The New Irish Constitution Part 25

"I always thought that the greatest cause of misery in Ireland was ident.i.ty of inst.i.tutions with England. It has become a great historical aphorism that Ireland is to be the great difficulty of the Minister. Now this is an opinion in which I never shared. I never believed that Ireland would be a great difficulty, because I felt certain that a Minister of great ability and of great power would, when he found himself at the head of a great majority, settle that question. What, then, is the duty of the English Minister? To effect by his policy all those changes which a revolution would do by force. That is the Irish question in its integrity. It is quite evident that to effect this we must have an Executive in Ireland which shall bear a much nearer relation to the leading parties and characters of the country than it does at present."

These principles Mr. Disraeli declared to be "Tory principles, the national principles of the democracy of England." When a quarter of a century later, and holding a most responsible position, he was challenged in the House of Commons as to this statement of his views, he still declared that: "in my historical conscience the sentiment of that speech was right."

PART III. CONTEMPORARY VIEWS

XIV.-Irish Nationalism And Liberal Principle. BY PROFESSOR L. T. HOBHOUSE

All through the nineteenth century the cause of subject nationalities was a constant stimulus to British Liberalism. Successive generations hoped and feared, wept and rejoiced with the rebels of Greece, of Italy, of Hungary, of Poland, of the Balkans. Their successes and failures were events of moment in the calendar of British Liberalism, for they were recognised as essential parts of the democratic movement, and the democratic cause was in that century looked upon as one all the world over. Nor was this sentiment ineffective. The moral support of England was in those days recognised as an a.s.set to a cause. Individuals gave direct and tangible a.s.sistance, and there were even times when diplomacy moved.

Nationalism, therefore, lay close to the heart of Liberalism. Yet there was all the time one nationality whose claims were not so readily understood as those of Greek or Italian, Pole or Bulgar. Ireland was raising a cry, protesting against grievances, formulating demands, which to impartial ears sounded very like those of other subject peoples. Here it seemed was an oppressed nationality at the British Liberal's own door, with grievances which he could redress by his own efforts if he would.

Conscious-perhaps a little too conscious-of the rect.i.tude of his intentions, the British Liberal had some difficulty in seeing himself in the light of an oppressor. But under Mr. Gladstone's leaders.h.i.+p he learned his lesson in two stages. He began by learning that there were very real grievances to be redressed, grievances resulting from the political subordination of Ireland, in particular the grievances of the Church Establishment and of the land system. But in the course of his remedial efforts he learned further that though oppressive government may do much to hold a nationality together, the redress of grievances does not necessarily loosen the bonds of national unity. While the Government of 1880-85 still oscillated between concession and coercion, the more adventurous minds began to realize that what they had preached for Italy, Hungary, and Poland must in its due measure, and with all reasonable regard to variation of circ.u.mstances, be offered to the Irish people. They were ready for the second stage upon which Mr. Gladstone entered at the end of 1885, and in which, after a brief and memorable struggle, he carried with him the bulk of the Liberal Party. They had learned that the solution of the Irish question lay not in repressing Irish nationality, but in trusting it with the responsibility of self-government.

The Unionist leaders who defeated Mr. Gladstone had nevertheless learnt from him the first of these two lessons. They acquired by degrees a working knowledge of the material grievances of Ireland, and bit by bit they dealt with them, confident that by so doing they would undermine the foundations of the national demand. They reached the first stage of Liberal education, but refused to advance beyond it. Time, however, has declared against them. The twenty years of resolute government which Lord Salisbury once demanded have gone by, broken only by the three years in the 'nineties, when Liberals held office without legislative power.

Ireland is orderly, and, by comparison with the past, prosperous. But Ireland is still Nationalist. The result is to leave the main arguments for Home Rule standing, while several of the old arguments against it are weakened or brought to naught. The Irish community is economically more vigorous, and so far more capable of self-support than it was in 1886. It is no longer a society which can be represented as honeycombed with conspiracies, or given up to disorder. It is no longer in the grip of a land system which necessitated an agrarian revolution, either as the precursor or as the first act of a self-governing Parliament. It is no longer so overtaxed that to maintain the fiscal balance with Great Britain would be to impose a permanent tribute on the smaller and poorer island.

