Delphi complete works of.., p.707
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 707
The decisions, for Canada, about what is and what is not, direct taxation, or rather as to what it meant in 1867, are about as true to the mark as sticks thrown at Aunt Sally at a fair. The decisions about property and civil rights that wiped out in 1935 for us in Canada all power of collective social legislation were deplorable and filled with menace for the future. When a clause can mean anything, you should ask what you would like it to mean, what national welfare needs it to mean and interpret it as that. This is the American system from Chief Justice Marshall down. A good judge can fit the law as a tailor fits clothes. A bad judge takes a pattern out of a book and makes a scarecrow.
The sad truth is that the personal interest of the lawyers is here opposed to that of the public at large. They don’t mind the expense of the trip to London, and they don’t mind the delay — if there could be any further appeal, say to Miami or Hollywood, they’d go there too. A lawyer in going ‘over to the Privy Council,’ acquires virtue, as the savages say. He comes back like an Indian with a scalp or a Borneo Dacoit with a dried head. Therefore the lawyers advise us to leave the system as it is. There is an old rhyme from somewhere which is called ‘the lawyer’s lullaby,’ and which runs. ‘Be still my child remain in status quo, while father rock’s the cradle to and fro.’ That suits the case exactly.
To an outside point of view the evolution of central power in Australia seems eminently admirable. Apart from the divergent situation of Western Australia and the special interest of Tasmanian and South Australian agriculturists, as opposed to urban manufactures and labour, the Commonwealth has a wonderful unity of situation, culture and interest. It has no dispute (to speak of) over association in the Empire, over defence, over White Australia, over restricted immigration, excluding the destitutes, but with social help and bread and work for all lucky enough to have arrived in time.
The states may well subside to mere areas of dignity, chief centres of cricket, and of academic life in college. All federations, to fulfil their final aim, ought to move in that direction. In some far future, in our dreams of a world of peace, we can see government itself fading away into athletics and debating societies, marking the spot whence now springs peace and war.
New Zealand, the ‘Long White Cloud’ that floats on the southern seas, from latitude 34° to 48° South, is, as said in a chapter above, the most British of all the Dominions. In French they have a phrase plus royaliste que le roi. And it may be that in the great changes that have in a generation overwhelmed the life of their mother country, the New Zealanders are now more British than the British. Not for nothing did Macaulay place his future New Zealand on London Bridge as a last survivor, or a new discoverer or something. Whatever it was he came for, he was just the man for the job. Moreover he knows it. New Zealand, as said above, calls Britain ‘home,’ has no aspirations for large citizenship or separate culture or newer ideals.
It received its official designation as a Dominion in 1907. But the fact of free government had been with it from the start. In fact, too free. In spite of the repeated representations of missionaries and the eagerness of the new school of colonization (Gibbon Wakefield and company), to try a scheme on it, Britain, from its annexation by Captain Cook in (his voyage of 1768) which was disavowed, refused to spread its official mantle over New Zealand till 1840. They were only moved to action by the news that a French colonization company, La Compagnie Nantes-Bordelaise, was going to settle the islands. This was too much. Captain Hobson, R.N., hoisted the Union Jack over the Bay of Islands on January 22nd, 1840. It is there still and likely to stay. The French arrived four months after, just too late. It was just like their luck in those days — compare La Perouse and Bougainville.
The settlement that followed under the new colonization scheme is discussed in detail in the next chapter. All seemed dead history buried in Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s grave in Wellington, New Zealand. The American-Canadian plan of individual homestead settlement put it off the map. Now, with homestead land gone and rugged individualism on the street, under the name of relief, the New Zealand plan may well come back and its records serve as a guide. Round its early years was organized the government of New Zealand.
The colony was fortunate in getting away early from the divisions of federalism, towards which it took its first steps. Federalism would have seemed natural at first, but later would have put legislation in chains. The happy isolation of New Zealand has enabled it to carry out experimental social legislation which, even with mingled success and failure, has been a sort of advance reconnaissance for other countries. For this there is nothing like being four days steam away from everybody. For house-cleaning you need the place to yourself. Yet, at the start, federalism would have seemed natural. The two chief islands are separated by sea, and a rough sea at that. Each of them is broken into divisions connected, till recently, only by sea. In the North Island, Auckland, with the surrounding district, a climate like the Cornish riviera, was separated by mountain barriers from the district around Wellington, at the furthest away corner. In the South was Canterbury and those charming plains around it, all grass and pleasant streams, where English willows, drooping over newer Avons, forget to drop their leaves. But this again the mountains cut off from the Dunedin country to the south where Scotland renews its vigour, and, further south still, the rugged country of the snows and inlets of Invercargill and the Bluff, tough enough for a Highlander.
