In the introduction to the new edition of the _Leaders of Public Opinion
in Ireland_, published in 1871--seventy-one years after Mr. Pitt's
Union, which was to make England and Ireland one nation--we find the
following "contrast" between "national life" in the two countries:--
"There is, perhaps, no Government in the world which succeeds more
admirably in the functions of eliciting, sustaining, and directing
public opinion than that of England. It does not, it is true, escape its
full share of hostile criticism, and, indeed, rather signally
illustrates the saying of Bacon, that 'the best Governments are always
subject to be like the finest crystals, in which every icicle and grain
is seen which in a fouler stone is never perceived;' but whatever
charges may be brought against the balance of its powers, or against its
legislative efficiency, few men will question its eminent success as an
organ of public opinion. In England an even disproportionate amount of
the national talent takes the direction of politics. The pulse of an
energetic national life is felt in every quarter of the land. The
debates of Parliament are followed with a warm, constant, and
intelligent interest by all sections of the community. It draws all
classes within the circle of political interests, and is the centre of a
strong and steady patriotism, equally removed from the apathy of many
Continental nations in time of calm, and from their feverish and
spasmodic energy in time of excitement. Its decisions, if not instantly
accepted, never fail to have a profound and calming influence on the
public mind. It is the safety-valve of the nation. The discontents, the
suspicions, the peccant humours that agitate the people, find there
their vent, their resolution, and their end.
"It is impossible, I think, not to be struck by the contrast which, in
this respect, Ireland presents to England. If the one country furnishes
us with an admirable example of the action of a healthy public opinion,
the other supplies us with the most unequivocal signs of its disease.
The Imperial Parliament exercises for Ireland legislative functions, but
it is almost powerless upon opinion--it allays no discontent, and
attracts no affection. Political talent, which for many years was at
least as abundant among Irishmen as in any equally numerous section of
the people, has been steadily declining, and marked decadence in this
respect among the representatives of the nation reflects but too truly
the absence of public spirit in their constituents.
"The upper classes have lost their sympathy with and their moral
ascendency over their tenants, and are thrown for the most part into a
policy of mere obstruction. The genuine national enthusiasm never flows
in the channel of imperial politics. With great multitudes sectarian
considerations have entirely superseded national ones, and their
representatives are accustomed systematically to subordinate all party
and all political questions to ecclesiastical interests; and while
calling themselves Liberals, they make it the main object of their home
politics to separate the different classes of their fellow-countrymen
during the period of their education, and the main object of their
foreign policy to support the temporal power of the Pope. With another
and a still larger class the prevailing feeling seems to be an
indifference to all Parliamentary proceedings; an utter scepticism about
constitutional means of realizing their ends; a blind, persistent hatred
of England. Every cause is taken up with an enthusiasm exactly
proportioned to the degree in which it is supposed to be injurious to
English interests. An amount of energy and enthusiasm which if rightly
directed would suffice for the political regeneration of Ireland is
wasted in the most insane projects of disloyalty; while the diversion of
so much public feeling from Parliamentary politics leaves the
Parliamentary arena more and more open to corruption, to place-hunting,
and to imposture.
"This picture is in itself a very melancholy one, but there are other
circumstances which greatly heighten the effect. In a very ignorant or a
very wretched population it is natural that there should be much vague,
unreasoning discontent; but the Irish people are at present neither
wretched nor ignorant. Their economical condition before the famine was,
indeed, such that it might well have made reasonable men despair. With
the land divided into almost microscopic farms, with a population
multiplying rapidly to the extreme limits of subsistence, accustomed to
the very lowest standard of comfort, and marrying earlier than in any
other northern country in Europe, it was idle to look for habits of
independence or self-reliance, or for the culture which follows in the
train of leisure and comfort. But all this has been changed. A fearful
famine and the long-continued strain of emigration have reduced the
nation from eight millions to less than five, and have effected, at the
price of almost intolerable suffering, a complete economical revolution.