But it remains Nationalist, and the unsatisfied national sentiment of Ireland remains not only a reproach to British Liberalism, but a flaw in the fabric of our national security.

I dwell on the permanence of Irish nationalism, because in dealing with nationality, we are confronted with one of those political forces which may be very real and very stubborn, but which yet are neither measurable in statistics nor easily compressed into the four corners of a rigid definition. What precisely is a nationality, it may be asked, and why should it be so much a matter of concern to Liberals? Liberalism is for self-government, it is true, but, provided that all parts of a country or of an empire are equally represented on a democratic franchise in the governing a.s.sembly of the whole, what has the principle of liberty to say further in the matter? Why should it be on the side of division or against unity? It is not ever so. On the contrary, national jealousies, rival patriotisms are constantly thwarting another branch of Liberal endeavour.

It must be frankly recognised that the development of nationality in Europe is in large measure responsible for the modern recrudescence of militarism. As a policy of peace and international goodwill, Liberalism has to make some sacrifices, and take some risks in upholding nationality.

What does it gain in return? If its ideal is humanitarian, why must it countenance the national idea, self-centred and intolerant as the idea too often becomes?

The answer to this question is written in the history of the dealings of Governments with subject nationalities, Irish or other. The primary object of political Liberalism is to found Government on freedom. This end is not compa.s.sed at a stroke by the simple method of establis.h.i.+ng a well-oiled representative machine. It involves, to deal with externals only, freedom of speech, of writing, of meeting, of organisation. It involves the security of personal rights as much against the Executive Government as against any private aggression. But when a larger nation forcibly incorporates a smaller one in its system it is easy to see the difficulty of maintaining order on these lines. A free government in the full sense of the term must be founded on the voluntary adhesion of the ma.s.s of the people. This adhesion is not necessarily impaired by the conflicts of interest or conviction which are the inevitable incidents of public life in any community, and which compel now one section and now another to submit to laws or acts of government which it resents. As long as each cla.s.s feels that its claims, even if overborne in the end, will not be rejected without adequate understanding and fair consideration, there exist the elements of government by consent. But a smaller nation forcibly incorporated in a larger one does not feel this. The very const.i.tution which is the pride of its masters is the badge of its own subjection. It may have equality of franchise, but its representatives are in a permanent minority. By history, by sentiment, perhaps by religion, race, or language, it has acquired differences of tone and habit. It regards public questions from a different angle. Its emphasis is different, its essentials are trifles to other people, and their essentials are its trifles. Its problems, even when on the surface they appear the same, have a different historic background, are interwoven with special a.s.sociations, complicated with local and peculiar sympathies and animosities. With these nuances the smaller nation can never hope that the majority will deal, because the majority can never understand them. Not only so but the smaller people will have a pride, memory, and hope of its own. It may have a larger patriotism if its self respect is first consulted, but as long as its independent being is ignored its only collective ambition will be to a.s.sert itself. Thus in the subject people the milk of social feeling is turned to gall. All that leads a free people to respect law, to support Government, to take pride in public prosperity, to sacrifice personal to common interest, will work in this case only towards discord and civil strife, and the best men become in a sense the worst citizens. At least they become the most resolute opponents of the established order. The more opposition develops, and this means the more life flourishes in the subject people, the more the tension increases. Presently definite obstructions arise in the machinery of Government and the ruling democracy, however liberal in its original intentions, is driven into "exceptional" legislation. Const.i.tutional rights are curtailed. Legal securities are suspended, freedom of speech is withheld. These disabilities may either be confined to the disaffected people, in which case the principle of equal rights disappears, or to save appearances as to equality they are made universal, in which case general liberty is impaired. In either event this original condition is set at naught. The essentials of political liberty are violated. Wise and moderate statesmans.h.i.+p may mitigate the mischief. Reactionary statesmans.h.i.+p may inflame it. But the seeds of trouble will always be there as long as the foreign body is embedded in the organic tissues.

