A Leap in the Dark by A.V. Dicey

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[94] See p. 103, _ante_. [The force of this illustration has been
increased by every Land Act passed since 1893. 'The Imperial Exchequer
[_i.e._ in effect Great Britain] has made a free grant of L17,000,000
towards furthering land purchase; moreover to that end it has expressed
its willingness to pledge its credit to the amount of L183,000,000 of
which over L35,000,000 has already been raised. The Imperial Exchequer
looks to the Irish tenant purchaser for the interest and sinking fund on
that loan.'--Cambray, _Irish Affairs_, p. 214.]

CHAPTER III

WHY THE NEW CONSTITUTION WILL NOT BE A
SETTLEMENT OF THE IRISH QUESTION

'_We believe that this measure [the Home Rule Bill] when improved in
Committee will be, at all events in our time, a final settlement of the
Irish question_.'[95]

'Five speeches were made from the Irish benches ... there was not one of
those speeches which fell short of what we have declared to be in our
opinion necessary for the acceptance of this Bill. That is where we
look for a durable and solid statement as to finality. We find the word
_finality_ not even eschewed by the generous unreserve of the honourable
member for North Longford[96] who attached the character of finality to
the Bill.... What said the honourable member for Kerry[97] last night?
He said, "_This is a Bill that will end the feud of ages_" This is
exactly what we want to do. That is what I call acceptance by the Irish
members of this Bill.... _What we mean by this Bill is to close and bury
a controversy of seven hundred years.'_[98]

This hope of ending the feud of ages has been for years dangled by
Gladstonians before the English electorate. It has gained thousands of
votes for Home Rule. But it is doomed to disappointment. The new
constitution will never be a settlement of the Irish question: and this
for three reasons, which can be definitely stated and easily understood.

_First._ The new constitution satisfies neither Ireland nor England.

It does not satisfy Ireland.

Ulster, Protestant Ireland, and indeed, speaking generally, all men of
property in Ireland, whether Protestant or Catholic, detest Home Rule.
They hate the new constitution, they protest against the new
constitution, they assert that they will to the utmost of their ability
resist the introduction and impede the working of the new constitution.
Their abhorrence of Home Rule may be groundless, their threats may be
baseless; their power to give effect to their menaces may have no
existence. All that I now contend is that the strongest, and the most
energetic, part of Irish society is in fact and in truth bitterly
opposed, not only to the details, but to the fundamental principle, of
the new polity. It avails nothing to urge that the Protestants and the
educated Catholics are in a minority. This plea shows that in Parliament
they can be outvoted; it does not show that they will, or can, be
pacified by a policy which runs counter to their traditions, their
interests, and their sentiment. You cannot vote men into content, you
cannot coerce them into satisfaction. Let us look facts in the face. The
measure which is supposed to gratify Ireland satisfies at most a
majority of Irishmen. This may be enough for a Parliamentary tactician,
it is not enough for a far-seeing statesman or a man of plain common
sense. When we are told a minority are filled with discontent, we must
ask who constitute the minority. When we find that the minority consists
of men of all descriptions and of all creeds, that they represent the
education, the respectability, the worth, and the wealth of Ireland, we
must be filled with alarm. Wealth, no doubt, is no certain sign of
virtue, any more than poverty can be identified with vice; a rich man
may be a scoundrel, and a poor man may be an honour to the human race,
but the world would be much worse constituted than it is, if the
possession of a competence were not connected with honesty, energy,
adherence to duty, and every other civic virtue. When it is said or
admitted by Gladstonians that the propertied classes of Ireland are
against Home Rule we know what this means; it means that the energy of
Ireland is against Home Rule, that the honesty of Ireland is against
Home Rule, that the learning of Ireland is against Home Rule, that all
that makes a nation great is against Home Rule, and that the Irishmen
most entitled to our respect and honour implore us not to force upon
them the curse of Home Rule. This is no trifle. Let us at any rate have
done with phrases; let us admit that the satisfaction of Ireland means
merely the satisfaction of a class, though it may be the most numerous
class of Irishmen, and that it also means the bitter discontent of the
one class of Irishmen who are specially loyal to Great Britain. If we
are closing one feud we are assuredly opening another feud which it may
at least be as hard to heal.

