nothing short of a new Imperial Constitution. But this is not the way in which the English people have been accustomed to meet their political difficulties. They have wisely sought to deal with each contingency as it arises, using the means which experience has taught them to be the best, instead of roving the world of political speculation for far-fetched analogies and model Constitutions. We could not, if we would, deal with each part of the United Kingdom as if all were exactly alike. The case of Scotland, although it presents many resemblances, is not exactly analogous to that of Ireland, and the geographical fact of the insular position of Ireland, the political fact of her intense Nationalism, and, most of all, her differential treatment in the pages of the statute-book, put her in a different category It may be found possible to limit devolution of legislative powers in the case of Great Britain to an alteration in the procedure of the House of Commons. The one difficulty I see is the responsibility of the Executive for legislation. Can a Liberal Government with a majority in the whole House afford to allow legislative autonomy to a Committee of English members in which it is in a minority, and conversely can a Unionist Government in a similar position in the whole House afford to allow legislative autonomy to a Committee of Scotch members in which it is in a minority? Possibly. There can be no doubt that the doctrine of the responsibility of the Cabinet of the day for legislation has been carried much too far-it was almost unknown at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the private member was as powerful as to-day he is impotent. A system of national committees in legislation might restore to the House the autonomy of which it has been deprived, and one might then see something of the legislative initiative, activity, and independence which Deputies exercise in the committees of the French Parliament. One thing is quite certain-however many 'Legislatures' we may have in the House of Commons, we cannot have more than one Executive; and therefore, unless we have separate Parliaments we must make some distinction as to what kind of legislation the Government of the day is to be responsible for. There are no precedents to guide us. It is true we have a Scotch Standing Committee in the House legislating in exclusively Scottish affairs, but this proves too little or too much ; too little because that Committee has only been in existence when the majority of Scottish members have been of the same party as the majority in the whole House; too much because the Scotch Committee is not really autonomous—all its measures have to be submitted on Report to the whole House. The present Lord Chancellor did indeed put forward, in an article written in 1892 and re-published by him in the Contemporary Review for March 1911, the ingenious suggestion that there might be two Executives existing concurrently in the House of Commons-an Imperial Cabinet consisting of four Secretaries of State, the First Lord of the Treasury, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, these being, in his opinion, purely ‘Imperial' Ministers; and a British Cabinet consisting of such Ministers as (among others) the Home Secretary, the Presidents of the Local Government Board, Board of Education and Board of Trade, and the Secretary for Scotland. The classification will not bear a very close examination; the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, and the President of the Board of Trade would not easily find an exclusive place in either category. Moreover, the scheme involves some strange complexities and readjustments of the conventions of the Constitution. What would be the position of the British Executive if defeated in the House of Commons on British affairs? Would it resign or would it be entitled to call for a dissolution confined to Great Britain alone? If it could only do the former, its authority in the House would be precarious ; if it could command the latter, the position of the Imperial Cabinet would be intolerable. Nor could the distinction between the two Cabinets really be maintained. What, for example, would be the position of such ‘Imperial' Ministers as the Secretary for War or the Home Secretary, if a vote of censure were passed on either or both by the British members, for the employment of troops in an industrial dispute in Great Britain? The position of Ministers under such a system would be worse than precarious, it would be servile—they would be like the mediæval villein, the legal test of whose servitude was found by the common law in the definition that he knows not to-day what he may have to do to-morrow.' A scheme such as this represents a kind of inchoate devolution-a differentiation in the Executive without a corresponding differentiation in the Legislature. Two distinct Executives are only possible if there two distinct Legislatures. It seems to me that this is eminently a case for experiment under the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. The great advantage of such a procedure is that it is experimental, and in no sense final. By delegating business to a Grand Committee by a Standing Order the House never entirely renounces its control over such legislation, and it can decide in each individual case whether it will dispense with the Report stage or not. The flexibility of such a procedure is obvious. The Government of Ireland Bill, instead of laying down a uniform system of local are legislatures for the United Kingdom, has confined itself to Ireland as a special case, and leaves open the possibility of differential treatment of the other parts of the kingdom. This seems sound. As for the provisions of the Bill itself, as distinct from its general principles, I have no space to discuss them in detail in the present article, but I think it may be truly said of them that they follow the line of historical development. Here is no repeal of the Act of Union. The Bill recognises that Ireland has been bound during the last hundred years by innumerable legislative ties, pre-Union statutes and post-Union statutes. Litera scripta manet. Those ties are never likely to be seriously relaxed. History has done its work. Grattan's Parliament may have been premature, and it is possible at one and the same time to defend the Act of Union and to plead for its modification. Of this Bill, and of its whole method of approaching the subject of constitutional reconstruction, I think it may justly be said that the men who framed it have laid to heart the wise words of Burke : 'I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building. J. H. MORGAN. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake to return unaccepted MSS. PROPERTY OF BURLINGTON, VT. INDEX TO VOL. LXXI The titles of articles are printed in italics ADM CAN ADMIRALTY Administration, Re- BARBOSE. Bismarckian Germany, 1059- (J. Ellis), cent Changes in, 201-216 settlement in, 312-331 in Tripoli, 1216-1229 for a Settlement of Territorial Ambi- tions, 191-200 exodus, 174-190 332-340 ; reply to, 547–556 1121-1133 between 1097 Radical advocacy of, 589-598 torial expansion, 191-200 independence of Persia, 40–47 ness in, 756–766 and a, 86-97 706-718 competitors, 24-39 Academy, 1202-1215 547-556 ment of the, 557-567 scheme, 1076-1088 Organisation of a Disestablished 1075 of the Brownings, 976-988 Imperial Preference Scheme, 385-400 Indian Government, 48–57 variations, 511-531 of, 75–85 Socialists, 1029-1045 Germany, 1059-1075 the Restoration of the Ming Dynasty, 667-687 1017-1028 the United States, 1121-1133 in education, 945-965 the Lance versus the Rifle, 966–975 less Telegraphy, 1076-1088 312-331 mercantile marine, 795–803 756-766 1812, 976-988 between, 657-666 ment, 632-642 1076-1088 DAY CAN FIG and a Suggestion, 1176-1184 Naval Case for Ratifying the De- Navy I a Canadian View, 821-828 Solution of the Mystery of Bird Flight, 75-85 Ratifying the, 435-444 Depopulation, Rural, in England during 1912, 274–284 Ireland, 643-656 ; a rejoinder to, linck critically estimated ? 98-111 Diplomacy and Parliament, 632-642 Wales, 1089-1106 and struggle for restoration of the, 1106 Disestablishment, Why some of the Clergy Duff (Lady Grant), The Action of 1009-1016 EDUCATION and character-training ment, 133-147, 341-356, 532-546 Education, A Physiological Basis for, Educational endowments, and return. Emancipation of women in Norway, of the Oxford Movement, 133–147 ; Emigration, Britain's neglected advan. tages, 483-496 problem, 112-132 Financial Relations with Scotland and Ireland, 411-434 and the nation's industries, 401-410, 589-598 Established Churches and Disestab- Boy's Impression of the Fourth of Boy's Impression of, 1192-1201 Evolution and heredity, influence of Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, Celibacy’: Reply to Mrs. Huth Jackson, 307-311 Federalism, Home Rule and, 1230–1242 nomic Position and her Financial of, 930-944 February 7th, 1812-1912, 274–284 |
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