ENGLISH ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF HOME RULE.
[Sidenote: Arguments by which Home Rule policy defended.]
To lay stress upon the consideration that the Home Rule movement in
England derives its force from the condition of public feeling is not,
be it remarked, equivalent to showing that the policy of Home Rule is
unwise; still less that the policy of defended. Home Rule is unlikely to
be adopted by the nation. Masses of human beings must generally, as
individuals must often, trust to the guidance of feeling. The difference
between the sentiment which ought and the sentiment which ought not to
determine national conduct is, that the one admits and the other does
not admit of justification on grounds of reason or experience. Reasoning
is the test, not the source of wise action. Slavery was abolished, the
abuses of the _ancien regime_ were destroyed, Italian unity was created
under the stress of emotions which carried away thousands who could not
have logically defended the impulse which governed their acts. But in
these, as in other cases in which humanity has been carried forward
along the path of progress by the force of emotion, the enthusiasm of
the time could, in so far as it worked for good, be justified on
grounds of reason. Man is (difficult though it often be to believe the
fact) a rational being, in so far at least that he is constrained to
defend on argumentative grounds courses of action dictated by feeling.
From this law of human nature Home Rulers have neither the power nor, in
fairness be it added, the wish to escape. Their influence is due to the
condition of public sentiment, but they justify their policy by
arguments which are the intellectual equivalents for the moral feelings
which go to constitute the opinion of the day. Of these arguments, those
which require statement and examination can be conveniently summed up
under six heads--the argument from foreign experience, the argument from
the will of the Irish people, the argument from the lessons of Irish
history, the argument from the virtues of self-government, the argument
from the necessity for Coercion Acts, the argument from the
inconvenience to England of refusing Home Rule to Ireland.
[Sidenote: Argument 1. Foreign experience.]
_The argument from foreign experience_.--Home Rule under one shape or
another has been tried in a large number of foreign countries, and has
(it is alleged) been found everywhere to solve the problem of combining
into one State communities which, like England and Ireland, were not
ready to coalesce into one united nation. Each State throughout the
American Union, each Canton of Switzerland, has something like sovereign
independence. Yet the United States are strong and prosperous, and the
Swiss Confederacy, which was a land at one time torn by religious
animosities, and divided by differences of race, is now a country so
completely at harmony with itself that without a regular army it
maintains its independence in the face of the armed powers of Europe.
Canada or Victoria have more complete liberty of action than any one
dreams of claiming for Ireland. Yet Canada and Victoria are loyal, and
under the guidance of men who, it may be, were yesterday rebels in
Ireland, support the supremacy of the British Parliament and contribute
to the splendour of the English Crown. The German Empire contains not
only separate States, but separate kingdoms, such as Bavaria, ruled by
kings or princes who certainly value highly the independence of their
countries and the dignity of their thrones. The despotism of Turkey has
not forbidden the local independence of Crete, and self-government has,
it is hinted, produced acquiescence in Turkish rule. The autocracy of
the Czar is found compatible with Home Rule in Finland, and Finland is
the most contented portion of Russia. Norway and Sweden are united in
feeling because they are not by law a "united kingdom," and act in
harmony just because each country has a different constitution, and each
is governed by its own Parliament. Denmark has, with benefit to herself,
given local independence to Iceland, and Iceland is content. Austria and
Hungary, after centuries of misunderstanding and twenty years of bitter
conflict, have finally composed the feud of ages by a compromise, which
gives to the two parts of the Empire the practical blessings of
Parliamentary independence, and concedes to Hungary at least the
sentimental blessing of acknowledged nationality. The argument, in fact,
from foreign experience, professes to be an induction based upon a
foundation of instances as large as can support any conclusion of social
science. In one land after another the existence of Home Rule, or, to
use the curiously inaccurate phraseology of the day, of "autonomy," in
one part of the State has been found consistent with the unity of the
whole. An experiment which has succeeded in one set of cases ought to
succeed in another, and England has no reason to dread a scheme of
government which has been tried with success in other portions of the
civilized world. Nor does the zealous advocate of Home Rule pause at the
conclusion that the measure he recommends may, on the strength of
foreign experience, be regarded as a tolerable evil or as a probable
cure for a chronic disease. He suggests that it is a good in itself, and
laments that ignorance led our ancestors to fuse Scotland and England
into an United Kingdom, when they might, had they understood the
principles of federalism, have left to each country the blessings of
State sovereignty.
[Sidenote: Criticism on argument.]
There is some difficulty in treating with perfect seriousness a line of
reasoning which, proceeding from the quarter whence it comes, holds up
for our admiration the wisdom or lenity of Turkish rule in Crete, and
extols the supreme justice of the system upon which rests the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which implies that the arts of government may
be learnt from the Russian administration of Finland, and omits all
reference to the disastrous results of the attempt to endow Poland with
some sort of independence, which bases weighty inferences as to the
proper relation between England and Ireland on the concession by Denmark
to the scanty inhabitants of a desolate island lying 1100 miles from her
coast of as much autonomy (if that be the right term) as under the Crown
of England has been enjoyed for generations by Jersey or Man, and which
suggests lamentations over the splendid triumph of constructive
statesmanship embodied in the treaty of Union with Scotland. _De minimis
non curat lex_ is a maxim of judicial procedure which in spirit applies
to proposals for legislation. Arguments from Iceland and the like may be
set aside as the ornaments or curiosities of debate, and may be allowed
as much weight and no more as would be given to an argument in favour of
petty states from the flourishing condition of Monaco, or to reasonings
in support of Republicanism from the condition of Andorre. Though there
is something slightly ridiculous in the zeal with which the advocates of
Home Rule, using at least as much industry as discrimination, have
scraped together every instance they can lay their hands upon of
constitutions under which something which can be called Home Rule exists
without producing palpable injury to the State, it would be unfair to
deny some real weight to a kind of induction, which, if not convincing
as argument, yet possesses undoubtedly a good deal of rhetorical
effectiveness. Nor ought the concession to be refused that if there be
any man dull or ill-informed enough to suppose that countries cannot be
politically united unless they are subject to a common legislative
power, the slightest knowledge of lands outside England is sufficient to
make manifest his ignorance. When, however, the instances on which the
induction is supposed to be founded are carefully scrutinised, it will
be discovered that those examples which deserve attention are far less
numerous than might be supposed from a glance over the lists now well
known to the public of what may be termed successful experiments in Home
Rule, and, further, that this limited number of instances do not go far
to make out the conclusion in favour of which they are adduced.
