THE EXCLUSION OF THE SIX COUNTIES.

WE give below a draft of the amendments which it would be necessary to make in the Government's Home Rule Bill, provided that Mr. Asquith, in order to avoid civil war—which, of course, is our sole object in deal- ing with this matter—agreed to the Exclusion of the homogeneous Ulster, i.e., the six counties whose character is so markedly Protestant, Loyalist, and Teutonic, or, at any rate, non-Celtic, that an attempt to include them under a Dublin Parliament would infallibly lead to insurrection.

Before we come to the amendments, a word must be said as to the instructions given to the draftsman, who, it may be noted here, has accomplished a very difficult task with the greatest skill and discretion. Our instructions were roughly as follows. ' Every Act has an area in which it operates. Limit the area in which the Home Rule Bill is to operate to Ireland minus the six counties of Antrim, . Armagh, Down, Londonderry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh, and make the alterations and omissions in the Bill which are consequential to this change of area. Further, provide that the excluded counties shall for all administrative and legislative purposes become counties of England, and make the necessary provisions for this change in their status. As far as possible, avoid making changes or omissions which, though they may seem reasonable per se, would interfere with the policy of the Bill. No attempt must be made to render the Bill more Unionist in character or to make it square with the views of the Spectator. Instead, it must, as far as is consistent with Exclusion, be consistent with the views of those who drafted the Bill, and so with the views of the Nationalists.'

Owing, perhaps, to the genius loci, the first consequence of these instructions was the adoption of two very important alterations in the Bill which are not, strictly speaking, con- sequential, but which nevertheless must be adopted to prevent a reductio ad absurdum. Even with the six coun- ties excluded, it would no doubt be physically possible to have a separate Customs House and a separate Post Office for Ireland minus the six counties. Yet all reasonable people would admit that an internal Customs line in Ireland would not be tolerable, nor would two postal systems in Ireland be convenient. Further, we think that most people would admit that, on the merits, it would be far better to let the Post Office and Customs be Imperial concerns, as they are in every federal system in the world, —i.e., in the United States, Germany, Sivitzerland, Canada, and Australia. Accordingly our amendments reserve to the Imperial Parliament the control of all postal services, and also of Customs and Excise. Again, in making the six counties English counties, it would have been no doubt possible, not merely to let them be administered by the English Departments, but also to let the English judicial system be extended to them, and for the Judges to go on circuit in them as they do in Wales. There are, however, practical and physical objections to this course, and it was therefore thought better to make provision for establishing in the six counties a local Supreme Court. This may seem at first sight an anomaly, but it is no greater, after all, than the anomaly which exists in the case of the special Courts for the County Palatine of Lancaster.

A. word must now be said as to the general character of the amendments in order to help those of our readers who have not got the Home Rule Bill before them, or who are unaccustomed to the mechanism and phraseology of amendment-making—to give, in fact, a general view of what are the consequential alterations required in the Bill. Though the alterations may appear wordy to the uninitiated, they are in reality neither very numerous nor very far-reaching. They may be grouped under two headings, legislative and executive. In addition to reserving the Post Office and the Customs and Excise for the Imperial Parliament, about twenty-two small amendments are needed in the First Schedule of the Bill. And here we may note that for convenience these consequential amendments have been relegated to an appendix. All they do, in fact, is to maintain unimpaired the representa- tion of the six counties in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and to make the necessary reductions (1) in the number of Members in the Dublin Parliament, and (2) in the number of Members from the non-excluded Ireland who will be present in the Parliament at Westminster.

It will be noted that under our scheme of Exclusion the six counties will, as at present, return to Parlia- ment twenty-five Members. There will be at West- minster in future thirty Members from the Ireland controlled from Dublin—i.e., Ireland minus the six counties—and fifty-five from the whole island, instead of forty-two as under the existing Bill. This, it will be seen, is a necessary and automatic arithmetical consequence of the Exclusion of the six counties. Another arithmetical consequence is the reduction in the numbers of the Irish Senate from forty to thirty, and of the Irish House of Commons from one hundred and sixty-four to one hundred and eighteen. For the purpose of revising the financial arrangements the number of delegates from the Irish House of Commons would, of course, bear the same proportion to the population of Nationalist Ireland —i.e., Ireland minus the six counties—as the number of Members representing Great Britain plus the six counties bore to the total population of Great Britain plus the six counties. Here, again, the alteration is purely arithmetical, and in no sense governed by any thought of policy.

