Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE LIMITATIONS OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT. WHAT ABOUT IRELAND?

THE Irish comedy in the Committee-room of the House of Commons may be regarded in various lights. From one point of view it is a roaring farce; from another it is a grave lesson in constitutional ethics. On its dramatic side indeed it is so excellent that the spectators are apt to overlook its serious significance as a factor in the political situation. Its significance, as well as its importance, however, can hardly be overrated. For it has given the English and Scottish people one other opportunity of considering what is before them. They are invited once again to pause and reflect. They may deride, if they please, the " ravings " of Cassandra and the warnings of the Sibyl; but it does really seem as if some Higher Court had mercifully allowed them a locus pœnitentiæ, as if the book of doom had not been finally closed against them. If they go astray now, they go with their eyes open. They will not be permitted to plead hereafter that they "knew not what they did."

Its significance lies mainly in this,―That it has disclosed to all who are not wilfully or judicially blind what the truth is. The veil has been dropped. The enemies of England have ceased to use sugared phrases. At last we have got them in the intimacy of family life (but such a family!) to say plainly what they mean. The sickly sentimentalities and insincerities of the "Union of Hearts' have been roughly and even violently brushed aside. The cloven hoof has been shown; the astute Mephistopheles in whose profes

sions of amity Mr Gladstone was eager to confide (for on what else could he confide?) has thrown aside his disguise. The air has been cleared by a tremendous explosion of good, honest, healthy hatred. We know where we are now, the arts of the rhetorician, the blandishments of the sophist, are no longer of any avail. The Irish members are divided into two factions; but both factions use the same language. There must be an end of the Union. They represent, they declare, a people rightly struggling to be free, and who detest their conquerors as the Italians detested the Austrians, as the Poles detest the Czar. Ireland is to become a separate kingdom. The ties that bind her to England are to be cut. The sorry figment of a scheme of "safe and moderate" Home Rule is treated with undisguised derision. It is laughed to scorn by the Healyites no less than by the Parnellites. The Patriots, after years of politic mystification, have at length shown themselves in their true colours. They no longer affect to pursue constitutional methods. If England will not give them Independence, so much the worse for England. They will take it by force; and they will not want allies, for the Irish race throughout the world is behind them. They are rebels, in short,—as truly rebels as if they had bayonets in their hands, as if the first shot had been fired, as if an army, officered by American rowdies, were marching on Dublin Castle. It is best to state the facts broadly; but for the purpose of

the argument we desire to lay before our readers it is enough to say that the object of their league is avowedly and notoriously unconstitutional, inasmuch as it involves the ultimate dismemberment of the empire.

It is in vain for English Home Rulers to plead that dismemberment is not the aim of their Irish allies. They may protest as much as they choose; but what is their protest worth in face of the unequivocal declarations of the men who must know best? All the palaver about the land and the police and the judicial bench, and how far it is wise and safe to go, this year, or next year, or the year after, is the merest moonshine. Mr Gladstone, rapt in ecstatic contemplation, shuts his eyes, closes his ears, folds his hands; but his followers are perfectly well aware that the disloyal Irish value these concessions, not because they will enlarge the functions and enhance the dignity of an Irish constitutional assembly, but because hereafter, in a not distant future, they will make dismemberment more easy.

Nor can it be said that the public disclosure of their true feelings and aims was accidental, the accident of a domestic affliction. It is not the Divorce Court alone that has driven Mr Parnell to seek the aid of "the Hillmen." It is not irritated vanity alone that has driven Mr Healy to outbid Mr Parnell. Mr Parnell's position from the beginning was intrinsically illogical; and the "logic of events" was certain sooner or later

to make it untenable. Home Rule as now construed by the Irish members means in the end Separation; and "Separation," express or implied, was the only element (apart from the agrarian) that gave

Home Rule" any vitality across the Channel. So that from its very nature Home Rule never could become a legitimate question for the arbitrament of Parliament,a parliamentary, a constitutional, settlement of a question involving dismemberment being, as we shall see, a contradiction in terms. Had Mr Parnell been honest, the language which he now uses might have been used years ago. Now he talks not obscurely of "force," and he is right. Force is the only logical weapon in his arsenal. If he can get what he aims at by force he is entitled to it,—but not otherwise.

