Rule in Wales. Is the operation of the Bill confined to Great Britain?
An English member, unless he is a Home Ruler, will answer with an
undoubted affirmative. An English, or Irish, or Welsh Home Ruler will
with equal certainty, and equal honesty, give a negative answer. The
question admits of fair debate, but we know already how the debate will
be decided. If the Unionists constitute a majority of the House, the
Irish vote will be excluded. But in this case its exclusion is of no
practical importance. If the Unionists constitute indeed a majority of
British representatives, but do not constitute a majority of the House,
the Irish vote will be included. The Irish representatives will decide
whether Wales shall constitute a separate State, and the right of Great
Britain to manage British affairs will not prevent the dismemberment of
England. Home Rule, such as it is for England, means at best a totally
different thing from Home Rule for Ireland. In the case of England it
means a limited and precarious control of legislation for Great Britain
by British members of Parliament. In the case of Ireland it means the
real and substantial and exclusive government of Ireland by an Irish
Ministry and an Irish Parliament.

But will the advantage of even this modified half-and-half Home Rule be
really offered to England?

Gladstonians, it is rumoured (and before these pages are in print the
rumour may turn out to be a fact), have their own remedy for some of the
only too-patent absurdities of the 'in-and-out system' embodied in
clause 9 of the Home Rule Bill. A suggestion is made which would be
amusing for its irony, were it not revolting for its cynicism, that the
difficulty of the double majority should be removed by the allowing
members not only to remain at Westminster in their full number, but also
to vote there on all matters whatever, including those affairs which
exclusively concern the interests of Great Britain. This is no doubt a
remedy for some of the evils of an unworkable proposal. It is a cure
which to any Englishman of sense or spirit will seem tenfold worse than
the disease. It is a cure in that sense only in which a traveller may be
said to be relieved from the fear of robbery by a highwayman shooting
him dead. The irregular interference of the Irish delegation in the
formation of the British Cabinet, and other matters which indirectly
concern England, is to be regularised (if I may use the term) by
allowing to