The Bill of 1893, from a purely constitutional point of view, was infinitely more objectionable than that of 1886. It not only, I have said, virtually repealed the Union; it created a kind of Federalism in these realms to which there has never been a parallel. The Irish Parliament was practically to rule Ireland; no British members were to show their faces in it; it was to be all but the sovereign of the Irish State. The British Parliament was nominally to be sovereign of the British State; representatives from Ireland were not to appear in it, and, in theory, they were not to deal with British questions. The Imperial Parliament was to be analogous to a supreme Federal Council; this ought to have jurisdiction over Imperial affairs alone; but eighty Irish members were to have seats in it, and they were to have a right to vote on Imperial and Irish questions, though Ireland was to have a separate Parliament of her own. This arrangement, in conception, was simply monstrous; it gave Ireland powers to which she had no pretence to a claim; it really subjected Great Britain to her; it formed a Federation in which a weak and small State was to have immense authority over another tenfold as strong; it might be described as one-sided Federalism run mad. Passing from the main principles to the details of the Bill, this, like its predecessor, did not satisfy the conditions Mr. Gladstone had deemed to be essential. It did not separate British, Irish, and Imperial affairs; its author admitted at last that this was not possible. It asserted the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, and gave it a more imposing position than it had under the Bill of 1886; but it did not maintain the Unity of the Three Kingdoms; the mere creation of an Irish Parliament placed this in jeopardy. It did not provide for the ‘political equality’ of Great Britain and Ireland, for, in contradiction to the measure of seven years before, it practically gave Ireland a kind of ascendency; her representatives were to possess rights in no sense to be justified. It did not provide an ‘equitable distribution of Imperial burdens;’ in this province it would have done wrong to Great Britain; for, while it abandoned the odious Irish tribute of 1886, and an effective control over Irish revenue, its expedient of allocating the Irish Customs, and nothing else, as the only source for the payment of Imperial charges, would, in all probability, have caused the Imperial Treasury a great loss; the Customs would have been enormously reduced by smuggling, to which Irishmen have always been much addicted, which the Irish Parliament would have no interest to prevent, and which, very likely, it would directly encourage. Again, it did not create ‘safeguards for the minority;’ as we have seen, it threw the Irish landed gentry, after a brief respite, to the wolves, that is, to the tender mercies of the Irish Parliament; and, like the measure of 1886, it took no heed of Protestant and loyal Catholic Ireland, as a whole, though this assuredly was ‘a minority’ that required protection. Finally, it could not have effected a ‘permanent settlement’ of the affairs of Ireland; a ‘lopsided’ and iniquitous arrangement like this would certainly have had a very short existence.
The measure of 1893, in short, would have effected a complete revolution in the polity of these realms; it would have given the least important of the Three Kingdoms an iniquitous authority over the most important; it would unnaturally have placed weakness in superiority to power; it would have subjected the dominant to the lesser partner; all this, it will be observed, followed from the inclusion of Irish representatives in the Imperial Parliament, who, though a Parliament in Dublin was to rule Ireland, were to have a right to deal with Imperial and Irish questions. Mr. Gladstone, I repeat, seems never to have understood the strange and ruinous consequences this would involve; but this can be made manifest by one or two examples. The Irish members would be excluded from the British Parliament, and would have no right to vote on purely British questions, say upon the extension of the British railway system, or the disfranchisement of an English or Scottish borough. But they would have eighty seats in the Imperial Parliament; and as it was impossible to separate a number of British questions from those of an Imperial or Irish character, they would have a most potent influence over British affairs; for example, they could legitimately vote upon such subjects as the confidence to be placed in a British Ministry, the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland, or the validity of British incumbrances affecting Irish estates. The exclusion, however, of Irish members from the British Parliament, and their introduction into the Imperial Parliament, would have led to even more disastrous results; it must, in many instances, have caused a complete paralysis of the State. This in-and-out plan, as it was derisively called, must have made Parliamentary government well-nigh impossible; if Irish members were to have a right to vote in the same House of Commons on Imperial and Irish questions, but were not to have a right to vote on British questions, to vote, say, upon a war with a Foreign Power, and upon the domicile and status of Irish