IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT.
the case of Ireland, that Irishmen know how best to manage their own local affairs, but, while keeping before us the first principle in any future Home Rule Bill, let not the other two principles of Imperial Government be forgotten. Ireland must have a Parliament of her own for the transaction of her own special business, but, at the same time, she must continue to take her proper share in the management of Imperial affairs, she must continue to bear her fair share of the cost of the Army and Navy, which are to defend her as well as Scotland and England.
The Home Rule Bill of 1886 was, in some respects, a retrograde measure, in that it placed Ireland in a position worse than that of a Crown Colony. No taxation without representation is an old axiom of the British Constitution. Under that Bill, Ireland was still to bear her share of the cost of Imperial defence, but she was to have no voice in the control of the expenditure, she was to have no voice in the direction of the foreign policy, which was to affect her as much as England. Sir Charles Russell was one of the very first to point this out, and in any future Home Rule Bill we may rest perfectly assured that this defect will be remedied.
Scotland and Wales.Ireland, as I have said, is the most dissatisfied with the way her affairs are managed by the present Imperial Parliament, but in Scotland and Wales this feeling of dissatisfaction is increasing too. The demand for Home Rule is growing. Surely the Crofter question, or any other purely Scotch question, will be infinitely better dealt with in an assembly of Scotchmen, intimately acquainted with the wants of their country, than in an heterogeneous assembly of people, most of5
