Arizona republican., 1901-11-11
BRITISH PROBLEM
Some Results of Imperial
 Responsibility
A Parliament That Has Ceased to Be Able to Keep the Administra. tive Machinery in Working Order.

Washington, Nov. 1O.-Herbert Ross
 Barring, a former private secretary to ex-Premier Lord Rosebery, passed
 through the city yesterday from Can ada on his way to Mexico MT. Barring has been visiting the governor general of Canada, Lord Minto, and after his visit in Mexico will return to Canada and may reside there permanently, having in view an appointment under the government. MT. Barring, in an in terview, among other things, said:
 Tn American newspapers which cir culate abroad one frequently sees rather severe criticisms of the British government as to it's incompetence and diIatory methods in dealing with inn portant matters. While it cannot be denied that these criticisms are just in many instances, it must be remembered
 that the government has on hand at present many difficult and delicate
 problems to decide, which are the re suit of increasing imperial responsi-
 bility. This, too, is the result of the
 Irish difficulty and of the weakening of the party system under the collapse of the opposition as an alternative gov ernment. coupled with a tendency to bureaucracy The nation is too prac
 tical not to insist on effectiveness in government; it must get it somehow,
 and will get it, once it is thoroughly
 aroused. What has happened is that parliament has ceased to be able to keep the administrative machinery of
 the state in working order. The empire has outgrown it's clothes. Effectiveness
 will be restored in one of two ways either through a free, effective paflia- mentary system or through some die tatorship or oligarchy. At present we have no effective supervising authority of any kind. Lord Salisbury has enormous power if he cared to use it, but he is not of the stuff out of which dictators are made. Mir. Chamberlain is. but he is not the kind of dictator anyone would choose. We have been governed by a kind of oligarchy. but one which has been chiefly remarkable for it's destructive influence upon edu- cation and it's want of influence upon anything else, while parliament has
 stood by powerless either for good or evil"
 '.tTow then. can pralia ment be made
 more effective?" was asked.
 Its work must be distributed. All | ideas of nationality must be cast aside
 so as not to complicate the subject. The only obvious way of saving time is
 to refer the committee stages of bills affecting one division of the United Kingdom only to the members of thas division acting in grand committee. This i sn ot done at present. If you compare the German or American sys- I tenn to ours you will find that each of those states is better equipped for em ! pire than Great Britain is. Through the development of grand committees the | British parliament could come to local national comedies. If an extension, too,
 of local self-government should be ac- ] the Irish delegat tion to the imperial parliament it would be followed by the extension of local liberties in Great
 britain. with a corresponding reduc- [ tion also of the British delegations. A 1 house of commons of $40, with a less diffused sphere of action, would be far
 more effective than one of 6S0 as at
 present. The result would be that par
 liament would not be SO continuously
 occupied in the house with odds and
 ends. "The government thinks that the
 business of the house of commons would be on q sound footing were Ire
 land once represented there in propor- i ton to her population-tnough Britain ! was not very sensitive on that point ' fifty years ago. In any case there
 would still be over fifty nationalists | left-amply sufficient for wrec<ing pur- poses. The true solution. however, lies
 in extending the powers of self-govern-
 ment in Ireland and simultaneously re | ducing the Irish delegation to the inn
 perial government proportionately to 1 the powers given
 | If Lord Rosebery were to become
 prime minister again how far do you
 think he would go in giving powers
 of local self-government to Ireland? 2" | Mir. Barring was asked.
 Just as far as public opinion in | Great Britain permits. We tried to set l tie the Irish trouble once by going in