Handbook of Home Rule Part 4

purchase on the net rental of the estate (that is to say, the rent received by him after deducting all outgoings), and paying him the purchase-money in 3 per cent. stock taken at par. The stock was to be advanced by the English Government to an Irish State department at 3-1/8 per cent. interest, and the Bill provided that the tenant, instead of rent, was to pay an annuity of 4 per cent. on a capital sum equal in amount to twenty times the gross rental.

The notable feature which distinguished this plan from all other schemes was the security given for the repayment of the purchase-money: hitherto the English Government has lent the money directly to the landlord or tenant, and has become the mortgagee of the land--in other words, has become in effect the landlord of the land sold to the tenant until the repayment of the loan has been completed. To carry into effect under such a system any extensive scheme of agrarian reform (and if not extensive such a reform would be of no value in pacifying Ireland) presupposes a readiness on the part of the English Government to become virtually the landlord of a large portion of Ireland, with the attendant odium of absenteeism and alien domination. Under a land scheme such as that of 1886, all these difficulties would be overcome. The Irish, not the English, Government would be the virtual landlord. It would be the interest of Ireland that the annuities due from the tenants should be regularly paid, as, subject to the prior charge of the English Exchequer, they would form part of the Irish revenues. The cardinal difference, then, between Mr. Gladstone's scheme and any other land scheme that has seen the light is this--that in Mr. Gladstone's scheme the English loans would have been lent to the Irish Government on the security of the whole Irish revenues, whereas in every other scheme they have been lent by the English Government to the Irish creditors on the security of individual patches of land.

The whole question, then, of the relation between Home Rule and agrarian reform may be summed up as follows:--Agrarian reform is necessary for the pacification of Ireland; agrarian reform cannot be efficiently carried into effect without an Irish Government; an Irish Government can only be established by a Home Rule Bill: therefore a Home Rule Bill is necessary for the pacification of Ireland. It is idle to say, as has been said on numerous platforms, that plans no doubt can be devised for agrarian reform without Home Rule. The Irish revenues are the only collateral security that can be obtained for loans of English money, and Irish revenues are only available for the purpose on the establishment of an Irish Government. Baronial guarantees, union guarantees, county guarantees, debenture schemes, have all been tried and found wanting, and vague a.s.sertions as to possibilities are idle unless they are based on intelligible working plans.

The foregoing arguments will be equally valid if, instead of making the tenants peasant-proprietors, it were thought desirable that the Irish State should be the proprietor and the tenants be the holders of the land at perpetual rents and subject to fixed conditions. Again, it might be possible to pay the landlords by annual sums instead of capital sums.

Such matters are really questions of detail. The substance is to interpose the Irish Government between the tenant and the English mortgagee, and to make the loans general charges on the whole of the Irish Government revenues as paid into the hands of an Imperial Receiver instead of placing them as special charges, each fixed on its own small estate or holding. The fact that Mr. Gladstone's land scheme was denounced as confiscation of 100,000,000 of the English taxpayers'

property, while Lord Ashbourne's Act is p.r.o.nounced by the same party wise and prudent, shows the political blindness of party spirit in its most absurd form. Lord Ashbourne's Act requires precisely the same expenditure to do the same work as Mr. Gladstone's Bill requires, but in Mr. Gladstone's scheme the whole Irish revenue was pledged as collateral security, and the Irish Government was interposed between the ultimate creditor and the Irish tenant, while under Lord Ashbourne's Act the English Government figures without disguise as the landlord of each tenant, exacting a debt which the tenant is unwilling to pay as being due to what he calls an alien Government.

An endeavour has been made in the preceding pages to prove that Home Rule in no respect infringes on Imperial rights or Imperial unity, for the simple reason that the Imperial power remains exactly in the same position as it was before, the Home Rule Bill dealing only with Local matters. At all events, Burke thought that the Imperial supremacy alone const.i.tuted a real union between England and Ireland. He says--

"My poor opinion is, that the closest connection between Great Britain and Ireland is essential to the well-being--I had almost said to the very being--of the three kingdoms; for that purpose I humbly conceive that the whole of the superior, and what I should call Imperial politics, ought to have its residence here, and that Ireland, locally, civilly, and commercially independent, ought politically to look up to Great Britain in all matters of peace and war. In all these points to be joined with her, and, in a word, with her to live and to die."[13]

How strange to Burke would have seemed the doctrine that the restoration of a limited power of self-government to Ireland, excluding commerce, and excluding all matters not only Imperial, but those in which uniformity is required, should be denounced as a disruption of the Empire!

