SEPARATION.
[Sidenote: Evils of Separation]
Englishmen are so firmly and with such good reason convinced that the
independence of Ireland would be fatal to the greatness and security of
Great Britain, that they rarely attempt to weigh accurately the grounds
of reason which may be adduced in support of a conviction which has
acquired the character of a political instinct. The evils, however, to
England which may be reasonably anticipated from the political
separation of the two countries may be summed up under three heads.
_First_.--The acquiescence by England in Irish independence would be a
deliberate and complete surrender of the objects at which English
statesmanship has, under one form or another, aimed for centuries. Such
a surrender would, in addition to its material effects, inflict an
amount of moral discredit on England which would itself be the cause of
serious dangers. That a powerful nation should (except under the force
of crushing defeat) assent to an arrangement which would decrease its
resources and authority must inevitably appear to all the world to be,
and probably would be in reality, such a sign either of declining
strength or of declining spirit as would in a short time provoke the
aggression of rivals and enemies. Abdication of royal or imperial
authority is with States no less than with individuals the precursor of
death. Loss of territory, indeed, in consequence of defeat, is in itself
only in so far damaging as defeat may imply a want of capacity to resist
attack, or as the diminution of territory may involve loss of resources.
Thus the surrender of Lombardy by Austria, of Alsace by France, of
Schleswig-Holstein by Denmark, the acquiescence of Holland in the
independence of Belgium; or, to come nearer home, the treaty by which
England acknowledged that the struggle to retain her American colonies
had ended in failure, each and all of them brought only such discredit
upon the defeated country as is the direct consequence of want of
success. None, of these transactions had anything like the disastrous
results which the concession of Irish independence would entail on
England. The Austrians, the French, the Danes, and the Dutch had, as the
whole world admitted, struggled manfully to maintain their power. They
were beaten as one party or other to a fight must be beaten, but they
did not betray any of those failings which encourage further attack. The
close of the conflict with our colonies assuredly did not leave England
disgraced before the world. The obstinacy of George III., the splendid
resistance made by a nation assailed at once by a combination of
enemies, any one of whom alone would have seemed a formidable foe, the
victories of Rodney, the defence of Gibraltar, not only saved but
increased the renown of England, and were warnings which no foreigner
could disregard, that the loss of the American colonies, though it might
diminish the Empire, had not quenched the spirit or undermined the
strength of Great Britain. No one can suppose that a peaceful retreat
from the difficulties and responsibility of providing for the Government
of Ireland would leave to England that reputation for courage and
endurance which, even in the midst of defeat, was retained by the
generation who acknowledged the independence of America. Peaceable
surrender may avert material loss; it cannot maintain moral character.
One thing only would render the concession of Irish independence
compatible with Englishmen's respect for themselves, or with the respect
of other nations for England. This condition would be the obvious, and,
so to speak, patent conviction on the part of the whole English people,
that the grant of independence to Ireland was the fulfilment of a duty
demanded by justice. No such conviction exists, nor is it ever likely to
come into existence. Even were so great a change of English sentiment to
take place that a majority of the people became ready, on grounds of
expediency, to break up the connection between Great Britain and the
neighbouring island, it would still be hard to persuade the nation that
there was not vile treachery in refusing to stand by and support that
part of the Irish people which wished to retain the connection with
England. The treachery would approach to infamy if it should appear that
England, for the sake of her own comfort, left English subjects who had
always obeyed the law and relied on the honourable protection of the
United Kingdom at the mercy of conspirators whose lawlessness had taken
the form of cruelty and tyranny, and whose vindictiveness was certain to
punish as criminality former acts of loyalty or obedience to English
sovereignty. High-toned self-sacrifice which results in breach of faith
to associates is considered by the world at large as a particularly
odious form of hypocrisy. Nothing in the treaty between England and the
American Colonies involved more just bitterness of feeling than the
partial, and probably inevitable, desertion of the Loyalists. The
national conscience would condemn rather than approve the prudential
considerations which might, under certain circumstances, induce
Englishmen to consent to see Ireland an independent nation; such consent
would imply the adoption of views of national interest fundamentally
inconsistent with the maintenance of Imperial power; the damage
resulting from loss of character is difficult to estimate, but is none
the less real because it does not admit of computation in the terms of
the multiplication table.
