Curious to see how the new imperial MPs breakdown by colonial nation. And which colonies exactly are included?
Canada, Aus, NZ and South Africa? Are there Afrikaner MPs?
Canada, Aus, NZ and South Africa? Are there Afrikaner MPs?
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Almost certainly just those. 'White' club only. Possibly there are beor mps but considering the whole affair is being stage managed to ensure a smooth transition I imagine there won't be any for some time, or maybe just one as a consolation (unless the british are clever and say they can have their afrikan mp if the blacks get one too).
All the dominions have difficulties though, not just SA. What's happening with quebec? The large native pop in Australia and especially New Zealand? I doubt the latter two will come up for a while but french quebec would demand a ruling now, probably afrikaans too, and, the source of the trouble in the first place, ireland.
Two things immediately stand out to my mind here.
The first is the fact that the Federation Act seems to have passed by a truly razor-thin margin in both sides of Parliament, which seems to be hardly indicative of a true consensus. I can picture the Conservatives making that fact a talking point in the next round of elections for Commons seats, with the possibility of walking it back should they attain a majority themselves. (Of course, the chances of this actually happening lessen the longer the Federation itself remains in place -- the status quo takes real effort to overturn once it's had time to settle, for better or for worse -- but the idea, at least, will probably be a campaign issue at least until something else comes along to take people's attention. That being said, we are getting awfully close to the Great War...)
The second is how the whole idea of Federationism is going to play across the Pond, and I don't just mean with the Canadians. The Anglo-Saxon exceptionalist crowd will undoubtedly be announcing it as a new triumph of progress over barbarism, but I can't help but wonder if some of the more pragmatic sorts in Washington won't see something dangerous to America's own standing and ambitions in their northern neighbor being regarded as an integral part of Greater Britain -- maybe not enough to endanger the Anglo-American Alliance as it currently stands, but at least enough to flex their own muscles closer to home and assert their own autonomy elsewhere.
The first is the fact that the Federation Act seems to have passed by a truly razor-thin margin in both sides of Parliament, which seems to be hardly indicative of a true consensus. I can picture the Conservatives making that fact a talking point in the next round of elections for Commons seats, with the possibility of walking it back should they attain a majority themselves. (Of course, the chances of this actually happening lessen the longer the Federation itself remains in place -- the status quo takes real effort to overturn once it's had time to settle, for better or for worse -- but the idea, at least, will probably be a campaign issue at least until something else comes along to take people's attention. That being said, we are getting awfully close to the Great War...)
The second is how the whole idea of Federationism is going to play across the Pond, and I don't just mean with the Canadians. The Anglo-Saxon exceptionalist crowd will undoubtedly be announcing it as a new triumph of progress over barbarism, but I can't help but wonder if some of the more pragmatic sorts in Washington won't see something dangerous to America's own standing and ambitions in their northern neighbor being regarded as an integral part of Greater Britain -- maybe not enough to endanger the Anglo-American Alliance as it currently stands, but at least enough to flex their own muscles closer to home and assert their own autonomy elsewhere.
Means they'll probably be a bit more pro-statehood for any of the territories that ask for a while, and probably push for a bit more of an amercian controlled carribean perhaps? Otherwise not much they can really do, or should care really, since canada has only been a dominion for twenty years and very, very firmly on the empire's side against the amercians in most things.
Or...they get ideas about extending the Monroe doctrine to basically annexing as much of the amercias as they possibly can, build their empire further that way without getting in the brits way.
Sounds like a properly momentous Parliamentary debate. And its repercussions will ripple for a very long time.
Brilliant stuff!
I am very excited about this new Federation but I worry that its approval by such a minuscule majority might lead to realistic calls for a repeal which in turn might beckon revolution.
So how would this be organized? 50 seats for all the colonies put together or how granular will the division be? Very excited to hear about India!
I am very excited about this new Federation but I worry that its approval by such a minuscule majority might lead to realistic calls for a repeal which in turn might beckon revolution.
So how would this be organized? 50 seats for all the colonies put together or how granular will the division be? Very excited to hear about India!
Asquith: I been in the right place!
Sykes-Emory: And it must have been the right time!
Thank you for the praise.
