England's Case Against Home Rule

by A. V. Dicey

Arguments by which Home Rule policy defended.

To lay stress upon the consideration that the Home Rule movement in England derives its force from the condition of public feeling is not, be it remarked, equivalent to showing that the policy of Home Rule is unwise; still less that the policy of defended. Home Rule is unlikely to be adopted by the nation. Masses of human beings must generally, as individuals must often, trust to the guidance of feeling. The difference between the sentiment which ought and the sentiment which ought not to determine national conduct is, that the one admits and the other does not admit of justification on grounds of reason or experience. Reasoning is the test, not the source of wise action. Slavery was abolished, the abuses of the ancien regime were destroyed, Italian unity was created under the stress of emotions which carried away thousands who could not have logically defended the impulse which governed their acts. But in these, as in other cases in which humanity has been carried forward along the path of progress by the force of emotion, the enthusiasm of the time could, in so far as it worked for good, be justified on grounds of reason. Man is (difficult though it often be to believe the fact) a rational being, in so far at least that he is constrained to defend on argumentative grounds courses of action dictated by feeling. From this law of human nature Home Rulers have neither the power nor, in fairness be it added, the wish to escape. Their influence is due to the condition of public sentiment, but they justify their policy by arguments which are the intellectual equivalents for the moral feelings which go to constitute the opinion of the day. Of these arguments, those which require statement and examination can be conveniently summed up under six heads—the argument from foreign experience, the argument from the will of the Irish people, the argument from the lessons of Irish history, the argument from the virtues of self-government, the argument from the necessity for Coercion Acts, the argument from the inconvenience to England of refusing Home Rule to Ireland.

Argument 1. Foreign experience.

The argument from foreign experience.—Home Rule under one shape or another has been tried in a large number of foreign countries, and has (it is alleged) been found everywhere to solve the problem of combining into one State communities which, like England and Ireland, were not ready to coalesce into one united nation. Each State throughout the American Union, each Canton of Switzerland, has something like sovereign independence. Yet the United States are strong and prosperous, and the Swiss Confederacy, which was a land at one time torn by religious animosities, and divided by differences of race, is now a country so completely at harmony with itself that without a regular army it maintains its independence in the face of the armed powers of Europe. Canada or Victoria have more complete liberty of action than any one dreams of claiming for Ireland. Yet Canada and Victoria are loyal, and under the guidance of men who, it may be, were yesterday rebels in Ireland, support the supremacy of the British Parliament and contribute to the splendour of the English Crown. The German Empire contains not only separate States, but separate kingdoms, such as Bavaria, ruled by kings or princes who certainly value highly the independence of their countries and the dignity of their thrones. The despotism of Turkey has not forbidden the local independence of Crete, and self-government has, it is hinted, produced acquiescence in Turkish rule. The autocracy of the Czar is found compatible with Home Rule in Finland, and Finland is the most contented portion of Russia. Norway and Sweden are united in feeling because they are not by law a "united kingdom," and act in harmony just because each country has a different constitution, and each is governed by its own Parliament. Denmark has, with benefit to herself, given local independence to Iceland, and Iceland is content. Austria and Hungary, after centuries of misunderstanding and twenty years of bitter conflict, have finally composed the feud of ages by a compromise, which gives to the two parts of the Empire the practical blessings of Parliamentary independence, and concedes to Hungary at least the sentimental blessing of acknowledged nationality. The argument, in fact, from foreign experience, professes to be an induction based upon a foundation of instances as large as can support any conclusion of social science. In one land after another the existence of Home Rule, or, to use the curiously inaccurate phraseology of the day, of "autonomy," in one part of the State has been found consistent with the unity of the whole. An experiment which has succeeded in one set of cases ought to succeed in another, and England has no reason to dread a scheme of government which has been tried with success in other portions of the civilized world. Nor does the zealous advocate of Home Rule pause at the conclusion that the measure he recommends may, on the strength of foreign experience, be regarded as a tolerable evil or as a probable cure for a chronic disease. He suggests that it is a good in itself, and laments that ignorance led our ancestors to fuse Scotland and England into an United Kingdom, when they might, had they understood the principles of federalism, have left to each country the blessings of State sovereignty.

Criticism on argument.

