Defects In The Constitution Of Independent Parliament
Above : Painting Of Lord Castlereagh
The Parliament which, from 1782 to the Legislative Union of 1800, sat in Dublin is generally named, from the man to whose exertions the liberties which it enjoyed were chiefly due, ” Grattan’s Parliament.” We have seen that, within itself, it contained the elements which, after a short period of years, were to lead to its destruction, and that to purge itself of these elements it obstinately refused. Besides this, however, the constitution which had been imposed on it was in several respects faulty. Its greatest defect was this, that the Executive was practically completely independent of the Legislature.
In the British Parliament the executive authorities are the Cabinet Ministers, who are chosen from amongst his own followers by the leader of the political party then in power. Thus all are pledged to the line of policy which the House of Commons, representing the nation, approves. To that House, too, they are responsible. If an important measure officially introduced by them, a Government measure as it would be called, be defeated, they at once in a body resign, and by means of a General Election ask the electors to endorse or repudiate their policy. If a majority of their party be returned, the verdict of the country is taken to be in their favour and they resume their functions. In the contrary, case, the most prominent man amongst their opponents is asked to ” form a Government,” which, of course, would consist of the members of his own party.
Very different was the course of proceedings in Ireland. There the Executive consisted of the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Secretary who was his deputy, and a few of the leading officials, who together formed a sort of Cabinet. All of these were selected in England by the leader or leaders of the political party in power there. As long as his political friends held office the Lord Lieutenant might retain his position, unless they chose to recall him, or he resigned of his own accord. When the Government in England changed, he was, of course, replaced by a member of the new predominant party. Thus the Irish Government represented the political views which were in the ascendant in the Lower House, not of the Dublin, but of the Westminster Parliament. By this Government certain measures, decided on in the English Cabinet were placed before the Irish Lords and Commons. If they were rejected as they sometimes were, no dissolution, no General Election followed. The matter was, for the present, quietly dropped; sometimes merely till the next Session. Thus, when in 1799, Cornwallis and Castlereagh were defeated on the question of the Legislative Union, they brought it up again when Parliament reassembled, and Pitt even intimated that it would be placed before the House every Session till they consented to pass it. A proceeding of this sort, which amounted to nothing less than a resolve to bully, weary or bribe the so-called representatives of the” people to register votes in opposition to the decision of their judgment and the dictates of their conscience, was, of course, a gross violation of he fundamental principles of Constitutional Government.
Again, in England the official censure of an individual minister by the Parliament would at once be followed by his resignation. In Ireland such a censure produced no effect whatever. In 1789, when Buckingham, the Viceroy, refused to transmit to the Prince Regent an Address from the two Irish Houses, they voted his proceeding ” ill-advised,” and considered that it attempted ” to question the undoubted rights and privileges of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons of Ireland. But of this the Lord Lieutenant took no notice.
This absence of responsibility of the Irish Government to any authority in Ireland itself, its often most unharmonious relations with ‘ the majority of the House of which it should properly have been then mouthpiece and the instrument, might well lead to serious consequences, and even culminate in a regular breach between the Parliament and the! Executive, which would also almost of necessity, involve a breach with the British Ministry itself. When the Catholics regained political power that they would do so within a comparatively short time, no one of the least intelligence can have failed to foresee—and the Dublin Parliament became really representative of the country, the danger of such a collision would be greatly increased.
These things, however, did not happen. The Independent Parliament lasted but eighteen years. During that time it showed itself, while not always in agreement with the British Government, j constantly loyal and most ready to co-operate with and assist Great 1 Britain herself when any necessity arose. Moreover, in spite of all I its defects internal and external, it conferred, as we shall see, great benefits on Ireland, both by fostering her industries and increasing her material prosperity, and by constituting itself an object of national pride and a centre of national life, political and social, round which, had it continued to exist, the entire people of the country, in course of time, would doubtless have rallied.