A Leap in the Dark by A.V. Dicey

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The peril in which the country stands is concealed from us by a curious
reaction of opinion. Good political institutions, it was at one time
held, were the cause of a nation's happiness, and England, it was firmly
believed, owed her prosperity wholly to her constitution. A century of
revolutions has taught us all that a good form of government cannot of
itself save a state from ruin, and many of us have come to think that
forms of government are nothing, and that no constitutional changes can
impair the strength of England. No delusion however is more patent or
more noxious. Never was a country richer in the elements of strength
than were the Thirteen Colonies when their independence was acknowledged
by England. Yet the Confederation by the vices of its constitution
filled the colonies with discord, and made them both weak at home and
contemptible abroad, whilst the creation of the United States restored
them to peace and opened for them the road to greatness. The
predominance for more than fifty years of the Slave Power in the
politics of the American Union, the struggle measured by centuries
through which at last the Protestant and progressive Cantons of
Switzerland asserted their rightful supremacy over the Catholic and
unprogressive Cantons of Switzerland, the weakness of Prussia when, not
much more than forty[135] years back, she could hardly maintain her
rights and her dignity against Austria, the classical instance of
Germany, which though possessed of every source of power lay for
generations at the mercy of France, mainly on account of vicious
political institutions, are proofs, if evidence were wanting, of the
capacity of ill-designed constitutions to hamper the action and threaten
the prosperity of great nations. A constitution in truth is a national
garb. A good constitution will not make a weak country strong, but an
unsuitable constitution may reduce a strong country to feebleness. A
weakling does not become a strong man by putting on armour, but a giant
can derive no advantage from his strength if once he be got by fraud or
force into a strait waistcoat.

Strength, it is true, will in the long run assert itself. The artificial
supremacy of Ireland, or of a faction supported by Irish votes, will not
last for ever; probably it will not last long. If the new constitution
prove unbearable by England it will not be borne; it will be overthrown
or evaded. Far am I from asserting that the breach or evasion will, when
it shall occur, be justifiable. Englishmen's ideas of good faith are
strict, but they are narrow. One main reason for dreading the new
constitution is that it may try beyond measure the patience and the
honesty of England. If, for instance, Ulster should resist the legal
authority of the Parliament at Dublin, there may arise one of those
terrible periods in which the observation of pledged faith seems
inconsistent with the natural dictates of honour and humanity, and weak
concession at the present moment will, at such a crisis, be found to
have contained among its other perils the danger lest England, when at
last she re-asserts her power in Ireland, should not re-establish her
justice.

Where then lies the path of safety? The road is difficult, but it is
clearly marked; it is at any rate to be found, not by any exercise of
subtlety or of extraordinary acuteness, but by obeying the plain
dictates of common sense and sound public morality. The characteristics
of Unionist policy must be seriousness, simplicity, and reliance upon
an appeal to the nation.

Seriousness is essential.

The need of the time is to impress on the mass of the people the intense
gravity of the crisis. Far too much was said before the general election
about the weaknesses and the inconsistencies of the Gladstonians, and
far too little about the causes of their strength and the absolute
necessity for arduous efforts to defeat the Separatists at the
polling-booths. The error must not be repeated.

The people must be told, as they may be told with absolute truth, that
the fate of England is in question, and that nothing but the efforts of
every Unionist throughout the land can save the country from
destruction. The contest has, without either party being aware of the
change, shifted its character since 1886. Then the names of Unionists
and Separatists expressed the whole difference between the opponents and
supporters of the Home Rule Bill. The Gladstonians for the most part
meant the Bill to affect, as far as possible, the condition of Ireland
alone. They did not mean to change the constitution of the United
Kingdom. It is now plain, as has been shown throughout these pages, that
the measure of so-called Home Rule is a new constitution for the whole
United Kingdom. In 1886 the Gladstonians _bona fide_ intended to close
the period of agitation. In 1893 many Gladstonians see in Home Rule for
Ireland only the first step towards an extended scheme of federalism.
In 1886 no Gladstonian had palliated crime or oppression, no
Gladstonian statesman had discovered that boycotting was nothing but
exclusive dealing, no Gladstonian Chancellor had made light of
conspiracy. All this is changed. Alliance with revolutionists or
conspirators has imbued respectable English statesmen with revolutionary
doctrines and revolutionary sentiment. The difference between Unionist
and Separatist remains, but it is merged in the wider difference between
Constitutionalists and Revolutionists. The question at issue is not
merely, though this is serious enough, whether the Act of Union shall be
repealed or relaxed, but whether the United Kingdom is morally a nation,
and whether as a nation it has a right to insist upon the supreme
authority belonging to the majority of its citizens. A similar question
was some thirty-two years ago put to the people of the United States; it
was decided by the arbitrament of battle.

