Is it not time that the opponents of Home Rule for Ireland should define
their position? They defeated Mr. Gladstone's scheme last year in
Parliament and in the constituencies; and they defeated it by the
promise of a counter policy which was to consist, in brief, of placing
Ireland on the same footing as Great Britain in respect to Local
Government; or, if there was to be any difference, it was to be in the
direction of a larger and more generous measure for Ireland than for the
rest of the United Kingdom. This certainly was the policy propounded by
the distinguished leader of the Liberal Unionists in his speech at
Belfast, in November, 1885, and repeated in his electoral speeches last
year. In the Belfast speech Lord Hartington said: "My opinion is that it
is desirable for Irishmen that institutions of local self-government
such as are possessed by England and Scotland, and such as we hope to
give in the next session in greater extent to England and Scotland,
should also be extended to Ireland." But this extension of local
self-government to Ireland would require, in Lord Hartington's opinion,
a fundamental change in the fabric of Irish Government. "I would not
shrink," he says, "from a great and bold reconstruction of the Irish
Government," a reconstruction leading up gradually to some real and
substantial form of Home Rule. His Lordship's words are: "I submit with
some confidence to you these principles, which I have endeavoured to lay
down, and upon which, I think, the extension of Local Government in
Ireland must proceed. First, you must have some adequate guarantees both
for the maintenance of the essential unity of the Empire and for the
protection of the minority in Ireland. And, secondly, you must also
admit this principle: the work of complete self-government of Ireland,
the grant of full control over the management of its own affairs, is not
a grant that can be made by any Parliament of this country in a day. It
must be the work of continuous and careful effort." Elsewhere in the
same speech Lord Hartington says: "Certainly I am of opinion that
nothing can be done in the direction of giving Ireland anything like
complete control over her own affairs either in a day, or a session, or
probably in a Parliament." "Complete control over her own affairs," "the
work of complete self-government of Ireland, the grant of full control
over the management of its own affairs:" this is the policy which Lord
Hartington proclaimed in Ulster, the promise which he, the proximate
Liberal leader, held out to Ireland on the eve of the General Election
of 1885. It was a policy to be begun "in the next session," though not
likely to be completed "in a day, or a session, or probably in a
Parliament."
Next to Mr. Gladstone and Lord Hartington the most important member of
the Liberal party at that time was undoubtedly Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr.
Chamberlain's Irish policy was proclaimed in the _Radical Programme,
which was published before the General Election as the Radical leader's
manifesto to the constituencies. This scheme, which Mr. Chamberlain had
submitted as a responsible minister to the Cabinet of Mr. Gladstone in
June, 1885, culminated in a National Council which was to control a
series of local bodies and govern the whole of Ireland. "His National
Council was to consist of two orders; one-third of its members were to
be elected by the owners of property, and two-thirds by ratepayers. The
National Council also was to be a single one, and Ulster was not to have
a separate Council. As the Council was to be charged with the
supervision and legislation about education, which is the burning
question between Catholics and Protestants, it is clear that Mr.
Chamberlain at that time contemplated no special protection for
Ulster."[15] Moreover, in a letter dated April 23rd, 1886, and published
in the _Daily News_ of May 17th, 1886, Mr. Chamberlain declared that he
"had not changed his opinion in the least" since his first public
declaration on Irish policy in 1874. "I then said that I was in favour
of the principles of Home Rule, as defined by Mr. Butt, but that I would
do nothing which would weaken in any way Imperial unity, and that I did
not agree with all the details of his plan.... Mr. Butt's proposals were
in the nature of a federal scheme, and differ entirely from Mr.
Gladstone's, which are on the lines of Colonial independence. Mr. Butt
did not propose to give up Irish representation at Westminster." It is
true that Mr. Butt did not propose to give up Irish representation at
Westminster; but it is also true that he proposed to give it up in the
sense in which Mr. Chamberlain wishes to retain it. Mr. Butt's words, in
the debate to which Mr. Chamberlain refers, are, "that the House should
meet _without Irish members_ for the discussion of English and Scotch
business; and when there was any question affecting the Empire at large,
Irish members might be summoned to attend. He saw no difficulty in the
matter."[16]
There is no need to quote Mr. Gladstone's declarations on the Irish
question at the General Election of 1885, and previously. He has been
accused of springing a surprise on the country when he proposed Home
Rule in the beginning of 1886. That is not, at all events, the opinion
of Lord Hartington. In a speech delivered at the Eighty Club in March,
1886, his Lordship, with his usual manly candour, declared as follows:
"I am not going to say one word of complaint or charge against Mr.
