Zealand from 1852 until 1876, and exist in South Africa to-day.* The truth is that the driving force behind the move. ment for the introduction of a federal or quasi-federal system into the United Kingdom, as distinguished from the devolution of certain matters to quasi-municipal bodies, is the belief entertained by many that such a system would not only relieve parliamentary congestion but would also meet what they consider to be the legitimate claims of Ireland to control Irish affairs. The root difficulty in the way of thus killing two birds with one stone is the question of the scope of authority to be assigned to the local legislatures in England, Scotland and Ireland. The scope that would be sufficient to relieve the excessive burden now borne by Parliament -roughly the matters now regulated by diverse laws in different parts of the United Kingdom-would not satisfy the Irish demand for control of Irish affairs; and the scope indicated by that demand is far greater than what is thought desirable or practicable for local legislatures in England or Scotland. This point, crucial though it is, has been rather neglected by the federalists, and seems to require consideration in some detail. The extent of the autonomy that is sought by constitutional nationalists, as distinguished from Sinn Fein republicans, is fairly clear. The power proposed for the Irish Parliament in the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893 and the Act of 1914 was, like the power given to the legislature of every self-governing colony, a general power to make laws for the peace, order and good The Union of South Africa is sometimes described as a federal system, but this is obviously incorrect. The South African provincial councils, unlike the Canadian provincial legislatures and the Australian state parlia ments, do not possess plenary powers; and no part of their jurisdiction is independent of control by the Union Parliament, which can not only override provincial legislation but can take away the powers and even terminate the existence of the councils. The fact that each provincial executive is not, like cabinets elsewhere, dependent on the continued support of a majority of the council but is elected by the council-on a system of proportional representation-for a definite term of years, indicates pretty clearly that the framers of the South Africa Act intended the Union, as stated in the preamble, to be a 'legislative Union,' not a federal Union, and regarded the provincial councils not as legislatures of the parliamentary type but as institutions of a quasi-municipal type. overnment of the country; but, while the colonial onstitution Acts contained practically no specific limitaons of this general power, all the Irish measures conained a list of matters which were specifically declared o be outside the power of the Irish Parliament. Despite hese exclusions, the matters within the power of the rish Parliament in all three measures included a number f matters which are now regulated by uniform laws hroughout the United Kingdom, and might well be nought to be prima facie unsuitable for devolution to ocal legislatures in England and Scotland, e.g., direct axation, postal matters, railways, factory and industrial gislation, etc.* The matter, however, does not now stand as it did 1886, 1893 and 1914. The Irish demand has grown as he result of a generation of postponement and drift. lighteen months ago the question of what matters hould be assigned to the Irish Parliament and what atters should be excluded from its power was condered by the Irish Convention, and the result is clearly et out in their Report. The great majority of that ody-Nationalists, Southern Unionists and Labour embers, in fact the whole Convention excluding the lster Unionists-agreed, except in one important uestion, upon limiting the matters to be excluded from he power of the Irish Parliament, viz. (1) the Crown, ) peace and war, (3) foreign relations, (4) dignities, ) defence (including certain control of harbours, etc.), ) coinage, legal tender, weights and measures, (7) copyght and patent rights.† As regards the one matter on which agreement was ot reached-indirect taxation-Lord MacDonnell put the sue very clearly in a recent letter to 'The Times.' The hole Convention, exclusive of the Ulster Unionists, were favour of Irish control of Excise; and the Nationalists * In some of the measures the Irish control of direct taxation and postal rvices was curtailed. †The partial reservation of Police and Post Office under the Convention heme was to cease as soon as possible after the end of the war. It may noted that the matters comprised in the first four of these classes, ough not specifically excluded from the scope of Dominion parliaments, e, in practice, beyond their control; and that their control over some the other matters, e.g., coinage, is not unfettered. and Labour men, but not the Southern Unionists, were in favour of Irish control of Customs also. The Prime Minister, however, in his famous letter to the Chairman, dated Feb. 25, 1918, while stating that the settlement of the Irish question was a task incumbent on the Govern ment, and declaring their intention to submit legislative proposals to Parliament with the least possible delay, remarked that it would not be possible in the middle of a great war to face the financial and fiscal disturbance involved in the transfer of Customs and Excise to an Irish Parliament. It was, as Lord MacDonnell points out, to meet this view and the objection of the Southern Unionists to Irish control of Customs, and thereby to secure, as it was thought, in view of the terms of the Prime Minister's letter, the immediate establishment of an Irish Parliament, that the majority of the Nationalists agreed to the postponement of the decision on Customs and Excise. The general view in Ireland seems to