LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN IRELAND.
[TO TRIG EDITOR or Tar "Sercrrros.-]
SIB,—With all due deference to Professor Dicey, I cannot admit that his case against the further extension of Local Self-govern- ment in Ireland is as conclusive as his case against Home-rule. In refusing Home-rule—that is to say, a separate Parliament —Liberal Unionists conceive that they are refusing a thing to which Ireland has no right, which would be injurious to her best interests, and the concession of which would necessarily split up the United Kingdom and weaken the British Empire. We decline to take what would be distinctly a backward step. In withholding from the Irish the right to manage locally their local affairs, we should be declining to go forward, and be violating every Liberal principle, and, for that matter, the principles of the present Unionist Government. To substitute elected County Boards for all administrative purposes (except law and order) for such existing authorities as are at present unrepresentative throughout the United Kingdom, would mean a considerable extension of Local Self-government to Ireland, fraught with no danger to the integrity of the United Kingdom.
To exempt the administration of justice and the control of the police from locally elected Boards, would only be treating Ireland like the rest of the United Kingdom, and like Repub- lican France, where the gendarmerie is a force acting under the orders of the Government.
The extension of Local Self-government in Ireland would mean liberty to each county or province to rate itself for all local purposes, but not power to Leinster, Munster, and Con- naught to impose taxes on Ulster, which would result from
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