Handbook of Home Rule | Page 4

have filled the law offices, yet I feel that under certain
circumstances, when their influence has been allowed too strongly to
prevail, it has tended to narrow the views of the Irish Government, and
to keep it within a circle too narrow for the altered circumstances of
modern life.
The chief peculiarity of the Irish Administration is its extreme

centralization. In this two departments may be mentioned as typical of
the whole--the police and administration of local justice.
The police in Dublin and throughout Ireland are under the control of
the Lord-Lieutenant, and both these forces are admirable of their kind.
They are almost wholly maintained by Imperial funds. The Dublin
force costs about £150,000 a year. The Royal Irish Constabulary costs
over a million in quiet, and a million and a half in disturbed times.
Local authorities have nothing to do with their action or management.
Local justice is administered by unpaid magistrates as in England, but
they have been assisted, and gradually are being supplanted, by
magistrates appointed by the Lord-Lieutenant and paid by the State.
This state of things arose many years ago from the want of confidence
between resident landlords and the bulk of the people. When agrarian
or religious differences disturbed a locality the people distrusted the
local magistrates, and by degrees the system of stipendiary, or, as they
are called, resident magistrates, spread over the country. To maintain
the judicial independence and impartiality of these magistrates is of the
highest importance. At one time this was in some danger, for the
resident magistrates not only heard cases at petty sessions, but, as
executive peace officers, to a very great extent took the control of the
police in their district, not only at riots, but in following up and
discovering offenders. Their position as judicial and executive officers
was thus very unfortunately mixed up. Between 1882 and 1883 the
Irish Government did their utmost to separate and distinguish between
these two functions, and it is to be hoped that the same policy has been
and will be now continued, otherwise grave mischief in the
administration of justice will arise. The existence of this staff of
stipendiary magistrates could not fail to weaken the influence of the
gentry in local affairs, and, at the same time, other causes were at work
to undermine still further their power. The spread of education, the
ballot, the extension of the franchise, communication with America, all
tended to strengthen the political leaning of the tenants towards the
National party in Ireland, and to widen the political differences between
the richer and poorer classes in the country. The result of this has been,
that not only have even the best landlords gradually lost their power in

Parliamentary elections and on elective boards, but the Government,
which greatly relied on them for support, has become isolated.
The system of centralization is felt all over the country. It was the cause
of weakness in the disturbed years of 1880 and 1881, and, although the
Irish Executive strengthened themselves by placing officers over
several counties, on whom they devolved a great deal of responsibility,
they did not by these steps meet the real difficulty, which was that
everything that went wrong, whether as to police or magisterial
decisions, was attributed to the management of the Castle.
In this country, local authorities and benches of magistrates, quite
independent of the Home Office, are held responsible for mistakes in
police action or irregularities in local justice. The consequence is that
there is a strong buffer to protect the character and power of the Home
Office.
The absence of such protection in Ireland obviously has a very
prejudicial effect on the permanent influence and popularity of the Irish
Government. But as long as our system of government from England
exists, this centralization cannot be avoided, for it would not be
possible to transfer the responsibility of the police to local
representative bodies, as they are too much opposed to the landlords
and the Government to be trusted when strong party differences arise;
nor, for the same reason, would it be possible to fall back on local men
to administer justice. The fact is, that, out of the Protestant part of
Ulster, the Irish Government receives the cordial support of only the
landed proprietors, and a part of the upper middle classes in the towns.
The feeling of the mass of the people has been so long against them
that no change in the direction of trust in any centralized government of
anti-national character can be expected.
It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to find any Municipal
Council, Boards of Guardians, or Local Boards, in Leinster, Munster,
or Connaught, whose members do not consist of a majority of
Nationalists. At nearly all such assemblies, whenever any important
political movement takes