But is it true that even the Home Rulers of Ireland are satisfied? Their
representatives indeed accept the new constitution. Their acceptance may
well, as far as intention goes, be honest. Mr. Davitt, I dare say, when
he sentimentalises in the House of Commons about his affection for the
English democracy, is nearly, though not quite, as sincere as when he
used to express passionate hatred of England.[99] But acquiescence is
one thing, satisfaction is another. There is every reason why the Irish
members should acquiesce in the new constitution. They obtain much, and
they gain the means of getting more. Quite possibly they feel grateful.
But their gratitude is not the gratitude of Ireland, and gratitude is
hardly a sentiment possible, or indeed becoming, to a nation.

England saved Portugal and Spain from the domination of France. Do we
find that Portuguese and Spaniards gladly subordinate their interests to
the welfare of England? France delivered Italy from thraldom to Austria;
French blood paid the price of Italian freedom. Yet France is detested
from one end of Italy to the other, whilst Italians rejoice in the
alliance with Austria. In all this there is nothing unreasonable and
nothing to blame. Policy is not sentimentality, and the relations of
peoples cannot be regulated in the same manner as the relations of
individuals. Thirty, twenty, ten, five years hence all the sentiment of
the year 1893 will have vanished. Irish content and satisfaction must,
if it is to exist at all, rest on a far more solid basis than the hopes,
the words, the pledges, or the intentions of Mr. M'Carthy, Mr. Sexton,
or Mr. Davitt. Note that their satisfaction is even now of a limited
kind. It absolutely depends on the new constitution being worked exactly
in the way which they desire. The use of the veto, legislation for
Ireland by the Imperial Parliament, any conflict between the wish of
England and the wish, I do not say of Ireland, but of the Irish
Nationalists, must from the nature of things put an end to all gratitude
or content. But we may go further than this: the new constitution
contains elements of discord. It denies to Ireland the rights of a
nation; it does not concede to her the full privileges of colonial
independence. No genuine Nationalist can really acquiesce in the
prohibition of Ireland's arming even in self-defence. Where, again, is
the Nationalist who is prepared to say that he will not if the Bill is
passed demand that every conspirator and every dynamiter, who is
suffering for the cause of Ireland, shall be released from prison? Is it
credible that the Land Leaguers have forgotten what is due to the
wounded soldiers of their cause? Are they prepared to forget the
imperative claims of evicted tenants or imprisoned zealots?[100] I
cannot believe it.

But if they are so base as to forget what is due to their friends and
victims, what trust could England place in the permanence of any
sentiment expressed by such men with however much temporary fervour and
however much apparent honesty? If, as I am convinced, the Irish leaders
are not prepared to betray the fanatics or ruffians who have trusted and
served them, then with what content does England look on the prospect of
a general amnesty for criminals or of lavish rewards for breach of
contract and the defiance of law?

But in truth the new constitution provides for the general discontent,
not of one class of Irishmen, but of the whole Irish people.

Home Rule is at bottom federalism, and the successful working of a
federal government depends on the observation by its founders of two
principles. The first is that no one State should be so much more
powerful than the rest as to be capable of vying in strength with the
whole, or even with many of them combined.[101] The second is that the
federal power should never if possible come into direct conflict with
the authority of any State. Each of these well-known principles has,
partly from necessity and partly from want of skill, been violated by
the constructors of the spurious federation which is to be miscalled the
United Kingdom. The confederacy will consist of two States; the one,
England, to use popular but highly significant language, in wealth, in
population, and in prestige immensely outweighs the other, Ireland. And
by an error less excusable because it might have been avoided, the power
of the central government will be brought into direct conflict with the
authority of the Irish State. Read the Bill as it should be read by any
one who wishes to understand the working of the new constitution, and
throughout substitute 'England' for the term 'United Kingdom.' Note then
what must be the operation of the constitution in the eyes of an
Irishman. The federal power is the power of England. An English Viceroy
instructed by an English Ministry will veto Bills passed by an Irish
Parliament and approved by the Irish people. An English court will annul
Irish Acts; English revenue officers will collect Irish customs, and
every penny of the Irish customs will pass into the English Exchequer.
An English army commanded by English officers, acting under the orders
of English ministers, will be quartered up and down Ireland, and, in the
last resort, English soldiers will be employed to wring money from the
Irish Exchequer for the rigorous payment of debts due from Ireland to
England. Will any Irishman of spirit bear this? Will not Irishmen of all
creeds and parties come to hate the constitution which subjects Ireland
to English rule when England shall have in truth been turned into an
alien power?

The new constitution does not in any case satisfy England.

