import and export railway rates are now the same for the same classes of
+produce, and no Irish railway company could now differentiate between
+them, without being pulled up by the Railway Commission at the suit of
+British traders, or British railway companies. The policy suggested is
+practically to use railway rates as a system of local protection,
+similar to the existing practice and policy on the continental, and
+notably the Prussian State Railways. It is easy to see that without any
+Customs barrier between the two countries, such a policy would
+inaugurate practically a tariff war between Ireland and Great Britain,
+which would be disastrous to both. That such a policy should be
+subscribed to by Free-traders, and that a Free-trade Government should
+advocate a change in the relations between the two countries, under
+which such a system could be possible, is indeed surprising. To use
+Imperial credit for such a purpose would be midsummer madness. Even
+without any scheme of nationalisation, the establishment of a separate
+Executive and Legislature in Ireland might have sinister effects on
+traffic arrangements between Great Britain and Ireland and on the
+harmonious administration of the railways.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE RIGHT SOLUTION.</h4>
+
+<p>The truth of the matter, and the inference to be drawn from the above
+considerations and the whole trend of modern trade, is that to break up
+the railway systems of Great Britain and Ireland into two rival and
+hostile systems of transit, working for different objects and by
+different methods, would be to stop a natural and healthy process of
+uniform working and harmony, which has enormously advanced in the last
+decade, to the great advantage of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Almost every scheme of amalgamation in Ireland has been connected with
+the opening or development of a new cross-Channel route, as the history
+of the Fishguard and Rosslare and the new Heysham routes fully shows. As
+part of this process, English companies, like the Midland and the Great
+Western, are either acquiring Irish lines or making special traffic
+arrangements with them. Enormous sums have been spent on harbours and
+steamers by English companies for the purpose of developing traffic with
+Ireland, and the increased interchange of goods has been of great
+advantage to both countries. The ideal put forward by advocates of
+railway nationalisation and Irish independence, that in respect of trade
+and traffic Ireland should be a sort of watertight compartment,
+self-supporting and self-contained, is, I submit, a mischievous delusion
+which, if put into practice, would undo much of the good progress
+Ireland has recently made. Such an ideal would also be the exact
+contrary of the line of national development as based on transit and
+transport followed in almost every other civilized country. In Germany,
+Canada, the United States, and Australia, we see the policy consistently
+pursued of amalgamation, consolidation, and facilities for long-distance
+traffic, so that between all parts of each State and Empire there shall
+be the freest and most perfect interchange of traffic. Canada and the
+United States have been so far inspired by this principle as to spend
+countless millions first on East and West (and now on North and South)
+lines, even before there was traffic to carry, and in order to create
+traffic; and the principle has been justified in its results.</p>
+
+<p>From this point of view St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea should be
+a means of communication, constant and in every direction, between the
+two Islands, and not a sort of boundary ditch to be deepened and
+rendered difficult of passage.</p>
+
+<p>If Ireland wishes to share England's prosperity she must not build up a
+wall against the credit, trade, and special products of her richer
+sister. If England wishes to have and to foster a magnificent source of
+food supply, well and strategically secured against continental foes,
+she also must do all that can be done to encourage intercourse. To
+develop traffic between Great Britain and Ireland is the policy which
+both experience and theory point to as advantageous to both countries;
+to subvert this policy and make Ireland's commerce local and
+self-sufficing, seems to be the narrow and mistaken ideal of Nationalist
+aspirations.</p>
+
+
+<h4>UNIONIST POLICY.</h4>
+
+<p>It follows that the Unionist Party must oppose any plan for
+&quot;nationalising&quot; the Irish railways, whether by the credit of the United
+Kingdom, or otherwise. The policy we advocate is to be found in the
+Minority Report of the Viceregal Commission, signed by Sir Herbert
+Jekyll, Mr. W.M. Acworth, and Mr. John Aspinall, not as politicians, but
+experts; and in the Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Inland
+Navigation dealing with the question of canals and water transport in
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of railways, the aim should be to amalgamate them into two
+or three large companies to standardise as far as possible the light
+railways, and level them in respect of gauge, gradients, works, and
+rolling stock with the larger companies. Unquestionably many of the
+smaller railways to be amalgamated, though not light railways, need
+large expenditure for the purpose of duplication of running lines,
+straightening of curves, stations, stores, and conveniences, and many
+extensions and cross-lines will also be needed to connect them with the
+trunk lines, and to open out districts now unprovided with railway
+facilities. Many of these projects, though industrially remunerative to
+Ireland and advantageous to England also as tapping new sources of food
+supply, would not be, in strictness, commercially remunerative in the
+sense of giving fair return on capital over working expenses, and it is
+idle to expect that private capital will ever be subscribed for these
+purposes. They can only be undertaken either directly by State funds, or
+by money provided by the State, and lent to the large amalgamated lines
+at low interest. This is the policy inaugurated by Mr. Arthur Balfour,
+which has been of untold benefit to many districts in Ireland. Probably
+a public grant of, say, £2,000,000, and loanable money available to the
+extent of £8,000,000, would largely solve the problem. For the reasons
+already given it is only by Imperial credit, and under the ægis of a
+united Parliament and Government, that capital on this large scale can
+be available for these purposes.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CANALS AND NAVIGATION.</h4>
+
+<p>The problem of canals and inland navigation in Ireland is a minor one,
+but the same principles largely apply. The Royal Commission<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101" /><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a>
+recommended that all the chief waterways, canals, and rivers necessary
+for inland transport should be purchased and remain under the control of
+the State, the controlling authority, however, not themselves, to become
+carriers on any waterways. At the same time, they strongly urged that
+the problem of arterial drainage and relief from floods should not be
+treated separately, but that the control of drainage works should be
+under the same central authority as that which is to control waterways
+and navigation.</p>
+
+<p>It is not necessary to refer in detail to the Report. Apart from the
+sum necessary to buy out the existing owners of canals and waterways,
+towards which £2,451,346 had been contributed from private sources, the
+Commissioners contemplated a further expenditure of about £200,000 on
+new works. In addition the sum of £500,000 would be required, on a
+moderate estimate for drainage and the prevention of floods. The
+pressing nature of the latter problem is once more emphatically
+evidenced by the wholesale injury to property and the public health by
+the recent flooding of the basins of the Shannon, Barrow, Bann, and
+other rivers. Here, again, we have problems which it is idle to expect
+an Irish Parliament to solve satisfactorily for years to come, or,
+indeed, ever. Ways and means must be an effectual bar. Drainage and
+navigation form only one problem out of a dozen facing a Home Rule
+Government needing the raising of enormous capital. Probably the
+Commissioners conducting the Canals inquiry, who were persons of all
+shades of political opinion, were well aware that only under the present
+system of State credit could the financial difficulties be overcome.
+According to their report, the State (<i>i.e.</i> the Government of the United
+Kingdom) were to acquire the control, which was to be carried out by an
+Act of Parliament, naming the Waterways Commissioners, &quot;who should be
+persons disassociated from party politics.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The one dissentient out of twenty-one signatories, Lord Farrer,
+significantly adds that he does not favour a &quot;charge on the public purse
+and new Boards of Management <i>until a purely Irish elected authority has
+agreed to pay for them</i>.&quot; Precisely; Lord Farrer has looked ahead. Will
+an Irish elected authority agree to pay for these boons, and will they
+be able to pay? That is a question which will cause some searching of
+hearts amongst all interested in Ireland's welfare;&mdash;in these pages we
+have attempted to give an answer.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4>
+
+<p>The conclusion is in fact inevitable. Ireland cannot have it both ways.
+She cannot have financial independence and financial dependence at the
+same time. No Colony has ever claimed or been granted these inconsistent
+conditions. If Colonial precedents are cited, their essential
+limitations should also be borne in mind. Colonial loans are not charged
+on the Consolidated Fund. Nor have Colonial railways been nationalised
+with the money and credit of the United Kingdom, in order to favour
+local exports at the expense of imports from England.</p>
+
+<p>Our examination of the question brings us to the clear conclusion that
+it is only under the existing system of a single Parliament and
+Executive for the United Kingdom that the problems of transit and
+transport in Ireland, or between Great Britain and Ireland, can be
+satisfactorily solved, whether from the point of view of finance,
+justice to shareholders, or advantage to the trade and convenience of
+both countries.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>NOTE.&mdash;It has been suggested, since the above was written, that the
+     balance in the Irish Post Office Savings Banks (now about
+     £12,500,000) might be available to the new Irish Government, for
+     advances to farmers and other public purposes. The suggestion
+     involves the applicability of such advances for the purchase or
+     amalgamation of the Irish railways under an Irish public authority.
+     Such a proposal will not bear close examination.</p>
+
+<p>     It is an essential condition of the existence of Savings Bank
+     deposits that the deposits should be always available on the call
+     of depositors; and this condition would no longer be fulfilled if
+     the balances were locked up in Irish railways. In fact, if there
+     was any suggestion that these balances should be used for the
+     purpose of enabling the Irish Government to run the railways on
+     uncommercial principles, the deposits would very soon diminish or
+     disappear&mdash;and this apart from the question whether under Home
+     Rule, the deposits would in any event remain at anything like their
+     present high figure.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92" /><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Viceregal Commission on Irish Railways, Final Report, 1910
+(Cd. 5247). Final Report on the Canals and Inland Navigations of
+Ireland, 1911 (Cd. 5626).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93" /><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> &quot;The Framework of Home Rule,&quot; p. 174.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94" /><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Figures are taken from Viceregal Commission Reports, p.
+78, Report.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95" /><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Page 78, Report.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96" /><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Page 58, Report.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97" /><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Final Report, pp. 76-83.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98" /><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> We have taken the Act of 1844 as the basis referred to by
+the Commissioners, though it is very doubtful (having regard to the
+great variety of railway share and loan capital), if the terms of sect.
+2 are now suitable; moreover sect. 4 requires a special Act of
+Parliament to be passed to raise the money, and settle the special
+conditions of the purchase option.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99" /><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Majority Report, p. 76.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100" /><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> &quot;Framework of Home Rule,&quot; p. 281.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101" /><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Final Report on the Canals and Navigations of Ireland.
+1911. (Cd. 5626.)</p></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Against Home Rule (1912), by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Against Home Rule (1912)
+       The Case for the Union
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor:   S. Rosenbaum
+
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2005 [EBook #15450]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGAINST HOME RULE (1912) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Aldarondo and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AGAINST HOME RULE
+
+THE CASE FOR THE UNION
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR J. BALFOUR, M.P.; J. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.;
+WALTER LONG, M.P.; GEORGE WYNDHAM, M.P.;
+LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, M.P.; J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.;
+GERALD W. BALFOUR; THOMAS SINCLAIR;
+MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY;
+EARL PERCY; L.S. AMERY, M.P.; GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.;
+GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.,
+&c.
+
+
+WITH INTRODUCTION BY
+SIR EDWARD CARSON, K.C., M.P.
+
+
+AND PREFACE BY
+A. BONAR LAW, M.P.
+
+
+EDITED BY
+S. ROSENBAUM
+
+
+LONDON
+FREDERICK WARNE & CO,
+AND NEW YORK
+1912
+
+IRISH ESSAYS COMMITTEE
+
+Chairman.
+THE RT. HON. SIR EDWARD CARSON, M.P.
+
+Vice-Chairman.
+GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.
+
+Committee.
+L.S. AMERY, M.P.
+GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.
+THE RT. HON. J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.
+A.L. HORNER, K.C., M.P.
+A.D. STEEL-MAITLAND, M.P.
+A.W. SAMUELS, K.C.
+P. CAMBRAY
+
+Secretary & Editor.
+S. ROSENBAUM, M.SC., F.S.S.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. A. BONAR LAW, M.P.
+
+
+This book, for which I have been asked to write a short preface,
+presents the case against Home Rule for Ireland. The articles are
+written by men who not only have a complete grasp of the subjects upon
+which they write, but who in most cases, from their past experience and
+from their personal influence, are well entitled to outline the Irish
+policy of the Unionist Party.
+
+Ours is not merely a policy of hostility to Home Rule, but it is, as it
+has always been, a constructive policy for the regeneration of Ireland.
+
+We are opposed to Home Rule because, in our belief, it would seriously
+weaken our national position; because it would put a stop to the
+remarkable increase of prosperity in Ireland which has resulted from the
+Land Purchase Act; and because it would inflict intolerable injustice on
+the minority in Ireland, who believe that under a Government controlled
+by the men who dominate the United Irish League neither their civil nor
+their religious liberty would be safe.
+
+To create within the United Kingdom a separate Parliament with an
+Executive Government responsible to that Parliament would at the best
+mean a danger of friction. But if we were ever engaged in a great war,
+and the men who controlled the Irish Government took the view in regard
+to that war which was taken by the same men in regard to the Boer War;
+if they thought the war unjust, and if, as under the last Home Rule
+Bill they would have the right to do, they passed resolutions in the
+Irish Parliament in condemnation of the war, and even sent embassies
+carrying messages of good-will to our enemy, then this second Government
+at the heart of the Empire would be a source of weakness which might be
+fatal to us.
+
+The ameliorative measures originated by Mr. Balfour when he was Chief
+Secretary, and which culminated in the Wyndham Purchase Act, have
+created a new Ireland. Mr. Redmond, speaking a year or two ago, said
+that Ireland "was studded with the beautiful and happy homes of an
+emancipated peasantry." It is a true picture, but it is a picture of the
+result of Unionist policy in Ireland, a policy which Mr. Redmond and his
+friends, including the present Government, have done their best to
+hamper. The driving power of the agitation for Home Rule has always been
+discontent with the land system of Ireland, and just in proportion as
+land purchase has extended, the demand for Home Rule has died down. The
+Nationalist leaders, realising this, and regarding political agitation
+as their first object, have compelled the Government to put
+insurmountable obstacles in the way of land purchase--not because it had
+not been successful, but because it had been too successful.
+
+The prosperity and the peace of Ireland depend upon the completion of
+land purchase, and it can only be completed by the use of British
+credit, which in my belief can and ought only to be freely given so long
+as Ireland is in complete union with the rest of the United Kingdom. In
+the present deplorable position of British credit the financing of land
+purchase would be difficult; but it is not unreasonable to hope that the
+return to power of a Government which would adopt sane financial
+methods would restore our credit; and in any case, the object is of such
+vital importance that, whatever the difficulties, it must be our policy
+to complete with the utmost possible rapidity the system of land
+purchase in Ireland.
+
+It will also be our aim to help to the utmost, in the manner suggested
+in different articles in this book, in the development of the resources
+of Ireland. The Nationalist policy, which is imposed also on the Radical
+Party, is in fact more politics and less industry. Our policy is more
+industry and less politics.
+
+The strongest objection, however, and, in my opinion, the insurmountable
+obstacle to Home Rule, is the injustice of attempting to impose it
+against their will upon the Unionists of Ulster. The only intelligible
+ground upon which Home Rule can now be defended is the nationality of
+Ireland. But Ireland is not a nation; it is two nations. It is two
+nations separated from each other by lines of cleavage which cut far
+deeper than those which separate Great Britain from Ireland as a whole.
+Every argument which can be adduced in favour of separate treatment for
+the Irish Nationalist minority as against the majority of the United
+Kingdom, applies with far greater force in favour of separate treatment
+for the Unionists of Ulster as against the majority of Ireland.
+
+To the majority in Ireland Home Rule may seem to be a blessing, but to
+the minority it appears as an intolerable curse. Their hostility to it
+is quite as strong as that which was felt by many of the Catholics of
+Ireland to Grattan's Parliament. They, too, would say, as the Catholic
+Bishop of Waterford said at the time of the Union, that they "would
+prefer a Union with the Beys and Mamelukes of Egypt to the iron rod of
+the Mamelukes of Ireland."
+
+The minority which holds this view is important in numbers, for it
+comprises at the lowest estimate more than a fourth of the population of
+Ireland. From every other point of view it is still more important, for
+probably the minority pays at least half the taxes and does half the
+trade of Ireland. The influence and also the power of the minority is
+enormously increased by the way in which its numbers are concentrated in
+Belfast and the surrounding counties.
+
+The men who compose this minority ask no special privilege. They demand
+only--and they will not demand in vain--that they should not be deprived
+against their will of the protection of British law and of the rights of
+British citizenship.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law, M.P._
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Carson, K.C., M.P._
+
+
+HISTORICAL
+
+I. A NOTE ON HOME RULE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P._
+
+II. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
+
+_By J.R. Fisher_
+
+
+CRITICAL
+
+III. THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
+
+_By George Cave, K.C., M.P._
+
+IV. HOME RULE FINANCE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. J. Austen Chamberlain, M.P._
+
+V. HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL ANALOGY
+
+_By L.S. Amery, M.P._
+
+VI. THE CONTROL OF JUDICIARY AND POLICE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. J.H. Campbell, K.C., M.P._
+
+VII. THE ULSTER QUESTION
+
+_By the Marquis of Londonderry, K.G._
+
+VIII. THE POSITION OF ULSTER
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. Thomas Sinclair._
+
+IX. THE SOUTHERN MINORITIES
+
+_By Richard Bagwell, M.A._
+
+X. HOME RULE AND NAVAL DEFENCE
+
+_By Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, M.P._
+
+XI. THE MILITARY DISADVANTAGES OF HOME RULE
+
+_By the Earl Percy._
+
+XII. THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE
+
+(i.) The Church View
+
+_By the Rt. Rev. C.F. D'Arcy, Bishop of Down._
+
+(ii.) The Nonconformist View
+
+_By Rev. Samuel Prenter, M.A., D.D. (Dublin)._
+
+
+CONSTRUCTIVE
+
+XIII. UNIONIST POLICY IN RELATION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRELAND
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. Gerald Balfour._
+
+XIV. THE COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham, M.P._
+
+XV. POSSIBLE IRISH FINANCIAL REFORMS UNDER THE UNION
+
+_By Arthur Warren Samuels, K.C._
+
+XVI. THE ECONOMICS OF SEPARATISM
+
+_By L.S. Amery, M.P._
+
+XVII. PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION
+
+_By the Rt. Hon. Walter Long, M.P._
+
+XVIII. IRISH POOR LAW REFORM
+
+_By John E. Healy, Editor of the "Irish Times."_
+
+XIX. IRISH EDUCATION UNDER THE UNION
+
+_By Godfrey Locker Lampson, M.P._
+
+XX. THE PROBLEM OF TRANSIT AND TRANSPORT IN IRELAND
+
+_By an Irish Railway Director._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR EDWARD CARSON, M.P.
+
+
+The object of the various essays collected in this book is to set out
+the case against Home Rule for Ireland, and to re-state Unionist policy
+in the light of the recent changes in that country. The authors are not,
+however, to be regarded as forming anything in the nature of a corporate
+body, and no collective responsibility is to be ascribed to them. Each
+writer is responsible for the views set out in his own article, and for
+those alone. At the same time, they are all leaders of Unionist thought
+and opinion, and their views in the main represent the policy which the
+Unionist Government, when returned to power, will have to carry into
+effect.
+
+Among the contributors to the book are an ex-Premier, four ex-Chief
+Secretaries for Ireland, an ex-Lord Lieutenant, two ex-Law officers, and
+a number of men whose special study of the Irish question entitles them
+to have their views most carefully considered when the time comes for
+restoring to Ireland those economic advantages of which she has been
+deprived by political agitation and political conspiracy. At the present
+moment the discussion of the Irish question is embittered by the
+pressing and urgent danger to civil and religious liberties involved in
+the unconditional surrender of the Government to the intrigues of a
+disloyal section of the Irish people. It is the object of writers in
+this book to raise the discussions on the Home Rule question above the
+bitter conflict of Irish parties, and to show that not only is Unionism
+a constructive policy and a measure of hope for Ireland, but that in
+Unionist policy lies the only alternative to financial ruin and
+exterminating civil dissensions.
+
+We who are Unionists believe first and foremost that the Act of Union
+is required--in the words made familiar to us by the Book of Common
+Prayer--"for the safety, honour and welfare, of our Sovereign and his
+dominions." We are not concerned with the supposed taint which marred
+the passing of that Act; we are unmoved by the fact that its terms have
+undergone considerable modification. We do not believe in the plenary
+inspiration of any Act of Parliament. It is not possible for the living
+needs of two prosperous countries to be bound indefinitely by the "dead
+hand" of an ancient statute, but we maintain that geographical and
+economic reasons make a legislative Union between Great Britain and
+Ireland necessary for the interests of both. We see, as Irish Ministers
+saw in 1800, that there can be no permanent resting place between
+complete Union and total separation. We know that Irish Nationalists
+have not only proclaimed separatist principles, but that they have
+received separatist money, on the understanding that they would not
+oppose a movement to destroy whatever restrictions and safeguards the
+Imperial Parliament might impose upon an Irish Government.
+
+The first law of nature with nations and governments, as with
+individuals, is self-preservation. It was the vital interests of
+national defence that caused Pitt to undertake the difficult and
+thankless task of creating the legislative union. If that union was
+necessary for the salvation of England and the foundation of the British
+Empire, it is assuredly no less necessary for the continued security of
+the one and the maintenance and prestige of the other.
+
+Mr. J.R. Fisher, in his historical retrospect, shows us how bitter
+experience convinced successive generations of English statesmen of the
+dangers that lay in an independent Ireland. One of the very earliest
+conflicts between the two countries was caused by the action of the
+Irish Parliament in recognising and crowning a Pretender in Dublin
+Castle. Then the fact that the Reformation, which soon won the adherence
+of the English Government and the majority of the English people, never
+gained any great foothold in Ireland, caused the bitter religious wars
+which devastated Europe to be reproduced in the relations of the two
+countries. When England was fighting desperately with the Spanish
+champions of the Papacy, Spanish forces twice succeeded in effecting a
+landing on the Irish coast, and were welcomed by the people. Later on,
+by the aid of subsidies from an Irish Parliament, Strafford raised
+10,000 men in Ireland in order to support Charles I. in his conflict
+with the English people. Cromwell realised that the only remedy for the
+intrigues and turbulence of the Irish Parliament lay in a legislative
+union. But, unfortunately, his Union Parliament was terminated by the
+Restoration. Then, again, when France became the chief danger that
+England had to face, Tyrconnel, with the aid of French troops and French
+subsidies, endeavoured to make Ireland a base for the invasion of
+England. Under the Old Pretender again, another effort was made to make
+the Irish Parliament a medium for the destruction of English liberties.
+
+In these long-continued and bitter struggles we see the excuse, if not
+the justification, for the severe penal laws which were introduced in
+order to curb the power of the Irish chieftains. We see also the
+beginning of the feud between Ulster and the other provinces in Ireland,
+which has continued in a modified form to the present day. Strafford
+found that, in order to bolster up the despotism of the Stuarts, he had
+not only to invade England, but to expel the Scottish settlers from the
+Northern province. The Irish Parliament in the time of Tyrconnel again
+began to prepare for the invasion of England by an attempt to destroy
+the Ulster plantation. The settlers had their estates confiscated, the
+Protestant clergy were driven out and English sympathisers outlawed by
+name, in the "hugest Bill of Attainder which the world has seen."
+
+Admiral Lord Charles Beresford points out the danger from a naval point
+of view of the French attempts to use Ireland as a base for operations
+against England, both under Louis XIV. and under the Republican
+Directory. He quotes Admiral Mahan as saying that the movement which
+designed to cut the English communications in St. George's Channel
+while an invading party landed in the south of Ireland was a strictly
+strategic movement and would be as dangerous to England now as it was in
+1690. When Grattan extorted from England's weakness the unworkable and
+impracticable constitution of 1782, the danger which had always been
+present became immensely increased. In less than three years from the
+period of boasted final adjustment, Ireland came to a breach with
+England on the important question of trade and navigation. Then, again,
+at the time of the Regency, the Irish Parliament was actually ready to
+choose a person in whom to rest the sovereign executive power of the
+nation, different from him whom the British Parliament were prepared to
+designate.
+
+In 1795, when the French had made themselves masters of Brabant,
+Flanders, and Holland, the rebel government of United Irishmen was so
+well-established in Ireland that, as Lord Clare, the Irish Chancellor,
+subsequently admitted in the House of Lords, Ireland was for some weeks
+in a state of actual separation from Great Britain. When the great
+Rebellion of 1798 broke out, the French Directory sent assistance to the
+Irish rebels in order to facilitate the greater scheme--the conquest of
+England and of Europe. When we come to estimate the danger which the
+grant of Home Rule to Ireland would bring to the safety of England, we
+are faced with two considerations. In the first place, the movements of
+the French in the past were, as we have said, strategic. Given an Irish
+Parliament that was hostile to England, or at least dubious in her
+loyalty to this country, the movement of a hostile fleet against our
+communications would be as dangerous now as it was in the past.
+
+When we try to estimate what would be the feelings of an Irish
+Government when England was at war, we have to consider not only the
+speeches of avowed enemies of the Empire like Major McBride and the
+Irish Americans, but we have also to remember the attitude adopted upon
+all questions of foreign policy by the more responsible Nationalists of
+the type of Mr. Dillon. Not only have the Irish Nationalist party
+consistently opposed every warlike operation that British Governments
+have found to be necessary, but they have also fervently attacked the
+Powers on the Continent of Europe that have been suspected of friendship
+to England. We have only to imagine the element of weakness and disunion
+which would be introduced into our foreign policy by an Irish Parliament
+that passed resolutions regarding the policy of the Governments, say, of
+Russia and of France, in order to realise the immense dangers of setting
+up such a Parliament when we are again confronted with a mighty
+Confederation of opponents in Europe. It is admitted that the next
+European war will be decided by the events of the first few days. In
+order to succeed, we shall have to strike and strike quickly. But in
+order that there should be swift and effective action, there should be
+only one Government to be consulted. The Irish Ministry that was not
+actively hostile, but only unsympathetic and dilatory, might, in many
+ways, fatally embarrass Ministers at Westminster.
+
+Moreover, another complication has been introduced by the dependence of
+England upon Irish food supplies. Lord Percy points out that there are
+two stages in every naval war; first, the actual engagement, and then
+the blockade or destruction of the ships of the defeated country. He
+points out that, even after the destruction of the French Navy at
+Trafalgar, the damage done to British oversea commerce was very great.
+Modern conditions of warfare have made blockade an infinitely more
+difficult and precarious operation, and we must therefore face the
+certainty that hostile cruisers will escape and interfere with our
+oversea supplies of food. Since Ireland lies directly across our trade
+routes, it is probable that the majority of our food supplies will be
+derived from Ireland or carried through that country. But Irish
+Ministers would not have forgotten the lesson of the famine, when food
+was exported from Ireland though the people starved. Curious as it may
+seem, Ireland, though a great exporting country, does not under present
+conditions feed herself, and therefore an Irish Ministry would
+certainly lay in a large stock of the imported food supplies before they
+were brought to England, in order first of all absolutely to secure the
+food of their own people. It would be open for them at any time, by
+cutting off our supplies, our horses and our recruits, to extract any
+terms they liked out of the English people or bring this country to its
+knees. "England's difficulty" would once again become "Ireland's
+opportunity." The experience of 1782 would be repeated. Resistance to
+Ireland's demands for extended powers would bring about war between the
+two countries. In the striking phrase of Mr. Balfour's arresting
+article, "The battle of the two Parliaments would become the battle of
+the two peoples." It is only necessary to refer briefly to the fact that
+the active section of the Nationalist party has continually and
+consistently opposed recruiting for the British Army. It is perfectly
+certain that, under Home Rule, this policy would be accentuated rather
+than reversed. We now draw recruits from Ireland out of all proportion
+to its population. Under Home Rule, the difficulties of maintaining a
+proper standard of men and efficiency must be immensely increased.
+
+If there were no other arguments against Home Rule, the paramount
+necessities of Imperial defence would demand the maintenance of the
+Union. But the opposition to the proposed revolution in Ireland is based
+not only on the considerations of Imperial safety, but also on those of
+national honour. The historical bases of Irish nationalism have been
+destroyed by the arguments summarised in this book by Mr. Fisher and Mr.
+Amery. It was the existence of a separate Parliament in Dublin that made
+Ireland, for so many centuries, alike a menace to English liberty and
+the victim of English reprisals. Miss A.E. Murray has pointed out[1]
+that experience seemed to show to British statesmen that Irish
+prosperity was dangerous to English liberty. It was the absence of
+direct authority over Ireland which made England so nervously anxious
+to restrict Irish resources in every direction in which they might, even
+indirectly, interfere with the growth of English power. Irish industries
+were penalised and crippled, not from any innate perversity on the part
+of English statesmen, or from any deliberate desire to ruin Ireland, but
+as a natural consequence of exclusion from the Union under the economic
+policy of the age. The very poverty of Ireland, as expressed in the
+lowness of Irish wages, was a convenient and perfectly justifiable
+argument for exclusion. Mr. Amery shows that the Protestant settlers of
+Ulster were penalised even more severely than the intriguing Irish
+chieftains against whom they were primarily directed.
+
+It was the consciousness of the natural result of separation that caused
+the Irish Parliament, upon two separate occasions, to petition for that
+union with England which was delayed for over a century. The action of
+Grattan and his supporters in wresting the impossible Constitution of
+1782, from the harassed and desperate English Government, began that
+fatal policy of substituting political agitation for economic reform
+which has ever since marred the Irish Nationalist movement. John
+Fitzgibbon[2] pointed out in the Irish House of Commons that only two
+alternatives lay before his country--Separation or Union. Under
+Separation an Irish Parliament might be able to pursue an economic
+policy of its own; under Union the common economic policy of the two
+countries might be adjusted to the peculiar interests of each.
+
+Pitt, undoubtedly, looked forward to a Customs Union with internal free
+trade as the ultimate solution of the difficulty, but a Customs Union
+was impossible without the fullest kind of legislative unity. It is true
+that the closing years of the eighteenth century were years of
+prosperity to certain classes and districts in Ireland, but Mr. Fisher
+has shown beyond dispute that this prosperity neither commenced with
+Grattan's Parliament nor ended with its fall. It was based upon the
+peculiar economic conditions which years of war and preparations for
+war had fostered in England; it was bound in any case to disappear with
+the growing concentration of industrial interests which followed the
+general introduction of machinery. The immediate result of the passing
+of the Act of Union was to increase the Irish population and Irish
+trade.
+
+But to a certain extent that prosperity was fictitious and doomed to
+failure so soon as peace and the introduction of scientific methods of
+industry had caused the concentration of the great manufactures. Then
+came the great economic disaster for Ireland--the adoption of free trade
+by England. The Irish famine of 1849 was not more severe than others
+that had preceded it, but its evil effects were accentuated by the
+policy of the English Government. The economists decided that the State
+ought to do nothing to interfere with private enterprise in feeding the
+starving people, and as there was no private enterprise in the country,
+where all classes were involved in the common ruin, the people were left
+to die of hunger by the roadside. The lands the potato blight spared
+were desolated by the adoption of free trade. The exploitation of the
+virgin lands of the American West gradually threw the fertile midlands
+of Ireland from tillage into grass. A series of bad harvests aggravated
+the evil. The landlords and the farmers of Ireland were divided into two
+political camps, and, instead of uniting for their common welfare, each
+attempted to cast upon the other the burden of the economic catastrophe.
+To sum up in the words of Mr. Amery--
+
+     "The evils of economic Separatism, aggravated by social evils
+     surviving from the Separatism of an earlier age, united to revive a
+     demand for the extension and renewal of the very cause of those
+     evils."
+
+The political demand for the repeal of the Act of Union, which had lain
+dormant for so many years, was revived by the energies of Isaac Butt. He
+found in the Irish landlords, smarting under the disestablishment of the
+Irish Church, a certain amount of sympathy and assistance, but the
+"engine" for which Finton Lalor had asked in order to draw the "repeal
+train," was not discovered until Parnell linked the growing agrarian
+unrest to the Home Rule Campaign. This is not the place to tell again
+the weary story of the land war or to show how the Irish Nationalists
+exploited the grievances of the Irish tenants in order to encourage
+crime and foment disloyalty in the country. It is sufficient to say that
+this conflict--the conduct of which reflects little credit either upon
+the Irish protagonists or the British Government which alternately
+pampered and opposed it--was ended, for the time at least, by the
+passing of Mr. Wyndham's Land Act. We look forward in perfect confidence
+to the time when that great measure shall achieve its full result in
+wiping out the memory of many centuries of discord and hatred. But the
+Separatist movement, which has always been the evil genius of Irish
+politics, has not yet been completely exorcised. The memory of those
+past years when the minority in Ireland constituted the only bulwark of
+Irish freedom and of English liberty, has not yet passed away. The Irish
+Nationalist party since Parnell have spared no exertions to impress more
+deeply upon the imaginations of a sentimental race the memory of those
+"ancient weeping years." They have preached a social and a civil war
+upon all those in Ireland who would not submit their opinions and
+consciences to the uncontrolled domination of secret societies and
+leagues.
+
+The articles upon the Ulster question by Lord Londonderry and Mr.
+Sinclair show that the Northern province still maintains her historic
+opposition to Irish Separatism and Irish intrigue. She stands firmly by
+the same economic principles which have enabled her, in spite of
+persecution and natural disadvantages, to build up so great a
+prosperity. She knows well that the only chance for the rest of Ireland
+to attain to the standard of education, enlightenment and independence
+which she has reached, is to free itself from the sinister domination
+under which it lies, and to assert its right to political and religious
+liberty. Ulster sees in Irish Nationalism a dark conspiracy, buttressed
+upon crime and incitement to outrage, maintained by ignorance and
+pandering to superstition. Even at this moment the Nationalist leagues
+have succeeded in superseding the law of the land by the law of the
+league. We need only point to the remarks which the Lord Chief Justice
+of Ireland and Mr. Justice Kenny have been compelled to make to the
+Grand Juries quite recently, to show what Nationalist rule means to the
+helpless peasants in a great part of the country.
+
+But the differences which still sever the two great parties in Ireland
+are not only economic but religious. The general slackening of
+theological dispute which followed the weary years of religious warfare
+after the Reformation, has never brought peace to Ireland. In England
+the very completeness of the defeat of Roman Catholicism has rendered
+the people oblivious to the dangers of its aggression. The Irish
+Unionists are not monsters of inhuman frame; they are men of like
+passions with Englishmen. Though they hold their religious views with
+vigour and determination, there is nothing that they would like more
+than to be able to forget their points of difference from those who are
+their fellow Christians. It is perhaps necessary to point out once again
+that the Roman Catholic Church is a political, as well as a religious,
+institution, and to remind Englishmen that it is by the first law of its
+being an intolerant and aggressive organisation. All Protestants in
+Ireland feel deep respect for much of the work which is carried on by
+the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. They gladly acknowledge the
+influence of its priesthood in maintaining and upholding the traditional
+morality and purity of the Irish race. They venerate the memories of
+those brave Irish priests who defied persecution in order to bring
+succour to their flocks in time of need. But they are bound to deal with
+the present political situation as they find it. They are determined
+that no Church, however admirable, and no creed, however lofty, should
+be forced upon them against their wills. There is a dark side to the
+picture, on which it is unnecessary to dwell. We have only to ask the
+Nonconformists of England what would be their feelings were a Roman
+Catholic majority returned to the British House of Commons.
+
+In most of the articles in this book which deal with the religious
+question; special stress is laid upon recent Papal legislation. The _Ne
+Temere_ and the _Motu Proprio_ decrees have constituted an invasion of
+the rights hitherto enjoyed by the minority in Ireland, and they are
+even more significant as an illustration of the policy of the Roman
+curia. Those who have watched the steady increase of Roman aggression in
+every Roman Catholic country, followed as it has been by passionate
+protest and determined action by the civil Governments, must realise the
+danger which Home Rule would bring to the faith and liberty of the
+people of Ireland. It is not inconsistent to urge, as many of us have
+urged, that Home Rule would mean alike a danger to the Protestant faith
+and a menace to Catholic power. The immediate result of successful Papal
+interference with civil liberties in every land has been a sweeping
+movement among the people which has been, not Protestant, but
+anti-Christian in its nature. If we fear the tyranny which the Roman
+Catholic Church has established under British rule in Malta and in
+Quebec, may we not fear also the reaction from such tyranny which has
+already taken place in France and Portugal.
+
+But we are told that there are to be in the new Home Rule Bill
+safeguards which will protect the minority from any interference with
+their civil and religious liberties. It is not necessary for me to go
+over again in detail the ground which is so admirably covered by Mr.
+George Cave and Mr. James Campbell. They show clearly that the existence
+of restrictions and limitations upon the activities of a Dublin
+Parliament, whether they are primarily intended to safeguard the British
+connection or to protect the liberties of minorities, cannot be worth
+the paper on which they are printed. Let us take, for instance, an
+attempt to prevent the marriages of Irish Protestants from being
+invalidated by an Irish Parliament. We may point out that an amendment
+to the 1893 Home Rule Bill, designed to safeguard such marriages, was
+rejected by the vote of the Irish Nationalist party. But even were
+legislation affecting the marriage laws of the minority to be placed
+outside the control of a Dublin Parliament, the effect would not be to
+reassure the Protestant community. Mr. James Campbell mentions a case
+which has profoundly stirred the Puritan feelings of Irish
+Protestantism. A man charged with bigamy has been released without
+punishment because the first marriage, although in conformity with the
+law of the land, was not recognised by the Roman Catholic Church.
+However justifiable that course may have been in the exceptional
+circumstances of that particular case, the precedent obviously prepares
+the way for a practical reversal of the law by executive or judicial
+action. We must remember that, since the _Ne Temere_ decree has come
+into force, the marriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics are held by
+the Roman Catholic Church to be absolutely null and void unless they are
+celebrated in a Roman Catholic Church. We have also to bear in mind that
+these marriages will not be permitted by the priesthood except under
+conditions which many Irish Protestants consider humiliating and
+impossible. No more deadly attack upon the faith of the Protestant
+minority in the three provinces in Ireland can be imagined than to make
+a denial of their faith the essential condition to the enjoyment of the
+highest happiness for which they may look upon this earth.
+
+The second decree prohibits, under pain of excommunication, any Roman
+Catholic from bringing an ecclesiastical officer before a Court of
+Justice. Even under the Union Government this decree is a danger to the
+liberty of the subject. Under an independent Irish Government, nothing
+except that vast anti-clerical revolution which some people foresee
+could possibly reassure the people as to the attitude of the Executive
+Government in dealing with a large and privileged class. These
+considerations make one more reason for refusing the Colonial analogy
+which is so ingeniously pressed by such apologists for Home Rule as Mr.
+Erskine Childers. Mr. Amery analyses the confusion of thought between
+Home Rule as meaning responsible Government and Home Rule as meaning
+separate government which underlies the arguments of Liberal Home
+Rulers. Ireland has Home Rule in the sense of having free representative
+institutions. She is prevented by geographical and economic conditions
+from enjoying separate government under the same terms on which the
+Colonies possess it. As Mr. Amery points out, the United Kingdom is
+geographically a single island group. No part of Ireland is so
+inaccessible from the political centre of British power as the remoter
+parts of the Highlands, while racially no less than physically Ireland
+is an integral part of the United Kingdom. Economically also the two
+countries are bound together in a way which makes a common physical
+policy absolutely necessary for the welfare of both countries. The
+financial arguments which might have made it possible to permit an
+independent fiscal policy for Ireland under free trade, have disappeared
+with the certain approach of a revision of the tariff policies of
+England. There can be no separate tariffs for the two countries, or even
+a common tariff, without a common Government to negotiate and enforce
+it. If there were no other objection to the establishment of a separate
+Government in Dublin, it would be impossible because legislative
+autonomy can only be coupled with financial independence.
+
+The financial difficulties in the way of any grant of Home Rule are
+fully explained by Mr. Austen Chamberlain. Three attempts at framing
+schemes for financing Home Rule were made by Mr. Gladstone in the past.
+All the powers of this great and resourceful dialectician were employed
+in defending these various schemes in turn. He was not deterred from
+pressing any scheme by the fact that in important details it was
+inconsistent with or even opposed to what had been previously
+recommended. But if there was one principle on which Mr. Gladstone never
+turned his back it was in demanding a contribution from Ireland for
+Imperial services. At one time he demanded a cash payment, at another
+the assignment of the Customs, and on yet another occasion the payment
+to the Imperial Exchequer of a quota--one-third--of the tax-revenue in
+Ireland.
+
+The effect of recent social legislation, such as Old Age Pensions,
+Labour Exchanges, and Sickness and Unemployment Insurance has been to
+confer on Ireland benefits much greater in value than the Irish
+contribution in respect of the new taxation imposed. In consequence of
+this change the present Irish revenue falls short of the expenditure
+incurred for Irish purposes in Ireland. Mr. Chamberlain shows that if
+any scheme even remotely resembling any of those put forward on previous
+occasions by Mr. Gladstone is embodied in the new Bill, and if a
+moderate contribution for Imperial services is included, the Irish
+deficit must range from L2,500,000 to L3,500,000. If by any process of
+juggling with the figures the Irish Parliament is again to be started
+with a surplus the deficit must have been made good by charging it
+against the Imperial taxpayer. But again there is no permanence in such
+a surplus. It must disappear if the ameliorative measures which are long
+overdue in Ireland are undertaken by an Irish Parliament; and previous
+experience has already illustrated that even without the adoption of any
+such new schemes surpluses would long ago have made room for deficits.
+It will be the duty of the Nationalists party to say definitely what are
+the fiscal reserves upon which they can draw in order to establish
+permanent equilibrium between revenue and expenditure in Ireland.
+
+Not only does Unionist policy for Ireland involve considerations of
+national safety and national honour, but it is also necessary for the
+economic welfare of both countries. The remarkable success which has
+attended Mr. Wyndham's Land Act of 1903 has alarmed the political party
+in Ireland, which depends for its influence on the poverty and
+discontent of the rural population of Ireland. Mr. Wyndham in his
+article upon Irish Land Purchase shows clearly the blessings which have
+followed wherever his Act has been given fair play, and the evils which
+have resulted in the suppression of Land Purchase by Mr. Birrell's Act
+of 1909. The dual ownership created by Mr. Gladstone's ill-advised and
+reckless legislation led to Ireland being starved both in capital and
+industry and brought the whole of Irish agriculture to the brink of
+ruin, and under these circumstances, Conservative statesmen determined,
+in accordance with the principles of the Act of Union, to use a joint
+exchequer for the purpose of relieving Irish distress. Credit of the
+State was employed to convert the occupiers of Irish farms into the
+owners of the soil. The policy of the Ashbourne Acts was briefly that
+any landlord could agree with any tenant on the purchase price of his
+holding. The State then advanced the credit sum to the landlord in cash,
+while the tenant paid an instalment of 4 per cent. for forty-nine years.
+It is important to notice that the landlord received cash and that the
+tenants paid interest at the then existing rate of interest on Consols,
+namely, 3 per cent. The great defect in these Acts was that they applied
+only to separate holdings and not to estates as a whole; but their
+success can be estimated by the fact that under them twenty-seven
+thousand tenants became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to
+over ten million pounds. Under Mr. Balfour's Acts of 1891 and 1896, the
+landlord was paid in stock instead of cash, and the tenants still paid 4
+per cent., the interest being reduced to the then rate on Consols--2-3/4
+per cent.--and the Sinking Fund being proportionately increased. It will
+be noticed that these Acts began the practise of paying the landlord in
+stock, though at that time Irish Land Stock with a face value of L100
+became worth as much as L114. The exchequer was, moreover, permitted to
+retain grants due for various purposes in Ireland and to recoup itself
+out of them in case of any combined refusal to repay on the part of
+tenants.
+
+The Irish Land Act of 1903 was the product of the experience gained
+during eighteen years of the operation of the preceding Purchase Acts.
+It was founded upon an agreement made in 1902 between representatives of
+Irish landlords and tenants. Cash payments were resumed to the
+landlords, the tenants' instalments were reduced to 3-1/4 per cent., and
+a bonus, as it was called, of twelve millions of money was made
+available to bridge the gap between the landlords and the tenants at the
+rate of 12 per cent, on the amount advanced. That Act possessed the
+additional advantage of dealing with the estates as a whole instead of
+with individual holdings, and it substituted the principle of speedy
+purchase for that of dilatory litigation. This remarkable and generous
+measure initiated a great and beneficent revolution, but every popular
+and useful feature of the Act of 1903 was distorted or destroyed in the
+Land Act which the present Government passed at the instigation of the
+Irish Nationalist Party in 1909. In Mr. Wyndham's words "a solemn treaty
+framed in the interest of Ireland was torn up to deck with its tatters
+the triumph of Mr. Dillon's unholy alliance with the British Treasury."
+Under the Act of 1909, landlords, instead of cash payments, are to
+receive stock at 3 per cent. issued on a falling market. This stock
+cannot possibly appreciate because owing to the embarrassment of Irish
+estates a large proportion of each issue is thrown back upon the market
+at the redemption of mortgages. The tenant's annuity is raised from
+3-1/4 per cent, to 3-1/2 per cent., a precedent not to be found in any
+previous experiment under Irish Land Purchase finance. The bonus is
+destroyed and litigation is substituted for security and speed. The
+results of the two Acts are instructive. Under the 1903 Act the
+potential purchasers amounted to nearly a quarter of a million; under
+the 1909 Act the applications in respect of direct sales being less than
+nine thousand. It is hardly necessary to go into the reasons advanced
+for this disastrous change. It has been brought about not in order to
+relieve the British Treasury, but in order to rescue from final
+destruction the waning influence of Irish Nationalism. Mr. Wyndham has
+the authority of the leader of the Unionist Party for his statement that
+the first constructive work of the Unionist Party in Ireland must be to
+resume the Land policy of 1903 and to pursue the same objects by the
+best methods until they have all been fully and expeditiously achieved.
+Unionist policy cannot, however, be confined to the restoration of Land
+Purchase. The ruin which Free Trade finance has inflicted upon Irish
+agriculture can only be remedied, as Mr. Childers saw at the time of the
+Financial Relations Commission in 1895, by a readjustment of the fiscal
+system of the United Kingdom.
+
+Mr. Gerald Balfour shows us in one of the most able papers in the book
+the extraordinary development which has been seen in recent years in
+Irish agricultural methods. The revival of Irish rural industries dates
+from Mr. Balfour's chief-secretaryship. The Parliament which set up in
+Ireland the Congested Districts Board and sanctioned the building of
+light railways at the public expense, also witnessed the formation in
+Ireland of a Society which was destined to work great changes in the
+social conditions of the country. The Irish Agricultural Organisation
+Society represents the fruit of a work begun in the face of incredible
+difficulties and remorseless opposition by Sir Horace Plunkett in 1889.
+"Better farming, better business, better living"--these were the
+principles which he and Mr. Anderson set out to establish in Ireland.
+Their representatives were described as monsters in human shape, and
+they were adjured to cease their "hellish work." Now the branches of the
+Society number nearly 1000, with an annual turnover of upwards of 2-1/2
+millions, and they include creameries, village banks, and societies for
+the purchase of seeds and manure and for the marketing of eggs. It is
+not necessary to tell again the story of the Recess Committee and the
+formation of the Department of Agriculture. The result of its work,
+crowned as it was by Mr. Wyndham's Purchase Act, is shown by the fact
+that Irish trade has increased from 103 millions in 1904 to 130 millions
+in 1910. The steady object which Sir Horace Plunkett has set before him
+is to counteract the demoralising effect of paternal legislation on the
+part of the Government, by reviving and stimulating a policy of
+self-help. The I.A.O.S. has done valuable work in enabling the Irish
+farmers, by co-operating, to secure a more stable position in the
+English market, to secure themselves against illegitimate and fraudulent
+competition and to standardise the quality of their product, but even
+more important has been the work of the Society in releasing the farmers
+from the bondage of the "Gombeen" man who has for so many years been the
+curse of Irish agriculture. The "Gombeen" man is alike trader, publican,
+and money-lender, and he is the backbone of official Nationalist
+influence. By lending money to the peasant proprietors at exorbitant
+rates, by selling inferior seeds and manures and by carrying on his
+transactions with the farmers chiefly in kind, the "Gombeen" man has
+grown fat upon the poverty and despair of the farmer. It is not
+surprising that he views the liberating work of the I.A.O.S. with the
+bitterest hostility--an hostility which has been translated into
+effective action by the Nationalist Party in Parliament.
+
+Sir Horace Plunkett was driven from office on the pretext that it should
+be held by a member of Parliament. His successor, Mr. T.W. Russell, lost
+his seat in the General Election of 1910, but he was retained in power
+since he was willing to lend himself to the destructive intrigues of the
+"Molly Maguires." The Unionist Party does not intend to interfere with
+the independence of the I.A.O.S. which constitutes in their eyes its
+greatest feature, but they are determined that it shall have fair play,
+and that the hundred thousand Irish farmers which constitutes its
+membership shall be enabled to increase their prosperity by co-operative
+action. The Unionist Party will also have to undertake more active
+measures in order to restore to Irish agriculture the position of
+supremacy for which it is naturally fitted. Mr. Amery and Mr. Samuels
+both discuss in outline the effects of Tariff Reform upon the future of
+Ireland.
+
+I do not intend at the present moment to go further into the details of
+the policy which the Unionist Government will be likely to adopt on this
+question. I think, however, it would be desirable to point out that in
+dairy produce and poultry, in barley and oats, in hops, tobacco,
+sugar-beet, vegetables and fruit, in all of which Ireland is especially
+interested, Irish products would have free entry into the protected
+markets of Great Britain, Canadian and Australian products would of
+course have such a preference over foreign competitors as a Home Rule
+Ireland might claim, but it is only under the Union that Ireland could
+expect complete freedom of access to our markets. Mr. Amery sees in the
+train ferry a possible bridge over the St. George's Channel and looks
+forward to the time when the west coast of Ireland will be the starting
+point of all our fast mail and passenger steamers across the Atlantic.
+Two schemes with this object have received the attention of Parliament.
+How far the present practical difficulties can be surmounted it is not
+very easy to say, but it is certain that if Home Rule were granted the
+Blacksod Bay and the Galway Bay Atlantic routes would have to be
+abandoned.
+
+These conditions naturally raise the whole transport problem in Ireland.
+Mr. Arthur Samuels suggests a scheme of State assistance to a cheap
+transport which may require attention later on, though it can only form
+part of a larger scheme of traffic reorganisation. The Nationalist Party
+seems definitely to have pledged itself to a scheme of nationalisation.
+This policy has been urged in season and out of season upon an apathetic
+Ireland by the _Freeman's Journal._ The cost of the nationalisation of
+Irish railways could not be less than fifty millions, while the annual
+charge on the Exchequer was assessed by the Irish Railways Commission at
+L250,000, and it was anticipated that a further recourse to Irish rates
+might be required. It would be obviously impossible to ask the British
+Treasury to advance such an enormous sum of money to an independent
+Irish Government.
+
+At what rate could an Irish government raise the money? The present
+return on Irish Railway capital is 3.77 per cent., and thus, to borrow
+fifty millions at 4 per cent, will involve an annual loss of over
+L300,000 a year, even without a sinking fund. It is extremely doubtful
+whether the credit of an Irish Government would be better than that of
+Hungary or Argentina. If anything more surely led an Irish Government
+to financial disaster it would be the working of railways. As the
+Majority Report of the Railway Commission recommended on other than
+commercial lines, the 25 per cent. reduction in rates and fares
+suggested by Nationalist witnesses would involve a loss of more than
+half a million a year. We see, therefore, immediately, that if anything
+is to be done at all to improve Irish transport it must be done by a
+Government that has the confidence of the money market. The railway
+director who contributes the principal article on this subject in the
+book calculates that a public grant of two millions, and a guaranteed
+loan of eight millions would suffice to carry out all the reforms that
+are necessary in order to place Irish railways in a thoroughly sound
+position.
+
+It is obvious that with the development of trade which will follow on
+the adoption of Tariff Reform by England, Irish companies will be in a
+better position to help themselves, and the increase in the wealth and
+prosperity of Ireland must soon enable the railways to carry out
+constructive works which they all admit to be necessary.
+
+Mr. Locker Lampson's article on education undoubtedly shows the Irish
+Government in its less favourable light. The neglect and starvation of
+Irish education has been a reproach to the intelligence and humanity of
+successive Irish administrations. Mr. Locker Lampson shows, however,
+that financially and politically it would be impossible for any Irish
+administration to carry out the great and sweeping reforms in Irish
+education as are still necessary. The mischievous principle of paying
+fees by results, although it has disappeared from the National schools,
+still clings to intermediate education in Ireland. Before any other kind
+of reform is even considered the intermediate system in Ireland should
+be placed upon a proper foundation. The secondary system is also
+deficient because--what Mr. Dillon called "gaps in the law"--there is no
+co-ordination between the primary and the secondary schools. The
+establishment of higher grade schools in large centres and the
+institution of advanced departments in connection with selected primary
+schools in rural districts would only cost about L25,000 a year, and
+would go far to meet the disastrous effects of the present system. But
+no system of education can possibly be successful that does not place
+the teachers in a position of dignity and comfort. At the present moment
+the salaries of the secondary teachers are miserable; lay assistants in
+secondary schools are paid about L80 a year. They have no security of
+tenure; they have no register of teachers as a guarantee of efficiency.
+
+The other problems which immediately confront the Irish government are
+the establishment of a private bill legislation and a reform of the
+Irish Poor Law. With regard to the private bill legislation I will say
+no more than that it has always formed part of the Unionist policy for
+Ireland, and that I agree fully with the arguments by which Mr. Walter
+Long shows the necessity and justice for such a reform.
+
+Finally, having given to the Irish farmers the security of a freehold in
+their holdings at home, and a free entrance into the protected markets
+of Great Britain; having assisted the development of rural industries of
+the country; having placed Irish education on a sound and intelligible
+basis, it would be necessary for the Unionist Party to undertake a
+reform of the Poor Law in Ireland. Whether this reform will be
+undertaken the same time as the larger social problems of England, with
+which the party is pledged to deal, may be a matter of political
+expediency, but there is no reason why the reform which is so urgently
+required in Ireland should have to await the adoption of a scheme for
+England. In outlining the problems, the supreme necessity is the
+abolition of the present workhouse system. The Vice-Regal Commission and
+the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws are in agreement as to the guiding
+principles of reform. They recommend classification by institutions of
+all the present inmates of the workhouses; the sick in the hospital, the
+aged and infirm in alms-houses; the mentally defective in asylums. They
+suggest the bringing together into one institution of all the inmates of
+one class from a number of neighbouring workhouses. The sick should be
+sent to existing Poor Law or County hospitals, strengthened by the
+addition of cottage hospitals in certain districts, while children must
+be boarded out. The able-bodied paupers, if well conducted, might be
+placed in labour colonies; if ill conducted, in detention colonies. If
+these are established, they must be controlled by the State and not by
+County authorities. Of course, the resources of the existing Unions are
+much too limited to undertake such sweeping reforms, and the county must
+be substituted for the Union as the area of charge. The establishment of
+the Public Assistance authority will relieve us from the greatest
+scandal which now mars the administration of the Poor Law reform in
+Ireland--the corrupt appointment of officers in the Poor Law medical
+service. If we cannot have a State medical service, we can at all events
+ensure that appointments under the Poor Law shall be placed in
+incorruptible hands.
+
+It is not to be assumed that this short sketch of policy is exhaustive,
+or that it touches even in outline upon all that the Unionist Party
+might fairly hope to do in Ireland. It is designed to show only that
+financially and politically, every step which can be taken to relieve
+the poverty and oppression which has too long continued in Ireland must
+be taken by a Unionist Parliament and a Government pledged to secure the
+administration of law and order in Ireland.
+
+I desire on behalf of the Committee under whose auspices this work has
+been prepared to thank Mr. S. Rosenbaum for the ability and zeal he has
+shown in editing the book and in preparing it for publication. I wish
+also to acknowledge my personal debt to Mr. G. Locker Lampson, M.P.,
+who, as Vice-Chairman of the Committee, has shown so much zeal and
+assiduity in connection with this important work.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: "Commercial Relations Between England and Ireland." By Miss
+A.E. Murray (P.S. King & Sons).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Attorney General in the Irish Parliament, and later Earl of
+Clare.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A NOTE ON HOME RULE
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. A.J. BALFOUR, M.P.
+
+
+The greater part of the present volume is devoted to showing why this
+country should not adopt Home Rule; but it is perhaps worth while for
+the ordinary British citizen to ask himself a preliminary question,
+namely, why he should be pressed even to consider it. That the
+establishment of an Irish Parliament must involve doubtful and
+far-reaching consequences is denied by no one. What then is the _prima
+facie_ case which has induced many Englishmen and Scotchmen to think
+that it ought to be seriously debated? If we could erase the past and
+approach the problem of framing representative institutions in their
+most practicable shape for the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, who
+would think it wise to crowd into these small Islands two, or, as some
+would have it, three, four, or five separate Parliaments, with their
+separate elections, their separate sets of ministers and Offices, their
+separate party systems, their divergent policies? Distances are, under
+modern conditions, so small, our population is so compact, the interests
+of its component parts are so intimately fused together, that any device
+at all resembling Home Rule would seem at the best cumbersome, costly,
+and ineffective; at the worst, perilous to the rights of minorities, the
+peace of the country, and the unity of the Kingdom. If, then, these
+common-sense considerations are thrust on one side by so many
+well-meaning persons, it must surely be because they think that for the
+destruction of our existing system there is to be found a compelling
+justification in the history of the past:
+
+I am well aware that many of the persons of whom I am thinking profess
+to base their approval of Home Rule on purely administrative grounds.
+The Parliament of the United Kingdom, they say, is overweighted; it has
+more to do than it can manage; we must diminish its excessive burdens;
+and we can only do so by throwing them in part upon other and
+subordinate assemblies. But this, if it be a reason at all, is certainly
+a most insufficient one. Would any human being, anxious merely to give
+relief to the House of Commons, adopt so illogical a scheme as one which
+involves a provincial Parliament in Ireland, and no provincial
+Parliaments anywhere else; which puts Ireland under two Parliaments, and
+left the rest of the country under one; which, if Irishmen are to be
+admitted to the Imperial Parliament, would give Ireland privileges and
+powers denied to England and Scotland, and, if they are to be excluded
+from the Imperial Parliament, would deprive Ireland of rights which
+surely she ought to possess?
+
+Again, if the "administrative" argument was really more than an ornament
+of debate, would any one select Ireland as the administrative district
+in which to make trial of the new system? Would any one, in his desire
+to relieve the Imperial Parliament of some of its functions, select as
+an area of self-government a region where one part is divided against
+another by passions, and, if you will, by prejudices, more violent, and
+more deeply-rooted than those which afflict any other fraction of the
+United Kingdom, choose that other fraction where, and how, you will?
+
+I take it, then, as certain that in the mind of the ordinary British
+Home Ruler the justification for Home Rule is not administrative but
+historical. He pictures Ireland before the English invasion as an
+organised and independent State, happy in the possession of a native
+polity which Englishmen have ruthlessly destroyed, now suffering under
+laws and institutions forced upon her by the conquerors, suitable it may
+be to men of Anglo-Saxon descent, but utterly alien to the genius and
+temper of a Celtic population. To him, therefore, Home Rule presents
+itself as an act of National restitution.
+
+Personally, I believe this to be a complete misreading of history. It is
+not denied--at least I do not deny--that both the English and British
+Governments, in their dealings with Ireland have done many things that
+were stupid, and some things that were abominable. But among their
+follies or their crimes is not to be counted the destruction of any such
+State as I have described; for no such State existed. They did not
+uproot one type of civilisation in order to plant another. The Ireland
+with which England had to deal had not acquired a national organisation,
+and when controversialists talk of "restoring" this or that institution
+to Ireland, the only institutions that can possibly be "restored" are in
+their origin importations from England.
+
+This does not, of course, mean that the English were a superior race
+dealing with an inferior one. Indeed, there is, in my view, no sharp
+division of race at all. In the veins of the inhabitants of these
+Islands runs more than one strain of blood. The English are not simply
+Teutonic--still less are the Irish Celtic. We must conceive the
+pre-historic inhabitants both of Britain and of Ireland as subject to
+repeated waves of invasion from the wandering peoples of the Continent.
+The Celt preceded the Teuton; and in certain regions his language still
+survives. The Teuton followed him in (as I suppose) far greater numbers,
+and his language has become that of a large fraction of the civilised
+world. But in no part of the United Kingdom is the Teutonic strain free
+from either the Celtic or pre-Celtic strain; nor do I believe that the
+Celtic strain has anywhere a predominance such as that which, speaking
+very roughly, the Teutonic strain possesses in the East of these
+Islands, or the pre-Celtic strain in the West.
+
+There is, therefore, no race frontier to be considered, still less is
+there any question of inferiority or superiority. The Irish difficulty,
+historically considered, arises in the main from two circumstances. The
+first of these, to which I have just referred, is that when England
+began to intervene in the welter of Irish inter-tribal warfare, she was
+already an organised State, slowly working its way through feudal
+monarchy to constitutional freedom. The second is that while the
+religious revolution of the sixteenth century profoundly and permanently
+affected the larger Island, it left the smaller Island untouched. The
+result of the first of these has been that Irish institutions, Irish
+laws, Irish forms of local government, and Irish forms of parliamentary
+government are necessarily of the English type. The result of the second
+has been that while no sharp divisions of race exist, divisions of
+religion have too often taken their place; that in the constitutional
+struggles of the seventeenth century Ireland was not the partner but the
+victim of English factions; and that civil war in its most brutal form,
+with the confiscations and penal laws which followed in its train, have
+fed, have indeed created, the bitter fiction that Ireland was once a
+"nation" whose national life has been destroyed by its more powerful
+neighbour.
+
+To all this it will perhaps be replied that even if the general accuracy
+of the foregoing statement be admitted (and nothing about Ireland ever
+_is_ admitted), it is quite irrelevant to the question of Home Rule;
+because what is of importance to practical statesmanship is not what did
+actually happen in the past, but what those who live in the present
+suppose to have happened. If, therefore, to the imagination of
+contemporary Irishmen, Ireland appears a second Poland, statesmen must
+act as if the dream were fact.
+
+In such a contention there is some element of truth. But it must be
+observed in the first place that dreams, however vivid, are not eternal;
+and, in the second place, that while this particular dream endures it
+supplies a practical argument against Home Rule, the full force of which
+is commonly under-rated. For what are the main constitutional dangers of
+creating rival Parliaments in the same State? They are--friction,
+collision of jurisdiction, and, in the end, national disintegration. Of
+these, friction is scarcely to be avoided. I doubt whether it has been
+wholly avoided in any State where the system, either of co-equal or of
+subordinate Parliaments, has been thoroughly tried. It certainly was not
+avoided in the days past when Ireland had a Parliament of its own. It is
+incredible that it should be avoided in the future, however elaborate be
+the safeguards which the draughtsman's ingenuity can devise. But
+friction, in any case inevitable, becomes a peril to every community
+where the rival assemblies can appeal to nationalist sentiment. The sore
+gets poisoned. What under happier conditions might be no more than a
+passing storm of rhetoric, forgotten as soon as ended, will gather
+strength with time. The appetite for self-assertion, inherent in every
+assembly, and not likely to be absent from one composed of orators so
+brilliantly gifted as the Irish, will take the menacing form of an
+international quarrel. The appeal will no longer be to precedents and
+statutes, but to patriotism and nationality, and the quarrel of two
+Parliaments will become the quarrel of two peoples. What will it avail,
+when that time comes, that in 1912 the Irish leaders declared themselves
+content with a subordinate legislature? It is their earlier speeches of
+a very different tenour that will be remembered; and it will be asked,
+with a logic that may well seem irresistible, by what right Irish
+"nationality" was ever abandoned by Irish representatives.
+
+On these dangers I do not in this brief note propose to dwell, though it
+seems to me insane either to ignore them or to belittle them. The point
+on which I desire to insist is that they arise not from the
+establishment of a subordinate Parliament alone, nor from the existence
+of a "nationalist" sentiment alone, but from the action and reaction of
+the sentiment upon the institution, and of the institution upon the
+sentiment.
+
+Let me conclude by asking whether Irish history does not support to the
+full these gloomy prognostications. The Parliament that came to an end
+at the Union was a Parliament utterly antagonistic to anything that now
+goes by the name of Irish Nationalism. In every sphere, except the
+economic sphere, it represented the forces, political and religious,
+which the Irish Nationalist now regards as English and alien, and
+against which, for many years, he has been waging bitter warfare. Yet
+this Parliament, representing only a small minority of the inhabitants
+of Ireland, found its position of subordination intolerable. It chose a
+moment of national disaster to assert complete equality, and so used its
+powers that at last the Union became inevitable. It is surely no remedy
+for the ancient wrongs of Ireland--real, alas! though they were--that we
+should compel her again to tread the weary round of constitutional
+experiment, and that, in the name of Irish Nationalism, we should again
+make her the victim of an outworn English scheme, which has been tried,
+which has failed, which has been discarded, and which, in my judgment,
+ought never to be revived.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
+
+BY J.R. FISHER
+
+(Author of "The End of the Irish Parliament"; Editor of the _Northern
+Whig_)
+
+
+When Pitt commended his proposals for the Union to "the dispassionate
+and sober judgment of the Parliament of Ireland," he argued that such a
+measure was at once "transcendently important" to the Empire, and
+"eminently useful" to the true interests of Ireland. Lord Clare, as an
+Irishman, naturally reversed the order, but his compelling points were
+the same:--To Ireland the Union was a "vital interest," which at the
+same time "intimately affected the strength and prosperity of the
+British Empire." From that day to this the two fundamental arguments for
+the Union of Great Britain and Ireland have remained unchanged, and they
+apply with ever-growing force to the existing situation at home and
+abroad. But the argument from history has, perhaps, been a little
+neglected of late, and calls for at least a passing notice.
+
+Popular oratory will have it that England has always been keen and
+aggressive in regard to the incorporation of Ireland within the Empire,
+but as a matter of fact, the very opposite has been the case. From the
+time of Pope Adrian's Bull, _Laudabiliter_, in 1154, which granted to
+Henry II. the Lordship of Ireland, but which Henry left unemployed for
+seventeen years, to that of the Irish petition for a legislative Union
+in 1703, which remained unanswered for nearly a century, vacillation and
+hesitation rather than eagerness for aggression have been the
+characteristic marks of English policy in Ireland. Far-sighted statesmen
+could point out the benefits to Ireland from such a connection, but as
+a rule it was the presence of actual foreign danger that forced the
+British Parliament to act. For four centuries the Lordship of the
+English Kings over Ireland was largely nominal. It was only when the
+religious quarrels of the sixteenth century became acute that the
+Tudors--already alarmed at the action of the Irish Parliament in
+recognising and crowning a pretender in Dublin Castle--found themselves
+compelled to assert direct Kingship.
+
+From that time till the legislative Union every enemy of England could
+safely count on finding a foothold and active friends in Ireland. It is
+much too late in the day to indulge in any recriminations on this score.
+The issues were the most tremendous that have divided Europe; each side
+was passionately convinced of the rightness and justice of its cause.
+There were, in Pitt's words relating to a later day, "dreadful and
+inexcusable cruelties" on the one side, and "lamentable severities" upon
+the other, just as there were all over Europe. But in the case of
+Ireland every evil was exaggerated and every danger intensified by the
+system of dualism which encouraged resistance from within and invited
+interference from without. For England and English liberty it was more
+than once a question of existence or extinction, and the knowledge of
+the constant danger from the immediate west did not tend to sweeten the
+situation.
+
+In Elizabeth's time the menace was from Spain; Spanish forces twice
+succeeded in effecting a landing on the Irish coast, and were welcomed
+by the inhabitants. Spain was then the most powerful enemy of England
+and of civil and religious liberty all the world over; Elizabeth was
+declared by the Pope to have forfeited the crown of England, and if the
+Armada had been successful at sea, the Spanish army in England would
+have found enthusiastic supporters in Ireland. Later on it was in
+Ireland, and by the aid of subsidies from an Irish Parliament, that
+Strafford raised 10,000 men to invade Scotland and England in support of
+Charles I. against his Parliament, and, incidentally, to drive the
+Scottish settlers out of Ulster. As the Articles of Impeachment put it,
+his object in raising the Irish army was "for the ruin and destruction
+of England and of his Majesty's subjects, and altering and subverting
+the fundamental laws and established Government of this Kingdom."
+Strafford fell, but the insurrection and massacre of 1641 were the
+natural result of his intrigues with the Irish Parliament and the Irish
+chiefs. It was under the impression of this manifest danger that
+Cromwell--a century and a half before his time--abolished the Dublin
+Parliament and summoned Irish representatives to the first United
+Parliament at Westminster.
+
+As the power of Spain declined, France came to be the chief menace to
+England and to the peace of Europe. Again Ireland instinctively allied
+herself with the enemy. Tyrconnel now played the part of Strafford, and
+with the aid of French troops and French subsidies, and a sympathetic
+Irish Parliament, endeavoured to destroy the Ulster Plantation, and make
+Ireland a jumping-off place for the invasion of England. The Irish
+Parliament, in the meantime, did its part by confiscating the estates of
+the settlers, driving out the Protestant clergy, and outlawing English
+sympathisers by name in "the hugest Bill of Attainder which the world
+has seen."[3] It was the successful defence of Derry and Enniskillen by
+the Scotch and English colonists that saved Ireland and gave King
+William and his troops the foothold that enabled them to save England,
+too, in the Irish campaign of the following year.
