CHAPTER XXV.
CONCLUSION—AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN.
The difficulty of understanding the case of Ireland is proverbial. Its most enlightened friends in England and Scotland are often charged with 'gross ignorance of the country.' They might excuse themselves by answering, that when they seek instruction from Irishmen, one native instructor is sure to contradict the other. Yet there must be some point of view from which all sides of the Irish question can be seen, some light in which the colours are not confused, the picture is not exaggerated, the features are not distorted. Every nation has its idiosyncrasy, proceeding from race, religion, laws, institutions, climate, and other circumstances; and this idiosyncrasy may be the key of its history. In Ireland three or four nationalities are bound together in one body politic; and it is the conflict of their several idiosyncrasies which perplexes statesmen, and constitutes the main difficulty of the Irish problem. The blood of different races is mingled, and no doubt greatly modified by ages of intercourse. But religion is an abiding force. The establishment of religious equality in Ireland is a glorious achievement, enough in itself to immortalise any statesman. It is a far greater revolution than was effected by the Emancipation Act, and more to the credit of the chief actor; because, while Mr. Gladstone did spontaneously what he firmly believed to be right in principle. Sir Robert Peel did, from necessity, what he as firmly believed was wrong in principle. But no reasonable man expected that the disestablishment of the Church would settle all Irish questions; in fact, it but clears the way for the settlement of some of the most important and urgent. It makes it possible for Irishmen of every creed to speak in one voice to the Government. Their respective clergy, hitherto so intent on ecclesiastical claims and pretensions, will no longer pass by on the other side, but turn Samaritans to their bleeding country, fallen among the thieves of Bigotry and Faction. There are many high Protestants—indeed, I may say all, except the aristocracy—who, while firmly believing in the vital importance of the union of the three kingdoms, earnestly wishing that union to be real and perpetual, cannot help expressing their conviction that Ireland has been greatly wronged by England—wronged by the legislature, by the Government, and most of all by the crown. In no country in the world has loyalty existed under greater difficulties, in none has it been so ill requited, in none has so much been done as if of set purpose to starve it to death. In the reign of Elizabeth the capricious will of a despotic sovereign was exerted to crush the national religion, while the greatest military exploits of her ablest viceroys consisted of predatory excursions, in which they slaughtered or carried away the horses and cattle, burned the crops and houses, and laid the country waste and desolate, in order to create famines for the wholesale destruction of the population, thus spoiled and killed as a punishment for the treason of their chiefs, over whom they had no control.
In the reigns of James I. and Charles I. there was a disposition among the remnant of the people—
To fly from petty tyrants to the throne.
But the Stuarts appealed to Irish loyalty merely for the support of their dynasty, and William III. laid the laurels won on the banks of the Boyne upon the altar of English monopoly. In the reigns of Anne and the three Georges, law was made to do the work of the sword, and the Catholics of Ireland, constituting the mass of the nation, knew their sovereign only as the head of an alien power, cruel and unrelenting in its oppression. They were required to love a German prince whom they had never seen. He called himself the father of his subjects; and he had millions of subjects on the other side of a narrow channel, whom he never knew, and never cared to know. When at length the dominant nation relented, and wished to strike the penal chains from the hands of her sister, the king forbade the act of mercy, pleading his conscience and his oath as a bar to justice and to freedom, but yielding at last to English state necessity, and robbing concession of its grace, of all its power to conciliate. From the battle of the Boyne to Catholic emancipation, the king of Ireland had never set foot on Irish soil, except in the case of George IV., whose visit was little better than a melodramatic exhibition, repaid by copious libations of flattery, which however failed to melt his bigotry, or to persuade him to redeem his solemn promises and pledges, until, nine years later, he was compelled to yield by the fear of impending civil war.
Ireland may get from her sister, England, everything but that for which the heart yearns—affection—that which alone 'can minister to a mind diseased, can pluck from the memory its rooted sorrow, and rase out the written troubles from the brain.' That is just what Ireland needs above all things. She wants to be kept from brooding morbidly over the dismal past, and to be induced to apply herself in a cheerful spirit to the business of life. The prescriptions of state physicians cannot fully reach the root of the disease. Say that it is a sentimental malady—a delusion. What is gained by saying that, if the sentiment or the delusion makes life wretched, unfits for business, produces suicidal propensities, and renders keepers necessary?
