A. V. Dicey

“ Let an assailant of the Contagious Diseases Act, a fanatic for temperance, a protectionist who believes that free trade is the ruin of the country, an anti-vivisectionist who holds that any painful experiment on live animals is the most heinous of sins; let any man who has come to believe that his own credit, no less than the salvation of the country, depends on the success of a particular party, know that the triumph of his cause depends upon his voting that a particular measure operates beyond Great Britain, and we know well enough in which way he will vote. ”

“ Unity of Government—equality of rights—diversity of institutions,—these are the watchwords for all Unionists. To attain these objects may be beyond our power, and the limit to power is the limit to responsibility. Still, whatever may be the difficulties, or even the disadvantages, of maintaining the Union, it undoubtedly has in its favour not only all the recommendations which must belong to a policy of rational conservatism, but also these two decisive advantages—that it does sustain the strength of the United Kingdom, and that it does not call for any dereliction of duty. ”

“ Is it possible to combine the effective supremacy of the Imperial Parliament with Home Rule or the substantial legislative independence of Ireland? Can Ireland, close to the shore of Great Britain, occupy the position of a self-governing colony, such as New Zealand, divided from Great Britain by thousands of miles of sea? Is it possible to create, or even to imagine, a Court which shall decide whether a law passed by the Irish Parliament violates the provisions of the proposed Home Rule Act? ”

“ If the time should come when the effort to maintain the unity of the State is too great for the power of Great Britain, or the only means by which it is found maintainable are measures clearly repugnant to the humanity or the justice or the democratic principles of the English people,—if it should turn out that after every effort to enforce just laws by just methods our justice itself, from whatever cause, remains hateful to the mass of the Irish people,—then it will be clear that the Union must for the sake of England, no less than of Ireland, come to an end. ”

“ But Restrictions which delight Gladstonians are hateful to Irish Home Rulers. Their watchword is, 'Ireland a nation.' To this cry every Home Ruler will rally, and so too will, if once the Union is broken up, many an ardent loyalist, converted by anger at England's treachery into an extreme Nationalist. Irishmen will wish for an Irish army; they will wish for a protective policy; they will desire that Ireland shall play a part in foreign affairs, and will claim for her at least the independence of such a colony as New Zealand. ”

“ Not an independent Parliament, but independent ownership of land, has always been the desire of Irish cultivators. It was a cry for the land which gave force to the demand for Home Rule; and an Irish agitator, if his strength fails, renews it by touching the earth. But why confine our observation to Ireland? We here come upon the passions, not of Irish nature, but of human nature. There is not a landowner in France who does not care tenfold more for the security of his land than for the form of the government. ”

“ It is at moments of revolutionary fervour, when men measure proposed policies rather by their wishes than by their experience, that every citizen needs to have impressed upon his mind that government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination. Nor let any one imagine that the expression of the belief constantly avowed or implied throughout these pages, that Home Rule would be as great an evil to England as Irish independence, shows a reckless and most unbusinesslike indifference to the perils and losses of separation. ”

“ A town council, whatever its powers, does not represent a nation, and derives no prestige from the principle of nationality; the feeblest legislative assembly meeting at Dublin would rightly claim to speak for the Irish people. A town council, whether of Birmingham or of Belfast, springs from and is kept alive by the will of Parliament, and cannot pretend that its powers, however extensive, compete with the authority of its creator. ”

“ The politicians who are content with a light heart to destroy the work of Pitt may, for aught I know, with equal levity, annul the Union with Scotland and undo the work of Somers, or by severing Wales from the rest of England render futile the achievement of the greatest of the Plantagenets. Enthusiasts for 'Home Rule all round' would appear to regard their capacity for destroying the United Kingdom as a proof of their ability to build up a new fabric of Imperial power, and to fulfil their vain dreams of a federated Empire. ”

“ If Italy had been forced to accept, instead of her longed-for independence, the local self-government which might be conceded to the State of an Austrian Federation, we may be quite sure that the Grist Tax, the Sicilian Banditti, the intrigues of France in Tunis, the perversity of the Pope, the poverty of Italian workmen, the factiousness of Italian politicians, every evil, in short, real or imaginary, under which Italy now suffers, or has suffered since 1870—would have been attributed to her connection with a Union presided over by the Austrian Emperor. ”

“ Raise the cry of 'Home Rule all round,' or of 'Federalise the British Empire.' Turn England into one State of a great federation, let Wales be another, Scotland a third, the Channel Islands a fourth, and for aught I know the Isle of Man a fifth. ”

“ Good political institutions, it was at one time held, were the cause of a nation's happiness, and England, it was firmly believed, owed her prosperity wholly to her constitution. A century of revolutions has taught us all that a good form of government cannot of itself save a state from ruin, and many of us have come to think that forms of government are nothing, and that no constitutional changes can impair the strength of England. ”

