[7]any more than in other men, and as regards the latter part of the extract which I have quoted Mr. Chamberlain may have changed his views, but it is to the earlier part of the sentence that I would refer. There is in it a definite statement of facts which no change in opinion on the part of the speaker could alter, and which express, as well as they can be expressed, the views of the Nationalists as to the Castle, the alien boards of foreign officials in which remained undisturbed during the course of the seven years after the coalition of Unionists and Tories, in which Mr. Chamberlain was the most powerful Minister of the Crown.
Of the purely domestic branches of the Civil Service in Great Britain, the Treasury, the Home Office, the Boards of Education, of Trade, and of Agriculture, the Post Office, the Local Government Board, and the Office of Works, are all responsible to the public directly, through representative Ministers with seats in the House of Commons, the liability of whom to be examined by private members as to minutiæ of their departmental policy is one of the most valuable checks against official incompetence or scandals, and is the only protection under the constitution against arbitrary rule. The whole administrative machinery of the forty-three boards in Ireland has been represented in Parliament by one member, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, but he is supported since a few months ago by the Vice-president of the Department of Agriculture. The result is that, while in Great Britain a watchful eye can be kept on extravagance or mismanagement of the public services, the maintenance of a diametrically opposite system of government in Ireland, under which it is impossible to let in the same amount of light, leads to the bureaucratic conditions of which Mr. Chamberlain spoke in the speech from which I have quoted.
In answer to these complaints it is usual to point to the case of Scotland as analogous, and to ask why
[8]Ireland should complain when the Scottish form of government arouses no resentment in that country. The parallel in no sense holds good, for Scotland has not a separate Executive as has Ireland, although she has, like Ireland, a separate Secretary in the House of Commons. Scottish legislation generally follows that of England and Wales, and in any case Scotland has not passed through a period of travail as has Ireland, nor have exceptional remedies at recurring periods in her history been demanded by the social conditions of the country; and last, but by no means least, one has only to look at a list of Ministers of the Crown in the case of this Government, or of that which preceded it, to see that the interests of Scotland are well represented by the occupants of the Treasury Bench, whichever party is in power, so that it is no matter for surprise that she is precluded by her long acquiescence from demanding constitutional change.
More than half a century ago Lord John Russell promised O'Connell to substitute County Boards for the Grand Jury, in its capacity of Local Authority, but the latter survived until ten years ago. The members of the Grand Jury were nominated by the High Sheriffs of the Counties, and as was natural, seeing that they were the nominees of a great landlord, they were almost entirely composed of landlords, and the score of gentlemen who served on these bodies in many instances imposed taxation, as is now freely admitted, for the benefit of their own property on a rack-rented tenantry. A reform of this system of local government was promised by the Liberals in the Queen's Speech of 1881, but so far was the powerful Government at that time in office from fulfilling its pledges that not only was no Bill to that effect introduced, but, further, in April, 1883, a Bill to establish elective County Councils, which was introduced by the Irish Party, was thrown out in the House of Commons by 231 votes to 58. In his famous speech at Newport in 1885, when the Tories
[9]were, as all the world thought, coquetting with Home Rule, Lord Salisbury declared that of the two, popular local government would be even more dangerous than Home Rule. He based his view partly on the difficulty of finding thirty or forty suitable persons in each of the thirty-two counties to sit on local bodies, which would be greater than that of finding three or four suitable M.P.s for the same divisions of the country; but, even more than this, he insisted on the fact that a local body has more opportunity for inflicting injustice on minorities than has an authority deriving its sanction and extending its jurisdiction over a wider area, where, as he declared, "the wisdom of the several parts of the country will correct the folly or mistakes of one." In spite of this explicit declaration, when, in the following year, the Tories had definitely ranged themselves on the side of Unionism, the alternative policy to the proposals of Mr. Gladstone was nothing less than the establishment of a system of popular local government. Speaking with all the premeditation which a full sense of the importance of the occasion must have demanded, Lord Randolph Churchill, on a motion for an Address in reply to the Queen's Speech after the general election of 1886 had resulted in a Unionist victory, made use of these words in his capacity of leader in the House of Commons:—
"The great sign posts of our policy are equality, similarity, and, if I may use such a word, simultaneity of treatment, so far as is practicable in the development of a genuinely popular system of local government in all the four countries which form the United Kingdom."
In 1888 this pledge was fulfilled so far as the counties of England and Wales were concerned, and in regard to those of Scotland in the following year. When the Irish members, in 1888, introduced an Irish Local Government Bill, Mr. Arthur Balfour, as Chief Secretary, opposed it on behalf of the Government,
[10]and Lord Randolph Churchill, who at that time, having "forgotten Goschen," was a private member, gave further effect to the solemnity of the declaration, which, as leader of the party, he had made two years before, by his strong condemnation of the line adopted by the Chief Secretary in respect of a measure, to which, as he said, "the Tories were pledged, and which formed the foundation of the Unionist Party." In 1892 the Unionist Government introduced, under the care of Mr. Arthur Balfour, a Bill purporting to redeem these pledges. By one clause, which became known as the "put them in the dock clause," on the petition of any twenty ratepayers a whole Council might be charged with "misconduct," and, after trial by two judges, was to be disbanded, the Lord Lieutenant being empowered to nominate, without any form of election, a Council which would succeed the members who were removed in this manner. The criticism which this provision aroused was, as was natural, acute. The Times at this juncture declared that to attempt to legislate would be to court danger. The Local Government Bill was abandoned, and in this connection a sidelight is shed on the sincerity of the promises which had been made, in a letter from Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Justice FitzGibbon on this question, dated January 13th, 1892, at the time when the Government of 1886 was drawing to a close, and Mr. Balfour was about to introduce the unworkable Bill which was clearly not intended to pass into law.
"My information," writes Lord Randolph, "is that a large, influential, and to some extent independent, section of Tories kick awfully against Irish Local Government, and do not mean to vote for it. This comes from a very knowledgable member of the Government outside the Cabinet. If the Government proceed with their project they will either split or seriously dishearten the party, and to do either on the verge of a general election would be suicidal. This