THE IRISH HOME-RULE MOVEMENT.
II.
Whatever the ultimate fate and fortunes of the Irish Home-Rule movement may be, it must be conceded that the projectors of no other political endeavor witnessed in Ireland for a century past took greater pains than did its founders to constitute the undertaking as the work, not of a party or a section or a class, but of the whole nation.
For three years, from 1870 to 1873, the organization had existed in the precursory or preliminary character described in the last number of The Catholic World. Signs which could not be misread had, with increasing frequency and force, proclaimed that even already it might well, without presumption, adopt a more authoritative tone; but to the men who guided its counsels, these things spoke only of the moment come at last for submitting their work to formal ratification or rejection by the country.
In what manner, or by what means, could the opinions of the Irish people best be collected or ascertained for such a purpose? By the formal and regular, open, public, and free election of parochial, baronial, or county delegates to a national convention, of course. But there is a law which forbids such a proceeding in Ireland. Delegates may be elected, and may sit, deliberate, vote, and act, in convention assembled, in England, Scotland, or Wales; but if such a proceeding were attempted in Ireland the parties would be liable to imprisonment.[161]
A formal election of delegates to a national convention being therefore impracticable, what course would be deemed next best? Only by indirect means could the results which such a convention would directly supply be replaced. The votes of the parliamentary representatives would have been an excellent test of the public feeling, had those representatives been elected by such free choice as the present system of vote by ballot secures in Ireland. But in 1873 it was only at desperate cost the Irish constituencies could venture to exercise the franchise as conscience dictated. The votes of municipal representatives, and other popularly elected public bodies, would come next in importance, yet these were amenable to a similar objection; although, as a matter of fact, a vast proportion (probably a large majority) of those representatives, even in 1873, would vote a protest against the rule of the English Parliament. Summoning classes, as classes, to sit in Dublin as a national council was not to be listened to. For a long period these were the questions, the perplexing problems, which, adjourned from meeting to meeting, occupied the Home Government Council. At length they decided
that there was nothing for it but to convene by a great National Requisition, which should be a sort of plébiscite or declaration in itself, an aggregate conference of delegates or “deputations” from every county in Ireland. It was urged by some that the requisition should be an “open” one—merely calling upon the conference to discuss the Irish situation; but this view gave way before the advantage of making the requisition itself a more or less decisive pronouncement from the thousands of influential and patriotic Irishmen who could not, from one reason or another, be actually present in Dublin. The form of the document was, in fact, decided only after consultation with at least a few of the most prominent men in each of the various sections of national politicians: Repealers, Conservative Nationalists, “Forty-eight-men,” O’Connellites, Mitchelites, Fenians, Liberals, etc. The well-known veteran Repealer, O’Neill Daunt, proceeded to Tuam specially charged to seek the counsel and co-operation of the great man whose name alone it was felt would be equivalent to national approval—the illustrious Dr. McHale, “Archbishop of the West.” If any one living could be fairly assumed to speak as O’Connell himself would speak if now alive, “John McHale” was the man. He was the old Repeal cause personified.[162]
Mr. Daunt returned to Dublin bearing the news that not only did the archbishop approve, but that he would himself head the requisition.
The announcement was hailed with cheers, like the tidings of some great victory. A few days later, accordingly, the following form of requisition was circulated for signature:
“We, the undersigned, feel bound to declare our conviction that it is necessary to the peace and prosperity of Ireland, and would be conducive to the strength and stability of the United Kingdom, that the right of domestic legislation on all Irish affairs should be restored to our country; and that it is desirable that Irishmen should unite to obtain that restoration upon the following principles:
“To obtain for our country the right and privilege of managing our own affairs, by a Parliament assembled in Ireland, composed of Her Majesty the Sovereign, and the lords and commons of Ireland.
“To secure for that Parliament, under a federal arrangement, the right of legislating for and regulating all matters relating to the internal affairs of Ireland, and control over Irish resources and revenues, subject to the obligation of contributing our just proportion of the imperial expenditure.
