"_THE INCOMPATIBLES_"
My title is borrowed from one of the few Englishmen who have ever
written wisely about Ireland. Our ways of trying to pacify our
Sister Kingdom have been many and various--Disestablishment Acts,
Land Acts, Arrears Acts, Coercion Acts, Crimes Acts, and every other
variety of legislative experiment; but through them all Ireland
remained unpacified. She showed no gratitude for boons which she
had not asked, and seemed to crave for something which, with the
best intentions in the world, England was unable to supply. This
failure on the part of England may have been due to the fact that
Gladstone, who, of all English statesmen, most concerned himself
with Irish affairs, knew nothing of Ireland by personal contact.
It is startling to read, in Lord Morley's _Life_ this casual record
of his former chief: "In October, 1878, Gladstone paid his first
and only visit to Ireland. It lasted little more than three weeks,
and did not extend beyond a very decidedly English pale.... Of
the multitude of strange things distinctly Irish, he had little
chance of seeing much."
One of the "strange things" which he did not see was the resolve
of Ireland to be recognized as a nation; and that recognition was
the "something" which, as I said just now, England was unable or
unwilling to supply. Late in life Gladstone discovered that Ireland
was a nation, and ought to be treated as such. As regards his own
share in the matter, the change came too late, and he went to the
grave leaving Ireland (in spite of two Home Rule Bills) still
unpacified; but his influence has lived and wrought, not only in
the Liberal party. The principle of Irish nationality has been
recognized in legislative form, and the most law-abiding citizen
in Great Britain might drink that toast of "Ireland a Nation" which
aforetime was considered seditious, if not treasonable.
It was certainly a very odd prejudice of English Philistinism which
prevented us, for so many centuries, from recognizing a fact so palpable
as Irish nationality. If ever a race of men had characteristics of
its own, marking it out from its nearest neighbours, that race is
the Irish, and among the best of those characteristics are chastity,
courtesy, hospitality, humour, and fine manners. The intense Catholicism
of Ireland may be difficult for Protestants to applaud; yet most
certainly those who fail to take it into account are hopelessly
handicapped in the attempt to deal with Irish problems. The Irish
are born fighters. One of the most splendid passages which even
Irish oratory ever produced was that in which Sheill protested
against the insolence of stigmatizing the countrymen of Wellington
as "aliens" from England, and no policy could be more suicidal than
that which deflects the soldiership of Ireland from the British
cause.
Charles James Fox shares with Edmund Burke the praise of having
brought the ideas which we call Liberal to bear on Irish government,
and his words are at least as true to-day as when they were written:
"We ought not to presume to legislate for a nation in whose feelings
and affections, wants and interests, opinions and prejudices, we have
no sympathy." Are "The Incompatibles" to be always incompatible, or
can we now, even at the eleventh hour, make some effort to understand
the working of the Irish temperament?
The incompatibility, as Matthew Arnold read it, is not between
the two nations which Providence has so closely knit together,
but between insolence, dulness, rigidity, on the one hand, and
sensibility, quickness, flexibility, on the other. What Arnold
lamented was that England has too often been represented in Ireland,
and here also when Irish questions were discussed, by "the genuine,
unmitigated Murdstone--the common middle-class Englishman, who
has come forth from Salem House--and Mr. Creakle. He is seen in
full force, of course, in the Protestant North; but throughout
Ireland he is a prominent figure of the English garrison. Him the
Irish see, see him only too much and too often"--and to see him
is to dislike him, and the country which sent him forth.
Is there not a touch of Murdstone and Creakle in the present dealings
of Parliament with Ireland? Forces greater than that of Salem House
have decreed that Ireland is to have self-government, and have
converted--for the astonishment of after-ages--Mr. Balfour and
Lord Curzon into Home Rulers. Surely, if there is one question
which, more conspicuously than another, a nation is entitled to
settle for itself it is the question whether military service shall
be compulsory. True, the legislative machinery of Home Rule is not
yet in action; but legislative machinery is not the only method
by which national sentiment can be ascertained. To introduce
conscription into Ireland by an Act of the Imperial Parliament,
after you have conceded to the Irish their claim to have a Parliament
of their own, may not indeed be a breach of faith, but it surely
is a breach of manners and good sense.