The Framework of Home Rule

by Erskine Childers

I pass to what I suggest to be the right solution: Total exclusion, as proposed by Mr. Gladstone in 1886, though he shrank from recommending what he knew to be its financial corollary. Mr. Bright regarded exclusion as the "best clause" of a dangerous scheme, and Mr. Chamberlain has admitted that he attacked it, as he attacked the proposals for Land Purchase, which he knew to be right, in order to "kill the Bill."[79] I propose only to recapitulate the merits of exclusion before dealing with the alleged difficulties of that form of Home Rule, and in particular with the point on which the controversy mainly turns—Finance.

To give Ireland Colonial Home Rule, without representation in London, is to follow the natural channel of historical development. Ireland was virtually a Colony, and is treated still in many respects as an inferior type of Colony, in other respects as a partner in a vicious type of Union. We cannot improve the Union, and it is, admittedly, a failure. Let us, then, in broad outline, model her political system on that of a self-governing Colony.

History apart, circumstances demand this solution. It is the best solution for Ireland, because she needs, precisely what the Colonies needed—full play for her native faculties, full responsibility for the adjustment of her internal dissensions, for the exploitation, unaided, of her own resources, and for the settlement of neglected problems peculiar to herself. As a member of the Imperial family she will gain, not lose. And the Empire, here as everywhere else, will gain, not lose.

These ends will be jeopardized if we continue to bind her to the British Parliament, and restrict her own autonomy accordingly. Reciprocally, we damage the British Parliament and gratuitously invite friction and deadlock in the administration either of British or of Imperial affairs, or both. Of the difficulties raised we can mitigate one only by bringing another into existence. Endeavouring to minimize them all by reducing the Irish representation to the lowest point, we either do a gross injustice to Ireland, by diminishing her control over interests vital to her, or, by conceding that control, remove the necessity for any representation at all. Most Irish Unionists would, I believe, prefer exclusion to retention. One gathers that from the debates of 1893, and the view is in accordance with the traditional Ulster spirit, and the spirit generally displayed by powerful minorities threatened with a Home Rule to which they object on principle. It was the spirit displayed by the Upper Canadian minority, in 1838-39 (vide p. 101), in threatening to leave the Empire rather than submit to Home Rule, and by the Transvaal minority in the lukewarm and divided support given to the half-baked Constitution of 1905, and in the hearty welcome given to the full autonomy of 1906. How the Colonists expressed themselves matters nothing. We must make generous allowance for hot party feeling and old prejudices. The Canadian minorities did not really mean to call in the United States, nor does it signify a particle that some of the Johannesburgers vowed that anything could be borne which freed them from the interference of a Liberal Government. These opinions are transient and negligible. The spirit is essentially healthy. Paradox as it may seem, the uncompromising attitude of Ulster Unionists, as voiced by the ablest representative they ever had, Colonel Saunderson,[80] is hopeful for the prospects of Home Rule. They fight doggedly for the Union, but I believe they would prefer a real Home Rule to a half-measure, and in making that choice they would show their virility and courage at its true worth.

Where are the dangers and difficulties of exclusion? The dangers first. I believe, from a study of events in the last twenty-five years, that the strongest opposition to it was founded, not so much upon a reluctance to give Ireland powers full enough to render needless her representation at Westminster, but on a jealous desire to keep Irish Members under surveillance, as a dangerous and intractable body of men who would hatch mischief against the Empire if they were allowed to disappear from sight; the same kind of instinct which urged revolutionary Paris to stop the flight of Louis and to keep him under lock and key. In the case of Ireland it is possible to understand the prevalence of this instinct in 1886, though even then it was irrational enough. But in 1911 we should be ashamed to entertain it. Irish plots against the Empire have passed into electoral scares, and if they had not, representation in London would be no safeguard. We should also dismiss the more rational but groundless view that Imperial co-operation necessitates representation in a joint Assembly. Conference is a better method. Anyone who studies the proceedings of the last Imperial Conference and observes the number and variety of the subjects discussed and the numerous and valuable decisions arrived at, will realize how much can be done by mutual good-will and the pressure of mutual interest.[81]

It may be objected that, with one or two exceptions of quite recent date, the Colonies have contributed nothing to the upkeep of the Empire, except in the very indirect form of maintaining local military forces, that their present tendency —unquestionably a sound tendency—is to co-operate, not by way of direct money contribution to Imperial funds, but by the construction of local Navies out of their own money, and, in time of peace, under their own immediate control, and that Ireland cannot be allowed to follow their example. The objection has no point. Ireland, through no fault of her own, has reached a stage (if we are to trust the Treasury figures) where she no longer pays any cash contribution to Imperial expenses, nor is it possible to look back with any satisfaction upon the enormous total of her cash contributions in the past. They were not the voluntary offerings of a willing partner, but the product of a joint financial system which, like all consequences of a forced Union, was bad for Ireland. If we consider that a similar attempt to extort an Imperial contribution from the American States led to their secession; that the principle was definitely abandoned in the case of the later Colonies; that, on the contrary, large annual sums raised in these islands were, until quite recent times, spent for purposes of defence within these Colonies; that in the South African War two hundred and fifty million pounds were spent in order to assist British subjects in the Transvaal to obtain the rights of freemen in a self-governing Colony; and that to this day indirect colonial contributions in the shape of local expenditure are small in proportion to the immense benefit derived from the protection of the Imperial Navy, Army, and Diplomacy, and from the assistance of British credit; if we then reflect that before the Union Ireland was, in the matter of contribution, somewhat in the same position as Canada or Australia to-day—that is, paying no fixed cash tribute, but voluntarily assuming the burden, very heavy in time of war, of certain Army establishments; that for seventeen years after the Union contributions fixed on a scale grossly inequitable drove her into bankruptcy; that from 1819 until two years ago, she paid, by dint of excessive taxation and in spite of terrible economic depression, a considerable share, and sometimes more than her proportionate share, of Imperial expenditure;[82] if, finally, we remember that, cash payments apart, Irishmen for centuries past have taken an important part in manning the Army and Navy, have fought and died on innumerable battle-fields in the service of the Empire, and have contributed some of its ablest military leaders; if we consider all these facts soberly and reasonably, we shall, I believe, agree that it would be fair and right to place a Home Ruled Ireland in the position of a self-governing Colony, with a moral obligation to contribute, when her means permit, and in proportion to her means, but without a statutory and compulsory tribute.

