[A leaflet answering this question may be here reproduced.]
When Catholic Emancipation became imminent the Orangemen talked exactly as Captain Craig talks to-day. The Dublin Morning Post of December 11th, 1828, reports Mr. Judkin Butler as concluding a speech thus:—
- Surrender! no, we never will
While Brunswickers have blood to spill.
Our cause is glorious, and for that we'll fight.
Well, they did not fight, and so that crisis passed away. Forty years later came Church Disestablishment. The Rev. H. Henderson said, before a great Orange meeting in Co. Tyrone:— They would sacrifice their lives before they would allow their religious rights to be taken from them. Yes, with the blessing of God, they would do what their fathers did at Derry, Aughrim, and at the Boyne. So far as he was concerned, let there be no mistake. He spoke now not rashly, but calmly and deliberately. Mr. Gladstone and his coconspirators were driving the country into civil war.’’
At a meeting at Newbliss, Co. Monaghan, on March 20th, 1868, the Rev John Flanagan said:—If they ever dare to lay unholy hands upon the Church, 200,000 Orangemen will tell them it shall never be. Protestant loyalty must make itself understood. People will say, ‘Oh, your loyalty is conditional.’ I say it is conditional, and it must be explained as such. Will you Orangemen of Ireland, endorse the doctrine of unconditional loyalty? (Repeated cries of ‘No, never!’) It appears wonderful that there is one thing upon which we can confidently throw ourselves, and which has been overlooked by
Northern Whig, March 21st, 1868.
Mr. Richard Lloyd, Deputy Grand Master of the Orangemen, thundered forth as follows on June 7th, 1869, on Tamnamore Hill:—Their fathers had marched to the Boyne, and bled for their country. Their blood still ran in the veins of those whom he addressed. They were as many and as ready, at the beat of drum, to go out and take their Minie rifles, and march to that river, as their fathers did before them.’’
Many other speeches were delivered to the same purpose, yet nothing came of all this bluster.
Perhaps memory of these historic facts prompted His Honour Judge Rentoul, an Irish Protestant Unionist, to make in 1906 (when a measure of devolution was expected) a very remarkable speech.
Judge Rentoul had heard this clamour of Ulster fighting renewed in 1886, when the first Home Rule Bill was proposed. He had helped to renew it in 1893, since from 1890 to 1902 he sat as member for East Down, the constituency which Captain Craig represents to-day. Here, then, is what Captain Craig's immediate predecessor in title thinks of the matter. The report is from the Irish Independent of August 30th, 1906, and the speech was delivered at a Presbyterian Church with a Protestant clergyman in the chair. Judge Rentoul said:—
Inside twelve months, in all probability, there would come a very considerable change of government. Speaking as a politician of considerable experience, and speaking to
Irish Independent, August 30th, 1906
Ten years ago, he said he wrote to the papers on the subject, saying such a cry was not true, and trying to point the real truth out. He always held that, simply as a political argument, attacks on the Catholic Church were a foolish and ridiculous mode of procedure. They knew well that human nature lay at the bottom of the whole of them, and if the clergymen that they belonged to were attacked they would assuredly defend them, no matter whether they liked the individuals or not.
He felt that in a country where the bulk of the population professed a religion different to theirs, the throb of the Orange drum right in the faces of their countrymen was wrong. When he went over to English platforms and talked about Ulster fighting, everyone laughed at them; the thing was ridiculous and could not be done.
This year, after the General Election, the cry revived. Ulster was not merely going to fight: she was arming. Dozens of excited leading articles appeared in the London Press. Then one paper, the Daily Mail, had the enterprise to send over a correspondent who should collect not rumours, but facts. Here is the first paragraph of his report, published on January 19th, 1911:—
No preparations are in progress at present anywhere in Ulster for armed resistance to Home Rule. The reports that large sums of money have been subscribed and large quantities of arms purchased with the view of concerted military measures-are mere reports. No arms are being imported either openly or surreptitiously beyond the normal demand of the trade.
Since then there has been very little talk of Ulster fighting. The bluff had been carried too far.
But it is said, even if a Home Rule Bill is passed into law Ulster will resist, and it will be impossible for England to use British troops to put down the loyalist minority.
But a threat of armed resistance in Ulster is no new thing, and it cannot be taken seriously—provided Ulster gets fair play. If she does not, she is certainly strong enough to make it difficult and dangerous to wrong her.But no one wants to. Unionists freely repeat a calumny which I take here as it appears in the A. B. C. of Home Rule:—
‘Irish Unionists also bear in mind Mr. Redmond's well known declaration not long ago, referring to those Irishmen who opposed Home Rule, that ‘after all, in reality, they are only a handful even of the Protestants of Ulster, and I fear they must be overborne by the strong hand.’’
It is a gross misrepresentation to say that Mr. Redmond spoke of ‘those who oppose Home Rule.’ What he said is here given:—
Mr. Redmond, speaking in the House of Commons on 12th February, 1907, said:—
I was pained, in reading the other day the speech of the member for North Derry, in which he seemed to accuse me of having said, at a meeting I addressed at Coalisland last October, that the opposition to Home Rule in Ulster would be put down by us with a strong hand, from which he seemed to infer that I was anxious to ride rough-shod over opinion in Ulster. Now, inasmuch as I desire to put my view in reference to Ulster before the House, I cannot do better than read an extract from that speech, which will show how completely (unintentionally, I am sure) my views were misrepresented.
Speaking on that occasion, I said:—‘And, fellow-countrymen, let me say that so far as what I call
to-day the minority in Ulster is concerned, that it should be our greatest and most sacred duty to go to any length short of surrender of principle to disarm their hostility and to remove their suspicions. I admit fully that the minority in Ulster is rich and influential. I admit that it has been powerful enough in the past to stand between Ireland and Home Rule, but its power is waning. But, fellow-countrymen, while I am convinced that we can, if we are put to it, win Home Rule in spite of this minority, I confess to you that I don't want Home Rule for Ireland to come in the garb of a bitter political defeat for any intelligent and honest section of my countrymen. I know, of course,’ I said, and this is the sentence that is taken from the context—‘That I know, of course, that there is one section of the minority opposed to us that has no title to the names of honesty or intelligence.’ ‘ A section that it is impossible, hopeless, to conciliate or placate, a section that will, I believe, to the bitter end continue their policy of hatred and ascendancy. I am not speaking of them. After all, in reality, they are only a handful even of the Protestants of Ulster, and I fear that they must be overborne by the strong hand. But I am speaking of the overwhelming majority of those who are ranked to-day as our opponents in Ulster. For my part, I say here, that of the overwhelming majority of these men I believe that they are honest, and, according to their own sense of the word, patriotic. I believe that they are in large numbers honestly afraid to trust their property and their religious interests to their fellow-countrymen. Now, over these men, I say to-day, that if I can avoid it, I want no party triumph. I want to influence their intelligence, I want to dissipate their suspicions, and I want to soften their hearts, and, therefore, so long as it is possible for me to do so, even against hope, I will preach to them the doctrine of conciliation. I say here to-day that there are no lengths, short of the abandonment of the principles which you and I hold, to which I would not go to win the confidence of these men, and not to have them lost to Ireland. There are no safeguards which I would object to in a Home Rule Bill to-morrow to satisfy the fears which these men entertain about their religious interest, and I can say he is the best Irishman who does his best to-day by preaching toleration and conciliation to these men to bring all the sons of gallant Ulster into line in the battle for Ireland.’