This was one of those updates where, after a few paragraphs, it just started to flow. Twists and turns galore.
This is somewhat the British strategy, as it was in reality. Mimic the Napoleonic Wars by mostly being a bankroller, not a fighter. On the other hand, you know what they say about plans and the enemy...
Exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.
I will say only that there's an essay ready to go on British alliance-building and the merry-go-round of allegiance centred around Anglo-German Rivalry.
Australia, NZ, and South Africa. Canada, as the only Dominion, will have its own essay.
South Africa also has a specific essay, but I can say there are Afrikaner MPs.
As mentioned, there are Canada/SA-specific essays coming up. Australia and NZ TTL have had more migration than OTL in the run-up to Federation, and the SA update touches a little on the consequence of that for the Aboriginal population (fair warning, the entire SA update was sometimes just depressing to write).
You are correct in guessing that the Federation Debate will very much dominate the political scene until the September Crisis.
I have an essay on Anglo-American Convergence I finished yesterday that addresses some of these questions.
The Canada and Anglo-American Convergence essays do seem like they will be a treat for people.
Like those from a bus thrown in a small lake.
Thank you.
As of the IFA 1905, it is 50 seats for Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa combined, apportioned by electoral roll. Funnily enough, when I did the maths, 50/700 seats worked out to almost exactly the proportion of voters the new Commonwealths account for Federation-wide (apportionment by electoral roll, rather than population, really cuts into South Africa's seats due to the thing that made the South Africa essay bit of a bummer to write).
For today's essay on Ireland, as with all the essays that deal with historical events and imperial crimes (even if changed somewhat by the alt-history nature of AAR-writing) that have consequences to this day in the real world, I apologise in advance for any errors made and important elements omitted or used with less care than they should have.
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A LONGER WAY TO TIPPERARY THAN TO SYDNEY
Ireland and the Early Federation Debate
Andrew Leahy
Ireland and the Early Federation Debate
Andrew Leahy
It is a mistake to think that, until the Westminster Bomb controversy in July 1904, the Home Rule debate had been consigned to the dustbin of history. After all, while they were far from their heyday of 1876-81, the Irish Nationalist Party continued to hold seats in the House of Commons. Yes, this was the hard core of the old INP, many of whom had never accepted even Home Rule, the irreconcilable few that did not even take their seats. Indeed, if anything, that they continued to get votes proves that not only was Home Rule not dead, it hadn’t even become the fringe of Irish politics.
It is, however, undeniable that the feverish atmosphere of the Home Rule Debate seemed a past age in the first two years of the 20th Century. This despite the fact that a mere 25 years earlier the government had needed to send 30,000 men of the British Army to support police overstretched by island-wide unrest and outright violence. To understand this change, and why Federation then reignited a seemingly ended debate on Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom, we must go first go back to the origins of the Home Rule Debate of the 1860s and ‘70s.
Universal Male Suffrage was enacted in the United Kingdom, along with the secret ballot, by the Representation of the People Act 1849. It assured that no man over the age of 21 could be denied the right to vote based on income, personal wealth, or the ownership of property. In practice, this translated to the franchise in the UK expanding to include all men over the age of 21 who were not serving a criminal sentence or legally declared to be of ‘unsound mind,’ with one glaring exception; Ireland.
The reason for this was that responsibility for maintenance of the electoral roll remained with local government. In 1849, the high offices and institutions of the Irish counties were almost universally dominated by the Protestant Ascendancy. This allowed them to effectively disenfranchise the poorer, Catholic, and anti-Unionist sections of the Irish population.* Unwilling to reopen the deep wounds the battle over the franchise had created in the last two decades, both the Whig and Conservative Parties quietly accepted the existence of the ‘Green Bar.’
Through most the 1850s, this uneasy alliance between the goals of the Ascendancy and the caution of politicians in Great Britain lasted. The occasional Whig MP would cause a stir by pointing out the base failure in Ireland of the party’s grand achievement, but such an act would see them quickly side-lined from the centres of power. It wasn’t until 1858, amidst the general commotion caused by the dual crises of the Panic of 1858 and the beginning of the Indian Mutiny, that the informal code of silence was broken.
