A. The Supremacy of the Imperial Parliament26

The Home Rule Bill asserts in its preamble the inexpediency of 'impairing or restricting the supreme authority of Parliament'; and in clause 33, apparently27 assumes the right of the Imperial Parliament after the passing of the Home Rule Bill to enact for Ireland laws which cannot be repealed by the Irish Parliament.

The new constitution therefore maintains the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament.

What, however, is the true meaning of this 'supreme authority,' 'supremacy,' or 'sovereignty,' if you like, of the Imperial Parliament?

The term, as already pointed out,28 is distinctly ambiguous, and unless this ambiguity is cleared up, the effect of the Home Rule Bill, and the nature of our new constitution, will never be understood.

The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament may mean the right and power of Parliament to govern Ireland in the same sense in which it now governs England, that is, to exercise effective control over the whole administration of affairs in Ireland, and for this purpose, through the action of the English Government, or, when necessary, by legislation, to direct, supervise and control the acts of every authority in Ireland, including the Irish Executive and the Irish Legislature. If this were the meaning of the expression, the Imperial Parliament would, after the passing of the Home Rule Bill, as before, be as truly supreme in Ireland as in England, in Scotland, in the Isle of Man, or in Jersey. The Irish Executive and the Irish Parliament would, of course, be bodies possessing large—and it might be very dangerous—delegated powers, but they would stand in the same relation to the Imperial Parliament as does the London County Council, which also possesses large delegated powers, which administers the affairs of a population as large as that of Scotland and which, very possibly, may receive from Parliament as time goes on larger and more extended authority than the Council now possesses. This is the sense which many Gladstonians, and some Unionists, attribute to the term 'supremacy of Parliament.' It is not the sense in which the expression 'supreme authority of Parliament' is used in the Home Rule Bill.

The supremacy of Parliament may bear quite another sense; it may mean that Parliament, whilst completely giving up the management of Irish affairs (subject of course to the Restrictions contained in the Home Rule Bill) to the Irish Executive and the Irish Legislature, retains in Ireland, as elsewhere throughout the Empire, reserved sovereignty, or the theoretical right (which exceptionally though rarely may be put into practice) of passing laws for Ireland and of course, among other laws, an Act modifying or repealing the terms of the Home Rule Bill itself. If this is the meaning of the expression 'supreme authority of Parliament,' the Imperial Parliament will, after the passing of the Home Rule Bill, stand in substance in the relation to Ireland which Parliament occupies towards any important self-governing colony, such as is the Canadian Dominion or New Zealand. The Irish Executive and the Irish Parliament will on this view constitute the real substantial government of Ireland, just as the Ministry and the Parliament of New Zealand constitute the real and substantial government of New Zealand. No doubt the Imperial Parliament will retain the theoretical right to legislate for Ireland, e.g. to pass an Irish Coercion Act, just as Parliament retains the theoretical right to legislate for New Zealand or Canada. So the Imperial Parliament has the legal right to repeal or override any law passed by the New Zealand Parliament, to tax the inhabitants of New Zealand, or finally, by the repeal of the New Zealand Constitution Act, 1852, 15 & 16 Vict. c. 72, to abolish the constitution of New Zealand altogether. But these things Parliament will not, and to speak truly cannot, do in New Zealand. The inhabitants of New Zealand possess as regards their internal affairs for practical purposes complete independence. They are governed from Wellington, they are not governed from Westminster. If in short the supremacy of Parliament means under the Home Rule Bill in Ireland what it means under 15 & 16 Vict. c. 72 in New Zealand, the inhabitants of Ireland will, when the Home Rule Bill passes into law, be governed from Dublin, they will not be governed from Westminster. Every Irish Home Ruler, be he Parnellite or Anti-Parnellite,29 believes that the supremacy of Parliament is intended to mean in Ireland what it means in New Zealand, and the Irish Home Rulers are right. Any one will see that this is so who reflects on the meaning of the policy of Home Rule, who studies the authoritative utterances of Gladstonian leaders, such as Mr. Gladstone30 himself, Mr. Asquith,31 or Mr. Bryce.32 Gladstonian statesmen wrap up their meaning in vague generalities; they insist, and in one sense with truth, that the sovereignty of Parliament is reserved. They do not wish to alarm their English followers. It is possible that they conceal even from themselves how completely the Imperial Ministry and Parliament surrender the practical government of Ireland into the hands of the Irish Parliament and its leaders. But for all this, their own language and the Bill itself prove that the supreme authority of Parliament is under the new constitution to be taken in its limited, and what for the sake of distinction we may call its 'colonial' sense. This is proved, if evidence were wanting, by the provision33 that after fifteen years from the time when the Bill passes into law the financial relations between England and Ireland may be revised in pursuance of an Address to the Crown from the House of Commons or from the Irish legislative assembly. If the Imperial Parliament retains an effective or practically unlimited supremacy, the provision is futile and needless. What necessity is there for enacting that a sovereign Parliament, which institutes, may alter a scheme of taxation? But the provision is intelligible enough on one supposition, and on one supposition only. It is both intelligible and in place if Parliament gives up the real right of governing Ireland and occupies towards what is now a part of the United Kingdom the position, or something very like the position, which Parliament occupies towards a self-governing colony. It then embodies a compact between England and Ireland, and institutes a regular method for revising their financial relations. But this very compact proves that as regards Ireland the Imperial Parliament, if it reserves to itself ultimate sovereignty, has for practical purposes surrendered the reality of control.

There is no need to assert that this supremacy of the Imperial Parliament means nothing. The assertion would not be true. The reservation of sovereign authority means something, but it does not mean much. It does not mean the power or the right to govern Ireland; it means at most the legal and moral right to modify, or put an end to, the new constitution if ever it works badly.

The power, indeed, to abolish the constitution can neither be given nor taken away by Acts of Parliament, by the declarations of English statesmen, or the concessions of Irish leaders, whether authorised or not to pledge the Irish people. It is given to Great Britain, not by enactments, but by nature; it arises from the inherent capacity of a strong, a flourishing, a populous, and a wealthy country to control or coerce a neighbouring island which is poor, divided, and weak.34 This natural supremacy will, if the interests of Great Britain require it, be enforced by armies, by ironclads, by blockades, by hostile tariffs, by all the means through which national predominance can make itself felt. All reference to superior power is, in controversies between citizens, hateful to every man endowed with a sense of humanity or of justice. But in serious discussions facts must be faced, and if, for the sake of argument, I contrast, much against my will, the power of Great Britain with the weakness of Ireland, let it be remembered that the conception of a rivalry or conflict is forced upon Unionists by the mere proposal of Home Rule. As long as we remain a United Kingdom, there is no more need to think even of hypothetical or argumentative opposition between the resources or interest of England and of Ireland than there is to consider what in case of a contest may be the relative force of London and of the Orkneys.

What, then, the new constitution secures is not the power, but the legal right to abolish the new constitution. It is a right to carry through a fundamental change by lawful means. The Bill legalises revolution. This is well, for it is desirable that in a civilised State every change of institutions should be effected by constitutional methods. But should the circumstances ever arise under which Great Britain is resolved, in spite of the wishes of the Irish people or a large portion thereof, to abolish Home Rule and exercise the right of reserved sovereignty, there is no reason to expect that Irishmen who oppose British policy will admit that her use of sovereign power is morally justifiable. By force, or the threat of force, the controversy will, we must expect, in the last instance, be decided. However this may be, we must now realise what the supremacy of Parliament, at any rate to the Irish leaders who accept it, really means. It means nothing but the right of the Imperial Parliament of its own authority to repeal the Home Rule Bill and destroy the new constitution. The right may be worth having. But it is not the right to govern Ireland or to control the Irish Government; it is not a means of government at all: it is a method of constitutional revolution, or reaction.

Some critic will object that this supremacy of Parliament means to him a good deal more than the mere right to abolish the constitution. So be it. Let the objector then tell us in precise language what it does mean. If his reply is that the term is ambiguous, that its meaning must be construed in accordance with events, and may, according to circumstances, be restricted or extended, then he suggests that Parliamentary supremacy is not only an empty right, but an urgent peril. Nothing can be more dangerous than a compact between England and Ireland which the contracting parties construe from the very beginning in different senses. If by asserting the supreme authority of Parliament English statesmen mean that Parliament reserves the right to supervise and control the government of Ireland, whilst Irishmen understand that Parliament retains nothing more than such a kind of supremacy or sovereignty as it asserts, rather than exercises, in New Zealand, then we are entering into a doubtful contract which lays the sure basis of a quarrel. We are deliberately preparing the ground for disappointment, for imputations of bad faith, for recriminations, for bitter animosity, it may be for civil war. If there be, as is certainly the case, a fair doubt as to what is meant by the supremacy of Parliament, let the doubt be cleared up. This is required by the dictates both of expediency and of honour. Meanwhile we may assume that the supremacy of Parliament, or the 'supreme authority of Parliament,' means in substance the kind of sovereignty which Parliament exercises, or claims to exercise, in every part of the British Empire.

For the maintenance of such supremacy, be it valuable or be it worthless, Great Britain pays a heavy price. For the sake of 'an outward and visible sign of Imperial supremacy' we retain eighty Irish members in the Imperial Parliament.35

B. The Retention of the Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament

This is now36 an essential, or at least a most important part of the ministerial policy for Ireland, yet it is a proposal which even its advocates must find difficult of defence. In 1886 every Gladstonian leader told us that it was desirable, politic, and just to exclude Irish members from the Parliament at Westminster; this exclusion was pressed upon England (plausibly enough) as a main advantage to be derived from the concession of Home Rule to Ireland. In 1893 every Gladstonian leader tells us that it is desirable, politic, and just to retain the Irish members at Westminster, and their presence is, for some reason not easy to explain, treated as removing every objection to the concession of Home Rule to Ireland. This astounding variation of opinion in the doctors of the State savours of empiricism, not to say quackery. A surgeon who tells a patient that he will not live unless his leg is amputated may be right, and may be worthy of trust; another surgeon who asserts that amputation is unnecessary may be right, and worthy of trust. But the surgeon who one moment insists that amputation is necessary to the preservation of his patient's life, and the next moment that it is unnecessary and may be fatal, is not the kind of adviser who inspires confidence in his wisdom.

Let the ingenuity of Gladstonians reconcile, as best it can, the doctrine of 1886 with the doctrine of 1893. To a man of sense who weighs the matter without reference to considerations of party, one thing will soon become apparent: the retention at Westminster of eighty, or indeed of any Irish members at all, means under a scheme of Home Rule the ruin of Ireland and the weakness of England.

As to Ireland.—The presence of Irish members at Westminster robs Ireland of the one advantage which Home Rule might by any possibility confer upon that country.

Any man in order to see that this is so has only to consider, first, what may under favourable circumstances be the benefit of Home Rule to Ireland, and next what is the natural result of summoning Irish members to the Parliament at Westminster.