The terrible calamity of an appeal to the test of force Englishmen may
avoid, but if it is to be avoided the national rights of the whole
people of the United Kingdom must be asserted as strenuously by their
votes as the rights of the citizens of the United States were vindicated
by their arms. The people of England again must be solemnly warned that
errors in policy or acts of injustice may snatch from us the power of
determining a political controversy at the ballot-box instead of on the
battle-field. It is folly to raise cases on the constitution; it is
always of the most doubtful prudence to handle the casuistry of
politics. Nothing will tempt me to discuss in these pages what are the
ethical limits to the exercise of constitutionally unlimited
sovereignty, or at what point legal oppression justifies armed
resistance. Two considerations must at this crisis be kept in mind. The
one is that, until oppression is actually committed, the maintenance of
order is the duty of every citizen, and, like most political duties, is
also a matter of the most obvious expediency; the other is that the
compulsion of loyal citizens to forgo the direct protection of the
government whose sovereignty they admit, and to accept the rule of a
government whose moral claim to their allegiance they deny, is a
proceeding of the grossest injustice. Let the people of England also be
solemnly warned that the Gladstonian policy of 1893 repeats the
essential error of the condemned policy of Protestant ascendency.
Gladstonians hold that the democracy of England may ally itself with the
democracy of Ireland, and may treat lightly the rights and the wishes of
a Protestant and Conservative minority. In bygone times the aristocratic
and Protestant government of England allied itself with the Protestant
and aristocratic government of Ireland, and held light the rights and
the wishes of the Catholic majority. Each policy labours under the same
defect. The enforced supremacy of a class, be it a minority or a
majority, is opposed to the equitable principle of the supremacy of the
whole nation. There is no reason to suppose that Catholic ascendency
will be found more tolerable than was Protestant ascendency.

The policy of Unionism should be marked by simplicity.

The Unionist leaders have a clear though a difficult duty to perform.
Their one immediate function is resistance to a dangerous revolution.
Logically and politically, there was a good deal to be said for the
deliberate refusal to discuss, or to vote upon, any of the details of
the Home Rule Bill. There is always a danger lest the attempt to amend a
radically and essentially vicious measure should promote the delusion
that it is amendable. And any success in debate would be dearly
purchased if it led the electors to suppose that the Government of
Ireland Bill, which in fact embodies a policy, so fundamentally perverse
that no alteration of details can render it tolerable, is a measure
which, though faulty in its execution, is sound in principle. The
Unionists leaders, however, whom we can absolutely trust, have decided
that abstention from debate would be an error. As far as the matter is
to be looked at from a parliamentary point of view their judgment is
decisive, and since the policy of combating the Bill point by point has
been adopted it should be carried out, as it is being carried out, with
the utmost stringency. Minute discussion of the clauses of the Bill is
elaborate instruction for the mass of the nation.