subjects, but not to vote on matters of purely British commerce, there might, and very often would be, two conflicting majorities in the leading House of Parliament; Parliamentary affairs would be brought to a stand; the tenure of even the strongest Ministry would be utterly insecure. It is needless to point out that the relations between Great Britain and Ireland would almost certainly have been more strained, under the Bill of 1893, than they would have been under that of 1886; and that the government of Ireland by the Irish Parliament, would, under both, have been much of the same character. The British nation would have been indignant at the humiliation of their ancient Parliament, which would be sometimes placed at the mercy of Irish members; it would have condemned the weakening in Ireland of its authority, through the mere establishment of an Irish Parliament; it would have been sorely vexed that Irish smuggling would filch away a large part of British revenue. It should be borne in mind, too, that the Irish members, who would have been let into the Imperial Parliament, would have been more difficult to deal with, by many degrees, more openly disloyal, more obstructive, than Irish Nationalists could be, as affairs stand at present; they would have the support of the Irish Parliament; the Imperial Parliament could hardly impose a check on them. As for the rule of the Irish Parliament, within its proper domain, it would have been the same, or much the same, under either measure; that is, it would have been a succession of angry wranglings with England and oppression in Ireland, leading to anarchy and general ruin.
The Home Rule Bill of 1886, in a word, bad measure as it was, was innoxious compared to the Home Rule Bill of 1893. The fatal tendency of the scheme was quickly perceived; the sound mind of England was profoundly stirred; the Bill was publicly burned in the City of London; innumerable petitions against it flowed in; an immense assembly, representing loyal Catholic and Protestant Ireland, met in the capital, and denounced this whole policy in most determined language. As had happened, too, seven years before, the Press of Great Britain, all but universally, condemned the new measure as hopelessly bad; it was significant that the Liberal Press was well-nigh silent, and that Mr. Gladstone was supported by very few petitions. The Opposition simply tore the Bill to shreds in the House of Commons; but the self-deluded Minister desperately held his course; the Radical groups servilely gave him their votes; the process of ‘log-rolling,’ never before so recklessly displayed, kept his petty majority almost intact, a crying disgrace to any party in the State. At last, whether afraid of the country rising against him or yielding to the instigation of his Irish allies—his subserviency to their truculence had been most painful—Mr. Gladstone forced the measure through the House of Commons by a method never employed before; ‘closure by compartments,’ rightly compared to the ‘guillotine,’ put an end to resistance by iniquitous means. The Bill passed the Lower House by thirty-four votes only; not half of it had been examined or discussed; the part that had, had been so completely transformed, that its parent could hardly have known his own offspring. The most notable of these changes was that the in-and-out plan was given up; its ruinous effects had been fully dragged into the light, but an arrangement, perhaps even worse, had been placed in its stead. Ireland was to retain her Parliament in College Green; but the eighty Irish members were to have a right to sit in the Imperial Parliament, and to vote on all questions, not only Imperial and Irish, but strictly British alike. A philosophic and calm-minded writer has indicated what this would involve: ‘Irish members may disestablish the Church of England, though England is to have no voice in the pettiest of Irish affairs. Irish members are to be allowed to impose taxes on England, say, to double the income tax, though of these taxes no inhabitant of Ireland will pay a penny; the Irish delegation, and this is the worst grievance of all, is to be enabled, in combination with a British minority, to detach Wales from England, or to vote Home Rule for Scotland, or to federalise still further the United Kingdom by voting that Man, Jersey, and Guernsey shall send members to the Imperial Parliament.’[31] To say that this proposal would be unconstitutional would be to do it too much honour; it was scandalous in the existing situation of affairs; it implied that heads of the National League, leaders of a rebellious and socialistic movement, would have the power, without restriction or check, to rule the Imperial Parliament, in many instances, with reference to exclusively English and Scottish questions; it practically bound Great Britain hand and foot in fetters to Ireland; it was rightly called ‘an absurd piece of infamy.’ It is unnecessary to say that the system it would have established could not have stood a trial of even three months; England, whenever crossed, would have indignantly swept it away. But Nemesis had commended the poisoned chalice to Mr. Gladstone’s lips; the project, on which he had staked his fortunes, was that which he had incorrectly ascribed to Butt, and had declared to be impossible and worse.