What form should that contribution eventually take? Does it necessarily follow that Ireland should be given power to construct her own Navy, and raise and control her own troops? Let us use our common sense, and use it, let me add, fearlessly. If Ireland really wanted full colonial powers, if, like Australia and Canada, she would be discontented and resentful at their denial, we should be wise to grant them, and rely on common interests and affections to secure friendly co-operation. Does it not stand to reason that a friendly alliance even with a foreign power, such as France, to say nothing of the far more intimate relations with a consanguineous Colony, is better business than any arrangement for common forces unwillingly or resentfully acceded to? But, as I pointed out in Chapter VIII., all these uneasy speculations about independent Irish armaments are superfluous. Ireland does not want separate armaments. The sporadic attempts to discourage enlistment in the Imperial forces are, as every sensible person should recognize, the results of refusing Home Rule. They would have occurred in every Colony under similar circumstances, and they do occur in one degree or another wherever countries agitate vainly for Home Rule. If Russia misinterprets such phenomena, we have, let us hope, more political enlightenment than Russia.

Ireland's strategical situation bears no analogy to that of Australia and Canada, which, for geographical reasons, are compelled, as South Africa will be compelled, to make a certain amount of independent provision, not only for military, but for naval defence, and would be wanting in patriotic feeling if they did otherwise. New Zealand, on the other hand, is too small to be capable of creating a Navy, and rightly contributes to ours. We have arrived at an interesting psychological point when Australia and Canada both seem to be inclined to reserve, in theory, a right to abstain from engaging their Navies in a war undertaken by Great Britain, but nobody will be alarmed by this theoretical reservation. It is an insignificant matter beside the Naval Agreement reached at the last Conference (1911)—an agreement worth more than volumes of unwritten statutes—to the effect that the personnel of the colonial fleets is to be interchangeable with that of the Imperial fleet and that in a joint war colonial ships are to form an integral part of the British fleet under the control of the Admiralty. With such an agreement in existence, it becomes superfluous to lay stress upon the fact that without formal and complete separation from the Mother Country in time of peace, the neutrality of a Colony would not be recognized by a belligerent enemy of Great Britain in time of war. In any case these developments have no concern for Ireland, which does not want, and need not be given, power to raise a local Navy. Nor, with regard to the regular land forces, will anything be changed. Troops quartered in Ireland will be, as before, and as in the Colonies now, under complete Imperial control. So will Imperial camps, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards. On the other hand, arrangements should certainly be made to permit the raising of Volunteer forces in Ireland. There are large numbers of Irishmen in the British Territorial Army, and Ireland sent five companies to the South African War. Though the poverty of the country will for a long time check the growth of Volunteer forces, it is the Union which presents the only serious obstacle to their establishment. No surer proof of the need for Home Rule could be adduced than the fact that it was held to be impossible to extend the Territorial system to Ireland. One of the objects of Home Rule is to remove this suspicious atmosphere. Whether local power to organize and arm Volunteers in Ireland should be given to the Irish authority, or, as in the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893, reserved to the Imperial Government, is, if we trust Ireland, as we must, a secondary and not a vital matter, which would not affect the question of representation at Westminster.[83] Probably it would be most convenient to leave the matters in the hands of the Irish Legislature. In any case, the Command-in-Chief of all forces in Ireland, regular or volunteer, would, as in the Colonies,[84] be vested in the King.

The control of the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police does not affect the question of representation at Westminster. With or without representation, Ireland should be given the control of all her own police forces from the first, without the restrictions imposed by the Bills of 1886 and 1893 with regard to Imperial control of the existing forces.[85]

With the important exception of taxation, with which I shall deal last, no other power which should properly be reserved to the Imperial Parliament, or delegated to the Irish Parliament, has any appreciable bearing upon the exclusion of Irish Members from the House of Commons. Nor do any of them raise issues which are likely to be troublesome. Common sense and mutual convenience should decide them. The Army, Navy, and other military forces I have already dealt with. The Crown, the Lord-Lieutenant, War and Peace, Prize and Booty of War, Foreign Relations and Treaties (with the exception of commercial Treaties), Titles, Extradition, Neutrality,[86] and Treason, are subjects upon which the Colonies have no power to legislate or act, and of which it would be needless, strictly, to make any formal statutory exception in the case of Ireland, though the exception no doubt will be made in the Bill. Naturalization, Coinage, Copyright, Patents, Trademarks, are all matters in which the Colonies have local powers, whose existence, and the limitations attaching to them, are determined either solely by constitutional custom or with the addition of an implied or express statutory authority.[87] The two former would, I should think, be wholly reserved to the Imperial Parliament. In the case of the latter three, which were wholly reserved in the Bill of 1886 and 1893, Ireland might be placed in the position of a self-governing Colony.[88]