Denis Mulcahy, Thomas Clarke Luby, and John O’Leary, 1858
The founders of the Irish Republican Army; the organisation founded by these three men in June 1858 would force the conversation open on the Green Bar
Seeing their chance to break Ireland free of Great Britain under the cover of imperial and economic disaster, a group of nationalists formed the Irish Republican Army in a Dublin pub in June 1858. Following two months of intense recruitment, the IRA assaulted numerous buildings in Dublin, including City Hall and the General Post Office. For two weeks, the ‘August Rising’ had effective control of the city, until the Irish Rifles Regiment arrived and forced its way in. With the failure of armed insurrection, the IRA pivoted to a terrorist campaign of bombings and shootings, hoping to break Westminster’s resolve or spark a successful revolt.
In Westminster though, the Rising had already changed the debate. Had the Conservatives not been in total disarray after removing Disraeli in January 1859 - only to discover he had not, in fact, been the cause of the unrest, but rather the one thing keeping the situation from spiralling even more destructively – the fledgling Liberal Party would likely not have found the unity to win the election of 1861, but collapsed like its Whig predecessor over the new, raging argument on Ireland. With the Conservatives allied to the Ascendancy, it was among the Liberals that the Representation vs. Home Rule battle was fought. The former believed that an end to the Green Bar alone would offer enough of a say in the Union to the average Irishman to be reconciled, while the latter believed that only the right to legislate and rule for themselves domestically would prevent the Irish eventually demanding total separation.
The champion of Home Rule was William Ewart Gladstone. In his first ministry, he introduced a Home Rule Bill, but withdrew it when it became obvious that trying to push to Third Reading would collapse the government. Lord Hartington was chosen to replace him in 1865 partly due to his anti-Home Rule, Representation-neutral stance. As the IRA’s campaign of violence ramped up in the late 1860s and early 1870s though, this became an untenable position. Gladstone, having accepted Home Rule would not make it through the Commons, much less the Lords, before Ireland became a warzone, was able to return to Downing Street by converting to Representation. As the standard-bearer of Home Rule, Gladstone was able to bring most of that side around to supporting the Representation of the People (Ireland) Bill.
William Ewart Gladstone, 1873
An ardent Home Ruler, Gladstone’s acceptance of Representation as a necessary half-way house ended the Green Bar
The Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1875 fixed the issues of the Representation of the People Act 1849 by defining acceptable discrimination (age below 21 and current criminal sentence or medically determined mental incapacity), rather than attempting to exhaustively ban forms of it. The passage of the Act however, did not end the debate. The IRA, seeing that representation had the potential to blunt some of their most effective arguments, redoubled their efforts. The climax of what has come to be known as the IRA’s Representation Campaign was the Trouble of 1877. As much as Representation was hurting their argument that London would never listen, it was also proving that change was possible. Many who were previously discouraged by the immovability of Westminster now joined the cause. In August 1877, on the 19-year anniversary of the August Rising, groups across Ireland took up arms.
It took four months and 30,000 soldiers coming into Ireland to support the police, but the Trouble eventually did come to an end. By then though, the IRA was a declining force, replaced by the rise of Irish Parliamentarism. In 1876, the Irish Nationalist Party, which had previously managed to muster two or three seats in elections, took 49% of the vote and 87 seats in Ireland. This made them the kingmakers in Parliament. Though, in coalition talks, Gladstone explained that a second Home Rule Bill was sure to fail (especially as many Liberal Home Rulers had come from Irish seats lost to the INP itself), the INP insisted, and Gladstone’s last ministry became a minority government.
The INP, being an unsteady alliance of various political groups unified only by their belief in Home Rule, did not provide the Liberal government with much of a reliable ally. After five years of what seemed like every vote threatening to collapse the government, it was little wonder that the Conservatives’ promise of stability and an end to the endless squabbling over Ireland allowed them to gain an outright majority. Over the next decade, the Scramble for Africa and a conscious effort by Salisbury to include Irish MPs in his cabinets would do for Ireland what India and the older empire had done for Scotland; the sight of Irishmen in powerful positions would reconcile many to the idea of Ireland as part of Britain.** By 1886, the INP had been reduced to 12 seats and just over 10% of the vote in Ireland. By 1891, the remaining moderates had abandoned the party for the Liberals and Conservatives, hoping to keep Irish nationalism in Westminster, even if in neutered form.
