5. _Social Order in Ireland. Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union._ Dublin,
1886.
6. _Speech of Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, April 8, 1886, on
moving for leave to bring in a Bill to make provision for the future
Government of Ireland._
The fate of the scheme for the Government of Ireland, which Mr.
Gladstone disclosed in the House of Commons last week, has been
practically determined. Whether the Bill be rejected on the second
reading, whether amidst the currents of adverse opinion which have
already set in, it slowly goes to wreck upon the shoals of Parliamentary
procedure, its ultimate doom is already settled, but the mischief which
has been done will not be removed so promptly. A great blow has been
struck at the United Kingdom. The proposal to recognize Irish
nationality as a political force apart from Great Britain--a proposal
made by a Prime Minister, a leader of a great Parliamentary party--will
for many a day to come stimulate in Ireland all the elements of
disorder, which a noble series of statesmen, from Burke to Peel, have
resolutely laboured to eradicate.
It was no surprise to the House that had listened to the marvellous
dream of Mr. Gladstone, when Mr. Parnell rose to express his gratitude
in terms almost of emotion:--
'It will prove a happy and fortunate thing, both for Ireland
and England, that there was one man living, one English
statesman living, with the great power and the extraordinary
ability of the right hon. gentleman to lend his voice on
behalf of poor helpless Ireland. He had devoted his great
mind, his extraordinary energy to the unravelling of this
question and to the construction of this Bill.... To none of
the sons of Ireland--at any time has there ever been given
the genius and talent of the right hon. gentleman--certainly
nothing approaching to it in these days.'
The people, whom a few months ago Mr. Parnell denounced as representing
to him and his friends 'imprisonment, chains and death,' now came to
offer him a scheme of Irish nationality, and Shylock, recognizing the
wisdom of the sham Balthazar, was not more appreciative: 'A Daniel come
to judgment, yea a Daniel,' but, like Shylock, Mr. Parnell relied upon
his bond. Whilst he accepted the offering with the effusion of a
successful speculator, he took care to remind his hearers that he was
not bound to take it in discharge of his claim. He reserved any
'definite or positive expression of opinion;' 'there were undoubtedly
great faults and blots in the measure,' but he could safely say,
'whavever might be the fate of the Bill, the cause of Ireland, the cause
of Irish autonomy, will enormously gain by the genius of the right hon.
gentleman.' This is the solid result of the strange events which have
been passing for the last three months. A distinguished public man has
been called to office by the Parnellite vote. He has demanded and
obtained ample time to consider the difficulties of his position and
offer his solution.
A glance at the new scheme shows that the proposal is at once
disingenuous and fantastic. The Prime Minister shrinks from admitting
the nature of the work he is engaged in. He breaks up the unity of the
Kingdom, but he will not allow that his Bill involves the repeal of the
Union. But whatever quibbles may be indulged in, the main principle of
the Act of Union, that Ireland should be represented at Westminster is
swept away. As Irish nationality is not to be ignored, it finds
expression in a Parliament in Dublin; but Ireland is to pay a
contribution towards the debt and towards public defence, and in the
application of this money is to have no voice. Thus we have Irish
nationality started with machinery which sets aside the first principle
of free governments, that there should be no taxation without
representation; and the internal arrangements of the Dublin Parliament
are equally suggestive of confusion in the future.
The Prime Minister does not ask Parliament to disregard the risks to
which property and loyalty will be exposed in the Dublin Assembly, and
he proposes to satisfy our conscience by giving them the security of
representation in Dublin by a special Order. The Dublin Parliament is
divided into two Orders, each of which shall have a veto on the
legislation of the majority. The First Order consists of persons who
must be possessors of 4000l. or an equivalent income. That is their
personal qualification, and they are to be elected by occupiers rated at
25l. Property qualification for Members of Parliament was abolished in
England some thirty years ago. Rating, as a qualification for electors,
has been abandoned in a series of deliberate public measures from 1866
to 1885; but it is these old clothes of English Parliaments which Mr.
Gladstone offers to his new nationality. Why should these expedients be
adopted in Ireland? Checks upon legislative action, a second Chamber, a
Second or a First Order, are questions upon which theorists are divided.
They are certainly not questions which have occupied the National
League. These 'Orders' in Parliamentary life are not native Irish ideas.
These reproductions of quaint customs, such as we might find in some
ecclesiastical synod, or in the village organization of some old
Scandinavian community, are England's guarantees for the security of
property in the Sister Island. That Island, we know, has been abandoned
for some years to the National League, whose power was founded on their
opportunities of excommunicating any one who did not subscribe to their
funds and obey their decrees. The principle of the National League was
that property in land was an outrage on Irish opinion; and we are asked
to believe that this American-Irish organization, clothed with
Parliamentary power in Dublin, will be kept in check by a device, which
has no sanction in ancient tradition, in local sympathy, in recognized
opinion. The First Order in the new Chamber will be so many people
marked out for plunder. If any one possessing 4000l. worth of property,
which he can convert into cash, is venturesome enough to accept a seat
in the Chamber, what will become of him and his electors, people who are
scheduled in each locality as the owners of property rated at 25l. a
year? The majority of them in the South and West will be tenants who
have not dared to pay their rents, because the National League
prohibited the payment. Let us suppose people are found to constitute
the First Order, and they veto some scheme of the majority, and a
general election occurs, will the expedients which have made the League
what it is be suddenly forgotten? Can we doubt that the First Order and
its electors would be straightway boycotted out of existence? The
Ministerial proposal is an attempt to meet the views of Mr. Parnell;
and, without admitting that it is all he requires, the Irish leader
cordially accepts it, but he wants, he has told us, 'the full and
complete right to arrange our own affairs and make ours a nation--to
secure for her, free from outside control, the right to direct her own
course among the peoples of the world.' We are asked to suppose that he
and his friends, started in their new career, will be stopped by such a
ridiculous invention as this First Order. And it is a project like this,
inconsistent with itself, implying constitutional degradation of the
very people whom it is supposed to conciliate, patched up with strange
curiosities as unknown in England as in Ireland, which Parliament is
asked to accept as a 'final settlement' of our Irish difficulties.
The Bill proposed settles nothing. Its only result is a renewed
manifestation of the power and influence of the Irish agitator. In this
extraordinary state of affairs men are apt to forget the series of
events which have brought about our present condition. Ministries come
and go at the bidding of Mr. Parnell. English policy in the future,
important schemes affecting the gravest concerns of England, of
Scotland, of Ireland, depend not on any principle accepted by the
British public, but on the humour of the Irish leader. The existence of
the House of Lords, the legal position of the Church of Scotland, the
maintenance of our most important military reserve, the right of the
Sovereign in relation to peace and war, are exposed to critical
divisions, not because British opinion is eager for revolution, or has
become indifferent to the vast interests involved, but because the
Nationalist party wish to remind us of their voting power.
Our alarm at all this should not make us lose sight of the antecedent
facts which have built up this force of mischief. Mr. Gladstone is Prime
Minister by the favour of the Irish party, and this party is the outcome
of Mr. Gladstone's own policy. Whether the fluent rhetorician foresaw
his present position, whether perched on his slender ledge of power he
now enjoys it, we need not stop to consider. What we would remind our
readers is that for nearly twenty years past he has, in the main line of
his public life, notwithstanding some convulsive oscillations, pursued
with the pertinacity of one possessed the policy of which the present
Irish organization is the natural and the logical development. The
National League represents the spirit to which Mr. Gladstone appealed at
Southport in 1867. In the December of that year he charged the new
voters, in words of solemn adjuration, to look at Ireland from the Irish
point of view. This appeal had an electric effect upon the population of
that island. In the years which have passed since, his own injunction
has been sometimes rudely disregarded by Mr. Gladstone himself, but he
never long delayed to turn again to his favourite theory, to make
another effort to justify the principle with which he had started, and
at each renewal of his enterprise he plunged himself and his party
deeper into the morass of Hibernian disorder. Mr. Gladstone's admirers
are very proud of his numerous successes in carrying important Bills
through Parliament, but it is forgotten that his Irish Bills, though
carried, have never attained the ends for which they were passed. Twice
have all the resources of his genius, all the machinery of his party,
been called into requisition to bring about a final settlement of the
Irish Land question, and yet the work is still to be done. The
explanation is not far to seek. Mr. Gladstone's passionate recklessness
committed him in 1867 to an enterprise, the magnitude of which excited
his vanity, the actual nature of which he only dimly perceived.
In the year we have named he was trying to recover his footing after a
heavy fall in his first start as leader of the Liberal Party. A scheme
of Parliamentary reform, carried by his political opponent, had marked
the commencement of another epoch. In the new arena of public life two
centres of political energy were certain to be strongly represented in
the organization which Mr. Gladstone hoped to lead back to office. The
Spirit of Dissent was all powerful among the English householders. The
Irish tenant, whose electoral strength, directed by the Roman
priesthood, had been exhibited with much effect in 1852, was sure to
receive a great increase of power under the new Reform Bill. To combine
these influences was one of the conditions of any prolonged tenure of
office by the Liberal party. The Irish Establishment had been forsaken
by English opinion in previous years. Its overthrow would be hailed with
enthusiasm by the Dissenting communities, whilst the Irish priesthood
would regard disestablishment with undoubted satisfaction. The condition
of Irish Land Tenure was admitted by all parties to require amendment,
and its settlement would be a substantial benefit to the Irish farmer.
