THE QUESTION OF HOME RULE
The question of Home Rule not extinct--The reasons--Butt's scheme of
Home Rule--It is denounced and ridiculed by Mr. Gladstone, and
defeated in the House of Commons--Death of Butt--The Home Rule
movement becomes allied with a foreign conspiracy--Davitt and
Parnell--The Land League--Mr. Gladstone's surrender to it--The
movement makes no progress in the Parliament of 1880-85--The General
Election of 1885--Mr. Gladstone suddenly adopts the policy of Home
Rule--The probable reasons--The Home Rule Bill of 1886--Its nature and
tendencies--Decisive objections to the measure--It is rejected at the
General Election of 1886, having been previously rejected in the House
of Commons--Policy and conduct of Mr. Gladstone--The Home Rule
movement makes some progress in England, and why--The Home Rule Bill
of 1893--It is much worse than that of 1886--The reasons--It is
rejected by the House of Lords--Home Rule under different forms--The
Union must be maintained--Proposal that Parliament should occasionally
sit in Dublin--The over-representation of Ireland should be redressed.
Home Rule, it is very generally assumed, has vanished into the domain of
extinct politics. Unlike what had been the case from 1886 to 1895, when
this was the main of our domestic questions, Home Rule was scarcely
referred to at the late election; it will receive little countenance at
the hands of the present House of Commons, however Irish Nationalists may
persist in urging their demand. It would, nevertheless, be imprudent to
believe that this policy, as has been said, 'is as dead as Queen Anne,' as
impossible as a return to Protection or to an unreformed Parliament.
Isaac Butt's scheme of Home Rule was treated with scorn and ridicule by
Mr. Gladstone during many years; Mr. Gladstone was the author of the Bills
of 1886 and 1893, embodying Home Rule in forms few will now approve of;
and he left nothing undone to convert them into law. At the General
Election of 1880, Home Rule was regarded as a mere Irish craze, and hardly
a candidate could be found, in England and Scotland, to consent to an
inquiry upon the subject; within six years Home Rule was a Ministerial
measure; and though the House of Commons pronounced against it, and its
decision was emphatically ratified at the General Election of 1886, still,
on this occasion, the votes in favour of Home Rule were not much less
numerous than those cast against it.[19] In 1892 England condemned Home
Rule, if not as decisively as six years before; but Ireland, Scotland, and
Wales declared for it; and a Home Rule Bill received the sanction of the
House of Commons, which, but for the resistance made by the House of
Lords, would now be a fundamental law of these realms. It deserves notice,
too, that not one of the Liberal leaders, although, as a rule, they
avoided the subject, repudiated this policy at the late election; two or
three, indeed, gave it a qualified support; and it is evident that they
keep the question in reserve, in the hope of turning it to account at a
more convenient season. Nor can it be denied, as long as Ireland can send
more than eighty Nationalists into the House of Commons, pledged to insist
on Home Rule as their country's right, that the subject must command more
or less attention; for many reasons it is impossible to ignore the claims
of a representation so large in numbers. It must be added that, under our
system of party government, especially as this has existed of late years,
a considerable group of politicians, with a fixed purpose, can effect much
by throwing its weight indifferently into the Ministerial or the
Opposition scale, and giving its support to either side, in order to
compass its own ends; it has, sometimes with successful results, swayed
majorities by these means, and not in vain. This is the hope of the Irish
Nationalist leaders; 'let parties in the House of Commons,' they cynically
argue, 'be equally divided, as must at some time happen,' and 'we shall
gain Home Rule from either Tories or Whigs, if we assist either by our
votes to keep them in office.' It cannot be said, if we look back at some
political events within the last twenty years, that this expectation is
wholly groundless; and though I am convinced it will not be realised, its
existence alone suffices to prove that Home Rule cannot yet be dismissed
as outside the sphere of practical politics.
Home Rule, therefore, is a 'Present Irish Question,' and if not at this
moment urgent, it remains the most important of Irish questions, for it
directly affects the fortunes of the Three Kingdoms. It is necessary,
accordingly, to examine it, in its principles at least; and an inquiry is
opportune, at this juncture, for the subject can be fairly discussed in
its different bearings, apart from the obscuring influences of national
and party prejudice, and especially of political passion. Isaac Butt was
the true author of the conception of Home Rule; for though a movement in
favour of a Repeal of the Union had become dangerously active in 1843-44,
and had been feebly intermittent since that period, this peculiar
modification of the arrangements made at the Union, in fixing the
relations between Great Britain and Ireland, was wholly an idea of that
distinguished lawyer. The occasion, on which this scheme was put forward,
was not a little remarkable for various reasons. Mr. Gladstone had just
disestablished the Anglican Church in Ireland, and had disendowed it, to a
considerable extent; this policy was angrily resented by a party of Irish
Protestants; for the maintenance of the Established Irish Church had been
made an essential condition of the Treaty of Union. These men, who were
not without energy and parts, declared that a great international compact
had been broken; and they gradually obtained the support of leaders of the
'Young Ireland' following, of survivors of the 'Tail' of O'Connell, and
even of adherents of the Fenian cause, all, in different degrees, opposed
to the Union. Butt became the head and spokesman of this curiously
assorted band, composed of essentially discordant elements; but he
endeavoured to combine it into a strong Parliamentary force, by
propounding a plan of Home Rule for Ireland, which he had thought out with
patience and care, his hope being that this would unite his followers, and
that his project would at least be entertained in Parliament, and would
not be as hopeless as an attempt to repeal the Union. His views are set
forth in his 'Irish Federalism,' a long-forgotten work, but which, even
now, may be read with profit. Butt professed, and I have no doubt
sincerely, that he did not seek to disturb the Union, and that the
Imperial Parliament was to remain as it was; but he proposed to give
Ireland a Parliament of her own, with full powers of legislation on Irish
affairs, and an Executive practically appointed by this, which would have
the government of Ireland in its hands. Having thus called into existence
an Irish State, possessing State rights of supreme importance, he sought
to connect Ireland with Great Britain by a Federal tie; representatives
from Ireland were to repair to the Imperial Parliament, and to vote in
that assembly on Imperial questions, but not, as I believe Butt meant, on
those which belonged to England and Scotland.[20]
The cry of Home Rule was welcomed in Ireland by her Catholic masses; at
the General Election of 1874, sixty men were returned to the House of
Commons to support this policy, a party formidable in numbers, if not in
essential strength. Butt brought forward his plan, in outline, on three or
four occasions; but the question was not discussed with the fulness of
knowledge and the breadth of view it certainly required; on the whole, it
was superficially treated. Neither Butt nor his opponents thoroughly
perceived that his proposals virtually repealed the Union, for if the
Imperial Parliament was, nominally, to be left intact, a real Parliament
was to be placed in its stead, in Ireland, which would practically annul
its effective authority, from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear; and they
seem not to have understood that 'Irish Federalism' implied Federalism for
Great Britain to a great extent, and introduced into the Constitution the
Federal principle with its far-reaching and dangerous effects. Butt's
scheme, however, was powerfully attacked in its details; by no one so
powerfully as by Mr. Gladstone, who had lately announced, to an approving
multitude, that Home Rule was sheer folly or worse, and had exultingly
asked, 'Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that, at this
time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate
the great capital institutions of the country for the purpose of making
ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power
we possess for bestowing benefits, through legislation, on the country to
which we belong?'[21] Little knowing what the future was to bring forth,
Mr. Gladstone declared that Home Rule was not to be even thought of, until
it could be proved that the Irish affairs, to which the Irish Parliament
was to be confined, could be separated from Imperial and British affairs,
a partition he evidently deemed impossible; and he insisted that the
introduction of Irish members into the Imperial Parliament, which,
according to this plan, was to have nothing to do with Ireland, was not
only essentially unjust, but involved the absurdity that these men 'were
to judge as they might think fit of the general affairs of the Empire, and
also of exclusively English and Scotch questions,' an interpretation not,
I believe, correct. Home Rule was rejected by overwhelming majorities in
the Parliament of 1874-80; and at the General Election of the last-named
year, it found no countenance, I have said, in England or Scotland. The
subject was scarcely referred to by Mr. Gladstone, wholly preoccupied by
his Midlothian campaign, and by his persistent efforts to deprive Lord
Beaconsfield of power.
