Any reader interested in my argument should supplement this brief statement of the relation actually existing between England and her self-governing colonies by a perusal of Mr. Todd's most instructive 'Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies.' But the statement, brief and colourless though it be, is sufficient for its purpose; it shows that the proposal to give to Ireland the institutions of a colony is open to two fatal objections.
1st.—The concession to Ireland of Colonial independence would entail upon England probable peril and certain disgrace.
The peril is obvious. An Irish Cabinet armed with the authority possessed by a Victorian Ministry would at once provide for the self-defence of Ireland, and an Irish army, obeying an Irish Executive and commanded by Irish officers, would be none the less formidable because it might in name be identified with an armed police, or, like the troops raised at the Cape or in Victoria, enjoy the ominous title of Volunteers. If the Colonial precedent were strictly carried out, British troops ought, from the time Ireland obtained an independent Parliament, to be withdrawn from the country. The acknowledged danger of foreign invasion, and the unavowed probability of Irish insurrection, would make the retirement of the English army impossible. But the presence of British forces—and forces, be it remarked, intended in reality as a check on the action of the local Government—would of itself place Ireland in a position utterly unlike the situation of Victoria, and would also involve both the Imperial and the local Government in endless difficulties and controversies. If any one doubts this, let him read the correspondence between Mr. Molteno[[46]] and Sir Bartle Frere, and substitute for the Premier of the Cape Colony the name of Mr. Parnell, and for Sir Bartle Frere the name of any Lord-Lieutenant who might be unfortunate enough to hold office in Ireland after Mr. Parnell became Premier of an Irish Cabinet. Suppose, however, that by some miracle of management or good luck the Irish and English forces acted well together, and that the satisfaction given by a state of things approaching to independence prevented for the moment all attempts at separation, England might escape peril, but she would assuredly not avoid deserved disgrace. An Irish Parliament, returned in the main by the very men who support the National League, would assuredly pass laws which every man in England, and many men throughout Ireland, would hold to be unjust, and which, whether in themselves unjust or not, would certainly set aside Imperial legislation, which England is bound by every consideration of honour and justice to uphold. There is no need to demonstrate here what has been demonstrated by one writer after another, and, indeed, hardly needs proof, that at the present day an Irish Parliament would certainly deprive Irish landlords, and possibly deprive Irish Protestants, of rights which the Imperial Parliament would never take away, and which the Imperial Government is absolutely bound to protect.[[47]] If the English Government were to be base enough to acquiesce in legislation which the Imperial Parliament would never itself have countenanced, then England would be dishonoured; if Bill after Bill passed by the Irish Legislature were prevented from becoming law by veto after veto, then English honour might be saved, but the self-government of Ireland would be at an end, nor would England gain much in credit. The English Ministry can, as long as the connection with a colony endures, arrest Colonial legislation. But the Home Government cannot for any effective purpose interfere with the administrative action of a Colonial Executive. Given courts, an army, and a police controlled by the leaders of the Land League, and it is easy to see how rents might be abolished and landlords driven into exile without the passing by the Irish Parliament of a single Act which a Colonial Secretary could reasonably veto, or which even an English court could hold void under the provisions of the Colonial Laws Act. It is indeed probable that wild legislation at Dublin might provoke armed resistance in Ulster. But a movement which, were Ireland an independent nation, might ensure just government for all classes of Irishmen would, if Ireland were a colony, only add a new element of confusion to an already intolerable state of affairs. Imagine for a moment what would have been the position of England if Englishmen had been convinced that Riel, though technically a rebel, was in reality a patriot, resisting the intolerable oppression of the Dominion Parliament, and you may form some slight idea of the feeling of shame and disgrace with which Englishmen would see British soldiers employed to suppress the revolt of Ulster against a Government which, without English aid, would find it difficult to resist or punish the insurgents. The most painful and least creditable feature in the history of the United States is the apathy with which for thirty years the Northern States tolerated Southern lawlessness, and even now indirectly support Southern oppression.
2nd.—If Colonial independence would be found in Ireland inconsistent with the protection of England's interests and with the discharge of England's duties, it would also fail to produce the one result which would be an adequate compensation for many probable or certain evils—namely, the extinction of Irish discontent.
