3. Inclusion in reduced numbers for all purposes. [By "reduced numbers" I mean in numbers less than population would warrant.]
4. Inclusion in reduced numbers for limited purposes.
Now (4) I only set out for symmetry. It has never been proposed by anybody, and hardly needs notice.
The three others are alike in two respects—that they leave untouched the question of representation in the House of Lords, and that they directly infringe both the Federal principle and the Union principle by giving representation, both in a unitary and a subordinate Legislature, to one portion of the realm.
Let us look at No. 1—inclusion in full numbers for all purposes. This was Mr. Gladstone's revised proposal of 1893, and it formed part of the Bill thrown out by the Lords. The number of Irish Members was to have been 80. But reduction, as Mr. Gladstone admitted, would scarcely affect the inherent difficulties of inclusion. Nor must it be forgotten that reduction from 103 to 70 can be justified only by the concession of a large measure of Home Rule. It is one of the paradoxes of an unnatural Union that, over-represented as Ireland is, she has not now power enough to secure her own will. To reduce her numbers, while retaining large powers over Irish affairs at Westminster, would be unjust. For the time being I shall defer the consideration of those powers, and argue the matter on broad principle, assuming that the powers retained in Imperial hands are small enough to warrant a reduction from 103 to 70.
Now let us apply our touchstone to this question of inclusion in "full" numbers. Will it be good for Ireland? Surely not.
(a) It will be bad for Ireland, in the first place, to have her energies weakened at the outset by having to find two complete sets of representatives, when she will be in urgent need of all her best men to do her own work. There is no analogy with Quebec, Victoria, Massachusetts, or Würtemburg, which had all been accustomed to self-government before they entered their respective Federations. Ireland has to find her best men, create her domestic policies, reconstruct her administration, and the larger the reservoir of talent she has to draw from the better. When true Federation becomes practical politics it will be another matter. By that time she will have men to spare.
(b) More serious objection still, retention in full numbers will, it is to be feared, tend to counteract the benefits of Home Rule in Ireland by keeping alive old dissensions and bad political habits. If, after long and hot controversy, a system is set up under which Great Britain can still be regarded as a pacificator—half umpire and half policeman—of what Peel called the "warring sects" of Ireland, it is to be feared that the Members sent to London may fall into the old unnatural party divisions; a Protestant minority seeking to revoke or curtail Home Rule, and a Nationalist majority—paradoxical survival of a pre-national period—seeking to maintain or enlarge Home Rule. These unhappy results would react in their turn upon the Irish Legislature, impairing the value of Home Rule, and making Ireland, as of old, the cockpit of sectarian and sentimental politics. The same results would have happened if, simultaneously with the concession of Home Rule to Canada, Australia and South Africa, these Colonies had been given representation in the British Parliament.
(c) Whatever the extent of the danger I have indicated, inclusion in full numbers will tend to keep alive the habit of dependence on Great Britain for financial aid, a habit so ingrained, through no fault of Ireland's, that it will be difficult to break if the Parliamentary leverage is left intact. If ever there was a country which needed, as far as humanly possible, to be thrown for a time—not necessarily for a long time—upon its own resources, it is Ireland. Every other self-governing Colony in the Empire has gone through that bracing and purifying ordeal, accepting from the Mother Country, without repayment, only the loan of military and naval defence, and Ireland can imitate them without dishonour.
What is bad for Ireland is sure to be bad for Great Britain, too, and the bad effect in this case is sufficiently apparent. Imagine the result if Quebec, besides having her own Legislature and her own representatives in the Dominion Parliament, were to be represented also in the Ontario Legislature. Ireland, besides controlling her own affairs, free from British interference, would have a voice in British affairs, and sometimes a deciding voice. "If you keep the Irish in," said Mr. John Morley in 1886—and he meant in their full numbers—"they will be what they have ever been in the past—the arbitrators and masters of English policy, of English legislative business, and of the rise and fall of British administrations." That is a rather exaggerated account of the past, for had it been literally true Ireland would have had Home Rule long ago; and it was unduly pessimistic about the future, for it hardly made sufficient allowance for a change in Irish spirit as a result of Home Rule; but there is a truth in the words which everybody recognizes and whose recognition is one of the great motive forces behind Home Rule. Even a total change in Irish sentiments and parties would not remove the danger, and might intensify it by producing at Westminster a solid instead of, as at present, a divided, Irish vote. It would be truer, perhaps, to say what I said above, that retention of Members would tend to stereotype Irish parties and the mutual antipathy of Ireland and Great Britain.