That England is opposed to Home Rule is admitted on all hands; that
England has good reason to oppose the new form of Home Rule with very
special bitterness is apparent to every Unionist, and must soon become
apparent to any candid man, whether Gladstonian or Unionist, who
carefully studies the provisions of the new constitution, and meditates
on the effect of retaining Irish representatives in the Parliament at
Westminster. For my present purpose there is no need to establish that
English discontent is reasonable; enough to note its existence.

A consideration must be here noticed which as the controversy over Home
Rule goes on will come into more and more prominence. We are engaged in
rearranging new terms of union between England and Ireland; this is the
real effect of the Home Rule Bill; but for such a rearrangement Great
Britain and Ireland must in fairness, no less than in logic, be treated
as independent parties. Whether you make a Union or remodel a Union
between two countries the satisfaction of both parties to the treaty is
essential. Till England is satisfied the new constitution lacks moral
sanction. That the Act of Union could not have been carried without, at
any rate, the technical assent both of Great Britain and Ireland is
admitted, and yet the moral validity of the Treaty of Union is, whether
rightly or not, after the lapse of ninety-three years assailed, on the
ground that the assent of Ireland was obtained by fraud and undue
influence. But if the separate assent of both parties was required for
the making of the treaty, so the free assent of both must be required
for its revision, and the politicians who force on Great Britain the
terms of a political partnership which Great Britain rejects, repeat in
1893 and in an aggravated form the error or crime of 1800.[102]

_Secondly_. The new constitution rests on an unsound foundation.

It is a topsy-turvy constitution, it aims at giving weakness supremacy
over strength.

The main, though not the sole, object of a well-constituted polity is to
place political power (whilst guarding against its abuse) in the hands
of the men, or body of men, who from the nature of things, _i.e._ by
wealth, education, position, numbers, or otherwise, form the most
powerful portion of a given state. The varying forms of the English
Constitution have, on the whole, possessed the immense merit of giving
at each period of our history political authority into the hands of the
class, or classes, who made up the true strength of the nation. Right
has in a rough way been combined with might. Wherever this is not the
case, and genuine power is not endowed with political authority, there
exists a sure cause of revolution; for sooner or later the natural
forces of any society must assert their predominance. No institution
will stand which does not correspond with the nature of things. Vain
were all the efforts of party interest or of philanthropic enthusiasm to
give to the Blacks political predominance in the Southern States. Votes,
ballot boxes, laws, federal arms, all were in vain. By methods which no
man will justify, but which no power could resist, the Whites have
re-acquired political authority. The nature of things could not be made
obedient to the dogmas of democratic equality. Now the gravest flaw of
the new constitution, the disease from which it is certain to perish, is
that, in opposition to the forces which ultimately must determine the
destiny of the United Kingdom, it renders the strong elements of the
community subordinate to the weak.

In Ireland Dublin is made supreme over Belfast, the South is made not
the equal, but in effect the master of the North; ignorance is given
dominion over education, poverty is allowed to dispose of wealth. If
Ireland were an independent state, or even a self-governed British
colony, things would right themselves. But the politicians who are to
rule in Dublin will not depend upon their own resources or be checked by
a sense of their own feebleness. They will be constitutionally and
legally entitled to the support of the British army; they will
constitute the worst form of government of which the world has had
experience, a government which relying for its existence on the aid of
an external power finds in its very feebleness support for tyranny.
Murmurs are already heard of armed resistance. These mutterings, we are
told, are nothing but bluster. It is at any rate that sort of "bluster"
at which the justice and humanity of a loyal Englishman must take alarm.
I have not yet learnt to look without horror on the possibility of civil
war, nor to picture to myself without emotion the situation of brave men
compelled by the British army to obey rulers whose moral claim to
allegiance they justly deny and whose power unaided by British arms they
contemn. Civil warfare created by English policy and despotism
maintained by English arms must surely be to any Englishman objects of
equal abhorrence.

