THE CREEPING-ON OF FEDERALISM. T HE most remarkable feature of the
debate which is dragging its slow length along in the House of 'Commons is the creeping-on of the Federal idea. Not that anybody wants it. The Irish Home-rulers would much prefer pure independence, or even pure Colonial in- dependence, if they knew how to beat Ulster without the help of the Imperial Government. In Scotland there is a feeble party for Scotch Home-rule ; but no Scotchman would even listen to Scotch Home-rule if he could realise that Scotchmen might lose any atom of influence over the Imperial Government of the United Kingdom,—and of course they would lose a vast deal of their influence over it,—by giving up their control of English finance and English mercantile development. Many of the Welsh would like Home-rule if they could emulate Ireland. in helping to govern us without allowing us to help in governing them. But we are not aware that a single Member of any constituency in England has expressed a wish for English Home-rule for its own sake, and apart from the very natural objection to have all sorts of foreigners, as Mr. Wallace boldly called Irishmen, interfering in English affairs without baying any quid pro quo, any right to interfere beyond their own borders. But notwithstanding this absolute indifference to Federalism for its own sake, you can' see everywhere that the logic of the cry for llome-rule for Ireland is gradually affecting the minds of all classes of Members, and converting them to a half-and- half fancy that our "manifest destiny" lies in that direction. We grritly regret that Mr. Asquith postponed his speech on the Bill till it is impossible for us to hear his views on the subject before we go to press. He is the original author of the federal solution of the difficulty ; and we must say that if he, as much the most influential Member of the present Government who has coquetted with Federalism, still gives it the weight of his authority now that he is a Minister of the Queen, England will have more to suffer from his counsel in favour of that very ill- advised course, than he will be able, by all his ability, lucidity, and firmness of purpose, to compensate us for, even if his political career should prove to be as brilliant as his friends may fairly hope. Sir George Trevelyan does not conceal from us for a moment that it is Federalism to which he looks as the natural issue of the present Home-rule movement. And there are others of her Majesty's Ministers who have indicated the same view. On Wednesday, Mr. Storey confessed that he had become one of the loqical victims of the Federal scheme. It had startled him extremely at first,—as well it might,— and even now he would fain avoid it, but he saw little chance of doing so. On Thursday, Mr. Wallace followed in something of the same sti ain. He declared, indeed, that Scotland is not yet ripe for it, that England is not yet ripe, and that as Ireland is ripe, she must take the consequences of being in this respect in advance of the other portions of the United King- dom, and rather even resign her influence over Im- perial affairs for a certain period, than aspire to interfere with our affairs while she repudiates our inter- ference with her own. He professed. to be an advocate of the proposal of the Bill for letting the Irish Members "pop in and out," according to the subject under discus- sion, disappearing if the subject happens to be British, and reappearing if it happens to take the Imperial turn. But with all his heat against the proposal to keep the Irish Members for all purposes, British and Imperial alike, he too treated Federalism as the goal towards which we are travelling. And what seems to us still more ominous, the Federal idea is creeping even into the minds of the old Conservatives. Colonel Bridgeman (M.P. for Bolton) spoke of it with a certain tolerance, not to say even a leaning towards it, in his speech of Thursday night, though he declared very properly that a great policy of that kind should be discussed as a whole, and not insinuated as a mere accessory to the Irish scheme of the Government, in order to open out ultimate possibilities which may reduce a few of the objections to that policy as actually presented for the acceptance of Parliament. Now, all this coquetting with a Federalism which nobody pretends to desire for its own sake, seems to us exceedingly mischievous and dangerous. It is loosening the whole cohesion and homogeneity of the United Kingdom, simply in order that all other portions of it may hang as loosely together as Ireland will hang with Great Britain if Home-rule be carried. We submit that the effect of this loosening of Ireland,—if the knot between Ireland. and England is to be loosened instead of tied more firmly,— should. involve not the loosening of all the other parts of the United Kingdom, but the strengthening and con- firming of the bonds which connect those parts. If we are to have an outstanding partner who may at any time turn into a rival, we should at least take double care that all the rest of the Kingdom is made strong and powerful. We never heard of a more insane policy than that of levelling-down the solidarity of the various portions of Great Britain to the level of the weakest tie which the United Kingdom can furnish us. Nay, even that is not the worst. Many of these Federalists profess openly their wish to place the Colonies in the same relation to the Government of Great Britain in which Ireland is to be placed, so that, for the future, the Empire is to be a loose structure sprawling, as it were, on frail tenter-hooks all over the globe, without even a single strong core at the heart of the Empire,—for Great Britain itself is to be disintegrated and dissolved into we know not how many arbitrary political atoms, in order that Ireland and our distant Colonies may not feel themselves overweighted by the unity and cohesion of Groat Britain. Was there ever an insaner political proposal than this ? We are told that we can no longer govern Ireland as we have been governing it, and must substitute for the Union something which is not to be disunion, but is to be some rather easy slip-knot which will render the tie rather less burdensome for Ireland and rather more dubious for England. Let us suppose that most disputable axiom granted. What is then the most reasonable policy for Great Britain when thus confronted with a new danger,—a separate Administration, as well as a separate Legislature, which will have, as every one admits, enormous advantages for stretching the weak tie that remains till it is hardly a tie at ? Clearly to make the best of the unity of Great Britain, and not to dissolve that unity also, for the sake of a most undesirable and objectionable symmetry. 'When Austria gave Hungary her independent organisation, did the German part of the Empire seize the occasion to dis- solve itself into federalised fragments also ? That was a triumph of the logic of disunion of which Austria never dreamed. And it seems to us that if Irish Home-rule is to be made the opportunity for breaking-up Great Britain into fragments, Ireland may well boast that she has indeed obtained her revenge,—that she has not only got rid of British control, but set an example which the various closely welded parts of Great Britain have, in the frenzy of this contagious centrifugalism, found it impossible to ignore. Verily, the parable of the spirit who, wandering through the dry places, associated with himself seven spirits worse than himself, could not easily find a better illustration.
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