There is some difficulty in treating with perfect seriousness a line of reasoning which, proceeding from the quarter whence it comes, holds up for our admiration the wisdom or lenity of Turkish rule in Crete, and extols the supreme justice of the system upon which rests the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which implies that the arts of government may be learnt from the Russian administration of Finland, and omits all reference to the disastrous results of the attempt to endow Poland with some sort of independence, which bases weighty inferences as to the proper relation between England and Ireland on the concession by Denmark to the scanty inhabitants of a desolate island lying 1100 miles from her coast of as much autonomy (if that be the right term) as under the Crown of England has been enjoyed for generations by Jersey or Man, and which suggests lamentations over the splendid triumph of constructive statesmanship embodied in the treaty of Union with Scotland. De minimis non curat lex is a maxim of judicial procedure which in spirit applies to proposals for legislation. Arguments from Iceland and the like may be set aside as the ornaments or curiosities of debate, and may be allowed as much weight and no more as would be given to an argument in favour of petty states from the flourishing condition of Monaco, or to reasonings in support of Republicanism from the condition of Andorre. Though there is something slightly ridiculous in the zeal with which the advocates of Home Rule, using at least as much industry as discrimination, have scraped together every instance they can lay their hands upon of constitutions under which something which can be called Home Rule exists without producing palpable injury to the State, it would be unfair to deny some real weight to a kind of induction, which, if not convincing as argument, yet possesses undoubtedly a good deal of rhetorical effectiveness. Nor ought the concession to be refused that if there be any man dull or ill-informed enough to suppose that countries cannot be politically united unless they are subject to a common legislative power, the slightest knowledge of lands outside England is sufficient to make manifest his ignorance. When, however, the instances on which the induction is supposed to be founded are carefully scrutinised, it will be discovered that those examples which deserve attention are far less numerous than might be supposed from a glance over the lists now well known to the public of what may be termed successful experiments in Home Rule, and, further, that this limited number of instances do not go far to make out the conclusion in favour of which they are adduced.

At the present stage of my argument I purposely omit all minute examination of the applicability to the relations between England and Ireland, either of the English Colonial system or of federalism as it exists in the United States or in Switzerland. Any scheme of Home Rule must follow in some degree one or other of these models. It will, therefore, be necessary to consider in subsequent chapters how far either of them may admit with advantage of imitation. Two observations, however, may even at this point not be out of place. An English colony, such as Victoria, is a virtually independent country, attached to England mainly by ties of loyalty or of well-understood interests, but placed at such a distance from the mother country that England could without inconvenience, and would without hesitation, concede to it full national independence when once it was clear that Victoria desired to be a nation. Victoria, in short, is a land which might at any moment be independent, but which desires to retain or strengthen the connection with England. Ireland, on the other hand, is a country lying so near to the English coast that, according to the views of most statesmen, England could not with safety tolerate her independence, and also a country, which, to put the matter in the least exaggerated language, feels the connection with England so burdensome that the greater part of her population desire at least the amount of independence conceded to a self-governing colony. The case of Victoria and the case of Ireland each constitute, so to speak, the antithesis to the other. There is, therefore, at any rate no a priori ground for the assumption that the system which successfully regulates the relation of England to Victoria is equally adapted for regulating the relation between England and Ireland. The federalism, again, of America or of Switzerland is the consequence of the existence of the States which make up the Federation. The United Kingdom does not consist of States. The world has heard of the difficulty of forming a republic without republicans: this feat would appear to be easy of performance in comparison with the achievement of erecting federation without the States which form its natural members. In America or in Switzerland federalism has developed because existing States wished to be combined into some kind of national unity. Federalism in England would necessarily mean the breaking up of a nation in order to form a body of States. To the question constantly raised in one form or another, "Why should not the federalism which suits the United States suit England?" the true answer is suggested by the counter-inquiry, "Why should not the constitutionalism of England suit the United States?" The obvious and conclusive reply to both these inquiries is, that the circumstances of the two countries are totally different. There is, in short, no ground in the nature of things to presume that constitutional arrangements, which are well adapted for the condition of America, are well adapted for the totally different condition of the United Kingdom. To say this, be it noted, is not to prejudge the question reserved for subsequent consideration, whether some kind of federalism may not supply the solution of the problem how to adjust the political connection between England and Ireland. It is no more than noting the often-overlooked fact that the admitted success of federal government in the United States gives no presumption in favour of its suitability for Great Britain and Ireland.

