Case Against Home Rule PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... Ill i THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION By George Cave, K.C., M.P. Introductory Few things are more remarkable in the Parliamentary history of the Home Rule movement than the complete absence from the counsels of the English advocates of Home Rule of any definite and settled policy as to the form of self-government to be offered to Ireland, and their consequent oscillation between proposals radically differing from one another. Since the "new departure" initiated by Davitt and Devoy in 1878, * it has been the deliberate practice of Irish Nationalists to abstain from defining the Nationalist demand and to ask in general terms for " selfgovernment," doubtless with the object of attracting the support of all who favour any change which could be described by that very elastic term. Such a policy has its advantages. But confusion of thought, however favourable to popular agitation, is a disadvantage when the moment for legislation arrives; and uncertainty as to the aim goes far to explain the vacillation in Home Rule policy. Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 would have given to Ireland the substance of "responsible " or colonial self-government, subject only to certain reservations and restrictions, the value of which will be considered later in this chapter, and would have excluded the Irish members and representative peers from the Parliament of the United * See "Times Special Commission," vol. v. p. 175, and "Home Rule. What is it ?" by A. W. Samuels, K.C. (Simpkin Marshall, 1911), p. 60. F Kingdom. By the Bill of 1893 the reservations and restrictions were increased, and representatives of Ireland were to be permitted to sit at Westminster--by the Bill as introduced for some purposes, and by the Bill as passed by the House of Commons for...