To the cry of obstruction no heed whatever need be paid. As long as
there is real discussion obstruction becomes, when the matter in debate
is the formation of a new constitution for the United Kingdom, an
impossibility. The business needs the most careful consideration.
Ministers themselves are uncertain as to what are the essential
principles of their own scheme. Every detail involves a principle, and
in a Bill where clearness is of vital importance, every clause involves
an ambiguity. Each part moreover of the new constitution must be
considered with regard to the rest, and the expression of different
views as to the meaning of the Bill is of itself of utility, when it is
of the greatest importance that Englishmen and Irishmen, Conservatives
and Radicals, should be agreed as to the meaning of the new Fundamental
Law. When, in short, a constitution for the country is being drawn up,
no discussion which is rational can be obstructive. If a week or a
fortnight of parliamentary time is expended in defining the meaning of
the supreme authority of Parliament, or in deciding whether the Irish
delegacy is or is not to be retained at Westminster, not a moment too
much is devoted to points of such transcendent importance. 'But the
debate,' it is urged, 'will at this rate last for months.' Why not? 'No
other Bills,' it is added, 'can be passed.' What Bills, I answer, ought
to be passed whilst the constitution of England is undergoing
fundamental alteration? 'But the principles of the measure,' it is
objected, 'might have been discussed and settled during the last seven
years.' So, I reply, they might, if it had pleased the Gladstonians
either to produce their Bill or to announce its general principles.
Their silence was politic; it won them a majority at the general
election, but you cannot from the nature of things combine the
advantages both of reticence and of outspokenness. Silence may have been
justified as a piece of clever party tactics; it is a very different
question whether the concealment of seven years has turned out high
statesmanship. Gladstonians, like other men, cannot, as the saying goes,
have their cake and eat it. They have had the advantages, they are now
paying the inevitable price of reserve. Unionists in any case are bound
to turn this invaluable time to account. Discussion of the constitution
is the education of the people.

In order, however, that this political training may be effective, our
parliamentary teachers must take care that the public are not confused
by the prominence necessarily given to details. Minute criticism of the
Bill is important, but at the present moment it is important only as
enforcing the radical vice of its main principles. No effort must be
spared to keep the mind of the nation well fixed upon these principles.
The surrender by the British Parliament and the British Government of
all effective part in the government of Ireland, the ambiguities of such
a term as 'Imperial supremacy' and all that these ambiguities involve,
the inadequacy and the futility of the Restrictions, the errors and
impolicy of the financial arrangements, above all the injustice to
England and the injury to Ireland of retaining, under a system of Home
Rule, even a single Irish representative at Westminster, these broad
considerations are the things which should be pressed, and pressed home,
upon the electors. Minor matters are good topics for parliamentary
discussion, but should not receive a confusing and illusory prominence.

The electors again must be made to feel that it is the essential
principle of Home Rule, the setting up of an Irish Government and an
Irish Parliament, to which Unionists are opposed. The least appearance
of concession to Home Rulers, or any action which gives increased
currency to the delusion, certainly cherished by some moderate
Gladstonians, that Home Rule can be identified with or cut down to
extended local self-government,[136] will be fatal to the cause of
Unionism. The concession to Ireland of a petty, paltry, peddling
legislature, which dare hardly call itself a Parliament, and is
officially designated say as a national council, combined with some
faint imitation of a Cabinet, called say a committee, would disappoint
and irritate Home Rulers; it would cheat their hopes, but it would
afford them the means of gaining their end. It would not give assurance
to Unionists, it would not be a triumph of Unionist policy, it would
rather be the destruction of Unionism. The one course of safety is to
take care that at the next general election the country has laid before
it for determination a clear and unmistakable issue. The question for
every elector to answer must be reducible to the form Aye or No; will
you, or will you not, repeal the Union and establish an Irish Executive
and an Irish Parliament in Dublin? If the question be so raised
Unionists have no reason to fear an answer.

The policy of Unionism has always relied on an appeal to the nation.

The one desire of Unionists has always been to fight their opponents on
the clear unmistakable issue of Home Rule. The policy of Separatists has
been to keep Home Rule in the background whilst making its meaning
indefinite, and to mix up all the multifarious issues raised by the
Newcastle programme, as well as many others, with the one essential
question whether we should or should not repeal or modify the Act of
Union.