Butt had sincere reverence for the Constitution and the Law; the Home Rule
movement, as long as he was at its head, was a constitutional and a lawful
movement. But this eminent man had been supplanted, by degrees, by a
politician of a very different nature; and when he had passed away in the
spring of 1879, Parnell, and what was called the 'active Irish party,'
which had baffled and incensed the House of Commons, became the directors
of the Home Rule policy. The character of the movement was almost wholly
changed; it became associated with a conspiracy hatched in the Far West,
which aimed at the separation of Ireland from Great Britain; Butt's
moderate followers fell away from it, especially the band of Protestants
who had first set it on foot. Meanwhile, American Fenianism, which had in
vain attempted open rebellion in Ireland in 1865-67, had, at the
instigation perhaps of Michael Davitt, made another effort to compass its
ends; the 'New Departure' in treason was made; the Land League was formed
with the avowed purpose of overthrowing 'Irish Landlordism,' as it was
called, as being the mainstay of British power in Ireland, and then of
wresting Ireland by force from her British rulers. But Davitt was not well
fitted for his work; Parnell became the leader of the Home Rule and the
Land League movements; and during a short visit to the United States, he
openly professed that his ultimate aim was 'to break the last link between
Great Britain and Ireland,' though he was still the chief of an apparently
constitutional cause. Ere long the Land League, availing itself of a
season of distress, and subsidised by Fenians across the Atlantic, had
taken root in different parts of Ireland; and gradually a reign of terror,
marked by detestable crime, and essentially of the Jacobin type, had
acquired a frightful ascendency in ten or eleven counties. By this time,
Mr. Gladstone had become Minister: how he denounced the League in
passionate language; endeavoured, for a few months, to hold it in check;
succumbed to it, when he made the 'Kilmainham Treaty;' and, finally, how,
after declaring that Parnell and his adherents were 'aiming at
dismemberment through rapine,' he became the author of the Land Act of
1881, and threw the Irish landed gentry as a sop to Cerberus,--is
sufficiently known, but I shall recur to the subject. During these years,
Parnell, artfully playing the double game, which this born conspirator
especially made his boast, and linking what he called 'a constitutional
with an illegal movement,' had more than once spoken on behalf of Home
Rule in the House of Commons, his moderate and even statesmanlike language
being in marked contrast with his treasonable harangues in Ireland. But
Parliament had been otherwise engaged with Irish affairs; it had become
more averse to Home Rule than ever; it had learned what the movement had
begun to involve, veiled, if not open, rebellion against the State, and it
voted down the question by immense majorities. Statesmen of all parties,
Tory, Whig, and Radical, without exception, concurred in this view; Lord
Salisbury, Lord Spencer, and John Bright alike condemned the very idea of
Home Rule. Mr. Gladstone indeed asserted afterwards that he had a policy
of this kind in his thoughts; but if he had, he kept it to himself; it
cannot be gathered from his speeches of the time; he never breathed to
his colleagues a word about it; he allowed them to pronounce against Home
Rule with his full apparent sanction.[22]
Mr. Gladstone's Ministry fell in 1885; Majuba, Gordon, and his Irish
policy had set the best sense of the country against him. Lord Salisbury's
Government came in his place; for a short time the tendency, too often
seen in British parties, to temporise with sedition and even crime in
Ireland was exhibited with untoward results; the negotiations between
Parnell and Lord Carnarvon have not yet been explained. At the General
Election of 1885, Parnell openly took the Conservative side, denounced the
Liberals in the bitterest language, and perhaps, through the influence of
the Irish vote, deprived them of a few seats in England. His principal
object certainly was to increase his own power and that of his band by
weakening the strongest of British parties; but this association with the
Conservatives probably lessened the antipathy of their opponents to Home
Rule, and was not without effect on the events that followed. Ireland,
however, was by no means a prominent question in this electoral contest;
the Tory, Whig, and Radical leaders dealt, for the most part, with
different topics; and though Mr. Gladstone dropped ambiguous phrases,
which, he ere long contended, indicated his conversion to Home Rule, his
lieutenants continued to declare against this policy, their chief
remaining openly in accord with them; indeed, all that could be collected,
from what he wrote and said, was that he called upon the country to give
him such decisive support as would make him independent of all Irish
factions. The result of this General Election, taken as a whole, was to
gain for the Liberals a majority of some eighty seats in Great Britain;
but in Ireland it effected a notable change in politics. By a recent,
and, for Ireland, a most unwise statute, the electoral franchise had been
assimilated in the Three Kingdoms; political ascendency had, for the first
time, been secured for the masses of Catholic Ireland, largely an ignorant
and superstitious multitude; property and intelligence were overwhelmed at
the polls; and Parnell and his satellites, now called Nationalists, won
more than eighty seats out of a total of one hundred and three. The
Liberal majority, therefore, would be effaced should the Irish leader and
his men give the Conservatives their votes; a weak Government would be the
inevitable result; Mr. Gladstone, now in his seventy-sixth year, could
hardly expect to return to office. In these circumstances, it became
gradually known that Mr. Gladstone had accepted Home Rule in principle,
and was even prepared to legislate upon the subject. It would be unfair to
assert that personal motives alone determined this sudden resolve; though
obviously should the Liberal chief retain the allegiance of his party, and
draw Parnell and the Nationalists to his side, by inaugurating Home Rule
as a practical measure, he would inevitably be restored to power with a
great majority. Mr. Gladstone, ever ready to yield to a popular cry, may
have believed that five-sixths of Ireland were passionately eager for Home
Rule; he may have been convinced himself that, as affairs now stood,
Parliament would well-nigh be reduced to a deadlock should nothing be done
to redress the balanced state of parties, and that Home Rule was the
condition of a stable Government; he may have thought that since the
Conservative dalliance with Parnell, it had become impossible permanently
to resist this policy; yet these considerations form no apology for the
conduct of the aged, but most impulsive, statesman. Only a few years
before large parts of Ireland had been in a state of frightful anarchy; a
rebellious and socialistic movement against British rule and Irish landed
property had acquired great force; even at the present time, the National
League, replacing the Land League, kept disorder prevalent in many
counties. Was this the moment to effect a revolution in Ireland, to tamper
with, and to impair, the Union, to hand over the loyalty, the property,
and the worth of the island to the classes and the men against whom but,
as yesterday, it had been necessary to put the severest coercion in force?
Lord Salisbury resigned office in the first months of 1886; Mr. Gladstone
became Prime Minister in his stead. Had parties in the House of Commons
remained unchanged, the prospect for the old statesman would have been
auspicious; the Liberals and Nationalists combined would have been
supreme; Home Rule would have been the fruit of the new alliance. But the
most distinguished men of the Liberal party, resenting a coalition far
worse than that of Fox and North, and convinced that Home Rule would be
ruinous to the State, fell off from their leader in large numbers; the
powerful Press of Great Britain, with few exceptions, emphatically
condemned the Minister's conduct. Mr. Gladstone, however, did not pause in
his violent course; he introduced his first Home Rule Bill in April, 1886.
I can only glance at the main features of this famous measure, and devote
to it a passing comment.[23] A Parliament was to be established in the
Irish capital; this, subject to the limitations set forth in the Bill, was
practically to exercise supreme power in Ireland. This Parliament was to
be composed of two Orders, the first containing one hundred and three
members, and formed of a few Irish peers and of men of some substance; the
second comprising two hundred and four or two hundred and six members
elected on the existing democratic franchise. The two Orders were
ordinarily to sit together; but should differences in legislative
measures arise, the first Order was, for a short time, to have a
suspensive veto on the decisions of the second Order, which, however,
possessing an immense majority, would almost necessarily in the long run
completely prevail. The Irish Parliament was precluded from legislating on
many subjects, for the most part Imperial, but partly domestic; it was
notably to have no control over the Customs and Excise of Ireland, which
were to be kept in the hands of the Imperial Parliament; and though it was
permitted to impose any other taxes, the whole revenue of Ireland was to
pass through the hands of a British official, who was to pay into the
Imperial Treasury a sum of about four millions sterling, as a contribution
from Ireland, for Imperial purposes, before the Irish Treasury could
receive a farthing. Bills voted by the Irish Parliament might be annulled
by the veto of the Lord-Lieutenant and perhaps of the British Ministry;
and the Judicial Committee of the English Privy Council, reinforced by a
small body of Irish judges, was to have the power to pronounce Acts of the
Irish Parliament void, if inconsistent with its constitutional rights.
Subject, however, to these restrictions and checks, the Irish Parliament
was to be a sovereign power in Ireland; it could practically appoint or
displace the Irish Executive Government; it could enact, change, or repeal
any laws it should think fit; it could pass any resolutions it pleased; if
an assembly partly subordinate, it would be largely supreme. Ireland was
to have no representatives in the Imperial Parliament, though this could
dispose of the Irish Customs and Excise; no Irish protest could be made at
Westminster against unjust fiscal exaction, by no means impossible. For
the rest, the Union was nominally not disturbed, and the Imperial
Parliament was nominally left intact; but it was declared that the Irish
Parliament was to possess the rights secured to it, unless these were
annulled by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, to which the Irish had
given its consent, or by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, in which
representatives from Ireland should have a voice.