A commentary on this is supplied by the speeches of
In Canada, Loyalists carried their resistance to the point of burning down the Parliament House in Ottawa. Does anyone assert that Home Rule should not have been given to Canada because the Loyalists intended to create a riot, or is it contended that they should have been allowed to burn down the Parliament House as often as it was built up?
It is argued again that Home Rule should not be granted to Ireland because of the criminal tendencies of the Irish population.
This matter was very ably dealt with by Mr. E Haviland Burke, M.P., in a pamphlet entitled Police and Crime in Ireland (which can be procured from the Irish Press Agency).
Mr. Burke found that by examining the latest report then (in 1909) available, the Judicial Statistics for England and Wales and Ireland respectively in 1906, the indictable offences known to the police were 91,000 to a population of 34,500,000 in England and Wales; in Ireland, 9,400 to a population of 4,380,000. Had the Irish offences been proportionately as numerous as the English and Welsh they would have numbered 11,640.
In certain respects, notably cases of theft, and, above all, sexual offences, Ireland's superiority was amazing. Where the record told against Ireland was in that class of offences which is connected with agrarian agitation.
It is undeniable that ever since the Union there has been, at intervals, lawless agitation in Ireland, accompanied with crime. If it be argued that on this account Home Rule should not be conceded, the same argument
The truth is, that in so far as Irish opinion palliates offences against the law, the cause is, first, that breaking the law has often been a necessary means to obtain redress of grievances from a Parliament outside Ireland; and, secondly, Ireland never accepted the right of the British Parliament to legislate for Ireland. The law is not made by legislators whom we choose, nor is it administered by Ministers who depend on our confidence. Irishmen do not feel themselves responsible for making or for maintaining the law. A chief advantage of Home Rule would be to fix upon the Irish people the responsibility for maintaining that tranquility which is necessary to a prosperous people.
Take, again, a typical argument stated in the A. B. G. of Home Rule:—
The official records of Irish Nationalist disorder and lawlessness, as they are given from time to time in the House of Commons, are open to anyone who cares to have them. All this disorder is the direct result of the advice to the people given by Mr. John Redmond, Mr. John Dillon, and other Nationalist leaders and directors of the United Irish League.
Mr. Redmond's own words, often quoted, have decreed a ‘dangerous and menacing agitation—an agitation that would make government difficult and dangerous and in the end impossible.’ So that it is no wonder that in all Ireland there is no member of the Unionist minority who places an atom of reliance on Nationalist promises and guarantees of toleration and fair government under a Home Rule Parliament.
The simple answer is—No reasonable man desires a dangerous and menacing agitation; yet eminent Irishmen possessing admitted talents which might have been employed
A word needs to be said as to the attitude of the Irish people towards the police and crime. In prosecution for a case of theft, the police have no more difficulty in getting evidence in Ireland than elsewhere. In civil disputes between one man and another, evidence is readily forthcoming, and the law is freely resorted to. Recently, when a woman was outraged and murdered, the whole country side was eager to detect and convict the committer of this crime—which is rarer probably in Ireland than in any other country in Europe.
But it has to be fairly admitted, there are certain classes of crime in regard to which the Irish people will not assist the police. The reason for this has been already given. Lawlessness has been necessary in order to get the most necessary reforms. When the whole population is defying the law, men will not denounce even those who commit acts which outrage public opinion. This disposition lasts after the necessity has disappeared, and it is improbable that, in any part of Ireland, the man who committed a crime which could even be represented as springing from an agrarian grievance would be given over to English law.
In nine-tenths of Ireland, happily, agrarian disturbance has ceased. Within the last six years only two agrarian murders have been committed, both in the same district that is the district where Lord Clanricarde has succeeded, in spite of two Acts of Parliament passed to reinstate the evicted tenants, in keeping more than a hundred evicted tenants still out of their holdings. His success in defeating the law has destroyed confidence in the law.
Where land purchase has operated, disorder in Ireland has become a thing of the past, but the attitude of the Irish people towards the law has not changed, and will not change, until they feel themselves responsible
All these arguments against the granting of Home Rule—the argument that sectarian differences will lead to oppression of the minority, the argument that the Irish are disloyal, and cannot, therefore, be trusted to main-tain the Imperial connection, the argument that political agitation has been conducted by lawless means, and the argument that the loyal minority will resist by force—are fully met and covered by the case of Canada, which may be here recalled:
When Queen Victoria ascended the throne Canadians were in armed rebellion against England. When the British Government of that day ordered the Te Deum to be sung in Canadian Churches, to celebrate her accession, the congregations rose en masse and left the buildings.
Fifty years later, at Queen Victoria's Jubilee, Englishmen would hardly believe that Canada was ever disaffected.
What caused the change?
The grant of Home Rule to Canada, while Canada was still seething with unrest.
There is nothing exceptional in this. In Australia and Cape Colony, as in Canada, self-government was conceded after great and menacing movements, breaking into rebellion and bloodshed. But the case of Canada is that which offers the simplest resemblance to the symptoms which prevail in Ireland, and, therefore, the completest argument for applying the same cure.
In Canada, as in Ireland, there were two races, and two religions. The British, settlers of a more recent date,
Supporters of ascendancy in Canada used precisely the same arguments against Canadian Home Rule as are used in the case of Ireland. The Duke of Wellington said that—‘Local responsible government and the sovereignty of Great Britain were completely incompatible’. History has confuted the Duke.
Lord Stanley said in the House of Lords:— ‘What would be the consequences (of granting the Canadian demand)? The establishment of a republic the concession would remove the only check to the tyrannical power of the dominant majority—a majority in numbers only, while in wealth, education, and enterprise they are greatly inferior to the minority. The minority of the settlers are of British descent, and one thing is certain, if these settlers find themselves deprived of British protection, they will protect themselves.’
Canada, has not moved a step towards separation, nor towards republican institutions. Yet Canada is divided only by an imaginary line from the greatest Republic in the world, and could, if it rebelled, only be conquered with the utmost difficulty. The tie of free association within the Empire has held in the face of the strongest natural and political attraction.
In the case of Ireland, what did Grattan say? ‘The sea denies us union, but the ocean forbids separation.’