In theory, Ireland is one with England; in practice, she is hourly made to feel the reverse. The Times, and all the journals which express the instincts of the dominant nation, constantly speak of the Irish people as 'the subjects of England, whom Englishmen have a right to control. They are the subjects of the Queen only in a secondary sense—as the Queen of England, and reigning over them through England. Every sovereign, from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Victoria, was sovereign of Ireland merely in this subordinate sense, even when there was an Irish parliament. The King of Ireland could speak to his Irish parliament only as he was advised by his English ministers; and their advice was invariably prompted by English interests. Her king was not hers in the true sense. His heart and his company were wholly given to another, to whose pride, power, and splendour she was made to minister. That state of things still continues in effect, and while it lasts Ireland can never be contented. Her heart will always be disquieted within her. Something bitter will ever be bubbling up from the bottom of that troubled fountain.
Nor let it be supposed that this is due to a peculiar idiosyncrasy in Ireland—to some unhappy congenital malformation, or some original taint in the blood. It has been often asked whether England would have submitted to similar treatment from Ireland if their relations were reversed. Englishmen have not answered that question because they cannot understand it. They find it difficult to apply the Divine maxim, 'Do as you would be done by.' in their dealings with other nations. But they can scarcely conceive its application to their dealings with Ireland, any more than the American planter could have conceived the duty of fraternizing with his negroes. If we draw from this fact the logical inference, we shall be at a loss to discern whether the Celt or the Saxon suffers more from the moral perversity of his nature. The truth is, both are perverted by their unnatural relations, which are a standing outrage on the spirit of Christianity.
The Emperor of Austria long laboured to govern one nation through another and for another, in right of conquest, and we know the result in Italy and Hungary. Lombardy, though well cultivated and materially prosperous, could never be reconciled to Austrian rule. Even the nobility could not be tempted to appear at court. Venetia was more passionately and desperately hostile, and was consequently crushed by military repression, till the country was turned into a wilderness, and the capital once so famous for its commerce and splendour, became one of the most melancholy scenes of ruin and desolation to be found in the world. The Austrians, and those who sympathised with Austria as the great conservative power of the Continent, ascribed all this to the perversity of the Italian nature, and to the influence of agitators and conspirators. Austria was bountiful to her Italian subjects, and would be more lenient if she could, but their vices of character and innate propensity to rebellion, rendered necessary a system of coercion. Hence the prisons were full of political offenders; the soldier and the executioner were constantly employed in maintaining law and order. All the Emperor wanted was that his Italian provinces should be so thoroughly amalgamated with Austria, as to form one firmly united empire, and that the inhabitants should be content with their position as Austrian subjects, ruled by Austrian officials. But this was precisely what they could not or would not be. 'They smiled at the drawn dagger and defied its point.' They would sacrifice their lives, but they would not sacrifice their nationality at the bidding of an alien power.
This illustrates the force of the national sentiment, and the tremendous magnitude of the calamities to which its persistent violation leads. But the case of Hungary is still more apposite as an illustration of the English policy in Ireland. The Hungarians had an ancient constitution and parliament of their own. The Emperor of Austria was their legitimate king, wearing the crown of Hungary. In this capacity the Hungarians were willing to yield to him the most devoted loyalty. But he wanted to weld his empire into a compact unity, and to centralise all political power at Vienna, so that Austria should be the head and heart of the system, and the other provinces her hands and her feet. Hungary resisted, and revolted. The result was a desolating civil war, in which she was triumphant, till the Czar came to the rescue of his brother despot, and poured his legions in overwhelming numbers into the devoted country. Hungary was now at the feet of her sovereign, and Austria, the dominant state, tried to be conciliatory, in order to bring about the desired amalgamation and consolidation of the empire. She did so, with every apparent prospect of success, and it was generally considered throughout Europe that there was an end of the Hungarian kingdom. But Hungarian nationality survived, and still resisted Austrian centralisation. The Hungarians struggled for its recognition constitutionally, manfully, with admirable self-control, moderation, and wisdom, until at length they achieved a peaceful victory. Their sovereign reigns over them as King of Hungary; he and the empress dwell among them, without Austrian guards. Their children are born among them, and they are proud to call them natives of Hungary. The Hungarians, as subjects of Austria, were discontented, miserable, incurably disaffected. As subjects of their own king (though he is also Emperor of Austria) they are intensely loyal. They are prosperous and happy, because they are free. And though they have their distinctions of race and religion, they are united. The Magyars of Hungary correspond very nearly to the Protestants of Ireland. Though a minority, their energy, their education, their natural talent for organisation and government, their love of freedom, their frank recognition of the rights of conscience, enable them to lead without inspiring jealousy, just as the Protestants of Ireland were enabled to lead in 1782, notwithstanding the existence of Protestant Ascendancy. Religious equality is not a cause of tranquillity in itself. It tranquillises simply because it implies the absence of irritation. It takes a festering thorn out of the side of the unestablished community—a thorn which inflames the blood of every one of its members. Let worldly interest, political power, and social precedence cease to be connected with the profession of religion, and religious differences would cease to produce animosity and intolerance. If the Magyars had been the Hungarian party of Protestant ascendancy, and if the Protestant interest had also been the Austrian interest; if the mission of the Magyars had been to act as a garrison, to keep down the Roman Catholic majority, their cause could never have triumphed till Protestant ascendancy should be abolished. But Hungarian Protestantism did not need such support, although the Pope has as much authority in Hungary as in Ireland. Of course the cases of Hungary and Ireland are in many respects dissimilar. But they are alike in this: their respective histories establish the great fact that the most benevolent of sovereigns, and the wisest of legislatures, can never produce contentment or loyalty in a kingdom which is ruled through and for another kingdom.
