not reached the stage of development which is essential for even the
understanding of Protestant dogma, and who if left to themselves would
have adhered to Catholicism, conceals from us the strength of the pleas
to be urged in excuse of a policy which to critics of the nineteenth
century seems at least as absurd as it was iniquitous. Till towards the
close of the seventeenth century all the best and wisest men of the
most civilised nations in Europe, believed that the religion of a
country was the concern of the Government, and that a king who neglected
to enforce the "truth"--that is, his own theological beliefs--failed in
his obligations to his subjects and incurred the displeasure of Heaven.
From this point of view the policy of the Tudors must appear to us as
natural as to themselves it appeared wise and praiseworthy. That the
people of England should have been ripe for Protestantism at a time when
the people of Ireland had hardly risen to the level of Roman Catholicism
was to each country a grievous misfortune. That English Protestants of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries should in common with the whole
Christian world have believed that the toleration of religious error was
a sin, and should have acted on the belief, was a cause of immense
calamities. But inevitable ignorance is not the same thing as
wickedness.[14]
Fourthly,--To the same source as religious persecution are due the whole
crop of difficulties connected with the tenure of land.
When James I. determined that the old Brehon law was to be abolished,
and an appeal to the law of England to be brought within the reach of
every Irishman, he and his ministers meant to introduce a beneficial
reform. They hoped that out of the old tribal customs a regular system
of landowning according to the English tenure would be developed. In
forcing on this change, English statesmen felt convinced not only that
they were reformers, but that they were promoters of justice. To a
generation trained under the teaching of lawyers like Coke, and
accustomed to regard the tenure which prevailed in England as good in
itself, it must have appeared that to pass from the irregular dominion
of uncertain customs to the rule of clear, definite law, was little less
than a transition from anarchy and injustice to a condition of order and
equity. They acted in precisely the spirit of their descendants, who are
absolutely assured that the extension of English maxims of government
throughout India must be a blessing to the population of the country,
and shape their Egyptian policy upon their unwavering faith in the
benefits which European control must of necessity confer on Egyptian
fellahs. If, however, it is probable that King James meant well to his
Irish subjects, it is absolutely certain that his policy worked gross
wrong. His scheme only provided for the more powerful members of the
tribes, and took no account of the inferior members, each of whom in
their degree had an undeniable if somewhat indefinite interest in the
tribal land. Sir John Davis, who carried out the plan, seems to have
thought that he had gone quite far enough in erecting the sub-chiefs
into freeholders. It never occurred to him that the humblest member of
the tribe should, if strict justice were done, have received his
allotment out of the common territory; and the result of his settlement
accordingly was that the tribal land was cut up into a number of large
freehold estates which were given to the most important personages among
the native Irish, and the bulk of the people were reduced to the
condition of tenants at will.[15] An intended reform produced injustice,
litigation, misery, and discontent. The case is noticeable, for it is a
type of a thousand subsequent English attempts to reform and improve
Ireland. The rulers of the country were influenced by ideas different
from those of their subjects. Ignorance and want of sympathy produced
all the evils of cruelty and malignity.
Bad administration, religious persecution, above all a thoroughly
vicious system of land tenure, accompanied by such sweeping
confiscations as to make it at any rate a plausible assertion that all
the land in Ireland has during the course of Irish history been
confiscated at least thrice over,[16] are admittedly some of the causes,
if they do not constitute the whole cause, of the one immediate
difficulty which perplexes the policy of England. This is nothing else
than the admitted disaffection to the law of the land prevailing among
large numbers of the Irish people. The existence of this disaffection,
whatever be the inference to be drawn from it, is undeniable. A series
of so-called Coercion Acts passed both before and since the Act of Union
give undeniable evidence, if evidence were wanted, of the ceaseless, and
as it would appear almost irrepressible, resistance in Ireland offered
by the people to the enforcement of the law. I have not the remotest
inclination to underrate the lasting and formidable character of this
opposition between opinion and law, nor can any jurist who wishes to
deal seriously with a serious and infinitely painful topic question for
a moment that the ultimate strength of law lies in the sympathy, or at
lowest the acquiescence, of the mass of the population. Judges,
constables and troops become almost powerless when the conscience of the
people permanently opposes the execution of the law. Severity produces
either no effect or bad effects, executed criminals are regarded as
heroes or martyrs, and jurymen or witnesses meet with the execration,
and often with the fate, of criminals. On such a point it is best to
take the judgment of a foreigner unaffected by prejudices or passions,
from which no Englishman or Irishman has a right to suppose himself
free:
"_Quand vous en êtes arrivés à ce point, croyez bien que dans cette voie
de rigueurs tous vos efforts pour rétablir l'ordre et la paix seront
inutiles. En vain, pour réprimer des crimes atroces, vous appellerez à
votre aide toutes les sévérités du code de Dracon; en vain vous ferez
des lois cruelles pour arrêter le cours de révoltantes cruautés;
vainement vous frapperez de mort le moindre délit se rattachant à ces
grands crimes; vainement, dans l'effroi de votre impuissance, vous
suspendrez le cours des lois ordinaires, proclamerez des comtés entiers
en état de suspicion légale, violerez le principe de la liberté
individuelle, créerez des cours martiales, des commissions
extraordinaires, et pour produire de salutaires impressions de terreur,
multiplierez à l'excès les exécutions captiales._"[17]
No advocate of Home Rule can find a clearer statement of the condition
of things with which on his view the Imperial Parliament is morally
incompetent to deal than in these words of De Beaumont's; but before we
hastily draw any inference from an undoubted fact, let us examine into
the exact nature of the fact. The opposition of Irish opinion to the law
of the land is undoubted, but the opposition is not now, and if we
appeal (as under the present argument we are appealing) to the teaching
of history never has been general opposition to law, or even general
opposition to English law. The statistics of ordinary crime are (it is
said) no higher in Ireland than in other parts of the United Kingdom. A
pickpocket or a burglar is as easily convicted in Ireland as elsewhere;
the persons who lamentably enough are either left unpunished, or if
punished may count on popular sympathy, are criminals whose offences,
atrocious and cruel as they constantly are, are connected in popular
opinion with political, and at bottom, it must be added, with agrarian
questions. For more than a century there has existed an hereditary
conspiracy against the rights of the landowners. The White Boys of 1760,
the Steel Boys of 1772, the Right Boys of 1785, the Rockites of a few
years later, the Thrashers of 1806, the White Boys who re-appear in
1811, 1815, 1820, the Terralts of 1831, the White Feet of 1833, the
Black Feet of 1837;[18] later Ribbon men under different names, the
Boycotters or the assassins who have added a terrible sanction to the
commands of the Land League or of the National League, have each and
all been, in most cases avowedly and in every case in fact, the
vindicators or asserters of the just or unjust popular aversion to the
rights of landlords given by the law and enforced by the courts of the
land. It would be folly to assert that all popular opposition to the law
in Ireland had been connected with agrarian questions. But if we look
either to the experience of past generations, or to the transactions
passing before our eyes, we can hardly be mistaken in holding that the
main causes of disaffection have been either questions connected with
religion, or rather with the position of Roman Catholics, or disputes
connected with the possession of land.