But in England no less than in Ireland our new constitution gives
artificial power to weakness. At Westminster the Irish members, be they
80 or 103, will have no legitimate place. Mr. Gladstone on this point
is, for aught I know, at one with the Unionists. In 1886 he without
scruple, and therefore no doubt without any sense of injustice, expelled
the representatives of Ireland from the British Parliament. In 1893 he
brings them back to Westminster. But his words betray his hesitation. He
expects, may we not say he hopes, that they will remain in Ireland and
on their occasional visits to London have the good sense and good taste
not to interfere in British affairs. Few are the persons who share these
anticipations. If they are to be realised they must be embodied in the
constitution; the Premier might at this moment without shame, and
without regret, revert to the better policy of 1886. On his present
policy we all know that his expectations will not be fulfilled. The
voluntary absence of the Irish members from Westminster is as vain a
dream as the fancy that Ireland under Home Rule may suffer from a
plethora of money. To Westminster the Irish members will come. If they
do not come of their own accord they will be fetched by allies who need
their help. At Westminster they will hold the balance of parties, and
will while the constitution lasts rule the destiny of England with a
sole regard at best to the immediate interest of Ireland, at worst to
the interests of an Irish faction. To Ireland will be given power
without responsibility, to England will belong responsibility without
power. Nor will the unnatural subjection of a great, a flourishing, a
wealthy, and a proud country to a weaker and poorer neighbour be
rendered the more bearable by the knowledge that the ill-starred
supremacy of Ireland means, in England, the equally unnatural and
equally ominous predominance of an English faction, which, since it
needs Irish aid, does not command England's confidence. Radicals or
revolutionists will in the long run have bitter cause to regret an
arrangement which identifies their political triumph with England's
humiliation.

_Thirdly_. The new constitution is based on a play of words which
conceals two contradictory interpretations of its character.[103]

The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament means to Irish Home Rulers and
to most Gladstonians that Ireland shall possess colonial
independence.[104] It means to Unionists and to many electors who can
hardly be called either Unionists or Gladstonians, that the British
Parliament, or, in other words, England, shall retain the real,
effective, and even habitual control of Irish affairs. In the one sense
it means only that Ireland shall remain part of the British Empire, in
the other that Ireland shall still be part of the United Kingdom. And,
what is of great importance, the mass of Englishmen waver between these
two interpretations of Imperial supremacy. When they think of Home Rule
as satisfying Ireland, they hold that it gives Irishmen everything which
they can possibly ask. When they think of Home Rule as not dismembering
the United Kingdom, they fancy that it leaves to the British Parliament
all the real authority which Parliament can possibly require.

This difference of interpretation lays the foundation of
misunderstanding, but it does far more harm than this. It must keep
Irish Nationalists alarmed, and not without reason, for the permanence
of the independence which they may have obtained. A change of feeling or
a change of party may cause the Imperial Parliament to assert its
reserved authority. England keeps her pledges.[105] Yes, but here it is
not a mere question of good faith. When two contractors each from the
beginning put _bona fide_ a different interpretation upon their
contract, neither of them is chargeable with dishonesty for acting in
accordance with his own view of the agreement. The spirit of Unionism
and the spirit of Separation will survive the creation of the new
constitution. Under one form or another Unionists will be opposed to
Federalists and it is more than possible, should the Bill pass, that the
division of English parties may turn upon their reading of the Irish
Government Act, 1893.

The possibility, again, that the Parliament at Westminster may assert
its reserved authority, if it raises the fears of Irishman, may excite
the hopes of English politicians. If at any time the supremacy of
Ireland becomes unbearable to British national sentiment, or if the
condition of Ireland menaces or is thought to menace English interests,
the new constitution places in the hands of a British majority a
ready-made weapon for the restoration of British power. The result might
be attained without the necessity for passing any Act of Parliament, or
of repealing a single section of the Irish Government Act, 1893. A
strong Viceroy might be sent to Ireland; he might be instructed not to
convoke the Irish Parliament at all; or, having convoked, at once to
prorogue it. He might thereupon form any Ministry he chose out of the
members of the Irish Privy Council. The Imperial Parliament would at
once resume its present position and could pass laws for Ireland. This
might be called revolution or reaction. For my argument it matters not
two straws by what name this policy be designated. The scheme sketched
out is not a policy which I recommend. My contention is not that it
will be expedient--this is a matter depending upon circumstances which
no man can foresee--but that it will be strictly and absolutely legal.

The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, combined with the presence of
the Irish members at Westminster, will thus by a curious fatality turn
out a source at once of permanent disquietude to Ireland and of
immediate, if not of permanent, weakness to England.

Our New Constitution is not made to last Home Rule does not close a
controversy; it opens a revolution.

No one in truth expects that the new constitution will stand. Its very
builders hesitate when they speak of its permanence,[106] and are
grateful for the generous credulity of a friend who believes in its
finality. Nor is it hard to conjecture (and in such a matter nothing but
conjecture is possible) what are the forces or tendencies which threaten
its destruction.

