Handbook of Home Rule Part 9

Mr. Goldwin Smith's first letter was written on the 23rd of November, 1867, the day of the execution of the Fenians Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien. He says--

"There can be no doubt, I apprehend, that the Irish difficulty has entered on a new phase, and that Irish disaffection has, to repeat an expression which I heard used in Ireland, come fairly into a line with the other discontented nationalities of Europe. Active Fenianism probably pervades only the lowest cla.s.s; pa.s.sive sympathy, which the success of the movement would at once convert into active co-operation, extends, it is to be feared, a good deal higher.

"England has ruin before her, unless she can hit on a remedy, and overcome any obstacles of cla.s.s interest or of national pride which would prevent its application, the part of Russia in Poland, or of Austria in Italy--a part cruel, hateful, demoralizing, contrary to all our high principles and professions, and fraught with dangers to our own freedom. Our position will be worse than that of Russia in this respect, that, while her Poland is only a province, our Fenianism is an element pervading every city of the United Kingdom in which Irish abound, and allying itself with kindred misery, discontent, and disorder.

Wretchedness, the result of misgovernment, has caused the Irish people to multiply with the recklessness of despair, and now here are their avenging hosts in the midst of us, here is the poison of their disaffection running through every member of our social frame. Not only so, but the same wretchedness has sent millions of emigrants to form an Irish nation in the United States, where the Irish are a great political power, swaying by their votes the councils of the American Republic, and in immediate contact with those Transatlantic possessions of England, the retention of which it is now patriotic to applaud, and will one day be patriotic to have dissuaded.

" ... That Ireland is not at this moment, materially speaking, in a particularly suffering state, but, on the contrary, the farmers are rather prosperous, and wages, even when allowance is made for the rise in the price of provisions, considerably higher than they were, only adds to the significance of this widespread disaffection.

"The Fenian movement is not religious, nor radically economical (though no doubt it has in it a socialistic element), but national, and the remedy for it must be one which cures national discontent. This is the great truth which the English people have to lay to heart."[47]

Mr. Goldwin Smith then dispels the notion that the Irish question is a religious one.

"When Fenianism first appeared, the Orangemen, in accordance with their fixed idea, ascribed it to the priests. They were undeceived, I was told, by seeing a priest run away from the Fenians in fear of his life."[48]

Neither was it a question of the land.

"The land question, no doubt, lies nearer to the heart of the matter, and it is the great key to Irish history in the past; but I do not believe that even this is fundamental."

He then states what is "fundamental."[49]

"The real root of the disaffection which exhibits itself at present in the guise of Fenianism, and which has been suddenly kindled into flame by the arming of the Irish in the American civil war, but which existed before in a nameless and smouldering state, is, as I believe, the want of national inst.i.tutions, of a national capital, of any objects of national reverence and attachment, and consequently of anything deserving to be called national life. The English Crown and Parliament the Irish have never learnt, nor have they had any chance of learning, to love, or to regard as national, notwithstanding the share which was given them, too late, in the representation. The greatness of England is nothing to them. Her history is nothing, or worse. The success of Irishmen in London consoles the Irish in Ireland no more than the success of Italian adventurers in foreign countries (which was very remarkable) consoled the Italian people. The drawing off of Irish talent, in fact, turns to an additional grievance in their minds. Dublin is a modern Tara, a metropolis from which the glory has departed; and the viceroyalty, though it pleases some of the tradesmen, fails altogether to satisfy the people. 'In Ireland we can make no appeal to patriotism, we can have no patriotic sentiments in our schoolbooks, no patriotic emblems in our schools, because in Ireland everything patriotic is rebellious.' These were the words uttered in my hearing, not by a complaining demagogue, but by a desponding statesman. They seemed to me pregnant with fatal truths.

