THE FEDERALIST FALLACY. D URING the past ten days there has
been a. great deal of talk about a Federalist scheme for the United Kingdom,—a scheme of such magic qualities that it will at one and the same time break up the United Kingdom and unite the Empire; in fact, a kind of Hegelian revolution in which " being " and " not being," putting asunder and joining together, divorce and marriage, will prove to be but aspects of the same thing. Certain of our public critics have gone so far as to suggest that this scheme is destined to be the final result of the Veto Conference. The eight statesmen, as the outcome of their deliberations, are to present us with a political prize-packet, out of which are to issue " Home-rule all round," Imperial Federation, Tariff Reform by consent, payment of Members, female suffrage, and we know not what else. In any case, the New Federalism is to be the first of these surprises. In order to make these rumours appear the more actual, the fact was emphasised that Mr. Redmond and Mr. T. P. O'Connor had with a mysterious simultaneity given interviews and made speeches in which they declared themselves Federalists, and watered down their demand for Home-rule to something hardly distinguishable from Mr. Birrell's Irish Councils Bill,—a Bill which only three years ago was scornfully rejected by the Nationalists in conference.
Though we are strongly opposed to Federalism, and cannot believe that the welfare of Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, not to speak of England, lies that way, and, further, hold the gravest fears that it would lead to the ruin of the Empire, we are of course perfectly willing to see the question, or, indeed, any and every question, discussed on its merits. If the Federalists can convert us by sound arguments, we are most willing to be converted. We will go further, and acknowledge without reserve that the keeping together of the Empire in order that at some future time the free nations which compose it shall be united in an incorporating union is a matter fraught with such importance for the British race that we would make sacrifices many and great to attain it. Rather than that the British Empire should break up we would see the centre of Empire transferred to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, or South Africa. Imperial Federation, when the time is ripe, is an ideal well worth working for. What we will not consent to do is to rush, in a panic or a flurry, or because it may help politicians at home out of a. temporary and local difficulty, into some wild, ill-considered, and altogether premature scheme of Federalism which is bound to prove unworkable, and, instead of uniting, must carry in it the seeds of disintegration, not only for that great, strong, central unit, the United Kingdom, but for the component parts of the Empire. To try to federate the Empire at this moment would, in our opinion, be to destroy it. The thing is impossible until Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa have achieved some sort of parity with us in the matter of population and internal and financial strength. To attempt to form a Federation on terms which are only too likely to seem to them to threaten their independence as self-governing nations is mere midsummer madness. Nothing is more dangerous than to try to drive a team composed of colts and a full- grown horse. Such a team is certain to upset the coach, though that does not prove that the colts will never be able to be put in harness with their dam. We had intended to point out some of the more obvious reasons which must prevent any scheme for the dissolu- tion of the unions between England, Scotland, and Wales from being carried out, reasons political, moral, and, above all, financial. The repudiation by Mr. Redmond of his interview with the representative of the Express makes it, however, almost unnecessary for us to do this. Already Federalism has been brought to the touch and has been shown to be impracticable. If Mr. Redmond's interview had held. good, and had been endorsed. by the rest of the Irish Party, it would no doubt have been impossible for us to say that the matter was not becoming one of practical politics. Since, however, it has not only failed to obtain the slightest encouragement amongst the Nationalists at home or among their American paymasters, but has been sternly repudiated by Mr. Dillon, we are entitled to say that the matter has ceased to be actual. What has happened has been exactly what happened when Mr. Redmond adopted. Mr. Birrell's Irish Councils Bill, and took it over with him to Dublin to be laid before the Conference of Nationalists. As we have noted above, they would not even discuss the plan, but threw it back at its authors with con- tumely. Mr. Redmond was obliged to put his pride in his pocket, and tell his masters that though those were his sentiments, if they did not suit they could, and would, be altered. He went over to Dublin a Devolutionist, and returned a sadder and wiser, but more deeply convinced, Parnellite than ever. On the present occasion we can hardly doubt that Mr. Redmond, with his invincible optimism, did set forth a scheme of Devolution to the reporter of the Express, though he has now been frightened by Mr. Dillon into thinking that he never could have been so indiscreet. Mr. Dillon, it is obvious, ordered him to repudiate the interview, and he did so, first in peremptory terms, and then in an account of the trans- action which, though it in effect corroborates the statements in the Express, shows that the sentiments expressed are no longer those of Mr. Redmond. The elephant which suddenly went wild has returned at the crack of Mr. Dillon's whip, and is now as tame as ever. It is amusing to note that Mr. T. P. O'Connor's views are apparently not thought worth repudiating by the men who control the Nationalist Party. It is assumed that he will come to heel automatically. That is the story of Mr. Redmond's escapade in a nutshell. Its moral for us is that, however convenient it may be for Radical politicians here to go in for British Federalism of a mild type, and however pleasant that would also be to the high-minded dreamers who are burning to turn their vision of Imperial Federation into a reality, Federalism cannot possibly be used as a way out of the veto imbroglio. Mr. Redmond has only been reconciled to his colleagues by declaring that he and they will be content with nothing less than Parnellite Home-rule,—that is, something more than Gladstonian Home-rule, or, as they put it, " an Irish Parliament with an Irish Executive responsible to it."