If Ireland is discontented Irishmen will demand either the extension of
federalism or separation. In every federal government the tendency of
the States is to diminish as far as possible the authority of the
federal power. But this tendency will be specially strong in the
grotesque Anglo-Irish federation, since the federal power will be
nothing but the predominance of England. The mode of weakening the
federal authority is only too obvious. 'The more there is of the more,'
says a profound Spanish proverb, 'the less there is of the less.' The
more the number of separate States in the confederacy, the less will be
the weight of England, and the greater the relative authority of
Ireland. Let England, Scotland, and Wales become separate States, let
the Channel Islands and Man, and, if possible, some colonies, be added
to the federation, and as the greatness of England dwindles so the
independence of Ireland will grow.

Some seven years ago Sir Gavan Duffy predicted that before ten years had
elapsed there would be a federation of the Empire.[107] Like other
prophets he may have antedated the fulfilment of his prediction, but his
dictum is the forecast of an experienced politician--it points to a
pressing danger. Home Rule for Ireland menaces the dissolution of the
United Kingdom, and the unity of the United Kingdom is the necessary
condition for maintaining the existence of the British Empire. Home Rule
is the first stage to federalism.

But Irish discontent, should it not find satisfaction in a movement for
federalism, will naturally take the form of the demand for colonial or
for national independence. You cannot play with the spirit of political
nationality. The semi-independence of Ireland from England, combined
with the undue influence of Ireland in English politics, is certain to
produce both unreasonable and reasonable grounds for still further
loosening the tie which binds together the two islands. The cry 'Ireland
a nation' is one of which no Irishman need be ashamed, and to which
North and South alike, irritated by the vexations of a makeshift
constitution, are, as I have already insisted, likely enough to rally.

Nor is it certain that Irish Federalists or Irish Nationalists will not
obtain allies in England. The politicians who are content with a light
heart to destroy the work of Pitt may, for aught I know, with equal
levity, annul the Union with Scotland and undo the work of Somers, or by
severing Wales from the rest of England render futile the achievement of
the greatest of the Plantagenets. Enthusiasts for 'Home Rule all round'
would appear to regard their capacity for destroying the United Kingdom
as a proof of their ability to build up a new fabric of Imperial power,
and to fulfil their vain dreams of a federated Empire. Sensible men may
doubt whether a turn for revolutionary destruction is any evidence that
politicians possess the rare gift of constructive statesmanship. And
should the working of the new constitution confirm these doubts, persons
of prudence will begin to perceive that Irish independence is for both
England and Ireland a less evil than the extension of federalism.

The natural expression however of English discontent or disappointment
is reactionary opposition. Reaction, or the attempt of one party in a
state to reverse a fundamental policy deliberately adopted by the
nation, is one of the worst among the offspring of revolution, and is
almost, though not entirely, unknown to the history of England. Yet
there is more than one reason why if the Home Rule Bill be carried,
reaction should make its ill-omened appearance in the field of English
public life. The policy of Home Rule, even should it be for the moment
successful, lacks the moral sanctions which have compelled English
statesmen to accept accomplished facts. The methods of agitation in its
favour have outraged the moral sense of the community. Mr. Gladstone's
victory is the victory of Mr. Parnell, and the triumph of Parnellism is
the triumph of conspiracy, and of conspiracy rendered the more base
because it was masked under the appearance of a constitutional movement.
Neither the numbers nor the composition of the ministerial majority are
impressive. The tactics of silence, evasion, and ambiguity may aid in
gaining a parliamentary victory, but deprive the victory of that respect
for the victors on the part of the vanquished which, in civil contests
at any rate, alone secures permanent peace. But the pleas and
justifications for reaction are rarely its causes. If Englishmen attempt
to bring about the legal destruction of the new constitution, their
action will be produced by a sense of the false position assigned to
England. No device of statesmanship can stand which is condemned by the
nature of things. The predominance of England in the affairs of the
United Kingdom is secured by sanctions which in the long run can neither
be defied nor set aside; the constitution which does not recognise this
predominance is doomed to ruin. That its overthrow would be just no one
dare predict; the future is as uncertain as it is dark. A main reason
why a wise man must deprecate the weak surrender by Englishmen of
rightful power is the dread that, if in a moment of irritation they
reassert their strength, they may exhibit neither their good faith nor
their justice.

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