We can easily understand that when the light of royalty shines upon a country through a conquering nation still dominant, the medium is of necessity dense, cold, refracting, and discolouring. Of this the best illustration is derived from the relations between Austria and Hungary, now so happily adjusted to the unspeakable advantage of both nations. Austrian rule was unsympathetic, harsh, insolent, domineering, based upon the arrogant assumption that the Hungarians were incapable of managing their own affairs without the guidance of Austrian wisdom and the support of Austrian steadiness. But the Hungarians, united among themselves, putting their trust, not in boastful, vapouring, and self-seeking agitators, but in honest, truthful, high-minded, and capable statesmen, persevered in a course of firm, but temperate and constitutional, national self-assertion, until the Austrians were compelled to put away from them their supercilious airs of natural superiority, and to concede the principle of international equality and the right of self-government.
What sickens the reader of Irish history most of all is the anarchy of the old clan system, the everlasting alternation of outrages and avenging reprisals. One faction, when it felt strong and had a favourable opportunity, made a sudden raid upon another faction, taken at a disadvantage, plundering and killing with reckless fury. The outraged party treasured up its anger till it had power to retaliate, and then glutted its vengeance without mercy in the same way. When this fatal propensity to mutual destruction was restrained by law, it broke out from time to time in other ways. What was wanted to cure it effectually was a strong, steady, central government, such as England enjoys herself. But the very system which is most calculated to foster factiousness is the one which has reigned for centuries in Dublin Castle. The British sovereign knows no party, and, whatever other sovereigns have done, Queen Victoria has never forgotten this constitutional principle. But the Irish lord-lieutenant is always a party-man, and is always surrounded by party-men. They were Whigs or Tories, Liberals or Conservatives, often extreme in their views and violent in their temper. The vice of the old clan system was its tendency to unsettle, to undo, to upset, to smash and destroy. Instead of counteracting that vice (which still lingers in the national blood), by a fixed, unchanging system of administration, based on principles of unswerving rectitude, which knows no distinction of party, no favouritism, England ruled by the alternate sway of factions.
The Times, referring to the debate on the Irish Church, remarked that the viceroyalty was more and more 'a mere ornament.' It is really nothing more. The viceroy has no actual power, and if he has statesmanship, it is felt to be out of place. He can scarcely give public expression to his sentiments on any political questions without offending one party or the other, whereas the estate of the realm which he represents is neutral and ought to keep strictly to neutral ground. As to the effect of the office in degrading the national spirit among the nobility and gentry, we could not have a better illustration than the fact that the amiable Lord Carlisle was accustomed, at the meeting of the Royal Dublin Society, to tell its members that the true aim, interest, glory, and destiny of Ireland was to be a pasture and a dairy for England,—a compliment which seemed to have been gratefully accepted, or was at all events allowed to pass.
But even as an 'ornament' the viceregal system is a failure. The Viceroy with his family ought to be the head of society in Ireland, just as the Queen is in England. The royal family are the same to all parties and classes, showing no partiality on the ground of politics, but smiling with equal favour and recognition upon all. In Ireland, however, a liberal lord lieutenant is generally shunned by the Conservative portion of the aristocracy, which forms the great majority of the class. On the other hand the Conservatives flock in large numbers to the court of a Tory Viceroy, while Liberals stand aloof. Instead therefore of being a centre of union to all sections of the best society, and bringing them together, so that they may know one another, and enjoy the advantages due to their rank, the viceregal court operates as a source of jealousy and division. So that, looking at the institution as a mere ornament of society, as a centre of fashionable life and refining influences, facilitating intercourse between ranks and classes, bringing the owners of land and the men of commerce more in harmony, it is not worth preserving. On the other hand it produces some of the worst features of conventionalism. It cultivates flunkeyism and servility, while operating as a restraint upon the manly expression of opinion. It fosters a spirit of spurious aristocracy, which shows itself in contempt for men who prefer honest industry to place-hunting and insolvent gentility.