The feeling of nationality has played a very subordinate part in
fomenting or keeping alive Irish discontent. The Repeal agitation, in
spite of O'Connell's legitimate influence, collapsed. No one can read
Sir Gavan Duffy's most interesting account of the Young Ireland movement
without perceiving that just because it was strictly a nationalist
movement it took very little hold upon the people. The Home Rule
movement never showed great strength till it became avowedly a Land
League, of which the ultimate result should be, by whatever means, to
make the tenants of Ireland owners of their land. To this add that in
the judgment of foreign critics, and of thinkers like Mill, the popular
protest against the maintenance in Ireland of a tenure combining the
evils both of large estates and of minute subdivision of farms is
founded upon justice. De Beaumont at any rate teaches that to transform
Irish tenants into peasant proprietors would be the salvation of the
country:--
_"Plus on considère l'Irlande, ses besoins et ses difficultés de toutes
sortes, et plus on est porté à penser que ce changement dans l'état de
sa population agricole serait le vrai remède à ses maux....
"J'aurais mille autres raisons pour appuyer cette opinion; je m'arrête
cependant. Un lecteur anglais trouvera mes arguments incomplets. Tout
autre qu'un Anglais les jugera peut-être surabondants."_[19]
This opinion may be well-founded or ill-founded; but no wise statesman
will reject it without the maturest consideration.
History, then, if fairly interrogated, gives this result: Historical
causes have generated in Ireland a condition of opinion which in all
matters regarding the land impedes that enforcement of law which is the
primary duty of every civilized government.
From this fact Home Rulers draw the inference that the law is hated
because it is foreign, and that England should surrender to Irishmen the
effort to enforce legal rights, since this duty is one which can be
performed by a native and cannot be performed by any English or foreign
authority.
This conclusion is clearly not supported by the premises. If the source
of popular discontent be agrarian, then the right course is to amend the
land laws while improving the administrative system, and enforcing
justice between man and man.
A Home Ruler may, however, if hard driven, say that my interpretation of
history is erroneous, and that a hatred to English law, and to all
things English, and not a special dislike to the land law, is the
sentiment which prevails over every other feeling of the Irish people.
It is difficult to me to see how this view can be seriously maintained.
Let us grant however for a moment that Home Rulers are right, and that
millions of Irishmen are inspired with the passion of nationality. Even
on this supposition the Home Rule doctrine stands in a bad way. If the
demand of the Irish people be like that of the Italian people--a demand
for recognised nationality--then the demand must be satisfied, if at
all, not by Home Rule, but by independence. The most eminent among
English Home Rulers believes that the law is hated in Ireland because it
comes before the Irish people in a foreign garb. Mr. Froude in substance
agrees in this matter with Mr. Gladstone, since he holds that "the real
grievance is our presence in Ireland at all." But the eminent statesman
and the distinguished historian draw a different inference from the same
premises. Mr. Gladstone infers that Ireland can be satisfied by
semi-independence. Mr. Froude infers that if we are to meet Irish wishes
we must let Ireland be free. Mr. Froude's logic will be to most persons
far more intelligible than the logic of the Liberal leader. Here, at
any rate, we come to the true issue suggested by the phenomena of Irish
history. Is Irish discontent due in the main to agrarian or to political
causes? On the answer to this enquiry depends, as far as the argument we
have in hand goes, the line of right policy in Ireland. But neither
answer favours the contention of Home Rulers.[20]
The argument from Irish history gives rise to, or, more properly
speaking, contains in itself two further distinct lines of reasoning in
favour of Home Rule, each of which supplements the other. The first of
these aims at showing that to leave Ireland to herself is the only
method by which to restore order throughout the country. This I have
termed "the argument from the good effects of self-government," the
other deduces from the necessity for Coercion Acts the conclusion that
England cannot maintain order in Ireland: this I have termed "the
argument from the necessity for Coercion Acts." These two lines of
reasoning are simply an amplification of points suggested by the Home
Rule argument from Irish history, and are of necessity therefore open
to the same criticisms to which that argument is obnoxious. They have,
however, each a certain value of their own, and have made an impression
on the English public: they can each also be met by more or less special
replies. The argument, therefore, from the good effects of
self-government and the argument from the necessity for Coercion Acts
each deserve separate statement and consideration.
[Sidenote: 4. Argument from self-government.]
_The argument from the virtues of self-government._--Self-dependence is
the source of self-reliance and of self-help. Leave Ireland to herself,
and Ireland will (it is argued) develop the sense of responsibility and
the power of self-government. Mr. Parnell or Mr. Davitt as Irish Prime
Minister will be able to perform with ease feats beyond the reach of any
English Cabinets. He will dare to be strong because he knows he is
popular: he will punish conspirators with a severity unknown to modern
English governments; he will feel that anarchy is the bane of his
country, and he will not tolerate disorder. Boycotters, Moonlighters,
Dynamiters or Assassins will find that they are called upon to meet a
force of which they have had before no experience. They will discover
that they are engaged in a contest with the will of the people, and
deprived, as they will be, of the moral sympathy which has hitherto
given them comfort and encouragement, will yield obedience to a law
which is the expression of the national will. Self-government in
Ireland means strong government, and strong government is the one cure
for Irish misery.
