gh was
the only other Irishman who has sat in the Cabinet since union. Pitt
promised equal laws when the union was formed, but the broken promises
made to Ireland are unhappily written in indelible characters in the
history of the country. It is to me astonishing that so little weight is
attached by many to the fact that Irish wishes of self-government were
represented only by a small minority.

Now what voting power are the eighty members to have? Ireland is to be
represented here fully; that is my first postulate. My second postulate
is that Ireland is to be invested with separate powers, subject, no
doubt, to imperial authority. Ireland is to be endowed with separate
powers over Irish affairs. Then the question before us is: Is she or is
she not to vote so strongly upon matters purely British? There are
reasons both ways. We cannot cut them off in a manner perfectly clean
and clear from these questions. We cannot find an absolutely accurate
line of cleavage between questions that are imperial questions and those
that are Irish questions. Unless Irish members vote on all questions you
break the parliamentary tradition. The presence of eighty members with
only limited powers of voting is a serious breach of that tradition,
which ought to be made the subject of most careful consideration.

Now come the reasons against the universal voting powers. It is
difficult to say: Everything on that side Irish, everything on this side
imperial. That, I think, you cannot do. If you ask me for a proportion,
I say nine-tenths, perhaps nineteen-twentieths, of the business of
Parliament can without difficulty be classed as Irish or imperial. It
would be a great anomaly if these eighty Irish members should come here
continually to intervene in questions purely and absolutely British. If
some large question or controversy in British affairs should then come
up, causing a deep and vital severing of the two great parties in this
House, and the members of those parties knew that they could bring over
eighty members from Ireland to support their views, I am afraid a case
like that would open a possible door to dangerous political intrigue.
The whole subject is full of thorns and brambles, but our object is the
autonomy and self-government of Ireland in all matters properly Irish.

I wish to supply the keynote to the financial part of the legislation.
That keynote is to be found in the provision included in our plans from
the first, and wis