+
+Not the least remarkable instance of the use to which separate
+Parliaments within the Kingdom could be put for the ruin of England
+occurred during the activity of James the Second's son, the so-called
+"Old Pretender." In 1723 his chief adviser, the Earl of Mar, presented
+to the Regent of France a memorial setting out in detail a project for
+betraying Britain into the power of France by dismembering the British
+Parliament.[4] The Irish Parliament, in close alliance with a restored
+Scottish Parliament, was to be used to curb the power of England. "The
+people of Ireland and Scotland," according to Mar, "are of the same
+blood and possess similar interests," and they should thus always be
+allied against England and oppose their "united strength"--backed, of
+course, by that of France--to any undue growth of the English power. The
+scheme came to nothing, but if the Pretender had possessed a little more
+energy and capacity; if the French Court had been in earnest, and if
+Ireland and Scotland had each possessed a separate Parliament, "with an
+executive responsible to it," and with the control of a national
+militia, the story of 1745 might have ended differently.
+
+It is necessary that these facts should be kept in mind when complaint
+is made of the oppressive and demoralising Irish Penal Code. That Code
+no one defends now, although it was lauded at the time by Swift as a
+bulwark of the Church against the Catholics on the one hand, and the
+Presbyterians on the other. It was the product of a cruel and bigoted
+age, and at its worst it was less severe than similar laws prevailing
+against Protestants in those parts of the Continent where the Roman
+Church held sway.[5] Spain and France were at that time vastly more
+powerful, populous, and wealthy countries than England: England was
+never free from the dread of foreign invasion, and to the would-be
+invader Ireland always held a guiding light and an open door.
+
+Finally, it must also be remembered that at a time when the chances
+seemed fairly even, as between William and England on the one hand, and
+James and France on the other, the Prince of Orange, accustomed to the
+German way of settling such differences, had made formal offer to
+Tyrconnel of a working compromise--the free exercise of their religion
+to the Irish Catholics: half the Churches of the Kingdom: half the
+employments, civil and military, if they pleased, and even the moiety of
+their ancient properties. "These proposals," says the Chevalier Wogan,
+Tyrconnel's nephew and confidant, who is our informant, "though they
+were to have had an English Act of Parliament for their sanction, were
+refused with universal contempt." In other words, the party which with
+the assistance of France still hoped to obtain all, refused to be
+content with half. It is true that Wogan, in the letter from which we
+have quoted,[6] after stating that the exiles, "in the midst of their
+hard usage abroad, could not be brought to repent of their obstinacy,"
+justifies their refusal by the way in which the Articles of Limerick
+were afterwards disregarded by the Irish Parliament. But this is
+evidently an argument of retrospective invention, and it may fairly be
+argued that the position would have been very different if peace on
+equal terms had been made on the direct authority of the King before
+Aughrim rather than by his deputies after Limerick.
+
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+And if the separatist theory has involved, as we have seen, such
+external dangers to the Empire, the case for the old Irish Parliament
+from the point of the "vital interests" of Ireland itself is even
+weaker. By it the bulk of the Irish people were treated for a century in
+a fashion described by an Irish Chief Secretary as "ingrafting absurdity
+on the wisdom of England and tyranny on the religion that professes
+humanity." It was conspicuous for its corruption even in a corrupt age,
+and, as was inevitable, it involved Ireland in constant conflicts with
+England, conflicts that were vexatious and injurious to both countries.
+Swift, who, amongst those who have not read his works, passes for an
+Irish patriot, is at his savagest when inveighing against this sham
+Parliament.[7]
+
+Its members are, he says--
+
+    "...three hundred brutes
+    All involved in wild disputes,
+    Roaring till their lungs are spent
+      Privilege of Parliament'!"
+
+And if only the Devil were some day to come "with poker fiery red,"
+and--
+
+    "When the den of thieves is full,
+    Quite destroy the harpies' nest,
+    How might then our Isle be blest!"
+
+Capable observers, from Swift to Arthur Young, bear continuous testimony
+to the systematic and habitual corruption of the Irish Parliament.
+Offices were multiplied and were distributed among clamorous applicants
+on the ground of family or personal influence, or political
+support--never by any chance on the ground of merit or capacity. Public
+money was squandered for private purposes. Sir George Macartney, himself
+an Irishman and a Member of Parliament, in his "Account of Ireland,"
+speaking of the year 1745, says--[8]
+
+     "The House of Commons now began to appropriate a considerable part
+     of the additional duties to their own use. This was done under
+     pretence of encouraging public works such as inland navigation,
+     collieries, and manufactories of different kinds; but the truth is
+     that most of these public works were private jobs carried on under
+     the direction and for the advantage of some considerable gentlemen
+     in the House of Commons."
+
+Arthur Young, whose careful and impartial study of the state of affairs
+in Ireland under the Dublin Parliament has become a classic, speaks of
+the same class of transaction,[9]
+
+     "The members of the House of Commons at the conclusion of the
+     sessions met for the purpose of voting the uses to which this money
+     should be applied: the greater part of it was amongst themselves,
+     their friends or dependants, and though some work of apparent use
+     to the public was always the plea, yet under the sanction there
+     were a great number of very scandalous jobs."
+
+Young admits that some useful public work was done, but that most of the
+money was misappropriated was matter of common report. After a
+reference to the construction of a certain canal he adds--
+
+     "Some gentlemen I have talked with on this subject have replied,
+     'It is a job: 'twas meant as a job: you are not to consider it as a
+     canal of trade, but as a canal for public money!' ... Sorry I am to
+     say that a history of public works in Ireland would be a history of
+     jobs."
+
+Money was voted, he says elsewhere, for--
+
+     "Collieries where there is no coal, for bridges where there are no
+     rivers, navigable cuts where there is no water, harbours where
+     there are no ships, and churches where there are no congregations."
+
+And when the Union was finally on its way, Hamilton Rowan, one of the
+founders of the United Irishmen, then in exile in America, wrote home to
+his father: "I congratulate you on the report which spreads here that a
+Union is intended. In that measure I see the downfall of one of the most
+corrupt assemblies, I believe, that ever existed."[10]
+
+It is little wonder that men of good will in Ireland prayed to be
+delivered from such a Parliament. Molyneux, the first of the Irish
+Parliamentary patriots, whose book, "The Case of Ireland's being
+Governed by Laws made in England Stated," was burnt by the common
+hangman, pleaded indeed for a reformed and independent Parliament, but
+only because fair representation in the English Parliament was at the
+time "a happiness they could hardly hope for." And a few years later the
+Irish House, in congratulating Queen Anne on the Union of England and
+Scotland, added, "May God put it into your royal heart to add greater
+strength and lustre to your Crown by a yet more comprehensive Union."
+
+The English Parliament, through sheer lethargy and carelessness, missed
+at this time an opportunity which would have peacefully launched Ireland
+on her career on an equality with Scotland and England, and must have
+profoundly modified the relations of the two countries. Immediate
+prosperity, in the case of a land wasted by a century of strife and
+bloodshed, was not indeed to be hoped for any more than in the case of
+Scotland, which had still two armed rebellions, and much bickering and
+jealousy in store before settling down to peaceful development. But if
+Ireland had been granted her petitions for Union in 1703 and 1707, and
+had thus secured equal laws and equal trading privileges, she would at
+any rate have emerged from her period of trial and discord not later
+than Scotland, and would have anticipated the economic and social
+advantages predicted by Adam Smith,[11] when he says--
+
+     "By a union with Great Britain, Ireland would gain, besides the
+     freedom of trade, other advantages much more important, and which
+     would much more than compensate any increase of taxes that might
+     accompany that union. By the union with England, the middling and
+     inferior ranks of people in Scotland gained a complete deliverance
+     from the power of an aristocracy which had always before oppressed
+     them. By a union with Great Britain, the greater part of the people
+     of all ranks in Ireland would gain an equally complete deliverance
+     from a much more oppressive aristocracy, an aristocracy not
+     founded, like that of Scotland, in the natural and respectable
+     distinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of all
+     distinctions, those of religious and political prejudices....
+     Without a union with Great Britain, the inhabitants of Ireland are
+     not likely, for many ages, to consider themselves as one people."
+
+Pitt, who was proud to proclaim himself the pupil of Adam Smith in
+politics and in economics, found himself, a quarter of a century after
+these words were written, in a position to carry out, in face of great
+difficulties and dangers at home and abroad, the beneficent reform
+advocated by his great master--a reform which, as we have seen, could
+have been carried a century earlier without any difficulty whatever. But
+the century that had been wasted involved many concurrent miseries and
+misfortunes: social and economic stagnation, an intensification of
+religious and racial bitterness, conspiracy, and invasion; savage
+outbreaks savagely repressed. When the time comes to measure up the
+rights and wrongs of those dark days, the judgment on England will
+assuredly be that her fault was not the carrying of the Union, but the
+delaying of that great measure of reform and emancipation until it was
+almost too late.
+
+The story of the Union has been told and retold in the utmost detail
+throughout the century. The present writer has attempted quite recently
+to summarise it,[12] and there is little to add. The charge that it was
+carried by corruption is simply another way of saying that it had,
+constitutionally, to be passed through the Dublin Parliament, that body
+which, from the days of Swift's invective to those of its final
+condemnation, lived and moved and had its being solely in and by
+corruption. As Lord Castlereagh, who had charge of the Bill in the Irish
+House of Commons, put it, the Government was forced to recognise the
+situation and its task was "to buy out and secure to the Crown forever
+the fee simple of Irish corruption, which has so long enfeebled the
+power of Government and endangered the connection."
+
+
+THE UNION.
+
+The Irish Parliament had run its course, and had involved the unhappy
+country in chaos, bankruptcy, revolution, and bloodshed. Lord Clare--a
+late and reluctant convert to the policy of the Union--said in the Irish
+House of Lords (Feb. 10, 1800)--
+
+     "We have not three years of redemption from bankruptcy, intolerable
+     taxation, nor one hour's security against the renewal exterminating
+     civil war. Session after session have you been compelled to enact
+     laws of unexampled rigour and novelty to repress the horrible
+     excesses of the mass of your people: and the fury of murder and
+     pillage and desolation have so outrun all legislative exertions
+     that you have been at length driven to the hard necessity of
+     breaking down the pale of municipal law, and putting your courage
+     under the ban of military government--and in every little circle of
+     dignity and independence we hear whispers of discontent at the
+     temperate discretion with which it is administered.... Look to your
+     civil and religious dissensions. Look to the fury of political
+     faction and the torrents of human blood that stain the face of your
+     country, and of what materials is that man composed who will not
+     listen with patience and good will to any proposition that can be
+     made to him for composing the distractions and healing the wounds
+     and alleviating the miseries of this devoted nation?"
+
+Lord Clare's words--unanswered and unanswerable then and now--constitute
+a sufficient comment on the foolish fable of later invention, that
+Ireland was a land of peace and harmony, of orderly government and
+abounding prosperity, when a wicked English minister came and "stole
+away the Parliament House"--since which all has been decay and
+desolation. The halcyon period is generally made to coincide with that
+of "Grattan's Parliament"--of the semi-independent and quite unworkable
+Constitution of 1782, which had been extorted from England's weakness
+when Ireland was denuded of regular troops, and at the mercy of a
+Volunteer National Guard, when Cornwallis had just surrendered at
+Yorktown, and Spain and France were once more leagued with half Europe
+for the destruction of the British Empire.
+
+It is quite true that the latter part of the eighteenth century was, on
+the whole, a time of considerable prosperity to certain classes in
+Ireland--a prosperity varied by periods of acute depression and
+distress. But that prosperity, such as it was, neither began with
+Grattan's Parliament nor ended with it--had, indeed, no more connection
+with the Irish Parliament in any of its phases than had the Goodwin
+Sands with Tenterden steeple. With the exception of the respite between
+the Treaty of Versailles and the outbreak of the French Revolution,
+England was almost constantly at war, or feverishly preparing for war.
+Simultaneously came the unprecedented increase of urban industry,
+following on the invention of the steam-engine and spinning machinery.
+The result was an enormous and growing demand for corn, beef, and pork,
+sailcloth, stores of all kinds for our armies and fleets, a demand which
+England, owing to the growth of her town population and the consequent
+growth of the home demand, was unable adequately to meet.
+
+Ireland reaped the benefit. As a largely agricultural country, she was
+as yet little influenced by the discoveries of Watt, of Hargreaves, of
+Arkwright, or of Crompton. But her long-rested soil could produce in
+apparently unlimited quantities those very products of which the British
+forces stood most in need. The fleets were victualled and fitted out at
+Cork, and they carried thence a constant stream of supplies of all sorts
+for our armies in the field. Indeed, so keen was the demand that it was
+soon discovered that not only our own troops, but those of the enemy,
+were receiving Irish supplies, and smugglers on the south and west
+coasts reaped a rich harvest.
+
+The result was obvious. Cattle graziers and middlemen made enormous
+profits, rents were doubled and trebled. Dublin, Cork, Waterford,
+Limerick and Belfast flourished exceedingly on war prices and war
+profits. But there is no evidence that the mass of the people in their
+degraded and debased condition shared to any extent in this prosperity.
+It was at this very period that Arthur O'Connor spoke of them as "the
+worst clad, the worst fed, the worst housed people in Europe."
+Whiteboyism, outrage and lawlessness spread over the face of the
+country, and, as Lord Clare reminded Parliament, "session after session
+have you been compelled to enact laws of unexampled rigour and novelty
+to repress the horrible excesses of the mass of your people." It has
+been made a charge against the Union that during some disturbed periods
+of the nineteenth century the United Parliament had to pass "Coercion"
+Acts at the rate of nearly one every session. The complainants should
+look nearer home and they would find from the records of the Irish
+Legislature that during the "halcyon" days of "Grattan's
+Parliament"--the eighteen years between 1782 and the Union--no less than
+fifty-four Coercion Acts were passed, some of them of a thoroughness and
+ferocity quite unknown in later legislation. The close of the nineteenth
+century and the opening of the twentieth were, in reality, in spite of a
+certain amount of agrarian crime, organised and subsidised from abroad,
+a period of much greater peace and more widespread prosperity than the
+bloodstained years that marked the close of the eighteenth century--and
+of the Irish Parliament.
+
+Another fiction regarding the Union may perhaps be worth notice. It has
+sometimes been suggested that it was carried by a venal oligarchy in
+opposition to the will of the great mass of the population, of the Roman
+Catholic population in particular. This is precisely the reverse of the
+truth. The oligarchy controlled the Parliament, and it therefore
+followed that the uniformly corrupt traditions of the Irish Parliament
+had to be observed in carrying the Union as in carrying every other
+Government Bill throughout the century. But, so far from the Act of
+Union being carried by landowners and Protestants against the will of
+the Catholics, it was, as a matter of fact, carried with the ardent and
+unanimous assent and support of the Catholic hierarchy, and against the
+embittered opposition of the old ascendancy leaders, who feared the loss
+of their influence of power.
+
+The evidence on this point is documentary and precise. Indeed, no one
+thought of doubting or challenging it at the time; Grattan contented
+himself with denouncing the Catholic Bishops as "a band of prostituted
+men." Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, was, as his correspondence shows,
+a warm, consistent and active supporter of the Union. Dr. Dillon,
+Archbishop of Tuam, wrote in September, 1799, that he had had an
+opportunity during his recent visitation "of acquiring the strongest
+conviction that this measure alone can restore harmony and happiness to
+our unhappy country." His neighbour, Dr. Bodkin, Bishop Galway, wrote
+that the Union was the only measure to save "poor infatuated Ireland"
+from "ruin and destruction." Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, was equally
+emphatic. "I am perfectly satisfied," he says, "that it is impossible to
+extinguish the feuds and animosities which disgrace this Kingdom, nor
+give it the advantages of its natural local situation, without a Union
+with Great Britain. God grant that it may soon take place!"
+
+As for the feeling of the rank and file of the electors--under a very
+widely extended franchise--two examples will suffice. In two cases--in
+the County of Kerry and the borough of Newry--both open
+constituencies--by-elections occurred during the passing of the Union
+legislation. In both instances the Roman Catholic vote predominated, and
+in both the feeling was so strong in favour of the Union that no
+opponent dared to face the poll. In after years Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald,
+the Knight of Kerry, recounted his experiences. "Having accepted
+office," he says, "as a supporter of the Union, I went to two elections
+pending the measure and was returned without opposition in a county
+where the Roman Catholic interest greatly preponderated, and a
+declaration almost unanimous in favour of the Union proceeded from the
+County of Kerry. One of my most strenuous supporters in bringing forward
+that declaration was Mr. Maurice O'Connell, uncle of Mr. Daniel
+O'Connell, and my most active partisan was Mr. John O'Connell, brother
+of Mr. Daniel O'Connell."
+
+In Newry an attempt was made to put up an anti-Unionist candidate, but
+the Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Lennan, met and repulsed the intruder in
+militant fashion. "Mr. Bell," he reports to Archbishop Troy, "declined
+the poll, and surrendered yesterday. The Catholics stuck together like
+the Macedonian phalanx, and with ease were able to turn the scale in
+favour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer."
+
+To the Irish Catholic at the time of the Union, the Dublin legislature
+was, indeed, in the words of Mr. Denys Scully, a leading Catholic
+layman, "not our Parliament, for we had no share in it, but their
+Club-house."
+
+The summing up of the whole matter is perhaps best expressed in the
+measured judgment of Mr. John Morley in his study of the life of Edmund
+Burke. Burke, in an evil moment for himself and for Ireland, had lent
+himself in 1785 to what Mr. Morley called the "factious" and
+"detestable" course of Fox and the English Whig leaders in destroying
+Pitt's Commercial Propositions.
+
+     "Had it not been for what he himself called the delirium of the
+     preceding session" (writes Burke's biographer)[13] "he would have
+     seen that Pitt was in truth taking his first measures for the
+     emancipation of Ireland from an unjust and oppressive subordination
+     and for her installation as a corporate member of the Empire--the
+     only position permanently possible for her.... A substantial boon
+     was sacrificed amid bonfires and candles to the phantom of Irish
+     Legislative Independence. The result must have convinced Pitt more
+     firmly than ever that his great master, Adam Smith, was right in
+     predicting that nothing short of the Union of the two countries
+     would deliver Ireland out of the hands of her fatuous chiefs and of
+     their too worthy followers."
+
+What would Mr. John Morley, the historian who wrote those words in the
+prime of his intellectual strength and judgment, have said if any one
+had told him that in his old age Lord Morley, the politician, would have
+been actively engaged in assisting another generation of "fatuous
+chiefs" and still more worthy followers to sacrifice the true interests
+of Ireland in the pursuit of "the phantom of Irish Legislative
+Independence"?
+
+
+AFTER THE UNION.
+
+That the Union to some extent failed in the beneficent effects which it
+was calculated to produce in Ireland is only another instance of the
+working of the "curse of mis-chance" which has so often, before and
+since, interposed to thwart the intentions of statesmen in their
+dealings with the two countries. Pitt, Castlereagh, and Cornwallis, the
+three men chiefly concerned in planning the change, were all agreed in
+explaining that the Union was not a policy complete in itself, but was
+only the necessary foundation upon which a true remedial policy was to
+be based. As Lord Cornwallis said at the time, "the word 'Union' will
+not cure the ills of this wretched country. It is a necessary
+preliminary, but a great deal more remains to be done." Catholic
+Emancipation, a series of parliamentary, educational, financial, and
+economic reforms, and the abolition of the Viceroyalty, the visible
+symbol of separatism and dependence, were all essential portions of
+Pitt's scheme. But Pitt was destined to sink into an early grave without
+seeing any of them materially furthered. Treacherous colleagues and the
+threatened insanity of the King blocked the way of some of them:
+England's prolonged struggle for existence against the power of
+Napoleon, involving as it did financial embarrassment and a generation
+of political reaction, accounted for the rest.
+
+Pitt and Castlereagh resigned on the King's refusal to accept their
+advice, "and so," as Lord Rosebery says,[14] "all went wrong." It was
+"like cutting the face out of a portrait and leaving the picture in the
+frame. The fragment of policy flapped forlornly on the deserted mansions
+of the capital." A generation of agitation, strife, and discontent was
+to pass before Emancipation was carried, and the reforms had to wait
+still longer. Meanwhile a wonderful change of front had taken place. The
+leading opponents of the Union--Plunket, Foster, Beresford--even Grattan
+himself--came to accept it, and, in some cases, figured as its warmest
+defenders. And the Catholic Party, whom we have seen so strongly
+supporting the Union, gradually grew into opponents. Daniel O'Connell,
+whose brother and uncle were the leading supporters of the Union
+candidate for Kerry, started a formidable agitation first for
+Emancipation and then for Repeal of the Union. In the former he
+succeeded because enlightened public opinion in both countries was on
+his side: in the latter he failed utterly, both parties in Great Britain
+and a large section in Ireland being inflexibly opposed to any such
+reactionary experiment. In the end O'Connell died disillusioned and
+broken-hearted, and the Repeal movement disappeared from the field of
+Irish politics till revived many years later in the form of Home Rule.
+
+But whilst recognising the fact that the Union, owing to the causes
+stated, failed partially, and for a time, to respond to all the
+anticipations of its authors, readers must be warned against accepting
+the wild and woeful tales of decay and ruin that were recklessly
+circulated for propagandist purposes by O'Connell and the Repealers.
+Many people who are content to take their facts at second hand have thus
+come to believe that the legislative Union changed a smiling and
+prosperous Kingdom into a blighted province where manufactures and
+agriculture, commerce and population fell into rapid and hopeless
+decline. Needless to say, things do not happen in that way: economic
+changes, for better or for worse, are slow and gradual and depend on
+natural causes, not on artificial. Ireland has not, as a whole, kept in
+line with nineteenth-century progress, and her population, after a
+striking increase for over forty years, showed under peculiar causes an
+equally striking decrease; but to assert that her course has been one of
+universal decay and of decay dating from the Union is to say what is
+demonstrably untrue.
+
+It was inevitable that a city of very limited industry like Dublin
+should suffer from the disappearance of its Parliament, which brought
+into residence for some months in every year some hundreds of persons of
+wealth and distinction. It was also inevitable that the mechanical
+inventions to which we have already alluded--the steam-engine, the
+"spinning jenny," and the "mule"--which revolutionised the world's
+industry, should have their effect in Ireland also. Under primitive
+conditions, with lands almost roadless and communications slow,
+difficult and costly, the various districts of any country had of
+necessity to produce articles of food and clothing to satisfy their
+requirements, or they had to go without. With the progress of invention,
+and with the opening up of the world by roads and canals, a totally
+different state of things presents itself. Industries tend to become
+centralised--the fittest survive and grow, the unfit wither away. This
+is what occurred in many districts of England and Scotland, and the
+course of events was naturally the same in Ireland.
+
+When we read of small towns now lying idle, which in the eighteenth
+century produced woollen cloth, linen, cotton, fustian, boots, hats,
+glass, beer, and food products, it simply means that a more highly
+organised system of industry has in its progress left such districts
+behind in the race. The woollen manufacture has centred in Yorkshire,
+cotton in Lancashire, linen in Belfast, and so forth--one district
+dwindled as others advanced and tended to monopolise production, without
+the legislature having anything to say to it. To say that this or that
+manufacture is not so prosperous in Ireland as it was a century ago
+before power looms, spindles, steamships, and railways came to
+revolutionise industry, is simply to say that Ireland, like other
+countries, has had its part, for better or for worse, in the great
+world-movement of nineteenth-century industry.
+
+The figures of Irish exports and imports lend no countenance to the
+story of decay setting in with the Union. Taking the two decennial
+periods, before and after the Union, the figures are as follows:--[15]
+
+                      Total value      Total value
+                      of imports.      of exports.
+
+1790-1801  ...   ...  L49,000,000      L51,000,000
+1802-1813  ...   ...  L74,000,000      L63,000,000
+                      -----------      -----------
+        Increase ...  L25,000,000      L12.000,000
+
+an increase of over fifty per cent. in imports, and over twenty-three
+per cent. in exports in the ten years after the Union as compared with
+the ten years before it.
+
+Taking single years the result is similar. The amalgamation of the two
+Exchequers and the financial re-arrangements that followed, put an end
+to the accurate record of exports and imports until quite recently, but
+the increase during the early years of the Union and also over the whole
+country is unmistakable. The average annual value of Irish exports at
+the time of the Union was, according to Mr. Chart.[16] L4,000,000. In
+1826 they had increased to L8,000,000, a corresponding increase being
+recorded in imports. Coming down to the period of the Financial
+Relations Commission (1895), that very cautious and painstaking
+statistician, the late Sir Robert Giffen,[17] roughly estimated Irish
+imports at L25,000,000 and exports at L20,000,000. Since that time the
+Irish Agricultural Department has been created, and has undertaken the
+collection and tabulation of such statistics. Turning to their latest
+report we find that the imports had in 1910 attained the relatively
+enormous figure of L65,000,000, and the exports L65,800,000, a total of
+over L130,000,000 in place of nine or ten millions, at the very outside,
+of the time of the Union. And it is worth noting in addition that, for
+the first time in these recorded tables, Ireland's exports exceed her
+imports.
+
+But we are assured with triumphant and invincible despondency that
+population has decreased alarmingly. The movements of population since
+the time of the Union have been, it may be admitted, very remarkable,
+but the figures are double-edged and require a more careful handling
+than they generally receive. If we are to assume, as the prophets of
+gloom will have it, that increase and decrease of population are an
+infallible test of a country's growth or decay, then Ireland for nearly
+half a century after the Union must have been the most prosperous
+country in Europe. The population of Ireland, which in 1792 was
+estimated at 4,088,226, had increased in 1814 to 5,937,856, in 1821 to
+6,801,827, and in 1841 to 8,196,597. In other words, the population,
+like the trade, of the doomed island had more than doubled since the
+Union. We doubt if any European country could say as much.
+
+Then came the great disaster, the potato famine of 1846-47, which,
+undoubtedly, dealt a stunning blow to Irish agriculture. It was not the
+first, nor the worst, of Irish famines--there is evidence that the
+famines of 1729 and 1740 were, proportionately, more widespread and more
+appalling in their effects. But, occurring as it did, in the middle of
+the nineteenth century, with the press of the world as witnesses, it
+attracted immense attention, and the nations, whom England, then high
+and mighty in the undisputed supremacy of the doctrines of _laissez
+faire_ and free trade, were not slow in retorting on their mentor. The
+State, it was laid down dogmatically by the economists, must not do
+anything to feed the starving people, because that would interfere with
+the principle of private enterprise; and as there was naturally no
+private enterprise in wide stretches of country where landlord and
+tenant, shopkeeper and labourer, were involved in common ruin, the
+people starved. For the same reason, the sufferers must not be paid to
+do useful work, so they were set to make roads that led to nowhere--and
+that have been grass-grown ever since--and to build walls that had to be
+pulled down again.
+
+It was a ghastly specimen of doctrinaire dogmatism run mad, and though
+it was not the fault of the Government so much as of the arid doctrines
+of ill-understood economics which then prevailed in the schools, it did
+more than anything to embitter the relations between the Irish people
+and the Imperial Government. The death-rate from famine and famine-fever
+was appalling. The poor law system--then a new experiment in
+Ireland--broke down hopelessly, and agitators were not slow to improve
+the occasion by denouncing the "callousness" of the Imperial Government.
+
+Nations, as a rule, recover from such calamities as famine, war, and
+pestilence with surprising quickness; but there were certain incidents
+connected with the famine of 1846-47 that intensified and perpetuated
+the evil in the case of Ireland. We have already referred to the
+high-and-dry doctrines of _laissez faire_ then in the ascendant, and any
+real or permanent recovery of Irish agriculture was rendered practically
+impossible by England's adhesion to the doctrine of free imports, by the
+abolition of the Corn Laws, and by the crushing increase of taxation
+under Mr Gladstone's budgets of 1853 and the succeeding years.
+
+Ireland was entitled under the Act of Union to "special exemptions and
+abatements" in taxation, in consideration of her backward economic
+condition. All Chancellors of the Exchequer till Mr. Gladstone's time
+respected these exemptions, and although no one could suggest, in view
+of Ireland's recent progress, that she could have been permanently
+exempted from the burdens imposed on the British taxpayer, it will be
+admitted that the time chosen by Mr. Gladstone for abruptly raising the
+taxation of Ireland from 14_s._ 9_d._ per head to 26_s._ 7_d._ was
+inopportune, not to say ungenerous.
+
+Sir David Barbour, in his minority report on the Financial Relations
+Commission, perhaps the most carefully thought out and the most
+practical of all the many reports emanating from that heterogeneous
+body, gives a table of the "estimated true revenue" extracted from Great
+Britain and Ireland respectively from 1819 to 1894. This table shows
+that the revenue raised from Ireland was increased between 1849-50 and
+1859-60 from L4,861,465 to L7,700,334, and he adds: "It will be observed
+that a great and rapid rise took place in the taxation of Ireland during
+the decade 1850-1860. This great increase was due to the equalisation of
+the spirit duties in the two countries, and the extension of the Income
+Tax to Ireland. The special circumstances of Ireland do not appear to
+have received due consideration at this time. Many arguments of a
+general character might be employed to justify the equalisation of the
+spirit duties, and the imposition of an Income Tax, but Ireland was
+entitled under the Act of Union to such exemptions and abatements as her
+circumstances might require, and the time was not opportune for imposing
+additional burdens upon her."
+
+Irish Agriculture was thus almost simultaneously struck down by the
+greatest famine of the century, which swept away two million of the
+population, disabled for resuming the competition by the free admission
+of foreign grain, which in the long run rendered successful corn-growing
+in Ireland impossible, and saddled with an additional two and a quarter
+millions of taxation. When remonstrated with, Mr. Gladstone retorted
+flippantly that he could not see that it was any part of the rights of
+man that an Irishman should be able to make himself drunk more cheaply
+than the inhabitant of Great Britain. The taunt would have possessed
+more relevance if whisky had been an article of importation. Seeing,
+however, that it was an article of manufacture and export, employing
+directly or indirectly much capital and labour, the injury to Irish
+industry was very serious, many distilleries and breweries being obliged
+to close their doors.
+
+As Miss Murray says in her masterly work on Irish commerce[18]:--
+
+     "Just as the country was thoroughly exhausted from the effects of
+     the famine, the whole financial policy adopted towards Ireland
+     changed, and Irish taxation began to be rapidly assimilated to
+     British at a time when great prosperity had come to Great Britain,
+     and the reverse to Ireland. The repeal of the Corn Laws had
+     stimulated the commercial prosperity of Britain; large cities were
+     expanding, railways were developing, and the foreign trade of the
+     country was increasing by leaps and bounds. But Ireland had just
+     passed through the awful ordeal of famine: her population had
+     suddenly diminished by one fourth, there had been a universal
+     decline in Irish manufactures, the repeal of the Corn Laws had
+     begun the destruction of the Irish export trade in cereals, and
+     the extension of the Poor Law system to Ireland had greatly
+     increased the local rates. Just as the famine subsided the results
+     of free trade began to take effect. Wheat-growing decayed; local
+     industries were destroyed by the competition of large
+     manufacturing towns in Great Britain; every class of Irish
+     producers saw ruin staring him in the face, while landlords and
+     farmers were further impoverished by the huge poor-rates, which
+     sometimes reached 20_s._ in the L. The misery and poverty of the
+     country could hardly have been greater, and to us at the present
+     day it seems extraordinary that just at this inopportune time the
+     Government should have thought fit to go back from the
+     conciliatory fiscal policy which had existed since 1817."
+
+It is not to be wondered at that Gladstonian finance was ever after
+looked at with well-grounded suspicion in Ireland.
+
+Another circumstance that has had a serious and lasting effect on Irish
+population has still to be mentioned. At first the emigration movement
+was largely a flight from starvation, a movement that would have come to
+an end under normal circumstances with the end of the famine crisis. But
+as we have seen, the conditions were not normal; the crisis was
+artificially protracted by injurious financial legislation. And, in
+addition, although many of them perished by the way owing to the
+abominably insanitary conditions of the coffin ships employed for the
+journey, the emigrants arriving at New York or Boston soon found
+conditions unexpectedly favourable for the class of labour which they
+were best qualified to supply. America was just then opening up and
+turning to the new West, and the demand for unskilled labour for railway
+work was unlimited. The Irish emigrant seldom or never takes to the land
+when he goes to America, and navvy work just suited him. To a man
+accustomed to sixpence a day the wages offered seemed to represent
+unbounded wealth, and as the news spread in Ireland the move to America,
+which at the first seemed hopeless exile, presented itself as a highly
+desirable step towards social betterment. Emigration is now the result
+of attraction from America rather than of repulsion from Ireland, a fact
+which explains the failure of more than one well-meant attempt to check
+the movement by action on this side of the Atlantic.
+
+
+ULSTER'S DEVELOPMENT.
+
+A word should perhaps be given to the position of the industrial portion
+of Ulster, which has flourished so remarkably since the Union. This of
+itself affords sufficient proof that that Act, whatever its defects,
+cannot be held accountable for any lack of prosperity that may still
+exist in other parts of Ireland. It is sometimes stated that Ulster was
+favoured at the time when the commercial jealousy of certain English
+cities succeeded in securing a prohibition of the Irish woollen
+industry. The southern wool, it is alleged, was checked, and the Belfast
+linen was favoured--hence the prosperity of the northern capital. This
+is a really curious perversion of quite modern history. The linen
+industry was at the time in question in no sense confined to the North
+and was by no means prominent in Belfast. It was distributed over many
+districts of Ireland, for whilst Louis Crommelin was sent to Lisburn to
+look after the French colony settled there, and to improve and promote
+the industry, his brother William was sent on a similar errand to
+Kilkenny, and stations were also started at Rathkeale, Cork and
+Waterford. When, later on, the Irish Parliament distributed bounties
+through the Linen Board, the seat of that Board was in Dublin, and its
+operations included every county in Ireland.
+
+At the time of the Union, indeed, the linen manufacture was almost
+unknown in Belfast, the "manufacturers" or handloom weavers in the
+North, as elsewhere, living mostly in the smaller country towns and
+bringing their webs in for sale on certain market days. From Benn's
+"History of the Town of Belfast," published early in the century, we
+learn that at that time the principal manufacture of the town was
+"cotton in its various branches." This industry had been introduced in
+1777, we are told, to give employment in the poorhouse, but it caught on
+and spread amazingly. "In many of the streets and populous roads in the
+suburbs of the town, particularly at Ballymacarrett, the sound of the
+loom issues almost from every house, and all, with very few exceptions,
+are employed in the different branches of the cotton trade. In the year
+1800 this business engaged in Belfast and its neighbourhood 27,000
+persons." In 1814 there were eight cotton mills at work with steam power
+driving 99,000 spindles. On the other hand, "there is very little linen
+cloth woven in this town or parish. In 1807 Belfast contained 723 looms,
+only four of which were for weaving linen."
+
+The story of the sudden change from cotton to linen is an instructive
+one. Cotton appears to have forced itself to the front because cotton
+spinning could be carried on by machinery whilst the linen weavers were
+still dependent on the spinning wheel for their yarn. It was Andrew
+Mulholland, the owner of the York Street cotton mill, who first took
+note of the fact that while the supply of hand-made linen yarn was quite
+insufficient to justify the manufacture of linen on a large scale in
+Belfast, quantities of flax were shipped from Belfast to Manchester to
+be spun there and reimported as yarn. Mulholland determined to try if he
+could not spin yarn as well as the Manchester people, and accordingly in
+1830, "the first bundle of linen yarn produced by machinery in Belfast
+was thrown off from the York Street mill." That, and not legislation nor
+any system of State bounties or State favour, was the beginning of the
+Belfast linen industry in which the York Street mill still maintains its
+deserved pre-eminence. When the critical moment arrived, as it does in
+the case of all industries, when manufacturers must adapt themselves to
+new methods or succumb, the Belfast leaders of industry rose to the
+occasion and secured for themselves the chief share in the linen trade.
+In the rest of Ireland, it is true, the manufacture dwindled and
+disappeared, but whatever may have been the cause of that disappearance,
+it was certainly not the Act of Union.
+
+
+THE LAND QUESTION.
+
+The agrarian problem has caused more trouble in Ireland than any other,
+and statesmen have long recognised that on its definite settlement
+depends the hope of permanent peace and progress over the greater part
+of the country. It is not, and never has been, the real cause of rural
+depopulation, for, as we have seen, the increase of the rural population
+was most rapid at the time when agrarian conditions were at their very
+worst, whilst on the other hand emigration continues almost unchecked in
+counties where the question has been virtually settled. And in 1881 the
+late Mr. J.H. Tuke discovered by an analysis of the census returns that
+the only "townlands" in which the rural population was actually
+increasing were those scattered along the western seaboard of Ireland,
+where the tenure and the conditions of existence seemed most hopeless.
+But, as the Devon Commission announced in 1845, it was an essentially
+defective system of land tenure that lay at the root of the perennial
+discontent with which Ireland was troubled, and things went from bad to
+worse until the Party organised for the defence of the Union and the
+social betterment of Ireland took up the task of settling the question
+by the transfer on fair terms of the ownership of the soil from the
+large landowners to the tenants.
+
+The system of land tenure in England has been the growth of custom
+gradually hardening into law; in Ireland the traditional custom was
+suddenly abolished, and English law substituted in its place. The
+English law was no doubt a better law, and one more fitted to a
+progressive community; but in Ireland it violently upset the traditional
+law of the country, and, consequently, was met with sullen and
+unremitting hostility. By Irish law, the tribe was owner; the tribesmen
+were joint proprietors, and the forfeiture of the chief did not involve
+the forfeiture of the land occupied by the tribesmen. By English law,
+however, these latter, such of them as were not expelled or exiled,
+suddenly found themselves transformed from joint-owners into tenants at
+will. Further, the difficulty of dealing direct with tenants,
+experienced by landlords who were in very many cases absentees, led to
+the abominable "middleman" system by which the owner leased great
+stretches of land to some one who undertook to "manage" it for him, and
+who in turn sub-let it in smaller patches at rack-rents to those who, to
+get back their money, had to sub-let again at still higher rents. The
+result was, as an official report in the eighteenth century states: "It
+is well known that over the most part of the country, the lands are
+sub-let six deep, so that those who actually labour it are squeezed to
+the very utmost." And Lord Chesterfield, when Viceroy, complained of the
+oppression of the people by "deputies of deputies of deputies." The
+eighteenth-century policy of checking or suppressing the industrial
+enterprises of the English colony aggravated the evil until, as Lord
+Dufferin expressed it: "Debarred from every other industry, the entire
+nation flung itself back upon the land, with as fatal an impulse as when
+a river whose current is suddenly impeded, rolls back and drowns the
+valley it once fertilised."
+
+In time the middleman tended to die out, but the evil results of the
+system in preventing direct and friendly and helpful relations between
+landlord and tenant remained. Here and there, even in Arthur Young's
+time, enterprising and devoted landlords had established something like
+the "English system" on their estates, but, as a rule, the landlord
+remained a mere rent charger. The report of the Devon Commission says:--
+
+     "It is admitted on all hands that, according to the general
+     practice in Ireland, the landlord neither builds dwelling-houses
+     nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, etc., in good order
+     before he lets his land to a tenant. The cases where a landlord
+     does any of these things are the exception. In most cases, whatever
+     is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant,
+     and in the ordinary language of the country, dwelling-houses, farm
+     buildings, and even the making of fences, are described by the
+     general word, 'improvements,' which is thus employed to denote the
+     necessary adjuncts of a farm without which in England or Scotland
+     no tenant would be found to rent it."
+
+In a word, as one who owned land both in England and in Ireland put it,
+"In England we let farms, in Ireland we let land." And by law an unjust
+landlord had the power at any moment to expel a tenant or a group of
+tenants, although no rent was owing, and without giving any compensation
+for the "improvements" which were the sole work of the tenant. Most
+landlords acted reasonably and equitably in such matters, but,
+especially among the new class of purely mercantile purchasers who came
+in under the Landed Estates Court after the great famine of 1846, there
+were too many who insisted on their extreme legal rights, thus
+disturbing the peace of the country and producing the Irish Land
+Question in an acute form that called for State interference.
+
+The systems of "compensation for improvements" (1870), and of rent
+fixing by itinerant tribunals (1881), were tried in turn, but each was
+found to raise more difficulties than it settled, until finally Mr.
+Parnell and his Land League set the whole country in a flame, and
+produced a series of strikes against the payment of any rent. For some
+years it is hardly too much to say that the law of the League, with its
+purely revolutionary propaganda, supplanted the law of the land and
+reduced large areas to a condition of chaos, the decrees of the "village
+ruffians," who ruled the situation, being enforced by systematic outrage
+and assassination.
+
+The first statesman who made a really serious attempt to meet this
+appalling state of things was Mr. Arthur Balfour, who, as Chief
+Secretary for Ireland, resolutely took up the task, first of repressing
+crime and enforcing the law, and then of recasting the whole land system
+in such a way that the tenant, transformed into an owner, would for the
+first time feel it his interest to range himself on the side of the law
+and of orderly government. At the same time, a systematic attempt was
+made to deal with the question of perennial poverty in the extreme West
+of Ireland in what came to be known as the "Congested Districts." The
+construction of railways and piers, the draining of land, and the
+provision of instruction in agriculture, fisheries, etc., speedily gave
+promise of a new era in the economic history of a hitherto helpless and
+hopeless population.
+
+All this was done by Mr. Balfour and his successors in spite of
+opposition and obstruction of a kind such as no Chief Secretary had ever
+before had to encounter. Formerly, all through the centuries, whenever a
+Viceroy or Chief Secretary was face to face with an organised outbreak
+of crime and sedition in Ireland, both British parties united in
+supporting and strengthening the hands of the executive as representing
+the Crown. Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary reversal of policy and
+principle in the winter of 1885-86 put an end to all this, and gravely
+increased the difficulties of the Irish Government.
+
+When Mr. Gladstone was first confronted with the demand for Home Rule,
+even in the mild and constitutional form advocated by Mr. Isaac Butt,
+and his Home Government Association, founded in the autumn of 1870, he
+promptly declared, like Mr. John Morley, that legislative Union with
+Great Britain was the only position permanently possible for an island
+situated as Ireland is. In a speech at Aberdeen[19] he indignantly
+asked--
+
+     "Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this
+     time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to
+     disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the
+     purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind
+     and crippling any powers we possess for conferring benefits on the
+     country to which we belong."
+
+And for fifteen years, in power or in opposition, Mr. Gladstone preached
+and acted upon the same doctrine. When the Land League was founded he
+denounced it as an organisation whose steps were "dogged with crime,"
+and whose march was "through rapine to the dismemberment of the Empire."
+The League was finally "proclaimed" by his Government as a criminal
+conspiracy and its members, from Mr. Parnell downwards, arrested and
+imprisoned without trial as being "reasonably suspected" of criminal
+practices.
+
+This continued until in an unfortunate moment for himself Mr. Gladstone
+discovered, in November, 1885, that the votes of Mr. Parnell and his
+eighty-six colleagues were necessary for his own return to power as
+Prime Minister, whereupon he entered into negotiations which resulted,
+on the one hand, in his securing the necessary votes, and on the other
+in his accepting the principles and the policy of those whom until then
+he had denounced and imprisoned as instigators to crime and sedition. He
+rightly recognised that there was no half-way house, and that he could
+not become a Home Ruler without accepting and defending the actions of
+the Home Rulers. He worshipped what he had formerly burnt, and he burned
+what he had hitherto worshipped. The result was that for several years
+England beheld for the first time the scandalous spectacle of men who
+had held high office under the Crown openly defending--and even
+instigating--lawlessness and disorder, shielding and excusing criminals,
+proved such before the courts, and thwarting, misrepresenting, and
+obstructing those whose duty it was to restore order and legality in
+Ireland.
+
+Such were the difficulties that confronted Mr. Arthur Balfour as Chief
+Secretary for Ireland from 1887 to 1891, difficulties which he
+surmounted with such resolution and such statesmanship that he retired
+from an office that has been called "the grave of reputations" with a
+reputation so much enhanced as to ensure him the leadership of his party
+and the gratitude of Irishmen of all classes for generations to come.
+And yet his method was a supremely simple one--to reassert the supremacy
+of the law, to neglect, almost ostentatiously, all merely political
+cries, and to set himself seriously to deal with the real Irish
+question, that of conferring some measure of security and prosperity on
+a population which over wide districts had known too little of such
+things.
+
+Occupying ownership of Irish land by means of State credit was not, of
+course, a new policy in Mr. Balfour's day. The Bright clauses (1869)
+had introduced the principle into the Statute-book, and Lord Ashbourne's
+Act (1885) had carried it several steps further. But it was Mr. Arthur
+Balfour and his successors, Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. George Wyndham,
+who carried it by a series of boldly conceived steps almost within sight
+of completion. So thorough was the success of this policy of land
+purchase, and so marked was the cessation of crime and outrage and
+seditious agitation in every district into which it was carried, that
+those who made their living by agitation grew alarmed, and did all in
+their power to stop the working of the Purchase Acts. One Nationalist
+member declared that the process had gone "quite far enough," and that
+he wished it could be stopped. The farmers who had purchased their
+holdings were declared to have become selfish, and "as bad as the
+landlords." In other words, they had become orderly and industrious, and
+had ceased to subscribe for the upkeep of the United Irish League and
+its salaried agitators.
+
+The unhappy result of this outcry on the part of those whose occupation
+would be gone, and who would be compelled to resort to honest industry
+should Ireland become peaceful and prosperous, was the passing of Mr.
+Birrell's "amending" Bill, which has practically stopped for the present
+the beneficent working of the Wyndham Act of 1903. Under the various
+purchase Acts over 180,000 Irish farmers have become the owners of their
+holdings, thanks to over one hundred millions of public money advanced
+on Imperial credit for the purpose. The first task of a Unionist
+government, when again in power, must be the resumption of this policy
+of State-aided land-purchase--the only completely and unquestionably
+successful and pacifying piece of agrarian legislation in the history of
+English rule in Ireland.
+
+Other writers will give, later on, a more detailed account of various
+branches of Unionist practical policy in Ireland. The story of the
+Congested Districts Board, Mr. Arthur Balfour's special work, is a
+romance in itself. So well, in fact, has it accomplished its immediate
+task that the time has probably come when it could with advantage be
+merged in the later-created Department of Agriculture and Technical
+Instruction. This department, which has been linked up with the County
+or Borough Councils, by the legislation of Mr. Gerald Balfour, has done
+an immense amount of educational and practical work in connection with
+agriculture in all its branches, including dairying, poultry rearing,
+fruit-growing, and other rural industries, not to speak of technical
+instruction in matters suited for artisans and town workers.
+
+These remarkable achievements, the work of successive Unionist
+Governments from 1896 to 1906, have revolutionised the face of the
+country, and are bringing about a new Ireland. The chief danger now lies
+in the intrigues of discredited politicians, whose object is to divert
+the eyes of the people from practical, remedial, and constructive
+legislation, and to keep them fixed upon what Mr. John Morley has called
+"the phantom of Irish legislative independence."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 3: J.R. Green, "Short History," chap. ix. sec. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Dict. Nat. Biog.," sub.-tit. "Erskine, John, Earl of Mar,"
+p. 430.]
+
+[Footnote 5: "England," says Mr. James Bryce in his Introduction to "Two
+Centuries of Irish History," "acted as conquering nations do act, and
+better than some nations of that age."]
+
+[Footnote 6: Wogan to Swift, Feb. 27th, 1732.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Swift, "The Legion Club."]
+
+[Footnote 8: "Life of Macartney," vol. ii, p. 136.]
+
+[Footnote 9: "Tour in Ireland," vol. ii., p. 123 ff.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Hamilton Rowan's "Autobiography," p. 340.]
+
+[Footnote 11: "Wealth of Nations," Book V., Chap. III.]
+
+[Footnote 12: "The End of the Irish Parliament," 1911, Edward Arnold.]
+
+[Footnote 13: "Edmund Burke, a Historical Study," by John Morley, pp.
+286 ff.]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Pitt," by Lord Rosebery, p. 155.]
+
+[Footnote 15: From the official returns embodied in "A Statement to the
+Prime Minister," Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, Dublin, 1886.]
+
+[Footnote 16: "Ireland from the Union to Catholic Emancipation," by D.
+A. Chart, M.A. A most valuable and instructive work.]
+
+[Footnote 17: It is, I hope, no reflection on the memory of an eminent
+public servant to suggest that in this, as in too many of the estimated
+figures contained in his evidence before the Commission, and upon which
+the Majority Report of the Commission was largely based, Sir Robert
+seriously under-estimated the resources of Ireland. It is obvious when
+the ascertained figures of 1910 are compared with the estimated figures
+of 1895 that Sir Robert Giffen must have been several millions below the
+truth. The steady nature of the growth of Irish commerce is shown by the
+following figures taken from the Official Report for the year ended
+December 31, 1910.
+
+            Imports,    Exports,    Total,
+            Mill. L.    Mill. L.    Mill. L.
+
+1904          54          49          103
+1905          55          51          106
+1906          57          56          113
+1907          61          59          120
+1908          59          57          116
+1909          63          61          124
+1910          65          65          130
+]
+
+[Footnote 18: "A History of the Commercial Relations between Great
+Britain and Ireland," by Alice E. Murray, D.Sc.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Sept. 26, 1871.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CRITICAL
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
+
+BY GEORGE CAVE, K.C., M.P.
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+Few things are more remarkable in the Parliamentary history of the Home
+Rule movement than the complete absence from the counsels of the English
+advocates of Home Rule of any definite and settled policy as to the form
+of self-government to be offered to Ireland, and their consequent
+oscillation between proposals radically differing from one another.
+Since the "new departure" initiated by Davitt and Devoy in 1878,[20] it
+has been the deliberate practice of Irish Nationalists to abstain from
+defining the Nationalist demand and to ask in general terms for
+"self-government," doubtless with the object of attracting the support
+of all who favour any change which could be described by that very
+elastic term. Such a policy has its advantages. But confusion of
+thought, however favourable to popular agitation, is a disadvantage when
+the moment for legislation arrives; and uncertainty as to the aim goes
+far to explain the vacillation in Home Rule policy.
+
+Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 would have given to Ireland the
+substance of "responsible" or colonial self-government, subject only to
+certain reservations and restrictions, the value of which will be
+considered later in this chapter, and would have excluded the Irish
+members and representative peers from the Parliament of the United
+Kingdom. By the Bill of 1893 the reservations and restrictions were
+increased, and representatives of Ireland were to be permitted to sit at
+Westminster--by the Bill as introduced for some purposes, and by the
+Bill as passed by the House of Commons for all purposes.
+
+After the defeat of this second Bill, a "cold fit" appears to have
+seized the Liberal Party. Lord Rosebery, in 1894, declared that before
+Home Rule could be carried England, as the predominant partner, must be
+convinced. Sir Edward Grey in 1905 declared that his party on its return
+to power would "go on with Sir Anthony MacDonnell's policy," which he
+rightly described as a policy of large administrative reforms; and Mr.
+Asquith "associated himself entirely and unreservedly with every word"
+of Sir Edward Grey's speech.[21] Accordingly the Irish Council Bill
+proposed by Mr. Asquith's Government in 1907 was purely a measure of
+devolution, certain administrative functions only being put under the
+control of an Irish Council, subject to the veto of the Lord Lieutenant,
+and the whole legislative power remaining in the Parliament of the
+United Kingdom. This proposal, having been condemned by a National
+Convention at Dublin, was incontinently withdrawn.
+
+In the years succeeding this fiasco the Liberal policy for Ireland
+appeared to be at the mercy of shifting winds. For some time Liberal
+speakers contented themselves with vague declarations in favour of
+Federalism or "Home Rule all round"--phrases which may mean much or
+little according to the sense in which they are used. More recently an
+able writer,[22] while admitting that "there is no public opinion in
+Ireland as to the form of the Irish Constitution," has argued in a work
+of 350 pages in favour of the grant to Ireland of full legislative,
+administrative and financial autonomy; while a member of the
+Government[23] declared that fiscal autonomy for all practical purposes
+means separation and the disintegration of the United Kingdom. In a
+publication recently issued by a committee of Liberals, comprising
+several members of the present Government,[24] two views directly
+contrary to one another are put forward, one writer arguing for a
+devolution to an Irish body of "definite and defined powers only," and
+another for the grant of the widest possible form of Home Rule and the
+exclusion from Westminster of all Irish representation. The latest
+official pronouncements indicate that the Government have it in their
+minds to revert to the Gladstonian form of Home Rule; but even now[25]
+no one outside the Cabinet, and possibly few inside that inner circle,
+would venture on a confident prophecy even as to the broad lines of the
+measure which in a few days may be submitted to Parliament as
+representing the urgent and considered demand of public opinion.
+
+Franklin said truly that--
+
+     "those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not
+     generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into
+     execution new projects."
+
+But surely on a question of such vital moment to the Empire as the
+revision of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the bases, if not
+the details, of the contemplated change are deserving of prolonged
+consideration and even of some public and ordered discussion. The
+British North America Act, 1867, by which the relation of the Dominion
+of Canada to its provinces is regulated, was the result, not only of
+years of preliminary debate in the provincial Legislatures and
+elsewhere, but of a formal conference at Quebec in 1864, followed by the
+appointment of delegates to confer with the Imperial Government on the
+matter. In Australia the proposal for union, agitated at intervals since
+1846, was canvassed in every detail at inter-colonial Conferences or
+Conventions in 1883, in 1891, and in 1897-8, as well as in the several
+colonial Legislatures, before it was embodied in the Australia
+Constitution Act, 1900. And although in the case of South Africa, owing
+to the urgency of the question of union, the time occupied in the
+discussion was less than in the other great dominions, yet in the
+Convention of 1908-9 the best brains in the country were occupied for
+months in considering every detail of the proposal for union before it
+was submitted to the Colonial and Imperial Parliaments for their
+sanction.[26] And yet in the Mother Country, where centuries of military
+and political conflict have given us the Union, it is considered that a
+few weeks' consideration by a committee of the Cabinet, without advice
+from independent constitutional experts,[27] and without formal
+consultation even with the Government's own supporters outside the
+Ministry, is sufficient to determine both the general form and the
+details of a proposal for its dissolution.
+
+In the confusion so engendered it may be useful to consider in some
+detail the different proposals which have been or may be made under the
+name of Home Rule, their special qualities and dangers, and the results
+to which they may severally lead.
+
+
+RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT.
+
+A proposal to give to Ireland full "responsible" government, without any
+other limitations than such as are imposed on our self-governing
+Colonies, would find few supporters in this country. Under such a
+constitution an Irish Government would have power to forbid or restrict
+recruiting for the Imperial forces in Ireland, and to raise and train a
+force of its own. It might establish or subsidise a religion, make
+education wholly denominational, levy customs duties on imports from
+Great Britain and give fiscal advantages to a foreign power, confiscate
+or transfer property without payment, and deprive individuals of
+nationality, franchise, liberty, or life without process of law. However
+improbable some of these contingencies may appear, it is right on a
+matter of so much moment to consider possibilities and not probabilities
+only. Such powers as these could not without serious risk be conceded to
+any part of the kingdom, and in the case of Ireland there would be a
+special danger in granting them to a popularly elected body.
+
+In the first place, the national safety would be involved. Englishmen
+were at one time too fond of saying that the great Colonies might, if
+they chose, sever the link which binds them to the Mother Country.
+Happily, in their case, no such catastrophe need now be considered. But
+it would be folly to shut our eyes to the fact that to many Irishmen
+national independence appears to be the only goal worth striving for. If
+the concession of full responsible government should be followed (at
+whatever interval) by an assertion of complete independence, we may
+assume that Great Britain would follow the example of Federal America
+and re-establish the Union by force of arms, but at how great a cost!
+Those who deny the possibility of a serious movement towards separation
+would do well to remember Mr. Gladstone's reference[28] to the position
+of Norway and Sweden, then united under one crown:--
+
+     "Let us look to those two countries, neither of them very large,
+     but yet countries which every Englishman and every Scotchman must
+     rejoice to claim his kin--I mean the Scandinavian countries of
+     Sweden and Norway. Immediately after the great war the Norwegians
+     were ready to take sword in hand to prevent their coming under the
+     domination of Sweden. But the Powers of Europe undertook the
+     settlement of that question, and they united those countries upon a
+     footing of strict legislative independence and co-equality.... And
+     yet with two countries so united, what has been the effect? Not
+     discord, not convulsions, not danger to peace, not hatred, not
+     aversion, but a constantly growing sympathy; and every man who
+     knows their condition knows that I speak the truth when I say that
+     in every year that passes the Norwegians and the Swedes are more
+     and more feeling themselves to be the children of a common country,
+     united by a tie which never is to be broken."
+
+The tie was broken within twenty years.
+
+It may be that the Nationalist leaders, or some of them, do not desire
+separation; but it by no means follows that a concession of their
+demands would not lead to that result. Franklin, in 1774, had an
+interview with Chatham, in which he says--
+
+     "I assured him that, having more than once travelled almost from
+     one end of the continent (of America) to the other, and kept a
+     great variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with
+     them freely, I never had heard in any conversation from any person,
+     drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or
+     a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America."[29]
+
+And yet independence came within ten years.
+
+In the case of the United Kingdom there is no need to consider in detail
+how serious would be the effects--naval, military, and economic--of
+separation, for the gravity of such a contingency is admitted by all.
+Admiral Mahan, the American naval expert, writes that--
+
+     "the ambition of the Irish separatists, realised, might be even
+     more threatening to the national life of Great Britain than the
+     secession of the South was to that of the American Union.... The
+     instrument for such action in the shape of an independent
+     Parliament could not safely be trusted even to avowed friends."
+
+Some Home Rulers are able to--
+
+     "rise superior to the philosophy, as fallacious in fact as it is
+     base and cowardly in purpose, which sets the safety of a great
+     nation above the happiness and prosperity of a small one,"[30]
+
+but to less lofty souls it appears that the safety of the nation is
+paramount, and that upon it depends the prosperity of each of its
+component parts.
+
+In the next place, in considering whether complete "colonial"
+self-government can be conceded to Ireland, it must not be forgotten
+that the island is bi-racial, that the two races differ widely in
+character, in politics, and in religion, and that the differences are
+apt to find vent in violent conflict or secret attacks. Further, Ireland
+has for generations been the scene of a revolt against one particular
+species of property, the ownership of land; and although under the
+operation of the Land Purchase Acts this cause of conflict tends to
+abate, it still breaks out from time to time in the form of cattle
+drives and attacks on "land grabbers."[31] Hitherto we have, broadly
+speaking, kept the peace. That we should now forsake this duty, and,
+washing our hands of Ireland, leave the Protestant and the landowner, at
+or small, to his fate is unthinkable.
+
+In connection with the question last-mentioned it may be necessary at
+some time to consider how far it is the constitutional right of this
+country to impose upon the minority in Ireland the new obligations
+implied in a grant to the whole island of colonial Home Rule. It may be
+that the Imperial Parliament can disallow the claim of a section of the
+population of Ireland to remain subject to its own control. But it is
+one thing to reject the allegiance of a community, it is quite another
+thing forcibly to transfer that allegiance to a practically independent
+legislature; and this is especially the case when the transfer may
+involve the use against a loyal population of coercion in its extreme
+form.
+
+
+CHECKS AND SAFEGUARDS.
+
+In every formal proposal for Home Rule in Ireland, weight has been given
+to the above considerations, and attempts have been made to meet them by
+qualifying the grant of responsible Government. The qualifications
+suggested have taken the form of _(a)_ the reservation of certain
+powers to the Imperial Parliament, or (_b_) the restriction of the
+powers granted to the Irish legislature by prohibiting their exercise in
+certain specific ways, or (_c_) the provision of some form of Imperial
+veto or control. It is important to consider whether and how far such
+checks or "safeguards" are likely to prove effective and lasting.
+
+The "safeguards" proposed by the Government of Ireland Bill, 1886, were
+somewhat extended by the Bill of 1893; and the proposals shortly to be
+submitted to Parliament, so far as they can be gathered from recent
+speeches of Ministers, will not in this respect differ materially from
+those contained in the latter Bill. It will therefore be convenient to
+take as a basis for discussion the provisions of the Bill of 1893, as
+passed by the House of Commons.
+
+The Bill of 1893, after stating in a preamble that it was "expedient
+that without impairing or restricting the supreme authority of
+Parliament an Irish Legislature should be created for such purposes in
+Ireland as in this Act mentioned," proposed to set up in Ireland a
+Legislature[32] consisting of the Sovereign and two Houses, namely a
+Legislative Council of 48 members to be returned under a restricted
+franchise by the Irish counties and the boroughs of Dublin and Belfast,
+and a Legislative Assembly of 103 members to be returned by the existing
+parliamentary constituencies in Ireland. A Bill introduced into the
+Irish Legislature was to pass both Houses; but in the event of
+disagreement the proposals of the Legislative Assembly were to be
+submitted, after a dissolution or a delay of two years, to a joint
+Session of the two Houses. The executive power was to remain in the
+Crown, aided and advised by an Irish Ministry (called an Executive
+Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland), and the assent of the Crown
+to Irish legislation was to be given or withheld on the advice of this
+Executive Committee subject to any instructions given by the Sovereign.
+
+The specific reservations and restrictions were contained in clauses 3
+and 4 of the Bill, which were as follows:--
+
+     "3. The Irish Legislature shall not have power to make laws in
+     respect of the following matters or any of them:--
+
+     "(1) The Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency; or
+     the Lord Lieutenant as representative of the Crown; or
+
+     "(2) The making of peace or war or matters arising from a state of
+     war; or the regulation of the conduct of any portion of Her
+     Majesty's subjects during the existence of hostilities between
+     foreign States with which Her Majesty is at peace, in respect of
+     such hostilities; or
+
+     "(3) Navy, army, militia, volunteers, and any other military
+     forces, or the defence of the realm, or forts, permanent military
+     camps, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful
+     buildings, or any places purchased for the erection thereof; or
+
+     "(4) Authorising either the carrying or using of arms for military
+     purposes, or the formation of associations for drill or practice
+     in the use of arms for military purposes; or
+
+     "(5) Treaties or any relations with foreign States or the
+     relations between different parts of Her Majesty's dominions, or
+     offences connected with such treaties or relations, or procedure
+     connected with the extradition of criminals under any treaty; or
+
+     "(6) Dignities or titles of honour; or
+
+     "(7) Treason, treason-felony, alienage, aliens as such, or
+     naturalisation; or
+
+     "(8) Trade with any place out of Ireland; or quarantine, or
+     navigation, including merchant shipping (except as respects inland
+     waters and local health or harbour regulations); or
+
+     "(9) Lighthouses, buoys, or beacons within the meaning of the
+     Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, and the Acts amending the same
+     (except so far as they can consistently with any general Act of
+     Parliament be constructed or maintained by a local harbour
+     authority); or
+
+     "(10) Coinage; legal tender; or any change in the standard of
+     weights and measures; or
+
+     "(11) Trade marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright, or
+     patent rights.
+
+     "Provided always, that nothing in this section shall prevent the
+     passing of any Irish Act to provide for any charges imposed by Act
+     of Parliament, or to prescribe conditions regulating importation
+     from any place outside Ireland for the sole purpose of preventing
+     the introduction of any contagious disease.
+
+     "It is hereby declared that the exceptions from the powers of the
+     Irish Legislature contained in this section are set forth and
+     enumerated for greater certainty, and not so as to restrict the
+     generality of the limitation imposed in the previous section on
+     the powers of the Irish Legislature.
+
+     "Any law made in contravention of this section shall be void.
+
+     "4. The powers of the Irish Legislature shall not extend to the
+     making of any law--
+
+     "(1) Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion,
+     whether directly or indirectly, or prohibiting the free exercise
+     thereof; or
+
+     "(2) Imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege,
+     advantage, or benefit, on account of religious belief, or raising
+     or appropriating directly or indirectly, save as heretofore, any
+     public revenue for any religious purpose, or for the benefit of
+     the holder of any religious office as such; or
+
+     "(3) Diverting the property, or, without its consent, altering the
+     constitution of any religious body; or
+
+     "(4) Abrogating or prejudicially affecting the right to establish
+     or maintain any place of denominational education, or any
+     denominational institution or charity; or
+
+     "(5) Whereby there may be established or endowed out of public
+     funds any theological professorship, or any university or college
+     in which the conditions set out in the University of Dublin Tests
+     Acts, 1873, are not observed; or
+
+     "(6) Prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend a
+     school receiving public money without attending the religious
+     instruction at that school; or
+
+     "(7) Directly or indirectly imposing any disability or conferring
+     any privilege, benefit, or advantage upon any subject of the Crown
+     on account of his parentage or place of birth, or of the place
+     where any part of his business is carried on, or upon any
+     corporation or institution constituted or existing by virtue of
+     the law of some part of the Queen's dominions, and carrying on
+     operations in Ireland, on account of the persons by whom or in
+     whose favour, or the place in which any of its operations are
+     carried on; or
+
+     "(8) Whereby any person may be deprived of life, liberty, or
+     property without due process of law in accordance with settled
+     principles and precedents, or may be denied the equal protection
+     of the laws, or whereby private property may be taken without just
+     compensation; or
+
+     "(9) Whereby any existing corporation incorporated by Royal
+     Charter or by any local or general Act of Parliament may, unless
+     it consents, or the leave of Her Majesty is first obtained on
+     address from the two Houses of the Irish Legislature, be deprived
+     of its rights, privileges, or property without due process of law
+     in accordance with settled principles and precedents, and so far
+     as respects property without just compensation. Provided nothing
+     in this sub-section shall prevent the Irish Legislature from
+     dealing with any public department, municipal corporation, or
+     local authority, or with any corporation administering for public
+     purposes taxes, rates, cess, dues, or tolls, so far as concerns
+     the same. Any law made in contravention of this section shall be
+     void."
+
+The power to impose taxation other than duties of custom and excise was
+to be transferred, subject to a short delay as to existing taxes and to
+a special provision in respect of taxes for war expenditure, to the
+Irish Legislature (clause II). Two judges of the Supreme Court in
+Ireland, to be called "Exchequer Judges," were to be appointed under the
+Great Seal of the United Kingdom, and to be removable only on an address
+from the Imperial Parliament; and proceedings relating to the reserved
+powers or to the customs or excise duties were to be determined by such
+judges (clause 19). Appeals from the Courts in Ireland were to lie to
+the Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council (clause 21); and
+any question as to the powers of the Irish Legislature could be referred
+to the same Committee (clause 22). The Royal Irish Constabulary and
+Dublin Metropolitan Police Force were gradually to disappear, and police
+matters to be regulated by the Irish Legislature and Executive (clause
+29). The Irish Legislature was to be prohibited from passing land
+legislation for a period of three years (clause 34).
+
+As to these proposals the first observation that occurs is that, in
+addition to the matters proposed to be reserved, there are others in
+which legislative uniformity throughout the kingdom is greatly to be
+desired. To mention but a few such matters, questions of status,
+contract and succession, of international trade and navigation, of the
+regulation of railways and of industrial labour, and of the criminal
+law, should not be differently determined in different parts of the
+kingdom; and as life becomes more complex, the number of subjects in
+which diversity of laws is a hindrance continues to increase.
+
+In the next place, it is to be noted that the checks proposed affect
+legislation only and not administration. If the Bill of 1893 or any
+similar Bill should become law, the whole executive power in Ireland
+will be in an Irish Ministry responsible to an Irish Assembly; and it is
+obvious that many of the wrongs against which the restrictive clauses of
+the Bill were directed may be inflicted by administrative act or
+omission as effectively as by legislation. To quote a work of
+authority[33]--
+
+     "An independent Irish Executive will possess immense power. It will
+     be able by mere administrative action or inaction, without passing
+     a single law which infringes any restriction to be imposed by the
+     Irish Government Act, 1893, to effect a revolution. Let us consider
+     for a moment a few of the things which the Irish Cabinet might do
+     if it chose. It might confine all political, administrative, or
+     judicial appointments to Nationalists, and thus exclude Loyalists
+     from all positions of public trust. It might place the bench, the
+     magistracy, the police, wholly in the hands of Catholics; it might,
+     by encouragement of athletic clubs where the Catholic population
+     were trained to the use of arms, combined with the rigorous
+     suppression of every Protestant association suspected, rightly or
+     not, of preparing resistance to the Parliament at Dublin, bring
+     about the arming of Catholic, and the disarming of Protestant,
+     Ireland, and, at the same time, raise a force as formidable to
+     England as an openly enrolled Irish army. But the mere inaction of
+     the executive might in many spheres produce greater results than
+     active unfairness. The refusal of the police for the enforcement of
+     evictions would abolish rent throughout the country. And the same
+     result might be attained by a more moderate course. Irish Ministers
+     might in practice draw a distinction between 'good' landlords and
+     'bad' landlords, and might grant the aid of the police for the
+     collection of 'reasonable,' though refusing it for the collection
+     of 'excessive,' rents."
