Date.1891-51896-19001901-51906-10Total
Imperial.2412131564
Army and Navy.1525181472
Conditions of Employment.10951034
Benefit.652518
Finance.37302928124
General Administration.40212031112
Trade and Commerce.61291845
Traffic.4138
Law and Justice.16451439
Land and Agriculture741820
Local Administration341311
Education
Poor Law
Church
Total168127106146547

States (England, Scotland And Ireland, Separately, And Combinations Of Any Two Of Them).

Date.1891-51896-19001901-51906-10Total
Imperial.
Army and Navy.
Conditions of Employment.
Benefit.
Finance.310417
General Administration.7108732
Trade and Commerce.9691236
Traffic.448
Law and Justice.4043931123
Land and Agriculture.231172263
Local Administration.49552334161
Education.910111040
Poor Law.4154225
Church.3102116
Total.15117477119521

At the other end of the scale are the subjects on which Parliament is always able to legislate for the whole of the United Kingdom by a single Statute. The Imperial Laws are those which are promoted by the Foreign, Colonial, and India Offices, and concern our relations with Foreign Powers or with some portion of the British Empire. The Army and Navy laws include not only the Naval and Military Works Acts, but any Acts dealing with the Territorial and Reserve Forces. The next two classes may be bracketed together as Labour Laws, but are distinct according as they relate to the conditions of employment of the workers, for instance, in shops, coal mines, or factories, or to the benefits which accrue to them through Workmen's Compensation, Friendly and other Societies, and Old-Age Pensions. In both these cases, also, all the laws apply to the whole of the United Kingdom as do the great majority of the laws in the next two headings of Finance and General Administration. The “State” Acts under Finance are those by which Parliament [pg 398] has made grants towards the local expenditure upon education and towards the relief of the land from local burdens, and has done so separately for the three countries; and the “State” Acts of General Administration deal with the Central Departments which are maintained separately for England, Scotland, and Ireland. The heading of traffic is of dwindling importance, and the enumeration ends with trade and commerce where the “United Kingdom” laws have a slight numerical superiority.

I have confined myself here to a few summary remarks upon the different legislative headings as I have discussed the matter in greater detail elsewhere;[162] nor do I wish to enlarge upon the conclusions that might be drawn from the figures. The South African War is evidently responsible for the greater number of Military Acts in 1896-1900; and the slowing down of the Parliamentary machine during Mr. Balfour's Administration is reflected in the smallness of the total legislative output in 1901-5. Moreover, since the Unionists were in power throughout 1901-5, and the Liberals throughout 1906-10, there is scope for a direct comparison of the records of the two Governments, but such considerations have no bearing upon our present purpose.

On the contrary, I hope that the opponents as well as the supporters of Home Rule would agree that, since Home Rule involves a division of legislative powers between the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Irish Parliament, it is not only pertinent, but necessary, that we should make ourselves acquainted with the lines upon which Parliament has, in practice, divided up its legislative business. For, while the point should not be pressed too far, I would [pg 399] suggest that the separate Irish laws, and, for that matter, the separate English and Scottish laws, constitute a kind of internal devolution, which is all the more significant because Parliament has not been actuated by any preconceived purpose; and that the subjects which are now dealt with by “State” laws are, for that very reason, those of which Parliament should naturally be relieved under any scheme of Home Rule. Similarly, it might be claimed that Parliament should retain those powers which it is now able to exercise in common for the whole of the United Kingdom; but the position is not the same in the two cases. In its anxiety to economise time, Parliament does not hesitate to render its measures applicable to the whole of the United Kingdom by appending to them clauses which regulate separately the application of the provisions to Scotland and Ireland; and where these “application clauses,” as they are called, are long and complicated, it is probable that separate measures for the different parts of the United Kingdom could be adjusted more closely to the local requirements. On the other hand, we may be sure that Parliament would not have passed, for instance, separate Local Government Acts for England, Scotland and Ireland, each of which took up much of its time, unless it had been obliged to do so; and we may assume, whenever such separate Acts are passed, that Parliament had some strong reason for its action, though, of course, I do not imply that Parliament has legislated also for England and Scotland on every subject on which it has passed an Act that related exclusively to Ireland.

But it may be said that, while I have sufficiently described these separate laws, I have not explained why they are passed, nor have I given any reason why [pg 400] they must be continued. The separate laws are passed because England, Scotland and Ireland have in many respects distinct and different institutions. In Ireland, for instance, neither the position of the Church, nor the organisation of the police or of the Courts of Justice, nor the law in regard to the tenure of land, nor the system of education or of local government in general, is the same as in England or in Scotland; while Ireland is also subject to an exceptional code of criminal law. And the institutions of England and Scotland differ also very widely from one another. “After a long period of intimate union between England and Scotland,” said Lord Lothian, in 1887, in a speech in the House of Lords upon the proposed enlargement of the powers of the Secretary for Scotland, “people are apt to forget how entirely distinctive and different the administration of Scotland is from that of England. There is almost no point of resemblance. There are different forms of religion and different social forms affecting almost every portion of Scotland. There is a different code of education—an entirely different code of education—and different systems of agriculture. There are also different systems affecting the law of lunacy and parochial laws, and almost every other department.”[163] And these differences between the three countries, which are the direct cause of the distinctive laws, must surely be regarded as permanent, seeing that they have persisted since the respective Acts of Union. Neither Scotland nor Ireland would willingly surrender its separate judicial and ecclesiastical institutions or its separate machinery of administration. Indeed, the prevailing tendency favours increased differentiation, and it has the support of Unionists as well as of Liberals. The Unionists have [pg 401] recently created new Irish Departments in Dublin, such as the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, and when the Liberals had re-established the office of Secretary for Scotland after a lapse of nearly a century and a half, the Unionists proceeded to add considerably to its powers.