It remains to notice one other charge made against the Gladstonian Home Rule Bill, namely, that of impairing the supremacy of the British Parliament. That allegation has been shown also to be founded on a mistake. Next, it is said that the Gladstonian scheme does not provide securities against executive and legislative oppression. The answer is complete. The executive authority being vested in the Queen, it will be the duty of the Governor not to allow executive oppression; still more will it be his duty to veto any act of legislative oppression. Further, it is stated that difficulties will arise with respect to the power of the Privy Council to nullify unconst.i.tutional Acts. But it is hard to see why a power which is exercised with success in the United States, where all the States are equal, and without dispute in our colonies, which are all dependent, should not be carried into effect with equal ease in Ireland, which is more closely bound to us and more completely under our power than the colonies are, or than the several States are under the power of the Central Government.

To conclude: the cause of Irish discontent is the conjoint operation of the pa.s.sion for nationality and the vicious system of land tenure, and the scheme of the Irish Home Rule Bill and the Land Bill removes the whole fabric on which Irish discontent is raised. The Irish, by the great majority of their representatives, have accepted the Home Rule Bill as a satisfactory settlement of the nationality question. The British Parliament can, through the medium of the Home Rule Bill and the establishment of an Irish Legislature, carry through a final settlement of agrarian disputes with less injustice to individuals than could a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and, be it added, with scarcely any appreciable risk to the British taxpayer. Of course it may be said that an Irish Parliament will go farther--that Home Rule is a step to separation, and a reform of the Land Laws a spoliation of the landlords.

To those who urge such arguments I would recommend the perusal of the speech of Burke on Conciliation with America, and especially the following sentences, subst.i.tuting "Ireland" for "the colonies:"--

"But [the Colonies] Ireland will go further. Alas! alas! when will this speculating against fact and reason end? What will quiet these panic fears which we entertain of the hostile effect of a conciliatory conduct? Is it true that no case can exist in which it is proper for the Sovereign to accede to the desires of his discontented subjects? Is there anything peculiar in this case to make it a rule for itself? Is all authority of course lost when it is not pushed to the extreme? Is it a certain maxim that the fewer causes of discontentment are left by Government the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebel?"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Burke's Speech on American Taxation, vol. i. p. 174]

[Footnote 10: This is the opinion of both English and American lawyers.

See Blackstone's Comm., i. 90; Austin on Jurisprudence, i. 226. As to American cases, see Corley on Const.i.tutional Limitations, pp. 2-149.]

[Footnote 11: "Lectures on the Colonies," p, 641.]

[Footnote 12: Burke, vol. i. p. 181.]

[Footnote 13: "Letter on Affairs of Ireland," i. 462.]

THE IRISH GOVERNMENT BILL AND THE IRISH LAND BILL

BY LORD THRING

A mere enumeration or a.n.a.lysis of the contents of the Irish Government Bill, 1886, and the Land (Ireland) Bill, 1886, would convey scarcely any intelligible idea to the mind of an ordinary reader. It is, therefore, proposed in the following pages, before entering on the details of each Bill, to give a summary of the reasons which led to its introduction, and of the principles on which it is founded. To begin with the Irish Government Bill--

