Parliament to legislate within its own sphere (however that sphere may be defined) with habitual freedom from the control of the Imperial or British Parliament; and thirdly, the habitual responsibility of the Irish executive for its acts to the Irish people or to their representatives. These three characteristics, which I do not attempt to define with anything like logical precision, constitute the essence of Home Rule. Other things, however important in themselves, are matters of subordinate detail, and open to discussion or compromise. The limitations to the sphere within which the Irish Parliament is to exert independent authority, the definition of the term "Irish concerns," the constitution of the Irish Parliament, the nature and appointment of the Irish executive (which, though it is no doubt generally assumed to be a Cabinet chosen in effect like the Victorian Ministry, by the local Parliament, might well, and indeed far better, be a President or Council elected, like the Governor of New York, by popular vote), the occasions on which the British Parliament should retain the legal or moral right of legislation for Ireland-these and a score of other subjects which at once suggest themselves to a critic of constitutions are of supreme importance, but in whatever way they may be determined, they do not touch the principle of Home Rule. A scheme, on the other hand, however wise its provisions, which lacked the essential characteristics already enumerated, would not meet the demand for Home Rule; an Act which did not constitute a Parliament for Ireland could not possibly satisfy the sentiment of Irish nationality; an Irish Parliament which did not habitually, at any rate, legislate with independence of the Parliament at Westminster could not divest the law in Ireland of its foreign garb"; an executive not responsible directly or indirectly to the Irish people could not give full effect to the legislation of an Irish Parliament, and the existence of such an executive would (if the true ground why law is hated in Ireland be its alien character) only divert popular hostility from the law to the government. What Rule does Home Rule does not mean Local Self-Govern ment; Home Rule does not mean National Independence. Local Self-Government means the delegation by the Sovereign, and in England therefore by Parliament, to local bodies, say town councils, county boards, vestries, and the like, of strictly subordinate powers of legislation for definite localities. The authority possessed by such local bodies extends over definite and limited areas, (which themselves are often created by legislation); exists for definite purposes; is directly conferred or tolerated by Parliament; has no capacity of indefinite extension; and neither comes into competition with nor restrains, either legally or morally, the legislative authority of Parliament. Logically, indeed, there may be difficulty in drawing the precise line of demarcation between a plan for conferring on Ireland the minimum of legislative independence which could without absurdity be dignified with the name of Home Rule, and a plan for giving to the boroughs and counties of Ireland the maximum of law-making power which could, without fraud upon the intelligence of the English people, be comprehended within the elastic phrase “extension of Local Self-Government." But this logical puzzle need give us no trouble; it is based on the fact that every non-sovereign law-making body, whether it be the French National Assembly, the American Congress, or the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Co., belongs to one and the same genus.* The casuists of jurisprudence may quibble for ever over the confines between Home Rule and Local Self-Government; men of sense engaged in the consideration of affairs thrust aside such inopportune logomachy, and content themselves with the knowledge that were the Town Council, say, of Birmingham or of Belfast endowed with tenfold its present powers, it would differ essentially from any Irish Parliament which, even though denied the Parliamentary title, should represent the people of Ireland, and should have received the very smallest amount of authority which could by any possibility satisfy Mr. Parnell. Nor are differences which may not admit of easy definition difficult for a candid enquirer to discern. 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 * See Dicey, Law of the Constitution (2nd ed.), p. 80. 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. Should a town council use even its strictly legal rights in a way not conducive to the public interest, Parliament would without scruple override the bye-laws of the council by the force of Parliamentary enactment. The authority of an Irish representative assembly would from the necessity of things be, if not a legal, at any rate a moral check, I will not say on Parliamentary sovereignty, but assuredly on Parliamentary legislation. Extended rights of self-government, though given to every local body in Ireland, would not affect the relation between the people of Ireland and the Parliament at Westminster. The very aim of Home Rule, even under its least pretentious form, is to introduce a new relation between the people of Ireland and the Parliament at Westminster. The matter may be summed up in one phrase: Local Self-Government however extended means the delegation, Home Rule however curtailed means the surrender, of Parliamentary authority. The distinction here insisted upon is of practical importance, for it is connected with a question so pressing as to excuse an apparent, though not more than an apparent, digression. Local Self- ment. English Radicals, and many politicians who are not Radicals, hold, whether rightly or not, that the sphere of Local Self-Government may with benefit to the nation be greatly extended in England. The soundness of this view in no way concerns us, and it is a matter upon which there is no reason, for our present purpose, to form or express an opinion; they also hope that by a similar extension of Local Self-Government to Ireland they may satisfy the demand for Home Rule. They conceive, in short, that it is possible to confer a substantial benefit upon the Irish people, and to close a dangerous agitation, by giving to Belfast and to Cork the same municipal privileges which they wish to extend to Birmingham or to Liverpool. The reasons for this belief are threefold: that Local SelfGovernment is itself a benefit; that Ireland ought, as of right, to have the same institutions as England; that Local or Municipal Self-Government will meet the real if not the nominal wish of the Irish people. This hope I believe to be delusive. The reasons on which it is grounded areone of them probably, and two of them certainly-unsound. Local Self-Government is one of those arrangements which, like most political institutions, cannot be called absolutely good or bad. It is a good thing, I suppose, at Birmingham, and was some fifty years ago a good thing in Massachusetts, and it may prove (though this is speculation) a good thing in an English county. Local SelfGovernment is not admirable at New York; it works less well than it once did in New England; it does not pro |