“ An aristocracy respects the rights of individuals, but an aristocracy identifies right with privilege, and is based on the belief in the inequality of men and of classes. Privilege is the keynote of English constitutionalism; the respect for privileges has preserved English freedom, but it has made England slower than any other civilized country to adopt ideas of equality. This love of privilege has vitiated the English administration in Ireland in more ways than one. ”

“ Every Gladstonian speech is in effect a statement that is a prophecy of the benefits which Home Rule will confer on the United Kingdom. Gladstonian anticipations no doubt are prophecies of future blessings; but whoever foretells the future is equally a prophet, whether he announces the end of the world or foretells the dawn of a millennium. And history affords no presumption in favour of the prophet who prophesies smooth things. The prognostics of a pessimist may be as much belied by the event as the hopes of an optimist. ”

“ In its favour is engaged the pride—may we not say vanity?—of one of the leading nations of the earth. Americans regard Federalism with pardonable partiality. They are the original inventors of the best Federal system in the world, and Federalism has made them the greatest of all free communities. A polity under which the United States has grown up and flourished, and fought the biggest war which has been fought during the century, and come out of it victorious, and with renewed strength, must, it is felt, be a constitution suited for all nations who aspire to freedom. ”

“ But if they are so base as to forget what is due to their friends and victims, what trust could England place in the permanence of any sentiment expressed by such men with however much temporary fervour and however much apparent honesty? If, as I am convinced, the Irish leaders are not prepared to betray the fanatics or ruffians who have trusted and served them, then with what content does England look on the prospect of a general amnesty for criminals or of lavish rewards for breach of contract and the defiance of law? ”

“ I have not the remotest inclination to underrate the lasting and formidable character of this opposition between opinion and law, nor can any jurist who wishes to deal seriously with a serious and infinitely painful topic question for a moment that the ultimate strength of law lies in the sympathy, or at lowest the acquiescence, of the mass of the population. Judges, constables and troops become almost powerless when the conscience of the people permanently opposes the execution of the law. ”

“ No delusion however is more patent or more noxious. Never was a country richer in the elements of strength than were the Thirteen Colonies when their independence was acknowledged by England. Yet the Confederation by the vices of its constitution filled the colonies with discord, and made them both weak at home and contemptible abroad, whilst the creation of the United States restored them to peace and opened for them the road to greatness. ”

“ If millions of Englishmen refuse a request made by millions of Irishmen, by far the least irritating form of refusal is open avowal that the reason for denying a separate Parliament to Ireland is the irreparable injury which Home Rule will work both to Great Britain and to the British Empire. This assertion has the merit, which even in politics is not small, of truth. If the Parliamentary independence of Ireland threatened as little damage to England as the Parliamentary independence of Victoria, an Irish legislature would meet in Dublin before the end of the year. ”

“ Imagine for a moment what would have been the position of England if Englishmen had been convinced that Riel, though technically a rebel, was in reality a patriot, resisting the intolerable oppression of the Dominion Parliament, and you may form some slight idea of the feeling of shame and disgrace with which Englishmen would see British soldiers employed to suppress the revolt of Ulster against a Government which, without English aid, would find it difficult to resist or punish the insurgents. ”

“ To any one who looks behind the forms of the constitution to the realities of life, the voice of Irish wealth, of Irish intelligence, and of Irish loyalty is at least as important as the voice of Irish sedition or discontent. The eighty votes must in any case be reckoned morally at not more than sixty, for to this number they would be reduced by any fair and democratic scheme of representation. No one can be less tempted than myself to make light of Irish turbulence and Irish misery. ”

“ But a system of Federalism would assuredly weaken the Government quite as much as the Legislature. The Executive, as the organ of the Federal Union, would be hampered by new conditions utterly unknown to an English Ministry. The language of Federalists exhibits a curious and ominous silence or ambiguity as to the disposal of the armed forces. Is the army to be a British army, with authority at the will of the Federal Government to enter every part of the new Union, or is Ireland to have an independent force of her own? ”

“ People who know well enough that, in private life, wealth or rank or any other kind of power is as likely to mar a man as to make him, to lower as to raise his sense of duty, have nevertheless contracted the habit of talking as if human nature changed when it entered public life, as if the mere possession of public functions, whether of voting or of legislating, tended of itself to secure their proper exercise. ”

“ It does not avowedly break up the unity of Great Britain and Ireland; it does not wholly deprive England of Irish resources; it does not, directly at least, lay Great Britain open to foreign attack. Federalism has, however, special evils of its own. It revolutionizes the whole Constitution of the United Kingdom; by undermining the sovereignty of Parliament, it deprives English institutions of their elasticity, their strength, and their life; it weakens the Executive at home, and lessens the power of the country to resist foreign attack. ”

