The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments

by Unknown

I agree with the Committee in their preference for the simplicity of complete autonomy.

Sir Henry Primrose and his colleagues agree to a great extent with a Minority Report of the Financial Relations Committee (1896), signed by Lord Farrer, Mr. Bertram Currie and myself. The advantages of complete autonomy are obvious, and I cannot avoid a regret that it has not been possible to adopt it. I note, however, that the greatest Irish authority on Irish Government, Lord Macdonnell, though in favour of Home Rule, is entirely opposed to the grant of fixed autonomy to Ireland.

We must not misunderstand the relations of the Committee to the Government. They were not appointed to draw a Home Rule Bill. They were to ascertain and consider the fiscal relations between Ireland and other parts of the United Kingdom as they exist to-day, paying special regard to the changes which have taken place in revenue and expenditure since 1896, the date of the Report of the Royal Commission; to distinguish between Irish Local Expenditure and Imperial Expenditure in Ireland; and to consider, in the event of Home Rule being established, how the revenue required to meet the necessary expenditure should be provided. The function of the Committee was, therefore, purely financial. They had to collect financial information, a necessary preliminary to a consideration of the Bill, and to advise as to the method of providing the revenue required. They had no mission to examine the political conditions which must be satisfied by a Bill designed to effect a Constitutional Revolution. That [pg 150] was the function of the Cabinet. The Committee, limiting itself to its instructions, recommended the method of raising revenue which they thought wisest, independently of any but financial considerations. The Government consider the question from a wider point of view. Their measure must be founded on policy as well as finance. They do not adopt the Committee's recommendations. They decide to retain for a time, more or less indefinite, a closer relation between the two financial systems. Much as I should like greater simplicity, a study of their measure leads me to the conclusion that its provisions are, in the main, wise. Let us then consider how far the provisions of the actual Bill satisfy the conditions needed to insure the success of Home Rule.

In the first instance, and for an uncertain number of years, the Imperial Government keeps a tight hand upon the Irish Government. It reserves large powers enabling it to reject, postpone, or test the validity of Irish Bills. It regulates and levies all taxes, and fixes postal rates. It secures the interests of various classes of public servants, and retains temporarily the police under its own control. It fixes Irish Local Expenditure at a certain sum, and it issues that sum yearly to the Irish Government together with a free gift of £500,000 a year for three years, falling gradually to a permanent gift of £200,000. Normal increase of Irish Revenue is appropriated to reduce the deficit to be borne by the British Exchequer. If, therefore, the Irish Government increases its own expenditure beyond the fixed sum allotted to it, it must find the revenue required, and for that purpose powers of taxation are given to it.

The nursing hand of the mother is, in fact, present at every point of the Bill, but it must be remembered [pg 151] that a hostile step-mother may, at any time, replace the kindly mother.

There is no escape from the conclusion that these reservations restrict the autonomous power of the Irish Government. On the other hand, the whole spirit of the Bill marks the greater part of them as temporary. The Bill, in fact, confers autonomy by gradual steps, and holds out prospects that eventually the relations between the two countries will be simple and workable. At the outset, and for some time onward, the Irish Government, freed from liability for the costly “reserved” services which the “partnership” has bestowed or inflicted on Ireland, will occupy itself with the organisation of its own home administration. It starts with no previous experience of administration, and it is clearly desirable that it should proceed by steps, gathering experience as it goes. Its field of work at first should not be too wide, and six years is not too long a period for it to reform and reconstitute its administrative organisation. This is its first duty, and it undertakes it under favourable conditions.

In six years the constabulary will be transferred automatically from the charge of the Imperial Government to that of the Irish Government with the sum allotted to its support.[106] That sum will be increased by any saving which accrues to the British Exchequer from the transfer, and in determining that sum regard is to be had to the prospect of any increase or decrease [pg 152] in the cost of the service, expected to arise from causes not being matters of administration.

In the next place, the Irish Parliament may, at any time, on twelve months' notice assume the legislative and executive control of three reserved services, viz., Old-age Pensions, National Insurance, and Labour Exchanges. If they are taken over, the sum transferred with them will be determined on the same principle as in the case of the constabulary. Autonomy, therefore, in regard to these services is granted to the Irish Government, and they will only be retained under the control of the Imperial Government, if, and so long as the Irish Government desires it.

The Postmaster-General said in his speech on the introduction of the Bill that the old-age pension charge is now practically at its maximum, gradually diminishing, and the Primrose Committee (paragraph 54), estimate the charge at the time when the Bill becomes law at £3,000,000. The question then arises what will be the amount transferred, if the Irish Government, seeing its way to more economical administration, were to give at once the twelve months' notice and take over the service at the end of a year. It would not, I presume, be £2,664,000 the charge at which the Treasury in its “outline of financial provision” (paper 6154), estimated it in 1912-13, but £3,000,000, modified to some extent by the prospect of reduction.

The cost of National Insurance and Labour Exchanges is estimated by the Treasury in 1912-13 at £191,500, increasing by £300,000 in ten or fifteen years. If the Irish Government were in like manner to take them over, the amount transferred would, I presume, be £190,000 with a sum added representing the prospect of increase.