HOME RULE DIFFICULTIES
Those who watch closely the exploitation of the religious cry against
Home Rule will have observed that its exploiters always endeavour to
make the best of both worlds. One world is expressed in the phrase,
"Home Rule means Rome Rule." The other by the watchword, "Priest-ridden
Ireland." Those who use the first of these cries are always trying to
persuade themselves that the gift of Home Rule will increase the power
of the Catholic Church in Ireland and produce a kind of religious
tyranny over the Protestant minority. How that could be done under a
measure so carefully safeguarded as, for instance, the Bill of
1912,[51] they never condescend to tell us. It is part of their policy
never to enter into details, but to produce a general atmosphere of
distrust and unreason.
But it is often these very same people who draw terrible pictures of
the power of the Roman Catholic Church already existing in Ireland at
the present moment. They do not explain how both of these propositions
can be true--how, if Ireland is already "priest-ridden"--a superlative
phrase--without Home Rule, there is any room for an increase of that
evil under Home Rule. They never seem to contemplate the possibility
that the proper and natural corrective to the power of the priest, if
it be excessive, is the creation of a strong rival civil power.
Is it, indeed, so certain that "Home Rule" would increase the power of
Rome in Ireland? I have even heard it said that the Home Rule cause
finds its headquarters at Rome, and that it is part of a gigantic
conspiracy of the Vatican to break up a Protestant Empire. Do those who
reason thus ever reflect how it is that the English Catholics are often
among the most formidable opponents of the Home Rule cause?
Why are the English Catholics so often opposed to Home Rule? The answer
was given by Cardinal Manning in the famous phrase quoted by Lord
Morley: "We want every one of their eighty votes."
UNIONISM AS "ROME RULE"
Those who fear Home Rule as "Rome Rule" in Ireland had better, indeed,
examine themselves as to whether their action in defeating the Home
Rule Bill of 1893 has not, so far as it goes, led to this very same
effect in England. It must never be forgotten that it was with the help
of the 80 Irish votes, pressed back to Westminster by the Irish Bishops
in sympathy with the Catholic Bishops in England, that the British
Parliament passed those clauses of the 1902 Education Act which are
most offensive to English Nonconformists. Dr. Clifford has coined the
expression "Rome on the rates." It is not, perhaps, a phrase that tells
the whole story. We cannot forget how many of the poorer Catholics in
our great cities are the descendants of the unhappy Irishmen who were
evicted between 1840 and 1880 from the cabins of Ireland. Those poor
exiles have a special call on our purses. But Anglicanism--rich
Anglicanism--has also been placed on the rates. It has been placed
there through a working alliance between the English Church and Rome,
carrying out its aims by means of the votes of the Catholic Irish
members. Those members only acted up to their principles in so voting.
It was Great Britain that compelled them to remain as full voters in
full strength at the British Parliament. As long as they are there the
Irish must be expected to vote for the interests of their own religion
and their own people. But what of the sincerity of the people who,
after using the aid of the Irish to endow the Catholic and Anglican
schools in England, now raise this outcry about "Rome Rule" in Ireland?
It is vital, indeed, to point out that in these matters Home Rule for
Ireland is the only possible road to Home Rule for England also. Under
the 1912 Bill the Irish vote at Westminster is reduced to 42, and will,
if English self-government be also extended, be excluded from education
altogether. Thus the first plain and practical result of Irish Home
Rule would be not so much to give the Roman Catholics more power in
Ireland as to give the Protestants more liberty in England. But who can
doubt that it would also introduce a new element of civil power into
the schools of Ireland?[52]
NATIONALISM AND RELIGION
As to Ireland itself, indeed, there can be no doubt that the great
national wrongs of the Irish people have immensely strengthened the
hold of the Roman Catholic Church over that island during the last
century.
Let us look back for a moment at the historic relations between Roman
Catholicism and the Irish National cause.
No doubt the iron hammer of Cromwell--in England the rebel, in Ireland
the conqueror--and the long torture of the penal laws both contributed
to weld together the religious and political faith of Ireland. During
those dark days, Nationalism and Catholicism were almost identical
terms. It has been shrewdly remarked that Henry VIII. and Elizabeth
might probably have converted Ireland to Protestantism if they had
preached the reformed faith in the Irish language. However that may be,
it is quite certain that Protestantism stood throughout the eighteenth
century as the sign and uniform of the conqueror and the devastator.
Catholicism remained as the hope and sign of the conquered. Any
Irishman who became a Protestant was naturally suspected of being a
traitor, not merely to his religion but also to his nation.