be that this Nationalist consent to a postpone ment is no longer binding, as the Government did not, in accordance with the Prime Minister's undertaking on the presentation of the Convention's Report, introduce legislative proposals-an undertaking which the Nationalists regard as absolute and not contingent on complete agreement being reached in the Convention. Be this as it may, Lord MacDonnell points out that, as the war is now over, there is no longer any valid reason for postponing the decision; the question of Customs and Excise should be settled in any Act which sets up an Irish Parliament, and settled, he claims, in accordance with the views of the majority of the Convention, that is, by the grant of full fiscal autonomy. Under the Convention's scheme, the Irish Parliament, would thus have control over such matters as treason, alienage, naturalisation, quarantine, external trade and navigation (including merchant shipping), and, most important of all, indirect taxation, in addition to the powers proposed in 1886 and 1893 and conceded in 1914. The Irish Dominion League, in their manifesto of June last, has reiterated this demand; and the scheme recently suggested by The Times' contemplates the assignment of most of these powers to an Irish Parliament. There may be strong British, and even Imperial, reasons why uch powers should not be conceded--the question of lster objections is postponed for the moment—but it is uite clear that no measure of Home Rule, whether ederal or otherwise, will now receive support from the ost moderate Nationalists which excludes from the ower of the Irish Parliament matters other than ne seven heads mentioned above as excluded under the onvention's scheme, with possibly one or two additions, ach as treason. On the other hand, the relief of parliamentary conestion does not require the assignment to English and cottish legislatures of many of the powers demanded or the Irish Parliament. The law and administration of rect and indirect taxation, postal services, trade and avigation and many other matters, are now uniform, practically uniform, throughout the United Kingdom. heir transfer to local bodies in England, Scotland and eland is not required for the relief of parliamentary ngestion. Their transfer to an Irish legislature is parently required to satisfy the Irish claim for selfovernment; and the breaking-up of the unity of the nited Kingdom that is involved in such transfer might be cepted for the sake of an Irish settlement. The further ep, however, of partitioning Great Britain and assigning e control of such matters as customs and excise, trade d navigation, etc., to separate bodies in England and otland, will never be accepted merely in order to settle e Irish question on a federal basis. Hence one school politicians regards the grant of a full measure of selfvernment to Ireland as incompatible with a federalised nited Kingdom, while another school declares that the deralisation of the United Kingdom precludes the ant of a full measure of self-government to Ireland. It must be admitted that the advocates of a federalised ited Kingdom have never frankly grappled with this ficulty; certainly they have never, as a body, seriously dressed themselves to the problem of reconciling two parent incompatibles-the demand for large powers · an Irish legislature and the demand for small powers - English and Scottish legislatures. There has been ch vague talk about a compromise, but they will not e the fact that a compromise means giving an Irish islature less power than would be sufficient to secure a settlement and giving English and Scottish legislatures more power than would be convenient. The result is that a majority of the Irish people have become persistently hostile to all suggestions of a federal settlement. To them it seems inevitably to imply a curtailment of the powers that might otherwise be given to the Irish Parliament. Indeed, many Irishmen genuinely believe that some of those who favour a federal solution do so because they regard it as the easiest and most certain way of cutting down the extent of the autonomy which it is thought must sooner or later be given to Ireland.* The only other solution of this very real difficulty that has, so far, been advanced by federalists is a suggestion-for which some support can be found in Prof. Adams's book-that the powers given to each of the local legislatures in the United Kingdom need not be identical. Under such a scheme, the control of customs and excise, trade and navigation and other matters, would be given to the Irish legislature but not to the other local legislatures, while the control of these matters in England and Scotland would be retained by the Imperial Parliament. Such a solution of the Irish Question would, it has been argued, be really antifederal-first, because in all existing federations the powers assigned to local legislatures are identical in each case; and secondly, because the control of such matters as indirect taxation, postal services, external trade and navigation, throughout every unit of a federation, are invariably retained by the central parliament. As regards the first point, it is certainly usual for all the local legislatures within a federation to possess the same powers; but differentiation is not unknown. Thus, in Canada, Crown lands and forests are controlled in some of the provinces by the provincial government and in other provinces by the Dominion Government. Again, several units of the pre-war German federation possessed some control over certain important matters, e.g., army, indirect taxation and postal services, in respect of which the other units had no power. It is, however, undoubtedly true that there is no real parallel in any It is perhaps for this reason that a leading Irish newspaper has a standing headline for all federal proposals—‘The Federal Fraud.' |