The best conceivable result of Home Rule is that it may detach Irishmen from interest in English politics, and induce the most respected and respectable men in Ireland to take matters into their own hands and manage for themselves all strictly Irish affairs. For the last twenty years, at least, Ireland has been represented, or misrepresented, by eighty and more politicians, nominated in the main by Mr. Parnell. No one supposes for a moment that the Nationalist leaders who appeared before and were condemned by the Special Commission are fair samples of the Irish people. They are, take them at their best, reckless agitators. They were chosen by their patron, Mr. Parnell, not on account of their worth or talent, but because they were apt instruments for carrying out a policy of parliamentary intrigue, reinforced by a system of lawless oppression.37 These men are the product of a revolutionary era; they no more represent the virtues and the genius of the Irish people than the demagogues or fanatics of the Jacobin Club represented the genius and the virtues of the French nation. We all know that Ireland abounds in citizens of a very different stamp. She has never lacked among her sons, and does not lack now, men of virtue, of vigour, and of genius. Throughout the length and breadth of the country you will find hundreds of men of merit—landlords whose lives have been honourable to themselves, and a blessing to their tenants; merchants as honest and successful as any in England or in Scotland; small landowners and tenant farmers who have paid their rent and paid their way, who have cultivated their land, who have never insulted or boycotted their neighbours, and have never been driven by intimidation into meanness and fraud. Add to these lawyers, thinkers, writers, and scholars, who rival or excel the best representatives of their class in other parts of the United Kingdom. These good men and true are not peculiar to any one creed or party; they are not confined to any one province, or to any one class; they are scattered through every part of the land; they are the true backbone of Ireland; they have saved her from utter ruin; they may still by their energy raise her to prosperity. But they have been thrust out of politics by the talkers, the adventurers, the conspirators. It is possible that if Home Rule compels Irishmen to turn their whole minds to Irish affairs, the so-called representatives who misrepresent their country may be dismissed from the world of politics, and the Parliament at Dublin be filled with members who, whether they come from the North or from the South, whether Unionists or Home Rulers, whether Roman Catholics or Protestants, whether landowners, tenant farmers, ministers of religion, merchants, or tradesmen, represent the real worth and strength of the country. If this should happen, Home Rule would still entail great evils on the whole United Kingdom. But even zealous Unionists might hope that for these evils Ireland at least will obtain some compensation. This hope, if the Irish members are retained at Westminster, will never be fulfilled.

For even the occasional presence38—which will in practice be the frequent presence—of the Irish members at Westminster destroys every hope that Ireland will be governed by her best citizens. The reasons why this is so are various; some of them may be shortly stated. The system, in the first place, of double representation, under which members of the Irish Parliament must flit to and fro between Ireland and England, and debate one day about Irish matters in Dublin, and the next about Imperial, or in truth British, matters in England, makes it impossible for quiet hard-working Irishmen, who carry on the real business of Ireland, to take part in politics. The political centre of interest, in the second place, will after, as before, the passing of the Home Rule Bill, be placed in London and not in Dublin. The humdrum local business which under a system of Home Rule ought to be discussed in the Irish Parliament, may vitally concern the prosperity of every inhabitant of Ireland, but it will not in general lend itself to oratory, or arouse popular excitement. The questions, on the other hand, to be discussed in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, as, for example, whether Mr. Gladstone or Lord Salisbury shall be head of the British Cabinet, whether the royal veto on Irish legislation shall be exercised on the advice of the English or of the Irish Ministry, are matters which do not in reality greatly affect the happiness of ordinary Irishmen. But they give room for management, for diplomacy, for rhetoric, and are certain on occasions to arouse both the interest and the passions of the Irish people. We may take it for granted that the character of the Irish representation at Westminster will govern the character of the Parliament at Dublin.39 Hence arises a third and fatal obstacle to the active participation in Irish public life of Irishmen who are not professional politicians. The Home Rule Bill of 1893 professes to restrain on every side the action of the Irish government and Parliament. These Restrictions are the comfort of English Gladstonians; they are thought to be safeguards, though in reality there is nothing which they make safe. But Restrictions which delight Gladstonians are hateful to Irish Home Rulers. Their watchword is, 'Ireland a nation.' To this cry every Home Ruler will rally, and so too will, if once the Union is broken up, many an ardent loyalist, converted by anger at England's treachery into an extreme Nationalist. Irishmen will wish for an Irish army; they will wish for a protective policy; they will desire that Ireland shall play a part in foreign affairs, and will claim for her at least the independence of such a colony as New Zealand. To all these wishes, and to many more, some of which under a system of Home Rule are quite reasonable, the terms of the Home Rule Bill are opposed. Home Rulers, and probably enough the whole Irish people, will insist that the Bill, which will then have become an Act, must be modified. How is the modification to be obtained? How is Home Rule to be made a reality? By one method only: that is, by the freest use of those arts Of intrigue and obstruction by which Home Rule will have been gained. But for the carrying out of such a policy the agitators and intriguers who for the last twenty years have weakened and degraded the Imperial Parliament are the proper agents. For this work they, and they alone, are fit. The quiet, industrious, stay-at-home merchants or lawyers, who might be sent to Dublin for a month or two in the year to manage Irish business on business-like principles, will not be sent to Westminster to hold the balance between English parties. They cannot leave their every-day work; were they willing to forsake their own business, they are not the men to conduct with success the parliamentary game of brag, obstruction, and finesse. Keep, in short, the Irish members at Westminster, and you ensure the supremacy in Ireland of professional politicians. By a curious fatality the Gladstonian policy which weakens England ruins Ireland. Let no one fancy that this is the delusion of an English Unionist. Sir Gavan Duffy is an Irish Nationalist of a far higher type than the men who have drawn money from the Clan-na-Gael. In '48 he was a rebel, but if he was disloyal to England, he was always careful of the honour and character of Ireland. He, at least, perceives the danger to his country of retaining Irish members in a Parliament where they had ceased to have any proper place. 'For my own part,' he says, 'I should not care if they did not attend [the Imperial Parliament] for a generation, which will be needed for the manipulation of their own affairs.'

All this, I shall be told, is prophecy; Gladstonian hopes are as reasonable as Unionist fears. So be it. But in this matter my predictions have a special claim on the attention of the Ministry, they coincide with the forecast, or the foresight, of the present40 Chief Secretary for Ireland.

These are the words of my friend Mr. Morley.42 They were spoken at Newcastle on April 21, 1886. He was then, as now, responsible for the government of Ireland. Nothing can add to their gravity; nothing can add to their force; they were true in 1886, they remain as true to-day as they were seven years ago.43

As to England.—The presence of the Irish members at Westminster is on the face of it a gross and patent injustice to Great Britain. It is absurd, it is monstrous, that while the Irish Parliament and the Irish Parliament alone settle whether Mr. Healy, Mr. M'Carthy, Mr. Redmond, or Mr. Davitt is to be head of the Irish government, and England, though vitally interested in the character of the Irish Executive, is not to say a word in the matter, eighty Irishmen are to help in determining, and are often actually to determine, whether Lord Salisbury or Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Balfour or Mr. Chamberlain, is to be Prime Minister and direct the policy of England. Here again I can rely on the invaluable aid of Mr. Morley. He has denounced the effect on England of retaining Irish members at Westminster with a strength of language and a weight of authority to which it is impossible for me to make any pretension.

This was the opinion of Mr. John Morley in 1886. A word in it here or there is inapplicable to the details of the present Bill; but in principle every syllable cited by me from his Newcastle address forms part of the Unionist argument against summoning as much as a single Irish member to Westminster. His language is admirable, it cannot be improved. All that any one who agrees with Mr. Morley can do in order to force his argument home is to point out in a summary manner the ways in which the Irish delegation at Westminster will enfeeble the Imperial Government.

First. The Irish members, or rather the Irish delegation, will have a voice and often a decisive voice in determining who are the men that shall constitute the English Cabinet; on the Irish vote will depend whether Conservatives, Liberals, Radicals, or Socialists shall administer the government of England. It is vain to tell us Irish members will be restrained, whether by law or custom, from voting on British affairs when they will vote on the most important of all British affairs, the composition and the character of the body which is to govern England.

That the Irish members will thus vote on a matter of special and vital importance to England is admitted. But things stand far worse than this. The vote of the Irish delegation will and must be swayed by an interest adverse to the welfare of Great Britain; for the interest of Great Britain, or, to use ordinary language of England, is that the English Government should be strong, and should represent the majority of the English or British electors. The direct interest of the Irish delegation is that the English Government should be weak, and represent the minority of English electors. That this is so is obvious. The weaker the British Government, the greater the weight of the Irish representatives. But if the English Cabinet represents a minority of the British people, and are kept in office only by the votes of their Irish allies, then the influence of the Irish representatives and the weakness of the English Government will have reached its extreme point. The effect therefore of the arrangement which brings Irish members to Westminster is to place the administration of English affairs in the hands of the party, whichever it be, that does not represent the wishes of the English people. This master stroke of Gladstonian astuteness ensures that Radicals shall be in office when the opinion of England is Conservative, and that Conservatives shall be in power when English opinion tends towards Radicalism.

Secondly. The retention of the Irish members breaks up our whole system of Cabinet government. This system has some inherent defects, but it cannot work at all with any benefit to the country unless the Cabinet can depend on the support of a permanent majority. The result of what has happily been described as the 'in-and-out plan,' that is the scheme for allowing Irish members to vote on some subjects and not on others, will be the constitution of two majorities, and it is more than possible that the one majority may belong to one party and the other majority to another. Look at the effect on the transaction of public affairs. The Irish members and the English Liberals combined may put in office a Liberal Cabinet. On English matters, e.g. the question of Disestablishment, or of Home Rule for Wales, the British majority consisting of British members of Parliament only may constantly defeat the Gladstonian Cabinet, and thus force into office a Conservative Cabinet which could command a majority on all subjects of purely British interest, but would always be in a minority on all matters of Imperial policy, e.g. on the conduct of foreign affairs. Which Cabinet would have a right to retain power? The sole answer is—neither. The proposed plan, in short, undermines our whole scheme of government.

Thirdly. The Irish members who are now simply Irish members of the Imperial Parliament will be transformed into a very different thing—an Irish delegation. The importance of this change cannot be over-rated. The essential merit of our present system of government is that the Executive, no less than the Parliament of the United Kingdom, represents the country as a whole. Our Premier may be a Scotsman, but we know of no such thing as a Scottish Premier. Englishmen may form the majority of the Cabinet, but we have never had an English Cabinet as contrasted with a Scottish or an Irish Cabinet. It has never been contended, hardly has it been hinted, that a Ministry ought to be made up of members taken in certain proportions from each division of the kingdom. But from the moment that sectional representation, and with it open advocacy of sectional interests, is introduced into the House of Commons, there will arise the necessity for the formation of sectional Cabinets.