At the present stage of my argument I purposely omit all minute
examination of the applicability to the relations between England and
Ireland, either of the English Colonial system or of federalism as it
exists in the United States or in Switzerland. Any scheme of Home Rule
must follow in some degree one or other of these models. It will,
therefore, be necessary to consider in subsequent chapters how far
either of them may admit with advantage of imitation. Two observations,
however, may even at this point not be out of place. An English colony,
such as Victoria, is a virtually independent country, attached to
England mainly by ties of loyalty or of well-understood interests, but
placed at such a distance from the mother country that England could
without inconvenience, and would without hesitation, concede to it full
national independence when once it was clear that Victoria desired to be
a nation. Victoria, in short, is a land which might at any moment be
independent, but which desires to retain or strengthen the connection
with England. Ireland, on the other hand, is a country lying so near to
the English coast that, according to the views of most statesmen,
England could not with safety tolerate her independence, and also a
country, which, to put the matter in the least exaggerated language,
feels the connection with England so burdensome that the greater part of
her population desire at least the amount of independence conceded to a
self-governing colony. The case of Victoria and the case of Ireland each
constitute, so to speak, the antithesis to the other. There is,
therefore, at any rate no _a priori_ ground for the assumption that the
system which successfully regulates the relation of England to Victoria
is equally adapted for regulating the relation between England and
Ireland. The federalism, again, of America or of Switzerland is the
consequence of the existence of the States which make up the Federation.
The United Kingdom does not consist of States. The world has heard of
the difficulty of forming a republic without republicans: this feat
would appear to be easy of performance in comparison with the
achievement of erecting federation without the States which form its
natural members. In America or in Switzerland federalism has developed
because existing States wished to be combined into some kind of national
unity. Federalism in England would necessarily mean the breaking up of a
nation in order to form a body of States. To the question constantly
raised in one form or another, "Why should not the federalism which
suits the United States suit England?" the true answer is suggested by
the counter-inquiry, "Why should not the constitutionalism of England
suit the United States?" The obvious and conclusive reply to both these
inquiries is, that the circumstances of the two countries are totally
different. There is, in short, no ground in the nature of things to
presume that constitutional arrangements, which are well adapted for the
condition of America, are well adapted for the totally different
condition of the United Kingdom. To say this, be it noted, is not to
prejudge the question reserved for subsequent consideration, whether
some kind of federalism may not supply the solution of the problem how
to adjust the political connection between England and Ireland. It is no
more than noting the often-overlooked fact that the admitted success of
federal government in the United States gives no presumption in favour
of its suitability for Great Britain and Ireland.
The experience of foreign countries to which Home Rulers confidently
appeal resolves itself, if the matter be carefully sifted, and if the
colonial system of England and the federalism of America be left for the
moment out of account, into the fact that two powerful continental
Empires maintain Imperial unity, and yet (as it is alleged without
lessening their strength) contain within their limits States each of
which enjoys a large amount of independence. That neither the German
Empire nor the Austro-Hungarian monarchy suffer inconvenience from the
looseness of the connection between the States which they each contain
is one of those assertions more easily made than proved to be true; but
supposing its truth to be, for the moment and purely for the sake of
argument, admitted, there will still be found considerable difficulty in
showing that either German Imperialism or the Dual system of
Austria-Hungary contains lessons of practical value for the guidance of
English statesmen.
What indeed is the precise inference which one is to draw from the fact
that the constitution of the German Empire leaves, for example, to
Bavaria a large amount of independence it is not very easy to
understand. The whole circumstances of the German Empire are as
different from the circumstances of Great Britain as the position of one
civilised European country can well be from the situation of another.
The salient characteristic of German history is that Germany consists of
States which until quite recently have never been politically
consolidated into a nation. The United Kingdom has for nearly a century
formed a political unit, and has now for something nearly approaching
two centuries been subject in reality if not in name to one sovereign
Parliament. The whole scheme of the Empire, with its independent or
semi-independent sovereigns, with its kings, princes, and free towns, is
something to which there is absolutely nothing to correspond in the
present condition or in the historical development of England. The
German Empire is the natural though strange growth of a special and
strange history. The sober English statesmen who advocate Home Rule
assuredly never dreamt any dream so wild as that the Imperial Federalism
of Germany could in any way be reproduced in the United Kingdom. But if
this be so, it is a little difficult to understand references to the
lessons to be drawn from the position of such countries as Bavaria. For
the difficulty of applying German precedents to proposed innovations in
the English constitution lies far deeper than the unsuitability to
England of the forms of German Imperialism. The condition which has
given birth to the present German Empire is that in Germany the
sentiment of nationality has overridden the political divisions which
broke up Germany into almost disconnected and often hostile States. In
Germany the popular passion for unity has compelled the formation of a
United Empire. This sentiment, and not the cumbersome device of an
ill-arranged constitution, prevents Bavaria from using her independence
in a manner inconsistent with the unity of the Empire. The force which
tends towards unity is constantly on the increase. The Empire has the
legal means of diminishing or indeed of destroying the independence of
the States, and should the independence of a State ever come into
conflict with the unity of the nation State rights will not, we may be
sure, win the day. Nor, further, is it any accident that Bismarck whilst
tolerating the existence of Parliaments will not tolerate the
introduction of Parliamentary government. The acquiescence of Liberals
in the evils of personal rule is due to the consciousness that the real
authority of the Emperor is necessary for the unity of the Empire.
Contrast all this with the condition of things under which Englishmen
are adjured to concede a Parliament to Ireland. The leading features of
the case, according at any rate to Home Rulers, are that Parliament is
too weak to withstand the pressure exercised by eighty-six obstructives,
and that Ireland, no less, as we are now at last frankly told, than
Scotland and Wales, desires to relax the bonds of national unity. We are
advised to dissolve the United Kingdom into a confederacy because
Germany, through a clumsy form of confederacy, is growing into a united
empire. This counsel confuses the stages of imperfect development with
the stage of incipient decay; it ascribes to the childishness of
approaching senility the hopes which are proper to the childishness of
early youth. The point is worth pressing. The considerations which
govern a confederacy as it is developing into a nation are very
different from the considerations applicable to a full grown nation
when threatened with dismemberment into a confederacy.