This train of reflection has, unless I am mistaken, convinced many
English Radicals that the installation of an Irish Ministry at Dublin
will be the dissolution of every secret society throughout Ireland, and
thus gained over to the cause of Home Rule men who detest anarchy even
more than they love liberty.
This belief in the virtues of self-government is confirmed by the
teaching of American critics, who hold that the recent experience of the
United States presents a clue by which Englishmen may find a path out of
the labyrinth of their present perplexities. Transactions known to every
citizen of the States show conclusively that the hatred of law which in
Ireland fills Englishmen with amazement has arisen among a people who,
whatever their faults, cannot be charged with those inherited vices
which English opinion freely and gratuitously imputes to Irish nature.
In Connecticut, in New York, in Georgia, throughout all the Southern
States, open or secret combinations, supported by public opinion and
enforcing its decrees by violence and murder, have with success defied
the law courts. Social conditions, and not the perversities of Irish
character, are seen to be the true cause of phenomena which, if they are
now a feature of Irish life, have appeared in countries where not an
Irishman was to be found, and where the Irish had no appreciable
influence. To this fact, which appears to me not to admit of question,
Americans add the consideration that lawlessness when supported by
public opinion has in America been successfully met, not by coercion,
but by yielding to public sentiment. Hence they draw the conclusion that
the proper mode of terminating the conflict between law and widespread
sentiment is to yield to opinion, and, by conceding something of the
nature of Home Rule, to turn law-breakers into law-makers. The
application of this dogma to Ireland is obvious: the crucial instance by
which its truth is supposed to be established is the treatment of the
conquered South by the victorious North. From the termination of the War
of Secession up to 1876 the fixed policy of the Northern Republicans was
to maintain order in the South by the use of Federal troops. This policy
began and ended in failure: in 1876 the troops were withdrawn; the
endeavour to enforce law by means of the Federal armies was given up--as
if by magic chaos gave place to order. Local self-government has given
peace to the United States, why should it not restore concord to the
United Kingdom?[21]
[Sidenote: Criticism.]
It has been freely admitted in the foregoing pages[22] that the
historical connection between England and Ireland has brought upon the
weaker country the evils involved in the suppression of internal
revolution by external force. This admission contains the main ground
for the argument in favour of Home Rule drawn from the good effects of
self-government, but is not in reality a sound foundation on which to
place the suggested conclusion.
For the argument under consideration, even after the concession that
Ireland has suffered from not having been left to herself, is vitiated
by more than one flaw.
Home Rule, as it is again and again necessary to point out, is not
national independence, nor anything like independence. Home Rule gives
Ireland at most semi-independence--that is to say, it leaves Ireland at
least half dependent upon England. It is vain to argue that the position
of the member of a confederacy or of a colonial dependency will give to
Irishmen the sense of independence and responsibility which belongs to a
self-governing nation.
Grant, however (though the assumption is a hazardous one), that the
creation of an Irish government and an Irish Parliament would of itself
give to Ireland, even though she were still in many respects dependent
on England, such a new sense of power and of responsibility as would
enable her to create for herself a strong executive. This concession is
not enough to make out the argument in favour of Home Rule. Laws ought
to be not only strong but just, and Englishmen must consider whether
rulers who had come to the head of affairs solely because they
represented the strongest among many Irish factions or parties would he
able to rule with justice. The "Jacobin Conquest" installed a strong
executive in power, but England could not be an accomplice in
inaugurating a reign of terror. The connection which under any form of
Home Rule would bind together the parts of the present United Kingdom
would be, it may be suggested, a guarantee against the supremacy of an
Irish Robespierre or Danton. Granted: but if so, Home Rule would
restrain an Irish revolution. The strongest, in other words the most
reckless leaders, would be prevented from coming to the front. Ireland
would not follow her own course, and since she would not be in truth
self-governed, she would not reap the good fruits of self-government.
Nor in truth does the American version of our argument give much help to
Home Rulers.
In more than one instance popular sentiment has in the United States
defied the law of the land. Nothing can be a better example of such
defiance than the anti-rent war which raged in New York between 1839 and
1846.[23] The struggle exhibited all the recklessness of a no-rent
agitation in Ireland with none of the excuses which can be urged in
palliation of outrage by half-starving tenants; it produced a "reign of
terror which for ten years practically suspended the operations of law
and the payment of rent throughout the district" which was the field of
the anti-rent movement; it ended in a nominal compromise which was a
real victory for the anti-renters. In this instance, be it remarked, no
sentiment of nationality or State right came into play. The law was
hated, not because it was "foreign," but because it enforced the
obligation of an unpopular contract. Landlords, it is now all but
admitted, are not entitled to the full rights of citizens. The triumph
therefore of the anti-renters at New York may command a certain amount
of sympathy. The popular sentiment which in 1833 induced the people of
Connecticut to boycott Miss Prudence Crandall cannot be brought under
the sanction of any "higher law." Her crime was that she chose, obeying
the dictates of her conscience, to open a school for negro girls in
Connecticut. She was subjected to every annoyance and insult which the
most reckless boycotter could invent. Legislation itself was turned
against her, and the State failed utterly in the duty of protecting one
of the most meritorious, and now, one is happy to think, one of the most
honoured among the women of America. The Lyman Riots at Boston, as
indeed every stage in the noble struggle of the American Abolitionists
against popular injustice, tell the same tale, namely, that law in the
United States has once and again failed to assert its due supremacy over
injustice backed by public approval. This melancholy failure may
possibly support the proposition that England cannot enforce the law in
Ireland. It far more conclusively shows that even in countries deeply
imbued with the spirit of legality self-government has no necessary
tendency to produce just government or just legislation.
Let us, however, examine with care the lessons to be drawn from the
treatment of the Southern States of America by the North.