These were subjects which naturally tempted the daring energies of a man
occupying Mr. Gladstone's position in the winter of 1867. Turned out of
office after the death of Lord Palmerston, his subsequent management of
the reform question, as leader of the Opposition, had only increased the
distrust of his party. He was without a constituency at the coming
election, and he went down to Lancashire to seek in that great centre of
hard-headed Englishmen the confiding constituency which he subsequently
found in Midlothian. New legislation on the Irish Church, a reform in
Irish Land Tenure, were subjects for which his party, for which the
majority of Englishmen were pretty well prepared. The Liberal Churchmen,
like Sir Roundell Palmer, who held back on the subject of
Disestablishment, were more than counterbalanced by the Dissenters, who
were attracted by the scheme. Popular Legislation on these subjects
might have been granted to Ireland as the matured outcome of British
opinion. Such a mode of approaching the work in hand did not suit the
exuberant temperament of Mr. Gladstone. Whilst the report of the
Clerkenwell explosion was still echoing through the land, he announced
his policy as one to be recommended, not because the great British
community had examined and adopted the proposed measures, but because
Irish opinion was to be henceforth accepted as our guide in Irish
Legislation. With characteristic recklessness he hurried to turn to the
account of his own ambition the throb of excitement which he saw
traversing the nation. He appealed to his audience to regard the Fenian
outrages as a sort of revelation from heaven, to commune with their own
hearts, not on the state of Ireland, and the remedies sensible men could
offer, but on the sentiments of Irishmen. His final test of legislation
was to be, not its consonance with the judgment of the British people,
but with the demand of the Irish crowd.
'Ireland is at your doors. Providence has placed her there.
Law and legislation have been a compact between you. You
must face these obligations. You must deal with them and
discharge them. As to the modes of giving effect to this
principle I do not now enter upon them. I am of opinion they
should be dictated, as a general rule, by that which may
appear to be the mature, well-considered, and general sense
of the Irish people.'--20th Dec. 1867.
At this date 'the general sense of the Irish people' was, to Mr.
Gladstone's mind, the policy formulated by the Irish Episcopacy, the
scheme which at a later stage of the campaign in the following year he
described as the lopping off the three branches of the Upas tree of
Protestant ascendancy. He failed in Lancashire, but his success in other
parts of the kingdom was complete; and then ensued the abolition of the
Irish Establishment and an adjustment of the land question which carried
the recognition of local customs farther than Englishmen had
anticipated.
The Liberal party had been charged to consult Irish opinion. As long as
Cardinal Cullen and Mr. Gladstone were agreed all went merrily, even if
some rude coercion like the Westmeath Act was required to deal with
Irish ideas which did not find expression in the Cardinal. But whilst
the English Minister and the Irish Primate declared, that Ribbonism was
an impudent pretender to any representative character and must be rooted
out, a third organ of opinion claimed the benefit of the Southport
principle in the form of the Home Rule Association, and Mr. Gladstone at
Aberdeen replied with angry scorn:
'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 capital institutions of this
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?'--26th Sept. 1871.
The ideas expressed by the Roman hierarchy, attracted by the
Disestablishment, substantially interested in the better position of the
farmer, and confidently anticipating for themselves the acquisition of a
power over public education such as their order enjoyed nowhere else in
the world, these were ideas which Mr. Gladstone recognized as national.
On the subject of education, however, he was not able to go as far as
the Ultramontane party required. They directed the Irish members to vote
against him. The coalition between Dissent and the Roman Hierarchy was
dissolved. The Minister, who had brought it about, suddenly awoke to a
sense of the evil teaching of his late allies in the government of
Ireland, and '_Vaticanism_' held them up to the reprobation of
Protestant England.
The new Liberal discovery, the principle of Irish ideas, had broken down
as a party engine. It had made the Ministry of 1868, but it had failed
to preserve it. Mr. Gladstone retired from the leadership of the party
to the greater freedom of an independent member of Parliament, and in
this capacity led the stormy agitation against Lord Beaconsfield, making
the foreign policy of England a party question.
Meanwhile the theory of the Southport speech, and the results which had
attended it, were not forgotten in Ireland. The Home Rule movement,
which was denounced so angrily at Aberdeen, enlisted all the resources
of local sentiment, feelings similar to those which make a Lancashireman
proud of Lancashire, a Scotchman delight in Scotch associations. Among
its promoters were professors, poets, Irish Catholics, who were glad to
show themselves on a public platform without being the puppets or the
opponents of their bishops, Irish Protestants, who were irritated at the
desertion of the Irish Church, a number of well-meaning people who were
attracted by the opportunity of talking eloquently and vaguely about
nothing in particular. This Academic scheme of Home Rule found an
admirable exponent in Mr. Butt, an able lawyer of ambitious politics.
What answer were Liberals to give to this new embodiment of their great
statesman's theory? They denounced Mr. Butt, pondering feebly meanwhile
what it all meant; but the Home Rule organization, once set a-going, was
soon permeated by the Fenian spirit. Platitudes about 'patriotism' and
'green Erin' meant to an Irish crowd, 'Down with England and with
landlords.' That great hotbed of disatisfaction, Irish popular feeling,
supplied stimulating nutriment to the new party. In proportion as
hostility to England was more openly declared, funds came in rapidly
from the Irish in America. Year by year the Home Rule members gained in
parliamentary power, one section of the Liberal party after another
giving them encouragement--in the first place because they were
troublesome to a Tory Ministry, in the second because the flaccid
thought of modern Liberalism made them welcome any organization, which
would save them the trouble of facing the difficulties of Irish
administration.
In 1880 the public took no heed to Lord Beaconsfield's historic warning,
that danger was brewing in Ireland. The Liberal legislation of ten years
before had, they tried to believe, disposed of Irish difficulties in
their most serious aspect. Both before and after the General Election
they were assured by Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone, that Irish affairs
were proceeding satisfactorily. The new Ministry had, however, to face a
formidable parliamentary party, who refused to recognize the legislation
of 1869 and 1870 as any settlement of the Irish question. Their first
device was to abandon the Act of their predecessors, passed in 1875,
which applied some of the milder provisions of the Westmeath Act to the
whole of Ireland. A reconstruction of the Local Government of the United
Kingdom, and a new Reform Bill, were the tasks assigned by public
opinion to the second Gladstone Ministry; but finding the abandonment of
coercion did not conciliate the Irish party, the Premier returned with a
rush to the policy of 1867. He determined to justify his claim to be the
statesman who had found out the secret of Irish administration. Within
two months after the Ministry was formed the public were warned that
they were within measurable distance of civil war. This danger was not
urged as a reason for recurring to accepted principles of government; on
the contrary, it was a plea for new expeditions in pursuit of the _ignis
fatuus_ of Irish opinion. We know the events which followed.
The Compensation for Disturbance Bill seemed a small matter in itself,
but involved principles fatal to all security for property. During the
next autumn and winter, Ireland was abandoned to the savage dominion of
the Land League. The quiescence of the Government excited remonstrance
even from advanced Radicals like Mr. Leonard Courtney. That stalwart
Liberal had not been then in office, had not had the experience he has
since acquired. He had not yet learned the dutiful lesson that, whatever
his own convictions, the probabilities were in favour of the view that
his great leader was in the right, or at least, might be successful. As
a concession to public opinion, a Coercion Act was passed, new fangled
and hesitating. But it was not so much on effective legislation and a
resolute determination to curb disorder that the Ministry relied, as on
the recognition of Irish opinion which the Land Act of 1881 embodied.
It was truly said of that measure by an exulting Radical, that it struck
a blow at property which was felt in every country in Europe. In his
main calculation, his purpose to win popularity in Ireland, Mr.
Gladstone failed, as he has so often failed; and as usual the failure
was due to the wickedness or perversity of some one else. In 1874 it was
Pius IX. and the Jesuits who had misled his Irish friends. In 1881 the
evil influence was Mr. Parnell.
In the autumn the Prime Minister startled his hearers at Leeds by a
passionate complaint, that--
'a small band of men had arisen who were not ashamed to
preach in Ireland the doctrine of public plunder ... now
that Mr. Parnell is afraid, lest the people of England by
their long continued efforts should win the hearts of the
whole Irish nation, he has a new and enlarged gospel of
plunder to proclaim.'
He went back with a swing to the high-handed policy he had so often
denounced. Irishmen must be made to recognize Gladstone, and not
Parnell, as their true friend. The Land League was dissolved by
proclamation, its principal leaders, including Mr. Parnell, were clapped
into jail, and it was proclaimed at Knowsley that the Cabinet were going
'to relieve the people of Ireland from the weight of a tyrannical yoke.'
These speeches, full as they were of denunciation of Mr. Parnell, were
still on the lines of the Southport speech. They were not declarations
of the opinion of the British community, warnings to Ireland to take
account of the settled judgment of the nation, of which the sister
island must always form part. They contrasted with the manly utterance
of Mr. Chamberlain on this subject, the same month, at Birmingham. They
were angry appeals to Ireland to quarrel with her chosen leaders. Mr.
James Lowther was denounced for stating, that 'the party headed by Mr.
Parnell commanded the support of the large majority of the people of
Ireland.' Mr. Gladstone added, 'The proposition here made is one on
which we are entirely at issue. I profoundly disbelieve it; I utterly
protest against it. I believe a greater calumny on the Irish nation,...
a more gross and injurious statement could not possibly be made against
the Irish nation.'
In the following year it was found that the recognition of Mr.
Gladstone, as the father of the Irish people was still remote; whilst
Mr. Forster declared, that a stronger Coercion Bill was necessary, if
life was to be protected in Ireland. Then came another plunge after the
coveted ideal. Mr. Forster, who had so generously devoted himself to
his party and his leader in the pursuit of a new Irish policy, was
abandoned to the Irish members, and to Mr. John Morley's crusade against
him in the columns of the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' Mr. Parnell was called
out of jail to secure votes to the Government, and order in Ireland, by
the help of Mr. Sheridan and other ex-convicts. The Phoenix Park
murder, following on the Kilmainham Treaty, postponed the full carrying
out of this arrangement. The sort of measure, which Mr. Forster had been
refused a month before, was now passed with provisions of excessive
stringency; and Lord Spencer, who had been sent to Ireland to win that
popularity, which the late Chief Secretary had been unable to obtain,
was chiefly occupied in curbing the violence which that Minister had
denounced, in bringing to justice the criminals whom he had not been
allowed to reach. We recollect that the new Viceroy was exposed to a
storm of unpopularity so violent and outrageous, that the public readily
forgot the discreditable folly of his original enterprise, and honoured
the resolution and dignity with which he discharged the laborious duties
of a thankless office.
