HOME RULE IN HISTORY
What is the fact of Irish history vital to our present cause? Surely it
is this, that up to the year 1800--the year of the Act of
Union--Ireland had possessed for practically five centuries a Home Rule
Government in some shape or form. In other words, self-government had
been the rule and not the exception throughout the centuries preceding
1800. This is a complete and sufficient answer to those who argue that
the supporters of Irish Home Rule are making a proposal of a completely
novel and revolutionary kind, without precedent in the history of the
Western world.
As a matter of plain fact, it was the framers of the Act of Union who
were the revolutionaries, and it is the supporters of Home Rule who are
returning to the ancient paths. The Home Rulers have five centuries
behind them, as against the one century behind the Unionists. From the
days of Simon de Montfort[56] the Irish Parliament developed side by
side with the English, growing with the growth of English rule in
Ireland, and varying with its limitations. Its powers, indeed, were
placed under a grave and serious limitation by Poynings' Law, passed
in the reign of Henry VII.,[57] and strengthened in the reign of Mary
Tudor.[58] They were for a brief time entirely taken away by Oliver
Cromwell, who was, strangely enough, the first great Unionist ruler of
Ireland. Restored by Charles II., the Irish Parliament was again
limited in power by the Government of George I.[59] But in 1782 it
broke through all these limitations, and became for a short brilliant
period a fully self-governing Parliament.
We have thus the illuminating fact that, with one single exception--and
that an example eminent in English affairs, but certainly not to be
followed in Irish--every great English ruler and monarch governed
Ireland under a distinct Irish Home Rule Parliament up to the year
1800. If Home Rule is so certain to be ruinous to Empire, how, we may
well ask, did these rulers build up the British Empire? How did
Marlborough and Clive, Chatham and Walpole, do their great world-work
with an Irish Parliament behind them? The answer is, of course, that
they did it better, and not worse, because Ireland was so far satisfied
with her fortunes as to be willing to put her full force into the
struggle for Empire.
For as long as Ireland possessed a Parliament she always possessed
hope.
THE UNION CENTURY
As against these five centuries, we have one century of Irish rule
under a united Parliament--1800 to 1911. One against five. But as the
one is more recent, we have here not a bad provision of material for an
answer to the question: "Which has proved in the past the best way of
governing Ireland--Union or Home Rule?"
In regard to the century of Union, the record lies before us, open and
palpable, a tale of disaster and tragedy almost without parallel in the
modern history of the world. We see in the statistics of Irish
population, of Irish disease, of Irish poverty during the nineteenth
century[60] a black picture of material decay that literally "cries to
Heaven" for redress.
Side by side with these statistics, too, we have others to clinch the
evidence which traces the cause to the Act of Union. For the nineteenth
century was no century of decay. On the contrary, in almost every other
Western country, and especially in countries of the same racial and
religious fusion--in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and in
the British Colonies--the nineteenth century was a period of rising
population, advancing commerce, and abounding prosperity.
Nor is it the fact that British Ministers had any deliberate malice
against Ireland. On the contrary, many noble Englishmen worked
themselves grey during the nineteenth century in their efforts to make
the best of the Union system. Viceroy after Viceroy, and Chief
Secretary after Chief Secretary, have gone to Ireland full of hope, and
have come back converted reluctantly to the admission that their
efforts have been in vain and their work wasted under the present form
of Government.[61]
"For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administered is best"
sang Pope. But there are some forms of government so bad that they
cannot be well administered. Among them is the form of government
established under the Act of Union.
Unionist writers who are honest enough to admit the decay of Ireland
between 1800-1900 attempt to trace it to any other cause than the Act
of Union--to over-population, to the Catholic religion, to the Irish
character, or even to the potato. But they labour in vain. If Ireland
stood alone, they might succeed. But it does not stand alone. Precisely
at the time when Ireland was decaying, all other Western nations were
flourishing. Precisely when the Irish race was withering in Ireland,
the same race, with the same religion and the same national
characteristics, was prospering exceedingly in America, and was even
contributing much of the power, skill and value for building up the
white British Colonies.
Unvarying progress on one side--on the other, unvarying decline, until
checked by the willingness of England to listen to the voice of
Ireland. What evidence could you have more convincing, what witnesses
more eloquent?