The natural and most obvious moral of modern American history is that
the majority of a nation have both the right and power to coerce a
minority who claim to break up the unity of the State. The most
distinguished English Liberals, such as Bright and Mill, held, and as I
conceive on sound grounds of reason and justice, that the Southern
States were neither legally nor morally justified in their claim to
secede from the Union; but no fair-minded man can deny that a plausible
constitutional case could be made out in favour of Secession, nor that
the citizens of the Southern confederacy demonstrated their wish and
determination to secede by far more cogent evidence than the return of
eighty-six Secessionists to Congress. The primâ facie arguments which
may be alleged in favour of Secession were tenfold stronger--unfounded
as I hold them to have been--than the primâ facie arguments in favour of
Ireland's right to Home Rule. Moreover, in studying the history of the
United States, an Englishman is at the present moment more concerned
with the results than with the justification of the suppression of the
Southern rebellion. The policy of the North attained its object: the
Union was restored, and its existence is now placed beyond the reach of
peril. The abolition of slavery took away the source of disagreement
between the Northern and Southern States, and the tremendous exhibition
of the power of the Republic has finally, it is supposed, destroyed the
very idea of Secession. There is certainly nothing in all this which
discourages the attempt to maintain the political unity of Great Britain
and Ireland. We are told, however, to forget the force employed to
suppress Secession, and to recollect only the policy of the Republicans
after the close of the Civil War. That policy was a failure as long as
it involved the denial to the Southern States of their State autonomy,
and became a success from the moment when it recognised to the full the
sacredness of State rights. This, or some statement like this,
represents the mode in which the annals of the Union must be read if
they are to be interpreted in favour of Home Rule. The reading is a
strained interpretation of events which are known to every one. The
North, once and for all, settled that the matters which lay at the
bottom of the Civil War should be settled in the manner which conform to
Northern notions of justice and of expediency. The abolition of slavery,
and the final disposal of the alleged right to Secession, gave to the
North, all the requisite securities against attacks on the unity of the
Republic. The Republicans, influenced in part by considerations of
party, but partly (it must in fairness be admitted) by the feeling that
it was a duty to secure for Negro citizens the full enjoyment of the
civil and political rights given them, under the constitutional
amendments supported for years the so-called Carpet Bag Governments,
that is to say, the rule of Northern adventurers who were kept in office
throughout the South by the Negro vote. The Federal Government, in
short, up to 1876 gave by its arms authority in the South to the
unscrupulosity of Northern scoundrelism supported by the votes of Negro
ignorance. Such a policy naturally produced bitter irritation among the
Southern Whites. Its reversal as naturally restored to the Whites at
once power and contentment. Whether this reversal was as satisfactory to
the Blacks is less clear. In any case it is hard to see how the
restoration of the Southern States to their natural place in the Union
tells in favour of giving Ireland a position quite inconsistent with the
existing constitution of the United Kingdom. The case stands thus:
Northern Republicans insisted that every State in the South should
submit to the supremacy of the United States on every point which
directly or indirectly concerned the national and political unity of the
American people. Having secured this submission the Republican party
restored to the Southern States the reality as well as the name of State
rights; and allowed the same and no more than the same independence to
South Carolina as is allowed to New York. No doubt something was
sacrificed; this "something" was a matter which did not greatly concern
the citizens of the North. It was the attempt to secure to the Black
citizens of the South the political rights given them by the
constitution. The sacrifice may have been necessary; many of the wisest
Americans hold that it was so. But we may suspect that even amongst
those who, as a matter of policy, approve the course pursued by the
Federal Government in the South since 1876, qualms are occasionally felt
as to some of its results. The able writer who sets American Home Rule
before Englishmen as an example for imitation says with the candour
which marks his writings: "I do not propose to defend or explain the way
in which" the Native Whites "have since then" (1876) kept the Government
"in their hands by suppressing or controlling the Negro vote. This is
not necessary to my purpose."[24] It is however necessary for the
purpose of weighing the effect of American experience to bear this
"suppression" constantly in mind; it has deprived the Negroes of
political rights which possibly they had better never have received, and
has falsified the result of Presidential elections. When we are told
that the South votes solid for a Democratic President, we must remember
that in the Southern States the Negro vote is "controlled"; and that in
reckoning the number of votes to which a State is entitled in virtue of
its population, the Negro voters of the South are counted for as much as
the uncontrolled White voters of the North. Whether this state of things
will always be contentedly borne by the Northern States is a matter on
which a foreigner can form no opinion. It is a condition of affairs
which does not conduce to respect for law, and the satisfaction with
which thoughtful Americans regard a policy founded on the tolerance of
illegality confirms the belief suggested by other circumstances, that
deference to opinion tends in the United States to undermine respect for
law; it certainly does not tend to show that self-government has much
connection with justice.
The argument, in short, from the good effects of self-government
appears, when examined, either to be an argument which tells far more
strongly in favour of Separation than of Home Rule, or else to be an
argument which shows only that England might gain some immediate
advantage from shutting her eyes to injustice committed by an Irish
government.
[Sidenote: 5. Argument from Coercion Acts.]
_The argument from the necessity for Coercion Acts_.--Coercion Acts are
(according to popular apprehension) enactments suspending the operation
of the ordinary law, and conflicting therefore with the principles of
the English Constitution. Order has been maintained in Ireland since the
Union (we are told) mainly by means of Coercion Acts. The English
democracy, it is argued, cannot acquiesce any longer in these violations
of the Constitution; but since order must somehow be maintained in
Ireland, and Coercion Acts must no longer be passed, the English
democracy must surrender the duty of maintaining the law into the hands
of the Irish people, who, as is assumed by Home Rulers, can exact
obedience to the law of Ireland without the use of exceptional
legislation.
[Sidenote: Criticism.]
A lawyer irritated by the folly of popular declamation is tempted to
dismiss all objections to Coercion Acts, together with all arguments
founded upon such objections, with one peremptory remark--namely, that
since a law is merely a rule which men are compelled to obey by the
power of the State, and Coercion is but another name for compulsory
obedience to the law, to object to Coercion is in reality to object to
law itself, or in effect to the existence of political society. The
temptation to cut down a popular delusion by some such summary criticism
as this is great, but it is a temptation which at all costs must be
resisted. Vague ideas, which have obtained general currency, are, in
spite of their inaccuracy, the outgrowth for the most part of reasonable
feeling. Whoever wishes to meet, and, if need be, dispel the antipathy
to Coercion Acts, must try to understand what is the meaning which
sensible men attach to the word "Coercion," what is the conviction
represented by the dislike to Coercion Acts, how this dislike may be
lessened, and, for the purpose with which these pages are written, how
far the disapproval of Coercion Acts provides a reason in favour of Home
Rule.