In Canada there has been no hint of civil war, nor has the Catholic majority oppressed the Protestant minority. Sir Wilfred Laurier, the French Catholic Premier, is trusted by the Protestants of Ontario no less than by the Catholics of Quebec. The cause of sectarian bitterness
Lord Durham said:—‘The Bench, the magistracy, the high places in the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by this party; by grant or purchase, they have acquired nearly the whole of the unoccupied lands of the province; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and, till lately, they share among themselves exclusively all offices of trust and profit. The principal members of this party belong to the Church of England, and maintenance of the claims of that Church has always been one of their distinguished characteristics.’
This applies literally in every point to Ireland.
Again, with regard to the administration of justice, Lord Durham wrote:— ‘The public have no security for any fairness in the selection of juries. They have no cheek on the sheriff. The public knew he could pack a jury whenever he pleased, and supposed that an officer holding a lucrative appointment at the pleasure of the Government would be ready to carry into effect their designs.’
Jury-packing in Canada, as in Ireland, was caused by refusal of the juries to convict. In September, 1837, the Governor-General, Lord Gosford, wrote:— ‘In two recent instances, where the Attorney-General preferred bills of indictment in the Court of King's Bench at Montreal, one against a Dr. Duchesnois, for publicly tearing, and treating with contempt, the proclamation issued by me on the 15th June last, and another against a certain individual in the county of the Two Mountains, for a conspiracy to drive out of the county, by means of threats, and acts of violence, several inhabitants, because they held opposite political opinions, the bills have been ignored by the Grand Jury, in the face of the strongest evidence.’
Lord Gosford was a Coercionist, and his picture of Canada in 1837 is the Tory picture of Ireland to-day. ‘The Papineau faction are not to be satisfied with any
His Attorney-General describes boycotting: ‘A system of proscription, based upon national distinctions and political prejudices, was adopted and pursued. The British inhabitants, and those loyal Canadians who adhered to the political principles of their British fellow-subjects, perceived on a sudden that all intercourse between them and those of their neighbours who professed a different political opinion, was studiously denied, all interchange of the ordinary offices or the common necessaries of life had abruptly terminated; they had incurred the penalty of social excommunication.’
Also intimidation, and even cattle-driving:— ‘Mobs assembled by night, and with shouts of intimidation and threats of personal violence endeavoured to terrify the loyal inhabitants into an adoption of their principles. The house of one, Jean Baptiste Cleval, was fired into. The British subjects (settlers) were also subjected to a series of harassing annoyances—their fences were broken down, their cattle driven astray, their horses cropped and otherwise disfigured, and a variety of petty injuries inflicted.’
He attributes these symptoms, as the Irish Tories do, to ‘the artful and unscrupulous misrepresentation with which they (the agitators) delude and excite their more ignorant countrymen.’
Yet in the face of all this, Canada's demand was conceded. Her demand was for full Home Rule—a legislature with an executive responsible to it. She had tried a half-measure, a Parliament without power to choose and control its own ministry, and from this, disintegration and disloyalty had arisen. The complete concession of freedom was followed by complete loyalty. Nor is that all. Prosperity replaced misery. Lord Durham wrote:— ‘The present evil is not merely that improvement is staved, and that the wealth and population of these
To-day Canada is united, harmonious, peaceful and prosperous. Canada to-day asks Home Rule for Ireland (by repeated resolutions of her Parliament) in the interests of the Empire. Australia does the same.
Every self-governing colony is in favour of Home Rule for Ireland because each knows that if it were governed as Ireland is, it would be, as Ireland is, discontented and miserable, and that, if Ireland were free within the Empire, as the self-governing Colonies are free, Ireland would be, as they are, prosperous and contented.
A good commentary on these facts is afforded by the speech delivered at a St. Patrick's Day in Montreal by the Chairman of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company that great Imperialist, Sir Thomas Shaughnessy. He said, replying to the toast of ‘Canada’:—
Our material progress, striking as it is and satisfactory, is not a source of greater gratification than the political relations between the people of the several sections of the country. The British North America Act was drawn on wise and, statesmanlike lines; it has stood the test of time, and its foundations are unshaken. Each Province has its own characteristic resources to develop, along the lines desired by its own people, but all are united in the advancement of the common good of the whole Dominion. Notwithstanding the differences in race and religion, the U. E. Loyalist of Ontario is no more loyal to the British Crown than the French Canadian of Quebec. [...] And now, Mr. President, I would like to devote a few words to another subject that appeals to every man of Irish birth or extraction wherever he may live, and that is the prompt and effective amelioration of what are manifestly
Ireland's wrongs, with the improvement in the position of her people that would surely result from such a policy.For generations there has been something in the nature of a feud between the people of Great Britain, or, I should say, of the governing classes of Great Britain and the Irish.
At times the feeling on one side or the other has grown so intense as to lead to lawlessness and consequent reprisals. Neither party has been free from blame. On the one hand there was the overbearing audacity of a class actuated by selfishness and assumed superiority. On the other the wrath and vindictiveness of a people who felt that they were being subjected to humiliation and cruel treatment. In both cases there were, no doubt, other motives and other incentives, to which I need not now refer, but I must declare my conviction that in the relations between Ireland and the other portions of the British Empire there is a situation that should not and cannot longer continue.
The Land Purchase Act has accomplished a great deal, but why stop there? Ireland is entitled to and should have local self-government, as should England, Scotland and Wales if they want it.
In the case of Ireland, separation is as undesirable as it is impossible, and there may be other features of the Home Rule programme that require modification or elimination. But why should the opponents of the Irish Party dwell upon and emphasise only the features of the Irish proposals to which they have most decided objection? Why not take up and discuss the other sections about which an agreement might be possible? In the eyes of the opponents of Home Rule there are two dominating and all-absorbing bogies to the exclusion of everything else-namely, the control of affairs in Ireland by the predominating Catholic majority to the detriment and discomfort of the minority, and the certainty that the whole scheme of Home Rule aims at separation.
Those of us who know our fellow-countrymen best, would give but little weight to the first of these apparitions, because the maintenance of a cohesive majority for any long period of time would be contrary to the nature and tradition of the Irishman; but even if this were not the case, it would
be quite practicable to provide constitutional safeguards against injustice or oppression. And about the other, I have already expressed the conviction that separation would not be in the interests of the Irish people, and that for many reasons it would be impracticable, indeed impossible, and it should not stand as a bar to a rational Home Rule measure.
It is further argued against the grant of Home Rule that Ireland is a bankrupt country, which does not pay her own way; that self-government could not be established without imposing on Irish taxpayers a ruinous additional burden.
Two questions are here involved—(a) What is the tax paying capacity of Ireland? (b) Can Ireland hope to effect economies?—Let us first deal with (a).
In support of the anti-Home Rule view, it is stated that in the year 1909-10 Great Britain contributed £2,357,000 to the cost of Irish local administration. This is represented as being only the latest instance of England's bounty under the Act of Union.