There were factors of union from the start. The settlers were all British, one race, one language, all men of good will, with no quarrels with one another. Yet more or less of necessity the first representative form of government set up in New Zealand by statute (1852), was largely on federal lines. There were six, later nine, different provinces with councils and a local jurisdiction of their own. But the general New Zealand government, recognized as ‘responsible’ in 183-6, had power to alter this arrangement and did so in an act of 1873, abolishing the provincial system. This means that the government that sits at Wellington — Governor-General and cabinet with a parliament made up of a Legislative Council (appointed) and a House of Representatives, elected, is supreme over all New Zealand, the local divisions of counties, boroughs and various districts deriving their powers from the centre.
It is this, as already said, that has enabled New Zealand to play so conspicuous a part in the development of social legislation, unhindered by the trammels that impede federal governments in the same path. The early announcements of the success of these new experiments proved premature. The ‘country without strikes,’ under its compulsory arbitration, broke into strikes again when arbitration arbitrated downward. One more myth of a South Seas paradise went to join the others. But at any rate New Zealand has been in the front line of that advancing front which grapples with the problem of social betterment without social destruction.
Nor is it to be supposed that the New Zealand legislation of this sort is adapted or copied from the hard code of German social benefaction of the period, fifty years ago, by which the German Empire fought socialism, with results now visible. The New Zealand legislation is indigenous. Witness this evidence.
A certain English clergyman, dreaming dreams, wrote a little pamphlet, somewhere about i860, proposing that at least old age should be set free from care by pensions paid by the government, that is, by all for each. The little pamphlet fell as forlorn on London bookstalls as little pamphlets do. But a copy drifted to New Zealand to a Mr. Atkinson, then a new settler and nobody in particular. He too dreamed that if he ever became somebody he would try to get that scheme applied. Later he was somebody, being Prime Minister of New Zealand. With him began the New Zealand old age pension, the first non-contributory pension given free, the only kind worth instituting. It has since gone round the world. All those who draw pensions can appreciate the charm of it.
The circumstances which led to the formation of the Union of South Africa by an imperial statute of 1909, have already been discussed. In appearance, in prestige and in the historic background of its component parts, the Union is a federal government. But in legislative structure, it is not. The power of the Union government is now as complete and unlimited over the provinces as is that of the United Kingdom over the British counties. This is especially true since, as already indicated, the Statute of Westminster removed all reserved jurisdiction of the British Government. But even as in operation from 1910 to 1931, before the Statute was adopted, the Government, apart from these reservations, was not federal. The administrator of each province is appointed for five years by the Governor-General in Council, that is, by the South African cabinet. The provincial councils, although elected by the voters, have a fixed term of five years and no cabinet government. All local matters, in especial, roads, bridges, markets, the organization of municipalities and local education, are allotted to the provincial governments. But the allotment is one that the Union can alter at will. The railways, harbours and seaports are controlled by the Union itself, acting through a special board.
The reason is that federation in South Africa would be a misfit. The Cape, Natal, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal have each had their separate histories, but their economic life runs together in such a way as to make the welfare of each the interest of all. The overwhelming predominance of the mining industry at Johannesburg means that the railway systems all radiate from a common centre to the seaports. All South Africa draws on the mines. Mining profits make possible the progress of agricultural development. Hence the peculiar paradox that the more South Africa seems to be turning away from mining towards its other resources, the more it really depends on it. Nor would federation correspond to the division of race and language, as it does in Canada. The division into Dutch and British runs cross-wise of the whole Union, showing a total, among the whole white population, of 58 per cent Dutch. Natal is predominantly British, but the oldest British province, the Cape of Good Hope, is more Dutch than British, especially outside of Cape Town.
The unhappy division of language shadows the Union. The case is entirely different from that of either Canada or Ireland. In Canada there never was a time when the French language could have been put out by authority, or would have died out of itself. Its rootage, at first isolated and frail, was at least strong enough to hold. The phenomenal increase of the French, and the background of a metropolitan press, has put the French language in Quebec in an entrenched position. Moreover, it has behind it all the literature of old France.
But the Dutch language in South Africa was dying out of itself, before 1896. The Boers lived isolated from Holland. There were few Dutch books other than the Bible, written in the language of the seventeenth century. The language spoken, the Taal, was at best a broken dialect. Then came the Jameson raid, and altered everything. The people reached back for their language, as the Magyars of Hungary had done with success two generations earlier. They saw in it, to use Alphonse Daudet’s phrase about Alsace, ‘the key of their prison.’ Language committees fostered the use of Dutch. The language was polished up from dialect to dignity, from the kitchen to the hall. It has since spread, or returned, all over the Union, shares the schools and the colleges, and is the joint official language of the Union. It is a pity. A language maintained as a mark of separation, as a challenge to unity, is a poor asset. In Canada the British, the sensible ones, look on the French language as a common possession and claim their share in the bilingual culture which it brings. It is doubtful if there is much of this attitude in South Africa.
Ireland touches the other extreme. The resuscitation of Gaelic, its use lost to all but a few western peasants, was just a piece of Irish nonsense. It has no literature except to the fond eye of the antiquarian, and not enough words to say what it means without reaching up for English. The deliberate attempt to revive Gaelic seems to be succeeding. First thing, the Irish know, they’ll really talk it, and then they’ll be sorry.