Of all the terms which at the present moment confuse public judgment,
none is more vague and misleading than the word "Coercion" when applied
to every stringent attempt to enforce in Ireland obedience to the law of
the land.
Coercion means and includes two different though closely connected ideas
which the laxity of popular thought fails to distinguish.
_First_.--Coercion means any attempt to enforce a law among people whose
moral sympathies are at variance with the law itself. In this sense
Coercion is opposed to that enforcement of ordinary law with which we
are all familiar. Thus, to punish a Ritualist for not conforming to the
judgment of the Privy Council, to enforce vaccination at Leicester, to
compel a Quaker to pay tithes, to eject an Irish tenant from the farm he
has occupied, to drag him into Court and seize his goods if he does not
pay his rent, to punish severely resistance to the Sheriff's officer, or
to the bailiff who gives effect to the rights of an Irish landlord, are
in popular estimation proceedings which according to the nature of the
law put in force are stigmatised as persecution or Coercion. They
certainly differ from the compulsion by which common debtors are
compelled to pay their debts, or thieves are prevented from picking
pockets or breaking into houses. The difference lies in this. Where the
enforcement of the law is called "Coercion," not only does the criminal
think himself in the right, or at any rate think the law a wrongful
law, but also the society to which he belongs holds that the law-breaker
is maintaining a moral right against an immoral law. The anti-vaccinator
is deemed a martyr at Leicester, the farmer who will not pay his rent is
thought a patriot at Cork. Where the enforcement of the law is not
popularly deemed coercion the law-breaker does not suppose himself to be
in the right, and still less do his associates think him morally
praiseworthy. A thief does not in general hold any theory about the
rightness of larceny, and there is no society in the United Kingdom at
least who deny the moral validity of the Eighth Commandment.
_Secondly_.--Coercion means the enforcement of law by arbitrary and
exceptional methods which tend to diminish the securities for freedom
possessed by ordinary citizens. Thus the suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act, the abolition of trial by jury, the introduction of peculiar rules
of evidence to facilitate convictions for a particular class of crimes,
a suspension (speaking generally) of what would be called in foreign
countries "constitutional guarantees," in order to secure obedience to
particular laws, would be called coercion.
An enactment, then, which in ordinary language is called a Coercion Act,
has one or both of the two following characteristics.[25] It is an Act
which either enforces some rule of law (e.g., the law that tenants must
pay their rent, or that trades unionists must not molest artisans who
accept lower wages than the scale prescribed by the union), which does
not command the moral assent of the society or people among whom it is
enforced, or else constrains obedience to law by some exceptional and
arbitrary mode of procedure. Now the general prejudice against an Act
which has either or both of these characteristics is within certain
limits justifiable on grounds of good sense. Laws derive three-fourths
of their force not from the fears of law-breakers, but from the assent
of law-keepers; and legislation should, as a rule, correspond with the
moral sentiment of the people. The maxim _quid leges sine moribus_,
though it should always be balanced by the equally important maxim _quid
mores sine legibus_, is one which no legislator dares neglect with
impunity, and a law permanently at variance with wide moral feeling
needs repeal or modification. It is also true that exceptional and
arbitrary legislation is, simply because it is exceptional and
arbitrary, open to suspicion. If it be desirable that personal liberty
should be protected by the writ of Habeas Corpus, a suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act is on the face of it an evil. If it is not desirable
that officers of the army should suddenly and without legal training
exercise the power of judges, the establishment of martial law is in
itself a great, though it may be a necessary calamity. Legislation,
which has received the odious name of coercion, has frequently (though
not always) exhibited one or both of the characteristics which render it
fairly obnoxious to that designation. The objection, therefore, to
Coercion Acts is on the face of it not unreasonable. What are the
inferences which the objection supports is, of course, quite a different
matter, and shall be considered in its due place.
It is most important, however, to note that the valid opposition to
so-called Coercion Acts may and ought to be greatly mitigated by careful
adherence to two maxims which are obvious, but are often neglected.
A Coercion Act in the first place, should be aimed, not at the direct
enforcement of rules opposed to popular opinion, but at the punishment
of offences which, though they may be indirectly connected with dislike
of an unpopular law or with opposition to rights (for instance, of
landowners) not sanctioned by popular opinion, are deeds in themselves
condemned by the human conscience. Deliberate breaches of contract,
insults to women and children, the murder or torture of witnesses who
have given truthful evidence in support of a conviction for crime,
brutal cruelty to cattle, may be methods of popular vengeance, or the
sanctions which enforce an agrarian code; but one may feel certain that
the man who breaks his word, who tortures or murders his neighbour or
who huffs cattle, knows himself to be not only a criminal, but a sinner,
and that the law, which condemns him to punishment, though it may excite
temporary outcry, can rely on the ultimate sanction of the popular
conscience.
A Coercion Act, in the second place, should as far as possible be
neither a temporary nor an exceptional piece of legislation.
An Act which increases the efficiency of the criminal law should, like
other statutes, be a permanent enactment. The temporary character of
Coercion Acts has needlessly increased their severity, for members of
Parliament have justified to themselves carelessness in fixing the
limits of powers conferred upon the executive under the insufficient
plea that these powers were intended to last but for a short time. It
has also deprived them of moral weight. An Act which is a law in 1881,
but will cease to be a law in 1882, has neither the impressiveness nor
the certainty which gives dignity to the ordinary law of the land.
Coercion Acts, again, should be general--that is, should apply, not to
one part, but to the whole, of the United Kingdom. Powers needed by the
Government for constant use in Ireland must occasionally be wanted in
England, or, if they do not exist there, in Scotland. It were the
strangest anomaly for the law to sanction a mode of procedure which
convicts a dynamiter in Dublin, and not to give the Government the same
means for the conviction of the same criminal for the same offence if he
has crossed to Liverpool. The principle forbidding exceptional or
extraordinary legislation suggests that Coercion Acts should in the main
give new stringency to the criminal procedure, and should not invade
the liberties of ordinary citizens. The object of a Coercion Act is to
facilitate the punishment of wrongdoers, not to restrict the liberty of
citizens who have not broken the law. This is a point legislators are
apt to neglect. The distinction insisted upon will be understood by any
one who compares the Act for the Better Protection of Person and
Property in Ireland, 44 Vict. c. 4, of 1881, with the Prevention of
Crime (Ireland) Act, 1882, 45 & 46 Vict. c. 25. They were each denounced
as Coercion Acts: the earlier enactment was in many ways the more
lenient of the two; yet in principle the Act of 1881 was thoroughly
vicious, whilst in principle the Act of 1882 was, as regards its most
effective sections, thoroughly sound. The Act of 1881 in effect gave the
Irish executive an unlimited power of arrest: it established in theory
despotic government. The Act of 1882 was in principle an Act for
increasing the stringency of criminal procedure. The one could not be
made permanent, and applied to the whole United Kingdom, without
depriving every citizen of security for his personal freedom. The main
enactments of the other might extend through the whole of Great Britain
and Ireland, and produce only the not undesirable effect of making the
whole United Kingdom a less pleasant residence than at present for
criminals or conspirators.
