He explained that, in his opinion, considerable power ought to be left in the hands of the executive, but added:
“I would endeavour so to frame those powers as to make them capable of relaxation, perhaps ultimately of relinquishment, in response to any proof we may receive from the Irish people of their fitness for self-government, their fitness for the assumption of those responsibilities.”
Later in the same year, Mr. Gladstone, in his address to the electors of Midlothian, used the word “devolution” as, I believe, for the first time in connection with the Parliamentary problem due to the over-pressure of work. He said:
“It has gratified me to find abundant proof that the country was, and is, fully alive to the vital importance of devolution.... The task of the House of Commons in our time has habitually exceeded what had ever been imposed upon a legislative body in the whole history of the world.... I desire to point out the three cardinal points of the question. First, the congestion of business, now notorious and inveterate, degrades the House of Commons by placing it at the mercy of those among its members who seek for notoriety by obstructing business, instead of pursuing the more honourable road to reputation by useful service, or of those who, with more semblance of warrant, seek to cripple the action of the House of Commons in order to force the acceptance of their own political projects. Secondly, it disappoints, irritates, and injures the country by the suspension of useful legislation. And lastly, and perhaps worst of all, it defeats the fundamental rule of our Parliamentary system—that the majority shall prevail.... This country will not, in the full sense, be a self-governing country until the machinery of the House of Commons is amended, and its procedure reformed.”
It is possible that Mr. Gladstone had in his mind reform of procedure of the nature of devolution to bodies within the House of Commons such as Grand Committees; but in view of his former utterances it is probable that he foresaw the necessity for devolution on a larger scale.
Mr. Chamberlain continued, even during the Home Rule controversy, faithful in his advocacy of devolution. In a manifesto to his supporters, issued on July 11th, 1886, he appealed to the moderate opinion in Great Britain for a “delegation not a surrender of power,” on the part of the Imperial Parliament. He outlined his political aims in the following succinct statement: