with conditions which vary in England, Scotland and Ireland; and, as they are generally framed to meet the conditions existing in England, they have to be made suitable for Scotland and Ireland by means of 'application clauses,' which pro tanto means differential legislation. If the problem of the excessive burden cast upon our one Parliament was serious before the war, it is now insistent. Some, at any rate, of the present unrest seems due to the feeling amongst certain classes that Parliament is unable to grapple with the work of reconstruction so far as their needs are concerned. Parliamentary Government, as we know it, is on its trial; and, if it does not emerge triumphant from the ordeal, the movement in favour of direct action' and sectional, or rather vocational, organisations on the 'soviet' model may grow.

The fact that, despite the existence of a single legislature for all parts of the United Kingdom, separate, often diverse, legislation on many matters has to be passed for each of the three kingdoms, inevitably suggests, as the readiest way of relieving parliamentary congestion, the establishment of distinct bodies in England, Scotland and Ireland to deal with the matters on which legislation is not now uniform throughout the United Kingdom, and possibly other matters too. It does not, however, follow, though it is often assumed, that devolution of this sort must be federal; that is, that it necessitates the introduction of a federal or quasi-federal system into the United Kingdom. Certainly, the relief of parliamentary congestion, apart from the question of Ireland, does not seem to require the establishment in England, Scotland and Ireland of bodies of the true parliamentary type such as the seventeen legislatures that exist in the two federated Dominions, each of which,. as much as the single Parliament in the other three Dominions, possesses within the scope of its authority no mere delegated power but power as plenary and as ample as the Imperial Parliament in the plenitude of its power possessed and could bestow.' The measure of devolution that is required to relieve parliamentary congestion does not seem to call for more than the establishment of legislative bodies of a minor nature, such as the provincial councils which existed in New

Zealand from 1852 until 1876, and exist in South Africa to-day.*

The truth is that the driving force behind the movement for the introduction of a federal or quasi-federal system into the United Kingdom, as distinguished from the devolution of certain matters to quasi-municipal bodies, is the belief entertained by many that such a system would not only relieve parliamentary congestion but would also meet what they consider to be the legitimate claims of Ireland to control Irish affairs. The root difficulty in the way of thus killing two birds with one stone is the question of the scope of authority to be assigned to the local legislatures in England, Scotland and Ireland. The scope that would be sufficient to relieve the excessive burden now borne by Parliament ―roughly the matters now regulated by diverse laws in different parts of the United Kingdom-would not satisfy the Irish demand for control of Irish affairs; and the scope indicated by that demand is far greater than what is thought desirable or practicable for local legislatures in England or Scotland. This point, crucial though it is, has been rather neglected by the federalists, and seems to require consideration in some detail.

The extent of the autonomy that is sought by constitutional nationalists, as distinguished from Sinn Fein republicans, is fairly clear. The power proposed for the Irish Parliament in the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893 and the Act of 1914 was, like the power given to the legislature of every self-governing colony, a general power to make laws for the peace, order and good

*The Union of South Africa is sometimes described as a federal system, but this is obviously incorrect. The South African provincial councils, unlike the Canadian provincial legislatures and the Australian state parliaments, do not possess plenary powers; and no part of their jurisdiction is independent of control by the Union Parliament, which can not only override provincial legislation but can take away the powers and even terminate the existence of the councils. The fact that each provincial executive is not, like cabinets elsewhere, dependent on the continued support of a majority of the council but is elected by the council-on a system of proportional representation-for a definite term of years, indicates pretty clearly that the framers of the South Africa Act intended the Union, as stated in the preamble, to be a 'legislative Union,' not a federal Union, and regarded the provincial councils not as legislatures of the parliamentary type but as institutions of a quasi-municipal type.

government of the country; but, while the colonial constitution Acts contained practically no specific limitations of this general power, all the Irish measures contained a list of matters which were specifically declared to be outside the power of the Irish Parliament. Despite these exclusions, the matters within the power of the Irish Parliament in all three measures included a number of matters which are now regulated by uniform laws throughout the United Kingdom, and might well be thought to be prima facie unsuitable for devolution to local legislatures in England and Scotland, e.g., direct taxation, postal matters, railways, factory and industrial legislation, etc.