+
+Irish Ministers might even refuse actively to oppose the "moral claim"
+of the Irish Catholics to the use of the cathedrals and of the
+accumulated capital of the Irish Church.[34]
+
+To contemplate the possibility of action or calculated inaction of the
+character above described is not to attribute to Irishmen any special
+measure of original sin. In every case where the executive power is
+divorced from the ultimate legislative authority such divergencies are
+likely to recur; and more than one instance may be found in our own
+recent history. In 1859 the Canadian Government warned the Home
+Government that any attempt to interfere with the customs policy of the
+Dominion was inadmissible, unless the home authorities were prepared to
+undertake the responsibility of administering the whole government of
+Canada. The Home Government gave way.[35] In 1878 the Governor of Cape
+Colony proposed to place the colonial forces under the control of the
+officer commanding the Imperial forces. The Cape Government resisted,
+and refused to resign; and eventually the Governor, on the advice of the
+Home Government, dismissed his ministers. In this case a change of
+government occurred after the general election, but in the end the claim
+put forward by the Imperial authorities had to be withdrawn.[36] In 1906
+the Natal Government proclaimed martial law, and ordered the execution
+of twelve natives on charges of murder. The Imperial Government
+intervened, and suggested the suspension of the order pending further
+consideration. The Natal Ministry immediately resigned; and as there was
+no chance of the formation of a new Government, the Imperial authorities
+hastily withdrew.[37]
+
+Differences have arisen even on so grave a matter as the succession to
+the throne. The union of England and Scotland in 1707 was preceded and
+hastened by the so-called Act of Security, by which the Scottish Estates
+asserted the right to name a successor to the throne of Scotland, who
+should not (except under certain specified conditions) be the person
+designated as sovereign by the English law. And during the illness of
+King George III. in the year 1788, Grattan, in defiance of the views of
+Pitt and of the majority in both Houses of the Imperial Parliament,
+carried in the Irish Parliament an address to the Prince of Wales,
+calling upon him (without waiting for a Regency Bill) to assume the
+Government of the Irish nation, "and to exercise and administer all
+legal power, jurisdiction and prerogatives to the Crown and Government
+thereof belonging"--words borrowed from the address by which in the
+Revolution of 1688 William of Orange was requested to assume the Crown.
+Happily, the Viceroy declined to present the address, and a deputation
+sent from Ireland to present it found on their arrival that the king had
+recovered; but the incident might have led to a conflict upon a matter
+so important as the exercise of the royal power.
+
+The fact is that the word "supremacy," so often used in this
+controversy, is one of ambiguous meaning. Parliament is supreme in the
+United Kingdom, Parliament is likewise supreme in New Zealand; but the
+two supremacies are of widely different kinds. Supremacy consists of two
+ingredients--authority to enact and power to enforce; and without the
+latter the former is little more than a legal figment, which may have no
+more practical importance than the theoretical right of veto which is
+retained by the Crown. Mr. Balfour, speaking on the second reading
+debate of the 1893 Bill, referred to this matter as follows:--
+
+     "Legally, of course, the Imperial Parliament would be supreme: no
+     one has doubted it. But what layman takes the slightest interest
+     in these paper supremacies? For my part I take no more interest in
+     the question of whether the Imperial Parliament is on paper
+     superior to the Irish Parliament, than I do as to the order of
+     precedence at a London dinner party. The thing is of no public
+     interest or importance whatever. What we want to know is where the
+     power lies. Who is going to exercise supremacy? Who is going to be
+     the _de facto_ ruler of Ireland?"
+
+Special importance attaches to these considerations owing to the heavy
+liabilities undertaken by this country in respect of land purchase in
+Ireland. At the present time many millions of British money are sunk in
+Irish land, and the amount may increase to a sum approaching two hundred
+millions. The tenants now pay their annuities because, in the last
+resort, the Government can turn them out. Under Home Rule the powers of
+Government would rest with men who have led "no rent" agitations in the
+past, and who would be dependent upon the votes of those personally
+interested in repudiating the debt. The British Treasury can hardly run
+such a risk; and some sort of concurrent control, with all its evils and
+risks, seems to be necessary. And yet financial independence is the
+first essential to genuine autonomy.
+
+But, it may be said, if the Irish Government go beyond the law, the
+Irish Courts may be asked to interfere; and in the event of their
+refusal, the Bill provides an appeal to the Judicial Committee in
+London. No doubt it does, but in practice the person aggrieved might
+have very great difficulty in making the remedy effective. He must
+obtain a decision in his favour from the Judicial Committee of the Privy
+Council, at no small cost of money and personal odium; and the decision
+of that "alien" tribunal (as it would be called) must then be enforced
+under the jurisdiction of a Government which (on the hypothesis which we
+are considering) would be unfriendly, by judges and executive officers
+appointed and perhaps removable by that authority, and in the midst of a
+population hostile to "foreign" interference. Is it extravagant to
+suppose that the complainant would not gain much by his appeal to
+Caesar?
+
+And even if we suppose the Irish Legislature and Executive to confine
+themselves within the letter of the Act, are the checks of any real
+value? The Irish Parliament might still interfere with contracts, or
+might validate contracts now held to be void as contrary to public
+policy. They might defeat the Mortmain Acts. They might deal as they
+thought fit with internal trade; and the great industries of Belfast and
+its neighbourhood might find their views on trade questions of no avail.
+The Irish Legislature might create new offences and institute new
+tribunals; and the reference in the Bill to "due process of law" would
+not necessarily secure trial by jury or by an impartial tribunal.[38]
+
+It is said that legislation of this character would be subject to the
+veto of the Crown. But that veto is to be exercised on the advice of the
+Irish Ministry subject to any instructions given by the Sovereign; and
+so long as an Irish Legislature is entitled to withhold Irish supply, a
+veto against the advice of the Irish ministry would surely tend to
+become impossible.
+
+Again, it is said that an unjust law passed by the Irish Parliament
+might be repealed by the Imperial Parliament. Doubtless the technical
+right would exist, as in the case of the Colonies; but no one dreams
+that, with "responsible" government existing in Ireland and Irish
+representatives at Westminster, it would in practice be used. The
+Imperial Government has never been known to interfere with the
+legislation of a self-governing colony except where Imperial interests
+are concerned, or where a fraud on the colony can be established;[39]
+and the same rule would obtain in the case of Ireland.
+
+Lastly, it is said that in the last resort there is the British Army.
+But if the civil power in Ireland does not call in the military force,
+how can the latter be used to enforce the law? Are the forces to be
+controlled from England, and what is this but a counter revolution? It
+is hardly worth while to liberate Ireland from the peaceful rule of the
+Imperial Government in order to govern her by military force.
+
+But in fact the so-called "safeguards" would not last. Professor
+Dicey[40] and Professor Morgan,[41] writing from opposite sides of the
+controversy, agree in holding that no colony would tolerate them for a
+moment; and it is incredible that Ireland, with a Parliament of her own,
+would submit to them for more than a few years.[42] Suppose the majority
+of the Irish Legislature to grow weary of the "safeguards," and to
+demand their repeal. The Imperial ministry might refuse, but the reply
+of the Irish ministry (if in command of a majority in the Irish House of
+Commons) would be to resign and to make the government of Ireland
+impossible except by force. And if Ireland were still represented in the
+Imperial Parliament, the new "sorrows of Ireland" would find eloquent
+and insistent expression there. What, then, would England do? What could
+she do, except, after a futile struggle, to give way? The truth is, that
+if you part with the executive power, all checks and "safeguards" are
+futile. Mr. Redmond[43] eagerly "accepts every one of them," and will
+accept others if desired; for he knows that they must prove ineffective.
+"If," said Lord Derby in 1887, "Ireland and England are not to be one,
+Ireland must be treated like Canada or Australia. All between is
+delusion or fraud."
+
+
+IRISH REPRESENTATION AT WESTMINSTER.
+
+The hybrid form of government proposed in the Home Rule Bills of 1886
+and 1893 gave rise to a further difficulty, and one which went far
+towards wrecking them both. Should Ireland under Home Rule be
+represented at Westminster by its members and representative peers?
+Under a system of Gladstonian Home Rule there appear to be only three
+possible answers to this question. The Irish representatives may be
+excluded altogether, they may be retained altogether, or they may be
+retained in diminished numbers and with some limitation on their voting
+powers.
+
+The total exclusion clause in the Bill of 1886 was one of the most
+unpopular parts of an unpopular Bill. It was immediately urged that this
+arrangement was virtually equivalent to separation, and Mr. Gladstone
+admitted[44] that the argument had force. Since 1886 public sentiment
+has advanced in the direction of a closer Imperial unity, and it is
+unlikely that the country will recur in 1912 to a proposal which in 1886
+was admitted to be intolerable. Moreover, if the British Parliament is
+to retain control of the whole foreign policy of the kingdom, and--what
+is likely to be of enormous importance in the future--of its whole
+fiscal policy, it would be manifestly unjust to deny to Ireland a voice
+and vote in such matters. How would it be possible, for instance, to
+discuss the effect upon agriculture of a Tariff Reform Budget in the
+absence of competent representatives of the Irish farmers, or to
+consider the yearly grant to be made (as it is said) in aid of Irish
+finance without the assistance of any representatives of Ireland?
+
+A recognition of the difficulties in the way of total exclusion led Mr.
+Gladstone to propose, in 1893, what was known as the "popping-in-and-out
+clause," under which Irish members would have sat at Westminster, but
+would have voted only on Imperial measures. The best criticism of this
+attempt to distinguish between local and Imperial matters was supplied
+on another occasion by Mr. Gladstone himself:--
+
+     "I have thought much, reasoned much, and inquired much with regard
+     to that distinction, but I have arrived at the conclusion that it
+     cannot be drawn. I believe it passes the wit of man."
+
+To distinguish between matters which might and those which could not
+affect Ireland was impossible to the ordinary man, and the device of
+committing all matters of special difficulty to the decision of Mr.
+Speaker had not then its present vogue. Further, it was obvious that
+under such a system a British Ministry might have on one day, when
+English or Scottish affairs were under discussion, a commanding
+majority; but on the next, when a vote possibly affecting the sister
+island was in question, might find itself labouring in the trough of the
+sea; while on the third day, that vote having been disposed of and the
+Irish members having taken their leave, it might rise once more on the
+crest of the wave. The proposal was too ludicrous to be long defended.
+The sense of humour of the House prevailed over Mr. Gladstone's
+earnestness, and he fell back on inclusion for all purposes.
+
+But inclusion for all purposes had its own difficulties. Under the
+Gladstonian system the Imperial Parliament would have considered, not
+only matters affecting the whole kingdom, but also purely English or
+purely Scottish affairs; and to give to the Irish representatives the
+control in their own Parliament of purely Irish affairs, and also a
+voice at Westminster on matters affecting England or Scotland only, was
+obviously unjust. Such a power would have been used, not for the benefit
+of England or Scotland, but as an instrument for wresting further
+concessions for Ireland.
+
+     "I will never be a party," said Mr. Gladstone at one time, "to
+     allowing the Irish members to manage their own affairs in Dublin,
+     and at the same time to come over here and manage British affairs.
+     Such an arrangement would not be a Bill to grant self-government to
+     Ireland, but one to remove self-government from England; it would
+     create a subordinate Parliament indeed, but it would be the one at
+     Westminster, and not that in Dublin."[45]
+
+The problem seems insoluble because, under a hybrid (or Gladstonian)
+system of Home Rule, it is insoluble. If a clear line is taken, there
+is no difficulty under this head. If full "responsible" or colonial
+government is granted, clearly representation in the Imperial Parliament
+(I do not now speak of a federal assembly) is an anomaly. On the other
+hand, if nothing more is in question than the extension of local
+government generally known as Devolution, then adequate representation
+in the Imperial Parliament is a matter of course. If a federal
+government is established, each member of the Federation must needs be
+represented in the federal Parliament; but in that case there must be no
+attempt to entrust to the same assembly both the duties of the federal
+Parliament and those of a Legislature for one of the federating states.
+It was this attempt to treat the Imperial Parliament as the local or
+state Legislature for Great Britain, and also as the federal Parliament
+for Great Britain and Ireland, which was fatal to Mr. Gladstone's
+proposals.
+
+
+FEDERALISM.
+
+These considerations bring us face to face with Federalism, or, to use
+the phrase which to so many perplexed Liberals has seemed to point the
+way to safety, "Home Rule all round." The expression covers a wide
+field, and before any opinion can be pronounced upon the proposal, it is
+essential to know what its advocates in fact desire.
+
+To some the phrase means nothing less than Gladstonian Home Rule "all
+round," in other words that we should meet the objections to dissolving
+the legislative and executive Union with Ireland by dissolving also the
+older Union with Scotland, and even (for some do not shrink from the
+_reductio ad absurdum_) the yet older unity of England and Wales.
+Consider what this means. For more than two hundred years the English
+and Scottish races have been united by a constitutional bond
+strengthened by mutual respect and good feeling, and Scotsmen, like
+Englishmen, have taken their part in the government of these islands. If
+in the division of labour and of honours there has been a balance of
+advantage, it has not been against the virile Scottish race, from which
+have sprung so many of our great soldiers and administrators, so many
+leaders of the nation. And such a combination is to be broken up, and
+Scotland to become a colony, because Ireland, unwilling to bear her
+share in the duties of government, desires to be reduced to that status!
+To such a proposal Mr. Gladstone's phrase about Home Rule applies in all
+its force:--
+
+     "Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this
+     time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to
+     disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the
+     purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind,
+     and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits through
+     legislation on the country to which we belong?"
+
+The proposal would be incredibly stupid, if it were not recklessly
+mischievous.
+
+But to most advocates of the federal system the word means less than
+this; and the conception, usually vaguely expressed, is that the
+relations of England, Scotland, and Ireland, should be something like
+those of the communities which make up (to quote instances commonly
+given) the German Empire, the Swiss Federation, the United States of
+America, or the British self-governing dominions of Canada, Australia,
+and South Africa. So expressed, the aspiration for a federal union
+deserves respectful consideration.
+
+In the first place, it must not be forgotten that no proposal of this
+nature has yet been put forward, even in general terms, by any English
+or Irish Party. Mr. John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Nationalists,
+has indeed said that he and his friends "were only asking what had
+already been given in twenty-eight different portions of the
+Empire:"[46] and a speaker usually more careful in his language[47]
+lately suggested to his audience that they should
+
+     "ask the twenty-eight Home Rule Parliaments if the Empire would be
+     split in pieces if there were a twenty-ninth."
+
+But in order to make up the number of Parliaments and Legislatures
+within the Empire to twenty-eight it is necessary to include in one
+category the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the colonial Parliaments
+of Newfoundland and New Zealand, the federal Parliaments of Canada and
+Australia, the provincial or state Legislatures (widely differing from
+one another in their constitution and powers) comprised in those
+Federations, the Union of South Africa and its constituent provinces,
+and the tiny assemblies surviving in the Channel Islands and the Isle of
+Man. From a reference so vague and confused no inference as to the real
+meaning or desire of either speaker can safely be drawn.[48]
+
+But let us put aside, with the foreign confederacies (which have in most
+cases been achieved or maintained by armed conflict), the practically
+independent Parliaments within the British Empire, and confine ourselves
+to the Federations of Canada and Australia, and to the Union (sometimes
+incorrectly called a Federation) of South Africa.
+
+In the first place, it is not immaterial to observe that each of the
+Legislatures here referred to resulted, not from the dissolution of an
+existing union, but from the voluntary assumption by communities
+formerly independent of one another of a closer bond. In other words,
+there was in each case a real _Jaedus_ or treaty, not imposed by the
+Imperial power, but having a local origin and springing from the need of
+common action. The operative force was centripetal; and as the force
+continues to operate, the tendency of the mass is towards a chemical in
+lieu of a mechanical fusion.[49] But in the case of the United Kingdom a
+change from organic union to Federation would be the beginning of
+dissolution; and the centrifugal force, once set in motion, might lead
+further in the same direction.
+
+Again, there can be no true federation without (1) provincial
+legislatures and executives, (2) a central Parliament and executive, (3)
+a careful definition of the powers of each, and (4) a federal court to
+which should be entrusted the duty of determining questions arising
+between the federal and provincial governments and legislatures. If,
+therefore, provincial or state Governments are created for Ireland and
+for Scotland, a like Government should logically be created for England.
+Are we prepared to see four (or, if Wales be added, five) legislatures,
+and four (or five) executives, in these islands? Have we considered the
+possible effect on our whole system of government, on the theory of
+Cabinet responsibility to Parliament, on the powers of the House of
+Commons over grievance and supply? Must not each unit in a Federation be
+put as regards financial matters upon a like footing; and, if so, can
+Ireland bear her share? Is federation consistent with the predominance
+of one state, England, in wealth and population? These questions are
+vital, and none of them have received consideration. By declaring in
+general terms for Federalism you go but a little way.
+
+And if we treat the proposal for Federation as indicating a desire to
+adopt a constitution under which the relations of the United Kingdom to
+each of its constituent parts would be as the relation of some one of
+the three self-governing Dominions to the states or provinces of which
+it is composed, the question remains, which of those Dominions should be
+adopted as a model? For they differ not only in form but in essence.
+
+Under the British North America Act, 1867, and the amending statutes,
+there is "one Parliament for Canada" (sect. 17), while each province has
+its Legislature. Each provincial Legislature is empowered exclusively to
+make laws in relation to certain specified subjects (including property
+and civil rights and the administration of justice), and also in
+relation to "all matters of a merely local or private nature in the
+province"; while the Dominion Parliament may "make laws for the peace,
+order, and good government of Canada in relation to all matters not
+coming within" the classes of subjects assigned exclusively to the
+provincial Legislatures. The division of functions has given rise to
+much confusion and litigation; but, speaking generally, the trend of
+judicial decision has been towards a wide interpretation of the
+provincial powers. The "residuary powers" are in the Dominion
+Parliament.
+
+The constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, as defined by the
+Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, is of a different
+character. The Federal Parliament is entrusted with power to make laws
+with respect to a number of subjects divided into no less than 39
+classes (sect. 51); the State Legislatures have concurrent powers of
+legislation, but in case of conflict the law of the Commonwealth is to
+prevail over the State law (sect. 109). The "residuary powers" are in
+this case left to the States. There is power to alter the Constitution
+with the consent of a majority of the electors in a majority of the
+States and of a majority of the electors of the Commonwealth (sect.
+123)--a power which has been freely used.
+
+The case of South Africa is sometimes cited as a precedent for loosening
+the bonds in the United Kingdom. It is a strong precedent for closer
+union. The South Africa Act, 1909, created in fact as well as in name,
+not a Federation but a true Legislative Union. Under the Act, the South
+African colonies were "united in a legislative union under one
+government under the name of the Union of South Africa" (sect. 4). The
+legislative power is vested in the Parliament of the Union (sect. 19),
+which has full power to make laws for the peace, order, and good
+government of the Union (sect. 59). In each province (formerly a colony)
+there is an administrator appointed by the Governor-General of the Union
+in Council (sect. 68), and a Provincial Council (sect. 70); but the
+powers of the Provincial Councils are confined within narrow limits
+(sect. 85), and their ordinances (they are not called laws) have effect
+within the province as long as and so far as they are not repugnant to
+any Act of the Union Parliament (sect. 86). The Supreme Courts of the
+old colonies become provincial divisions of the Supreme Court of South
+Africa (sect. 98), and the colonial property and debts are transferred
+to the Union (sects. 121-124). In fact, in South Africa, where, as in
+Ireland, the distinction in the past has been racial and not
+territorial, Union and not Federation has gained the day. It is safe to
+prophesy that the coming proposals of the Government will not follow the
+South African plan.
+
+
+DEVOLUTION.
+
+The South African precedent leads naturally to a few observations on the
+proposals for the extension of local self-government, usually classified
+under the head of Devolution. These proposals differ, not in degree only
+but in kind, from schemes for the granting of responsible government, or
+Gladstonian Home Rule. Under all devolutionary schemes, properly
+so-called, the central Parliament and executive remain the ultimate
+depositaries of power; and the powers entrusted to local bodies are
+administrative only, and can be resumed at will. The Acts by which
+County Councils were set up, first in Great Britain and afterwards in
+Ireland, were steps in this direction. The Welsh Intermediate Education
+Act, 1889, was another. The establishment by the Agriculture and
+Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, of a Council of Agriculture,
+as Agricultural Board, and a Board of Technical Instruction, was a
+third. By these statutes wide powers are delegated to representative
+bodies directly or indirectly elected by popular vote; but in each case
+the delegated powers are strictly defined, their exercise is made
+subject to central control, and the right of Parliament to modify or
+withdraw any of them is absolute and unquestioned. The appointment by
+the House of Commons of a Grand Committee for Scottish Bills is another
+experiment of a similar character, though on different lines. Such
+delegations of power are consistent with the maintenance in its entirety
+of the Union of the Kingdom, and there is no reason whatever why
+further progress should not be made in the same direction. The events of
+1907 are evidence that Devolution, regarded merely as a means of
+satisfying the political cry for Home Rule, is indeed "dead." But when
+the din of political battle has once more passed by, it may be possible
+to obtain consideration for a moderate and clearly defined scheme of
+delegation which, if applied not exclusively to Ireland, but to the
+whole country, might relieve the House of Commons of much of its work,
+and strengthen the habit of local self-government throughout the United
+Kingdom.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 20: See "_Times_ Special Commission," vol. v. p. 175, and
+"Home Rule. What is it?" by A.W. Samuels, K.C. (Simpkin Marshall, 1911),
+p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 21: See No. 213 of the Liberal League publications.]
+
+[Footnote 22: Erskine Childers, "The Framework of Home Rule" (Arnold,
+1911).]
+
+[Footnote 23: See speech of J.M. Robertson, M.P., London, January 11,
+1912.]
+
+[Footnote 24: "Home Rule Problems" (P.S. King & Son, 1911).]
+
+[Footnote 25: Written in March, 1912.]
+
+[Footnote 26: See Egerton, "Federations and Unions in the British
+Empire" (Clarendon Press, 1911). Introduction.]
+
+[Footnote 27: On the financial questions involved the Government have
+been advised by a Committee containing financial experts; but the Report
+of this Committee is withheld from publication, and it is believed that
+its advice will not be followed.]
+
+[Footnote 28: House of Commons, April 8, 1886.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Quoted in "The True History of the American Revolution,"
+by S.G. Fisher (Lippincott, 1903).]
+
+[Footnote 30: Childers, p. 340.]
+
+[Footnote 31: See Cambray, "Irish Affairs and the Irish Question"
+(Murray, 1911), p. 146.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Mr. Gladstone always declined to call it a "Parliament,"
+but some Ministers of to-day are less scrupulous.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Dicey, "A Leap in the Dark" (Murray, 1911), p. 71.]
+
+[Footnote 34: See "The Church of Ireland and Home Rule," by J.H.
+Bernard, D.D., Bishop of Ossory, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote 35: House of Commons Papers, 1864, xli. 79.]
+
+[Footnote 36: Parliamentary Papers, 2079.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Parliamentary Papers (Cd. 2905).]
+
+[Footnote 38: "Home Rule Problems," p. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 39: See the Newfoundland railway case of 1898 (Parliamentary
+Papers, Cd. 8867, 9137).]
+
+[Footnote 40: "A Leap in the Dark," p. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 41: "Home Rule Problems," p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Mr. Redmond rejected the provisions of the 1893 Bill,
+saying in the House of Commons on August 30, 1893, that "as the Bill now
+stands, no man in his senses can any longer regard it as a full, final,
+or satisfactory settlement of the Irish Nationalist question."]
+
+[Footnote 43: Speech at Belfast, February 8, 1912.]
+
+[Footnote 44: July 18, 1886, at Cockermouth.]
+
+[Footnote 45: See "The Perils of Home Rule," by P. Kerr-Smiley (Cassell,
+1911), p. 45, where Lord Morley's opinion to the same effect is quoted.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Speech at Whitechapel (_Times_, October 11, 1911).]
+
+[Footnote 47: Sir John Simon at Dewsbury (_Times_, February 8, 1912).]
+
+[Footnote 48: No such charge of ambiguity applies to the forcible
+letters of "Pacificus" on "Federalism and Home Rule" (Murray, 1910).]
+
+[Footnote 49: The changes in the Australian Constitution have been in
+favour of greater unity.]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+HOME RULE FINANCE
+
+By THE RIGHT HON. J. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.
+
+
+The financial problems connected with the grant of Home Rule in 1912 are
+among the most complicated that call for solution, and differ
+fundamentally from those which faced the Governments of 1886 and 1893.
+And by common consent, the problems are not merely different; they are
+immensely more difficult. No clauses in the earlier Bills lent
+themselves more readily to destructive criticism; and though the
+provisions of the new scheme are still shrouded in mystery, it is
+inherent in the conditions under which it must be framed that the
+financial clauses will prove to be even less defensible on the grounds
+of logic or equity than those of either of its predecessors.
+
+Since the first Home Rule Bill was introduced the interests of
+Ireland--social, economic, industrial, and political--have become
+increasingly identified with those of the other parts of the United
+Kingdom. The commercial, banking, and railway systems of Ireland are
+intimately associated with those of the greater and more firmly
+established systems of Great Britain. Irish railways are so largely
+controlled at the present time by British concerns, and there exist so
+many agreements and understandings between them and British companies as
+to facilities and rates, that they might be regarded as part of the same
+network of communications. Hardly less close are the relations which now
+exist between British and Irish banks.
+
+It is not, however, on the commercial side only that greater intimacy
+and more firmly established relations exist now than formerly. Irish
+industries are agricultural, dairying and manufacturing. In each of
+these branches the country is increasingly dependent on the markets of
+England and Scotland; while reciprocally the products of the factories
+and workshops of Great Britain find in Ireland one of their most
+important markets. We do not always sufficiently realise that on the
+other side of the St. George's Channel lies a country whose annual
+imports amount to sixty-five millions sterling. Even less do we realise
+that one-half (thirty-two millions sterling) is the value of the imports
+of manufactures, mainly British, into Ireland. This trade in
+manufactured goods is not only already enormous; it is rapidly growing.
+It has increased by more than four millions in four years. Any
+ill-considered legislative measure which interfered with or disturbed
+this great volume of trade would no doubt cause serious loss to Ireland;
+but it would bring bankruptcy and disaster to many British firms and
+their workmen.
+
+It is, nevertheless, in respect of the political changes and the
+legislative measures passed in the last quarter of a century that the
+most serious obstacles will be found in the way of framing any
+satisfactory scheme for financing a measure of Home Rule. The Irish
+Local Government system, framed on the British model by the Act of 1898,
+the Congested Districts Board, and the Department of Agriculture, have
+hitherto depended financially, either wholly or in part, on Imperial
+grants in aid. Local taxation payments alone from the Imperial Exchequer
+amounted in 1910-11 to L1,478,000. The financial scheme under Home Rule
+must obviously contemplate and provide for the continuance of those
+grants. Land Purchase schemes have been enacted which have already had
+the effect of converting a quarter of a million tenants into owners
+under a contingent liability of 120 millions sterling guaranteed by the
+Imperial Exchequer. No financial scheme can ignore the fact that the
+earliest of the annuities created under the Wyndham Act will not expire
+before 1972, so that the Imperial liability for the payment of the bulk
+of the annuities already created will continue for at least seventy
+years more.
+
+Finally, we are faced with the fact that in the last twenty-five years
+the relations of the State to its citizens have been completely
+reformed and extended. Social reform is now in the programme of all
+parties. Education costs several times as much as in 1885. The aged poor
+have been provided with pensions by the State, and the Insurance Act of
+last year will shortly call for additional subventions from the Imperial
+Treasury.
+
+In addition to the new duties thus undertaken by the State, the cost of
+Defence and of the Civil Services has grown by leaps and bounds. We need
+not look too closely into the apportionment of these charges whilst we
+remain partners in a United Kingdom, but if the partnership is to be
+dissolved at the suit of Irish Nationalism, a new balance must be
+struck, and on any fair basis the contribution of Ireland under
+present-day conditions should far exceed the amount under either of the
+schemes for which Mr. Gladstone made himself responsible. Both schemes
+recognised the equity of some contribution for these services from
+Ireland, and it must be assumed that the same broad principles will be
+applied in any scheme which may be framed hereafter.
+
+By way of introduction to any adequate discussion of the possible
+financial proposals of any Home Rule measure, it is desirable to set out
+in some detail the existing financial relations of Ireland and Great
+Britain. The Treasury calculations on this subject are embodied in two
+White Papers which have been prepared and published annually during the
+last eighteen years. It is true that doubts have from time to time been
+cast on the accuracy of these calculations and of the methods by which
+the materials on which they are based have been collected. As to this,
+it is only necessary to say that the information in the possession of
+the Treasury officials is infinitely more voluminous and likely to be
+more accurate than any in the possession of private individuals; and
+there is no reason to suppose the succession of eminent public servants,
+who have been in turn responsible for the preparation of these returns
+have been moved in one direction or the other by prepossessions or bias.
+Their one attempt has been throughout to present a statement, as
+accurate as it is possible to make it on the one hand of the cost of
+the existing administration in Ireland and the expenditure incurred
+there, and on the other of the revenue derived from persons or property
+living or situated in that country. As the Prime Minister said on
+November 27 of last year--
+
+     "The utmost pains have been taken to make the estimates of 'true'
+     revenue approximately correct, and it is believed that the total
+     revenue as given in the revised returns approximates closely to the
+     facts."[50]
+
+So long as Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, such an
+investigation has mainly an academic interest. The State is a
+homogeneous entity; the taxes imposed on individuals similarly
+circumstanced are the same (with some trifling exceptions--all in favour
+of Ireland) in whatever quarter of the United Kingdom the individual
+resides. But the case is wholly different when a proposal is made to
+split up the State into its constituent parts. It then becomes necessary
+to inquire if there is any prospect that the constituent parts will have
+resources sufficient for the various services, commitments and
+liabilities--present and contingent--which do or will belong to them.
+And the beginning of any such inquiry is, as has been already said, the
+present Irish revenue and expenditure.
+
+The essential figures for such an investigation are contained in the
+following statement. This shows separately the expenditure on the
+various items which have been the subject of discussion or special
+mention in the different financial schemes proposed in connection with
+Home Rule. On the revenue side the effect of the delayed collection of
+duties under the Budget of 1909-10 has been eliminated by taking the
+average revenue in the two years in certain items. The figures of
+expenditure relate to the year 1910-11. The corresponding figures for
+both collection and contribution are set out in this table in
+consequence of the suggestion made in some quarters that we should
+revert to the Gladstonian proposal of 1886 and credit Ireland with the
+full revenue as collected. Though any such proposal is patently absurd
+it is mentioned here for the sake of completeness.
+
+STATEMENT SHOWING ESTIMATED REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE IN IRELAND (BASED ON
+WHITE PAPERS 220 AND 221 OF 1911).
+
+  Revenue
+                                 As collected.  As contributed.
+                                       L             L
+1. Customs[A]                      2,922,000     2,866,000
+2. Excise (_ex._ licences)[A]      4,872,000     2,952,000
+3. Licence Duties[A]                 284,000       284,000
+4. Estate, etc.[A]                   914,000       914,000
+5. General Stamps[A]                 310,000       333,000
+6. Income Tax[A]                   1,106,000     1,307,000
+7. Postal Services                 1,155,000     1,155,000
+8. Miscellaneous                     139,000       139,000
+
+   Total                         L11,702,000    L9,950,000
+
+[A] = Average of two years, 1909-10 and 1910-11.
+
+
+         Expenditure.
+                                                     L
+1. Civil list and miscellaneous charges
+  (_ex._ Lord-Lieutenant's salary)                 118,500
+2. Lord-Lieutenant's salary                         20,000
+3. Local Taxation Payments                       1,477,500
+4. Public Works                                    415,500
+5. Civil Service Departments                       289,500
+6. Department of Agriculture                       415,000
+7. Police                                        1,464,500
+8. Judiciary, etc.                                 924,000
+9. Education, etc.                               1,805,000
+10. Old Age Pensions                             2,408,000
+11. Superannuation, etc.                           103,000
+12. Ireland Development Grant                      191,500
+13. Miscellaneous                                   12,000
+14. Revenue Departments                            298,000
+15. Postal Services                              1,404,500
+
+Total                                          L11,346,500
+
+The first striking fact in the foregoing statement is the large
+difference between "contributions" and "collections," _i.e._ between the
+"true" revenue derived from Ireland and the sums merely collected there.
+During the last two financial years this difference amounted to an
+average of L1,752,000. The excise collections alone represent an excess
+of L1,920,000 over the actual contribution. This, of course, arises from
+the movements of duty-paid spirits and beer between different parts of
+the United Kingdom. The last Report of the Commissioners of Customs and
+Excise (Cd. 5827) gives the amount of home-made spirits on which duty
+has been paid in Ireland at 5,209,000 proof gallons, whereas the
+quantity retained for consumption was only 2,776,000 proof gallons. A
+similar but smaller difference exists in the case of beer. To credit
+Ireland with the full amounts of the duties collected in Ireland, as was
+done by Mr. Gladstone in 1886, and as is now proposed in some quarters,
+would, in effect, amount to a gift from the British Exchequer of
+L1,750,000 a year. And there is obviously no security that the Irish
+Exchequer could rely on this boon being continued for more than a short
+time. There would be nothing to prevent the British spirit merchant from
+removing his spirits to this country in bond and paying the duty here
+after arrival. It is obvious that the Treasury would be compelled to
+grant facilities for this course. The present system is merely one of
+book-keeping and administrative convenience, but as the withdrawal of
+this sum from the British Exchequer to which it properly belongs would
+have to be made good from other British sources, there would be every
+inducement for the British merchant to effect such slight changes of
+method as would transfer the whole of this sum from the Irish to the
+British Exchequer. Having regard to the fact that on the other sources
+of revenue the collections in Ireland are estimated to fall short of the
+actual contributions by nearly L200,000, and that these are in the main
+direct taxes paid by the individuals concerned, it is not unlikely that
+a scheme which gave to Ireland the full benefit of her revenues as
+collected would in a short time be converted from a gain of some
+L1,700,000 to a loss of L100,000 to L200,000 to the Irish taxpayer.
+Stability in the tax system and reliability upon the realisation of the
+estimated revenue could not be assumed if "collections" instead of
+"contributions" were to be made the basis of any financial arrangements.
+
+Turning next to the contributed revenue upon which alone an Irish
+Parliament could rely, we note first the large proportion of the revenue
+represented by Customs and Excise. Contrasted with the figures for Great
+Britain, it is seen by the following table that whereas in Ireland the
+revenue from Customs and Excise amounts to 60 per cent. of the total, in
+Great Britain the proportion was not more than 36 per cent.
+
+PERCENTAGE OF REVENUE FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES CONTRIBUTED BY IRELAND AND
+GREAT BRITAIN RESPECTIVELY IN TWO YEARS ENDING MARCH 31, 1911.[51]
+
+                              Ireland.    Great Britain.
+                              Per cent.   Per cent.
+
+Customs                        29          18-1/2
+Excise (_ex._ licences)        30          17-1/2
+Estate, etc., duties            9          14-1/2
+Income tax                     13          23-1/2
+Postal, etc.                   11          15
+Other sources                   8          11
+                              ---         ---
+                              100         100
+
+Exclusive of the licence duties the average yield (contribution) of
+Customs and Excise in Great Britain amounted in the last two years to
+L55,900,000, or at the rate of L1 7_s._ 5_d._ per head; in Ireland the
+average yield was L5,800,000, or at the rate of L1 7_s._ 10_d._ per
+head. The incidence of our consumption taxes is thus seen to be at the
+present time practically the same in Ireland as in Great Britain; and
+the much larger proportion of the Irish revenue obtained from them is
+due to the smaller relative yield of direct taxes. Ireland being mainly
+an agricultural country, income tax, death duties, and stamps yield much
+less per head of the population there than in Great Britain. Such
+conditions are highly suggestive of inelasticity. An Irish Chancellor of
+the Exchequer will find no such fiscal reserves in direct taxes as does
+his more fortunate British colleague. This conclusion should give pause
+to those who think that if the Customs and Excise continued to be
+controlled from Westminster, it would be still possible to extract the
+larger revenue needed for the growing expenditure of Ireland by higher
+rates of income tax and death duties. Such a course would increase the
+burdens of the direct taxpayers of Ireland, but it would not fill the
+Irish Treasury. On the other hand, it is clear that there is no chance
+of relief being afforded to the Irish indirect taxpayer under Home Rule,
+supposing Customs and Excise were handed over to the Irish Parliament.
+Yet whenever a British Chancellor of the Exchequer has found it
+necessary to increase any of the taxes on consumption, the protests from
+the Irish benches have been invariably both loud and vehement. Irish
+members have pointed to the low wages earned in Ireland, the greater
+addiction of the people to tea and spirits, and the higher toll of their
+earnings consequently extracted by the Exchequer. The yield of existing
+taxes, therefore, whether direct or indirect, is not elastic in Ireland.
+Neither of them afford sufficient resources to meet the necessities of
+an Irish Parliament.
+
+There are, of course, other reasons why there should be no delegation of
+the power to impose Customs and Excise. The constitutional objections to
+such a course are overwhelming. It would involve the abandonment of the
+plea that Home Rule for Ireland was the prelude to Home Rule all round;
+in other words, that separation was the condition precedent to
+federalism. In every federal system in the world the control of Customs
+and Excise has been retained by the central authority. This is true not
+only of the quasi-federations within the British Empire; it is equally
+true of the United States, Germany, and Switzerland. One can scarcely be
+surprised at the emphatic repudiation which such a proposal received at
+the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. J.M.
+Robertson) when, on February 7, 1912, in a speech at Lincoln, he said--
+
+     "There was, however, just one thing that must remain one for three
+     kingdoms, and that was the fiscal system, Customs and Excise. _It
+     was a federal union we want, a federal state._ If they were to do
+     as some of his unreflecting Home Rule friends, Irish and English,
+     have done, and demand that Ireland should not only have power to
+     lay taxes but to fix Customs and Excise then they had no State left
+     at all."
+
+Another obvious objection to such a course is that it necessitates the
+erection of a Customs barrier between Ireland and Great Britain. Tariff
+Reformers are ready to admit that the present fiscal system is at least
+as injurious to Ireland as to other portions of the United Kingdom. The
+power to impose Customs duties on British goods--and the proportion of
+British total imports is so large that if this power were limited to
+foreign goods it would be financially valueless--would no doubt provide
+the Irish Exchequer with considerable funds and might be used to develop
+her prosperity. But the separation of the Customs systems for the
+purpose of enabling Ireland to impose tariffs in her own interests would
+necessarily be followed by a demand for treaty-making powers such as
+have been successfully claimed and are now enjoyed by British Dominions
+overseas. Under a general tariff for the United Kingdom the same
+advantages would accrue to Ireland without any corresponding damage to
+British or Imperial interests.
+
+Thus, whether Customs and Excise are handed over to the Irish Parliament
+or retained by the Imperial Parliament, the consequences are equally
+embarrassing. In the one case Ireland would be deprived of the control
+of some 60 per cent. of her present revenue, and of all power of
+expansion; in the other, British trade with Ireland might be gravely
+injured by hostile legislation, and the union of the three kingdoms in
+financial and commercial policy would be destroyed. But this is not
+federation, nor is it a step towards it. It is separation pure and
+simple. Unless we are prepared to accept separation as the end of our
+policy the control of Customs and therefore of Excise, must remain an
+Imperial affair.
+
+There can, therefore, be no justification for taking the control of the
+Customs and Excise from the Imperial Parliament. The Irish Parliament
+would thus be left with some 40 per cent. of present revenue under her
+own control. But the power to raise further revenue within the limits
+legally reserved to the Irish Parliament would be even less than this
+figure would imply. For of the L4,100,000 of revenue other than Customs
+and Excise, nearly L1,200,000 comes from the Postal Services; and even
+if these services were controlled by Ireland, it may be taken that the
+rates charged will be the same as in Great Britain. Of the remaining
+L2,900,000 nearly one-half comes from income tax. It has already been
+pointed out that its yield cannot be materially increased. There are
+only two ways by which an Irish Chancellor might attempt such a task. He
+might raise the rate of income tax or he might lower the exemption
+limit. The former course would almost certainly be followed by two
+equally undesirable results. So far as the tax continued to be paid in
+Ireland it would fall with crushing force on the already
+heavily-burdened agricultural industry. Still, from the point of view of
+the Exchequer, there might be some additional revenue on this account.
+On the other hand, there would be a check to the investment of capital
+in Ireland--and no country needs capital more--and a powerful temptation
+to transfer it where the tax would be lower. It may be seriously
+questioned, therefore, whether any increase in the income tax above the
+British rate is practicable. The other alternative, namely, the lowering
+of the exemption limit, would be so unpopular that no Irish Chancellor
+is ever likely to consider it seriously.
+
+Passing from the consideration of revenue it is necessary to examine the
+relation of present revenue to present expenditure. The first table in
+the present article shows that the ascertainable expenditure for Irish
+purposes in 1910-11 was about L1,400,000 more than the revenue. To this
+expenditure must be added about L300,000 for the State Share of the
+benefits under Part I. of the National Insurance Act, about L50,000 in
+respect of Part II., and about L100,000 for cost of administration of
+both parts, increasing the immediate deficit to about L1,550,000. This
+calculation, moreover, includes no charge against Irish revenue on
+account of Imperial Services--navy and army; National Debt, interest and
+management; the diplomatic services, and so forth. The equity of such
+payments has been consistently recognised in the two Bills and the three
+financial schemes submitted by Mr. Gladstone. However moderate the scale
+of contribution it would in the present case double or treble the margin
+between Irish revenue and Irish expenditure for local purposes. If, for
+example, the precedent of the 1886 Bill were followed, and Ireland
+charged with a contribution for Imperial services in proportion to the
+estimated relative taxable capacities, the additional charges on the
+Irish Exchequer would amount to not less than about L4,000,000 on the
+1910-11 figures if the taxable capacity of Ireland be taken at
+one-twenty-fifth, and to nearly L3,500,000 if it be taken at
+one-thirtieth.
+
+It may be worth while here to refer to the amazing statement that Great
+Britain has made a large "profit out of the Union." At the last meeting
+of the British Association, Prof. Oldham affected to prove that Ireland
+"in the course of one hundred years ... had sent across the Channel as
+her contribution to the British Exchequer a clear net payment of about
+330 millions sterling." The same contention has been urged by Lord
+MacDonnell. This calculation ignores the fact that even the Irish
+Parliament between 1782 and 1800 acknowledged its obligation to
+contribute to Imperial services, and voted contributions for Imperial
+purposes, besides raising and maintaining in Ireland a force of 12,000
+to 15,000 men, some of whom were available for foreign service. It makes
+no allowance also for the debt which Ireland brought into the Union
+when the Exchequers were amalgamated in 1817. The importance of the last
+item may be judged from the fact that if the whole of the so-called
+contribution to Imperial services, _i.e._ the excess of true revenue
+over local expenditure, had been employed since 1817 in paying interest
+at 3 per cent. on the old Irish debt and the whole of any balance
+remaining after payment of interest had been used for redemption of the
+capital, this debt would only have been extinguished in 1886. If a
+contribution of only 1 per cent. to the cost of Imperial services had
+been previously charged against this excess, there would be a large
+balance of the Irish debt still outstanding. As a matter of fact, in the
+same period that Ireland is said to have contributed L330,000,000, Great
+Britain may be shown by a precisely similar calculation to have
+contributed no less than L5,800,000,000 for Imperial purposes. The
+measure of "injustice to Ireland" meted out by unsympathetic Britons in
+respect to the Imperial contribution extracted from Ireland may be seen
+from the following comparison for different dates in the last century.
+
+RATIOS OF POPULATIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO IMPERIAL SERVICES
+OF IRELAND AND GREAT BRITAIN AT DECENNIAL INTERVALS.
+
+                   Ratio of British to           Ratio of British to
+                   Irish Populations.            Irish Contributions.
+
+1819-20                  2.1                             12.7
+1829-30                  2.1                             10.9
+1839-40                  2.3                             11.5
+1849-50                  3.2                             17.6
+1859-60                  4.0                              9.8
+1869-70                  4.8                             12.3
+1879-80                  5.7                             16.3
+1889-90                  7.0                             22.6
+1899-00                  8.9                             46.5
+1909-10                  9.3                             [52]
+
+The truth is that from a financial point of view Ireland has no valid
+complaint to make on the score of her contributions for Imperial
+purposes. Between 1820 and 1840 the Irish population was a little less
+than one-half of the population of Great Britain; her contribution for
+Imperial Services varied from one-eleventh to one-thirteenth. In
+1899-1900 the British contribution was 46-1/2 times the Irish, though
+the population was less than nine times as large. If any contribution
+for Imperial Services from Ireland is justified, and Mr. Gladstone at
+least acknowledged it, no one can say that the contribution actually
+taken from Ireland has been excessive.
+
+As already stated we are still without any information as to the
+financial proposals to be included in the Home Rule Bill of 1912. The
+Government have appointed a Committee to advise them upon this subject.
+Though the cost of the Committee has been met out of public funds, and
+sources of information were laid open to them which are not readily
+available to the public, the Prime Minister has steadily refused to
+supply to Parliament any information as to the results of their
+labours.[53] The terms of reference to the Commission; the witnesses
+examined by them; the information placed at their disposal; the
+character of the conclusions and recommendations; these have, all alike,
+been refused to the House of Commons. But while Parliament has been
+denied this information, there is every reason to believe that the
+leaders of the Nationalist Party have been taken fully into the
+confidence of the Government. We do not know whether, for example, the
+Customs or Excise or both will be imposed and collected by the future
+Irish Parliament. We do not know whether any contribution will be
+required for the Irish share of Imperial services. We are equally
+uncertain whether any and what purely Irish services will be retained by
+the Imperial Parliament, and charged on the Imperial Exchequer. And
+lastly, the intentions of the Government in regard to the payment of a
+subsidy from the Imperial Exchequer to the Irish Parliament, with which
+rumour is busy, are as yet unrevealed.
+
+In spite of this lamentable paucity of information as to the Government
+plan, I think it can be safely said that no scheme even remotely
+resembling any of those presented in connection with the two previous
+Bills can be put forward now. Each of those schemes would involve the
+Irish Parliament in a huge deficit from the very outset. Even if the
+schemes were adapted to the changed modern conditions the same
+impassable gap between available revenue and certain expenditure
+remains. Those schemes presumably embodied principles which the
+Governments of 1886 and 1893, and the Nationalist parties of those dates
+regarded as adequate. It would be strange if it were otherwise, seeing
+that an examination and comparison of the separate schemes can discover
+no other consistent principles except the solitary one of juggling with
+the revenues, expenditures, and contributions in such manner as would
+start the Irish Parliament with a small surplus. In view of the
+importance of these earlier attempts to secure an approximation to
+financial equilibrium, it appears desirable to examine how Ireland would
+fare in modern conditions under each of them.
+
+The essential features of the 1886 scheme were as follows:--
+
+1. Customs and Excise to be under the complete control of the Imperial
+Parliament.
+
+2. Irish Parliament to have power to levy any other taxes.
+
+3. Ireland to contribute annually to the Consolidated Fund of the United
+Kingdom.
+
+(_a_) L1,466,000 for interest and management of Irish share of National
+Debt.
+
+(_b_) L1,466,000 for contribution to Imperial Defence.
+
+(_c_) L110,000 for contribution to Imperial Civil Services.
+
+(_d_) L1,000,000 for Irish Constabulary.
+
+4. Contributions 3 (_a_) to 3 (_d_) were not to be increased for thirty
+years, but might be diminished.
+
+5. Irish share of National Debt to be reckoned at L48,000,000, and Irish
+Sinking Fund to begin at L360,000, increasing by amount of interest
+released on redeemed portion of debt.
+
+6. Contribution to Imperial Defence and Civil Services not to exceed
+one-fifteenth of the total cost in any year.
+
+7. Irish contribution to be credited with receipts on account of Crown
+Revenues in Ireland.
+
+8. If expenditure on Constabulary fell below L1,000,000, contribution 3
+(_d_) to be correspondingly reduced.
+
+9. Customs and Excise _collected_ in Ireland were to be subject to
+following charges:--
+
+(_a_) Cost of collection, not more than 4 per cent.
+
+(_b_) Contributions to Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.
+
+(_c_) Payments to National Debt Commissioners.
+
+(_d_) Any sums required under the Land Act of that Session the balance
+being paid over to the Irish Government.
+
+10. The Lord Lieutenant's salary not to fall on the Irish Exchequer.
+
+Broadly the scheme gave to the Irish Government credit for the Customs
+and Excise _collected_ in Ireland and charged it with annual payments of
+L4,502,000 in addition to the cost of collection. It is clear that Mr.
+Gladstone, at the time when the Irish population was about one-eighth of
+the United Kingdom, assumed Ireland to have a taxable capacity of
+one-fifteenth. If such a scheme were introduced at the present moment it
+is obvious that, owing to the further decline in the population of
+Ireland, a smaller figure for taxable capacity must be taken. What that
+figure should be it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide
+satisfactorily. It is generally assumed that on the basis of the
+calculations made by the Financial Relations Commission in 1896, the
+present relative taxable capacity for Ireland would be about
+one-twenty-fifth that of the United Kingdom. In the last two financial
+years the Irish contribution to Income Tax has been one-twenty-eighth,
+and the contribution to Estate Duties one-twenty-sixth of the total
+collection in the United Kingdom. These proportions, taken as measures
+of taxable capacity must be exceptionally favourable to Ireland, where
+the proportion of Income Tax payers and of persons possessing property
+paying Death Duties is relatively to the total population smaller than in
+the United Kingdom as a whole. If, therefore, for the sake of the present
+calculations the mean of two proportions--_i.e._ one-twenty-seventh
+deducible from the Income Tax and Death Duty contributions is assumed,
+we employ a figure exceptionally favourable to Ireland. The financial
+statement on the next page showing the 1886 scheme applied to present
+conditions has been drawn up on this basis. The revenue is here assumed
+to come in at the average rate of the last two years (1909-10 and
+1910-11) and the expenditure is taken as that of 1910-11.
+
+The state of the Irish Exchequer under the foregoing scheme would be
+indeed a parlous one. It would start with a deficit of L3,200,000, and
+with a prospective immediate increase by about L450,000 on account of
+the Insurance Act. The actual budget deficit would thus be about
+L3,650,000. The Imperial Parliament would collect about L7,794,000, and
+after deducting L5,346,000 would hand back to the Irish Exchequer the
+difference of L2,458,000. The revenues upon which the Chancellor in the
+Irish Parliament could rely would be, therefore, L6,366,000. Out of this
+an expenditure of L9,562,000 would have to be met. The postal services
+would probably not stand any increased charges; there is left,
+therefore, only L5,211,000 of free revenue, and only L2,753,000 under
+the unrestricted control of the Irish Parliament. With such resources it
+would be obviously impossible to make good a deficit of L3,206,000 by
+any increase of taxation. It must not be overlooked, also, that the
+effect of crediting Ireland with Customs and Excise as "collected"
+instead of as "contributed" is practically to make the Irish Parliament
+a further free gift of nearly L2,000,000.
+
+A totally different scheme accompanied the Home Rule Bill of 1893 as
+introduced. The principal features of the new scheme were as follows:--
+
+1. Customs, excise, and postage to be imposed by the Imperial
+Parliament.
+
+2. Excise and postage to be collected and managed by the Irish
+Parliament.
+
+3. Customs to be collected and retained by the Imperial Parliament in
+view of contribution to Imperial services.
+
+4. Excise duties collected in Ireland on articles consumed in Great
+Britain to be handed over to Imperial Exchequer.
+
+5. If Excise duties be increased the yield of the excess duties to be
+handed over to the Imperial Exchequer.
+
+6. If Excise duties be reduced and Irish revenue diminished, the
+deficiency to be made good to Irish revenue.
+
+7. Two-thirds of the cost of the Constabulary to be repaid to the
+Imperial Exchequer.
+
+Some of the provisions of this scheme are of exceptional interest. If it
+had ever been in operation the plan, for example, of adjusting the
+payments from one exchequer to the other in the event of changes being
+enacted by the Imperial Parliament in the Excise duties must have been
+fruitful of difficulties and created much friction. If the duties had
+been reduced there might have been an increased consumption. Who can say
+how much of the revenue lost to the Irish Exchequer in the event of a
+reduction of duties would have been due to the reduced rates of duty,
+and how much had been regained by increased consumption. Again, if the
+Excise duties had been increased, as in the Budget of 1909, to such a
+degree that the total revenue at the higher duty was less than the total
+revenue from the lower duty, who could have determined whether this was
+a case requiring a payment from the Irish to the British Exchequer, or
+from the British to the Irish Exchequer.
+
+Perhaps the most striking novelty of the first scheme of 1893 was the
+retention of the Customs duties in lieu of Ireland's contribution to
+Imperial Services. At that time the estimated value of the Customs
+contributed by Ireland was L2,400,000, and seeing that in 1886 her
+reasonable share of liability on account of Imperial Services was put at
+L4,600,000, the very large gift to Ireland represented by this scheme
+may be readily imagined. Even with the full advantage of this gift the
+estimated Irish surplus was put at L500,000. During the discussions of
+the Bill an error in the Excise contributions, reducing the revenue
+available to the Irish Exchequer by L356,000 was discovered. The reduced
+surplus of L144,000 was regarded by Mr. Gladstone as "cutting it too
+fine," and the financial scheme was completely recast. Before explaining
+the third scheme it might be well to examine as before how the original
+scheme of 1893 would work out at the present time. This is shown in the
+following balance sheet.
+
+SCHEME B (BASED ON BILL OF 1893, AS INTRODUCED).
+
+REVENUE.                      L       EXPENDITURE.                   L
+
+1.  Excise (true revenue              1. Civil Government
+        _ex._ licences)    2,952,000     charges (_ex._ Constabulary
+2.  Local Taxes--                        and Lord
+       (_a_) Stamps          333,000     Lieutenant's salary)     6,952,000
+       (_b_) Death Duties    914,000  2. Collection of Ireland
+       (_c_) Income Tax    1,307,000     Revenues, etc.             298,000
+       (_d_) Excise licences 284,000  3. Postal Services          1,404,000
+3. Postal Revenue          1,155,000  4. Contribution to Constabulary
+4. Miscellaneous             150,000     (2/3rds of
+                           ---------     L1,464,500)                976,000
+                           7,095,000
+   Deficit                 2,535,000
+                           ---------                              ---------
+                           9,630,000                              9,630,000
+
+The narrow surplus of L144,000 has disappeared, and instead there is on
+present-day figures the substantial deficit of L2,535,000. Here again it
+may be observed that the Excise duties are fixed by the Imperial
+Parliament, and the Postal charges are presumably also invariable. The
+first Budget deficit would, as before, be not less than L3,000,000. The
+taxes within the absolute control of the Irish Parliament would have
+been producing a revenue of L2,838,000. It is within this range of
+taxation, or by the imposition of new direct taxes, that the Irish
+Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been compelled to raise an
+additional L3,000,000 in order to make the two sides of his account
+balance.
+
+Owing to the mistake already referred to, Mr. Gladstone prepared and
+presented a third scheme, whose principal features were as follows:--
+
+1. Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure to be one-third of
+the true revenue of taxes levied in Ireland.
+
+2. Ireland to be credited with miscellaneous receipts and surplus (if
+any) arising from postal services.
+
+3. Ireland to pay out of revenues credited to her, two-thirds of the
+cost of the Constabulary, all Civil Government charges and any deficit
+on postal services.
+
+4. The Customs and Inland Revenue duties and the rates for Postal
+charges to be fixed and collected by Imperial Parliament.
+
+5. After six years (1) Irish contribution to Imperial Services to be
+revised; (2) the collection of Inland Revenue duties to be undertaken by
+Irish Government; (3) Irish legislation to impose the stamp duties,
+income tax, and excise licences. The financial clauses as thus
+remodelled and simplified were expected to produce a surplus of
+L512,000. The characteristic feature of this arrangement was the
+provision for handing over to the Imperial Exchequer one-third of the
+Irish true tax revenue as Ireland's payment on account of Imperial
+Services. How matters would stand if this arrangement were applied to
+the present financial situation in Ireland may be seen from the
+following table.
+
+SCHEME C (BASED ON BILL OF 1893, AS AMENDED).
+
+REVENUE.                          L           EXPENDITURE            L
+
+1. Customs                     2,866,000  1. Civil Government
+2. Excise (_ex._ licence                       Charges            6,952,000
+     duties)                   2,952,000  2. Constabulary (2/3rds
+3. Stamps                        333,000       of L1,464,000)       976,000
+4. Death duties                  914,000  3. Estimated deficit on
+5. Licence duties                284,000       Postal Services      249,000
+6. Income Tax                  1,307,000
+7. Crown Lands, etc.              25,000
+                               ---------
+                               8,681,000
+                               ---------
+8. 2/3rds of L8,965,000        5,757,000
+9. Miscellaneous Receipts
+                                 115,000
+                               ---------
+                               5,902,000
+   Deficit                     2,275,000
+                               ---------                          ---------
+   Total                       8,177,000       Total              8,177,000
+                               ---------                          ---------
+
+The main Irish objection to a scheme of this description is that,
+whatever tax be imposed, the amount taken from the Irish taxpayer would
+be 50 per cent. greater than the amount going into the Irish Exchequer.
+It is easy to foresee that such an arrangement would have led to much
+friction and difficulty, and that it could not have lasted even the six
+years for which it was provisionally fixed. If applied to the present
+situation Ireland would have been contributing less than L3,000,000 for
+Imperial services, although a very moderate estimate of what her
+contribution should be would require her to pay at least L5,000,000. In
+spite of this modest payment, however, this scheme would have confronted
+the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer with a deficit of more than
+L2,250,000 rising at once to L2,700,000 in consequence of the Insurance
+Act.
+
+In reviewing the three financial schemes which have previously seen the
+light, the following facts stand out clearly:--
+
+1. Some contribution was expected from Ireland for Imperial services in
+each scheme.
+
+2. The rates of customs, excise, and postage were in all cases to be
+controlled by the Imperial Parliament.
+
+3. The customs were in every case to be collected by officers of the
+Imperial Exchequer.
+
+4. In the two schemes of 1893 "true" revenue and not "collected" revenue
+was the basis of the financial arrangement.
+
+5. Each of these schemes would involve the Irish Parliament from the
+outset in a huge deficit.
+
+In view of these facts it is certain that any arrangement which
+pretended to give a Budget surplus to the Irish Parliament would
+involve, overtly or covertly, the payment of a large subsidy to Ireland
+out of the Imperial Exchequer. Such a contingency is not likely to make
+Home Rule more acceptable, or the path of any Bill through Parliament
+more easy.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 50: See Parliamentary Debates.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Based on White Papers 233 (1910) and 220 (1911).]
+
+[Footnote 52: No contribution from Ireland in this year; local
+expenditure is estimated to have been in excess of revenue contributed.]
+
+[Footnote 53: Since the above was written, Mr. Birrell has promised
+(March 27, 1912) to publish the report "some time" after the
+introduction of the Home Rule Bill.]
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL ANALOGY.
+
+BY L.S. AMERY, M.P.
+
+
+There is no argument in favour of Home Rule for Ireland which is more
+frequently used to-day than that which is based on the analogy of our
+Colonial experience. In the history of every one of our Colonies--so
+runs one variant of the argument--from Lord Durham's report on Canada
+down to the grant of responsible government to the Transvaal, "Home
+Rule" has turned disaffection into loyalty, and has inaugurated a career
+of prosperity. Why should we then hesitate to apply to Irish discontent
+the "freedom" which has proved so sovereign a remedy elsewhere? Again,
+if our Dominions have been able to combine local Home Rule with national
+unity--so runs another variant--why should a policy which works
+successfully in Canada or Australia not work in the United Kingdom?
+Another suggestion freely thrown out is that Home Rule is only the
+beginning of a process of federalisation which is to bring us to the
+goal of Imperial Federation. In one form or another the Colonial Analogy
+occupies the foreground of almost every speech or article in favour of
+Irish Home Rule. The ablest, as well as the most courageous, piece of
+Home Rule advocacy which has so far appeared, Mr. Erskine Childers's
+"Framework of Home Rule," is based from first to last on this analogy
+and on little else.
+
+That the argument is effective cannot be gainsaid. It is the argument
+which appeals most strongly to the great body of thoughtful Liberals who
+from every other point of view look upon the project with unconcealed
+misgiving. It is the argument which has appealed to public opinion in
+the Dominions, and has there secured public resolutions and private
+subscriptions for the Nationalist cause. In one of its forms it appealed
+to the imagination of an Imperialist like Cecil Rhodes. In another it
+has, undoubtedly, in recent years attracted not a few Unionists who have
+been prepared to approach with, at any rate, an open mind the
+consideration of a federal constitution for the United Kingdom. And,
+indeed, if the analogy really applied, it would be difficult to resist
+the conclusion. If Ireland has really been denied something which has
+proved the secret of Colonial loyalty and prosperity, what Englishman
+would be so short-sighted as to wish to deprive her of it for the mere
+sake of domination? If Home Rule were really a stepping-stone towards
+Imperial Federation, how insincere our professions of "thinking
+Imperially," if we are not prepared to sacrifice a merely local
+sentiment of union for a great all-embracing ideal!
+
+But, as a matter of fact, there is no such analogy bearing on the
+question which, here and now, is at issue. On the contrary the whole
+trend of Colonial experience confirms, in the most striking fashion, the
+essential soundness of the position which Unionists have maintained
+throughout, that the material, social and moral interests, alike of
+Ireland and of Great Britain, demand that they should remain members of
+one effective, undivided legislative and administrative organisation.
+
+The whole argument, indeed, plausible as it is, is based on a series of
+confusions, due, in part, to deliberate obscuring of the issue, in part
+to the vagueness of the phrase "Home Rule," and to the general ignorance
+of the origin and real nature of the British Colonial system. There are,
+indeed, three main confusions of thought. There is, first of all, the
+confusion between "free" or "self-governing" institutions, as contrasted
+with unrepresentative or autocratic rule, and separate government,
+whether for all or for specified purposes, as contrasted with a common
+government. In the next place there is the confusion between the status
+of a self-governing Dominion, in its relations to the Imperial
+Government, and the status of a Colonial state or provincial government
+towards the Dominion of which it forms a part. A truly inimitable
+instance of this confusion has been provided by Mr. Redmond in a
+declaration made on more than one occasion that all that Ireland asks
+for, is, "What has already been given to twenty-eight different portions
+of the Empire."[54] Considering that the "portions" thus enumerated
+include practically sovereign nation states like Canada, provinces like
+those of the South African Union, with little more than county council
+powers, and stray survivals, like the Isle of Man, of an earlier system
+of government, based on the same principle of ascendency and
+interference as the government of Ireland under Poynings's Act, it is
+difficult to know which to admire most, Mr. Redmond's assurance, or his
+cynical appreciation of the ignorance or capacity for deliberate
+self-deception of those with whom he has to deal. The third confusion is
+that between Imperial functions and national or Dominion functions, due
+to the fact that the two are combined in the United Kingdom Parliament,
+which is also, under present conditions, the Imperial Parliament, and to
+the consequent habitual use of the word "Imperial" in two quite
+different senses. It is this last confusion which makes such a
+declaration as Mr. Asquith's about safeguarding "the indefeasible
+authority of the Imperial Parliament" a mere equivocation, for it
+affords no indication as to whether the supremacy retained is the
+effective and direct control maintained by Canada over Ontario, or the
+much slighter and vaguer supremacy exercised by the United Kingdom over
+the Dominions. It is this same confusion, too, which is responsible for
+the notion that the problem of creating a true Imperial Parliament or
+Council by a federation of the Dominions would be assisted, either by
+creating an additional Dominion in the shape of Ireland, or by
+arranging the internal constitution of the United Kingdom, as one of the
+federating Dominions, on a federal rather than on a unitary basis.
+
+The confusion of ideas between self-government and separate government
+pervades the whole argument that the granting of "Home Rule" to Ireland
+would be analogous to the grant of responsible institutions to the
+Colonies. The essence of Home Rule is the creation of a separate
+government for Ireland. The essence of our Colonial policy has been the
+establishment of popular self-government in the Colonies. That this
+self-government has been effected through local parliaments and local
+executives, and not by representation in a common parliament, is a
+consequence of the immense distances and the profound differences in
+local conditions separating the Dominions from the Mother Country. It is
+an adaptation of the policy to peculiar conditions, and not an essential
+principle of the policy itself.
+
+This is obvious from any consideration of the circumstances under which
+the policy of Colonial self-government originated. Under the old
+Colonial system which preceded it, the Governor not only controlled the
+executive government, whose members were simply his official
+subordinates, but also controlled legislation through a nominated Upper
+Chamber or Legislative Council. The object of this restrictive policy
+was not interference with local affairs, but the supposed necessity of
+safeguarding general Imperial interests. Local affairs were, in the
+main, left to the local government. But the peculiar constitution of
+that government rendered it almost inevitable that the practical control
+of those affairs should fall into the hands of a narrowly limited class,
+clustering round the Governor and his circle, and by its privileges and
+prejudices creating in those excluded from that class a spirit of
+opposition, which extended from its members to the whole Imperial system
+which they were supposed to personify. In each of the North American
+Colonies a small oligarchy, generally known as the "Family Compact,"
+was able to "monopolise the Executive Council, the Legislative Council,
+the Bench, the Bar, and all offices of profit." It was against this
+system, and not against the Imperial connection or even against undue
+interference from England, that the Canadian rebellion of 1837 was
+directed. In 1838 Lord Durham made his famous report in which he
+attributed the troubles to their true cause, the disregard of public
+opinion, and proposed that the Governor should in future govern, in
+local affairs, in accordance with the advice given by Colonial Ministers
+enjoying the confidence of the popular Assembly. A few years later his
+policy was put into execution by Lord Elgin in Canada, and rapidly
+extended to other Colonies. Five years ago the same system of government
+was applied to the Transvaal and to the Orange River Colony.[55]
+
+From the foregoing brief summary, it is sufficiently clear that the
+really vital feature of the policy inaugurated by Lord Durham was the
+acceptance of responsible popular government in local affairs, and not
+the separation of Colonial government from Imperial control. The policy
+did not involve the setting up of new legislative machinery or a new
+definition of Imperial relations. For an existing system of separate
+government in local affairs, which created friction and discontent, it
+simply substituted a new system which has, in the main, worked smoothly
+up to the present. From the success of this policy, what possible direct
+inference can be drawn as to the effect of setting up in Ireland, not a
+similar system of government, for Ireland already enjoys political
+institutions as fully representative as those of any Colony, or of any
+other portion of the United Kingdom, but a separate centre of
+government?
+
+At the same time the success of responsible government in the Colonies
+is, on closer examination, by no means without bearing on the problem of
+Ireland. That system of Colonial responsible government which seems to
+us so simple and obvious is, on the contrary, one of the most artificial
+systems the world has ever known, based as it is upon conditions which
+have never been present before in the world's history, and which are now
+rapidly disappearing, never, perhaps, to recur. That a popular assembly
+in complete control of the executive, should respect an unwritten
+convention limiting its powers and rights to purely local affairs, and
+submit to a purely external control of its wider interests and
+destinies, seemed to most of Lord Durham's contemporaries almost
+unthinkable. Not only those who opposed the policy, but many of those
+who advocated it, were convinced that it would lead to complete
+separation. Nor were their fears or hopes by any means ill-grounded.
+That they were not justified by the event was due to an altogether
+exceptional combination of factors. The first of these was the
+overwhelming supremacy of the United Kingdom in commerce and naval
+power, and its practical monopoly of political influence in the outer
+world. Sheltered by an invincible navy, far removed from the sound of
+international conflict, the Colonies had no practical motive for
+concerning themselves with foreign affairs, or with any but purely local
+measures of defence. Even when, as in 1854, they were technically
+involved by the United Kingdom in war with a great Power, they were not
+so much as inconvenienced. The United Kingdom, on the other hand,
+incurred no serious expenditure for their defence beyond what was in any
+case required for the defence of its sea-borne commerce, nor was its
+foreign policy at any time seriously deflected by regard for Colonial
+considerations. Even when the Colonies encroached on the original limits
+set them, and began to establish protectionist tariffs against the
+Mother Country, British manufacturers could afford to disregard a
+handicap of which they were at first scarcely sensible, while British
+statesmen smiled condescendingly at the harmless aberrations of Colonial
+inexperience. Another factor was the very fact that it was colonies that
+the United Kingdom was dealing with, new countries where every other
+interest was secondary to that of opening up and developing the untamed
+wilderness, to creating the material framework which, in fulness of
+time, might support a complete national life. There was consequently
+little real interest in external policy in the Colonial assemblies,
+little leisure for criticism of the Imperial authorities, little desire
+to assert any particular point of view. Last, but not least, was the
+factor of distance, interposing a veil of obscurity between the
+different communities in the Empire; mitigating minor causes of
+friction, keeping Colonial politics free from being entangled in the
+British Party system.
+
+The British system of Colonial self-government has so far proved
+workable because of the exceptional circumstances in which it
+originated. But its success cannot be regarded as wholly unqualified.
+The failure to provide any direct representation of Colonial interests
+and aspirations in the Imperial Parliament may not have mattered as far
+as foreign policy and defence were concerned. But it did affect the
+colonies most seriously from the economic point of view, for it
+precluded them from pressing with any effect for the development of
+inter-Imperial communications, or from resisting the abolition of the
+system of preferential trade which meant so much to their prosperity.
+Under the influence of a narrowly selfish and short-sighted policy,
+inspired by English manufacturing interests, Canada saw the stream of
+commerce and population pass by her shores on its way to the United
+States. The relative progress of the British Colonies and of the United
+States since the abolition of preference is some measure of the economic
+weakness of a political system which has no common trade policy. In any
+case the British Colonial system, as we have known it is inevitably
+moving towards its crisis. The conditions under which it originated are
+fast disappearing. The commercial and political expansion of Europe, of
+America, of Asia, are bringing the Dominions more and more into the
+arena of international conflict. The growth of foreign navies is forcing
+them to realise the necessity of taking a larger part in their own
+defence. Their growing national self-consciousness demands not only that
+they should cease to be dependent on the Mother Country for their
+safety, but also that they should exercise control over the foreign
+policy of which defence is merely the instrument. There are only two
+possible solutions to the problem which is now developing: the one is
+complete separation, the other is partnership in an Imperial Union in
+which British subjects in the Dominions shall stand on exactly the same
+footing, and enjoy the same powers and privileges in Imperial affairs,
+as British subjects in the United Kingdom.