The Bill, it was notorious, could not have passed the House of Commons had not its rejection by the House of Lords been assured beforehand. It received its quietus, in that assembly, by a majority of about ten to one; the mind of England felt unquestionable relief; a great national peril had been averted. Exactly as had happened in 1886, scarcely a sound of discontent was heard in Ireland; the demand for Home Rule, in fact, is largely a fictitious cry, with which the great body of Irishmen has little or no sympathy; the evidence of this can be no longer doubtful. Mr. Gladstone retired, within a few months, from public life; one of his last acts was to shoot a Parthian arrow at the House of Lords, which, happily for these realms, had wrecked his policy; since that time he has disappeared from the scene; few eminent statesmen have been so soon forgotten. Home Rule was scattered to the winds at the General Election of 1895; it has not been a prominent question at that of 1900; but if Ireland has sent more than eighty of its supporters into the House of Commons, the best elements in her community remain angrily hostile; and the opinion of Great Britain is distinctly adverse. For many reasons, however, as I have remarked, it is impossible to ignore the subject; in the strange chances and changes of British politics, and under our system of party government, a minister may again become an advocate of Home Rule, though certainly not in the present Parliament. Mr. Gladstone’s Bills, it is likely, will not be heard of again; but Home Rule may be embodied in other forms; I may briefly refer to, and comment, on these. The project of restoring the Parliament of 1782-1800, an ideal of O’Connell during many years of his life, will hardly be revived in these times; the conditions in Great Britain and Ireland have so completely changed. The centripetal forces which, a hundred years ago, held the British and Irish Parliaments, in the main, together—they differed, however, on important questions—have long ago been all but completely destroyed; the present Irish Parliament could not be an assembly identified in race and faith with England; its House of Commons could not be elected by a small body of Protestants, and latterly by masses of Catholic peasants, the serfs of their landlords. The centrifugal forces, on the other hand, those which would keep the two Parliaments utterly apart, would probably be overwhelmingly strong; the Irish House of Commons would practically, at least for years, be ruled by the nominees of the National League and of the Irish Catholic priesthood; its electorate would, for the most part, be subject to these dominant powers; and Protestant Ireland would alike be swamped and incensed. Nevertheless, the restoration of what has been called Grattan’s Parliament, would, in my judgment, be a much better project than either of Mr. Gladstone’s schemes of Home Rule. The Irish Parliament would be bound by known and fixed precedents, which it would be difficult wholly to disregard; an Irish House of Lords would exist as a check on the House of Commons; above all—and this is of the very first importance—the Irish Executive would not be subject to the Irish Parliament; it would be appointed from Westminster by British statesmen. A Parliament of this type could hardly effect the ruinous mischiefs which Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Parliaments could certainly effect.
Ireland, it has been urged, would obtain Home Rule, if she were assimilated to one of our self-governing colonies. These nations, as they may fitly be called, are by no means, as is commonly supposed, wholly independent of the Crown and the Imperial Parliament; they have Parliaments and Executives of their own; but these in theory, and partly in fact, are subordinate. No Act passed by the Parliament of a self-governing colony can in any way contravene an Imperial statute; the governor of a self-governing colony is a real governor; appeals run to the English Privy Council from colonial Courts of Justice. Nevertheless, self-governing colonies are practically all but independent; they pay no contribution to Imperial charges; they maintain their own garrisons, without a British army in their midst—at least, in a great many cases; they are hardly ever interfered with by the Imperial Parliament, or by the men in power at Westminster. Why, it may be argued, should not the same liberties belong to Ireland, for centuries the peccant part of these kingdoms; would not the concession make her as loyal as most of our self-governing colonies? The answer is short, but amply sufficient; the circumstances of our self-governing colonies and of Ireland are altogether different. In none of these settlements is there the profound estrangement which has long divided Great Britain from Ireland; in none is there a community in which a loyal minority is separated from a disaffected majority by long-standing discords of race and faith; Ireland is at our doors, our self-governing colonies distant. Give Ireland a Parliament like that of Victoria, and Ireland would break off from the British connection; the Irish Parliament would possess ample power to trample on and oppress hundreds of thousands of law-abiding men, of whom the protection was England’s duty; the Irish Parliament and Executive, within a few leagues of our coasts, could, in innumerable ways, do infinite mischief. The supposed analogy, therefore, completely fails; it would be treason to the State, and to loyal Irishmen, to make Ireland a self-governing colony; and no