The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
History
The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government
going on within the walls of the Imperial Parliament itself, which is
already being forced to legislate separately for the three separate parts
of the United Kingdom. He estimates that during the last twenty years no
less than 49.7 per cent. of the public general Acts have applied only to
some one part of the United Kingdom instead of to the whole.
The Government of Ireland Bill adopts the principle of total inclusion,
but qualifies the anomaly which is involved in the presence of Irish
members voting on non-Irish questions by reducing the representation of
Ireland to the number of forty-two, and thus to a figure far below that to
which Ireland is entitled on the basis of population. At the same time it
must be admitted that the anomaly is not thereby removed. The position of
Irish members voting on purely English legislation after the grant of Home
Rule will indeed—numbers apart—be more anomalous than it was before it. An
anomaly can be tolerated so long as it is universal in its operation, and
Scotch and English members can at present view with equanimity the
spectacle of Irish members voting in their own affairs so long as they
themselves exercise the same privilege in those of their neighbours.
Reciprocity of this kind produces a certain unity of thought in a
deliberative assembly. But the anomaly at once becomes invidious if
Irishmen are placed in a privileged position. It is perhaps more
theoretical than real, as the actual weight that could be thrown into the
scale of the division lobby by a Nationalist majority (taking the present
balance of parties in Ireland) of about twenty-six cannot be considerable,
even if, as is very doubtful, it were consistently exercised.
Still the anomaly remains. Is it possible to meet it by some extension of
Home Rule to the legislative affairs of England and Scotland?
The Further Extension of Home Rule
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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