The Bill was debated with great force of argument, but hardly in its high
constitutional aspects. Like the plan of Butt, and every plan of the kind,
it impliedly, if not expressly, repealed the Union, for the very creation
of an Irish Parliament destroyed the real authority of the Imperial
Parliament, the symbol and guarantee of the Union, in one of the main
parts of the Three Kingdoms. It effected a radical change in our polity as
a whole, for practically it gave birth to three Parliaments, the Irish
sitting in College Green in Dublin, the British at Westminster without
Irish members, and the Imperial, properly to be only so-called, when
assembled upon one great occasion; and, even more distinctly than the
scheme of Butt, it let the principle of Federation into the constitution
of the State. And it did all this obscurely, indirectly, and, so to speak,
with reserve; the hand of a veiled prophet appeared in his work; this must
have led to endless controversies dangerous in the extreme. Nor did the
Bill even attempt to mark out the distinction between Irish, British, and
Imperial affairs, which its author had declared was a _sine quâ non_; this
distinction, in fact, cannot be drawn, as Mr. Gladstone acknowledged
afterwards; Irish, British, and Imperial affairs so run into each other,
that they cannot be divided into separate heads, to be under the
jurisdiction of different Parliaments. The conditions, too, which Mr.
Gladstone described, as essential to a measure of Home Rule, were, in no
sense, fulfilled. 'The Unity of the Empire,' that is, of Great Britain and
Ireland, as Mr. Gladstone no doubt had in his mind, was not secured, or,
even in name, preserved; the subordinate Irish Parliament and its superior
might, and probably would, come in serious conflict; this was absolutely
inconsistent with the unity to be maintained. The 'political equality of
England, Scotland, and Ireland' was not assured; the Bill placed Ireland
in a degraded position, especially in all that dealt with taxation, and
through the exclusion of Irish members from the British House of Commons.
It did not 'produce an equitable distribution of Imperial burdens,' for
the financial arrangements were thoroughly unjust, and subjected Ireland
arbitrarily to a most galling tribute, without giving her the means of
making a complaint. It did not 'provide safeguards for the minority,' that
is, for the loyal classes of Protestant and Catholic Ireland; it handed
them over to an Irish Parliament, certain to be for years an instrument of
their avowed enemies; and its supplement, a Land Purchase Bill, did not
furnish a third part of the funds required to buy out the Irish landlords,
a class which, Mr. Gladstone declared, it was 'an obligation of duty and
honour' to save harmless, and which he admitted an Irish Parliament would,
probably, plunder and destroy. Lastly, the Bill did not secure 'finality;'
it was in no sense in the nature of a 'permanent settlement,' as
subsequent events have conclusively proved.[24]
It may be urged, however, that even if this measure made a fundamental
change in the constitution of these realms, and did not satisfy the
conditions its author laid down, still the real question was, would it
bring peace to Ireland, and improve the relations in which she stood
towards Great Britain? Mr. Gladstone and his followers assumed that this
would be the case; the 'Union of Hearts' was to accomplish marvels; but
this assumption was without the slightest warrant. The most favourable way
to consider the subject, from the point of view of the Home Rule party, is
to suppose that Great Britain and Ireland were two communities, in no
sense estranged from each other, and that Ireland was not a widely divided
people; and that both were not unwilling to accept the Bill, as a kind of
modification of the partnership made by the Treaty of Union. This
supposition would be obviously contrary to the facts; but, even on this
supposition, the proposed measure would have completely failed to attain
its objects, and, on any ordinary view of human nature, would have
exasperated Great Britain and Ireland alike, and could not have been a
'message of peace' to Ireland. The Parliament at Westminster would soon
have found out that its real sovereignty in Ireland had been practically
destroyed; that the Irish Parliament could, in many ways, interfere with
British and Imperial affairs; that most of the checks on its powers were
of little avail; this would certainly deeply offend the deceived British
nation. The Irish Parliament, on the other hand, would necessarily resent
the harsh limitations by which it had been bound; yet as it had most of
the powers of a real Parliament, it could very effectually evade or impair
these; could, through its Executive, largely annul them; could, at least,
make continual and powerful protests. Discord, and perhaps conflict,
between Great Britain and Ireland, from the nature of the case, would be
the result; and, besides, there were special provisions in the Bill which
would be deemed intolerable by five-sixths of Irishmen. Even loyal Ireland
would not endure the banishment of Irish representatives from the British
House of Commons, which would have power to impose the Irish Customs and
Excise; this would be taxation without representation, in the very worst
sense. It was monstrous that Ireland was to contribute a large sum for the
charge of the Empire and yet was to have no voice in the Empire's affairs;
it was humiliating that a British official was to have absolute control
over the whole Irish revenue. All this was subjecting Ireland to a
degrading tribute; it should be added that the prerogative of the English
Privy Council, to set aside practically Acts of the Irish Parliament,
would have provoked the deepest and most widespread discontent. The Bill,
in a word, revealed strange ignorance of the feelings of mankind; it would
have worked on the assumption only that human beings in Great Britain and
Ireland were without passions and wills of their own; it would have been
blown to the winds, when put to the test.
But 'the circumstances,' to adopt the words of Burke, 'are what render
every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind;'[25]
what were the circumstances in the present instance? England and Catholic
Ireland had been long opposed; the Land and the National Leagues formed a
conspiracy against our rule in Ireland; England had interests in Ireland
of the first importance; she had a large community of her own blood and
faith in Ireland, attached to the Union and the old mother country.
Ireland had been distracted for ages by feuds of race and religion;
Protestant and Catholic Ireland stood apart from each other; the Irish
Parliament, created by the Bill, would certainly be an instrument of the
heads of the Catholic masses, supported by Parnell and his band, and by
Fenians across the Atlantic. Under these conditions, Home Rule would have
been a fatal gift, ruinous to Great Britain and Ireland alike. Suppose,
for example, that an Irish Parliament, established in College Green, since
1886, had ruled Ireland during the war in South Africa. It would
unquestionably have taken the side of the Boers, as the Nationalist
leaders have openly done; and it would have possessed the means of doing
infinite mischief. It could have passed resolutions condemning the war;
have called on Irishmen to keep aloof from the British army; have
discouraged recruiting throughout Ireland; have sent messages of good will
to the Boer Government. But probably it would have gone far beyond these,
its constitutional, rights; it could have winked at the preparation of an
armed force in Ireland to be despatched to the aid of the Boers; it
could have invited Foreign Powers to put a stop to the conflict; nay, it
could have laid hands on the Irish taxes, and refused to 'pay tribute to
an alien Government;' and what, in these cases, would have been England's
means of obtaining redress, save by the power of the sword? In the
instance of other wars, the same course would be followed; we cannot
forget that at Nationalist meetings, the Mahdi, the Dervishes, nay, all
our enemies, were the objects of the applause of shouting Irish
multitudes. And as the Irish Parliament could injure England in war, so it
could embarrass and annoy her, in a hundred ways, in peace. There was
nothing in the Bill to prevent Protection in Ireland, for the Irish
Parliament could vote bounties on Irish exports; there was nothing to
prevent the issue of Irish assignats, to mask confiscation of different
kinds; and recourse would not improbably be had to these very expedients.
It is unnecessary to dwell on what would be the legislation of the Irish
Parliament at home, and the administration of the Executive it would have
a right to set up. Composed as it would be, it would abolish 'landlordism'
by a stroke of the pen, or by merely preventing the recovery of rent; it
would simply turn society upside down, and establish a Catholic ascendency
by many degrees worse than Protestant ascendency ever was; it would, in a
word, let revolution loose in the island. Protestant Ireland would, as a
matter of course, resist; a savage war of race and creed would certainly
follow; the scenes of 1690 and 1798 might well be repeated; and the
struggle would end in general bankruptcy. England, in her own interest,
and in that of her friends in Ireland, would assuredly intervene, under
conditions like these; and the concession of Home Rule would probably lead
to reconquest.