What are the facts?
First, by admission of the British Treasury, 1909-10 was the first year in which Ireland did not contribute a large sum to the cost of Imperial expenditure.
Secondly, on the British Treasury's own figures, the sums so contributed by Ireland since 1817 amount to three hundred and twenty-five millions sterling. Between 1820 and 1910 five hundred and ninety-six millions of taxation was raised in Ireland, and only two hundred and eighty-two spent there.
In the face of the tribute thus extorted— ‘more than an Empire's ransom,’ as has been justly said—Ireland must not be represented as a beggar, depending on Great Britain's charity.
Thirdly, it is demonstrably untrue to say that even in the one year since the establishment of old age pensions Irish local expenditure has exceeded Irish revenue by £2,300,000.
The statement is based on a misleading paper issued by the Treasury under date July 20th, 1910—misleading because it states the excess of expenditure over receipts, without the necessary explanation. In that year the Finance Act was held up. Consequently, Ireland figures as contributing only £388,000 under the head of income tax. For the previous financial year this contribution was £1,100,000. The arrears due to this accidental cause, were, of course, collected within a couple of months after the passing of the Budget.
But, further, even in 1909-10, with the addition of old age pensions, the local expenditure did not reach ten millions' and three-quarters. The average of revenue collected in Ireland during the ten previous years was eleven and a quarter millions.
Local expenditure in 1909-10 certainly did not exceed Ireland's revenue ‘as collected.’ But it may probably have exceeded what is called Ireland's ‘estimated true revenue.’
It is necessary to explain what this means.
First, in regard to direct taxation. The income tax collected in Ireland amounted in 1908-9 to £1,019,000. But the income tax on all dividends on shares in companies registered in England and Scotland is paid at its source, and, in the first instance, goes to the credit of English or Scotch taxation, though deducted from persons or companies established in Ireland. The Treasury add, under this head, to the total of Irish Income-tax a figure of £135,000 for the year 1908-9.
This is an estimate which we in Ireland, having no exchequer of our own, have no means of testing. The writer of a very valuable pamphlet (The Financial Relations of Ireland with the Imperial Exchequer, by an Irishman. Gill & Son, Dublin, 1911. Bd. net), gives reasons for believing that Ireland's real contribution is
Secondly, in regard to Ireland's share of indirect taxation, take, for instance, tobacco. In the last complete year, £1,945,000 was collected in Ireland on tobacco imported direct to Ireland. But to ascertain Ireland's ‘true’ contribution, the Treasury balance two other figures: the amount of tobacco manufactured in Ireland but consumed in England, and the amount of tobacco imported into England but consumed in Ireland. They find that the balance is against Ireland, and deduct £473,000 from the amount collected in Ireland, making Ireland's ‘true’ contribution to tobacco tax only £1,472,000 instead of the £1,945.1000 which is the collected revenue.
Now, the estimate is admittedly made for 1910 ‘from proportions ascertained for 1903-4 upon inquiries made of manufacturers and dealers.’ Briefly, it is a guess; and a guess which Ireland has no means of controlling.
Take, again, tea. The Treasury say:— ‘For the year ending March, 1910, the duty paid in Ireland was £302,000. To this we add £244,000 for tea consumed in Ireland, but cleared of duty in England.’ They base this estimate ‘on proportions ascertained by inquiries as to quantities intercharged between Great Britain and Ireland in 1903-4.’
But the statistical branch of the Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction has been studying Irish imports and exports, and it returns the import of tea into Ireland for 1909-10 as as a figure which represents a duty paid of over £700,000. This is a Government estimate and based on first hand inquiry, not on an obsolete guess. The Treasury, as between the two figures, choose the one which is less reliable, but which lowers Ireland's ‘true’ revenue by £160,000.
Who assesses Ireland's ‘true’ contribution? The British Treasury. What is the British Treasury's predisposition in this matter? Before answering that, it is well to summarise the history of financial relations between the two countries since the Act of Union. This summary is borrowed from a paper called ‘Some Suggestions concerning the Future Welfare of Ireland,’ by Lord MacDonnell, published by the Independent Newspaper in Dublin at 2d. And since it must be largely quoted here, it is well to note that Lord MacDonnell is a Catholic, son of a poor man in Connaught, who won his way by brains into the Indian Civil Service, and in that service, starting without influence or connections, earned the reputation of being probably the greatest Indian administrator since those other Irishmen, the Lawrences. In 1900 he left the Governorship of Bengal to become Under Secretary of State in Dublin, admittedly as ‘a colleague rather than a subordinate’ to Mr. Wyndham. He speaks, therefore, with eight years' official experience at the centre of Irish administration; and with a whole lifetime of official training.—Here, then, is the summary:—
From 1800 to 1817 a separate Irish Treasury existed, but the United Parliament fixed the rate of expenditure, and the Act of Union settled that two-fifteenths of it should be charged to Ireland. Under this dispensation Ireland's funded debt rose from twenty-eight to one hundred and twelve millions in seventeen years.
Demonstrably, then, the immediate result of the Union was bankruptcy for Ireland.
During the fifty-three years which followed 1817, two thirds of Ireland's annual income was spent year by year in Imperial purposes—army, navy, and the like. Meanwhile, Irish administration was starved; the country lay like a derelict farm, while two-thirds of Ireland's taxes were going to pay for England's wars.
For thirty-five years after 1817 the taxation of Ireland was kept on a different basis from that of England, income tax not being levied there. Thus, in 1849, the closing year of the famine, Ireland did not contribute to Imperial purposes quite two and three-quarter millions. Yet this might have seemed enough for a land where a million persons had died of starvation or its effects. But in 1853 Mr. Gladstone clapped on the income tax, and in 1859 Ireland's ‘estimated true revenue’ was £7,700,000, of which only £2,300,000 was being spent in Ireland—the balance, £5,400,000 being her ‘Imperial contribution.’ These are Treasury figures, and when we are told that Great Britain has been Ireland's milch cow, it should be remembered that between 1820 and 1870, two hundred and eighty-seven millions of taxation was raised in Ireland, and only ninety-two millions spent there, the balance of one hundred and ninety-five millions going to Imperial purposes.
So great a disparity between contribution and benefit led ultimately to inquiry, and a Committee reported in 1865. But for the year ending March 3st, 1870, the local expenditure was under three millions, the Imperial contribution nearly four and a half.—1870 marked, as has already been shown, the beginning of a period when (under the stimulus of the Fenian movement) some serious attempt was made to remedy the evils which had grown up under the Union.
In the thirty years ending in 1900 local expenditure actually exceeded Imperial contribution, being 120 millions local as against 104 millions Imperial. Since 1900 the proportion has been enormously changed. Imperial contributions only stand at fifteen millions, the local expenditure at eighty-six.