It is by no means certain, indeed, that Colonial independence would be accepted with genuine acquiescence by any class of Irishmen. Certainly the demand for Grattan's Parliament lends no countenance to the supposition that the people of Ireland would accept with satisfaction a political arrangement which is absolutely opposed in its character to the Constitution of 1782.[[48]] Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that the Irish leaders and the Irish people accepted the offer of Colonial independence; we may be well assured that this acceptance would not produce good-will towards England, and this not from the perversity of the Irish nature, of which we hear a great deal too much, but from difficulties in the nature of things, of which we hear a great deal too little. The restrictions on the authority of the Irish Parliament would, one cannot doubt, be, as safeguards for the authority of the Imperial Government, absolutely illusory. But they would be intensely irritating. Irish leaders would wish, and from their own point of view rightly wish, to carry through a revolutionary policy. The Imperial Government would attempt, and from an English point of view rightly attempt, to arrest revolution. Every considerable legislative measure would give ground for negotiation and for understandings—that is, for dissatisfaction and for misunderstanding. There would be disputes about the land laws, disputes about the army, disputes about the police, disputes about the authority of Imperial legislation, disputes about the validity of Irish enactments, disputes about appeals to the Privy Council. To say that all these sources of irritation might embitter the relation between England and Victoria, and that, as they do not habitually do so, one may infer that they will not embitter the relation between England and Ireland, is to argue that institutions nominally the same will work in the same way when applied to totally different circumstances. Victoria is prosperous; Ireland is in distress. Victoria takes pride in the Imperial connection; the difficulty in dealing with Ireland consists in the fact that large bodies of Irishmen detest the British Empire. Victoria has never aspired to be a nation; the best side of Irish discontent consists in enthusiasm for Irish nationality. Above all this, there has never been any lasting feud between England and her Australian dependencies; the main ground in favour of a fundamental change in the constitutional relations of Ireland and England is the necessity of putting an end at almost any cost to traditional hatred and misunderstanding generated by centuries of misgovernment and misery. If, as already pointed out, the source of this misery, so far as it can be touched by law at all, is a vicious system of land tenure, it is in vain to imagine that the misfortunes of Ireland can be cured by any mere change of constitutional forms. Grant, however, for the sake of argument, that the passion of nationality is the true ground of the demand for Home Rule; grant, also, in defiance of patent facts, that the autonomy of a dependency satisfies the sensibilities of a nation; still it is idle to fancy that a system based, like our scheme of Colonial government, on friendly understandings and the habitual practice of compromise, can regulate the relations of two countries which are kept apart mainly because they cannot understand one another, and can neither of them admit the necessity of mutual concessions. Moreover, a scheme of nominal subjection combined with real independence has the one great defect that it does not teach the lessons which men and nations learn by depending on their own unassisted and uncontrolled efforts. No one learns self-control who fancies he is controlled by a master.[[49]]
The scheme, in short, of Colonial independence, though less absolutely impracticable than any form of Federalism,[[50]] has, as a solution of our Irish difficulties, two fatal defects: it gives Ireland a degree of independence more dangerous to England than would be the existence of Ireland as a separate nation; it bestows on Ireland a kind of self-government which presents neither the material advantages derived from the Union, nor the possible, though hypothetical, gains which might accrue to her from the self-control and energy supposed to flow from the inspiring sentiment of nationality. Still the Colonial system is, in spite of its immense defects as a scheme of Home Rule for Ireland, out and out the least objectionable of the models which have been proposed to us for our imitation, and this for several reasons. To grant to Ireland, if she be prepared to accept it, the position of Victoria is not to impair the supremacy of Parliament; if we copied faithfully the Victorian polity, every Irish member of Parliament would permanently depart from Westminster; there would be no more need for having at Westminster a representative of Dublin than there is for having a representative of Melbourne; the Irish Parliament would depend for its very existence on an Act of the Imperial Parliament, and the British Parliament would be able without consulting any Irish representative to modify, override, or abolish all or any part of the Act constituting the Irish Parliament. In this there would be no breach of faith, for the Constitution would bear on its face that the Act of Parliament on which it depended could be changed by the British Parliament as lawfully as can the Act 18 & 19 Vict. c. 55, which calls into existence the Victorian legislature. The undoubted legal authority and ease with which the British Parliament could suspend or abolish the Irish Constitution would have two good results: the one that Great Britain would have a sanction by which to enforce the adherence of the Irish government to just principles of legislation and of administration; the other that the readiness with which this sanction could be applied would, it is not unlikely, make its application needless. England, again, would not by the concession of Colonial independence dislocate her own Constitution: she would only be extending to Ireland a scheme of government already existing in other parts of the Empire, and would find herself possessed of officials accustomed to make a Colonial Constitution work. Nothing would be changed: there would only be one Colony the more, and the Colonial Office would find no insuperable difficulty in undertaking the government of Ireland in the same sense in which the Office undertakes the government of Victoria. The position, it may be objected, would be a very poor one for Ireland. With this objection I entirely agree: my very contention is that for Ireland, no less than for England, it is best that Ireland shall form part of the United Kingdom. Home Rulers think otherwise: they prefer the local autonomy of Victoria to a share in the United Kingdom. They may probably, however, say that taxation involves representation, and that if Ireland is to take the disadvantages she must also have the immunities of a colony. Here fair-minded men will hold that the Home Rulers are right. The maxim, indeed, that taxation involves representation need not deeply impress any one who remembers that throughout the United Kingdom the property of every woman is taxed, and that no woman has a share in Parliamentary representation. But a formula which is not logically defensible may yet be the embodiment of a just claim. If the very hazardous experiment of placing Ireland in the position of Victoria is to be tried, it must be tried fairly and with every circumstance which may increase its chances of success. Ireland on assuming the position of a colony should, like other colonies, be freed from Imperial taxation. England can afford the sacrifice of three or four millions a year, and she would obtain a valuable quid pro quo in the increased homogeneity of the British Parliament. Ireland too would gain something. A country impoverished, in part at least through bad government, might think it no hard bargain to gain at once local independence and exemption from a heavy weight of taxation. The absence of anything like a tribute to Great Britain would be an immense advantage, for it would remove one cause of certain discontent, and would for once place England before the Irish people at any rate in the light of a liberal ally. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not recommend Home Rule under any form whatever: what I do assert is that of all its forms the Colonial form is the least injurious to British interests, and that the experiment of placing Ireland in the situation of Victoria can be carried out neither with fairness nor with any chance of success, unless Englishmen let Ireland, like Victoria, be exempt from Imperial taxation. If any English taxpayer says that the price is too high to pay for the success of an experiment of which I do not myself recommend the trial, I am not concerned to consider whether he is right. My only concern is to insist that the sacrifice of three or four millions per annum is an essential feature of this particular scheme of Home Rule, and that persons who say the sacrifice is too great have only added one to the many arguments which lead to the conclusion that under no form whatever can Irish Home Rule be accepted by England.
Objection to Constitution of 1782, not faults of Irish Parliament.