Gladstone for the attitude which he has taken on this question. I think
no one who has read or heard, during a long series of years, the
declarations of Mr. Gladstone on the question of self-government for
Ireland, can be surprised at the tone of his present declarations....
When I look back to those declarations that Mr. Gladstone made in
Parliament, which have not been unfrequent; when I look back to the
increased definiteness given to those declarations in his address to the
electors of Midlothian, and in his Midlothian speeches; I say, when I
consider all these things, I feel that I have not, and that no one has,
any right to complain of the tone of the declarations which Mr.
Gladstone has recently made upon this subject."
So much as to the state of Liberal opinion on the Irish question at the
General Election of 1885. The leaders of all sections of the party put
the Irish question in the foreground of their programme for the session
of 1886. We all remember Sir Charles Dilke's public announcement that he
and Mr. Chamberlain were going to visit Ireland in the autumn of 1885,
to study the Irish question on the spot, with a view to maturing a plan
for the first session of the new Parliament.
What about the Conservative party? Lord Salisbury's Newport speech was
avowedly the programme of his Cabinet. It was the Conservative answer to
Mr. Gladstone's Midlothian manifesto. He dealt with the Irish question
in guarded language; but it was language which plainly showed that he
recognized, not less clearly than the Liberal leaders, the crucial
change which the assimilation of the Irish franchise to that of Great
Britain had wrought in Irish policy. His keen eye saw at once the
important bearing which that enfranchisement had on the traditional
policy of coercion: "You had passed an Act of Parliament, giving in
unexampled abundance, and with unexampled freedom, supreme power to the
great mass of the Irish people--supreme power as regards their own
locality.... To my mind the renewal of exceptional legislation against a
population whom you had treated legislatively to this marked confidence
was so gross in its inconsistency that you could not possibly hope,
during the few remaining months that were at your disposal before the
present Parliament expired, to renew any legislation which expressed on
one side a distrust of what on the other side your former legislation
had so strongly emphasized. The only result of your doing it would have
been, not that you would have passed the Act, but that you would have
promoted by the very inconsistency of the position that you were
occupying--by the untenable character of the arguments that you were
advancing--you would have produced so intense an exasperation amongst
the Irish people, that you would have caused ten times more evil, ten
times more resistance to law than your Crimes Act, even if it had been
renewed, would possibly have been able to check." Lord Salisbury went on
to say that "the effect of the Crimes Act had been very much
exaggerated," and that "boycotting is of that character which
legislation has very great difficulty in reaching." "Boycotting does not
operate through outrage. Boycotting is the act of a large majority of a
community resolving to do a number of things which are themselves legal,
and which are only illegal by the intention with which they are done."
Next to Lord Salisbury the most prominent member of the Conservative
party at that date was Lord Randolph Churchill. On the 3rd of January,
1885, when it was rumoured that Mr. Gladstone's Government, then in
office, intended to renew a few of the clauses of the Crimes Act, Lord
Randolph Churchill made a speech at Bow against any such policy. The
following quotation will suffice as a specimen of his opinion: "It comes
to this, that the policy of the Government in Ireland is to declare on
the one hand, by the passing of the Reform Bill, that the Irish people
are perfectly capable of exercising for the advantage of the Empire the
highest rights and privileges of citizenship; and by the proposal to
renew the Crimes Act they simultaneously declare, on the other hand,
that the Irish people are perfectly incapable of performing for the
advantage of society the lowest and most ordinary duties of
citizenship.... All I can say is that, if such an incoherent, such a
ridiculous, such a dangerously ridiculous combination of acts can be
called a policy, then, thank God, the Conservative party have no
policy."