"If the craving for national inst.i.tutions, and the disaffection bred in this void of the Irish people's heart, seem to us irrational and even insane, in the absence of any more substantial grievance, we ought to ask ourselves what would become of our own patriotism if we had no national inst.i.tutions, no objects of national loyalty and reverence, even though we might be pretty well governed, at least in intention, by a neighbouring people whom we regarded as aliens, and who, in fact, regarded us pretty much in the same light. Let us first judge ourselves fairly, and then judge the Irish, remembering always that they are more imaginative and sentimental, and need some centre of national feeling and affection more than ourselves."[50]

And all this was written sixty-seven years after the Union of 1800.

Mr. Goldwin Smith then deals with the subject of the Irish and Scotch unions much in the same way as Mr. Lecky.

"The incorporation of the Scotch nation with the English, being conducted on the right principles by the great Whig statesman of Anne, has been perfectly successful. The attempt to incorporate the Irish nation with the English and Scotch, the success of which would have been, if possible, a still greater blessing, being conducted by very different people and on very different principles, has unhappily failed.

What might have been the result if even the Hanoverian sovereigns had done the personal duty to their Irish kingdom which they have unfortunately neglected, it is now too late to inquire. The Irish Union has missed its port, and, in order to reach it, will have to tack again.

We may hold down a dependency, of course, by force, in Russian and Austrian fashion; but force will never make the hearts of two nations one, especially when they are divided by the sea. Once get rid of this deadly international hatred, and there will be hope of real union in the future."[51]

Mr. Goldwin Smith finally proposes a "plan" by which the "deadly international hatred" might be got rid of, and a "real union" brought about. Here it is.

"1. The residence of the Court at Dublin, not merely to gratify the popular love of royalty and its pageantries, which no man of sense desires to stimulate, but to a.s.sure the Irish people, in the only way possible as regards the ma.s.s of them, that the sovereign of the United Kingdom is really their sovereign, and that they are equally cared for and honoured with the other subjects of the realm. This would also tend to make Dublin a real capital, and to gather and retain there a portion of the Irish talent which now seeks its fortune elsewhere.

"2. An occasional session (say once in every three years) of the Imperial Parliament in Dublin, partly for the same purposes as the last proposal, but also because the circ.u.mstances of Ireland are likely to be, for some time at least, really peculiar, and the personal acquaintance of our legislators with them is the only sufficient security for good Irish legislation. There could be no serious difficulty in holding a short session in the Irish capital, where there is plenty of accommodation for both Houses.

"3. A liberal measure of local self-government for Ireland. I would not vest the power in any single a.s.sembly for all Ireland, because Ulster is really a different country from the other provinces. I would give each province a council of its own, and empower that council to legislate (subject, of course, to the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament) on all matters not essential to the political and legal unity of the empire, in which I would include local education. The provincial councils should of course be elective, and the register of electors might be the same as that of electors to the Imperial Parliament. In England itself the extension of local inst.i.tutions, as political training schools for the ma.s.ses, as checks upon the sweeping action of the great central a.s.sembly, and as the best organs of legislation in all matters requiring (as popular education, among others, does) adaptation to the circ.u.mstances of particular districts, would, I think, have formed a part of any statesmanlike revision of our political system. Here, also, much good might be done, and much evil averted, by committing the present business of quarter sessions, other than the judicial business, together with such other matters as the central legislative might think fit to vest in local hands, to an a.s.sembly elected by the county."[52]

Thus it will be seen that twenty years ago Mr. Goldwin Smith antic.i.p.ated Mr. Chamberlain's scheme of provincial councils, and got a good way on the road to an Irish Parliament.

MR. DICEY.

A fairer controversalist, or an abler supporter of the "paper Union,"

than Mr. Dicey there is not; nevertheless no man has fired more effective shots into Mr. Pitt's unfortunate arrangement of 1800.