The construction of the Irish Government at this time was such as to
make the Lord Lieutenant personally responsible for the administration
of justice, and the carrying out of the main provisions of the Crimes
Act. He was in the Cabinet, whilst his chief Secretaries, Mr. Trevelyan
and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, were only subordinate members of the
Ministry. They conducted Irish business in the House of Commons,
representing in their relations with the Irish members, as far as
circumstances allowed, their leader's yearning after Irish popularity,
whilst Lord Spencer, the Whig Earl, who belonged to things that had been
rather than to the rising power of the Radical party, bore all the odium
of unpopular imprisonments or executions.
The significance of such an arrangement was not lost on the Irish crowd.
By the end of 1882 the Land League was reconstructed under the name of
the National League. The new organization, of which 'United Ireland' was
the especial organ, gradually established branches from one end of
Ireland to the other. Strong as the provisions of the Crimes Prevention
Act were, no attempt was made to bring the new society under its
operation. The columns of 'United Ireland,' on the other hand, bore
plenty of evidence of a disposition to move on. The Irish farmers were
reproachfully asked if they were content with a paltry reduction of
rent. 'Had they no other account to settle with England?' The leaders
reminded their followers that the Crimes Act would expire before long.
They renewed with savage energy that campaign against the _personnel_
of the Irish administration, which Mr. John Morley had so warmly
espoused up to the murder of Mr. Burke. A continual storm of abuse and
calumny was directed against Lord Spencer and every one else concerned
with Irish government. Mr. Clifford Lloyd and Mr. Trevelyan were removed
by way of warning, that there was no room in Ireland for public servants
who did their duty. The National League, in fact, became in each
district a conspicuous and formidable power. Their representatives in
Parliament received much attention from the Prime Minister and his
colleagues. They exercised great influence and had many chances before
them in the new organization of the electorate. With all these
advantages on the side of the Irish Revolution, the Queen's Government
had nobody to champion it but the not imposing personality of Lord
Spencer.
It is not surprising that in such a state of things Ireland was already,
at the commencement of 1885, like a country occupied by two hostile
armies. There was the National League camp with its scouts and
emissaries all over the country, with a vigorous Press proclaiming its
policy and success. The Government forces remained within their lines,
attempting nothing, doing nothing, unless some outrage by a moonlight
gang compelled them to make some show of interference to check violation
of the truce between treason and loyalty. The greatest care was taken
not to identify the Government with the scattered Loyalists. They might
be very worthy persons, but they were the special aversion of the
Nationalist party, and the business of the Government was not to protect
or encourage loyalty, but to prevent Nationalism from going too fast.
The Nationalist aspirations of Mr. Gladstone's friends were not to be
irritated by attentions shown to their adversaries.
When Parliament reassembled in the spring of 1885, men asked what
provision was made for renewing the Crimes Act, which would expire in
the autumn. Week after week passed, month after month; and it was
impossible to extract from the Ministry what their policy was as regards
the government of Ireland. At length, in the summer, it was announced
that on a day, which was never fixed, a Bill would be introduced
renewing certain provisions of the expiring Act. This announcement from
the Treasury Bench was followed at once by a notice from Mr. John Morley
to oppose the Bill. So much time had already been lost, that it was
practically impossible for any Ministry to carry a Coercion Bill against
the determined opposition of the Irish members, without the most
resolute effort on the part of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues. Were
they prepared to make these exertions? One of the conditions, on which
the Reform question had been settled, was the definite postponement of a
dissolution until after the 1st November. Each day men became more and
more engrossed with the great question of the winter--the new
election--more indifferent to the business of the Session; the
Parnellite party more exultant and defiant. Rumours of dissensions in
the Cabinet, had been already rife, and grew more frequent every day.
The country awoke one morning to find that the second Gladstone
Ministry, with its clear majority of over eighty, was at an end. Rather
than confess their disunion, the ministry had allowed themselves to be
defeated on another question, and Mr. Parnell came before his countrymen
as the avenger who had chastised the suggestion of renewed coercion by
destroying the Government which made it.
In this collapse of administration the only course open to the Tory
party was to prepare as rapidly as possible for an appeal to the
country, doing what they could meanwhile in foreign and in home affairs
to mitigate the mischief which they were powerless to remedy. When the
dissolution came, Mr. Gladstone opened his canvass in Midlothian by many
sneers at the election policy of the Irish Nationalists. He reminded his
hearers, that the subject of extending local government in Ireland must
come forward in the new Parliament, and urged that, 'in dealing with
this question the unity of the empire was not to be compromised or be
put in jeopardy.' 'Nothing was to be done which should tend to
impair,--visibly or sensibly to impair,--the unity of the Empire.'
Auditors who had made no special study of Mr. Gladstone's phraseology
interpreted these words as a declaration against a separate Parliament
in Dublin. He apparently was prepared for large schemes of
decentralization, either specially for Ireland or in connection with the
projected reform of local government in England; but there was to be
nothing which should 'visibly impair' the Imperial unity. He went on to
dwell on the danger of 'condescending either to clamour or to fear,' and
added:--
'But quite apart from the names of Whig and Tory, one thing
I will say, and will endeavour to impress, and it is this,
that it will be 'a _vital danger_ to the country if at the
time that the demand of Ireland for large powers of
self-government is to be dealt with--it will be a _vital
danger_ to the Empire if there is not in Parliament ready to
deal with that subject, ready to influence the proceedings
upon that subject, _a party totally independent of the Irish
vote_.'
Even the most enthusiastic followers of the Liberal chief have learnt to
be very cautious in saying what meaning is to be attributed to his
utterances, but there can be no doubt that this language was read by
the public as saying, 'whatever lengths I may go in working out the
principle of local government, whatever may be the understanding between
the Home Rulers and the Tories, I at least will not accept the principle
of an Irish Parliament.' Not only was this the natural reading of Mr.
Gladstone's declarations at the election, but nearly every member of his
party, who referred to this question at all, spoke in the same sense.
Mr. Campbell Bannerman denounced the Parnellite demands as 'separation
under one name or another,' and many other Liberals were equally
emphatic, whilst a still larger number never alluded to the subject.
Well may Lord Hartington protest against the competence of the present
Parliament to deal with the legislation now proposed.
'There was no thought, no warning held out to the country,
that a radical reform in the relations between Great Britain
and Ireland would be the main work of the present
Parliament.... The country had no sufficient warning--I
think I may say the country had no warning at all--that any
proposals of the magnitude and vastness of those which were
unfolded to us last night were to be considered in the
present Parliament, much less were to form the first subject
of consideration upon the meeting of this Parliament. I am
perfectly aware that there exists in our Constitution no
principle of the mandate. I know that the mandate of the
constituencies is as unknown to our Constitution, as the
distinction between fundamental laws and laws which are of
an inferior sanction. But, although no principle of a
mandate may exist, I maintain that there are certain limits
which Parliament is bound to observe, and beyond which
Parliament has morally not the right to go in its relations
with the constituencies. The constituencies of Great Britain
are the source of the power, at all events, of this branch
of Parliament, and I maintain that in the presence of an
emergency which could not have been foreseen, the House of
Commons has no moral right to initiate legislation,
especially upon its first meeting, of which the
constituencies were not informed, and of which the
constituencies might have been informed, and as to which, if
they had been so informed, there is, at all events, the very
greatest doubt what their decision might be.'
Over and over again in the Parliament of 1874 and of 1880 have we heard
Mr. Gladstone appealing to this principle, that schemes of crucial
importance ought to be discussed before the constituencies; yet the most
important proposal made in Parliament for some generations is presented
after a general election, in which the constituencies were invited by
the Prime Minister and his colleagues to believe, that this particular
question was outside the region of practical politics.
No sooner had it become apparent that the country had refused that
renewal of power which Mr. Gladstone had asked for, than his resolution
not to accept defeat was promptly manifested. Public men remembered his
use of the Royal prerogative in 1872, to carry into execution a scheme
for which he had sought and failed to obtain the consent of Parliament.
He had not been a week at Hawarden after his journey from Scotland, when
people became conscious that the return to office, which he had told the
country would be their security against Mr. Parnell, he was now ready to
seek with the aid of that leader.
It was on the 8th of December, just after the main results of the
elections were settled, that Mr. Herbert Gladstone wrote from Hawarden
to a casual correspondent, 'If five-sixths of the Irish people wish to
have a Parliament in Dublin, for the management of their own local
affairs, I say in the name of justice and wisdom, let them have it.' A
few days afterwards the Press announced that the Liberal chief had, in
consultation with some former colleagues, matured a scheme which
embodied the points desired by Mr. Parnell. The announcement was
immediately followed by a telegram from Hawarden, denying the accuracy
of the scheme as sketched in the Press. On the main point, whether he
was prepared to co-operate with the Home Rule Party, whether he had
recovered from the fear he expressed at Edinburgh, that it would be a
'vital danger' to the Empire, if Home Rule came on for discussion
'without the presence in Parliament of a party totally independent of
the Irish vote,' on these questions, with which all England was busy,
Mr. Gladstone said never a word. He relied on the virtue he assumed to
protect him from inconvenient questionings, and meanwhile the
Nationalists were invited to reflect during the Christmas holidays, that
perhaps after all their best friend was at Hawarden.
