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Thistle on Home Rule and Federalism
Editorial from "Thistle" Magazine January 1914
We regret to say that the position taken up by Mr Asquith, as representing the Cabinet toward the question of “Home Rule All Round”, is most unsatisfactory and deeply to be regretted. Evidently the matter has been discussed by the Ministry, and the decision arrived at is that Home Rule is to be considered by the Convention, but that the Scots and the Welsh shall have no say. What is given to Ireland in the form of place at the table, is to be denied to Scotland and to Wales. This is the old dirty and shameful policy, born of selfishness and national bigotry, which has been the policy of the English Liberals for the last thirty or forty years. Scotland and Wales are to be treated as a part of England, with the result that all their national peculiarities are to be levelled down to the English hum-drum standard, and their national interests are to be made subservient to those of England.
And why are Scotland and Wales in this matter to be treated differently from Ireland? It certainly is not that these two nationalities are unfitted for self- government. On the contrary they are more fit for it than either England or Ireland. No. It is because of their complete fitness for self-government; because of their orderliness, their high intelligence, and their indisposition to resort to violence, that their claim for the management of their own national affairs is denied to them. They don't throw bombs, they don't shoot the officers of the law, they don't resort to bribery and corruption in their electoral and other business, and hence, according to the policy of the brutal English majority — Liberal and Tory alike — they must be denied the blessings of Home Rule, and be treated as tributary and conquered peoples. That is, and has been, the policy alike of the Radical Lord Morley, and of the Tory Lord Salisbury, and their followers for the last thirty years. Ah well, that policy may be carried on too long, and if national and rational liberty is only to be gained by violent methods, even these may be possible to the Welsh and Scottish peoples if they are driven to extremity.
But what a disgraceful position for the English people to take up towards their fellow-citizens in Scotland and Wales. To the violence of Ireland they yield and say — you shall have what you demand, because we fear you and cannot do without your vote in Parliament, To the orderliness and law-abidingness of the Scots and the Welsh they refuse their desire for international justice, and say, you always vote " Liberal," and we can't do without your vote in Parliament ; you are Liberals, and were it not for your vote the Tories would control English legislation. This is the selfish position taken up by the English Liberals. The Tories, on the other hand, refuse any concession to the Scots and the Welsh, partly from their innate conservative stupidity, partly from national bigotry and their determination to Anglicise Scotland and Wales. Their policy is to grant no concessions to the reasonable and just demands of the three countries — Scotland, Ireland and Wales — for the management of their own affairs, unless these demands are accompanied by continuous defiance of the law, and by social violence and social outrage. It was only by such action that in the "eighties" of last century the Highland crofters gained a very moderate measure of relief, and we need not elaborate the case of Ireland. Any concessions she has obtained in the way of amelioration of the lot of her oppressed people has been "by battle, murder and sudden death.” That seems to be the only argument that can now obtain international justice from that Parliament in Westminster which is controlled by English votes.
The practical result, then, of this selfish action on the part of the English Liberals, and of the stupid and bigoted action of the English Tories, is that another policy — the policy of violence and of law-breaking — has now become the most potent factor in the working of the British constitution. The brutal English majority refuse to yield to international arguments on the part of the peoples of Scotland, Ireland and Wales for a fair and reasonable amount of Home Rule, for power to manage and control their own purely Scottish, Irish and Welsh affairs; but when Highland crofters resort to deforcement and defiance of the law; and when Irishmen, infuriated by the brutal tyranny of centuries, resort to fire-raising, to cattle driving, to assassination and to murder, then the English brutal majority hears reason; then it discovers that English ways and English ideas are not exactly heaven born, and that it is desirable to make concessions to outraged feeling and to the desperate sentiment of the peoples whom they have so long misgoverned. In other words, the bomb and the action of violence and of destruction which it represents, take the place of argument, of reason and of constitutional agitation in the very heart and core of the British Empire. Did not the Clerkenwell bomb outrage induce Mr Gladstone to take up the question of the wrongs of Ireland, and introduce and carry through Parliament land legislation, which has gone a long way to lessen disturbance and to create prosperity in that "distressful country"?
Do English people ever consider the disgrace and the infamy which they have brought on their good name, as a civilised people, by allowing the existence of this foul blot to spring up and to continue in the working of their much vaunted parliamentary system? Their apologists say that the evil is owing to the congestion of business at Westminster ; that it is impossible to push the most necessary measures through the Commons and the Lords, owing to the many petty measures which have to be discussed and dealt with in some form or another. But who is to blame for this, but the English majority in Parliament? That majority has the power to pass measures of " Home Rule All Round," which would effectually put an end to congestion in the Imperial Parliament. But the House of Lords stands in the way, it is said. Have the English Liberals or the English Tories ever shown any disposition to make this question of the devolution of the international legislation of the United Kingdom — not of Ireland merely — the question of questions, as it undoubtedly is? No. As we have already pointed out, it has been denied by the stupidity of the English Tories, and trifled with and put aside by the selfishness and hypocrisy of the English Liberals. And now, the Liberal Premier comes before the country with the miserable, halting statement that the Ministry propose to give Home Rule to Ireland; but that the position of Scotland and Wales will be considered by a Convention at which the Scots nor the Welsh will be admitted. For that is the inevitable deduction from Mr Asquith's utterance. This is not statesmanship. It is mere political patchwork; and, moreover, it is doomed to failure, as the Ministry will find out when they come to unfold their measure to the British people.
It is curious that while Anglo-British ministers are so blind to the necessities of constitutional reform in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the ministers who control the policy of the Dominions of Canada and New Zealand, and of the Commonwealth of Australia, see clearly what should be done to give the British peoples a good working Constitution. When the Premier of Queensland was in Scotland about a year or more ago, he pointed out the necessity for the establishment of sub-national parliaments in the four nationalities of the United Kingdom. And at a later date, on the 27th of October last, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister of Canada, concluded a brilliant speech to the Women's Canadian Club at Montreal with the following remarks : —
"God forbid that I should interfere in British politics. But it seems astonishing to me that Mr Gladstone did not act on the federated principle, which I believe would be a remedy for the Irish question. The British Parliament is now overloaded with petty details; one day discussing the greatest of problems, and the next day roads and ditches, or a piece of bog in Ireland. Such petty details ought not to impede the action of the Imperial Parliament. Perhaps sometime or other the federated principle will be applied to Scotland, England, and Ireland in a new form of constitution for the British Empire."
These are weighty words, and wise ones, and embody a policy which would be advocated and endorsed, we venture to say, by every Premier who is at the head of affairs in the British self-governing states beyond the seas. It is a policy which would give peace and contentment to all the four peoples of the British Isles — a portion of English Jingoes and blustering "John Bullies" perhaps excepted. Why, then, is it not adopted by the present Ministry? Does Mr Asquith hold the opinion that the Scottish and Welsh peoples are less capable of managing purely Scottish and Welsh affairs than the English parliamentary majority? In Germany, Prussia does not interfere with the purely national affairs of Bavaria, of Saxony, of Baden-Baden, or indeed of any of the minor German states. Why, then, should the English majority in Parliament refuse the same power to Scotland and to Wales? The spirit of English liberty, of which we hear so many boasts, seems to have departed, and is now replaced by a spirit of "Bullyism" and of "Jingoism," which resents any interference with English predominance in Westminster. But when "a bomb bursts," and violence is resorted to, then this "Bullying" policy gives way. In other words, violence and law-breaking have become an essential feature in the working of the British Constitution!