England's Case Against Home Rule

g in precision. Hence it is well, before we investigate the different forms which schemes of Home

me Rule

ay use language with which we are all familiar in relation to the Colonies, the

people. Hence every scheme of Home Rule which merits that name is marked by three features-first, the creation of an Irish Parliament; secondly, the right of the Irish Parliament to legislate within its own sphere (however tha

rliament, might well, and indeed far better, be a President or Council elected, like the Governor of New York, by popular vote), the occasions on which the British Parliament should retain the legal or moral right of legislation for Ireland-these and a score of other subjects which at once suggest themselves to a critic of constitutions are of supreme importance, but in whatever way they may be determined, they do not touch the principle of Home Rule. A scheme, on the other hand, however wise its provisions, which lacked the essential characteristics already enumerated, would not meet the demand for Home Rule;

Rule doe

elf-Government; Home Rule does

it is based on the fact that every non-sovereign law-making body, whether it be the French National Assembly, the American Congress, or the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Co., belongs to one and the same genus.[2] The casuists of jurisprudence may quibble for ever over the confines between Home Rule and Local Self-Government; men of sense engaged in the consideration of affairs thrust aside such inopportune logomachy, and content themselves with the knowledge that were the Town Council, say, of Birmingham or of Belfast endowed with tenfold its present powers, it would differ essentially from any Irish Parliament which, even though denied the Parliamentary title, should represent the people of Ireland, and should have received the very smallest amount of authority which could by any possibility satisfy Mr. Parnell. Nor are differences which may not admit of easy definition difficult for a candid enquirer to discern. A town council, whatever its powers, does not represent a nation, and derives no prestige from the principle of nationality; the feeblest legislative assembly meeting at Dublin would rightly claim to speak for the Irish people. A

elf-Gov

e, for it is connected with a question so pressing as to exc

imilar extension of Local Self-Government to Ireland they may satisfy the demand for Home Rule. They conceive, in short, that it is possible to confer a substantial benefit upon the Irish people, and to close a dangerous agitation, by giving to Belfast and to Cork the same municipal privileges which they wish to extend to Birmingham or to Liverpool. The reasons for this beli

s in a sound state; what is false is, that Local Self-Government produces a sound state of society. The primary condition necessary for the success of self-government is harmony between different classes. The rich must be the guides of the poor, the poor must put trust in the rich. Men who are placed above corruption must interest themselves in the laborious but important details of local administration; men who might be corrupted themselves, must desire to place power in the hands of leaders who are as a class incorruptible. High public spirit, a detestation of jobbery, trust and goodwill between rich and poor, are the feelings which make good local or municipal government possible. There are certain parts of England, there are larger parts of the United States, where these admirable and r

ave those institutions which that part prefers, (though in so far as this end can be attained its attainment is desirable,) or, still less, that every part of the kingdom should have the same institutions as every other part. That this is so everybody in a general way admits. No one supposes that because the people of Leicester abominate vaccination the Vaccination Acts are not to be extended to that borough, or that the wish of the people of Birmingham in favour of free schools is decisive in favour of making education in Birmingham gratuitous. The will of a locality is admitted not to be the expression of the will of the nation. No one, again, fancies that the legal institutions of England ought of necessity to be extended to Scotland, or the law of Scotland to England. In Ireland recent legislation has, and with general approval, established institutions which no one alleges must, because they exist in Ireland, be applied of necessity or as a matter of justice to England. English tenants might in many cases, it is likely enough, think the provisions of the Irish Land Acts a boon, but no one would listen to the argument that simply because under the special circumstances of Ireland special privileges are give

has not the qualities which, if Home Rule be really desired by the Irish people, make Home Rule desirable. It does not meet the feeling of nationality; it does not give the popular leaders authority to settle the land question; it does not free the law from its alien aspect. The very reasons which make English reformers favour the extension of Local Self-Government in Ireland prove that Local Self-Government, whatever its merits, is no substitute for Parliamenta

l Indep

f State-rights. In all this there is nothing unreasonable and nothing blameworthy. One part of the United Kingdom is prepared to accept new terms of partnership. But this acceptance, though reasonable and fair enough, is quite inconsistent with any claim for national independence. A nation is one thing, a state forming part of a federation is quite another. To ask for the position of a dependent colony like Victoria, or of a province such as Ontario, is to renounce the demand to be a nation. A bona fide Home Ruler cannot be a bona fide Nationalist. This point deserves attention, not for the sake of the miserable and ruinous advantage which is obtained by taunting an adversary in controversy with inconsistency till you drive him to improve his logical position by increasing the exactin