The population is now in no degree in excess of the means of
subsistence. The rise of wages and prices has diffused comfort through
all classes. ... Probably no country in Europe has advanced so rapidly
as Ireland within the last ten years, and the tone of cheerfulness, the
improvement of the houses, the dress, and the general condition of the
people must have struck every observer.[26] ... If industrial
improvement, if the rapid increase of material comforts among the poor,
could allay political discontent, Ireland should never have been so
loyal as at present.
"Nor can it be said that ignorance is at the root of the discontent. The
Irish people have always, even in the darkest period of the penal laws,
been greedy for knowledge, and few races show more quickness in
acquiring it. The admirable system of national education established in
the present century is beginning to bear abundant fruit, and, among the
younger generation at least, the level of knowledge is quite as high as
in England. Indeed, one of the most alarming features of Irish
disloyalty is its close and evident connection with education. It is
sustained by a cheap literature, written often with no mean literary
skill, which penetrates into every village, gives the people their first
political impressions, forms and directs their enthusiasm, and seems
likely in the long leisure of the pastoral life to exercise an
increasing power. Close observers of the Irish character will hardly
have failed to notice the great change which since the famine has passed
over the amusements of the people. The old love of boisterous
out-of-door sports has almost disappeared, and those who would have once
sought their pleasures in the market or the fair now gather in groups in
the public-house, where one of their number reads out a Fenian
newspaper. Whatever else this change may portend, it is certainly of no
good omen for the future loyalty of the people.
"It was long customary in England to underrate this disaffection by
ascribing it to very transitory causes. The quarter of a century that
followed the Union was marked by almost perpetual disturbance; but this
it was said was merely the natural ground swell of agitation which
followed a great reform. It was then the popular theory that it was the
work of O'Connell, who was described during many years as the one
obstacle to the peace of Ireland, and whose death was made the subject
of no little congratulation, as though Irish discontent had perished
with its organ. It was as if, the Æolian harp being shattered, men wrote
an epitaph upon the wind. Experience has abundantly proved the folly of
such theories. Measured by mere chronology, a little more than seventy
years have passed since the Union, but famine and emigration have
compressed into these years the work of centuries. The character,
feelings, and conditions of the people have been profoundly altered. A
long course of remedial legislation has been carried, and during many
years the national party has been without a leader and without a
stimulus. Yet, so far from subsiding, disloyalty in Ireland is probably
as extensive, and is certainly as malignant, as at the death of
O'Connell, only in many respects the public opinion of the country has
palpably deteriorated. O'Connell taught an attachment to the connection,
a loyalty to the crown, a respect for the rights of property, a
consistency of Liberalism, which we look for in vain among his
successors; and that faith in moral force and constitutional agitation
which he made it one of his greatest objects to instil into the people
has almost vanished with the failure of his agitation."[27]
Few Irish Nationalists have drawn a weightier indictment against the
Union than this. After a trial of seventy years, Mr. Lecky sums up the
case against the Union in these pregnant sentences:--
"The Imperial Parliament allays no discontent, and attracts no
affection;" "The genuine national enthusiasm never flows in the channel
of imperial politics;" the people have "an utter scepticism about
constitutional means of realizing their ends," and are imbued with "a
blind, persistent hatred of England." Worse still, neither the material
progress of the country, nor the education of the people, has
reconciled them to the Imperial Parliament. Indeed, their disloyalty has
increased with their prosperity and enlightenment. This is the story
which Mr. Lecky has to tell. But why are the Irish disloyal? Mr. Lecky
shall answer the question.
"The causes of this deep-seated disaffection I have endeavoured in some
degree to investigate in the following essays. To the merely dramatic
historian the history of Ireland will probably appear less attractive
than that of most other countries, for it is somewhat deficient in great
characters and in splendid episodes; but to a philosophic student of
history it presents an interest of the very highest order. In no other
history can we trace more clearly the chain of causes and effects, the
influence of past legislation, not only upon the material condition, but
also upon the character of a nation. In no other history especially can
we investigate more fully the evil consequences which must ensue from
disregarding that sentiment of nationality which, whether it be wise or
foolish, whether it be desirable or the reverse, is at least one of the
strongest and most enduring of human passions. This, as I conceive, lies
at the root of Irish discontent. It is a question of nationality as
truly as in Hungary or in Poland. Special grievances or anomalies may
aggravate, but do not cause it, and they become formidable only in as
far as they are connected with it. What discontent was felt against the
Protestant Established Church was felt chiefly because it was regarded
as an English garrison sustaining an anti-national system; and the
agrarian difficulty never assumed its full intensity till by the repeal
agitation the landlords had been politically alienated from the
people."[28]
Let those who imagine that the Irish question can be completely settled
by the redress of material grievances take those words to heart.