The object of the Irish Government Bill is to confer on the Irish people the largest measure of self-government consistent with the absolute supremacy of the Crown and Imperial Parliament and the entire unity of the Empire. To carry into effect this object it was essential to create a separate though subordinate legislature; thus occasion was given to opponents to apply the name of Separatists to the supporters of the Bill--a term true in so far only as it denoted the intention to create a separate legislature, but false and calumnious when used in the sense in which it was intended to be understood--of imputing to the promoters of the Bill the intention to disunite or in any way to disintegrate the Empire. Indeed, the very object of the measure was, by relaxing a little the legal bonds of union, to draw closer the actual ties between England and Ireland, in fact, to do as we have done in our Colonies, by decentralizing the subordinate functions of government to strengthen the central supremacy of natural affection and Imperial unity. The example of the effects of giving complete self-government to our Colonies would seem not unfavourable to trying the same experiment in Ireland. Some forty years ago, Canada, New Zealand, and the various colonies of Australia were discontented and uneasy at the control exercised by the Government of England over their local affairs. What did England do? She gave to each of those communities the fullest power of local government consistent with the unity of the Empire. The result was that the real union was established in the same degree as the apparent tie of control over local affairs was loosened. Are there any reasons to suppose that the condition of Ireland is such as to render the example of the Colonies applicable? Let us look a little at the past history of that country. Up to 1760 Ireland was governed practically as a conquered country. The result was that in 1782, in order to save Imperial unity, we altogether relaxed the local tie and made Ireland legislatively independent. The Empire was thus saved, but difficulties naturally arose between two independent legislatures. The true remedy would have been to have imposed on Grattan's Parliament the conditions imposed by the Irish Government Bill on the statutory Parliament created by that Bill; the course actually taken was that, instead of leaving the Irish with their local government, and arranging for the due supremacy of England, the Irish Legislature was destroyed under the guise of Union, and Irish representatives were transferred to an a.s.sembly in which they had little weight, and in which they found no sympathy. The result was that from the date of the Union to the present day Ireland has been constantly working for the reinstatement of its National Legislature, and has been governed by a continuous system of extraordinary legislature called coercion; the fact being that between 1800, the date of the Act of Union, and 1832, the date of the great Reform Act, there were only eleven years free from coercion, while in the fifty-three years since that period there have been only two years entirely free from special repressive legislation. So much, therefore, is clear, that Irish discontent at not being allowed to manage their own affairs has gradually increased instead of diminis.h.i.+ng. The conclusion then would seem irresistible, that if coercion has failed, the only practical mode of governing Ireland satisfactorily is to give the people power to manage their local affairs. Coming, then, to the principle of the Bill, the first step is to reconcile local government with Imperial supremacy, in other words, to divide Imperial from local powers; for if this division be accurately made, and the former cla.s.s of powers be reserved to the British Crown and British Parliament, while the latter only are intrusted to the Irish Parliament, it becomes a contradiction in terms to say that Imperial unity is dissolved by reserving to the Imperial authority all its powers, or that Home Rule is a sundering of the Imperial tie when that tie is preserved inviolable. Imperial powers, then, are the prerogatives of the Crown with respect to peace and war, and making treaties with foreign nations; in short, the power of regulating the relations of the Empire towards foreign nations. These are the _jura summi imperii_, the very insignia of supremacy; the attributes of sovereign authority in every form of government, be it despotism, limited monarchy, or republic; the only difference is that in a system of government under one supreme head, they are vested in that head alone, in a federal government, as in America or Switzerland, they reside in the composite body forming the federal supreme authority.

Various subsidiary powers necessarily attend the above supreme powers; for example, the power of maintaining armies and navies, of commanding the militia, and other incidental powers. Closely connected with the power of making peace and war is the power of regulating commerce with foreign nations. Next in importance to the reservations necessary to const.i.tute the Empire a Unity with regard to foreign nations, are the powers required to prevent disputes and to facilitate intercourse between the various parts of the Empire. These are the coinage of money and other regulations relating to currency, to copyright or other exclusive rights to the use or profit of any works or inventions. The above subjects must be altogether excluded from the powers of the subordinate legislature; it ceases to be subordinate as soon as it is invested with these Imperial, or quasi-Imperial, powers.

a.s.suming, however, the division between Imperial and local powers to be accurately determined, how is the subordinate legislative body to be kept within its due limits? The answer is very plain,--an Imperial court must be established to decide in the last resort whether the subordinate legislature has or has not infringed Imperial rights. Such a court has been in action in the United States of America ever since their union, and no serious conflict has arisen in carrying its decisions into effect, and the Privy Council, acting as the Supreme Court in respect to Colonial appeals, has been accepted by all the self-governing colonies as a just and impartial expositor of the meaning of their several const.i.tutions.