Upon this Lord MacDonnell makes the following notable observations:—
‘It must be admitted that these figures exhibit a most startling change, and I confess they have given me occasion
I admit that since 1870, at which time we may place the first faint beginnings of the better feelings towards Ireland, which have since, I am glad to say, grown apace, the expenditure upon Ireland has been on a more liberal scale than it was in the preceding years, but I am frankly incredulous that this fact suffices to explain the revolution which a comparison of the figures before and after brings to light. We must look elsewhere for the explanation.
The Treasury return makes a distinction between what it calls the ‘revenue as collected’ and what it calls ‘the estimated true revenue,’ the latter being, of course, less than the former. My belief is that since 1870, after the proceedings of the Committee of the House of Commons had drawn attention to the disparity between Irish local expenditure and Irish contributions to the Imperial Exchequer, Ireland has been debited with charges for which she was not really liable; the apparent effect of such debit has been to swell her expenditure and to diminish her contributions to the joint Exchequer, and consequently to exhibit her as being in a much worse financial position than she really occupies.
The highest Treasury authorities have admitted that in calculating what is called Ireland's ‘estimated true revenue’ the Treasury has acted largely on guess-work. Their procedure violates the view of Mr. Gladstone, who, in introducing the Home Rule Bill of 1886, laid down that ‘It would be equitable and just, considering the past, to give credit to Ireland for the total amounts of her revenue as collected.’ Gentlemen, that is the principle for which I contend as supplying an equitable basis for the settlement of the financial dispute between Great Britain and Ireland. Let Ireland be credited
To sum up, then, so far: Can Ireland pay her way? We maintain that on a fair system of accounting, Ireland is at present paying eleven and a quarter millions of revenue. This more than meets even what the Treasury classify as Irish local expenditure.
But, further, we object entirely to the Treasury's method, which is to charge every penny spent in Ireland as Irish expenditure, but to arrive at Ireland's revenue by deducting millions from the taxes collected in Ireland.
We ask, first, What is Ireland's ‘true’ expenditure?
The further question to be considered is, Can Ireland reduce that expenditure?
Local expenditure in Ireland has grown from £5,616,000 in 1894-5 to £10,712,000 in 1909-10.
‘Local expenditure’ here means expenditure controlled by the British Government.
Local expenditure controlled by the County Councils was reduced in the eight years ending 1908 by an average of threepence in the rates.
Economies effected in the rates benefited the Irish rate payer to their full amount. Economies in expenditure controlled by the British Government were credited to the British Treasury.
Under Home Rule we should keep our own accounts, we should profit to the full by our own economies.
In what direction could they be effected?
Before answering the question whether Ireland can reasonably hope to economise on the cost of civil government, it is necessary to distinguish. Nowadays a State undertakes many more duties than were previously
Again, there are great national works which cannot be undertaken by individuals.
The country is denuded of trees. This is bad for the climate, and it deprives Ireland of the prime material of many industries. Afforestation is a great State concern, which any Irish legislature, concerned primarily and solely with the interest of Ireland, would be bound to consider, would have leisure to consider, and would almost certainly undertake.
Take, again, drainage. Ireland is a country of large rivers flowing through very flat land. In certain cases, notably on the Barrow and on the Bann, these rivers flood every year, with injury to the health of the people and injury to the land. Ague and similar complaints are always present in the valley of the Barrow, and it would be impossible to compute the damage to crops on land which is cultivated, or the loss by land which, under a proper system of drainage, would become cultivable. Such national work as this, public opinion of the North and South together would force an Irish Parliament to undertake.
Enterprises of this kind are reproductive, and would ultimately pay for themselves. They would be dealt with by loans, not out of revenue. The interest and sinking fund on these loans would be a charge for a limited period.
In this respect, Irish administration would be hampered by the neglect of British Governments. These works ought to have been paid for by part of the 325 millions taken out of Ireland since 1817, to pay for an army to keep down Ireland, and for a navy to protect trade in which she had no share.
Ireland is in the position of an undeveloped farm. That is natural, seeing that until forty years ago twothirds of the revenue raised in Ireland was being spent on the British army or navy, or some other Imperial purpose, and, in addition to that, an enormous proportion of the rental of the country was being paid to absentee landlords. But it does not follow that a farm cannot be profitably worked because it is undeveloped.
Is a retrenchment, then, possible? Unquestionably it is, and on a large scale. It could be looked for under two heads—cost of police and the cost of civil servants, and of these something must be said in detail.
Civil Servants.—Profesor Kettle has shown, in his interesting book, ‘Home Rule Finance,’ that the number of Government officials with incomes over £160 a year in Scotland is 944, and in Ireland is 4,297. The Scotch officials receive £319,237, the Irish £1,141,131more than a million of difference.
Now, beyond all question, we could do this work more cheaply and with fewer men. Posts have been multiplied under the Union to create patronage. For example, the Board of Works—an important Public Department—is managed by three Commissioners, who receive jointly £3,200 a year. On the analogy of other departments, even in Ireland, one man at half the money could do the work. Two of these three gentlemen are Englishmen, promoted there in respect of services which had no interest for Ireland.
Again, the Law Courts in Scotland cost £200,000: in Ireland £360,000. The Irish Prisons Board costs £107,000: the Scotch Prisons Board £87,000. Yet the
Up to the present Ireland has had no adequate inducement to economise. If, for example, a judgeship were suppressed, £4,000 a year would be saved; but to whom? To the Imperial taxpayer; the benefit to the Irish tax payer would not be more than £200 a year. The gain is so insignificant as to be scarcely worth considering. Under Home Rule the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer would be as much interested to economise £4,000 a year as the British Chancellor to economise £80,000.
It is certain then, that a Home Rule Government would retrench upon official salaries and upon the number of officials. The record of the Irish County Councils stands as an example to show the tendency of an Irish Government as more likely to be towards excessive parsimony than towards extravagance.
But, further, some of the great spending departments in Ireland will naturally cease to exist as the work of land purchase goes through. The Land Courts, which are occupied with the business of periodical rent-fixing, would cease to have occupation when the tenant becomes the owner, paying a fixed instalment to the State. The Estates Commission, which is concerned in the administration of land purchase, ought, in another fifteen years, to have completed its work. These are future economies, but they are inevitable ones.
The reduction which can be made by retrenching superfluous officials, or by reducing the excessive salaries is certainly possible, but is also remote. No civil servant must be injured in any way by the change of administration.The Irish Government will take over the existing staffs of officials just as the County Councils did. Doubtless, it will have the power—as the County Councils have—to get rid of servants whom it does not wish to retain, but it will certainly, in that case, be obliged to pension them off, virtually, on full pay. In plain words, for a generation to come a Home Rule Government will be hampered by the extravagant system of administration which the British Government has established. Our difficulty will arise from the fact that, during one hundred and eleven years, we have not been able to control our own expenditure.
The most wasteful branch of this outlay remains to be dealt with.
