Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

182 LOYALTY AND THE CROWN
earnestly desire to see her fiscally and legislatively as
independent as Canada, Australia. 69
Such reappraisals occurred almost exclusively among Southern
Unionists, who, geographically isolated from Ulster Unionists and
widely dispersed throughout the Southern provinces, were faced
with the real prospect of the implementation of some form of
home rule. An early example of Southern Unionist co-operation
with Nationalists, to promote the compatibility of Irish Nationalism
with British Imperialism, occurred in early 1917, when a committee
was formed representing the opinion of ‘Independent
Nationalists’, such as Colonel Maurice Moore, George Russell,
Edward Lysaght, Irish Party supporter James MacNeill, and
Unionists such as Sir Algernon Coote, His Majesty’s Lieutenant for
Queen’s County, and Colonel Sir Nugent Everard, His Majesty’s
Lieutenant for County Meath. The committee issued a
memorandum, addressed to all Irish MPs, ‘Concerning the Present
and Future Relations of Great Britain and Ireland in the Empire’. The
committee felt that the greater the limitations upon the powers
delegated to an Irish government, the greater would be the
prospect of future irritation which might tempt Irishmen to
organise for absolute separation from the British Crown and
Empire. Therefore, any new form of Irish self-government should
have powers wide enough to remove such a contingency. Their
demand was for a measure of self-government commensurate
with that enjoyed by the British Dominions. The committee
accepted that the legal sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament over
the whole British Empire, vested in a parliament representing only
the British electorate, would continue to remain an anomaly, and
possibly a danger to Irish freedom; but, if Imperial Federation was
ever to become a question of practical politics, the committee held
that the right of English politicians to dominate imperial and
international affairs would have to be abrogated, with England
contenting herself with a subordinate parliament of her own, and
allowing the imperial sovereignty of Westminster to be transferred
to a Council of Empire in which Ireland and the Dominions would
be strongly represented, England no longer being predominant.
Employing the traditional Nationalist interpretation of Ireland’s
unjust economic treatment under the Union, the memorandum
proceeded to address the question of Ireland’s unfair taxation,
declaring that Ireland demanded that the 1914 Home Rule Act
should be radically altered so as to give her control over taxation,
customs, excise and trade policy. As to the issue of an Irish
imperial contribution, Ireland was willing to do its share towards