Is a proposal to dismember the British empire one which a British Parliament, however constituted, is competent to entertain? This is a question of vast importance, which has never been sufficiently considered. Parliament, it is said, from the necessity of the case, must be all-powerful; it is, and can be, subject to no limitations except those imposed by its own sovereign will. This theory of parliamentary absolutism is at present widely popular; and those who venture to assert, as we venture to assert, that it is theoretically unsound and practically indefensible, are looked upon as guilty of political heresy, if not of political immorality.1

1 We observe, since this article was written, that Lord Salisbury, in a speech characterised by what we may call his uncommon common-sense (a speech from the Prime Minister has all the virtues of a tonic), made some very seasonable observations on the practical impotence of Parliament (even when dealing with social subjects of comparatively secondary importance) to impose its views on a reluctant community : "Parliament uses such grand language in its enactments that it has got to believe itself omnipotent; but that is a very great mistake. Par

Under the system of government which exists in this country, Parliament is only approximately representative. Its decisions are not the decisions of the nation, but not unfrequently of a bare majority only. As a rule the minority submit, for as a a rule submission is more tolerable than civil war. But there are limits to submission, and whenever the cleavage of opinion in the members of the body politic is vital compromise becomes impossible, and an appeal to force is the only remedy that remains. Nor are those who resort to it in such cases to be branded as traitors.

[blocks in formation]

But when a Parliament becomes despotic-when it fails to observe the conditions under which it exercises authority-there are other and good reasons why those who resist should not be called traitors, even though they are beaten.

Mr Gladstone, when in a majority, is fond of talking of the "mandate" which Parliament has received from the people.

How far, then, we would like to inquire, can this mandate be held to go? Is it subject to no limitations? Is the devolution absolute and unconditioned? It appears to us, on the

meant.

contrary, that it cannot entitle a
parliamentary assembly to exceed
its constitutional functions. It
could not, for instance, authorise
a Parliament, however elected, to
resolve that the British empire
should cease to exist, and to decree
its dissolution. Let us assume
that the odd man in each con-
stituency were in favour of the
dissolution of the empire, and suc-
ceeded in electing a Parliament to
carry out his views. But a nation
cannot be dissolved like a joint-
stock company. Any number of
electoral victories, any number of
parliamentary resolutions, would
be futile. They would go for
nothing. Every man in every
constituency who belonged to the
minority would still be entitled
to say: "No. There are certain
root-questions, certain vital and
fundamental questions, which have
not been confided to Parliament
by the constitution. The House
of Commons cannot touch them,-
they lie outside the arena of de-
bate. When such questions arise,
they must be determined elsewhere.
We shall not allow you to settle
them in your way until we are
beaten,-beaten elsewhere than at
the polling-booths, and with other
weapons than words.
And we
shall not hesitate to fight to the
last man for what we consider of
the last importance-the continued
existence of our society. When

liament is a very potent engine, and its enactments almost always do something, though they very seldom do what the originators of those enactments The result, to use a technical phrase, is a resultant of a composition of two forces, and the two forces are the enacting force of Parliament and the evading force of the individual. If the enactment squares with the public interest and is agreeable to the public conscience, it will be carried out. If it has been adopted as the result of an agitation, or at the bidding of a class—if it overrides the rights of a minority and tramples on the principles which the conscience of the nation approve-that Act of Parliament will have no effect in attaining the objects for which it was made. But it will have an effect in surrounding the industry which it touches with precautions and investigations, and inspections and regulations, in which it will be slowly enveloped and stifled."

we are overpowered, the State may commit suicide if it sees fit-but not till then. Till then we shall continue to believe (and to manifest our belief in the most practical form) that no assembly of legislators can resolve society into its original elements. There is no such clause in the compact; a legislative assembly attempting to do so mistakes its functions and exceeds its commission."