Perhaps, indeed, the most convincing statement of this very case was
given to the world, not by an Irishman or by any Liberal statesman, but
by the great Lord Salisbury. Speaking in 1865 as Lord Robert Cecil, he
uttered the following wise and statesmanlike summary of the policy of
the Union up to that date:--
"What is the reason that a people with so bountiful a soil,
with such enormous resources (as the Irish), lag so far behind
the English in the race? Some say that it is to be found in the
character of the Celtic race, but I look to France, and I see a
Celtic race there going forward in the path of prosperity with
most rapid strides--I believe at the present moment more
rapidly than England herself. Some people say that it is to be
found in the Roman Catholic religion; but I look to Belgium,
and there I see a people second to none in Europe, except the
English, for industry, singularly prosperous, considering the
small space of country that they occupy, having improved to the
utmost the natural resources of that country, but distinguished
among all the peoples of Europe for the earnestness and
intensity of their Roman Catholic belief. Therefore, I cannot
say that the cause of the Irish distress is to be found in the
Roman Catholic religion. An hon. friend near me says that it
arises from the Irish people listening to demagogues. I have as
much dislike to demagogues as he has, but when I look to the
Northern States of America I see there people who listen to
demagogues, but who undoubtedly have not been wanting in
material prosperity. It cannot be demagogues, Romanism, or the
Celtic race. What then is it? I am afraid that the one thing
which has been peculiar to Ireland has been the Government of
England."[62]
Nothing has occurred since 1865 to vary that judgment.
THE HOME RULE FIVE
So much for the one century of Union. What about the five of Home Rule?
"Were there no black centuries before 1800? Had Ireland no grievances?
What of the 'curse of Cromwell,' the broken 'Treaty of Limerick,' and
the penal laws?"
Thus I shall be challenged.
There were, indeed, black centuries before 1800, and black events.
Ireland endured a special share of the agony inflicted upon Europe by
the great religious struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. She suffered, perhaps, more than any other country from the
divisions of Christian Europe following on the revolt of Luther against
Rome in 1520. The statutory limitations of the Irish Parliament during
that period led to many interferences from England, and the gradual
exclusion of Catholics divided the Parliament from the Irish nation.
The artificial infusion of a fanatical Protestant population by James
I. and Cromwell produced a terrible embitterment of the struggle. There
were crimes on both sides, and calamities beyond telling. But, with all
that, it is still to be doubted whether any of those centuries presents
such a picture of national decay, both industrial and social, as is
presented by the Ireland of the nineteenth century.
For through the blackness of that night the Irish Parliament always
shone like a star. Ireland grew with its growth, and withered with its
decay. Precisely as she had more Home Rule she advanced, and precisely
as she had less she fell back. But as long as the Parliament existed at
all it could never be said that the final spark of liberty had been
stamped out.
Even in the eighteenth century, when Catholic Ireland seemed to be
crushed, and Ireland lay supine beneath the double weight of the penal
laws and the commercial restrictions of England--an Ireland pictured
for all time by the keen, merciless pen of Dean Swift--still the vestal
flame was not quite extinguished. Captured by ascendancy, dominated by
fanaticism, narrowed to one faith, or even to one section of that
faith, the Irish Parliament still always provided a framework and
machinery for a possible moment of regeneration and recovery.
That moment came in 1782--came, unhappily both for England and for
Ireland, in such a form as to seem to justify the hard
saying--"England's danger is Ireland's opportunity."
The story of 1782 has been told with surpassing brilliancy in the
greatest of all Mr. Lecky's books--the darling of his youth and the
worry of his old age--his "Leaders of Irish Public Opinion."[63] The
disastrous and wasting struggle against our own kith and kin in the
American colonies--forced on England by the folly of the same type of
statesmen now resisting Home Rule--had reduced these islands to an
almost defenceless condition. The British Army, intended for the
defence of Great Britain, had been sent away into the forests and
prairies of Northern America to fight an invisible foe, and to meet
with a disastrous and undeserved defeat. But in their blind passion to
subdue the Americans the British Government had for the moment
forgotten Ireland. In their eagerness to conquer their colonies they
had forgotten to maintain their hold on the half-conquered country at
their side. The British troops had been withdrawn from Ireland as well
as from England. At that dramatic moment France came into the struggle
with her fleet, and Ireland, with her great harbours and her accessible
coastline, could not be left defenceless. As Ireland had no British
troops to defend her, it was inevitable that she should be allowed to
defend herself.