The police in Scotland cost, roughly speaking, half a million; the police in Ireland, for a similar population,costs one and a half million.
The police in Great Britain are a civil force, under local control. The police in Ireland are a military force, under Imperial control. The Imperial Government constantly augments the police force where there is disturbance, but it never diminishes it where order has prevailed over a generation. English tourists must have seen with amazement villages of four hundred or five hundred people, in a county like Donegal, where trouble has always been rare, and where none has occurred for ten or fifteen years, possessing a police barrack with seven or eight stalwart men, each of whom costs 30s. a week in a country where the average wage is, perhaps, 12s.
This enormous force was created to protect the Irish Land System. It was part of the costly machinery employed for collecting rack-rents. It was needed to protect the evictor and the land-grabber.
Now, under any form of Government which had the confidence of the Irish people, the cost of the police could be reduced by one-half without the least danger to public order. The only thing which would prevent a Home Rule Government from at once realising half a million a year of economies in this respect would be the necessity of providing retiring allowances for those whom Ireland has not employed, nor desired to employ. It has always been recognised that the Irish police was, in part, at least, an Imperial force, and the responsibility for paying off its superfluous members should fall upon England.
To sum up, then, it has been shown— (a) That the revenue collected in Ireland at the present time is more than sufficient to meet all those expenses which are set down by the Treasury as British expenditure—the revenue collected being 11 1/4 millions; the expenditure for the last year 10 3/4 millions. (b) That the police force costs 1 1/2 millions, and that a portion of this—variously estimated at half or one million by English statesmen—must be taken as Imperial expenditure, and in any reasonable settlement the cost of this excess should be borne by the Imperial Government while it exists; this charge would terminate according as retirement pensions fell in. (c) That the Civil Service list has been swollen by a mass of superfluous and overpaid appointments, and in the outlay needed before economies can be effected here Imperial assistance should be given to enable Ireland to increase her expenditure in useful directions.
In regard to land purchase. When the operation has been completed some £200,000,000 will have been borrowed on the security of the British Exchequer. The security for that will be the land of Ireland. But, clearly, the responsibility for collecting the annual instalments, by which this loan will be repaid, ought to be placed upon the
As things stand, if a general failure of crops in Ireland, or any other cause produced a failure of payments, the loss would fall upon the taxpayer of the United Kingdom. Under Home Rule, the British taxpayer would hold a first charge upon the revenues of Ireland for the repayment of this loan. In other words, Home Rule would render the British taxpayer more secure and not less secure with regard to his advances on Irish land.
What the common purse of the United Kingdom contributes to the operation of land purchase in Ireland is the bonus paid to the Irish landlords. This was undertaken as an Imperial charge (much being said about imperial generosity), and, therefore, nothing in respect of a bonus must be charged against Ireland.
Finally, in regard to the whole matter, how does the British taxpayer stand, first, from the point of view of mere expediency? Since the establishment of old age pensions it is clear that Ireland is contributing nothing to Imperial expenditure. By taking the Treasury's estimate—which counts as purely Irish expenditure every penny that is spent in Ireland, but declines to treat as Irish revenue nearly two millions of taxes collected in Ireland—it is possible to argue that Ireland is being run at a loss. At present Unionist orators declare that Ireland is costing the United Kingdom two and a half millions a year, and Irish Unionists declare that this is the best argument for maintaining the Union, because, as one of them said, Ireland is in the position of a poor man who has his hand in the rich man's pocket. Nationalist Ireland, first, refuses to accept this as a true statement of the case, and, secondly, declines to join in this desire of sponging on a richer country. But, from the Unionist point of view, what is the outlook for the British taxpayer?
Does anyone believe that Irish administration, directed from Westminster, is going to cost less in future? Mr.
In 1908 the charges had risen from 16s. to 28s. 6d. a head. Since then, old age pensions have put on more than 10s. a head, and the figure is now about £2. This increase will inevitably go on while there is no incentive in Ireland to economise, and while the Union entails the adoption of similar measures for Ireland and Great Britain. And, further, modern notions of taxation tend to divide the burden between the direct and indirect taxation in such proportion that the direct taxpayer, who is, generally speaking, a rich man, pays something more than half of the total. But in Ireland rich men are so few that, when the same system is applied to Ireland as to England, the result comes out quite different. Under Mr. Lloyd George' s Budget indirect taxation produces 49 percent. of the revenue of Great Britain. It produces 70 per cent. of the revenue in Ireland.
Unless the system of taxation is altered so as to increase the burden of indirect taxation—which affects the poor—Ireland will pay less and less proportionately.
Under the continuance of the Union, then, what the British taxpayer has to look forward to is, finding Ireland a constantly increasing drain upon his pocket. Under Home Rule, Ireland will contribute regularly in proportion to her resources to Imperial purposes; though there may be offset against this contribution, a limited charge for a transition period of some fifteen or twenty years to enable Ireland to effect the economies which have been indicated.
One more point. It is said that under Home Rule British capital will shun Ireland. It will be observed,
The statement that an Irish Government could not borrow money is too ridiculous to be dealt with. Every small country can borrow. Every British dependency can borrow at 4 per cent.
A specific reply may be given here to some arguments set forward in the A. B. C. of Home Rule, published by the Unionist Association of Ireland:— 1. Since the time the Legislative Union was established there has been a Nationalist Party in Ireland clamouring for self-government, or Home Rule, and a Unionist Party as resolutely opposed to it. Industry, commercial progress, respect for the law, and loyalty to the British Crown, have always been the characteristics of this Irish Unionist minority. The leading features of the Nationalist majority have ever been disloyalty, evasion or defiance of the law, and political agitation in preference to industrial effort, or making the best of the agricultural and other resources of the country at their command.’’
a) This argument amounts to the statement that Unionist Ireland has prospered industrially and agriculturally, while Nationalist Ireland has not. First, in regard to agriculture. The three counties in Ireland where farming is most satisfactory and progressive are Wexford, Louth, and Down. The two first of these are predominately Catholic and Nationalist.
(b) Protestant farmers in the North of Ireland have, for more than a century, enjoyed tenant right. That is to say, a man who improves his farm is entitled, on leaving his farm, to receive the value of his improvements. In other words, the Protestant farmer has, for more than a century, had that security of tenure, and that reward
(c) The Census returns show that the population has fallen in every province in Ireland except one. That exception is not Ulster, but Catholic and Nationalist Leinster.
Industrial Effort.—It has been shown how, in the eighteenth century industries were deliberately killed out in Ireland by British legislation. The one exception was the linen trade. This trade was fostered principally because England did not find it to her interest to compete in it, but in a less degree because it was largely in Protestant hands. Huguenot refugees were established in the North of Ireland on land taken from the Catholics, and they were given bounties to pursue the linen industry, for which the Ulster climate has special advantages, like those which make Lancashire the seat of cotton-spinning.