An Act which should be permanent, which should apply to the whole United
Kingdom, which should deal, not indeed exclusively but in the main,
with criminal procedure, could hardly contain injudicious, harsh or
tyrannical provisions. The passing of one such good Criminal Law
Amendment Act would, though its discussion occupied a whole Session,
save our representatives in Parliament an infinite waste of time, and
would make unnecessary half-a-dozen Coercion Acts for Ireland. To
enlarge the power of examining persons suspected of connection with a
crime, even though no man is put upon his trial; to get rid of every
difficulty in changing the venue; to give the Courts the right under
certain circumstances of trying criminals without the intervention of a
jury; to organise much more thoroughly than it is organised at present
in England the whole system of criminal prosecutions; to enable the
executive to prohibit public meetings which might provoke a breach of
the peace, would in many cases be an improvement on the criminal law of
England itself, and would in several instances be simply an extension to
the whole United Kingdom of laws which exist without exciting any
disapproval in some one division of it.[26] Without special experience
it would be presumptuous to assert that these or similar changes in
criminal procedure would suffice for the enforcement of the law in
Ireland during a period of disturbance. That such improvements in
procedure would go a good way to make special Coercion Acts unnecessary,
is in the highest degree probable. There is, moreover, nothing
objectionable or anomalous in increasing as time goes on the stringency
of criminal procedure. The law against crimes is the protection of men
who are not criminals. Civilisation raises our estimate of the
protection which good citizens ought to receive from the State; it also
places new means of attack in the hands of cheats and ruffians. An
elaborate criminal code is as necessary for a civilised society as are
elaborately trained armies and scientific arms both of defence and
offence.
No adherence, however, to sound maxims of criminal jurisprudence would,
it must be frankly admitted, entirely take away, though it might greatly
mitigate, the justifiable distaste for Coercion Acts. The necessity for
these Acts points to discord in Ireland between the law of the land and
the law of the people; they are the outward and visible sign of internal
discontent and disloyalty; they give good ground for supposing that the
law or some part of it requires amendment, and to many persons laws
which admit the existence of a bad social condition will appear to be
themselves odious. But the necessity for amending bad laws or vicious
institutions is no reason why just laws, or any law which cannot rightly
be repealed, should not be enforced. The fallacies of protection
afforded no reason for not punishing smugglers, though the existence of
smuggling gave good ground for considering whether the customs law did
not require revision. There seems to the thoughtless crowd--whether rich
or poor, and all men are thoughtless about most things, and many men
about all things--to be a certain inconsistency between reform and
coercion; there is something absurd in the policy of "cuffs and kisses."
But the inconsistency or absurdity is only apparent. The necessity for
carrying through by legal means an agrarian revolution--and the passing
of the Irish Land Act was in effect an admission by the English
Parliament, that this necessity exists--is a solid reason for the strict
enforcement of justice. Reform tends, as its immediate result, to
produce lawlessness. A wise driver holds his reins all the tighter
because he is compelled to drive along the brink of a precipice. Whether
Coercion Acts, which it must be remembered have been known before now in
England, and were known in Ireland during the era of her Parliamentary
independence, and which are the sign of the difficulty of enforcing the
law, are or are not to be tolerated as a necessary evil, depends on the
answer to the inquiry, whether the Government of the United Kingdom can
by just administration, and by just legislation, remove the source of
Irish opposition to the law? Answer the question affirmatively, and the
outcry against coercion becomes unmeaning; answer the question
negatively, and you produce an argument which tells with crushing power
in favour not of Home Rule, but of Separation.
[Sidenote: 6. The argument from inconvenience.]
_The argument from the inconvenience to England._[27]--Apologies for
Home Rule drawn from foreign experience, deference due to the popular
will, from the historical failure of England to govern Ireland with
success and the like, have about them when employed by English members
of Parliament a touch of unreality; they are reasons meant to satisfy
the hearer, but do not convince the speaker. When however we come to the
argument for Home Rule drawn from the inconvenience of the present state
of things to England generally, and to English members of Parliament in
particular, we know at once that we are at any rate dealing with a real
tangible serious plea which has (if anything) only too much weight with
the person who employs it. There is nothing in the whole relation of
England to Ireland about which politicians are so well assured, as that
the presence of a body of Parnellites at Westminster is an unutterable
nuisance, and works intolerable evil. Of the reality of their conviction
we have the strongest proof. The sufferings of Irish tenants, the
difficulties or the wrongs of Irish landlords, the evils of coercion,
the terror of assassination, but slightly ruffled the composure with
which English statesmen faced the perplexities of the Irish problem.
They first began to think that the demand for Home Rule might have
something in it when the refusal to erect a Parliament at Dublin meant
the continuance of obstruction in the Parliament at Westminster. The
terror of obstruction has to speak the plain truth, done more to effect
the _bonâ fide_ conversion of English M.P.'s into advocates of Home Rule
than any other single influence.
What then is the harm which a body of eighty or ninety Irish members can
work in Parliament? This is the answer. They may (it is said) in the
first place delay, obstruct, and render impossible the carrying through
of important measures; London may go without a municipality; widowers
may wait for years without being able to marry their deceased wives'
sisters; we may not during this generation get the blessing of a good
criminal code, if Mr. Parnell and his followers sit in Parliament
prepared to practice all the arts of obstruction. The Irish members, in
the second place, perturb and falsify the whole system of party
government. The majority of Great Britain wish to be ruled say by Lord
Salisbury; the Parnellites do not care whether Lord Salisbury or Mr.