Yet at the end of the eighteenth century the British Government had a
great opportunity of dividing the national from the religious cause.
Grattan's Parliament, with all its brilliancy and efficiency, was,
after all, a Parliament from which every Catholic was excluded. That
Parliament, indeed, as we have noted, granted the franchise to the
Catholic peasant and abolished the penal laws. But it was part of the
policy of the British Government to show that Grattan's Parliament
could not grant Catholic emancipation in its full sense. The grant was
to be kept as a bribe by which to achieve the policy of the Union.
Anyone who reads the story in the pages of Lecky[53] must see how that
motive ran like a sinister thread throughout the whole working of
British policy from 1795 to 1800.
Well, that policy succeeded only too thoroughly for the time. Among the
various forms of bribery which induced the Irish Parliament to give a
vote for the Union at the second time of asking, the gift of money and
titles were, perhaps, less powerful than the offer of Catholic
emancipation. Recent researches have shown that that offer led to the
conversion of Bishops and their clergy throughout the whole of Ireland,
besides winning over the great body of Catholic Peers.
It is now known, indeed, to be the fact that the British Government
actually induced the Vatican to bring pressure upon the Irish leaders
and the Irish bishops in order to achieve their object. It is almost
certain that unless that offer had been made, and unless the Catholic
Party in Ireland had been informed that the Act of Union was the
inevitable price for Catholic emancipation, Lord Castlereagh would
never have succeeded in closing the Irish Parliament.[54]
That bargain was broken. It is unhappily the case that the British
Ministers must have given their pledge to the Catholic Party in Ireland
with the conscious knowledge of their inability to carry it out. For
over them all was their King, George III., still with the Royal
privilege of dismissal for his Ministers, and resolutely, fiercely
resolved not to grant Catholic emancipation. Pitt relieved his
conscience by a two-years' resignation, but he returned to Parliament
without achieving his pledge. For another thirty years the struggle
went on. It is the Duke of Wellington himself who has handed down to
history the testimony that Catholic emancipation was only finally
granted in 1829 in order to save Ireland from a second rebellion.
It is that record that has driven Ireland into the arms of Rome, and
who can wonder?
England has now only paid the price of that great betrayal of 1800--a
betrayal almost as great as the broken treaty of Limerick. Those who
read the story of 1800 to 1830, and especially the brilliant sketch of
O'Connell's life in Lecky's "Leaders of Irish Public Opinion," will
know that it was in the course of this prolonged struggle for Catholic
emancipation that the forces of religion and politics were first thrown
into close alliance in Ireland. It was not until after 1820 that the
Catholic priest took the place of the Irish landlord, and became what
he was throughout most of the nineteenth century, the political leader
of his district. It was O'Connell who first carried out that great
revolution in political strategy. It was he who first placed the flocks
of the Irish people under the guidance of shepherds who carried the
crook and not the rent-book. If the Home Rule movement has been
assisted by religious fervour, that has been the fault of British
statesmen. If the Irish have stood apart from the rest of Europe by a
steadily deepening loyalty to their faith, the reason is largely to be
found in the British policy of 1800.
ROME AND HOME RULE
What is the moral of all this? Some of the Unionists themselves give a
shrewd though cynical comment on the situation when they suggest, in
the intervals of crying "Home Rule means Rome Rule," that probably the
Roman Catholic priests have no great zeal for Home Rule. I do not,
myself, for a moment believe that that is the case. The Roman Catholic
priests of Ireland have themselves been elevated and purified by the
great struggle, both social and political, through which they have
passed. They stand apart from the rest of the priesthood of Europe,
distinguished above all others by their deep and strong democratic
sympathies. When all others deserted the people of Ireland in the black
times of the '98 Rebellion, in the dark and evil days of the famine of
1847, or through the murderous retaliations that followed, the Irish
priesthood stood staunchly by Ireland. Those who remained faithful then
are not likely to desert the cause of their people now that it is on
the verge of success. A broader and more enlightened view of the future
was expressed to me by that distinguished man the Vice-president of
Maynooth College, when he said:--"We do not expect any direct gain for
our faith, but as Irishmen we are with Ireland, and as Catholics we
cannot but believe that the prosperity of a Catholic nation must
redound to the glory of Catholicism." That is the view of a good
Catholic who is also a good citizen.