Next in importance to the right division of Imperial and local powers is a correct understanding of the relation borne by the executive of an autonomous country to the mother country. In every part of the British Empire which enjoys home rule the legislature consists of the Queen and the two local legislative bodies. The administrative power resides in the Queen alone. The Queen has the appointment of all the officers of the government; money bills can be introduced into the legislature only with the consent of the Queen. The initiative power of taxation then is vested in the Queen, the executive head, in practice represented by the Governor. But such a power of initiation is of course useless unless the legislative body is willing to support the executive, and grants it the necessary funds for carrying on the government. What, then, is the contrivance by which the governmental machine is prevented from being stopped by a difference between the executive and legislative authorities? It is the same in the mother country, and in every British home-rule country, with this difference only--that beyond the limits of the mother country the Queen is represented by a governor to whom are delegated such a measure of powers as is necessary for the supreme head of a local self-governing community. The contrivance is this in the mother country:--the Queen acts upon the advice of a cabinet council; in home-rule dependencies the Governor acts on the advice of a local council. If this cabinet council in the mother country, or local council in a dependency, ceases to command a majority in the popular legislative body, it resigns, and the Governor is obliged to select a council which, by commanding such a majority, can obtain the supplies necessary to carry on the government. The consequence then is, that in a home-rule community, if a serious difficulty arises between the legislative and executive authority, the head of the executive, the governor, refers the ultimate decision of the question to the general body of electors by dissolving the popular legislative body. It has been urged in the discussion on the Irish Government Bill that the powers of the executive in relation to the legislative body ought to be expressed in the Bill itself; but it is clear to anybody acquainted with the rudiments of legislation that the details of such a system (in other words, the mode in which a governor ought to act under the endless variety of circ.u.mstances which may occur in governing a dependency) never have been and never can be expressed in an Act of Parliament. But how little difficulty this absence of definition has caused may be judged from the fact that neither in England nor in any of her home-rule dependencies has any vital collision arisen between the executive and legislative authorities, and that all the home-rule colonies have managed to surmount the obstacles which the opponents of Home Rule argued would be fatal to their existence. The main principles have now been stated on which the Irish Government Bill is framed, and it remains to give a summary of the provisions of the Bill, the objects and bearing of which will be readily understood from the foregoing observations. The first clause provides that--

"On and after the appointed day there shall be established in Ireland a Legislature consisting of Her Majesty the Queen and an Irish legislative body."

This is the first step in all English const.i.tutional systems, to vest the power of legislation in the Queen and the legislative body. Such a legislature might have had conferred on it the independent powers vested in Grattan's Parliament: but the second clause at once puts an end to any doubt as to the subordination of the Irish legislative body; for while on the one hand it confers full powers of local self-government, by declaring that the Legislature may make any laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland, it subjects that power to numerous exceptions and restrictions. The exceptions are contained in the third clause, and the restrictions in the fourth. The exceptions are as follows:--

"The Legislature of Ireland shall not make laws relating to the following matters or any of them:--

"(1.) The status or dignity of the Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency;

"(2.) The making of peace or war;

"(3.) The army, navy, militia, volunteers, or other military or naval forces, or the defence of the realm;

"(4.) Treaties and other relations with foreign States, or the relations between the various parts of Her Majesty's dominions;

"(5.) Dignities or t.i.tles of honour;

"(6.) Prize or booty of war;

"(7.) Offences against the law of nations; or offences committed in violation of any treaty made, or hereafter to be made, between Her Majesty and any foreign State; or offences committed on the high seas;

"(8.) Treason, alienage, or naturalization;

"(9.) Trade, navigation, or quarantine;

"(10.) The postal and telegraph service, except as hereafter in this Act mentioned with respect to the transmission of letters and telegrams in Ireland;

"(11.) Beacons, lighthouses, or sea-marks;

"(12.) The coinage; the value of foreign money; legal tender; or weights and measures; or

"(13.) Copyright, patent rights, or other exclusive rights to the use or profits of any works or inventions."

Of these exceptions the first four preserve the imperial rights which have been insisted on above, and maintain the position of Ireland as an integral portion of that Empire of which Great Britain is the head. The remaining exceptions are either subsidiary to the first four, or relate, as is the case with exceptions 10 to 13, to matters on which it is desirable that uniformity should exist throughout the whole Empire. The restrictions in clause 4 are:--

"The Irish Legislature shall not make any law--

"(1.) Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

"(2.) Imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege, on account of religious belief; or

"(3.) Abrogating or derogating from the right to establish or maintain any place of denominational education or any denominational inst.i.tution or charity; or

"(4.) Prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at that school; or

"(5.) Impairing, without either the leave of Her Majesty in Council first obtained on an address presented by the legislative body of Ireland, or the consent of the corporation interested, the rights, property, or privileges of any existing corporation incorporated by royal charter or local and general Act of Parliament; or

"(6.) Imposing or relating to duties of customs and duties of excise, as defined by this Act, or either of such duties, or affecting any Act relating to such duties or either of them; or