“ We know that power does not purify men in despotic governments, but we talk as if it did so in free governments. Every one would of course admit, if the point were put flatly to him, that power alone is not enough, but that there must be added to power, in the case of the voter, a direct interest in the choice of good men, in the case of the legislator, responsibility to the voters, in the case of both, a measure of enlightenment and honour. ”

“ Is it really to be feared that such a neighbour could, even if both independent and hostile, be half the peril to England that Germany is to France, or France to Italy? Money constitutes now more truly than ever the sinews of war, and it will be a long time before Ireland is a country abounding in money. There is, to say the least, something ignominious in the dread that Englishmen could not hold their own in the face of an Irish Republic, which would certainly be poor, and would probably be a prey to violent factions. ”

“ It will be said that to attack the Irish leaders is to slander the Irish people. This is untrue. In times of revolution men perpetually come to the front unworthy of the nation whom they lead. To treat distrust of the leaders of the Land League as dislike or distrust of the Irish people is as unfair as to say that the censor of Robespierre, of Marat, or of Barère denies that during the Revolution Frenchmen displayed high genius and rare virtues. There are thousands of Irishmen who will endorse every word I have written about the Irish leaders. ”

“ Laws, we are told, which are otherwise just are hated in Ireland because they bear a foreign aspect, and come before the Irish people in a foreign garb. If this assertion be not true, then the whole case for Home Rule falls to the ground. If this assertion possess even partial truth, then it applies with far greater force to tribute than to law. It is almost an absurdity to suppose that people who hate good laws because they may be termed English will not detest a heavy tax which not only may be called, but in reality is, a tribute to England. ”

“ A good constitution will not make a weak country strong, but an unsuitable constitution may reduce a strong country to feebleness. A weakling does not become a strong man by putting on armour, but a giant can derive no advantage from his strength if once he be got by fraud or force into a strait waistcoat.
Strength, it is true, will in the long run assert itself. The artificial supremacy of Ireland, or of a faction supported by Irish votes, will not last for ever; probably it will not last long. If the new constitution prove unbearable by England it will not be borne ”

“ No friend of Italy ever suggested that Italian independence should be accompanied by a loan from Austria to the Italian Kingdom. For the principle of nationality was the true source of Italian disaffection. If in dealing with Ireland we must calm agrarian misery before satisfying national aspirations, this necessity is all but a confession that Irish unrest is due far more to desire for a change in the land laws than to passionate longing for national independence. I do not doubt that the spirit of nationality has some, though probably a small, part in the production of Irish discontent. ”

“ The varying forms of the English Constitution have, on the whole, possessed the immense merit of giving at each period of our history political authority into the hands of the class, or classes, who made up the true strength of the nation. Right has in a rough way been combined with might. Wherever this is not the case, and genuine power is not endowed with political authority, there exists a sure cause of revolution; for sooner or later the natural forces of any society must assert their predominance. No institution will stand which does not correspond with the nature of things. ”

“ The difficulty no doubt will be diminished, or rather shifted; but the dream is vain that under the new Constitution Englishmen would be able to trouble themselves no more about the concerns of Ireland than they do about the affairs of Canada. Ireland would still be our immediate neighbour. Irishmen would still be divided by differences of class and religion, and England would still, disguise the fact as you may, be ultimately responsible for good government in Ireland. Home Rule is not Separation, and nothing short of Irish independence would greatly lessen English responsibility. ”

“ The mode of weakening the federal authority is only too obvious. 'The more there is of the more,' says a profound Spanish proverb, 'the less there is of the less.' The more the number of separate States in the confederacy, the less will be the weight of England, and the greater the relative authority of Ireland. Let England, Scotland, and Wales become separate States, let the Channel Islands and Man, and, if possible, some colonies, be added to the federation, and as the greatness of England dwindles so the independence of Ireland will grow. ”

“ English Colonialism works well enough; the sham Federalism and the sham Colonialism of the Gladstonian Constitution must create between Great Britain and Ireland all the causes of discontent which have from time to time tried the strength of the American Union, and all the causes of disturbance which from time to time reveal the weakness of the tie which binds together our Colonial Empire. ”

“ Each State throughout the American Union, each Canton of Switzerland, has something like sovereign independence. Yet the United States are strong and prosperous, and the Swiss Confederacy, which was a land at one time torn by religious animosities, and divided by differences of race, is now a country so completely at harmony with itself that without a regular army it maintains its independence in the face of the armed powers of Europe. Canada or Victoria have more complete liberty of action than any one dreams of claiming for Ireland. ”

“ The revolution which works these changes holds out no hope of reconciliation with Ireland. An attempt, in short, to impose on England and Scotland a constitution which they do not want, and which is quite unsuited to the historical traditions and to the genius of Great Britain, offers to Ireland a constitution which Ireland is certain to dislike, which has none of the real or imaginary charms of independence, and ensures none of the solid benefits to be hoped for from a genuine union with England. ”