Deak's statesmanship undoubtedly found at any rate a temporary solution
of the questions which kept Austria and Hungary at variance in a
compromise which bears some analogy to the arrangement by which Home
Rulers propose at once to loosen and to maintain the connection between
England and Ireland. In the case of Austria-Hungary, the union which
exists is not, on the face of it at least, a step towards unity, but
rather the surrender of the endeavour to mould the two parts of the
monarchy into a united empire. The Dual system is therefore the instance
of the blessings attending Home Rule which is most sedulously thrust
upon English attention. Let us see, then, what in outline this system
is, and what are the causes which favour its existence.[4]
German jurisprudence has taxed hard its boundless stores of ingenuity
and obscurity in the endeavour to find a proper scientific definition of
the nature of the anomalous union which binds together the monarchy of
Austria-Hungary. With the inquiry, however, what may be the precise
class of constitutions under which we ought to bring a political
arrangement which is "singular" in the strictest sense of that word,
English inquirers need not concern themselves. The broad outlines of
the Dual system, invented by the ingenuity of Deák, and accepted under
the stress of necessity by the sagacity of the Emperor, may, for our
present purpose, be roughly sketched in short, and it is hoped in not
unintelligible terms.
The Dual system is a permanent alliance rather than a union between the
kingdom of Hungary and the countries now represented in the Austrian
Imperial Parliament, or (to use convenient though not quite accurate
terms) between Austria and Hungary.
The essential features of this alliance or compromise, which is in its
nature a treaty far more than an act of legislation, may be thus summed
up.
At the head of the whole monarchy stands the Emperor-King. The rules for
the succession to the throne indeed secure that the Imperial and the
Hungarian Crown shall always devolve upon the same person. The Crowns,
however, are distinct, the monarch on whose head they rest governs two
distinctly different peoples, bound to him by different ties of
allegiance. He has Hungarian subjects and Austrian subjects, but he can
claim authority over no man as a subject or citizen of Austria-Hungary.
The monarch (and this is a matter of supreme importance) is not only the
nominal, but the real link connecting the two halves of his dominions.
He is moreover a true ruler. Englishmen hear of a Parliament at Vienna
and of a Diet in Hungary, of Austrian ministers and of Hungarian
ministers, and they fancy that Francis Joseph is a constitutional king
after the type of Queen Victoria of England, or King Humbert of Italy.
No idea is more erroneous. He is the actual head of the State; he is the
real commander of the army. In the Austrian Empire he exercises a
predominant influence on the Government, and observers who look at the
past exertions of Imperial prerogative, and who weigh well the immense
power of temporary legislation reserved under the Imperial constitution
to the Emperor, suspect that in his Austrian dominions, Francis Joseph
might if he chose as easily suspend constitutional government, as he did
in fact suspend it (though for a most legitimate object) in 1886. In
Hungary the parliamentary constitution is a reality, but the King of
Hungary's authority is a good deal more than nominal. The transactions
between Deák and the Emperor become incomprehensible unless you allow
for the influence conferred by Hungarian loyalty upon the King of
Hungary.
This real monarch rules the monarchy with the co-operation of what might
roughly be called three Parliaments.
The first Parliament is the Hungarian Diet sitting at Pesth, which
constitutes the real and true legislature for Hungary, and which, in
spite of the powers retained by or conferred upon the local legislature
of Croatia, makes laws for the whole domain of the Hungarian Crown. The
King of Hungary appoints the Hungarian ministers, who are responsible to
the Hungarian Diet, and are kept in office by the Diet's support.
The second Parliament is the Imperial Parliament, or _Reichsrath_,
sitting at Vienna, legislating for the territories of the Austrian
Empire which do not belong to the Hungarian Crown. The Emperor appoints
the Austrian or Imperial Ministry, who are responsible to the Imperial
Parliament, and need the support of the _Reichsrath_; it may well
however be doubted whether an Austrian Premier does not depend for his
authority far more on the will of the Emperor than on the votes of
_Reichsrath_; the authority of the _Reichsrath_ is, moreover,
considerably restricted by the powers conferred upon the subordinate
assemblies of the different countries, e.g. Bohemia or the Tyrol, which
make up the Empire.[5]
Englishman should note that the Hungarian Diet has as such no
legislative authority in Austria, and the _Reichsrath_ has no
legislative authority in Hungary.
The third Parliament consists of the so-called Delegations.
These Delegations are two committees of sixty members each, elected by
and from the members of the Hungarian Diet and the Imperial Parliament
respectively, but though I have termed them "committees" they are
committees which within their sphere have an authority independent of
the bodies by whom they are appointed.
The function of the Delegations is to determine the "common affairs" of
the monarchy, that is to say a strictly limited number of matters,
namely, common finance, common military matters, and foreign affairs. On
these three topics, and on these alone, the Hungarian and the Austrian
Delegations are (acting of course with the Emperor) supreme. They
determine the common Budget of the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire; they
determine as far as legislation is required all questions affecting the
Imperial army as a whole; they also determine, as far as their
intervention is required, questions of foreign policy. The function in
short of the Delegations is to deal with matters, and with those matters
only, which affect the Austro-Hungarian State as a united body, and in
its relation to foreigners. Hence three Ministers, the Minister of War,
the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who act
for the whole monarchy, constitute what is called the Common Ministry,
and are appointed by the Emperor-King, and are responsible neither to
the Hungarian Parliament nor to the Imperial Parliament, but simply to
the Delegations. It is natural for Englishman to conclude that the
Delegations regulate matters, such for example as questions regarding
customs, &c., which must affect every portion of the State, and must, if
the two divisions of it are to be united at all, be regulated on common
principles. But this is not so. The economical relations of the two
parts of the Empire are determined by laws identical in substance,
passed by the Hungarian and Imperial Parliaments respectively. These
laws are enacted from ten years to ten years. It is therefore possible
under the present arrangement that in '88 the existing customs union
between Austria and Hungary may come to an end.[6] The position further
of the Delegations is in reality that of two separate committees each
representing a separate Parliament. Infinite pains have been taken to
place the Hungarian and the Austrian Delegations on exactly equal
footing. The Delegations meet alternately at Vienna and at Pesth, they
debate in general separately, and come to an agreement through written
negotiations; they may have a common meeting. In this case the number of
deputies present on each side must be equal, and by a vote of the
majority at such common meeting, any question in dispute is finally
determined.