Mr. Chamberlain followed up the rumour of a settled scheme by a prompt
denial that he was a party to it, and added an emphatic statement of the
way in which he and his friends read the Midlothian speeches--'all
sections of the party were determined that the integrity of the Empire
should be a reality, and not an empty phrase.' Mr. Chamberlain had
listened to his great leader too long not to be aware of the importance
of marking the distinction between a 'reality' and a 'phrase.' In a few
days Lord Hartington too wrote to say, that he was no party to the
suggested policy.
The ultimate result of the elections left the government at Christmas
only 251 votes, and the Liberals 333. Had it been clear that the
Liberal party were united in a scheme, which was consistent with the
current of British opinion, the solution would have been simple enough.
Had the appeals for straightforward dealing, made more than once during
the election by Lord Salisbury and Lord Randolph Churchill, been
responded to, the Government might have made way for a Liberal Ministry,
the best men on both sides recognizing, what the soundest public opinion
required, that the Irish vote of 86 should be disregarded on questions
affecting the existence of a Cabinet; but before the elections were all
over, the divisions in the Liberal party were obvious. Mr. Gladstone had
returned with more eagerness than ever to the policy of Irish ideas,
whilst experience had at length opened the eyes of his ablest
lieutenants.
In such a condition of affairs, the only course for Lord Salisbury's
Government was to await the onset of their opponents, meanwhile applying
themselves to settle that scheme of Irish policy which they as a party
were prepared to champion in office or out of office. They met
Parliament with an emphatic declaration to maintain the Union, and a few
days afterwards announced that further legislation in defence of public
order was necessary. This announcement was made on the 26th of January,
when several of the Amendments in the Address were still on the paper.
Before the House rose, the Government had ceased to exist. By a majority
of 79, in a House of 583; a Resolution in support of a policy advocated
by the Radical section of the Liberal party was carried against the
Government. The motion of Mr. Jesse Collings was, it must be remembered,
not a necessary assertion of a particular principle. The importance of
the questions of allotments was acknowledged by the Ministry
collectively and individually. It was not supposed, even by Mr. Collings
himself, that the carrying of this particular Motion on the Address
would advance legislation on the subject by a single day. The motion was
one of those demonstrations of opinions, ordinary enough in Parliament,
and generally resulting in a debate without a division or if pushed to a
division, in the withdrawal from the House of all but declared
partizans. On this particular occasion the motion was taken up and
pressed to a division, in order that the National League was to be put
down, was followed in a few hours by a vote which, in the existing
constitution of parties, necessarily involved the restoration of Mr.
Gladstone to power. So transparent was the object of the division that
13 Liberals voted with the Ministers, among others such staunch
adherents of Liberalism as Lord Hartington and Sir Henry James.
When the new Ministry was formed, two extraordinary circumstances came
to light. Lord Hartington, the heir-apparent to the Liberal Leadership,
Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone's most distinguished proselyte, Lord Selborne,
and other eminent colleagues in the conduct of the Liberal party, would
have nothing to do with the new scheme for the final settlement of
Ireland for the third time. Another still more singular fact was soon
disclosed. All the members of the new Cabinet, who had any future before
them, had come in with reservations of a right of further consideration,
when the subject of Irish policy should be brought up for discussion.
One remarkable ally, however, Mr. Gladstone had found in his momentous
enterprise. The appointment of Mr. John Morley to the principal post in
the Government of the part of the kingdom, which had fallen under the
sway of such an organization as the National League, was in itself a
revolution. The new Chief Secretary had no official experience, and no
parliamentary position. A favoured person, who had audience of great
Trades' Union gatherings, he was observed with some interest by the late
Parliament, busy with speculations on the character of the new
Electorate. But, if his parliamentary work had been slight, he had
considerable literary reputation, and had taken an active part, in the
press, in discussions on the Irish question. The apologist of Danton,
the champion of the Jacobin Club, he was the one English political
writer who believed himself able to find in the throes of the French
Revolution valuable examples of public policy. The figures of that
terrible convulsion did not attract him so much by their range of human
passion, by the largeness of the space they filled in a great drama of
humanity. It was their fanaticism which inspired him. Their capacity to
combine, with the perpetration of atrocious crimes, an ardent apostolate
of abstract ideals, had for him a vivid fascination. A gentle critic of
Robespierre, he could see in the execution of Marie Antoinette traces of
discriminating statesmanship. Entering on political work with such
dispositions, he was early attracted to the seething cauldron of Mr.
Gladstone's Irish policy. Having satisfied himself that Ireland was in a
state of revolution, he regarded murder and robbery as necessary
incidents. When an unfortunate lady driving in the evening along a
country road was shot dead beside her husband, whose only offence was
that of being a landlord, the public were lectured for the inconsequence
of their indignation. On the Dublin conspirators, who were watching to
murder Mr. Forster, were not lost the lessons which Mr. Morley had been
preaching on the vileness of the permanent officials at the Castle. They
determined to murder Mr. Burke, and in killing him slew his companion
also; and Mr. Morley deprecatingly reminded his readers, that the death
of Lord Frederick Cavendish was 'almost an accident.' With these
professed opinions, it was easy for him to acknowledge what Mr.
Gladstone might have hesitated to confess, that Mr. Parnell and the
National League were the true expression of 'the general sense of the
Irish people.'
The Nationalist party had long recognised the value of his aid in
Parliament. They felt the truth of the saying, that he was 'Mr. Parnell
in an Englishman's skin,' and consequently enjoying more freedom of
action, able, on occasion, to do more service for the National League in
a Parnellite Cabinet than Mr. Parnell himself. Although the principles
he had laid down, strictly applied, would oblige him to say, let Ireland
take care of herself and work out her own destiny, he has qualified his
faith--he has never very clearly explained why--by a declaration in
favour of the integrity of the Kingdom. A believer in revolution, Mr.
Morley is astute enough to be ready to take what he can get. 'We do
wrong,' he said, writing after the breakdown of the Kilmainham Treaty,
'in being content with nothing short of perfection and finality. If we
see our way to the next step, that is enough.' 'Perfection' in Irish
affairs would perhaps be that Irish opinion should be organized in a
convention at Dublin, and then, tempered by a full course of revolution,
should come to the conclusion, that the Union after all was the best
thing for both islands. As the public are not yet prepared for trying
this experiment, we are to have a succession of 'next steps.'
As a set off to Mr. Morley's want of official experience and of weight
in the House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone placed the consideration he
enjoyed with the Parnellite party and a disposition, composed of
fanaticism and adroitness, fitting him well to co-operate in the schemes
which were to follow from the wild passion of the National League in
combination with the skill of the 'old Parliamentary hand.'
No sooner was the new Ministry formed than the Nationalist party
recognized the greatness of their opportunity. An attitude of reserve
was taken up by the Nationalist members and their Press. The Ministry
had not been a week in office, when the most advanced and outspoken of
the Irish leaders, Mr. John Dillon, presiding at a meeting of the
National League, frankly declared 'he never felt more inclined to say
nothing than to-day, the present Ministry had been formed on one
question and on one question alone, and that was the rights of the Irish
nation.' With Mr. Gladstone in office, the policy of the League was to
apply the policy of silence so often inculcated by Mr. Parnell. Speaking
out might only embarrass their new allies.
The country, up to a week ago, knew nothing of the momentous scheme on
which the Ministry were engaged. One Cabinet council considered it with
the result, that the collective action of the Cabinet ceased for the
next fortnight; and then the only two public men of weight, whom Mr.
Gladstone had induced to give his scheme the compliment of a hearing,
retired from the Ministry. Our readers are now in possession of so much
of the new scheme as they may be able to discern through the glamour of
Mr. Gladstone's rhetoric; but the condition of affairs during the last
three months is a picture to remember for all time.
When the Hawarden scheme was disclosed before Christmas, Mr. Gladstone's
principal organ in the London Press declared within a week that the game
was up. The public would have none of it. The return of Mr. Gladstone to
office, with Mr. John Morley as Irish Secretary, suddenly revived the
hopes of the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' His new start in pursuit of the Irish
ideal banished the despair which had settled upon even the most reckless
of his adherents. The age, the physical power of the Premier, his long
public career, called up reflections which could not be disposed of in a
moment by foes, still less by former allies. He claimed time, and he has
taken the most important part of the Session, to mature his plans,
amidst the silence of the Opposition and of his Home Rule allies.
But, if his opponents were silent, his nomination of Mr. Morley to the
most important place in his Cabinet was not lost upon the motly crowd
outside. All the dancing dervishes of politics rushed upon the scene to
amaze a bewildered public with fantastical gyrations. 'The Empire of
Liberty,' cried one, 'can never employ coercion.' Another enthusiast
exclaimed, after reviewing the course of events since the Hawarden
revelations, 'To call these things to mind does one's heart good. It
seems as if nothing need be despaired of, as if words of hope need never
be empty words.' A well-known economist tried to ease the public
conscience, and to neutralize the resistance of the unfortunate Irish
landlord, by a nebulous scheme for buying up the landlords' rights, but
what the supply of money is to be, and who is to supply it, are
questions to which the answers vary every hour. A separate Parliament is
to be accompanied by a system of guarantees, and Professor Rogers
declares that the surest guarantee was the hostages we have in the two
millions of Irish inhabiting Great Britain; as if these unfortunate
persons could be made liable to imprisonment or torture in order to
secure the good conduct of Mr. Parnell's Dublin Cabinet, as if such an
arrangement, if made, would have the slightest effect upon the Irish
revolutionists.
But whilst Mr. Gladstone lingered, waiting to see how far the outer
public could be brought into sympathy with his schemes, he did not
hesitate a moment to consolidate the power of the National League. The
subject of evictions for non-payment of rent was brought before the new
Government in the form of a question, alleging that a particular
eviction was not in strict conformity with the landlord's right. Mr.
