Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Peril of Home Rule (Author: Peter Kerr-Smiley)
Chapter 2
A Subordinate Parliament
In trying to cajole British electors into supporting Home Rule, Nationalists are in the habit of stating that all they desire is a subordinate Parliament with strictly limited powers. As will be shown in a subsequent chapter, what they really want is a Parliament absolutely independent of Great Britain. Subordinate Parliaments have the habit of becoming very insubordinate at times as the history of Irish Parliaments shows. At the time of the Wars of the Roses during that period of England's difficulty English authority was challenged in Ireland, the Anglo-Irish and their Parliament taking the side of the White Rose and acknowledging Perkin Warbeck as King of Ireland in rivalry to Henry VII., the lawful King of England. The inevitable result was the passing in 1495 of Poynings' Law, which deprived the Irish Parliament of all legislative initiative and independence. It was thereby declared that no Act could become law in Ireland until it had received the assent of the English Parliament. Naturally the Irish Parliament, which with a brief interval had been absolutely supreme from 1295, chafed under this restriction, and
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missed no opportunity of thwarting the English Parliament.
Again, the American Revolution has its object lesson. The employment of the English troops in America, where the colonists were in revolt, and the wars with France, necessitated the withdrawal of the army from Ireland. The men who objected to the restrictions placed on the Irish Legislature considered that now was the time to strike for independence. England was helpless, and she surrendered unconditionally in the hour of her difficulty, and thus what is known as Grattan's Parliament was constituted. By the Constitution of 1782 this Irish Parliament became absolutely free and independent, and there was no limit whatever to its legislative powers. The Irish Parliament and the Parliament of Great Britain had equal and independent powers, and there was no link holding them together save that of the Crown. If the Irish Parliament passed legislation injurious to Great Britain the only remedy was for the Crown to refuse its assent, but in practice this power did not prove of any service, for the Irish Parliament by administrative Acts was able to carry out its own policy in spite of the English Government. The Irish Parliament was able to pursue its own course with regard to trade, commerce, foreign policy, treaties, and other relations with foreign Powers.
The Parliament which the Nationalists demand is an independent Parliament as free from the influence
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and jurisdiction of the Imperial Parliament as are the Parliaments of our great self-governing Colonies. Theoretically, no doubt, the Imperial Parliament reserves the right of sovereignty over the Colonial Parliaments. But that power cannot be used, because the Colonial Parliaments would not brook the interference of the Imperial Parliament, and neither would an Irish Home Rule Parliament, once it was strong enough to resist. It is important, therefore, that the British people should clearly realise that a Home Rule Parliament will not only be supreme in Ireland, but the Irish people, if the principles of Mr. Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill are adhered to, would also have the deciding voice in making and unmaking British Governments. If differences arose between the two Parliaments, as they constantly did during the last Irish Parliament, the Imperial Parliament could only enforce its wishes by force of arms. Any arrangement that is made is bound to give occasion for constant quarrels. There can be no half-way house. Either the Imperial or the Irish Parliament must be supreme in Ireland. The delegation of power to a subordinate Parliament in Ireland has been tried, and it has proved such a complete failure that it is difficult to understand why it should be proposed to try the unfortunate experiment again.
The men who sat in Grattan's Parliament were entirely Protestant, and owing to their origin
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their sympathies were naturally favourable towards England, but despite that fact the friction which continually occurred between the two Parliaments was such as to lead many of them to intrigue with foreign countries for the purpose of overthrowing English power in Ireland.
An Irish Parliament to-day would be largely composed of Nationalists who have never tried to hide their hatred of England, and it is folly to imagine that in a time of the Empire's difficulty these men would support a country they hate. How their sympathies are swayed can be best illustrated by their action during the war some years ago between the United States and Spain. Most of the money which has kept the Home Rule agitation alive for many years has come from the United States, and yet when that country was at war with a Roman Catholic nation for the freedom of Cuba, the sympathy of the Irish Nationalists went out towards their Spanish co-religionists, and their principal organ in the newspaper Press expressed the hope that Spain would win. If Great Britain went to war with a Roman Catholic country, and there was an Irish Parliament sitting in Dublin, nothing is surer than that it would use its power for the purpose of assisting its co-religionists, openly or secretly.