Gladstone is Premier, but they do care for making the English executive
feeble, and ridiculous. They can, therefore, by the practice of a very
little art, seize some opportunity of putting Lord Salisbury in a
minority, and turning him out of office. Mr. Gladstone comes back into
what is ironically called power. The same game begins again. The
Parnellites coalesce with the Tories, we have a change of Cabinet, and
possibly a dissolution. Nor are changes of Ministry the whole of the
evil. The high tone of party politics is degraded. English or Scottish
members of Parliament are but men; they are liable to be tempted; the
Parnellites have the means of offering temptation; and temptation,
members of Parliament intimate to us, will in the long run be too great
for their virtue. The presence, in short, at Westminster of eighty-six
gentlemen who do not respect the dignity or care for the efficiency of
Parliament is absolutely fatal to the success of Parliamentary
government, and to the character of Parliamentary statesmanship. We
must, it is inferred, let the Parnellites have a Parliament of their own
in Ireland, or else we shall soon cease to have any Parliament worth
keeping in England.
[Sidenote: Criticism.]
The force of this line of argument, as far as it goes, cannot be denied.
The presence in the House of Commons of politicians disloyal to
Parliament causes immense inconvenience; but to anyone not a member of
the House of Commons, it appears singular that men of sense should think
the inconveniences of obstruction a sufficient ground for breaking up
the Constitution. The whole thing is a question of proportion. The
nation suffers a good deal from obstruction, but the suffering is not of
a kind to justify revolution. A toothache is a bad thing, but a severe
toothache hardly suggests suicide; and though life might not be worth
having, if toothache were to last for years, the thoughts of putting an
end to one's existence are removed by the knowledge that an aching tooth
can be drawn by a dentist. Now the more obvious evils of obstruction can
clearly be removed by changes of procedure. Members of Parliament appear
to think that to alter the rules of the House of Commons; to curtail and
limit the power of debate; to confer, if necessary, upon the Speaker, or
upon the bare majority of members present, authority to bring every
debate summarily to a close, is something like overthrowing the
monarchy, a thing not to be dreamt of by the wildest of innovators.
Plain men outside the walls of Parliament can assure our
representatives, that the world would bear with infinite calmness the
imposition of stringent restrictions on the overflow of Parliamentary
eloquence. If even the great debate on Home Rule had been finished say
in a week, the outer world would have been well pleased; and measures
such as the Government of Ireland Bill happily do not come before
Parliament every year. The more subtle evils arising in part at least
from the presence of the Irish members must be met by more searching
remedies. Parnellite obstruction has revealed rather than caused the
weakness of government by Parliament. The experience, not of England
only, but of other countries, shows the great difficulty of working our
present party system of government in a representative assembly which is
divided into more than two parties. The essential difficulty lies in
the immediate dependence of a modern ministry for its existence on every
vote of the House of Commons. If you see the difficulty, you can also
see various means by which it may be removed. In more than one country,
and notably in the United States and in Switzerland--states, be it
remarked, in which popular government flourishes--the executive, though
in the long run amenable to the voice of the people, and though in
Switzerland actually appointed by the legislature, is not like an
English Cabinet dependent on the fluctuating will of a legislative
assembly. If it were necessary to choose between modifications in the
relation of the executive to Parliament, and the repeal of the Act of
Union, most Englishmen would think that to increase the independence of
the executive--a change probably desirable in itself--was a less evil
than a disruption of the United Kingdom, which not only is in itself a
gigantic evil, but may well lead to others. A modification, however, in
the practice would, for the moment at least, save the real principles of
Parliamentary government. Were it once understood that a Ministry would
not retire from office except in consequence of a direct vote of want of
confidence in the House of Commons, the political power of the
Parnellite, or of any other minority, would be greatly diminished.
Meanwhile, members of Parliament may be reminded that it is on them that
the duty lies of removing the obstacles which from time to time impede
the working of Parliamentary machinery, and that the existence of
temptation to political turpitude is not an admitted excuse for yielding
to it. In one way or another a majority of 584 members must, if they
choose, be able to make head against the minority of 86. Their failure
already excites astonishment; the time is coming when it will excite
contempt. The English people, moreover, have the remedy in their own
hands. By giving to either of the great parties an absolute majority
they can terminate all the inconveniences threatened by Parnellite
obstruction. The remedy is in their hands, and recent experience
suggests that they will not be slow to use it.
* * * * *
A survey of the arguments in favour of Home Rule suggests the following
reflections:
The arguments, taken as a whole, do undoubtedly show that the present
state of things is accompanied by considerable evils or inconveniences.
They show what no one who has given a thought to the matter ever
doubted, that the relation between England and Ireland is
unsatisfactory. They are, as far as they go, objections to the
maintenance of the Union, but neither the feelings which favour Home
Rule, nor the reasons by which they are supported, tell in reality in
favour of Home Rule policy. They scarcely tend to show that Home Rule
would cure the evils complained of; they certainly do not show, they
only assume, that Home Rule in Ireland would not be injurious to
England. They are, in short, arguments in favour of Irish independence;
every one of them would be seen in its true character if the Irish
demand should take the form of a claim that Ireland should become
an independent nation. Meanwhile, even on the Home Rule view, the
case stands thus: the present condition of things excites Irish
discontent, and involves great evils. We have before us but three
courses:--Maintenance of the Union; the concession of Irish
independence; the concession of Home Rule to Ireland. The Home Ruler
urges that the last is the best course left open to us. To decide
whether this be so or not requires a fair examination of the
possibilities which each course presents to England.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] For the constitution of Austria-Hungary see Ulbrich's
_Oesterreich-Ungarn_ in Marquardsen's _Handbuch des Oeffentlichen
Rechts_; Francis Deák, with preface by M.E. Grant Duff; Home Rule in
Austria-Hungary, by David King, in the _Nineteenth Century_, January
1886, p. 35.
[5] Ulbrich, pp. 15, 76, 77.
[6] See Marquardsen, 28-30.
[7] This is, in my judgment, true even of such federations as the United
States or the Swiss confederacy.
[8] Froude's 'English in Ireland,' vol. 3, pp. 581, 582.