Morley offered to consider the question of right, and added that what
was much wanted in Ireland was 'a strict and scrupulous and literal
spirit of legality.' Later on the same evening, Mr. Dillon made a
vigorous appeal to the Chief Secretary not to give the aid of armed
force to carry out evictions. Mr. Morley responded with alacrity. 'I for
one am not prepared to admit that we are justified in every case, in
which a shadow of legal title is made out, to bring out the military
force to execute decrees which, on the ground of public policy as well
as that of equity, may seem inadvisable and unnecessary.' Legal right,
if it is relied on in favour of the subjects of the Land League, must be
interpreted in a 'scrupulous and literal spirit.' If it is acted on by
the landlord, there come in considerations of public policy and of
equity.
The result of a long debate was that organized resistance to the
execution of the law would not be interfered with, unless the Government
were satisfied that in particular circumstances equity required such
interference. We have thus arrived at once at a system of official
despotism. The law is not to be a guarantee of the rights of the
subject, unless so far as the Minister may think fit to permit it. And
this dispensing power is to be exercised in favour of the subjects of
the National League.
The self-sufficiency of the Liberal party had been vigorously appealed
to during the years 1883-5. Liberals tried to persuade themselves, that
the comparative repose of Ireland was due to, or was likely to generate,
a Conservative feeling amongst the farmer class. Their harvests were
good, and they had got so much from the Land Bill, they had so much, in
fact, to lose now, in comparison with their condition in former years,
men argued, that they would not care to risk their well-being in pursuit
of Nationalist projects, with the certainty of being subject to the
village ruffians Mr. Forster had described whilst the struggle was going
on, with the probability of having to share what they had with these
same ruffians as soon as an Irish Parliament obtained power.
This reasoning took little account of historical experience in cases
where property is suddenly given to one class by an arbitrary act. Care
for what one possesses, forethought to avoid its loss, come only with
habits of acquisition. The Irish farmer was confessedly careless in the
past, because, it was said, providence could be of so little use to him
in the then state of the law, but his prosperity under the legislation
of 1881 was not the result of his own industry. It was due to a long
course of agrarian outrage in Ireland and of Parliamentary outrage at
Westminster. A favourite commonplace of Land Reformers is the
conservatism of the French peasant, turned into a proprietor by the
decrees of the Legislative Assembly of 1791. We are reminded of his
industry, his self-denial, his distrust of the revolutionary spirit
which rages in the towns, but we forget the date at which this sober,
assiduous, conservatism made its appearance in history. The immediate
result of the change made in 1791 was a savage orgie of bloodshed and
outrage, nor was the wild fury, once let loose, sated by the blood of
Frenchmen. It was nearly a generation before the fire of Revolution
burnt itself out. The French peasantry of 1815 only came to value the
land they acquired, to devote their lives to its cultivation, after
twenty-three years of savage warfare had strewed the bones of their
fathers and their brothers over every battlefield from Salamanca to
Borodino, after Teuton and Cossack and Saxon had traversed French
territory from end to end.
Nor does the work of revolution produce other effects among the backward
turbulent British population, whom Irish rhetoric describes as the Irish
nation. Whatever we might hope from the children or grandchildren of
those farmers who profited by the change which Mr. Parnell had already
brought about, to suppose that prudence and a judicious spirit of
self-interest would come to them as rapidly as the reduction of their
rents, was to ignore all the facts of human nature. The desire for
further winnings possessed them, as the passion of a gambler. Mr.
Parnell's triumphant personality was the first thought in their minds.
He had already taken 20 per cent. off their rents. Next time they were
confident he would take off 50 per cent. or abolish rent altogether.
The Liberals who had been dreaming complacently about the happy results
of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy awoke to find Ireland in possession of
the powerful, well-organized, hostile, combination known as the National
League.
To make our readers understand what this power means, we should like to
be able to bring them within the closed doors of the room where the
League Committee sits in the remote country village. We should then hear
the report of the member, respecting the funds obtained, their review of
the wealth and independence around them, within their reach, but not yet
brought under tribute, the gleeful narrative of resistance subdued, the
dark hints of resources for future conquest. The details of the action
of the League, as avowed by their press, have been published by the
Loyal and Patriotic Union, and would fill many pages of this Review.
The rapid growth of the new organization is easily understood. They had
the past success of Mr. Parnell to work on, and this success was both
appreciable in their balance of unpaid rent at the Bank, and stimulating
to the imagination. The whole island was busy observing the execution of
Mr. Parnell's behests in the re-adjustment of contracts for land. The
Ministry, which had rebelled against his criticism and sprung at his
throat, had been compelled to bring him out of jail supplicating for his
alliance. The object of creating the new body was not so much to move
forward as to keep Mr. Parnell's friends well together, to take
advantage of the effect on the popular mind, which Mr. Parnell's
achievements were producing in every hamlet. The practical advantages
already won were an earnest of the future, secured new support, and
would give greater momentum and unity to the Parnellite movement; when
the time came for another attack upon property. The suspects who had
been imprisoned by Mr. Forster, constituted local centres for the
establishment of branches of the League. Every country public-house was
a place of meeting for the branches or their agents. Once the League was
organized in a particular district, the next point was to secure
subscriptions. Land-grabbing, that is, becoming tenant of land from
which some one else had been evicted, was the offence against which the
League in the first place directed its energies, and this disregard of
popular opinion was punished by social excommunication; but the system
of boycotting once called into requisition involved new duties and
responsibilities. If a man had not taken land himself, he might have
worked for some one who had, or bought cattle from a land-grabber. The
League in Kerry enjoined the following procedure on their subscribers:--
'That any person found communicating with a few obnoxious
individuals in this locality will be expelled from the
league. That every person presenting cattle for sale at a
fair shall produce his card, and that no buyers shall
purchase from any person without producing the same.
'That no individual shall sell to any dealer without
presenting his card, as it is the only way to detect those
employed by the Defence Unionists, and that we call on the
other branches to follow this example.'--'United Ireland,'
Dec. 12th, 1885.
As the power of the League became better established, the subscribers
were guaranteed against the caprice of their customers by such
resolutions as the following, adopted at New Ross:--
'That we hereby give final notice to Mr. Murtagh Stafford,
that if he does not give back his work to the Nationalist
blacksmiths, Messrs. Bowe and Busher, we cannot retain him
on our league. That we inform all members of our branch that
we expect them to patronize National blacksmiths, artisans,
etc., if they wish to remain members.'--'New Ross Standard,'
Jan. 9th, 1886.
The complicated equities, which arose under the operation of these local
tribunals, are illustrated by another case reported from Wexford.
'Farrell and a man named Shee had been partners in a
thrashing machine. Shee was boycotted in 1883 for having
taken an evicted farm, and accordingly the machine was
allowed to remain idle. Under these circumstances both
agreed to dissolve partnership, and Farrell purchased Shee's
share in the machine for 370l., a sum of 60l. being paid in
ready cash and the remainder being secured by a bill of
sale. Farrell then went to the Tullogher branch to get
"absolution for the machine," but his application was
refused, it being decided that Shee still had a certain
interest in it. In the "New Ross Standard," on Sept. 30th,
1885, Farrell, it is reported, being desirous of appealing
to the Central League in Dublin, had forwarded his statement
to the Tullogher branch and declared he was now ready to
verify it on oath. His request to have it sent on to the
Central League was, however, refused by the local
branch.'--'New Ross Standard.'
The election to local public offices soon engaged the attention of the
League. The branches were not content with nominating candidates and
interfering with the elections; they next assumed the direction of the
proceedings of Boards of Guardians and Town Councils. At Ennis this
intervention was publicly announced by resolution.
'That in every future election to any office under the
board, no candidate shall be supported by the National
Guardians _unless he be a member of the National League_ for
at least six months previous to the date of the election,
and produces his certificate, signed by the chairman and
secretary of the branch, and further, that when selecting a
candidate to be put forward for election, the minority of
the National guardians should be bound to act on vote with
the majority present and voting.'--'Clare Journal,' Nov.
11th, 1885.
Contracts were only to be given to Members of the League. No one could
be elected to a country dispensary or engaged as solicitor by any
electoral body without the sanction of the League. A large portion of
the struggling professional classes in the South and West were forced by
a sense of self preservation to join the local associations. To remain
outside the ranks of the League was to forfeit a man's best chances of
getting on in life, and might any day become a personal danger. Mr.
Harrington M.P., who has been for some years in charge of the Central
Office of the League, tells us that 'at Meetings of the branches of the
Organization discussions frequently occur upon incidents in the
locality.' We can quite believe it, and are not surprised to find from
the columns of 'United Ireland' what is the result of these discussions.
In a system of pillage and tyranny so elaborated, there was no necessity
to perpetrate acts of violence, frequently or continually. The daily
operation of the League was a standing outrage, bringing a proof of its
power to every man's door. A limited number of conspicuous crimes was
sufficient for the purposes of the League. Curtin was murdered in
November; Finlay, in the West of Ireland, in February; and the local
persecution of the families of the victims was even a more awful tribute
to the sway of the popular organization.
It is not surprising that Mr. Lecky, in former years the most
distinguished advocate of Irish Nationalism, in what may be called its
social aspects, should say of the organ of the National League, 'United
Ireland,' 'any English statesman who reads that paper, and then proposes
to hand over the property and the virtual government of Ireland to the
men whose ideas it represents, must be either a traitor or a fool.'
There is no occasion to dwell on the existence of this body or the
character of its operations. They are part of the case of the
Government. Mr. Morley has frankly told us, that we ought to pass the
new Bill, because the League is so strong. If we did not, we should have
to quarrel with the League, and to meet not only this great association
as we knew it in its times of prosperity, but the League as supported by
all the reserve forces of Mr. Egan and Mr. Ford. At present these
leaders of public opinion send money; but if the National League, its
staff, its secretaries, its branches, its newspapers and Members of
Parliament, are not enough, they are ready to send dynamite.