Within a few months of the delivery of that speech a Conservative
Government was in office, with Lord Randolph Churchill as its leader in
the House of Commons; and one of the first acts of the new leader was to
separate himself ostentatiously from the Irish policy of Lord Spencer
and from the policy of coercion in general. Lord Randolph Churchill, as
the organ of the Government in the House of Commons, repudiated in
scornful language any atom of sympathy with the policy pursued by Lord
Spencer in Ireland; and Lord Carnarvon, the new Viceroy, declared that
"the era of coercion" was past, and that the Conservative Government
intended to govern Ireland by the ordinary law. Lord Carnarvon, in
addition, and very much to his credit, sought and obtained an interview
with Mr. Parnell, and discussed with him, in sympathetic language, the
question of Home Rule. In his own explanation of this interview Lord
Carnarvon admitted that he desired to see established in Ireland some
form of self-government which would satisfy "the national sentiment."
It is idle, therefore, to assert that the question of Home Rule for
Ireland, in some form or other, was sprung on the country as a surprise
by Mr. Gladstone in the beginning of 1886. The question was brought
prominently before the public in the General Election of 1885 as one
that must be faced in the new Parliament. All parties were committed to
that policy, and the only difference was as to the character and limits
of the measure of self-government to be granted to Ireland; whether it
was to be large enough to satisfy "the national sentiment," as Lord
Carnarvon, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Gladstone, and others desired; or
whether it was to consist only of a system of county boards under the
control of a reformed Dublin Castle. There was a general agreement that
the grant to Ireland of electoral equality with England necessitated
equality of political treatment, and that, above all things, there was
to be no renewal of the stale policy of Coercion until the Irish people
had got an opportunity of proving or disproving their fitness for
self-government, unless, indeed, there should happen to be a
recrudescence of crime which would render exceptional legislation
necessary. The election of 1886 turned almost entirely on the question
of Irish government, and it is not too much to say that Conservatives
and Liberal Unionists vied with Home Rulers in repudiating a return to
the policy of coercion until the effect of some kind of self-government
had been tried. Of course, there were the usual platitudes about the
necessity of maintaining law and order; but there was a _consensus_ of
profession that coercion should not be resorted to unless there was a
fresh outbreak of crime and disorder in Ireland.
Such were the professions of the opponents of Home Rule in 1885 and in
1886. They have now been in office for eighteen months, and what do we
behold? They have passed a perpetual Coercion Bill for Ireland, and the
question of any kind of self-government has been relegated to an
uncertain future. In his recent speech at Birmingham (Sept. 29), Mr.
Chamberlain has declared that the question is not ripe for solution, and
that the question of disestablishment, in Wales, Scotland, and England
successively, as well as the questions of Local Option, local government
for Great Britain, and of the safety of life at sea, must take
precedence of it. That means the postponement of the reform of Irish
Government to the Greek Kalends. What justification can be made for this
change of front? No valid justification has been offered. So far from
there having been any increase of crime in the interval, there has been
a very marked decrease. When the Coercion Bill received the royal assent
last August, Ireland was more free from crime than it had been for many
years past. Nothing had happened to account for the return to the policy
of coercion in violation of the promise to try the experiment of
conciliation. The National League was in full vigour in 1885-1886, when
the policy of coercion was abandoned; boycotting was just as prevalent,
and outrages were much more numerous.
Under these circumstances it is the opponents of Home Rule, not its
advocates, who owe an explanation to the public. They defeated Mr.
Gladstone's Bill, but promised a Bill of their own. Where is their Bill?
We hear nothing of it. They have made a complete change of front. They
now tell us that the grievance of Ireland is entirely economic, and that
the true solution of the Irish question is the abolition of dual
ownership in land combined with a firm administration of the existing
law. England and Scotland are to have a large measure of local
government next year; but Ireland is to wait till a more convenient
season. A more complete reversal of the policy proclaimed last summer by
the so-called Unionists cannot be imagined.
Still, however, the "Unionists" hope to be able some day to offer some
form of self-government to Ireland. For party purposes they are wise in
postponing that day to the latest possible period, for its advent will
probably dissolve the union of the "Unionists." Lord Salisbury, Lord
Hartington, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Chamberlain cannot agree upon any scheme
which all can accept without a public recantation of previous
professions. Mr. Bright is opposed to Home Rule "in any shape or form."