+
+The conditions--geographical, economic, political--which, in the
+Colonies, made the grant of free institutions, unaccompanied by some
+form of political federation or union, even a temporary success, were,
+indeed, exceptional. None of them were present in the circumstances of
+Ireland before the Union. They are not present to-day. Geographically
+the United Kingdom is a single compact island group, of which Ireland is
+by no means the most outlying portion. No part of Ireland is to-day, or
+ever was, as inaccessible from the political centre of British power as
+the remoter parts of the Highlands, not to speak of the Shetlands or
+Hebrides. Racially, no less than physically, Ireland is an integral part
+of the United Kingdom, peopled as it is with the same mixture of racial
+elements as the main island of the group. The blend of Celt with Dane,
+with Normans and English of the Pale, with English citizens of the
+seaports and Cromwellian settlers, which constitutes Celtic Ireland,
+so-called, is less Celtic both in speech and in blood than either Wales
+or the Highlands. Religion alone has maintained a difference between a
+predominantly Celtic and a predominantly Teutonic Ireland which would
+otherwise have disappeared far more completely than the difference
+between Celtic and Teutonic Scotland. Economically, the connection
+between Ireland and Great Britain, always close, has become such that
+to-day Ireland subsists almost wholly upon the English market. In these
+respects, at least, there is no resemblance between the conditions of
+Ireland and that of any of the Colonies.
+
+On the other hand, politically, Ireland was for centuries treated as a
+colony--"the first and nearest of the Colonies," as Mr. Childers puts
+it. The difficulties and defects of early Colonial government were
+intensified by the great conflict of the Reformation, which made Ireland
+a centre of foreign intrigue, and by the long religious and
+constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century, which fell with
+terrible severity upon a population which had throughout espoused the
+losing cause. Cromwell; realising that "if there is to be a prosperous,
+strong and United Kingdom there must be one Parliament and one
+Parliament only," freed Ireland from the Colonial status. Unfortunately,
+his policy was reversed in 1660, and for over a century Ireland endured
+the position of "least favoured Colony"--least favoured, partly because,
+with the possible exception of linen, all her industries were
+competitive with, and not complementary to English industries, and so
+were deliberately crushed in accordance with the common economic policy
+of the time, partly because the memories of past struggles kept England
+suspicious and jealous of Irish prosperity. Every evil under which the
+old colonial system laboured in Canada before the rebellion was
+intensified in Ireland by the religious and racial feud between the mass
+of the people and the ascendant caste. The same solvent of free
+government that Durham recommended was needed by Ireland. In view of the
+geographical and economic position of Ireland, and in the political
+circumstances of the time, it could only be applied through union with
+Great Britain. Union had been vainly prayed for by the Irish Parliament
+at the time of the Scottish Union. Most thoughtful students, not least
+among them Adam Smith,[56] had seen in it the only cure for the evils
+which afflicted the hapless island.
+
+Meanwhile, in 1782, the dominant caste utilised the Ulster volunteer
+movement to wrest from Great Britain, then in the last throes of the war
+against France, Spain, and America, the independence of the Irish
+Parliament. Theoretically co-equal with the British Parliament,
+Grattan's Parliament was, in practice, kept by bribery in a position
+differing very little from that of Canada before the rebellion. Still
+the new system in Ireland might, under conditions resembling those of
+Canada in 1840, have gradually evolved into a workable scheme of
+self-government. But the conditions were too different. A temporary
+economic revival, indeed, followed the removal of the crippling
+restrictions upon Irish trade. But, politically, the new system began to
+break down almost from the start. Its entanglement in English party
+politics, which geography made inevitable, lead to deadlocks over trade
+and over the regency question, the latter practically involving the
+right to choose a separate sovereign. The same geographical conditions
+made it impossible for Ireland to escape the influence of the French
+Revolution. The factious spirit and the oppression of the ruling caste
+did the rest. There is no need to dwell here on the horrors of the
+rising of 1798, and of its repression, or on the political and financial
+chaos that marked the collapse of an ill-starred experiment. England,
+struggling for her existence, had had enough of French invasion, civil
+war, and general anarchy on her flank. The Irish Parliament died, as it
+had lived, by corruption, and Castlereagh and Pitt conferred upon
+Ireland the too long delayed boon of equal partnership in the United
+Kingdom.
+
+The mistakes which, for a century, deprived the Union of much of its
+effect--the delay in granting Catholic emancipation, the folly of Free
+Trade, acquiesced in by Irish members, by which agrarian strife was
+intensified, and through which Ireland again lost the increase of
+population which she had gained in the first half century of Union--need
+not be discussed here. The fact remains that to-day Ireland is
+prosperous, and on the eve of far greater prosperity under a sane
+system of national economic policy. What is more, Ireland is in the
+enjoyment of practically every liberty and every privilege that is
+enjoyed by any other part of the United Kingdom, of greater liberty and
+privilege than is enjoyed by Dominions which have no control of Imperial
+affairs. The principle which in the case of the Colonies was applied
+through separate governments has, in her case, been applied through
+Union. It could only have been applied through Union in 1800. It can
+only be applied through Union to-day. Railways and steamships have
+strengthened the geographical and economic reasons for union;
+train-ferries and aircraft will intensify them still further. Meanwhile
+the political and strategical conditions of these islands in the near
+future are far more likely to resemble those of the great Napoleonic
+struggle than those of the Colonial Empire in its halcyon period.
+
+In one aspect, then, the Union was the only feasible way of carrying out
+the principle which underlay the successful establishment of Colonial
+self-government. In another aspect it was the last step of a natural
+and, indeed, inevitable process for which the history of the British
+Colonies since the grant of self-government has furnished analogies in
+abundance. It has furnished none for the reversal of that process. It is
+only necessary to consider the reasons which, in various degrees,
+influenced the several groups of independent Colonies in North America,
+Australia, and South Africa to unite under a single government, whether
+federal or unitary, thus wholly or partially surrendering the "Home
+Rule" previously enjoyed by them, in order to see how close is the
+parallel. The weak and scattered North American Colonies were at a
+serious disadvantage in all political and commercial negotiations with
+their powerful neighbour, the United States, a fact very clearly
+emphasised by the termination of Lord Elgin's reciprocity treaty in
+1864. None of them was in a position to deal with the vast territories
+of the North-West, undeveloped by the Hudson's Bay Company, and in
+imminent danger of American occupation. A common trade policy, a common
+railway policy, and a common banking system were essential to a rapid
+development of their great resources, and only a common government could
+provide them. In Australia the chief factor in bringing about federation
+was the weakness and want of influence of the separate Colonies in
+dealing with problems of defence and external policy, impressed upon
+them by German and French colonial expansion in the Pacific, and by the
+growth of Japan. In South Africa, on the other hand, the factors were
+mainly internal. The constant friction over railway and customs
+agreements, continually on the verge of breaking down, embittered the
+relations of the different Colonies and maintained an atmosphere of
+uncertainty discouraging to commercial enterprise. Four different
+governments dealt with a labour supply mainly required in one colony.
+Four agricultural departments dealt with locusts and cattle plagues,
+which knew no political boundaries, and which could only be stamped out
+by the most prompt and determined action. Four systems of law and four
+organisations for defence secured, as Lord Selborne pointed out in a
+striking Memorandum (Blue Book Cd. 3564) a minimum of return for a
+maximum of expense. A native rising in Natal warned South Africans that
+the mistake of a single Colony might at any moment set the whole of
+South Africa ablaze with rebellion. In the absence of larger issues
+local politics in each Colony turned almost exclusively on the racial
+feud. A comprehensive union alone could bring commercial stability and
+progressive development, mitigate race hatred, and pave the way to a
+true South African nationality.
+
+All the weakness in external relations, all the internal friction and
+impediment to progress, all the bitterness and pettiness of local
+politics, which marked the absence of union among neighbouring colonies,
+also characterised the relations of Great Britain and Ireland in the
+eighteenth century. But there was this difference: the immense
+disproportion in wealth and power, and the political control exercised
+by the greater state, caused all the evils of disunion to concentrate
+with intensified force upon the smaller state. To undo the mischief of
+eighteenth century disunion required at least a generation. A series of
+political mistakes and mischances, and a disastrous economic policy,
+have left the healing task of union incomplete after a century. But
+renewed disunion to-day would only mean a renewal of old local feuds to
+the point of civil war, a renewal of old economic friction, in which
+most of the injury would be suffered by the weaker combatant, the
+indefinite postponing for Ireland of the prospect, now so hopeful, of
+national development and social amelioration, a weakening of the whole
+United Kingdom for diplomacy or for defence. It is a policy which no
+Dominion in the Empire would dream of adopting--a policy which every
+Dominion would most certainly resist by force, just as the United States
+resisted it when attempted, with more than a mere pretext of
+constitutional justification, by the Southern States.
+
+Now for the "exception which proves the rule": there is one Colonial
+analogy for what would be the position of Ireland under Home Rule,
+namely, the position of Newfoundland outside the confederation of the
+other North American Colonies.[57] The analogy is only partial, for this
+reason, that whereas Ireland is almost wholly dependent economically on
+Great Britain, Newfoundland has little direct trade with Canada, and
+moreover enjoys a virtual monopoly of one particular commodity, namely
+codfish, by which it manages to support its small population.
+Nevertheless, no one can doubt that with its favoured geographical
+position, and with its great natural resources, Newfoundland would have
+been developed in a very different fashion if for the last forty years
+it had been an integral part of the Dominion. Nor is the loss all on the
+side of Newfoundland, as the history of even the last few years has
+shown. In 1902, Newfoundland negotiated a commercial Convention with the
+United States which, in return for a free entry for Newfoundland fish
+into the United States, practically gave the Newfoundland market to
+American manufacturers, and explicitly forbade the granting of any trade
+preference to the United Kingdom or to Canada. When, fortunately, the
+American Senate rejected the Convention, Newfoundland embarked on a
+course of legislative reprisal against American fishing. But this
+involved the Imperial Government in a diplomatic conflict which, but for
+the excellent relations subsisting with the United States, might easily
+have led to a grave crisis. The inconveniences and dangers which Irish
+trade policy might lead to under Home Rule can easily be inferred from
+this single example, all the more if Irish policy should be influenced,
+as Newfoundland's policy certainly was not, by a bias of hostility to
+the Empire.
+
+So much for the first confusion, that which would base the case for a
+_separate government_ in Ireland on the success of _free institutions_
+in the Colonies, entirely ignoring the whole movement for union, which
+has made every geographical group of Colonies follow the example of the
+Mother Country. We must now deal with the second confusion, that which
+is based on a hazy notion that Home Rule is only a preliminary step to
+endowing the United Kingdom as a whole with a working federal
+constitution like that of Canada or Australia. Ireland, in fact, so runs
+the pleasing delusion, is to be set up as an experimental Quebec, and
+the other provinces will follow suit shortly. Not all Home Rulers,
+indeed, are obsessed by this confusion. Mr. Childers, for instance,
+makes short work of what he calls the "federal chimera," dismissing the
+idea as "wholly impracticable," and pointing out that Home Rule must be
+"not merely non-federal, but anti-federal." But the great majority of
+Liberals to-day are busy deluding themselves or each other, and the
+Nationalists are, naturally, not unwilling to help them in that task,
+with the idea of Home Rule for Ireland followed by "Home Rule all
+round."
+
+The new Home Rule Bill has not yet appeared, but certain main features
+of it can be taken for granted. It will be a Bill which, save possibly
+for a pious expression of hope in the preamble, will deal with Ireland
+only. It will set up in Ireland an Irish legislature and executive
+responsible for the "peace, order, and good government" of Ireland,
+subject to certain restrictions and limitations. It will assign to
+Ireland the whole of the Irish revenues, though probably retaining the
+control of customs and excise, and in that case retaining some Irish
+representatives at Westminster. So far from fixing any contribution to
+Imperial expenditure from Ireland, it will, apparently, include the
+provision of an Imperial grant in aid towards Land Purchase and Old Age
+Pensions. Any such measure is wholly incompatible with even the loosest
+federal system. A federal scheme postulates the existence over the whole
+confederation of two concurrent systems of government, each exercising
+direct control over the citizens within its own sphere, each having its
+legislative and executive functions, and its sources of revenue, clearly
+defined. The Home Rule Bill will certainly not set up any such division
+of government and its functions in Great Britain. Nor will it, in
+reality, set up any such effective double system of government in
+Ireland. What it will set up will be a national or Dominion government
+in Ireland, separate and exclusive, but subject to certain restrictions
+and interferences which it will be the first business of the Irish
+representatives, in Dublin or Westminster, to get rid of. Long before
+Scotland or Wales, let alone England, get any consideration of their
+demand for Home Rule, if demand there be, the last traces of any
+quasi-federal element the Bill may contain will have been got rid of.
+
+In a federation every citizen, in whatever state or province he resides,
+is as fully a citizen of the federation as every other citizen. He not
+only has the same federal vote, and pays the same federal taxes, but he
+has the same access to the federal courts, and the same right to the
+direct protection of the federal executive. In what sense are any of
+these conditions likely to be true of, let us say, an Irish landlord
+under this Home Rule Bill? Again, federalism implies that all the
+subordinate units are in an equal position relatively to the federal
+authority. Is this Bill likely to be so framed that its provisions can
+be adapted unchanged to Scotland, Wales, or England? And if they could,
+what sort of a residuum of a United Kingdom government would be left
+over? Take finance alone: if every unit under "Home Rule all round" is
+to receive the whole product of its taxation, what becomes of the
+revenue on which the general government of the United Kingdom will have
+to subsist? The fact is that the creation of a federal state, whether by
+confederation or by devolution of powers, must be, in the main, a
+simultaneous act. Additional subordinate units may subsequently join the
+confederation under the conditions of the federal constitution. Backward
+areas which are unable to provide for an efficient provincial
+expenditure, over and above their contribution to federal expenditure,
+may be held back as territories directly controlled by the federal
+authorities till they are financially and in other respects ripe for the
+grant of provincial powers. If a federal scheme were really seriously
+contemplated by the present Government they would have to adopt one of
+two courses. They would either have to establish it simultaneously for
+the whole United Kingdom, and in that case limit the powers and
+functions of the provinces so narrowly as to make it possible for
+Ireland to raise its provincial revenue without undue difficulty, the
+rest of Ireland's needs being met by a substantial federal expenditure
+carried out by federal officials. Or else they might begin by the
+creation of a federal constitution with considerable provincial powers
+for England, Scotland, and Wales, keeping back Ireland as a federal
+territory till its economic and social conditions justified the
+establishment of provincial institutions. The converse policy of
+treating the case of Ireland as "prior in point of time and
+urgency,"[58] of giving the poorest and most backward portion of the
+United Kingdom the whole of its revenue and a practically unfettered
+control of its territory, is, indeed, "not merely non-federal, but
+anti-federal."
+
+The truth is that the federal element in this Home Rule Bill, as in that
+of 1893, will be merely a pretence, designed to keep timid and
+hesitating Home Rulers in line--a tactical manoeuvre of much the same
+character as the talk about a reformed Second Chamber which preceded the
+Parliament Act, and found due burial in the preamble to that Act. In
+essence the Bill will set up Ireland as an entirely separate state
+subject to certain restrictions which the Government have no serious
+intention of enforcing, and the Irish every intention of disregarding,
+or abolishing as the outcome of further agitation. For this policy of
+pretence there is one admirable parallel in our Colonial history--the
+policy by which "Home Rule" was "given" to the Transvaal after Majuba.
+It was the same policy of avoiding expense and trouble, political or
+military--the policy, in fact, of "cutting the loss"--tricked out with
+the same humbug about "magnanimity" and "conciliation," about trust in
+Boer (or Nationalist) moderation when in power, the same contemptuous
+passing over of the loyalists as persons of "too pronounced" views, or
+as "interested contractors and stock-jobbers."[59] It was embodied in a
+Convention by which the "inhabitants of the Transvaal territory" were
+"accorded complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her
+Majesty" under a series of limitations which, if enforced, would have
+implied a measure of British control in many respects greater than that
+exercised over a self-governing Colony, and with a number of guarantees
+to protect the loyalists. The Government was able to "save its face,"
+while its hesitating followers were able to quiet their consciences, by
+the reassuring phrases of the Convention. The Boer Volksraad frankly
+declared itself still dissatisfied, but ratified the Convention,
+"maintaining all objections to the Convention ... and for the purpose of
+showing to everybody that the love of peace and unity inspires it, for
+the time being, and provisionally submitting the articles of the
+Convention to a practical test." If any Nationalist Convention in Dublin
+should accept the new Home Rule Bill, we can take it for granted that it
+will be in exactly the same spirit, and possibly in almost the same
+phraseology.[60]
+
+From the first the limitations of the Convention were disregarded. Short
+of armed intervention there was no machinery for enforcing them, and the
+Boers knew perfectly well that there was no real desire on the part of
+an embarrassed Government to raise a hornet's nest by making the
+attempt. The British resident, with his nominally autocratic powers, was
+a mere impotent laughing stock. The ruined loyalists left the country,
+or remained to become the most embittered enemies of the British
+Government. In three years a new Convention was drafted--an even greater
+masterpiece of make-believe than the first--which could be expounded to
+Parliament as a mere modification of certain unworkable provisions, but
+which the Boers took as a definite surrender of all claims to
+suzerainty, and as a definite recognition of their position as an
+"independent sovereign state," bound temporarily by the provisions of a
+treaty, which could have no permanent force in "fixing the boundary to
+the march of a nation." So far from being reconciled they were only
+emboldened to embark on a policy of aggression, which in 1885 involved
+the British Government in military measures costing nearly as much as
+would have been required to suppress the whole rising in 1881. For the
+time being the stagnation and chronic bankruptcy which followed the
+removal of British rule and the exodus of the loyalists limited
+Transvaal ambitions. The gold discoveries both increased that ambition
+by furnishing it with revenue, and at the same time brought about a
+close economic intercourse with the neighbouring colonies which, under
+the political conditions of disunion, was bound to create friction. In
+the end the policy of make-believe and "cutting the loss" had to be
+redeemed at the cost of 20,000 lives and of L200,000,000.
+Reconciliation, in large measure, has come since. But it has only come
+because British statesmen showed, firstly, in the war, their inflexible
+resolution to stamp out the policy of separation, and secondly, after
+the war, their devotion to the real welfare of South Africa in a policy
+of economic reconstruction, and in the establishment of those free and
+equal British institutions under which--by the final dying out of a
+spurious nationalism based on racial prejudice and garbled
+history--South Africa may become a real, living nation.
+
+The reservations and guarantees which this Home Rule Bill may contain
+cannot possibly constitute the framework of a federal constitution. All
+they can guarantee is a period of friction and agitation which will
+continue till Ireland has secured a position of complete separation from
+the United Kingdom. At the best the Home Rule experiment would then
+reduce Ireland to the position of another Newfoundland; at the worst it
+might repeat all the most disastrous features of the history of "Home
+Rule" in the Transvaal. At the same time it may be worth inquiring how
+far there would really be any valid Colonial analogy for the
+introduction of a federal system of "Home Rule all round" if such a
+scheme had been honestly contemplated. The first thing to keep in mind
+is that the internal constitution of the Dominions presents a whole
+gradation of constitutional types. There is the loose federal system of
+Australia, in which the Commonwealth powers are strictly limited and
+defined, and all residuary powers left to the States. There is the close
+confederation of Canada in which all residuary powers are vested in the
+Dominion. There is the non-federal unitary government of South Africa
+with a system of provincial local governments with somewhat wide county
+council powers. There is, lastly, the purely unitary government of the
+two islands of New Zealand. Each of these types is the outcome of
+peculiar geographical, economic, and historical conditions. To
+understand the federal system of Australia it is essential to remember
+that till comparatively recent times Australia consisted, to all
+intents, of four or five seaport towns, each with its own tributary
+agricultural and mining area, strung out, at distances varying from 500
+to 1300 miles, along the southern and eastern third of a coast line of
+nearly 9000 miles looped round an unexplored and reputedly uninhabitable
+interior. Each of these seaports traded directly with the United Kingdom
+and Europe in competition with the others. With economic motives for
+union practically non-existent, with external factors awakening a
+general apprehension rather than confronting Australia with any
+immediate danger, it was impossible to find the driving power to
+overcome local jealousies sufficiently to secure more than a minimum of
+union. The Commonwealth Constitution is a makeshift which, as the
+internal trade of Australia grows and as railway communications are
+developed, will inevitably be amended in the direction of increasing the
+power of the Commonwealth and diminishing that of the States. In Canada
+the economic link between Canada proper and the Maritime Provinces was,
+before Confederation, almost as weak as that of Australia. British
+Columbia, which it was hoped to include in the Confederation, was then
+separated by a journey of months from Eastern Canada, and was, indeed,
+much nearer to Australia or New Zealand. Quebec, with its racial and
+religious peculiarities, added another problem. That the Confederation
+was nevertheless such a close and strong one was due both to the menace
+of American power in the south, and to the terrible example of the
+weakness of the American constitution as made manifest by the Civil War.
+Yet even so, Sir John Macdonald, the father of Confederation, frankly
+declared the federal constitution a necessary evil--
+
+     "As regards the comparative advantages of a Legislative and a
+     Federal Union I have never hesitated to state my own opinions....
+     I have always contended that if we could agree to have one
+     government and one Parliament ... it would be the best, the
+     cheapest, the most vigorous, the strongest system of government we
+     could adopt."
+
+This also was the view of the framers of the South African Union. The
+circumstances of South Africa enabled them to carry it into effect. For
+all its extent, South Africa is geographically a single, homogeneous
+country with no marked internal boundaries. It is peopled by two white
+races everywhere intermixed in varying proportions and nowhere separated
+into large compact blocks. The immense preponderance and central
+position of the Rand mining industry makes South Africa practically a
+single economic system. The very bitterness of the long political and
+racial struggle which had preceded intensified the argument for really
+effective union.
+
+If we compare the conditions in the United Kingdom with those of the
+Dominions it is obvious at once that there is no possible analogy with
+the conditions of Canada or Australia, but a considerable analogy with
+South Africa and New Zealand. The British Isles are but little larger
+than the New Zealand group, and much more compact and homogeneous. Their
+close economic intercourse, the presence of two races with a history of
+strife behind them, but compelled by their inextricable geographical
+blending to confront the necessity of union, are reproduced in the
+conditions of South Africa. In so far then as the Colonial analogy bears
+upon the question at all, it cannot be said to be in favour of Federal
+Home Rule any more than of Separatist Home Rule. The most it can fairly
+be said to warrant is the establishment of provincial councils with
+powers akin to those of the South African Councils. For such councils,
+built up by the federation of adjoining counties and county boroughs,
+carrying out more effectively some of the existing powers of those
+bodies, and adding to them such other powers, legislative or
+administrative, as it may be convenient to bestow on them, a very strong
+case may be made on the grounds of the congestion of Parliamentary
+business. But that has nothing to do with Home Rule, either Separatist
+or Federal.
+
+But if the congestion of Parliamentary business might be appreciably
+relieved by some such provincial bodies--larger "national" bodies would
+only duplicate work, not relieve it--the true remedy for the confusion
+of principles and objectives which, rather than the mere waste of time,
+is the chief defect of our Parliamentary system, lies in a proper
+separation of the local affairs of the United Kingdom from the general
+work of the Empire, in other words, in some form of Imperial federation.
+What is needed is not the creation of separate parliaments _within_ the
+United Kingdom, but the creation of a separate Parliament _for_ the
+United Kingdom, a Parliament which should deal with the affairs of the
+United Kingdom considered as one of the Dominions, leaving the general
+problems of Imperial policy to a common Imperial Parliament or Council
+equally representative of the citizens of every Dominion. No form of
+Home Rule can in any sense advance that desirable solution of our
+Imperial problems. The creation of an additional Dominion in the shape
+of Ireland would merely add one to the number of units to be considered,
+and would be contrary to the spirit of the resolution passed at the 1897
+Conference, that it was desirable "wherever and whenever practicable, to
+group together under a federal union those Colonies which are
+geographically united." The problem would be no more affected by the
+setting up of a federal constitution for the United Kingdom, than it
+would be if South Africa decided, after all, to give her provinces
+federal powers, or Australia carried unification by a referendum. The
+notion that the Dominions could simply come inside the United Kingdom
+federation, though it sometimes figures in Home Rule speeches, is merely
+a product of the third form of confusion of ideas previously referred
+to, and is a sheer absurdity. The terms and conditions of a United
+Kingdom federation would necessarily differ in almost every respect from
+those of an Imperial Federation, and a constitution framed for the one
+object would be unworkable for the other. Nor would it ever be
+acceptable to the Dominions, which regard themselves as potentially, if
+not actually, the equals of the United Kingdom as a whole. From their
+point of view the United Kingdom might almost as well be asked to step
+inside the Australian Commonwealth on the footing of Tasmania, as that
+they should be asked to join in, in the capacity of an additional
+Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, under any scheme of "Home Rule all round."
+
+It should be sufficiently clear from the foregoing analysis that the
+vague and confused claim that the success of British Colonial policy is
+an argument for the Home Rule Bill has no shadow of justification. It
+has been shown, first of all, that the factor of success in our Colonial
+policy was not the factor of separatism implied in Home Rule, but the
+factor of responsible government already secured for Ireland by the
+Union. It has been shown, secondly, that the experience of the Colonies
+since the establishment of responsible government has in every case
+forced union upon them, and union in the closest form which the facts of
+trade and geography permitted of. Colonial experience is thus no
+argument even for a federal scheme of "Home Rule all round," if such a
+scheme could possibly result from an Irish Home Rule Bill, which it
+cannot. The disadvantages and dangers of the contrary policy of disunion
+have been shown, in their least noxious form in the case of
+Newfoundland, which has simply remained outside the adjoining Dominion,
+and in their deadliest form in the case of the Transvaal, where "Home
+Rule" was given in 1881, as it would be given to Ireland to-day, if the
+Government succeeded, not from conviction and whole-heartedly, but as a
+mean-spirited concession, made to save trouble, and under the most
+disingenuous and least workable provisions. Lastly, it has been made
+clear that Home Rule cannot possibly assist, but can only obscure and
+confuse, the movement for the establishment of a true Imperial Union.
+Unionists and Imperialists can choose no better ground for their
+resistance to Home Rule than the wide and varied field of Colonial
+experience.
+
+But Colonial experience can give us more than that. It can provide us
+not only with an immense mass of arguments and instances against
+disruption, but with invaluable instances of what can be done to
+strengthen and build up the Union against all possible future danger of
+disruptive tendencies. The confederation of Canada was accomplished in
+the teeth of all the geographical and economic conditions of the time.
+Canadian statesmanship thereupon set itself to transform geography, and
+to divert the course of trade in order to make the Union a reality. The
+Intercolonial Railway, the Canadian Pacific, the Grand Trunk Pacific,
+the proposed Hudson Bay Railway, and the Georgian Bay Canal schemes, all
+these have been deliberate instruments of policy, aiming, first of all,
+at bridging the wilderness between practically isolated settlements
+scattered across a continent, and creating a continuous Canada, east and
+west; and, secondly, at giving that continuous strip depth as well as
+extension. Hand in hand with the policy of constructing the internal
+framework of transportation, which is the skeleton of the economic and
+social life of a nation, went the policy of maintaining a national
+tariff to clothe that skeleton with the flesh and blood of production
+and exchange, and, as far as possible, to clothe it evenly. Australia,
+too, is waking, though somewhat hesitatingly, to the need of
+transcontinental railways, for the protection of new industries and for
+the even development and filling up of all her territories. In South
+Africa the economic process preceded the political. It was the dread of
+the breakdown of a temporary customs union already in existence that
+precipitated the discussion of union. And it was the development of the
+Rand as the great internal market of South Africa, and the competitive
+construction of railway lines from the coast, that really decided the
+question of legislative union against federation. All three instances
+lead to the same conclusion that union to be really effective and stable
+needs three things: firstly, a developed system of internal
+communications reducing all natural barriers to social, political, and
+commercial intercourse to the very minimum; secondly, a national tariff,
+protective or otherwise, sufficient at least to encourage the fullest
+flow of trade along those communications rather than outside of them;
+thirdly, a deliberate use of the tariff and of the national expenditure
+to secure, as far as possible, the even development of every portion of
+the national territory.
+
+In the United Kingdom all these instruments for making the Union real
+are still unutilised. The system of _laisser faire_ in the matter of
+internal communications has allowed St. George's Channel still to remain
+a real barrier. A dozen train-ferries, carrying not only the railway
+traffic between Great Britain and Ireland, but enabling the true west
+coast of the United Kingdom to be used for transatlantic traffic, would
+obliterate that strip of sea which a British minister recently urged as
+an insuperable objection to a democratic union.[61] To construct them
+would not be doing as much, relatively, as little Denmark has long since
+done, by the same means, to unite her sea-divided territory. The
+creation of a tariff which shall assist not only manufactures, but
+agriculture and rural industries, is another essential step. In view of
+Ireland's undeveloped industrial condition the giving of bounties to the
+establishment in Ireland of new industries, such as the silk industry,
+would be a thoroughly justifiable extension of the Unionist policy
+carried out through the Congested Districts Board and the Department of
+Agriculture. The diversion to Ireland of a larger part of the general
+national and Imperial expenditure, whether by the establishment of a
+naval base, or the giving out of battleship contracts, or even only of
+contracts for Army uniforms, would also be of appreciable assistance to
+Ireland and to the Union. Ireland suffers to-day economically and
+politically, from the legacy of political separation in the eighteenth
+century, and of economic disunion in the nineteenth. It is the business
+of Unionists not only to maintain the legal framework of the Union, but
+to give it a vitality and fulness of content which it has never
+possessed.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 54: Speech at Whitechapel, Oct. 10, 1911. There is an almost
+identical passage in Mr. Redmond's article in _McClure's Magazine_ for
+October, 1910. Sir J. Simon, the Solicitor-General, has since
+perpetrated the same absurdity (Dewsbury, Feb. 6, 1912).]
+
+[Footnote 55: The usual rhetorical appeal to "What Home Rule has done in
+South Africa" presents, indeed, a most perfect specimen of the confusion
+of thought which it is here attempted to analyse. For no sooner had the
+Transvaal received "Home Rule" (_i.e._ responsible government) than it
+surrendered the "Home Rule" (_i.e._ separate government) which it had
+previously enjoyed in order to enter the South African Union. Stripped
+of mere verbal confusion the argument from the Transvaal analogy then
+runs somewhat as follows: "The Transvaal is now contented because it
+enjoys free representative institutions as an integral portion of a
+United South Africa; therefore, Ireland cannot be contented until she
+ceases to be a freely represented integral portion of the United
+Kingdom!"]
+
+[Footnote 56: Quoted on p. 54.]
+
+[Footnote 57: The position of New Zealand, outside the Australian
+Commonwealth, is no parallel. New Zealand is almost as far from
+Australia as Newfoundland is from the British Isles; it differs from
+Australia in every climatic and physical feature; there is comparatively
+little trade between them.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Mr. Asquith at St. Andrews, Dec. 7, 1910.]
+
+[Footnote 59: See "The _Times_' History of the South African War," vol.
+I. pp. 67 _et seq._]
+
+[Footnote 60: _Cf_. Mr. J. Redmond on the third reading of the Home Rule
+Bill of 1893. "The word 'provisional,' so to speak, has been stamped in
+red ink across every page of the Bill. I recognise that the Bill is
+offered as a compromise and accepted as such.... England has no right to
+ask from Irish members any guarantee of finality in its acceptance."]
+
+[Footnote 61: Colonel Seely at Newry, December 9, 1911.]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE CONTROL OF JUDICIARY AND POLICE
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.
+
+
+The various forecasts, inspired and uninspired, of the new Home Rule
+Bill which have been given to us, have shed little light upon the future
+of the Irish Judiciary and Police. The two previous Bills contemplated
+the handing over of the control of the whole administration of justice
+in Ireland to the Irish Executive after an interval, in the first case
+of two years, and in the later Bill, of six years. We may assume that,
+whatever period of grace may be allowed to us under the coming measure,
+it will propose to vest this control in the Irish Government within six
+years. The interposition of any interval at all will probably be
+regarded by Ministers as a concession to Unionist fears and as one of
+the "safeguards" in which the minority will be urged to place its trust.
+It must be realised at once that, so far from this interval making the
+transition from British justice to Irish intrigue easier and more safe,
+it may have precisely the contrary effect. Once the Irish police are
+convinced that they are about to be delivered into the hands of the
+secret organisations who have been the most successful and relentless
+enemies of public order in Ireland, a paralysis must fall upon the
+force. During the closing years of the transition, at all events, the
+Royal Irish Constabulary will be given nominal responsibility for the
+peace of the country without any opportunity effectually to preserve it.
+It would be fairer and better to cast upon puppet nominees of the
+Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood the
+responsibility and odium of controlling the passions that they have
+helped to raise. The present judges would of course continue to do
+their duty without fear or favour, but it is impossible that the
+sentence passed upon them and the system of law and government for which
+they stand could leave their authority unimpaired. We have recently seen
+in England how easy it may be to stir up popular clamour against judges
+who administer the law without regard to the prejudices of any political
+party. Directly the Irish Courts sought to translate the paper
+safeguards of the Home Rule Bill into practical effect, they would be
+faced by the violent hostility of an ignorant and excitable assembly
+stimulated by an irresponsible and inexperienced executive. The result
+would be recriminations and friction which must deplorably injure and
+lower the reputation and prestige of both the Executive and the
+Judiciary.
+
+The first thing necessary for securing public and private liberty in a
+country like Ireland, where party feeling runs high and internal
+disputes have a bitterness from which more fortunate countries are free,
+is a strong independent and impartial administration of the law. This
+can only be secured by freeing the Courts from any kind of interference
+or control on the part of the Executive, and by ensuring that the whole
+armed forces of the Executive should be at the disposal of the Courts
+for executing and enforcing their decrees. Let us only assume a case to
+arise after the statutory period had elapsed, such as is now of frequent
+occurrence in the Irish Courts. The Land Judge, for instance, or the
+Judge of the Court of Bankruptcy, finds it necessary to order the arrest
+of the chairman and secretary of a local branch of the United Irish
+League for interfering by gross intimidation with a sale under the order
+of his Court. The case excites a good deal of local feeling and the
+arrests can only be effected by the employment of a large force of armed
+police. The question is raised on a motion for adjournment in the Irish
+House of Commons. The majority of the members owe their seats to the
+intervention of the United Irish League, many of them--perhaps
+most--have themselves been in similar conflicts with the Court. The
+result is that Ministers have to choose between a refusal of the police
+and expulsion from office. Once the Government could decide which
+decrees of the Judiciary it would enforce and which it would not, the
+technical immovability of the Judges would be irrelevant, since the real
+control of justice would be vested, not in the courts but in the
+executive Ministers in Dublin Castle. The very existence of the
+limitations and safeguards foreshadowed in the coming Home Rule Bill
+would naturally tempt the Irish Government to adopt a policy which would
+reduce to a minimum the effective power of these restraints upon the
+popular will. The most obvious way of attaining this result would be to
+keep the police, and with them the judicature, in a position of greater
+dependence upon the Executive than is consistent with the supremacy of
+law and the safety of private rights and individual freedom.
+
+We must remember that the men who would have the control of the new
+Irish Government would be those who have spent the greater part of their
+lives in violent conflict with the attempts of the Irish Courts to
+secure respect for the elementary rights of property and of personal
+freedom in Ireland. Power which has been won by the open violation of
+every principle of English law, is not likely either to assert the
+authority it has lived by defying to maintaining the independence of the
+courts and institutions which have been its deadliest opponents. The
+corruption of judicial authority and prestige in Ireland will be
+accomplished by entrenching the Executive behind large and shadowy
+discretionary powers, and also by manipulating the personnel and
+jurisdiction of the judges and magistracy throughout the country. The
+most deplorable movement in modern Nationalism is the attempt to
+introduce into Irish politics the worst methods of American political
+corruption. There have recently sprung into prominence in Ireland two
+societies which are in some respects the most sinister, the most
+immoral, and the most destructive of those which have corrupted and
+infected public life in the country. These two--the Ancient Order of
+Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood--have in common the
+secrecy of their operations and the destructiveness of their aims. Their
+influence is marked not only by despotic and tyrannical government, but,
+what may be even more mischievous from the point of view of the
+community, by the deliberate persecution and suppression of all
+independent thought. Those who have watched the proceedings of the
+Dublin Corporation have felt the increasing strength of an influence
+proceeding from Belfast--an influence which is threatening to control
+the whole course of Nationalist politics in Dublin and the south. The
+forces of influence, combination, and intimidation which forced the
+Budget on a reluctant Ireland and routed the Roman Catholic Hierarchy
+over the Insurance Bill will not be disbanded under Home Rule. On the
+contrary, they are now being exercised so as to enable the Board of Erin
+to absorb the older organisations and to place in the hands of its
+leaders--or rather in those of a single man--the nomination of most, if
+not all, the representatives of the Nationalist party in Ireland. Mr.
+Joseph Devlin, who seeks to build this vast power, is a politician of
+American ideals and sympathies, and under the guidance of his
+organisation politics in Ireland would be shaped after the model of
+Tammany Hall rather than that of St. Stephen's. The party which appoints
+the municipal officers of Dublin in secret caucus, meeting for reasons
+which are never avowed and after debates which are never published, is
+only waiting to extend its operations. Even now it is notorious that the
+magistrates' bench in Ireland is regularly and systematically "packed"
+whenever licensing or agrarian cases are under discussion. The
+scandalous inaction of the present Irish Executive in reference to
+cattle driving and other forms of organised intimidation, the failure to
+enforce the law and the absolute immunity which the present Chief
+Secretary has persistently allowed to Nationalist Members of Parliament
+and paid organisers in incitement to outrage and intimidation, have
+paralysed the administration of justice and disheartened and disgusted
+the Judiciary, the Magistrates, and the Police. But under Home Rule the
+measure of protection which is still afforded by a strong and
+independent Bench would be removed. The Resident Magistrate would be as
+much under the heel of the caucus as the local justice; the Recorder's
+Bench and even the High Court would be constantly subjected to
+influences of a mischievous and incalculable kind. Whatever may be said
+against the present occupants of the Judicial Bench, their integrity and
+fairness have never been seriously questioned. Since the days when the
+Irish judges issued a writ of _habeas corpus_ for the release of Wolfe
+Tone, while the Irish Rebellion was actually in progress, they have
+consistently held an even balance between the two parties. Their
+learning, their impartiality and their wit have rightly made Irish
+judges respected throughout the world. Their reputation and their
+services alike demand that they shall not be set aside wantonly or
+without consideration. But there is no doubt that Home Rule must mean
+the end of the Irish Bench as we have seen it in history. The men who
+have been proud to represent the British Crown would resent with
+indignation the idea that they should become the tools of the Hibernian
+caucus. They realise that the judges who oppose the lawless will of
+popular ministers will have to face obloquy and perhaps direct attack in
+the Irish Parliament. Even if the concurrence of both Houses in the
+Irish Parliament were made necessary for the removal of judges, it would
+not adequately safeguard their independence. The lower House would be
+composed of the men whom Nationalist constituencies already return to
+Parliament--excitable, fierce partisans, always ready to subordinate
+private convictions to the exigencies of party discipline. Nor would
+there be in Ireland under Home Rule any power or influence, either of
+property or station, sufficiently strong to furnish a constituency which
+would return a senate representing interests, opinions, or desires
+substantially distinct from those of the more powerful House elected
+upon the wider suffrage.
+
+The situation has been strongly complicated by the promulgation of the
+_Motu Proprio_ decree, and the refusal of the authorities of the Roman
+Catholic Church to say definitely whether it applies to Ireland or not.
+We may assume that, if Archbishop Walsh could have given a categorical
+denial to the statement that the decree must operate in Ireland under
+Home Rule, he would have done so. The decree _Motu Proprio_ forbids any
+Roman Catholic to bring his priest or bishop into court under pain of
+excommunication. The Roman Catholic Church has made many similar efforts
+during history to oust the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, and each
+attempt has had to be sharply and sternly resisted by the civil
+authorities of Roman Catholic countries. We need not discuss how much
+there may be said from a theological standpoint for the decree; we are
+only concerned to show that it raises pretensions which no State can
+possibly permit to be recognised. There have been too many attempts,
+successful and unsuccessful, to oust the jurisdiction of the King's
+Courts in Ireland, for this new attempt to be viewed with equanimity.
+The United Irish League has set up courts which try men for imaginary
+offences committed during the exercise of their ordinary civil rights,
+and pass illegal sentences and inflict illegal punishments. Under the
+reign of Liberal Governments the writ of these courts runs where the
+King's writ cannot run, and the law of the League has been allowed in
+great measure to supersede the law of the land. We have also an
+increasing force in Irish Nationalism which seeks to paralyse the
+government of Ireland by means of the general or sympathetic strike.
+This organisation seeks to establish courts in Ireland in opposition to
+the ordinary law courts, and to enforce their decrees by means of
+illegal intimidation and outrage. The people of Ireland have therefore
+been familiarised with the idea of courts competing in authority with
+those of the King's Government. Supposing under Home Rule the Judiciary
+proved less pliable than was expected or desired, the development of
+such competing authorities would be facilitated by a complaisant
+Cabinet in Dublin. But of all attempts to over-ride the authority of law
+this conspiracy to exempt ecclesiastical persons from its scope is the
+most insidious and dangerous. The existence of a class of men answerable
+for their actions, not to any domestic tribunal, but to a foreign
+ecclesiastical court, cannot now be tolerated by any self-respecting
+Government. Yet it is not easy to see how an Irish Cabinet could refuse
+to make, by executive if not by legislative action, what is now the law
+of the Church eventually the law of Ireland. Against this danger no
+safeguards can be devised. If the Administration refuses to put the law
+into effective operation against a certain class of offender or abuses
+the prerogative of mercy in his favour, there is no power in the
+constitution to coerce it. A few years ago we saw in Ireland the
+extraordinary spectacle of persons being prosecuted for cattle-driving
+and similar offences, while those who openly incited them to crime
+escaped with impunity. We saw judges from the Bench complaining in vain
+that the real offenders were not brought before them, and criticising
+openly the negligence and partiality of the Crown. If the Nationalists,
+whose influence then paralysed the aims of the Government, ever get
+supreme control of the Executive, we are certain to see these abuses
+revived on a still more shocking scale. The operation of the new decree
+places the Roman Catholic minister or law officer who is called upon to
+administer justice under the terms of his oath in a position of cruel
+embarrassment. As a law officer it might be his duty to order the
+prosecution of some clerical offender; as a Roman Catholic compliance
+with his duty to the State must entail the awful consequences of
+excommunication. It needs no elaboration to show that what may be a
+grave embarrassment under the rule of impartial British Ministers, must
+under a local Irish Government develop into a danger to the State. A
+case recently tried at the Waterford Assizes establishes a precedent
+which may prove most mischievous. Recent illustrations in Ireland of the
+working of the _Temere_ decree have secured for it a sort of
+quasi-legality and provided a great argument to those devout Churchmen
+who, under Home Rule, would naturally desire to carry the process a
+further step.
+
+We have proceeded on the assumption that the Irish Parliament
+would--formally, at least--confine itself within the limits prescribed
+by the law of its creation. But it is necessary at least to contemplate
+the possibility that it would prove less complaisant. The safeguards and
+limitations inserted in any Act of the kind must of necessity be couched
+in general terms. The constitutional history of the United States and
+other countries is full of cases showing how difficult it is to define
+in practice where the border line between _intra_ and _ultra vires_
+comes. It is the custom of all Governments, if there is any possible
+room for debate as to their competence to take any particular line of
+action, to give themselves the fullest benefit of the doubt, and the
+Irish Government is unlikely to prove any exception to the rule. When
+the Judicature and all the forces of Executive Government, except the
+direct command of troops, is in their hands, the laws passed by the
+Irish Parliament could be put in force in Ireland. The British
+Government could not intervene except by acts which would amount to open
+war between the two countries. We must remember that this enforcement of
+Irish laws by Irish police in spite of the decisions of a "foreign"
+Government at Westminster is openly advocated and contemplated by the
+large and active section of the Nationalists who have adopted as their
+watchword the motto "Ourselves alone" (_Sinn Fein_). Nothing could be
+more futile than the idea that the judgments of the Judicial Committee
+of the Privy Council would ever be accepted as final by the Nationalist
+majority, or that the royal assent could ever be withheld from an Act
+constitutionally passed by the Irish Legislature, without precipitating
+a crisis. The result of applying the veto of the House of Lords in
+England to the measures of Liberal Ministers was the agitation for
+removing the veto. The Nationalists took part in that agitation and have
+learned its lesson. Directly the British Government asserts its
+technical right of veto, a similar agitation to get rid of all
+obnoxious restraints would arise in Ireland.
+
+If anything could increase the danger of friction, it would be the
+scheme favoured by Mr. Erskine Childers and other Liberals of submitting
+constitutional questions to the decision of the British Privy Council
+reinforced by Irish judges. Either these judges would concur in verdicts
+given against the pretensions of the Irish Parliament or they would not.
+If they did concur, there would be a fierce outcry against the right of
+judges appointed under the Union Government to nullify Acts of the Irish
+Legislature. But if they did not concur, the patriotic indignation with
+which a decision over the heads of the Irish representatives would be
+received is easy to foresee. It would be a matter of the greatest
+difficulty to enforce any such decision when the Irish Government,
+supported by an agitation in the country, refused to be bound by it. The
+situation thus created has no parallel in the case of the colonies. In
+Canada or Australia, where the legislative power is divided between
+federal and provincial Parliaments, a decision that the one legislature
+is incompetent affirms the competence of the other. Both legislatures
+have on the spot proper means of enforcing, by judicial and executive
+authority, decisions which are within their powers. The case of Ireland
+is fundamentally different. There can be no half-way house between
+keeping Ireland a partner in all our legislative and judicial
+activities, or giving to her with a separate Executive uncontrolled and
+unchecked rights of internal sovereignty.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE ULSTER QUESTION
+
+BY THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY, K.G.
+
+
+In the Home Rule controversy to-day Ulster occupies the place of public
+interest. Lord Rosebery upon one occasion committed himself to the
+opinion that, before Home Rule was conceded by the Imperial Parliament,
+England, as the predominant member of the partnership of the three
+kingdoms, would have to be convinced of its justice.[62] He did not
+foresee that the party of which he was then the leader would, under
+duress, abandon even the pretence of consulting the "predominant
+partner," much less be guided by its wishes. But it has come to pass:
+and Ulster alone remains the stumbling-block to the successful issue of
+the plot against the Constitution. By Ulster we do not mean, as Mr.
+Sinclair points out, the geographical area, but the district which
+historical events have made so different in every respect from the rest
+of Ireland.
+
+In the Act of Union I have a personal interest from family connection. I
+am convinced that Lord Castlereagh was absolutely right on both Imperial
+and Irish grounds. I feel that so far as Ireland is concerned the
+conditions and position of Ulster to-day afford ample confirmation: and
+of Ulster I may claim to have some knowledge. I represented County Down
+in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster before it was divided into
+constituencies, and in my later days I have maintained my close interest
+in Ulster. At the least, then, I may say that the temperament, the
+political and religious convictions, and the character of Ulster
+Unionists are not unknown to me.
+
+I often read of "the Ulster bogey;" and I believe Mr. John Redmond once
+devoted an article in a Sunday paper to elaborate statistical
+calculations from which he drew the deduction that there was no Ulster
+question. Other Home Rulers, by an expert use of figures, show that
+there is a Home Rule majority in Ulster itself. To those who know Ulster
+their efforts fail to carry the slightest conviction. Figures, however
+skilfully chosen, articles in the press, however cleverly written,
+cannot destroy the facts of Ulster Unionist opposition to Home Rule, the
+intensity and seriousness of which is, I believe, only now beginning to
+be appreciated by His Majesty's Ministers.
+
+I hear of "Ulster bigots," "Ulster deadheads," and assertions made that
+the opposition only proceeds from a few aristocratic Tory landlords.
+Hard words do us no harm; but abusive epithets will not lessen Ulster
+opposition. Indeed the more we are reviled by our opponents, the more we
+believe they recognize the futility of persuading us to accept Home
+Rule.
+
+We read of the intense anxiety of Irish Nationalists on English
+platforms lest even the suspicion of intolerance should cloud their
+administration and legislation under Home Rule, with interest but
+without respect. We do not believe in these sudden repentances, and we
+have heard these professions time and again when the exigencies of the
+moment demanded them.
+
+The spirit of change has even affected the Government. At first Ulster
+was to be ignored; now it is to be conciliated. There is no safeguard
+that they will not insert in the Bill at our request. The First Lord of
+the Admiralty has a list already prepared; and they will welcome
+additions. Mr. Redmond accepts them all; and the fact that he does it
+readily raises our suspicions of their worth. Has not Mr. John Dillon
+said that artificial guarantees in an Act of Parliament were no real
+protection,[63] and for once it is possible to agree with him.
+
+Why should "bigots" be conciliated; or "deadheads" receive so much
+consideration? Why should the opposition of aristocratic Tory landlords
+be thought worthy of respect? Whenever have they been treated in this
+manner before by the Government in their schemes of legislation?
+
+That our views receive so much attention is indeed the proof of the
+falsity of these hard names. Opposition to Home Rule in Ulster proceeds
+not from "bigots" or "deadheads," not from "Tories," or "aristocrats,"
+or "landlords" exclusively. It is neither party question, nor class
+question. It has destroyed all differences between parties and classes.
+I doubt if there are any more democratic organizations than those of the
+Ulster Unionist Council, the Unionist Clubs, and the Orangemen. Nor are
+the religious bodies less popularly organized--the Church of Ireland,
+the Presbyterians, and other Protestant denominations have no class
+restrictions in their government. And as for party distinctions, those
+of us who took part in the old political contests before Home Rule
+became an urgent danger are now side by side in this greater fight for
+our very existence.
+
+What stronger evidence that opposition to Home Rule in Ulster is no
+party question is to be found than in the disappearance of the Liberal
+Party. I can remember when it was powerful; but it has vanished before
+the threat of Home Rule. All attempts to resuscitate the corpse have
+failed, and a Liberal Party, independent of the Nationalists,
+representing Ulster constituencies in the House of Commons, in spite of
+repeated efforts, does not exist.
+
+Let me impress upon the people of Great Britain that Ulster opposition
+to Home Rule is no party matter. It is an uprising of a people against
+tyranny and coercion; against condemnation to servitude; against
+deprivation of the right of citizens to an effective voice in the
+government of the country.
+
+Mr. Birrell said recently at Bristol that Ulster would be right to fight
+if it were oppressed in its religion or despoiled of its property. We
+welcome his conversion. When he pleads for Ulster to wait until it is
+plain that oppression has come, we recall to mind the phrase so often on
+Liberal lips, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and we say
+that we should be false to ourselves and to our trust if we were
+unprepared for what the future will bring under Home Rule.
+
+For our opposition to Home Rule we are condemned by the Irish
+Nationalists as the enemies of our country. We believe ourselves to be
+its best friends. We believe Home Rule to be the greatest obstacle to
+Irish progress and prosperity. Irish Nationalists have made Home Rule
+their only idol and denounce every one who will not worship at its
+shrine. Every reform, unless they thought that it tended to advance Home
+Rule or magnify their powers, has received their hostility, sometimes
+open and avowed, at other times secret and working through devious ways.
+
+No one who reads the history of Ulster can doubt that its inhabitants
+have not as much love of Ireland and as much wish to see her prosperous
+as the Nationalists. They indeed attribute all Irish shortcomings to the
+Union. Ulstermen, bearing in mind their own progress since the Union,
+not unnaturally decline to accept so absurd an argument. The Union has
+been no obstacle to their development: why should it have been the
+barrier to the rest of Ireland? Ulstermen believe that the Union with
+Great Britain has assisted the development of their commerce and
+industry. They are proud of the progress of Belfast and of her position
+in the industrial and shipping world. Without great natural advantages
+it has been built up by energy, application, clearheadedness and hard
+work. The opposition to Home Rule is the revolt of a business and
+industrial community against the domination of men who have shown no
+aptitude for either. The United Irish League, the official organization
+of the Home Rule Party, is, as a Treasurer once confessed, remarkably
+lacking in the support of business men, merchants, manufacturers,
+leaders of industry, bankers, and men who compose a successful and
+progressive community.[64] In the management of their party funds, their
+impending bankruptcy but a few years ago, the mad scheme of New
+Tipperary, and the fiasco of the Parnell Migration Company there is the
+same monotonous story of failure. Can surprise be felt that Ulstermen
+refuse to place the control of national affairs in the hands of those
+who have shown little capacity in the direction of their own personal
+concerns. What responsible statesman would suggest that the City of
+London, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, or any advancing
+industrial and commercial centre in Great Britain should be ruled and
+governed and taxed, without the hope of effective intervention, by a
+party led by Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Lansbury? Yet Home Rule means much
+like that for Ulstermen, and the impossibility of the scheme is
+emphasized in the example of Ireland by religious differences which have
+their roots in Irish history.
+
+Ulster's opposition to Home Rule is no unreasoning hate. It proceeds not
+from the few; it is not the outcome of political prejudice; it is the
+hostility of a progressive and advancing people who have made their
+portion of their country prosperous and decline to hand it over to the
+control of representatives from the most backward and unprogressive
+counties.
+
+They are actuated by love of their country. They yield to no one in
+their patriotism and their desire for Ireland's welfare. They have
+always given their support to movements which have had for their objects
+the improvement of Irish conditions and the increase of Irish
+well-being. Their sympathies are with Irish social reform--and the
+sympathies of many of them with social reform of an advanced character.
+Contrast their attitude with that of the Irish Nationalist Party in
+respect of reforms which have proceeded from the Imperial Parliament and
+movements within Ireland herself.
+
+Take the Irish Land Act of 1903, accepted by both political parties in
+Great Britain as affording the real solution of the Irish agrarian
+problem. What has been the Irish Nationalist attitude? Praise for it on
+platforms in the United States when it was essential to reach the
+pockets of subscribers by recounting a record of results gained from
+the expenditure of American donations; but in Ireland itself opposition
+to its effective working. Read Nationalist speeches and there is always
+running through them the fear that the Act by solving the land question
+would remove the real motive power which made Home Rule a living issue.
+Hence the interference to prevent landlords and tenants coming to an
+agreement over sales without outside assistance. So to-day Irish
+Nationalists are still endeavouring to keep alive the old bad feeling
+between landlord and tenant which they so successfully created in the
+seventies and eighties. What better proof of this deliberate attempt to
+prevent the success of a great reform is to be found than the frank
+utterance of Mr. John Dillon at Swinford.[65] "It has been said," he
+declared, "that we have obstructed the smooth working of the Act. I wish
+to heaven we had the power to obstruct the smooth working of the Act
+more than we did. It has worked too smoothly--far too smoothly to my
+mind.... Some men have complained with the past year that the Land Act
+was not working fast enough. For my part I look upon it as working a
+great deal too fast, and at a pace which has been ruinous to the
+people." What have the Ulster people done which can compare with this
+opposition to a measure that has admittedly effected a beneficial
+revolution in Irish agrarian life? Yet Mr. John Dillon is acclaimed as a
+true Irish patriot and we are denounced as the enemies of our country!
+
+What greater blow to the continuance of land purchase than the Birrell
+Act of 1909. Granted that some revision of the law was necessary in
+respect of finance; yet, the Act of 1909 went far beyond finance. Any
+one with a knowledge of land purchase law knows that the measure of 1909
+contained innumerable provisions of a technical character calculated to
+make the free sale between landlord and tenant difficult, and in respect
+of a large portion of Ireland impossible. No wonder it was welcomed by
+the Irish Nationalist Party, since it did so much to restore them to
+their self-elected position of counsellors and arbiters in the affairs
+of the tenants. And Ulster Unionists for declining to accede to this
+re-establishment of the old supremacy of the agitators are regarded as
+the opponents of liberty and freedom!
+
+The same sad story of Nationalist opposition to Irish progress meets the
+student of the co-operative movement at every period of its existence.
+No one who knows Sir Horace Plunkett will believe for a moment that he
+was actuated by other than the sole desire to do something for Ireland's
+benefit. From the leaders of the Nationalist Party he has had no
+assistance, although they claim to be the only workers for Irish
+progress, and the co-operative movement was intended to complete the
+agrarian revolution. In more recent times the hostility of the
+Nationalist leaders has become bolder as they found a ready instrument
+in Mr. T. W. Russell in his official capacity as Vice-President of the
+Department of Agriculture.
+
+The co-operative movement is flourishing in spite of the opposition of
+the Nationalist leaders. From Ulster it has received considerable
+support for the reason that Ulstermen believed it to be for the benefit
+of Irish agriculture. Their support, unlike Nationalist hostility, has
+not arisen from political motives. They do not believe that Sir Horace
+Plunkett has given a moment's thought to politics in their relation to
+the co-operative movement, and they have appreciated his movement either
+as co-operators or as supporters and members of the Irish Agricultural
+Organization Society. Contrast the Ulster welcome with the Nationalist
+opposition, and ask why we should be denounced as bad Irishmen and the
+Nationalists receive praise as true lovers of Ireland.
+
+The co-operative movement has brought into existence another movement
+which has for its object the prosperity of Irish industries. The
+Industrial Development movement which seeks to bring before the people
+of Ireland and the Irish public bodies the excellence of Irish
+manufactures is as yet in its infancy. It has no political character,
+yet I should hesitate to say that official Irish Nationalism gives it
+hearty support. In Belfast, however, it has made great strides. It gains
+its support in Ulster not for any political reason, but simply and
+solely because the North of Ireland thinks that the industrial movement
+is to Ireland's advantage.
+
+Where in these instances is our "bigotry" or our hostility to Irish
+progress? Does not the balance of credit when the comparison is made
+with the Nationalists come on the side of Ulster? The Nationalists show
+their unreasoning opposition by proclaiming that they would rather see
+Ireland in rags and poverty than abate their demand for Home Rule.
+Ulster Unionists desire to see Ireland prosperous and contented. For
+that reason they welcome all reforms and movements from whatever quarter
+which have this excellent end in view. They intend to offer the
+strongest and most unrelenting opposition to Home Rule not as political
+partisans for party gain, but as Irishmen determined to resist so
+reactionary a measure which they firmly believe will prove of the
+greatest evil to their unhappy country.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 62: House of Lords, March 12, 1894.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Salford, November 21, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote 64: Mr. A.J. Kettle, _Freeman's Journal,_ July 18, 1907.]
+
+[Footnote 65: September 10, 1906.]
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE POSITION OF ULSTER
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. THOS. SINCLAIR
+
+
+By Ulster, I mean the six counties, Antrim, Down, Londonderry, Armagh,
+Tyrone, Fermanagh, with the important adjacent Unionist sections of
+Monaghan, Cavan, and Donegal, in all of which taken together the
+Unionist population is in an unmistakable majority, and in which the
+commercial and manufacturing prosperity of the province is maintained by
+Unionist energy, enterprise, and industry.
+
+The relation of Ulster to a separate Irish Parliament, with an Executive
+responsible to it, is a question which demands the most serious
+consideration on the part of English and Scotch electors. The Ulster
+Scot is not in Ireland to-day upon the conditions of an ordinary
+immigrant. His forefathers were "planted" in Ulster in the troublous
+times of the seventeenth century. Although at the end of the reign of
+Queen Elizabeth peace had been secured all over Ireland, war was renewed
+in the Northern province early in the seventeenth century. The uprising
+was speedily crushed, and the lands of several of the rebellious nobles
+forfeited to the Crown. In order to prevent a repetition of lawlessness,
+the forfeited estates were entrusted to undertakers, on whom the
+obligation rested of peopling them with settlers from Great Britain.
+This scheme was devised in the hope that through the industry,
+character, and loyalty of the new population, the Northern province at
+all events should enjoy peace and prosperity, and become an attached
+portion of the King's dominions; and that eventually its influence would
+be usefully felt throughout the rest of Ireland. This policy was carried
+out under the rule of an English King, himself a Scot--James VI. of
+Scotland and I. of England. Large numbers of settlers were brought over
+to Ulster, many of them English, but the majority Scotch. We Ulster
+Unionists who inhabit the province to-day, or at least the greater
+number of us, are descendants of these settlers. The overwhelming
+majority are passionately loyal to the British Throne and to the
+maintenance of the integrity of the United Kingdom.
+
+These things being so, it seems to Ulster Unionists that a grave
+responsibility rests on their English and Scottish fellow-citizens, with
+regard to our position, should any constitutional changes be imposed
+upon our country. We are in Ireland as their trustees, having had
+committed to us, through their and our forefathers, the development of
+the material resources of Ulster, the preservation of its loyalty, and
+the discharge of its share of Imperial obligations.
+
+It cannot be denied, on an examination of the history of the last three
+centuries, and especially of that of the one hundred and ten years since
+the establishment of the Legislative Union, that, through good report
+and ill report, and allowing for all our shortcomings, we have not
+unsuccessfully fulfilled our trust. Our forefathers found a province,
+the least favoured by nature of the four of which Ireland consists, and
+it is to-day the stronghold of Irish industry and commerce. Its capital,
+Belfast, stands abreast of the leading manufacturing centres in Great
+Britain; it contains the foremost establishments in Europe, in respect
+of such undertakings as linen manufacturing, ship-building, rope-making,
+etc. It is the fourth port in the United Kingdom in respect of revenue
+from Customs, its contributions thereto being L2,207,000 in 1910, as
+compared with L1,065,000 from the rest of Ireland. Ulster's loyalty to
+the British King and Constitution is unsurpassed anywhere in His
+Majesty's dominions.
+
+The North of Ireland has contributed to Imperial service some of its
+greatest ornaments. England owes to Ulster Governors-General like Lord
+Dufferin and Lord Lawrence; soldiers like John Nicholson and Sir George
+White; administrators like Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Robert Montgomery;
+great judges like Lord Cairns and Lord Macnaghten. At the recent Delhi
+Durbar the King decorated three Ulster men, one of them being Sir John
+Jordan, British Ambassador at Pekin. Ulster produced Sir Robert Hart,
+the incomparable Chinese administrator, who might also have been our
+Ambassador to China had he accepted the position.
+
+The Ulster plantation is the only one which has fulfilled the purpose
+for which Irish plantations were made. The famous colonisation on both
+sides of the Shannon by Cromwell entirely failed of its design, the
+great proportion of its families having, through inter-marriage, become
+absorbed in the surrounding population.
+
+Ulster Unionists, therefore, having conspicuously succeeded in
+maintaining the trust committed to their forefathers, and constituting
+as they do a community intensely loyal to the British connection,
+believe that they present a case for the unimpaired maintenance of that
+connection which is impregnable on the grounds of racial sentiment,
+inherent justice, social well-being, and the continued security of the
+United Kingdom and of the Empire. They cannot believe that their British
+fellow-citizens will, at this crisis, turn a deaf ear to this claim.
+Three or four decades after the Ulster plantation, when, in the midst of
+the horrors of 1641, the Scotch colony in Ulster was threatened with
+extermination, it appealed for help to its motherland. It did not appeal
+in vain. A collection for its benefit was made in the Scottish churches,
+supplies of food and several regiments of Scottish soldiers were sent to
+its aid, and its position was saved. We are confident that the
+descendants of these generous helpers will be no less true to their
+Ulster kith and kin to-day.
+
+The history and present condition of Ulster throw an important light on
+what is currently described as the national demand of Ireland for Home
+Rule. There is no national Irish demand for Home Rule, because there
+never has been and there is no homogeneous Irish nation. On the
+contrary, as Mr. Chamberlain long ago pointed out, Ireland to-day
+consists of two nations. These two nations are so utterly distinct in
+their racial characteristics, in their practical ideals, in their
+religious sanctions, and in their sense of civic and national
+responsibility that they cannot live harmoniously side by side unless
+under the even-handed control of a just central authority, in which at
+the same time they have full co-partnership. Ireland, accordingly,
+cannot make a claim for self-government on the ground that she is a
+political unit. She consists of two units, which owe their distinctive
+existence, not to geographical boundaries, but to inherent and
+ineradicable endowments of character and aims. If, then, it is claimed
+that the unit of Nationalist Ireland is to be entitled to choose its
+particular relation to the British Constitution, the same choice
+undoubtedly belongs to the Unionist unit.
+
+But Mr. Birrell, for example, would tell us that the Nationalist unit in
+Ireland is three times as large as the Unionist unit, and that therefore
+the smaller entity should submit, because, as he has cynically observed,
+"minorities must suffer, for that is the badge of their tribe." But a
+minority in the United Kingdom is not to be measured by mere numbers;
+its place in the Constitution is to be estimated by its contribution to
+public well-being, by its relation to the industries and occupations of
+its members, by its association with the upbuilding of national
+character, by its fidelity to law and order, and by its sympathy with
+the world mission of the British Empire in the interests of civil and
+religious freedom. Tried by all these tests, Ulster is entitled to
+retain her full share in every privilege of the whole realm. Tried by
+the same tests the claim of 3,000,000 Irish Nationalists to break up the
+constitution of the United Kingdom, of whose population they constitute
+perhaps one-fifteenth, is surely unthinkable.
+
+Other writers in this volume have discussed Home Rule as it affects
+various vital interests in Ireland as a whole. It remains for me briefly
+to point out its special relation to the Northern province--
+
+1. _Home Rule, in the judgment of Ulster, would degrade the status of
+Ulster citizenship by impairing its relationship to Imperial
+Parliament._ This would be effected both by lessening or extinguishing
+the representation of Ulster in that Parliament, and by removing the
+control of Ulster rights and liberties from Imperial Parliament and
+entrusting it to a hostile Parliament in Dublin. Ulstermen would thus
+stand on a dangerously lower plane of civil privilege than their
+fellow-citizens in Great Britain. To place them in this undeserved
+inferiority, they hold to be unjust and cruel.
+
+2. _Home Rule would gravely imperil our civil and religious liberties._
+Ireland is pre-eminently a clerically controlled country, the number of
+Roman Catholic priests being per head greater than that of any country
+in Europe. Her staff of members of religious orders, male and female, is
+also enormous, their numbers having increased during the last fifty
+years 150 per cent., while the population has decreased 30 per cent. It
+is undeniable, therefore, that in a Dublin Parliament, the overwhelming
+majority of whose members would be adherents of the Roman Catholic
+faith, the Roman ecclesiastical authority, which claims the right to
+decide as to what questions come within the region of faith and morals
+would be supreme. Great stress has lately been laid in Nationalist
+speeches from British platforms on the tolerant spirit towards
+Protestants which animates Irish Roman Catholics. We gladly acknowledge
+that in most parts of Ireland Protestants and Roman Catholics, as
+regards the ordinary affairs of life, live side by side on friendly
+neighbourly terms. Indeed, that spirit, as a consequence of the growing
+prosperity of Ireland, had been steadily increasing, till the recent
+revival of the Home Rule proposal, with its attendant fears of
+hierarchical ascendency, as illustrated by the promulgation of the _Ne
+Temere_ decree, suddenly interrupted it. But the fundamental fact of the
+case is, that in the last resort, it is not with their Roman Catholic
+neighbours, or even with their hierarchy, that Irish Protestants have to
+reckon; it is rather with the Vatican, the inexorable power behind them
+all, whose decrees necessarily over-ride all the good-will which
+neighbourly feeling might inspire in the Roman Catholic mind. The _Ne
+Temere_ decree affords a significant premonition of the spirit which
+would direct Home Rule legislation. It is noteworthy that no Nationalist
+member has protested against the cruelties of that decree as shown in
+the M'Cann case, and Mr. Devlin, M.P., even defended what was done from
+his place in Parliament. This action is all the more significant in view
+of the fact that during the Committee stage of the 1893 Home Rule Bill
+Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Redmond, and his Irish Nationalist colleagues voted
+against, and defeated, an Ulster amendment which proposed to exempt
+marriage and other religious ceremonies from the legislative powers of
+the Dublin Parliament. It would be intolerable that such litigation as
+in the Hubert case at present in progress in Montreal, arising out of
+the Marriage Law of the Province of Quebec, should be made possible in
+Ireland. No paper safeguards in a Home Rule Bill could prevent it.
+
+Again, a most serious peril has just been disclosed in the publication
+of the _Motu Proprio_ Papal Decree, under which the bringing by a Roman
+Catholic layman of a clergyman of his Church into any civil or criminal
+procedure in a court of law, whether as defendant or witness, without
+the sanction previously ob tamed of his bishop, involves to that layman
+the extreme penalty of excommunication. The same penalty appears to be
+incurred _ipso facto_ by any Roman Catholic Member of Parliament who
+takes part in passing, and by every executive officer of the Government
+who takes part in promulgating, a law or decree which is held to invade
+the liberty or rights of the Church of Rome. This is a matter of supreme
+importance in our civil life. It was one of the questions which, in
+Reformation times, led to the breach between Henry VIII. and the Pope.
