18 NOVEMBER 1893, Page 23

IRISH MEMBERS AND ENGLISH LEGISLATION.

WE cannot help thinking that Unionists are some- times carried too far in their eagerness to deprive the victories of the Government of all moral significance, by pointing to the presence of the large Nationalist element among its supporters. The Times and Standard, for instance, in their comments on the division of Friday week, made far too much, we think, of the fact that fifty-seven of the "faithful Irish" voted in the majority against Mr. MeLaren's amendment. No doubt it was the Gle,dstonians themselves who first taught us to distinguish between British majorities and Irish majorities, and when the question at issue implies a revision of the relations between Great Britain and Ireland, Unionists have a perfect right to require that each of the two parties to the contract shall show a majority in favour of such revision. But in the ordinary work of Parliament, it is not wise for those who insist on one supreme and un- divided Legislature for the whole of the United Kingdom, to press too much the arguments drawn from a close analysis of division-lists. What we want to oppose to the Irish separatism of the Government is not English separa- tism, but the Union, and the first principle of the Union is that all Members of the House of Commons should have equal rights and privileges and equal competency to vote on every question affecting the whole of the United Kingdom or any portion of it. If we inquire too closely into the distribution of votes emanating from the various grographical sections, we are only playing the game of our opponents. After all, this Employers' Liability Bill is to apply to Ireland equally with Great Britain, so that the votes of the Irish Members were not given in absolute freedom from responsi- bility. And though it may be true that Ireland's in- terest in the matter is comparatively slight, this is hardly a safe argument for Unionists to advance. The Times and Standard would have been quite justified in showing —as it would, we have no doubt, be perfectly easy to show—that the Members representing the great industrial constituencies which will be chiefly affected by the Employers' Liability Bill were overwhelmingly in favour of contracting out, while the amendment was defeated to a great extent by the votes of rural Members from all parts of the United Kingdom. But in limiting their case to Ireland, they at once draw an invidious distinction which needlessly exasperates hyper-sensitive people, and they gratuitously put into the hands of the Gladstonians a plausible argu- ment for Home-rule which the latter will not be slow to make use of. England is predominantly indus- trial, and Ireland predominantly agricultural ; and if Unionists parade the resulting divergence of interests on the occasion of every division in the House of Commons, can we wonder if the Gladstonians urge it as a reason for terminating the arrangement under which one Parliament legislates for both countries ? For yet another reason we regret any indulgence, at the present moment and under preseni, conditions, in a tendency to discriminate against the Irish Members. The only answer which the G-ladstonia,ns have been able to find to the Unionist criticisms of their iniquitous proposal to retain eighty Irish Members at Westminster after all Irish questions have been withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the House of Commons is that, under the present arrange- ment, Irish Members have power to deal with English and Scotch affairs; and this absurdly lame and illogical defence has actually been made by several Members of the Cabinet. It is not our true policy to make this defence seem less absurdly lame and illogical than it is by pretending to find, a grievance in the present conditions where none really exists. It is quite impossible that every question which arises in the House of Commons should have equal interest for all its Members or for their constituencies. Nor is it necessary. The party system, whatever may be its defects, has the great merit of securing that no Member shall give a vote on any question in a spirit of absolute irresponsibility. The decision may not directly affect either himself or his constituents, but the conse- quences will react on his party, strengthening it or the reverse, as the case may be ; and as his political interest is bound up with the interests of his party, and the objects which he and his constituents have at heart can only be attained through its success, responsibility is in the long- run most effectively secured. So long as Ireland remains under the control of the Imperial Parliament, the Irish will, welter or later, suffer somehow for any mistakes they make in their votes on English Legislation. If they and the Government erred, as no doubt they did, even from the point of view of immediate expediency, in reject- ing Mr. McLa,ron's permissive clause, they will have to pay the penalty in diminished chances of success for Home- rule. To take a still stronger instance, when the Parish Councils Bill, which only applies to England, comes up for discussion in Committee, if the Government should be pressed in any divisions, the responsibility of the Scotch and Irish Members will be hardly less serious than that of any English Gladstonian of them all. It would be quite a different matter if Ireland had a separate Parlia- ment of her own. Then it would matter little to the Irish which party was uppermost in England, or what Government was in power ; and the Irish Members at Westminster would be free to pursue a policy of intrigue and intimidation without any fear of driving the English and Scotch to retaliatory measures, or suffering any of the consequences of their unwisdom. It is not the true interest of Unionists to confound this distinction by talking as if the tyranny to which the Gladstonians wish to subject us were already in existence. In. one way, no doubt, the irritation which is shown at the continual intrusion of the Irish vote is intelligible enough, and the distrust and suspicion which the Government excites through its dependence on it are not unnatural. Every one feels that the Nationalists would vote for anything rather than see the present Govern- ment defeated before it has granted them their desire, and that to avert such a catastrophe they would even accept unwise legislation for their own country if necessary, trusting to the subsequent disruption to enable them to undo it or evade the consequences. The mere approach of Home-rule has undermined their sense of responsibility, and destroyed whatever confidence might have been reposed in their bona .fides as joint legislators on this side of St. George's Channel. And if that is the case already, how would it be if Home-rule in its latest form were an accomplished fact, when neither the sense of responsibility in the Irish themselves, nor confidence in their bona fides on the part of the people of Great Britain, would have any grounds whatever in reality for existence ? Before the end of the first session of the disabled Parliament, we should have mobs in the Palace Yard at Westminster hooting or stoning the Irish Brigade as it emerged front the House of Commons. Every one would feel that the situation was absolutely in- tolerable, and some means would be found of putting an end to it. We see already what bitterness and odium the Nationalists excite in some quarters with their cynical disregard for everything but Home-rule, and the mechanical regularity of their vote in favour of the Government. And though we cannot think it wise to give expression to such feelings, neither can we regard the feelings as in themselves very unreasonable. In none of the countries where they live in any considerable numbers have the Irish proved a source of strength to the institutions of free government. With many of the gifts that win social popularity, they have managed every- where to make themselves politically objects of suspicion and dislike, and that because of the unscrupulous direct- ness and machine-like precision with which they work towards some end of their own, regardless of everything by the way. Give them a Parliament of their own, and they will turn it into it pandemonium ; place them in any other, and they at once become a centre of intrigue and. a formidable engine of destruction. We must, however, manage to get on with them as best we can. We cannot get rid of our difficulties by granting Home-rule and plunging into chaos ; and if we maintain the Union, the Trish must be treated with scrupulous fairness and accorded complete equality of rights. The main body of the people of the United Kingdom is strong enough, we have little doubt, to draw the coach, and ultimately to raise the Celtic element to its own hive! of political capacity ; and until has work of assimilation has proceeded further than it has at present, we must contrive to put up with a certain amount of annoyance.