Mr. Chamberlain, on the other hand, is in favour of a great National
Council, on Mr. Butt's lines or on the lines of the Canadian plan;
either of which would give the National Council control over education
and the maintenance of law and order. Latterly, indeed, Mr. Chamberlain
has advocated a separate treatment for Ulster. But the first act of an
Ulster Provincial Assembly would probably be to declare the union of
that Province with the rest of Ireland. Ulster, be it remembered,
returns a majority of Nationalists to the Imperial Parliament. To
exclude Ulster from any share in the settlement offered to the other
three Provinces would therefore be impracticable; and Mr. Bright has
lately expressed his opinion emphatically in that sense. In any case,
Lord Hartington could be no party to any scheme so advanced as Mr.
Chamberlain's. For although he declared, in his Belfast speech, that
"complete self-government" was the goal of his policy for Ireland, he
was careful to explain that "the extension of Irish management over
Irish affairs must be a growth from small beginnings." But this "growth
from small beginnings" would be, in Lord Salisbury's opinion, a very
dangerous and mischievous policy. The establishment of self-government
in Ireland, as distinct from what is commonly known as Home Rule, he
pronounced in his Newport speech to be "a very difficult question;" and
in the following passage he placed his finger upon the kernel of the
difficulty:--"A local authority is more exposed to the temptation, and
has more of the facility for enabling a majority to be unjust to the
minority, than is the case when the authority derives its sanction and
extends its jurisdiction over a wide area. That is one of the weaknesses
of local authorities. In a large central authority the wisdom of several
parts of the country will correct the folly or the mistakes of one. In a
local authority that correction to a much greater extent is wanting; and
it would be impossible to leave that out of sight in the extension of
any such local authority to Ireland."
This seems to me a much wiser and more statesmanlike view than a system
of elective boards scattered broadcast over Ireland. A multitude of
local boards all over Ireland, without a recognized central authority to
control them, would inevitably become facile instruments in the hands of
the emissaries of disorder and sedition. And, even apart from any such
sinister influences, they would be almost certain to yield to the
temptation of being oppressive, extravagant, and corrupt, if there were
no executive power to command their confidence and enforce obedience.
Without the previous creation of some authority of that kind it would be
sheer madness to offer Ireland the fatal boon of local self-government.
It would enormously increase without conciliating the power of the
Nationalists, and would make the administration of Ireland by
constitutional means simply impossible. The policy of the Liberal
Unionists is thus much too large or much too small. It is too small to
conciliate, and therefore too large to be given with safety. All these
proposed concessions are liable to one insuperable objection; they would
each and all enable the Irish to extort Home Rule, but under
circumstances which would rob it of its grace and repel gratitude. Mill
has some admirable observations bearing on this subject, and I venture
to quote the following passage: "The greatest imperfection of popular
local institutions, and the chief cause of the failure which so often
attends them, is the low calibre of the men by whom they are almost
always carried on. That these should be of a very miscellaneous
character is, indeed, part of the usefulness of the institution; it is
that circumstance chiefly which renders it a school of political
capacity and general intelligence. But a school supposes teachers as
well as scholars; the utility of the instruction greatly depends on its
bringing inferior minds into contact with superior, a contact which in
the ordinary course of life is altogether exceptional, and the want of
which contributes more than anything else to keep the generality of
mankind on one level of contented ignorance.... It is quite hopeless to
induce persons of a high class, either socially or intellectually, to
take a share of local administration in a corner by piecemeal as members
of a Paving Board or a Drainage Commission."[17]
Mr. Mill goes on to argue that it is essential to the safe working of
any scheme of local self-government that it should be under the control
of a central authority in harmony with public opinion.
When the "Unionists" begin, if they ever do begin, seriously to
deliberate on the question of self-government for Ireland, they will
find that they have only two practicable alternatives--the maintenance
of the present system, or some scheme of Home Rule on the lines of Mr.