But, it is said, Scotch national sentiment is as strong as Irish, why
should not a legislative union be as acceptable to Ireland as to
Scotland? Mr. Lecky shall answer this question too.
"It is hardly possible to advert to the Scotch Union, without pausing
for a moment to examine why its influence on the loyalty of the people
should have ultimately been so much happier than that of the legislative
union which, nearly a century later, was enacted between England and
Ireland. A very slight attention to the circumstances of the case will
explain the mystery, and will at the same time show the extreme
shallowness of those theorists who can only account for it by reference
to original peculiarities of national character. The sacrifice of a
nationality is a measure which naturally produces such intense and such
enduring discontent that it never should be exacted unless it can be
accompanied by some political or material advantages to the lesser
country that are so great and at the same time so evident as to prove a
corrective. Such a corrective in the case of Scotland, was furnished by
the commercial clauses. The Scotch Parliament was very arbitrary and
corrupt, and by no means a faithful representation of the people. The
majority of the nation were certainly opposed to the Union, and,
directly or indirectly, it is probable that much corruption was employed
to effect it; but still the fact remains that by it one of the most
ardent wishes of all Scottish patriots was attained, that there had been
for many years a powerful and intelligent minority who were prepared to
purchase commercial freedom even at the expense of the fusion of
legislatures, and that in consequence of the establishment of free trade
the next generation of Scotchmen witnessed an increase of material
well-being that was utterly unprecedented in the history of their
country. Nothing equivalent took place in Ireland. The gradual abolition
of duties between England and Ireland was, no doubt, an advantage to the
lesser country, but the whole trade to America and the other English
colonies had been thrown open to Irishmen between 1775 and 1779. Irish
commerce had taken this direction; the years between 1779 and the
rebellion of 1798 were probably the most prosperous in Irish history,
and the generation that followed the Union was one of the most
miserable. The sacrifice of nationality was extorted by the most
enormous corruption in the history of representative institutions. It
was demanded by no considerable section of the Irish people. It was
accompanied by no signal political or material benefit that could
mitigate or counteract its unpopularity, and it was effected without a
dissolution, in opposition to the votes of the immense majority of the
representatives of the counties and considerable towns, and to
innumerable addresses from every part of the country. Can any impartial
man be surprised that such a measure, carried in such a manner, should
have proved unsuccessful?"[29]
In the _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_ Mr. Lecky traces the
current of events which have led to the present situation. He shows how
the Treaty of Limerick was shamelessly violated, and how the native
population was oppressed and degraded.
"The position of Ireland was at this time [1727] one of the most
deplorable that can be conceived.... The Roman Catholics had been
completely prostrated by the battle of the Boyne and by the surrender of
Limerick. They had stipulated indeed for religious liberty, but the
Treaty of Limerick was soon shamelessly violated, and it found no
avengers. Sarsfield and his brave companions had abandoned a country
where defeat left no opening for their talents, and had joined the Irish
Brigade which had been formed in the service of France.... But while the
Irish Roman Catholics abroad found free scope for their ambition in the
service of France, those who remained at home had sunk into a condition
of utter degradation. All Catholic energy and talent had emigrated to
foreign lands, and penal laws of atrocious severity crushed the
Catholics who remained."[30]
Mr. Lecky's account of these "penal laws" is upon the whole, I think,
the best that has been written.