British politician has as yet countenanced this mode of Home Rule. It has been hinted again, but with bated breath and humbleness, that the relations of Great Britain and Ireland have been so long unfortunate, such a dreary record of disputes and miseries, that we should say to our intractable partner, ‘Depart in peace;’ in a word, separation is a conceivable Home Rule policy. This proposal has never been discussed in Parliament; the interest, the self-respect, the pride of Englishmen almost forbid the thought. Yet separation, strange as it may appear, would be a better and more safe expedient than either of Mr. Gladstone’s schemes of Home Rule. The Imperial Parliament would have complete liberty to exercise its sovereign power in Great Britain; it would have a free hand to prevent injustice in Ireland, either by the strong arm, or by fiscal and other expedients, say, by laying an embargo on Irish products; it would not be subject to the exasperating but often effective checks which Home Rule would in any form involve; and the Imperial Executive would possess ample means to protect the interests of England and of her friends in Ireland. Let it not be forgotten that in perhaps the ablest speech ever made, in the House of Commons, on this subject, Peel declared that he would infinitely prefer separation to a repeal of the Union, by no means so evil a policy as Home Rule.
A few politicians, however, have put the theory forward that ‘Home Rule all round’ will meet the ‘national demand’ of Ireland, and give her what they are pleased to call ‘self-government.’ England, Scotland, Ireland, and perhaps Wales are to have local Parliaments to deal with their own affairs; Imperial affairs are to be directed by an Imperial Council. I am willing to admit that a scheme of this kind would be better than Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill of 1893; it would be less illogical, possibly not more disastrous. But I must be permitted to doubt whether these sages understand what their project certainly involves; this, indeed, seems to be rather in the nature of a device to angle for Nationalist votes, without scruple, and then to propose a plan which England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales have never asked for, and which England and Scotland, at least, would indignantly reject. This scheme is pure Federalism, in the proper sense of the word; let us briefly consider what this means from the very nature of the case. England, Scotland, Ireland, and, I assume, Wales would form separate States; they would have separate Legislatures and Executives to manage their local affairs, separate local forces, separate Courts of Justice; they would be, essentially, separate countries. The Imperial Parliament and its Executive would be the only link between them; there would be an Imperial army, and navy, and Imperial tribunals; but the Imperial Parliament and its Executive would only have jurisdiction over Imperial affairs, and would be only the head of the separate States as respects Foreign Powers. But as it would be difficult in the extreme, under these conditions, to distinguish local from Imperial affairs, an arbiter of some kind, armed with sufficient powers, would be necessary to say what affairs were local and what Imperial, and decisively to pronounce on the subject, on the innumerable occasions when the question would arise; and it would be necessary, too, that there should be some means, perhaps a Referendum to a popular vote, to effect any constitutional change, to reform or to abolish the Constitution itself. This scheme obviously would be complex, intricate, and difficult to carry into effect; it would be a huge system of divided, and probably conflicting, powers, not easy to reconcile with each other; for this, and other reasons, it would require a formal Constitution reduced to writing, and setting forth, under distinct heads or articles, the conditions of the Federation that had been established, the spheres of the authority of the separate States, and the sphere of the authority of the Imperial Council. Is it possible to suppose that the Parliament of the United Kingdom would ever break up this ancient and undivided Monarchy; would tamely surrender its sovereign rights, and would substitute a new-fangled fabric of this kind for the venerable and unwritten constitution of these realms—a majestic temple that has grown up in silence; and that the British people, at all events, would not rise up in wrath at the very thought of such a change? For Federalism ‘amounts to a proposal for changing the whole constitution of the United Kingdom. It is, in fact, the most “revolutionary” proposal, if the word “revolutionary” be used in its strict sense, which has ever been submitted to an English Parliament. The abolition of the House of Lords, the disestablishment of the Church, the abolition of the Monarchy, might leave the English Constitution far less essentially changed than would the adoption of Federalism.’[32]