But though we may believe in their resisting power to this great
temptation, we must remember that the failure to settle the Home Rule
question would give to the bishops and priests a great power in
Ireland. They would remain the great, pre-eminent centre of national
authority. Look at their position now. They are public men; they are
allowed, without envy or opposition, to maintain an unchallenged
control over the schools; they have a voice in all great public
decisions of policy, even in regard to such matters as old-age
pensions, insurance, or agriculture. The present position plays into
their hands. "Rome Rule" is far more powerful without "Home Rule."
So much for the Irish clergy. But what of Rome itself? Looked at from
the distance of the Seven Hills, and viewed from the standpoint of a
Church that contemplates all forms of human government with equal
indifference, always regarding only the good of their Church, is it not
possible that the acute diplomatists of the Eternal City may think
that they stand to gain more by prolonging than by satisfying the
present hunger of Ireland? At present Rome holds Ireland in fee. As
long as Ireland possesses no strong secular central power she must
always lean on the authority of her bishops and archbishops. But Rome
thinks probably more of the 40,000,000 people of Britain than of the
4,000,000 of Ireland. As long as England persists in holding Ireland in
bondage she must pay to Rome some compensation. The eighty votes at
Westminster are still doing the work which Cardinal Manning required of
them. Is it likely that Rome is so beset with anxiety to drive them
across the Channel? Is it altogether unlikely that some of the more
shrewd Italian or Spanish diplomatists at the Vatican--advised,
perhaps, by their English bishops and dukes--may hope to affect the
issue rather in the Unionist than in the Home Rule direction? Such
suspicions may be entirely baseless, but it will be impossible to
disregard them entirely during the events of the next few years.
It would not be the first time, nor the latest since Castlereagh, when
the extreme Protestant Unionists of this country conspired with the
Tory Ultramontanes of the Vatican to traffic away the liberties of
Ireland.[55]
Amid all these doubts and perplexities we shall be wise to stick fast
to the central doctrine that civil liberty and religious liberty stand
together. This is the one truth that emerges from the history of Europe
during the last three centuries. Wherever we look--whether in Germany,
France, Holland, Scotland, or England--we see that these two rights
have always gone hand in hand.
Is there, indeed, a single instance in human history when the grant of
civil liberty has led to the forging of religious chains? Look to the
West, and note how, in the freest countries of the world--in the United
States and Canada, where there is not even a shadow of an establishment
for any form of religion--every kind of human faith lives together in
simple human brotherhood, and draws from that brotherhood new food for
the refreshment of mankind. In Ireland the one reason why the religious
quarrel has been maintained is to be found in the absence of civil
liberty. At every crisis of Ireland's fate the passion of religious
hatred has been worked--then as now--in order to prolong civil and
political despotism.
May we not be sure that Home Rule, instead of strengthening this evil
tendency, will weaken it? May we not be equally sure that it will take
no blood or muscle from the cause of true religion, certain to flourish
with greater richness and power where Christian love prevails?
Is it possible, in short, that in Ireland alone, of all countries,
freedom should mean persecution? On the contrary, is it not far more
likely that Home Rule for Ireland will mean neither Rome Rule nor
Orange Rule, but the "rule of the best for the good of all"?
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[51] See Appendix A for the text of the Bill.
[52] The priests have now practically complete power of dismissal over
the elementary teachers in the Irish schools. The only appeal is to the
Bishops.
[53] In his "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century." That book
is one of the most conscientious pieces of work in all modern
historical literature. It should be read by all who wish to gain a
thorough understanding of the Irish problem.
[54] See a very interesting pamphlet entitled "The Closing of the Irish
Parliament," by John Roche Ardill, LL.D. (Dublin). Dublin: Hodges,
Figgis and Co. Price 1s. 6d.
[55] For instance, it was by a Unionist intrigue at the Vatican that
the Pope was induced to denounce the "Plan of Campaign," and to
restrain the agitation among the Irish priests.
HOME RULE IN HISTORY
FIVE CENTURIES OF LIMITED HOME RULE
(1265-1780)
"You parade a great deal upon the vast concessions made by this
country to the Irish before the Union. I deny that any
voluntary concession was ever made by England to Ireland. What
did Ireland ever ask that was granted? What did she ever demand
that was not refused? How did she get her Mutiny Bill--a
limited Parliament--a repeal of Poynings' Law--a Constitution?
Not by the concessions of England, but by her fears. When
Ireland asked for all these things upon her knees, her
petitions were rejected with Percevalism and contempt; when she
demanded them with the voice of 60,000 armed men, they were
granted with every mark of consternation and dismay"
SYDNEY SMITH.