"The last great Protestant ruler of England was William III., who is
identified in Ireland with the humiliation of the Boyne, with the
destruction of Irish trade, and with the broken Treaty of Limerick. The
ceaseless exertions of the extreme Protestant party have made him more
odious in the eyes of the people than he deserves to be; for he was
personally far more tolerant than the great majority of his
contemporaries, and the penal code was chiefly enacted under his
successors. It required, indeed, four or five reigns to elaborate a
system so ingeniously contrived to demoralize, to degrade, and to
impoverish the people of Ireland. By this code the Roman Catholics were
absolutely excluded from the Parliament, from the magistracy, from the
corporations, from the bench, and from the bar. They could not vote at
Parliamentary elections or at vestries; they could not act as
constables, or sheriffs, or jurymen, or serve in the army or navy, or
become solicitors, or even hold the positions of gamekeeper or watchman.
Schools were established to bring up their children as Protestants; and
if they refused to avail themselves of these, they were deliberately
assigned to hopeless ignorance, being excluded from the university, and
debarred, under crushing penalties, from acting as schoolmasters, as
ushers, or as private tutors, or from sending their children abroad to
obtain the instruction they were refused at home. They could not marry
Protestants, and if such a marriage were celebrated it was annulled by
law, and the priest who officiated might be hung. They could not buy
land, or inherit or receive it as a gift from Protestants, or hold
life-annuities, or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any lease
on such terms that the profits of the land exceeded one-third of the
rent. If any Catholic leaseholder by his industry so increased his
profits that they exceeded this proportion, and did not immediately make
a corresponding increase in his payments, any Protestant who gave the
information could enter into possession of his farm. If any Catholic had
secretly purchased either his old forfeited estate, or any other land,
any Protestant who informed against him might become the proprietor. The
few Catholic landowners who remained were deprived of the right which
all other classes possessed of bequeathing their lands as they pleased.
If their sons continued Catholics, it was divided equally between them.
If, however, the eldest son consented to apostatize, the estate was
settled upon him, the father from that hour became only a life-tenant,
and lost all power of selling, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of it.
If the wife of a Catholic abandoned the religion of her husband, she was
immediately free from his control, and the Chancellor was empowered to
assign to her a certain proportion of her husband's property. If any
child, however young, professed itself a Protestant, it was at once
taken from the father's care, and the Chancellor could oblige the father
to declare upon oath the value of his property, both real and personal,
and could assign for the present maintenance and future portion of the
converted child such proportion of that property as the court might
decree. No Catholic could be guardian either to his own children or to
those of another person; and therefore a Catholic who died while his
children were minors had the bitterness of reflecting upon his death-bed
that they must pass into the care of Protestants. An annuity of from
twenty to forty pounds was provided as a bribe for every priest who
would become a Protestant. To convert a Protestant to Catholicism was a
capital offence. In every walk of life the Catholic was pursued by
persecution or restriction. Except in the linen trade, he could not have
more than two apprentices. He could not possess a horse of the value of
more than five pounds, and any Protestant, on giving him five pounds,
could take his horse. He was compelled to pay double to the militia. He
was forbidden, except under particular conditions, to live in Galway or
Limerick. In case of war with a Catholic power, the Catholics were
obliged to reimburse the damage done by the enemy's privateers. The
Legislature, it is true, did not venture absolutely to suppress their
worship, but it existed only by a doubtful connivance--stigmatized as if
it were a species of licensed prostitution, and subject to conditions
which, if they had been enforced, would have rendered its continuance
impossible. An old law which prohibited it, and another which enjoined
attendance at the Anglican worship, remained unrepealed, and might at
any time be revived; and the former was, in fact, enforced during the
Scotch rebellion of 1715. The parish priests, who alone were allowed to
officiate, were compelled to be registered, and were forbidden to keep
curates or to officiate anywhere except in their own parishes. The
chapels might not have bells or steeples. No crosses might be publicly
erected. Pilgrimages to the holy wells were forbidden. Not only all
monks and friars, but also all Catholic archbishops, bishops, deacons,
and other dignitaries, were ordered by a certain day to leave the
country; and if after that date they were found in Ireland they were
liable to be first imprisoned and then banished; and if after that
banishment they returned to discharge their duty in their dioceses, they
were liable to the punishment of death. To facilitate the discovery of
offences against the code, two justices of the peace might at any time
compel any Catholic of eighteen years of age to declare when and where
he last heard Mass, what persons were present, and who officiated; and
if he refused to give evidence they might imprison him for twelve
months, or until he paid a fine of twenty pounds. Any one who harboured
ecclesiastics from beyond the seas was subject to fines which for the
third offence amounted to confiscation of all his goods. A graduated
scale of rewards was offered for the discovery of Catholic bishops,
priests, and schoolmasters; and a resolution of the House of Commons
pronounced 'the prosecuting and informing against Papists' 'an
honourable service to the Government.'