The demand will be made, and the demand will be granted, that in the administration no less than in the House there shall be a system of representation; that England, that Scotland, that Ireland shall each have their due share in the Ministry. But this state of things must be fatal both to the capacity and to the fairness of the government. The talent of the Cabinet will be diminished, because the Prime Minister will no longer be able to choose as colleagues the ablest among his supporters without reference to the now irrelevant question whether they represent English, Scottish, or Irish constituencies. The character of the Executive will be lowered because the Cabinet itself will represent rival interests. It may seem that I am advocating the special claims of England. This is not so. I am arguing on behalf of the efficiency of the government of the United Kingdom. My argument is one to which Scotsmen and Irishmen should give special heed. If once we have cabinets and parties based upon sectional divisions, if we have English ministries and English parties as opposed to Scottish ministries or Irish ministries, and Scottish parties and Irish parties, it is not in the long run the most powerful and wealthy portion of what is now the United Kingdom which will suffer. It is hardly the interest of Scotsmen or Irishmen to pursue a policy which suggests the odious but inevitable cry 'England for Englishmen.'

Fourthly, as long as Irish members remain at Westminster the English Parliament will never be freed from debates about Irish affairs.

This is a point there is no need to labour. Unless (what no honest man can openly propose) the 80 or 103 members from Ireland are to be taken from one Irish party only, they must represent different interests and different opinions. Some few at least will represent the wishes, the complaints, or the wrongs of Ulster. But if this be so, it is certain that the controversies which divide Ireland will make themselves heard at Westminster. Can any sane man fancy that if the Dublin Parliament passes an Act for the maintenance of order at Belfast, if the people of Belfast are suspected of intending to resist the Irish government, if Irish landlords, rightly or not, fear unfair treatment at the hands of the Irish Ministry or the Irish Parliament, none of these things will be heard of at Westminster? The supposition is incredible. Let Irish members sit at Westminster and Irish affairs will be debated at Westminster, and will often be debated when, under a system of Home Rule, it were much better they should be passed over in silence. Admit, what is not certain, that Home Rule in Ireland will occasionally withdraw a few Irish questions from discussion in England, it must be remembered that a new crop of Irish questions will arise. The federal character of the new constitution must produce in one form or another disputes and discussions as to the limits which bound the respective authority of the Imperial and of the Irish Governments. The Imperial Parliament will, for the first time, be harassed by the question of State rights. Add to this that at every great political crisis the House of Commons will have before it an inquiry which must produce interminable debates, namely whether a given bill is or is not a measure which concerns only the interest of Great Britain.

Two inducements are offered to England for the adoption of a plan the evils whereof were so patent in 1886 that it then could not, if we are to believe Mr. Morley,45 have commanded twenty supporters in the House of Commons.

The first inducement is that the presence of eighty Irish members at Westminster is an outward and visible sign of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament.46 On this point it is needless to say much; few Englishmen will on consideration think it worth while to dislocate all our system of government in order that the British Parliament may retain in Ireland the kind of sovereignty which it retains in New Zealand. We are rightly proud of our connection with our colonies, but no one would seriously propose to retain nominal sovereignty in Canada at the price of a perilous and injurious change in the constitution of England.

The second inducement is that Great Britain will be allowed the exclusive management of British affairs.

This sort of spurious Home Rule for England turns out however to be as illusory a blessing as the maintenance of parliamentary supremacy.

Great Britain is, under the new constitution, not allowed to appoint the British Cabinet. Great Britain is forbidden to determine for herself any matter of legislation or administration which, however deeply it concerns British interests, trenches in the least degree on any Irish or Imperial interest. Any matter of finance, which comes within the wide head of Imperial liabilities, expenditure, and miscellaneous revenue,47 falls within the competence of the Irish members. Questions of peace or war, our foreign relations, every diplomatic transaction, is a matter on which the Irish delegation may pronounce a decision. The conjecture is at least plausible48 that Irish members will have a right to discuss and vote upon any subject debated in the Parliament at Westminster which involves the fate of a British Cabinet. Let it be granted that, if the provisions of the Home Rule Bill be observed, no Irish representative can vote 'on any Bill, or motion in relation thereto, the operation of which Bill or motion is confined to Great Britain.'49 But then when is the operation of a Bill confined to Great Britain, or, to use popular language, what is a British Bill? This is an inquiry in the decision whereof the Irish members will take part. The Irish members, therefore, at Westminster will be judges of their own rights, and in the only cases in which it is of practical importance to Great Britain that the Irish representatives should not vote, will be able with the aid of a British minority to fix the limits of their own jurisdiction.50 Let the Irish members and a British minority boldly vote that the operation of a Bill, say for the Disestablishment of the English Church, is not confined to Great Britain, and they can boldly vote that the Bill do pass, and no Court in Great Britain or the British Empire can question the validity of a law enacted in open defiance of the spirit or even the words of the Constitution.51 The right of British members to the management of even exclusively British affairs will depend not upon the law of the land, but upon the moderation and sense of equity which may restrain the unfairness of partisanship.

For a parliamentary minority will, if only it throw scruples to the winds, be constantly able to transform itself into a majority by the unconstitutional admission of the Irish vote. This is not a power which any party, be it Conservative or Radical, English, Scottish, or Irish, ought to possess. Partisanship knows nothing of moderation. And the reason of this blindness to the claims of justice is that the spirit of party combines within itself some of the best and some of the worst of human passions. It often unites the self-sacrificing zealotry of religious fanaticism with the recklessness of the gambling table. Let an assailant of the Contagious Diseases Act, a fanatic for temperance, a protectionist who believes that free trade is the ruin of the country, an anti-vivisectionist who holds that any painful experiment on live animals is the most heinous of sins; let any man who has come to believe that his own credit, no less than the salvation of the country, depends on the success of a particular party, know that the triumph of his cause depends upon his voting that a particular measure operates beyond Great Britain, and we know well enough in which way he will vote. He will vote what he knows to be untrue rather than sacrifice a cause which he believes to be sacred. He will think himself both a fool and a traitor if he sacrifices the victory which is within his grasp to the maintenance of technical legality, or rather to respect for a rule of constitutional procedure.

Suppose, however, that I have underrated the equity of human nature, and that no faction in the House of Commons ever attempts to violate the spirit of the Constitution. The supposition is bold, not to say absurd; but even if its reasonableness be granted, this does not suffice for the protection of England's rights. The question whether a given Bill does or does not operate exclusively in Great Britain may often give rise to fair dispute, and (what should be noted) this dispute will always be decided against Great Britain in the only instances in which its decision is to Great Britain of any importance whatever. An example best shows my meaning. Let a Bill be brought forward for establishing Home Rule in Wales. Is the operation of the Bill confined to Great Britain? An English member, unless he is a Home Ruler, will answer with an undoubted affirmative. An English, or Irish, or Welsh Home Ruler will with equal certainty, and equal honesty, give a negative answer. The question admits of fair debate, but we know already how the debate will be decided. If the Unionists constitute a majority of the House, the Irish vote will be excluded. But in this case its exclusion is of no practical importance. If the Unionists constitute indeed a majority of British representatives, but do not constitute a majority of the House, the Irish vote will be included. The Irish representatives will decide whether Wales shall constitute a separate State, and the right of Great Britain to manage British affairs will not prevent the dismemberment of England. Home Rule, such as it is for England, means at best a totally different thing from Home Rule for Ireland. In the case of England it means a limited and precarious control of legislation for Great Britain by British members of Parliament. In the case of Ireland it means the real and substantial and exclusive government of Ireland by an Irish Ministry and an Irish Parliament.

But will the advantage of even this modified half-and-half Home Rule be really offered to England?

Gladstonians, it is rumoured (and before these pages are in print the rumour may turn out to be a fact), have their own remedy for some of the only too-patent absurdities of the 'in-and-out system' embodied in clause 9 of the Home Rule Bill. A suggestion is made which would be amusing for its irony, were it not revolting for its cynicism, that the difficulty of the double majority should be removed by the allowing members not only to remain at Westminster in their full number, but also to vote there on all matters whatever, including those affairs which exclusively concern the interests of Great Britain. This is no doubt a remedy for some of the evils of an unworkable proposal. It is a cure which to any Englishman of sense or spirit will seem tenfold worse than the disease. It is a cure in that sense only in which a traveller may be said to be relieved from the fear of robbery by a highwayman shooting him dead. The irregular interference of the Irish delegation in the formation of the British Cabinet, and other matters which indirectly concern England, is to be regularised (if I may use the term) by allowing to Irish members permanent despotism over England in matters which, on a system of Home Rule, concern England alone. 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. Note that all this may be done by the Irish delegation, though, under the new Constitution, England will not have a word to say on such questions as whether the right of electing members for the Parliament at Dublin shall or shall not be extended to every adult, or whether Ulster shall, or shall not, be allowed Home Rule of its own. The absurdity of this policy ought to prevent its ever being adopted; but in these days absurdity seems to tell as little against wild schemes of legislation as their injustice.

All this consideration of haggling and trafficking between Great Britain and Ireland is loathsome to every true Unionist who considers Englishmen and Irishmen as still citizens of one nation. But, when Gladstonians propose to divide the United Kingdom into two States, it is as essential as it is painful to weigh well what is the gain of Great Britain in the new scheme of political partnership. If the matter be looked at from this point of view, it is easy to see how miserable are the offers tendered to England. Compare for a moment the authority to be given her under the new constitution with the authority she has hitherto possessed or the authority tendered to her under the Home Rule Bill of 1886.

Up to 1782 the British Parliament held in its own hands the absolute control not only of every British affair, but every matter of policy affecting either Ireland or the British Empire. The British Parliament, in which sat not a single representative of any Irish county or borough, appointed the Irish Executive. The British Parliament, whenever it thought fit, legislated for Ireland; the British Parliament controlled the whole course of Irish legislation; every Act which passed the Parliament of Ireland was inspected, amended, and, if the English Ministry saw fit, vetoed in England. The system was a bad system and an unjust system. It is well that it ended. But as regarded the control of the British Empire it corresponded roughly with facts. The Empire was in the main the outcome of British energy and British strength, and the British Empire was governed by Great Britain.

The constitution of 1782 gave legislative independence to Ireland, but did not degrade the British Parliament to the position which will be occupied by the Imperial Parliament under the constitution of 1893. The British Parliament remained supreme in Great Britain; the British Parliament controlled the Imperial policy both of England and of Ireland. The British Parliament, or rather the British Ministry, virtually appointed the Irish Executive. The British Parliament renounced all rights to legislate for Ireland52; the British Parliament technically possessed no representatives in the Parliament at Dublin. But any one who judges of institutions not by words but by facts will perceive that in one way or another the influence and the wishes of the British Government were represented more than sufficiently in the Irish Houses of Parliament. Grattan's constitution, in short, left the British Parliament absolutely supreme in all British and Imperial affairs, and gave to the British Ministry predominating weight in the government of Ireland. This is a very different thing from the shadowy sovereignty which the English Parliament retains, but abstains from exercising, in our self-governing colonies. It is a very different thing from the nominal power to legislate for Ireland which the new constitution confers upon the Imperial Parliament.

