Art. 13.-THE HOME RULE BILL.

1. Government of Ireland Bill. London: Wyman, 1912. 2. Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 1912.

3. Report of the Committee on

London: Wyman, 1912.

4. Government of Ireland Bill.

Irish Finance [Cd 6153].

Outline of Financial Pro

visions [Cd 6154]. London: Wyman, 1912.

5. A Leap in the Dark. By A. V. Dicey, D.C.L. Second edition. London: Murray, 1911.

6. The End of the Irish Parliament. By J. R. Fisher. London: Arnold, 1911.

7. Against Home Rule; The Case for the Union. With an introduction by Sir E. Carson, M.P. London: Warne, 1912.

8. The Military Danger of Home Rule for Ireland. By Major-General Sir T. Fraser. London: Murray, 1912. 9. The Continuity of the Irish Revolutionary Movement. By H. Brougham Leech, LL.D. London: Simpkin, 1912. 10. Irish Affairs and the Home Rule Question. By Philip Cambray. London: Murray, 1912.

I. POLITICAL.

THE Coalition majority can force the Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. The Cabinet, so long as it acts in compliance with Mr Redmond's demands, possesses dictatorial powers. The debates on the Bill manifest the unreality of parliamentary discussion under existing conditions. With the exception of Mr Asquith when introducing the Bill, and Mr Herbert Samuel when explaining its finance, no member of the Ministry has condescended to discuss the measure. They have uttered Home Rule generalities, but have left the Home Rule Bill alone. Mr Redmond has given the Bill his benediction, and this represents the ministerial mandate from the electorate. The arguments of the Opposition have, on the other hand, been so penetrating that, were arguments of any practical importance now at Westminster, the Home Rule Bill would never become an Act of Parliament. It will be an outrage on the country and the Empire if the people of the United Kingdom are not permitted to pronounce on this Bill and decide whether the Kingdoms are to be disunited.

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The case for the Union and the alternative policy to Home Rule is stated in the remarkable compilation issued by the leaders of the Unionist party under the title of Against Home Rule.' The articles are of the highest authority. They are historical, critical and constructive. It is essential that every student of public questions should make himself familiar with this work. The great constitutional authority of Prof. Dicey lends peculiar importance to the re-issue of his convincing work attacking the fundamental principles of Home Rule. It is an unanswered representation of objections which are as fatal to the present scheme as they were to the schemes of Mr Gladstone, which Prof. Dicey contributed so conspicuously to defeat. Mr Fisher, writing as one intimately acquainted with Ireland to-day, reveals the realities of Irish life, political and social, under Grattan's Parliament. A grasp of the history of that period is of great importance, for the assertion of unrealities about the Ante-Union Parliament forms one of the chief Radical arguments for again disintegrating the United Kingdom. Mr Cambray's book is pre-eminently practical. It contains an admirable and accurate summary of the actual conditions of the much misrepresented and misunderstood system of modern Irish administration. The title of Dr Brougham Leech's valuable contribution sufficiently indicates its scope and object. Originally published in 1887, the essay has now been enlarged by an excellent review of Anglo-Irish relations since that date, and an exhaustive survey of the present situation. The strategic dangers of Home Rule are dealt with by General Fraser, whose book should be read in connexion with the article on 'Home Rule and Naval Defence' by Lord Charles Beresford, and that on 'The Military Disadvantages of Home Rule' by Earl Percy, in 'Against Home Rule.'

It is impossible in a short article to discuss the innumerable points raised by the Bill to Amend the Provisions for the Government of Ireland.' To treat of the British aspects and Imperial aspects of the question would exhaust a volume. The determination of Ulster never to submit to Home Rule is a fact of such overmastering importance that the British public may be led to believe that, if only the Ulster difficulty was settled, all would be

well, and Ireland would overflow with gratitude for the grant of the Redmond-Asquith Constitution. It may be therefore not without some advantage to examine this Bill as if there was no Ulster resistance and no danger in the North, and, regarding it from some other Irish points of view, to consider whether it will bring rest or revolt.

The Home Rule Bill of 1912 is a labyrinth of intricate and complicated provisions. It attempts to combine in a rococo constitution a compromise of incompatible principles. As a scheme of government it is unexampled. Constitutional and financial innovations unknown to the British or any other people are embodied in its clauses. The teachings of English, Irish and Colonial history are forgotten by its authors, while the existing political and social conditions of Ireland are ignored. It purports to be a Bill for the government of Ireland, while in reality it creates a new Constitution for the British Islands. This new Constitution is not Federal and is not Unitary. It makes the Union unworkable and Federalism impossible. It does not correspond with any Colonial precedent; and it subverts the representative principles upon which England, Scotland and Ireland, whether as separate kingdoms or as a combined nation, have been governed since parliaments began.

Introduced by Mr Asquith at the command of Mr Redmond, this measure, which creates a revolution, is, also at Mr Redmond's command, to be kept back by revolutionary methods from the judgment of the electorate. The British public are not to be permitted to pronounce an opinion on it. The Irish people, controlled by the caucus of the League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, are not allowed even to have an opinion on it. The Parliamentary Constitution is suspended that the Imperial Constitution may be destroyed. And yet this Home Rule Bill is a measure of overwhelming importance, not only for England and Scotland and Ireland, but for the whole Empire. If it becomes law, it will prove disastrous both to Great Britain and to Ireland. It achieves the peculiar distinction of inflicting equal injustice upon both countries. Its provisions will be found so intolerable in Ireland that it will inevitably lead on to total separation. It gives to Britain the control of Irish taxation and Irish commerce, and a

nominal supremacy which will be a fertile source of collision and acrimonious conflict. On the other hand, it will be quite as intolerable to Great Britain. It makes Ireland a pensioner on the British taxpayer and a noncontributor to Imperial Defence and National Debt. It gives to Ireland such a grasp upon the finance of England, such a ready means of embarrassing British trade, domestic and foreign, such power through the Irish Executive of paralysing Imperial control, such opportunity at Westminster of arresting British legislation and perverting British party policy, that it will enable Ireland to compel concession after concession, and finally, as the alternative to the overthrow of parliamentary government, to extort the grant of absolute independence. The Radical policy of cut the loss' will soon be followed by the policy of cut the danger.'

The Bill is proclaimed as a measure of justice and reconciliation, as a rehabilitation of Ireland, and a generous settlement appealing to national sentiment through the restoration to Ireland of a Parliament of her own to direct her destinies. It is inconceivable that the British people would consent to break up their ancient Constitution, to maim their Parliament, and to contribute several millions a year out of their revenues for the support of Ireland and an Irish Administration over which they abdicate control, unless they believed that peace, harmony, good government and Imperial strength would be thus secured. But the clauses of the Home Rule Bill, when studied with a knowledge of the conditions of Ireland to-day, her resources and revenues, her trade and industrial and commercial possibilities, her social, municipal and local affairs, her educational and agrarian problems, her sectarian and racial antagonisms, her elements of strength and weakness, compel the conclusion that this measure, if it ever becomes law, will not beget peace, but revolt and disaster.

Its financial proposals not only violate the settled principles of the British Constitution at home and in the Colonies, but they run counter to the most cherished traditions of Irish national sentiment and Irish constitutional right. It is a fundamental principle of the new Home Rule that the Parliament at Westminster shall continue to levy in Ireland all the taxes which may be