One remarkable fact, however, in connection with the National League
deserves special consideration, for it illustrates the singularly
disastrous character of Mr. Gladstone's interposition in Irish affairs.
The society, which we have endeavoured to describe, and which Mr.
Morley recommends to our attention as the _locum tenens_ of dynamite and
the dagger, is now officered in nearly every village by the priests of
the Roman Church. At the beginning of his career, Mr. Parnell personally
was regarded by the Roman Catholic hierarchy with suspicion, if not with
hostility. Mr. Butt had never succeeded in securing their hearty
co-operation in his Home Rule scheme. Mr. Parnell was not only a
Protestant, but expressed his contempt very freely for the adherents of
the Roman Church, whilst he avowed his sympathy with Revolutionists,
whom the Irish Catholic had been taught to regard as enemies of the Holy
Father. We can always trace in the history of this Church two forces at
work; the principle of order and authority, worldly and calculating, in
sympathy with the powers that be, trusting by skill and caution to
manipulate them for its own ends; and on the other hand, the wilder
spirit of sacerdotal ambition ready to ride the storm and dare
catastrophe. Before Mr. Gladstone's second Administration, the former
influence was gaining much strength in Ireland. Even if we make
allowance for the social origin of the Irish priests, filled from their
infancy with the rebel sentiment of the peasantry, there are many sins
that the disposition of their Church was until very recently to rely
upon intrigue and organization for gaining its ends, rather than to ally
itself openly with the Irish Revolution. Even after Mr. Parnell had
secured the allegiance of the farmer class by his great largess in the
shape of 20 per cent. reduction of rent, not only did Cardinal McCabe
continue to oppose him, but Archbishop Croke evinced a desire to act on
the side of Government.
Such a line of action, however, was only possible on the supposition,
that government was to be maintained in Ireland; and the tenure of
Ireland by Lord Spencer gave no such assurance. We know the passionate
efforts which Mr. Gladstone made to exclude Archbishop Walsh from the
See of Dublin. Sir George Errington was sent to Rome to get the Pope to
do what Mr. Gladstone dare not do himself--bid defiance to the Irish
leader. That resolute politician had a policy; the English Minister had
none. A quarrel with the Nationalist party meant to the Roman Church
loss of income, loss of influence--influence which, in these
iconoclastic days, it might take them generations to recover; and, after
all their sacrifices, they might find that Mr. Gladstone had
capitulated, and had handed them and the rest of Ireland over to the
National League. Their only practical course, as discreet politicians,
was to throw in their lot with the great Nationalist leader, relying on
the old traditions of the Irish peasant to protect clerical interests
against the host of Revolutionists, who would, on Mr. Parnell's triumph,
flock into Ireland from all the ends of the earth. The priests do not
forget that the member for Cork denounced their co-religionists. They
have no enthusiasm for a revolutionary dictator, who, whatever his
opinions on religious matters, cannot be claimed as a son of the Church.
Mr. Gladstone, however, left the sacerdotal power no choice but to make
the best terms they could with the Irish leader, who was only too glad
to secure their co-operation. Archbishop Walsh has been accepted as a
sort of ecclesiastical assessor to Mr. Parnell's government, and at the
last election the priests went as one man for the National League.
It is an Ireland, thus abandoned for years to the evil spirits evoked by
the rhetorician of Southport--an Ireland, in which the natural springs
of Conservatism have been dried up by the fever of slumbering
revolution--that England is now called upon to deal with, and the remedy
of the Ministry is to call into power a public opinion schooled in
conspiracy and violence; for now at length Mr. Gladstone has given up
the notion of intervening between Mr. Parnell and the Irish crowd. The
preachers of the gospel of plunder are invited to share in the
government of a part of the Kingdom.
We shall not attempt to examine further the scheme which Mr. Gladstone
has foreshadowed, but which, as we write, is not yet published in
detail. One characteristic, we may note, in the Prime Minister's speech
was very unusual with him. It is full of admissions which seem to be due
not so much to his habitual daring as to unconsciousness of their
import. He is ready to buy out the landlords at a great cost to the
English taxpayer, because the idea of landed property came to the
Irishman in English garb, and is therefore not likely to be respected in
the new system; but why should he be obliged to make special provision
for the Irish judges? They are men of ability, of stainless character.
They do not belong to any particular party, or race, or creed; they are
members of a great profession which all civilized societies require.
They have that experience of their profession which would make their
services particularly useful to a community entering on a new social
stage; but the mere fact, that they have been engaged in applying the
law, makes their position dangerous, and Mr. Gladstone is obliged to ask
England to provide that they shall not suffer in purse from the opening
of the new era which he proposes in that part of the United Kingdom
where he has undertaken to reconstruct society.
For the moment Mr. Morley prefers the _role_ of Sieyes rather than of
Danton, but the outcome of the legislation, proposed by the Ministry
with the assent of Mr. Parnell, must be to advance, if not to
consummate, the theory of Irish Independence. We thus arrive at that
result which Mr. Morley, on his own principles, would find it difficult
to refuse assent to. He has told us that his policy is to be 'thorough.'
A separate Irish nationality or reconquest must be the ultimate
consequence of any substitution of local institutions in Ireland for the
Parliament at Westminster, unless so far as the proposed substitution
were part of a scheme common to all four components of the kingdom. Most
people will agree with the old Duke of Wellington, that 'the repeal of
the Union must be the dissolution of the connection between the two
countries.'
To withdraw the English flag from Ireland as we did from the Ionian
Isles, to have a Convention called at Dublin to determine the future
government of the Island, such a plan would have the advantage that it
recognizes the one political opinion, which we can trace in Irish
popular expression--the desire to be done with England. It is true, that
the policy of Irish ideas declared at Southport was a means to an
end--the better union of the two countries--but pledged to two
antagonistic principles, Mr. Gladstone must some time choose which he
will abandon.
On the other hand, in accepting Irish independence we shrink from
responsibility for the acts of England. We know that the disorder now
ruling in Ireland is, to some extent, the result of English
misgovernment in past generations, and instead of attempting by firmness
and patience to remedy the mischief our fathers have done, we leave the
future to Providence. In this aspect of the question, we would remind
our readers of the words used in our article on 'Disintegration' not
three years ago:--
'The highest interests of the Empire, as well as the most
sacred obligations of honour, forbid us to solve this
question by conceding any species of independence to
Ireland; or, in other words, any licence to the majority in
that country to govern the rest of Irishmen as they please.
To the minority, to those who have trusted us, and on the
faith of our protection have done our work, it would be a
sentence of exile or of ruin. All that is Protestant--nay,
all that is loyal--all who have land or money to lose, all
by whose enterprize and capital industry and commerce are
still sustained, would be at the mercy of the adventurers
who have led the Land League, if not of the darker
counsellors by whom the Invincibles have been inspired. If
we have failed after centuries of effort to make Ireland
peaceable and civilized, we have no moral right to abandon
our post and leave all the penalty of our failure to those
whom we have persuaded to trust in our power. It would be an
act of political bankruptcy, an avowal that we were unable
to satisfy even the most sacred obligations, and that all
claims to protect or govern any one beyond our own narrow
island were at an end.'--'Quarterly Review,' October, 1883,
pp. 593, 594.
Mr. Gladstone assured his hearers last week, that he was bent on
consolidating the unity of the kingdom; he would not tolerate that his
new constitution should be called a repeal of the Union; but his final
argument was this, 'Do not let us disguise this from ourselves. We stand
face to face with what is termed "Irish nationality."' Now, what is this
'Irish nationality'? Let us examine it from the point of view of the
welfare of the Irish population. It may be conceded at once that there
is a strong current of local sentiment running through the Irish
population of the south and west. This is a tender, home feeling--a very
different thing from the stronger, more complex, and more highly
developed, conception round which a political nationality gathers. It is
such a sentiment as exists in one form or another in every group of
counties, in every county, in every country-side, in almost every
village. It is a kindly recollection of old memories, associated with a
disposition to stand up for our own. It is the result of intimate
knowledge of certain habits and ideas, and a tender reminiscence of the
best types of character associated with those habits. This sentiment of
local feeling is the germ of nationality, but it exists in many regions
where the wider ideas of nationality have never supervened. There are
many other places again, where this same feeling remains fresh and
vigorous after the political nationality connected with it has passed
away, merged in larger conceptions, in a sense of more extended
interests.
Such was the feeling of Cicero when he said that he had two countries.
His Volscian home was the country of his affection, but Rome that of
duty and right. Arpinum will always be my country, said he, but Rome
still more my country, for Arpinum has its share in the honours and
dominion of Rome.
Such is the feeling of the proud and vigorous nationality occupying
North Britain, various in race, in creed, and in social condition, but
united in mutual knowledge, in local sympathies, and in self-respect.
The Scotch, as an aggregate, are intellectually, physically, and in
their local institutions and habits one of the most distinct national
types existing. They are drawn together by a strong sentiment of
patriotism, but they are as little likely to demand a separate political
system, a parliament sitting at Edinburgh, as the members from
Hampshire and Wiltshire are likely to combine for the establishment of
parliamentary government on the banks of the Itchin.