Since the Union England and Ireland have been politically one nation. The Imperial or British Government has controlled, and the Imperial Parliament has passed laws for, the whole country. Nor has the presence of the Irish members till recent days substantially limited the authority of Great Britain. Till 1829 the Protestant landlords of Ireland who were represented in the Imperial Parliament shared the principles or the prejudices of English landowners. Since the granting of Catholic emancipation Roman Catholic or Irish ideas or interests have undoubtedly perplexed or encumbered the working of British politics. But the representatives of Ireland have been for the most part divided between the two great English parties, and it was not till Mr. Parnell's influence united the majority of Irish representatives into a party hostile to Great Britain that any essential evil or inconvenience resulted from their presence at Westminster. This inconvenience, whatever its extent, has been the price of the Union. The gain has been worth the payment: the action of Parliament has been hampered, but its essential and effective authority throughout the realm has been maintained.

In 1886 Mr. Gladstone framed a constitution which was meant to be a final and a just settlement of the questions at issue between England and Ireland. Under the constitution of 1886 Great Britain surrendered to Ireland about the same amount of independence as is offered her under the proposed constitution of 1893. But the difference in the position of Great Britain under the two constitutions is immense.

Under the constitution of 1886 Great Britain was offered a position of the highest authority.

To the British Parliament (in which was to sit not a single Irish member) was to fall the appointment of the British or Imperial Ministry. The British Parliament received absolute control of all British, colonial, Imperial, and foreign affairs. Perfect unity was restored to the spirit of her government, and predominance in the British, or, to use ordinary language, in the English, Parliament was given to the conservative elements of English society. Great Britain became mistress in her own home; she became much more than this; she was enthroned as undisputed sovereign of the British Empire.53

Under the constitution, in short, of 1886, if Great Britain was weakened on one side she was strengthened on another. Her Parliament obtained an immense accession of authority, and was all but entirely freed both from the necessity for considering Irish questions and from the damage of Irish obstruction. Ireland surrendered to England all share in the government of the Empire, and the further dismemberment of Great Britain without the assent of the British people became difficult, if not impossible. It does not lie in the mouth of Gladstonians to say that the measure of 1886 was unjust. It was laid before the country as a compromise which was just to England and to Ireland. The Irish leaders, we were told, accepted the proposal, just as we are told that they accept the proposed constitution of 1893. If the acceptance was honest, then in 1886 they agreed to a bargain far more favourable to England than the contract now pressed on our acceptance. If their acquiescence was a mere pretence, what trust can we place in the assertion that they accept the arrangement of 1893?

However this may be, it is clear that England is now offered a position of weakness and of inferiority such as she has never occupied during the whole course of her history. What is the meaning or justification of the proposed surrender by England of every compensation for Irish Home Rule which was offered her in 1886?

For this surrender Gladstonians assign but two reasons.

The presence of the Irish members at Westminster is, it is said, a concession to the wishes of Unionists.

This plea, even were it supported by the facts of the case, would be futile. It might pass muster with disputants in search of a verbal triumph, but to any man seriously concerned for the welfare of the nation must appear childishly irrelevant. The welfare of the State cannot turn upon the neatness of a tu quoque; retorts are not reasons, and had every Unionist, down from the Duke of Devonshire to the present writer, pressed in 1886 for the retention of the Irish members at Westminster, the controversial inexpertness of the Unionists seven years ago would not diminish the dangers with which, under a system of Home Rule, the presence of the Irish members at Westminster actually threatens England. But the plea, futile as it is, is not supported by fact. It rests on a misrepresentation of the Unionist position in 1886.

'The case in truth stands thus:—Mr. Gladstone was [in 1886] placed in effect in this dilemma: "If you do not," said his opponents, "retain the Irish representatives at Westminster, the sovereignty of the British Parliament will be, under the terms of your Bill, no more than a name; if you do retain them, Great Britain will lose the only material advantage offered her in exchange for the local independence of Ireland." Gladstonians, in substance, replied that the devices embodied in the Government of Ireland Bill at once freed the British Parliament from the presence of the Parnellites and safeguarded the sovereignty of the British, or (for in this matter there was some confusion) of the Imperial Parliament. On the latter point issue was joined. The other horn of the dilemma fell out of sight, and some Unionists, rightly believing that the Bill as it stood did not preserve the supremacy of the British Parliament, pressed the Ministry hard with all the difficulties involved in the removal of the Irish members. In the heat of debate speeches were, I doubt not, delivered in which the argument that you could not, as the Bill stood, remove the Irish members from Westminster and keep the British Parliament supreme in Ireland, was driven so far as to sound like an argument in favour of, at all costs, allowing members from Ireland to sit in the English Parliament. Those who appeared to fall into this error were, it must be noted, but a fraction of the Unionist Party, and their mistake was little more than verbal. When the Ministry maintained that the removal of the Irish members from Westminster was a main feature of their Home Rule policy, opponents naturally insisted upon the defects of the scheme laid before them, and did not insist on the equal or greater defects of a plan which the Government did not advocate. Mr. Gladstone, we are now told, has changed his position, and assents to the principle that Ireland must be represented in the British Parliament. If this assent be represented as a concession to the demands of Unionists, my reply is that it is no such thing. It is merely the acceptance of a different horn of an argumentative dilemma. Grant for the sake of argument (what is by no means certain) that the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is really saved. The advantage offered to England in exchange for Home Rule is assuredly gone. My friend, Mr. John Morley, used to argue in favour of Home Rule from the necessity of freeing the English Parliament from Parnellite obstruction. As a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what he thinks of a concession which strikes his strongest argumentative weapon out of his hands. My curiosity will be satisfied on the same day which tells us Lord Spencer's reflections on the surrender of the policy represented by the Land Purchase Bill. Meanwhile, I know well enough the thoughts of every Unionist who is not tied by the exigencies of his political antecedents or utterances. To say that in the eyes of such a man the proposed concession is worthless, is to say far too little. It is not a concession which he rates at a low price; it is a proposal which he heart and soul condemns.'54

These words were not written to meet the present condition of the controversy; they were published in 1887 at a time when no Gladstonian, except Mr. Gladstone (if indeed he were an exception), knew whether the retention in the Parliament at Westminster, or the exclusion from the Parliament at Westminster, of the Irish members, was an essential principle of Home Rule.

England again, it is alleged, suffers without murmuring all the inconvenience caused by the Irish vote at Westminster; and she may well, under a system of Home Rule, bear without complaint evils which she has tolerated for near a century.

The answer to this reasoning is plain. It is a sorry plea indeed for a desperate innovation that it leaves the evils of the existing state of things no worse than they now are. For the sake of the maintenance of the Union, which Unionists hold of inestimable value, England has borne the inconvenience caused to her by the Irish vote. It argues simplicity, or impudence, to urge that England should continue to bear the inconvenience when the national unity is sacrificed for the sake of which it was endured. But the reply does not stop here. The presence of Irish members at Westminster under the new constitution increases and stereotypes the evils, whatever their extent, now resulting from the existence of 103 Irish members in the House of Commons. The evils are increased because the Irish members are turned into a delegation from the Irish State, and their action ceases to be influenced, as it now is, by the consideration—a very important one—that the Imperial Parliament not only in theory but in fact legislates for Ireland, and that the English Cabinet controls the Irish administration and directs the course of political promotion in Ireland. The sentiment and the interest of the Irish members will be changed. Whether they come from North or South they will be representatives of Ireland, and will naturally and rightly consider themselves agents bound in every case to make the best bargain they can for Ireland as against the United Kingdom, or, in plain language, as against England. They will no longer feel it their interest to keep in power the English party which they think will best govern Ireland, for with the government of Ireland the Imperial Parliament will, as long as the new constitution stands, have no practical concern. No honest Home Ruler supposes that, if the Home Rule Bill passes into law, the Imperial Parliament will, even should the tragedy of the Phoenix Park be repeated in some more terrible form, pass a Crimes Act for Ireland; to the Irish Government will belong the punishment of Irish crime. No interest will therefore restrain the Irish delegation from swaying backwards and forwards between the two English parties, in order to obtain from the one or the other some momentary advantage, or some lucrative concession, to the Irish people. Intrigue will be pardonable, diplomatic finesse will become a duty. This evil no doubt in some degree exists, but under the present state of things it admits of diminution. A just redistribution of the franchise will undoubtedly lessen the number of Ireland's representatives, whilst it will increase the relative importance, if not the actual numbers, of loyalists in the representation of Ireland. The gradual settlement of the land question, as Unionists believe, will further strike at the true root of Irish discontent, and in removing the true grievance of the Irish tenants will diminish the strength of the party which depends for its power on the revolutionary elements in Irish society. But all chance of mitigating the inconvenience inflicted upon England by the presence of the Irish members vanishes for ever when they are changed into an Irish delegation, and are compelled by their position to be the mere mouthpiece of Ireland's claims against England.

The alleged reasons for the weakening of England are untenable, and, were they tenfold stronger than they are, could not remove the flagrant contradiction between the Gladstonian policy of 1886 and the Gladstonian policy of 1893.

But a contradiction which cannot be removed may be explained.

The withdrawal of the Irish members from Westminster might give Ireland the chance of obtaining some of the benefits, and compensate England for some of the evils, of Home Rule. But however this may be, one result it would produce with certainty; it would dash the Gladstonian party to pieces. The friends of Disestablishment, the Welsh, or the Scottish, Home Rulers, the London Socialists, all the revolutionists throughout the country, know that with the departure of the Irish representatives from Westminster their own hopes of triumph must be indefinitely postponed. England is the stronghold of British conservatism, and an arrangement which leaves the fate of England in the hands of Englishmen may be favourable to reform, but is fatal to revolution. Has this fact arrested the attention of Gladstonians? I know not. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the least defensible portion of an indefensible policy should, while it threatens ruin to England, offer temporary salvation to the party who rally round Mr. Gladstone.55

C. The Powers of the Irish Government

D. The Restrictions (or Safeguards) and the Obligations

A. Necessity for Home Rule.

That the concession of Home Rule to Ireland is a necessity, forms the implied, if not always the asserted, foundation of the case in favour of Gladstonian policy.

