The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-06-30
THE ISLE OF MAN.
Curious Features Of the Island e
Government.
The Governor Dispenses Justice in Person
and Presides Over the Courts OF
Law-Oueer Ancient
Customs.

The Isle of Man is a museum Of con
stitutional antiquities. Usages which
people associate with the political his
tory Of England in the seventeenth,
the fifteenth and even the thirteenth
century are there to be found side by
side with the most modern expert
ments, says the New York Evening
Post. AS in the great n~eighboring
island in the early years Of William
Ill, there is still no cabinet and the
governor has a real power of veto; as
there under Elizabeth, political parties
Still have no existence; as was largely
the case in England in the later Mid
ole Ages, h 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
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
houses were ever united TO learn that
when the tynwald,' the Manx legis-
l~ature, "meets for financial
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 IL, over the courts oflaw. And,
finally, the open-air meeting of the
tynwald on st. Johns day for the
PRONUNCIATION of the statutes passed
during the year has an aspect so
archaic that e 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 sanity 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 1.-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 Wills great act Of SUI
premacy. The Manx act of settle
ment' in 1903, converting a whole ma
ton Of leaseholders 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 1888 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 cas- of Canada and
the case of Man presented features Of
similarity.
A 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. 1t
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-
erage English county should nave re-
tanned it's own legislature, while Scot
land and Ireland, incomparably o
powerful, should have lost theirs. 1t
is interesting to know hat 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 indispositiOn
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 are 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 ffty-four thousand. In
spite, therefore, of its separate history
and curious constitution, it's political
interests cannot help being on very
much the same scale as those which
find expression in an English munich
pal or county council
Apt ALTERATION.
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