"Such were the principal articles of this famous code--a code which
Burke truly described as 'well digested and well disposed in all its
parts; a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted
for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the
debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the
perverted ingenuity of man.'"[31]
The effects of these laws Mr. Lecky has described thus:
"The economical and moral effects of the penal laws were, however,
profoundly disastrous. The productive energies of the nation were
fatally diminished. Almost all Catholics of energy and talent who
refused to abandon their faith emigrated to foreign lands. The relation
of classes was permanently vitiated; for almost all the proprietary of
the country belonged to one religion, while the great majority of their
tenants were of another. The Catholics, excluded from almost every
possibility of eminence, deprived of their natural leaders, and
consigned by the Legislature to utter ignorance, soon sank into the
condition of broken and dispirited helots. A total absence of industrial
virtues, a cowering and abject deference to authority, a recklessness
about the future, a love of secret illegal combinations, became general
among them. Above all, they learned to regard law as merely the
expression of force, and its moral weight was utterly destroyed. For the
greater part of a century, the main object of the Legislature was to
extirpate a religion by the encouragement of the worst, and the
punishment of some of the best qualities of our nature. Its rewards were
reserved for the informer, for the hypocrite, for the undutiful son, or
for the faithless wife. Its penalties were directed against religious
constancy and the honest discharge of ecclesiastical duty.
"It would, indeed, be scarcely possible to conceive a more infamous
system of legal tyranny than that which in the middle of the eighteenth
century crushed every class and almost every interest in Ireland."[32]
But laws were not only passed against the native race and the national
religion. Measures were taken to destroy the industries of the country,
and to involve natives and colonists, Protestants and Catholics, in
common ruin. Mr. Lecky shall tell the story.
"The commercial and industrial condition of the country was, if
possible, more deplorable than its political condition, and was the
result of a series of English measures which for deliberate and selfish
tyranny could hardly be surpassed. Until the reign of Charles II. the
Irish shared the commercial privileges of the English; but as the island
had not been really conquered till the reign of Elizabeth, and as its
people were till then scarcely removed from barbarism, the progress was
necessarily slow. In the early Stuart reigns, however, comparative
repose and good government were followed by a sudden rush of prosperity.
The land was chiefly pasture, for which it was admirably adapted; the
export of live cattle to England was carried on upon a large scale, and
it became a chief source of Irish wealth. The English landowners,
however, took the alarm. They complained that Irish rivalry in the
cattle market was reducing English rents; and accordingly, by an Act
which was first passed in 1663, and was made perpetual in 1666, the
importation of cattle into England was forbidden.
"The effect of a measure of this kind, levelled at the principal article
of the commerce of the nation, was necessarily most disastrous. The
profound modification which it introduced into the course of Irish
industry was sufficiently shown by the estimate of Sir W. Petty, who
declares that before the statute three-fourths of the trade of Ireland
was with England, but not one-fourth of it since that time. In the very
year when this Bill was passed another measure was taken not less fatal
to the interest of the country. In the first Navigation Act, Ireland was
placed on the same terms as England; but in the Act as amended in 1663
she was omitted, and was thus deprived of the whole Colonial trade. With
the exception of a very few specified articles no European merchandise
could be imported into the British Colonies except directly from
England, in ships built in England, and manned chiefly by English
sailors. No articles, with a few exceptions, could be brought from the
Colonies to Europe without being first unladen in England. In 1670 this
exclusion of Ireland was confirmed, and in 1696 it was rendered more
stringent, for it was enacted that no goods of any sort could be
imported directly from the Colonies to Ireland. It will be remembered
that at this time the chief British Colonies were those of America, and
that Ireland, by her geographical position, was naturally of all
countries most fitted for the American trade.