It should be observed, too, with respect to this subject, that the conditions, under which Federalism would have a chance of success, would be absolutely wanting in the present instance. England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales have long been moulded into a single sovereign State, and united under a supreme Monarchy; no Federation, I venture to assert, has been formed out of communities that have had a government of this kind. Federations, in fact, have almost always grown out of an association of existing States, which desire to remain separate, and yet to be a nation for some purposes; they have not been evolved out of the fragments of one State artificially rent asunder. Again, Federalism requires that no single State should be enormously more powerful than the other partners; there must be something like equality between the different States;[33] it is unnecessary to remark that England has tenfold the resources and strength of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; and, in truth, would annihilate the Federation were her will really crossed, and break through the arbitrary limitations imposed on her. Suppose, for example, that England had set her heart on a great foreign war, and had the support of her own Parliament; does any one suppose that, if she were outvoted, by deputies from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, in the Imperial Council, even though backed by their own Parliaments, the people of England would submit to be thwarted in this way; was Samson bound by the withs of the Philistines? Something like this, indeed, was seen in the great Civil War; the result was the subjugation of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and the complete ascendency of England, under Cromwell; an attempt to federalise the Three Kingdoms might lead to a similar issue. Let us assume, however, that, through some evil stroke of destiny, Federalism were made the constitution of these realms, and that this strange arrangement could be made to work even for a few years; the inevitable consequences, from the nature of the case, would follow. The omnipotence of the Imperial Parliament, the mainstay of the Empire, would be gone; so would the omnipotence of the Imperial Executive Government, the best security for justice and for equal liberties. Their powers would be parcelled out and subdivided; they would not survive anywhere in their complete fulness; they would be distributed in fractions between separate States, and would be transformed and impaired in the process; real Imperial unity and sovereignty could have no existence. General national weakness would be the probable result, leading, perhaps, to despotism within a short time; for Federalism is essentially weak; I have no sympathy with Jacobin France, but the Committee of Public Safety rightly put Federalism down, when they were engaged in their death-struggle with Europe; and Napoleon—perhaps the ablest ruler of the nineteenth century—approved of their conduct. But weakness would not be the only consequence; the dissemination of different powers would certainly produce disputes and conflicts between the Federal and the State authorities; above all, the very existence of separate States and of a Federal Government would divide allegiance, and powerfully tend to disruption, as was seen in the great Civil War in America. As regards Ireland, the establishment of ‘Home Rule all round’ would necessarily be attended by all the evils inseparable from Mr. Gladstone’s schemes; but Federalism, having been thus made manifest, would probably increase, and in some sense justify, the alienation of Ireland from the other parts of these kingdoms.
Home Rule, therefore, whatever the form it may assume, would be, it is my firm conviction, incompatible with the welfare of the Three Kingdoms, injurious to Great Britain, a curse to Ireland. In the peculiar circumstances which exist in Ireland, and to which I have adverted before, separation, I believe, would be an expedient less disastrous than Home Rule of any description, this involving the creation of an Irish Parliament, and of an Irish Executive, which would be its instrument. Home Rule, in fact, gloss it over as you please, has been forced to the front by an Irish faction, hostile to a man to the existence of British rule in Ireland, and depending on Fenianism in the United States; this party would be all-powerful in an Irish Parliament; and Home Rule would be made the means to a ruinous and disgraceful end. Thousands of Irishmen, indeed, honestly think Home Rule would do their country good, and have little or nothing to do with this bad conspiracy; this too, doubtless, is the case with the followers of Mr. Gladstone; but Home Rule is an Irish Nationalist movement, and Irish Nationalist movements are dangerous to the safety of the State. The Union, therefore, must be maintained in the interest of Great Britain and Ireland alike; and the Union is an international settlement that has endured for a century. But no candid student of Irish history, no impartial observer of Irish affairs, from 1800 to the present time, can deny that the Union has been in many respects a failure. It has been an incident, perhaps a result, of the Union, that Presbyterian Ireland, rebellious from 1795 to 1798, has, we have seen, become attached to the British connection, and is now devotedly attached to England. The power of the Imperial Parliament and of its Executive have kept lawlessness and disorder down in Ireland, and has restrained the evil passions of Irish factions more than was ever the case under the rule of the Irish Parliament. The Imperial Parliament, too, has accomplished reforms in Ireland, if often unwise, in the main beneficent; and, under the Imperial Executive, justice in Ireland has been administered, for many years, in a very different way from that which was seen a century ago; its tribunals are perfectly free and impartial. But the Union was, in itself, a bad half measure, tainted with iniquity and false promises; it did gross wrong to Catholic Ireland; the evil consequences are felt to