The matter, however, does not now stand as it did in 1886, 1893 and 1914. The Irish demand has grown as the result of a generation of postponement and drift. Eighteen months ago the question of what matters should be assigned to the Irish Parliament and what matters should be excluded from its power was considered by the Irish Convention, and the result is clearly set out in their Report. The great majority of that body-Nationalists, Southern Unionists and Labour members, in fact the whole Convention excluding the Ulster Unionists-agreed, except in one important question, upon limiting the matters to be excluded from the power of the Irish Parliament, viz. (1) the Crown, (2) peace and war, (3) foreign relations, (4) dignities, (5) defence (including certain control of harbours, etc.), (6) coinage, legal tender, weights and measures, (7) copyright and patent rights.†

As regards the one matter on which agreement was not reached-indirect taxation-Lord MacDonnell put the issue very clearly in a recent letter to 'The Times.' The whole Convention, exclusive of the Ulster Unionists, were in favour of Irish control of Excise; and the Nationalists

In some of the measures the Irish control of direct taxation and postal services was curtailed.

†The partial reservation of Police and Post Office under the Convention scheme was to cease as soon as possible after the end of the war. It may be noted that the matters comprised in the first four of these classes, though not specifically excluded from the scope of Dominion parliaments, are, in practice, beyond their control; and that their control over some of the other matters, e.g., coinage, is not unfettered.

and Labour men, but not the Southern Unionists, were in favour of Irish control of Customs also. The Prime Minister, however, in his famous letter to the Chairman, dated Feb. 25, 1918, while stating that the settlement of the Irish question was a task incumbent on the Government, and declaring their intention to submit legislative proposals to Parliament with the least possible delay, remarked that it would not be possible in the middle of a great war to face the financial and fiscal disturbance involved in the transfer of Customs and Excise to an Irish Parliament. It was, as Lord MacDonnell points out, to meet this view and the objection of the Southern Unionists to Irish control of Customs, and thereby to secure, as it was thought, in view of the terms of the Prime Minister's letter, the immediate establishment of an Irish Parliament, that the majority of the Nationalists agreed to the postponement of the decision on Customs and Excise. The general view in Ireland seems to be that this Nationalist consent to a postponement is no longer binding, as the Government did not, in accordance with the Prime Minister's undertaking on the presentation of the Convention's Report, introduce legislative proposals-an undertaking which the Nationalists regard as absolute and not contingent on complete agreement being reached in the Convention. Be this as it may, Lord MacDonnell points out that, as the war is now over, there is no longer any valid reason for postponing the decision; the question of Customs and Excise should be settled in any Act which sets up an Irish Parliament, and settled, he claims, in accordance with the views of the majority of the Convention, that is, by the grant of full fiscal autonomy.

Under the Convention's scheme, the Irish Parliament, would thus have control over such matters as treason, alienage, naturalisation, quarantine, external trade and navigation (including merchant shipping), and, most important of all, indirect taxation, in addition to the powers proposed in 1886 and 1893 and conceded in 1914. The Irish Dominion League, in their manifesto of June last, has reiterated this demand; and the scheme recently suggested by The Times' contemplates the assignment of most of these powers to an Irish Parliament. There may be strong British, and even Imperial, reasons why

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such powers should not be conceded--the question of Ulster objections is postponed for the moment-but it is quite clear that no measure of Home Rule, whether federal or otherwise, will now receive support from the most moderate Nationalists which excludes from the power of the Irish Parliament matters other than the seven heads mentioned above as excluded under the Convention's scheme, with possibly one or two additions, such as treason.

On the other hand, the relief of parliamentary congestion does not require the assignment to English and Scottish legislatures of many of the powers demanded for the Irish Parliament. The law and administration of direct and indirect taxation, postal services, trade and navigation and many other matters, are now uniform, or practically uniform, throughout the United Kingdom. Their transfer to local bodies in England, Scotland and Ireland is not required for the relief of parliamentary congestion. Their transfer to an Irish legislature is apparently required to satisfy the Irish claim for selfgovernment; and the breaking-up of the unity of the United Kingdom that is involved in such transfer might be accepted for the sake of an Irish settlement. The further step, however, of partitioning Great Britain and assigning the control of such matters as customs and excise, trade and navigation, etc., to separate bodies in England and Scotland, will never be accepted merely in order to settle the Irish question on a federal basis. Hence one school of politicians regards the grant of a full measure of selfgovernment to Ireland as incompatible with a federalised United Kingdom, while another school declares that the federalisation of the United Kingdom precludes the grant of a full measure of self-government to Ireland.

It must be admitted that the advocates of a federalised United Kingdom have never frankly grappled with this difficulty; certainly they have never, as a body, seriously addressed themselves to the problem of reconciling two apparent incompatibles-the demand for large powers for an Irish legislature and the demand for small powers for English and Scottish legislatures. There has been much vague talk about a compromise, but they will not face the fact that a compromise means giving an Irish legislature less power than would be sufficient to secure