THE ANALOGY
Let the reader endeavour to see the closely related stories of Ireland
and of these more distant communities as a whole, undistracted by the
varying degrees of their proximity to the Mother Country, making his
study one of men and laws, and remembering that Ireland was the first
and nearest of the British Colonies. Does not she become a convex
mirror, in which, swollen to unnatural proportions, the mistakes of two
centuries are reflected? Principles of government universal in their
nature, transcending geography, and painfully evolved in more distant
parts of the Empire, we have thrown to the winds in Ireland. Economic
evils, resembling, in however distant a degree, those of Ireland, have
irritated and retarded every community in which they have been allowed
to take root. A sound agrarian system has been the primary need of every
country. To take the closest parallel, if absentee proprietorship and
insecurity of tenure kept little Prince Edward Island, peacefully and
legally settled, backward and disturbed for a century, it is not
surprising that Ireland, submitted to confiscation, the Penal Code, and
commercial rum, did not flourish under a land system beside which that
of Prince Edward Island was a paradise. Tardy redress of the worst Irish
abuses is no defence of the system which created them and sustained them
with such ruinous results. No white community of pride and spirit would
willingly tolerate the grotesque form of Crown Colony administration,
founded on force, and now tempered by a kind of paternal State
Socialism, under which Ireland lives to-day. Unionism for Ireland is
anti-Imperialist. Its upholders strenuously opposed colonial autonomy,
and but yesterday were passionately opposing South African autonomy.
To-day colonial autonomy is an axiom. But Ireland is a measure of the
depth of these convictions. There would be no Empire to idealize if
their Irish principles had been applied just a little longer to any of
the oversea States which constitute the self-governing Colonies of
to-day. As it is, these principles have wrought great and perhaps
lasting mischief which, in the righteous glow of self-congratulation
upon what we are accustomed to call our constructive political genius,
we are too apt to overlook. It was bad for America to pass through that
phase of agitation and discord which preceded the revolutionary war. It
was demoralizing for the Canadas to be driven into rebellion by the
vices of ascendancy government. Mr. Gladstone, speaking of Australian
autonomy, was right in satirizing the "miserable jargon" about fitting
men for political privileges, and in demonstrating the harm done by
withholding those privileges. And the Irish race all over the world,
fine race as it is, would be finer still if Ireland had been free.
The political habits formed in dealing with Ireland have disastrously
influenced Imperial policy in the past. Cannot we, by a supreme national
effort, reverse the mental process, and, if we have always failed in the
past to learn from Irish lessons how not to treat the Colonies, at any
rate learn, even at the eleventh hour, from our colonial lessons how to
treat Ireland? Must we for ever sound the old alarms about "disloyalty"
and "dismemberment" and "abandonment of the loyal minority to the tender
mercies of their foes"; phrases as old as the Stamp Act of 1765? Must we
carry the "gentle art of making enemies," practised to the last point of
danger in the Colonies, to the preposterous pitch of estranging men at
our very doors, while pluming ourselves on the friendship of peoples
12,000 miles away? These are anxious times. We have a mighty rival in
Europe, and we need the co-operation of all our hands and brains. On a
basis of mere profit and loss, is it sensible to maintain a system in
Ireland which weakens both Ireland and the whole United Kingdom, clogs
the delicate machinery of Parliamentary government, and, worked out in
hard figures of pounds, shillings, and pence, has ceased even to show a
pecuniary advantage?
Have Unionists really no better prescription for the constitutional
difficulties caused by the Union than to reduce the representation of
Ireland in Parliament so as to give Ireland still less control than at
present over her own affairs? Is that seriously their last word in
statesmanship, to exasperate Nationalist Ireland without even providing
in any appreciable degree a mechanical remedy for disordered political
functions? The idea has only to be stated to be dismissed. It is not
even practical politics. Some things are sheer impossibilities; and to
leave the Union system as it is, while reducing representation, is one
of them.
We revert, then, to a contemplation of the well-tried expedient, "Trust,
and you will be trusted." But then we have to meet pessimists of two
descriptions, the honest and the merely cynical. The honest pessimist
(often, unhappily, an educated Irishman) says: "The Irish in Ireland are
an incurably criminal race. They differ from Irishmen elsewhere and from
Anglo-Saxons everywhere. Air and soil are unaccountable. The Union
policy has been, and remains, a painful but a quite inevitable
necessity. It is sound, now and for all time." The cynical pessimist, on
the other hand, admits the errors of past policy, but says frankly that
it is too late to change. "We have gone too far, raised passions we
cannot allay." I shall not try further to confute the honest pessimist.
The preceding chapters have been written in vain if they do not shatter
the theory of original sin. And to the cynical pessimist, who is a
reincarnation of our old friend Fitzgibbon (for that clear-headed
statesman frankly imputed original sin to the conquerors of Ireland, as
well as to the conquered), I would only say: "Use your common sense."
These panics over the vagaries and excesses of an Irish Parliament,
always groundless, are beginning to look highly ridiculous. In 1893,
when the last Home Rule Bill was being discussed, a Franco-Irish
alliance was the fear. Now it is the other way, and the _Spectator_ has
been writing solemn articles to warn its readers that Mr. Dillon, in a
speech on foreign policy, has shown ominous signs of hostility to
France. In the election of January, 1910, an ex-Cabinet Minister
informed the public that Home Rule meant the presence of a German fleet
in Belfast Lough--at whose invitation he did not explain, though he
probably did not intend to insult Ulster. This wild talk has not even
the merit of a strategical foundation. It belongs to another age.