It remains in this context to point out that no revised basis for the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland has been proposed except in respect of the reservation of Customs and Excise and one or two minor provisions, such as the apportionment of certain charges. In other words, no attempt has been made to show that, because the Dublin Parliament and Execu- tive will have a smaller area and a smaller population on account of which to incur the expenses of adminis- tration, therefore the subsidy provided by the United Kingdom ought to be reduced. We have left the subsidy as it was. Our main object here was to make as little alteration in the Bill as possible. But our course might be defended on the ground that at the same time the taxable area open to the Dublin Parliament has been reduced by the Exclusion of the six counties. Strictly, an attempt should have been made to apportion the Irish Church Temporali- ties Fund between the excluded counties and the rest of Ireland, but in our scheme the whole of that fund has been left to the Dublin Parliament. The sum involved, however, is not large.

As to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to be set up in the excluded area, provision has been made that the future Judges of all the Courts in that area are to be appointed by the Crown on the advice of the Lord Chan- cellor of Great Britain. It should be elated that, in order to work the scheme of Exclusion, recourse has been had to the powers of making Orders in Council conferred by Clause 47 of the existing Bill.

The draftsman desires that it shall be pointed out that, in order to carry out his instructions, which were that the changes should only be those which were absolutely neces- sary, he has held those instructions to " sanction the draftsman running certain risks of misconstruction and cams oraissi."

We may add here, in case it may be supposed that the draftsman has had a bias, that we are quite unaware of his political views. For all we know, his sympathies may be strongly against Ulster.

For ourselves, we desire to remark that we are fully aware that the Bill as amended is open to many criti- cisms with which in the abstract we should be fully in sympathy. We venture to say, however, that it will be found that the majority of those criticisms are really based upon objections to the essential character of the Bill. The Bill, in our opinion, is a clumsy and unsound measure, and our amendments do not profess to alter its nature in these respects. In other

words, we have not tried by means of Exclusion and the consequential amendments to make a silk purse out

of a sow's ear. Our object is much simpler. It is

to show that on the hypothesis of the Government- i.e., that a Home Rule Bill must go through—it is

physically possible to make amendments in it which will not add the horrors of civil war to an impolitic and injudicious legislative enactment. Granted that a Home Rule Bill there must be, it is not necessary to include that portion of Ireland the inclusion of which would produce

civil war. The six counties can be excluded without the destruction of the Bill.

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL DRAFT AMENDMENTS.

1. LYGISLATIVII.

A.-Powers of Irish Parliament; representation in Imperial

Parliament.

Clause 2, page 1, line 17, after " Ireland " insert "(except that part thereof which is comprised in the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone, in this Act called 'the excluded counties Lino 19, after "to" insert "the rest of."

Clause 8, page 6, line 35, leave out "forty " and insert "thirty." „ page 7, line 3, at end add " (not being in the excluded counties)." Clause 9, page 7, line 27, leave out "sixty-four" and insert "eighteen."

Clause 13, page 10, line 33, leave out "forty-two" and insert "fifty-five." Line 34, after "shall" insert "in respect of the excluded counties be the existing constituencies contained therein, and in respect of the rest of Ireland shall." ,.page 11, line 6, at end insert " (save in the excluded counties)."

Clause 15, page 13, line 41, insert at end as a new subsection " (3) For the purpose of this and the next succeeding section, • Great Britain' includes and ' Ireland' does not include the excluded counties."

Clause 42, page 32, line 21, leave out "or the Queen's University of Belfast." Line 29, leave out from beginning to end of line 33.

• page 83, line 1, leave out paragraph (b). Clause 46, page 33, line 39, after "Ireland " insert " (other than those in the.excluded counties)."

B.-Reservation of eiwitroi of Postal Services.

Clause 2, page 2, line 86, leave out from beginning to end of line 38.

Clause 47, page 35, line 22, leave out paragraph (e).

C.-Reservation of whole control of Customs and Excise. Clause 15,page 12, line 16, leave out from "any article" to " and " in line 17. Line 18, leave out "except by way of addition." Lino 20, leave out from "levied" to "and" in line 21. Line 23, leave out from " to any " to "duty " in line 25. Clause 15, page 12, line 34, leave out from " any" to "death" in line 35. Line 39, leave out from "and " to end of paragraph. page 18, line 11, leave out paragraph (f). Clause 16, page 14, line 1, leave out Clause 16.

