Member for Waterford represents? Are | honestly think that the Chancellor of there two kinds of Home Rule? ["No."] the Exchequer when he rises immediately If there is only one kind, why did the to reply to me will put an end to this. right hon. Gentleman appeal to the ambiguous state of things. If he elects Irish Party for instruction, information, to say-as he will be justified in saying: and guidance? The right hon. Gentle- "I am a Home Ruler, I am in favour of man ended his speech by an appeal to that policy, I have spoken and voted what he called the long and honourable for it, but I recognise that under modern connection of his Party with the Home conditions it cannot be carried out, and Rule cause. The connection certainly I therefore abandon it," no one could has been long. It is not for me to say say that is either dishonourable or that it has been otherwise than honour- ambiguous. It may be statesmanlike; able. But let me ask exactly what it it may be right. If he elects to get up is. At the end of 1885 Mr. Gladstone and say: 'I always have been a Home came in with a not very big majority, Ruler, I am still a Home Ruler, and when a large number of whom were hostile the general election comes I will not to Home Rule, and attempted unsuccess- repeat the tactics of the last election; fully to carry a Home Rule Bill. He I will not set up all these imaginable repeated that experiment a few years barriers between myself and this great later with a small majority under circum- remedial policy of Home Rule for England, stances of extraordinary difficulty, and Scotland, or Ireland; I will make Home he repeated the attempt with a courage Rule the first constructive plank in our and an ability which even those who programme," that also is unambiguous; differed from him most violently were it is statesmanlike, it is clear, and we glad to recognise. Fifteen years of know where we are. But if he contents meditation passed and the Home Rule himself, like the Chief Secretary for Party came into power, not with a Ireland, with a nebulous exposition of divided majority as in 1885, not with a things in general, with a statement small majority as in 1886, not with a of his own ardent connection with the small majority as in 1892, but with the cause, and his desire to see it carried largest majority of which the history out, and without any statement of the of the British Parliament gives us the policy of the Party to which he belongs record; and these Gentlemen, after and of which at this moment he is in their long and honourable connection fact the leader, then he is open, not with the cause of Home Rule, believing, merely to the charge which he, with very as they are going to say to-night when little reason, was pleased to level against they vote for this Resolution, that it is me in the last Parliament on another not only good for Ireland, but good for question, but to the charge that it Scotland and for England; believing, is impossible to repudiate that he is in other words, that it still stands as it playing with a great issue and with a did in 1886 and 1893; believing that it great cause-he is leading on his Irish stands in the forefront, not of a mere followers below the gangway with false local reform admirable for Ireland, but hopes and illusory expectations, and he indifferent to the other parts of the is keeping open with all its attendant United Kingdom; believing, as they evils a great great constitutional question think, that it is a reform intimately which it is to the interests of every part bound up with the prosperity of every of the United Kingdom should soon be part of the United Kingdom-these settled one way or the other. Gentlemen have so arranged their business, have perhaps so contrived their electoral programme, have so lavished their electoral promises, that they find the majority which perhaps alone could deal with this question evaporating before their eyes, vanishing before they are able to strike a single blow in favour of that cause with which they have been so long and so honourably connected. I

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EX. CHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH, Fifeshire, E.): I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is quite impossible in the short space of time allocated to a debate of this kind to survey in all its aspects the question of Home Rule. I shall not attempt to do so, nor shall I attempt to follow the right hon. Gentleman into a

part of his argument which is open, I think, to a good deal of obvious criticism, in which he claimed for himself and the Party to which he belongs something in the nature of a monopoly in regard to beneficent legislation for land purchase and local government in Ireland. Those who remember the history either of the one question or of the other will know how to appraise properly the value of his claim. But the right hon. Gentleman has not been content with making his own speech; he has been good enough to sketch out for me the speech which he thinks I ought to make. I am very much obliged to him, but, although I hope when I sit down I shall not be open to the charge of nebulousness or obscurity, I am going to make my own speech after my own fashion. The right hon. Gentleman appears to think that, while he and his Party in this matter occupy a clear and unequivocal position, and while the same may be said of the followers of the hon. Member for Waterford who sit below the gangway, we here, and we on this bench in particular, find ourselves tonight in a position of considerable embarrassment. Well, I have had a somewhat prolonged experience in this House, and I will at once relieve the kindly solicitude of the right hon. Gentleman by informing him that never in the whole course of that experience have I felt less embarrassed than I do to-night. For twenty years, for more than twenty years, I and many of my colleagues whom I see sitting around me here have steadily and consistently voted, time after time, for propositions which, while explicitly safeguarding the supreme and indefeasible authority of this Imperial Parliament, have declared that the ultimate solution of the Irish problem can only be found in a system of self-government in regard to purely local affairs. From that opinion I have never receded, and I hold it just as strongly to-night as ever I did. How then do we stand, those who have acted in the past as I and many of my colleagues have done, how do we stand on this question? That is the question I am going to ask in the very few minutes in which I shall trespass on the attention of the House. How do we stand first of all in regard to the Motion of the hon. Member for Waterford, and next in regard to