Ireland has neither a fleet nor the will or money to build one. Our
fleet, in which large numbers of Irishmen serve, guarantees the security
of New Zealand, and if it cannot maintain the command of home waters,
including St. George's Channel, our situation is desperate, whether
Ireland is friendly or hostile. We guarantee the independent existence
of the kingdom of Belgium, which is as near as Ireland, with military
liabilities vastly more serious than any which Ireland could conceivably
entail; but we do not claim, as a consequence, to control the Executive
of Belgium and remove her Parliament to Westminster, in order to be
quite sure that the Belgians are not intriguing against us with Germany.
Germany, our alarmists fear, is to invade Ireland, and Ireland is to
greet the invaders with open arms. The same prophecy was being made not
more than three years ago of the South African Dutch. After asking for a
century and a half to manage her own affairs, the Irish are not likely
to ask to be ruled by Germans. The German strategists are men of common
sense. If they were fortunate enough to gain the command of the sea,
they could make no worse mistake than to dissipate their energies on
Ireland.
Perhaps it is a waste of time to attempt to destroy these foolish myths.
Let those that are sceptical about the effect of Home Rule in producing
friendlier feelings between Ireland and Great Britain consider in a
reasonable spirit the commonplace question of mutual interests. What is
the really practical significance of Ireland's proximity to England?
This, that their material interests are indissociably intertwined. If it
is "safe," as the phrase goes, to entrust Australia with Home Rule,
surely it is safer still to entrust Ireland with it. Has Ireland
anything to gain by separation? Clearly nothing. Has she anything to
lose? Much. Most of her trade is with Great Britain. British credit is
of enormous value to her. The Imperial forces are of less proportionate
value to her because her external trade is small; but she willingly
supplies a large and important part of their personnel; she shares in
their glorious traditions; and if it is a case of protection for her
trade, she will get no protection elsewhere.
How idle are these calculations of profit and loss! The truth is that
Ireland has taken her full share in winning and populating the Empire.
The result is hers as much as Britain's. Mr. Redmond spoke for his
countrymen last May[39] in saying: "We, as Irishmen, are not prepared to
surrender our share in the heritage [that is, the British Empire] which
our fathers created." That is sound sentiment and sound sense. It is the
view taken by the Colonies, where Irishmen are known, respected, and
understood, and where the support for Home Rule, based on personal
experience of its blessings, has been, and remains, consistent and
strong. Indeed, we miss the significance of that support if we do not
realize that Irish Home Rule is an indispensable preliminary to the
closer union of the various parts of the Empire. Let us add the wider
generalization that it is an indispensable preliminary to the closer
union of all the English-speaking races. It may be fairly computed that
a fifth of the present white population of the United States is of Irish
blood.[40] American opinion, as a whole, so far as it is directed
towards Ireland and away from a host of absorbing domestic problems, is
favourable to Home Rule. Irish-American opinion has never swerved,
although it has become more sober, as the material condition of Ireland
has improved, and the interests of Irish-Americans themselves have
become more closely identified with those of their adopted country.
Fenianism is altogether extinct. The extreme claim for the total
separation of Ireland from Great Britain is now no more than a
sentimental survival among a handful of the older men, of the fierce
hatreds provoked by the miseries and horrors of an era which has passed
away.[41] Even Mr. Patrick Ford and the _Irish World_ have moderated
their tone, and where that tone is still inflammatory it is not
representative of Irish-American opinion. I have studied with a good
deal of care the columns of that journal for some months back, smiling
over the imaginary terrors of the nervous people on this side of the
Atlantic who are taught by their party Press to believe that Mr. Patrick
Ford is going to dynamite them in their beds. Any liberal-minded student
of history and human nature would pronounce the whole propaganda
perfectly harmless. But the sane instinct that Ireland should have a
local autonomy of her own, an instinct common to the whole brotherhood
of nations which have sprung from these shores, lasts undiminished and
takes shape, quite rightly and naturally, as it takes shape in the
Colonies, in financial support of the Nationalist party in Ireland.
Anti-British sentiment in the United States, once a grave international
danger, is that no longer; but it does still represent an obstacle to
the complete realization of an ideal which all patriotic men should aim
at: the formation of indestructible bonds of friendship between Great
Britain and the United States. Nor must it be forgotten that the calm
and reasonable character of Irish-American opinion is due in a large
degree to confidence in the ultimate success of the constitutional
movement here for Home Rule. Every successive defeat of that policy
tends to embitter feeling in America.
Oh, for an hour of intelligent politics! The old choice is before us--to
make the best or the worst of the state of opinion in America; to
disinter from ancient files of the _Irish World_ sentences calculated to
inflame an ignorant British audience; or to say in sensible and manly
terms: "The situation is more favourable than it has been for a century
past for the settlement of just Irish claims."
FOOTNOTES:
[39] At Woodford, May 27, 1911.
[40] This is a very general statement. No figures exist for an accurate
computation. The Census of 1910 gives the total population of the United
States, white and coloured, as 91,272,266, of whom nearly 9,000,000 are
negroes. The figures about countries of origin are not yet available.
The statistical abstract of the United States (1908) gives the total
number of immigrants from Ireland from 1821 to 1908 as 4,168,747 (the
large majority of whom must have been of marriageable age), but does not
estimate the subsequent increase by marriage, and takes no account of
the immigration prior to 1821, which was very large, especially in the
period preceding the Revolutionary War of 1775-1782. At the Census of
1900 Irishmen actually _born in Ireland_ and then resident in the United
States are stated to have been 1,618,567, as compared with 93,682 from
Wales, 233,977 from Scotland, and 842,078 from England.
[41] I am especially indebted for information to Mr. Hugh Sutherland, of
the _North American_ (Philadelphia), to Mr. Rodman Wanamaker, of the
same city, to Mr. Frank Sanborn, of Concord, and to Mr. John
O'Callaghan, of Boston.