Ireland, it is argued, has for generations been discontented and disloyal. Every sort of remedy has been tried. The rule of the ordinary law, coercion, Protestant supremacy, Catholic relief, the disestablishment of the Anglican Church, the maintenance of the English land tenure and English landlordism, the introduction of a new system of land tenure unknown to any other country in the world and more favourable to tenants than the land law of any other State in Europe, the removal of every grievance which could be made patent to the Imperial Parliament, every plan or experiment which could approve itself to the judgment of English politicians has been tried, and no scheme, however plausible, has ended in success. Concession has proved as useless as severity, and the existence in the Statute Book of a permanent Coercion Act is a standing proof of failure. He who asserts that Irish disloyalty or discontent has not declined understates the case. It has increased. Grattan was a statesman of a more exalted type than O'Connell, and Grattan was more zealous for connection with England than was the Roman Catholic tribune. And though in Grattan's time the grievances of Ireland were in every man's judgment far more intolerable than, even on the showing of Home Rulers, are the wrongs which Ireland now endures, the Ireland of Grattan was loyal to England. O'Connell was a nobler leader than Parnell, and it would be absurd to suppose that any Parnellite or Anti-Parnellite exerted a tenth of O'Connell's influence. Yet Parnell and Parnell's followers have achieved a feat which the hero of Catholic emancipation could never accomplish; O'Connell never obtained for Repeal more than half the votes of Ireland's parliamentary representatives; Parnell and his followers have rallied the vast majority of Irish members in support of Home Rule. Meanwhile year by year the government of England is weakened, and (though the argument comes awkwardly from the mouth of English constitutionalists who are allies and friends of conspirators and boycotters) the morality of English public life has been undermined, by the presence at Westminster of Irish members who, regarding the English Parliament as an alien power, weaken its action, despise its traditions, and degrade its character. One remedy for Irish miseries and for English dangers has not been tried. No English statesman before Mr. Gladstone (it is urged) has offered to Ireland the one thing which Ireland desires—the boon or right of parliamentary independence. Be the desire for Home Rule reasonable or not, it is Home Rule for which Ireland longs. Ireland feels herself a nation. Satisfy then Ireland's wish, meet the feeling of nationality, and Ireland will be at rest. This experiment must at least be tried; its perils must be risked. The present situation is intolerable, the concession of Home Rule to Ireland is a necessity.

This, to the best of my apprehension, is the Gladstonian argument. My aim has certainly been to state it fairly and in its full force.

Is the argument valid? Is the plea of necessity made out? The answer may be given without hesitation. It is not. The allegations on which the whole train of reasoning rests are tainted by exaggeration or misapprehension, and the allegations, even if taken as true, do not establish the required inference; the premises are unsound, and the premises do not support the conclusion.

The premises are unsound.

The Gladstonians are far too much of parliamentary formalists. Their imagination and their reason are impressed by the strength in the House of Commons of the Irish party. The eighty votes from Ireland daunt them. But wise men must look behind votes at facts. The eighty Irish Home Rulers are, it is true, no light matter, even when allowance is made for the way in which corruption and intimidation vitiate the vote of Ireland. But their voice is not the voice of the Irish people; it is at most the mutter or the clamour of a predominant Irish faction. It is the voice of Ireland in the same sense in which a century ago the shouts or yells of the Jacobin Club were the voice of France. To any one who looks behind the forms of the constitution to the realities of life, the voice of Irish wealth, of Irish intelligence, and of Irish loyalty is at least as important as the voice of Irish sedition or discontent. The eighty votes must in any case be reckoned morally at not more than sixty, for to this number they would be reduced by any fair and democratic scheme of representation. No one can be less tempted than myself to make light of Irish turbulence and Irish misery. But it must not be exaggerated. The discontent of 1893 is nothing to the rebellion, sedition, or disloyalty of 1782, of 1798, of 1829, or of 1848. If Irishmen of one class are discontented, Irishmen of another class are contented, prosperous, and loyal. The protest of Irish Protestants—the grandsons of the men who detested the Union—against the dissolution of the Union, is the reward and triumph of Pitt's policy of Union. The eighty Irish members ask for Home Rule, but the tenant farmers of Ireland ask not for Home Rule but for the ownership of the land; and the Irish tenant farmers will and may under a Unionist Government become owners of their land, and, what is no slight matter, may become owners by honest means. Vain for Mr. M'Carthy110 to assert that Irish farmers would not have accepted even from Mr. Parnell the most favourable of land laws in exchange for Home Rule. Mr. M'Carthy believes what he says, but it is impossible for any student of Irish history or of Irish politics to believe Mr. M'Carthy. Facts are too strong for him. Mr. Lalor showed a prevision denied to our amiable novelist. Gustave de Beaumont understood political philosophy better than the lively recorder of the superficial aspects of recent English history. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Davitt, and the whole line of witnesses before the Special Commission, tell a different tale. The very name of the Land League is significant. Home Rule was a mere theme for academic discussion in the mouth of Mr. Butt. Repeal itself never touched the strongest passions of Irish nature, though advocated by the most eloquent and popular of Irish orators. Not an independent Parliament, but independent ownership of land, has always been the desire of Irish cultivators. It was a cry for the land which gave force to the demand for Home Rule; and an Irish agitator, if his strength fails, renews it by touching the earth. But why confine our observation to Ireland? We here come upon the passions, not of Irish nature, but of human nature. There is not a landowner in France who does not care tenfold more for the security of his land than for the form of the government. If peasants trembled for their property the Republic would fall to-morrow. This is no mere conjecture; the peasantry were Jacobins as long as the Jacobins gave them the land, they were Imperialists whilst Napoleon was their security against a restoration which to them meant confiscation of land purchased or seized during the Revolution. The country population of France heard with indifference of the fall of Louis Philippe, and possibly approved the proclamation of the second Republic. But the communism of 1848 roused every landowner against Paris. The peasant proprietors filled the benches of the National Assembly with Conservatives or Reactionists who would save them from plunder; fear became for once the cause of courage, and dread of loss of property sent thousands of peasant proprietors to Paris, that they might crush by force of arms the socialist insurrection of June. Perjury, fraud, and cruelty disgraced the coup d'état of 1851. But, as Liberals now see, the second Empire, hateful though it was to every man who loved freedom or cared for integrity, did not owe the permanence of its power to cunning or to violence. It was the dread of the Red Spectre which drove the landowners of France into Imperialism; they may have liked parliamentary liberty, it was a pleasant luxury, but they loved their land and property, it was their life-blood, and by Socialism their land and property was they believed menaced.

As to the Coercion Act, no sensible man, be he Radical or Tory, need trouble himself. The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, is neither a disgrace to England nor an injury to Ireland. Its permanence, which is the cause of its mildness, is its merit. Well would it have been had the Act been extended to the whole United Kingdom. Local laws are open to some of the same objections as temporary laws. The enactment contains some improvements in our criminal procedure. There is no more idle superstition than the belief that criminal procedure does not, like other human arrangements, require change. If incendiarism should become an element in the conduct of trade disputes, if dynamite is to be recognised as a legitimate arm in political conflicts, the criminal law of the United Kingdom will, we may be sure, need and receive several alterations and improvements.

By far the strongest portion of the Gladstonian argument is the stress that can be laid on the demoralisation of Parliament, produced partly, though not wholly, by the Irish vote. This is a consideration which, as far as it goes, tells in favour of Home Rule. It is, however, a consideration of which the Gladstonian apologist for the new constitution of 1893 [can] make no use. His reasoning of necessity stands thus:

The presence of 80 Irish members at Westminster has demoralised Parliament, therefore we must above all things retain 80 or possibly 103 Irish members at Westminster. He is placed in a hopeless dilemma; he dare not draw the only conclusion to which his argument points, namely, that the Irish members must be excluded from the Parliament at Westminster. By a strange fatality, the policy of 1823 retrospectively condemns the policy of 1886, whilst the very strongest argument in favour of the policy of 1886 condemns the policy of 1893.

The premises, were they sound, do not support the conclusion.

There exists undoubtedly such a thing in politics as necessity.

When England acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, or when France surrendered Metz and Strasburg, no one could talk of imprudence of impolicy. The will of Englishmen and of Frenchmen was coerced by the force of events. When all Protestant Ireland was in arms, when the whole Irish nation demanded parliamentary independence, when England had been defeated in America, when France and Spain were allied against her, then the acceptance of Grattan's declaration of right was in truth a necessity. When Wellington became the supporter of Catholic Emancipation because he would not face civil war, when famine was at our gates and Peel repealed the corn laws—then again politicians could plead the excuse of necessity. In these and like crises the wisest men and the bravest men are forced to recognise the logic of facts; and necessity rather than prudence dictates the course of statesmanship. But no such crisis has now arisen. England and Ireland were as safe under the government of Lord Salisbury as under the government of Mr. Gladstone—perhaps safer. No one except an extremely excited and very rhetorical politician will venture to assert that, if Lord Salisbury instead of Mr. Gladstone had last summer gained a majority of forty, any man or woman throughout the United Kingdom would have trembled for the safety of the country. The sky is far less dark than on that fearful day eleven years back111 when England stood aghast at the assassinations of the Phoenix Park. Irish discontent is an immense evil, of which every just man must deplore the existence; its removal would be the greatest benefit which statesmanship could by any possibility confer upon England. But the immediate dealing with it in a particular way is not a necessity. Were the Home Rule Bill, and every Home Rule Bill, rejected by Parliament, the United Kingdom would be as safe as it has been at any time for the last ninety years and more.

In plain truth we have all of us forgotten the meaning of necessity. Gladstonians have come honestly to confuse the needs of a party with the necessities of the country. This is a delusion that at all times and in all lands affects great political connections which, having once rendered high services to the nation, have outlived the valid reasons for their existence. The Republicans saved the United States from disruption. Hence in 1888, when Secession was an historical memory, many of the most to be respected among Americans believed that the rule of an honest Democrat was a worse evil than the rule of a corrupt Republican. Thousands of Frenchmen, amidst the moral bankruptcy of Republican politicians, still hold that, because Republicans years ago saved France from ruin, even reconciled Conservatives cannot in the year 1893 be placed in office without danger to the commonwealth. So it is abroad; so it has been in England. In 1760 the best and wisest of English statesmen deemed it impossible that England should be rightly governed by any politicians but the representatives of the Revolution Families. In 1829 honest citizens trembled at the thought of power passing into the hands of the Whigs; for the Tories had ruled for nearly sixty years, and the Tories had preserved England from revolution and invasion. So at this moment to many well-meaning Liberals the long predominance of the Liberal party makes the possibility of a Cabinet containing politicians who may in any sense be called Tories seem a monstrous calamity, which it is a necessity to avert. Vain to point out that Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour are such Tories as Eldon would have called Jacobins and Lord Melbourne Radicals, and that, they are allied with the best and most trustworthy of living Liberal leaders. Their is no arguing with sentiment; it is necessary to keep the Gladstonian Liberals in office, and the constitution must be sacrificed in order that Lord Salisbury may not resume the Premiership. But there is a deeper cause than all this for our strange ideas of necessity. Habitual ease and unvarying prosperity have for a moment lowered the national spirit. Englishmen confuse inconveniences with dangers; they have forgotten what real peril is; they cannot understand the calmness with which, not a century ago, their fathers resisted at once insurrection in Ireland and the most powerful foreign enemy who has ever challenged the power of England, and this too at a time when the population of Great Britain was not above nine millions and the people of Ireland numbered more than four millions, when France was the leading military power of the world, and Ireland might at any moment receive the aid of a French army led by one of the best French generals. The men of 1798 or 1800 would mock at our ideas of necessity. Ireland has not an eighth of the population of the United Kingdom; our Home Rulers are not Ireland; they are a very different thing—the Irish populace. Let us yield everything which ought to be yielded to justice; let us obey the dictates of expediency, which is only justice looked at from another side; let us concede much to generosity; but in the name of common sense, of honesty, and of manliness, let us hear no more of necessity. Once in an age necessity may be the defence of statesmanship forced to confess its own blindness, but it is far more often the plea of tyranny, of ambition, of cowardice, or despair.

