TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1911. HOME RULE ALL ROUND.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 102, 2 May 1911, Page 6

TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1911. HOME RULE ALL ROUND.

The conception of Home Rule for Ireland as one step in a general devolution of local jurisdiction from the Parliament at Westminster flashed last year upon, not a few of the most far-sighted Imperialists in the Unionist Party with the light of a new discovery. 'It was realised by "Pacificus" and others during the sittings of the Constitutional Conference, when the attempt to adjust the quarrel beween Lords and Commons was known to have opened up a discussion of the second item on the Liberal programme, that Home Rule for Ireland might open the way for a general measure of Home Rule for the other divioions of the United Kingdom. The result of such a scheme of Home' Rule all round would be to relieve the Parliament at Westminster of the hopeless congestion of business from which it at present suffers, and to enable it to pay more effective attention to the affairs of the Empire, and ultimately perhaps to develop, through some method of Imperial representation, into a genuinely Imperial Parliament of the kind which Sir Joseph Ward has since advocated. Nationalist members who have recently minimised the gravity of Home Rule under the guise of devolution and Federation have been taunted with inconsistency and subterfuge t but, as we mentioned yesterday, Mr. John Redmond's reply to this criticism in his article on "What We Mean by Home Rule" in T.P.s Magazine is absolutely conclusive. O'Connell himself, as long ago as 1844, expressed his preference for the Federative plan over that of "simple repeal," as "tending more to tbq utility of Ireland" by giving her "more weight and importance in Imperial concerns than she would receive by the plan of the simple repealers." For many years after this the famine, the Fenian movement, and other causes combined to suppress the constitutional agitation altogether; but when tho Home Rule movement emerged from this chaos, "it was," says Mr. Redmond, "on the basis of Federation that Mr. Butt proceeded." The Home Rule Conference of 1873, after, affirming the necessity for an administration of Irish affairs controlled according to constitutional principles by an Irish Parliament, declared "that in the opinion of this Conference, a. Federal arrangement, based upon these principles, would consolidate the strength and maintain the integrity of the Empire, and add to the dignity and power of the Imperial crown." Mr. Redmond makes it quite clear that the departure from this ideal was the work not of an Irish but of an English leader. The Home Rule Bill which Gladstone introduced in 1886 provided* for tho entire exclusion of Irish representatives from tho Parliament at Westminster. The arrangement waa well calculated to appeal to the British elector, who had grown weary of Irish obstruction, and was naturally biased in favour ol anything that promised peace. But tho proposal was both unjust to Ireland and anti-Imperial, since it left Ireland subject to every Imperial obligation while depriving her of any voico in Imperial affairs. Tho conversation on the subject between Parnell, tho Irish leader, and Cecil Rhodes, tho arch-Imperialiat, which Mr. Red- ! grand. nuotM, 4* .extraordinarily, inter.

esting, especially for a. colonist. "I do not feel strongly on the question of the retention or the exclusion of the Irish members," said Parnell, "but Mr. Gladstone does. . . . 2 have no objection to meeting English public opinion on that point if Mr. Gladstone would agree." That Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1893 did not repeat the cardinal blunder of its predecessor may doubtless be attributed in large part to the representations of Cecil Rhodes, to whdeh from the first it is to be noted that the Irish leader offered no objection. But Rhodes looked a good deal further than. th'iß. Hia interest in Ireland was, as he says, an Imperial interest; 'I believed Irish Home Rule would lead to Imperial Home Rule." In answer to Parnell'e enquiry whether he wanted^any other change in the Bill than tnat already mentioned, Rhodes replied : "Yes, I want a clause — a little clause — a permissive clause, in your next Bill, providing that any colony Which -contributes to Imperial defence—to the Imperial Ahny or Navy— sh«U be allowed to send representatives to the Imperial Parliament in proportion to its contributions to the Imperial revenue." It « astonishing that as long ago as 1888 the great South African Imperialist should have been looking so far ahead. What Sir Joseph Ward startled us all by proposing in his speech at Sydney a few weeks ago was really mild in comparison with the clause which Rhodes was endeavouring to get added to a Home Rule Bill more than twenty years ago. The ideal of Cecil Rhodes is one which all Imperialist* should have constantly before them. It set« the cJaimfi of Ireland which will be advocated at the Town Hall to-morrow In their true relation to the cause of Imperial unity.