The experience of foreign countries to which Home Rulers confidently appeal resolves itself, if the matter be carefully sifted, and if the colonial system of England and the federalism of America be left for the moment out of account, into the fact that two powerful continental Empires maintain Imperial unity, and yet (as it is alleged without lessening their strength) contain within their limits States each of which enjoys a large amount of independence. That neither the German Empire nor the Austro-Hungarian monarchy suffer inconvenience from the looseness of the connection between the States which they each contain is one of those assertions more easily made than proved to be true; but supposing its truth to be, for the moment and purely for the sake of argument, admitted, there will still be found considerable difficulty in showing that either German Imperialism or the Dual system of Austria-Hungary contains lessons of practical value for the guidance of English statesmen.

What indeed is the precise inference which one is to draw from the fact that the constitution of the German Empire leaves, for example, to Bavaria a large amount of independence it is not very easy to understand. The whole circumstances of the German Empire are as different from the circumstances of Great Britain as the position of one civilised European country can well be from the situation of another. The salient characteristic of German history is that Germany consists of States which until quite recently have never been politically consolidated into a nation. The United Kingdom has for nearly a century formed a political unit, and has now for something nearly approaching two centuries been subject in reality if not in name to one sovereign Parliament. The whole scheme of the Empire, with its independent or semi-independent sovereigns, with its kings, princes, and free towns, is something to which there is absolutely nothing to correspond in the present condition or in the historical development of England. The German Empire is the natural though strange growth of a special and strange history. The sober English statesmen who advocate Home Rule assuredly never dreamt any dream so wild as that the Imperial Federalism of Germany could in any way be reproduced in the United Kingdom. But if this be so, it is a little difficult to understand references to the lessons to be drawn from the position of such countries as Bavaria. For the difficulty of applying German precedents to proposed innovations in the English constitution lies far deeper than the unsuitability to England of the forms of German Imperialism. The condition which has given birth to the present German Empire is that in Germany the sentiment of nationality has overridden the political divisions which broke up Germany into almost disconnected and often hostile States. In Germany the popular passion for unity has compelled the formation of a United Empire. This sentiment, and not the cumbersome device of an ill-arranged constitution, prevents Bavaria from using her independence in a manner inconsistent with the unity of the Empire. The force which tends towards unity is constantly on the increase. The Empire has the legal means of diminishing or indeed of destroying the independence of the States, and should the independence of a State ever come into conflict with the unity of the nation State rights will not, we may be sure, win the day. Nor, further, is it any accident that Bismarck whilst tolerating the existence of Parliaments will not tolerate the introduction of Parliamentary government. The acquiescence of Liberals in the evils of personal rule is due to the consciousness that the real authority of the Emperor is necessary for the unity of the Empire. Contrast all this with the condition of things under which Englishmen are adjured to concede a Parliament to Ireland. The leading features of the case, according at any rate to Home Rulers, are that Parliament is too weak to withstand the pressure exercised by eighty-six obstructives, and that Ireland, no less, as we are now at last frankly told, than Scotland and Wales, desires to relax the bonds of national unity. We are advised to dissolve the United Kingdom into a confederacy because Germany, through a clumsy form of confederacy, is growing into a united empire. This counsel confuses the stages of imperfect development with the stage of incipient decay; it ascribes to the childishness of approaching senility the hopes which are proper to the childishness of early youth. The point is worth pressing. The considerations which govern a confederacy as it is developing into a nation are very different from the considerations applicable to a full grown nation when threatened with dismemberment into a confederacy.

Deak's statesmanship undoubtedly found at any rate a temporary solution of the questions which kept Austria and Hungary at variance in a compromise which bears some analogy to the arrangement by which Home Rulers propose at once to loosen and to maintain the connection between England and Ireland. In the case of Austria-Hungary, the union which exists is not, on the face of it at least, a step towards unity, but rather the surrender of the endeavour to mould the two parts of the monarchy into a united empire. The Dual system is therefore the instance of the blessings attending Home Rule which is most sedulously thrust upon English attention. Let us see, then, what in outline this system is, and what are the causes which favour its existence.[^[4]]