the Amendment of the noble Lord. Shall I say at once, and I hope there is no ambiguity here, I could not vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Waterford in the form in which it at present stands. Why? Because I find in it no explicit recognition of what to my mind has always been the governing condition in regard to this matter-Imperial supremacy. The hon. Gentlemen said in his speech that any such addition was unnecessary; I do not agree with him. I quite accept his assurance as to the sense in which his Motion is intended; but I can remember Motions, not of a similar character, but in the same direction, made in the years gone by in this House in which a claim was put forward for an independent Irish Parliament, Motions which were strenuously resisted by Sir William Harcourt, and against which Sir William Harcourt and all of us went into the lobby. In my opinion the recognition of the claim of Ireland for self-government must be accompanied by the express statement that whatever is granted must be granted subject to the dominant and paramount supremacy of this Imperial Parliament. That defect, the cardinal defect of the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, would be set right by the acceptance of the Amendment which my hon. friend the Member for Walthamstow has placed on the Paper. Furthermore, and here again I hope there will be no ambiguity, I could not vote for the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman if it were intended, or could be construed as being intended, to declare it to be the duty of the present Parliament to set up, or to begin to set up, in Ireland a legislative or executive system. I say that for two very obvious reasons. the first place, I do not think any House of Commons in these days would be justified in embarking upon such a task, unless the matter had been, I will not say the leading, but, at any rate, one of the leading issues submitted to the electorate by which that House of Commons was returned. That, obviously, was not the case in the General Election of 1905. In the next place, many of us, including, I am not ashamed to say, myself, are under an express and

In

deliberate pledge to our constituencies | sistently with the promise and assurances and the country. The right hon. Gentle- we gave, we attempted to do last year in man in the concluding passages of his the Irish Council Bill. That Bill-I speech actually went the length of will not discuss it now-was not inconsistaunting us as if we were prepared tent with further changes of a constituto violate those pledges. [OPPOSITION tional kind, but it did not involve them Cries of "No."] as a necessary practical effect or logical consequence. I think myself that it would have brought great financial

66

believe, maintains), or else it implies, where else in the Empire is there so by its assertion of an undivided respon- widespread and fertile a breeding-ground sibility in the Imperial Parliament for of perennial discontent. I do not profess legislation and administration in regard to foresee the precise steps and stages to Ireland-the word is "undivided" by which the goal will be reached. [OPPOand not ultimate "that amelioration SITION cheers.] Some wiseacres oppois not to be sought in the direction of site may think that they can. I have developing Irish self-government; in always thought and I think every year, other words, as I say, in the growing the more experience I have of the actual association of power and responsibility. working both of legislation and adminisThe right hon. Gentleman Gentleman told us tration in this House, the goal itself is in one part of his speech that this move- certain and inevitable. Are we to go onment for what is called Home Rule I make this appeal even to the strongest was not only not analogous with, but Unionist I see opposite-are we to go on, was directly contrary to, the develop generation after generation, treading ment of free institutions in our colonies. with blind steps the same old well-worn He used the word integration. He hopeless track which zig-zags between said the one movement was of integra- coercion and conciliation, and which tion, and this was a movement of disin- always returns in a vicious circle to the tegration. Could there be a greater, point from which it started? Or-for a more real, a more fundamental disin- this is the only alternative-shall the tegration than at present exists between British people, because they have got Ireland and the Imperial Parliament? to be convinced, we all recognise that; Is it not really playing with words and, until they are convinced, you cannot -because you do not adopt the same travel an inch on the road-shall the method of arriving at your end when the people of this country be brought, as in end is the same, when the object in both time I both hope and believe they will, cases is to assure loyalty, contentment, to a higher and wider point of view, and and unity, by drawing together the taught, as they ought to be by their members for the centre through giving own long and world-wide experience, greater freedom and larger autonomy to recognise that in Ireland, as elsewhere, to the members in matters that concern it is in the union of Imperial supremacy only themselves, whether you apply with local autonomy that the secret and that process to a colony 10,000 miles the safeguard of our Empire is to be away or to a country separated only by found? a few miles? The spirit, the object, and, as we believe, the result are the same; and let me add this for myself and I think I may speak for a great many other people, I have always regarded what is called Home Rule in Ireland as part and parcel-a most urgent part, I agree, in point of both policy and time-of a more comprehensive change. The constitutional problem-I am not sure it is not the gravest of all the constitutional problems of the immediate future is to set free this Imperial Parliament for Imperial affairs, and in matters purely local to rely more and more on local opinion and local machinery. Ireland is by far the most urgent case. There the Irish nation or, as I conceive, to the is to-day, as there has been for centuries, the one undeniable failure of British statesmanship. Nowhere else in the Empire is there a deeper or more unfailing reservior on which we draw for the arts both of peace and of war; and yet no

*MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.): Mr. Gladstone is dead, the Prime Minister is stricken, and we are left to deal with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sorry that the task of winding-up this debate on behalf of the Irish Party has been allotted to me, because my connection and touch with that Party has not been as close of late as I could have wished. But if I speak for myself, I believe that I shall also speak for the Irish nation, and I have to say that if the right hon. Gentleman supposes that by the attitude he has assumed tonight he will commend himself either to

English nation, he is much mistaken.
I do not know to which section of the
Liberal Party the Chancellor of the
Exchequer looks for strength or support.
I do not know whether it is the section
which was intimately represented in the

case of the recent meeting at Lord | The right hon. Gentleman wishes apparRosebery's, or whether it is to the section ently to take low ground again to-night, with which we have been largely in and I do not desire, speaking with a sympathy, but I would like to put this sense of responsibility, to do more than question to the Liberal Party. You to take note of his observations. In have it stated to-night that the Irish this House our Party is separate and is cause the cause to which Gladstone independent. Since the days I gave in devoted his life, and upon which he my allegiance to Mr. Gladstone's policy imperilled his fame-was submerged at twenty-two years ago, I have never the late general election by the question believed in the tactics merely of of free trade. May I ask the right hon. independent opposition for Ireland Gentleman—What is to be the question I believe in a policy of independent

at the next general election? Is there friendship, and that our Party should be to be no question of free trade at the ready as long as it is fairly met, to next general election? Or is it probable co-operate with either section in this that the Tory Party, which three years House. We are not partisans of one ago, at all events, was riven and stricken Party or the other; we are the amby many divisions, will not push their bassadors of a nation. Having to meet advantage by the encouragement they the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, have got at recent elections, and that which has held out to us no hopethey will not come forward with a still [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh"]— firmer sword in hand and demand the of effective or immediate action, presolution of that great fiscal problem ceded as it was by the speech of the which they have constantly agitated? If Chief Secretary, who asks us to formulate that be so, and if free trade cleaned the our measures, I think I should not be slate of Ireland-I believe "cleaned the blamed by even the most zealous follower slate" is the expression-at the last elec- of Liberalism, if I stated that we had tion, I wonder what figure poor Ireland ground to feel profound disappointment. will cut in the political geography of the That was the impression at all events, hustings at the next election. On an which such words and the speech of important occasion of this kind, might I the new Leader of the Liberal Party remind the right hon. Gentleman that caused in my mind. Accordingly, let upon another occasion he was put up me say this: we are accustomed in to speak for his Party on a matter Ireland to disappointments. For cenclosely affecting the concerns of our turies we have been battling, but never people, namely, the question of amnesty. have you wrung from us one note or My friend Mr. Justin McCarthy then accent of surrender. We took your Council summed up his metallic speech by stating Bill of last year; we tore it into fragthat he had closed the gates of ments. mercy with a clang. Those gates were opened to us by the Tory Party within twelve months. [An HON. MEMBER: Two years.] Well, within two years. The hon. Gentleman is a better statistician than

I am.

We listened to your paltering promises of to-day, and we tell you we shall carve our own future. There were greater men than the Chancellor of the Exchequer who came in conflict with us. True we have no skill. We have no force behind us, except that of sincerity, tenacity, and

determination. Yet it is not we who

Within two years every man for whom we pleaded for mercy, for whose case we assailed the ears of the English need flinsh before the prospect that people, had been discharged by the new seems opening. In saying this I wish to Government which was not afraid to add one word. Speaking as an Irish show more sympathy with Irishmen Nationalist, I say we than the right hon. Gentleman opposite. enemies of the English people. Our

are not the