"As far, then, as the Colonial trade was concerned, Ireland at this time
gained nothing whatever by her connection with England. To other
countries, however, her ports were still open, and in time of peace a
foreign commerce was unrestricted. When forbidden to export their cattle
to England, the Irish turned their land chiefly into sheep-walks, and
proceeded energetically to manufacture the wool. Some faint traces of
this manufacture may be detected from an early period, and Lord
Strafford, when governing Ireland, had mentioned it with a
characteristic comment. Speaking of the Irish he says, 'There was little
or no manufactures amongst them, but some small beginnings towards a
cloth trade, which I had and so should still discourage all I could,
unless otherwise directed by His Majesty and their Lordships. It might
be feared that they would beat us out of the trade itself by
underselling us, which they were able to do.' With the exception,
however, of an abortive effort by this governor, the Irish wool
manufacture was in no degree impeded, and was indeed mentioned with
special favour in many Acts of Parliament; and it was in a great degree
on the faith of this long-continued legislative sanction that it was so
greatly expanded. The poverty of Ireland, the low state of civilization
of a large proportion of its inhabitants, the effects of the civil wars
which had so recently convulsed it, and the exclusion of its products
from the English Colonies, were doubtless great obstacles to
manufacturing enterprise; but, on the other hand, Irish wool was very
good, living was cheaper, taxes were lighter than in England, a spirit
of real industrial energy began to pervade the country, and a
considerable number of English manufacturers came over to colonize it.
There appeared for a time every probability that the Irish would become
an industrial nation, and, had manufactures arisen, their whole social,
political, and economical condition would have been changed. But English
jealousy again interposed. By an Act of crushing and unprecedented
severity, which was introduced in 1698 and carried in 1699, the export
of the Irish woollen manufactures, not only to England, but also to all
other countries, was absolutely forbidden.
"The effects of this measure were terrible almost beyond conception. The
main industry of the country was at a blow completely and irretrievably
annihilated. A vast population was thrown into a condition of utter
destitution. Several thousands of manufacturers left the country, and
carried their skill and enterprise to Germany, France, and Spain. The
western and southern districts of Ireland are said to have been nearly
depopulated. Emigration to America began on a large scale, and the blow
was so severe that long after, a kind of chronic famine prevailed."[33]
Mr. Lecky relates with pride how the penal code was relaxed, and the
commercial restrictions were removed, while the Irish Parliament,
essentially a Protestant and landlord body, still existed, and shows how
the cause of Catholic Emancipation was retarded by the Union.
"The Relief Bill of '93 naturally suggests a consideration of the
question so often agitated in Ireland, whether the Union was really a
benefit to the Roman Catholic cause. It has been argued that Catholic
Emancipation was an impossibility as long as the Irish Parliament
lasted; for in a country where the great majority were Roman Catholics,
it would be folly to expect the members of the dominant creed to
surrender a monopoly on which their ascendency depended. The arguments
against this view are, I believe, overwhelming. The injustice of the
disqualification was far more striking before the Union than after it.