But while I thus speak of the viceregal court as at present constituted, I still maintain that, like Hungary, this country is so peculiarly situated, and is animated by so strong a spirit of nationality, that it ought to have a court of its own, and a sovereign of its own. The case of Hungary shows how easily this great boon might be granted, and how gratifying the results would be to all the parties concerned. The Queen ought to reside in Ireland for some portion of the year. A suitable palace should be provided for the royal family. The Prince of Wales, during her majesty's reign, ought to be the permanent Viceroy, with the necessary addition to his income. The office would afford an excellent training for his duties as king. The attraction of the Princess of Wales would make the Irish court very brilliant. It would afford the opportunity of contact with real royalty, not the shadowy sort of thing we have had—reflected through Viceroys very few of whom were ever en rapport with the Irish nation. Not one of them could so speak to the people as to elicit a spark of enthusiasm. Of course they could not have the true ring of royalty, for royalty was not in them. But they could not play the part well. One simple sentence from the Queen or the Prince of Wales, or even from Prince Arthur, would be worth all the theatrical pomp they could display in a generation. Those noblemen had no natural connection with the kingdom, fitting them to take the first place in it. They were not hereditary chiefs. They were not elected by the people. They were mere 'casual' chief-governors; and they formed no ties with the nation that could not be broken as easily as the spider's thread. The hereditary principle has immense force in Ireland. The landlords are now seeking to weaken it; or rather they are ignoring it altogether, and substituting the commercial principle in dealing with their tenants, preferring not the most devoted adherents of the family, but the man with most money. But I warn them that they are doing so at the peril of their order. A prince who was heir presumptive to the throne as Viceroy, and who, when he ascended the throne, should be crowned King of Ireland, as well as King of Great Britain, crowned in his own Irish palace, and on the Lia Fail or stone of destiny, preserved at Westminster, would save many a million to the British exchequer, for it would be no longer necessary to support a large army of occupation to keep the country. If the throne of Queen Victoria stood in Dublin, there is not a Fenian in Ireland who would not die in its defence. Standing in Westminster it is doubtful whether its attraction is sufficient to retain the hearts even of Orangemen. There, it is the English throne. So the Englishman regards it with instinctive jealousy. He feels it is his own; but, say what we may, the Irish loyalist, when he approaches it, is made to feel, by a thousand signs, that he is a stranger and an intruder. He returns to his own bereaved country with a sad heart, and a bitter spirit. Can he be Anglicised? Put this question to an English philosopher, and he will answer with Mr. Froude—'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' We can bridge the channel with fast steamers; but who will bridge the gulf, hitherto impassable, which separates the English Dives from the Irish Lazarus?
'We have,' said Canning, 'for many years been erecting a mound—not to assist or improve, but to thwart nature; we have raised it high above the waters, and it has stood there, frowning hostility and effecting separation. In the course of time, however, the necessities of man, and the silent workings of nature, have conspired to break down this mighty structure, till there remains of it only a narrow isthmus, standing
Between two kindred seas,
Which, mounting, viewed each other from afar,
And longed to meet.
What then, shall be our conduct? Shall we attempt to repair the breaches, and fortify the ruins? A hopeless and ungracious undertaking! Or shall we leave them to moulder away by time and accident—a sure but distant and thankless consummation; or, shall we not rather cut away at once the isthmus that remains, allow free course to the current which has been artificially impeded, and float upon the mingling waves the ark of our glorious constitution?'
Much has been done since Canning's time to remove the narrow isthmus. Emancipation cut deep into it. The disestablishment of the Irish Church submerged an immense portion of it. If Mr. Gladstone's land bill be equally effective, a breach will be made through which the two kindred seas will meet, and, in their commingling flux and reflux, will quickly sweep away all minor obstacles to their perfect union. A just settlement of the land question will reconcile the two races, and close the war of seven centuries. That is the rock against which the two nationalities have rushed in foaming breakers, lashed into fury by the storms of faction and bigotry. Remove the obstruction, and the world would hear no more the roaring of the waters. Then would float peacefully upon the commingling waves the ark of our common constitution, in which there would be neither Saxon nor Celt, neither English nor Irish, neither Protestant nor Catholic, but one united, free, and mighty people. Then might the Emperor of the French mark the epoch with the announcement—'England has done justice to Ireland!'