The Austro-Hungarian system is therefore briefly this. Two separate
States, each having a separate administration, a separate Parliament,
and separate bodies of subjects or citizens, are each ruled by one and
the same monarch; the two portions of the monarchy are linked together
mainly as regards their relation to foreign powers by an assembly of
delegates from each Parliament and by a Ministry which is responsible to
the Delegations alone, and which acts in regard to a limited number of
matters which are of absolute necessity the common concern of the
monarchy. This is the Dual system held up for our imitation. Picture it
for a moment as actually existing in what is still the United Kingdom.
We should have an English Ministry and an English Parliament at
Westminster which had not the least authority in Ireland; we should have
an Irish Ministry and an Irish Parliament at Dublin which had not the
least authority in England. Each Parliament would in point say of
foreign policy be hampered by the superior authority of a third
Parliament consisting of sixty English and sixty Irish members who sat
alternately at Westminster and at Dublin to transact or perplex or
obstruct the affairs common to the whole Empire. To imagine such an
arrangement, to sketch out in one's fancy, for example, how the common
budget decreed by the Delegations would be provided for by taxation
imposed by the Irish Parliament, is enough to show that the Dual system
is absolutely inapplicable to our circumstances. It could not last for a
year, and if by any miracle it did last for that time, the whole British
Empire would be reduced to confusion or ruin. The advocates of
innovation exhibit the most singular mixture of despair and hopefulness.
The presence in Parliament of eighty-six Parnellites makes them despair
of the British constitution, which has existed for centuries. They hope
or expect that three Parliaments, in two of which these very
Parnellites, or men like them, would reappear, would harmoniously
legislate for England, Ireland, and the British Empire, and this hope is
based on the alleged success of that Dual system which has not without
difficulty been kept going for not quite twenty years. The alliance of
scepticism and credulity, of which we have often heard in the sphere of
theology, is a startling phenomenon in the province of politics. The
Dual system, however, it will be urged by its admirers, has worked
well. Admit the fact, the success is clearly due to circumstances
negative and positive totally absent in the case of England and Ireland.
The bodies united by means of the compromise do not, like the United
Kingdom, constitute the centre of a world-wide Empire. Hungary has taken
up arms against the Austrian Emperor, yet there has never been in
strictness a feud between the Hungarians and the other subjects of the
Emperor. The compromise or alliance manifestly met the interest of both
portions of the monarchy: it restored to Hungary a constitution which
for eighteen years or more had been suppressed, but which had never been
given up; it secured, or went far to secure, the new constitutional
liberties of the Austrian Empire. Hungary could not stand alone, and she
knew it. The compromise was in reality a politic alliance between the
two leading races among the many races governed by Francis Joseph. The
Germans and the Magyars came to terms; the alliance strengthened them
each against other foes. But with every political advantage the Dual
system, of which the permanence is not as yet at all secure, might have
proved as undurable as Grattan's Constitution of 1782 but for one
circumstance, to which I have already directed attention. At the head of
Austria-Hungary stands not an absolute, but a powerful monarch. The
authority of the Emperor is the spring which makes the cumbersome
machinery of a complicated constitution keep going. The matter is worth
attention The power of the Emperor William holds together the States of
the German Empire; the power of Francis Joseph keeps alive the Dual
system; where the Crown has a real authority trial may be made of
experiments in the way of local independence, which are impossible in a
State where, as in England, the true sovereign is an elective assembly.
Foreign experience then affords but a very tottering foundation on which
to raise pleas for Home Rule in Ireland. It may no doubt be read by
those who are already convinced that Home Rule is desirable in favour of
their views. It may confirm a faith based on other grounds, more it
cannot do. Fairly looked at, foreign experience tells rather against
than for the doctrines of Home Rule. If appealed to at all, it must be
taken as a whole. It then shows that Federalism is when nourishing a
stage towards, not a stage away from, national unity; it shows that a
strong central power above Parliamentary control is almost a condition
to the successful combination in one body of semi-independent States.[7]
It shows that the whole tendency of modern civilization flows towards
the creation of great States; national unity is, so to speak, the
watchword of the age; this is scarcely a reason for breaking up the
United Kingdom. The sagacity of Italian statesmanship rejected the
plausible scheme of an Italian Federation. If Englishmen are to take
lessons from foreigners they need not be ashamed of being instructed by
Cavour.
[Sidenote: Argument 2. Will of Irish people]
_The argument from the will of the Irish people_.--Eighty-six
representatives of the Irish people represent the wish of Ireland for
Home Rule. We cannot under a Parliamentary system of government go
behind the result of an election. It must be taken therefore that
Ireland wishes for Home Rule; and since popular government as it exists
in England means nothing else than government in accordance with the
wishes of the people, the wish of the Irish people for the Parliamentary
independence of their country proves their right to an Irish Parliament,
and terminates, or ought to terminate, all opposition to Home Rule.
[Sidenote: Criticism on argument]
This simple argument, that because three millions of Irishmen, or for
that matter three millions of Englishmen, wish for a thing, they are
therefore absolutely entitled to have it, is not often put forward in
its naked simplicity, but is constantly presented under various
rhetorical disguises, such for example as the assertion that Irishmen
have a right to manage their own affairs, that Ireland only wants to be
left to herself, and the like; and impresses both the imagination and
the conscience of the masses. There is a good deal to be said about the
truth of the alleged fact on which the argument is based, namely the
wish of the Irish people. It might be worth while to note that the
"people" in this case meant only a majority of the electors, whose wish
is notoriously opposed to the ardent desire of a respectable minority;
and it might be well to suggest that the constitutional pedantry which
refuses to "go behind an electoral return," _i.e._, to see things as
they are, is not the same thing as either good sense or statesmanship.
