It can repeal[66] any Act affecting Ireland which was enacted before the passing of the Home Rule Bill. Thus it can do away with the right to the writ of habeas corpus; it can abolish the whole system of trial by jury; it can by wide rules as to the change of venue expose any inhabitant of Belfast, charged with any offence against the Irish Government, to the certainty of being tried in Dublin or in Cork. If an Irish law cannot touch the law of treason or of treason-felony, the leaders of the Irish Parliament may easily invent new offences not called by these names, and the Parliament may impose severe penalties on any one who attempts by act or by speech to bring the Irish Government into contempt. A new law of sacrilege may be passed which would make criticism of the Irish priesthood, or attacks on the Roman Catholic religion, or the public advocacy of Protestantism, practically impossible. The Irish House of Commons may take the decision of election petitions into its own hands, and members nominated by the priests may determine the proper limits of spiritual influence. Thus the party dominant at Dublin can, if they see fit, abolish all freedom of election; nor is this all that the Irish Parliament can accomplish in the way of ensuring the supremacy of an Irish party. After six years from the passing of the Home Rule Bill—let us say in the year 1900—the Irish Parliament can alter the qualification of the electors and the distribution of the members among the constituencies. Parliament can in fact introduce at once universal suffrage, and do everything which the ingenuity of partisanship can suggest for diminishing the representation of property and of Protestantism. If, further, in any part of Ireland there be reason to fear opposition to the laws of the Irish Parliament, a severer Coercion Act may be passed than any which has as yet found its way on to the pages of the English or the Irish Statute Book. Worse than all this, the Irish Parliament has the right to legislate with regard to transactions which have taken place before the passing of the Home Rule Bill. An Act inflicting penalties on magistrates who have been zealous in the enforcement of the Crimes Act, an Act abolishing the right to recover debts incurred before 1893, an Act for compensation to tenants who had suffered from obedience to the behests of the Land League, are all Acts which, however monstrous, the Irish Parliament is, under the new constitution, competent to pass.
My assertion is, be it noted, not that all or any of such laws would be passed, but that the passing of them would, under the new constitution, be legal. The Irish Parliament could further by its legislation pursue lines of policy opposed to the moral feeling and political judgment of Great Britain, and this too where Irish legislation practically affects Great Britain. State lotteries might be re-established, gambling tables might be re-opened at Dublin. If the imposition of protective duties on imported goods is forbidden, there is nothing apparently to prevent the reintroduction of Protection into Ireland by the payment of bounties; there is certainly nothing to prohibit the repeal or suspension of the Factory Acts, so that English manufacturers might be compelled to compete with Irish rivals who are freed from the limits imposed upon excessive labour by the humanity or the wisdom of England. The power of the Irish Parliament to pass laws which in the eyes of Englishmen are unwise or inequitable, is, it will be urged, an essential part of the policy of Home Rule. I admit that this is so. But this makes it the more necessary that English electors should realise what this essential characteristic of Home Rule means, or may mean. The Nonconformist conscience exposed Irish Home Rulers to painful humiliation and possible ruin by forbidding them to follow the political leader of their choice to whom they had deliberately renewed their allegiance. Is it certain that Englishmen who could not tolerate the official authority of Mr. Parnell will bear the official leadership, say of Mr. Healy, if employed to carry out the economical principles of Mr. Davitt?
The legislative powers, ample as they are, of the Irish Parliament are in some respects restricted, but what the Parliament cannot accomplish by law it could accomplish by resolution. The expressed opinion of a legislature entitled to speak in the name of the people of Ireland must always command attention, and may exert decisive influence. Suppose that the Irish House of Commons asserts in respectful, but firm, language, the right of the Irish people to establish a protective tariff; suppose that when England is engaged in a diplomatic, or an armed, contest with France, the Irish House of Commons resolves that Ireland sympathises with France, that Ireland disapproves of all alliance with Germany, that she has no interest in war, and wishes to stand neutral; or suppose that, taking another line, the Irish Parliament at the approach of hostilities resolves that the people of Ireland assert their inherent right to arm volunteers, or raise an army in their own defence. No English Minister can allege with truth that these resolutions or a score more of the same kind are a breach of the constitution; yet such resolutions will not be without their effect in England; they cannot be without their effect abroad; in many parts of Ireland they will have more than the authority of an Act of Parliament.
Assume, for the purpose of my argument, that the Irish Parliament always acts absolutely within the limits or the letter of the constitution, though to make this assumption is to substitute unreasonable hopes for rational expectations. What Englishmen should note, because they do not yet understand it, is that within the limits of the constitution the Irish Cabinet and the Irish Parliament possess and must possess the most extensive powers, and that these powers may be used in ways which would surprise and shock the British public, and impede and weaken the action of the Imperial, or English, Government.
D. The Restrictions (or Safeguards) and the Obligations
I. Their Nature.
The limitations on the power of the Irish Legislature are of a twofold character.
The Restrictions contained in clause 3 of the Bill are intended to restrain the Irish Parliament from acting as the representative body of an independent nation. This clause invalidates for example acts with respect to the Crown or the succession to the Crown, with respect to peace or war, with respect to the naval or military forces of the realm, with respect to treaties or other relations with foreign states, and with respect to trade with any place out of Ireland, which apparently includes the imposition of a protective tariff.