It cannot be doubted that this proposition is substantially sound. It will hardly, at least, be denied by any one that the implied consent on which an organised society rests is more or less limited and conditional. It may be difficult to define the conditions and limitations with precision; but we may say without qualification, for instance, that an elective government which proposes to destroy the society it has been elected to govern, has failed to observe them. It has exceeded the powers vested in it by a compact which may be either written or unwritten, but which can only be disregarded at peril of civil strife. It is consequently a prodigious mistake when, in a complicated and historical society like our own, burning questions and heroic measures (questions which rouse the fiercest passions of partisans, and measures which touch the elemental principles of government) are made the order of the day. The constitution cannot stand the strain of a profound antipathy. There is not room within the limits of our parliamentary system for the conflict of Roundhead and Cavalier. It is the characteristic of a wise and prudent ruler to be infinitely careful that no controversy which will tear the community asunder is permitted to take shape; for when vital issues

are rashly raised, as they have been raised more than once in our history, there is needed for their solution some other and far sterner force than parliamentary palaver.

It may be urged, indeed, that the Irish controversy (which was made a burning question when Mr Gladstone capitulated to his mephistophelean ally-never indeed was there a more unequal alliance !— for in the toils of this adroit and taciturn schemer the verbose leader of the Liberal party was as helpless as Faust when he had sold his soul) does not involve any vital issue. But if it involve, whether directly or remotely, whether expressly or by implication, the dismemberment of the empire, we can only reply that a vital issue is involved. Two-thirds at least of the English people are in the meantime convinced that if the Irish demands as now formulated are granted, dismemberment is the inevitable end. Assuming that they judge truly, are they not entitled to plead that the court, which according to Mr Gladstone is about to assume jurisdiction, has no title to act? May they not challenge its competency, and refuse to be bound by its awards? The parliamentary majority which Mr Gladstone expects to obtain at the next election will in any view represent an inconsiderable majority of the English people. If this bare majority resolve on the dismemberment of the empire, can its judgment be accepted as authoritative or decisive by a minority which contends that no popular mandate can, in a matter of national life or death, confer jurisdiction?

We have no desire, however, to push the argument too far, nor is it necessary. It is possible that

But we maintain that no determination to that effect will be operative or effective which is obtained by the votes of those members of the Legislature who are morally if not legally disabled from acting.

A decision so arrived at would have no moral validity— no binding force. And the English people, we may rest assured, are not going to allow the empire to be broken up by the votes of men who, whatever their domestic virtues may be, are traitors to the constitution.

timid or trimming politicians we are willing to do without you." among the Unionists themselves When that day comes, and when will be willing to admit that the sane minority are crushed as "Home Rule" (as anxiously mini- the Cavaliers were crushed by mised by its English advocates) is Cromwell, Ireland, we admit, must a question which may legitimately go. come within the purview of Parliament. They will be prepared at least to give the English Home Ruler the benefit of the doubt. They will say that he sincerely believes that Home Rule will not lead to dismemberment, and that it is barely possible he may be right. According to this view the English Home Ruler is not necessarily a traitor to the constitution as he understands it, nor Home Rule a question which Parliament is incompetent to entertain. But it is obvious that such considerations cannot be held to apply to the Irish Home Ruler, or to the policy which he supports. The Irish Home Ruler, as we have seen, is now working avowedly and unblushingly for the dismemberment of the empire. He is proud to be a rebel; he glories in his treason. He is the He is the open enemy of the State as it exists. What follows? Is it not axiomatic that men who are outside the pale of the constitution are morally if not legally disqualified from taking any legislative part in the settlement of the question?

One day or other the British elector, in a momentary access of political delirium, may be content to part with Ireland. may say, "Go your own way—

He

We do not base our contention upon the plea that the Irish members are interested parties. It is true that the judge who has the remotest connection with a case which is being tried in the court in which he sits, retires as a matter of course from the bench. No one believes that the high-minded gentlemen by whom the law is administered in this country would give a dishonest decision, however closely their own interests were involved. But even in the case of trained lawyers, it is deemed right and fitting to guard against the unconscious bias; and where the interests are not personal but national, the objections to a party being the judge in his own cause are not less strong.

Our objection, however, is of

1 It would really seem, however, as if Mr Gladstone personally can no longer be included among English Home Rulers. The tone in which, during the debate the other night, he spoke of England-of the England which had no doubt derisively, and even contemptuously, declined to listen to his charming-was characterised by a shrewish vindictiveness. The sense of proportion, the sense of humour, must be at a low ebb in a politician who, after ten years of interminable Irish parliamentary controversy, could venture to say that England, to the detriment of the sister kingdoms, had selfishly monopolised the time and the attention of Parliament.

« PreviousContinue »