_Secondly_, the independence of Ireland means loss to Great Britain both
in money and in men. The pecuniary loss is, indeed, not quite so
serious as might at first sight be looked for.[28] The provisions of the
rejected Government of Ireland Bill imply, it would seem, that the
pecuniary gain of the United Kingdom from Ireland in the way of taxation
may, in Mr. Gladstone's judgment, be estimated at about three and a half
millions per annum, and this may presumably be taken as a not unfair
estimate. The sacrifice of a seventh part of the population of the
United Kingdom is no slight matter. Its importance is enhanced by the
circumstance, never to be forgotten, that Great Britain is the centre of
an Empire. The brutal and stupid jests by which respectable Englishmen
often hint that the bravery, the capacity, and the genius of Irishmen
are of little service to the Empire, and that their value is more than
counterbalanced by the ill results of Irish discontent and sedition,
conceal from unreflecting minds the extent to which every part of the
United Kingdom has severally contributed to the fortune and power of the
country. Irish labourers, Irish soldiers, Irish generals, and Irish
statesmen have assuredly rendered no trifling services to the British
Crown. There is, however, one valid ground for rating the loss in men to
England, which would result from separation from Ireland somewhat lower
than one would on first thoughts be inclined to place it. Even were
Ireland an independent country there is nothing to prevent England from
leaving all the advantages of English citizenship open to the
inhabitants of the Irish State. In this matter much is to be learnt from
Germany. Neither Stein, nor Niebuhr, nor Moltke, were by birth subjects
of Prussia, yet Prussia did not lose the inestimable gains to be derived
from their talents. A generous, a liberal, and a just extension of the
privileges of citizenship might fill the English army and the English
civil service with men drawn from a State independent of Great Britain.
If the independence of Ireland were proclaimed to-morrow, there would
not be a hundred Irish labourers the fewer in Liverpool or in London.
Connections and relations depending upon community of language,
community of interest, community of feeling, the ties of kindred, of
business, of friendship, or of affection cannot, happily, be dissolved,
or to any great extent affected, by political revolutions. In any case,
it would depend on the wisdom of Great Britain whether separation from
Ireland should or should not mean the estrangement of Irishmen.
_Thirdly_, the independence of Ireland would give England a foreign, and
possibly a hostile, neighbour along the western coast of Great Britain.
We should, for the first time since the accession of the Stuarts, occupy
a position something like that of a Continental nation, and know what it
was to have a foe, or at best a very cold friend, upon our borders. In
time of war Ireland would be the abettor or the open ally of, say, the
United States, or of France; Dublin would, unless reconquered, be the
outpost of the French Republic or of the American Union. In times of
peace things would not stand much better; our diplomacy would be
constantly occupied with the intrigues carried on in Dublin; the
possibility of attack from Ireland would necessitate the increase of our
forces; increased taxation would be drawn from a diminished population;
we should be compelled to double our army when we had lost that part of
the kingdom which used to form our best recruiting-ground. Sooner or
later England would be driven, like every Continental State, to accept
the burden of conscription, and with conscription would come essential
changes in the whole habits of English life. Nor can we count upon this
being the end of our calamities. The burden of conscription would
deprive us of our one great advantage over competitors in the struggle
for trade; an overtaxed and overburdened people could not long maintain
their mercantile pre-eminence. This is the picture which is constantly
drawn, in one shape or another, of the ruinous results to England of the
free development of Irish nationality. No one can undertake to say that
its main features are false. Still, it must be admitted that the
prophets of evil neglect to notice several facts which ought not to be
overlooked. Ireland is a poor country of about the population of
Belgium; it is occupied by a people far less wealthy than the
inhabitants of England; and, moreover, by a people divided among
themselves by marked differences of race, religion, and historical
tradition. Is it really to be feared that such a neighbour could, even
if both independent and hostile, be half the peril to England that
Germany is to France, or France to Italy? Money constitutes now more
truly than ever the sinews of war, and it will be a long time before
Ireland is a country abounding in money. There is, to say the least,
something ignominious in the dread that Englishmen could not hold their
own in the face of an Irish Republic, which would certainly be poor, and
would probably be a prey to violent factions. Grant again--and this is
granting a good deal--that Ireland might become a province of France,
there is still some difficulty in seeing why Englishmen can live without
fear within sight of Boulogne, and yet must tremble at the thought of
French regiments assembling in Dublin. The command of the sea moreover
would, whether Ireland were or were not aided by foreign allies, be a
complete protection for England against invasion. If England's naval
supremacy were lost, the power of the British Empire would in any case
be gone. The vital matter for us is to retain command of the seas. Our
capacity for doing this would not be greatly affected by Irish
independence. America, further, and France are the only allies to whom
Ireland could look for aid. The notion that the United States would
consent to receive Ireland under any terms into the Union must appear to
any one who has studied American politics the wildest of dreams. It
supposes that the Americans would, without any gain to themselves,
disarrange the whole balance of their constitution, and by involving
themselves in all the complexities of European politics depart from the
path which they have continuously pursued, and which is marked out to
them by the plainest rules of common sense, and, it is hardly an
exaggeration to say, by the laws of nature. A people who decline to
annex Cuba, and are fully willing to wait till circumstances bring
Canada into the Union and give America possession of Mexico, are not
likely to incorporate Ireland. The alliance of France is a different
matter. Reflection, however, mitigates the dread of its occurrence.
