Government of Ireland Bill 1893

The Government of Ireland Bill 1893 (known generally as the Second Home Rule Bill) was the second attempt made by

The Irish Parliamentary Party had divided in 1891 on the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell (who died later in 1891), with a majority leaving the Irish National League to form the Irish National Federation, remaining divided until 1900.

As with the first bill, the second bill was controversially drafted in secret by Gladstone, who excluded both Irish MPs and his own ministry from participating in the drafting. The decision led to a serious factual error in the Bill, a mistake over the calculation of how much Ireland should contribute to the British Imperial Exchequer. The error in the calculation was £360,000, a vast sum for the time. The error was discovered during the Committee Stage of the Bill's passage through the Commons and forced a major revision of the financial proposals.

Debate

The

By the third reading on 1 September, 26 of the Bill's 37 clauses had still not been debated. A fist-fight developed on the opposition benches between Home Rule and Conservative MPs. The Bill, though passed by the Commons with a slimmer majority of 30, had lost much of its credibility. At that time all legislation could be negated by the Conservative Party–dominated House of Lords, and here it failed on a vote of 41 in favour and 419 against.^[1]

Contents

The bill proposed:

Legislature

A

• The Legislative Council would have 48 councillors, elected for eight-year terms in two cohorts at four-year intervals. The
  parliamentary boroughs (Dublin, Belfast, and Cork) and the 32 counties, except that County Cork was divided into East and West Ridings, and Counties Sligo and Leitrim were combined. Most constituencies would elect one member; the more populous, two or three.^[2]
• The Legislative Assembly would have 103 members, elected for a maximum of five years, with potential for earlier dissolution. The constituencies would be those previously used for Westminster, though the bill would reduce and redraw the Westminster constituencies. The initial franchise would be as for Westminster elections, but the parliament would have the right to alter this.^[3]
• Disagreement between the houses would be resolved after two years by majority vote of the members of the two houses voting together.^[4]

Executive

• An executive under the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would form the Executive Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland.
• The new executive would not be responsible to the Irish parliament and the bill did not provide for a prime minister. This did not in practice mean that the executive would not be answerable to the assembly, nor did it mean that there would be no prime minister. Contemporary British enactments for the dominions contained exactly the same provisions. However, in reality governments became answerable almost immediately, and, as in the case of Canada's Constitution Act, 1867, a prime ministerial office evolved early on, even if not mentioned anywhere in law.^{[citation needed]}

Irish MPs in Westminster

Whereas the First Home Rule Bill provided for no Irish MPs at Westminster, the 1893 Bill allowed for the eighty Irish MPs to sit in Westminster; this would have been a reduction from the 103 MPs who were then in the United Kingdom House of Commons.

Passed by the Commons, defeated in the Lords

The Bill's

Gladstone retired soon afterwards. Some historians now suggest that Gladstone was the author of his own defeats on home rule, with his secretive drafting alienating supporters, and enabling serious flaws to appear in the text of his bills.[8]

See also

• Government of Ireland Bill 1886 (First Irish Home Rule Bill)
• Government of Ireland Act 1914 (Third Irish Home Rule Bill)
• Government of Ireland Act 1920 (Fourth Irish Home Rule Bill)
• History of Ireland (1801–1923)

References

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Sources

• Government of Ireland Bill 1893 (as reported by the House of Commons) HC 1893–1894 (448) 3 323
• Kee, Robert (2000) [1972]. The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism.
  ISBN 0-14-029165-2
  .
• Jackson, Alvin (2003). Home Rule: An Irish History 1800–2000.
  ISBN 0-7538-1767-5
  .
• Loughlin, James (1986). Gladstone, Home Rule and the Ulster Question, 1882–1893. Dublin.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Hennessey, Thomas (1998). Dividing Ireland: World War 1 and Partition.
  ISBN 0-415-17420-1
  .

External links

• Government of Ireland Bill 1893 from EPPI online (Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland), DIPPAM.
• "Government of Ireland Bill" matches from Hansard; matches 1893–1909 relate to the 1893 bill.