Now what is Ireland, and what indications has that portion of the
population known as Nationalist given of a capacity to form itself into
a nation? Ireland has a geographical boundary in a sea channel crossed
from Great Britain in three hours or in an hour and a-half, according to
the line of passage selected. It is inhabited by some five millions,
whose native language is English, with the exception of a decimal
percentage of mountaineers, who nearly all speak English as well as
Irish. The race is more mixed than in any other district of the kingdom
containing the same amount of population. The northern coasts are
thickly peopled by Scotch settlers. In the south and west are many
varieties of race not of English introduction, but strongly different
from each other. In many of the most Catholic districts of Munster and
Leinster we find, in the names, physique, and temper, of the people,
evident results of the Cromwellian settlements, although the faith and
political principles of their forefathers have passed away. With this
mixed population we have a social cleavage probably the most remarkable
in Europe. The mass of the people, except in about one-fifth of the
island on the north-east coast, are Roman Catholic, Celtic in their
traditions and habits, and extremely poor. The Northern fifth is
industrious, order-loving, prosperous, Protestant, and British in
sentiment. Next to the masses of the population in importance are the
great landowners, of whom six-sevenths are Protestants, and nearly the
whole of Norman, Scotch, or English origin. There is no important
mercantile class, except in the towns of Belfast, Dublin, and Cork; and
the professional classes, with the exception of the Catholic priesthood,
are chiefly Protestant and British.
This population, so strangely wanting in homogeneity, have no history
which might attract them into unconsciousness of their differences. It
has been well said, that 'anybody who knew nothing of the Irish past,
except what he got from the speeches of Irish Nationalists, would
suppose that at some comparatively recent period the green flag had
floated over fleets and armies, and that Irish kings had played a part
of some kind in the field of modern European politics.' But as a matter
of fact Ireland has no part in European history before its conquest by
England. Not only was the kingdom of Ireland, as the style of the island
went before 1800, an English creation; but the name of Ireland has never
had any political significance except in connection with the English
crown.
External signs of difference between English and Irish there are many;
nimble apprehension, fluent utterance, genial demeanour, the attraction
of the flashing Celtic face, distinguish an Irish from an English group,
but characteristics like this do not prove any original or consistent
power of thought. They rather perhaps indicate the absence of it. It is
not on qualities like these, cemented even by strong feelings of home
sentiment, that we can expect to see the foundation of a new Nationality
happily laid. With one exception there is not a single idea, which an
orator could present to an Irish crowd, that could not be urged with
equal chance of sympathy upon an English crowd. Personal liberty, the
principles of no taxation without representation, of trial by jury,
freedom of conscience, sympathy with the prosperity of the greatest
number, all these are English ideas and must be illustrated, where they
need illustration, by the events of history peculiar to England or
common to the British dominion. The one topic, which is specially
attractive to an Irish meeting, is abuse of England as the source of
Irish misery. Community of hatred the mixed Nationalist population has,
but whether such a passion is sufficiently creative to build up a new
national type the reader can judge for himself. With this exception,
laws, political teachings, commercial habits, are all of English origin.
Mr. Gladstone, in recommending to the House of Commons his scheme for
the establishment of an independent Parliament in Ireland, cited as
precedents the independent Legislatures of Sweden and Norway, and of
Austria and Hungary. He dwelt particularly upon the precedent of
Norway:--
'The Legislature of Norway has had serious controversies,
not with Sweden, but with the King of Sweden, and it has
fought out those controversies successfully upon the
strictest constitutional and Parliamentary grounds. And yet
with two countries so united, what has been the effect? Not
discord, not convulsion, not danger to peace, not hatred,
not aversion, but a constantly-growing sympathy; and every
man who knows their condition knows that I speak the truth
when I say, that in every year that passes the Norwegians
and the Swedes are more and more feeling themselves to be
the children of a common country, united by a tie which
never is to be broken.'
If Mr. Gladstone had been better acquainted with the recent historic and
economic condition of Norway, of which we have given some account in our
present number,[104] he might have quoted that country as a warning
rather than an example. The 'Storthing,' or Parliament of Norway, is
omnipotent, and two-thirds of its representatives are permanently in the
hands of the peasant proprietor. The King has only a suspensive veto on
Bills enacted by the Storthing, which therefore become law, if passed in
their original form by three successive triennial Parliaments. The
recent dispute between the King and the Parliament, to which Mr.
Gladstone alluded, related to the right of the King to exercise an
absolute veto in the case of Bills affecting the principles of the
Constitution. The existence of such a right was denied by the Radical
majority in the Storthing, which established in 1884 a Supreme Court of
Justice composed exclusively of Radical members, and the Judges of the
ordinary High Court of Justice. It was a packed Court, bound to secrecy;
and the tribunal thus constituted condemned, in violation of the first
principles of justice, all the King's Ministers in Norway to deprivation
of office and to pecuniary fines, for having advised their master, that
the Constitution could not be altered without his sanction. The King was
compelled to yield, though he was supported in his opposition to the
Storthing by his Swedish Cabinet; and his ultimate submission to the
Radical majority in Norway was followed by a Ministerial crisis in
Sweden. The Swedes rightly argue that, if the King has no absolute veto
on matters affecting the principles of the Constitution in Norway, there
is no obstacle to an abolition of the Monarchical form of government in
that kingdom, or to a repeal of the union between the two countries.
There is in consequence much discontent in Sweden at the conduct of
Norway; and the Norwegians, on their side, have an intense and
ever-growing 'hatred and aversion' to the Swedes. Hence has arisen a
considerable tension in the official relations between the two countries
instead of the 'constantly growing sympathy' of which Mr. Gladstone
spoke. It is characteristic of the Prime Minister's mode of stating a
case, that he tells us the Norwegian controversies are 'not with Sweden
but with the King of Sweden.' Sweden has nothing to say in Norwegian
affairs, except in the person of the King. The King is the only
connecting link between the two countries. If the Dublin Parliament
should impeach the Irish Viceroy, we suppose Mr. Gladstone would tell us
that the difficulty was not with England but with Queen Victoria.
Nor was Mr. Gladstone much happier in his allusion to Hungarian
Nationality in recent times. For more than 150 years Austria endeavoured
to extinguish the national life of Hungary. In 1867 this policy was
definitely abandoned, and Hungary was called to a share in the Empire of
the Hapsburgs. As recently as last October Mr. Parnell, when insisting
that Ireland must have an independent Parliament, said: 'We can point
to the example of other countries--to Austria and to Hungary--to the
fact that Hungary, having been conceded self-government, became one of
the strongest factors in the Austrian Empire.' The favour, with which
these references have been received by the Liberal party, is a singular
example how far afield they are ready to go in search of an argument.
Austria, in 1867, was a great military despotism, tottering to its fall
amidst a group of eager rivals. A general appeal to the nation, such as
France made at the commencement of the Revolutionary war, was out of the
question. Differences of race, differences of language, differences of
social condition, made national unity impossible within the wide
dominions of the House of Austria. The government at Vienna consented to
the division of its territories into groups of nearly equal strength. In
each of these groups various alien nationalities were clustered round a
central power more advanced in politics, in civilization, and in wealth,
than the adjacent territories. Instead of trying to weld their multiple
varieties of race into one great popular community, Austria, smitten at
Sadowa, shared her dominion with Hungary, and asked her to take charge
of the Government of the East Leithan Slavs, whilst the German
population of Austria dealt with the Czechs and Moravians and
Carinthians on the western side of the river.
Sir Henry Elliott has well pointed out, that what success the experiment
has had is in no small degree due to the large powers still enjoyed by
the Crown, and to the personal character and influence of the Emperor
Francis, the connecting link between the two dominions; but apart from
this actual result, the feasibility of the dual scheme depended on the
following considerations. In the first place, there was no alternative
in the condition in which the House of Austria found itself in 1867,
defeated in battle and bankrupt in finance. Without some such
arrangement civil war was inevitable, with the ultimate prospect of the
absorption of the various races by the hostile neighbouring Powers. In
the second place, the allies were pretty nearly equal in strength as
regards each other, whilst they were each similarly weighted by the
difficulty of holding their own within the respective territories
assigned them. They were each so busy with their subordinate territories
and the less advanced populations inhabiting them, that it was not their
interest or their inclination to bring about conflicts with each other.
Hungary boasts a larger area than Austria, and a population equal to
three-fourths that of the Western Monarchy. On the western side of the
Leitha the dominant race, dominant by force of nature, by brain power,
and the traditions and acquirements this power has given them, are 36
per cent. of the whole population. In the Transleithan provinces the
race similarly situated, the Magyar, constitutes about 40 per cent. of
the whole population.
There is not a single circumstance in the relations between England and
Ireland to make reference to the creation of the Empire-Kingdom anything
but an absurdity. Ireland never can compare with Great Britain in
material resources. Her population is hardly one-sixth that of the
larger island, whilst her area is little more than a third. She is
deficient in climate, in soil, in mineral resources, and in population.
Not only is she without a well-organized aristocracy skilled in
political science, such as Hungary boasted; Ireland, as the term is
understood by the National League, is without an educated class. Her
intellect is represented by the moonlight maurauder and the fanatic
priest. As regards England, the parallel is still more preposterous: She
is not a military despotism, but a well-organized community, boasting
parliamentary traditions of a thousand years. Her shores are guarded by
sea from foreign interference. Notwithstanding many scandalous
shortcomings in her rulers, her influence and her power are still
unrivalled in the world. However long Mr. Gladstone may rule, her Sadowa
is yet to come; and, if it did come, the example of the Dual State would
offer no solution of our Irish difficulties, for none of the conditions
which made the Dual State possible exist in the case of the two chief
British Islands.
The delusive character of Mr. Gladstone's reference to the Dual State is
best illustrated by the facts, that the council for common affairs
consist of an equal number of representatives from each side of the
dominion, that this council is concerned with military and foreign
affairs, two subjects on which, according to the new scheme, Ireland is
to have no vote.
It will be found, on a little examination, that appeals to the example
of the foreigner are as misleading as the theory of nationality. All
such arguments are only endeavours to divert the public from the
exercise of their own judgment and common-sense in dealing with the
mischiefs which the perverse genius of Mr. Gladstone has created.
Recognized principles of government, the ordinary traditions of England
applied with the happy immunity from friction, which the commercial
policy of modern times makes possible, would have long since settled the
difficulty, but it would have been settled in disregard of that popular
Irish feeling which, in 1867, Mr. Gladstone pledged himself to follow.
He would have had to admit that his new Irish policy was a mistake; and
he never admits that he has made any mistake--unless it be in Egypt--or
in acting on the opinion of other people. When he has discovered a new
line of policy, he believes himself infallible. Let us assume for a
moment, that the combination of the personal adherents of Mr. Gladstone
and of Mr. Parnell enables the Prime Minister to pass some measure on
the lines he has selected, or on those laid down by Mr. Davitt, and that
the rowdy treason of a Dublin Cabinet proceeds to bring within the
sphere of its operations what wealth and civilization has hitherto
escaped the National League.
In the struggle which must ensue, we shall have within three hours of
our shores a raging volcano of revolution, threatening the peace of
Europe and our own. Fenians, Nihilists, and Irish Yankees, will flock to
the new vantage ground. The conflict between Socialism and property,
between infidelity and superstition, will be fought out amidst the
strangest complications of local hatred and of fiscal disorder. If
foreign governments abstain from interfering, and we escape consequent
difficulties with them, are we sure that we ourselves will be able to
remain passive spectators? Many of us are old enough to recollect the
agitation which shook this kingdom during the struggle between North and
South on the other side of the Atlantic. No question of Home politics
for generations past had so deeply moved our people. It required all the
exertions of the most sober part of the nation to prevent our becoming
involved in the conflict, and we recollect the help this party of wisdom
got from the impulsive statesman who has undertaken for the third time
the final settlement of the Irish question. If the great American Civil
War, desolating a country three thousand miles away, thus stirred
popular feeling, what will be the result of a Civil War between, on the
one side, the Irish Celt animated by religious hatred and love of
plunder, and supported by the Irish American, and on the other the
loyalty, endurance and Protestantism of Ulster--a Civil War almost
within sight of our shores?
But, if we turn from the suggestions of empiricism and vanity and come
to those practical considerations which affect men's minds in matters so
important as political organization, the main argument pressed on
English people is that we cannot go on as we are. 'Irish Government is a
failure.' 'We must close this terrible crisis as rapidly as possible.'
'Separation itself, could not be worse than the present state of
things.' 'The Act of Union has completely failed. After eighty-four
years it has given an Ireland more hostile to England than at any period
of its history.' Mr. Gladstone recites the number of Coercion Acts,
which have been passed since 1832, and declares 'we are like the man
who, knowing that medicine may be the means of his restoration to
health, endeavours to live upon medicine.'
Before considering whether this confession of failure is true, we would
remind our readers what it implies, what it leads up to. It is now
proposed as an argument for establishing a separate Parliament in
Dublin. The establishment of this separate Parliament is necessary,
because we must give Ireland the opportunity of doing what we ourselves
are unable to do, to find the best machinery they can to carry on the
business of government. But, when this machinery is once found and
invested with the resources and influence of a Government, we cannot
suppose that our troubles will be at an end. If disputes arise in the
working out of the new Irish Constitution, the popular majority will not
be slow to call in the aid of the American Irish who have founded the
National League. Mr. Jennings, whose opinion on this matter is entitled
to great weight, from his long residence in the United States, reminded
the House that
'one consideration which they must bear in mind was that of
the formidable difficulties which would inevitably arise
from the action of the great body of Irish Americans. If
this Bill granted to Ireland a free and independent
Parliamentary Assembly with full powers over the Executive,
as proposed by the Prime Minister, there would inevitably
come a time when either the payment of the interest due, or
some other cause, would bring the Irish Parliament into
antagonism with the English. If they were to endeavour to
demand what was necessary, whether payment of interest or
what not, and to threaten to use force, could any one
suppose that the great body of Irish Americans would stand
by silently and see that done? He believed that the United
States would say to them: "You have acknowledged your
incompetence to govern Ireland; you have given her practical
independence, now you must take your hands off her; we will
not stand by and see her crushed." He believed that there
was no government in the United States which could withstand
such pressure as that which would be brought to bear on it
by the Irish Americans, especially if a Presidential
election were near.'
But is this allegation of failure actually true? For our part we are
inclined to agree with Lord Hartington, that the argument founded on the
paralysis of government in Ireland in recent years is allowed more
weight in this question than it should have. In the first place, it is
difficult to see how any government conducted as ours has been during
the last few years, could be other than disastrous, Mr. Gladstone, at
the commencement of his career as leader of the Liberal party, pledged
himself to the policy of Irish ideas, ignorant, if not reckless, of what
the term meant. Year by year he has been getting a closer view of the
creed he had unconsciously adopted, and, after a struggle, he accepts
one dogma, then another. The great dogma of all in the Home Ruler's
creed, that Englishmen should be sent bag and baggage out of Ireland,
has not yet been adopted; and naturally the Home Ruler keeps his
resources ready for that ringing of the chapel bell to which Mr.
Gladstone alluded in speaking of the Clerkenwell explosion and its
effect on the question of the Irish Establishment. The 'dynamite and the
dagger,' to which Mr. Morley recently appealed as conclusive reasons for
passing the Cabinet scheme, retain their fascination for the Irish mind.
As long as Mr. Gladstone is a power in English public life, and his
pledges given in Lancashire are unredeemed or unrepudiated, the Home
Rule party will press him without mercy; but it is not reasonable to
argue from their success, a success which Mr. Gladstone has given them,
that they exercise a permanent influence on Irish affairs. When the
Southport pledges were given, the Irish land laws were yet without that
reform which a series of Governments, Tory as well as Whig, had admitted
to be necessary. It could not be said until after 1870 that the book of
English neglect of Irish interests was finally closed, and that is only
sixteen years ago. During this period we have seen the great English
Parliamentary Ruler continually plunging after coercion, and returning
to make some other big concession to agitation. Thus Ireland has had no
chance of trying what a good system of laws consistently administered
could supply. The principle of the Land Act of 1870 was a provision for
the protection of property--the tenants' property recognized by custom
during a long course of years, although ignored by the law and exposed
to confiscation by the reckless Whig legislation of 1850-2. The Land Act
of 1881 was an arbitrary attempt to remedy the misfortunes of an
improvident agricultural interest by legislative interference with
contract. Contracts were readjusted and finally settled for fifteen
years to come. Political economy was bidden to take itself off, but
prices varied quite regardless of Mr. Gladstone's arrangements, and the
weather did not pay them the least consideration. The passion for
revolution was stimulated, and a large number of Mr. Gladstone's clients
are as badly off as before. Might it not be worth while to try for a
time how far good government, after the removal of all substantial
grievances, might supply that 'real settlement,' 'that finality,' which
the country is now asked to find in Dublin Parliaments, First Orders,
and bribes at the cost of the English taxpayer?
This counter-policy of maintaining order and good government in Ireland
should be emphasized by measures to make that island, even more
completely than she now is, a part of the United Kingdom. The Queen's
laws in Ireland are the same, except in some slight details, as in
England. The Irish judicature might be made part of the High Court at
Westminster. The Queen's writs from Westminster should run throughout
Ireland as they have done for hundreds of years throughout Wales.
Limerick or Sligo are not so remote from London now as Harlech or Durham
were in the reign of George I. The Irish judges would form no
undistinguished addition to the English Bench, while the presence of
English judges on circuit in Ireland would have the best effect in
disarming the animosity of the people against the law. It is too often
forgotten in these days that, however rapidly we move from place to
place, however swift the transmission of intelligence, the human mind
has not yet acquired the nimbleness of the telegraph needle. Habits of
thought are not changed as rapidly as the fashions of our dress. It is
only sixteen years since our Irish legislation has assumed its present
form, and we are ready to throw to the winds all maxims of statecraft,
all principles hitherto recognized in the delicate work of government.
We are in despair, and call in the company of _a priori_ statesmen--men
whose sole qualification to deal with complex questions is the fact that
they have studied the science of revolution. Why should we not try, now
that we have provided for manifest Irish grievances, what time, and
resolution, and common-sense, might do for us and our Irish
fellow-subjects?
The first part of the Government policy is disclosed. We have still to
learn what its complement, the Land Purchase Bill, is to be, what
proposal is to be made about loyal Ulster, the subject on which Mr.
Gladstone was so strangely vague, on which Mr. Parnell was discreetly
silent. These further manifestations of Cabinet wisdom can hardly save
the scheme now lingering on to death. We wish we could be certain, that
this collapse would rid Parliament and Ireland of all such projects for
the future. But, whatever be the fate of the present Ministry, we may be
sure that the end is not yet, unless Mr. Parnell's faction is completely
broken, unless the policy urged by Lord Hartington is firmly adopted,
and party life reorganized in England, on the principle of excluding the
Irish vote from consideration in our party conflicts. If no such
resolution is enforced by English patriotism, Irish Nationalists will
return to their demands, enhanced in power and renown by the tribute
they have extorted from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
On these events of the future we shall not now speculate; but if past
history throws any light on the character of our population, one thing
may be confidently predicted. If Home Rule should be ultimately conceded
to Ireland, the political party which may be responsible for the
carrying of the scheme, will have to look forward to a long period of
exclusion from public confidence. However the British people may be
worried or deluded into forgetfulness of their duty to themselves and to
Ireland, the working of a Dublin Parliament will soon rouse them, the
reaction will set in; and the authors of the scheme will have before
them as lengthened a banishment from power, as the country gentlemen
suffered when their chivalrous devotion to the House of Stuart blinded
them for a time to the practical interests of England; as was the fate
of the Whigs at the beginning of this century, when they identified
their party with implacable opposition to Pitt's struggle to deliver
Europe from the tyranny of Bonaparte.