B. No danger in Home Rule.

The arguments which are employed to show that the policy of Home Rule and the new constitution which embodies it involve no danger for England are in the main drawn from the 'Safeguards' or Restrictions contained in the Bill—from the alleged precedent of Grattan's Constitution—from the success of Home Rule in other parts of the world—and, generally, from the expediency of trustfulness.

Government Of Ireland Bill

ARRANGEMENT OF CLAUSES

Legislative Authority

Clause.

1. Establishment of Irish Legislature.

2. Powers of Irish Legislature.

3. Exceptions from powers of Irish Legislature.

4. Restrictions on powers of Irish Legislature.

Executive Authority

5. Executive power in Ireland.

Constitution of Legislature

6. Composition of Irish Legislative Council.

7. Composition of Irish Legislative Assembly.

8. Disagreement between two Houses, how settled.

Irish Representation in House of Commons

9. Representation in Parliament of Irish counties and boroughs.

Finance

10. As to separate Consolidated Fund and taxes.

11. Hereditary revenues and income tax.

12. Financial arrangements as between United Kingdom and Ireland.

13. Treasury Account (Ireland).

14. Charges on Irish Consolidated Fund.

15. Irish Church Fund.

16. Local loans.

17. Adaptation of Acts as to Local Taxation Accounts and probate, etc., duties.

18. Money bills and votes.

19. Exchequer judges for revenue actions, election petitions, etc.

Post Office Postal Telegraphs and Savings Banks

20. Transfer of post office and postal telegraphs.

21. Transfer of savings banks.

Irish Appeals and Decision of Constitutional Questions

22. Irish appeals.

23. Special provision for decision of constitutional questions.

Lord Lieutenant and Crown Lands

24. Office of Lord Lieutenant.

25. Use of Crown lands by Irish Government.

Judges and Civil Servants

26. Tenure of future judges.

27. As to existing judges and other persons having salaries charged on the Consolidated Fund.

28. As to persons holding civil service appointments.

29. As to existing pensions and superannuation allowances.

Police

30. As to Police.

Miscellaneous

31. Irish Exchequer Consolidated Fund and Audit.

32. Law applicable to both Houses of Irish Legislature.

33. Supplemental provisions as to powers of Irish Legislature.

34. Limitation on borrowing by local authorities.

Transitory Provisions

35. Temporary restriction on powers of Irish Legislature and Executive.

36. Transitory provisions.

37. Continuance of existing laws, courts, officers, etc.

38. Appointed day.

39. Definitions.

40. Short title.

SCHEDULES

A Bill To Amend The Provision For The Government Of Ireland138

Whereas it is expedient that without impairing or restricting the supreme authority of Parliament, an Irish Legislature should be created for such purposes in Ireland as in this Act mentioned:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Legislative Authority

1. On and after the appointed day there shall be in Ireland a Legislature consisting of Her Majesty the Queen and of two Houses, the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly.

2. With the exceptions and subject to the restrictions in this Act mentioned, there shall be granted to the Irish Legislature power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland in respect of matters exclusively relating to Ireland or some part thereof.

3. The Irish Legislature shall not have power to make laws in respect of the following matters or any of them:—

Any law made in contravention of this section shall be void.

4. The powers of the Irish Legislature shall not extend to the making of any law—

Any law made in contravention of this section shall be void.

Executive Authority

5.—(1) The executive power in Ireland shall continue vested in Her Majesty the Queen, and the Lord Lieutenant, on behalf of Her Majesty, shall exercise any prerogatives or other executive power of the Queen the exercise of which may be delegated to him by Her Majesty, and shall, in Her Majesty's name, summon, prorogue, and dissolve the Irish Legislature.

(2) There shall be an Executive Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland to aid and advise in the government of Ireland, being of such numbers, and comprising persons holding such offices, as Her Majesty may think fit, or as may be directed by Irish Act.

(3) The Lord Lieutenant shall, on the advice of the said Executive Committee, give or withhold the assent of Her Majesty to Bills passed by the two Houses of the Irish Legislature, subject nevertheless to any instructions given by Her Majesty in respect of any such Bill.

Constitution of Legislature

6.—(1) The Irish Legislative Council shall consist of forty-eight councillors.

(2) Each of the constituencies mentioned in the First Schedule to this Act shall return the number of councillors named opposite thereto in the schedule.

(3) Every man shall be entitled to be registered as an elector, and when registered to vote at an election, of a councillor for a constituency, who owns or occupies any land or tenement in the constituency of a rateable value of more than twenty pounds, subject to the like conditions as a man is entitled at the passing of this Act to be registered and vote as a parliamentary elector in respect of an ownership qualification or of the qualification specified in section five of the Representation of the People Act, 1884, as the case may be: Provided that a man shall not be entitled to be registered, nor if registered to vote, at an election of a councillor in more than one constituency in the same year.

(4) The term of office of every councillor shall be eight years, and shall not be affected by a dissolution; and one half of the councillors shall retire in every fourth year, and their seats shall be filled by a new election.

7.—(1) The Irish Legislative Assembly shall consist of one hundred and three members, returned by the existing parliamentary constituencies in Ireland, or the existing divisions thereof, and elected by the parliamentary electors for the time being in those constituencies or divisions.

(2) The Irish Legislative Assembly when summoned may, unless sooner dissolved, have continuance for five years from the day on which the summons directs it to meet and no longer.

(3) After six years from the passing of this Act, the Irish Legislature may alter the qualification of the electors, and the constituencies, and the distribution of the members among the constituencies, provided that in such distribution due regard is had to the population of the constituencies.

8. If a Bill or any provision of a Bill adopted by the Legislative Assembly is lost by the disagreement of the Legislative Council, and after a dissolution, or the period of two years from such disagreement, such Bill, or a Bill for enacting the said provision, is again adopted by the Legislative Assembly and fails within three months afterwards to be adopted by the Legislative Council, the same shall forthwith be submitted to the members of the two Houses deliberating and voting together thereon, and shall be adopted or rejected according to the decision of the majority of those members present and voting on the question.

Irish Representation in House of Commons

9. Unless and until Parliament otherwise determines, the following provisions shall have effect—

Finance

10.—(1) On and after the appointed day there shall be an Irish Exchequer and Consolidated Fund separate from those of the United Kingdom.

(2) The duties of customs and excise and the duties on postage shall be imposed by Act of Parliament, but subject to the provisions of this Act the Irish Legislature may, in order to provide for the public service of Ireland, impose any other taxes.

(3) Save as in this Act mentioned, all matters relating to the taxes in Ireland and the collection and management thereof shall be regulated by Irish Act, and the same shall be collected and managed by the Irish Government and form part of the public revenues of Ireland: Provided that—

(4) Save as in this Act mentioned, all the public revenues of Ireland shall be paid into the Irish Exchequer and form a Consolidated Fund, and be appropriated to the public service of Ireland by Irish Act.

(5) If the duties of excise are increased above the rates in force on the first day of March one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, the net proceeds in Ireland of the duties in excess of the said rates shall be paid from the Irish Exchequer to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(6) If the duties of excise are reduced below the rates in force on the said day, and the net proceeds of such duties in Ireland are in consequence less than the net proceeds of the duties before the reduction, a sum equal to the deficiency shall, unless it is otherwise agreed between the Treasury and the Irish Government, be paid from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom to the Irish Exchequer.

11.—(1) The hereditary revenues of the Crown in Ireland which are managed by the Commissioners of Woods shall continue during the life of Her present Majesty to be managed and collected by those Commissioners, and the net amount payable by them to the Exchequer on account of those revenues, after deducting all expenses (but including an allowance for interest on such proceeds of the sale of those revenues as have not been re-invested in Ireland), shall be paid into the Treasury Account (Ireland) hereinafter mentioned, for the benefit of the Irish Exchequer.

(2) A person shall not be required to pay income tax in Great Britain in respect of property situate or business carried on in Ireland, and a person shall not be required to pay income tax in Ireland in respect of property situate or business carried on in Great Britain.

(3) For the purpose of giving to Ireland the benefit of the difference between the income tax collected in Great Britain from British, Colonial, and foreign securities held by residents in Ireland, and the income tax collected in Ireland from Irish securities held by residents in Great Britain, there shall be made to Ireland out of the income tax collected in Great Britain, an allowance of such amount as may be from time to time determined by the Treasury, in accordance with a minute of the Treasury laid before Parliament before the appointed day, and such allowance shall be paid into the Treasury Account (Ireland) for the benefit of the Irish Exchequer.

(4) Provided that the provisions of this section with respect to income tax shall not apply to any excess of the rate of income tax in Great Britain above the rate in Ireland or of the rate of income tax in Ireland above the rate in Great Britain.

12.—(1) The duties of customs contributed by Ireland and, save as provided by this Act, that portion of any public revenue of the United Kingdom to which Ireland may claim to be entitled, whether specified in the Third Schedule to this Act or not, shall be carried to the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, as the contribution of Ireland to Imperial liabilities and expenditure as defined in that Schedule.

(2) The civil charges of the Government in Ireland shall, subject as in this Act mentioned, be borne after the appointed day by Ireland.

(3) After fifteen years from the passing of this Act the arrangements made by this Act for the contribution of Ireland to Imperial liabilities and expenditure, and otherwise for the financial relations between the United Kingdom and Ireland, may be revised in pursuance of an address to Her Majesty from the House of Commons, or from the Irish Legislative Assembly.

13.—(1) There shall be established under the direction of the Treasury an account (in this Act referred to as the Treasury Account (Ireland)).

(2) There shall be paid into such account all sums payable from the Irish Exchequer to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, or from the latter to the former Exchequer, and all sums directed to be paid into the account for the benefit of either of the said Exchequers.