INP seats, votes, and share of the All-Ireland vote, 1876-1891
Prominent former INP MPs of the 1890s included Connell Burns-Bryan (Minister for Health under Sir William Sinclair, responsible for implementing the changes to the Hospitals Act 1873 brought in by the second National Insurance Act), Sir Michael Fitzgerald (Attorney General, 1893-1897, who successfully defended the NI Acts from early attempts to overturn them by litigation), and Simon Leahy (first Minister for Pensions). A pattern here can be detected in the role Irish MPs played in cementing the National Insurance system. In fact, there has been speculation that Sinclair intentionally placed former INP members into important positions so that the National Insurance system could be seen as a benefit of the Union.
This, then, was the situation in Ireland as the Boer War opened up the conversation on Imperial Federation in the first years of the 20th Century. The Home Rulers, far from disappearing or being reduced to single-digit seats, had merely been absorbed by the Liberals (and, to a lesser extent, the Conservatives). Within Ireland, anyone who cared to look could find a very much live debate on the matter in political circles, even if the regular man or woman on the street no longer based their vote on their preferred answer to the Irish Question. The end of the Green Bar, and the rapid political decline of the Ascendancy that followed, had removed the most obvious and pressing iniquities of the Union, and so the most effective arguments of nationalism.
The debate on Federation provided, for the first time since the Green Bar, a clear and present difference in treatment to point to. If a solution could be found for the colonies - one that allowed them to draw closer to the Union while still making their own laws - why then could one not be found for Ireland? From almost the first moment Dominion status was mentioned by the Boers, the Home Rulers in the Liberal and Conservative Parties broke their public silence on the subject. In Westminster, this gained little notice in the early days of the debate, but within Ireland the old battle lines quickly sprang back up. The Westminster Bomb Controversy is notable not for relighting the debate in Ireland, but for making non-Irish politicians in Westminster sit up and take notice. The fact that they had so quickly blamed the IRA forced many who had considered the end of the Green Bar to be equal to the end of anti-Irish sentiment to look within themselves; for the Irish, the argument had never really ended.
Sir Edward Carson, 1904
Originally a run-of-the-mill Conservative MP, Carson became the leader of the Irish, and particularly Protestant, opposition to Home Rule or Imperial Commonwealth status
There was, however, one major difference to the previous peak of the argument, in the response of the Protestant population. The prospect of a successful push for Home Rule or Imperial Commonwealth status for the island of Ireland as a whole terrified those who had previously benefited from the Ascendancy. Representation had blunted their influence in Ireland, but the failure of Home Rule had similarly blunted fears of a Catholic-dominated government wreaking revenge upon them. They could either defeat Home Rule entire, or attempt to carve out for themselves protections. Under the leadership of Sir Edward Carson, a Conservative MP from the northern, majority-Protestant counties, they chose to attempt the former.
For the other side, the hero of the early Federation debate would become John Redmond. Elected for the INP in 1876, he had been one of the last holdouts, not jumping to the Liberals until 1891. This meant that, while he was not trusted enough to become one of the integrated Liberal Irish Nationalists given important posts in the preceding decade, he was also not seen by the remaining INP in 1902-05 as a traitor. This allowed him to use the INP’s resources for recruiting potential candidates for the election of 1905, while still maintaining the trust of H. L. Sykes-Emory and Asquith that was necessary for them to stand down the would-be Liberal candidate. Most importantly, when Redmond said that his goal was Home Rule, and everything he did was ultimately in pursuit of that goal, the INP could believe him.***
In the election itself, the INP practically swept the board in the Catholic counties, gaining 102 out of 160 Irish seats, and 61.3% of the votes. With such a mandate for the INP, Redmond knew that the next couple years would be a desperate battle to contain the more passionate elements of the party. He knew that much of the vote would have come from Liberals that did not necessarily support Home Rule, but were not given a Liberal candidate to vote for in 1905, and from Unionists that supported the Federation proposal, and so had quieted their fears about a push for Home Rule to vote INP. Were the Colin Ryans of the party to act too fast, to come on too strong, the victory of 1905 would be wasted.
