It was then prophesied confidently that Irishmen would take their places in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, but it has been my honored destiny to sit in Cabinet with no less than sixty to seventy statesmen, of whom only one, the Duke of Wellington, was an Irishman, while Castlereagh was the only other Irishman who has sat in the Cabinet since union. Pitt promised equal laws when the union was formed, but the broken promises made to Ireland are unhappily written in indelible characters in the history of the country. It is to me astonishing that so little weight is attached by many to the fact that Irish wishes of self-government were represented only by a small minority.
Now what voting power are the eighty members to have? Ireland is to be represented here fully; that is my first postulate. My second postulate is that Ireland is to be invested with separate powers, subject, no doubt, to imperial authority. Ireland is to be endowed with separate powers over Irish affairs. Then the question before us is: Is she or is she not to vote so strongly upon matters purely British? There are reasons both ways. We cannot cut them off in a manner perfectly clean and clear from these questions. We cannot find an absolutely accurate line of cleavage between questions that are imperial questions and those that are Irish questions. Unless Irish members vote on all questions you break the parliamentary tradition. The presence of eighty members with only limited powers of voting is a serious breach of that tradition, which ought to be made the subject of most careful consideration.
Now come the reasons against the universal voting powers. It is difficult to say: Everything on that side Irish, everything on this side imperial. That, I think, you cannot do. If you ask me for a proportion, I say nine-tenths, perhaps nineteen-twentieths, of the business of Parliament can without difficulty be classed as Irish or imperial. It would be a great anomaly if these eighty Irish members should come here continually to intervene in questions purely and absolutely British. If some large question or controversy in British affairs should then come up, causing a deep and vital severing of the two great parties in this House, and the members of those parties knew that they could bring over eighty members from Ireland to support their views, I am afraid a case like that would open a possible door to dangerous political intrigue. The whole subject is full of thorns and brambles, but our object is the autonomy and self-government of Ireland in all matters properly Irish.
I wish to supply the keynote to the financial part of the legislation. That keynote is to be found in the provision included in our plans from the first, and wisely and generously acceded to by Ireland through her representatives, that there is to be but one system of legislation as far as external things are concerned that will be found to entail very important consequences. It has guided us to the conclusion at which we arrived of unity of commercial legislation for the three kingdoms. By adopting this keynote we can attain to the most valuable results and will be likely to avoid the clashing of agents of the Imperial and agents of the Irish Government. We can make, under cover of this proposal, a larger and more liberal transfer to Ireland in the management of her own affairs than we could make if we proceeded on any other principles. The principle to which we are bound to give effect in Ireland is: Ireland has to bear a fair share of imperial expenditure.
I will now release the House from the painful consideration of details which it has pursued with unexampled patience. I must say, however, for my own part that I never will and never can be a party to bequeathing to my country the continuance of this heritage of discord which has been handed down from generation to generation, with hardly momentary interruption, through seven centuries—this heritage of discord, with all the evils that follow in its train. I wish no part in that process. It would be misery for me if I had foregone or omitted in these closing years of my life any measure it was possible for me to take toward upholding and promoting the cause which I believe to be the cause—not of one party or one nation—but of all parties and all nations. To these nations, viewing them as I do, with their vast opportunities, under a living union for power and happiness, to these nations I say: Let me entreat you—if it were my latest breath I would so entreat you—let the dead bury their dead, and cast behind you former recollections of bygone evils; cherish love and sustain one another through all the vicissitudes of human affairs in times that are to come.
FOOTNOTE:
[43] Delivered in the House of Commons, February 13, 1893.