But for the present purpose it is better to admit that the majority of
the inhabitants of Ireland would, if a fair vote were taken, express
their wish for Home Rule, as they might, probably, under similar
conditions express their wish for separation. The argument in hand,
however, even when its basis is conceded, allows, according to the
different meanings which it may bear, of different answers. If taken in
its most obvious sense, as asserting the absolute right of a majority
among Irish electors to any concession with regard to Ireland which they
are pleased to claim, it may be met by another formula of equal cogency
or of equal weakness. "The vast majority of the United Kingdom,
including by the way a million or more of the inhabitants of Ireland,
have expressed their will to maintain the Union. Popular government
means government in accordance with the will of the majority, and
therefore according to all the principles of popular government the
majority of the United Kingdom have a right to maintain the Union. Their
wish is decisive, and ought to terminate the whole agitation in favour
of Home Rule." To any sensible person who has passed beyond the age of
early manhood (for youths may without blame treat politics as a form of
logic) neither of these formulas can present a sound ground from which
to defend or impugn legislation which involves the welfare of millions.
The contradiction however between two formulas each of which if
propounded alone would command the assent of a democratic audience is
noteworthy. This contradiction brings into prominence the consideration
that the principle that the will of the majority should be sovereign
cannot, whether true or false in itself, be invoked to determine a
dispute turning upon the enquiry which of two bodies is the body the
majority of which has a right to sovereignty. The majority of the
citizens of the United States were opposed to Secession, the majority of
the citizens of the Southern States were in favour of Secession; the
attempt to determine which side had right on its side by an appeal to
the "sovereignty of the majority" involved in this case, as it must in
every case, a _petitio principii_, for the very question at issue was
which of two majorities ought, as regarded the matter in hand, to be
considered the majority.
It would however be doing injustice to the argument from the will of the
people to dispose of it by dwelling upon the logical inconsistencies
inevitably involved in every attempt to determine a question of
practical politics by the application to it of _à priori_ dogmatism.
Formulas such as "the sovereignty of the people" often contain much
solid truth hidden under an inaccurate and a too absolute form of
expression. The assertion that the wish of the Irish people is decisive
as to the form of constitution to be maintained in Ireland covers two
genuine and in themselves rational convictions. The first is, that a
body of human beings who feel themselves, in consequence of their
inhabiting a common country, of their sharing a common history and the
like, inspired with a feeling of common nationality, have, if not a
right, at lowest a strong claim to be governed as a separate nation.
This is the doctrine of nationality which, be it noted, though often
confused with, is at bottom different from, the dogma of the supremacy
of the majority. That the doctrine of nationality is, when reasonably
put, conformable with obvious principles of utility may be readily
admitted; but it is a doctrine which can only be accepted with
considerable qualifications. Its validity was denied both theoretically
and practically, and, in the judgment of most English democrats, not to
say of most European Liberals, denied justly and righteously by the
Northern States of America, when the Southern States claimed the benefit
of its application. The argument moreover from the principle of
nationality in reference to the present controversy proves too much. If
the Irish people are a nation, this may give them a right to
independence, but it can never in itself give them a moral claim to
dictate the particular terms of union with England. The second
conviction which underlies the argument from the will of the people is
of far more serious import than any reasoning drawn from even so
respectable a formula as the doctrine of nationality. The dogma that the
will of the people must be obeyed often expresses the rational belief
that under all polities, and especially under the system of popular
government, institutions derive their life, and laws their constraining
power, not from the will of the law-giver, or from the strength of the
army, but from their correspondence with the permanent wishes and habits
of the people. Home Rule, to put this matter in its strongest form,
means, it may be said, the application to Ireland of the very principle
on which the English constitution rests--that a people must be ruled in
accordance with their own permanent ideas of right and of justice, and
that unless this be done, law, because it commands no loyalty, ensures
no obedience. The whole history of the connection between the two
islands which make up the United Kingdom is a warning of the
wretchedness, the calamities, the wickedness and the ruin which follow
upon the attempt to violate this fundamental principle not only of
popular, but of all good and just government. Home Rule may appear to be
an innovation. It is in this point of view simply a return to the
essential ideas of English constitutionalism, it is an attempt to escape
from the false path which has been pursued for centuries, and to return
to the broad highway of government in accordance with popular sympathy.
At this point, however, the argument from the will of the people merges
in the much stronger and more serious train of reasoning derived from
the teaching of history.
[Sidenote: 3. Argument from Irish history.]
_The argument from Irish history._--Appeals to the lessons of the past
are at times in the mouths of Home Rulers, as also of their opponents, a
noxious revival of ancient passions, or (it may be) nothing better than
the use of an unreal form of rhetoric; yet a supporter of Home Rule may
use the argument from Irish history in a way which is at once legitimate
and telling.
On one point alone (it may be urged) all men of whatever party, or of
whatever nation, who have seriously studied the annals of Ireland are
agreed--the history of the country is a record of incessant failure on
the part of the Government, and of incessant misery on the part of the
people. On this matter, if on no other, De Beaumont, Froude and Lecky
are at one. As to the guilt of the failure or the cause of the misery,
men may and do differ; that England, whether from her own fault or from
the fault of the Irish people, or from the perversity of circumstances,
has failed in Ireland of achieving the elementary results of good
government, is as certain as any fact of history or of experience. Every
scheme has been tried in turn, and no scheme has succeeded, or has even
(it may be suggested) produced its natural effects. Oppression of the
Catholics has increased the adherents and strengthened the hold of
Catholicism. Protestant supremacy while it lasted did not lead even to
Protestant contentment, and the one successful act of resistance to
English dominion was effected by a Protestant Parliament supported by an
army of volunteers led by a body of Protestant officers. The
independence gained by a Protestant Parliament led, after eighteen
years, to a rebellion so reckless and savage, that it caused if it did
not justify the destruction of the Parliament, and the carrying of the
Union. The Act of Union did not lead to national unity, and a measure
which appeared on the face of it (though the appearance it must be
admitted was delusive) to be a copy of the law which turned England and
Scotland into a common country inspired by common patriotism, produced
conspiracy and agitation, and has at last placed England and Ireland
further apart morally than they stood at the beginning of the century.
