The St. Johns herald., 1893-07-06
THE ISLE OF MAN.
Curious Features Of the Islands
 Government.
The .-ovc-Ec- DIspcnses Justice in Person aad P-csi.ies C1er the Courts of LaE-0ueer Ancient
 Customs.


 rscpIe associate with the political his tory of EnGland in the seventeenth, the fifteenth and eyen the thirteenth cc2tUE-v are there to be found side by side with the most modern expert I2eats, says the New York Evening Fcst. As in the great neighboring island in the early years of William H.. there is still no cabinet and the goveraor, has a real power Of veto; as there under Elizabeth. political parties still lave no existence; as was largely the case in England in the later Mid Cie Ages, the revenue is derived from permanent customs duties and the legislature cannot stop the machinery of government by withholding sup plies" The house Of keys has not yet what the house of commons acquired under Henry ", the exclusive right of originating money bills; and it may cast some light on the still uncertain question whether the two English hoases were ever united to learn that '.when the tyrwald," the bIanx legis- lature, meets for financial purposes, the two branches sit together" We may go even behind the period when parliament was forming itself, to the period when royal courts of justice were first making their appearance; for in Man, the governor still dispenses justice in person, and presides, like Henry H., over the courts of law. And, frally, the open-air meeting of the tynwald on St. Johns day for the prornulgation of the statutes passed dr.;ng the year las m aspect so archaic that even courts of law seem modern in comparison.
 The annals of the island, in like man. ner, read like an epitome of British history, though with the sequence of movements strangely distorted. The struggle between the saintly Bishop Wilson and the governors in the early years of the eighteenth century over ecclesiastical discipline involved the same principles, and even touched some of the precise questions that had been at issue in the contest between Beckett and Henry H.; and the words of Gov. Horne maintaining that ''the right honorable the lord of this isle''-the earl of Derby-was ''chief of the holy church of this island" sound like an echo of Henry VIII s great act of su- premacy. The ManX ''act of settle ment' in 1703, 'convcrting whole na- tion of lcaseholders into perpetual ten ants at a low quit-rent," presents an obvious parallel to recent Irish legis- lation. The refusal of the English government in 163S to allow the estab- lishment of an elected chamber, and its subsequent change of attitude, may almost be regarded as a mere reflection of the course of contemporary British colonial policy. To the statesmen of Downing street the case of Canada and the case of Man presented features of similarity.
 4 country like this had an obvious claim upon a governor who was also a historian of repute, and the present volume shows that Spencer Walpole has not been deaf to it's appeal It could be wished that he had not yielded to the temptation to give his book an attractive title. It is, of course, a striking thing that here, almost in the geographical center of the British isles, an island not so large as an av- craze English county should have re- tained its own legislature, while Scot land and Ireland, incomparabIy more powerful, should have lost theirs. 1t is interesting to know that the ten dency during the last fifty years has been toward greater autonomy; that when the house of keys was reformed in 1869 tynwald was intrusted with larger financial powers, and that 'there is an increasing iHdisposition on the part of the tynwald to allow the English parliament to legislate" for them. The feeling of nationality, even when it asserts itself in a very small field, is the same feeling at bot tom as that which we admire in the case of Germany or Italy, and always needs to be taken into account. But there tare two considerations which prevent even those who sympathize with the demand for Irish home rule from drawing any lessons from the constitution of Man. The first is the character of that constitution itself The house of keys, though it has been allowed a voice in the disposition of a certain part of the public revenue, is very far indeed from controlling the purse-strings; the upper house, or council, possesses coordinate authority with it, and seven out of the eight members of the council are nominated by the crown. while the governor, a nominee of the English ministry, pos sesses a right of veto which he would not hesitate to use. And, in the sec ond place, the population numbers only some fifty-four thousand. In spite, therefore, of its separate history and curious constitution, its political interests cannot help being on very much the same scale as those which find expression in an English munici- pal or county council.