How well has the "failure" of that arrangement been described in these pithy sentences--"Eighty-six years have elapsed since the conclusion of the Treaty of Union between England and Ireland. The two countries do not yet form an united nation. The Irish people are, if not more wretched (for the whole European world has made progress, and Ireland with it), yet more conscious of wretchedness, and Irish disaffection to England is, if not deeper, more widespread than in 1800. An Act meant by its authors to be a source of the prosperity and concord which, though slowly, followed upon the Union with Scotland, has not made Ireland rich, has not put an end to Irish lawlessness, has not terminated the feud between Protestants and Catholics, has not raised the position of Irish tenants, has not taken away the causes of Irish discontent, and has, therefore, not removed Irish disloyalty. This is the indictment which can fairly be brought against the Act of Union."[53]

What follows reflects honour on Mr. Dicey as an honest opponent who does not shrink from facts; but what a wholesale condemnation of the policy of the Imperial Parliament!

"On one point alone (it may be urged) all men, of whatever party or of whatever nation, who have seriously studied the annals of Ireland are agreed--the history is a record of incessant failure on the part of the Government, and of incessant misery on the part of the people. On this matter, if on no other, De Beaumont, Froude, and Lecky are at one. As to the guilt of the failure or the cause of the misery, men may and do differ; that England, whether from her own fault or the fault of the Irish people, or from perversity of circ.u.mstances, has failed in Ireland of achieving the elementary results of good government is as certain as any fact of history or of experience. Every scheme has been tried in turn, and no scheme has succeeded or has even, it may be suggested, produced its natural effects. Oppression of the Catholics has increased the adherents and strengthened the hold of Catholicism. Protestant supremacy, while it lasted, did not lead even to Protestant contentment, and the one successful act of resistance to the English dominion was effected by a Protestant Parliament supported by an army of volunteers, led by a body of Protestant officers. The independence gained by a Protestant Parliament led, after eighteen years, to a rebellion so reckless and savage that it caused, if it did not justify, the destruction of the Parliament and the carrying of the Union. The Act of Union did not lead to national unity, and a measure which appeared on the face of it (though the appearance, it must be admitted, was delusive) to be a copy of the law which bound England and Scotland into a common country inspired by common patriotism, produced conspiracy and agitation, and at last placed England and Ireland further apart, morally, than they stood at the beginning of the century. The Treaty of Union, it was supposed, missed its mark because it was not combined with Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation. The Catholics were emanc.i.p.ated, but emanc.i.p.ation, instead of producing loyalty, brought forth the cry for repeal. The Repeal movement ended in failure, but its death gave birth to the attempted rebellion in 1848. Suppressed rebellion begot Fenianism, to be followed in its turn by the agitation for Home Rule. The movement relies, it is said, and there is truth in the a.s.sertion, on const.i.tutional methods for obtaining redress. But const.i.tutional measures are supplemented by boycotting, by obstruction, by the use of dynamite. A century of reform has given us Mr. Parnell instead of Grattan, and it is more than possible that Mr. Parnell may be succeeded by leaders in whose eyes Mr. Davitt's policy may appear to be tainted with moderation. No doubt, in each case the failure of good measures admits, like every calamity in public or private life, of explanation, and after the event it is easy to see why, for example, the Poor Law, when extended to Ireland, did not produce even the good effects such as they are which in England are to be set against its numerous evils; or why an emigration of unparalleled proportions has diminished population without much diminishing poverty; why the disestablishment of the Anglican Church has increased rather than diminished the hostility to England of the Catholic priesthood; or why two Land Acts have not contented Irish farmers. It is easy enough, in short, and this without having any recourse to theory of race, and without attributing to Ireland either more or less of original sin than falls to the lot of humanity, to see how it is that imperfect statesmanship--and all statesmanship, it should be remembered, is imperfect--has failed in obtaining good results at all commensurate with its generally good intentions. Failure, however, is none the less failure because its causes admit of a.n.a.lysis. It is no defence to bankruptcy that an insolvent can, when brought before the Court, lucidly explain the errors which resulted in disastrous speculations. The failure of English statesmanship, explain it as you will, has produced the one last and greatest evil which misgovernment can cause. It has created hostility to the law in the minds of the people. The law cannot work in Ireland because the cla.s.ses whose opinion in other countries supports the actions of the courts, are in Ireland, even when not law-breakers, in full sympathy with law-breakers."[54]

No Home Ruler has described the evils of English misrule in Ireland with such vigour as this.