+In a Dublin Parliament no power could resist the provisions of this
+decree from becoming law. As a matter of fact, the liberty of speech and
+voting attaching to every member of the Roman Catholic majority in a
+Dublin Parliament would be under the absolute control of their
+hierarchy. Each Roman Catholic member would be bound to act under the
+dread of excommunication if he voted for or condoned any legislation
+contrary to the asserted rights of his Church, or which conflicted with
+its claims. Not only would the legislative independence of a Dublin
+Parliament be thus destroyed, but the administration of justice would be
+affected on every Bench in the country, from the Supreme Court of Appeal
+down to ordinary petty sessions. A grievous wrong would be inflicted on
+Roman Catholic judges and law officers, some of whom are unsurpassed for
+integrity and legal ability. It is contrary to every principle of
+justice to place these honourable men in a position in which they would
+have to choose between their oath to their King and their
+duty--arbitrarily imposed upon them--to their Church. Jurymen and
+witnesses would be equally brought under the sinister influences of the
+decree, and confidence in just administration of the law, which is at
+the root of civil well-being, would be fatally destroyed.
+
+3. _Home Rule would involve the entire denominationalising, in the
+interests of the Roman Catholic Church, of Irish education in all its
+branches._ To secure this result has long been the great educational aim
+of the Irish hierarchy. How they have succeeded as regards higher
+education Mr. Birrell's Irish Universities Act (1908) gives abundant
+evidence. The National University of Ireland, created by that Act, which
+on paper was represented to Nonconformists in England as having a
+constitution free from religious tests, is now, according to the recent
+boast of Cardinal Logue, thoroughly Roman Catholic, in spite of all
+paper safeguards to the contrary. Persistent attempts have been made to
+sectarianise the Irish primary National School system, founded seventy
+years ago, and which now receives an annual State endowment of
+L1,621,921, with the object of safeguarding the faith of the children of
+minorities, on the principle of united secular and separate religious
+instruction. That system worked so satisfactorily through many decades
+that Lord O'Hagan, the eminent first Roman Catholic Lord Chancellor of
+Ireland, declared that under it, up till his time, no case whatever of
+proselytism to any Church had occurred. But gradually a sectarian system
+of education under the Roman Catholic Church was developed through the
+teaching order of Christian Brothers, whose schools are now to be found
+all over Ireland, and which in many places now supplant the
+non-sectarian schools of the National Board. The strongest efforts were
+made to bring these sectarian schools into the system of the National
+Board, and thus entitle them to a share of the State annual endowment.
+There is no greater peril to the religious faith of Protestant
+minorities in the border counties of Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland
+than the sectarianising of primary schools by Roman Catholics. A few
+years ago a Protestant member of a public service was transferred upon
+promotion from Belfast to a Roman Catholic district, in which his boys
+had no available school but that of the Christian Brothers, and his
+girls none but that of the local convent. I shall never forget the
+expression of that man's face or the pathos in his voice while he
+pressed me to help him to obtain a transfer to a Protestant district, as
+otherwise he feared his children would be lost to the faith of their
+fathers. Given a Parliament in Dublin, the management of education would
+be so conducted as gradually to extinguish Protestant minorities in the
+border counties of Ulster and in the other provinces of Ireland. It is
+here that a chief danger to Protestantism lies.
+
+4. _Home Rule will seriously injure Ulster's material
+prosperity--industrial, commercial, agricultural._ The root of the evil
+will lie in the want of credit of an Irish Exchequer in the money
+markets of the world. The best financial authorities agree that if
+Ireland should be left to her own resources, there would be, on the
+present basis of taxation, and after providing for a fair Irish
+contribution towards Imperial defence, an annual deficit in the Irish
+Exchequer of L3,000,000 to L4,000,000. An Irish Government in such
+circumstances--consols themselves being now some L23 under par--could
+not borrow money at any reasonable rate of interest. Ever; if the
+British taxpayer were compelled to provide for the deficiency, either
+by an annual grant or by payment of a divorce penalty of L15,000,000 to
+L20,000,000, or by both, a prudent investor would fear that the annual
+dole might at any moment be withdrawn should, for instance, John Bull
+become irritated by the action of a Dublin Parliament, say, in declaring
+enlisting in His Majesty's forces a criminal act; or that the capital
+gift would soon be frittered away in the interests of agitators and
+their friends. He would simply refuse to invest in Irish stock.
+
+Now, a fundamental condition of commercial and industrial well-being is
+financial confidence. If the Public Exchequer of a country lacks
+confidence, it is a truism to say that consequently commercial
+confidence must be gravely impaired. The magnates of Lombard Street and
+Wall Street would view their Irish clients with unpleasant reserve.
+Irish bankers would in turn restrict advances to their customers, and
+these again would limit the credit of those with whom they transacted
+business. Curtailment of industrial enterprise, the shutting down of
+many manufacturing concerns, with consequent depreciation of buildings
+and plant, as well as increase of unemployment, would follow. Already,
+since the present Home Rule crisis has become acute, the handwriting on
+the wall has been made evident in the depreciation of leading Irish
+stocks to the extent of 15 to 20 per cent. Every one in trade would
+suffer from the diminution of purchasing power, capital would shrink,
+income and wages decrease, and the incentives to emigration, which is
+already depriving our population of some of its most hopeful elements,
+would be dangerously increased.
+
+All these tendencies would be stimulated by the social disorganisation
+which would certainly follow Home Rule. Unionist Ulster, from the Ulster
+Convention of 1892, to the Craigavon demonstration of 1911, has been
+consistent in her loyal determination that no Parliament but the
+Imperial Parliament shall control her destinies. It is an ignorant
+mistake to say that she is weakening in this resolve. The steadily
+increasing Unionist majorities in contested Ulster seats at both
+elections in 1910 conclusively prove that she is more staunch than ever
+in her Unionist faith. She would certainly resist the decrees of a
+Dublin Parliament and refuse to pay its taxes. The result of its passive
+resistance would be civil disorder, which would certainly gravely injure
+her industrial welfare, especially that of her artisan and working
+population. But Ulstermen ask, What is industrial prosperity without
+freedom? And if, in defence of freedom, they should suffer disaster, the
+responsibility would lie with their fellow-citizens in Great Britain who
+would impose a hostile yoke upon them.
+
+Under Home Rule, agricultural Ulster would also suffer. Very many Ulster
+farmers are now occupying owners. But a large number have not yet
+succeeded in purchasing, and these eagerly desire the privilege of doing
+so. Mr. Birrell's 1909 Act has already practically strangled further
+land purchase in Ireland, and if he intends that its completion should
+be the work of a Home Rule Parliament, the Ulster tenants ask where
+would the L75,000,000 to L100,000,000 necessary to accomplish the
+process, come from?[66] They know that the procuring of such a sum from
+an Irish Government would be hopeless, for they are aware that
+Englishmen have better judgment than to allow their Parliament to lend
+further money to a country over which they had relinquished direct
+Parliamentary authority, and whose Exchequer would be bankrupt. Home
+Rule would thus permanently relegate the agricultural population, not
+only of Ulster, but of Ireland generally, into two classes living side
+by side with each other--one consisting of occupying owners, the other
+of rent-payers without hope of ownership. The evil results in
+discontent, friction, deterioration of agricultural methods and lessened
+production would inflict serious injury on Ulster prosperity.
+
+Again, Home Rule would involve Ulster industry and commerce in excessive
+taxation. No one who is aware of the passionate desire amongst Irish
+agitators and their friends for lucrative jobs, of the efforts that
+would be made to subsidise industries with Government funds, of the
+determination of the clergy to have their monastic, Christian Brothers',
+monastic and convent schools largely supported by the State, and of the
+impossibility, in view of the social disorder all over Ireland that
+would follow Home Rule, of reducing further the police force or the
+Judiciary, entertains any doubt that retrenchment in Irish expenditure
+would be impossible. On the contrary, Irish taxation would increase, and
+as recent legislation has placed upon Irish farmers imposts greater than
+they think they can bear, the additional revenue would be sought for
+mainly from the industrial North. But with business disorganised,
+incomes decreased and unemployment increased, the yield of taxation
+would be much reduced, and the rate must therefore be made higher. All
+this would fortify Ulster in her determined refusal to pay Home Rule
+taxation, and the bankruptcy of the Dublin Exchequer would be complete.
+
+It is from having regard to considerations such as I have outlined, and
+of the validity of which she is profoundly convinced, that Ulster has
+registered the historic Convention declaration, "We will not have Home
+Rule." Her position is plain and intelligible. She demands no separation
+from her Nationalist countrymen. On the contrary, she wishes, under the
+protection of the Legislative Union, to live side by side with them in
+peaceful industry and neighbourly fellowship, with the desire that they
+and we may in common partake of the benefits conferred on Ireland by
+generous Imperial legislation and repay it by sympathetic and energetic
+contribution to the service of the Empire.
+
+But if Home Rule legislation should be passed contrary to Ulster's
+earnest and patriotic pleading, then she claims--not a separate
+Parliament for herself, but that she may remain as she is in the
+unimpaired enjoyment of her position as an integral portion of the
+United Kingdom and with unaltered representation in Imperial Parliament.
+She wishes to continue as an Irish Lancashire, or an Irish Lanarkshire.
+In this relationship to Great Britain she is confident she will best
+preserve, not only her own interests, but also those of her fellow
+loyalists, Roman Catholic as well as Protestants, whose lot is cast in
+the other provinces and whose welfare will always be her responsible and
+earnest concern.
+
+But if this demand--based on loyalty to the King and Constitution, and
+founded on the elementary right of British citizens to the unimpaired
+protection of Imperial Parliament--be refused, then the only alternative
+is the Ulster Provincial Government, which will be organised to come
+into operation on the day that a Home Rule Bill should receive the Royal
+Assent; and under that Provisional Government we shall continue to
+support our King, and to render the same services' to the United Kingdom
+and to the Empire as have characterised the history of Ulster during the
+past three hundred years.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 66: See Mr. Wyndham's article, p. 249.]
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE SOUTHERN MINORITIES
+
+BY RICHARD BAGWELL, M.A.
+
+
+At the present moment no county or borough in the three southern
+provinces of Ireland returns a Unionist member. There are substantial
+minorities in many places, but very few in which there would be any
+chance of a successful contest. The University of Dublin sends two
+conspicuous Unionists to Parliament, who represent not only a
+constituency of graduates, but the vast majority of educated and
+thinking people. The bearing of the question on religious interests will
+be dealt with by others, but it may be said here that the Protestant
+community is Unionist. The exceptions are few, and are much more than
+counter-balanced by the Roman Catholic opponents of Home Rule, who for
+obvious reasons are less outspoken, but are quite as anxious to avert
+the threatened revolution.
+
+The great bone of contention has always been the land, the cause of
+various wars and of ceaseless civil disputes. Parnell saw and said that
+purely political Nationalism was weak by itself, and he took up the land
+question to get leverage. For many years it has been evident that the
+only feasible solution was to convert occupiers into owners, and a very
+long step was made by the Purchase Act of 1903. Progress has now been
+arrested, for the Act of 1909 does not work. The vendors or expropriated
+owners, whichever is the more correct term, are expected to take a lower
+price and to be paid in depreciated paper. The minorities to be most
+immediately affected by legislation consist of landlords who are unable,
+though willing, to sell, and of tenants who are unable but very anxious
+to buy. The present deadlock is disastrous, for many tenants think they
+ought not to pay more than their neighbours, and demand reductions of
+rent without considering that the owner has received no part of his
+capital and dares not destroy the basis on which he hopes to be
+ultimately paid. It has been an essential part of the purchase policy
+that the instalment due by the occupier to recoup the State advance
+should be less than the rent. This has been made possible by the magic
+of British credit, and if that is withheld the confusion in Ireland will
+be worse than ever. The Exchequer has lost little or nothing, and even
+at much greater cost it would be the cheapest money that England ever
+spent. More than half the tenanted land has now passed to the occupiers,
+and it would be the most cruel injustice to leave the remaining
+landlords without power either to sell their property or to collect
+rents judicially fixed and refixed. They would fare badly with an Irish
+legislature and an Irish executive. They are, for the most part, poor
+but loyal men, and have exercised a great civilising influence. Are they
+to be deserted and ruined to keep an English party in place by the votes
+of men who have never pretended to be anything but England's enemies?
+
+Irish Unionists laugh at the idea of a local Parliament being kept
+subordinate. It will have the power of making laws for everything Irish,
+that is, for everything that immediately concerns those that live in
+Ireland. There will be ceaseless efforts to enlarge its sphere of
+action, and if Irish members continue to sit at Westminster they will be
+as troublesome as ever there. If there are to be no Irish members
+Ireland will be a separate nation. Even candid Home Rulers confess that
+statutory safeguards would be of none effect. Hedged in by British
+bayonets the Lord Lieutenant may exercise his veto, but upon whose
+advice will he do it? If on that of an Irish Ministry the minority will
+have no protection at all, and does any one suppose it possible to go
+back to the practice of the seventeenth century, when all Irish Bills
+were settled in the English Privy Council, and could not be altered in a
+Dublin Parliament? Orators declaim about our lost legislature, but they
+take good care not to say what it was. In the penultimate decade of the
+eighteenth century the trammels were taken off, and a Union was soon
+found necessary. During the short interval of Independence there were
+two French invasions and a bloody rebellion. Protestant ascendency,
+though used as a catchword, is a thing long past. Roman Catholic
+ascendency would be a very real thing under Home Rule. The supremacy of
+the Imperial Parliament alone makes both the one and the other
+impossible.
+
+If a legislature is established it must be given the means of enforcing
+its laws. We do not know what the present Government propose to do with
+the Irish police, but whatever the law says in practice, they will be
+under the local executive. Unpopular people will not be protected, and
+many of them will be driven out of the country. Parliamentary Home
+Rulers draw rosy pictures of the future Arcadia; but they will not be
+able to fulfil their own prophecies. Apart from the agrarian question,
+there is the party of revolutionists in Ireland whose headquarters are
+in America. They have furnished the means for agitation, and will look
+for their reward. The Fenian party has less power in the United States
+than it used to have, but there will be congenial work to do in Ireland.
+A violent faction can be kept in order where there is a strong
+government, but in a Home Rule Ireland it would not be strong for any
+such purpose. Appeals to cupidity and envy would find hearers, and there
+could be no effective resistance. The French Jacobins were a minority
+but they swept all before them. In the end better counsels might
+prevail, but the mischief done would be great, and much of it
+irreparable.
+
+The justice dealt out by the superior courts in Ireland is as good as it
+is anywhere. A judge in the last resort has the whole force of the State
+behind him, and no one dreams of resistance. With an Irish Parliament
+and an Irish Executive this would hardly be the case. The judges would
+still be lawyers, but their power would be greatly impaired. In Ireland
+popular feeling is always against creditors, and it would be very hard
+indeed either to execute a writ of ejectment or a seizure of goods. If
+the sanction of the law is weakened, public respect for it is lessened,
+and the result will be a general relaxation of the bonds which draw
+society together. There is nothing in the antecedents of the Home Rule
+Party to make one suppose that it contains the materials of a good and
+impartial government.
+
+Home Rule politicians are talkative and pertinacious. As members of
+Parliament they are of course listened to, while Unionists outside
+Ulster make little noise; it is, therefore, constantly said that they
+acquiesce in the inevitable change. Unrepresented men cannot easily make
+themselves heard, but they have done what they could. An enormous
+meeting has been held in Dublin, and the building, which contains some
+7000, was filled in a quarter of an hour. There has since been a large
+gathering of young men who wish to remain full citizens of the Empire in
+which they were born, and others are to follow. In rural districts it is
+almost impossible to collect people in winter. Days are short and
+distances are long. Unionist farmers cannot forget the outrages that
+prevailed some years ago, and are not yet unknown. In the native land of
+boycotting and cattle-driving it is not surprising that they do not wish
+to be conspicuous. The difficulty extends to the towns, in many of which
+it would be almost impossible to hire a room for Unionist purposes.
+Hotel keepers object to risking their business and their windows, for a
+mob is easily excited to riot on patriotic grounds. Shopkeepers also
+have to be cautious in a country which has been wittily described as a
+land of liberty where no one can do as he likes, but where every one
+must do exactly what everybody else likes. In the summer people can meet
+in the open air, and there will, no doubt, be abundant protests from
+Southern Unionists. There will then be something definite to talk about.
+
+It is often said that the County Councils have done well, and that
+therefore there is no danger in an Irish Parliament, but the two things
+are different in kind. County or District Councils, or Boards of
+Guardians, are constituted by Acts of the Imperial Parliament to
+administer Acts of the same, and are subject to constant supervision by
+the Local Government Board, and to the peremptory action of the King's
+Bench. A Parliament is by nature supreme within its sphere of action,
+and its constant effort would be to enlarge that field. The men who aim
+at independence would have the easy part to play, for no one in or out
+of Ulster, former Unionist or confirmed Nationalist, would have any
+interest in opposing them. In the meantime local councils have taught us
+what is likely to happen. Minorities are virtually excluded from them
+and from paid places in their gift. Of Protestants holding local office
+the great majority are survivals from the old Grand Jury system.
+Political discussions are frequent, but they are all among Nationalists.
+Intolerance of independent opinion and impatience of criticism are
+everywhere noticeable, and the Corporation of Dublin does not show a
+good example. It is intolerance of this kind rather than any approach to
+religious persecution that Protestants suffer from in the present and
+fear for the future.
+
+Men who have something to lose dread the idea of Home Rule, including
+farmers who have bought their holdings, but as yet this has not been
+allowed time to work. There is a long way between not caring to support
+a Nationalist and voting for a Unionist. The chief employers of labour
+are mostly for the Union, but few are in a position to help the Unionist
+cause effectively, for they have to deal with strike makers and possible
+boycotters. When Labour troubles come, Nationalist politicians try to
+make out that they are caused by English agitators, and that there would
+be none under Home Rule. The probability is all the other way. There
+could be nothing in the existence of an Irish Parliament to prevent
+English Socialists from crossing the Channel, and some Labour leaders in
+England are Irish. We have heard a great deal lately about the union of
+the two democracies, and that is the point where they would unite.
+Passing from labour to land, which is after all the great interest of
+Southern and Western Ireland, the danger is even greater. With the loss
+of British credit it would be almost impossible to carry out the plan of
+occupying ownership without the grossest injustice, and the mischief
+would not stop there. An Irish Government would be poor, but would be
+expected to do all and more than all that the united government has
+done. At first the gap might be stopped by extravagant super-income tax,
+by half-compensated seizures of demesne land, and by penalising the
+owners of ground rents and town property. Confiscation is not a
+permanent source of wealth, for it soon kills the goose that laid the
+golden egg. Then the turn of the large farmer would come.
+
+Most Unionists, and many who call themselves Home Rulers, are satisfied
+with the form of government they now have. The country has prospered
+wonderfully, and it will continue to prosper if the land purchase system
+is carried out to the end in a liberal spirit. The worst danger comes
+from the check given to the process by the present Ministry. But the
+national feelings of Ireland must not be ignored. Her far-back history,
+bad in itself, but represented worse by unscrupulous writers, makes it
+necessary to maintain an impartial power above the warring elements. In
+a pastoral country people have much time on their hands, and are apt to
+spend it in brooding over bygone wrongs. But over the past not Jove
+himself hath power, and it is for the future that we are responsible.
+From Wellington onwards Ireland has given many great soldiers to the
+British Army, and it is the classes from which they spring that it is
+now proposed to abandon. Under Home Rule the flag would be a foreign
+emblem, useless to protect the weak in Ireland, and perhaps available to
+oppress them. England would have cast off her friends and gained none in
+exchange. Nothing will conciliate the revolutionary faction in Ireland,
+and there is every reason to think that it would become the strongest.
+Modern Ireland is the creation of English policy, and many wrong things
+were formerly done, but for a long time amends have been making. If
+England, from weariness or for the sake of Party advantage, abandons her
+supporters, they will have no successors. Ireland will be more
+troublesome than ever, and the crime will receive its fitting
+punishment.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+HOME RULE AND NAVAL DEFENCE
+
+BY ADMIRAL LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, M.P.
+
+
+Ireland under Home Rule must, in the event of war, be regarded as a
+potentially hostile country.
+
+In this statement resides the dominant factor of the situation viewed
+from the naval and military point of view. It is not asserted that the
+government of Ireland would be disloyal; but it is asserted that the
+authorities charged with the defence of his Majesty's dominions cannot
+afford to take risks when the safety of the country is at stake. That
+such risks must exist under the circumstances indicated, is obvious to
+all those who have studied the speeches of the leaders of the Irish
+Nationalist party, in which they have unequivocally declared their
+intention to rid Ireland of English rule, and in which they extol as
+heroes such men as Theobald Wolfe Tone, who intrigued with France
+against England in order to achieve Irish independence, and who took his
+own life rather than receive the just reward of his deeds. That some
+among the Irish Nationalist leaders have recently professed their
+devotion to the British Empire cannot be regarded by serious persons as
+a relevant consideration. The demand for Home Rule is in fact a demand
+for separation from the United Kingdom or it is nothing. Naval officers
+are accustomed to deal with facts rather than with words.
+
+In the great sea-wars of the past, Ireland has always been regarded by
+the enemy as providing the base for a flank attack upon England. Had
+King Louis XIV. rightly used his opportunities, the army of King William
+would have been cut off from its base in England, and would have been
+destroyed by reinforcements arriving from France to assist King James
+II. There is no more concise presentment of the case than the account of
+it given by Admiral Mahan in "The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
+1660-1783."
+
+     "The Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an
+     estuary than an actual division; but history has shown the danger
+     from it to the United Kingdom. In the days of Louis XIV., when the
+     French navy nearly equalled the combined English and Dutch, the
+     gravest complications existed in Ireland, which passed almost
+     wholly under the control of the natives and the French.
+     Nevertheless, the Irish Sea was rather a danger to the English--a
+     weak point in their communications--than an advantage to the
+     French. The latter did not venture their ships-of-the-line in its
+     narrow waters, and expeditions intending to land were directed upon
+     the ocean ports in the south and west. At the supreme moment the
+     great French fleet was sent upon the south coast of England, where
+     it decisively defeated the allies, and at the same time twenty-five
+     frigates were sent to St. George's Channel, against the English
+     communications. In the midst of a hostile people the English army
+     in Ireland was seriously imperilled, but was saved by the battle of
+     the Boyne and the flight of James II. _This movement against the
+     enemy's communications was strictly strategic, and would be just as
+     dangerous to England now as in 1690_[67]....
+
+     "There can be little doubt that an effective co-operation of the
+     French fleet in the summer of 1689 would have broken down all
+     opposition to James in Ireland, by isolating that country from
+     England, with corresponding injury to William's power....
+
+     "The battle of the Boyne, which from its peculiar religious
+     colouring has obtained a somewhat factitious celebrity, may be
+     taken as the date at which the English crown was firmly fixed on
+     William's head. Yet it would be more accurate to say that the
+     success of William, and with it the success of Europe, against
+     Louis XIV. in the war of the League of Augsburg, was due to the
+     mistakes and failure of the French naval campaign in 1690; though
+     in that campaign was won the most conspicuous single success the
+     French have ever gained at sea over the English."
+
+Every great naval power has gone to school to Admiral Mahan; and this
+country can hardly expect again to profit by those mistakes in strategy
+which the gifted American writer has so lucidly exposed.
+
+Ireland, lying on the western flank of Great Britain, commands on the
+south the approaches to the Channel, on the west the North Atlantic; and
+on the east the Irish Sea, all sea-roads by which millions of pounds'
+worth of supplies are brought to England. On every coast Ireland has
+excellent harbours. There are Lough Swilly on the north, Blacksod Bay on
+the west, Bantry Bay, Cork Harbour and Waterford Harbour on the south,
+Kingstown Harbour and Belfast Lough on the east--to name but
+these--besides numerous lesser inlets which can serve as shelter for
+small craft and destroyers. It should here be noted that Belfast
+Harbour, owing to the enterprise of the Harbour Board, now possesses a
+channel and dock capable of accommodating a ship of the Dreadnought
+type[68].
+
+There is no necessity to presuppose an actively hostile Ireland; but an
+Ireland ruled by a disloyal faction would easily afford shelter to the
+warships of the enemy in her ports, whence they could draw supplies,
+where they could execute small repairs, and could coal from colliers
+despatched there for the purpose or captured. Thus lodged, a fleet or a
+squadron would command the main trade routes to England; and might
+inflict immense damage in a short time. Intelligence of its position
+could be prevented from reaching England by the simple method of
+destroying wireless stations and cutting cables.
+
+These considerations would necessarily impose upon the Navy the task of
+detaching a squadron of watching cruisers charged with the duty of
+keeping guard about the whole of Ireland.
+
+Is the Admiralty prepared to discharge this office in the event of war?
+
+If not, there falls to be considered the further danger of the invasion
+of Ireland. That such a peril is not imaginary, is proved by the fact
+that Ireland has been invaded in the past.
+
+The attempt of Hoche and Grouchy to land in Bantry Bay in 1796 failed
+ignominiously; and the next expedition designed to invade Ireland was
+defeated at Camperdown. But in 1798, the year of the Great Rebellion in
+Ireland, three French frigates evaded the British cruisers, and on
+August 22 dropped anchor in Killala Bay. General of Brigade, Jean Joseph
+Amable Humbert, landed with his second in command, General Sarazin,
+several rebel Irish leaders, 1700 men and 82 officers.
+
+On August 27 Humbert defeated the British troops at Castlebar "Races."
+On September 8, his forces surrendered at Ballinamuck to Lord
+Cornwallis. General Humbert was carried to England; and it is worth
+noting that while he was on his way, Admiral Bompard set sail from Brest
+with a ship of the line and three frigates, carrying 2587 men and 172
+officers, commanded by General Hardy and the notorious Wolfe Tone
+(called General Smith for the occasion). Bompard was turned back by an
+English fleet of forty-two sail. The obvious conclusion of the whole
+matter is that the fleet can stop an invasion, always provided that the
+ships thereof are the right number in the right place at the right time.
+
+The Irish Rebellion of 1798 is often discussed as though it was wholly
+bred of the corruption of Ireland itself. The fact was, of course, that
+it was an offshoot of the French Revolution, and that the condition of
+Ireland at the time was no more than a contributory cause. My Lords
+Cornwallis, Castlereagh, and Clare, in combating the forces of the
+Rebellion, were actually in conflict with the vast insurrections of the
+French nation. The design of the Irish rebels was to enlist the mighty
+destructive force of France to serve their own ends.
+
+Wolfe Tone and his colleague Lewens, in 1796, had succeeded in
+persuading Carnot and the French Directory to embrace the cause of
+Ireland. When the Rebellion of 1798 broke out, Lewens wrote to the
+Directory reminding them that they had promised that France should
+postulate the conferring of independence upon Ireland as the condition
+of making peace with England, and specifying five thousand troops of all
+arms, and thirty thousand muskets with artillery and ammunition, as
+sufficient to ensure the success of the Rebellion.
+
+The attitude of the Directory is defined in the despatch addressed to
+General Hardy (upon whom the supreme command of the Humbert expedition
+at first devolved) by Bruix, Minister of Marine, dated July 30, 1798.
+
+"The executive Directory is busily engaged in arranging to send help to
+the Irish who have taken up arms to sever the yoke of British rule. It
+is for the French Government to second the efforts of a brave people who
+have too long suffered under oppression."
+
+In other words, the Directory regarded the achievement of her
+independence by Ireland as an enterprise incidental to the greater
+scheme of the conquest of England and of Europe.
+
+It was further laid down in the despatch that "it is most important to
+take every possible means to arouse the public spirit of the country,
+and particularly to foster sedulously its hatred of the English name ...
+There has never been an expedition whose result might more powerfully
+affect the political situation in Europe, or could more advantageously
+assist the Republic...."
+
+Irish conspirators have never risen to play any part higher than the
+office of cat's-paw to a foreign nation. To-day, they are content--at
+present--to bribe with votes a political party in England. But it is
+none the less essential to remember that, as in 1688 and as in 1798 a
+great and militant foreign Power used the weapon of Irish sedition
+against England, so in 1912 the same instrument lies ready to hand. For
+the Home Rule conspiracy of to-day is nothing but the lees of the evil
+heritage bequeathed by the French Revolution.
+
+It is the business of the naval officer, who is not concerned with party
+politics, to estimate the posture of international affairs solely in
+relation to the security of the State. The condition of Ireland at this
+moment, when the Home Rule issue has been wantonly revived, would, in
+the event of a war occurring between Great Britain and a foreign Power,
+involve the necessity of regarding Ireland as a strategic base of
+essential value, a part of whose inhabitants might combine with the
+hostile forces by giving them shelter and supplies, and even by inviting
+them to occupy the country. Elsewhere in these pages, Lord Percy has
+pointed out that the necessity of holding a disaffected Ireland by
+garrisoning the country would totally disorganise our military
+preparations for war--such as they are.
+
+These considerations must materially affect strategical dispositions in
+the event of war, involving the establishment and maintenance of a
+separate force of cruisers charged with the duty of patrolling the sea
+routes which converge upon Ireland, and of watching the harbours of her
+coasts. As matters stand at present, such a force does not exist.
+
+It may, of course, be urged that a strategical plan designed for the
+double purpose of surveying the movements of a hostile battle-fleet and
+of guarding the trade-routes, must of necessity cover the coasts of
+Ireland, on the principle that the greater includes the less. The
+argument, however, omits the essential qualification that a part of the
+Irish population cannot be trusted. It is this additional difficulty
+which has been introduced into the problem of naval defence by the
+revival by politicians of the agitation of 1798, under another name.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 67: The writer's italics.]
+
+[Footnote 68: According to _The Daily Telegraph_ of January 22, 1912.]
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE MILITARY DISADVANTAGES OF HOME RULE
+
+BY THE EARL PERCY
+
+
+The problems of Imperial defence have become of late years extremely
+complex, owing to the rise of a great European naval power, and also to
+the predominance of Japan in the Pacific. These two factors, combined
+with the invention of the Dreadnought type of ship which is now being
+built by other powers whose navies we could formerly afford to ignore,
+have rendered our position in the world more precarious, more dependent
+upon foreign alliances and _ententes_, and have rendered combination for
+defence far more essential. No Home Rule scheme can be judged without
+taking into consideration what its effect will be on this situation. It
+is proposed to consider it first in the light of the more pressing
+European danger, and next to examine how it will affect the wider
+problem of the future, namely, the co-operation of all parts of the
+British Empire for defence.
+
+But first it is of course necessary to find out what Home Rule means,
+and what the internal state of Ireland will be if it passes. On this
+point there is at present no certainty. We can dismiss at once Mr.
+Redmond's picture of a serenely contented and grateful Ireland, only
+desirous of helping her benefactor, and, under a strong and
+incorruptible government, engaged in setting its house in order. The
+presence of a strong Protestant community, the history of the Roman
+Catholic Church in all countries, and the deliberate fostering of
+separatist national ideals preclude the possibility of anything but a
+prolonged period of unrest, which, on the most favourable hypothesis,
+can only cease altogether when the present generation has passed away.
+This unrest may take two forms; either civil war, or a condition where
+the rousing of old animosities, religious and otherwise, leads to
+internal disturbances of all kinds. It is not proposed to deal here with
+the consequences involved by the calling in of troops to suppress by
+force of arms an insurrectionary movement against the Government of
+Ireland. In view of the present state of affairs in Ulster, such an
+event seems extremely probable, but the disastrous results of passing
+Home Rule in face of it are so patent to all that it is unnecessary to
+enlarge upon them here. We have, therefore, to consider a condition of
+things in which old mutual hatreds have re-awakened, in which Ireland
+will be governed by men who have up till now preached sedition, have
+done their best to check recruiting, who have deliberately set up an
+ideal of "complete separation" as their ultimate goal, and whose motto
+has always been "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity."
+
+It is conceivable, of course, though it is extremely improbable, that
+these aims and ideals may be abjured in course of time, but the gravity
+of these risks must be taken into account in examining Ireland's
+position in any scheme of national and Imperial defence both now and in
+the future.
+
+And in this connection it may be remarked that an almost exact analogy
+to the situation which will probably result from this measure may be
+seen in the events which preceded the Boer war, and it seems somewhat
+remarkable that those who endeavour to justify Home Rule by the supposed
+Colonial analogy should overlook a warning so evident and so recent in
+the history of our oversea dominions.
+
+A Separatist party in Ireland would be enabled to work for ultimate
+independence as did President Kruger, and by the same methods, the same
+secret acquisition of arms and implements of war, the same building of
+fortresses with a view to a declaration of independence when a suitable
+opportunity arrived; and this would be all the more likely to occur if
+Ulster were exempted from a Home Rule Parliament. In this case Ulstermen
+would occupy exactly the same position as did the Uitlanders from 1895
+to 1899. The same arguments for granting independence to Ireland are
+used now, the same talk of injustice towards those who are disloyal with
+equal disregard of the loyalist section, and the results will be the
+same. Would independence have been granted to the Transvaal or Orange
+Free State had their use of it been foreseen? Taking the factors in both
+cases into account, is there anything to justify the doubt that a
+repetition of that situation will occur, with the only difference that
+eventual rupture will probably entail the dismemberment of the Empire?
+
+It is universally acknowledged that this country is at present faced
+with a more critical European situation than any we have experienced for
+a hundred years. It has tied our fleet to home waters, and has induced a
+very large and influential section of our people to advocate the
+necessity of compulsory military service. Our military organisation is
+on the face of it a makeshift, and the makeshift is not even complete,
+for in the Territorial Army and the Special Reserve alone there is a
+shortage of more than 80,000 men.
+
+Now, our foreign policy of _ententes_ and the needs of our oversea
+territories have necessitated a military organisation, the foundation of
+which is readiness to undertake an oversea expedition as well as to
+provide for home defence. The critical situation in Europe especially
+will demand the instant despatch of our Expeditionary Force on the
+outbreak of war, in which case there will be left in these islands the
+following forces after deducting 10 per cent, for casualties:--
+
+About 55,000 Regulars, of whom 30,000 will be under 20 years of age.
+
+About 30,000 Reservists. These will be required to reinforce the
+Expeditionary Force.
+
+About 60,000 Special Reservists. Some 30,000 of these are under 20. This
+force is to be used to reinforce the troops abroad.
+
+About 245,000 Territorials. 72,000 of these are under 20.
+
+In all there are some 400,000 men, of whom 130,000 are boys and 60,000
+will leave the country soon after war breaks out. This will leave some
+210,000 men to provide for the defence of England, Scotland, and
+Ireland, supplemented by 130,000 boys. These troops will be deprived of
+practically all Regular and even Reserve officers, and will have to
+provide for coast defence, for the security of law and order, and for
+the numbers required for a central field force. By means of juggling
+with figures, by the registration of names in what is called the
+National Reserve, but has no organisation or corporate existence, and by
+similar means, the seriousness of this situation has been concealed to
+some extent, but it is generally recognised as being little short of a
+national scandal, and would not be tolerated were it not for the general
+ignorance of our people concerning the exigencies of war and their blind
+belief in the omnipotence of the navy. This defencelessness has two
+dangers: firstly, the chance of a successful raid or invasion. As long
+as our navy is not defeated, no invading force of more than 70,000 men
+is supposed to be capable of landing. The second danger is that the mere
+fear of such an event will prevent the despatch of the Expeditionary
+Force and the fulfilment of our oversea obligations.
+
+It must be obvious that in the precarious state of our national defence
+anything which renders either of these dangers more probable should be
+avoided at all costs. If, for instance, the condition of Ireland should
+demand the maintenance of a larger garrison in that country, the whole
+of our present organisation for defence falls to pieces. Looking only at
+the present foreign situation, and the ever-growing menace of increasing
+armaments, if the passing of Home Rule should require the retention of a
+single extra soldier in Ireland, it is perfectly certain that nothing
+could justify the adoption of such a measure. It is not intended to
+convey the impression that there is any fear of Ireland repeating the
+history of 1796 and welcoming a foreign invasion, although it is
+impossible to ignore the anti-English campaign of agitation, or to say
+to what length it will go; but the mere fact of internal dissension in
+that country will give an enemy exactly the chance he looks for. Many of
+those best qualified to judge are of opinion that Germany is only
+waiting to free herself of an embarrassing situation, until one power of
+the Triple Entente is for the time being too much occupied to intervene
+in a Continental struggle. We have had one warning when, in September,
+1911, a railway strike at home coincided with a foreign crisis. Are we
+deliberately to take a step which will almost certainly involve us in a
+similar dilemma?
+
+This is the more immediate danger, but, apart from this, the strategical
+value of Ireland will be profoundly affected by its separation from
+England, and this constitutes a grave source of weakness, even if
+internal trouble be avoided, and a comparatively loyal government be
+installed. Ireland lies directly across all the trade routes by which
+nearly all our supplies of food and raw material are brought, and it
+covers the principal trade centres of the Midlands and the South of
+Scotland. In any attack by an enemy on our commerce, Ireland will become
+of supreme importance. There are two stages in every naval war: first,
+the engagement between the two navies; second, the blockade or
+destruction of the ships of the beaten side. This was the method by
+which we fought Napoleon, but even then we could not prevent the enemy's
+ships escaping from time to time; and even after we had destroyed their
+navy at Trafalgar, the damage to our oversea commerce was enormous.
+Nowadays, torpedoes, submarines, and floating mines have rendered
+blockade infinitely more precarious, and consequently we have to take
+into account the extreme probability, and indeed, certainty, of hostile
+cruisers escaping and menacing our oversea supplies. This danger will be
+increased tenfold if Germany has been able to defeat France, and use
+French, Dutch, and Belgian ports for privateering purposes. In the
+second, if not in the first, stage of European war, therefore, the
+closest co-operation between the governments of Ireland and England will
+be essential. In this case, Queenstown and Lough Swilly will be the
+bases for our own protecting cruisers, and on their success will depend
+the issues of life and death for our people. As the West of Ireland is
+the nearest point in these islands to America, it is probable that
+cargoes destined for English ports will reach them _via_ Ireland to
+avoid the longer sea-transit. Lord Wolseley has even gone so far as to
+minimise the dangers of blockade, because the Irish coast offered such
+facilities for blockade-running. It is certain that in our greatest need
+Ireland might well prove our salvation, provided we had not absolutely
+lost command of the sea, and this advantage a Liberal Government is
+prepared to jeopardise for reasons, which, compared with the interests
+at stake, are little less than sordid.
+
+But even if Ireland be less directly affected by war than in this case,
+and even if its internal condition should give little anxiety, the very
+nature of its resources should prevent us taking a step which may
+deprive us of them in emergency or, at least, render them less readily
+available. Not only do we draw a number of our soldiers from there, out
+of all proportion to the quotas provided by the populations of England
+and Scotland, but we are absolutely dependent for our mounted branches
+on Irish horses. For our supplies in time of stress, for our horses, and
+for a great and valuable recruiting area, we shall be forced to rely on
+a government whose future is wrapped in the deepest obscurity, and which
+at the best is hardly likely to give us enthusiastic support.
+
+Our whole military organisation is becoming more decentralised and more
+dependent on voluntary effort; it is devolving more and more upon
+Territorial Associations and local bodies of all kinds. We do not
+possess the reserves of horses and transport which continental nations
+hold ready for use on mobilisation, and, as a substitute, we have had to
+fall back on a system of registration which demands care, zeal, and
+energy on the part of these civilian bodies. How will an Irish
+Government and its officials fulfil a duty which will be distorted by
+every Nationalist into an attempt to employ the national resources for
+the sole benefit of England?
+
+War is a stern taskmaster, demanding long years of preparation and
+combination of effort for one end. The political separation of the two
+countries does not alter the fact that they are, in the military sense,
+one area of operations and of supply, and, at a time like the present,
+when the mutual dependence of all parts of the Empire is gradually being
+realised; when the dominions are building navies, and all our
+dependencies are co-operating in one scheme of defence for the whole;
+when the elaboration of the details of this scheme are the pressing need
+of the hour, the dissolution of the Union binding together the very
+heart of the Empire, is a strategic mistake, the disastrous significance
+of which it is impossible to exaggerate. For it must be remembered that
+here is no analogy to a federation of semi-independent provinces as in
+Canada, where national defence is equally the interest of the whole.
+Ireland has never recognised this community of interest with England.
+Quebec, it is true, stands aloof and indifferent to the ideals of the
+sister provinces; but there is no bitter religious hatred, no fierce,
+anti-national aims fostered by ancient traditions, life-long feuds and
+unscrupulous agitation, and every Canadian knows that Quebec would fight
+to the last against American aggression, if only to preserve her
+religious independence. There is no such bond here--or, at least, the
+Irish Nationalist has refused to acknowledge it.
+
+The year 1912 has opened amid signs of unrest and change, the meaning or
+the end of which no man can know. In the Far East and the Near East
+political and religious systems are disappearing, and chaos is steadily
+increasing. In Europe the nations have set out on the march to
+Armageddon, and there is no staying the progress of their armaments. In
+Great Britain alone the question of preparation for war is shirked on
+the plea that it is one for experts, and even soldiers and sailors,
+drawn into the political vortex, make light of our necessities,
+believing in the hopelessness of ever convincing the people of the truth
+until "a white calamity of steel and iron, the bearing of burdens and
+the hot rage of insult," fall upon us. It is for this reason that we see
+the extraordinary phenomenon of men denying the necessity for becoming
+a nation in arms, and yet urging our Government to contract no
+friendships abroad, and to interfere on behalf of every petty princedom
+oppressed by a powerful neighbour, and every downtrodden subject of some
+foreign power. It is these same men who wish to dissolve the Union, and
+to impose obligations at home upon an inadequate army which would leave
+us powerless abroad. And the longer war delays in coming, the greater
+will be the danger when it comes. With the increase in armaments, this
+country must undergo a proportionate sacrifice. If compulsory service
+should be adopted, it must apply to Ireland as well as the United
+Kingdom. But how will an independent government in Dublin view the
+compulsory enrolment of the manhood of Ireland, two-thirds of which have
+been taught to regard England as the national and hereditary enemy? The
+Irish are, above all, a military race. Had we been able to enforce such
+service within the Union, whatever temporary opposition it might have
+encountered, it might ultimately have proved an indissoluble bond of
+friendship.
+
+The future is very dark, and it is all important that we should face it
+with open eyes. War cannot long be delayed, and there is too little time
+left to put our house in order. Even if Home Rule could be shown to be
+an act of justice due to a wronged people who have proved themselves
+capable of self-government, even then it could not be justified in the
+present crisis abroad. But it is not so. Ulster will fight for the same
+cause as did the Northern States of America, and may well show the same
+self-sacrifice. It will be civil war in a country peculiarly adapted to
+the movements of irregular troops, well acquainted with its features; it
+will be accompanied by atrocities which will be remembered for
+centuries. And this is the tremendous risk we are deliberately running,
+when we only possess six divisions of regular troops to support our
+allies on the continent and to safeguard the interests of the whole
+British Empire.
+
+It is for the British people to decide whether the thin red line is to
+be still thinner in the day of battle, and whether those who should be
+fighting side by side shall be embittered and divided, or whether they
+will rather believe the words of the greatest naval expert living[69]:
+
+     "It is impossible for a military man or a statesman with
+     appreciation of military conditions, to look at the map and not
+     perceive that the ambition of the Irish separatists, realised,
+     would be even more threatening to the national life than the
+     secession of the South was to that of the American Union."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 69: Admiral Mahan.]
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE
+
+(i) THE CHURCH VIEW
+
+BY THE RT. REV. C. F. D'ARCY, BISHOP OF DOWN
+
+
+Irish Unionists are determined in their opposition to Home Rule by many
+considerations. But deepest of all is the conviction that, on the
+establishment of a separate legislature and executive for Ireland, the
+religious difficulty, which is ever with us here, would be increased
+enormously. Occasionally, in English newspapers and in Irish political
+speeches, there occur phrases which imply that the Protestant
+ascendency, as it was called, still exists in Ireland. Those who know
+Ireland are well aware that this is not merely false: it is impossible.
+Even in Belfast, as a recent controversy proved, Roman Catholics get
+their full share of whatever is to be had. There are no Roman Catholic
+disabilities. The majority has every means of making its power felt. At
+the present moment, the most impossible of all things in Ireland is that
+Roman Catholics, as such, should be oppressed or unfairly treated.
+
+It used to be imagined that when this happy condition was attained there
+would be no more religious disagreement in Ireland. But events have
+shown the exact opposite to be the case. There never was a time when
+there was in the minds of Irish Protestants so deep a dread of Roman
+aggression, and so firm a conviction that the object of that aggression
+is the complete subjection of this country to Roman domination.
+Recalling very distinctly the events and discussions of 1886 and 1893,
+when Home Rule for Ireland seemed so near accomplishment under Mr.
+Gladstone's leadership, the writer has no hesitation in saying that the
+dread of Roman tyranny is now far more vivid and, as a motive, far more
+urgent than it was at those epochs. Protestants are now convinced, as
+never before, that Home Rule must mean Rome Rule, and that, should it be
+forced upon them, in spite of all their efforts, they will be face to
+face with a struggle for liberty and conscience such as this land has
+not witnessed since the year 1690. That such should be the conviction of
+one-fourth of the people of Ireland, and that fourth by far the most
+energetic portion of its inhabitants, is a fact which politicians may
+well lay to heart.
+
+Approaching this subject as one whose duties give him the spiritual
+oversight of more than 200,000 of the Protestants of Ireland--members of
+the Church of Ireland, and who has had twenty-seven years of experience
+as a clergyman in Ireland, both in the north and in the south, the
+writer may venture to speak with some confidence as to the mind of the
+people among whom he has worked for so long. In doing so, he feels at
+liberty to say that he is one who has always avoided religious
+controversy, and who has ever made it his endeavour to be tolerant and
+considerate of the feelings and convictions of others. He has a deep
+regard for his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, and recognises to the
+full their many excellent qualities and the sincerity of their religion.
+
+It is possible to bring to a single point the reasons which make Irish
+Unionists so apprehensive as regards the religious difficulty under Home
+Rule. Their fears are not concerned with any of the special dogmas of
+the Roman Church. But they recognise, as people in England do not, the
+inevitable tendency of the consistent and immemorial policy of the
+Church of Rome in relation to persons who refuse to submit to her
+claims. They know that policy to be one of absolute and uncompromising
+insistence on the exacting of everything which she regards as her right
+as soon as she possesses the power. They know that, for her, toleration
+is only a temporary expedient. They know that professions and promises
+made by individual Roman Catholics and by political leaders, statements
+which to English ears seem a happy augury of a good time coming, are of
+no value whatever. They do not deny that such promises and guarantees
+express a great deal of good intention, but they know that above the
+individual, whether he be layman or ecclesiastic, there is a system
+which moves on, as soon as such movement becomes possible, in utter
+disregard of his statements. At the time when Catholic emancipation was
+in view, high Roman authorities gave the most emphatic guarantees that
+the position of the then Established Church in Ireland would never be
+endangered, so far as their Church and people were concerned. But when
+the time came, such promises proved absolutely worthless. Whether the
+disestablishment of the Irish Church was a good thing or not, is not the
+question here. The essential point, for our present purpose, is that the
+guarantees of individual Roman Catholics, no matter how positively or
+how confidently stated, are of no account as against the steady age-long
+policy of the Roman Church.
+
+It is well known to all students that, while other religious bodies
+have, both in theory and in practice, renounced certain old methods of
+persuasion, the Roman Church still formally claims the power to control
+states, to depose princes, to absolve subjects from their allegiance, to
+extirpate heresy. She has never accepted the modern doctrine of
+toleration. But there are many who think that these ancient claims,
+though not renounced, are so much out-of-date in the modern world that
+they mean practically nothing. Such is the opinion of the average
+Englishman, and the mild and cultivated form of Romanism which is to be
+met with usually in England lends colour to the opinion. In Ireland we
+know better.
+
+The recent Papal Decree, termed _Ne Temere_, regulating the
+solemnisation of marriages, has been enforced in Ireland in a manner
+which must seem impossible to Englishmen.
+
+According to this Decree, "No marriage is valid which is not contracted
+in the presence of the (Roman) parish priest of the place, or of the
+Ordinary, or of a priest deputed by them, and of two witnesses at
+least." This rule is binding on all Roman Catholics.
+
+It is easy to see what hardship and wrong must follow the observance of
+this rule in the case of mixed marriages.
+
+As a result, it is now the case that, in Ireland, marriages which the
+law of the land declares to be valid are declared null and void by the
+Church of Rome, and the children of them are pronounced illegitimate.
+Nor is this a mere academic opinion: such is the power of the Roman
+Church in this country that she is able to enforce her laws without
+deference to the authority of the State.
+
+The celebrated McCann case is the most notable illustration. Even in the
+Protestant city of Belfast we have seen a faithful wife deserted and her
+children spirited away from her, in obedience to this cruel decree. And
+we have seen an executive afraid to do its duty, because Rome had spoken
+and justified the outrage. Those who know intimately what is happening
+here are aware of case after case in which husband or wife is living in
+daily terror of similar interference, and also know that Protestants
+married to Roman Catholics, and living in the districts where the latter
+are in overwhelming majority, often find it impossible to stand against
+the odium arising from a bigoted and hostile public opinion. Nor does
+such interference stop here. Only a few weeks ago the kidnapping of a
+young wife by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics was prevented only by the
+brave and prompt action of her husband. In this case a sworn deposition,
+made in the presence of a well-known magistrate and fully attested, has
+been published, and no attempt at contradiction or explanation has been
+made. Let none imagine the _Ne Temere_ question is extinct in Ireland.
+It is at this moment a burning question. Under Home Rule it would create
+a conflagration. And surely there is reason for the indignation of
+Protestants. Here we see the most solemn contract into which a man or
+woman can enter broken at the bidding of a system which claims supreme
+control over all human relations, public and private; and this, not for
+the maintenance of any moral principle, but to secure obedience to a
+disciplinary regulation which is regarded as of so little moral value
+that it is not enforced in any country in which the Government is strong
+enough to protect its subjects.
+
+As if to define with perfect clearness, in the face of the modern world,
+the traditional claim of the Roman See, there has issued from the
+Vatican, within the last few weeks, a Decree which sets the Roman clergy
+above the law of the land. This ordinance, which is issued _motu
+proprio_ by the Pope, is the re-enactment and more exact definition of
+an old law. It lays down the rule that whoever, without permission from
+any ecclesiastical authority, summons any ecclesiastical persons to a
+lay tribunal and compels them to attend publicly such a court, incurs
+instant excommunication. The excommunication is automatic, and
+absolution from it is specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff. This fact
+adds enormously to the terror of it, especially among a people like the
+Irish Roman Catholics. Great discussion has taken place as to the
+countries in which this Decree is in force. No one was surprised to hear
+that Germany was exempt. Archbishop Walsh, the Roman Catholic Archbishop
+of Dublin, in an elaborate discussion, gives the opinion that the Decree
+is abrogated under British law by the custom of the country, which has
+in the past rendered impossible the observance of the strict
+ecclesiastical rule in this matter, but is careful to add that this is
+only his opinion as a canonist, and is subject to the decision of the
+Holy See. When this plea is examined, it is found to mean simply this,
+that the law is not strictly observed in case of necessity. That this is
+the meaning of Archbishop Walsh's plea is proved by a quotation which he
+makes from Pope Benedict XIV. The principle laid down by Pope Benedict
+is that when it became impossible to resist the encroachment of adverse
+customs, the Popes shut their eyes to what was going on, and tolerated
+what they had no power to prevent. It is exactly the principle of
+toleration as a temporary expedient. The re-enactment of the law by the
+present Pope means surely, if it means anything, that such toleration
+is to cease wherever and whenever the law can be enforced. But, be it
+observed, this necessity is entirely dependent on the strength of the
+authority which administers the civil law. The moment the civil
+authority grows weak in its assertion of its supremacy, the plea of
+necessity fails, and the ecclesiastical law must be enforced. Those who
+know Ireland are well aware that this is exactly what would happen under
+Home Rule. Here is the crowning proof of the truth that, above all the
+well-intentioned persons who give assurances of the peace and goodwill
+that would flourish under Home Rule, there is a power which would bring
+all their good intentions to nothing.
+
+But what of the Church of Ireland under Home Rule? Formerly the
+Established Church of the country, and as such occupying a position of
+special privilege, she still enjoys something of the traditional
+consideration which belonged to that position, and is more than ever
+conscious of her unbroken ecclesiastical descent from the Ancient Church
+of Ireland. Her adherents number 575,000, of whom 366,000 are in Ulster.
+As part of her heritage she holds nearly all the ancient ecclesiastical
+sites and the more important of the ancient buildings which still
+survive. These possessions, thus inherited from an immemorial past, were
+secured to her by the Act of Disestablishment. For the rest, the
+endowments which she enjoys at the present time have been created since
+1870 by the self-denial and generosity of her clergy and laity. Under
+British law, her position is secure. But would she be secure under Home
+Rule? Those of her advisers who have most right to speak with authority
+are convinced that she would not. The Bishop of Ossory, in an able and
+very moderate statement made at the meeting of the Synod of that
+Diocese, last September, showed that both the principal churches and the
+endowments now held by the Church of Ireland have been claimed
+repeatedly by prominent representatives of the Church of Rome. It is
+stated that the Church sites and buildings belong to the Roman Communion
+in Ireland because, on Roman Catholic principles, that communion truly
+represents the ancient Irish Church, and no lapse of time can invalidate
+the Church's title; and that the endowments belong to the same communion
+because they "represent moneys derived from pre-Disestablishment days,
+which were, in their turn, the alienated possessions of the Roman
+Church" (see Bishop of Ossory's Synod Address, p. 7). As regards this
+last statement, it must be noted that the only sense in which it can be
+truly said that the endowments represent moneys derived from
+pre-Disestablishment days is that the foundation of the new financial
+system was laid by the generosity of the clergy in office at the time.
+They entrusted to the Representative Body of the Church the capitalised
+value of the life-interests secured to them by the Act. The money was
+their private property, and their action one which involved great
+self-denial, for they gave up the security offered by the State. The
+money was so calculated that the whole should be exhausted when all
+payments were made. By good management, however, it yielded considerable
+profit, and meanwhile formed a foundation on which to build. It was,
+however, in no sense an endowment given by the State, nor was it a fund
+on which any but the legal owners (_i.e._ the clergy of the time) had a
+justifiable claim.
+
+The Bishop of Ossory's statement excited much discussion, but, though
+many Roman Catholic apologists endeavoured to laugh away his fears as
+groundless, not one denied the validity of his argument. The fact that,
+as he showed, the Church of Ireland holds her churches by exactly the
+same title as that by which the English Church holds Westminster Abbey,
+and that, for the Irish Church, there is the additional security of the
+Act of 1869, count for nothing in the eye of Roman Canon Law.
+
+In an Ireland ruled by a Parliament of which the vast majority would be
+Roman Catholics, devout and sincere, representing constituencies peopled
+by devout and sincere persons who believe that the laws of the Vatican
+are the laws of God, with a clergy lifted above the civil law by the
+operation of the recent _Motu Proprio_ Decree, an Ireland in which even
+the school catechisms (see the "Christian Brothers' Catechism," quoted
+by the Bishop of Ossory, _op. cit._ p. 8) teach that an alien Church
+unlawfully excludes "the Catholics" from their own churches, how long
+would it be before a movement, burning with holy zeal and pious
+indignation, against the usurpers, would sweep away every barrier and
+drive out "the heretics" from the ancient shrines?
+
+Irish Churchmen who know their country are aware that even the most
+stringent guarantees would be worthless in such a case, as they proved
+worthless in the Act of Union, and at the time of Catholic emancipation.
+
+Some English Liberals imagine that Home Rule would be followed by an
+uprising of popular independence which would destroy the power of the
+Roman Church in Ireland. Let those who think this consider that the more
+independent spirits among the Irish Roman Catholics go to America, and
+let them further consider what has happened in the Province of Quebec in
+Canada. The immense strength of the bonds--religious, social, and
+educational--by which the mass of the people in the South and West of
+Ireland are held in the grip of the Roman ecclesiastical system, and the
+power which would be exerted by the central authority of that system by
+means of the recent decrees, make it certain that clerical domination
+would, from the outset, be the ruling principle of an Irish Parliament.
+
+There is no desire nearer to the hearts of the clergy and people who
+form the Church to which the writer belongs than that they should be
+enabled to live at peace with their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen,
+and work in union with them, for the good of their country and the
+promotion of that new prosperity which recent years have brought. They
+dread Home Rule, because they know that, instead of peace, it would
+bring a sword, and plunge their country once again into all the horrors
+of civil and religious strife.
+
+
+
+
+THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE
+
+(ii) THE NONCONFORMIST VIEW
+
+BY REV. SAMUEL PRENTER, M.A., D.D. (DUBLIN),
+
+_Moderator of General Assembly of Presbyterian Church in Ireland in_
+1904-5.
+
+
+For obvious reasons, the Religious Difficulty under Home Rule does not
+receive much attention on the political platform in Great Britain. But
+in Ireland a religious problem flames at the heart of the whole
+controversy. This religious problem creates the cleavage in the Irish
+population, and is the real secret of the intense passion on both sides
+with which Home Rule is both prosecuted and resisted. Irishmen
+understand this very well; but as Home Rule, on its face value, is only
+a question of a mode of civil government, it is almost impossible to
+make the matter clear to British electors. They say, What has religion
+got to do with Home Rule? Home Rule is a pure question of politics, and
+it must be solved on exclusively political lines. Even if this were so,
+might not Englishmen remember that the Nationalist Members of Parliament
+have been controlled by the Church of Rome in their votes on the English
+education question? I mention this to show that under the disguise of
+pure politics ecclesiastical authority may stalk in perfect freedom
+through the lobbies of the House of Commons. Is it, then, an absolutely
+incredible thing that what has been done in the English Parliament in
+the name of politics may be done openly and undisguised in the name of
+politics in a Home Rule Parliament? That such will be the case I shall
+now attempt to show.
+
+Let us begin with the most elementary facts. According to the official
+census of 1911 the population of Ireland is grouped as follows:--
+
+Roman Catholics                      3,238,656
+Irish Church                           575,489
+Presbyterians                          439,876
+Methodists                              61,806
+All other Christian denominations       57,718
+Jews                                     5,101
+Information refused                      3,305
+
+I beg the electors of Great Britain to look steadily into the above
+figures, and to ask themselves who are the Home Rulers and who are the
+Unionists in Ireland. Irish Home Rulers are almost all Roman Catholics,
+and the Protestants and others are almost all stout Unionists. Does this
+fact suggest nothing? How is it that the line of demarcation in Irish
+politics almost exactly coincides with the line of demarcation in
+religion? Quite true, there are a few Irish Roman Catholics who are
+Unionists, and a few Protestants who are Home Rulers. But they are so
+few and so uninfluential on both sides that the exception only serves to
+prove the rule. These exceptions, no doubt, have been abundantly
+exploited, and the very most has been made of them. But the great
+elementary fact remains, that one-fourth of the Irish people, mostly
+Protestant, are resolutely, and even passionately, opposed to Home Rule;
+and the remarkable thing is that the most militant Irish Unionists for
+the past twenty years have not been the members of the Irish Church who
+might be suspected of Protestant Ascendency prejudices, but they are the
+Presbyterians and Methodists who never belonged to the old Protestant
+Ascendency party. It is of Irish Presbyterians that I can speak with the
+most ultimate knowledge. Their record in Ireland requires to be made
+perfectly clear. In 1829 they were the champions of Catholic
+Emancipation. In 1868 they supported Mr. Gladstone in his great Irish
+reforms. They have been at all times the advocates of perfect equality
+in religion, and of unsectarianism in education. They stand firm and
+staunch on these two principles still. But they are the sternest and
+strongest opponents of Home Rule, and their reason is because Home Rule
+spells for Ireland a new religious ascendency and the destruction of the
+unsectarian principle in education.
+
+I ask on these grounds that English and Scottish electors should pause
+for a moment, and open their minds to the fact that there is a great
+religious problem at the heart of Home Rule. Irish Presbyterians claim
+that they know what they are doing, and that they are not the blind
+dupes of religious prejudice and political passion. It is for a great
+something that they have embarked in this conflict; they are determined
+to risk everything in this resistance, and in proportion as the danger
+approaches, in like proportion does their hostility to the Home Rule
+claim increase.
+
+What, then, is the secret of this determination? It lies in a nutshell.
+A Parliament in Dublin would be under the control and domination of the
+Church of Rome. Two facts in Irish life render this not only likely and
+probable, but inevitable and certain. The first fact is that
+three-fourths of the members would be Roman Catholic, and the second
+fact is that the Irish people are the most devoted Roman Catholics at
+present in Christendom. No one disputes the first fact, but the second
+requires to be made clear to the electors of Great Britain. Let no one
+suppose that I am finding fault with Irishmen for being devoted Roman
+Catholics. What I wish to show is that the Church of Rome would be
+supreme in the new Parliament, and that she is not a good guardian of
+Protestant liberties and interests. Ireland has been for the last two
+generations brought into absolute captivity to the principles of
+ultramontanism. When Italy asserted her nationality, and fought for it
+in 1870, Ireland sent out a brigade to fight on the side of the Pope.
+When France, a few years ago, broke up in that land the bondage of
+Ecclesiasticism, the streets of Dublin were filled Sunday after Sunday
+for weeks with crowds of Irishmen, headed by priests, shouting for the
+Pope against France. The Church first, nationality afterwards, is the
+creed of the ultramontane; and it is the avowed creed of the Irish
+people. But this would be changed in an Irish Parliament, British
+electors affirm. Let us hear what Mr. John Dillon, M.P., says on the
+point. Speaking about a year ago in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester,
+Mr. Dillon said--
+
+     "I assert, and it is the glory of our race, that we are to-day the
+     right arm of the Catholic Church throughout the world ... we stand
+     to-day as we have stood throughout, without abating one jot or
+     tittle of that faith, the most Catholic nation on the whole earth."
+
+What Mr. Dillon says is perfectly true. The Irish Parliament would be
+constituted on the Roman model. If there were none but Roman Catholics
+in Ireland, Ireland would rapidly become a "State of the Church." But
+how would Protestants fare? Just as they fared in old Papal days in
+Italy under the temporal rule of the Vatican. But it may still be said
+that Irishmen themselves would curb the ecclesiastical power. This is
+one of the delusions by which British electors conceal from themselves
+the peril of Home Rule to Irish Protestants. They forget that Irishmen
+are, if possible, more Roman than Rome herself. I take the following
+picture of the Romanised condition of Ireland from a Roman Catholic
+writer--
+
+     "Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell, who 'believes in the Papal Church in
+     every point, who accepts her teaching from Nicaea to Trent, and
+     from Trent to the Vatican,' says, 'While the general population of
+     Ireland has been going down by leaps and bounds to the abyss, the
+     clerical population has been mounting by cent. per cent. during the
+     same period....' A short time ago, when an Austrian Cabinet was
+     being heckled by some anti-clerical opponents upon its alleged
+     encouragement of an excessive number of clerical persons in
+     Austria, the Minister replied, 'If you want to know what an
+     excessive number of the clergy is like go to Ireland. In proportion
+     to their population the Irish have got ten priests and nuns to the
+     one who exists in Austria. I do not prejudge the question. They may
+     be wanted in Ireland. But let not honourable members talk about
+     over-clericalism in Austria until they have studied the clerical
+     Statistics of Ireland.' A Jesuit visitor to Ireland, on returning
+     to his English acquaintances, and being asked how did he find the
+     priests in Ireland, replied, 'The priests in Ireland! There is
+     nobody but priests in Ireland. Over there they are treading on one
+     another's heels.' While the population of Ireland has diminished
+     one-half, the population of the Presbyteries and convents has
+     multiplied threefold or more. Comparisons are then instituted
+     between the Sacerdotal census of Ireland, and that of the European
+     Papal countries. I shall state results only. Belgium has only one
+     Archbishop and five Bishops; but if it were staffed with prelates
+     on the Irish scale it would have nine or ten Archbishops and some
+     sixty Bishops. I suppose the main army of ecclesiastics in the two
+     countries is in the same grossly incongruous proportions--ten or
+     twelve priests in Ireland for every one in Belgium! The German
+     Empire, with its 21,000,000 Roman Catholics, has actually fewer
+     mitred prelates than Ireland with its 3,000,000 of Roman Catholics.
+     The figures of Austria-Hungary with its Roman Catholic population
+     of 36,000,000 are equally impressive. It has eleven Archbishops,
+     but if it were staffed on the Irish scale it would have
+     forty-eight. It has forty Bishops, but if it were like Ireland it
+     would have 288. Mr. O'Donnell goes on: 'This enormous population of
+     Churchmen, far beyond the necessities and even the luxuries of
+     religious worship and service, would be a heavy tax upon the
+     resources of great and wealthy lands. What must it be for Ireland
+     to have to supply the Episcopal villas, the new Cathedrals, and
+     handsome Presbyteries, and handsome incomes of this enormous and
+     increasing host of reverend gentlemen, who, as regards five-sixths
+     of their number, contribute neither to the spiritual nor temporal
+     felicity of the Island? They are the despotic managers of all
+     primary schools, and can exact what homage they please from the
+     poor serf-teachers, whom they dominate and whom they keep eternally
+     under their thumb. They absolutely own and control all the
+     secondary schools, with all their private profits and all their
+     Government grants. In the University what they do not dominate they
+     mutilate. Every appointment, from dispensary doctors to members of
+     Parliament, must acknowledge their ownership, and pay toll to their
+     despotism. The County Councils must contribute patronage according
+     to their indications; the parish committees of the congested
+     districts supplement their pocket-money. They have annexed the
+     revenues of the industrial schools. They are engaged in
+     transforming the universal proprietary of Ireland in order to add
+     materials for their exactions from the living and the moribund. I
+     am told that not less than L5,000,000 are lifted from the Irish
+     people every year by the innumerable agencies of clerical suction
+     which are at work upon all parts of the Irish body, politic and
+     social. Nor can it be forgotten that the material loss is only a
+     portion of the injury. The brow-beaten and intimidated condition of
+     the popular action and intelligence which is necessary to this
+     state of things necessarily communicates its want of will and
+     energy to every function of the community.'"
+
+Of course Mr. F.H. O'Donnell has been driven out of public life in
+Ireland for plain speaking like this; and so would every man be who
+ventured to cross swords with his Church. It aggravates the situation
+immensely when we take another fact in Irish life into account.
+
+In quite recent months Mr. Devlin, M.P., has brought into prominence a
+society called the Ancient Order of Hibernians (sometimes called the
+Molly Maguires) which, according to the late Mr. Michael Davitt, is "the
+most wonderful pro-Celtic organisation in the world." This is a secret
+society which at one time was under the ban of the Church; but quite
+recently the ban has been removed, and priests are now allowed to join
+the order. The present Pope is said to be its most powerful friend. It
+has branches in many lands, and it is rapidly gathering into it all the
+great mass of the Irish Roman Catholic people. This is the most
+wonderful political machine in Ireland.
+
+Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., has recently given an account of this society
+which has never been seriously questioned.
+
+     "The fundamental object of the Hibernian Society is to give
+     preference to its own members first and Catholics afterwards as
+     against Protestants on all occasions. Whether it is a question of
+     custom, office, public contracts, or positions on Public Boards,
+     Molly Maguires are pledged always to support a Catholic as against
+     a Protestant. If Protestants are to be robbed of their business, if
+     they are to be deprived of public contracts, if they are to be shut
+     out of every office of honour or emolument, what is this but
+     extermination? The domination of such a society would make this
+     country a hell. It would light the flame of civil war in our midst,
+     and blight every hope of its future prosperity."
+
+And now we reach the core of the question. It is perfectly clear that
+Home Rule would create a Roman Catholic ascendency in Ireland, but
+still it might be said that the Church of Rome would be tolerant. On
+that point we had best consult the Church of Rome herself. Has she ever
+said that she would practise toleration towards Protestants when she was
+in power? Never; on the contrary, she declares most clearly that
+toleration of error is a deadly sin. In this respect the Church of Rome
+claims to differ _toto coelo_ from the churches of the Reformation. In
+Ireland she has passed through all the stages of ecclesiastical
+experience from the lowest form of disability to the present claim of
+supremacy. In the dark days of her suffering she cried for toleration,
+and as the claim was just in Protestant eyes she got it. Then as she
+grew in strength she stretched forth her hands for equality, and as this
+too was just, she gradually obtained it. At present she enjoys equality
+in every practical right and privilege with her Protestant neighbours.
+But in the demand for Home Rule there is involved the claim of exerting
+an ecclesiastical ascendency not only over her own members but over
+Irish Protestants, and this is the claim which is unjust and which ought
+not to be granted. Green, the historian, points out that William Pitt
+made the Union with England the ground of his plea for Roman Catholic
+emancipation, as it would effectually prevent a Romish ascendency in
+Ireland. Home Rule in practice will destroy the control of Great
+Britain, and, therefore, involves the removal of the bulwark against
+Roman Catholic ascendency.
+
+The contention of the Irish Protestants is that neither their will nor
+their religious liberties would be safe in the custody of Rome. In an
+Irish Parliament civil allegiance to the Holy See would be the test of
+membership, and would make every Roman Catholic member a civil servant
+of the Vatican. That Parliament would be compelled to carry out the
+behests of the Church. The Church is hostile to the liberty of the
+Press, to liberty of public speech, to Modernism in science, in
+literature, in philosophy; is bound to exact obedience from her own
+members and to extirpate heresy and heretics; claims to be above Civil
+Law, and the right to enforce Canon Law whenever she is able. There are
+simply no limits even of life or property to the range of her
+intolerance. This is not an indictment; it is the boast of Rome. She
+plumes herself upon being an intolerant because she is an infallible
+Church, and her Irish claim, symbolised by the Papal Tiara, is supremacy
+over the Church, supremacy over the State, and supremacy over the
+invisible world. Unquestioning obedience is her law towards her own
+subjects, and intolerance tempered with prudence is her law towards
+Protestants. It is a strange hallucination to find that there are
+politicians to-day who think that Rome will change her principles at the
+bidding of Mr. Redmond, or to please hard-driven politicians, or to make
+Rome attractive to a Protestant Empire. Rome claims supremacy, and she
+tells us quite candidly what she will do when she gets it.