In this way the industrial habit, the disposition for factory work, has been maintained in the North of Ireland, and every business man knows that manufactories can much more easily be established among a population which has the inherited habit of factory work. In Belfast the great ship-building industry has in a sense been complementary to the linen trade, because the linen trade, employing more women than men under modern conditions, has given work for the female part of the population, and men's labour, in that sense, was more easily procurable. But the essential point is the continued existence, under the protection afforded by British law, of this one industry in this one part of Ireland, which maintained there, not only the industrial habit among work people, but the tendency to employ capital in industrial enterprises.
‘The Commercial institutions of the country have always offered the most extreme opposition to an Irish Parliament.’
It is surely an answer to say that Lord Pirrie, chairman of Messrs. Harland & Wolff's, and the Rt. Hon. Alexander
3. ‘Like Parnell, Mr. Redmond has declared to his supporters in America that the Home Rule movement is one which aims at the complete political independence of Ireland—freed from all connections with England. On no other terms would he receive money from the Irish-American extremists.’
The answer to this is given by one fact. Last October Mr. Redmond went to America to collect the American dollars, of which so much was said. To explain precisely his aims to American people he published in M'Clure's Magazine for October—the magazine having the widest circulation in America—the following passage:—
Here, then, is ‘what Ireland wants’: ‘Legislative and executive control of all purely Irish affairs, subject to the supreme authority of the Imperial Parliament.’
In other words, we want an Irish Parliament, with an executive responsible to it, created by Act of the Imperial Parliament, and charged with the management of purely Irish affairs (land, education, local government, transit, labour, industries, taxation for local purposes, law and justice, police, &c.), leaving to the Imperial Parliament, in which Ireland would probably continue to be represented, but in smaller numbers, the management, just as at present, of all Imperial affairs—army, navy, foreign relations, customs, Imperial taxation, matters pertaining to the Crown, the Colonies, and all those other questions which are Imperial and not local in their nature, the Imperial Parliament also retaining an over-riding supreme authority over the new Irish legislature, such as it possesses to-day over the various legislatures in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and other portions of the Empire.
In other words, in his appeal to America for funds he disavowed separation in the most explicit terms.
He has said that he stands where Parnell stood.
Parnell said, in the debate upon Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886, speaking for Ireland:—
‘We look upon the provisions of this Bill as a final settlement of the question, and I believe that the Irish people have accepted it as such a settlement.’
Before the Pigott Commission on the 1st May, 1889, he swore:—‘I have never gone further, either in my thought or action, than the restitution of the legislative independence of Ireland.’
That is Mr. Redmond's position to-day.
4. ‘The Protestant Churches of Ireland are fully alive to the dangers to them that would ensue in the event of the affairs of Ireland being handed over to an overwhelming Catholic majority.’
This is illustrated by the following quotation from the ‘Appeal of the Presbyterian Church to the Electors of Great Britain,’ which was issued in 1910:— ‘In the South and West of Ireland the priest is practically all-powerful, and even in Northern Protestant districts clerical control in matters that are purely civil and secular is growing more frequent.’
Now, it cannot with decency be contended that a country should be denied self-government because the majority of its inhabitants are Roman Catholics. Protestant opinion has already been amply cited above to show that Protestants are not persecuted or in any way damaged by their religious beliefs.
As to the argument that Home Rule will increase the power of the priests, the answer is, plainly, that every
Lord Randolph Churchill tried to persuade the Tory Party to take
up Home Rule, and failed. He fell back upon another policy which is
thus stated in a letter written by him on October 14th, 1885 (Life,
by Right Hon. Winston Churchill, H., p. 3):—
It is the Bishops entirely to whom I look in the future to turn, to mitigate or postpone the Home Rule onslaught.
That is my policy, and I know it is sound and good, the only possible Tory policy. It hinges on acquiring the confidence and the friendship of the Bishops. My own opinion is that if you approach the Archbishop through proper channels, if you deal in friendly remonstrances and in attractive assurances.
[...]
the tremendous force of the Catholic Church will gradually and universally come over to the side of the Tory Party.’’
Mr. Redmond's attitude on the matter has been stated by him in an article published by Reynolds's Newspaper, and issued as a pamphlet with the title Does Home Rule mean Rome Rule? In this he says:— As a matter of historical fact, whenever Rome has openly attempted to interfere with freedom of opinion on the part of the Irish laity on political matters during the last hundred years, Ireland has resented this interference, and asserted her own independence.’’
He gives three instances. Before Catholic Emancipation, the English Government tried to persuade the Roman Church to give it a veto on the appointment of Catholic Bishops in Ireland. His scheme was agreed to by three Archbishops of Ireland and seven Bishops. The Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Gonsalvi, came to
In 1883 a public testimonial to Mr. Parnell was set on foot, and subscriptions came in at a moderate rate. A Papal Rescript, dated May 11th, was issued warning Irish people, clergy and laity alike, to hold aloof from subscribing. The subscriptions were then £7,600. Within a month after the issue of the Rescript, the amount had doubled, and passed the £15,000 originally designed. The final figure reached was £37,000. All leading Irish Nationalists joined in denouncing what they regarded as an unwarrantable interference with their political rights.
In 1888 another Papal Rescript denounced the ‘Plan of Campaign’. Mr. Parnell declined to alter his policy. A meeting was held, at which every leading Catholic Nationalist denounced in the strongest terms this renewed interference. Mr. Sexton's words sum up their views:— ‘Our religion is independent of England and our politics are independent of Rome.’
Again, the A. B. C. says: ‘By the Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898 Ireland has been given as full management of her own local affairs as is enjoyed by the other parts of the United Kingdom. When that Act was being passed the Nationalists promised as they are now doing—that the Unionist minority would have justice and fair play in the local councils. The Act conferred on the Irish Nationalists the power of proving their love of fair play and their professed desire to fraternise with their Unionist and Protestant fellow-countrymen. What happened? In almost every case every Protestant and Unionist was swept out of public existence, so far as it was possible, and Roman Catholics and Nationalists given entire control of those Irish counties where Protestants and Unionists found themselves in a minority. In the three provinces outside of Ulster there are only fifteen Unionists on the twenty-four County Councils of those provinces. The
This extract judiciously conceals the facts. There are, it appears, only fifteen cases in which a Nationalist electorate has returned a Unionist County Councillor; but there is no instance whatever in which a Unionist electorate has returned a Nationalist County Councillor. Half of Ulster is solidly Nationalist. There is this further point:—Nationalist electorates make no difficulty in returning Protestant representatives if their political opinions agree with those of the electors. No Unionist constituency has returned any Catholic.
What has happened is this. In a country where a political issue of tremendous importance has remained open, all elections have been taken with reference to opinions on that matter, but Nationalists have in some cases been willing to modify their assertions of principle by selecting men like Colonel Everard, whose services to the tobacco industry are so well known.