The Home Rule Bill of 1886--apart from the fatal evils it must have
caused--placed Ireland in such an inferior position, that every Irishman
of spirit ought to have treated it with contempt; it was so dangerous to
Great Britain, and, indeed, to the Empire, that John Bright declared that
not twenty English members approved of it at heart. Mr. Gladstone himself,
it should be remarked, regarded it with no doubtful misgivings; he
presented it to the House of Commons as 'but a choice of evils;' his
measure itself, in many passages, revealed the profoundest distrust of the
Parliament he proposed to create. Parnell, imposing his imperious will on
his followers, accepted the Bill with professions of delight; this was
effusively welcomed by the emotional statesman, deceived by an
unscrupulous plotter, over and over again; it is now known this was a mere
pretence; Home Rule, under the conditions of the scheme, would have been
made a stepping-stone only for larger demands; and this, indeed, might
have been easily foreseen. The Bill was rejected by a majority which did
not express the true sense of the House of Commons, and showed how strong
may be the ties of party; the great body of the Liberals, as, doubtless,
they now bitterly regret, threw in their lot with Mr. Gladstone in his
most reckless venture. It is of more importance to observe what the views
on the subject were of the conspirators in America, who had set the Land
and National Leagues on foot, and had supplied almost the whole of their
funds; without their assistance the movement led by Parnell would probably
have never struggled into life. The prospect opened by the Home Rule Bill
was thus welcomed by the Clan na Gael, the most energetic and daring of
the Fenian parties; it will be noted that it was to be a means only to a
very decisive end. 'The achievement of a National Parliament gives us a
footing on Irish soil; it gives us the agencies and instrumentalities of a
government _de facto_, at the very commencement of the Irish struggle. It
places the government of the land in the hands of our friends and
brothers. It removes the Castle's rings, and gives us what we may well
express as the plant of an armed revolution.'[26] And at a great Fenian
meeting held after the rejection of the Bill, one of the leading speakers
dropped these significant words: 'We have no desire to force the hand of
Parnell, or to drive the Irish people into war unprepared. All that we
demand is this, and we will be satisfied with nothing less--that no leader
of the Irish people, who is supposed to speak for them, shall commit
himself, or them, to accepting as a final settlement, bills of relief
unworthy of the dignity of Ireland's national demand. We are perfectly
willing to see them accept such bills as that of Gladstone, as a
settlement on account, but that must not be accepted as closing the
transaction. We see no wisdom in it. It lowers the tone of the national
cause. It lowers the spirit of the true people. To ask them to subside to
a species of mere provincialism is an outrage on their struggle of seven
hundred years for liberty. We admit that it may be good policy on the part
of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Davitt to be what is called moderate in tone; but
for us, who represent the national idea of the Irish people, it would be
worse than folly to conceal our sentiments. We recognise that Ireland is
incapable of fighting at present.'[27]
Mr. Gladstone dissolved Parliament when it had thrown the Bill out; he
appears really to have believed that the nation would give its sanction to
Home Rule. At the General Election of 1886, he exerted himself 'in the
sacred cause of Ireland,' with the energy he had shown in his Midlothian
Campaign; he associated his new Irish policy with appeals to the
multitude; the opposition to him was that 'of the classes against the
masses;' in a word, the enthusiastic, and perhaps sincere, convert played,
with little scruple, the part of a mere demagogue. But England pronounced
against him, with no uncertain voice; 'men of education and property,' as
he sadly acknowledged, resisted him with the steadfastness of the English
nature; a great majority was sent into the House of Commons pledged
against Home Rule; Lord Salisbury's Government came again into office. It
deserves special notice that the rejection of the Bill did not, as was
predicted would be the case, arouse anything like real discontent in
Ireland, or cause her Catholic community to stir; this spectacle, which
has been seen over and over again, proves how little the main body of the
Irish people care for a political revolution of the kind; and how Home
Rule, as Parnell and his band conceived it, was the work of a conspiracy
of foreign origin, seeking, through it, to subvert British rule in
Ireland. The real purpose of these men was very clearly shown at a
Convention assembled at Chicago, in the summer of 1886; speeches of the
most incendiary nature were made; and two of Parnell's envoys, despatched
to collect funds 'for the cause,' announced that, after the failure of Mr.
Gladstone's measure, their 'duty was to make the government of Ireland by
England impossible.' Two or three years of trouble in Ireland followed; it
is unnecessary to refer to these at any length. A season of agricultural
distress and of a fall in prices made the payment of Irish rents
difficult; the occasion was seized by the heads of the National League,
which had gradually been acquiring formidable strength; the 'Plan of
Campaign' was set afoot; and another attack was made on the Irish landed
gentry, with the ultimate object of paralysing the Irish Government, as
had been solemnly proclaimed at Chicago. The social disorder of this
period was not so deeply marked with horrible deeds of blood, as the
Saturnalia of the Land League were; but the movement was, perhaps, not
less dangerous; the cruel practice of 'boycotting' was reduced to a
system, and caused widespread misery and distress; an agrarian war was
carried on in a few counties; judges, magistrates, and juries were
terrorised in the administration of the law; and there were too numerous
instances of atrocious crimes. But a firm hand was at the helm of the
Irish Government; Mr. Balfour did not palter with sedition and treason;
the conspiracy was before long put down; and it should be added that
'boycotting' and 'the Plan of Campaign' were unequivocally condemned at
Rome.
In this struggle between the forces of disorder and law, the Rump of the
Liberal party, which had accepted Home Rule, freely declared itself on the
side of the National League and of anarchy. Mr. Gladstone, however,
towered over his fellows; his vehement and, when aroused, unscrupulous
nature, has never been more unfortunately displayed. He had been three
times at the head of the State, charged with the administration of Irish
affairs; the Government in office was engaged in a conflict with a
conspiracy of no contemptible strength; yet Mr. Gladstone did not shrink
from throwing his full weight into the scale against it, and giving his
sanction to the movement led by Parnell and his creatures. His conduct was
so flagrantly at odds with his former self, that, but for the gravity of
the situation, it would have been ludicrous; it consisted in adoring what
he had burned, and burning what he had adored; nothing like it had been
seen since Fox, breaking away from the traditions of British statesmen,
flung himself into the arms of Jacobin France, and rejoiced at every
reverse that befell England.[28] A remarkable episode in the politics of
the day was not without real effect on events that followed. The acts of
the Land and, in part, of the National Leagues, and of the leaders of the
revolutionary movements which had convulsed Ireland, were investigated by
the judges of the Special Commission appointed by Parliament for the
purpose; the inquiry, which lasted many months, was of supreme importance;
such a damning sentence was never pronounced on a body of public men, as
that pronounced on Parnell and his followers, though the accusation of
treason was not brought into question.[29] This decision was sufficient
for well-informed and sensible men; but Parnell was acquitted on a
personal, but minor, charge, that of having been the author of the
well-known forged letters all but approving of the assassinations in the
Phoenix Park; Mr. Gladstone and his adherents welcomed him as an injured
martyr; the House of Commons rang with their plaudits when he re-entered
its walls. For a few months Parnell became a popular personage in
democratic England; he had negotiations with Mr. Gladstone with respect to
Home Rule, the tenor of which has not transpired; his satellites appeared
at many public meetings, and split the ears of the groundlings with
plausible talk about 'self-government' for Ireland and the 'Union of
Hearts.' This mystification and falsehood were not without effect; the
cause of Home Rule made a kind of progress in England; and, strange to
say, the fall of Parnell which ere long followed--I shall not dwell on its
squalid and grotesque incidents--had an influence in the same direction.
Ireland had been brought into a state of comparative repose; the power of
the National League appeared broken; the formidable leader of the
conspiracy had left the stage; his adherents were scattered sheep, which
had not a shepherd. With the ignorance of Irish affairs so common to
Englishmen, and the desire, partly selfish, but partly generous, to 'get
rid of the Irish difficulty,' by any tolerable means, thousands in the
constituencies, even in England, lately bitterly hostile to it, were
gradually won over to the idea of Home Rule.
The General Election of 1892 followed; a number of causes, in addition to
that I have set forth, contributed to favour the Home Rule movement. The
'swing of the pendulum,' seen in British politics, since Democracy has
gained the ascendant, very distinctly appeared; the 'idea that each side
ought to have its innings' was widely spread; many Unionist seats were
lost by these means. The extraordinary energy shown by Mr. Gladstone, at
an age far beyond the ordinary span, had considerable influence on the
masses; and though his real authority had been long on the wane, he was
still the popular figure in England and, above all, in Scotland. He had,
also, carefully kept his Home Rule scheme to himself; it was announced by
his followers that his next measure for securing 'self-government,' as it
was called, for Ireland, would be free from the manifest faults of that of
1886, and would finally, and happily, settle the question. A large part of
the electorate was gained in this way; but the influence that most
effectually assisted Mr. Gladstone was, essentially, of a very different
kind. The Anti-Unionist Liberals had been out of power for many years;
though they had long been split into separate groups, they resolved to
combine against the common enemy, and to drive the Unionist Government
from its seat, by appeals to the ideas they assumed were dominant in
democratic England and Scotland. The Newcastle programme was
ostentatiously published; the question of Home Rule was mixed up with
projects for disestablishing the Church in England and Wales, for the
destruction or the emasculation of the House of Lords, for enforcing
temperance by the tyranny of the Local Veto, for extending the suffrage
and raising the labourer's status; in this way they satisfied themselves
they 'would sweep the country.' They knew, indeed, that Mr. Gladstone had
no heart for much of their policy; but his passionate eagerness to
accomplish Home Rule was notorious; they believed that by giving him a
cordial support on this question, they would secure his powerful aid for
the others, and that by the process known as 'log-rolling,' they would
attain their objects. The Unionist party was weakened at the election; but
the sanguine hopes of its opponents were not fulfilled. Many of the
Radical cries were far from popular; they nearly all combined large
classes against them; England returned a large majority to the House of
Commons pledged against Home Rule, if not so considerable as six years
before; and though Scotland and Wales were, in the main, favourable to Mr.