Active alliance with Ireland would mean war with England, and now for
seventy years France and England have been at peace. This state of
things is the more remarkable because there have during that period
arisen occasions for discord, and because no feeling of sentimental
friendship forbids warfare. The true guarantee for peace between nations
which were long deemed hereditary foes is the immense interest which
each has in abstaining from war. Could the state of things which existed
at the beginning of the century be revived, thousands of Englishmen and
Frenchmen would be ruined. The security for peace depending upon
national interest would not be diminished were Ireland to-morrow
proclaimed an independent republic. That this independence would
facilitate French attack is undeniable, but attack would not be the more
likely to occur. Add to all this that Irish discontent or sedition
would, during a war, help France as much as Irish independence. Ireland
is no doubt the weak point in the defences of Great Britain. This no
one denies. The only question is whether and to what extent the
independence of that country would widen the breach in England's
defensive system.
[Sidenote: Possible advantages of Separation]
Any one who attempts to forecast the probable evils to England of Irish
independence should keep one recollection constantly before his mind.
The wisest thinkers of the eighteenth century (including Burke) held
that the independence of the American Colonies meant the irreparable
ruin of Great Britain. There were apparently solid grounds for this
belief; experience has proved it to be without foundation.
A calm observer can even now see that the complete dissolution of the
connection between Great Britain and Ireland, disastrous as in many
respects such an event would undoubtedly be, holds out to the larger
country the possibility of two advantages.
Loss of territory might be equivalent in some aspects to increase of
power.
There exists in Europe no country so completely at unity with itself as
Great Britain. Fifty years of reform have done their work, and have
removed the discontents, the divisions, the disaffection, and the
conspiracies which marked the first quarter or the first half of this
century. Great Britain, if left to herself, could act with all the
force, consistency, and energy given by unity of sentiment and community
of interests. The distraction and the uncertainty of our political
aims, the feebleness and inconsistency with which they are pursued,
arise, in part at least, from the connection with Ireland. Neither
Englishmen nor Irishmen are to blame for the fact that it is difficult
for communities differing in historical associations and in political
conceptions to keep step together in the path of progress. For other
evils arising from the connection the blame must rest on English
Statesmen. All the inherent vices of party government, all the
weaknesses of the Parliamentary system, all the evils arising from the
perverse notion that reform ought always to be preceded by a period of
lengthy and more than half-factitious agitation met by equally
factitious resistance, have been fostered and increased by the
inter-action of Irish and English politics. No one can believe that the
inveterate habit of ruling one part of the United Kingdom on principles
which no one would venture to apply to the government of any other part
of it, can have produced anything but the most injurious effect on the
stability of our Government and the character of our public men. The
advocates of Home Rule find by far their strongest arguments for
influencing English opinion, in the proofs which they produce that
England, no less than Ireland, has suffered from a political arrangement
under which legal union has failed to secure moral unity; these
arguments, whatever their strength, are, however, it must be noted, far
more available to a Nationalist than to an advocate of Federalism.
