Mr. J. A. Murray Macdonald, a former M.P. for Bow
and Bromley, argues in a letter to Thursday's Times for the devolution of Parliamentary powers. His arguments are substantially those which were used about the Home-rule Bill,—the congestion of business in the House of Commons, the necessity of giving countries which have special interests the exclusive right of deciding upon such interests, the desirability of separating Imperial from local questions, and the importance of providing in the United Kingdom a type of federation which may ultimately be applied to the Empire. While we believe that in minor matters, such as private Bills, a local devolution is eminently desirable, we are strongly opposed to any attempt to transfer affairs which properly belong to a united Parliament to artificially separated bodies. Union in the United Kingdom is a fact : to bring about this new-fangled federal system you have first of all artificially to disintegrate, and it is a strange federation which begins with disruption. With Mr. Macdonald's third argument we have considerable abstract sympathy ; but we hold that the time is not yet ripe, and cannot be for many years, for a general Imperial Council. We believe in Imperial unity, but we do not see that this is to be secured by any particularism, which persists in seeing dif- ferences within a body politic rather than bonds of union. Academic schemes, designed, in Sir William Petty's words, to " cantonalise" the Monarchy, are no new thing in English history. " Would they not make England like Switzerland," asked Cromwell of his Council, " one county against another, as one Canton of the Swiss is against another ? And if so, what would that produce but an absolute desolation ?"
Previous page