But it may be asked, are we always to give way to sectional feeling?

History has interwoven many races and they must surely learn to live together. What of French and British in Canada, or of British and Dutch in South Africa? What again of Ulster? If Ireland is a nation, does the nation include the Protestant half of Ulster or does it not? If yes, how can any of our tests of unity stand? If not, how can we recognize Ireland as one nation and not as two? Let us take these questions in turn, and let us consider first the measure and importance to be attached to national sentiment. We are dealing here, it has been admitted, with a force which it is impossible to measure _a priori_ by any external tests. We seem able to judge it only by the event. If in fact Irish nationalism had yielded to the redress of definite grievances, if it had been practically possible to kill Home Rule by kindness, Unionist statesmans.h.i.+p would have been justified. I do not say justified by success, for success is not a judge giving decision by rules of equity. It would have been justified rather in the sense that it would have been experimentally proved to have been founded on a true interpretation of the case. The Unionist case-at its best-was that Irish nationalism was a pa.s.sing and superficial sentiment.

At its core were certain real grievances, but it was swollen into a ma.s.s of imposing appearances, but of loose and flabby texture. The plan was to remove the grievances with one hand, while with the other every ebullition of sentiment into unruly speech or action was steadily repressed. Had the plan succeeded it would have shown that Irish nationality was an illusion, or at best a thin and insubstantial product of a pa.s.sing historical phase.

In so far as it has failed it has shown that Irish nationality is a reality, deep rooted in the past, and to be reckoned with permanently in the future. In a word the test of nationality lies in history. If the life of one people can be absorbed into that of another so that free Government can proceed unimpeded, not violated by the habitual resort to "exceptional legislation," the union is justified by the event. If on the other hand the demand for autonomy remains clear and persistent, through evil report and good report, through coercion and concession, through adversity and prosperity, in days of disorder when despair has reigned and in law abiding times rendered calm by hope, there is the proof that nationality is a vital principle, and a permanent force with which liberty must make its account.

How is it then that by the gift of autonomy, time has succeeded in fusing French and British peoples into the nation of Canada, and why do we see a similar fusion proceeding between British and Dutch in South Africa? The question arises partly out of the common confusion between race and nationality. Race is a matter of physical kins.h.i.+p, and kins.h.i.+p is one of the bonds that tend to unite people and at the same time in a measure to separate them from others. But it is only one bond among many. Most modern nations, our own conspicuously, are blends of many races, and are united not so much by common ancestry as by the possession of a common country, common interests, common traditions, a common mode of life and sentiment.

Further, where two or more races are intermixed, there is no means of endowing them with independent Governments. The same writ must run over the whole territory. Hence there are three possibilities. One is that one race should hold the reins of power, as generally happens when white and black live together. Another is that the country should be governed from without, and this will generally mean that the administration leans on one of the races within, and makes of it an "Ascendency" caste. The third is that the two races should seek to live together and govern themselves with mutual toleration. This is the experiment which has succeeded in Canada, and is succeeding so far as the white races are concerned in South Africa, and which is to be tried in Ireland. In proportion as it succeeds the two races blend, and a new nationality is formed.

But still it may be asked, why should not Ulster claim to be a nation?

True, she is but a fragment of Ireland, but then Ireland is but a fragment of the United Kingdom, and St. George's Channel is not so very formidable a dividing line as to make all the difference. Our whole argument, it may be said, has rested on the rights of minorities, and Ulster is a minority.