+
+Here is our difficulty under Home Rule. Irish Protestants see that they
+must either refuse to go into an Irish Parliament, or else go into it as
+a hopeless minority, and turn it into an arena for the maintenance of
+their most elementary rights; in which case the Irish Parliament would
+be simply a cockpit of religio-political strife. But it would be a great
+mistake to suppose that the religious difficulty is confined to Irish
+Protestants. It is a difficulty which would become in time a crushing
+burden to Roman Catholics themselves. The yoke of Rome was found too
+heavy for Italy, and in a generation or two it would be found too heavy
+for Ireland. But for the creation of the Papal ascendency in Ireland,
+the responsibility must rest, in the long run, on Great Britain herself.
+England and Scotland, the most favoured lands of the Reformation, by
+establishing Home Rule in Ireland, will do for Rome what no other
+country in the world would do for her. They would entrust her with a
+legislative machine which she could control without check, hand over to
+her tender mercies a million of the best Protestants of the Empire, and
+establish at the heart of the Empire a power altogether at variance with
+her own ideals of Government, fraught with danger, and a good base of
+operations for the conquest of England. Can this be done with impunity?
+Can Great Britain divest herself of a religious responsibility in
+dealing with Home Rule? Is there not a God in Heaven who will take note
+of such national procedure? Are electors not responsible to Him for the
+use they make of their votes? If they sow to the wind, must they not
+reap the whirlwind?
+
+In brief compass, I hope I have made it quite clear what the Religious
+Difficulty in Ireland under Home Rule is. It is not a mere accident of
+the situation; it does not spring from any question of temper, or of
+prejudice, or of bigotry. The Religious Difficulty is created by the
+essential and fundamental genius of Romanism. Her whole ideal of life
+differs from the Protestant ideal. It is impossible to reconcile these
+two ideals. It is impossible to unite them in any amalgam that would not
+mean the destruction of both. Under Imperial Rule these ideals have
+discovered a decently working _modus vivendi_. Mr. Pitt's contention
+that the union with Great Britain would be an effectual barrier against
+Romanism has held good. But if you remove Imperial Rule than you create
+at a stroke the ascendency of Rome, and under that ascendency the
+greatest injustice would be inflicted on the Protestant minority.
+Questions of public situations and of efficient patronage are of very
+subordinate importance indeed. Mr. Redmond demands that Irish
+Protestants must be included in his Home Rule scheme, and threatens that
+if they object they must be dealt with "by the strong hand," and his
+Home Rule Parliament would be subservient to the Church of Rome. Does
+any one suppose that a million of the most earnest Protestants in the
+world are going to submit to such an arrangement? Neither Englishmen nor
+Scotsmen would be willing themselves to enter under such a yoke, and why
+should they ask Irishmen to do so?
+
+It is contended, indeed, that the power of the priest in Ireland is on
+the wane. This is partly true and partly not true. It is true that he is
+not quite the political and social autocrat that he once was. But it is
+not true that the Church of Rome is less powerful in Ireland than she
+was. On the contrary, as an ecclesiastical organisation Rome was never
+so compact in organisation, never so ably manned by both regular and
+secular clergy, never so wealthy nor so full of resource, never so
+obedient to the rule of the Vatican, as at the present moment. Give her
+an Irish Parliament, and she will be complete; she will patiently subdue
+all Ireland to her will. Emigration has drained the country of the
+strong men of the laity, who might be able to resist her encroachments.
+Dr. Horton truly says: "The Roman Church dominates Ireland and the Irish
+as completely as Islam dominates Morocco." By Ireland and the Irish Dr.
+Horton, of course, means Roman Catholic Ireland. Are you now going to
+place a legislative weapon in her hand whereby she will be able to
+dominate Protestants also? It is bad statesmanship; bad politics; bad
+religion. For Ireland it can bring nothing but ruin; and for the Empire
+nothing but terrible retribution in the future.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONSTRUCTIVE
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+UNIONIST POLICY IN RELATION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRELAND
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. GERALD BALFOUR
+
+
+"_For the last two and twenty years, at first a few and now a goodly
+company of rural reformers with whom I have been associated, and on
+whose behalf I write, have been steadily working out a complete scheme
+of rural development, their formula being better farming, better
+business, better living."_--SIR H. PLUNKETT, letter to the _Times_,
+December, 1911.
+
+"_Ireland would prefer rags and poverty rather than surrender her
+national spirit."_--MR. JOHN REDMOND, speech at Buffalo, September 27,
+1910.
+
+It should never be forgotten that the maintenance of the legislative
+Union between Ireland and Great Britain is defended by Unionists no less
+in the interests of Ireland than in that of the United Kingdom and of
+the Empire. That the ills from which Ireland has admittedly suffered in
+the past, and for which she still suffers, though in diminished measure,
+in the present, are economic and social rather than political, is a
+fundamental tenet of Unionism. Unionists also believe that economic and
+social conditions in Ireland can be more effectively dealt with under
+the existing political constitution than under any form of Home Rule.
+Ireland is a poor country, and needs the financial resources which only
+the Imperial Parliament can provide. She is, moreover, a country divided
+into hostile camps marked by strong racial and religious differences. As
+Sir George Trevelyan long ago pointed out, there is not one Ireland,
+there are two Irelands; and only so far as Ireland continues an
+integral part of a larger whole can the antagonism between the two
+elements be prevented from forming a dangerous obstacle to all real
+progress.
+
+Nationalist politicians, of course, diagnose the situation very
+differently. Apply suitable remedial measures, say the Unionists, to the
+social and economic conditions of the country, and it is not
+unreasonable to hope that political discontent--or, in other words, the
+demand for Home Rule--will gradually die away of itself. Give us Home
+Rule, say the Nationalists, and all other things will be added to us.
+
+The main object of the present paper is to give a bird's eye view of
+Unionist policy in relation to rural development in Ireland during the
+eventful years 1885-1905. It does not pretend to deal with the larger
+issue raised between Unionism and Nationalism; but incidentally, it will
+be found to throw some interesting side lights upon it.
+
+The Irish Question in its most essential aspect is a Farmers' Question.
+The difficulties which it presents have their deepest roots in an
+unsatisfactory system of land tenure, excessive sub-division of
+holdings, and antiquated methods of agricultural economy.
+
+Mr. Gladstone endeavoured to deal with the system of land tenure in the
+two important Acts of 1870 and 1881; but the system of dual ownership
+which those Acts set up introduced, perhaps, as many evils as they
+removed. It became more and more evident that the only effectual remedy
+lay in the complete transference of the ownership of the land from the
+landlord to the occupying tenant. The successful application of this
+remedy with anything like fairness to both sides absolutely demanded the
+use of State credit on a large scale. The plan actually adopted in a
+succession of Land Acts passed by Unionist Governments, beginning with
+the Ashbourne Act of 1885, and ending with the Wyndham Act of 1903, is
+broadly speaking as follows:--The State purchases the interest of the
+landlord outright and vests the ownership in the occupying tenant
+subject to a fixed payment for a definite term of years. These annual
+payments are not in the nature of rent: they represent a low rate of
+interest on the purchase money, plus such contribution to a sinking fund
+as will repay the principal in the term of years for which the annual
+payments are to run. The practical effect of this arrangement is that
+the occupier becomes the owner of his holding, subject to a terminable
+annual payment to the State of a sum less in amount than the rent he has
+had to pay heretofore.
+
+The successful working of the scheme obviously depends on the credit of
+the State, in other words, its power of borrowing at a low rate of
+interest. In this respect the Imperial Government has an immense
+advantage over any possible Home Rule Government: indeed, it is doubtful
+whether any Home Rule Government could have attempted this great reform
+without wholesale confiscation of the landlords' property. Here then in
+Land Purchase and the abolition of dual ownership, we have one of the
+twin pillars on which, on its constructive side, the Irish policy of the
+Unionist party rests. But to solve the problem of rural Ireland--which,
+as I have said, is _the_ Irish problem--more is required than the
+conversion of the occupying tenant into a peasant proprietor. The sense
+of ownership may be counted on to do much; but it will not make it
+possible for a family to live in decent comfort on an insufficient
+holding; neither will it enable the small farmer to compete with those
+foreign rivals who have at their command improved methods of production,
+improved methods of marketing their produce, facilities for obtaining
+capital adequate to their needs, and all the many advantages which
+superior education and organised co-operation bring in their train.
+
+Looking back to-day, the wide field that in these directions was open to
+the beneficent action of the State, and to the equally beneficent action
+of voluntary associations, seems evident and obvious. It was by no means
+so evident or obvious twenty years ago. At that time the traditional
+policy of _laisser faire_ had still a powerful hold over men's minds,
+and to abandon it even in the case of rural Ireland was a veritable new
+departure in statesmanship. The idea of establishing a voluntary
+association to promote agricultural co-operation was even more remote;
+and, as will be seen in the sequel, it was to the insight and devoted
+persistence of a single individual that its successful realisation has
+been ultimately due.
+
+So far as State action was concerned, a beginning was naturally made
+with the poorest parts of the country. Mr. Arthur Balfour led the way
+with two important measures. One of these was the construction of light
+railways in the most backward tracts on the western seaboard. These
+railways were constructed at the public expense, but worked by existing
+railway companies, and linked up with existing railway systems. The
+benefits conferred on those parts of the country through which they
+passed have been great and lasting.
+
+Mr. Balfour's second contribution to Irish rural development was the
+creation of the Congested Districts Board in 1891. The "congested
+districts" embraced the most poverty-stricken areas in the western
+counties, and the business of the Board was to devise and apply, within
+those districts, schemes for the amelioration of the social and economic
+condition of the population comprised in them. For this purpose, the
+Board was invested with very wide powers of a paternal character, and an
+annual income of upwards of L40,000 was placed at their free disposal, a
+sum which has been largely increased by subsequent Acts.
+
+The experiment was an absolutely novel one, but no one who is able to
+compare the improved condition of the congested districts to-day with
+the state of things that prevailed twenty years ago can doubt that it
+has been amply justified by results.
+
+Every phase of the life of the Irish peasant along the whole of the
+western seaboard has been made brighter and more hopeful by the
+beneficent operations of the Board. Its activities have been manifold,
+including the purchase and improvement of estates prior to re-sale to
+the tenants; the re-arrangement and enlargement of holdings; the
+improvement of stock; the provision of pure seeds and high-class
+manures; practical demonstration of various kinds, all educational in
+character; drainage; the construction of roads; improvement in the
+sanitary conditions of the people's dwellings; assistance to provide
+proper accommodation for the livestock of the farm, which too frequently
+were housed with the people themselves; the development of sea
+fisheries; the encouragement of many kinds of home industries for women
+and girls; the quarrying of granite; the making of kelp; the promotion
+of co-operative credit; and many other schemes which had practical
+regard to the needs of the people, and have contributed in a variety of
+ways to raise the standard of comfort of the inhabitants of these
+impoverished areas.
+
+It will be noticed that among the other activities of the Congested
+Districts Board, I have specially mentioned the work of promoting
+co-operative credit by means of village banks managed on the Raffeisen
+system. The actual work of organising these co-operative banking
+associations has not been carried out directly by the Board, but through
+the agency of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (generally
+known by the shorter title of the I.A.O.S.), to which the Board has for
+many years past paid a small subsidy--a subsidy which might well have
+been on a more generous scale, having regard to the immense advantages
+which co-operation is capable of conferring on the small farmer.
+
+The I.A.O.S. is a voluntary association of a strictly non-political
+character. "Business, not politics," has been its principle of action;
+and partly, perhaps, for this very reason it may claim to have
+contributed more than any other single agency towards the prosperity of
+rural Ireland. To its work I now turn.
+
+
+THE I.A.O.S.
+
+The movement which the I.A.O.S. represents was started by Sir Horace
+Plunkett, and he has remained the most prominent figure in it ever
+since. Sir Horace Plunkett bears an honoured name wherever the rural
+problem is seriously studied; but, like other prophets, he has received
+perhaps less honour in his own country than elsewhere. At all events, in
+the task to which he has devoted his life, he has had to encounter the
+tacit, and indeed at times the open opposition, of powerful sections of
+Nationalist opinion. Happily he belongs to the stamp of men whom no
+obstacles can discourage, and who find in the work itself their
+sufficient reward.
+
+Sir Horace Plunkett's leading idea was a simple one, and has become
+to-day almost a commonplace. He compared the backward state of
+agriculture in Ireland with the great advance that had been made in
+various continental countries, where the natural conditions were not
+dissimilar to those of Ireland, and asked himself the secret of the
+difference. That secret he found in the word _organisation_, and he set
+himself to organise. The establishment of co-operative creameries seemed
+to afford the most hopeful opening, and it was to this that Sir Horace
+Plunkett and a few personal friends, in the year 1889, directed their
+earliest missionary efforts. The difficulties to be overcome were at
+first very great. "My own diary," writes Sir Horace, "records attendance
+at fifty meetings before a single society had resulted therefrom. It was
+weary work for a long time. These gatherings were miserable affairs
+compared with those which greeted our political speakers."
+
+The experiences[70] of another of the little band of devoted workers,
+Mr. R.A. Anderson, now Secretary of the I.A.O.S., throw an interesting
+light upon the nature of some of the obstacles which the new movement
+had to encounter.
+
+     "It was hard and thankless work. There was the apathy of the
+     people, and the active opposition of the Press and the politicians.
+     It would be hard to say now whether the abuse of the Conservative
+     _Cork Constitution_, or that of the Nationalist _Eagle_ of
+     Skibbereen, was the louder. We were 'killing the calves,' we were
+     'forcing the young women to emigrate,' we were 'destroying the
+     industry.' Mr. Plunkett was described as a 'monster in human
+     shape,' and was adjured to 'cease his hellish work.' I was
+     described as his 'man Friday,' and as 'Roughrider Anderson.' Once
+     when I thought I had planted a creamery within the town of
+     Rathkeale, my co-operative apple-cart was upset by a local
+     solicitor, who, having elicited the fact that our movement
+     recognised neither political nor religious differences--that the
+     Unionist-Protestant cow was as dear to us as her
+     Nationalist-Catholic sister--gravely informed me that our programme
+     would not suit Rathkeale. 'Rathkeale,' said he pompously, 'is a
+     Nationalist town--Nationalist to the backbone--and every pound of
+     butter made in this creamery must be made on Nationalist
+     principles, or it shan't be made at all.' This sentiment was
+     applauded loudly, and the proceedings terminated."
+
+Eventually, however, the zeal of the preachers, coupled with the
+economic soundness of the doctrine, prevailed over all difficulties. By
+1894 the movement had outgrown the individual activities of the
+founders, and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society was
+established in Dublin in order to promote and direct its further
+progress. That progress has been rapid and continuous, and to-day the
+co-operative societies connected with the I.A.O.S. number nearly 1000,
+with an annual turnover of upwards of 2-1/2 millions. They extend over
+the length and breadth of the land, and include creameries, agricultural
+societies (whose main business is the purchase of seeds and manure for
+distribution to the members), credit societies (village banks), poultry
+keepers' societies (for the marketing of eggs), flax societies,
+industries societies, as well as other societies of a miscellaneous
+character.
+
+In 1892 the Liberal Party came into power. During their three years'
+tenure of office a Home Rule Bill was introduced and passed through the
+House of Commons, but little or nothing was attempted by the Government
+for the economic regeneration of the country.
+
+The Unionist Party came back with a large majority in 1896, and the
+attention of the new Irish Government, in which the post of Lord
+Lieutenant was held by Lord Cadogan and that of Chief Secretary by the
+present writer, was from the first directed to the condition of the
+Irish farmer. The session of 1896 was largely devoted to the passing of
+a Bill for amending the Land Acts, and for further facilitating the
+conversion of occupying tenants into owners of their holdings. Time,
+however, was also found for a new Light Railways Act, under the
+provision of which railway communication has been opened up at the
+expense of the State in the poorest parts of North-West Ireland.
+
+It was in the following year that the first attempt was made to
+establish an Irish Department of Agriculture. The Bill was not carried
+beyond a first reading, because it was ultimately decided that a Local
+Government Act should have precedence of it. But the project was only
+put aside for a time, and it was always looked upon by me as an integral
+part of our legislative programme. In framing the Bill of 1897, and also
+the later Bill of 1899, which passed into law, we received the greatest
+assistance from the labours of a body known as the Recess Committee,
+concerning which a few words must now be said.
+
+
+THE RECESS COMMITTEE.
+
+To be the founder of agricultural co-operation in Ireland was Sir Horace
+Plunkett's first great achievement; the bringing together of the Recess
+Committee was his second. He conceived the idea of inviting a number of
+the most prominent men in Ireland, irrespective of religious or
+political differences, to join in an inquiry into the means by which the
+Government could best promote the development of the agricultural and
+industrial resources of Ireland. This idea he propounded in an open
+letter published in August, 1895. The proposal was a bold one--how bold
+no one unacquainted with Ireland will easily realise. Amongst
+Nationalist politicians the majority fought shy of it. Mr. Justin
+McCarthy, the leader of the party, could only see in Sir Horace's letter
+"the expression of a belief that if your policy could be successfully
+carried out, the Irish people would cease to desire Home Rule." "I do
+not feel," he added, "that I could possibly take part in any
+organisation which had for its object the seeking of a substitute for
+that which I believe to be Ireland's greatest need--Home Rule."
+Fortunately, then as now, the Irish party was divided into two camps,
+and Mr. Redmond, at the head of a small minority of "Independents," was
+at liberty to take a different line. "I am unwilling," he wrote, "to
+take the responsibility of declining to aid in any effort to promote
+useful legislation in Ireland."
+
+Ultimately, Sir Horace Plunkett's strong personality, his manifest
+singleness of purpose, and the intrinsic merits of his proposal carried
+the day. A committee, truly representative of all that was best in Irish
+life, was brought together, and commissioners were despatched to the
+Continent to report upon those systems of State aid linked with
+voluntary organisation which appeared to have revolutionised agriculture
+in countries not otherwise more favoured than Ireland itself. A large
+mass of most valuable information was collected. In less than a year the
+committee reported. The substance of the recommendation was
+
+     "That a Department of Government should be specially created, with
+     a minister directly responsible to Parliament at its head. The
+     Central Body was to be assisted by a Consultative Council
+     representative of the interests concerned. The Department was to be
+     adequately endowed from the Imperial Treasury, and was to
+     administer State aid to agriculture and industries in Ireland upon
+     principles which were fully described."[71]
+
+With the general policy of these recommendations the Irish Government
+were in hearty sympathy, and the Bill of 1897, already referred to, was
+a first attempt to give effect to it. But in the absence of popularly
+elected local authorities an important part of the machinery for
+carrying out the proposals was wanting.
+
+
+IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT.
+
+A reform of local government in Ireland had long been given a place in
+the Unionist programme, but the magnitude of the undertaking and the
+pressure of other business had hitherto stood in its way. It was now
+decided to take up this task in earnest, on the understanding that other
+measures relating to Ireland should be postponed in the meantime. The
+Irish Local Government Bill was accordingly introduced and passed in the
+following session (1898).
+
+Of this Act, which involved not merely the creation of new popular
+Authorities, but also an entire re-arrangement of local taxation, and
+some important changes in the system of poor relief, I will only say
+here that it must be counted as another of the great remedial measures
+which Ireland owes to the Unionist Party, and which it would have been
+difficult, if not impossible, to carry out in a satisfactory manner
+without assistance on a generous scale from the ample resources of the
+Imperial Exchequer.
+
+
+IRISH DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION.
+
+The way was now open for the measure to which I had looked forward from
+the first moment of my going to Ireland, and which was to constitute the
+final abandonment of the old _laissez faire_ policy in connection with
+Irish agriculture and industries. Great care and labour were devoted to
+the framing of the new Bill, and I was in constant touch throughout with
+members of the Recess Committee. It contained clauses dealing with urban
+as well as rural industries, but these lie outside my present subject,
+and I shall not refer to them further here. On the side of rural
+development the Bill embodied a novel experiment in the art of
+government--novel at all events in British or Irish experience, though
+something like it had already been tried with conspicuous success in
+various countries on the Continent. It was the continental example which
+had inspired the Report of the Recess Committee, and it was the
+recommendations of the Recess Committee which in their turn suggested
+the main features of the Bill of 1899.
+
+There was indeed one body in Ireland whose functions corresponded in
+some degree with those of the Authority it was now proposed to set up.
+This body was the Congested Districts Board; and it might be said with
+some approximation to the truth that the object we had in view was to do
+for the rest of Ireland, _mutatis mutandis_, what the Congested
+Districts Board was intended to do for the poverty-stricken districts of
+the West. But there was this very important difference. The operations
+of the Congested Districts Board were carried out, and necessarily
+carried out, on strictly "paternal" lines; the dominant note in the new
+departure was to be the encouragement of self-help. This difference
+carried with it an equally important difference in the constitution and
+methods of the administering Authority.
+
+Out of a total endowment of L166,000 a year, a sum of over L100,000 was
+placed at the disposal of the Department to be applied to the "purposes
+of agriculture and other rural industries." These "purposes" are defined
+in the Act as including--
+
+     "the aiding, improving, and developing of agriculture,
+     horticulture, forestry, dairying, the breeding of horses, cattle,
+     and other live stock and poultry, home and cottage industries, the
+     preparation and cultivation of flax, inland fisheries, and any
+     industries immediately connected with and subservient to any of the
+     said matters, and any instruction relating thereto, and the
+     facilitating of the carriage and distribution of produce."
+
+This part of the Endowment Fund was, in short, a grant to the Department
+to be applied to what may be described as rural development in the
+widest sense of the term. As to the methods, little or no restriction
+was imposed upon the scope of its powers; and in the expenditure of the
+money it was to be as free from Treasury control as the Congested
+Districts Board itself.
+
+On the other hand, the Congested Districts Board was not only free from
+Treasury control, it was free from any control whatever. It was an
+unpaid Board, and it could spend its money where it pleased and how it
+pleased, and there was nobody to say it nay. True, its members were
+appointed by Government, and the Chief Secretary was _ex-officio_ a
+member of the Board; but he had no greater authority given to him than
+any of his colleagues, and in case of any difference of opinion the
+decision was that of the majority of the Board. No single member of the
+Board could be held responsible for any of its acts; and accordingly,
+although the vote for the Board came annually before Parliament, of real
+Parliamentary responsibility there was none.
+
+Such an arrangement was not without its disadvantages even as regards
+the Congested Districts Board itself: its adoption in the case of the
+Authority to be created under the Agriculture and Industries Bill would
+have been open to yet greater objection.
+
+A further point was this. The Congested Districts Board was an unpaid
+body. An unpaid body consisting of busy men cannot be in perpetual
+session. The Congested Districts Board, as a matter of fact, met only
+once a month; and in the intervals of its meeting there was no one with
+full authority to act on its behalf.
+
+The problem, then, in connection with the expenditure of the Endowment
+Fund was to provide for its administration by an efficient and
+promptly-acting executive, responsible to Parliament on the one hand,
+and on the other hand brought by the very nature of its administrative
+machinery into the closest possible touch with the new local
+Authorities, as well as with the voluntary organisations which were now
+springing up all over the country.
+
+In order to satisfy these requirements, the Bill provided that the
+control of the Endowment Fund should be vested not in a Board attached
+to the new Department, but in the Department itself; that is to say, in
+a Minister appointed by the Government of the day. The Chief Secretary
+was to be the titular head of the Department, but it was not intended
+that he should intervene in its ordinary administrative business. The
+real working head was to be the Vice-President, a new Minister with
+direct responsibility to Parliament. So far as related to certain powers
+and duties transferred from existing departments of the Irish
+Government, and similar to the powers and duties of the English Board of
+Agriculture, the new Minister was to have complete executive authority.
+But as regards the administration of the Endowment Fund, a different
+arrangement was proposed--an arrangement without precedent, so far as I
+know, in any previous legislation in this country.
+
+In order to bring the Department into close touch with local bodies, the
+Bill attached to it a "Council of Agriculture" and an "Agricultural
+Board." One-third of the members of each of these bodies were to be
+nominated by the Department, and the intention was that in making these
+nominations due regard should be had to the representation of voluntary
+organisations. The remaining two-thirds were to be elected in the case
+of the "Council of Agriculture" by the newly created County Councils, in
+the case of the "Agricultural Board" by the "Council of Agriculture,"
+divided for this purpose into four "Provincial Committees." In addition
+to the functions of an electoral college thus entrusted to its four
+provincial committees, the business of the "Council of Agriculture" as a
+whole was to meet together, at least once a year, for the discussion of
+questions of general interest in connection with the provisions of the
+Act; but its powers were only advisory. The "Board," on the other hand,
+was more than an advisory body; for it was given a veto on any
+expenditure of money out of the Agricultural Endowment Fund. The
+application of the Endowment Fund was thus made dependent on the
+_concurrence_ of the "Agricultural Board" and of the minister in charge
+of the Department--an entirely novel plan which, although it might
+clearly result in a deadlock as regards any particular application of
+money from the fund, has nevertheless, I believe, worked extremely well,
+and answered the purpose for which it was devised of reconciling
+ministerial and executive responsibility with a reasonable power of
+control given to local bodies.
+
+Finally, with a view to stimulating local effort and the spirit of
+self-help, a provision was inserted in the Bill to which I attached the
+greatest importance. Power was given to the Council of any county or of
+any urban district, or to two or more public bodies jointly, to appoint
+committees composed partly of members of the local bodies and partly of
+co-opted persons, for the purpose of carrying out such of the
+Department's schemes as were of local rather than of general interest.
+But in such cases, it was laid down that
+
+     "the Department shall not, in the absence of any special
+     considerations, apply or approve of the application of money ... to
+     schemes in respect of which aid is not given out of money provided
+     by local authorities, or from other local sources."
+
+To meet this requirement, the local authorities were given the power of
+raising a limited rate for the purposes of the Act.
+
+That the Act of 1899 has in the main answered the expectations formed of
+it by those who were responsible for its introduction there can, I
+think, be no doubt. The Act itself, as well as the methods of
+administration adopted in carrying out its provisions, have been the
+subject of a full inquiry by a Departmental Committee which reported in
+1907. Their report must be regarded as on the whole eminently
+favourable. In one point only has any important change been recommended.
+The Committee suggest that the post of Vice-President of the Department
+should not be held by a Minister with a seat in Parliament, nor yet by a
+regular civil servant, but should be an office _sui generis_ tenable
+for five years with power of reappointment. No effect has so far been
+given to this proposal by legislation.
+
+
+THE UNIONIST ATTITUDE.
+
+In this brief sketch of the measures passed by Unionist Governments
+since 1886 with the object of promoting the material prosperity of
+Ireland, many points of interest have been necessarily omitted; but what
+has been said will suffice to show how baseless is the assertion, so
+frequently urged as an argument for Home Rule, that the Imperial
+Parliament is incapable of legislating successfully for Irish wants.[72]
+Nothing could be more futile than to represent Irish problems, and
+especially the problems of Irish rural life, as so unique that only a
+Parliament sitting in Dublin can hope to solve them satisfactorily. As a
+matter of fact, the rural question in Ireland is, in most of its
+essential features, very similar to the rural question in other
+countries, of which Denmark is perhaps the best example; and the
+methods which have been successful there are already proving successful
+here. Single ownership of the land by the cultivator; State aid,
+encouraging and supplemementing co-operation and self-help; co-operation
+and self-help providing suitable opportunities for the fruitful
+application of State aid--these are the principles by which Unionist
+legislation for Ireland has been guided, and they are the principles
+which any wise legislation must follow, whether it emanate from an Irish
+or from the Imperial Parliament. Indeed, if there is anything "unique"
+in the Irish case, it is the deep division of sentiment inherited from
+the unhappy history of the country and reinforced by those differences
+of race and creed to which I have already alluded as making two Irelands
+out of one. But the remedy for this is not to cut Ireland adrift and
+leave the two sections to fight it out alone, but rather to maintain the
+existing constitution as the best guarantee that the balance will be
+held even between them.
+
+Sir Horace Plunkett has well summed up the real needs of rural Ireland
+in the formula "better farming, better business, better living." He has
+himself done more than any other single man to bring the desired
+improvement about. I am not ashamed to acknowledge myself his disciple,
+and in the measures for which I was responsible during my time in
+Ireland, I ever kept the practical objects for which he has striven
+steadily in view. In a speech which I made shortly after taking office I
+used the phrase "killing Home Rule with kindness." This phrase has been
+repeatedly quoted since, as if it had been a formal declaration on the
+part of the incoming Irish Government that to "kill Home Rule" was the
+Alpha and the Omega of their policy. What I really said was that we
+intended to promote measures having for their object an increase in the
+material prosperity of the country; that if we could thereby kill Home
+Rule with kindness, so much the better; but that the policy stood on its
+own merits, irrespective of any ulterior consequences.
+
+In my view that is the only true attitude for a Unionist Government to
+take up. But in our efforts to improve material conditions and to remove
+grievances, how small is the encouragement or help that we have received
+from leaders of the Nationalist Party! "Their aim," said Goldwin Smith
+long ago, "has always been to create a Nationalist feeling, which would
+end in political separation, not the redress of particular wrongs and
+grievances, or the introduction of practical improvements." I should
+imagine that there has seldom, if ever, been an important political
+party which has exhibited so little constructive ability as the Irish
+Parliamentarians. Their own legislative proposals during the last thirty
+years have been a negligible quantity; and I think I am justified in
+saying that there is not one of the great measures passed by Unionist
+Governments since 1886 which has not been either opposed by the
+accredited leaders of the Party, or, at best, received with carping and
+futile, rather than helpful, criticism. I must personally
+acknowledge--and I do so gladly--that I received useful assistance and
+valuable criticism from the Messrs. Healy in conducting the Local
+Government Bill through the House of Commons; and credit must also be
+given to Mr. John Redmond for the part he took in aiding to bring
+together the Recess Committee. But the Messrs. Healy have always acted
+independently; and Mr. John Redmond was, at the time referred to, leader
+of only a small minority of the Irish Nationalists. The feeling of the
+majority, and certainly of the leaders of the majority, was reflected,
+as we have seen, in the refusal of Mr. Justin McCarthy to have anything
+to do with the movement.
+
+Mr. Dillon in particular has shown a disposition to regard minor
+political grievances, and even poverty and discontent, as so much fuel
+wherewith to stoke the lagging engine of Home Rule. Remedial measures
+short of Home Rule seem to take in his eyes the character of attempts to
+deprive the Irish Party of so many valuable assets. Nor is this spirit
+of tacit or open hostility confined to acts of the legislature. Of all
+the social and economic movements in Ireland during recent years, the
+spread of agricultural co-operation has been without doubt among the
+greatest and the most beneficial. It has never found a friend in Mr.
+Dillon. In the movement itself and in the Irish Agricultural
+Organisation Society, founded expressly to promote it, he can only see a
+cunning device of the enemy to undermine Nationalism. In this matter Mr.
+Dillon's attitude is also the official attitude of the Irish Party. Thus
+Mr. Redmond (now reconciled with Mr. Dillon and become leader of the
+main body of Nationalists), in a letter to Mr. Patrick Ford, dated
+October 4, 1904, does not scruple to say of Sir Horace Plunkett's truly
+patriotic work:--
+
+     "I myself, indeed, at one time entertained some belief in the good
+     intentions of Sir Horace Plunkett and his friends, but recent
+     events have entirely undeceived me; and Sir Horace Plunkett's
+     recent book, full as it is of undisguised contempt for the Irish
+     race, makes it plain to me that the real object of the movement in
+     question is to undermine the National Party and divert the minds of
+     our people from Home Rule, which is the only thing that can ever
+     lead to a real revival of Irish industries."
+
+Those who have read Sir H. Plunkett's "Ireland in the New Century" will
+hardly know which most to wonder at in these words, the extraordinary
+misdescription of the whole spirit of his book, or the total failure to
+realise the absolute necessity to Irish farming of a movement which not
+only has its counterpart all over the Continent of Europe, but has since
+inspired similar action in the United States, in India, and quite
+recently in Great Britain as well.
+
+
+NATIONALIST HOSTILITY.
+
+Nationalist hostility to the I.A.O.S. has not been confined to words.
+When the Agriculture and Technical Instruction Bill was passing through
+the House of Commons, Mr. Dillon endeavoured to secure an undertaking
+from me that public moneys should not be employed to subsidise the work
+of the Society. I naturally refused to give any such undertaking.[73] I
+had followed the efforts of the Society very closely; I was deeply
+impressed with the value of the results which it had accomplished; but
+its field of activity was limited by the narrowness of its resources. In
+my opinion, a subsidy to the Society from the Endowment Fund of the
+Department would be a useful and proper application of public money. At
+the same time I pointed out that if the Agricultural Board, which in the
+main represented the popularly-elected local authorities, thought
+differently, they had a power of veto and could use it in this case.
+
+Sir Horace Plunkett held the position of Vice-President of the
+Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction from 1899 to 1907,
+and during his tenure of office, as I had always expected and intended,
+there was close co-operation between the Department and the I.A.O.S.
+During that period a sum amounting in all to less than L30,000 was paid
+by the Department to the I.A.O.S., of which more than half was for
+technical instruction, while the balance represented contributions to
+the work of co-operative organisation.[74]
+
+When Sir H. Plunkett was replaced by Mr. T. W. Russell, the pressure of
+the Irish Parliamentary Party immediately began to make itself felt. The
+new vice-president informed the Council of Agriculture that he had made
+up his mind to withdraw the subsidy, but he undertook to continue a
+diminishing grant for three years, L3000 for the first year, L2000 for
+the second, and L1000 for the third. The I.A.O.S. were not seriously
+opposed to the gradual withdrawal of the subsidy, the loss of which they
+hoped to be able to cover in course of time by increased voluntary
+subscriptions.
+
+The opposition of the Nationalist Party was, however, not yet
+exhausted. In the _Freeman's Journal _of January 21, 1908, there
+appeared a letter from Mr. John Redmond enclosing a copy of a letter
+from Mr. T. W. Rolleston to a correspondent at St. Louis. Mr. Rolleston
+accompanied his letter with a copy of a speech by Sir Horace Plunkett.
+In his letter he remarked plainly upon the antagonism displayed by the
+Irish Nationalists to the co-operative movement. Although Sir Horace
+Plunkett declared that he had nothing whatever to do with the letter,
+the Irish Parliamentarians professed to find in it abundant proof of an
+intention to destroy Nationalism. "That correspondence," said Mr. T. W.
+Russell,"[75] compelled me to take action. Mr. John Redmond made it
+imperative upon me by his letter--I mean a public letter to the
+Press--and as so much was involved, I took the precaution of convening a
+special meeting of the Agricultural Board." The Board decided that the
+subsidy should be withdrawn at the end of the year 1908.
+
+The last act in this drama of hostility to Sir Horace Plunkett and all
+his works is still in the course of being played. Under the provisions
+of the Development Fund Act of 1909, the Development Commissioners were
+empowered to make advances for the organisation of co-operation, either
+"to a Government Department or through a Government Department to a
+voluntary association not trading for profit." During the Report stage
+of the Development Fund Bill, Mr. Dillon tried to get a ruling from the
+Solicitor-General that the I.A.O.S. would be excluded from receiving
+grants from the fund, thus repeating the manoeuvre which he had already
+unsuccessfully attempted in connection with the Agriculture and
+Technical Instruction (Ireland) Bill of 1899.
+
+In accordance with this provision, the three Agricultural Organisation
+Societies for England, Scotland, and Ireland, each applied for a grant
+in aid. The applications were referred in due course for report to the
+Government Departments concerned--that is to say, to the Board of
+Agriculture and Fisheries for the English and Scottish applications, and
+to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for that from
+the I.A.O.S. The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries reported favourably,
+and the British and Scottish Organisation Societies are to have their
+grant. But the I.A.O.S. had to reckon with Mr. T. W. Russell, behind
+whom stood Mr. Dillon and the politicians. The report of the Irish
+Department on the Irish application was adverse, but the Commissioners
+do not appear to have found the reasons given convincing. Much delay
+ensued, but, ten months after the application was sent in, the matter
+was submitted to the Council of Agriculture.
+
+The machinery of the United Irish League was brought into action to
+influence the votes of this body. Mr. Russell delivered an impassioned
+harangue, and eventually the Council was induced to endorse his action
+by a majority of 47 to 33.
+
+Any grant in aid of agricultural co-operation is to be administered, if
+Mr. Russell has his way, not by the society which has already been
+instrumental in establishing nearly a thousand co-operative associations
+in Ireland, and has served as a model on which the corresponding English
+and Scottish Organisation Societies, now in the enjoyment of a State
+subsidy, have been founded, but by the Department, which has hitherto
+had no experience whatever of such work. Moreover, the co-operation
+promoted by the Department is to be "non-competitive," by which I
+suppose is meant, that it is not to affect any existing trading
+interest. It is safe to say that agricultural co-operation, which has
+_no_ effect upon any trading interest, will have very little effect upon
+the farmers' interests either. So far as I know, the Development
+Commissioners have not decided what course to take in this strange
+situation. It may be that Ireland will lose the grant altogether; but in
+any case I can well believe that they must hesitate to reverse the
+policy already approved for England and Scotland, and in the face of
+all experience commit the work of organising agricultural co-operation
+to a State Department rather than to a voluntary association possessing
+such a record as the I.A.O.S. has placed to its credit.
+
+If now we ask what are the grounds of the hostility of the Nationalist
+Party to the most hopeful Irish movement of recent years, the answer
+appears to be twofold. The first is economic, or purports to be
+economic: the second is frankly political.
+
+1. Co-operation, it is urged, injures the middleman and the small
+trader.
+
+To encourage farmers to do well and economically for themselves what is
+now done indifferently and expensively for them by the middleman, must
+of course act injuriously on some existing interests. This is not
+disputed. But the change is absolutely necessary for the regeneration of
+rural Ireland, and this objection cannot be allowed to stand in the way.
+Looked at in its broader and more enduring aspects, co-operation is
+bound to stimulate and improve general trade by increasing the spending
+power of the farmers. The Chambers of Commerce of Dublin and Belfast
+have not been slow to perceive this, and have warmly endorsed the
+Society's application for a grant from the Development Commissioners.
+
+2. The political objection to the movement, so far as it takes the
+definite form of charging the I.A.O.S. with being a propagandist body
+aiming under the mask of economic reform at the covert spread of
+Unionist opinions, will not stand a moment's examination. There is not a
+particle of evidence in support of such a charge, and the presumption
+against it is overwhelming. To mix political propagandism with
+organisation would be the certain ruin of the movement. The Committee of
+the I.A.O.S. consists of men of all shades of political faith. These men
+could never have joined hands except on the basis that politics should
+be rigidly excluded from the work of the Society. The members of the
+co-operative societies founded by the I.A.O.S. number nearly 100,000.
+Probably at least three-fourths of these are Nationalists.
+
+In order, however, that all doubt on the subject might be finally
+removed, the I.A.O.S. issued a circular to all its societies, in which
+the following question was directly put:--
+
+     "Has the I.A.O.S., as a body, or the Committee acting for it, done,
+     in your opinion, any act in the interest of any political party, or
+     any act calculated to offend the political principles of any
+     section of your members?"
+
+The answers received have been published and form very interesting
+reading. Not a single society, of the many hundreds that have replied
+from all parts of Ireland, has been found to assert that politics have
+ever been mentioned by the agents of the parent association.
+
+The hostility of the politicians to the co-operative movement rests, it
+is safe to surmise, upon some other foundation than these flimsy charges
+against the I.A.O.S.
+
+In itself the movement is vital to the prosperity of rural Ireland. The
+disfavour shown to it arises from apprehensions respecting its
+_indirect_ bearing upon the great issue between Unionism and
+Nationalism. Home Rulers who oppose the co-operative movement find
+themselves in this dilemma: either they hold that nothing in the way of
+material improvement could affect the demand for Home Rule, or else they
+are really afraid lest "better farming, better business, and better
+living," should weaken the attractions of their own political nostrum.
+In the former case, they are left without a shadow of justification for
+their attitude towards the I.A.O.S.; in the latter, they tacitly admit
+that the interests of the farming classes must suffer in order that the
+cause of Home Rule may be promoted.
+
+Unionists are in no such difficulty. Our policy is clear and consistent.
+Improvement in the social and economic condition of the people must be
+our first object. It is an end to be pursued for its own sake, whatever
+the indirect consequences may be. But the indirect consequences need
+cause us no anxiety. Increased material prosperity, and the contentment
+which inevitably accompanies it, whatever their other effects may be,
+are not likely to strengthen the demand for constitutional changes.
+Successful resistance to Home Rule at the present crisis may well mean
+the saving of the Union for good and all.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 70: Originally published in the _Irish Homestead_, and quoted
+in Sir Horace Plunkett's "Ireland in the New Century," p. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 71: "Ireland in the New Century," p. 220.]
+
+[Footnote 72: In this connection attention may be called to the
+remarkable increase of wealth in Ireland in the past twenty years. The
+deposits in the Joint Stock Banks have increased from L33,700,000 in
+1891 to L56,011,000 in 1911, the balances in the Post Office Savings
+Banks in Ireland from L3,878,000 in 1891 to L12,253,000 in 1911, and the
+number of accounts from 261,352 in 1891 to 662,589 at the end of 1910.
+Irish investments in Government Funds, India Stocks, and Guaranteed Land
+Stock have increased from L26,609,000 in 1891 to L41,363,000 in 1911.
+But more noteworthy still, perhaps, is the increase in Irish trade.
+Figures are only available since 1904, but in that period Irish imports
+have increased from L54,078,399 to L65,044,477--an increase of
+L10,966,078 in seven years. Irish exports have increased in the same
+period from L49,712,400 to L65,844,255, or an increase of L16,131,155.
+Or, if we take the aggregate trade, there has been an increase from
+L103,790,799 in 1904 to L130,888,732 in 1910, an increase of
+L27,097,933. In other words, the aggregate import and export trade in
+Ireland in the year 1910 amounted to nearly L28 sterling per head of
+population, while the corresponding figure for Great Britain is just
+over L20. These figures are, I submit, eloquent testimony that the
+general policy of the Imperial Parliament in relation to Ireland during
+recent years has been wisely conceived, and that the successful solution
+of the "Irish Problem" is to be found in the steady pursuit of methods
+which have already achieved such striking results.]
+
+[Footnote 73: It appears that Mr. Dillon was under a misapprehension on
+this point. He thought he had obtained an amendment to the Bill which
+prevented the I.A.O.S. from getting a subsidy. This, however, was an
+entire mistake. See App. B. to the Report of the Committee on the Dept.
+of Agriculture. Cd. 3573 of 1907.]
+
+[Footnote 74: The _voluntary_ contributions to the I.A.O.S. for the work
+of organisation amounted to no less than L100,000.]
+
+[Footnote 75: See his evidence before the House of Lords Committee on
+the Thrift and Credit Bank Bill (Paper 96 of 1910).]
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE WYNDHAM, M.P.
+
+
+The case for resisting all attempts at impairing the Union between Great
+Britain and Ireland can be made unimpeachable without reference to the
+Irish Land Question. It would be our duty to defend the Union as a
+bulwark of national safety, an instalment of Imperial consolidation, and
+a protection to the freedom of minorities in Ireland, even if it could
+be shown that agriculture, the chief industry of Ireland, had little to
+gain under the Union and nothing to lose under Home Rule. Fortunately,
+this cannot be alleged except by those who shut their eyes to the
+results of State-aided Land Purchase in Ireland, and refuse to consider
+the consequences of tampering with the mainspring of that beneficent
+operation: I mean the credit of a joint exchequer under one Parliament
+for both countries. "England's Case against Home Rule" coincides with
+Ireland's need for retaining the prosperity that has come to her, after
+long waiting, under, and because of, the Union. It is, therefore,
+fitting that a place should be found in this book for a brief account of
+what Irish agriculture may hope from the Union and must fear from Home
+Rule.
+
+The history of Irish Agriculture until recent years differed from the
+history of English Agriculture at many points, and always to the marked
+disadvantage of Ireland. Dynastic and religious controversies which--if
+we except the suppression of monasteries and the exile of a few
+Jacobites--left English countrysides untouched, in Ireland carried with
+them the confiscation of vast territories and the desolating Influence
+of Penal Laws. Changes in economic theory contributed even more sharply
+to the decay of Irish enterprise. When England favoured Protection Irish
+industry was handicapped out of manufactures. When England adopted Free
+Trade Irish agriculture, on which the hopes of Ireland had perforce been
+fixed, suffered in a greater degree. The doctrine of _laisser faire_
+wrought little but wrong when applied by absentee buyers of bankrupt
+estates to tracts hardly susceptible of development by capital, amid a
+peasantry wedded to continuity of tenure, and justified in that
+tradition by the fact that they and their forbears had executed nearly
+all the improvements on their holdings. Most of the nation were
+restricted to agriculture under conditions that spelt failure, and
+imposed exile as the penalty for failure, since other avenues to
+competence were closed. The climax of misfortune was reached a
+generation after the triumph of Free Trade. Ireland, being almost wholly
+an agricultural country, suffered as a whole, whereas England, an
+industrial country, suffered only in districts, from the collapse of
+agricultural prices in 1879. That catastrophe in rural life precipitated
+Mr. Gladstone's Land Law Act (Ireland), 1881. Being precluded by his
+political tenets from protecting Irish agriculture against foreign
+competition, or assisting it with the resources of the State, Mr.
+Gladstone aimed at alleviating the distress due to the decadence of a
+national industry by defining with meticulous nicety the respective
+shares which the two parties engaged in agriculture--landlord and
+tenant--were to derive from its dwindling returns. He believed that the
+proportion of diminishing profits due to the landlord, because of the
+inherent capabilities of his property, and to the tenant, because of his
+own and his predecessors' exertions, could be roughly determined by a
+few leading cases in the Land Court; and, further, that landlords and
+tenants throughout Ireland would conform to such guidance as these
+decisions might afford. In this anticipation he ignored the vital
+function of agriculture in Irish life, and the effect which the growing
+stringency of agricultural conditions would have on a population that
+loved the land and rejoiced in litigation. He created dual-ownership
+throughout Ireland, and this led, as Lord Dufferin and other far-seeing
+statesmen had foretold, to the land being starved of both capital and
+industry. Irish agriculture was brought to the brink of ruin. The misery
+of those involved in that pass was exploited to engineer an attack on
+the fabric of social order, and the lawlessness so engendered was
+adduced as an argument for dissolving the Union under which such
+tragedies could occur.
+
+The leaders of the Conservative Party, when confronted with this
+situation, determined that their duty, in accordance with the spirit of
+the Act of Union, demanded some use of the resources of a joint
+exchequer for ministration to the peculiar needs of Ireland. They
+decided that the credit of the State should be employed to effect the
+abolition of dual-ownership by converting the occupiers of Irish farms
+into owners of the soil. Let it be granted that this policy had been
+advocated by John Bright and enshrined in the Land Law Acts of 1870 and
+1881. It must be added that these pious intentions remained a "dead
+letter" until adequate machinery for giving them effect was provided by
+the Land Purchase Acts, commonly called the Ashbourne Acts, of 1885 and
+1889. The method pursued was as follows. Any individual landlord could
+agree with any individual tenant on the price which he would accept for
+the extinction of his interest in that tenant's holding. The State
+facilitated the transaction by advancing that amount to the landlord in
+_cash_ whenever the holding offered sufficient security, and accepting
+from the tenant an undertaking to pay an instalment of L4 a year for
+every L100 advanced over a period of forty-nine years. The instalment
+comprised L3 for interest, 2_s._ 6_d._ for expenses, and 17_s._ 6_d._
+for sinking fund. The loan from the exchequer was secured against
+individual failures to pay by the realisable value of the holdings.
+
+The salient features in this procedure were that the landlord received
+cash and that the tenant paid interest at the then existing rate on
+Consols, viz. 3 per cent. Both these features are important. A payment
+in cash, or its equivalent, is preferable for such transactions to a
+payment in stock, with a fluctuating value, because, if the stock
+appreciates the landlord gets more than he bargained for, and this, by
+arousing the suspicions of other would-be tenant-purchasers, produces a
+disinclination on their part to buy. Again, if the stock depreciates,
+the landlord cannot carry out contemplated redemptions of mortgages on
+his property, and this produces a disinclination on the part of other
+landlords to sell. In the second place it is difficult to persuade Irish
+tenants that the State is assisting them if they, the poor, are asked to
+pay higher interest for the State's credit than the State pays for the
+credit of the rich. The chief defect in this procedure lay in its
+restriction to separate bargains in respect of single holdings. It made
+a patchwork, whereas the untoward results of the historic and economic
+causes on which I have touched demanded the wholesale treatment of
+convenient areas.
+
+Under these Acts, in the course of six years, more than 27,000 tenants
+became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to over L10,000,000.
+The largest number of applications for purchase in any one year was
+6,195 for L2,271,569 in 1887, and the average price for all the holdings
+bought under these Acts was L396.
+
+When the sums provided by the Ashbourne Acts were exhausted, Mr. Arthur
+Balfour carried the Act of 1891, subsequently amended by the Act of
+1896. Under these Acts the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash.
+The tenant still paid an instalment of L4, which was, ultimately,
+divided into L1 5_s._ for sinking fund and L2 15_s._ for interest. This
+large sinking fund, L1 5_s._ instead of 17_s._ 6_d._, was retained after
+interest had been reduced to the rate on Consols, 2-3/4 per cent.,
+chiefly to avoid a discrepancy in the total of annual instalments as
+between purchasers under the Act of 1891 and purchasers under the
+Ashbourne Acts. Difficulties were feared if the earlier purchasers were
+to pay L4 and the later purchasers only L3 15_s._ for each L100
+advanced, so the spare five shillings was put in the sinking fund. This
+speculative difficulty was afterwards discounted in order to deal with
+one of a more practical character. Under Mr. Gladstone's Land Law Act of
+1881, which dealt with rent-fixing, statutory rents were revised every
+fifteen years, and the second term rents, beginning in 1896, seemed
+certain to reveal considerable reductions on the rents payable during
+the first period. It was felt that the security for the earlier advances
+would be endangered if rents throughout Ireland fell below the level of
+the purchase-instalments, and that purchase would be retarded if the
+purchaser did not obtain immediate relief by agreeing to buy. To meet
+this practical difficulty Mr. Gerald Balfour, in 1896, permitted the
+purchaser to write off the amount repaid by sinking fund during the
+first and two successive periods of ten years. These "decadal
+reductions" were optional. If the purchaser forewent them he paid L4 per
+L100, and extinguished his debt in 42-1/2 years. If he availed himself
+of them he paid L3 8_s. 7d._ per L100 after the first ten years, and
+continued to pay, with two further reductions in prospect, till the debt
+was extinguished in a period undefined, but estimated at about 72-1/2
+years. But this privilege was made retrospective, so that purchasers
+under the Ashbourne Acts could also reduce their instalments of L4 to L3
+11_s. 10d._
+
+The salient features in the procedure of the Acts of 1891 and 1896 were
+that, (1) the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash. But owing to
+the rise in the value of gilt-edged securities, Irish Land Stock, with a
+face value of L100, became at one moment worth as much as L114; (2) the
+purchaser's interest was at 2-3/4 per cent. _i.e._ the existing rate on
+Consols; but (3) his instalment, prospectively fined down by decadal
+reductions, enabled him to offer an acceptable price and yet pay far
+less to the State, by way of instalment, after purchase than was due to
+his landlord, by way of rent, before purchase. The operation of purchase
+was still confined, almost wholly, to single bargains. But in Mr. Arthur
+Balfour's Act of 1891 a new departure was authorised which, after
+development in Mr. Gerald Balfour's Act of 1896, has led to important
+and far-reaching consequences. The Congested Districts Board was
+established to deal with scheduled areas in the West of Ireland that
+comprised a large number of holdings at once too limited in area, and
+too poor in soil, for any one of them to support a family by farming or
+to afford security to the State, under existing facilities for purchase,
+in the event of the occupier wishing to become the owner. A select
+committee of the House of Commons, so long ago as in 1878 (No. 249, pp.
+4 and 5), when Disraeli was Prime Minister, had recommended that a
+properly constituted body should be empowered to purchase, not single
+farms, but whole estates, and to re-sell them after amalgamating,
+enlarging, and re-distributing what are now called "uneconomic"
+holdings. Provisions to this end had been inserted in earlier Acts, but,
+in the absence of administrative machinery and financial resources, they
+remained abortive. It had for long been evident that the small,
+impoverished holdings, which had supported a dense population before the
+famine, stood in need of fundamental remodelling if they were to support
+even a largely reduced population. The efforts made by wealthy Irish
+landlords in this direction were arrested by the Land Law Act of 1870
+and rendered impossible by the Land Law Act of 1881. With the Purchase
+Acts of 1891 and 1896 a beginning was made.
+
+Another feature must be noted. In addition to the value of any one
+holding, as a security against individual failure, a further security
+was provided against the risk of a combined refusal to repay. The
+Exchequer was empowered to retain grants due for various purposes in
+Ireland and to recoup itself in proportion to the defalcation in any
+county. It should be added that individual failures have been rare to
+the point of insignificance, and that no combined refusal has been
+attempted, or advocated, even during periods of agricultural unrest.
+
+Under the Acts of 1891 and 1896 in the course of just over twelve years
+more than 44,000 tenants became owners by virtue of advances which
+amounted to over L13,000,000. Here we must note that the success of
+these Acts coincided with, and depended on, a rise in the price of
+gilt-edged securities. The number of applications rose from 1503 in the
+year ending March 31, 1896, to 6911 in the year ending March 31, 1900.
+But, with the fall in the price of stock, land purchase showed signs of
+coming to a standstill. By 1902 it was evident that new legislation was
+needed, and in the next year the Irish Land Act of 1903 was carried.
+
+The Irish Land Act of 1903 was not, as some suggest, a short cut to the
+millennium, evolved on the spur of the moment, and translated into
+fantastic finance. It had two bases, the one practical, the other moral.
+In the first place, it was founded on the ripe experience garnered
+during eighteen years from the operation of preceding purchase Acts. In
+the second place, it was founded on the historic agreement spontaneously
+arrived at in 1902 by accredited representatives of Irish landlords and
+tenants. They resolved that dual ownership ought to be abolished
+throughout Ireland, and that this primary policy should be accompanied
+by effective remedies for the uneconomic conditions prevalent in the
+West, but existing elsewhere, though sporadically, to a limited extent.
+This agreement, in itself unprecedented, was rendered the more
+remarkable by the fact that the signatories assumed the responsibility
+of telling the Government how the first object could be achieved. They
+advised that landlords could not be expected to sell, as a class, unless
+the price paid to them in cash would yield from sound securities 90 per
+cent. of their income in terms of a rent that had been twice revised
+under the Land Law Act of 1881; and that tenants could not be expected
+to buy, as a class, unless their instalments due to the Treasury after
+purchase were from 15 per cent. to 25 per cent. less than such rents so
+revised. They invited the Government to give effect to that agreement.
+The Government accepted and, in the Act of 1903, tendered the costly
+but, under the circumstances, not extravagant _imprimatur_ of the
+Treasury on a political treaty thenceforward to be binding on all three
+contracting parties: landlords, tenants, and the State. The Nationalist
+members, as spokesmen for the tenants, and the representatives of the
+landlords, subscribed to the provisions offered, and the reports of the
+Estates Commissioners prove that these have been fulfilled so exactly
+that, in the case of second term rents, landlords and tenants have
+obtained average incomes and reductions that differ only by a decimal
+from the mean advocated at the Conference.
+
+The objects of the Irish Land Act were, in conformity with the
+conclusions of the Conference, to abolish dual ownership rapidly and, at
+the same time, to deal systematically with "agricultural slums." Its
+salient features fall under four heads.
+
+A. _State assistance to voluntary bargaining._ For this purpose it was
+provided that (1) cash payments should be resumed to the landlords; (2)
+that the tenants' instalments should be L3 5_s._ for each L100 advanced,
+divided into L2 15_s._ (2-3/4 per cent.) for interest and 10_s._ for
+sinking fund. This was not, as the able and well-informed special
+correspondent of the _Times_ suggests (February 9, 1912) a sudden
+departure from an instalment of L4. "Decadal reductions" under the Act
+of 1896 had, as I have said, diminished the instalments of purchasers
+under the Act of 1891 to L3 8_s. 7d._ after ten years with further
+prospective diminutions, and subjected the instalments of purchasers
+under earlier Acts to a similar process. A wholesale expansion of
+purchase was impossible unless would-be purchasers were offered terms
+comparable to those accorded to their predecessors. For this reason the
+tenantry of Ireland were offered repayment at L3 5_s._ per L100 for a
+period of about 62 years, in lieu, under the Act of 1896, of repayment
+at L3 8_s. 9d._, with further reductions, for about 72-1/2 years, and
+their representatives accepted the offer. They would certainly have
+refused, and rightly, the offer substituted by Mr. Birrell in the Act of
+1909, viz. an instalment of L3 10_s._ with the same sinking
+fund--10_s._--and interest increased to L3. The third feature to be
+noted under this head is, that the terms agreed to by representatives of
+landlords and tenants at the conference could not be ratified unless
+the State added some help by way of cash to the assistance of its
+credit. It was agreed by all parties that L12,000,000 should be
+available to bridge the gap, at the rate of 12 per cent. on the amount
+advanced, with the right to revise that rate after five years, but _only
+for the purpose of extending the bonus_--as it was called--_to all
+future transactions_. It was an integral part of a solemn covenant that
+the bonus should not be diverted to any object other than the abolition
+of dual ownership and the remedy of "congestion."
+
+B. _The substitution of speedy purchase for dilatory litigation._ To all
+members of the Conference of 1902 and of the House of Commons in 1903,
+with, I believe, the exception of Mr. Dillon, who was away in America
+while the Conference sat, it was evident that, if dual ownership was to
+be abolished, our choice was confined to two courses. We could, on the
+one hand, pursue, under the guise of purchase, the metaphysical and
+costly distinctions between landlord-right and tenant-right, which Mr.
+Gladstone had established under the guise of rent-fixing; or else, as
+the only alternative, we had "to cut the cackle" and get to business.
+Under this head the House of Commons--Mr. Dillon ingeminating
+dissent--decided in so far as landlords and tenants were concerned, two
+things: (1) It was agreed that where the tenant-purchaser's instalment,
+after purchase, was substantially less than his statutory rent revised
+at great cost--L140,000 a year for Land Courts--then, in those cases the
+State needed not to inquire at further cost and delay into either its
+own security in the holding, or the metaphysical distinction between
+value due to the landlord's ownership of the soil and value due to the
+tenant's improvement of the soil. This close approximation to unanimity
+will not surprise those who grasp that every landlord and tenant was to
+make a voluntary bargain on precisely those terms which the
+representatives of their classes had combined to obtain from the State.
+The alternative method of delay and litigation had been further
+discounted, for everybody except Mr. Dillon, by the fact that in the
+classic case--_Adams_ v. _Dunseath_--tried out in accordance with Mr.
+Gladstone's panacea, Adams, after repeated lawsuits, improved his
+financial position by an infinitesimal sum per annum without becoming an
+owner of his farm. It was also agreed that the Estates Commissioners
+appointed to administer the Act, should be administrative officials
+under the Government, and not amateur judges. This was essential, not
+only to substitute cheap speed for costly delay, but also to ensure that
+the benefits offered by the State should not be absorbed, say, in the
+rich province of Leinster to the detriment of the poorer province of
+Connaught, or--for who knows what may happen in Ireland?--absorbed in
+the Home Rule province of Connaught to the detriment of the Unionist
+province of Ulster.
+
+C. _Dealing with Estates as a whole instead of with single holdings._
+This process, till then applied tentatively in the congested districts
+of the West, became the general method throughout Ireland, and was
+assisted by the provision of working capital for carrying out necessary
+amalgamations and improvements before resale.
+
+D. _Increase in the 'borrowing power and funds of the Congested
+Districts Board,_ for the purpose of dealing systematically with
+"agricultural slums."
+
+The features of the Irish Land Act (1903), founded, as they were, on
+experience and the consent of all parties concerned, became widely
+popular in Ireland. But, by Mr. Birrell's Act of 1909, they were all
+distorted or destroyed. A solemn treaty, framed in the interest of
+Ireland, was torn up to deck with its tatters the triumph of Mr.
+Dillon's unholy alliance with the British Treasury. The effect of this
+betrayal on the prospects of Irish agriculture will appear from a
+recital of the changes made by Mr. Birrell's Act, followed by a
+comparison of the results obtained under the two Acts. From that
+comparison I shall proceed to an examination of the reasons alleged for
+the breach of faith, and a statement of the Unionist party's pledge to
+continue their policy of 1903. I shall then conclude by inviting all
+who care for Ireland to weigh the prospects of Irish Agriculture under
+the Union against its prospects under Home Rule.
+
+_Changes made by the Act of _1909.--(1) Instead of cash payments
+landlords are to receive stock at three per cent. issued on a falling
+market, and this stock cannot appreciate because, owing to the
+embarrassment of Irish estates, about half of each issue must be thrown
+back on the market for the redemption of mortgages; a result fatal to
+land purchase and detrimental to the credit of the State. (2) Instead of
+paying L3 5_s._ per L100, tenants are to pay L3 10_s._ without any
+reduction in the period of repayment. The sinking fund remains at 10_s._
+and the interest L3 is, for the first time since land purchase was
+attempted, placed at a higher rate than in the preceding Purchase Act,
+whilst the whole instalment of L3 10_s._ is raised, not only above the
+rate of the Act of 1903, but also above the rates, diminished by decadal
+reductions, of purchasers under still earlier Acts. This again, in view
+of these reductions and of periodic revisions of _rent_ under the Land
+Law Act of 1881, is fatal to purchase. (3) The bonus of L12,000,000--on
+the application of which all parties agreed in 1903--was diverted from
+the unanimous policy of that year and brought in aid of Mr. Dillon's
+hobby, which all parties then rejected. Mr. Dillon is at liberty to
+rejoice over the ruin of one landlord more than over the salvation of
+99,000 tenants. The laws of lunacy do not, and ought not to, touch him.
+But there is no reason why taxpayers should minister to his peculiar
+pleasure, with the result of postponing indefinitely any settlement of
+the Irish land question. (4) By reverting to inspection for security
+delay is substituted for speed, and speed is necessary in the conclusion
+of bargains that are themselves the result of prolonged negotiations;
+the more so when, as now, owing to the substitution of stock for cash,
+the seller cannot know what his bargain will turn out to be; and the
+buyer, owing to the block in agreements under the Act of 1903, cannot
+know when his bargain will take effect. In most cases it will not do so
+for from six to eight years, which must be added to the period of
+repayment, although his instalment has been increased. (5) The reversion
+to attempts at defining the metaphysical rights of the landlords and
+tenants revives the social poison of litigation of which, in 1903, every
+one but Mr. Dillon was weary. (6) The revival of litigation in respect
+of single holdings defeats the policy of dealing with convenient areas.
+(7) By transforming the Estates Commissioners, much I imagine to their
+disgust, from administrative officers into amateur judges, a further
+premium is put on litigation and delay, whilst the interests of one
+province as against the interests of another, are left without
+protection from the State. (8) Although more than half the holdings of
+Ireland are valued at less than L10 a year, a presumption is created
+that all holdings below that value are to be deemed "uneconomic." The
+whole of Connaught with the counties of Donegal and Kerry and part of
+County Cork are branded as "congested," and the Board, charged with
+conducting purchase in that area, is swollen to unmanageable size,
+whilst three commissioners are held sufficient for the rest of Ireland,
+which is twice as large.
+
+To these eight changes, all inimical, and, as I believe, fatal to the
+abolition of dual ownership, two have been added of a more insidious
+effect. Compulsion has been adopted. This of itself checks voluntary
+purchase. It kills it when, as under this Act, compulsory purchases are
+to be paid for in cash and voluntary purchases in depreciated stock.
+Finally, the Act contemplates diverting the resources, applied under the
+treaty of 1903 to the abolition of dual ownership and the remedy of
+congestion, to a new purpose, for which Ireland can make no special
+claim. I mean the creation, over all Ireland, of new tenancies, to be
+sold to new men, who have never suffered from dual ownership or
+uneconomic conditions, and may be presumed to be ignorant of farming.
+This new policy amounts to a repeal of the policy sanctioned by all,
+viz. of giving special State aid to meet the peculiar needs of Ireland.
+
+_A comparison of the results obtained under the Acts of_ 1903 _and_
+1909.--In order to gauge the respective efficacy of these two Acts for
+the purpose of abolishing dual ownership, it is necessary to distinguish
+between applications for purchase, and advances actually made in respect
+of completed transactions. The applications exhibit the comparative
+popularity and convenience of the two Acts. The advances exhibit only
+the readiness of the Government to proceed with purchase. They pertain
+to the financial, rather than the political, aspect of the problem, and
+may be examined later together with the reasons alleged for the delay of
+its solution. The fact of the delay appears from the following
+figures:--
+
+Under the Irish Land Act (1903) the number of purchase agreements lodged
+in respect of direct sales by landlords to tenants was 217,299 in the
+course of less than six years from November 1, 1903, to September 15,
+1909. To these should be added proposed purchasers in other categories,
+viz. in respect of estates sold to the Land Commission for subsequent
+re-sale, or to the Congested Districts Board, or in the Court of the
+Land Judge, or in respect of offers to evicted tenants. These bring the
+total of potential purchasers up to 248,109. Under the Act of 1909, in
+two years from December 3, 1909, to December 1, 1911, the number of
+applications in respect of direct sales stands at 8,992. In the other
+categories the number of potential purchasers amounted to 373 up to
+March 31, 1911. Since then tentative negotiations have been essayed,
+under the threat of compulsion and the menace of Home Rule, which
+suggest a far larger figure. But these transactions--to which I shall
+return--are of an eminently dubious character. We are on safe ground if
+we compare the number of tenants who were ready under the two Acts to
+acquire their holdings. After discounting whatever may be claimed on the
+score that the operation of the Act of 1903 was expedited by the fear of
+its destruction, a comparision of 217,299 would-be purchasers in six
+years with 8,992 in two years demonstrates that the abolition of dual
+ownership has been thrown back to the conditions which called for the
+Treaty of 1903. Furthermore, it is proper to discount, in turn, even the
+meagre total of 8,992. For it includes the remainders of estates, other
+parts of which had been sold under the Act of 1903 and the spurt of
+applications expedited, in this case, by the revolution of last August.
+To the over-sanguine and the over-timid this seemed to foreshadow the
+rapid passage of Home Rule, and, bad as are the terms of the Act of
+1909, they are estimated to be better than any obtainable after the
+Union has been thrown on the scrap-heap of the Constitution. One other
+comparison may be noted. It was part of the Treaty of 1903 that
+landlords should be encouraged to remain in their native land by
+assistance in the repurchase of their demesnes--that is, homes--after
+selling their properties. Under the Act of 1903 the advances on resale
+to owners sanctioned by the Land Commission numbered 205. Under the Act
+of 1909 they number two.
+
+It will readily be inferred, even by those unacquainted with Ireland;
+that a process for healing ancient wounds has been turned into a process
+for exasperating future conflicts. A blister has been substituted for a
+poultice on the sores of centuries. Existing agreements are blocked.
+Future agreements--for this is their appropriate, if cynical--designation,
+are relegated to a future which few can foresee. Landlords who have
+contracted to sell are threatened with bankruptcy by the foreclosure of
+mortgages. Tenants who have contracted to buy see their hopes deferred
+with sick hearts. Whilst to owners and occupiers who have not completed
+their bargains "no hope comes at all." The newly won prosperity of
+Ireland is doomed because the Nationalist party and British Government
+have not kept faith; and with prosperity peace is departing. The
+environment that breeds agrarian disorder and crime has been restored,
+and agitators, in expectation of Home Rule, are already at "their dirty
+work again." A new plan of campaign menaces the peace of Ireland in
+those districts whose past records are most darkly stained.
+
+_Examination of the reasons alleged for tearing up the Treaty of
+1903_.--The Government defended their reversal of the policy of 1903,
+and departure from their pledges to carry out that policy, by making two
+assertions. They asserted (1) that the size of the problem, which all
+parties undertook to solve, would exceed by far the speculative estimate
+put forward in 1903; (2) that the credit of the British Exchequer, which
+they have depressed, would prove unequal to the burden foreshadowed by
+the new dimensions, which they have assigned. (1) _Size of the problem_.
+The first assertion, that much nearer L200,000,000 than L100,000,000
+must be borrowed in order to complete purchase, is based on two
+assumptions explicitly stated in the Return presented to Parliament (Cd.