Gladstone's much misunderstood Bill. And the ablest men among the
"Unionists" are beginning to perceive this. The _Spectator_ has in a
recent article implored Mr. Chamberlain to desist from any further
proposal in favour of self-government for Ireland, because the
inevitable result would be to split up the Unionist party; and Mr.
Chamberlain, as we have seen, has accepted the advice. Another very able
and very logical opponent of Home Rule has candidly avowed that the
only alternative to Home Rule is the perpetuation of "things as they
are." Ireland, he thinks, "possesses none of the conditions necessary
for local self-government." His own view, therefore, is "that in
Ireland, as in France, an honest, centralized administration of
impartial officials, and not local self-government, would best meet the
real wants of the people."
"The name of 'Self-government' has a natural fascination for Englishmen;
but a policy which cannot satisfy the wishes of Home Rulers, which
may--it is likely enough--be of no benefit to the Irish people, which
will certainly weaken the Government in its contest with lawlessness and
oppression, is not a policy which obviously commends itself to English
good sense."[18]
Well may this distinguished "Supporter of things as they are" declare:
"The maintenance of the Union [on such terms] must necessarily turn out
as severe a task as ever taxed a nation's energies; for to maintain the
Union with any good effect, means that, while refusing to accede to the
wishes of millions of Irishmen, we must sedulously do justice to every
fair demand from Ireland; must strenuously, and without fear or favour,
assert the equal rights of landlords and tenants, of Protestants and
Catholics; and must, at the same time, put down every outrage and reform
every abuse."
What hope is there of this? Our only guide to the probabilities of the
future is our experience of the past And what has that been in Ireland?
In every year since the Legislative Union there have been multitudes of
men in England as upright, as enlightened, as well-intentioned towards
Ireland, as Professor Dicey, and with better opportunities of
translating their thoughts into acts. Yet what has been the result? _Si
monumenlum requiris circumspice_. Behold Ireland at this moment, and
examine every year of its history since the Union. Do the annals of any
constitutional Government in the world present so portentous a monument
of Parliamentary failure, so vivid an example of a moral and material
ruin "paved with good intentions"? Therein lies the pathos of it. Not
from malice, not from cruelty, not from wanton injustice, not even from
callous indifference to suffering and wrong, does our misgovernment of
Ireland come. If the evil had its root in deliberate wrong-doing on the
part of England it would probably have been cured long ago. But each
generation, while freely confessing the sins of its fathers, has
protested its own innocence and boasted of its own achievements, and
then, with a pharisaic sense of rectitude, has complacently pointed to
some inscrutable flaw in the Irish character as the key to the Irish
problem. The generation which passed the Act of Union, oblivious of
British pledges solemnly given and lightly broken, wondered what had
become of the prosperity and contentment which the promoters of the
Union had promised to Ireland. The next generation made vicarious
penance, and preferred the enactment of Catholic emancipation to the
alternative of civil war; and then wondered in its turn that Ireland
still remained unpacified. Then came a terrible famine, followed by
evictions on a scale so vast and cruel that the late Sir Robert Peel
declared that no parallel could be found for such a tale of inhumanity
in "the records of any country, civilized or barbarous." Another
generation, pluming itself on its enlightened views and kind intentions,
passed the Encumbered Estates Act, which delivered the Irish tenants
over to the tender mercies of speculators and money-lenders; and then
Parliament for a time closed its eyes and ears, and relied upon force
alone to keep Ireland quiet. It rejected every suggestion of reform in
the Land laws; and a great Minister, himself an Irish landlord,
dismissed the whole subject in the flippant epigram that "tenant-right
was landlord-wrong." Since then the Irish Church has been
disestablished, and two Land Acts have been passed; yet we seem to be as
far as ever from the pacification of Ireland. Surely it is time to
inquire whether the evil is not inherent in our system of governing
Ireland, and whether there is any other cure than that which De Beaumont
suggested, namely, the destruction of the system. It is probable that
there is not in all London a more humane or a more kind-hearted man than
Lord Salisbury. Yet Lord Salisbury's Government will do some harsh and
inequitable things in Ireland this winter, just as Liberal Governments
have done during their term of office. The fault is not in the men, but
in the system which they have to administer. I see no reason to doubt
that Sir M. Hicks-Beach did the best he could under the circumstances;
but, unfortunately, bad is the best. In a conversation which I had with
Dr. Döllinger while he was in full communion with his Church, I ventured
to ask him whether he thought that a new Pope, of Liberal ideas, force
of character, and commanding ability, would make any great difference in
the Papal system. "No," he replied, "the Curial system is the growth of
centuries, and there can be no change of any consequence while it lasts.