this hour. The Union has not fulfilled the sanguine hopes of Pitt; Ireland, as I have pointed out, is far more behind Great Britain in wealth than she was sixty years ago; she is perhaps the poorest country in Europe at the door of the richest. The Union, too, has not reconciled the feuds of religion and race in Ireland; they are as marked as they were a century ago, if not attended with such deeds of violence; above all, the Union has not made the chief part of the Irish community attached to England, as Pitt confidently predicted would certainly happen. Nor can it be denied that the Irish reforms of the Imperial Parliament have too often been ill-designed and faulty, especially, as we shall see, as regards the land; and they have unfortunately, in many instances, been concessions to agitation and dangerous social movements, and have been effected too late to do real good. The administration of Ireland reveals the same defects; it has been marked by good intentions, which, sometimes, have proved gross mistakes; and notably it has, over and over again, been shifty, vacillating, without principle, and showing a curious disregard of sound Irish opinion. Unquestionably, too, Ireland has, on many occasions, to the indignation of true-hearted Irishmen, been made the mere plaything of British faction, with the worst results to her best interests; this has been perhaps the most pernicious incident that has followed the Union; and in the immense revolution which has transformed Ireland, within the last hundred years, the effects that may be traced to the Union have by no means been wholly on the side of good.
These evil consequences cannot be really questioned; it is very advisable to consider their causes, and if possible to see how they can be removed or lessened. They are partly to be ascribed to the fact that Great Britain and Ireland are countries differing from each other in most important respects, and standing, so to speak, on different planes of existence; this alone makes British rule in Ireland difficult, and perplexes and embarrasses British statesmen. They are partly due to defects in the English national character, essentially just in intention, and even generous, but with no sympathy with races of a character unlike its own, self-asserting, obstinate, sometimes rude and offensive; this has had marked and evil effects in the affairs of Ireland. They are largely to be attributed to the nature of Irish administration, seldom consistent, and changing with party changes: British statesmen appear at the Castle; rule for a few years; and then depart and give place to successors, who probably carry out a very different policy. They are largely due to the nature of the representation of Ireland, notably of late years; the Nationalist party—and the same remark applies, in some degree, to the ‘Tail’ of O’Connell—have shown such an aversion to England, have used such seditious and even criminal language, have been so extravagant and wild in their demands, and have been such a dangerous element in the House of Commons, that Englishmen and Scotchmen turn away from Irish questions with disgust, and Ireland unfortunately has often been the sufferer. But the most important of these causes, one which may be traced throughout Irish history, and has been scarcely less evident since the Union, has been the strange but signal ignorance of Irish affairs—of all, in a word, that relates to Ireland—which has been but too characteristic of the British people, and, in a lesser degree, of many British statesmen. This capital fault aroused the sæva indignatio, of Swift; it was exposed by Grattan, O’Connell, even by Lord Clare; it was condemned in severe but thoughtful language by Burke; it has been conspicuous during the events of the last twenty years.[34] The resulting mischiefs have been numerous and grave in the extreme; can nothing be done to mitigate these and to make them less, consistently with maintaining the Union in its full completeness? I, for one, have long thought that much could be effected were the Imperial Parliament occasionally to hold its sessions in Dublin, and to govern Ireland directly, so to speak, on the spot. This very measure was proposed by many distinguished Irishmen, during the agitation for Repeal in 1843-44; it was made the subject of an eloquent eulogy by Sheil at O’Connell’s trial; it was seriously entertained by the Whig opposition of the day, as we know from a remarkable letter of Lord Waveney. This policy unfortunately passed out of sight; but even now, I believe, it would do the greatest good in Ireland. It would be something that the proposed change would cause the wealth of England and Scotland largely to flow into a poor country; that Irish absenteeism would be diminished; that Ireland would become, more than she is now, an attractive place of resort to the traveller. But it would be far more that the presence of the Imperial Parliament in College Green would necessarily largely remove the ignorance of Irish affairs I have just referred to; it would make English and Scotch members familiar with the requirements, the feelings, the wishes of Irishmen; as has happily been said, it would render our Irish legislation and administration ‘racy of the Irish soil.’ And probably more than any other expedient, it would exorcise the weak phantom of Home Rule by bringing Irishmen in contact with the majesty of the Sovereign Assembly of the British Empire. I shall not comment on the petty inconveniences the scheme might cause; really they are not worthy of serious attention.