"Bad administration, religious persecution, above all, a thoroughly vicious land tenure, accompanied by such sweeping confiscations as to make it, at any rate, a plausible a.s.sertion that all land in Ireland has during the course of Irish history been confiscated at least thrice over, are admittedly some of the causes, if they do not const.i.tute 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 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, pa.s.sed 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 the lowest the acquiescence, of the ma.s.s 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 and witnesses meet with the execration and often with the fate of criminals. On such a point it is best to take the opinion of a foreigner unaffected by prejudices or pa.s.sions from which no Englishman or Irishman has a right to suppose himself free.

"'Quand vous en etes arroes a ce point, croyez bien que dans cette voie de regueurs tous vos efforts pour retabler l'ordre et la paix seront inutiles. En vain, pour reprimer des crimes atroces, vous appellerez a votre aide toutes les severites du code de Dracon; en vain vous ferez des lois cruelles pour arreter le cours de revoltantes cruautes; vainement vous frapperez de mort le moindre delit se rattachant a ces grands crimes; vainement, dans l'effroi de votre impuissance, vous suspendrez le cours des lois ordinaries proclamerez des comtes entiers en etat de suspicion legale, voilerez le principe de la liberte individuelle, creerez des cours martiales, des commissions extraordinaires, et pour produire de salutaires impressions de terreur, multiplierez a l'exces les executions capitales.'"[55]

The next pa.s.sage is a trenchant condemnation of the "Union."

"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 a.s.sociations 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 fact.i.tious agitation met by equally fact.i.tious resistance, have been fostered and increased by the interaction 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 union. _These arguments, whatever their strength, are, however, it must be noted, more available to a Nationalist than to an advocate of federalism_."[56]

The words which I have italicised are an expression of opinion; but nothing can alter the d.a.m.ning statement of fact--"legal union has failed to secure moral union." Nevertheless, Mr. Dicey advocates the maintenance of this legal union as it stands.

"On the whole, then, it appears that, whatever changes or calamities the future may have in store, the maintenance of the Union is at this day the one sound policy for England to pursue. It is sound because it is expedient; it is sound because it is just."[57]

I shall not discuss the question of Home Rule with the eminent writers whose works I have cited. It is enough that they demonstrate the failure of the Union. So convinced was Mr. Lecky, in 1871, of its failure, that he suggested a readjustment of the relations of the two countries on a federal basis;[58] and Mr. Goldwin Smith, in 1868, contended that the Irish difficulty could only be settled by the establishment of Provincial Councils, and an occasional session of the Imperial Parliament in Dublin. Mr. Dicey clings to the existing Union while demonstrating its failure, because he has persuaded himself that the only alternative is separation.

Irishmen may be pardoned for acting on Mr. Dicey's facts, and disregarding his prophecies. The ma.s.s of Irishmen believe, with Grattan, that the ocean protests against separation as the sea protests against such a union as was attempted in 1800.[59]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 26: Omissions here and elsewhere are merely for purposes of s.p.a.ce. In some places the omitted parts would strengthen the Irish case; in no place would they weaken it.]

[Footnote 27: Lecky, _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_, new edit.

(1871), Introduction, pp. viii., xiv.]

[Footnote 28: Lecky, _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_, new edit.

(1871), Introduction, pp. xiv., xv.]

[Footnote 29: Lecky, _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, vol. ii. pp. 59, 60.]

[Footnote 30: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 33, 34.]

[Footnote 31: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 120-123.]

[Footnote 32: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 125, 126.]

[Footnote 33: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 34-37.]

[Footnote 34: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 134-137.]

[Footnote 35: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 192-195.]

[Footnote 36: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 195, 196.]