Gladstone's policy, still the electorate of Great Britain, as a whole,
pronounced against it. The election in Ireland presented features which,
with respect to Home Rule, were of marked significance. In 1886, as in
1885, the educated and upper classes were swamped at the polls, by the
flood of illiterate and indigent multitudes; the Irish Catholic Church
used, nay, abused, its immense authority, to secure votes for Mr.
Gladstone's coming measure. The same spectacle was beheld in 1892; but an
element of confusion and disorder came in; the leaders of the factions,
divided by the fall of Parnell, though Nationalists, ferociously flew at
each other's throats; the election was marked by disgraceful scenes of
lawlessness. These certainly prefigured what would be the character of a
future Irish Parliament sitting in College Green.
This election gave Mr. Gladstone a majority of some forty seats in the
House of Commons, but a majority composed of not well-united elements; and
the best opinion of England was strongly averse to his policy. But the
veteran statesman--he was in his eighty-third year--did not pause for a
moment in his headlong venture, though ominous sounds were being already
heard; after the resignation of Lord Salisbury, through a weak adverse
vote, his rival became Prime Minister for the fourth time. He had staked
everything to obtain the success of the cause to which he had passionately
devoted his declining years; he brought in his second Home Rule Bill in
the first months of 1893. The measure had much in common with that of
1886; but in some respects it was very different, especially in one
feature of supreme importance. An Irish Parliament was again to be set up
in Dublin; but it was to be a much smaller body than that proposed by the
previous Bill; it was to be composed of a Legislative Council of
forty-eight members only, and of a Legislative Assembly of only a hundred
and three; these were analogous to the First and Second Orders of 1886,
but were not to be even half in numbers; and no Irish peers were to have a
place in the new Parliament. The Legislative Council and Assembly,
differing here from the original scheme, were to sit, not together, but
apart; but the Legislative Council, like the First Order, was to have a
temporary suspensive veto on the Assembly's acts; the Assembly, too, like
the Second Order, possessing a majority which would place real power in
its hands; and both bodies, it should be added, being more democratic than
the two which were to have been created in 1886. The new Irish Parliament,
like that to be formed seven years before, was restricted by
limitations--these much the same as those contained in the former Bill--in
a number of Imperial and domestic matters; it was, like its predecessor,
to be subjected to the same kind of veto, and to nearly the same authority
of the English Privy Council. In finance, the 'tribute,' which had been
loudly condemned by all parties in Ireland, was given up; there was to be
no British official to lay his hands on Irish revenue, and to divert it
from its legitimate uses; but the Irish Customs were to be appropriated to
the Imperial charge, which Ireland was declared to be justly liable to
pay; and this was a sum of about two millions and a half, with an addition
for a time of one million, a sum less than the estimate made in 1886. The
Irish Parliament, however, if thus made largely subordinate, was like the
Parliament of the preceding Bill, to be in many, and most important,
respects supreme. It was to rule Ireland as a sovereign power, subject to
the limitations by which it was to be bound; it could make, change, and
repeal laws, as regards the Irish community, almost as it pleased; it
could, in a word, do nearly everything within the province of a real
Parliament. Above all, it could appoint and control the Irish Executive
Government, to which the administration of Irish affairs would belong; and
it would thus have complete power over the most important machinery of the
State.
The Bills of 1886 and of 1893 so far resembled each other, with some
distinctions; but, in other respects, they markedly differed. The
supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, implied but not expressed in the
first scheme, was unequivocally asserted in the second, though this
supremacy could not be effective, as respects Ireland. The Imperial
Parliament was nominally left untouched by both Bills, though this was a
play on words only; but it was to hold a position in the second it was not
to hold in the first; the Union was not in terms repealed by either
measure, though virtually it was repealed by both, through the mere
creation of an Irish Parliament. The Bill of 1886 had, as its complement,
a Land Purchase Bill; in fact, both were made parts of the same policy; a
sum of £50,000,000 was to be an indemnity for Irish landlords who should
think fit to part with their estates; for Mr. Gladstone, we have seen, had
declared that it was 'an obligation of duty and honour' to protect this
order of men; and he asserted that Parliament would, doubtless, vote any
further sums required, a singular exhibition of credulous hope, for these
would have amounted to £150,000,000 at least; and he had himself, in a
speech addressed to Lord George Hamilton, valued the lands of Ireland at
£300,000,000. But what was to be deemed sacred, in 1886, had a very
different aspect in 1893; the settlement of the Irish land was, indeed,
withheld for three years from the Irish Parliament, but, after this brief
space of time, this was to be certainly left to a body, which Mr.
Gladstone had evidently thought would make short work of the Irish landed
gentry, and would drive them, in beggary, out of their own country. These
differences, however, between the two Bills, sank into insignificance
compared to a vital distinction which made them essentially unlike each
other, and made their projects of Home Rule completely dissimilar. The
exclusion of Irish representatives from the House of Commons at
Westminster, under the measure of 1886, was palpably unjust, and had been
condemned with much force of argument. Mr. Gladstone proposed to redress
this wrong by summoning eighty Irish members into the Imperial House of
Commons; these were to have no cognisance of British questions, but were
to have a right to vote on Imperial and even Irish questions, though the
Imperial Parliament was to have little or no power in Ireland, and an
Irish Parliament was practically to fill its place, and to have all but
supreme authority over Irish affairs. This strange expedient obviously
made the Home Rule schemes of 1886 and 1893 altogether different; but Mr.
Gladstone never saw the essential distinction; he maintained that the
inclusion of the Irish members was little more than a detail of the
measure. It would be perhaps unfair to insist that he introduced this
immense change in order only to strengthen his already enfeebled party,
which would be greatly in want of Irish votes at Westminster; more
probably his intellect, yielding to old age, did not thoroughly grasp all
that was involved in his project.[30]
The Bill of 1893, from a purely constitutional point of view, was
infinitely more objectionable than that of 1886. It not only, I have said,
virtually repealed the Union; it created a kind of Federalism in these
realms to which there has never been a parallel. The Irish Parliament was
practically to rule Ireland; no British members were to show their faces
in it; it was to be all but the sovereign of the Irish State. The British
Parliament was nominally to be sovereign of the British State;
representatives from Ireland were not to appear in it, and, in theory,
they were not to deal with British questions. The Imperial Parliament was
to be analogous to a supreme Federal Council; this ought to have
jurisdiction over Imperial affairs alone; but eighty Irish members were to
have seats in it, and they were to have a right to vote on Imperial and
Irish questions, though Ireland was to have a separate Parliament of her
own. This arrangement, in conception, was simply monstrous; it gave
Ireland powers to which she had no pretence to a claim; it really
subjected Great Britain to her; it formed a Federation in which a weak and
small State was to have immense authority over another tenfold as strong;
it might be described as one-sided Federalism run mad. Passing from the
main principles to the details of the Bill, this, like its predecessor,
did not satisfy the conditions Mr. Gladstone had deemed to be essential.
It did not separate British, Irish, and Imperial affairs; its author
admitted at last that this was not possible. It asserted the supremacy of
the Imperial Parliament, and gave it a more imposing position than it had
under the Bill of 1886; but it did not maintain the Unity of the Three
Kingdoms; the mere creation of an Irish Parliament placed this in
jeopardy. It did not provide for the 'political equality' of Great Britain
and Ireland, for, in contradiction to the measure of seven years before,
it practically gave Ireland a kind of ascendency; her representatives were
to possess rights in no sense to be justified. It did not provide an
'equitable distribution of Imperial burdens;' in this province it would
have done wrong to Great Britain; for, while it abandoned the odious Irish
tribute of 1886, and an effective control over Irish revenue, its
expedient of allocating the Irish Customs, and nothing else, as the only
source for the payment of Imperial charges, would, in all probability,
have caused the Imperial Treasury a great loss; the Customs would have
been enormously reduced by smuggling, to which Irishmen have always been
much addicted, which the Irish Parliament would have no interest to
prevent, and which, very likely, it would directly encourage. Again, it
did not create 'safeguards for the minority;' as we have seen, it threw
the Irish landed gentry, after a brief respite, to the wolves, that is, to
the tender mercies of the Irish Parliament; and, like the measure of 1886,
it took no heed of Protestant and loyal Catholic Ireland, as a whole,
though this assuredly was 'a minority' that required protection. Finally,
it could not have effected a 'permanent settlement' of the affairs of
Ireland; a 'lopsided' and iniquitous arrangement like this would certainly
have had a very short existence.
The measure of 1893, in short, would have effected a complete revolution
in the polity of these realms; it would have given the least important of
the Three Kingdoms an iniquitous authority over the most important; it
would unnaturally have placed weakness in superiority to power; it would
have subjected the dominant to the lesser partner; all this, it will be
observed, followed from the inclusion of Irish representatives in the
Imperial Parliament, who, though a Parliament in Dublin was to rule
Ireland, were to have a right to deal with Imperial and Irish questions.