Many a Pope has begun with brave projects of reform; but the struggle
has been brief, and the end has been invariably the same: the Pope has
been forced to succumb. His _entourage_ has been too much for him. He
has found himself enclosed in a system which was too strong for him,
wheel within wheel; and while the system lasts the most enlightened
ideas and the best intentions are in the long run unavailing." This
criticism applies, _mutatis mutandis_, to what may be called the Curial
system of Dublin Castle. It is a species of political Ultramontanism,
exercising supreme power behind the screen of an official infallibility
on which there is practically no check, since Parliament has never
hitherto refused to grant it any power which it demanded for enforcing
its decrees.
There is, moreover, another consideration which must convince any
dispassionate mind which ponders it, that the British Parliament is
incompetent to manage Irish affairs, and must become increasingly
incompetent year by year. In ordinary circumstances Parliament sits
about twenty-seven weeks out of the fifty-two. Five out of the
twenty-seven may safely be subtracted for holidays, debates on the
Address, and other debates apart from ordinary business. That leaves
twenty-two weeks, and out of these two nights a week are at the disposal
of the Government and three at the disposal of private members; leaving
in all forty-four days for the Government and sixty-six for private
members. Into those forty-four nights Government must compress all its
yearly programme of legislation for the whole of the British Empire,
from the settlement of some petty dispute about land in the Hebrides, to
some question of high policy in Egypt, India, or other portions of the
Queen's world-wide empire; and all this amidst endless distractions,
enforced attendance through dreary debates and vapid talk, and a running
fire of cross-examination from any volunteer questioner out of the six
hundred odd members who sit outside the Government circle. The
consequence is, that Parliament is getting less able every year to
overtake the mass of business which comes before it. Each year
contributes its quota of inevitable arrears to the accumulated mass of
previous Sessions, and the process will go on multiplying in increasing
ratio as the complex and multiform needs of modern life increase. The
large addition recently made to the electorate of the United Kingdom is
already forcing a crop of fresh subjects on the attention of Parliament,
as well as presenting old ones from new points of view. Plans of
devolution and Grand Committees will fail to cope with this evil. To
overcome it we need some organic change in our present Parliamentary
system, some form of decentralization, which shall leave the Imperial
Parliament supreme over all subordinate bodies, yet relegate to the
historic and geographical divisions of the United Kingdom the management
severally of their own local affairs.
I should have better hope from governing Ireland (if it were possible)
as we govern India, than from the present Unionist method of leaving
"things as they are." A Viceroy surrounded by a Council of trained
officials, and in semi-independence of Parliament, would have settled
the Irish question, land and all, long ago. But imagine India governed
on the model of Ireland: the Viceroy and the most important member of
his Government changing with every change of Administration at
Westminster;[19] his Council and the official class in general
consisting almost exclusively of native Mussulmans, deeply prejudiced by
religious and traditional enmity against the great mass of the
population; himself generally subordinate to his Chief Secretary, and
exposed to the daily criticism of an ignorant Parliament and to the
determined hostility of eighty-six Hindoos, holding seats in Parliament
as the representatives of the vast majority of the people of India, and
resenting bitterly the domination of the hereditary oppressors of their
race. How long could the Government of India be carried on under such
conditions?