English authority in Ireland would be increased by the possession of
that freedom of action which every powerful State exercises in its
dealings with a weaker though an independent nation. There is something
so repulsive to the best feelings of citizenship in even the
hypothetical contemplation of the advantages (such as they are) which
would accrue to Great Britain from the transformation of thousands of
our fellow-countrymen into aliens, that it is painful to trace out in
clear language the strength of the position which England would occupy
towards the Irish Republic. But in argument the strict following out of
the conclusions flowing from facts is a form of honesty, and however
repulsive these conclusions may be, their statement is a matter of duty.
Were Ireland independent, England would possess three means far more
effective for enforcing her will upon her weaker neighbour than are
coercion acts, courts, or constables. England could deal not with
individuals, but with the State, and she could compel respect for
treaties or due regard to English interests by invasion, by a pacific
blockade, or by a hostile tariff. There is a special reason for dwelling
on the facility with which England could compel the observance of
engagements. Morally the most serious of all the objections to England's
conceding Irish independence is the indelible disgrace which would
rightly fall upon any country which did not provide for the protection
of men who had been loyal and faithful citizens. Now the point to be
noted is that England's authority, resulting not from law but from
power in an independent Ireland, would greatly enhance her capacity for
ensuring the fair treatment of Irish Protestants. The treaty of
independence would provide guarantees for their rights, and any breach
of these guarantees would be a _casus belli_. The mere threat of a
hostile tariff would of itself be a stronger sanction than the most
strenuous provisions of an Act of Parliament backed only by the very
hypothetical power of compelling a half-independent executive to obey
the judgments of, say, the Privy Council The guarantees of a treaty are,
it may be said, often worthless. This is so; but their worthlessness
arises from the weakness of the country in whose favour they are made.
In any event they may be worth a good deal more than provisions of an
Act of Parliament. The deriders of a paper Union which has lasted for a
century have no right to count on the validity of a paper Federation
which still awaits creation.
It is, again, possible that the severance of all political connection
might open the way to friendship or alliance.
This assertion is no unmeaning paradox. If one could anticipate with any
confidence that the acknowledgment of Irish nationality would bring to
Ireland happiness and prosperity, it would not be a very bold conjecture
that as Ireland flourished and prospered, ill-will to England might
rapidly decrease. With nations, as with individuals, to remove all
causes of mutual irritation is much the same thing as removing the
disposition to quarrel. Not twelve years have passed since the last
Austrian soldier marched out of Italy, yet Austria is at this moment
less unpopular with the Italians than France, and Garibaldi's death
evoked tributes of respect at Vienna. For fifteen years the whole force
of European law was employed to keep Belgium united to Holland; the
obvious interests, moreover, of all the inhabitants of the kingdom of
the Netherlands told in favour of union. Yet year by year the two
divisions of one country became more and more hostile to each other.
Fifty years of separation have, as far as appearances go, restored, or
for the first time created, feelings of friendliness between the
Belgians and the Dutch. There are to be found Belgian statesmen who
regret the proclamation of Belgian independence. When in 1881 the
Americans celebrated at Yorktown the centenary of British defeat, they
went out of their way to display their goodwill towards Great Britain.
Plaudits and toasts, it may be said, prove nothing except the existence
of a sentiment which, even if it be genuine, is certain to be
evanescent. This is true; but the matter for consideration is not
whether the feeling of friendliness towards Great Britain which found
expression daring the festivities at Yorktown would survive a conflict
of interest between England and America, but whether a condition of
feeling which allows the two nations to look calmly after their own
interests, unblinded by passion or animosity, could possibly have been
produced by the continuance of that connection between England and
America which was terminated by the surrender of Cornwallis. There is at
least no absurdity in the supposition that this question ought to be
answered in the negative, and that Americans and Englishmen are at any
rate not enemies just because a hundred years ago they ceased to be
fellow-citizens.
Let not, however, the gist of my argument be misunderstood. The possible
increase of English power, and the possible growth of goodwill between
England and Ireland, are not used as anything like reasons in favour of
Separation. They are set down simply as deductions from the immense
evils of a policy which no Englishman can regard as other than most
injurious to the whole United Kingdom. The reason why it is wise to
dwell on this kind of set-off against the ill effects of Separation is
that Home Rule, while involving almost all the evils of Separation, will
be found on examination not to hold out anything like the same hopes of
compensating advantages.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] See 'Economic Value of Ireland to Great Britain,' by Robert Giffen,
_The Nineteenth Century_, March, 1886, p. 229.