Ireland, never slow in a fight, rose to this crisis. In a few months
there sprang up throughout the country that wonderful movement of the
Irish Volunteers. Ireland in a few weeks produced an army that kept
Europe from her shores. Sixty thousand Irishmen stood to arms. Ireland
could no longer be hectored or bullied. She was, for the moment--for
the only time in her history--mistress of her own fate.
The American War came to its only possible end with the grant of
American Independence. Great Britain turned to look to her own domestic
affairs, and found herself face to face with the possibility of a
second war. For Ireland, having once armed to resist Europe, refused to
disarm until she received her liberty. The Volunteers, in other words,
would not disperse except on the conditions that the Irish Parliament
should become a reality. Poynings' Law was to be repealed. The right of
legislative initiative was to be given back to the Irish Parliament,
and England was to admit solemnly and categorically the right of
Ireland to make laws for herself.
It was a tremendous demand, but the British Government had no choice
except to yield. Exhausted with the American struggle, the British
Ministers could not face a second war. The demands of Ireland were
granted, and thus in a moment Grattan's Parliament, in the full panoply
of armed strength, sprang into existence.
Well might Grattan exclaim, at the opening of that Parliament, in words
that still send a thrill through every true lover of freedom:--
"I found Ireland on her knees. I watched over her with an
eternal solicitude. I have traced her progress from injuries to
arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift! Spirit of
Molyneux! Your genius has prevailed. Ireland is now a Nation!
In that new character I now hail her! And, bowing to her august
presence, I say, _Esto Perpetua_."[64]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[56] The first real representative English Parliament, of course, was
summoned by Simon de Montfort in 1265. Grattan was accustomed to claim
"seven centuries" as the lifetime of the Irish Constitution; but in
that, of course, he went back behind the days of a representative
Parliament.
[57] Poynings' Law was passed by the Irish Parliament, at Drogheda, in
1495, under the influence of Sir Edward Poynings, the Lord Deputy of
Ireland to the Viceroy Prince Henry, afterwards King Henry VIII. The
essential provision of Poynings' Law was that it secured all initiative
in legislation to the English Privy Council, leaving to Ireland nothing
but the simple power of acceptance or rejection. Ireland was thus left
only a veto, though a veto is often a considerable weapon.
[58] An Act in the reign of Mary forbade the Irish Parliament to alter
or add to an Act of Parliament returned to her from England.
[59] 6 of George I. made the Irish Parliament subordinate and
dependent.
[60] See Appendix B.
[61] Among the Viceroys converted of later years to Home Rule by
experience of the present system of Irish Government may be named Lord
Spencer, Lord Dudley, and probably the last Lord Carnarvon. The
resignation of Mr. George Wyndham was due to the suspicion of his
conversion.
[62] Quoted by Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., in his brilliant book "The Case
for Home Rule." (Maunsel & Co., Dublin.)
[63] See the essays on Flood and Grattan. (Longmans, 2 vols., 1903.)
[64] Grattan, 16th April, 1782.
HOME RULE IN HISTORY
GRATTAN'S PARLIAMENT
"To destroy is easy: the edifices of the mind, like the fabrics
of marble, require an age to build, but ask only minutes to
precipitate: and as the fall of both is an effort of no time,
so neither is it a business of any strength. A pick-axe and a
common labourer will do the one--a little lawyer, a little
pimp, a wicked Minister the other."
GRATTAN (1800.)
"Yet I do not give up my country. I see her in a swoon, but she
is not dead--though in her tomb she lies helpless and
motionless, still there is on her lips a spirit of life, and on
her cheeks a glow of beauty--
'Thou art not conquered: Beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson on thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And Death's pale flag is not advanced there.'"
GRATTAN
(In the final debate on the Act of Union,
May 26th, 1800).