After indicating that the only limit he knew to the extension of local government was the limit imposed by the necessity of maintaining the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, he went on to say:
“I will consent to give to Ireland no principle, nothing that is not upon equal terms offered to Scotland and to the different parts of the United Kingdom. But I say that the man who shall devise a machinery by which some portion of the excessive and impossible task now laid upon the House of Commons shall be shifted to the more free, and therefore more efficient, hands of secondary and local authorities, will confer a blessing upon his country that will entitle him to be reckoned among the prominent benefactors of the land.”
In 1885 Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Chamberlain all spoke in favour of devolution. The “Radical programme,” published with a preface by Mr. Chamberlain, before the General Election of that year, advocated the creation, in addition to County Councils and District Councils, of elected National [pg 342] Councils for Ireland, Scotland, and (if desired by the Welsh) Wales, to take over part of the duties of the central administration, and also to deal with private Bills, but apparently not with other matters of legislation. The appointment of a Secretary for Scotland had not then been decided upon, but the subject was under discussion, and the writer doubtless expected that greater attention to Scotch legislation would be secured by that means. In the course of his argument he said:
“Before dealing, as we presently shall at some length, with the case of Ireland, it seems well to say a few words on another object of the first importance, which can be accomplished only in connection with some such extension of the principles of local government as we are now considering. Recent experience has made it perfectly clear that Parliamentary Government is being exposed to a strain for which it may prove unequal. The overwhelming work thrown upon the Imperial Legislature is too much for its machinery.... The Imperial evil is not less than the domestic. What, for instance, can be more deplorable than the systematic neglect at Westminster of Colonial and Indian topics of the highest moment? It is obvious that no mere extension of local government upon the ordinary and restricted lines will relieve the Parliamentary congestion which has long since become a national calamity.”
The late Duke of Devonshire expressed, for so cautious a man, pretty strong views on the imperfections of “Castle Government” and on the advantages of devolution. Speaking in Belfast on November 5th, 1885, he defended the Irish Government against accusations which he considered unjust, but added:
“At the same time, I am perfectly willing to admit that it is very possible and even probable, that the Irish Government as now constituted is not the best fitted in all respects to discharge, still less to undertake new and more important duties. I would not shrink from a great and bold reconstruction of Irish government....”
He explained that, in his opinion, considerable power ought to be left in the hands of the executive, but added:
“I would endeavour so to frame those powers as to make them capable of relaxation, perhaps ultimately of relinquishment, in response to any proof we may receive from the Irish people of their fitness for self-government, their fitness for the assumption of those responsibilities.”
Later in the same year, Mr. Gladstone, in his address to the electors of Midlothian, used the word “devolution” as, I believe, for the first time in connection with the Parliamentary problem due to the over-pressure of work. He said:
“It has gratified me to find abundant proof that the country was, and is, fully alive to the vital importance of devolution.... The task of the House of Commons in our time has habitually exceeded what had ever been imposed upon a legislative body in the whole history of the world.... I desire to point out the three cardinal points of the question. First, the congestion of business, now notorious and inveterate, degrades the House of Commons by placing it at the mercy of those among its members who seek for notoriety by obstructing business, instead of pursuing the more honourable road to reputation by useful service, or of those who, with more semblance of warrant, seek to cripple the action of the House of Commons in order to force the acceptance of their own political projects. Secondly, it disappoints, irritates, and injures the country by the suspension of useful legislation. And lastly, and perhaps worst of all, it defeats the fundamental rule of our Parliamentary system—that the majority shall prevail.... This country will not, in the full sense, be a self-governing country until the machinery of the House of Commons is amended, and its procedure reformed.”