Mr. Gladstone, I repeat, seems never to have understood the strange and
ruinous consequences this would involve; but this can be made manifest by
one or two examples. The Irish members would be excluded from the British
Parliament, and would have no right to vote on purely British questions,
say upon the extension of the British railway system, or the
disfranchisement of an English or Scottish borough. But they would have
eighty seats in the Imperial Parliament; and as it was impossible to
separate a number of British questions from those of an Imperial or Irish
character, they would have a most potent influence over British affairs;
for example, they could legitimately vote upon such subjects as the
confidence to be placed in a British Ministry, the financial relations
between Great Britain and Ireland, or the validity of British incumbrances
affecting Irish estates. The exclusion, however, of Irish members from the
British Parliament, and their introduction into the Imperial Parliament,
would have led to even more disastrous results; it must, in many
instances, have caused a complete paralysis of the State. This in-and-out
plan, as it was derisively called, must have made Parliamentary government
well-nigh impossible; if Irish members were to have a right to vote in the
same House of Commons on Imperial and Irish questions, but were not to
have a right to vote on British questions, to vote, say, upon a war with a
Foreign Power, and upon the domicile and status of Irish subjects, but not
to vote on matters of purely British commerce, there might, and very often
would be, two conflicting majorities in the leading House of Parliament;
Parliamentary affairs would be brought to a stand; the tenure of even the
strongest Ministry would be utterly insecure. It is needless to point out
that the relations between Great Britain and Ireland would almost
certainly have been more strained, under the Bill of 1893, than they would
have been under that of 1886; and that the government of Ireland by the
Irish Parliament, would, under both, have been much of the same character.
The British nation would have been indignant at the humiliation of their
ancient Parliament, which would be sometimes placed at the mercy of Irish
members; it would have condemned the weakening in Ireland of its
authority, through the mere establishment of an Irish Parliament; it would
have been sorely vexed that Irish smuggling would filch away a large part
of British revenue. It should be borne in mind, too, that the Irish
members, who would have been let into the Imperial Parliament, would have
been more difficult to deal with, by many degrees, more openly disloyal,
more obstructive, than Irish Nationalists could be, as affairs stand at
present; they would have the support of the Irish Parliament; the Imperial
Parliament could hardly impose a check on them. As for the rule of the
Irish Parliament, within its proper domain, it would have been the same,
or much the same, under either measure; that is, it would have been a
succession of angry wranglings with England and oppression in Ireland,
leading to anarchy and general ruin.
The Home Rule Bill of 1886, in a word, bad measure as it was, was
innoxious compared to the Home Rule Bill of 1893. The fatal tendency of
the scheme was quickly perceived; the sound mind of England was profoundly
stirred; the Bill was publicly burned in the City of London; innumerable
petitions against it flowed in; an immense assembly, representing loyal
Catholic and Protestant Ireland, met in the capital, and denounced this
whole policy in most determined language. As had happened, too, seven
years before, the Press of Great Britain, all but universally, condemned
the new measure as hopelessly bad; it was significant that the Liberal
Press was well-nigh silent, and that Mr. Gladstone was supported by very
few petitions. The Opposition simply tore the Bill to shreds in the House
of Commons; but the self-deluded Minister desperately held his course; the
Radical groups servilely gave him their votes; the process of
'log-rolling,' never before so recklessly displayed, kept his petty
majority almost intact, a crying disgrace to any party in the State. At
last, whether afraid of the country rising against him or yielding to the
instigation of his Irish allies--his subserviency to their truculence had
been most painful--Mr. Gladstone forced the measure through the House of
Commons by a method never employed before; 'closure by compartments,'
rightly compared to the 'guillotine,' put an end to resistance by
iniquitous means. The Bill passed the Lower House by thirty-four votes
only; not half of it had been examined or discussed; the part that had,
had been so completely transformed, that its parent could hardly have
known his own offspring. The most notable of these changes was that the
in-and-out plan was given up; its ruinous effects had been fully dragged
into the light, but an arrangement, perhaps even worse, had been placed in
its stead. Ireland was to retain her Parliament in College Green; but the
eighty Irish members were to have a right to sit in the Imperial
Parliament, and to vote on all questions, not only Imperial and Irish, but
strictly British alike. A philosophic and calm-minded writer has indicated
what this would involve: 'Irish members may disestablish the Church of
England, though England is to have no voice in the pettiest of Irish
affairs. Irish members are to be allowed to impose taxes on England, say,
to double the income tax, though of these taxes no inhabitant of Ireland
will pay a penny; the Irish delegation, and this is the worst grievance of
all, is to be enabled, in combination with a British minority, to detach
Wales from England, or to vote Home Rule for Scotland, or to federalise
still further the United Kingdom by voting that Man, Jersey, and Guernsey
shall send members to the Imperial Parliament.'[31] To say that this
proposal would be unconstitutional would be to do it too much honour; it
was scandalous in the existing situation of affairs; it implied that heads
of the National League, leaders of a rebellious and socialistic movement,
would have the power, without restriction or check, to rule the Imperial
Parliament, in many instances, with reference to exclusively English and
Scottish questions; it practically bound Great Britain hand and foot in
fetters to Ireland; it was rightly called 'an absurd piece of infamy.' It
is unnecessary to say that the system it would have established could not
have stood a trial of even three months; England, whenever crossed, would
have indignantly swept it away. But Nemesis had commended the poisoned
chalice to Mr. Gladstone's lips; the project, on which he had staked his
fortunes, was that which he had incorrectly ascribed to Butt, and had
declared to be impossible and worse.
The Bill, it was notorious, could not have passed the House of Commons had
not its rejection by the House of Lords been assured beforehand. It
received its quietus, in that assembly, by a majority of about ten to one;
the mind of England felt unquestionable relief; a great national peril had
been averted. Exactly as had happened in 1886, scarcely a sound of
discontent was heard in Ireland; the demand for Home Rule, in fact, is
largely a fictitious cry, with which the great body of Irishmen has little
or no sympathy; the evidence of this can be no longer doubtful. Mr.
Gladstone retired, within a few months, from public life; one of his last
acts was to shoot a Parthian arrow at the House of Lords, which, happily
for these realms, had wrecked his policy; since that time he has
disappeared from the scene; few eminent statesmen have been so soon
forgotten. Home Rule was scattered to the winds at the General Election of
1895; it has not been a prominent question at that of 1900; but if Ireland
has sent more than eighty of its supporters into the House of Commons, the
best elements in her community remain angrily hostile; and the opinion of
Great Britain is distinctly adverse. For many reasons, however, as I have
remarked, it is impossible to ignore the subject; in the strange chances
and changes of British politics, and under our system of party government,
a minister may again become an advocate of Home Rule, though certainly
not in the present Parliament. Mr. Gladstone's Bills, it is likely, will
not be heard of again; but Home Rule may be embodied in other forms; I may
briefly refer to, and comment, on these. The project of restoring the
Parliament of 1782-1800, an ideal of O'Connell during many years of his
life, will hardly be revived in these times; the conditions in Great
Britain and Ireland have so completely changed. The centripetal forces
which, a hundred years ago, held the British and Irish Parliaments, in the
main, together--they differed, however, on important questions--have long
ago been all but completely destroyed; the present Irish Parliament could
not be an assembly identified in race and faith with England; its House of
Commons could not be elected by a small body of Protestants, and latterly
by masses of Catholic peasants, the serfs of their landlords. The
centrifugal forces, on the other hand, those which would keep the two
Parliaments utterly apart, would probably be overwhelmingly strong; the
Irish House of Commons would practically, at least for years, be ruled by
the nominees of the National League and of the Irish Catholic priesthood;
its electorate would, for the most part, be subject to these dominant
powers; and Protestant Ireland would alike be swamped and incensed.
Nevertheless, the restoration of what has been called Grattan's
Parliament, would, in my judgment, be a much better project than either of
Mr. Gladstone's schemes of Home Rule. The Irish Parliament would be bound
by known and fixed precedents, which it would be difficult wholly to
disregard; an Irish House of Lords would exist as a check on the House of
Commons; above all--and this is of the very first importance--the Irish
Executive would not be subject to the Irish Parliament; it would be
appointed from Westminster by British statesmen. A Parliament of this type
could hardly effect the ruinous mischiefs which Mr. Gladstone's Irish
Parliaments could certainly effect.