Colin Ryan, MP for County Cork South, 1905
One of the young firebrands of the INP’s 1905 intake, Ryan would become the de facto leader of the INP after Redmond
For Redmond, the challenge was that, as the provisions of the Federation Act came into force, the demands from the party to extend it to Ireland gained an ever more feverish tone. The arrival of MPs from the Imperial Commonwealths only made the situation more untenable. With actual, recent experience of Responsible Government, they were more than happy to support their Irish colleagues’ arguments with those experiences. Within Ireland, tensions were also rising. Aware that defeating Home Rule outright was becoming less likely, Carson floated the idea of a fall-back in a speech made in Belfast on October 3rd, 1907; the six majority-Protestant counties in the north could be exempted from any move to Home Rule or Commonwealth status.
The idea raised the temperature of the debate overnight. By 1908, the Ulster Volunteers had been formed to oppose any attempt at implementing Home Rule in the northern counties. The IRA meanwhile, so starved of resources it might not have been able to plant the Westminster Bomb if it wanted to, saw a resurgence. For the first time since the Trouble of 1877, a British Cabinet would have to consider sending the troops as a response to a potential uprising. It was, at that April 1908 meeting, merely a contingency plan, but one that showed just how febrile the situation had become. At that same meeting, Asquith and Redmond agreed that the time had come to grasp the nettle; the planned next step in the development of the Federation, the future of the upper house, would now have to address the Irish Question as well.
* The exact methods differed by county, mostly depending on who the local Ascendancy elites were targeting. The poor were targeted by written exams; the Catholic by long registration forms that, at some, point would ask for the church attended (and thus allowed for those attending the wrong ones to be conveniently not registered by dint of an ‘incorrectly filled’ or ‘lost’ form); the anti-Unionist by a combination of the two and simple local knowledge of such sympathies. For a while, certain counties even tried a literal poll tax, whereby people would have to pay for their registration form, but this proved so brazen a measure that the Law Lords struck the fees down as an obvious income requirement.
** In fact, so great was the draw of empire and opportunity outside Ireland that, between 1881 and 1891, the population of the island managed to decline. That so many of the émigrés were those disappointed by the failure of Irish Republicanism almost certainly contributed to the declining fortunes of the INP.
*** It was this last aspect of Redmond’s reputation that provided Carson’s Unionists such an effective line of attack on the Liberal-INP alliance in the election of 1905 (Vote for Federation; Get Home Rule), but it was that same reputation that allowed Redmond to convince Colin Ryan to drop his unintentionally wrecking amendment to the Imperial Federation Bill.
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Do you mean Northern Ireland or the Irish nationals?
Otherwise, very well done.
Did the scramble for Africa differ in any way? Any change there would make potential colonial defence/war plans/alliances far different.
I, in fact, meant National Insurance. That's now been made clearer. Thanks for the spot.
One can rely on the deep currents of Irish politics to surface in moments of great trial.
Universal manhood suffrage in 1849? That must have dramatically changed the shape of 19th century British politics. Was this in response to Chartist activity?
Interesting that the Irish Nationalists was the air blow out of their movement so rapidly in the late 19th century - quite surprising that the Nationalist genie was forced back into bottle. If only temporarily.
And on a nitpick note - wasn’t Carson a Dublin Protestant rather than an Ulstermen?
Interesting that the Irish Nationalists was the air blow out of their movement so rapidly in the late 19th century - quite surprising that the Nationalist genie was forced back into bottle. If only temporarily.
And on a nitpick note - wasn’t Carson a Dublin Protestant rather than an Ulstermen?
Ah, I know only too well have how this play though will have gone. If there's one thing Vicky loves above all else, it's mass rebellions in the Atlantic Archipelago.
Certainly a road with many bumps, twists and turns from the Green Bar to Home Rule. I have no doubt there will be more surprises to come before (if ever) things are finally resolved.
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Woah, stand back lads. We got a historian from the late 90s over here.
What can I say, sometimes I like to spice things up a bit.