In the one case, the Roman Catholics were excluded from the Parliament
of a nation of which they were the great majority; in the other, they
were excluded from the Parliament of an empire in which they were a
small minority. Grattan, Plunket, Curran, Burrowes, and Ponsonby were
the great supporters of Catholic Emancipation, and the great opponents
of the Union. Clare and Duigenan were the two great opponents of
emancipation, and the great supporters of the Union. At a time when
scarcely any public opinion existed in Ireland, when the Roman Catholics
were nearly quiescent, and when the leaning of Government was generally
liberal, the Irish Protestants admitted their fellow-subjects to the
magistracy, to the jury-box, and to the franchise. By this last measure
they gave them an amount of political power which necessarily implied
complete emancipation. Even if no leader of genius had arisen in the
Roman Catholic ranks, and if no spirit of enthusiasm had animated their
councils, the influence possessed by a body who formed three fourths of
the population, who were rapidly rising in wealth, and who could send
their representatives to Parliament, would have been sufficient to
ensure their triumph. If the Irish Legislature had continued, it would
have been found impossible to resist the demand for reform; and every
reform, by diminishing the overgrown power of a few Protestant
landholders, would have increased that of the Roman Catholics. The
concession accorded in 1793 was, in fact, far greater and more important
than that accorded in 1829, and it placed the Roman Catholics, in a
great measure, above the mercy of Protestants. But this was not all. The
sympathies of the Protestants were being rapidly enlisted in their
behalf. The generation to which Charlemont and Flood belonged had passed
away, and all the leading intellects of the country, almost all the
Opposition, and several conspicuous members of the Government, were
warmly in favour of emancipation. The rancour which at present exists
between the members of the two creeds appears then to have been almost
unknown, and the real obstacle to emancipation was not the feelings of
the people, but the policy of the Government. The Bar may be considered
on most subjects a very fair exponent of the educated opinion of the
nation; and Wolf Tone observed, in 1792, that it was almost unanimous in
favour of the Catholics; and it is not without importance, as showing
the tendencies of the rising generation, that a large body of the
students of Dublin University in 1795 presented an address to Grattan,
thanking him for his labours in the cause. The Roman Catholics were
rapidly gaining the public opinion of Ireland, when the Union arrayed
against them another public opinion which was deeply prejudiced against
their faith, and almost entirely removed from their influence. Compare
the twenty years before the Union with the twenty years that followed
it, and the change is sufficiently manifest. There can scarcely be a
question that if Lord Fitzwilliam had remained in office the Irish
Parliament would readily have given emancipation. In the United
Parliament for many years it was obstinately rejected, and if O'Connell
had never arisen it would probably never have been granted unqualified
by the veto. In 1828 when the question was brought forward in
Parliament, sixty-one out of ninety-three Irish members, forty-five out
of sixty-one Irish county members, voted in its favour. Year after year
Grattan and Plunket brought forward the case of their fellow-countrymen
with an eloquence and a perseverance worthy of their great cause; but
year after year they were defeated. It was not till the great tribune
had arisen, till he had moulded his co-religionists into one compact and
threatening mass, and had brought the country to the verge of
revolution, that the tardy boon was conceded. Eloquence and argument
proved alike unavailing when unaccompanied by menace, and Catholic
Emancipation was confessedly granted because to withhold it would be to
produce a rebellion."[34]
Many people will think that this is a sufficiently weighty condemnation
of the Union, but what follows is a still graver reflection on that
untoward measure.
"In truth the harmonious co-operation of Ireland with England depends
much less upon the framework of the institutions of the former country
than upon the dispositions of its people and upon the classes who guide
its political life. With a warm and loyal attachment to the connection
pervading the nation, the largest amount of self-government might be
safely conceded, and the most defective political arrangement might
prove innocuous. This is the true cement of nations, and no change,
however plausible in theory, can be really advantageous which
contributes to diminish it. Theorists may argue that it would be better
for Ireland to become in every respect a province of England; they may
contend that a union of Legislatures, accompanied by a corresponding
fusion of characters and identification of hopes, interests, and
desires, would strengthen the empire; but as a matter of fact this was
not what was effected in 1800. The measure of Pitt centralized, but it
did not unite, or rather, by uniting the Legislatures it divided the
nations. In a country where the sentiment of nationality was as intense
as in any part of Europe, it destroyed the national Legislature contrary
to the manifest wish of the people, and by means so corrupt,
treacherous, and shameful that they are never likely to be forgotten. In
a country where, owing to the religious difference, it was peculiarly
necessary that a vigorous lay public opinion should be fostered to
dilute or restrain the sectarian spirit, it suppressed the centre and
organ of political life, directed the energies of the community into the
channels of sectarianism, drove its humours inwards, and thus began a
perversion of public opinion which has almost destroyed the elements of
political progress. In a country where the people have always been
singularly destitute of self-reliance, and at the same time eminently
faithful to their leaders, it withdrew the guidance of affairs from the
hands of the resident gentry, and, by breaking their power, prepared the
ascendency of the demagogue or the rebel. In two plain ways it was
dangerous to the connection: it incalculably increased the aggregate
disloyalty of the people, and it destroyed the political supremacy of
the class that is most attached to the connection. The Irish Parliament,
with all its faults, was an eminently loyal body. The Irish people
through the eighteenth century, in spite of great provocations, were on
the whole a loyal people till the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, and even
then a few very moderate measures of reform might have reclaimed them.