To their policy of appeal to the people the Unionists will, of course,
adhere. The House of Lords will, it may be presumed, as a matter not so
much of right as of obvious duty, reject the present Home Rule Bill, so
as to refer to the electors of the United Kingdom the question whether
we shall, or shall not, have a new constitution. Even if such a
reference to the electors should result in a Gladstonian majority, it is
still possible that a further dissolution might be necessary. The
majority for Home Rule might be much reduced. I doubt whether Mr.
Gladstone himself would maintain that with a majority say of ten or
twenty, a Minister would be morally justified in attempting a
fundamental change in the constitution. As to such speculative matters
there is no need to say anything. It is worth while, however, to repeat
a statement which cannot be too often insisted upon, that the most
important function of the House of Lords at the present day is to take
care that no fundamental change in the constitution takes place which
has not received the undoubted assent of the nation. The peers are more
and more clearly awakening to the knowledge that under the circumstances
of modern public life this protection of the rights of the nation, which
is in complete conformity with democratic principle, is the supreme duty
of the Upper House.

The question, however, to be considered at the moment is whether for the
performance of this duty something more may not be required than the
compelling of a dissolution. This something more is a direct appeal to
the electors in the nature of a Referendum. The question is still a
theoretical one; it cannot (unfortunately as it will appear to many
persons) be raised during the debates on the Bill in the House of
Commons. When the Bill reaches the House of Lords, it will, we may
suppose, be rejected, and all that a Unionist can wish for is, first,
that before actual rejection its general principles should be subjected
to complete discussion, and what is in this case the same thing,
exposure, and next that the House of Lords should, if necessary, take
steps which can easily be imagined, for providing that the rejection of
the Bill shall entail a dissolution. If, however, the dissolution should
result in a Gladstonian majority, and should lead to another Home Rule
Bill being sent up to their lordships, the question then arises as to
the Referendum. My own conviction, which has been before laid before the
public, is that the Lords would do well if they appended to any Home
Rule Bill which they were prepared to accept a clause which might make
its coming into force depend upon its, within a limited time, receiving
the approval of the majority of the electors of the United Kingdom. And
in the particular case of the Home Rule Bill it is fair, for reasons
already stated,[137] that the Bill before becoming law should receive
the assent of a majority of the electors both of Great Britain and of
Ireland. This course, it may be said, is unconstitutional. This word has
no terrors for me; it means no more than unusual, and the institution of
a Referendum would simply mean the formal acknowledgment of the doctrine
which lies at the basis of English democracy--that a law depends at
bottom for its enactment on the assent of the nation as represented by
the electors. At a time when the true danger is that sections or classes
should arrogate to themselves authority which belongs to the State, it
is an advantage to bring into prominence the sovereignty of the nation.
The present is exactly a crisis at which we may override the practices
to save the principles of the constitution. The most forcible objection
which can be made is that you ought not for the sake of avoiding a
particular evil to introduce an innovation of dubious expediency. The
objection itself is valid, but it is in the present instance
inapplicable. My conviction is that the introduction of the Referendum,
in one shape or another in respect of large constitutional changes,
would be a distinct benefit to the country. It affords the one available
check on the recklessness of party leaders; for the check is at once
effective and in perfect conformity with democratic principle and
sentiment. A second objection is that a Referendum renders any law which
obtains the approval of the electors more difficult of alteration than
an ordinary Act of Parliament. The allegation is true, but it really
tells greatly in favour of an ultimate reference to the people of any
Home Rule Bill passed in a Parliament. If such a Bill becomes law, it
ought to be a law not admitting of easy repeal. No doubt reaction may be
justifiable, but reaction is a great evil, and the Referendum puts a
check as well on reaction as on hasty innovation. In any case the time
has arrived when Unionist statesmen should consider the expediency of
announcing that no Home Rule Bill will finally be accepted until it has
undergone a reference to and received the approval of the electors. On
no better issue could battle be joined with revolutionists than on the
question whether the people of the United Kingdom should or should not
be allowed to express their will. Unionists have every reason to feel
confidence in their cause; their only policy, their one path of safety
is to make it, as they can do, absolutely plain that they rely upon
justice, and that they appeal from parties to the nation.