Ireland, it has been urged, would obtain Home Rule, if she were
assimilated to one of our self-governing colonies. These nations, as they
may fitly be called, are by no means, as is commonly supposed, wholly
independent of the Crown and the Imperial Parliament; they have
Parliaments and Executives of their own; but these in theory, and partly
in fact, are subordinate. No Act passed by the Parliament of a
self-governing colony can in any way contravene an Imperial statute; the
governor of a self-governing colony is a real governor; appeals run to the
English Privy Council from colonial Courts of Justice. Nevertheless,
self-governing colonies are practically all but independent; they pay no
contribution to Imperial charges; they maintain their own garrisons,
without a British army in their midst--at least, in a great many cases;
they are hardly ever interfered with by the Imperial Parliament, or by the
men in power at Westminster. Why, it may be argued, should not the same
liberties belong to Ireland, for centuries the peccant part of these
kingdoms; would not the concession make her as loyal as most of our
self-governing colonies? The answer is short, but amply sufficient; the
circumstances of our self-governing colonies and of Ireland are altogether
different. In none of these settlements is there the profound estrangement
which has long divided Great Britain from Ireland; in none is there a
community in which a loyal minority is separated from a disaffected
majority by long-standing discords of race and faith; Ireland is at our
doors, our self-governing colonies distant. Give Ireland a Parliament like
that of Victoria, and Ireland would break off from the British connection;
the Irish Parliament would possess ample power to trample on and oppress
hundreds of thousands of law-abiding men, of whom the protection was
England's duty; the Irish Parliament and Executive, within a few leagues
of our coasts, could, in innumerable ways, do infinite mischief. The
supposed analogy, therefore, completely fails; it would be treason to the
State, and to loyal Irishmen, to make Ireland a self-governing colony; and
no British politician has as yet countenanced this mode of Home Rule. It
has been hinted again, but with bated breath and humbleness, that the
relations of Great Britain and Ireland have been so long unfortunate, such
a dreary record of disputes and miseries, that we should say to our
intractable partner, 'Depart in peace;' in a word, separation is a
conceivable Home Rule policy. This proposal has never been discussed in
Parliament; the interest, the self-respect, the pride of Englishmen almost
forbid the thought. Yet separation, strange as it may appear, would be a
better and more safe expedient than either of Mr. Gladstone's schemes of
Home Rule. The Imperial Parliament would have complete liberty to exercise
its sovereign power in Great Britain; it would have a free hand to prevent
injustice in Ireland, either by the strong arm, or by fiscal and other
expedients, say, by laying an embargo on Irish products; it would not be
subject to the exasperating but often effective checks which Home Rule
would in any form involve; and the Imperial Executive would possess ample
means to protect the interests of England and of her friends in Ireland.
Let it not be forgotten that in perhaps the ablest speech ever made, in
the House of Commons, on this subject, Peel declared that he would
infinitely prefer separation to a repeal of the Union, by no means so evil
a policy as Home Rule.
A few politicians, however, have put the theory forward that 'Home Rule
all round' will meet the 'national demand' of Ireland, and give her what
they are pleased to call 'self-government.' England, Scotland, Ireland,
and perhaps Wales are to have local Parliaments to deal with their own
affairs; Imperial affairs are to be directed by an Imperial Council. I am
willing to admit that a scheme of this kind would be better than Mr.
Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1893; it would be less illogical, possibly
not more disastrous. But I must be permitted to doubt whether these sages
understand what their project certainly involves; this, indeed, seems to
be rather in the nature of a device to angle for Nationalist votes,
without scruple, and then to propose a plan which England, Scotland,
Ireland, and Wales have never asked for, and which England and Scotland,
at least, would indignantly reject. This scheme is pure Federalism, in the
proper sense of the word; let us briefly consider what this means from the
very nature of the case. England, Scotland, Ireland, and, I assume, Wales
would form separate States; they would have separate Legislatures and
Executives to manage their local affairs, separate local forces, separate
Courts of Justice; they would be, essentially, separate countries. The
Imperial Parliament and its Executive would be the only link between them;
there would be an Imperial army, and navy, and Imperial tribunals; but the
Imperial Parliament and its Executive would only have jurisdiction over
Imperial affairs, and would be only the head of the separate States as
respects Foreign Powers. But as it would be difficult in the extreme,
under these conditions, to distinguish local from Imperial affairs, an
arbiter of some kind, armed with sufficient powers, would be necessary to
say what affairs were local and what Imperial, and decisively to pronounce
on the subject, on the innumerable occasions when the question would
arise; and it would be necessary, too, that there should be some means,
perhaps a Referendum to a popular vote, to effect any constitutional
change, to reform or to abolish the Constitution itself. This scheme
obviously would be complex, intricate, and difficult to carry into effect;
it would be a huge system of divided, and probably conflicting, powers,
not easy to reconcile with each other; for this, and other reasons, it
would require a formal Constitution reduced to writing, and setting forth,
under distinct heads or articles, the conditions of the Federation that
had been established, the spheres of the authority of the separate
States, and the sphere of the authority of the Imperial Council. Is it
possible to suppose that the Parliament of the United Kingdom would ever
break up this ancient and undivided Monarchy; would tamely surrender its
sovereign rights, and would substitute a new-fangled fabric of this kind
for the venerable and unwritten constitution of these realms--a majestic
temple that has grown up in silence; and that the British people, at all
events, would not rise up in wrath at the very thought of such a change?
For Federalism 'amounts to a proposal for changing the whole constitution
of the United Kingdom. It is, in fact, the most "revolutionary" proposal,
if the word "revolutionary" be used in its strict sense, which has ever
been submitted to an English Parliament. The abolition of the House of
Lords, the disestablishment of the Church, the abolition of the Monarchy,
might leave the English Constitution far less essentially changed than
would the adoption of Federalism.'[32]
It should be observed, too, with respect to this subject, that the
conditions, under which Federalism would have a chance of success, would
be absolutely wanting in the present instance. England, Scotland, Ireland,
and Wales have long been moulded into a single sovereign State, and united
under a supreme Monarchy; no Federation, I venture to assert, has been
formed out of communities that have had a government of this kind.
Federations, in fact, have almost always grown out of an association of
existing States, which desire to remain separate, and yet to be a nation
for some purposes; they have not been evolved out of the fragments of one
State artificially rent asunder. Again, Federalism requires that no single
State should be enormously more powerful than the other partners; there
must be something like equality between the different States;[33] it is
unnecessary to remark that England has tenfold the resources and strength
of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; and, in truth, would annihilate the
Federation were her will really crossed, and break through the arbitrary
limitations imposed on her. Suppose, for example, that England had set her
heart on a great foreign war, and had the support of her own Parliament;
does any one suppose that, if she were outvoted, by deputies from
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, in the Imperial Council, even though backed
by their own Parliaments, the people of England would submit to be
thwarted in this way; was Samson bound by the withs of the Philistines?
Something like this, indeed, was seen in the great Civil War; the result
was the subjugation of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and the complete
ascendency of England, under Cromwell; an attempt to federalise the Three
Kingdoms might lead to a similar issue. Let us assume, however, that,
through some evil stroke of destiny, Federalism were made the constitution
of these realms, and that this strange arrangement could be made to work
even for a few years; the inevitable consequences, from the nature of the
case, would follow. The omnipotence of the Imperial Parliament, the
mainstay of the Empire, would be gone; so would the omnipotence of the
Imperial Executive Government, the best security for justice and for equal
liberties. Their powers would be parcelled out and subdivided; they would
not survive anywhere in their complete fulness; they would be distributed
in fractions between separate States, and would be transformed and
impaired in the process; real Imperial unity and sovereignty could have no
existence. General national weakness would be the probable result,
leading, perhaps, to despotism within a short time; for Federalism is
essentially weak; I have no sympathy with Jacobin France, but the
Committee of Public Safety rightly put Federalism down, when they were
engaged in their death-struggle with Europe; and Napoleon--perhaps the
ablest ruler of the nineteenth century--approved of their conduct. But
weakness would not be the only consequence; the dissemination of different
powers would certainly produce disputes and conflicts between the Federal
and the State authorities; above all, the very existence of separate
States and of a Federal Government would divide allegiance, and powerfully
tend to disruption, as was seen in the great Civil War in America. As
regards Ireland, the establishment of 'Home Rule all round' would
necessarily be attended by all the evils inseparable from Mr. Gladstone's
schemes; but Federalism, having been thus made manifest, would probably
increase, and in some sense justify, the alienation of Ireland from the
other parts of these kingdoms.