The Treaty of Union, it was supposed, missed its mark because it was not
combined with Catholic Emancipation. The Catholics were emancipated, but
emancipation instead of producing loyalty brought forth the cry for
repeal. The repeal movement ended in failure, but its death gave birth
to the attempted rebellion of 1848. Suppressed rebellion begot
Fenianism, to be followed in its turn by the agitation for Home Rule.
The movement relies, it is said, and there is truth in the assertion, on
constitutional methods for obtaining redress. But constitutional methods
are supplemented by boycotting, by obstruction, by the use of dynamite.
A century of reform has given us Mr. Parnell instead of Grattan, and it
is more than possible that Mr. Parnell may be succeeded by leaders in
whose eyes Mr. Davitt's policy may appear to be tainted with moderation.
No doubt in each case the failure of good measures admits, like every
calamity either in private or in public life, of explanation, and after
the event it is easy to see why, for example, the Poor Law when extended
to Ireland did not produce even the good effects, such as they are,
which in England are to be set against its numerous evils; or why an
emigration of unparalleled proportions has diminished population without
much diminishing poverty; why the disestablishment of the Anglican
Church has increased rather than diminished the hostility to England of
the Catholic priesthood; or why two Land Acts have not contented Irish
farmers. It is easy enough, in short, and this without having recourse
to any theory of race, and without attributing to Irishmen either more
or less of original sin than falls to the lot of humanity, to see how it
is that imperfect statesmanship--and all statesmanship it should be
remembered is imperfect--has failed of obtaining good results at all
commensurate with its generally good intentions. Failure, however, is
none the less failure because its causes admit of analysis. It is no
defence to bankruptcy that an insolvent can, when brought before the
Court, lucidly explain the errors which resulted in disastrous
speculations. The failure of English statesmanship, explain it as you
will, has produced the one last and greatest evil which misgovernment
can cause. It has created hostility to the law in the minds of the
people. The law cannot work in Ireland, because the classes whose
opinion in other countries supports the action of the Courts are in
Ireland, even when not law-breakers, in full sympathy with law-breakers.
This fact, a Home Ruler may add, is for this purpose all the more
instructive, if it be granted that the errors of British policy do not
arise from injustice or ill-will to Irishmen. The inference, he
insists, to be drawn from the lesson of history is, that it is
impossible for the Parliament of the United Kingdom to understand or to
provide for Irish needs. The law is hated and cannot be executed in
Ireland because, as we are told on high authority, it comes before the
Irish people in a foreign garb. The law is detested, in short, not
because it is unjust, but because it is English. The reason why judges
soldiers or policemen strive in vain to cope with lawlessness is, that
they are in fact trying to enforce not so much the rule of justice as
the supremacy of England. The Austrian administration in Lombardy was
never deemed to be bad--it was very possibly better than any which the
Italian kingdom can supply; the Austrian rule was hated not because the
Austrians were bad rulers, but because they were foreigners. In Ireland,
as in Lombardy, permanent discontent is caused by the outraged sentiment
of nationality. Meet this sentiment, argues the friend of Home Rule, by
the concession to Ireland of an independent Parliament. The law which
comes from Ireland's own legislature will be obeyed because it is her
own law, and will be enforced throughout Ireland by Irish officials
supported by the sympathy of the Irish population. Let Ireland manage
her own affairs, and England will be freed from a task which she ought
never to have taken up because she cannot perform it, and you will lay
upon Ireland duties which she can perform but which she has never yet
been either allowed or compelled to take up. Irishmen for the first
time will feel the full responsibility, because for the first time they
have received the full power, of self-government. The argument, in
short, on the Home Rule view stands thus: the miseries of Ireland flow
historically from political causes, and are to be met by political
changes. At the bottom of Irish disorder lies the sentiment of Irish
nationality. The change, therefore, that is needed is such a concession
to that sentiment as is involved in giving Ireland an Irish legislature.
This is the reform by which the result of curing Irish discontent can be
achieved, and it is a reform not incompatible with the interests of
Great Britain.
This is (in my judgment) a fair statement of the historical argument
relied upon by the advocates of Home Rule, though, of course, it allows
of infinite variety as to its form of expression. It is a line of
reasoning which rests on premisses many of which (as any candid critic
must admit) contain a large amount of truth. It is logically by far the
strongest of the Home Rule arguments. It is one, moreover, in which
authorities who on other points differ from each other are in agreement.
Mr. Parnell asserts with emphasis that Ireland is a "nation," and
apparently holds that the passing of a good law by the Parliament of the
United Kingdom is less desirable than the existence of an Irish
Parliament, even should that Parliament delay good legislation. Mr.
Gladstone attributes the inefficacity of laws passed by the Imperial
Parliament to their coming before Irishmen in a "foreign garb," and an
author who is not in any way a supporter of the Liberal leader does not
apparently on this point disagree with Mr. Gladstone. "If there was a
hope that anything which we could give would make the Irish contented
and loyal subjects of the British Empire, no sacrifice would be too
great for such an object. But there is no such hope. The land tenure is
not the real grievance: it is merely the pretext. The real grievance is
our presence in Ireland at all. If there was a hope that by buying up
the soil and distributing it among the tenantry we could make them, if
not loyal, yet orderly and prosperous, even so the experiment would be
worth trying; but, again, there is no such hope. The Land Bill of 1870
gave the tenants a proprietary right in their holdings. They have
borrowed money on the security of that right at ruinous interest, and
the poorest of them are already sinking under their debts to the local
banker or tradesman. If we make them proprietors to-morrow, their farms
in a few years will be sold or mortgaged. We shall have destroyed one
set of landlords to create another who will not be more merciful."[8]
[Sidenote: Criticism]
The only way of meeting the historical argument, containing as it does
admitted truth, and supported as it is by high authorities, is to survey
the broad phenomena of Irish history, and see what are the inferences
which they warrant.[9] Whoever wishes to derive instruction from the
melancholy history of the kingdom of Ireland must, as has already been
intimated, rid himself from the delusions caused in the domain of
history by personification. He must dismiss the notion that England and
Ireland are persons to be charged with individual and continuous
responsibility for the crimes or follies of past ages. He must check the
natural but misguiding tendency of the human mind to imagine that in
national affairs when anything goes wrong you can always, or indeed
generally, lay your finger upon some definite assignable wrong-doer,
that is, upon some man or some men who can be held responsible for
political calamities or errors, as a murderer may be held guilty of
murder, or a robber of theft. A calm critic should also reflect on the
profound truth of the dictum (attributed by the way to an Irishman) that
"history is at best but an old almanack," and, while not entertaining
any great hope that antiquarian research can afford much direct guidance
as to the proper mode of arranging the future relations between England
and Ireland, remember that the most salutary function of the study of
the past is to tone down those historical animosities which derive their
bitterness from the ignorant habit of trying the actors in bygone scenes
by moral laws to which they are not justly amenable. The moral function
of an historian is to diminish the hatreds which divide nation from
nation and class from class; such as at the present moment do more to
prevent real unity between the inhabitants of the two islands making up
the United Kingdom than do unjust laws or vicious institutions. To a
student who regards with philosophic calmness a topic which has mainly
been dealt with by politicians or agitators, it easily becomes apparent
that the crimes or failures of England, no less than the vices or
miseries of England, have to a great extent flowed from causes too
general to be identified with the intentional wrong-doing either of
rulers or of subjects.