[9] See especially on this subject 1 De Beaumont, 'L'Irlande,' Partie
Historique, pp. 15-207.
[10] "On ne saurait considérer attentivement l'Irlande, étudier son
histoire et ses révolutions, observer ses moeurs et analyser ses lois,
sans reconnaître que ses malheurs, auxquels ont concouru tant
d'accidents funestes, ont eu et ont encore de nos jours, pour cause
principale, une cause _première_, radicale, permanente; et qui domine
toutes les autres; cette cause, c'est une mauvaise _aristocratie_." 1 De
Beaumont, 'L'Irlande,' deuxième partie, p. 228. The only objection which
may be fairly taken to De Beaumont's language, though not to his
essential meaning, is, that the words he uses occasionally suggest the
idea that he attributes some special vice of nature, so to speak, to the
landed classes in Ireland, whilst there is, of course, no reason to
suppose that the original Norman invaders of Ireland were a whit worse
than the Normans they left behind them in England, or that the
Cromwellian settlers did not possess the virtues which distinguished
Puritan soldiers. What De Beaumont really means is that the aristocracy,
or landed gentry, have been from first to last placed in a false
position, which has led to their exhibiting the vices, with few of the
virtues, of aristocratic government.
[11] Compare 1 De Beaumont, 'L'Irlande Sociale,' &c., pp. 253-256.
[12] See Dicey, 'Law of the Constitution' (Second Edition), pp. 181-210;
and compare 1 De Beaumont, 'L'Irlande Sociale,' &c., pp. 253-299.
[13] Cromwell's reputation as a statesman suffers even more than that of
most great men from the indiscriminating eulogy of admirers. The merit
of his Irish policy was not his severity to Catholics, but his equity to
Protestants. If he did not acknowledge the equality of man, he at any
rate acknowledged what English statesmanship before and after his time
refused to admit--the equality of Englishmen, at least when Protestants.
His policy handed down to us a legacy of justifiable hatred on the part
of Irish Catholics. But it is the fault not of the Protector, but of his
successors, that his policy did not ensure to England the loyalty of
every Protestant in Ireland.
[14] The penal laws against the Catholics in England were as severe as
those in Ireland. Their practical effect and working was however very
different in the two countries. See 1 Lecky,'History of England,' pp.
268-310.
[15] See Walpole, 'Short History of the Kingdom of Ireland,' p. 176.
[16] See a speech of Lord Clare made in defence of the Bill for
Establishing the Union with England, and republished by the Irish Loyal
and Patriotic Union.
[17] 1 De Beaumont, 'L'Irlande Sociale,' p. 251. It is of primary
consequence that Englishmen should realise the undoubted fact, that
agrarian conspiracies and agrarian outrages, such as those which baffle
the English Government in Ireland, are known to foreign countries. For
centuries the question of tenant-right, in a form very like that in
which it arises in Ireland, has been known in the parts of France near
Saint-Quentin under the name of the _droit de marché_. In France, as in
Ireland, tenants have claimed a right unknown to the law, and have
enforced the right by outrage, by boycotting, by murder. The
_Dépointeur_ is the land grabber, and is treated by French peasants
precisely as the Irish land grabber is treated by Irish peasants. See
Calonne, 'La Vie Agricole, sous l'Ancien Régime,' pp. 66-69. Precisely
the same phenomena have appeared in parts of Belgium, where for
centuries there has been, in respect of land, the conflict to which we
are accustomed in Ireland, between the law of the Courts and the law of
the people. "From the commencement of the year 1836 to the end of 1842
there had been" [in consequence of this conflict] "forty-three acts of
incendiarism, eleven assassinations, and seven agrarian outrages
entailing capital punishment," all within a limited part of Belgium. See
Parliamentary Reports on Tenure of Land in Countries of Europe, 1869, p.
118-123. In Belgium decisive measures of punishment at last put an end
to agrarian outrages. What should be specially noted is that in France
and Belgium crimes in character exactly resembling the agrarian outrages
which take place in Ireland had, it is admitted, no connection whatever
with national, or even it would seem with general political feeling.
[18] See 1 De Beaumont, 'L'Irlande Sociale,' &c., p. 251.
[19] 2 De Beaumont, 'L'Irlande Sociale, Politique et Religeuse.'
Septième édition, pp. 135 and 137.
[20] A Home Ruler may in this matter take up one position which is
consistent. He may say that England can allow to be carried out through
the agency of an Irish Parliament a policy which no English Parliament
could itself adopt. To put the matter plainly, an English Parliament
which cannot for very shame rob Irish landlords of their property may,
it is suggested, create an Irish Parliament with authority to rob them.
This position is consistent, but it is disgraceful. To ascribe it to a
fair opponent would be gross controversial unfairness.
[21] A reader who wishes to see the American view put in its best and
strongest form should read Mr. E.L. Godkin's article on "American Home
Rule," _Nineteenth Century_, June, 1886, p. 793. I entirely disagree
with the general conclusion to which the article is intended to lead,
but I am anxious to acknowledge the importance of the information and
the arguments which it contains.
[22] See pp. 87-89, _ante._
[23] See 'American Home Rule,' _Nineteenth Century_, June, 1886, pp.
793, 803, 804.
[24] _Nineteenth Century_, June, 1886, p. 801.
[25] Contrast the Coercion Acts of 1881 and 1882 respectively. For list
of Coercion Acts see "Federal Union with Ireland," by R.B. O'Brian,
_Nineteenth Century_, No. 107, p. 35.
[26] In England the Courts can change the venue for the trial of a
criminal. In Scotland the Lord Advocate can always (I am told) bring any
case he chooses to trial before the High Court of Justiciary in
Edinburgh, and the same thing could be done by the Court on the
application of the prisoner. In Scotland, again, any Sheriff or Chief
Magistrate of a Burgh could prohibit a meeting, however lawful, which he
thought likely to endanger the peace. The provisions of the last Irish
Coercion Act, Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act, 1882, 45 & 46 Vict. c.
25, s. 16, giving power to a magistrate where an offence had been
committed to summon and examine witnesses, even though no person is
charged with the offence, formed, I believe, part of the draft criminal
code for England.
[27] See for an admirable statement of this argument, "Alternative
Policies in Ireland," in the _Nineteenth Century_ for February, 1886.