We have now before us the essential features of the new constitution
framed by Gladstonians for the whole United Kingdom. We know its
inherent defects and inconsistencies; we have considered what may be
said on its behalf, or rather of the policy of which it is the outcome.
The proposed change in our form of government touches the very
foundations of the State, and deeply, though indirectly, threatens the
unity of the whole Empire. Never surely since the day when the National
Assembly of France drew up that Constitution of 1791, which built to be
eternal endured for not quite a year, has an ancient nation been so
strangely invited to accept an untried and unknown polity.

The position indeed of the French constitution-makers was in some
respects stronger and more defensible than the position of our English
innovators. The members of the National Assembly knew precisely what
they were doing. They meant to alter the fundamental institutions of
France. A change moreover in the whole scheme of French government was
an admitted necessity. France might be uncertain as to the working of
the new constitution, but France was absolutely certain that the _ancien
regime_ was detestable. Individuals or nations may wisely risk much when
they are escaping from a social condition which they detest, they may
know that an innovation is in itself of doubtful expediency, yet may
consider any alleged reform worth a trial when no change can be a change
for the worse. In the France of 1791 confidence in the future meant
abhorrence of the past.

The authors of our new constitution can hardly be called the designers
of their own handiwork; they have been the sport of accident. Their
intention, or rather the intention of their leader, was in 1886 merely
to grant some sort of Parliamentary independence to Ireland. The
resolution to concede Home Rule was sudden; it may have been taken up
without due weighing of its consequences. It has assuredly led to
unexpected results. The statesmen who meant merely to give Home Rule to
Ireland have stumbled into the making of a new constitution for the
United Kingdom. What wonder that their workmanship betrays its
accidental origin. It has no coherence, no consistency; nothing is
called by its right name, and words are throughout substituted for
facts; the new Parliament of Ireland is denied its proper title; the
supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is nominally saved, and is really
destroyed; and the very statesmen who proclaim the supremacy of the
Imperial Parliament refuse to assert the subordination of the Irish
Parliament. The authors of the constitution are at sea as to its
leading principles, and its most essential provision they deem an
organic detail, which may at any moment be modified or removed. The
whole thing is an incongruous patchwork affair, made up of shreds and
tatters torn from the institutions of other lands. It is as inconsistent
with the proposed and rejected Constitution of 1886 as with the existing
Constitution of England. While however our constitution-makers tender
for the acceptance of the nation a scheme of fundamental change, whereof
the effect is uncertain, conjectural, and perilous, and the permanence
is not guaranteed by its authors, Englishmen are well satisfied with
their old constitution; they may desire its partial modification or
expansion, they have never even contemplated its overthrow. Politicians,
in short, who meant to initiate a moderate reform, are pressing a
revolutionary change on a country which neither needs nor desires a
revolution; they propose to get rid of grave, though temporary,
inconveniences by a permanent alteration of which no man can calculate
the results in our whole system of government. Never before was a nation
so strangely advised by such bewildered counsellors to take for so
little apparent reason so desperate a leap in the dark.

FOOTNOTES:

[134] The whole gist of this chapter applies to the state of England in
1911 with greater force than even to its condition in 1893. Home Rule
will be carried, if at all, only by a House of Commons freed from the
authority of the House of Lords, and from the need of an appeal to the
people.

[135] Now sixty-one years.

[136] If any one wishes to see the difference between local
self-government and Home Rule, let him compare the Bill for the
extension of self-government in Ireland, brought in by the late
Ministry, with the Home Rule Bill. The Local Government Bill went very
far, some persons may even maintain dangerously far, in creating and in
extending the authority of local bodies in Ireland. But it was not Home
Rule, or anything like Home Rule. The most extended Local Government
Bill and the most restricted Home Rule Bill differ fundamentally in
principle. The one in effect denies, the other in effect concedes, a
separate national government to Ireland.

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