Home Rule | Page 6

does not stand alone in this respect.
There are many other countries in the world where the same difficulty
has been faced and overcome. Take the German Empire. It has included
since 1870 the great state of Bavaria, where the great struggle of the
Reformation ended with honours divided. Modern Bavaria contains a
population which, according to the Religious Census of December 1st,
1905, is thus divided:--
Roman Catholics 4,600,000 Protestants 1,844,000 Jews 55,000
Strangely enough, the proportions are almost precisely the same as in
Ireland. But this state of affairs has not prevented the German Empire
from leaving to Bavaria, not merely a king and parliament, but also an
army subject to purely Bavarian control in time of peace, and a separate
system of posts, telegraphs, and state railways.[11] Are we to say that
trust and tolerance are German virtues, unknown to the British people?

But they are not unknown to the British people. Our own colonists have
set us a better example. Canada has a far more difficult religious
problem than Great Britain. She has two provinces side by
side--Quebec and Ontario--both with the same religious problem as
Ireland. In both there are strong religious minorities. Quebec is
predominantly Catholic, and Ontario is predominantly Protestant.
Thus:--
Quebec-- Catholics 1,429,000 Protestants 189,000
Ontario-- Protestants 1,626,000 Catholics 390,000
How is this problem solved? Why, by Home Rule. For a long
time--from 1840 to 1887--Canada made the experiment of governing
these two provinces under one Parliament and from one centre. That
experiment never succeeded. As long as they were under one
government, the minority in each of these provinces insisted on
appealing for help to the majority in the other. There arose the evil of
"Ascendancy "--the government of a majority by a minority. At last the
Canadians faced the problem. In 1867 they divided the provinces, and
gave them each a Home Rule government of their own, subject to the
Dominion Parliament. Since then there has been no more trouble about
Ascendancy. Quebec and Ontario now settle their own affairs,
including Education and all other local matters, and no one ever hears
anything about the ill-treatment of minorities.
So much, then, for the permanent factors--Sea, Race, and Religion.
There is no insuperable obstacle there. Rather it is here--in these great
dominating facts--that the strongest argument for Home Rule must ever
be found. For it is those things that constitute nationality.
The real difficulties in the way of Home Rule were found, both in 1886
and 1893, not in these permanent things, but in the changing facets of
human laws. It was the Land Question that in all the speeches of 1886
provided the strongest argument. It was the absence of local
government, and the presumed incapacity for local government, that
filled so many Unionist speeches. It was the quarrel over University
Education that provided the best evidence of incompatibility of temper

between Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant.
I shall show that in all these respects the problem has completely and
radically changed since 1893.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[1] By a majority of 34 on the third reading--301 to 267--September 1st,
1893.
[2] Friday, September 8th, 1893. 419 to 41; majority against the Bill of
378.
[3] See Appendix A for this Bill.
[4] "The Story of the Home Rule Session." (1893.) Written by Harold
Spender, sketched by F. Carruthers Gould (now Sir Francis C. Gould).
London: The Westminster Gazette and Fisher Unwin.
[5] This famous phrase was first coined by Grattan, but was so often
said by Gladstone that it was, in 1886, regarded as his.
[6] See a very interesting account of the present Irish Executive in
"Home Rule Problems" (P.S. King and Son. London. 1s.) in a chapter
(iv.) entitled "The Present System of Government, in Ireland," by
G.F.H. Berkeley. There are 67 Boards, of which only 26 are under
direct control of the Irish Secretary. No Parliamentary statute applies to
Ireland, of course, unless that country is expressly included by name.
[7] See, for a popular account of this Synod, Green's "History of the
English People," Vol. I., p. 55.
[8] The central Civil Service is predominantly Protestant, and in
municipalities like Belfast the Catholics hold a very small proportion of
the salaried posts.
[9] Census for 1911. Preliminary Report. Page 6.

[10] Census Summary. Preliminary Report. Page 6.
[11] See "The Statesman's Year Book," 1911, pp. 877-8.

THE HOME RULE CASE
THE CASE THAT HAS CHANGED--AND IS NOW STRONGER
i.--THE COUNCILS AND ii.--THE LAND.
"They saved the country because they lived in it, as the others
abandoned it because they lived out of it."
GRATTAN.
CHAPTER II.
THE HOME RULE CASE
Those who, like myself, visited Ireland last summer as delegates of the
Eighty Club included some who had not thoroughly explored that
country since