Why should not Ulster also be a nation? This at once suggests the counter-question, does Ulster claim to be a nation? Let us bear in mind that the term Ulster is a mode of speech, and that what is meant by it for these purposes is half Ulster, or the city of Belfast with some adjacent counties. Does Belfast, we should more rightly ask, profess and call itself a nation? Not if its desire is, what we have always understood it to be, to remain directly subject to the British Parliament. It is in fact, the focus of an old, but decayed Ascendency caste, and its desire is to retain what it can save from the wreck of the Ascendency system. With this demand Liberalism can have no sort of sympathy. If Belfast would condescend to put her case with a little more moderation, and a little allowance for the two sides of the question, it would be easier to meet her views. As long as she declines to make her account with the fact that the great majority of Ireland is Nationalist, and that British Liberalism is resolved to do justice at last to nationalism, she rules herself out of the discussion, and leaves it to British statesmen to act for her rather than with her. Belfast is a Protestant and industrial centre in a land which is predominantly Catholic and agricultural. On both counts she may fear some inequality of treatment, and on both may legitimately receive guarantees. On the major question, that of religion, every Home Rule scheme has proposed ample guarantees and the present Bill does not fall short under this head. The problem of financial and commercial interests is more complex, but it is difficult to see how an Irish Parliament, responsible for the financial soundness of the country, could do anything to cripple the industries of Belfast without being fully aware that in so doing it would be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The discussion of this question, however, I must leave to those who are dealing with the financial provisions of the Bill. On the main point we may ask whether, if the Bill is to pa.s.s, Belfast will deliberately and persistently demand to be left out of its scope, and separated from Ireland in the sense and degree in which Ireland will be separated from the direct control of Great Britain. If such a demand is put forward not merely in order to wreck Home Rule, but as a substantive proposal seriously intended, it will const.i.tute a new fact. Belfast will then be, indeed, claiming recognition as a miniature nationality, and the claim will be fairly weighed. At present it can only be regarded as highly improbable that such a claim should be maintained or even put forward except in a fighting mood. That Belfast should sustain her opposition to the whole Bill is perfectly natural, but given that there is to be Home Rule as one of the fixed conditions of a settlement, her natural position is that of a centre and rallying point for the dispersed forces of Irish Protestantism. That this is her true function in the Irish Parliament, Belfast must be as well aware as she is that her influence in that Parliament will be more than proportionate to her numerical strength.

We have spoken of nationality as a centrifugal force, as one of the influences tending to division. But there is another side to the question.

When a nation obtains self-government it undertakes a new responsibility.

It must keep its own peace, balance its own finances, have regard to its own common economic interests. This common responsibility does not make for division. It makes for unity. It enforces a sober regard for the claims of each part. It dictates a measure of mutual consideration which is not developed as long as one party within the country is taught to lean upon an outside power. In the past history of Ireland each party has alike been taught constantly to look to Westminster for its wants, to Westminster for redress of grievances, to Westminster perhaps for vengeance on its foes or at lowest for the means of keeping them in order.

This is not the atmosphere in which mutual toleration grows. When Irishmen understand that they must go of themselves unaided and uncontrolled from without they will learn like other men that they must pull together if they are to keep off the rocks. The national element will have the majority in the Irish Parliament, and the first object of this element will be to make Home Rule a success. That they can do only by securing the co-operation, even if it be the grudging and unadmitted co-operation, of the opposition. But Belfast is not bound to content herself with these general probabilities. She has only to formulate intelligible demands consistent with the establishment of a Dublin Parliament to be a.s.sured of a respectful and considerate hearing. If she would be content to rest her case on the same basis as that of Irish nationalism itself, recognising that nationalism must have its rights and submitting only that she in turn is a lesser nation within a nation, it would be possible to deal with her.

As long as she stands on her own claims she rules herself out of the discussion.

There are many who regard the recognition of nationality as at best a regrettable necessity. They lay stress on those centrifugal tendencies that we have admitted and they feel that the greater need of mankind is for unity. But the unity which they desire can only come through the development of life in many different centres and with luxuriant divergencies of character. The doctrine of Mazzini that every nation had its own peculiar function to fulfil in the life of humanity was not pure fancy. It is easy to recognise that the leading modern nations have each, in fact, contributed something distinctive, something that would have been blurred and dulled if all had been of one speech and under one rule.