During Grattan's Parliament secret emissaries were sent to France to encourage that country to attack England, and on two occasions the French
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invaded Ireland. Thanks to a storm rather than to any means of defence the French ships, which carried a formidable army, were scattered in Bantry Bay in the winter of 1796. But two years later the danger was more serious. A large body of troops under the French General Humbert landed at Killala, and after defeating General Lake at Castlebar, won another battle near Sligo, and crossed the Shannon. This force was only defeated by greatly superior numbers under Lord Cornwallis. Had the French landed at a different time they might have succeeded in achieving what is still the avowed aim of the Nationalists — namely, the ‘driving of the English, bag and baggage, out of Ireland.’
No matter from what point of view it is examined, the Irish Parliament was anything but a success. So far as England was concerned, it was a constant menace to her very existence. Revolutionary schemes against England were continually being hatched which might easily have resulted in serious consequences. In Ireland itself there was neither freedom nor good government. Political parties used their position for the purpose of securing lucrative berths for their supporters. Nationalists talk a great deal of nonsense about the prosperity which the country experienced during Grattan's Parliament. This so-called prosperity is nothing more than a legend. Ireland was never in a much worse condition. The murderings, the plunderings, the
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outrages, the corruption — all the outward and visible signs of an incompetent Government — shattered confidence. Men's minds were unsettled, and they were unfitted for the more serious and prosaic duties of life. Class was set against class as it would be under a Home Rule Parliament. Whiteboyism and the terrorism of secret societies were rampant, and two or three Coercion Acts were passed each year. The history of that period is one of the darkest Ireland has ever known. By revolutions and their suppression the country was being continually drenched in blood.
The last great tragedy before the Union was due to the formation of a society known as the United Irishmen, founded in 1791 by a revolutionary politician named Wolfe Tone, who was one of the principal agents in the intrigues with France. In the North the movement received some support from Presbyterians, who were discontented with the way in which the affairs of the country were managed. The movement was taken up by the Roman Catholics of the South of Ireland, but when the rebellion broke out in 1798, ostensibly to reform the Government, the Presbyterians were speedily disillusioned by the wholesale massacre of Protestants in those districts where the Roman Catholics were in the majority. A movement which originated in the idea of establishing equality irrespective of religion soon developed into a religious war, and the Government therefore had very little difficulty
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in stamping out the rebellion. Pitt, who favoured a Union and wide reforms, saw the great danger of the situation and determined to put an end to an intolerable condition of affairs. It was neither safe for Great Britain nor good for Ireland to have a Parliament which was continually conspiring against England abroad and at home, and had increased the Irish National Debt from £2,444,890 in 1791 to £25,662,540 in 1800, when the Irish Parliament was dissolved. The evils exhibited by the Irish Parliament would be repeated by a Home Rule Parliament such as Mr. Gladstone tried to establish in 1893. The causes which led to civil strife in the past are still active in Ireland, and all the old objections to two Parliaments which influenced Pitt, in his decision that safety for Great Britain and peace for Ireland could only be attained by a Legislative Union between the two countries, are as strong and as unanswerable as ever. In the words of Pitt:
‘Within the short period of six years from what is called the independence of the Irish Parliament, the foreign relations of the two countries, the commercial intercourse of the two countries, the sovereign exercise of authority in the two countries were the subject of litigation and dispute, and it was owing more to an accident than any other cause that they did not produce actual alienation and rupture.’
If the people of Great Britain are wise they will not run the same risk a second time; they
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will not again incur dangers which may imperil the stability of the Empire and cause civil war in Ireland. Nothing is more probable than that an Irish Parliament would embarrass England at a critical moment and compel her to grant complete independence, which, despite all their honeyed words in Great Britain, is the ultimate aim of the principal Irish movers in the agitation for Home Rule.
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