Clause 17, page 16, line 8, leave out from "addition" to end of line 9. Line 10, leave out "so" where it first occurs, and after "levied" insert "as an Imperial tax."

Clause 50, page 38, line 14, leave out from beginning to end of line 18.

2. Execrerrva.

Pourers of Irish Executive: substitution of Imperial Executive in rasped of excluded counties.

Clause 4, page 5, line 23, at end, add "and of the civil government of the excluded counties (in this Act referred to as 'services of the excluded counties ')."

Clause 5, page 5, line 24, at beginning, insert "Save as respects the excluded counties :-(1)." Clause 37, page 81, line 8, at end add as a new subsection: "(8) Nothing in this section or in the Fourth Schedule to this Act shall apply to officers and constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary serving in the excluded counties on the day of transfer." Clause 47, page 35, line 13, after "execution" insert "of the ser- vices of the excluded counties, and."

„ page 36, line 24, after "services" insert "or the services of the excluded counties."

3. Tunics/arr.

Powers of Irish Supreme Court: constitution of Supreme Court for excluded counties.

Page 23, after Clause 28 insert as a new clause :-" (1) His Majesty may, by Order in Council, establish in and for the excluded counties a Supreme Court of Judicature, which shall comprise each Courts and be composed of such number of Judges ae the Order in Council may declare. (2) As from the appointed day there shall be transferred to the said Supreme Court the jurisdiction, original and appellate, previously exercised in suspect of the excluded counties by the Supreme Court in Ireland, and the last-named Court shall cease to exercise in respect of those counties any jurisdiction whatever. (8) The Judges of the Supreme Court in Ireland holding awth on the appointed day shall by virtue of their office be Judges of the Supreme Court for the excluded counties ; and after the appointed day a Judge shall be assigned or appointed to a Court in the excluded counties on the advice of the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain."

Clause 47, page 86, line 29, at ,end, insert as a new paragraph: " (g) make such adaptations of any enactments as may appear to him necessary or proper for the transfer of the jurisdiction, original and appellate, of the Supreme Court in Ireland to the Supreme Court in the excluded counties, and for appeals from the last-named Court to the House of Lords, and for the appointment of Judges, and for any matters incidental, eon- saga:nit:ell or supplemental to the matters in this paragraph asentioned; and,' 4.-liftsmaLwnsous.

Clause 14, page 12, line 8, after "Ireland" insert "except as respects the excluded counties." Clause 18, page 18, line 1, leave out "and" and insert "except in

respect of such sums and arrears as in the opinion of the Joint Exchequer Board are attributable to the excluded counties, and except as aforesaid." Line 14, leave out "the whole of" and insert "such part of." Line 18, at end insert "as to the Board seems equitable."

Clause 21, page 19, line 5, leave out" the public service of Ireland " and insert "Irish services."

Clause 22, page 19, line 30, after "service" insert "or of any service of the excluded counties."

Clause 24, page 20, line 84, at end insert "For the purposes of this and the four next succeeding sections, 'Great Britain' includes and Ireland does not include the excluded counties."

Clause 30, page 25, line 2, insert at end as a new subsection " (4) For the purposes of this and the last preceding section, 'Great Britain' includes and ' Ireland' does not include the excluded counties."

Clause 40, page 31, line 34, at end insert as a new subsection " (2) Nothing in this or the last preceding section shall apply to the excluded counties."

APPENDIX.

FIRST SCHNDULD.

Part I., page 40, line 14, leave out from beginning to end of line 19. Line 23, leave out "34" and insert "18." „ page 41, line 5, leave out from beginning to end of lice 15. Line 24, leave out from beginning to end of line 36. Line 40, leave out from beginning to end of line 44, Line 45, leave out "43 " and insert " 13.

„ page 44, line 6, leave out "34" and insert "18." Line 7, leave out "128" and insert " 98." Line 9, leave out " 164" and insert " 118."

Part LI., page 94, leave out line 18. Line 20, leave out "8" and insert "4." Line 25, leave out from beginning to end of lino 27, Line 29, leave out "2" and insert ^ I." Line 80, leave out from beginning to end of line 32. Line 83, leave out "2" and insert "1." Line 34, leave out from beginning to end of line 36. Line 38, leave out "11" and insert " 3." „ page 46, line 16, leave out "8" and insert "4." Line 17, leave out "34" and insert "26." Line 18, leave out "42 "and insert "80."

Part III., page 46, line 23, leave out "14" and insert "4." Line 27, leave out "40" and insert "30."