We know that the Scotch and the Welsh Federalists are determined to take nothing less than the Irish will take, and from their point of view they are right. That being so, we do not suppose that even the leaders of the Celtic fringes would have the hardihood to propose that England should have less than they. Therefore the proposal, if it is to be made at all, must be a proposal for four Parliaments with four Executives responsible to them (? all paid). Such a solution is best demolished by Cromwell's words:—" And if so what do you think the consequence of that would be? Would it not be confusion? Would it not be utter confusion ? Would it not make England like Switzerland, one county against another as one canton of the Swiss is against another And if so what would that produce but an absolute desolation—an absolute desolation to the nation ?" But though this reflection will be sufficient for most Englishmen, we may perhaps be asked to give our reasons somewhat more in detail. They certainly are not difficult to furnish. The impossibility of disentangling the finances of the four kingdoms, first from each other and then from the new Imperial Parliament which is to be established, is quite sufficient. Consider the question for a moment. It is governed by the old saw : " He who pays the piper calls the tune." Now unless the people of England are willing to abandon that very sound principle and to act upon its opposite—namely, that one set of men are to pay the piper and another set are to call the tune—the whole scheme is doomed. Federalism is forbidden by finance. If Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are to pay their fair and legitimate shares of the National Debt, of the cost of the Army and the Navy, of the Diplomatic Service, and of other Imperial charges, and also to pay for their own local administration, including the Police, Courts of Justice, and old-age pensions, then the grant of Home-rule to them will prove the most crushing and unendurable of burdens. After paying what for them will be a huge subsidy towards Imperial charges, they will have the choice of either being crushed by taxation or else abandoning what they have come to regard as the essentials of civiliseil government. They must be content in their internal administration with a perfectly different standard of life, and with salaries on a much lower scale than that to which they have hitherto been accustomed,—a standard, say, like that of Vinland rather than of Lancashire or 'Yorkshire. At present, and while we are a united kingdom, it is only ' right and fair that the richer parts of the national unit or body politic should help to support the poorer. No English- man grudges that money raised in the richer parts of the kingdom should go to help the poorer parts, whether they are in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, Anglesey and Flint, Cork and Kerry, Sutherlandshire and Argyllshire. But perhaps we shall be told that this is not at all what is meant by a federal scheme of Devolution, and that the finance is to go on just as now, or, in plain words, that the richer parts of England must in one form or another continue to subsidise the poorer parts of the Dis- united Kingdom. On this we will only say that if human nature remains what it is, and if men are to cling as they always have clung in the past to the principle of " he who pays the piper calls the tune," we shall simply return to the existing system of control by a by-road instead of by the main highway. It is impossible to have it both ways. The taxpayers of England will consent to an incorporating union. They will never consent to allow- ing the sub-nationalities—for that is what it would come to—to put their hands into the pocket of the English taxpayer and to take his money without giving him a voice in the way in which that money is to be spent. If the finance of the four proposed kingdoms is not to be disentangled and based upon a foundation of complete fiscal independence, as in the Colonies, the whole scheme will be seen to be moonshine, and we shall find ourselves as we were. A legislative and administrative union is an essential condition of any scheme under which England is to contribute as much for Ireland, Wales, and Scotland as she does now. To put the matter in a nutshell, the whole thing must break down on finance, if the finance is to be just and honest as regards England. Before we leave the subject we may observe that we have not in the least ignored, nor are the British people likely to ignore—even, which we hold is impossible, if the financial difficulty could be got over—the claim of the Protestant part of Ulster to be separated from the rest of Ireland and to enter the Federation as a fifth kingdom. By what possible right could we refuse to Belfast, and those counties in which the anti-Home-rulers are in a majority, the claim which we had just acknowledged in the case of Wales ? Protestant Ulster would, we may feel perfectly certain, refuse absolutely to be included in Ireland, and the dis- integration of Ireland would be demanded by the very arguments which had been employed to bring about the disintegration of the sister-island. To ride off on the plea that the Protestant portion of Ulster is not an historic unit will not serve, for Ireland itself has never been a single historic unit.
We have felt obliged to be very plainspoken on the subject of Federalism, but that does not of course preclude us from supporting any reasonable scheme for recognising the better side of the Nationalist movement. For example, we should be quite prepared to discuss sound proposals for allowing the Irish, the Scotch, the Welsh, and the English Members to sit as Special Committees at West- minster to consider and prepare Bills which affected only those portions of the United Kingdom. The Parliament of the whole United Kingdom would of course be in no way obliged to accept the views of such Committees, but they would no doubt give them due weight. Again, we see no possible objection to very great alterations being made in our system of private Bill legislation. For example, we think that many matters now dealt with by private Bill legislation might be handed over to bodies of Commis- sioners who might sit in Dublin, Edinburgh, and Cardiff. Between such proposals as these and Federalism, however, there is an ocean as deep and wide as the Atlantic. The breaking up of the United Kingdom under the alias of Federalism is in truth. the:wildest of wild dreams, and will not come to pass unless the people of this country are bent upon their own destruction. Federalism in its true sense means closer union. Dispersion is what it cannot mean in any conceivable circumstances.
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