Division has meant unrest, friction, war, and suffering. But it has been a necessary condition of collective vitality. Self-respect and self-confidence are necessary to a people that are to do great things, and these they cannot enjoy to the full so long as they are conscious of a mastery that galls their pride. Ireland has contributed to our literature her peculiar strain of humour and of romance, tinged with the melancholy of her historic ill-fortune. The graver tone and gentler view she will never lose, for they belong to a people who will always have behind them the memory of the centuries of that undeserved suffering which opens the eyes of men to the nature of the human tragedy. But the distinctive Irish quality may henceforward be shot with a brighter thread catching the light from her a.s.sured future as a nation. As a nation she has her part to play in the English-speaking Commonwealth, questioning the successful practicality of a dominant people with the irony, and tempering its prose with the romance born in the centuries of her probation in the valley of the shadow.

XV.-The Imperial Parliament

(I) The State Of Parliamentary Business. BY CECIL HARMSWORTH, M.P.

There is one argument for conferring self-government on the people of Ireland that appeals with irresistible force to many ordinary members of Imperial Parliament. This is the urgent necessity for relieving Imperial Parliament of "provincial" business and setting it free to devote its best energies to the ever-increasing legislative and administrative needs of the empire.

Every year the amount of business that falls to be transacted in the House of Commons grows in volume. Every year fresh proofs are afforded that the legislative machinery of the House of Commons is not only unequal to the strain imposed by the growing volume of business, but that it is incapable even of dealing effectively with the affairs that have always been regarded as coming within its special province. For instance, the House of Commons has practically lost all control over the details of finance. It is true that a fairly generous allowance of Parliamentary time is allotted to the Estimates, but the House rarely, if ever, comes to close grips with the nation's balance sheet, or indeed with the details of any particular vote. Yet a vigilant supervision over finance is one of the primary functions of the House of Commons.

How far the recently established Select Committee on Estimates will be able to a.s.sist in promoting national economy remains to be seen. The creation of such a body has not met with universal approval in the House itself. As in the case of all parliamentary Committees, no matter how influential their _personnel_, the House as a whole may not be found willing to accept the decisions of the new Select Committee as authoritative.

In the sphere of Bill legislation, the condition of things is even worse.

Notwithstanding the desperate s.h.i.+fts which have been resorted to in recent years to secure the dispatch of business, we are confronted in every succeeding session with greater congestion in the House of Commons. Big Bills are hustled through with the aid of every undesirable expedient known to parliamentary procedure, and little Bills in pathetic shoals are ma.s.sacred at the end of each session. The plain fact is that we have not sufficient time in which to do anything properly. No matter what strain we impose on the physical endurance of Members, no matter how far we invade the undoubted privileges of the House of Commons as a deliberative a.s.sembly, Parliament is less and less able to fulfil its manifold duties as the paramount legislature in a world-wide state. The damage to local interests is scarcely less serious. Irish finance, for instance, and Irish legislation suffer from the disability of Imperial Parliament to give them due consideration.

Let it not be supposed that the House of Commons is unconscious of its own demerits as a legislative machine. It is nearly sixty years since Sir John Pakington's Committee was appointed to consider "whether by any alteration in the forms and proceedings of this House, the dispatch of public business would be more effectually promoted." Committees with similar references were set up in 1861, in 1878, and in 1886. As a result of these inquiries two Standing Committees were established at the instance of Mr.

W. H. Smith in 1888. The relegation of measures of the second rank to the two Standing Committees was expected to lighten the legislative burdens of the House of Commons very considerably, and this result was in some measure achieved. But the problem of congestion was so far from being solved that it was thought necessary to appoint yet another Committee (Sir Henry Fowler's) in 1906. This Committee recommended the setting up of four Standing Committees, and it is under this system that we are now working.

