TOPICS OF TIIE DAY.
THE HOME RULE BILL.
NABill to bribe the Nationalists of Ireland to accept a scheme of government which they do not want, and also to make provision by which they may in future extort from the Imperial Parliament the system which they do want." If Acts of Parliament, in addition to their "long titles " and their" short titles," had also " true titles," this is the " true title " which Mr. Asquith's Home Rule Bill would bear. Those Irishmen who want to destroy the integrity of the United Kingdom want either absolute separa- tion or else Colonial Home Rule. Under either absolute separation or Colonial Home Rule, Ireland would, of course, like any other separate country or self-governing colony, be not only independent from the legislative point of view, but independent also from the point of view of finance. She would make her own laws and find her own money. But the present Liberal Government dare not propose Colonial Home Rule, for they have always represented Home Rule to the British electors as nothing but a scheme of glorified local government—something equivalent to the establishment of a large County Council. Also they are pledged, and Mr. Asquith renewed the pledge on Thursday night, to give to Scotland and Wales whatever they give to Ireland. Therefore their only way out of the difficulty, their only way of satisfying their Irish taskmasters without stultifying themselves before the English electors, was to bribe the Nationalists to accept, for the present at any rate, something a good deal short of Colonial Home Rule. The bribe is to consist of a large money subsidy, and, further, the new Irish Parliament and Executive are to be provided with an efficient lever by which they will be able to extort from the Imperial Parliament in future all that they require. Of the presentation to the Nationalists of this lever in addition to the heavy financial bribe or subsidy there can be no doubt. All political experience, whether in Ireland or in the rest of the world, shows that if anything in the shape of a Federal Constitution is set up, the political equilibrium is unstable. A tendency to change and development at once begins either in the direction of complete separation and independence or of closer union and incorporation.
For example, after William of Orange had beaten James II. and his Irish forces at the Boyne, Ireland lived under a strictly subordinate Parliament. At first the tendency was further to restrict that sub- ordination. Then came a tendency in the opposite direc- tion, and the Irish at the end of the eighteenth century were able to extort an absolutely independent Parliament- i.e., Grattan's Parliament. This tendency, if it had remained unchecked, would no doubt some day have resulted in what we saw five years ago in Norway—that is, in complete separa- tion. Owing to the rebellion and other causes, however, there came a reaction, and Grattan's Parliament collapsed. The wisest statesmen in both countries then recognized that an incorporating union was the only possible scheme for regulating the political relations between the two islands. Now we are asked to execute a "lurch" in the other direction. If we do, we may be sure that, as we have said, things will not remain as they are, but will develop. Mr. Asquith has taken care that those who wish that they should develop towards separation shall be provided with a lever for accomplishing their purpose. Though the Irish people are to have complete control over their own domestic and Irish affairs, they are to send into the heart of our Parliament forty members who will have absolute power to vote on all English and Scottish questions, and, what is more, will have as much power as the members for London in choosing the Executive Govern- ment for this island. That is the lever. As the Imperial Parliament will not concern itself with Irish domestic affairs, these forty members will have no interest in the work of the House of Commons at Westminster except to extort from it what the majority of them will term, and no doubt will believe to be, improvements in the Irish Consti- tution. Their votes will be perpetually up for auction in order to secure the elimination of those clauses in the Home Rule Bill which the majority of the Irish people dis- like, and it is obvious after oven only twelve hours' criticism that the Bill is full of such clauses. The vote of the Irish delegation, or at any rate of the majority of it, will be given on terms, and those terms will be concessions to Ireland. The presence of the Irish representatives renders the so-called safeguards in the Bill nugatory. They are not worth the paper they are printed on. The Irish representatives are in fact " men in possession," and they will see that their master's interests are, as they would say, well protected. If the Bill is bad from the Constitutional point of view, it can only be described as mad from the financial. The realities of Mr. Asquith's scheme are somewhat concealed by the method in which they are presented. If, however, we draw the veil of rhetoric aside, we find the following facts : Ireland willpay nothing towards the burden of the National Debt. All her payments will go to purely Irish expenses. Yet there is not the slightest reason why a man with £1,000, or £100, or £50 a year in Ireland should not pay as much towards that debt as the English- man or the Scotchman with the same income. Next the Irishman in the same categories will pay nothing to- wards the Army or the Navy, though he will share in the benefits given by those expensive but absolutely necessary forms of insurance. Finally, the Irishman will have pro- vided for him at our expense, and not at his own, Old Age Pensions and that part of the National Insurance benefits which is derived. from the State. He will also have police protection provided for him free. To put it in another way : In addition to Ireland paying nothing towards the National Debt, the Army, the Navy, or other purely Imperial services, such as the ambassadorial and consular services, Ireland will enjoy a subsidy or tribute from this country to the amount of two millions a year. At the same time this tribute will not secure us any rights in Ireland. While the British taxpayers were making exceptional sacrifices it might be reasonable for• them to say that they must send a certain number of members into the Irish Parliament to see that their money was well spent.
Mr. Asquith's Bill, however, with a topsy-turviness which would be comic if the matter were not so serious, does the exact opposite. We give a subsidy to Ireland, and Ireland sends delegates to our Parliament to see that our gift is paid in full or possibly increased — delegates with full power to interfere in the minutest details of our domestic concerns. The financial outlook for the English taxpayer would be bad enough even if things stopped here. But they do not. Worse remains behind. The Liberal Party last year pledged itself to set up local autonomy in Scotland and Wales on the same principles as in Ireland, and Mr. Asquith, as we have said, in effect renewed this pledge. But if Scotland and Wales are promised as good terms as Ireland in the matter of finance, they may be relied upon to call for its fulfilment. We must be prepared then for at least three millions more in the way of subsidy being demanded from England, and of course also for groups of members being sent from Scotland and Wales to watch and protect their rights in those subsidies. This promise of federalism is, indeed, from the English voter's point of view, the most serious part of the Home Rule Bill. As long as there is a real incorporating union and we are in. close political partnership with Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, it is reasonable enough that the poorer parts of the country should be helped by the richer, whether they are situated in Connaught or Wiltshire, Flint or Inverness- shire. The subsidising of an independent Dublin, Cardiff, Glasgow, and Edinburgh by a financially responsible Corn- wall, Norfolk, and Suffolk—for that is what it comes to— is a very different proposition.
When Liberal candidates in December 1910 talked about satisfying Ireland, the voters never for a momentrealized that Mr. Asquith's Bill was the kind of measure pointed to by such talk. That being so, it will be a political outrage and nothing i else if an attempt is made to pass this Bill under the Veto Act, and so without a further appeal to the country. It is evident, however, that the Government intend this outrage. Happily there is little fear of their being able to carry out their intention. By-elections in the coming year may be relied upon to convince them that the country means to bo consulted before English and Scotch money is used to bribe Ireland, and to her own hurt, as she is bribed in the Bill.
Previous page