Home Rule, therefore, whatever the form it may assume, would be, it is my
firm conviction, incompatible with the welfare of the Three Kingdoms,
injurious to Great Britain, a curse to Ireland. In the peculiar
circumstances which exist in Ireland, and to which I have adverted before,
separation, I believe, would be an expedient less disastrous than Home
Rule of any description, this involving the creation of an Irish
Parliament, and of an Irish Executive, which would be its instrument. Home
Rule, in fact, gloss it over as you please, has been forced to the front
by an Irish faction, hostile to a man to the existence of British rule in
Ireland, and depending on Fenianism in the United States; this party would
be all-powerful in an Irish Parliament; and Home Rule would be made the
means to a ruinous and disgraceful end. Thousands of Irishmen, indeed,
honestly think Home Rule would do their country good, and have little or
nothing to do with this bad conspiracy; this too, doubtless, is the case
with the followers of Mr. Gladstone; but Home Rule is an Irish Nationalist
movement, and Irish Nationalist movements are dangerous to the safety of
the State. The Union, therefore, must be maintained in the interest of
Great Britain and Ireland alike; and the Union is an international
settlement that has endured for a century. But no candid student of Irish
history, no impartial observer of Irish affairs, from 1800 to the present
time, can deny that the Union has been in many respects a failure. It has
been an incident, perhaps a result, of the Union, that Presbyterian
Ireland, rebellious from 1795 to 1798, has, we have seen, become attached
to the British connection, and is now devotedly attached to England. The
power of the Imperial Parliament and of its Executive have kept
lawlessness and disorder down in Ireland, and has restrained the evil
passions of Irish factions more than was ever the case under the rule of
the Irish Parliament. The Imperial Parliament, too, has accomplished
reforms in Ireland, if often unwise, in the main beneficent; and, under
the Imperial Executive, justice in Ireland has been administered, for many
years, in a very different way from that which was seen a century ago; its
tribunals are perfectly free and impartial. But the Union was, in itself,
a bad half measure, tainted with iniquity and false promises; it did gross
wrong to Catholic Ireland; the evil consequences are felt to this hour.
The Union has not fulfilled the sanguine hopes of Pitt; Ireland, as I have
pointed out, is far more behind Great Britain in wealth than she was sixty
years ago; she is perhaps the poorest country in Europe at the door of the
richest. The Union, too, has not reconciled the feuds of religion and race
in Ireland; they are as marked as they were a century ago, if not attended
with such deeds of violence; above all, the Union has not made the chief
part of the Irish community attached to England, as Pitt confidently
predicted would certainly happen. Nor can it be denied that the Irish
reforms of the Imperial Parliament have too often been ill-designed and
faulty, especially, as we shall see, as regards the land; and they have
unfortunately, in many instances, been concessions to agitation and
dangerous social movements, and have been effected too late to do real
good. The administration of Ireland reveals the same defects; it has been
marked by good intentions, which, sometimes, have proved gross mistakes;
and notably it has, over and over again, been shifty, vacillating, without
principle, and showing a curious disregard of sound Irish opinion.
Unquestionably, too, Ireland has, on many occasions, to the indignation of
true-hearted Irishmen, been made the mere plaything of British faction,
with the worst results to her best interests; this has been perhaps the
most pernicious incident that has followed the Union; and in the immense
revolution which has transformed Ireland, within the last hundred years,
the effects that may be traced to the Union have by no means been wholly
on the side of good.
These evil consequences cannot be really questioned; it is very advisable
to consider their causes, and if possible to see how they can be removed
or lessened. They are partly to be ascribed to the fact that Great Britain
and Ireland are countries differing from each other in most important
respects, and standing, so to speak, on different planes of existence;
this alone makes British rule in Ireland difficult, and perplexes and
embarrasses British statesmen. They are partly due to defects in the
English national character, essentially just in intention, and even
generous, but with no sympathy with races of a character unlike its own,
self-asserting, obstinate, sometimes rude and offensive; this has had
marked and evil effects in the affairs of Ireland. They are largely to be
attributed to the nature of Irish administration, seldom consistent, and
changing with party changes: British statesmen appear at the Castle; rule
for a few years; and then depart and give place to successors, who
probably carry out a very different policy. They are largely due to the
nature of the representation of Ireland, notably of late years; the
Nationalist party--and the same remark applies, in some degree, to the
'Tail' of O'Connell--have shown such an aversion to England, have used
such seditious and even criminal language, have been so extravagant and
wild in their demands, and have been such a dangerous element in the House
of Commons, that Englishmen and Scotchmen turn away from Irish questions
with disgust, and Ireland unfortunately has often been the sufferer. But
the most important of these causes, one which may be traced throughout
Irish history, and has been scarcely less evident since the Union, has
been the strange but signal ignorance of Irish affairs--of all, in a word,
that relates to Ireland--which has been but too characteristic of the
British people, and, in a lesser degree, of many British statesmen. This
capital fault aroused the _sæva indignatio_, of Swift; it was exposed by
Grattan, O'Connell, even by Lord Clare; it was condemned in severe but
thoughtful language by Burke; it has been conspicuous during the events of
the last twenty years.[34] The resulting mischiefs have been numerous and
grave in the extreme; can nothing be done to mitigate these and to make
them less, consistently with maintaining the Union in its full
completeness? I, for one, have long thought that much could be effected
were the Imperial Parliament occasionally to hold its sessions in Dublin,
and to govern Ireland directly, so to speak, on the spot. This very
measure was proposed by many distinguished Irishmen, during the agitation
for Repeal in 1843-44; it was made the subject of an eloquent eulogy by
Sheil at O'Connell's trial; it was seriously entertained by the Whig
opposition of the day, as we know from a remarkable letter of Lord
Waveney. This policy unfortunately passed out of sight; but even now, I
believe, it would do the greatest good in Ireland. It would be something
that the proposed change would cause the wealth of England and Scotland
largely to flow into a poor country; that Irish absenteeism would be
diminished; that Ireland would become, more than she is now, an attractive
place of resort to the traveller. But it would be far more that the
presence of the Imperial Parliament in College Green would necessarily
largely remove the ignorance of Irish affairs I have just referred to; it
would make English and Scotch members familiar with the requirements, the
feelings, the wishes of Irishmen; as has happily been said, it would
render our Irish legislation and administration 'racy of the Irish soil.'
And probably more than any other expedient, it would exorcise the weak
phantom of Home Rule by bringing Irishmen in contact with the majesty of
the Sovereign Assembly of the British Empire. I shall not comment on the
petty inconveniences the scheme might cause; really they are not worthy of
serious attention.
The occasional presence of Royalty, too, in Ireland, as was made manifest
during the late Queen's visit, unquestionably would have beneficent
results. It would gratify a sentiment of Celtic nature, always attached to
persons rather than to institutions and laws, and especially attached to
rulers and chiefs, which, in Ireland, has been scarcely gratified before;
it would spread far and wide a happy and good influence; it would
certainly improve the social life of Ireland, and add something to her
scanty material wealth. The maintenance of the Union, however, is the
first requirement of a sound Irish and Imperial policy; one means of
strengthening that fundamental law of these realms, consistently with
strict constitutional justice, nay, if constitutional wrong is not to
continue, has long been apparent to impartial minds. The
over-representation of Ireland, in the House of Commons, is a flagrant
anomaly, acknowledged for years; as I have remarked, it was largely
expected that this important subject would have been taken up before this
by Lord Salisbury's Government, and have been settled in the Parliament of
1895-1900. Taking the test of population alone, Ireland has, compared to
England, Wales, and Scotland, an excess of twenty-three members; taking
the test of population and property combined, she has an excess probably
of from thirty to forty. I am willing to allow that, in this matter, we
ought not to follow arithmetic only; Ireland, a poor country, far away
from Westminster, may have a claim to a representation somewhat more
numerous than mere figures would give her. But can anything be more
unjust, nay, absurd, than that Ireland should have one hundred and three
members, and that the world of London, with a population about the same as
that of Ireland, and probably possessing tenfold wealth, should have
little more than half that number? This excessive representation must be
reduced, and Irish Nationalists cannot here appeal to the Union; the Union
did not save the Established Church of Ireland, secured by the Treaty in
emphatic terms; and the Union must not be wrested to work gross injustice.
The anomaly can be only removed by a large scheme for the redistribution
of seats, founded on sound constitutional principles; and should this
become law, as I confidently hope will be one of the achievements of the
existing Parliament, the Union will acquire a new security, for the
Nationalist vote in the House of Commons would be greatly reduced, and the
Irish Unionist vote would be greatly increased. A very few figures will
prove this: the rural populations of the Unionist counties of Antrim and
Down are upwards of four hundred and thirty thousand souls; the rural
populations of the Home Rule counties of Kildare, Kilkenny, King's,
Longford, Wicklow, and Louth have a population less than three hundred and
ninety-eight thousand;[35] yet Antrim and Down have only eight members,
the other six counties have no less than twelve. The same disparity runs
through all the Irish counties; in the boroughs of Ireland it is even more
visible. Protestant and Unionist Ireland, in a word, has probably fifteen
or sixteen members too few; Catholic and anti-Unionist Ireland fifteen or
sixteen too many; it is high time this plain wrong should be redressed; it
is unnecessary to point out how this would strengthen the Union. And what
probably is not less important, it would make the representation of
Ireland, not, what it is now, an utterly false index of Irish opinion, but
a reasonably fair and trustworthy index; were the Irish representation cut
down to eighty members, the Nationalists would probably command not more
than fifty seats; the Unionists would command about thirty; and this,
taking all things into account, would be a proportion approaching what is
just. The 'doing' of right, in this matter, has been too long deferred;
loyal Ireland feels strongly upon the subject; the reform would be
altogether in the interest of the State.