With considerable diffidence I advance the opinion that an even larger use of Standing Committees might be made than has yet been attempted. Part II.

of the National Insurance Bill was sent "upstairs," and the result amply justified what was regarded by cautious Parliamentarians as a daring experiment. But this part of the Insurance Bill was in a large degree uncontroversial. The House of Commons is jealous, and naturally jealous, of its rights over controversial measures of the first cla.s.s, and has never yet shown any readiness to accept as conclusive the decisions of Standing Committees. Nor should it be forgotten that attendance on a Standing Committee imposes a severe strain on members who are also keenly interested in the business of the House itself. By the time Mr. Speaker takes the chair at a quarter to three o'clock, the members of such Committees have often completed a very fair day's work.

Meanwhile, other and more questionable expedients for facilitating the dispatch of business were coming into general use. It is to Mr. Joseph Ronayne, a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 'seventies of last century, that we owe the policy of organised and scientific obstruction in the House of Commons, and, as a consequence, the drastic use of the closure. Mr. Ronayne was a back-bench member of the Irish Party, of un.o.btrusive manners but of settled opinions. He was profoundly dissatisfied with the unaggressive tactics of Mr. Isaac b.u.t.t, the then leader of the Irish Party.

"We will never make any impression on the House," he said, "until we interfere in English business. At present Englishmen manage their own affairs in their own way, without any interference from us. Then, when we want to get our business through, they stop us.

We ought to show them that two can play at this game of obstruction. Let us interfere in English legislation; let us show them that if we are not strong enough to get our own work done, we are strong enough to prevent them from getting theirs."(159)

Mr. Ronayne found in Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar an apt pupil. Mr. Biggar used to say: "The English stop our Bills. Why don't we stop their Bills?

That's the thing to do. No Irish Bills; but stop English Bills. No legislation; that's the policy, sir, that's the policy. b.u.t.t's a fool, too gentlemanly; we're all too gentlemanly." Mr. Biggar's oratory is happily now only a tradition. It was not good oratory of any kind, but it effected its purpose. More skilful exponents of the art of obstruction have appeared since Mr. Biggar's day, but none more successful. The expedient may have been justifiable in the case of a small minority struggling unavailingly against an overwhelming and indifferent majority. It is quite true that during the mild reign of Mr. b.u.t.t the British political parties treated legislative proposals emanating from the Irish Parliamentary Party with scant courtesy. It is equally true that obstruction in the House of Commons proved a potent incentive to the more careful consideration of Irish claims. We have travelled far since those days, but obstruction remains as one of the most formidable weapons in the armoury of an opposition. The British political parties have, when in opposition, made full use of a device that Mr. b.u.t.t regarded as "undignified, useless, and mischievous." And not only is obstruction with us, but its hateful if necessary corollary, the closure, has tended every year to become more oppressive. The parliamentary historian of the future will note that it was on June 10th, 1887, that "closure by guillotine," that monstrous variant of an accursed type, was first proposed in the House of Commons. A few days later the guillotine fell on several of the most important clauses of a new Crimes Bill. So closely a.s.sociated with Ireland are the most recent and most detrimental changes in the procedure that governs the debates in our Imperial Parliament!

Obstruction or no obstruction, closure by guillotine or by compartments has come to stay as long as our Parliament attempts the otherwise impossible task of legislating for several provinces, and an empire at the same time. Nowadays almost every great Bill is subjected sooner or later to the guillotine. Let us see what this means. A debate in Committee, let us say, has been in progress for some days or weeks. Discussion has been free, and only occasionally, perhaps, has the ordinary form of closure been exercised. A bare half dozen clauses have been disposed of. There remain four or five score more clauses and a motley group of schedules. It becomes obvious that unless something is done to speed up the machinery, the Bill will never get through the House. Then it is that the leader of the House braces himself to his most unwelcome task, and, rising in his place, proposes a rigid time-table for the discussion of the remaining clauses and schedules. A certain number of days are allotted, and to each portion of time is allotted a section of the Bill. Thus, a whole Parliamentary day may be allotted to three clauses. The whole of this day, perhaps, is spent in debating the first line of the first of the three clauses. However this may be, the guillotine falls with remorseless severity at the end of the allotted day, and only Government amendments to the undiscussed parts of the three clauses are taken. Could anything be more clumsy? Was it possible for the ingenuity of man to invent a less businesslike remedy for the congestion of business in Parliament? Indeed, the absurdity of the system is universally acknowledged. I know of no more distressing spectacle than that of the leader of the House of Commons exerting himself to excuse a policy that he, in common with all who reverence the House of Commons, holds in detestation. On such occasions as this, the arguments advanced for what is confessedly a rude invasion of the rights of free speech are of a set pattern. It is urged that the debate has now been in progress for so many days or weeks, and that little advance has been made. Regret is expressed that resort should be had to such an unpopular device as the guillotine. But by what other means, it is asked, is a Government to carry controversial measures? After all, the time-table proposed is a generous one, having regard to all the circ.u.mstances of the case, and is certainly more generous than that allowed by the party opposite on such and such an occasion in the past.

