A Leap in the Dark / A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the / Bill of 1893

by A. V. Dicey

ii. Grattan's Constitution.

From the asserted harmony between England and Ireland from 1782 to 1800 under Grattan's Constitution, the inference is drawn that there is no reason to fear discord between England and Ireland under the Gladstonian constitution of 1893.

The fallacy underlying the appeal to this precedent has been, to use words of Mr. Lecky, 'so frequently exposed that I can only wonder at its repetition.'[112] Under Grattan's Constitution the Irish Executive was appointed, not by the Irish Parliament, but by the English Ministry; the Irish Parliament consisted solely of Protestants; it represented the miscalled 'English garrison,' and was in sympathy with the governing classes of England. With all this to promote harmony, the concord between the governing powers in England and in Ireland was dubious. The rejection of England's proposals as to trade, and the exaction of the Renunciation Act, betray a condition of opinion which at any moment might have produced open discord. When at last the parliamentary independence of Ireland had led up to a savage rebellion, suppressed I fear with savage severity, English statesmen knew that an independent Irish Parliament threatened the existence of England. I may be allowed, even by Gladstonians, to place the genius and patriotism of Pitt on at least a level with the genius and patriotism of the present Premier. I may be allowed to doubt whether Mr. Gladstone's studies, however profound, in the history of Ireland, can, in 1893, render his acquaintance with the circumstances and the dangers of 1800 equal to the knowledge of the Minister who, in 1800, carried the Act of Union. And Pitt then held that the Union with Ireland was necessary for the preservation of England. If moreover Grattan's Constitution be a precedent for our guidance, let us see to what the precedent points. The leading principles or features of Grattan's Constitution are well known. They are the absolute sovereignty of the Irish Parliament, and its independence of and equality with the Parliament of Great Britain; the renunciation by the British Parliament of any claim whatever to legislate for Ireland, and of any jurisdiction on the part of any British court to entertain appeals from Ireland; and, lastly, the absence of all representation of Ireland in the Parliament at Westminster. Each of these principles or features is denied or reversed by our new Gladstonian constitution. The Irish Parliament is to be, not a sovereign legislature, but a subordinate legislature created by statute, and a legislature of such restricted and inferior authority as to be unworthy of the name of a parliament. The Imperial Parliament, with its vast majority of British members, asserts its absolute supremacy in Ireland, and the right at its discretion to legislate for Ireland on any matter whatever; in Ireland there is to be founded an Imperial or British Court appointed by the Imperial Ministry, having jurisdiction on all matters affecting Imperial rights, and the final Court of Appeal from every tribunal in Ireland is to be the British Privy Council. Add to this that Irish members are to sit in the Parliament of Westminster as the 'outward and visible sign' of the Imperial Parliament's supremacy. But if every principle of Grattan's Constitution be contradicted by the Gladstonian constitution, if every principle which Grattan detested is a principle which Mr. Gladstone asserts, with what show of reason can the success, uncertain though it be, of the Constitution of 1782 be pleaded as evidence of the probable success of the Gladstonian constitution of 1893? That two arrangements are unlike is to ordinary minds no proof that they will have similar results; a parliamentary majority of forty-two may repeal the Act of Union, but it cannot repeal the laws of logic.[113]

iii. Success of Home Rule.

All over the world, we are told, Home Rule has succeeded; there are, under the government of the British Crown, at least twenty countries enjoying Home Rule, and their local independence causes no inconvenience to the United Kingdom or to the British Empire. It follows therefore that Home Rule in Ireland will be a success and will in no way disturb the peace or prosperity of the United Kingdom.

The sole difficulty in meeting this argument is the extreme vagueness of its principal term. The words 'Home Rule' are in their signification so vague, at any rate as employed by Ministerialists, that they cover governments of totally different descriptions. Hungary, Norway, a State of the American Union, a Province of the Canadian Dominion, the Dominion itself, Man, Jersey, and Guernsey, every English colony with representative institutions, are each described, by one Gladstonian reasoner or another, as happy and prosperous under Home Rule. But there is no one who will deny that the dissimilarities between the governments existing in each of the countries referred to are at least as striking as are their similarities; that the contrast, for example, between the relation of Hungary to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the relation of New York to the United States is at least as obvious as its likeness. The analogy, moreover, between Home Rule in any of these countries and Home Rule in Ireland is at best distant and shadowy.[114]

The crisis is too serious to permit us to waste words in examining the curiosities of the Home Rule controversy. Of Hungary, and its relation to the Empire of which it forms part, nothing at all will here be said. There is nothing in that relation analogous to Irish Home Rule. Nor need we trouble ourselves with the 'Home Rule' of Rhodes, of Samos, or of the Lebanon. Of these and any other States, if such there be, which enjoy 'Home Rule' under the supremacy of the Sultan, all that need be said is that it is satisfactory to learn on the authority of Mr. Gladstone that any part whatever of the Turkish Empire is well governed and happy. If any one can seriously suppose that the prosperity of Man and the Channel Islands, which reap all the benefits and bear none of the burdens of connection with Great Britain, and moreover have at no time been discontented, affords any reason for supposing that the secular miseries and discontent of Ireland will be cured by a system of government totally different from that which prevails either in Man, or Guernsey, or in Jersey, let him refer to these interesting islands.[115] For myself I shall leave them out of account. Of the cordial relations between Sweden and Norway we hear nothing; the goodwill generated by a system of Home Rule is bringing these countries to the brink of civil war.[116]

There are two analogous cases or precedents on which serious reasoners rely in support of a policy of Home Rule for Ireland. The success of federal government in other countries, and especially in the United States, and the success of colonial independence throughout the British Empire, are adduced as presumptions that Home Rule would knit together Great Britain and Ireland, or, as the cant of the day goes, transform a paper union into a union of hearts. If New York be loyal to the United States, if New Zealand be loyal to the British Crown, why should not Ireland, when endowed with local independence resembling the independence of an American State or of a self-governing British colony, be a loyal member of the United Kingdom?[117]

This is the suggested argument—let us consider its validity.