Under Home Rule the division would not be between Unionist and Nationalist, but, as elsewhere, between Conservative and Liberal or Radical—between the agrarian and the urban interests; the whole line of division would be altered.
In conclusion, this falls to be said:—
The whole movement of the modern world is towards local autonomy. It is the guiding principle of the British Empire. Within the last twenty years no fewer than five Home Rule Parliaments with Home Rule constitutions and full responsible government have been created within the British Empire.
South Africa is the latest and most glorious example.
Even in India the beginnings of an extension of autonomy has been made.
Outside the British Empire the birth of representation and responsible government has been hailed by the whole civilised world in Turkey and in the Russian Duma. The suppression of Finland's autonomy has been regarded universally as a crime.
But most notable of all is the example of the great German Empire, concerning which Mr. Redmond has written in Reynolds's Newsletter:—
There are twenty-five States to-day in the German Empire, everyone of them autonomous, everyone of them with its own Parliament and Executive, with full control over all local, as distinct from Imperial, affairs.
One at least of these States, Prussia, is as large and populous as England. Another, Bavaria, closely resembles Ireland in area and population. A third, Wurtemburg, is almost identical in area and population with Wales.
Some of these States have a single-Chamber system, and some have a double-Chamber system; but in all of them local affairs are transacted quite independently of the control or interference of the German Imperial Parliament.
All the difficulties which are supposed to exist in conceding autonomy to Ireland exist to-day in Germany. Some of the German States are overwhelmingly Protestant. Others of them are overwhelmingly Catholic.
In Prussia, nearly two-thirds of the population are Protestants and rather over one-third Catholics. In 1905 the numbers were:—Protestants, 23,341,502; Catholics, 13,352,444; all others, about half a million.
In Bavaria, in 1905, there were 4,608,469 Catholics, 1,844,699 Protestants; and 55,000 Jews.
In Wurtemburg, by a strange coincidence, these proportions are almost exactly reversed, the Protestant population in 1905 being 1,582,745, and the Catholic population 695,808. And so on through these States, but in none of them has the religious difficulty, which is supposed to stand in the way of Home Rule for Ireland, caused the smallest trouble.
In Prussia, side by side with the Imperial Parliament, or Reichstadt, there stands, in Berlin, the Prussian Parliament, which as two Houses, with a Constitution in many respects exactly modelled on the British Parliament. This Parliament, or local Legislature, deals with all internal affairs of Prussia. It cannot interfere, however, with the internal affairs of Bavaria or of Wurtemburg, or any other State, nor can it interfere in Imperial affairs, which are under the sole contol of the Imperial Parliament, in which all the States are represented. The Prussian Executive is responsible to this Parliament.
In Bavaria a similar Constitution exists, based upon what is practically manhood suffrage.
The same is true of Wurtemburg, and of the twenty two other States which go to make up the present German Empire.
These local Legislatures all through the Empire have full control of:—
When Bismarck was framing his Constitution he declared:— ‘I am anxious that these people should go away heartily satisfied. What are treaties worth which people are forced to sign?’ Bismarck was no believer in paper Unions. A Union, to be effective for good, must be based upon mutual interest.
This great Home Rule Constitution has lasted now since 1871, and has led to freedom, contentment, and prosperity. The problem of combining national freedom with Imperial unity and strength has been completely solved by the magic of Home Rule.
And now, after forty years of subjection as conquered provinces, Alsace and Lorraine are about to be presented with a representative Constitution.
One would fancy that any fair-minded man would admit that the difficulties and dangers surrounding the concession of Home Rule to Alsace-Lorraine were quite as great as, if not, indeed, far greater than, those which surround the Home Rule problem in Ireland, while the necessity for the granting of Home Rule to Alsace-Lorraine might easily be held not to be as urgent as is the case in Ireland, by reason of the fact that Alsace-Lorraine have shared in the general prosperity of the German Empire, whereas Ireland, for the last one hundred years, under the operation of the Union, has lost half her population, and has fallen back in every walk of industrial endeavour.
How far-reaching is the concession may be gathered from the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, who writes:
The Alsace-Lorraine ‘Home Rule’ Bill emerges from the Reichstag Committee a much more democratic instrument than was anticipated, and, of course, immensely superior to the measure that was originally laid before the House. ‘One man, one vote’ has taken the place of a loaded plural voting system; the Reichsland, moreover, is given three votes in the Bundesrath, which is rather the Imperial
Cabinet than an Upper House. This latter is an epoch making concession, as Prussia thereby endangers her whole hegemony in the Confederation of States and from the German Empire.Another progressive amendment effected by the Committee refers to freedom of religious belief and freedom of language. The elections will be held on Sundays. Not even the Catholic Centre was opposed to this. Subject to the control of the Imperial Government, the French language will be taught in the schools, and used in official documents in all districts where it is spoken by the preponderating majority of the population.
On the whole, the Committee's decision is hailed by German Liberals with sincere rejoicings. The Berliner Tageblatt voices the universal opinion when it says that the democratic nature of the Alsace-Lorraine Constitution will have a favourable effect in the development of the political institutions in Prussia and the Empire.
Shall England be less courageous and less liberal in her dealing with Ireland than Germany in her treatment of Alsace-Lorraine?
Every argument that is used against the granting of Home Rule to Ireland was used against the concession to Canada and to the Transvaal. These were arguments which justified themselves by appealing to the existence of old hatreds and injuries mutually inflicted; by reviving racial and religious differences. In every case the result of granting freedom has more than vindicated the wisdom of freedom's advocates.
Sir Edward Grey, speaking at a dinner given to the Colonial Premiers on Friday, April 19th, 1907, said:— ‘The history of our relations with our self-governing Colonies has been a great chapter in the history of freedom. Freedom gives to self-governing Colonies the power to develop their countries, and, what is more important, the special excellencies of their race and character, in the environment of the country in which they live. That is a great gift—the power to develop—which freedom gave. But it has another gift—namely, that to healing. In the history
There is no country in the world whose resources are more undeveloped than those of Ireland; none has deeper wounds to heal. It is time for England to listen to her courage rather than her fear, to her sympathy rather than her prejudices; it is time for her to seek to strengthen a friend rather than to keep an enemy under jealous constraint. Maintenance of the Union means a continuing of England's least honourable past; concession of freedom within the Empire means a new departure under the same inspiration as has led to England's honour and prosperity in every quarter of the world.
England has set to the world two great examples of liberty, first in perfecting democratic government for herself; secondly, in giving to her dependencies full freedom of self-government.
She has in her history one long-standing reproach, one unrighted transgression against liberty—her treatment of Ireland. It is time that she honoured her own record by giving to Ireland the opportunity once more to justify the principle of freedom.
Is Ireland fit for Self-Government?
She asks only the chance to prove her fitness. Have Englishmen, professedly advocates of freedom, the right to deny her that chance?