Home Rule all Round?
The British political landscape had been distorted for decades by struggles over Irish Home Rule. The failed attempts in 1886 and 1893 had created a new political alliance, Ulster Unionism, bringing together in one organised grouping the diverse opposition to an independent Ireland. This opposition, almost entirely Protestant in character, was exploited to the full by English Conservatives albeit for largely English reasons.
By 1905 however, with the creation of the Ulster Unionist Council, the Unionists began to recognise and use their political muscle to secure their own ends. The UUC's original mandate was to create:
an Ulster union for bringing into line all local unionist associations in the province of Ulster with a view to consistent and continuous political action, to act as a further connecting link between Ulster unionists and their parliamentary representatives and generally to advance and defend the interests of Ulster unionism.
From the very beginning the UUC was however as much about the maintenance of Protestant ascendancy, dominated as it was by the Loyal Orange Order, who viewed Roman Catholics as being the embodiment of disloyalty to the union, political corruption, and as agents for a papal conspiracy.
As the General Election results of December 1910 were being announced, it was clear that the position from January was little changed and the Liberals would once again need the support of other parties to govern. This was presumably a factor behind Asquith's announcement that an Irish Home Rule Bill would be introduced in the next session of Parliament. The reaction was predictable. The Unionists saw this as yet another attempt to hand them over to a Dublin based, Catholic led Irish State. The Irish Nationalists, on the other hand remained as suspicious as ever having seen previous attempts fail and continued in their loud calls for an independent Ireland, not a “subordinate and subservient assembly beholden to King and Empire.”
Less expected however were the loud calls emanating from Scotland and Wales who saw their own loyalty in the past being ignored.
Scotland has had to fight for years to get her most urgent needs attended to, the demands of her members of Parliament being largely ignored, whether the party in power be Liberal or Conservative. How then arises this difference of treatment? The answer is a sad one, but it is plain and undeniable. The brutal English majority in Parliament turns all but a deaf ear to the manifold requirements of Scotland, because the Scottish people are peaceful and law-abiding—but it truckles to the remonstrances and complaints—civil and religious—of the Irish people, because they resort to violent means if their demands are refused.
Hitherto England has acted the part of a big political bully, who has taken advantage of his brutal majority to over-ride the reasonable wants and wishes of Scotland – and indeed Wales. And when she has yielded to Ireland, as in the case of the land question, she has only done so through fear. It is well then that the Scottish democracy should realise the facts of the political situation, and act accordingly, refusing any longer to be dragged at the heels of the two great political parties.
Let a purely independent Scottish party be formed pledged to independent action. Or if they form any alliance at all, let it be with the Irish and Welsh parties in Parliament for the purpose of compelling England to do justice to the minor nationalities of Britain. Or must we establish terrorism as a leading feature of the British Constitution?
Thistle Paper No 88, published in The Thistle, January 1911
The voices were perhaps loudest from Scotland but similar points were being made in Wales, prominent among them E T John, newly elected MP for East Denbighshire. Even before his election he had begun to make contact with Scottish home rulers, arguing for closer cooperation between Welsh and Scottish Members and making the case for 'Federal Home Rule'. In August 1910, the Scottish National Committee has issued a manifesto calling for devolution to Scotland as well as Ireland. John wrote to the Manchester Guardian offering support and suggesting:
a system of Federal Home Rule with a separate bodies for each Nation, dealing with purely local and regional matters with a single supervisory chamber consisting of peers and Commoners, all elected, the main charge of which body would be the Imperial Interests of the entire British Commonwealth, and whose interference with the domestic affairs of the four nations would only arise where the general well-being was likely to be prejudiced... Sympathetic members in both Wales and Scotland should cooperate and aim to reach an understanding with members of the Irish Party to the mutual benefit of all concerned.”
letter to Manchester Guardian 8 August 1910
The idea of a Federal UK was not new. It had surfaced at the time of Gladstone's ill fated attempts to bring in Home Rule but had fallen by the wayside in the wake of an insistence on considering Ireland in isolation. It had resurfaced in the early 20th Century in the context of discussions on the governance of Canada, Australia and South Africa.
In February 1910, the Canadian Governor General, Earl Grey had written to Arthur Balfour, then leader of the Conservative Party, in the aftermath of the first General Election of that year.
The existence of 72 votes in the House of Commons always on the watch for how to impair the Empire is a danger which alarms every thoughtful and patriotic Canadian. To us out here the importance of cutting out the cancer out-tops the importance of all other questions. We have to put the United Kingdom straight and the time has come for getting this work done.
…
My experience out here, and the home situation, have convinced me that the time has come for a serious attempt to federate the United Kingdom, but on lines that would make Ireland, not into a Canada or an Australia, but into an Ontario or a Quebec. A Federation of the British Isles with Provincial Legislatures for 1. Ireland 2. Scotland 3. Wales 4. England (4. North? 5. South?) and a Federal Parliament armed with powers of disallowance sitting in London would restore Irish representation in a Central Federal Parliament to fair proportions, without giving just ground for offence to Ireland and would transfer to England the sympathy largely felt on this side of the Atlantic both in Canada and the U.S. for aggrieved Ireland.
Soon afterwards, Grey wrote in similar terms to Sir Edward Carson, Unionist leader, saying “I hope to see the Unionist Party take up seriously the question of the Federation of the UK, which I regard as the essential foundation for future Imperial evolution.”
Similar ideas were surfacing in the mainstream of the Liberal Party. In March 1910, Churchill's uncle, Moreton Frewin MP wrote to his nephew from the USA:
Grey's Federal Home Rule will secure a vast endorsement here. The Capitalists are saying that the log rolling between Redmond [leader of Irish Nationalists] and Keir Hardie threatens the sentiment of property, as indeed it does, here no less than in England. Jump to safety young friend on the Federal Raft, but let me beg of you don't try to bring in your little Welsh 'heeler' That won't do!
...
I am helping O'Brien [leader of the All for Ireland group] in fundraising. We want to get up a League of Federals in support of Grey and others. I'm sure this will also benefit us by reducing the money going to Redmond.
Later, O'Brien wrote to Frewin on the problems of securing Unionist support saying:
I am quite with you that the Federal Solution would be an excellent one. We still have however to convince the Protestant Minority of its value. At the moment I think even that form of Home Rule would be too strong meat for them. Perhaps it is safer for us to insist upon the general principle of Domestic Self-government, leaving the form to be decided hereafter, as it can without much difficulty be.
Not everyone was convinced however. Goldwin Smith, former Regius professor of history at Oxford wrote to the Times in March 1910:
Federalism would be but the first step towards the disintegration of the Union and of no benefit to the Irish. The Celts of Ireland are as yet unfit for parliamentary government. Left to themselves, without what they call English misrule, they would almost certainly be the willing slaves of some hereditary despot, the representative of their old coshering chiefs, with a priesthood as absolute and as obscurantist as the Druids. What they really need is not an increased measure of that for which they are but half prepared but the occasional admixture of more paternal government.
It appears that this was too strong, even for the Times of the day, for the letter was not published and only came to light in Goldwin's papers some years after his death. Nevertheless the idea that federalism represented a step towards disintegration of the Union, rather than a sensible devolution of powers had a strong hold in the Conservative Party and of course in that last bastion of tradition, the House of Lords. Only with the passing of the Parliament Bill in 1911, was this likely to change.
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