The Dominion TUESDAY, MAY 13, 1924. HOME RULE ALL ROUND

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 195, 13 May 1924, Page 6

The Dominion TUESDAY, MAY 13, 1924. HOME RULE ALL ROUND

An uproarious scene in the House of Commons over the talkingout of a Home Rule for Scotland Bill is an interesting event in British politics, but not one that need occasion any anxiety. As yesterday’s report of the incident showed, the introduction of a private Bill proposing to confer Home Rule on Scotland is part and parcel of the movement in favour of a gr neral devolution scheme in the United Kingdom. This is a movement of long standing in Great Britain, and within the last few years it has attracted a good deal of Parliamentary support from members of all parties. Prior to the Irish settlement some supporters of the movement possibly considered that Ireland might be satisfied within the limits of a comprehensive scheme of general devolution. This, apart, however, devolution has been strongly advocated as being in the interests of the British kingdoms other than Ireland and indispensable to Parliamentary efficiency. The broad case for devolution stands now much as it did when it was stated in the following terms by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain nearly forty years ago: — Wc have to deal with a system under which the greatest legislative assemblage in the world has begun to lose its usefulness, and in consequence lose its influence. And that result can never be accomplished so long as the Imperial Parliament is burdened with an ever-increasing amount of petty detail with which it is incompetent to deal, and touch ought to ho referred to other bodies. . . . And these objects can only be secured, I. ’oelieve, by some great _ measure of devolution, by which the Imperial Parliament shall maintain its supremacy, but shall neveitheless relegate to subordinate authorities the control and administration of their local business. Since Mr. Chamberlain made this statement, the desirability of enabling the British Parliament to concentrate on big affairs has become more than ever manifest. In June, 1919, opinion on these matters had so far crystallised that the House of Commons carried, on a non-party vote of 187 to 34, a resolution urging the Government to create subordinate legislatures for the United Kingdom, and, as a step in that direction, to appoint a Parliamentary body to consider and report upon a measure of federal devolution. As an outcome of the inquiry for which the resolution provided, a Parliamentary conference, presided over by the Speaker of the House of Commons, reported to that Chamber in May, 1920. The report submitted alternative schemes of devolution drawn up respectively by the Speaker oand Mr. J. Murray Macdonald. The reports agreed in recommending that England, Scotland, and AV ales, but not Ireland, should be administered by local legislatures subordinate to the Imperial Parliament. The principal point of difference was that Mb. Murray Macdonald recommended that the members of the local legislatures should be elected separately, while the Speaker recommended that the “first Chamber of the Grand Council” in each local legislature should be composed of all the members returned to the House of Commons to sit for constituencies in that area. As head of the Coalition Government, Mr. Lloyd George was asked by a Parliamentary deputation, in December, 1920, to introduce a Devolution Bill. Mr. Lloyd George declared himself in sympathy with the proposal, but instanced detail difficulties. For instance, he said that “Scotland and Wales were very simple matters,” but asked the members who interviewed him how they proposed to get over the fact that an English local Parliament representing thirty-six million people, would be only less important than the Imperial Parliament. This, no doubt, is one of the great obstacles to a scheme of devolution. At the same time devolution appears to be an indispensable means of enabling the British Parliament to concentrate as it should on national affairs in their larger aspect, and on Imperial affairs. From the point of view of th© Dominions it is certainly desirable that the British Parliament should be enabled to give, more time and attention than it can in existing conditions to affairs that are of mutual concern to Great Britain and the countries of the overseas Empire. It is of some interest at the moment that several members of the present British Ministry, amongst them Mr. Clynes (Lord Privy Seal), and Mr. Vernon Hartshorn, Postmaster-General, have taken a prominent part in advocating the enactment of a measure of federal devolution. As a Government, however, the Labour Government has yet to show that it is prepared to do more in the matter than its predecessors. The offer to appoint a committee “to examine the whole question and report to the House” is really only a proposal to go again over welltrodden ground.