+4412 of 1908) as follows: "It will be observed that the purchase money
+of the agricultural land not yet brought before the Commissioners for
+sale under the Land Purchase Acts has been estimated _on the assumption
+that it will be all sold_ and that _it will be sold on an average at the
+price for which lands had been sold up to 30th April last, under the
+Irish Land Act_ (1903)." The assumptions on which the Government
+proceeded are not, therefore, in doubt, but the validity of those
+assumptions, on which the whole case of the Government depends, is
+refuted by the ascertained facts of Irish agriculture. The census shows
+that the number of agricultural holdings in Ireland is about 490,000,
+including nearly 19 million acres. The whole area of Ireland includes
+some 21 million acres, apportioned to 3-1/2 million acres under crops, 6
+million acres of waste, and 11-1/2 million acres under grass. The Return
+to which I have referred (Cd. 4412 of 1908) cavils at the figures given
+in the census on the ground that the 490,000 "holdings" are more
+accurately 490,000 "land-holders," since a tenant holding "half a dozen
+farms in the same county is returned as having a single holding." But it
+is right to take "holders" when, as under the Act of 1903, the limit on
+advances applies to the person who receives them. Again, the Return
+throws over the census for figures supplied by the Department of
+Agriculture. But it is wrong to use these figures, for they include
+holdings not exceeding one acre, of which there are 80,000 in Ireland,
+and many more that cannot be described as "in the main agricultural or
+pastoral." No special pleading on the part of the Government can alter
+the fact that the 490,000 holdings given by the census include all the
+lands under crops and grass and two-thirds of the waste. They embrace 19
+million acres, and more than cover the ground. For the purpose of an
+estimate it is an outside figure, the more so since, in respect of grass
+lands the value of a single farm may exceed the limit of any one
+advance, and it is not uncommon for a large grazier to rent many grass
+farms. If the Government, by conferring a judicial status on the Estate
+Commissioners, surrendered their control over the amounts of single
+advances; and again, if the Government, at the dictation of Mr. Dillon,
+embarked on a new policy of creating tenancies in grass land and selling
+them to new men, they are debarred from increasing the estimate to cover
+their own misfeasance. In tendering the speculative estimate of 1903, it
+was clearly laid down that the amount of one advance was only to be
+increased in rare cases, and the sub-division of permanent pasture was
+denounced as a "form of economic insanity." It was also explained that
+deductions must be made from the 490,000 holdings in respect of small
+town plots, accommodation plots, and market gardens; nor are these
+insignificant, for to the 80,000 holdings not exceeding one acre we must
+add 62,000 of from 1 to 5 acres. In the face of these facts, the
+assumption that "all agricultural land"--as defined in the Return--will
+be sold, is not only unsound but preposterous.
+
+The second assumption, that the average price of future transactions
+will equal that of past transactions is opposed to the presumption that
+better, and therefore dearer farms, came into the market before worse
+and therefore cheaper farms. I am not referring to the number of years'
+purchase offered, a point on which I have never expressed an opinion,
+but to the value of the property which passes. It is with farms as with
+oranges, the good ones go first. The pertinence of this maxim to land
+purchase is proved by the reports of the Estates Commissioners. These
+contradict the Government's second assumption, for they exhibit a
+steady and continuous decline in the average of advances that have been
+made. The average amount of advances under the Act of 1903 to March 31,
+1908, was in round numbers L361. On some such figures the second
+assumption rests. I ventured at the time to assert that the average in
+the future would not exceed L300. This estimate has been confirmed, for
+the average advances from March 31, 1908, to September 15, 1909--when
+the Act ceased to operate--was L287. A further reduction may be
+confidently expected, since the progress of purchase in the richer
+provinces has by far exceeded its progress in Connaught. In Leinster
+over 53,000 agreements have been lodged at an average price of over
+L481; in Munster over 58,000 at an average of over L420; in Ulster over
+84,000 at an average of over L226; whilst in Connaught only some 26,000
+at an average of just under L200.
+
+The reasons alleged in defence of the Act of 1909 failed to justify, or
+even to explain, the changes it imposed. An explanation must be sought
+in the real reasons, and they are not far to seek. The first was that
+the old methods of litigation and delay, abjured by all parties in 1903,
+were substituted for the new methods of speed and ease, because Mr.
+Dillon so willed it; and the second, that the policy of abolishing dual
+ownership, to which Mr. Redmond stood pledged, had to be ousted, again
+at Mr. Dillon's dictation, to make way for the folly of creating new
+tenancies, of symmetrical size, throughout all Ireland. The Treaty was
+torn up because Mr. Dillon, acting as deputy for Mr. Birrell (whose main
+argument for Home Rule is that it bores him to be Chief Secretary),
+ordered Mr. Redmond to eat his words.
+
+From this examination of the reasons for destroying the Act of 1903, the
+true size and nature of the financial problem emerges. From the total of
+some 490,000 holdings substantial reductions must be made in respect of
+waste lands, grass lands, and accommodation plots, and, again, in view
+of the limitation on the amount that may be advanced to one person. We
+ought probably to deduct 20 per cent., but if, to be on the safe side,
+we deduct only 15 per cent., 416,000 are left. These, however, include
+some 80,000 sold before the Act of 1903, or under the Land Commissioners
+as distinct from the Estates Commissioners. In respect of the 336,500
+remaining, 257,474 agreements have been lodged under all categories in
+the Acts of 1903 and 1909. Indeed, a larger number have been lodged, for
+in most cases our information is only to March 31, 1911, leaving less
+than 79,000 holdings that may still come into the market. This is an
+outside figure, provided always that the policy of 1903 be adhered to,
+viz. that advances are made to _occupiers_ and not to new men, except as
+under the Act of that year (sect. 2 (I) _b_ and _d_, and sect. 75) in
+rare cases, rigidly defined, of the sons of tenants and of evicted
+tenants.
+
+If the average price remains at the figure for the period March 31,
+1908, to September 15, 1909--viz. L287--a further sum of L22,673,000 may
+be required in excess of L84,099,818 already required under the Acts of
+1903 and 1909; making L106,772,818. This total includes nearly
+L1,000,000 for re-sales to owners and some provision for evicted
+tenants. Under these heads it will not expand in a greater relative
+degree. It includes, also, purchase of whole estates and of untenanted
+land by the Estates Commissioners and Congested Districts Board, and
+these may involve larger sums than were originally contemplated. I
+promised to return to that point, and will now do so. Since the Return
+under these heads up to March 31, 1911, tentative negotiations have been
+made for the purchase of a number of estates and for supplying more
+evicted tenants with holdings. But this does not increase the money size
+of the problem by much, because many of these estates--if sold to the
+new Congested Districts Board--are subtracted from business that would
+have been done by the Estates Commissioners; again, it is, as we know,
+impossible to spend much money, or move many migrants, or even enlarge
+many holdings, in one year. If the new Congested Districts Board
+attempts to handle some millions' worth of land in a hurry, one of two
+things must happen, either their work will be indefinitely delayed, or
+else they will sell off "uneconomic" holdings without amending their
+defects. The business will not cost more. It will only be scamped, or
+shirked. I doubt if the additions, which do not conflict with the policy
+of 1903, will increase the amount to be borrowed in the market, though
+they may increase the sums needed for working capital. Let us add for
+these expansions, which are strictly limited by physical impediments,
+L2,000,000 or even twice that amount. It still remains obvious that,
+even after expansions, good, bad, or indifferent, of the policy of 1903,
+the total sum to be borrowed cannot exceed from L110,000,000 to
+L113,000,000, as the outside figure that need be contemplated, provided
+we refrain from the "economic insanity" of distributing eleven million
+acres of permanent pasture among shopkeepers and "Gombeen" men. This
+figure of L113,000,000, indeed, exceeds what may reasonably be expected.
+The average of advances fell from L426 on the earliest agreements, to
+L361 on all agreements to March 31, 1908, and to L287 on agreements
+between that date and September 15, 1909. We may count on a continuation
+of that fall until the average approaches L200, the price for Connaught,
+where purchase has proceeded most slowly. But let the total stand at
+L113,000,000. That sum neither warrants the breach of faith of which the
+Government and the Nationalist party have been guilty, nor does it
+present an insoluble problem to the resources of a united Exchequer.
+L41,097,939 has already been borrowed in the market, and advanced, in
+less than eight years.
+
+The policy to which the leaders of the Unionist party stand pledged may
+now be re-stated in the words which I was authorised to use by Mr.
+Arthur Balfour and Lord Lansdowne after consultation with their
+colleagues. Speaking on July 9, 1909, I said:--
+
+     "Our attitude is, that it is necessary to deal effectively with the
+     block of pending agreements, but in dealing with that block it is
+     not necessary to prejudice the interests either of the landlords or
+     tenants, who may come to terms on some future agreements. We think
+     that the spirit of the Act of 1903 must be observed in the case of
+     pending agreements, but it must not be departed from in the case of
+     future agreements."--Hansard, 1909, vol. vii. No. 93, cols. 1542,
+     1543.
+
+Mr. Bonar Law confirms this pledge. He instructs me to say that the
+Unionist party will resume the land policy of 1903, and pursue the same
+objects by the best methods until all have been fully and expeditiously
+achieved.
+
+The prospects of Irish agriculture under the Union include a return to
+the land policy of 1903, with its fair hopes of reconciliation between
+classes and creeds, and its accomplished result of abounding prosperity.
+What are the prospects of Irish agriculture under Home Rule? Of what
+Home Rule may mean in this, as in other respects, we have been told so
+little that we are driven to consider its effect on Irish agriculture in
+the light of two contingencies. It may be that the extremists, with whom
+Mr. Dillon invariably ranges himself, as a preliminary to dragging Mr.
+Redmond after him, will have their way. In that case, Ireland will exact
+complete fiscal autonomy from a Government which invariably surrenders
+to Mr. Dillon's puppet. Should this occur, land purchase will cease
+abruptly in the absence of credit for borrowing the sums it requires.
+Take the other alternative, hazily outlined by Mr. Winston Churchill at
+Belfast. We glean from his pronouncement that the Government intend--if
+they can--to refuse fiscal autonomy, and to preserve control over land
+purchase. Can it be expected that this attempt, even if it succeeds,
+will produce better results for land purchase than the pitiable failure
+of the Act of 1909? Is it not certain that less money will be raised in
+England, for Ireland, after Home Rule? And if raised in driblets, on
+what will it be spent? Obviously, not on the policy of 1903, but on the
+policy substituted by Mr. Dillon in 1909. It will be spent on expelling
+landlords and graziers to make room for subscribers to the propaganda of
+extremists. We must judge of what will happen to agriculture after Home
+Rule by what has happened since the Treaty of 1903 was repudiated. Nor
+must we forget that Mr. Dillon's destructive activity has ranged beyond
+land purchase. That policy could have achieved little but for the
+untiring and generous patriotism of Sir Horace Plunkett. He established
+the Department of Agriculture and converted his countrymen to
+co-operation, in the absence of which no system of small ownership can
+succeed. He, too, based his efforts on a conference--the Recess
+Committee. How has he been met? Mr. Redmond, a member of that Committee,
+as later of the Land Conference, has, here again, succumbed to Mr.
+Dillon, who seeks to defeat co-operation between farmers, in the
+interests of his disciples; whilst Mr. Russell, with the hectic zeal of
+a pervert, has refused Ireland's share of the new Development Grant in
+order to spite Sir Horace Plunkett.
+
+Such signs of the times are read in Ireland more quickly than in
+England, and in several ways. To this man they spell speedy triumph for
+the form of economic insanity in which he vindictively believes; to that
+man, the retention of an office won by recanting his opinions. But there
+are others in the saddest districts of Ireland who must also be taken
+into account. To the few--for they are few--who thrive by deeds of
+darkness whenever the Union is attacked, these signs of coming change
+suggest a more tragic interpretation, from which the fanatic and the
+place-hunter would recoil--when too late. The blatant publican who
+strangles a neighbourhood in the toils of usury and illicit drink, and
+the bestial survivor of half-forgotten murder-rings take note of these
+signs. The atavism of cruelty returns. Emboldened by Mr. Birrell's bland
+acquiescence in milder prologues to Home Rule, a new plan of campaign
+is, even now, being devised, charged with sinister consequences from
+which all men in 1903 trusted that Ireland would be for ever absolved.
+The prospects of Irish Agriculture under Home Rule include the return,
+after a brief chapter of "hope, and energy the child of hope," to the
+old cycle of bitterness and listlessness and despair.
+
+A consideration of these alternatives leads to this dilemma. If the
+Government concede fiscal autonomy Land Purchase ends. If they refuse
+it, and Mr. Redmond accepts a "gas-and-water" Bill, that compromise, so
+accepted, will receive from Mr. Dillon the treatment accorded to the
+recommendations of the Recess Committee and of the Land Conference. The
+compromise will be repudiated and the millions already advanced for
+purchase will be used as a lever to extort complete autonomy. The lever
+is a powerful one. All depends upon who holds the handle.
+
+It may be said in conclusion that the Unionist policy of Land Purchase
+vindicates the Union, and that the treatment it has received
+demonstrates the futility, and the tragedy, of granting Home Rule.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+POSSIBLE IRISH FINANCIAL REFORMS UNDER THE UNION
+
+BY ARTHUR WARREN SAMUELS, K.C.
+
+THE CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION.
+
+
+The best possible system for Irish financial reform is adherence to the
+principles of the Act of Union. The constitution, as settled by the Act
+of Union and the Supplementary Act for the amalgamation of the
+Exchequer, contemplated that each of the three Kingdoms should
+contribute by "equal taxes" to the Imperial Exchequer. "Equal taxes"
+were to be those which would press upon each country equitably in
+proportion to its comparative ability to bear taxation. These taxes were
+to be imposed subject to such exemptions and abatements as Scotland and
+Ireland should from time to time appear to be entitled to. If their
+circumstances should so require, they should receive special
+consideration.
+
+All the revenues of England, Scotland and Ireland, wherever and however
+raised, when paid into the common Exchequer, form one consolidated fund.
+The Act for the consolidation of the Exchequers directs that there shall
+be paid out of the common fund "indiscriminately" under the control of
+Parliament all such moneys as are required at any time and in any place
+for any of the public services in England, Scotland, Ireland or
+elsewhere in the Empire.[76] Such payments are to be made without
+consideration of anything but necessity. They are to be without
+differentiation on the ground of the locality of the expenditure, or of
+the relative amount of the contributions to the common chest of
+England, Scotland or Ireland. All expenditure is alike "common";
+whatever its object may be, civil, naval or military or foreign, it is
+all alike "Imperial," and all of it is under the constitution
+"indiscriminate." The whole United Kingdom forms one domain, and but one
+area for the purposes of expenditure. As long as the Act of Union lasts
+no one of the three Kingdoms can be said to be "run" either "at a loss"
+or "at a profit." They are all run together as one incorporate body. The
+common revenue balances the common expenditure, and they bear together
+one another's burden and the weight of Empire.
+
+
+THE VICE-TREASURERSHIP OF IRELAND.
+
+The Act for the amalgamation of the Exchequers of Great Britain and
+Ireland contained provisions for the continued representation of Ireland
+in fiscal matters at the Exchequer and in Parliament. Power was given to
+His Majesty by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Ireland to appoint
+a Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. The Vice-Treasurer could sit in Parliament,
+and appointment to the office did not vacate a seat in the House of
+Commons. This office has been allowed to fall into abeyance. The
+Exchequer is only represented in Ireland by a Treasury Remembrancer.
+Most persons who know Ireland would concur in the view that the existing
+arrangement is not satisfactory, and that it would be of great advantage
+to Great Britain, as well as to Ireland, to have in Parliament a
+Minister specially responsible for Irish finance, acting under the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Vice-Treasurership should be revived,
+and the occupant of it should be a member in touch with Irish opinion,
+understanding Ireland and her real wants, which are often very different
+from the demands upon the Exchequer that are most loudly proclaimed. The
+restoration of the office would facilitate business, and tend to remove
+many misunderstandings, and prevent many mistakes. Personal interviews
+in Ireland with such a Minister would be worth reams of correspondence,
+and would save weeks of time. Promptitude, economy and efficiency would
+be secured.
+
+
+IRISH INTERESTS UNDER TARIFF REFORM.
+
+For the purposes of a system of Tariff Reform, the revival of the Irish
+Vice-Treasurership is expedient. The peculiar circumstances, conditions,
+aptitudes, and requirements of Ireland must be regarded, inquired into,
+discussed and weighed. Her commercial, industrial, and agricultural
+interests must be specially considered. They vary in many particulars
+from those of Scotland and England. This can only be done satisfactorily
+by a responsible Irish Minister charged with the duty of protecting and
+securing her interests and harmonising them with those of the sister
+Kingdoms in the framing of a scientific scheme of Tariff Reform.
+
+If Irish interests are properly provided for, she should gain greatly
+under Tariff Reform. The effect of the Whig finance, inaugurated by
+Gladstone in 1853, accompanied by a rigid application of the Ricardian
+theories of political economy, and the continuous narrowing of the basis
+of indirect taxation, told against Ireland most severely, depleted her
+resources and retarded her progress. Sir Stafford Northcote thus
+addressed the House of Commons after twelve years' experience of the
+Gladstone Budget:--
+
+     "The upshot of our present system of taxation has been to increase
+     the taxation of the United Kingdom within the last ten or twelve
+     years by 20 per cent., and they would find that whereas the
+     taxation of England had increased by 17 per cent., that of Ireland
+     had increased no less than 52 per cent, between 1851 and 1861.
+     This disproportion had been brought about by laying upon Ireland
+     the burden of the Income-tax and by heavily increasing the spirit
+     duties, making use at the same time of these two great engines of
+     taxation to relieve the United Kingdom, but more especially
+     England, of particular fiscal impositions.... Taxation in these
+     two parts have pressed so heavily on Ireland, it was incumbent
+     upon the people of England to take into account the necessity of
+     relieving Ireland in any way they could."[77]
+
+This plea of a great Conservative financial authority for that special
+consideration for Ireland to which she is entitled in fiscal matters
+under the Act of Union was not carried into effect until the Unionist
+administration of Lord Salisbury, in 1886. Then began, under the Chief
+Secretaryship of Mr. Arthur Balfour, that practical application of the
+"Exemptions and Abatements" clause of the Act of Union in the policy of
+Constructivism which has fructified so magnificently, and which, if
+allowed to continue uninterrupted by Home Rule, will lead Ireland to
+affluence.
+
+The Lloyd George Budget penalised Ireland still further by exaggerating
+those methods of Whig finance which persistently narrowed the basis of
+indirect taxation and heaped up disproportionate imposts on a few
+selected articles--articles which are either very largely produced or
+very largely consumed in Ireland. The effect of Gladstone's Budget of
+1853 was to reduce the area under barley in Ireland by 134,000 acres in
+six years; the Lloyd George Budget has reduced the Irish barley crop by
+10,000 acres in one year. Therefore in the framing of the Tariff Reform
+Budgets of the future, Ireland's equitable claim under the Act of Union
+should be recognised and given effect to.
+
+
+REFORM OF AGRICULTURAL LAND TAXATION.
+
+Agricultural land in the hands of the farmers who have bought their
+holdings under the Irish Land Acts has been made liable to extravagant
+burdens by the Lloyd George Budget. These peasant purchasers are treated
+as if they were "Dukes." When they discover their real position, their
+resentment will be bitter. Form IV. has not yet been circulated among
+them. It has been kept back deliberately. It would not suit Mr. Redmond
+or the Ministry, should the Irish farmer discover what the actual
+working of the new Land taxes means while the legislative logs are still
+being rolled by the Radical-Socialist-Nationalist combination. When Home
+Rule is defeated Unionist finance should provide that the burden imposed
+by these taxes on agricultural progress and national prosperity shall
+be removed, and that the benefits conferred by the great Unionist policy
+of State purchase on the peasant proprietors shall not be allowed to be
+filched away by the Socialist budget, though it was by that very Irish
+party, whose first duty should have been to protect them, that the Irish
+farmers' interests have been betrayed.
+
+
+CONSTRUCTIVISM.
+
+It was found by the Financial Relations Commission that Ireland
+contributed a revenue in excess of her relative capacity. Mr. Childers,
+in his draft report, suggested that practical steps might possibly be
+taken to give Ireland relief or afford her equitable compensation in
+three different ways--[78]
+
+     (1) By so altering the general fiscal policy of the United Kingdom
+     as to make the incidence of taxation fall more lightly on Ireland.
+     It was suggested that the taxation upon tea, tobacco, and spirits,
+     which weigh more heavily on Ireland in proportion to her relative
+     capacity, because of the habits of the people, and the larger
+     proportion in Ireland of the poorer classes, might be reduced and a
+     part of the burden transferred to other commodities. It was,
+     however, felt, he said, that this would open up questions of such
+     magnitude--like Free Trade and the incidence of taxation as between
+     different classes--that it would be inexpedient to urge it, when
+     the object in view was the solution of a pressing difficulty with
+     regard to Ireland taken apart from the rest of the United Kingdom.
+     But that difficulty will be removed under Tariff Reform--one-sided
+     Free Trade is no longer a sacrosanct fetish--and the case of
+     Ireland must be taken not as apart from, but as part of, the United
+     Kingdom. Irish interests, Agricultural and Industrial, can be far
+     better promoted, furthered, and secured under a scientific tariff
+     system than under the so-called free trade system, which insists on
+     the fallacy that identity of imposts means equality of burden, and
+     concentrates its pressure on the great Irish industries of brewing,
+     distillery, and tobacco manufacturing; a system which taxes heavily
+     tea--the great article of consumption--and has brought peculiar
+     disaster on agriculture. Therefore, the remedy which Mr. Childers
+     thought impracticable in 1896 will become eminently practicable
+     with a Tariff Reform Ministry in power.
+
+     (2) The second suggestion then made was that there should be a
+     policy of distinct customs and excise for Ireland as apart from
+     Great Britain. This would involve a customs barrier between the two
+     islands. The inconvenience of such a course would be immeasurable
+     and disastrous under modern conditions. It would certainly come
+     sooner or later under Home Rule, but it would be a reversal of the
+     policy of the Union.
+
+     (3) The third method which most strongly recommended itself to Mr.
+     Childers was to give compensation to Ireland by making an
+     allocation of revenue in her favour, to be employed in promoting
+     the material prosperity and social welfare of the country.
+
+This is the course which has been pursued by Unionist statesmen, and
+finds practical expression in their Constructive policy. The results
+cannot be better proved than by the fact that within the six years from
+1904, during which the statistics of Irish Export and Import trade have
+been kept, her commerce has increased in money value by more than
+twenty-seven millions. At least four-fifths of that great increase
+represents a corresponding increase in British trade with Ireland.
+
+Mr. Childers wrote in 1896--
+
+     "Apart from the claim of Ireland to special and distinct
+     consideration under the provisions of the Act of Union, and upon
+     the ground that she has for many years been, and now is,
+     contributing towards the public revenue a share much in excess of
+     her relative taxable capacity; I think that Great Britain as a
+     manufacturing and trading country would in the course of time be
+     amply repaid by the increase of prosperity and purchasing power in
+     Ireland for any additional burdens which this annual grant to
+     Ireland might involve. Looked at simply as a matter of good policy,
+     it would be that often advocated with regard to Crown Colonies of
+     Imperial expenditure with a view to the development of a backward
+     portion of the Imperial estate. Ireland is so much nearer to and
+     more exclusively the customer of the trading and manufacturing
+     districts of Great Britain than any Colony, that this argument in
+     her case should have redoubled weight. It is at least probable
+     that, if in place of the fitful method of casual loans and grants
+     hitherto pursued, there was a steady, persevering, and
+     well-directed application of public money by way of free annual
+     grant towards increasing the productive power of Ireland, the true
+     revenue derived from that country might in time be no longer in
+     excess of its relative taxable capacity."[79]
+
+The wisdom of this Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a strange
+contrast with the folly of the Radical Chief Secretary, who tells
+England to "cut the loss" at the moment of Ireland's rapid progress
+because Irish Old Age Pensions have exceeded in number the reckless
+anticipation of the Right Hon. Mr. Lloyd George.
+
+
+A SUGGESTION FOR STATE TRANSIT OF HOME-GROWN PRODUCE.
+
+The present writer ventures to suggest that under a general scheme of
+Tariff Reform, the home-grown food supply of the United Kingdom might be
+generally increased and cheapened, and Ireland, along with the other
+agricultural districts of the United Kingdom greatly developed, by an
+extension of the principle of the Parcel Post, and the constitution of a
+great Home-Grown Commodity Consignment Service worked through
+arrangements between the Post Office, the Railway Companies, the
+Agricultural Departments and Farmers' Co-operative Associations. The
+railways already provide special rates for farm produce. But if the
+system were organised by the State in connection with the Railways and
+Agricultural Associations, and the parcel post expanded from the
+carriage of parcels of eleven pounds weight to the carriage of
+consignments of a tonnage limit to be delivered on certain days at
+depots in the large cities and centres of population, great national
+interests might be served.
+
+The value of proximity to the Home Markets which has been so depreciated
+in favour of foreign supplies by modern transit methods and quick sea
+passages, would be restored to the British and Irish farmer. If this
+were accompanied by a tariff system which would secure a preference for
+home-grown cereals such as oats and barley, a direct effect in
+stimulating agriculture, and an indirect effect in increasing winter
+dairying, cattle feeding and poultry rearing, would be produced. The
+country would become more self-sustaining. The peace food supply would
+be cheapened and the food supply in time of war augmented. The defensive
+power of the realm would be increased. If, under the new Tariff system,
+it seems not inexpedient to reimpose the small registration duty on
+imported foreign as contrasted with colonial wheat and flour, the
+revenue thus produced might, without exactly earmarking it, be applied
+partly towards encouraging and advancing agriculture in the United
+Kingdom, and partly towards financing such a Commodity Post as above
+suggested. This subvention to domestic, agricultural and pastoral
+industries would balance the tariff on foreign manufactured goods, and
+the farmer of England, Scotland and Ireland would share amply in the
+stimulus of a new fiscal policy. Tariff Reform may assist the
+manufacturer and artisan by imposing duties at the ports, and the farmer
+and agricultural labourer by cheapening transit and encouraging food
+production within the United Kingdom.
+
+
+EQUIVALENT GRANTS IN AID.
+
+In 1888 a system was inaugurated by which Grants in Aid of Local
+Purposes have been made in the Three Kingdoms on the basis that England
+should get 80 per cent., Scotland 11 per cent., and Ireland 9 per cent.,
+when such subventions are given from the Imperial Exchequer. The
+Legislation sanctioning this proportional allocation began with the
+English Local Government Act of 1888, when Grants in Aid were made out
+of the Probate Duties, and has been carried into several other Statutes
+relating to England, Scotland and Ireland. These proportions have become
+to a large extent stereotyped in the allocation of such grants. The new
+basis of contribution was originated by Mr. Goschen and was stated by
+him to depend upon the amount of the assumed contribution of each
+country to the Revenue for Common purposes. The method of calculation,
+he said, was a very complex one.[80]
+
+It was pointed out at the time that under the new system the party that
+would probably require the largest amount of the grant would be the
+poorest country, and yet the richer country would get the larger
+proportionate grants.[81] The method of segregation is as follows. The
+Revenue and Expenditure Returns divide public expenditure into four
+clauses: (a) "Imperial or Common Services," (b) "English Services," (c)
+"Scottish Services," and (d) "Irish Services"; and having treated the
+three latter as "local services" and charged the particular outlay on
+them against each of the three countries, they estimate the balance left
+in cash as "the Contribution" of England, Scotland and Ireland to the
+"Imperial" Expenditure. It is admitted that this division is absolutely
+arbitrary. It has no sanction by any Act of Parliament. It is opposed to
+the system of Finance under the Act of Union. All the revenues of
+England, Scotland or Ireland are contributed for "Common" purposes, and
+in which all expenditure of any kind in any portion of the United
+Kingdom is alike "Common" or "Imperial." The details of the division
+were never disclosed, when the proportions were originally fixed. The
+segregation of the services classified as "Imperial" is open to serious
+objections. The method of computation is empirical and unconstitutional,
+and if carried to its logical conclusion would now result in depriving
+Ireland of any share whatever in future Equivalent grants, as her
+contribution to the services thus classified as "Imperial" is
+practically a minus quantity, though the revenue actually raised in
+Ireland is much higher than it ever has been before. This method of
+Distribution of Grants in Aid has been condemned by a succession of the
+highest financial authorities. Lord Ritchie, as Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, said, "he did not think it possible really to defend in all
+its details distribution by contribution."[82]
+
+Mr. Wyndham said--
+
+     "It leads to results which all must hold to be illogical, and
+     results which everybody in Ireland holds to be unjust because the
+     greater the increase of taxation the less is the proportion that
+     comes from Ireland, the poorer partner in the business, and so the
+     less is the equivalent grant. As the evil increases the remedy
+     diminishes, and you have only to force up taxation sufficiently
+     high to extinguish the remedy altogether."[83]
+
+Mr. Asquith said--
+
+     "A more confused and illogical condition of things it is impossible
+     to imagine. The House ought really to take the opportunity of
+     threshing out the principle upon which these equivalent grants
+     ought to be distributed between the three countries."[84]
+
+Lord St. Aldwyn said--
+
+     "That he always had a very strong objection to the system of
+     Equivalent Grants, because when they had to make a grant for
+     certain purposes to England, they were obliged to make
+     proportionate grants to Ireland and Scotland quite irrespective of
+     whether they needed them or not."[85]
+
+Neither the "Imperial" contribution basis nor the "Population" basis,
+which has in some instances been resorted to for grants in aid, is
+satisfactory, nor is the method desirable of setting aside a certain
+fund raised by some particular tax to finance a particular service. For
+instance, the subvention of Education in Ireland out of the "Whisky
+money" recently broke down owing to the diminution of the Revenue from
+this source. The more sober Ireland became, the less she got for
+Education. Chaos was imminent, and finally, after much friction, a
+special grant had to be made from the Treasury to save the situation.
+There are numerous instances in which great complications have been
+caused in dealing with local authorities owing to these methods of
+making grants in aid, and the system should be reformed. The true basis
+is the basis of each Kingdom's need.... England has her needs, let them
+be supplied. Scotland has hers, let them be supplied. Ireland has hers,
+and having regard to her present comparative poverty, let them be
+supplied "not grudgingly or of necessity," but by the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer "as a cheerful giver." This is the constitutional principle
+under the Act of Union, and the soundest financial principle to observe
+for the United Kingdom.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 76: 56 Geo. III. c. 98.]
+
+[Footnote 77: "Hansard," Feb. 27, 1865, vol. 177, p. 813.]
+
+[Footnote 78: "Financial Relations Report," 1896, c. 8262, vol. iii. p.
+194.]
+
+[Footnote 79: 1896, c. 8262, p. 194.]
+
+[Footnote 80: "Hansard," 1888, vol. 327, p. 1287.]
+
+[Footnote 81: "Parl. Deb.," vol. 332, p. 790.]
+
+[Footnote 82: Ibid., vol. 120, p. 976.]
+
+[Footnote 83: "Parl. Deb.," vol. 120, p. 823.]
+
+[Footnote 84: Ibid., vol. 175, p. 1088.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Ibid., May 31, 1903.]
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE ECONOMICS OF SEPARATISM
+
+BY L. S. AMERY, M.P.
+
+
+The history of Ireland for the last two centuries and more is a
+continuous exposition of the disastrous consequences of political and
+economic separatism within an area where every natural condition, and
+the whole course of historical development, pointed to political and
+economic union. Geographically, racially and historically an integral
+part of a single homogeneous island group, Ireland has never really been
+allowed to enjoy the full advantages of political and economic union
+with the adjoining main island. Almost every misfortune which Ireland
+has suffered is directly traceable to this cause. In spite of this, it
+is now seriously proposed to subject her once again to the disadvantages
+of political separation, and that on the very eve of an inevitable
+change of economic policy, which, while it would restore real vitality
+and purpose to political union, would also once more intensify all the
+injury which economic disunion has inflicted upon Ireland in the past.
+
+In the long constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century her
+position as a separate political unit made Ireland a convenient
+instrument of Stuart policy against the English Parliament. Cromwell,
+with true insight, solved the difficulty by legislative union with
+England. But his work was undone at the Restoration, and for another 122
+years Ireland remained outside the Union as a separate and subordinate
+state. Her economic position was that of a Colony, as Colonies were then
+administered. But it was that of a "least favoured Colony." This was
+due, in part, to a real fear of Ireland as a danger to British
+constitutional liberty and British Protestantism[86] which long
+survived the occasion which has seemed to justify it. But what was a
+more serious and permanent factor was the circumstance that Ireland's
+economic development could only be on lines which competed with England,
+and not like Colonial development on lines complementary to English
+trade. One after another Irish industries were penalised and crippled by
+being forbidden all part in the export trade. A flourishing woollen
+industry, a prosperous shipping, promising cotton, silk, glass, glove
+making and sugar refining industries were all ruthlessly repressed,[87]
+not from any innate perversity on the part of English statesmen, or from
+any deliberate desire to ruin Ireland, but as a natural and inevitable
+consequence of exclusion from the Union under the economic policy of the
+age. Whatever outlet Irish economic activity took there was always some
+English trade whose interests were prejudicially affected, and which
+promptly exercised a perfectly legitimate pressure upon the Government
+to put a stop to the competition. The very poverty of Ireland, as
+expressed in the lowness of Irish wages, was an ever convenient and
+perfectly justifiable argument for exclusion. The linen industry alone
+received a certain amount of toleration, and even encouragement. These
+regulations were so little animated by direct religious or racial
+antipathy that it was upon the Protestant Scotch and English settlers
+that they fell with the greatest severity, driving them into exile by
+thousands, to become, subsequently, one of the chief factors in the
+American Revolution. But if the direct economic effect of political
+separation weighed less heavily upon the Catholic majority, they
+suffered all the more from the utter paralysis of all industry and
+enterprise consequent upon the Penal Laws. These laws, monstrous as they
+seemed even to Burke, were in their turn a natural outcome of a
+political separation which made the security of Protestantism in Ireland
+rest upon the domination of a narrow oligarchy in instant terror of
+being swamped. Under Union they would never have been devised, or could
+certainly never have endured.
+
+The revolution by which the Irish Parliament, in 1782, asserted its
+constitutional equality with the British Parliament, subject only to the
+power of bribery, direct or indirect, retained by the Crown, brought out
+in still more glaring relief the utter unsoundness of the existing
+political structure under separation. After eighteen years of ferment
+within Ireland and friction without, British and Irish statesmen, face
+to face with civil war and French invasion, realised that the sorry
+farce had to come to an end. Meanwhile the immediate economic effect of
+liberation from the direct restrictions on Irish foreign trade, already
+conceded in 1779, and helped in various directions by judicious
+bounties, was undoubtedly to give a new impetus to production in
+Ireland. The first ten years of Grattan's Parliament were, on the whole,
+years of growing prosperity. Whether, even apart from civil war and
+increasing taxation, that prosperity would have continued to increase,
+if the Union had not come about, is, however, a more doubtful matter.
+The immense industrial development of England during the next
+half-century would probably, in any case, have crushed out the smaller
+and weaker Irish industries, while the existence of a separate tariff in
+Great Britain would have been a serious obstacle to the development of
+Irish agriculture. A full customs union, with internal free trade, was
+undoubtedly the best solution of the difficulty. But Pitt's Commercial
+Propositions of 1785 failed, partly, indeed, owing to political
+intrigues, but still more owing to the fundamental impossibility of
+securing an effective customs union without some form of political
+union.
+
+When finally Ireland entered the Union it was with the severe handicap
+of an industrial system artificially repressed for over a century. The
+removal of the last traces of internal protection in 1824 only
+accelerated the process, inevitable in any case, by which Irish
+industries, with the exception of linen, were submerged. But
+manufacturing industry was at the best a small matter in Ireland
+compared with agriculture. And to Irish agriculture the Union meant an
+immense development in every direction. Unfortunately the inheritance of
+the preceding century, a vicious agrarian system and a low standard of
+living, was not easily to be eliminated, and little attempt was made to
+eliminate it. The great increase of agricultural production was
+accompanied, not by a progressive and well-diffused rise in the standard
+of national well-being, but by high rents and extravagance on the one
+side, and, on the other, the rapid multiplication of a population living
+on the very margin of subsistence. The terrible year of famine was a
+warning to British statesmanship of the need of a constructive and
+Conservative policy for the reorganisation of Irish agricultural life
+and for the broadening of the economic basis in Ireland by the
+deliberate encouragement of new industries. Under a true conception of
+Union, political and economic--and there were not wanting men like Lord
+George Bentinck and Disraeli who entertained it--Ireland might within a
+generation have been levelled up to the general standard of the United
+Kingdom.
+
+But the evil effects of political and economic separatism in the
+eighteenth century were still unremedied when the whole economic policy
+of Union was abandoned. The very principle and conception of Free Trade
+is, inherently, as opposed to the maintenance of national as of Imperial
+Union. Ireland was deprived of that position of advantage in the British
+market which was one of the implied terms of the Union, and was not
+allowed to protect her own market. Incidentally, and as a consequence of
+the new fiscal policy, Ireland was saddled with a heavy additional
+burden of taxation which only handicapped her yet further in the
+struggle to recover from the famine and to meet foreign competition. The
+full severity of that competition was, however, not experienced till
+towards the end of the seventies, when the opening up of the American
+West, coupled with the demonetisation of silver, brought down prices
+with a run. A series of bad harvests aggravated the evil. The same
+conditions were experienced all over Europe, and were everywhere met by
+raising tariffs to the level required to enable agriculture to maintain
+itself. Even in England "Fair Trade" became a burning issue. Given
+normal agrarian conditions in Ireland the Irish vote would have gone
+solid with the Fair Traders, and the United Kingdom would in all
+probability have reverted to a national system of economics a generation
+ago. As things were, landlords and farmers in Ireland, instead of
+uniting to defend their common interest, each endeavoured to thrust the
+burden of the economic _debacle_ on the other. The bitterness of the
+agrarian struggle which ensued was skilfully engineered into the channel
+of the Home Rule agitation. In other words, the evils of economic
+separatism, aggravated by the social evils surviving from the separatism
+of an earlier age, united to revive a demand for the extension and
+renewal of the very cause of these evils.
+
+Since then the underlying conditions of Irish economic life have
+undergone a complete transformation. The wealth and credit of the United
+Kingdom have been used to inaugurate a settlement of the agrarian
+question. The productive and competitive efficiency of Irish agriculture
+has been enormously increased both by Government advice and assistance
+and by patriotic private effort. Old Age Pensions have alleviated the
+burden of an excessive residue of older persons, and irrigated the
+poorer districts with a stream of ready money. In every direction there
+is a deliberate effort to raise the economic standard of Ireland to the
+British level. Last, but by no means least, the exclusion of all foreign
+live stock from the United Kingdom, though originally designed only as a
+precautionary measure against cattle disease, has in effect protected
+one most important branch of Irish agriculture and given it a vital
+interest in the maintenance of the Union. On the eve of the revival of a
+national policy of economic development Ireland stands on a far sounder
+basis, and in a far better position to take advantage of that
+development, than in 1800. The standard of life is rising, and will of
+itself put a check on a mere multiplication of beings living on the
+margin of subsistence. For the natural increase of population, which
+will once more come about, there will be provision not only through more
+intensive cultivation and in rural industries, but also in a real,
+though possibly gradual, development of new manufacturing industries.
+Incidentally the establishment of a protective tariff for the United
+Kingdom will, by lowering the excessive duties on tea and tobacco which
+weigh so heavily upon Ireland, increase still further the local excess
+of Government expenditure over revenue and facilitate the local
+accumulation of capital, already so noticeable a feature of recent
+years, and thus provide an essential factor in stimulating new
+enterprise, whether agricultural or industrial. Nor would it be in any
+way inconsistent with a national economic policy for the United Kingdom
+as a whole to devote special sums, through bounties and in other ways,
+towards the opening up of new fields for the economic activities of the
+Irish people. For the first time in her history Ireland will have a fair
+start, and, under the Union, the twentieth century may yet prove
+Ireland's century just as Canadians claim that it will prove Canada's
+century.
+
+Now let us turn to the other side of the picture. The establishment of
+Home Rule, in other words of political separatism, must inevitably be
+followed by active economic separatism, _i.e._ by the creation of a
+completely separate fiscal system in Ireland. The idea that an Irish
+Chancellor of the Exchequer can carry on in dependence on a British
+Budget, which may at any moment upset all his calculations of revenue,
+is absurd. So is the idea that there can be separate tariffs with mutual
+Free Trade, or a common tariff without a common government to frame it.
+If Free Trade, indeed, were to be maintained in England, fiscal
+separation would be no disadvantage to Ireland. On the contrary, she
+would continue to enjoy the same access to the British market while
+giving her own industries such protection as might be convenient. It is
+one of the glaring weaknesses of the policy of Free Imports that it
+actually puts a premium on separatism. But it is impossible to discuss
+the future on that assumption. Whatever the fate of the Home Rule Bill
+may be it is certain that Free Trade is doomed, and that the United
+Kingdom, whether united or divided, will revert to a policy of national
+protection and national development.
+
+What will be the effect upon Ireland? Assuming mutual good will,
+assuming that the Irish Government will be ready to grant a substantial
+preference to British trade over foreign trade, there can be no doubt
+that Great Britain would respond and give to Irish products the same
+preference as might be extended to Canadian or Australian products. But
+the first duty of the British Government would be to British producers.
+While Empire-grown wheat, and possibly meat, would come in free, the
+British farmer would receive a measure of protection against the rest of
+the Empire in dairy products and poultry, in barley and oats, in hops,
+tobacco, sugar beet, vegetables and fruit, in all those crops, in fact,
+in which the British production could meet the British demand without an
+undue effect upon prices.
+
+Now, it is precisely by these intensive forms of production that Ireland
+stands to gain most under Union. Under Home Rule she would lose this
+advantage and have to compete on an equality with the rest of the Empire
+both in respect to these products and in respect to wheat and meat. It
+is extremely doubtful, too, whether her special privileges with regard
+to store cattle would long survive. They could no longer be defended, as
+against Canada, by the arguments now used, and as a piece of pure
+protectionism there would be no reason for Great Britain to give them a
+separate fiscal entity. And if the hopes of Irish agriculture would be
+severely checked, still more would that be true of those hopes of new
+industries already referred to. Even the great linen industry might find
+a small duty enough to transfer a large part of its production within
+the British tariff zone. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether any
+tariff that Ireland could impose, consistently either with preference or
+with reasonable prices in so small a market and on so small a scale of
+production, could be of much effect against the competition of British
+industries, strengthened and made aggressive under the stimulus of a
+national trade policy.
+
+This is the most favourable hypothesis. But it is at least conceivable
+that a Nationalist Government, whether actuated by a laudable desire to
+hurry on Irish industrial development, or influenced by the tradition of
+animosity which still plays so strong a part in Nationalist politics,
+may refuse to enter upon the policy of Imperial preference. It might
+even be tempted by various considerations to give a preference to the
+United States or to Germany. Germany is a large importer of foodstuffs.
+The establishment of a British tariff may prove a serious blow to her
+manufacturing interests. A trade agreement with Ireland might be a very
+useful temporary business expedient from the German point of view.
+Incidentally a large increase of German merchant shipping in Irish
+harbours might, in the case of possible hostilities, be of no little
+service in providing commerce destroyers with a most convenient excuse
+for being in the most favourable area for their operations. Any fiscal
+excursions of that sort would inevitably be visited upon Ireland by
+severe economic reprisals of one kind or another on the part of Great
+Britain, from which Ireland would receive permanent injury far
+outweighing any temporary advantage which might be secured from foreign
+countries.
+
+In other words, Ireland under Home Rule would be in almost every respect
+thrust back into her eighteenth century position of "least favoured
+Colony." She would, at the best, be handicapped in the British market in
+respect of those products by which she could profit most, and in those
+which she is less fitted to produce would have to compete with the
+virgin soil and competitive energy and organisation of the great
+Dominions. At the worst, her fiscal policy might invite reprisals and
+make her "least favoured" not only by her circumstances but by the
+intention of those who would frame the British tariff. It is true that
+the British Government would no longer dream of directly interdicting
+Irish exports. But in that respect modern organised capital has an
+influence to promote or kill almost as great as that of governments in
+former times. And the influence of British capital, under such
+circumstances, would certainly not tend to be directed towards the
+economic development of Ireland.
+
+But the use of the customs tariff is by no means the only great
+instrument of a national economic policy. To promote the flow of trade
+in national channels, to secure the fullest development of the national
+territory and resources, the removal of natural internal barriers is
+often even more important than the setting up of artificial external
+barriers. Statesmen who have had to face the task of giving strength and
+solidity to weak political unions have always aimed at the development
+of internal communications. Washington's first concern after the success
+of the American War of Independence was to endeavour to create a system
+of internal river and canal navigation in order to help to bind the
+loosely allied States into a real union. Bismarck used the Prussian
+railways as well as the Zollverein to build up German unity. In the
+making of Canada the Intercolonial railway and the Canadian Pacific were
+essential complements to the national tariff. Railways forced South
+Africa into union, and will gradually give Australia real cohesion and
+unity. In the United Kingdom there has been no national policy with
+regard to communications, least of all any nationally directed or
+stimulated effort to cement the political union of 1800. But such a
+policy is essential to the reality of the Union. To get rid, as far as
+possible, of the barrier which the St. George's Channel presents to-day
+both to the convenience of passenger traffic and to the direct through
+carriage of goods between internal points in the two islands should be
+one of the first objects of Unionist policy in the future. In the
+train-ferry, which has bridged the channels of sea-divided Denmark,
+which in spite of the Baltic, has made Sweden contiguous with Germany,
+which for the purposes of railway traffic, has practically abolished
+Lake Michigan, modern developments have provided us with the very
+instrument required. To Irish agriculture the gain of being put into
+direct railway communication with all England and Scotland would be
+immense. From the tourist and sporting point of view Ireland would reap
+a doubled and trebled harvest. More than that, the bridging of St.
+George's Channel will for the first time enable the west coast of
+Ireland to become what it ought to be, the true west coast of the United
+Kingdom, the starting point of all our fast mail and passenger services
+across the Atlantic.
+
+But all this implies the Union, the existence of a single Government
+interested in the development of the United Kingdom as a whole. Separate
+governments in Great Britain and Ireland would not have the same
+inducement to give financial encouragement to such schemes. Irish
+manufacturers and British farmers alike might protest against being
+taxed to facilitate the competition of rivals in their own markets. An
+Irish Government would have neither sufficient money nor sufficient
+interest to give the subsidies necessary to secure a three days' service
+across the Atlantic. A British Government would naturally develop one of
+its existing ports, or some new port on the west coast of Scotland,
+rather than build up a new source of revenue and national strength in a
+separate State. No one could blame it, any more than we could blame the
+Canadian Government for wishing to subsidise a fast service from Halifax
+or some other port in the Dominion rather than one from St. John's,
+Newfoundland. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Navigation
+Acts deliberately destroyed Irish shipping. A policy of _laisser faire_
+in matters of national communication has hitherto prevented its revival.
+To-day new ideas are in the air. Those ideas can be applied, either
+from the standpoint of the Union or from that of separatism. In the one
+case Ireland has the prospect of becoming, what her geographical
+position entitles her to be, the eastern bridge-head of the North
+Atlantic. In the other the immense power of the larger capital and
+larger subsidies of Great Britain will be as effective as any navigation
+laws of the past in leaving her a derelict by the wayside, continuing to
+wait idle and hungry, with empty harbours, while the great streams of
+commerce flow past her to north and south.
+
+And if the theory of _laisser faire_ is rapidly dying out in matters of
+trade and communications, it has already been largely superseded in
+regard to social questions. The duty of the State to expend money in
+order to level up the standard of life of its citizens, or to prevent
+their sinking below that standard, is to-day universally recognised. The
+methods by which that object is aimed at are various. There is the
+crudest form, that of direct money relief, such as is involved in Old
+Age Pensions. There is the subsidising of socially desirable economic
+operations, such as insurance against sickness or the acquisition of
+freehold by tenants. There is the expenditure of money on various forms
+of education, in the scientific assistance of industry and agriculture,
+in promotion of forestry, drainage, or the improvement of local
+communication. There is the enforcement of innumerable regulations to
+safeguard the health and safety of the working population. Nowhere has
+this conception of the duty of the State exercised a greater influence
+than in Ireland during the last twenty years. The Congested Districts
+Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Land Purchase Scheme,
+illustrate one phase of its carrying into effect. Old Age Pensions,
+cheap labourers' cottages, sickness insurance illustrate another. All
+these have been provided out of the United Kingdom exchequer. They could
+not be provided out of Irish revenues. Still less could Irish revenues
+provide for a continuous extension of this policy in order to keep on a
+level with English conditions.
+
+It has been stated by Mr. Churchill that under the Government scheme of
+Home Rule, Land Purchase and Old Age Pensions will be paid by Great
+Britain. Even if that were a workable arrangement it only covers a small
+part of the field. For the rest Home Rule would mean the complete
+abandonment of the attempt to level up the social conditions of Great
+Britain and Ireland to a common standard. The Irish Government would
+never have the means to carry out the same programme of social
+legislation as will be carried out in Great Britain. Handicapped in
+competition with British industries it would, moreover, naturally be
+disinclined, even apart from the question of cost, to apply any
+legislation or any regulations which might tend to raise the cost of
+production. There will thus not only be an inevitable falling back for
+want of means, but, in addition, a continual temptation to the weaker
+and more backward State to meet superior industrial efficiency by the
+temporary cheapness of inferior social conditions.[88]
+
+But such a policy would not only be disastrous in itself in its ultimate
+effect upon Irish national life. It would at once provide a fresh and
+valid excuse for effective fiscal differentiation against Ireland in
+Great Britain. Once again, as in the eighteenth century, Ireland would
+be penalised for being a poor and "sweated" country.
+
+So far the discussion of the economic results of separation has been
+confined to Ireland, because Ireland would undoubtedly be the chief
+sufferer. Her dependence on the English market, the smallness of her
+home market, her backward social condition, would all be insuperable
+obstacles to a really healthy development on independent lines. Great
+Britain, on the other hand, would suffer relatively much less from Home
+Rule. The immediate shrinkage of trade with Ireland, even with an Irish
+tariff to overcome, might not be very great. The real loss would be not
+so much any actual decrease of trade, as the loss judged by the
+standard of the possibilities of Irish development under the Union. The
+essence of the situation after all is that the United Kingdom is a
+single economic area. The exclusion of one part of that area from the
+political and economic life of the rest, while injurious to the rest,
+must prove disastrous above all to the part excluded. After centuries of
+alternate neglect and repression Ireland has at last been brought to a
+condition in which she is capable of taking the fullest advantage of a
+new era of progress and development for the United Kingdom as a whole.
+And this is the time which is chosen for seriously suggesting that she
+should once again be excluded from all the benefits of partnership in
+the United Kingdom and driven out into the wilderness of poverty and
+decay. The plea for this folly is an unreal sentiment which is itself
+merely the survival of the mistaken political or economic separatism of
+the past, and which is nothing to the real and justifiable sentiment of
+bitterness which would be roused in Ireland if the plea were accepted.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 86: This fear itself was the result of separatism. Miss A. E.
+Murray, in her work on "The Commercial Relations between England and
+Ireland" (p. 51), points out: "It was not so much jealousy of Ireland as
+jealousy and fear of the English Crown which influenced the English
+legislature. Experience seemed to show that Irish prosperity was
+dangerous to English liberty.... The difficulty was that Ireland was a
+separate kingdom, and that the English Parliament had no direct
+authority over her. It was this absence of direct authority which made
+England so nervously anxious to restrict Irish resources in all those
+directions in which they might even indirectly interfere with the growth
+of English power."]
+
+[Footnote 87: For details, see Miss Murray's "Commercial Relations
+between England and Ireland."]
+
+[Footnote 88: It is worth noting that in 1893 the Liberal Government
+rejected amendments moved by Mr. Whiteley to prevent existing laws for
+the protection of workers in factories, workshops, and mines, being
+repealed by the proposed Irish Legislature, and by Sir J. Gorst to
+reserve laws affecting the hours and conditions of labour to the United
+Kingdom Parliament.]
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. WALTER LONG, M.P.
+
+
+The argument so often and so plausibly presented in favour of Home Rule,
+which urges that the Imperial Parliament is overburdened with local
+affairs, contains an element of truth. It would, however, be more in
+accordance with the facts to put the case the other way round: for
+localities are much more seriously inconvenienced in certain respects by
+the necessity of referring local business to the Imperial Parliament,
+than the Imperial Parliament is inconvenienced by the transaction of
+such business, which, if we are to believe the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, it neglects (vide _Nash's Magazine_, February, 1912). At the
+same time, to affirm that, in order to remedy what is no more than a
+defect in administration, it is necessary to overturn the British
+Constitution, and to build on its ruins four semi-independent
+Legislatures and one supreme Parliament, is merely to exemplify the
+cynical imposture of partisan misrepresentation: what Mr. Balfour
+described as "the dream of political idiots."
+
+There is no impartial person who does not clearly recognise that to
+constitute a separate Parliament for Ireland (to say nothing of England,
+Wales, and Scotland) must necessarily result, not in the more efficient
+despatch of legislative and administrative business, but in perpetual
+friction, clogging the mechanism alike of the subordinate and the
+predominate body. Ireland enjoyed--or endured--an independent Parliament
+during eighteen years, from 1782 to 1800; and, in the result, the
+greatest statesmen both in Ireland and in England were forced to
+acknowledge that the system had in practice failed utterly; and that
+there remained no alternative but the Union. To that view of the
+situation the great majority of the Irish people, irrespective of race
+or creed, were converted within a year before the passing of the Act, an
+event which was hailed with rejoicing. The experience of 112 years,
+fraught as they have been with occasional calamity and burdened with
+many blunders, has not produced a single valid objection to the
+principle of the Union, unless the survival among a diminishing section
+of the population of the old, bad tradition of hatred towards England,
+and its deliberate exploitation by pledge-bound politicians, is to be
+regarded as a reason for sacrificing the welfare and the prosperity of
+both countries.
+
+The framers of the Act of Union did not, and indeed could not, provide
+for every contingency. It is therefore the business of those who are
+determined to maintain the Union, to adjust its machinery to modern
+requirements. An omission of capital import was the failure to provide
+for the efficient promotion of private Bills. The matter was, indeed,
+actually considered by the authors of the Act of Union. The Duke of
+Portland wrote to Lord Cornwallis, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, under
+date December 24, 1798, as follows:--
+
+     "One of the greatest difficulties, however, which has been
+     supposed to attend the project of union between the two kingdoms,
+     is that of the expense and trouble which will be occasioned by the
+     attendance of witnesses in trials of contested elections, or in
+     matters of private business requiring Parliamentary interposition.
+     It would, therefore, be very desirable to devise a plan (which
+     does not appear impossible) for empowering the Speaker of either
+     House of the United Parliament to issue his warrant to the
+     Chairman of the Quarter Sessions in Ireland, or to such other
+     person as may be thought more proper for the purpose, requiring
+     him to appoint a time and a place within the County for his being
+     attended by the agents of the respective parties, and reducing to
+     writing in their presence the testimony (for the consents or
+     dissents, as the case may be) of such persons as, by the said
+     agents, may be summoned to attend, being resident within the
+     County (if not there resident a similar proceeding should take
+     place in the County where they reside), and such testimony so
+     taken and reduced into writing may, by such Chairman or by the
+     Sheriff of the County, be certified to the Speaker of either
+     House, as the case may be. It seems difficult to provide a
+     detailed Article of the Union for the various regulations which
+     such a proceeding may require, but the principle might perhaps be
+     stated there, and the provisions left to be settled by the United
+     Parliament."
+
+According to Lord Ashbourne's "Life of Pitt," the Prime Minister himself
+framed a scheme for constituting a Court of Appeal in Ireland, with
+power to examine evidence and certify all preliminaries and other
+matters respecting private Bills. Why the provision was not included in
+the Act of Union is not clear. The fact of its omission, however, proves
+that the necessity of resorting to the Imperial Parliament for the
+transaction of private business was not an objection that hindered the
+passage of the Act of Union, although to-day the same omission is
+absurdly used as an argument in favour of the repeal of that measure. At
+the same time, it is true that the requirements have immensely increased
+in proportion as the resources of the country have been developed since
+1800. The introduction of railways, telegraphs, telephones and electric
+appliances, together with the grant of compulsory powers to
+municipalities, has involved the promotion of numerous private Bills at
+vast expense to Ireland. Mr. A. W. Samuels, K.C., who contributed a
+paper on the subject to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of
+Ireland in November, 1899, quoted some instances of the cost of private
+Bill legislation in Ireland:--
+
+     "The ratepayers of Dublin, of Rathmines, of Pembroke, of Clontarf,
+     and other suburbs of the city, long will feel the burden added to
+     their rates by the London litigation of the Session that has
+     passed. The Dublin Boundaries Extension Bill of 1899 has cost the
+     city, as I am informed on reliable authority, between L12,000 and
+     L13,000. There were twenty-four separate sets of opponents. The
+     cost to Rathmines of its opposition approaches, I am informed,
+     L8,000. To meet it about one shilling in the pound must be added
+     to the taxation of that township. The costs of Pembroke cannot be
+     far short of the same sum. If we add those of the oppositions of
+     Kilmainham, Drumcondra, Clontarf, and of the County of Dublin, and
+     of private persons and public bodies, the total expense to the
+     inhabitants and ratepayers of the city and its suburbs will not
+     fall short of L45,000.
+
+     "Mr. Pope, Q.C., stated before the Committee which considered the
+     Irish Railways Amalgamation Scheme of last Session, that the Bill
+     at hearing was costing L5 per minute. A high authority conversant
+     with the proceedings in this case has informed me that this was an
+     under-estimate rather than an over-estimate, having regard to the
+     fact that there were twenty-seven separate oppositions. The Bill
+     occupied twenty-seven working days of four hours each, and its
+     cost to the shareholders of the promoting Company were calculated
+     to amount to about L400 per day. What the loss was to the
+     shareholders of other Companies, and to the ratepayers represented
+     by public bodies, it would be impossible to say. The Bill probably
+     cost at least L50,000. There was a Belfast Corporation Bill. There
+     was an Armagh and Keady Railway Bill. There were several other
+     Irish Bills before the Houses, exhausting thousands more of Irish
+     capital, and diverting it from the material development of the
+     country. So abnormal was the waste of Irish money on the Railway
+     Bill that it excited general attention even in England, and became
+     the subject of comment in Parliament. Mr. J. H. Lewis, the member
+     for Flint Burghs, speaking on the 24th July, 1899, on the third
+     reading of the Scotch Private Legislation Procedure Bill, said, 'I
+     am sure everybody must have regarded with great dissatisfaction
+     the enormous expenditure to which certain Irish Railway Companies
+     were put during the last few weeks within the walls of the House.
+     Surely a better system can be devised than that which drags over
+     from different parts of the United Kingdom a host of witnesses,
+     who could be examined on the spot. I am sure all honourable
+     members deeply regret this great waste of public money.'"
+
+These disabilities have been the subject of frequent representations.
+Resolutions advocating reform have been repeatedly passed by the Irish
+Chambers of Commerce, by the Incorporated Law Society, and by local
+bodies. Leaders of the Unionist party have constantly urged the
+necessity of a provision for expediting and cheapening Private Bill
+procedure. In 1896 a deputation from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce
+laid the matter before Mr. Gerald Balfour, who was then Chief Secretary
+for Ireland. He expressed a hope that the Government would introduce a
+reform. In the Queen's speech of February, 1897, it was announced that
+Bills for amending the procedure with respect to Private Bills coming
+from Scotland and Ireland had been prepared. The opportunity for laying
+these measures before Parliament did not arise.
+
+But in 1899 a Bill amending the procedure of Scottish Private Bill
+Legislation was passed into law. The measure forms the precedent for
+future legislation. In the year 1900, Mr. Atkinson (now Lord Atkinson),
+speaking for the Government, said that the Government were--
+
+     "most favourable to the introduction and passing of a Bill dealing
+     with private Bill legislation for Ireland. He thought the real and
+     substantial difficulty was the creation of the tribunal which was
+     to sit locally and to inquire into these matters. The Irish
+     Government thought it wise to wait until they should see what
+     would be the effect of the operation of the Scotch Act."
+
+Subsequent experience has proved that the Private Legislation Procedure
+(Scotland) Act of 1899 may well be taken for the model of a similar
+measure designed to apply to Ireland. The Scottish Act substituted for
+procedure by means of a Private Bill, procedure in the first instance by
+means of a Provisional Order. Instead of applying to Parliament by a
+petition for leave to bring in a Private Bill, any public authority or
+persons desirous of obtaining parliamentary powers now proceed by
+presenting a petition to the Secretary for Scotland,
+
+     "praying him to issue a Provisional Order in accordance with the
+     terms of a draft Order submitted to him, or with such
+     modifications as shall be necessary."
+
+Before the Secretary for Scotland proceeds with the Provisional Order,
+the draft Order is considered by the Chairman of Committee of the House
+of Lords, and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons;
+and they report to the Secretary for Scotland whether or not the
+matters proposed to be dealt with by the draft Order, or any of them,
+should be dealt with by Provisional Order or by Private Bill. Should the
+Chairmen report that these matters, or any of them, should be dealt with
+by a Private Bill, the Secretary for Scotland, without further inquiry,
+refuses to issue the Provisional Order so far as it is objected to by
+the Chairmen; but the advertisements and notices already given by the
+promoters of the scheme are regarded as fulfilling (subject to Standing
+Orders) the necessary conditions to be observed prior to the
+introduction of a Private Bill. Should the Chairmen report that the
+Provisional Order, or a part of it, may proceed, the procedure is as
+follows. If there is no opposition, the Secretary for Scotland may at
+once issue the Provisional Order, which is then embodied in a
+Confirmation Bill for the assent of Parliament. If there is opposition,
+or in any case where he thinks inquiry necessary, the Secretary for
+Scotland directs an inquiry, and the Order is then considered by the
+tribunal described below; and if passed by that tribunal, with or
+without modifications, it is brought up in a Confirmation Bill for the
+assent of Parliament.
+
+It follows that in the case of unopposed schemes brought in under the
+Act, there is a great saving of time and expense as compared with the
+former system.
+
+With regard to schemes which are opposed, the judicial functions of a
+Parliamentary Committee dealing with Private Bills were transferred by
+the Act of 1899 to a special tribunal, composed of two Panels, a
+Parliamentary Panel and an Extra-Parliamentary Panel, whose members
+shall have no local or personal interest in the questions at issue. From
+these is formed a Commission of four members.
+
+Mr. A. W. Samuels, K.C., thus describes the constitution of the
+Commission:--
+
+     "In the first instance it is provided that the members shall be
+     taken--two from the Lords and two from the Commons. In the event
+     of that being found impossible, three may be taken from one House
+     and one from the other. In the next resort all may be from the
+     same House. Finally--if members cannot be procured to serve--the
+     extra Parliamentary Panel can be called upon, and the Commission
+     manned from it.
+
+     "The next great reform introduced by the measure is, that the
+     inquiry is to be held at such place, in Scotland, as may be
+     convenient. The inquiry is to be localised as far as possible. It
+     is to be held in public. The Commissioners are to settle questions
+     of _locus standi_--they can decide upon the preamble before
+     discussing clauses--and persons having a _locus standi_ can appear
+     before them in person or by counsel or agent.
+
+     "When they have heard the evidence the Commissioners are to report
+     to the Secretary of Scotland, and they can recommend that the
+     Provisional Order should be issued as prayed for, or with such
+     modifications as they may make. If there is no opposition to the
+     Provisional Order as finally settled by the Commissioners, it is
+     embodied in a Confirmation Bill by the Secretary of Scotland and
+     passed through Parliament.
+
+     "If there is opposition a petition must be presented to Parliament
+     against the Order, and then, on the second reading of the
+     Confirmation Bill, a member can move that the Bill be referred to
+     a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, and if the motion
+     is carried in the House a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons
+     shall sit, at the peril of costs to the opponents, to hear and
+     take evidence and decide upon the measure in the same way as in
+     the case of a Private Bill." (Private Bill Procedure, pp. 9 and
+     10.)
+
+In 1904, the Select Committee appointed to consider the provisions of a
+similar measure to be applied to Wales, reported that in practice the
+Scottish Act had proved a success, which they attributed largely to the
+supervision of the Provisional Orders conducted by the Scottish Office.
+
+There would seem, then, every reason to believe that a measure framed
+upon the lines of the Scottish Act, to apply to Ireland, would be
+equally successful.
+
+The remarkable increase in the prosperity of Ireland, which has occurred
+during the last twenty years, demonstrates the necessity for providing
+every means of encouraging the further development of the country.
+
+All the available statistics amply confirm and corroborate the evidence
+of this prosperity, which is known to every man with the smallest direct
+acquaintance of Ireland in recent years. The figures of savings, bank
+deposits, external trade, all alike show the exceptional advances in
+prosperity now enjoyed by Ireland.
+
+The progress of Ireland under the Union thus indicated, was inaugurated
+by Mr. Balfour, the best Chief Secretary Ireland ever had; to this day
+his name is always mentioned with respect and gratitude by the people of
+Ireland, especially by the residents in the South and West, where his
+policy produced splendid and lasting results. Insufficient credit has
+been given to the work of agricultural and commercial development
+steadily pursued by Mr. Gerald Balfour; the results upon which we
+rejoice to-day are mainly due to the policy adopted by Mr. Balfour and
+his brother. This policy, coupled with the restitution of sales under
+the Land Act of 1903, is the one which Unionists intend resolutely to
+pursue.
+
+The figures on the next page show that the increase of population in
+some important centres in the south and west is very small, and that in
+other centres there is a decrease. Ireland being mainly an agricultural
+country, the population tends to decrease owing to emigration, although
+of late years, owing to the rise in prosperity, the tendency is rather
+to remain stationary. At the same time, the increase of the population
+in the provincial towns is not commensurate with the increase of
+material wealth in the country.
+
+With regard, for instance, to the increase in the number of tourists
+visiting Ireland, both private persons and local bodies desire to extend
+existing inducements and to improve the means of transit and to raise
+the standard of accommodation. It is clear that, under a reformed method
+of procedure in respect of Private Bill Legislation, enterprise would be
+freed from the restrictions which at present hinder its free exercise,
+and a substantial and a steadily increasing benefit would accrue to
+Ireland.
+
+INCREASE AND DECREASE OF POPULATION OF CITIES AND TOWNS
+IN IRELAND HAVING IN 1901 A POPULATION EXCEEDING 10,000.
+
+(_Census of Ireland_ 1911.)
+
+Cities, towns, etc.         Percentage of increase since 1901.
+
+Rathmines and Rathgar       17.1
+Portadown                   16.2
+Pembroke                    13.4
+Belfast                     10.4
+Belfast[A]                  10.1
+Dublin                       6.4
+Lisburn                      6.2
+Ballymena                    4.5
+Lurgan                       3.0
+Sligo                        2.7
+Dublin[A]                    2.6
+Wexford                      2.6
+Waterford                    2.5
+Cork[A]                      2.3
+Londonderry[A]               2.3
+Limerick[A]                  1.2
+Clonmel                      1.1
+Cork                         0.7
+Limerick                     0.7
+Dundalk                      0.4
+Newry[A]                     5.2
+Newry                        3.6
+Drogheda                     2.6
+Galway[A]                    2.0
+Galway                       1.3
+Kilkenny[A]                  1.0
+Kingstown                    0.9
+Kilkenny                     0.9
+Waterford[A]                 0.4
+
+Those marked [A] are Parliamentary Boroughs.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+IRISH POOR LAW REFORM
+
+By JOHN E. HEALY (Editor of the _Irish Times_)
+
+
+An article on Irish Poor Law Reform written within the limits assigned
+to me can only be constructive in the broadest sense. It is a serious
+and tangled problem: the existing system has developed in a haphazard
+fashion; there is about it hardly anything that is logical, much that is
+anomalous, some things that are tragic. The present conditions of the
+Irish Poor Law system are set forth in the reports of various Royal and
+Viceregal Commissions. The most important are those of the Viceregal
+Commission on Poor Law Reform in Ireland (1906), the Departmental
+Commission on Vagrancy, the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of
+the Feeble-minded, and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws (Majority
+Report). The study of all these reports is a rather distracting
+business. They establish between them an urgent need for reform; on the
+methods, and even principles, of reform there are wide differences of
+opinion. I propose to set out here, so far as may be possible, a summary
+of those reforms on which the various reports and Irish public opinion
+are nearly, or quite, unanimous. Such a summary may at least help to
+acquaint the rank and file of the Unionist Party with the primary
+conditions and necessities of a work which, for historical, moral,
+social and political reasons, must receive the Party's early and
+practical attention when it returns to power.
+
+The Unionist Party, as representing the best elements in British
+Government, owes in this matter a great act of reparation to Ireland.
+The present Poor Law system is based on the most fatal of all
+blunders--the deliberate disregard of educated opinion in Ireland. The
+story, a very remarkable and suggestive one, is told in the Viceregal
+Commission's report. The Royal Commission of 1836 came to the conclusion
+that the English workhouse system would be unsuitable for Ireland. The
+Irish Royal Commissioners, including the famous Archbishop Whately, made
+two sets of recommendations. One set involved a compulsory provision for
+the sick, aged, lunatic and infirm. The other proposed to attack poverty
+at the root by instituting a large series of measures for the general
+development of Ireland. Looking back over nearly eighty years of Irish
+history, we must be both humbled and astonished by the almost inspired
+precision and statesmanship of these proposals. They included
+reclamation of waste land and the enforcement of drainage; an increased
+grant to the Board of Works; healthy houses for the labouring classes;
+local instruction in agriculture; the enlargement of leasing powers with
+the object of encouraging land improvement, and the transfer of the
+fiscal powers of Grand Juries to County Boards. Here we have in embryo
+the Irish Labourers Acts from 1860 to 1906, the Department of
+Agriculture and Technical Instruction, the Irish Land Acts from 1860 to
+1903, the Local Government Act of 1898--reforms which Ireland owes
+almost entirely to the statesmanship (though it seems a rather belated
+statesmanship) of Unionist Governments. These Irish recommendations were
+ignored by the Government of the day. It sent an English Poor Law
+Commissioner (Mr. Nicholls) to Ireland. He spent six weeks in the
+country. On his return he recommended the establishment of the English
+Poor Law system there, and it was accordingly established.
