HOME RULE IN THE WORLD[ToC]
"Ah!" but I shall be told by Unionist critics who have followed me so far, "but the tendency of the world at present is all towards great empires and away from little states. You are reversing the process."
This will probably be one of the most frequent arguments that we shall hear during the present discussions. We shall, perhaps, have thrown at our heads cases like the absorption of Persia by Russia, of Tripoli by Italy, of Morocco by France, and of the Congo by Germany.
If we are to argue the matter on those lines it will be fair to point out, on the other side, that during the last decade Norway has separated from Sweden, new provincial and state governments have been created in Canada and the United States, new self-governing powers have been given to Cuba and the Philippines by the Americans in faithful and loyal adherence to their word at the time of the Spanish-American war, and, even more recently, new powers have been given to Alsace and Lorraine by the German Empire.
So the argument might go on, to and fro, each party pelting one another with cases from other parts of the world. Perhaps at that point it might be well to remember the grave and wise warning given us by Lord Morley in his "Life of Gladstone"—that each case of political re-adjustment really stands by itself, and that often little light can be thrown, but rather darkness deepened, by studying too closely the analogies from other communities.
Still, though the case of the relations between England and Ireland must always stand on its own merits, there are general tendencies in the world which come under law. There are certain lessons to be gathered from other countries which we should be unwise to ignore. The Greeks, who were great constitution builders, amused themselves in their later period by making immense collections of political specimens from among the Hellenic States. Doubtless their politicians derived some advantage from this practice of their philosophers.
There are general tendencies, and those tendencies may be classified under the two familiar heads of (1) the tendency towards unity and (2) the tendency towards division. These two tendencies are always going on side by side in various parts of the world. But the puzzling part of political study is that very often what seems a tendency towards unity conceals a tendency towards division, and that what seems a tendency towards division is really a tendency to unity.
THE BRITISH EMPIRE
Take, for instance, the famous case of the British Empire. Any superficial observer from another clime or another planet might conclude from reading the records, that the tendency within the British Empire during the last century lay toward division. He would find on looking the matter up in any book of reference that the British Empire now includes nearly thirty Parliaments.[69] He would discover that the powers of the central authority have been gradually waning until practically every great white community outside the United Kingdom has now complete control over its own local affairs. He might even be excused some astonishment if he discovered also that these communities placed heavy taxes on the imports of the mother country, and were in no degree restrained from doing so, and that there even existed a party in the home country who contended that that act of filial attention ought to be rewarded by special preferences to colonial imports at home. Perhaps he would be most astonished when he discovered that these colonies were now engaged in raising their own navies and armies, which might possibly in the future be used for purposes independent of the central control.
Pursuing his enquiries, he would discover that this country of Great Britain had conducted at great cost of life and money, less than ten years ago, a war to prevent the separation and secession of one great white community—that of South Africa—and that, having carried that war to a successful conclusion, the central government had followed up that war by granting to that great white community a strong central local government, with complete control of its local affairs. "You talk about the tendency to unity," he would say, "but have we not here a clear instance of division?"