We may thus take it as axiomatic that, in the absence of Imperial Federation, or of a proposal such as Home Rule whereby Parliament can be relieved of some of its legislative duties, it must continue to occupy itself with five different categories of laws: Imperial laws, affecting the British Dominions beyond the seas; laws applying to the whole of the United Kingdom; and laws which relate exclusively to England, to Scotland and to Ireland. Moreover, while each legislative sphere has its parallel sphere of administration, the sole and supreme authority, except so far as the Dominions look after their own affairs, is centred, as with the legislative power, in a single body, the Government of the United Kingdom, which holds an absolutely unique position in the extent and variety of its responsibilities. In both these functions, then, we may have serious doubts as to how the system works, but I am unable to give any direct evidence in regard to the Executive. Though it is inherently improbable that a small group of men should be able adequately to supervise so varied a collection of interests, the subject is obviously one in which it is almost impossible to obtain precise information. The Cabinet of 1880-5 was not altogether happy in its multiplex activities, and complaints were rife of the neglect of home affairs during the South African War. Speaking generally, indeed, the Unionists, according to their adversaries, subordinate domestic to Imperial interests, while the critics of the Liberals would say that the [pg 402] Liberals reverse the process. And there we may leave the question, while agreeing, I hope, that Home Rule, or preferably Home Rule all round, would be beneficial so far as it would relieve the pressure upon a Cabinet that can scarcely fail to be overworked. And if there is any doubt as to the Cabinet there can be no doubt that Parliament is overworked to a very grievous extent. Irrespective of the strain upon individual numbers, it is admittedly unequal to the efficient discharge of its manifold functions. It cannot do all that it should do, and much of what it does do, it does without proper discussion. As to the first of these shortcomings, I am glad to be able to quote from an article in the Round Table[164] for December, 1911, in which, after a detailed comparison of the time that is available to the House of Commons with the demands that are made upon it, the conclusion is reached that “the legislative requirements of the country are too great for the available Parliamentary time.” And, as to the absence of proper discussion, the reader may be referred to the remarks on every occasion when the use of the guillotine closure is proposed, while the final inadequacy of the House of Commons is implicit in the recent admission of the Prime Minister, when proposing the guillotine motion upon the National Insurance Bill, that, without a resort to this method of procedure, the House cannot carry out the duties which it is required by the country and the interests of the Empire to discharge. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that, in trying to get all this diverse work out of a single Parliament, Governments have not only grievously restricted its legislative powers, but have also reduced the opportunities for discussion on administration and finance which are at least equally [pg 403] important functions of any supreme Parliamentary authority.

But the agitation in connection with the National Insurance Act will keep public attention sufficiently focussed upon the manner in which Parliament does its legislative work, and I pass from the amount of the work to the consequences arising from its variety. As the Cabinet must supervise both domestic and Imperial affairs, and Parliament must deal separately with these two branches of legislation, so the electorate should not overlook either the Imperial or domestic views of those who seek its suffrages. But an elector may be faced by the difficulty that he likes the Imperial views of one candidate and the domestic views of the other, while the same man must represent him in both of these aspects in the House of Commons. In 1900 the Liberal supporter of the South African War was confronted with this dilemma in an acute form; and, in view of subsequent disputations, it may be taken to have been unfortunate that the party which won the elections of 1900, almost entirely on Imperial considerations, should thereby have been placed also in charge of our domestic concerns. And there was a similar confusion of issues in 1906, when, because a man was a tariff reformer or a free-trader, it did not necessarily follow that, in the former event, he was for, or, in the latter, against, the Conservative policy in regard to the liquor trade or religious instruction in the elementary schools. No small advantage, therefore, would accrue from Home Rule all round in the fact that separate categories of issues would be placed separately before the constituencies.

And the electoral confusion is reproduced in the House of Commons; for there can be no doubt that the Liberals suffered under this disability in the Parliament [pg 404] of 1900, and the Conservatives in that of 1906. But, in the case of the Member, the connection with so many diverse interests has also other objectionable consequences. Supposing he sits for an English constituency, his responsibility extends to Scottish and Irish laws and administration, as to which he will know little or nothing, while his constituents will usually be indifferent as to what he may do. Illustrating this matter from my own experience as an English county Member, I may say, regarding my votes upon the Scottish Small Landholders and Valuation Bills, and the Irish Evicted Tenants and Land Bills, that not one of these subjects brought me any letter from a constituent, or was the occasion of any reference whatever in the course of any of my political meetings. And, since there is no reason to suppose that other English constituencies would feel or act differently, all these votes of English Members are in reality irresponsible, and they are to be condemned upon the principles of representative Government. For, in spite of the observance of its outward forms, its true spirit is absent wherever there is a failure of the healthy interplay of influences between a Member and his constituents; and here again, Home Rule all round could alone relieve the situation. Through the establishment of separate Parliaments in England, Scotland and Ireland, a Member's work in each of these bodies would be confined, as regards public affairs, to matters by which his constituents were or might be affected and in which there was the normal and proper relation between the electors and those whom they had elected.