Viewing it all round, then, it must be admitted that the problem of
governing Ireland while leaving things as they are is a sufficiently
formidable one. Read the remarkable admissions which the facts have
forced from intelligent opponents of Home Rule like Mr. Dicey, and add
to them all the other evils which are rooted in our existing system of
Irish government, and then consider what hope there is, under "things as
they are," of "sedulously doing justice to every demand from Ireland,"
"strenuously, and without fear or favour, asserting the equal rights of
landlords and tenants, Protestants and Catholics," "putting down every
outrage, and reforming every abuse;" and all the "while refusing to
accede to the wishes of millions of Irishmen" for a fundamental change
in a political arrangement that has for centuries produced all the
mischief which the so-called Unionist party are forced to admit, and
much more besides, while it has at the same time frustrated every
serious endeavour to bring about the better state of things which they
expect from--what? From "things as they are!" As well expect grapes from
thorns, or figs from thistles. While the tree remains the same, no
amount of weeding, or pruning, or manuring, or change of culture, will
make it bring forth different fruit. Mr. Dicey, among others, has
demolished what Lord Beaconsfield used to call the "bit-by-bit"
reformers of Irish Government--those who would administer homoeopathic
doses of local self-government, but always under protest that the supply
was to stop short of what would satisfy the hunger of the patient. But a
continuance of "things as they are," gilded with a thin tissue of
benevolent hopes and aspirations, is scarcely a more promising remedy
for the ills of Ireland. Is it not time to try some new treatment--one
which has been tried in similar cases, and always with success? One only
policy has never been tried in Ireland--honest Home Rule.
Certainly, if Home Rule is to be refused till all the prophets of evil
are refuted, Ireland must go without Home Rule for ever. "If the sky
fall, we shall catch larks." But he would be a foolish bird-catcher who
waited for that contingency. And not less foolish is the statesman who
sits still till every conceivable objection to his policy has been
mathematically refuted in advance, and every wild prediction falsified
by the event; for that would ensure his never moving at all. _Sedet
æternumque sedebit_. A proper enough attitude, perhaps, on the part of
an eristic philosopher speculating on politics in the silent shade of
academic groves, but hardly suitable for a practical politician who has
to take action on one of the most burning questions of our time. Human
affairs are not governed by mathematical reasoning. You cannot
demonstrate the precise results of any legislative measure beforehand as
you can demonstrate the course of a planet in the solar system.
"Probability," as Bishop Butler says, "is the guide of life;" and an
older philosopher than Butler has warned us that to demand demonstrative
proof in the sphere of contingent matter is the same kind of absurdity
as to demand probable reasoning in mathematics. You cannot confute a
prophet before the event; you can only disbelieve him. The advocates of
Home Rule believe that their policy would in general have an exactly
contrary effect to that predicted by their opponents. In truth, every
act of legislation is, before experience, amenable to such destructive
criticism as these critics urge against Home Rule. I have not a doubt
that they could have made out an unanswerable "case" against the Great
Charter at Runnymede; and they would find it easy to prove on _à priori_
grounds that the British Constitution is one of the most absurd,
mischievous, and unworkable instruments that ever issued from human
brains or from the evolution of events. By their method of reasoning the
Great Charter and other fundamental portions of the Constitution ought
to have brought the Government of the British Empire to a deadlock long
ago. Every suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, every Act of Attainder,
every statute for summary trial and conviction before justices of the
peace, is a violation of the fundamental article of the Constitution,
which requires that no man shall be imprisoned or otherwise punished
except after lawful trial by his peers.[20] Consider also the magazines
of explosive materials which lie hidden in the constitutional
prerogatives of the Crown, if they could only be ignited by the match of
an ingenious theorist. The Crown, as Lord Sherbrooke once somewhat
irreverently expressed it, "can turn every cobbler in the land into a
peer," and could thus put an end, as the Duke of Wellington declared, to
"the Constitution of this country."[21] "The Crown is not bound by Act
of Parliament unless named therein by special and particular words."[22]
The Crown can make peace or war without consulting Parliament, can by
secret treaty saddle the nation with the most perilous obligations, and
give away all such portions of the empire as do not rest on Statute. The
prerogative of mercy, too, would enable an eccentric Sovereign, aided by
an obsequious Minister, to open the jails and let all the convicted
criminals in the land loose upon society.[22] But criticism which proves
too much in effect proves nothing.