But the matter of official Gaelic as the first language of Eire is a matter that hangs with its tangled history. Ireland’s cup of misery, it is said, has been overflowing for years and is not full yet. Having to learn Gaelic is just another bitter draught.
There is no need to recite here the sorrows of Ireland. There is no doubt that the legislative Union with Great Britain (1800) was a matter of force. The great mass of the Irish people never wanted it. Great Britain could but plead the military necessity of a life and death struggle of war. As the result the nineteenth century was marked by one Irish ‘movement’ after another. Movements of conciliation alternated with those of coercion with starvation and pestilence to mock at both of them.
After the Union came the Repeal Movement (1800 — 48). It failed when it appeared that its chief supporters were averse to force, but at least it helped to bring the Catholic Emancipation of 1829. After the Repeal Movement came the dark period of the potato famines, the ravages of cholera, the exodus to America, the brutal evictions with death by the roadside, and, in return, the fierce angers, the retaliations and the murders of the Fenian movement. This period spread Fenianism to America, led to the inroads into Canada (1866) and gave to Ireland in America a character of hatred and revenge, hardly all gone today. For the most part Fenianism met no answer but coercion, though presently there came the conciliation of new land laws, the extension of Ulster Tenant Right to the rest of Ireland (1881), and the beginning of land purchase of the Crown (1885), ownership shifting from the landlords to the tenants. After Fenianism came Home Rule (1870-1914), the demand not for repeal or separation but for the system of responsible government already in operation in the colonies. It originated about 1870, with Mr. Isaac Butt, an Irish M.P., in the parliament at Westminster. He was permitted once a year to state the case argumentatively to an indulgent House, as a matter of fair play. Nothing happened. Then Charles Stewart Parnell and his associates tried the plan of making trouble instead of argument. Trouble, it seems, wins where argument wastes its breath. It is a sad comment on the evolution of our modern democracy that its own chosen method of reason and persuasion never gets it far. The stream of argument runs off the duck’s back of authority.
But trouble — reiterated and repeated, as copied from the wasps and mosquitoes — at least excites attention. The Pamellites obstructed the House of Commons of the Gladstonian parliament (1880-85) by talking all day and all night. They converted Mr. Gladstone much as Mrs. Nation converted Kansas by smashing its saloons with an axe. Compare how labour presently gave up talk and tried ‘direct action,’ turning off light and water; or how the suffragettes chained themselves to the galleries of the House of Commons and shouted; or how Mahatma Gandhi, by getting thin enough, by the sheer inertia of non-co-operation, compelled the government of India. The world still struggles today with this denial of all that the great era of liberty held sacred.
Obstruction in Ireland won Mr. Gladstone and ultimately won Home Rule. But when it finally came (1914) it was too late. War had closed over it. One can only wonder in retrospect whether it might not, twenty years sooner (the great Home Rule Bill, the first that passed the Commons was in 1893) have reconciled Ireland and England. Home Rule enjoyed, even in England itself, a wide support on its merits, as apart from the mere strategy of politics. Scotland was all for it. Even Ulster, on different terms with better guarantees, might have followed a lead given by England. America was all for it with overwhelming enthusiasm. So, too, British colonial opinion and notably that of Canada, where Home Rule meetings met no challenge or answer. From Canada indeed went over Mr. Edward Blake, former leader of the Liberal opposition, to sit by invitation for an Irish constituency in Mr. Gladstone’s parliament and explain how Home Rule worked.
All failed. Home Rule could not get a majority. The Boer washed it out of the foreground. The Irish fought in the war, but they fought on both sides, as they had in the American Civil War. After South Africa tariff reform took the floor. But at least the comprehensive Land Purchase of 1902 made a new landscape in Ireland. Tenantship turned into proprietorship, the sunshine of good times, the removal of all religious disability, seemed to many people to have cleared the Irish sky, and to leave on its horizon nothing but grievance for grievance sake. Still Home Rule never came. The House of Lords blocked the way. By the time they were lifted out of it with the block and tackle of the Parliament Act that removed their power of obstruction (1911), it was too late. The God of War took their place, blocking everything. The Home Rule Act just passed (1914) was suspended. Then came the war, with mismanagement, many people said, of Irish recruiting and the organization of Irish troops. The war brought the Easter Rebellion, suppressed in 1916. When the war had passed, the Home Rule movement was found to have been lost in the Sinn Fein — the demand for complete independence. This was no longer agitation, but direct action. All the world knows its story, outrage alternating with Black and Tan repression. An Irish Republic came to life in the shadow. Home Rule was accepted by Ulster (Northern Ireland) itself alone (1920), but repudiated in the south. In place of it time and patience worked out, even in the atmosphere of murder and reprisal of the ‘Anglo-Irish War,’ the conciliation accepted in the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act of 1921. This meant at last Dominion Status, equal partnership, all that the Parnells or the O’Connells ever could have dreamed of.