One fact thrusts itself upon the attention of any serious student
England and Ireland have from the commencement of their ill-starred
connection been countries standing on different levels or at different
stages of civilization; they have moreover been countries impelled by
the force of circumstances towards a different development. Englishmen
forget, or (more strictly speaking) have never understood, how
exceptional has been the path pursued by English civilization; they do
not realise to themselves that the gradual transformation of an
aristocratic and feudal society into a modern industrial State which
still retains the forms, and in many points of view the spirit of
feudalism is a process which, although owing to the most special
circumstances it has been accomplished with success in England, has
hardly a parallel in any other European country. Ireland on the other
hand has, despite the deviations from her natural course caused by her
connection with a powerful nation, tended to follow the lines of
progress pursued by continental countries, and notably by France. A
foreign critic like De Beaumont finds it far easier than could any
Englishman to enter into the condition of Ireland, and this not only
because he is as a foreigner delivered from the animosities or
partialities which must in one way or another warp every English
judgment, but mainly because the phenomena which puzzle an Englishman,
as for example the passion of Irish peasants for the possession of
land,[10] are from his own experience familiar and appear natural to a
Frenchman. What to the mind of a foreign observer needs explanation is
the social condition of England rather than of Ireland. He at any rate
can see at a glance that the relation between the two countries has
planted and maintained in Ireland an aristocracy, aristocratic
institutions, and above all an aristocratic land law, foreign to the
traditions and opposed to the interests of the mass of the people. Let
an observer for a moment take up the point of view natural to a
continental critic, and admit, in the language of De Beaumont, that the
primary radical and permanent cause of Irish misery has been the
maintenance in Ireland by England of a "bad aristocracy,"[10] or, to put
the same thing more generally, and it may be more fairly that the vice
of the connection between the two countries has consisted in its being a
relation of peoples standing at different stages of civilization and
tending towards different courses of development. Here you find the
original source of a thousand ills, and hence especially have originated
four potent causes of the condition of things which now tries the
patience and overtaxes the resources of English statesmanship.
First,--The English constitution has both from its form and from its
spirit caused in past times, and even at the present day causes as much
evil to Ireland as it has conferred, or does confer, benefit upon
England.[11]
The assailants of popular government point to the misrule of Ireland as
a proof that the Parliamentary system is radically vicious. They do not
prove their point, because the calamities of Ireland afford no evidence
whatever that England, which has been more prosperous for a greater
length of time than any other nation in Europe, has essentially suffered
from the power of the English Parliament. What these critics do prove is
that a representative assembly is a bad form of government for any
nation or class whom it does not represent, and they establish to
demonstration that a parliamentary despotism may well be a worse
government for a dependency than a royal despotism. This is so for two
reasons. The rule of Parliament has meant in England government by
parties; and whatever be the merits of party spirit in a free,
self-governed country, its calamitous defects, when applied to the
administration of a dependency, are patent. Down to 1782 Ireland was
avowedly subject to the despotism or sovereignty of the British
Parliament, and at every turn the interest of the country was sacrificed
to the exigencies of English politics Between 1782 to 1800 the nominal
independence of Ireland placed a check on the power of the English
Parliament, yet in substance the English executive, controlled as it was
by the Parliament at Westminster, remained the ultimate sovereign of the
kingdom of Ireland. If Pitt could have carried the King and the English
Parliament with him, he would, in spite of any opposition at Dublin by
the adherents of Ascendancy, have emancipated the Catholics, just as,
when backed by the King and the English Parliament, he did, in the face
of strenuous opposition in Ireland, pass the Act of Union. And even at
the present day the most plausible charge which can be brought against
the working of the Act of Union is that Ireland under it fails to obtain
the full benefit of the British constitution, and that in spite of her
hundred representatives she is not for practical purposes represented at
Westminster in the same sense as is Middlesex or Midlothian. A
Parliament again is less capable than a King of compensating for the
evils of tyranny by the benefit of good administration, and here we come
across a matter hardly to be understood by any one who has not with some
care compared the action and the spirit of English and of continental
administrative systems. It is hardly an exaggeration to assert that even
now we have in the United Kingdom nothing like what foreigners mean by
an administration. We know nothing of that official hierarchy which on
the Continent represents the authority of the State.[12] Englishmen are
accustomed to consider that institutions under which the business of the
country is carried on by unconnected local bodies, such as the
magistrates in quarter session, or the corporations of boroughs,
controlled in the last resort only by the law courts, ought to be the
subject of unqualified admiration. Foreign observers might, even as
regards England itself, have something to set off against the merits of
a system which is, if the apparent contradiction of terms may be
excused, no system at all, and might point out that in continental
countries the administration may often be the intelligent guide and
protector of the weak and needy. The system complimented by the name of
self-government, even if as beneficial for England as Englishmen are
inclined without absolute proof to believe, is absolutely unsuitable for
a country harassed by religious and social feuds, where the owners of
land are not and cannot be the trusted guides of the people. An
impartial official is a better ruler than a hostile or distrusted
landowner, and any one who bears in mind the benefits conferred by the
humanity and justice of Turgot on a single province of France may,
without being any friend of despotism, hold that in the last century
Ireland suffered greatly from a scheme of government which did not allow
of administration such as Turgot's. In some respects the virtues of
Englishmen have been singularly unfavourable to their success in
conciliating the goodwill of Ireland. It will always remain a paradox
that the nation which has built up the British Empire (with vast help,
it may be added, from Ireland) has combined extraordinary talent for
legislation with a singular incapacity for consolidating subject races
or nations into one State. The explanation of the paradox lies in the
aristocratic sentiment which has moulded the institutions of England. An
aristocracy respects the rights of individuals, but an aristocracy
identifies right with privilege, and is based on the belief in the
inequality of men and of classes. Privilege is the keynote of English
constitutionalism; the respect for privileges has preserved English
freedom, but it has made England slower than any other civilized country
to adopt ideas of equality. This love of privilege has vitiated the
English administration in Ireland in more ways than one. The whole
administration of the country rested avowedly down to 1829, and
unavowedly to a later period, on the inequality of Catholics and
Protestants, and Protestant supremacy itself meant (except during the
short rule of Cromwell)[13] not Protestant equality, but Anglican
privilege. The spirit which divided Ireland into hostile factions
prevented Englishmen who dwelt in England from treating as equals
Englishmen who settled in Ulster. When the Volunteers claimed Irish
independence, and the American colonists renounced connection with the
mother country, similar effects were produced by the same cause. In each
case English colonists revolted against England's sovereignty, because
it meant the privilege of Englishmen who dwelt in Great Britain to
curtail the rights and hamper the trade of Englishmen who dwelt abroad.