The leader of the Opposition, in rising, lays his hand on his heart and calls the House to witness that if on former occasions he has made use of the guillotine, he has done so far less frequently than the head of the present administration, and with an entire absence of the levity that marks the present proceedings. The guillotine resolution is carried. There are ineffectual ebullitions of wrath on the opposition side of the House, and there are sinking hearts on the Ministerial Benches. On every such occasion it is felt in all parts of the House that a deadly blow has been aimed at the dignity and the prestige of Parliament.

But the House of Commons is meant to be a deliberative a.s.sembly! It holds still the highest place among the democratic a.s.semblies of the world, and its rules and forms and customs have been adopted with unquestioning veneration, wherever democratic communities have set up legislating for themselves. In point of _personnel_, recent Parliaments have shown no falling off from the standards of other days. In manners, in public spirit, in devotion to parliamentary duty, and in the range of their knowledge and experience, the members of the present Parliament compare most favourably with their predecessors in any Parliament in our history.

If they are gagged and closured and guillotined, it is not because their speeches would be unworthy of the place or of the occasion. The simple reason is that there is no time for them. The mother of Parliaments is trying to do the work of four or five Parliaments, and is signally failing in the attempt.

Let this be noted. Though the outcry against the guillotine closure, whenever it is proposed to be exercised, is loudest on the opposition side of the House, the guillotine operates just as much to the disadvantage of private members on the Government side. They are expected to support the Government Bill in broad outline, but they are under no obligation to support it in every detail. They entertain, and are ent.i.tled to entertain, their own views as to points of detail, and are no more willing than members opposite that their pet amendments should be sacrificed arbitrarily at the end of an allotted day. Indeed, since they are, _ex hypothesi_, devoted to the main principles of the Bill, they are likely to be even more solicitous than members of the Opposition that the Bill should be as perfect in detail as in its general scope. Little wonder that under the operation of the guillotine, private Ministerial members tend more and more to become pa.s.sive and, in the long run, indifferent spectators of the drama that is enacted on the floor of the House when a great Bill is going through, and it is in this respect and not in any other, I think, that modern Parliaments are inferior to others.

There are other aspects of the question that might be dwelt on at some length, if this were the proper occasion. Since it is recognised in all parts of the House that a great measure is not and cannot be adequately discussed under the guillotine closure, a dangerous practice has grown up of leaving difficult matters to be decided by Government departments or by new authorities set up under the Act. Under the National Insurance Act, for instance, the Commissioners are invested for certain purposes with all the legislative prerogatives of the three estates of the realm! I must leave that matter to the const.i.tutional authorities. I am concerned for the moment merely to show that the guillotine closure is a clumsy, unbusinesslike, and dangerous expedient that cannot be regarded as having solved in any satisfactory degree the eternal problem of congestion in a Parliament that attempts to cope at the same time with the local affairs of three or four provinces, and with the affairs of an empire.

Relief might doubtless be found in the more frequent use of what is known as the "kangaroo" closure. This method of dealing with business in Committee was first regularized in 1908. Under this system, power is given to the Chairman to select such Amendments as he believes to be really important, to the exclusion of others. The burden of responsibility thus thrown on the Chair is felt to be enormous, and it is chiefly on this account that the kangaroo closure has been very sparingly exercised.