+
+The first Poor Law Act for Ireland was passed on July 31, 1838. Between
+that year and 1851 one hundred and sixty-three Poor Law Unions were
+created. The number is at present one hundred and fifty-nine, and they
+are administered by elected and co-opted Poor Law Guardians to the
+number of more than eight thousand. In every Union there is a workhouse,
+and in that workhouse all the various classes of destitute and poor
+persons are maintained. They include sick, aged and infirm, legitimate
+and illegitimate children, insane of all classes, sane epileptics,
+mothers of illegitimate children, able-bodied male paupers, and the
+importunate army of tramps. The mean number of such inmates in all the
+workhouses on any day is about 40,000, of whom about one-third are sick,
+one-third aged and infirm, one-seventh children, one-twentieth mothers
+of illegitimate children, and one-twelfth insane and epileptic. This
+awful confusion of infirmity and vice, this Purgatory perpetuating
+itself to the exclusion of all hope of Paradise, presents the vital
+problem of Irish Poor Law Reform.
+
+A radical solution must be found for it. On that point the reports of
+all the Commissions are unanimous. They differ, where they do differ,
+only as regards means to the end.
+
+The supreme reform which must be undertaken by any Government that seeks
+to remove this great blot on Irish administration is the abolition of
+the present workhouse system on some basis which, while effective, will
+make no addition to the rates. The two chief reports (those of the
+Viceregal Commission and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws) are in
+agreement, not merely as to this necessity, but as to the guiding
+principles of reform. They recommend classification, by institutions, of
+all the present inmates of the workhouses--the sick in hospitals, the
+aged and infirm in almshouses, the mentally defective in asylums.
+Appalling evidence was given before the Viceregal Commission and the
+Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded with
+regard to the present association of lunatics, epileptics, and imbeciles
+with sane women and children in the workhouse wards. The latter
+Commission recommended the creation of a strong central authority for
+the general protection and supervision of mentally defective persons.
+
+The reforms do not contemplate the amalgamation of Unions and the
+complete closing of only a certain number of workhouses. They suggest
+rather the bringing together into one institution of all the inmates of
+one class from a number of neighbouring workhouses, and the closing of
+all workhouses as such. The sick should be sent to existing Poor Law or
+County Hospitals, strengthened by the addition of Cottage Hospitals in
+certain districts. Children should be boarded out. The bulk of the
+remaining inmates, classified with regard to their defects and
+infirmities, should be segregated according to counties or other
+suitable areas. On the treatment of able-bodied paupers there are
+different opinions. It is suggested by the Philanthropic Reform
+Association, which includes some of the most earnest and disinterested
+philanthropists in Ireland, that the well-conducted of this class should
+be placed in labour colonies, and the ill-conducted in detention
+colonies--both classes of institutions to be maintained and controlled
+by the State, and not by the County authorities.
+
+The areas and resources of the existing Unions are in most cases too
+limited, and the numbers of necessitous persons too small, to warrant
+the present Boards of Guardians in erecting as many types of
+institutions as there are classes of inmates. The break-up of the
+workhouse system involves, of necessity, the establishment of larger
+areas of administration. It is clear that the County must be substituted
+for the Union in any radical scheme of reform. On this point the Royal
+Commissioners and the Viceregal Commissioners are agreed. County rating
+must take the place of Union rating, since the inmates of the different
+institutions would be drawn from all parts of each County or County
+Borough. Substantial economies in administration might be expected from
+this plan. Hospitals should be brought into a County Hospital System,
+with the County Infirmary as the central institution, and nurses should
+be trained there for the County District Hospitals (now Workhouse
+Infirmaries).
+
+About such a general scheme of decentralised reform there is little or
+no disagreement. There is, however, a good deal of disagreement
+concerning the control of the new institutions. The Viceregal Commission
+advocates the retention by the Poor Law Guardians of many of their
+existing functions. It suggests, for instance, that County Hospitals
+should be managed by a Committee consisting of all members of the
+present District Hospital Committees, strengthened by nine members
+appointed by the County Council; and that the Chairman of the Board of
+Guardians should be the Chairman of the District Hospital Committee. The
+Royal Commission, on the other hand, votes boldly for the abolition of
+the Boards of Guardians. It argues that, if we are to have a County
+system of institutions maintained by a County rate, we must adopt the
+logical consequence that the County Council which strikes and collects
+the rate should have the direct or indirect management of the
+institutions. It proposes that the Council should appoint a statutory
+Committee (one-half to be taken from outside its own members), to be
+called the Public Assistance Authority, and that this Authority should
+manage and control all the institutions in the County. The Philanthropic
+Reform Association, which has given much study to this question,
+suggests a _via media_ between the two official schemes. It recommends
+that all the institutions should be controlled by the County Council,
+through Committees directly responsible to it, to which persons of
+experience from outside should be added. Such committees need not be
+elected by the Poor Law Guardians, as recommended by the Viceregal
+Commission, or by the Statutory Committee of the County Council, as
+recommended by the Royal Commission. The Association desires, and it has
+a large volume of Irish opinion behind it in this, to minimise the
+existing powers, and reduce the numbers, of the Poor Law Guardians. It
+is also very earnestly impressed with the need of bringing women into
+the Poor Law administration. In this it is absolutely right. The Women's
+National Health Association and the United Irishwomen have demonstrated
+triumphantly the value of women's services in improving the social,
+economic, and sanitary conditions of rural life in Ireland. A recent Act
+of Parliament qualifies women for election to the Irish County and
+Borough Councils. No great reform of the Poor Law system can be
+effective without their aid. The Unionist Party will only be acting
+consistently with its social ideals if it encourages, by every means
+within its power, an Irish feminist movement, full of hope for the
+country and wholly dissociated from party politics.
+
+Any thorough reform of the Irish Poor Law system will demand an
+increased expenditure of Imperial funds. The growing severity of Irish
+taxation under recent Radical budgets forbids the possibility of
+addition to the ratepayer's burdens. The anomalous distribution of the
+grants in aid of Irish local taxation has done much to complicate the
+Poor Law question. The Royal Commission reported that "no account
+whatever is taken of the burden of pauperism, the magnitude of the local
+rates, or the circumstances of the ratepayers and their ability to pay
+rates in the different areas." Under this system the minimum of relief
+is extended to the districts in which the weight of taxation is most
+oppressive. The Commission proposed a scheme by which the old Union
+grants within each county would be pooled and credited to the common
+fund in aid of the poor rate in that county. The Viceregal Commission
+also complained of inequality of expenditure, and advised a
+reapportionment of the grants in aid of local taxation, on the basis of
+the recommendations of the minority of the Royal Commission on Local
+Taxation (1902). That Commission was unanimous in recommending increased
+grants for Poor Law service in Ireland. The distribution of such new
+grants would be a matter for discussion; of the necessity for them there
+is no doubt. The Unionist Party must not rest content with reforming the
+Irish Poor Law system; it must help the reformed system to pay its own
+way. No fair-minded Englishman who reads Sir George O'Farrell's evidence
+as to the distribution of the Irish Church surplus (Report of the Royal
+Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, page 468) will
+dispute his country's obligations in this matter. The cost of Irish Poor
+Law Reform is one of the strongest arguments against Home Rule. The
+Unionist Party's full and generous recognition of its duty to Ireland in
+this respect will establish a new argument for the Union.
+
+One vital factor in Poor Law Reform remains to be considered--the Poor
+Law Medical service. The 740 Dispensary districts of Ireland are now
+administered by a little more than 800 Medical Officers. The salaries of
+these doctors, amounting in all to nearly L100,000 per annum, are paid
+as to one half by the Poor Law Guardians, and as to the other half out
+of the Local Taxation (Ireland) account. Most of the doctors, in
+addition to their public duties as servants of the poor, engage in
+private practice, of which, in most of the rural areas, their official
+position gives them a monopoly. A large--perhaps, a surprisingly
+large--number of the Dispensary doctors are earnest and self-sacrificing
+men; but the system is corrupted by one radical defect. Owing to the
+security of private practice involved, there is a fierceness of
+competition for these appointments out of all proportion to their
+financial value. The elections are made by the Guardians, and it is a
+fact so notorious as even to be acknowledged by Mr. Birrell that
+flagrant canvassing and bribery are a common feature of these elections.
+Candidates have been known to distribute sums of L400 or L500 to
+Guardians, in order to secure appointments of L150 or L160 a year.
+Another serious and extending feature of the present system is the
+boycotting by the Guardians of all candidates who have not graduated at
+the new Roman Catholic University. The most highly qualified men from
+the University of Dublin have now practically abandoned competition for
+these Dispensary offices outside the Protestant counties of Ulster.
+Moreover, throughout the whole country local candidates are consistently
+preferred to superior men from outside. Both the Viceregal and Royal
+Commissions recognise the necessity of radical reform in this system,
+but they suggest different remedies. The Royal Commission proposes that
+the election and control of all the Dispensary Medical Officers of a
+County shall be vested in the Public Assistance Authority for that
+County; and that little or no change be made in the present financial
+basis of the payment of salaries. The Viceregal Commission suggests a
+bolder and more drastic remedy. It advocates the establishment of a
+State Medical service on the lines of the existing services in Egypt and
+India. This would require the payment by the State of the whole, instead
+of half, of the salaries of Medical Officers. The Commission regards it
+as proper and equitable that such a service should be, in the beginning,
+at any rate, restricted to candidates educated in Ireland. A
+representative Medical Council should elect the candidates by
+competitive examination, and deal with all important questions of
+promotion, removal and superannuation. The Commission maintains that the
+creation of a State Medical service in Ireland would mean a very small
+increase in the Parliamentary grant in comparison with the benefits
+involved. This I believe to be the ideal system, but one must recognise
+that its accomplishment is confronted with many difficulties. The Irish
+Local Authorities would not willingly relinquish a privilege which is a
+primary element in their influence and prestige. Irish medical opinion
+is acutely divided on the question, which is now further complicated by
+the prospect that the medical benefits under the National Insurance Act
+may soon be extended to Ireland. It would be outrageous to expect the
+Dispensary Officers to add the heavy medical duties under the Act to
+their present responsibilities without adequate payment. Indeed, the
+extension of the medical benefits to Ireland would make inevitable an
+early reform of the whole Poor Law system. This is one reason why the
+Unionist Party, when it returns to office, should be ready to tackle the
+subject without delay. To no department of the work will it be asked to
+apply greater sympathy, knowledge, tact and firmness, than to the
+problems of the Poor Law Medical service.
+
+During the last three years the Irish Unionist Party has made three vain
+attempts to bring the reform of the Irish Poor Law before Parliament.
+Its Bill, which now stands in the name of Sir John Lonsdale, asks for
+the appointment (as recommended by the Viceregal Commission) of a body
+of five persons with executive powers to carry out the recommendations
+made by that Commission. These temporary Commissioners would have
+authority to draft all necessary schemes, to consolidate or divide
+existing institutions, and generally to reform the whole administration
+of the Irish Poor Law service. The Bill assigns to them an executive
+lifetime of five years--hardly, perhaps, an adequate time for the
+establishment of reforms which, in their making, must affect nearly
+every aspect of Irish life, and, in their operation, may reconstitute
+the basis of Irish society. It is to be supposed that, when the whole
+Unionist Party addresses itself seriously to the question, it will give
+further and careful attention to the principles of reform before setting
+up this, or some other, executive machinery. I can think of no more
+thirsty or fruitful field in Ireland for the exercise of the highest
+constructive statesmanship that the Party may possess. The need is
+urgent, the time is ripe, all the circumstances are favourable. The Old
+Age Pensions Act and the Insurance Act, if not vitiated by further
+increases in Irish taxation, will greatly simplify the task of Poor Law
+Reform. The former Act has reduced the number of old inmates in the
+workhouses; the Insurance Act should lead to a reduction in expenditure
+on outdoor relief. Moreover, it may be hoped that the infirm and pauper
+classes will be henceforward, like the old age pensioners, a diminishing
+fraction of the population of Ireland. They are, to a large extent,
+flotsam and jetsam over the sea of Ireland's political troubles. Land
+agitation, with its attendant vices of restlessness and idleness, the
+emigration of wage-earners, the discouragement of industry under
+Governments indifferent to the administration of law and the development
+of national resources, have all contributed to the Dantean horrors of
+the Irish workhouse system. These poor people are an excrescence on the
+body of Ireland which good government, if it does not wholly remove, may
+reduce nearly to vanishing point. Hitherto the chief rewards and
+blessings of British administration in Ireland have gone to the hard
+voters and to the strong agitators. It is time for the Unionist Party to
+think of the hapless, the helpless, the voteless, and, therefore
+voiceless, elements in Irish life. Ireland, as she becomes better
+educated, gives more thought and truer thought than formerly to her
+social and economic problems. Her gratitude and loyalty will go in
+abundant measure to those who take counsel with her about these problems
+and help her to solve them. The Government which cleans up many sad
+relics of the past by a complete reform of the Irish Poor Law system
+will put all Irishmen and Irishwomen under a deep sense of obligation to
+it. Policy, not less than duty, should give this reform a place in the
+forefront of the Unionist Party's constructive programme for Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+IRISH EDUCATION UNDER THE UNION[89]
+
+BY GODFREY LOCKER LAMPSON, M.P.
+
+
+Education is probably the most sorrowfully dull of all dull subjects. It
+is difficult to repress a yawn when the word is mentioned. Yet we owe
+everything to it that we value most. Through it we become emancipated
+citizens of the world. Through it we are able to appreciate what is
+beautiful and what is ugly, what is right and what is wrong, what is
+permanent and what is merely transitory. If the people of a country can
+make it their boast that they are truly educated, they need boast of
+little else, for all the rest will have been added unto them.
+
+It will be found next to impossible to draw any argument for Home Rule
+from the history of Irish Education during the last decade. Indeed, if a
+Nationalist Parliament were now to be established in College Green, it
+is more than probable that the progress made by educational reformers
+since 1900 would be largely thrown away, and the prospects of still
+further improvement endangered and perhaps destroyed.
+
+What has been done in the domain of Irish Education, and what still
+remains to be done? Leaving out of account the problem of the
+Universities, which, so far as can be seen, has at any rate been
+temporarily solved--and solved, let it be marked, under the Legislative
+Union, with the participation and consent of the Nationalist
+party--there are two broad branches of the educational tree which every
+year are growing in volume and putting forth finer leaves and fruit.
+Primary and Secondary Education, by far the most important parts of the
+Irish Educational system, if only allowed to continue their development,
+tended with care by those who have the interests of the younger
+generation at heart and left unmolested by the poisonous creepers of
+political prejudice, will be found to do more for the increase of Irish
+prosperity and the establishment of national and religious concord than
+any device for legislative separation that the wit of man can frame. Not
+that educational reform is not sorely needed. Far from it. There are few
+aspects of Irish life where reform is more urgently required. But let it
+be reform, as far as possible, along existing lines of progress, and in
+full recognition of religious susceptibilities and of certain stubborn
+facts which may be deplored, but which it would be unwise to ignore. Let
+it be reform undertaken and pursued on the advice of those who
+understand this question and are in sympathy with its peculiar
+difficulties, and let not the Treasury turn a deaf ear to the demands of
+reason, when a few extra thousand pounds might make all the difference
+between failure and success. Above all, let it be reform unembittered by
+the strife of creeds warring for supremacy in an Irish House of Commons.
+Let it reap the advantages of a continuous policy undisturbed by the
+rise and fall of local Ministries and the lobbying and log-rolling of
+sects and factions. Treat it, as it is being treated to-day, in a calm
+spirit of inquiry and recommendation, and the richest blessing of the
+Legislative Union will be an Ireland at peace within herself, honoured
+for her learning, distinguished by her refinement, and intellectually
+the equal of any nation upon earth.
+
+
+PRIMARY EDUCATION.[90]
+
+The National Board which presides over Primary Education has shown
+itself, under the Union, singularly free from prejudice, either
+political or religious. During the last few years it may be said to have
+changed the face of the National schools in Ireland, and in a large
+part of the country has contributed to make primary education what it
+ought to be--not a mere glut of random scraps of knowledge, not a mere
+conglomerate of facts, dates, and figures, undigested and unassimilated,
+of no practical use to the pupil in his later life, and stifling any
+constructive powers of thought with which he might have been born, but a
+system of self-development and self-expression, with the future of the
+pupil as a citizen in view, rather than his mere monetary value in the
+shape of school fees. This in itself is a remarkable stride in advance,
+which the Separatist will find difficult to explain away. Who will be so
+bold as to calculate the harm which was inflicted by the arid and
+artificial system of "cram," introduced in 1871, but now fortunately
+abandoned in the National Schools, which had only one object in
+view--the money grant that was made proportionate to the output of
+heterogeneous lumber that could be retained by the pupil until called
+for by the examiner? Surely, the great aim of education should be
+self-culture, the development of the mind, body, and character of the
+pupil, consideration being had to the career he is likely to pursue in
+the future. This the National Board has realised in time, and it is
+owing to its efforts and the co-operation of men and women of all shades
+of opinion who labour in the schools that such signal improvement has
+taken place during the last few years.
+
+Apart from this larger question, there are various other features of the
+National Schools that ought not to be excluded from this brief review.
+Some of them are evidence of progress made, others of grievances which
+still require redress. No one will deny that, taking Ireland as a whole,
+the structural character of the school buildings has been greatly
+improved in recent years, and that the cleanliness of school premises,
+which still leaves a good deal to be desired, is attended to with far
+more care than it used to be. In days gone by, the Board could grant
+only two-thirds of the estimated cost of a new building of the cheapest
+and shabbiest description. The result was that, for a whole generation,
+a low standard of school-house was stereotyped, and the requirement of a
+local contribution entirely prevented the erection of new school-houses
+in poor districts where they were most needed. The new plans, on the
+other hand, are designed according to the most modern ideas, and as a
+local contribution is not insisted upon in impecunious districts, where
+valuation is low, the Board can grant the whole of the cost where
+necessary. It is easy to appreciate what a difference this important
+reform must make, not merely to the landscape or to the comfort and
+health of the children, but to the general efficiency of pupils and
+teachers alike. There is, however, still much room for improvement. The
+grants hitherto given have been sadly inadequate, and in order to
+provide suitable school buildings, even in those cases alone where the
+present structures are actually a danger to the health of the children,
+it would be necessary to make grants at the rate of about L100,000 a
+year for the next 4 or 5 years, after which they might be reduced to
+L50,000.
+
+Another satisfactory development is the increase of teachers' salaries
+which has taken place during the last two decades. In 1895, the average
+income from State sources of principal teachers in primary schools was
+L94 in respect of men, and L79 in respect of women. By 1910, it had
+risen to L112 and L90 respectively. Notwithstanding this, their
+financial position, especially in large and important schools in centres
+where the cost of living is high, is not yet as good as it ought to be,
+if it be compared with that of similarly situated teachers in England
+and Scotland. As for the incomes of assistant teachers, they also have
+risen in the same period from L61 for men, and L49 for women, to L81 and
+L68 respectively, and the money, though still insufficient, is now being
+paid for a better article. Readjustment of numbers in the higher grades
+of national teachers is also required, so as to enable all efficient
+teachers who have complied with the conditions of service to receive the
+increases of salary to which they are entitled. The cost of such a
+readjustment would be about L1,000 a year for the present, but the
+expense would gradually increase, and might ultimately amount to L18,000
+per annum. For the convenience of the profession, it is also desirable
+that salaries should be paid monthly, instead of quarterly, to the
+teaching staffs of the schools. The expenditure (non-recurring) required
+under this head would be about L280,000, with an additional yearly sum
+of L5,000, due to increased cost of administration. That a Dublin
+Parliament would welcome or even less be able to satisfy these various
+demands upon its purse without further taxation is extremely improbable,
+especially in view of Mr. Birrell's warning that the finances of Home
+Rule would be a very "tight fit."
+
+Since 1900, a period of training has been required from the principals,
+and this rule has recently been extended to assistant masters. In fact,
+the qualifications demanded of national teachers in Ireland are much
+higher than in England. When all the foregoing changes are considered,
+it will be quite evident that not only must the teachers benefit from
+them, but that the children cannot fail to benefit as well. Indeed, it
+is these various reforms which, in all probability, have conduced to a
+better school attendance than could be boasted of in the past. Many an
+educational reformer has had cause to wring his hands over the
+meagreness of attendance in days gone by. Even to-day it is not as it
+should be. It is lower than in England and in Scotland, but it has
+steadily risen, and continues to rise, and stands now at about 71 per
+cent., an advance of between 30 or 40 per cent. upon what it was less
+than 40 years ago; a fact which is certainly remarkable, when the
+poverty of the population and its scattered character are taken into
+account.
+
+Another evil which the Board has had to fight has been the mushroom-like
+multiplication of small schools. It is hardly necessary to emphasise
+what must be a manifest disadvantage for any authority which is trying
+to raise the standard of educational efficiency in a country. This
+multiplication was largely due to the fact that Protestant Schools were
+accustomed to receive grants when they could maintain an average
+attendance of 20 pupils, quite irrespective of how many other schools of
+the same or a similar denomination there might be in the immediate
+vicinity, and whether they were really wanted or not. How far these
+grants were conducive to unnecessary multiplication may be gauged from
+the fact that, whilst there were 6,500 schools in operation in 1871,
+when the population of Ireland was five and a half millions, there were
+8,692 in 1901, or 2,000 more, when the population was a million less.
+This vast and unprofitable growth in the numbers of educational
+establishments could be stayed only by drastic regulation. Where
+neighbouring mixed Catholic or Protestant schools cannot show an average
+attendance of 25, they are now obliged to amalgamate, and the same
+result has to follow if neighbouring boys' and girls' schools fall below
+an average attendance of 30. These regulations have had the desired
+effect, and no less than 300 superfluous schools have been absorbed in
+this manner during the last five years.
+
+Before leaving the details of the National Schools, some mention should
+be made of the conspicuous improvement in the curriculum which has taken
+place in the first decade of the new century. Formerly, it was
+hidebound, bloodless, unintelligent, and useless. Now, it does what it
+can to cater for the practical side of the pupil's future life, and is
+designed with the object of helping him to think out problems for
+himself and of equipping him with any knowledge of the historic past
+which may serve him, not as a collection of antiquities, but as example
+and precept. During the last twelve years an astonishing advance has
+been made. In 1899, Hand and Eye training (including Kindergarten) was
+taught in 448 schools, in 1910 it was taught in 6,010. In 1899,
+Elementary Science was taught in 14 schools only, in 1910 it was taught
+in 2,400. In the former year Cookery was taught in 925 schools, in the
+latter year in 2,665. In 1899, Laundry Work was taught in 11 schools, in
+1910 in 691. If this is not progression--and progression under the
+Legislative Union--to what can the predicate be more truthfully applied?
+Statistics are apt to be barren and uninforming and can be adapted, with
+almost equal plausibility, to support the arguments of either side; but
+these figures are eloquent and speak for themselves. They embody a large
+and vital portion of the history of Irish Primary Education, and are a
+proof of the interest which is being taken in it and of the activity of
+the architects behind the scenes. Long may this spirit of progress
+flourish and enlighten the generations that are yet to come!
+
+It is only fair to say that, amid a good deal of discouragement and not
+always intelligent criticism, the National Board has proved itself
+broad-minded and open to argument wherever the interests of Irish
+Education have been concerned. Although nominated by the Lord
+Lieutenant, and therefore not an elected body, it has never lagged
+behind public opinion. In the teaching of the Irish language, for
+example, it has shown itself peculiarly sympathetic. In fact, the
+experience of the Board has been, that the Irish parents are not quite
+so anxious that their children should be taught Irish as the Gaelic
+League would have us suppose. Indeed, the difficulty of the Board has
+been to maintain sufficient interest in the subject. Nevertheless, it
+has done its best. In 1899, teaching in Irish was provided in 105
+schools for 1,825 children. In 1911, it was provided for 180,000
+children in 3,066 schools, and during the same time bilingual
+instruction has been introduced into some 200 schools.
+
+In spite of what has been, and is being done, further reforms in primary
+education are still unquestionably required, and can, moreover, be
+easily effected without any of the convulsions of a constitutional
+revolution. The salaries of principals and assistants, especially in
+large and important schools, ought to be increased. In particular, the
+Pensions Act needs modification, for, under the present Act, teachers
+who retire before reaching the age qualifying for a pension receive
+gratuities considerably less than the Old Age Pensions. Even those who
+qualify for pensions are very shabbily treated if they retire before
+sixty years of age. Building grants also should be increased, so that
+the constant applications for the rebuilding of bad premises could be
+met.[91] The teaching of infants, greatly improved by the institution of
+junior assistant mistresses by Mr. Walter Long during his Chief
+Secretaryship, can be still further improved and brought up to the
+English standard; and the efficiency of primary education generally can
+be promoted in the direction of sympathetic appreciation of the real
+needs of the children, regarded from the point of view of thinking human
+beings, and not merely as recording machines.
+
+The following desirable improvements may also be mentioned:--
+
+     (_a_) Encouragement of the teaching of gardening in connection with
+     country schools for boys, at a cost of about L2000 a year.
+
+     (_b_) Provision for instruction in wood-work for pupils of urban
+     districts, at central classes in technical schools, at a cost of
+     about L4000 a year.
+
+     (_c_) The provision of medical inspection and the treatment of
+     school children, which would cost about L30,000 a year, and dental
+     inspection and clinics, which would cost another L50,000. This
+     expense should be defrayed largely out of the local rates, one
+     third, say L25,000, to come out of the estimates. There would also
+     be the cost of supervision, etc., by the Education Department,
+     amounting to about L5000 a year. Committees, as for school
+     attendance, composed partly of representatives of school managers
+     and partly of local authorities, could be formed for
+     administration.
+
+     (_d_) A considerable impetus might be given to Evening
+     Continuation Schools, on which about L10,000 a year is at present
+     spent. A beginning could be made of compulsory attendance, and the
+     amount of the grant doubled.
+
+Much might be done in all these directions. Much has been accomplished
+already. The worst that can happen is that a separate legislature should
+be set up in Dublin, devoid of the requisite means, as it would most
+certainly be (unless, indeed, it had recourse to the rates, or the
+taxpayer) of financing Irish Education; swayed from side to side by the
+exigencies of the party programme of the moment; and temperamentally
+unable to look at the educational problem from the standpoint alone of
+the needs of the country in the way that it is now regarded. At present,
+under the Union, Irish Education is fortunately liberated from all
+appeals to party passion, and organised with but one end in view, the
+upbringing of the infant race whose possession is the future.
+
+
+SECONDARY EDUCATION.
+
+The need for reform is more urgent and, in many respects, better defined
+in the system of Secondary than in that of Primary Education in Ireland.
+But the two ought to be closely interconnected, and in discussing one at
+least of the more important changes which it is desirable to introduce,
+the National Schools have as good a claim to be heard in the matter as
+their elder brethren.
+
+Since 1900 great efforts have been made by the Intermediate Board to
+promote the interests of Secondary Schools and to supply the educational
+needs of those who want to equip themselves for the struggle of life in
+its various departments. In 1900, the Board of Intermediate Education
+was empowered to appoint inspectors, but it was not until quite
+recently, after many fruitless applications and under a threat of
+resignation by the Board, that inspection was placed on a business-like
+footing and a permanent staff of six inspectors appointed. But this,
+after all, is a comparative detail, and reform will have to strike deep
+indeed if the secondary schools in Ireland are to take their place as a
+living part of a living body.
+
+The question of reform may be dealt with under three principal heads:
+(1) the abolition of the examination tests, (2) the inter-relationship
+between the Primary and Secondary systems, and (3) the position of
+teachers. Although there are other matters which will be briefly
+referred to, these are the three cardinal difficulties that beset the
+Intermediate Board to-day and obstruct the most public-spirited efforts
+to convert the Irish educational system into one organic whole.
+
+(1) Although the mischievous principle of fees by results has
+disappeared for ever from the National Schools, it still clings to
+Intermediate Education, numbing and constricting, like some remorseless
+ivy limb, the growth and free exercise of the central stem and its
+branches, and preventing the natural sap from rising and vitalising the
+whole. It is not as though the rest of the world had set the seal of its
+approval upon this kind of examination. The contrary is the fact. Almost
+every country in the world has rejected this system as wholly
+pernicious, injurious for the pupil, demoralising for the teacher, and
+wasteful for the State. To regard the youth of the Secondary Schools
+merely as the geese that lay the golden eggs when the examinations
+occur, is to destroy the true aims of education and pervert the
+principle of rational development. In fact, payments to Intermediate
+Schools ought to depend largely on the results of inspection, and much
+less on written examinations, a change which would involve the
+appointment of a larger number of inspectors than at present exist. It
+is all-important that this alteration should be undertaken without
+delay. The mechanical agglomeration of lifeless snippets of information
+which characterises the present method is an absurd and antiquated
+remnant of the bad old times, and the sooner this part of the system is
+hewn down the better it will be for the conscientious discharge of the
+teacher's duties and the self-respect of all concerned.
+
+(2) As for any proper official relationship between the Primary and
+Secondary systems, it may be said as yet to be practically non-existent.
+That co-ordination of the two is essential--nay, vital--if Irish
+education is to be placed on a sound footing, may be appreciated from
+the fact that a large proportion, or 57 per cent, of the membership of
+Intermediate Schools is recruited from the schools of the National
+Board. There seem to be only two ways in which this co-ordination can be
+satisfactorily effected. Either the pupils must transfer from the
+National to the Secondary Schools at an age when they will be young
+enough to profit by Secondary instruction, or some sort of higher
+instruction must be given in the National Schools so as to fit the
+children, when they leave the latter at rather a later age, for the
+curriculum awaiting them in the Secondary system. It is the Treasury at
+the present moment, and the Treasury alone, that blocks the way to this
+reform. Since 1902 it has been asked to sanction the establishment of
+higher grade schools in large centres; the National Board also has
+repeatedly pleaded for the institution of a "higher top," or advanced
+departments, in connection with selected Primary Schools in rural
+districts. But all these requests, founded though they have been on
+intimate knowledge of the requirements of Irish Education and a ripe
+experience ranging over many years, have been brushed aside by the
+officials at the Exchequer, although the cost would be only about
+L25,000 a year, on the very insufficient ground that the Development
+Grant has been depleted to defray the loss of flotation of stock for the
+purposes of land purchase. What, in the name of common sense, has land
+purchase to do with education? What indissoluble relationship is there
+between the two that the expenditure upon the one should be made
+dependent upon the requirements of the other? This niggardly and
+short-sighted attitude is hardly worthy of one of the richest countries
+in the world. It is but a matter of a few thousands, and surely the
+efficient training of the youth of Ireland is quite as important as
+buying out the Irish landlords and placing the Irish tenant in
+possession of the soil. The result of the present want of co-ordination
+is that the clever pupil is now kept far too long in the lower school.
+There he remains, kicking his heels until he is sent up to the
+Intermediate School at 15 or 16--much too late an age at which to begin
+the study of languages. The Primary teachers are, of course, only too
+pleased to retain the clever boys as long as possible in the National
+Schools, but it is unfair to the children, and is robbing the community
+of services which might be rendered to it by these pupils in the future
+if fair opportunities were afforded them of training themselves while
+there was yet time. Without higher grade schools, without scholarships,
+without at least some system of a "higher top" in connection with the
+Primary Schools, there can never be proper co-ordination of
+administration, and education in Ireland will never be able to progress
+beyond a certain point. The Christian Brothers have set the Treasury a
+good example in this matter. In their schools there is close
+co-ordination of primary and intermediate education. Promising boys in
+the fifth standard are removed when they are 11 or 12 years of age into
+the higher schools and thus given an opportunity, at the most receptive
+period of their lives, of acquiring knowledge which they will be able to
+turn to good account in after life. Over and over again has the National
+Board attempted to persuade the Treasury to adopt a similar system, but
+hitherto without avail. The crust of the official mind has been
+impervious to every appeal. There seems, indeed, to be now some chance
+of the establishment of scholarships for pupils in primary schools, but
+unless an intelligent mind is brought to bear upon it, and the
+scholarships limited, as in England and Scotland, to pupils under 12 or
+13 years of age, the same unfortunate result will follow, as in the case
+of the Society for Promoting Protestant Schools and other similar
+bodies, where the scholarships have turned out to be a practical
+failure. An exception, however, as suggested by Dr. Starkie, and as
+allowed in Scotland, might be made in favour of the best Primary
+Schools. That is to say, where satisfactory Secondary teaching is given
+at a Primary School, the pupil might be relieved of one or two of the
+three years he is obliged to spend in the Secondary School before he can
+compete for the Intermediate Certificate which is awarded at 15 years of
+age.
+
+The argument is sometimes used that the establishment of higher grade
+schools would lead to unfair competition with the Intermediate Schools
+already in existence. No one desires to do this. Where the Intermediate
+Schools already hold the field, such overlapping can easily be avoided
+by proper administrative co-ordination between the National and
+Secondary systems. Where, on the other hand, there is a dearth of
+Intermediate Schools, as in Connaught and Kerry, higher grade schools
+can, and should be established without any risk either of overlapping or
+competition. They would supply a want which is deplored by all
+educational reformers, and make their influence felt far outside the
+mere circle of the schoolroom. A private commercial school has already
+been founded in Kerry and has continued for some time without State
+help, but, through want of encouragement, it has recently been compelled
+to adopt the programme of the Intermediate Board, which is entirely
+unsuited to its particular aims. Surely, private enterprise of this kind
+ought not only to be welcomed, but stimulated by a State grant, and
+everything possible done to encourage schools to develop along their own
+lines. At the present moment, they are bound hand and foot by the
+examination rules of the Intermediate Board, and it is quite impossible
+for any central authority, however eagle-eyed and sympathetic, to
+appreciate the peculiar atmosphere and wants of every locality. In such
+cases, local initiative is far more valuable than red tape, and more
+likely to result in an intelligent interest in his pupils and subject on
+the part of the teacher.
+
+(3) The position of the Secondary teachers, especially of lay assistant
+teachers, cries aloud for reform. In fact, their case is an acknowledged
+scandal. How can any one expect that the training of the youth in the
+Secondary Schools can be really satisfactory when the teachers are so
+miserably underpaid, when the elements of self-respect are given no room
+in which to develop, and the whole profession are treated rather as
+beasts of burden than as a noble and responsible body to whom is
+entrusted much of the destiny of the race? The question of reform is
+here largely a question of money. There are signs that this fact is
+becoming more appreciated as the years go by, and it is devoutly to be
+hoped that before long the teaching profession in the Secondary Schools
+will have no more to complain of than the Primary teachers, or than is
+usual in even the most cared-for and prosperous professions in this our
+imperfect world. Salaries, pensions, a register, security of tenure,
+opportunities of proper training--these may be said to embody the chief
+requirements of Secondary teachers at the present moment. In existing
+circumstances there is no attraction for competent men and women to
+enter the teaching profession so far as Intermediate education is
+concerned. The most incompetent crowd into it, although there are many
+exceptions, and teaching is regarded as a stop-gap during periods of
+impecuniosity rather than as a permanent career to be proud of and to be
+worked for. The salaries are beggarly--considerably lower than the
+incomes of the teachers in the Primary Schools. In 1908, the average
+salaries of principals in the Primary Schools were L112 for men and L90
+for women, and in the County Boroughs L163 and L126 respectively, whilst
+in the Secondary Schools lay assistants were paid about L80 _per annum.
+_In view of this, surely the demand that is being made on behalf of
+highly qualified Secondary teachers is not exorbitant, namely, salaries
+of L100 to L300 for men and of L80 to L220 for women. If the maximum
+rate were L150 for men and L100 for women the cost would be L220,000 a
+year. Where is the money to come from? Will a Nationalist Parliament be
+prepared to find it, and if so, from what source? Ireland is a
+comparatively poor country and is not in a position to bear much more
+taxation. The Intermediate Board, with its present resources, cannot
+afford to step into the breach, and the only solution seems to be that
+the British Exchequer should come to the rescue and that the Board
+should be granted the means of dealing with this all-important matter,
+the neglect of which is having a most injurious effect upon the
+efficiency of the Intermediate Schools. It has been suggested that a
+half-way house might be found, that the Treasury should grant L60 for
+each assistant master and L40 for each assistant mistress, and that the
+remainder should be raised by the authorities of the schools under the
+direction of the Board. This alternative scheme would cost the State
+about L88,300 a year, but, like all makeshifts, would not effect a real
+settlement of the difficulty, creating, as it would, a patchwork system
+of payment which might break down at any moment. On the other hand, let
+the settlement be a generous one, and the return will be a hundredfold
+in added efficiency, a higher sense of duty, and an increased personal
+interest on the part of the teacher in the class of which he has charge.
+
+In close connection with the question of salaries are those of pensions
+and security of tenure. The pensions of the Primary teachers, inadequate
+though they be, would be looked upon as a provision of the most
+munificent kind by the poor men and women who enter service under the
+Intermediate system. The Primary teachers, moreover, can fall back upon
+subsidiary occupations if they find that their salaries are insufficient
+for their maintenance. They can run a little farm or keep a shop or do
+other remunerative work, but the assistants in Secondary Schools are
+debarred from these methods of supplementing their exiguous wage. Those
+terrible words might, without any extravagance, be inscribed for them
+over the doors of their schools: "All hope abandon ye who enter here."
+Something must be done. A starvation wage, with an adequate pension to
+follow, might be tolerable, a decent wage, without any pension, might be
+borne, but starvation at both ends is a disgrace to the Treasury while
+it lasts and one of the things which should be taken in hand without any
+further delay.
+
+Security of tenure is equally important. How can a teacher be expected
+to devote the whole of his mental energies to his scholastic duties, how
+can any one expect him to throw himself heart and soul into his work, if
+there is always lurking in his mind the haunting fear of dismissal
+through no fault of his own? It is unreasonable to suppose that any
+human being can give of his best under these distracting conditions. In
+the National Schools a system of appeal has been in force for some time,
+and has been carried out with fairness on the part of those in authority
+and to the apparent satisfaction of the teaching profession. The
+dismissal order of every Roman Catholic manager has to be countersigned
+by the Bishop of the Diocese, and in the case of all teachers an appeal
+is now allowed to the Board itself, and is often utilised by
+Protestants. In fact, so far as the National Schools are concerned, the
+tenure of the Primary teachers during good behaviour is practically
+secured. Why cannot similar safeguards be introduced into the
+Intermediate system? An appeal to the Board in this case is not proposed
+by those who know all the circumstances best; but teachers in Roman
+Catholic schools might have the right of appeal, in the case of Diocesan
+Colleges, to the Bishop of the Diocese, or in the case of schools under
+religious orders to the Provincials or Generals, and Protestant teachers
+might be allowed to appeal to the Board of Governors of their schools,
+or they might sign an agreement, providing for a referee, such as the
+No. 3 and 4 agreements under the National Board.
+
+A register of teachers is also required. Every existing teacher in the
+Intermediate Schools who satisfies the tests of efficiency should be
+placed upon it without delay. As far as future appointments are
+concerned, qualifications might be adopted similar to those which now
+obtain in the Scotch Department, _e.g._ (_a_) a degree in a University, or
+its equivalent; (_b_) a diploma following professional training for one
+year; and (_c_) two probationary years in a good school. Special terms
+would probably be demanded for those who, like Nuns, are precluded by
+their calling from attending lectures at a University.
+
+These are some of the reforms which could, and should be introduced to
+make the teaching profession more efficient, more attractive for
+competent and clever men and women, and more of a permanent and
+honourable career than it has been in the past. Once again, it is not
+unreasonable to ask--How will a Dublin Parliament be able to provide the
+necessary funds? An extra annual sum of roughly L300,000 is required, in
+addition to a further sum of about L330,000 to meet non-recurring
+expenditure. These are, admittedly, moderate estimates. The matter,
+anyway, is now ripe for settlement, and procrastination can only
+aggravate the financial difficulty. So far as the educational problem is
+concerned, it is a manifest obligation upon the Nationalist Party to
+outline their proposals for the redress of these grievances, and to
+indicate the means by which they can be carried out, before a separate
+Legislature is set up for the people of Ireland.
+
+Within the scope of these few pages it is not possible to comprise all
+the aspects of modern Irish Education which are worthy of discussion.
+What are most urgently needed to-day are the necessary funds to continue
+the good work which is being done, and to introduce the reforms that
+have been sketched above. Parsimony in educational matters is the most
+wasteful of all misplaced thrift. Let the reformers be dealt with wisely
+and generously, and the harvest will exceed even the expectations of
+those who are working most hopefully upon the problem. Withhold the
+funds on some niggardly and mistaken principle of petty economy, and the
+present progress will be discouraged and the educational tree become
+stunted in its growth. From an administrative point of view, nothing,
+finance apart, would contribute more to the efficiency of Irish
+Education than the amalgamation of the National and Intermediate
+systems, as well as of the Technical work at present administered by the
+Department of Agriculture and Technical Education, under one Board. The
+method of examination by the Department is far sounder than that which
+is forced upon the Intermediate Board by the Acts of Parliament under
+which it works. In the case of science, the two are to be seen working
+to-day side by side in the Secondary Schools, to the undoubted benefit
+of the scientific course, which enjoys a double subsidy from the State,
+and is subject to the superior method of examination by the Department,
+being treated as a detached subject and the candidates being passed _en
+bloc_. On the other hand, the obsolete method of examination by the
+Board tends to the serious disadvantage of the classical curriculum, the
+grants being made on the unprofitable results of a general examination
+of individual candidates, the class not being regarded as a whole, as is
+the case with the Department. By the repeal of the Intermediate Acts,
+and by the amalgamation of the various Boards into one, these anomalies
+would rapidly disappear, and for the first time a genuine system of
+co-ordination could be introduced into Irish Education, which would knit
+together the strength of all the parts and overcome many of the
+prevailing weaknesses, making the whole system what it ought to be, a
+living, growing, pulsating organism, developing and shaping itself with
+the life of the nation.
+
+Is it conceivable that all this can he accomplished if the Union between
+the countries is rent asunder? What chance will there be of effecting
+this great settlement, which requires money and, above all, requires
+peace, when Ireland is plunged once again into the old internecine
+struggles of the eighteenth century? The warning is writ very large upon
+the wall, so that he who runs may read. The best hope for education in
+Ireland are the resources of Great Britain and a uniform policy
+undisturbed by party feuds. Neither of these can be looked for under a
+separate Parliament. Under the Union Ireland can have both, for the
+welfare of her children and the building of a noble history.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 89: In writing the above I should like to acknowledge my
+indebtedness to the address published by Dr. Starkie in 1911 for many
+useful facts and figures.]
+
+[Footnote 90: See the 76th and 77th Reports of the Commissioners of
+National Education in Ireland--Cd. 5340, 1910, and Cd. 5903, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote 91: The residential buildings of the Commissioners' Training
+College in Marlborough Street, Dublin, still require to be completed by
+the addition of a new residence for women students, at a cost of about
+L50,000 spread over three or four years.]
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE PROBLEM OF TRANSIT AND TRANSPORT IN IRELAND
+
+BY AN IRISH RAILWAY DIRECTOR
+
+
+Any scheme giving self-government to Ireland must seriously affect the
+problem of local transit and transport, by rail and water, which all
+parties in Ireland agree to be pressing and important. Nor is it merely
+a local question. As recent returns show, the trade between Ireland and
+Great Britain has of late years enormously increased, to the great
+advantage of both; for if Irish farmers profit by the export of beef,
+mutton, milk, eggs, butter, bacon and other articles, Great Britain has
+the benefit of a near food supply within the United Kingdom. Nor does
+any one doubt that this trade is capable of enormous increase. The
+improvement of Irish agricultural methods, the growth in England of a
+town population, the increased price of the necessaries of life, are
+some of the factors pointing in this direction.
+
+If this trade is to expand, Irish traffic routes and facilities with
+Great Britain must be improved and increased, especially as the articles
+carried are largely of a perishable kind. Moreover, the internal traffic
+of Ireland, by rail, waterways, and canals is capable of and needs great
+development, as witness the recent Reports of the Viceregal Commission
+on Irish Railways, and of the Royal Commission on Canals and
+Waterways.[92] The problem of inland navigation is again intimately
+bound up with that of arterial drainage, as the Commissioners have
+reported. It is then strange to find, that on these pressing questions
+of first importance, there is an almost absolute silence on the part of
+those who advocate Home Rule in and out of Parliament.
+
+
+SOLUTION OF TRANSIT PROBLEM IMPOSSIBLE UNDER HOME RULE.
+
+It is true that the nationalisation of the Irish railways has in past
+years found the keenest advocates amongst individual members of the Home
+Rule Party; that the Majority Report of the late Viceregal Commission
+favouring State purchase of the Irish railways was formally approved of
+by the Parliamentary Party, and that Mr. Redmond has named "transit" as
+one of the special matters that should be left to be dealt with by an
+Irish Legislature. But there the matter ends. We are not given the
+slightest inkling what is proposed to be done on this matter, or how it
+will be done, or the slightest proof that under any system of Home Rule,
+the financial difficulties of the problem can be solved at all.
+
+The Reports of both the Commissions referred to are based, first on the
+continuance of the present system of laws and government, and secondly,
+on the use of Imperial credit to the tune of many millions. Yet amongst
+the shoals of literature on Home Rule problems and finance, I can find
+no enlightenment as to how the transit problem is to be solved under the
+new conditions; _i.e._ how any Home Rule Government, whether it has
+control of Customs and Excise or not, and however it economises, is to
+find the money necessary to buy out the Irish railways and canals. A
+Government that is faced with the problems of poverty and congestion, of
+housing, of increased educational grants, of afforestation, and of
+arterial land drainage, will have an almost impossible task in raising
+money for these purposes alone. And, let those who can, inform us how an
+Irish Parliament and Executive (with all else they will have in hand),
+will be able to raise even the L5,000,000 necessary to improve the Irish
+Light Railway System; not to speak of the sum at least tenfold greater
+which will be required for a complete purchase scheme.
+
+So far we are without that information. The Irish Parliamentary leaders
+have not touched upon the point. The pamphleteers are almost equally
+silent. Professor Kettle, in his "Home Rule Finance," mentions the
+"Nationalisation of Railways" in one line of print, merely stating that
+"the project will have to be financed by loans and not out of annual
+revenue" (p. 41); and he further remarks, generally (p. 72), "that for
+the development of any future policy, approved by her own people,
+Ireland relies absolutely on her own fiscal resources." What fiscal
+resources, and under what conditions are they obtainable?
+
+In the volume entitled "Home Rule Problems" issued by the Liberal Home
+Rule Committee, with a preface by Viscount Haldane, not one word is said
+on the subject, though there are chapters on Irish finance, and on Irish
+commercial and industrial conditions. Neither has Mr. Stephen Gwynn a
+single word on the subject in his "Case for Home Rule," though he makes
+the large assertion that "there is no country in the world where
+resources are more undeveloped than those of Ireland."
+
+Mr. Erskine Childers[93] merely refers to the Irish railway problem as
+one that is "obvious and urgent," "which no Parliament but an Irish
+Parliament can deal with, and which calls aloud for settlement."
+
+
+DETAILS OF RAILWAY TRANSIT PROBLEM.
+
+Let us now look at the problem in more detail; and first is the question
+of the railways. The property to be dealt with consists of 3411 miles of
+railway, representing a total capital of L45,163,000, of which, at the
+date of the Report of the Commission, L2,873,000 paid no dividend; the
+gross annual receipts of the whole system being L4,255,000 and the net
+receipts L1,690,000, representing a return on the whole capital of 3.77
+per cent.[94]
+
+Of these lines, the railways constructed under the Tramways and Light
+Railways Acts cover 603 miles, of which 322 are narrow gauge, involving
+a liability on various baronies which have guaranteed interest on
+capital to the amount of L36,000 per annum. To bring these light
+railways up to a proper standard and equipment; to widen the gauge in
+many cases; to provide new sheds, stations, and rolling stock, and
+redeem the guarantees, a sum of about L5,000,000 would probably be
+necessary. In addition, projects for no less than eighty-three new
+railways were brought before the Commission;[95] and it is admitted on
+all hands, and the Commission find, that practically none of these
+railway extensions would be undertaken by private enterprise, and that
+these developments need the credit, help, and direction of the State.
+Even the necessary improvement of the existing light railways cannot now
+be undertaken, for under the system of legislation under which they were
+constructed, there is no means of raising new capital.[96]
+
+Now, what is advocated by the Majority Report is the--
+
+     "compulsory purchase by the State of these railway systems great
+     and small, to be then worked and managed by an Irish elected
+     authority as one concern, mainly with a view of developing Irish
+     industries by reduction of rates and otherwise, and not strictly on
+     commercial principles."[97]
+
+This was the scheme supported by the Parliamentary Party, written up
+unceasingly by the _Freeman's Journal_, and held out under the term
+"Nationalisation of Railways," as one of the special boons which Home
+Rule will bring to Irish traders and farmers.
+
+But mark how the operation is to be carried out. The Commission
+reported that the sum required should be raised by a railway stock
+charged primarily on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, with
+recourse to Irish rates to make up possible deficiencies, and further,
+that there should be an annual grant from the Exchequer of not less than
+L250,000 to the Irish railway authority. Seeing that the Commissioners
+refer to "the financial terms prescribed by the Act of 1844" (Regulation
+of Railways Act, 7 & 8 Vict. c. 85, ss. 2-4), and that a _cash_ payment
+to shareholders was provided for by that Act, it is to be presumed that
+the Commissioners intended Irish shareholders to be paid in cash. The
+Act of 1844 provided for payment to the companies of a sum in cash equal
+to twenty-five years' purchase of the previous three years' annual
+profits; but this was the minimum only, for it was provided that the
+companies could, under arbitration, claim additional payment in respect
+of future "prospects."
+
+Now twenty-five years' purchase of the divisible profits, which at the
+date of the Commission, were L1,690,000, would amount to over
+L42,000,000, and if in addition sums had to be raised for "prospects,"
+purchase of lines paying no dividend, special provision for prior stocks
+standing at a premium, redemption of guarantees, and the large sums
+required for the extensions and improvements we have mentioned, a sum
+not less than L50,000,000, and probably nearer L55,000,000, would be
+required.[98]
+
+From the beginning to the end of the inquiry there was no suggestion
+that this immense operation could be carried out except by the use of
+Imperial credit, involving the two conditions: (1) that the Consolidated
+Fund of the United Kingdom be charged, and (2) that the British public
+be asked, and should be willing to find the money. Although the
+Majority Report contemplated an Irish elected authority to work the
+railways so purchased and amalgamated, it was never suggested that any
+such Irish authority could raise the necessary purchase capital, or,
+indeed, any portion of it. The whole scheme from beginning to end
+pre-supposed the continuance of the Union, with its advantages of credit
+and capital. Upset that Union, establish an Irish Parliament working out
+its own salvation, financially and otherwise, and the basis of the whole
+scheme of railway nationalisation vanishes.
+
+That the British Government should allow its credit to be used to the
+tune of fifty millions, after full legislative, executive and taxing
+powers were handed over to an Irish Parliament, is too fantastic to be
+considered seriously. Whether an Irish or English authority controlled
+the working of the railways would under such circumstances make little
+difference, with the Courts of Law, the Executive, and Police in other
+hands than that of the Government guaranteeing the interest. The
+security for the advance would be imperilled; and, indeed, it is
+doubtful whether a tenth of the money required would be advanced, even
+in London, on those terms. For a similar reason any formal pledge of
+Irish rates and taxes, to make up deficiencies in working, would be
+illusory. At any rate, if Irish Land Purchase is to be continued under
+British credit (and it certainly will be a prior claim and charge), it
+is idle to expect Parliament to undertake the vast additional
+obligations involved in Irish railway nationalisation. Parliament would
+pay the piper but could not call the tune.
+
+
+IRISH CREDIT NOT SUFFICIENT.
+
+There remains the alternative of the new Irish Parliament financing the
+operation. This it must do by means of payment in cash to the selling
+shareholders, for reasons which will be hereafter stated, unless it
+wishes to start its career by a scheme of spoliation, which would not
+merely rob the shareholders (who are mostly Irish), but would destroy
+the credit of the Irish Government. Mr. Redmond has recently
+acknowledged that a large number of Irish railway shareholders are good
+Nationalists; and it is certain that a great portion of the ordinary
+stock is held by Irish farmers and traders; and much of the preference
+and debenture stocks are also held by Irish charities, convents,
+diocesan trustees, and monastic institutions. These persons will expect,
+and justly expect, cash on a compulsory purchase, on basis of market
+value, or capitalisation of dividend, so as to secure the same return of
+interest.
+
+Could the Irish Government borrow L50,000,000, and at what rate? To
+borrow at a higher rate than the present return on Irish railway
+capital, namely, 3.77 per cent., would be to incur a loss on working the
+railways, from the outset, which Irish ratepayers or taxpayers would
+have to make up. The net receipts, at the time of the Commission's
+Report, were, in round figures, L1,600,000, and thus to borrow
+L50,000,000, even at 4 per cent., would mean an annual loss of L300,000
+a year, even if there were no sinking fund. A 10_s._ per cent sinking fund
+would increase the total annual loss to L550,000.
+
+But, could an Irish Government Guaranteed Railway Stock be issued at 4
+per cent.? Would Ireland's credit stand better than that of Hungary,
+whose 4 per cent. gold _rentes_ stand at 92, or of the Argentine, which
+has to borrow at nearly 5 per cent.? There are grave doubts whether the
+large sum required would be subscribed at all, at even 4 1/4 per cent,
+or 4 1/2 per cent. basis. It is not likely that English investors would
+take up such a loan, seeing that they have consistently fought shy of
+Irish investments, and they are not likely to change their views upon
+the break up of the Union.
+
+It may be said that the sum required could be raised in Ireland--that
+patriotic feeling would stimulate the operation, and the large sum of
+money (over L50,000,000), lying on deposit at the Irish banks may be
+referred to as available. Patriotism that has not financed the Irish
+Parliamentary Party will not be likely to finance a gigantic railway
+loan. Nor is the large sum appearing as banking deposits really free
+money available for investment. With increase of deposits, the items of
+loans and advances in banking accounts have also correspondingly
+increased, and they largely balance each other. Not only is the money
+deposited by one customer lent to another, and therefore already
+utilized, but, to a large extent well known to bankers, the deposits,
+_i.e._ the credits to particular accounts, represent money lent to the
+persons having these accounts, and are not, in fact, their own free
+balances. So also credits in the accounts of one bank, figure as debits
+on the balance sheet of another bank. There probably has been in recent
+years considerable saving in Ireland, but it is also certain that those
+savings have largely gone, and will continue rightly to go in
+improvements of farms, which the Land Acts and Land Purchase Acts have
+made worth improving for their possessors. Those who have not saved
+enough borrow, and the bank advances represent largely the capital
+required by farmers and traders. The deposits, therefore, are being well
+used, and are not dead money. Divert them to any large extent to another
+purpose, and there will probably be a contraction of banking credit,
+which Irish farming and industry will be the first to feel.
+
+
+PURCHASE BY STATE PAPER.
+
+It may be said that the nationalisation of railways could be carried
+out, not by a cash payment, but by a paper exchange of existing Railway
+Stocks into newly created Irish Government Stock, the amount of the
+existing net receipts being guaranteed. But, unless the Irish Government
+could actually borrow in cash the sum required, at a rate equal to that
+nominally put on the new stock, the shareholders would be robbed of a
+capital sum equal to the amount of the discount on the stock, _i.e._ the
+amount of the market quotation below par, or issue price. There will be
+sellers of the new stock from the beginning, and what the public will
+give for it, and not the nominal figure put upon it by the Irish
+Government, will be its real value. The Irish Government may issue the
+Railway Stock at 3-1/2 per cent., but if they could borrow the sum
+required only at 4-1/2 per cent., the new stock will at once find its
+level at about 77 instead of 100, and the capital value of Irish
+railways will be reduced from, say, L45,000,000 to L35,000,000, and the
+difference, L10,000,000, would come out of the pockets of Irish
+shareholders. The Irish Government would be, however, in this unpleasant
+dilemma, that if they issued the stock at a rate per cent, nominally
+higher than the present return in railway capital, namely, 3.77 per
+cent., the annual charge for interest would be greater than the net
+receipts, and so from the beginning there would be an annual loss; and
+the fact of this annual loss would be another factor tending to
+depreciate the new Railway Stock. The alternatives before an Irish Prime
+Minister, pressed to carry out a "Nationalisation" policy, are not
+enviable. He will either have to provide by taxation for the annual loss
+involved in taking over the railways on a fair basis, or to deprive the
+most thrifty and industrious classes of his fellow-countrymen of a large
+slice of their savings and investments. In either event, the new
+Government will have received a serious blow to its credit at the outset
+of its career.
+
+
+EFFECT OF REDUCTION OF RAILWAY RATES.
+
+There is, moreover, a special reason why such a stock, from its
+inception, would tend to depreciate in value; namely, that from the
+moment the Irish Government or their nominees became the owners, there
+would be almost irresistible pressure put upon them to reduce the
+railway rates, and generally (as indeed the Majority Report recommends)
+to work the railways on other than commercial lines.[99] A reduction of
+rates has been held out as the great resulting boon of nationalisation
+ever since the Irish Parliamentary Party specifically raised the
+question in Parliament in 1899. A 25 per cent. reduction in rates and
+fares (suggested by Nationalist witnesses) would involve an annual
+diminution of net receipts to the Government of over L1,000,000 per
+annum, and if the reduction were in goods rates alone, the loss would be
+L568,000 per annum. It would be years, if ever, before such a loss could
+be recouped, however the traffic was increased. Experience has shown
+that in recent years running expenses tend to increase nearly parallel
+with the gross receipts, and a large increase in gross traffic would
+involve enormous capital outlay for rolling stock, engines, sidings,
+etc. It is unnecessary to comment upon the suggestion that the railways
+should not be run on "commercial principles." The Irish ratepayers and
+taxpayers, who would have to bear the loss, would loudly call out for
+business management when it was too late.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add that another result of such an operation
+would be to prevent the Irish Government raising the very large sum
+necessary for improving and standardising the light railways and for
+extensions, except at an unremunerative rate of interest. Even if
+shareholders be put off with State paper, contractors will have to be
+paid with cash. Moreover the creation of such a large amount of debt at
+the beginning of the new regime would render it difficult, if not
+impossible, for the Irish Government to raise sums necessary for other
+public works and services of a pressing character, arterial drainage,
+canals, education, and other objects, not to speak of migration,
+congestion, and land purchase. The conclusion, in fact, is inevitable,
+that without the security of the United Kingdom, and the market of
+British investors willing to lend, it is idle to think that either State
+purchase of railways, or any other of the boons mentioned, are
+reasonably possible. Mr. Erskine Childers, though a Home Ruler, does not
+fail to perceive, to use his own words, "that financial independence
+will now mean a financial sacrifice to Ireland."[100]
+
+
+EFFECT OF NATIONALISATION ON TRADE RELATIONS.
+
+There are other important considerations which confirm the view that, if
+the control of Irish railways were taken away from the Imperial
+Parliament, and placed under a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and if the
+general code of railway legislation now binding on both countries could
+be altered by a Home Rule legislature, results disastrous to the trade
+between the two countries would probably follow, whether
+"Nationalisation" were carried out or not.
+
+The Majority Report recommends, as one of the chief objects of
+"Nationalisation" under an Irish authority, the reduction of _export_
+rates, both local and through rates, on the Irish railways, as
+"essential to the development of Irish industry," and this seems the pet
+project of a large number of witnesses, and of Irish local authorities.
+Import and export railway rates are now the same for the same classes of
+produce, and no Irish railway company could now differentiate between
+them, without being pulled up by the Railway Commission at the suit of
+British traders, or British railway companies. The policy suggested is
+practically to use railway rates as a system of local protection,
+similar to the existing practice and policy on the continental, and
+notably the Prussian State Railways. It is easy to see that without any
+Customs barrier between the two countries, such a policy would
+inaugurate practically a tariff war between Ireland and Great Britain,
+which would be disastrous to both. That such a policy should be
+subscribed to by Free-traders, and that a Free-trade Government should
+advocate a change in the relations between the two countries, under
+which such a system could be possible, is indeed surprising. To use
+Imperial credit for such a purpose would be midsummer madness. Even
+without any scheme of nationalisation, the establishment of a separate
+Executive and Legislature in Ireland might have sinister effects on
+traffic arrangements between Great Britain and Ireland and on the
+harmonious administration of the railways.
+
+
+THE RIGHT SOLUTION.
+
+The truth of the matter, and the inference to be drawn from the above
+considerations and the whole trend of modern trade, is that to break up
+the railway systems of Great Britain and Ireland into two rival and
+hostile systems of transit, working for different objects and by
+different methods, would be to stop a natural and healthy process of
+uniform working and harmony, which has enormously advanced in the last
+decade, to the great advantage of Ireland.
+
+Almost every scheme of amalgamation in Ireland has been connected with
+the opening or development of a new cross-Channel route, as the history
+of the Fishguard and Rosslare and the new Heysham routes fully shows. As
+part of this process, English companies, like the Midland and the Great
+Western, are either acquiring Irish lines or making special traffic
+arrangements with them. Enormous sums have been spent on harbours and
+steamers by English companies for the purpose of developing traffic with
+Ireland, and the increased interchange of goods has been of great
+advantage to both countries. The ideal put forward by advocates of
+railway nationalisation and Irish independence, that in respect of trade
+and traffic Ireland should be a sort of watertight compartment,
+self-supporting and self-contained, is, I submit, a mischievous delusion
+which, if put into practice, would undo much of the good progress
+Ireland has recently made. Such an ideal would also be the exact
+contrary of the line of national development as based on transit and
+transport followed in almost every other civilized country. In Germany,
+Canada, the United States, and Australia, we see the policy consistently
+pursued of amalgamation, consolidation, and facilities for long-distance
+traffic, so that between all parts of each State and Empire there shall
+be the freest and most perfect interchange of traffic. Canada and the
+United States have been so far inspired by this principle as to spend
+countless millions first on East and West (and now on North and South)
+lines, even before there was traffic to carry, and in order to create
+traffic; and the principle has been justified in its results.
+
+From this point of view St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea should be
+a means of communication, constant and in every direction, between the
+two Islands, and not a sort of boundary ditch to be deepened and
+rendered difficult of passage.
+
+If Ireland wishes to share England's prosperity she must not build up a
+wall against the credit, trade, and special products of her richer
+sister. If England wishes to have and to foster a magnificent source of
+food supply, well and strategically secured against continental foes,
+she also must do all that can be done to encourage intercourse. To
+develop traffic between Great Britain and Ireland is the policy which
+both experience and theory point to as advantageous to both countries;
+to subvert this policy and make Ireland's commerce local and
+self-sufficing, seems to be the narrow and mistaken ideal of Nationalist
+aspirations.
+
+
+UNIONIST POLICY.
+
+It follows that the Unionist Party must oppose any plan for
+"nationalising" the Irish railways, whether by the credit of the United
+Kingdom, or otherwise. The policy we advocate is to be found in the
+Minority Report of the Viceregal Commission, signed by Sir Herbert
+Jekyll, Mr. W.M. Acworth, and Mr. John Aspinall, not as politicians, but
+experts; and in the Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Inland
+Navigation dealing with the question of canals and water transport in
+Ireland.
+
+In the case of railways, the aim should be to amalgamate them into two
+or three large companies to standardise as far as possible the light
+railways, and level them in respect of gauge, gradients, works, and
+rolling stock with the larger companies. Unquestionably many of the
+smaller railways to be amalgamated, though not light railways, need
+large expenditure for the purpose of duplication of running lines,
+straightening of curves, stations, stores, and conveniences, and many
+extensions and cross-lines will also be needed to connect them with the
+trunk lines, and to open out districts now unprovided with railway
+facilities. Many of these projects, though industrially remunerative to
+Ireland and advantageous to England also as tapping new sources of food
+supply, would not be, in strictness, commercially remunerative in the
+sense of giving fair return on capital over working expenses, and it is
+idle to expect that private capital will ever be subscribed for these
+purposes. They can only be undertaken either directly by State funds, or
+by money provided by the State, and lent to the large amalgamated lines
+at low interest. This is the policy inaugurated by Mr. Arthur Balfour,
+which has been of untold benefit to many districts in Ireland. Probably
+a public grant of, say, L2,000,000, and loanable money available to the
+extent of L8,000,000, would largely solve the problem. For the reasons
+already given it is only by Imperial credit, and under the aegis of a
+united Parliament and Government, that capital on this large scale can
+be available for these purposes.
+
+
+CANALS AND NAVIGATION.
+
+The problem of canals and inland navigation in Ireland is a minor one,
+but the same principles largely apply. The Royal Commission[101]
+recommended that all the chief waterways, canals, and rivers necessary
+for inland transport should be purchased and remain under the control of
+the State, the controlling authority, however, not themselves, to become
+carriers on any waterways. At the same time, they strongly urged that
+the problem of arterial drainage and relief from floods should not be
+treated separately, but that the control of drainage works should be
+under the same central authority as that which is to control waterways
+and navigation.
+
+It is not necessary to refer in detail to the Report. Apart from the
+sum necessary to buy out the existing owners of canals and waterways,
+towards which L2,451,346 had been contributed from private sources, the
+Commissioners contemplated a further expenditure of about L200,000 on
+new works. In addition the sum of L500,000 would be required, on a
+moderate estimate for drainage and the prevention of floods. The
+pressing nature of the latter problem is once more emphatically
+evidenced by the wholesale injury to property and the public health by
+the recent flooding of the basins of the Shannon, Barrow, Bann, and
+other rivers. Here, again, we have problems which it is idle to expect
+an Irish Parliament to solve satisfactorily for years to come, or,
+indeed, ever. Ways and means must be an effectual bar. Drainage and
+navigation form only one problem out of a dozen facing a Home Rule
+Government needing the raising of enormous capital. Probably the
+Commissioners conducting the Canals inquiry, who were persons of all
+shades of political opinion, were well aware that only under the present
+system of State credit could the financial difficulties be overcome.
+According to their report, the State (_i.e._ the Government of the United
+Kingdom) were to acquire the control, which was to be carried out by an
+Act of Parliament, naming the Waterways Commissioners, "who should be
+persons disassociated from party politics."
+
+The one dissentient out of twenty-one signatories, Lord Farrer,
+significantly adds that he does not favour a "charge on the public purse
+and new Boards of Management _until a purely Irish elected authority has
+agreed to pay for them_." Precisely; Lord Farrer has looked ahead. Will
+an Irish elected authority agree to pay for these boons, and will they
+be able to pay? That is a question which will cause some searching of
+hearts amongst all interested in Ireland's welfare;--in these pages we
+have attempted to give an answer.
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+The conclusion is in fact inevitable. Ireland cannot have it both ways.
+She cannot have financial independence and financial dependence at the
+same time. No Colony has ever claimed or been granted these inconsistent
+conditions. If Colonial precedents are cited, their essential
+limitations should also be borne in mind. Colonial loans are not charged
+on the Consolidated Fund. Nor have Colonial railways been nationalised
+with the money and credit of the United Kingdom, in order to favour
+local exports at the expense of imports from England.
+
+Our examination of the question brings us to the clear conclusion that
+it is only under the existing system of a single Parliament and
+Executive for the United Kingdom that the problems of transit and
+transport in Ireland, or between Great Britain and Ireland, can be
+satisfactorily solved, whether from the point of view of finance,
+justice to shareholders, or advantage to the trade and convenience of
+both countries.
+
+     NOTE.--It has been suggested, since the above was written, that the
+     balance in the Irish Post Office Savings Banks (now about
+     L12,500,000) might be available to the new Irish Government, for
+     advances to farmers and other public purposes. The suggestion
+     involves the applicability of such advances for the purchase or
+     amalgamation of the Irish railways under an Irish public authority.
+     Such a proposal will not bear close examination.
+
+     It is an essential condition of the existence of Savings Bank
+     deposits that the deposits should be always available on the call
+     of depositors; and this condition would no longer be fulfilled if
+     the balances were locked up in Irish railways. In fact, if there
+     was any suggestion that these balances should be used for the
+     purpose of enabling the Irish Government to run the railways on
+     uncommercial principles, the deposits would very soon diminish or
+     disappear--and this apart from the question whether under Home
+     Rule, the deposits would in any event remain at anything like their
+     present high figure.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 92: Viceregal Commission on Irish Railways, Final Report, 1910
+(Cd. 5247). Final Report on the Canals and Inland Navigations of
+Ireland, 1911 (Cd. 5626).]
+
+[Footnote 93: "The Framework of Home Rule," p. 174.]
+
+[Footnote 94: Figures are taken from Viceregal Commission Reports, p.
+78, Report.]
+
+[Footnote 95: Page 78, Report.]
+
+[Footnote 96: Page 58, Report.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Final Report, pp. 76-83.]
+
+[Footnote 98: We have taken the Act of 1844 as the basis referred to by
+the Commissioners, though it is very doubtful (having regard to the
+great variety of railway share and loan capital), if the terms of sect.
+2 are now suitable; moreover sect. 4 requires a special Act of
+Parliament to be passed to raise the money, and settle the special
+conditions of the purchase option.]
+
+[Footnote 99: Majority Report, p. 76.]
+
+[Footnote 100: "Framework of Home Rule," p. 281.]
+
+[Footnote 101: Final Report on the Canals and Navigations of Ireland.
+1911. (Cd. 5626.)]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Against Home Rule (1912), by Various
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