I've been meaning to comment on this for a while. Excellent writing and attention to detail - as someone without a strong backing in British history, it's hard for me to tell what is real and what is inspired by the game, leading to quite a few Wikipedia trips so far. Keep up the good work!
I too would like to know how and why universal male suffrage got rolled out so completely and swiftly into the right to vote movement. Presumably it would have led to greater liberalisation of parliment much earlier than otl? Which I suppose explains federation and home rule debates.
Surprising to see such early suffrage (a common sentiment, I see ). What was it that caused such a shift? A scare from the revolutions of '48?
That is a seriously beefy uprising for the Trouble. I'm surprised that there was no larger reform right after that.
With the Federation being a present idea, it seems only logical that the First Colony reap the benefits as well. I look forward with fear and anticipation to the next steps.
). What was it that caused such a shift? A scare from the revolutions of '48?That is a seriously beefy uprising for the Trouble. I'm surprised that there was no larger reform right after that.
With the Federation being a present idea, it seems only logical that the First Colony reap the benefits as well. I look forward with fear and anticipation to the next steps.
Surprising to see such early suffrage (a common sentiment, I see
That is a seriously beefy uprising for the Trouble. I'm surprised that there was no larger reform right after that.
With the Federation being a present idea, it seems only logical that the First Colony reap the benefits as well. I look forward with fear and anticipation to the next steps.
Well I suppose the debate in both Ireland and Westminster will be
A) is ireland a dominion or intrinsic part of the union of kingdoms?
B) which is better for it to be, both for Westminster and Ireland? (Thinking in terms of vote share, economics, prestige, culture...).
Vote share is going to be a big thing. Is it going to take a sizeable chunk of the 50 seats allocated, or keep its own separate amount which will naturally increase in time.
Thank you again for the spot, and for the praise.
Britain was far more aggressive ITTL thanks to Salisbury's 'Imperial Expansion for Domestic Conservatism' strategy, as can be seen in the map from the Foreword, as was Spain. France is therefore less established in Africa than IOTL, but does have the lion's share of the Congo. Please see a map of the continent as of 1911 below:
One really can.
Universal manhood suffrage in 1849? That must have dramatically changed the shape of 19th century British politics. Was this in response to Chartist activity?
Interesting that the Irish Nationalists was the air blow out of their movement so rapidly in the late 19th century - quite surprising that the Nationalist genie was forced back into bottle. If only temporarily.
And on a nitpick note - wasn’t Carson a Dublin Protestant rather than an Ulstermen?
In-story, yes, this was the result of a much more aggressive and successful Chartist movement. In-game, Densley got it exactly right; it was a choice between universal suffrage (I certainly wasn't changing the Upper House to get militancy down) or spending the 1840s playing whack-a-mole and expanding the Home Army far beyond what realistically would have happened, so I figured Parliament decided to let the people vote.
Very temporarily indeed, as can be seen from today's update.
On the question of Carson's provenance, I plead the Alt-History Amendment.
As noted, you are entirely correct. On both counts, in fact.
Woah, stand back lads. We got a historian from the late 90s over here.
What can I say, sometimes I like to spice things up a bit.
Nothing wrong with a little seasoning for the thread.
Thanks! It's been a good excuse for me to do some revision on the period.
Yes, some of the consequences can be seen in the arrival of Lloyd Georgism and Women's Suffrage two and three/four decades early, respectively, via Sir William.
Surprising to see such early suffrage (a common sentiment, I see
That is a seriously beefy uprising for the Trouble. I'm surprised that there was no larger reform right after that.
With the Federation being a present idea, it seems only logical that the First Colony reap the benefits as well. I look forward with fear and anticipation to the next steps.
In-story, 1848 played a role, in that ripples from it certainly played a role in the 1848 election and the ultimate decision Russell's government made on just how far to go with the Representation of the People Act 1849, but suffrage was going far higher than IOTL either way due to the more expansive Chartism of TTL.
Since I don't fully answer these questions in the update, I'll say that the Act of Union 1910 attempts to fudge question A, the situation in Ireland somewhat forces Westminster's hand on B, and Ireland retains its seats in the regular UK apportionment rather than being handed specific Commonwealth Status seats (thanks to the aforementioned fudge).
And, a companion piece to this update.
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