This book, for which I have been asked to write a short preface,
presents the case against Home Rule for Ireland. The articles are
written by men who not only have a complete grasp of the subjects upon
which they write, but who in most cases, from their past experience and
from their personal influence, are well entitled to outline the Irish
policy of the Unionist Party.
Ours is not merely a policy of hostility to Home Rule, but it is, as it
has always been, a constructive policy for the regeneration of Ireland.
We are opposed to Home Rule because, in our belief, it would seriously
weaken our national position; because it would put a stop to the
remarkable increase of prosperity in Ireland which has resulted from the
Land Purchase Act; and because it would inflict intolerable injustice on
the minority in Ireland, who believe that under a Government controlled
by the men who dominate the United Irish League neither their civil nor
their religious liberty would be safe.
To create within the United Kingdom a separate Parliament with an
Executive Government responsible to that Parliament would at the best
mean a danger of friction. But if we were ever engaged in a great war,
and the men who controlled the Irish Government took the view in regard
to that war which was taken by the same men in regard to the Boer War;
if they thought the war unjust, and if, as under the last Home Rule
Bill they would have the right to do, they passed resolutions in the
Irish Parliament in condemnation of the war, and even sent embassies
carrying messages of good-will to our enemy, then this second Government
at the heart of the Empire would be a source of weakness which might be
fatal to us.
The ameliorative measures originated by Mr. Balfour when he was Chief
Secretary, and which culminated in the Wyndham Purchase Act, have
created a new Ireland. Mr. Redmond, speaking a year or two ago, said
that Ireland "was studded with the beautiful and happy homes of an
emancipated peasantry." It is a true picture, but it is a picture of the
result of Unionist policy in Ireland, a policy which Mr. Redmond and his
friends, including the present Government, have done their best to
hamper. The driving power of the agitation for Home Rule has always been
discontent with the land system of Ireland, and just in proportion as
land purchase has extended, the demand for Home Rule has died down. The
Nationalist leaders, realising this, and regarding political agitation
as their first object, have compelled the Government to put
insurmountable obstacles in the way of land purchase--not because it had
not been successful, but because it had been too successful.
The prosperity and the peace of Ireland depend upon the completion of
land purchase, and it can only be completed by the use of British
credit, which in my belief can and ought only to be freely given so long
as Ireland is in complete union with the rest of the United Kingdom. In
the present deplorable position of British credit the financing of land
purchase would be difficult; but it is not unreasonable to hope that the
return to power of a Government which would adopt sane financial
methods would restore our credit; and in any case, the object is of such
vital importance that, whatever the difficulties, it must be our policy
to complete with the utmost possible rapidity the system of land
purchase in Ireland.
It will also be our aim to help to the utmost, in the manner suggested
in different articles in this book, in the development of the resources
of Ireland. The Nationalist policy, which is imposed also on the Radical
Party, is in fact more politics and less industry. Our policy is more
industry and less politics.
The strongest objection, however, and, in my opinion, the insurmountable
obstacle to Home Rule, is the injustice of attempting to impose it
against their will upon the Unionists of Ulster. The only intelligible
ground upon which Home Rule can now be defended is the nationality of
Ireland. But Ireland is not a nation; it is two nations. It is two
nations separated from each other by lines of cleavage which cut far
deeper than those which separate Great Britain from Ireland as a whole.
Every argument which can be adduced in favour of separate treatment for
the Irish Nationalist minority as against the majority of the United
Kingdom, applies with far greater force in favour of separate treatment
for the Unionists of Ulster as against the majority of Ireland.
To the majority in Ireland Home Rule may seem to be a blessing, but to
the minority it appears as an intolerable curse. Their hostility to it
is quite as strong as that which was felt by many of the Catholics of
Ireland to Grattan's Parliament. They, too, would say, as the Catholic
Bishop of Waterford said at the time of the Union, that they "would
prefer a Union with the Beys and Mamelukes of Egypt to the iron rod of
the Mamelukes of Ireland."
The minority which holds this view is important in numbers, for it
comprises at the lowest estimate more than a fourth of the population of
Ireland. From every other point of view it is still more important, for
probably the minority pays at least half the taxes and does half the
trade of Ireland. The influence and also the power of the minority is
enormously increased by the way in which its numbers are concentrated in
Belfast and the surrounding counties.
The men who compose this minority ask no special privilege. They demand
only--and they will not demand in vain--that they should not be deprived
against their will of the protection of British law and of the rights of
British citizenship.