(3) All sums which are payable from either of the said Exchequers to the other of them, or being payable out of one of the said Exchequers are repayable by the other Exchequer, shall in the first instance be payable out of the said account so far as the money standing on the account is sufficient; and for the purpose of meeting such sums, the Treasury out of the customs revenue collected in Ireland, and the Irish Government out of any of the public revenues in Ireland, may direct money to be paid to the Treasury Account (Ireland) instead of into the Exchequer.

(4) Any surplus standing on the account to the credit of either Exchequer, and not required for meeting payments, shall at convenient times be paid into that Exchequer, and where any sum so payable into the Exchequer of the United Kingdom is required by law to be forthwith paid to the National Debt Commissioners, that sum may be paid to those Commissioners without being paid into the Exchequer.

(5) All sums payable by virtue of this Act out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom or of Ireland shall be payable from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom or Ireland, as the case may be, within the meaning of this Act, and all sums by this Act made payable from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom shall, if not otherwise paid, be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

14.—(1) There shall be charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund in favour of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom as a first charge on that fund all sums which—

(2) If at any time the Controller and Auditor-General of the United Kingdom is satisfied that any such charge is due, he shall certify the amount of it, and the Treasury shall send such certificate to the Lord Lieutenant, who shall thereupon by order, without any counter-signature, direct the payment of the amount from the Irish Exchequer to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, and such order shall be duly obeyed by all persons, and until the amount is wholly paid no other payment shall be made out of the Irish Exchequer for any purpose whatever.

(3) There shall be charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund next after the foregoing charge:

(4) Until all charges created by this Act upon the Irish Consolidated Fund and for the time being due are paid, no money shall be issued from the Irish Exchequer for any other purpose whatever.

15.—(1) All existing charges on the Church property in Ireland—that is to say, all property accruing under the Irish Church Act, 1869, and transferred to the Irish Land Commission by the Irish Church Amendment Act, 1881—shall so far as not paid out of the said property be charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund, and any of those charges guaranteed by the Treasury, if and so far as not paid, shall be paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(2) Subject to the existing charges thereon, the said Church property shall belong to the Irish Government, and be managed, administered, and disposed of as directed by Irish Act.

16.—(1) All sums paid or applicable in or towards the discharge of the interest or principal of any local loan advanced before the appointed day on security in Ireland, or otherwise in respect of such loan, which but for this Act would be paid to the National Debt Commissioners, and carried to the Local Loans Fund, shall, after the appointed day, be paid, until otherwise provided by Irish Act, to the Irish Exchequer.

(2) For the payment to the Local Loans Fund of the principal and interest of such loans, the Irish Government shall after the appointed day pay by half-yearly payments an annuity for forty-nine years, at the rate of four per cent, on the principal of the said loans, exclusive of any sums written off before the appointed day from the account of assets of the Local Loans Fund, and such annuity shall be paid from the Irish Exchequer to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, and when so paid shall be forthwith paid to the National Debt Commissioners for the credit of the Local Loans Fund.

(3) After the appointed day, money for loans in Ireland shall cease to be advanced either by the Public Works Loan Commissioners or out of the Local Loans Fund.

17.—(1) So much of any Act as directs payment to the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account of any share of probate, excise, or customs duties payable to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom shall, together with any enactment amending the same, be repealed as from the appointed day without prejudice to the adjustment of balances after that day; but the like amounts shall continue to be paid to the Local Taxation Accounts in England and Scotland as would have been paid if this Act had not passed, and any residue of the said share shall be paid into the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(2) The stamp duty chargeable in respect of the personalty of a deceased person shall not in the case of administration granted in Great Britain be chargeable in respect of any personalty situate in Ireland, nor in the case of administration granted in Ireland be chargeable in respect of any personalty situate in Great Britain; and any administration granted in Great Britain shall not, if re-sealed in Ireland, be exempt from stamp duty on administration granted in Ireland, and any administration granted in Ireland shall not, when re-sealed in Great Britain, be exempt from stamp duty on administration granted in Great Britain.

(3) In this section the expression "administration" means probate or letters of administration, and as respects Scotland, confirmation inclusive of the inventory required under the Acts relating to the said stamp duty, and the expression "personalty" means personal or movable estate and effects.

18.—(1) Bills for appropriating any part of the public revenue or for imposing any tax shall originate in the Legislative Assembly.

(2) It shall not be lawful for the Legislative Assembly to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address, or Bill for the appropriation for any purpose of any part of the public revenue of Ireland, or of any tax, except in pursuance of a recommendation from the Lord Lieutenant in the session in which such vote, resolution, address, or Bill is proposed.

19.—(1) Two of the judges of the Supreme Court in Ireland shall be Exchequer judges, and shall be appointed under the great seal of the United Kingdom; and their salaries and pensions shall be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

(2) The Exchequer judges shall be removeable only by Her Majesty on address from the two Houses of Parliament, and each such judge shall, save as otherwise provided by Parliament, receive the same salary and be entitled to the same pension as is at the time of his appointment fixed for the puisne judges of the Supreme Court, and during his continuance in office his salary shall not be diminished, nor his right to pension altered, without his consent.

(3) An alteration of any rules relating to such legal proceedings as are mentioned in this section shall not be made except with the approval of Her Majesty the Queen in Council; and the sittings of the Exchequer judges shall be regulated with the like approval.

(4) All legal proceedings in Ireland, which are instituted at the instance of or against the Treasury or Commissioners of Customs, or any of their officers, or relate to the election of members to serve in Parliament, or touch any matter within the powers of the Irish Legislature, or touch any matter affected by a law which the Irish Legislature have not power to repeal or alter, shall, if so required by any party to such proceedings, be heard and determined before the Exchequer judges or (except where the case requires to be determined by two judges) before one of them, and in any such legal proceeding an appeal shall, if any party so requires, lie from any court of first instance in Ireland to the Exchequer judges, and the decision of the Exchequer judges shall be subject to appeal to Her Majesty the Queen in Council and not to any other tribunal.

(5) If it is made to appear to an Exchequer judge that any decree or judgment in any such proceeding as aforesaid has not been duly enforced by the sheriff or other officer whose duty it is to enforce the same, such judge shall appoint some officer whose duty it shall be to enforce the judgment or decree; and for that purpose such officer and all persons employed by him shall be entitled to the same privileges, immunities, and powers as are by law conferred on a sheriff and his officers.

(6) The Exchequer judges, when not engaged in hearing and determining such legal proceedings as above in this section mentioned, shall perform such of the duties ordinarily performed by other judges of the Supreme Court in Ireland as may be assigned by Her Majesty the Queen in Council.

(7) All sums recovered by the Treasury or the Commissioners of Customs or any of their officers, or recovered under any Act relating to duties of customs, shall, notwithstanding anything in any other Act, be paid to such public account as the Treasury or the Commissioners direct.

Post Office Postal Telegraphs and Savings Banks

20.—(1) As from the appointed day the postal and telegraph service in Ireland shall be transferred to the Irish Government, and may be regulated by Irish Act, except as in this Act mentioned and except as regards matters relating—

(2) The administration of or incidental to the said excepted matters shall, save as may be otherwise arranged with the Irish Post Office, remain with the Postmaster-General.

(3) As regards the revenue and expenses of the postal and telegraph service, the Postmaster-General shall retain the revenue collected and defray the expenses incurred in Great Britain, and the Irish Post Office shall retain the revenue collected and defray the expenses incurred in Ireland, subject to the provisions of the Fourth Schedule to this Act; which schedule shall have full effect, but may be varied or added to by agreement between the Postmaster-General and the Irish Post Office.

(4) The sums payable by the Postmaster-General or Irish Post Office to the other of them in pursuance of this Act shall, if not paid out of the Post Office moneys, be paid from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom or of Ireland, as the case requires, to the other Exchequer.

(5) Sections forty-eight to fifty-two of the Telegraph Act 1863, and any enactment amending the same, shall apply to all telegraphic lines of the Irish Government in like manner as to the telegraphs of a company within the meaning of that Act.

21.—(1) As from the appointed day there shall be transferred to the Irish Government the post office savings banks in Ireland and all such powers and duties of any department or officer in Great Britain as are connected with post office savings banks, trustee savings banks or friendly societies in Ireland, and the same may be regulated by Irish Act.

(2) The Treasury shall publish not less than six months' previous notice of the transfer of savings banks.

(3) If before the date of the transfer any depositor in a post office savings bank so requests, his deposit shall, according to his request, either be paid to him or transferred to a post office savings bank in Great Britain, and after the said date the depositors in a post office savings bank in Ireland shall cease to have any claim against the Postmaster-General or the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, but shall have the like claim against the Government and Consolidated Fund of Ireland.

(4) If before the date of the transfer the trustees of any trustee savings bank so request, then, according to the request, either all sums due to them shall be repaid and the savings bank closed, or those sums shall be paid to the Irish Government, and after the said date the trustees shall cease to have any claim against the National Debt Commissioners or the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, but shall have the like claim against the Government and Consolidated Fund of Ireland.

(5) Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section, if a sum due on account of any annuity or policy of insurance which has before the above-mentioned notice been granted through a post office or trustee savings bank is not paid by the Irish Government, that sum shall be paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

Irish Appeals and Decision of Constitutional Questions

22.—(1) The appeal from courts in Ireland to the House of Lords shall cease; and where any person would, but for this Act, have a right to appeal from any court in Ireland to the House of Lords, such person shall have the like right to appeal to Her Majesty the Queen in Council; and the right so to appeal shall not be affected by any Irish Act; and all enactments relating to appeals to Her Majesty the Queen in Council, and to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, shall apply accordingly.

(2) When the Judicial Committee sit for hearing appeals from a court in Ireland, there shall be present not less than four Lords of Appeal, within the meaning of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, and at least one member who is or has been a judge of the Supreme Court in Ireland.

(3) A rota of privy councillors to sit for hearing appeals from courts in Ireland shall be made annually by Her Majesty in Council, and the privy councillors, or some of them, on that rota shall sit to hear the said appeals. A casual vacancy in such rota during the year may be filled by Order in Council.

(4) Nothing in this Act shall affect the jurisdiction of the House of Lords to determine the claims to Irish peerages.

23.—(1) If it appears to the Lord Lieutenant or a Secretary of State expedient in the public interest that steps shall be taken for the speedy determination of the question whether any Irish Act or any provision thereof is beyond the powers of the Irish Legislature, he may represent the same to Her Majesty in Council, and thereupon the said question shall be forthwith referred to and heard and determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, constituted as if hearing an appeal from a court in Ireland.

(2) Upon the hearing of the question such persons as seem to the Judicial Committee to be interested may be allowed to appear and be heard as parties to the case, and the decision of the Judicial Committee shall be given in like manner as if it were the decision of an appeal, the nature of the report or recommendation to Her Majesty being stated in open court.

(3) Nothing in this Act shall prejudice any other power of Her Majesty in Council to refer any question to the Judicial Committee or the right of any person to petition Her Majesty for such reference.