For the iniquitous restrictions on the trade of Ireland, which are
morally by far the most blameworthy of the wrongs inflicted by England
upon Irishmen, were not precisely the acts of deliberate selfishness
which they seem to modern critics. The grievance under which Ireland
suffered was in character the same as the grievances in respect of trade
inflicted on the American colonies. Yet but for the insane attempt to
subject the colonists to direct taxation by the English Parliament the
War of Independence might have been long deferred. Even the sufferers
from a vicious commercial policy did not see its essential iniquity, and
it is hardly a subject for wonder that a generation of Englishmen who
supposed themselves to gain greatly by controlling or extinguishing the
colonial or the Irish trade should not have recognised the full iniquity
of a policy which in itself hardly seemed intolerable to many of those
colonists who endured the wrong. Still less can we be surprised that
Englishmen a century ago, amid a world where the idea of human equality
was not as yet recognised, should have failed to perceive what many
Englishmen it may be suspected will hardly admit at present, that to
most men equality, i.e. the treatment of all subjects by their
government on similar principles, seems a form of justice, and that the
multitude will tolerate restrictions on their freedom far more easily
than offences against their sense of equality. No one will care to deny
that French Governments have at all periods been far more despotic than
the Government of England; but few persons who have given the matter a
thought can deny that France has shown a power quite unknown to
Englishmen of attaching to herself by affection countries which she has
annexed by force. Strasburg was stolen from Germany, yet Strasburg soon
became French in heart. Belgium and the Rhine Provinces would gladly
have remained parts of the Napoleonic Empire. Savoy annexed in 1859
showed no disposition to separate from France in 1870. The explanation
of these facts is not far to seek. When France annexes a country she may
govern it well or ill, but she governs it on the same principles as the
rest of the French dominions. Englishmen found it for centuries
impossible to govern Englishmen in Ireland or Englishmen in
Massachusetts exactly as if they were Englishmen in Middlesex. It is not
uninstructive that every French Assembly since the Revolution has
included Deputies from the colonies; no colony has ever sent a member to
the Parliament at Westminster.
Secondly,--The English connection has inevitably, and therefore without
blame to anyone, brought upon Ireland the evils involved in the
artificial suppression of revolution.
The crises called revolutions are the ultimate and desperate cures for
the fundamental disorganisation of society. The issue of a revolutionary
struggle shows what is the true sovereign power in the revolutionised
state. So strong is the interest of mankind, at least in any European
country, in favour of some sort of settled rule, that civil disturbance
will, if left to itself, in general end in the supremacy of some power
which by securing the safety, at last gains the attachment, of the
people. The Reign of Terror begets the Empire; even wars of religion at
last produce peace, albeit peace may be nothing better than the iron
uniformity of despotism. Could Ireland have been left for any lengthened
period to herself, some form of rule adapted to the needs of the country
would in all probability have been established. Whether Protestants or
Catholics would have been the predominant element in the State; whether
the landlords would have held their own, or whether the English system
of tenure would long ago have made way for one more in conformity with
native traditions; whether hostile classes and races would at last have
established some _modus vivendi_ favourable to individual freedom, or
whether despotism under some of its various forms would have been
sanctioned by the acquiescence of its subjects, are matters of uncertain
speculation. A conclusion which, though speculative, is far less
uncertain is, that Ireland if left absolutely to herself would have
arrived like every other country at some lasting settlement of her
difficulties. To the establishment of such a reign of order the British
connection has been fatal; revolution has been suppressed at the price
of permanent disorganisation, the descendants of colonists and natives
have not coalesced into a nation, and a country which has never known
independence has never borne the burdens or learnt the lessons of
national responsibility. Disastrous as this result has been, it is
impossible to say who it was that at any given point was to blame for
it. Had France been attached to and dependent upon a powerful neighbour,
this sovereign state must have checked the cruelties and the injustice
of the Reign of Terror. But the forcible extinction of Jacobinism by an
external power would, we can hardly doubt, have arrested the progress
and been fatal to the prosperity of France. Ireland, in short, which
under English rule has lacked good administration, has by the same rule
been inevitably prevented from attempting the cure of deeply rooted
evils by the violent though occasionally successful remedy of
revolution.
Thirdly,--From the original flaw in the connection between the two
countries has resulted, almost as it were of necessity, the religious
oppression, which, recorded as it has been in the penal laws, has become
the opprobrium of English rule in Ireland.