WILL WE HAVE HOME RULE ?

New Zealand Tablet, 26 May 1921, Page 35

WILL WE HAVE HOME RULE ?

The British Government has declared its - “Act for the Better Government of Ireland,” passed last year, to be the final proof of Britain’s goodwill and honesty of purpose towards Ireland. The description is true, for,a more insulting, dishonest, and oppressive measure could hardly be devised (says Old Ireland). But as it is likely that elections to the mock Parliaments it creates will be held soon, and a big effort made to represent lit as a measure which, if given a fair trial, would benefit Ireland, it is desirable that Irish men and women should understand its general effect. Therefore I propose to outline its main features in this article. • - Two Parliaments are to be establishedone for “Northern Ireland” and the other for “Southern Ireland.” “Northern Ireland” is defined as the Parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, “Londonderry,” and Tyrone, with the Parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and “Londonderry.” “Southern Ireland” is the remainder of the countryincluding Donegal! Each Parliament is to consist, of “His Majesty the King, a Senate and a House of Commons. The Northern Senate is to be a popularly elected body, but the preponderating majority in the Southern Senate is to consist of Crown nominees and placemen. The Houses of Commons are to be elected on the present franchise, the principle of proportional representation bqing employed. Before any member of Parliament can take his seat he must take the oath prescribed for members of the British Parliament. This oath is as follows: do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George the Fifth, and I do faithfully, promise to maintain and support the succession to the Crown as the same stands limited and settled hy t virtue of an Act passed in the reign of King William the Third . . . and by the subseqeunt Acts of Union with Scotland and Ireland.” If more than half the members returned to either House of Commons do not take this oath, that House may, by Order in Council, be dissolved, and its powers transferred to the Lord-Lieutenant and a committee nominated by the Grown. One might, for all practical purposes, stop here and now, but there are so few things left to laugh at nowadays that the rest of the Act may be considered. The first duty of the two Parliaments is to 1 be the formation of a Council of Ireland—composed of a Crown nominee as President, with 20 representatives of the six counties and 20 of the remaining 26. This Council is to deal with such matters affecting the whole of Ireland as the two Parliaments agree to 'delegate to it, and with “Private Bill Legislation.” It is also empowered to offer advice on certain matters affecting Ireland as a whole to the two Parliaments. , The judicial and administrative provisions of the Act are farcical, and seem to have been framed on that good old British principle, “Jobs for all.” Southern and Northern Ireland are each to have a High Court and. a Court of. Appeal. Decisions of the latter are subject to revision by the Irish Court of Appeal, from which further appeals will lie to the British House of Lords. Orders of the Southern Courts will be of no effect in Carsonia (or is it to be Tir-Craig),-! and vice versa. I refer readers who want, to realise how this will work out to Mr. D. C. Maher’s farce, “Partition.’’) Such public services as are not reserved to the British Government are-also to be partitioned. \ ■ : P- ; * Each portion of Ireland is to have an executive modelled closely on the English plan—the heads of departments being politicians holding office as long as their party is in power and forming a Ministry (all the members of which must .be Privy Councillors). A “Cabinet” is also to be created. Such are the arrangements until the two Parliaments agree to a “Union of Ireland.” When, and if, they do, a Parliament for all Ireland, consisting of “His Majesty and two Houses,” elected as agreed between the Northern and Southern Parliaments, is to be substituted for the “Council.” This Irish Parliament’s powers are to be: • - (1) Those of the Council at the date of “Union” • (2) Such other powers as the two Parliaments transfer to it; . ■* -

•\ (3) Control of certain services reserved, lentil the date of union, by the British Parliament, including the police v‘ and magistracy, the post . office, and some less important services. - ■ • ■ The Northern and Southern Parliaments' are not to cease to exist until all their powers have been transferred to the “Irish Parliament,” so we may have three Parlia- . ments, each of two Houses, operating simultaneously. When the “Union” takes place the sections of the judiciary and other partitioned services are to be patched together 1 again. ' ' ~v. ’ So much for the machinery of government. The powers given by our benevolent rulers in this great charter of ’ liberty remain to be considered. They are really humor-• ous. ’ 5 ... ‘ -Aj The Parliaments of Northern and Southern Ireland and, after their Union,’the Parliament of Ireland, •/ “shall have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good' government of” the parts of Ireland in their respective jurisdictions, “ except (here follows a very long list of exceptions dealing with every branch of “peace, order,, and good government,” including the following):, (1) The Crown or. the Lord-Lieutenant; (2) The making of war and peace, or anything relating thereto; (3) Naval or military matters (4) Treaties or any relations with foreign States or the British dominions, including > extradition, etc.; (5) Trade outside the part of Ireland within their jurisdiction, including the granting of bounties on exports. (6) Coinage, weights, and measures, etc.; (7) Patents, copyrights, trade marks, etc. ; (8) Any matters which are by the Act declared to be “reserved,” so long as they remain reserved. It is to be noted particularly that all these exceptions save the last are to be perpetuhl. In addition to the police and magistracy, and the postal and other services which are to be transferred to the “Irish” Parliament when it is created, the “reserved matters” include “the general subject matter of the Acts relating to Land Purchase in Ireland,” unless and until the British Parliament transfers them; but the Irish assemblies are to have the powers of the Congested Districts Board (except the power to require advances under the “Wyndham Act”), and also the privilege of collecting the Land Purchase annuities, for which they will have to account to the Imperial Exchequer. 1 1 To devise laws of any utility which will not infringe any of these exceptions will obviously impose a severe tax on the ingenuity of the numerous Councils, Senates, and Houses of Commons. As will appear when the taxation sections are considered, it will be almost the only tax they can impose, and the taxable surplus of ingenuity to be discovered in any assembly which undertakes, to work the Act will certainly be very small f ' However, there may -; be some loophole, so sectidhs 6 and 75 are insetted. Section 6 enacts that none of the Irish Parliaments may “repeal or alter any provision of this Act, or of any Act , of, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the appointed day” (the date upon which the Act is put in operation) “authough that provision deals with a matter in respect of which , the ( Irish Parliament has power to make laws”; and that where there shall be any conflict between an English and ap, Irish Act the latter shall be void. Section 75 declares that ' “riotwithstanding the establishment of the Parliaments of V Southern and Northern Ireland, or the Parliament of Ireland, or anything contained in this Act, the supreme auth- . ority of the Parliament, of the United Kingdom shall remain unaffected, and, undiminished over all persons, matters, and things in Ireland and every part thereof.” That is * the Lloyd-Georgian conception of self-determination; ' Apart from the financial provisions, the only other \ matter of interest is that Ireland is to have the inestimable privilege of returning 46 members to the British Par- S liament. •■■■■• The Act of ' Union has been , described as a treaty between the two nations. Of course it was not, but if it had been the foregoing summary of parts of the 1920 Act shows that the few articles of the treaty which have, not V already been, in effect, v repealed/, are now ‘ violated. -