Burke, in his _Letters on a Regicide Peace_, when reviewing the elements
of strength on which England could confide in her struggle with
revolutionary France, placed in the very first rank the co-operation of
Ireland. At the present day, it is to be feared that most impartial men
would regard Ireland, in the event of a great European war, rather as a
source of weakness than of strength. More than seventy years have passed
since the boasted measure of Pitt, and it is unfortunately incontestable
that the lower orders in Ireland are as hostile to the system of
government under which they live as the Hungarian people have ever been
to Austrian, or the Roman to Papal rule; that Irish disloyalty is
multiplying enemies of England wherever the English tongue is spoken;
and that the national sentiment runs so strongly that multitudes of
Irish Catholics look back with deep affection to the Irish Parliament,
although no Catholic could sit within its walls, and although it was
only during the last seven years of its independent existence that
Catholics could vote for its members. Among the opponents of the Union
were many of the most loyal, as well as nearly all the ablest men in
Ireland; and Lord Charlemont, who died shortly before the measure was
consummated, summed up the feelings of many in the emphatic sentence
with which he protested against it. 'It would more than any other
measure,' he said, 'contribute to the separation of two countries the
perpetual connection of which is one of the warmest wishes of my heart.'
"In fact, the Union of 1800 was not only a great crime, but was also,
like most crimes, a great blunder. The manner in which it was carried
was not only morally scandalous; it also entirely vitiated it as a work
of statesmanship. No great political measure can be rationally judged
upon its abstract merits, and without considering the character and the
wishes of the people for whom it is intended. It is now idle to discuss
what might have been the effect of a Union if it had been carried before
1782, when the Parliament was still unemancipated; if it had been the
result of a spontaneous movement of public opinion; if it had been
accompanied by the emancipation of the Catholics. Carried as it was
prematurely, in defiance of the national sentiment of the people and of
the protests of the unbribed talent of the country, it has deranged the
whole course of political development, driven a large proportion of the
people into sullen disloyalty, and almost destroyed healthy public
opinion. In comparing the abundance of political talent in Ireland
during the last century with the striking absence of it at present,
something no doubt may be attributed to the absence of protection for
literary property in Ireland in the former period, which may have
directed an unusual portion of the national talent to politics, and
something to the Colonial and Indian careers which have of late years
been thrown open to competition; but when all due allowances have been
made for these, the contrast is sufficiently impressive. Few impartial
men can doubt that the tone of political life and the standard of
political talent have been lowered, while sectarian animosity has been
greatly increased, and the extent to which Fenian principles have
permeated the people is a melancholy comment upon the prophesies that
the Union would put an end to disloyalty in Ireland."[35]
Mr. Lecky's views as to what ought to have been done in 1800 deserve to
be set forth.
"While, however, the Irish policy of Pitt appears to be both morally and
politically deserving of almost unmitigated condemnation, I cannot agree
with those who believe that the arrangement of 1782 could have been
permanent. The Irish Parliament would doubtless have been in time
reformed, but it would have soon found its situation intolerable.
Imperial policy must necessarily have been settled by the Imperial
Parliament, in which Ireland had no voice; and, unlike Canada or
Australia, Ireland is profoundly affected by every change of Imperial
policy. Connection with England was of overwhelming importance to the
lesser country, while the tie uniting them would have been found
degrading by one nation and inconvenient to the other. Under such
circumstances a Union of some kind was inevitable. It was simply a
question of time, and must have been demanded by Irish opinion. At the
same time, it would not, I think, have been such a Union as that of
1800. The conditions of Irish and English politics are so extremely
different, and the reasons for preserving in Ireland a local centre of
political life are so powerful, that it is probable a Federal Union
would have been preferred. Under such a system the Irish Parliament
would have continued to exist, but would have been restricted to purely
local subjects, while an Imperial Parliament, in which Irish
representatives sat, would have directed the policy of the empire."[36]