Lord Lieutenant and Crown Lands

24.—(1) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any Act, every subject of the Queen shall be qualified to hold the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, without reference to his religious belief.

(2) The term of office of the Lord Lieutenant shall be six years, without prejudice to the power of Her Majesty the Queen at any time to revoke the appointment. 25. Her Majesty the Queen in Council may place under the control of the Irish Government, for the purposes of that government, such of the lands and buildings in Ireland vested in or held in trust for Her Majesty, and subject to such conditions or restrictions (if any) as may seem expedient.

Judges and Civil Servants

26. A judge of the Supreme Court or other superior court in Ireland, or of any county court or other court with a like jurisdiction in Ireland, appointed after the passing of this Act, shall not be removed from his office except in pursuance of an address from the two Houses of the Legislature of Ireland, nor during his continuance in office shall his salary be diminished or right to pension altered without his consent.

27.—(1) All existing judges of the Supreme Court, county court judges, and Land Commissioners in Ireland and all existing officers serving in Ireland in the permanent civil service of the Crown and receiving salaries charged on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, shall, if they are removeable at present on address from both Houses of Parliament, continue to be removeable only upon such address, and if removeable in any other manner shall continue to be removeable only in the same manner as heretofore; and shall continue to receive the same salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and to be liable to perform the same duties as heretofore, or such duties as Her Majesty may declare to be analogous, and their salaries and pensions, if and so far as not paid out of the Irish Consolidated Fund, shall be paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom: Provided that this section shall be subject to the provisions of this Act with respect to the Exchequer judges.

(2) If any of the said judges, commissioners, or officers retires from office with the Queen's approbation before completion of the period of service entitling him to a pension, Her Majesty may, if she thinks fit, grant to him such pension, not exceeding the pension to which he would on that completion have been entitled, as to Her Majesty seems meet.

28.—(1) All existing officers in the permanent civil service of the Crown, who are not above provided for, and are at the appointed day serving in Ireland, shall after that day continue to hold their offices by the same tenure and to receive the same salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and to be liable to perform the same duties as heretofore or such duties as the Treasury may declare to be analogous; and the said gratuities and pensions, and until three years after the passing of this Act, the salaries due to any of the said officers if remaining in his existing office, shall be paid to the payees by the Treasury out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(2) Any such officer may after three years from the passing of this Act retire from office, and shall, at any time during those three years, if required by the Irish Government, retire from office, and on any such retirement may be awarded by the Treasury a gratuity or pension in accordance with the Fifth Schedule to this Act; Provided that—

(3) If any such officer does not so retire, the Treasury may award him after the said three years a pension in accordance with the Fifth Schedule to this Act which shall become payable to him on his ultimate retirement from the service of the Crown.

(4) The gratuities and pensions awarded in accordance with the Fifth Schedule to this Act shall be paid by the Treasury to the payees out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(5) All sums paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom in pursuance of this section shall be repaid to that Exchequer from the Irish Exchequer.

(6) This section shall not apply to officers retained in the service of the Government of the United Kingdom.

29. Any existing pension granted on account of service in Ireland as a judge of the Supreme Court or of any court consolidated into that court, or as a county court judge, or in any other judicial position, or as an officer in the permanent civil service of the Crown other than in an office the holder of which is after the appointed day retained in the service of the Government of the United Kingdom, shall be charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund, and if and so far as not paid out of that fund, shall be paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

Police

30.—(1) The forces of the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police shall, when and as local police forces are from time to time established in Ireland in accordance with the Sixth Schedule to this Act, be gradually reduced and ultimately cease to exist as mentioned in that Schedule; and after the passing of this Act, no officer or man shall be appointed to either of those forces;

Provided that until the expiration of six years from the appointed day, nothing in this Act shall require the Lord Lieutenant to cause either of the said forces to cease to exist, if as representing Her Majesty the Queen he considers it inexpedient.

(2) The said two forces shall, while they continue, be subject to the control of the Lord Lieutenant as representing Her Majesty, and the members thereof shall continue to receive the same salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and hold their appointments on the same tenure as heretofore, and those salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and all the expenditure incidental to either force, shall be paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(3) When any existing member of either force retires under the provisions of the Sixth Schedule to this Act, the Treasury may award to him a gratuity or pension in accordance with that Schedule.

(4) Those gratuities and pensions and all existing pensions payable in respect of service in either force, shall be paid by the Treasury to the payees out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

(5) Two-thirds of the net amount payable in pursuance of this section out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom shall be repaid to that Exchequer from the Irish Exchequer.

Miscellaneous

31. Save as may be otherwise provided by Irish Act—

32.—(1) Subject as in this Act mentioned and particularly to the Seventh Schedule to this Act (which Schedule shall have full effect) all existing election laws relating to the House of Commons and the members thereof shall, so far as applicable, extend to each of the two Houses of the Irish Legislature and the members thereof, but such election laws so far as hereby extended may be altered by Irish Act.

(2) The privileges, rights, and immunities to be held and enjoyed by each House and the members thereof shall be such as may be defined by Irish Act, but so that the same shall never exceed those for the time being held and enjoyed by the House of Commons, and the members thereof.

33.—(i) The Irish Legislature may repeal or alter any provision of this Act which is by this Act expressly made alterable by that Legislature, and also any enactments in force in Ireland, except such as either relate to matters beyond the powers of the Irish Legislature, or being enacted by Parliament after the passing of this Act may be expressly extended to Ireland. An Irish Act, notwithstanding it is in any respect repugnant to any enactment excepted as aforesaid, shall, though read subject to that enactment, be, except to the extent of that repugnancy, valid.

(2) An order, rule, or regulation, made in pursuance of, or having the force of, an Act of Parliament, shall be deemed to be an enactment within the meaning of this section.

(3) Nothing in this Act shall affect Bills relating to the divorce or marriage of individuals, and any such Bill shall be introduced and proceed in Parliament in like manner as if this Act had not passed.

34. The local authority for any county or borough or other area shall not borrow money without either—

and shall not, without such special authority, borrow;

Transitory Provisions

35.—(1) During three years from the passing of this Act, and if Parliament is then sitting until the end of that session of Parliament, the Irish Legislature shall not pass an Act respecting the relations of landlord and tenant, or the sale, purchase, or letting of land generally: Provided that nothing in this section shall prevent the passing of any Irish Act with a view to the purchase of land for railways, harbours, waterworks, town improvements, or other local undertakings.

(2) During six years from the passing of this Act, the appointment of a judge of the Supreme Court or other superior courts in Ireland (other than one of the Exchequer judges) shall be made in pursuance of a warrant from Her Majesty countersigned as heretofore.

36.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act Her Majesty the Queen in Council may make or direct such arrangements as seem necessary or proper for setting in motion the Irish Legislature and Government and for otherwise bringing this Act into operation.

(2) The Irish Legislature shall be summoned to meet on the first Tuesday in September, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-four, and the first election of members of the two Houses of the Irish Legislature shall be held at such time before that day, as may be fixed by Her Majesty in Council.

(3) Upon the first meeting of the Irish Legislature the members of the House of Commons then sitting for Irish constituencies, including the members for Dublin University, shall vacate their seats, and writs shall, as soon as conveniently may be, be issued by the Lord Chancellor of Ireland for the purpose of holding an election of members to serve in Parliament for the constituencies named in the Second Schedule of this Act.

(4) The existing Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and the senior of the existing puisne judges of the Exchequer Division of the Supreme Court, or if they or either of them are or is dead or unable or unwilling to act, such other of the judges of the Supreme Court as Her Majesty may appoint, shall be the first Exchequer judges.

(5) Where it appears to Her Majesty the Queen in Council, before the expiration of one year after the appointed day, that any existing enactment respecting matters within the powers of the Irish Legislature requires adaptation to Ireland, whether—

(6) Her Majesty the Queen in Council may provide for the transfer of such property, rights, and liabilities, and the doing of such other things as may appear to Her Majesty necessary or proper for carrying into effect this Act or any Order in Council under this Act.

(7) An Order in Council under this section may make an adaptation or provide for a transfer either unconditionally or subject to such exceptions, conditions, and restrictions as may seem expedient.

(8) The draft of every Order in Council under this section shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament for not less than two months before it is made, and such Order when made shall, subject as respects Ireland to the provisions of an Irish Act, have full effect, but shall not interfere with the continued application to any place, authority, person, or thing, not in Ireland, of the enactment to which the Order relates.

37. Except as otherwise provided by this Act, all existing laws, institutions, authorities, and officers in Ireland, whether judicial, administrative, or ministerial, and all existing taxes in Ireland shall continue as if this Act had not passed, but with the modifications necessary for adapting the same to this Act, and subject to be repealed, abolished, altered, and adapted in the manner and to the extent authorised by this Act.

38. Subject as in this Act mentioned the appointed day for the purposes of this Act shall be the day of the first meeting of the Irish Legislature, or such other day not more than seven months earlier or later as may be fixed by order of Her Majesty in Council either generally or with reference to any particular provision of this Act, and different days may be appointed for different purposes and different provisions of this Act, whether contained in the same section or in different sections.

39. In this Act unless the context otherwise requires—The expression 'existing' means existing at the passing of this Act.

The expression 'constituency' means a parliamentary constituency or a county or borough returning a member or members to serve in either House of the Irish Legislature, as the case requires, and the expression 'parliamentary constituency' means any county, borough, or university returning a member or members to serve in Parliament.

The expression 'parliamentary elector' means a person entitled to be registered as a voter at a parliamentary election.

The expression 'parliamentary election' means the election of a member to serve in Parliament.

The expression 'tax' includes duties and fees, and the expression 'duties of excise' does not include licence duties.

The expression 'foreign mails' means all postal packets, whether letters, parcels, or other packets, posted in the United Kingdom and sent to a place out of the United Kingdom, or posted in a place out of the United Kingdom and sent to a place in the United Kingdom, or in transit through the United Kingdom to a place out of the United Kingdom.

The expression 'telegraphic line' has the same meaning as in the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1892.

The expression 'duties on postage' includes all rates and sums chargeable for or in respect of postal packets, money orders, or telegrams, or otherwise under the Post Office Acts or the Telegraph Act, 1892.

The expression 'Irish Act' means a law made by the Irish Legislature.

The expression 'election laws' means the laws relating to the election of members to serve in Parliament, other than those relating to the qualification of electors, and includes all the laws respecting the registration of electors, the issue and execution of writs, the creation of polling districts, the taking of the poll, the questioning of elections, corrupt and illegal practices, the disqualification of members and the vacating of seats.

The expression 'rateable value' means the annual rateable value under the Irish Valuation Acts.

The expression 'salary' includes remuneration, allowances, and emoluments.

The expression 'pension' includes superannuation allowance.

40. This Act may be cited as the Irish Government Act, 1893.

Schedules