In short, every stage in the progress of constitutional reform has, in
matter of fact, been marked by similar predictions falsified by results,
and the prophets who condemn Home Rule have no better credentials;
indeed, much worse, for they proclaim the miserable failure of "things
as they are," whereas their predecessors were in their day satisfied
with things as they were.[23]
It is, high time, therefore, to call upon the opponents of Home Rule to
tell us plainly where they stand. They claim a mandate from the country
for their policy. They neither asked nor received a mandate to support
the system of Government which prevailed in Ireland at the last
election, and still less the policy of coercion which they have
substituted for that system. Do they mean to go back or forward? They
cannot stand still. They have already discovered that one act of
repression leads to another, and they will find ere long that they have
no alternative except Home Rule or the suppression of Parliamentary
Government in Ireland. Men may talk lightly of the ease with which
eighty-six Irish members may be kept in order in Parliament. They forget
that the Irish people are behind the Irish members. How is Ireland to be
governed on Parliamentary principles if the voice of her representatives
is to be forcibly silenced or disregarded? Could even Yorkshire or
Lancashire be governed permanently in that way? Let it be observed that
we have now reached this pass, namely, that the opponents of Home Rule
are opposed to the Irish members, not on any particular form of
self-government for Ireland, but on any form; in other words, they
resist the all but unanimous demand of Ireland for what "Unionists" of
all parties declared a year ago to be a reasonable demand. No candidate
at the last election ventured to ask the suffrages of any constituency
as "a supporter of things as they are." Yet that is practically the
attitude now assumed by the Ministerial party, both Conservatives and
Liberal Unionists. It is an attitude of which the country is getting
weary, as the bye-elections have shown. But the "Unionists," it must be
admitted, are in a sore dilemma. Their strength, such as it is, lies in
doing nothing for the reform of Irish Government. Their bond of union
consists of nothing else but opposition to Mr. Gladstone's policy. They
dare not attempt to formulate any policy of their own, knowing well that
they would go to pieces in the process. Their hope and speculation is
that something may happen to remove Mr. Gladstone from the political
arena before the next dissolution. But, after all, Mr. Gladstone did not
create the Irish difficulty. It preceded him and will survive him,
unless it is settled to the satisfaction of the Irish people before his
departure. And the difficulty of the final settlement will increase with
every year of delay. Nor will the difficulty be confined to Ireland. The
Irish question is already reacting upon kindred, though not identical,
problems in England and Scotland, and the longer it is kept open, so
much the worse will it be for what are generally regarded as
Conservative interests. It is not the Moderate Liberals or Conservatives
who are gaining ground by the prolongation of the controversy, and the
disappearance of Mr. Gladstone from the scene would have the effect of
removing from the forces of extreme Radicalism a conservative influence,
which his political opponents will discover when it is too late to
restore it. Their regret will then be as unavailing as the lament of
William of Deloraine over his fallen foe--
"I'd give the lands of Deloraine
Dark Musgrave were alive again."
The Irish landlords have already begun to realize the mistake they made
when they rejected Mr. Gladstone's policy of Home Rule and Land
Purchase. It is the old story of the Sibyl's books. No British
Government will ever again offer such terms to the Irish landlords as
they refused to accept from Mr. Gladstone. On the other hand, Home Rule
is inevitable. Can any reflective person really suppose that the
democracy of Great Britain will consent to refuse to share with the
Irish people the boon of self-government which will be offered to
themselves next year? Any attempt to exclude the Irish from the benefits
of such a scheme, after all the promises of the last general election,
would almost certainly wreck the government; for constituencies have
ways and means of impressing their wills on their representatives in
Parliament even without a dissolution. If, on the other hand, Ireland
should be included in a general scheme of local Government, the question
of who shall control the police will arise. In Great Britain the police,
of course, will be under local control. To refuse this to Ireland would
be to offer a boon with a stigma attached to it. The Irish members
agreed to let the control of the constabulary remain, under Mr.
Gladstone's scheme, for some years in the hands of the British
Government; but they would not agree to this while Dublin Castle ruled
the country. Moreover, the formidable difficulty suggested by Lord
Salisbury and Mr. John Stuart Mill (see pp. 115, 116) would appear the
moment men began seriously to consider the question of local government
for Ireland. The government of Dublin Castle would have to go, but
something would have to be put in its place; and when that point has
been reached it will probably be seen that nothing much better or safer
can be found than some plan on the main lines of Mr. Gladstone's Bill.