The occasional presence of Royalty, too, in Ireland, as was made manifest during the late Queen’s visit, unquestionably would have beneficent results. It would gratify a sentiment of Celtic nature, always attached to persons rather than to institutions and laws, and especially attached to rulers and chiefs, which, in Ireland, has been scarcely gratified before; it would spread far and wide a happy and good influence; it would certainly improve the social life of Ireland, and add something to her scanty material wealth. The maintenance of the Union, however, is the first requirement of a sound Irish and Imperial policy; one means of strengthening that fundamental law of these realms, consistently with strict constitutional justice, nay, if constitutional wrong is not to continue, has long been apparent to impartial minds. The over-representation of Ireland, in the House of Commons, is a flagrant anomaly, acknowledged for years; as I have remarked, it was largely expected that this important subject would have been taken up before this by Lord Salisbury’s Government, and have been settled in the Parliament of 1895-1900. Taking the test of population alone, Ireland has, compared to England, Wales, and Scotland, an excess of twenty-three members; taking the test of population and property combined, she has an excess probably of from thirty to forty. I am willing to allow that, in this matter, we ought not to follow arithmetic only; Ireland, a poor country, far away from Westminster, may have a claim to a representation somewhat more numerous than mere figures would give her. But can anything be more unjust, nay, absurd, than that Ireland should have one hundred and three members, and that the world of London, with a population about the same as that of Ireland, and probably possessing tenfold wealth, should have little more than half that number? This excessive representation must be reduced, and Irish Nationalists cannot here appeal to the Union; the Union did not save the Established Church of Ireland, secured by the Treaty in emphatic terms; and the Union must not be wrested to work gross injustice. The anomaly can be only removed by a large scheme for the redistribution of seats, founded on sound constitutional principles; and should this become law, as I confidently hope will be one of the achievements of the existing Parliament, the Union will acquire a new security, for the Nationalist vote in the House of Commons would be greatly reduced, and the Irish Unionist vote would be greatly increased. A very few figures will prove this: the rural populations of the Unionist counties of Antrim and Down are upwards of four hundred and thirty thousand souls; the rural populations of the Home Rule counties of Kildare, Kilkenny, King’s, Longford, Wicklow, and Louth have a population less than three hundred and ninety-eight thousand;[35] yet Antrim and Down have only eight members, the other six counties have no less than twelve. The same disparity runs through all the Irish counties; in the boroughs of Ireland it is even more visible. Protestant and Unionist Ireland, in a word, has probably fifteen or sixteen members too few; Catholic and anti-Unionist Ireland fifteen or sixteen too many; it is high time this plain wrong should be redressed; it is unnecessary to point out how this would strengthen the Union. And what probably is not less important, it would make the representation of Ireland, not, what it is now, an utterly false index of Irish opinion, but a reasonably fair and trustworthy index; were the Irish representation cut down to eighty members, the Nationalists would probably command not more than fifty seats; the Unionists would command about thirty; and this, taking all things into account, would be a proportion approaching what is just. The ‘doing’ of right, in this matter, has been too long deferred; loyal Ireland feels strongly upon the subject; the reform would be altogether in the interest of the State.