“To leave to an Imperial Parliament the power of dealing with all questions affecting the imperial crown and government, legislation regarding the colonies and other dependencies of the crown, the relation of the united empire with foreign states, and all matters appertaining to the defence and the stability of the empire at large.
“To obtain such an adjustment of the relations between the two countries without any interference with the prerogatives of the crown, or any disturbance of the principles of the constitution.
“And we hereby invite a conference, to be held at such time and place as may be found generally most convenient, of all those favorable to the above principles, to consider the best and most expedient means of carrying them into practical effect.”
It was expected that probably between five and ten thousand signatures might be obtained to this document among the influential political classes in Ireland, rendering
it the largest and most notable array of the kind ever seen in the country. In a few weeks, however, nearly twenty-five thousand names of what may truly be called “representative men” were appended to it! Only those who were in Ireland at the time can know what a sensation was created by the appearance of the leading Dublin newspapers one day with four or five pages of each devoted to what could be after all only a portion of this monster requisition. Not only was every county represented, nearly every barony had sent its best and worthiest men. Although most amazement was at the time created by the array of what was termed “men of position,” the promoters of the movement valued even more the names of certain men in middle and humble life, town traders, tenant-farmers, artisans, and others, who were well known to be the men in each locality most trusted by their own class. Of magistrates, members of Parliament, peers (a few), bishops, clergymen (Protestant as well as Catholic), mayors, sheriffs, municipal representatives, town-commissioners, poor-law guardians, there were altogether literally thousands. So general a mingling of classes and creeds and political sections had never before been known (on a scale of such magnitude) in Ireland. Yet no effort had been made to collect signatures after the fashion of petition-signing. The object was to seek a half-dozen names of really representative men from each district, and these were applied for through the post-office. In nearly every case the document, when returned signed by a score or two, was accompanied by a letter stating that as many thousands of signatures from that district would have been forwarded if necessary.
Tuesday, the 18th of November, 1873, was the date publicly fixed for the conference, which was convened “to meet from day to day until its proceedings are concluded.” As the day approached, the most intense interest and curiosity were excited by the event, not merely in Dublin and throughout Ireland, but all over Great Britain. The great circular hall of the Rotunda was transformed into the semblance of a legislative chamber, the attendant suite of apartments being converted into division lobbies,[163] dining-rooms, writing-rooms, etc., while the handsome gallery which sweeps around the hall was set apart for spectators.
The English newspapers seemed much troubled by all this. They did not like that Ireland should in any shape or form take to “playing at parliament,” as they sneeringly expressed it; and this conference affair was vividly, dangerously suggestive to the “too imaginative” Irish. There was, however, they declared, one consolation for them: out of evil would come good; this same conference would effectually cure the Irish of any desire for a native parliament, and show the world how unfit were Hibernians for a separate legislature. Because (so declared and prophesied the English papers from day to day) before the conference would be three hours in session, there would be a “Donnybrook row”; fists would be flourished and heads broken; Old Irelanders and Young Irelanders, Repealers and Federalists, Fenians and Home-Rulers, would, it was declared, “fly at one another’s throats.” At least a dozen English editors simultaneously hit
upon the witty joke about “the Kilkenny cats.”
This sort of “prophesying” went on with such suspicious energy, as the day neared for the meeting of the conference, that it began to be surmised the government party was meditating an attempt to verify it. Signs were not wanting that wily and dexterous, as well as pecuniary, efforts were being made to incite dissent and disturbance. Admittance to the conference was obtainable by any one who had signed the requisition, on recording his name and address; and it was quite practicable for a few government emissaries, by pretending to be very “advanced” Nationalists, uncompromising Repealers or anti-tory Catholics, to get up flourishing disputations and “rows.” Indeed, anxiety, if not apprehension, on this score seemed to prevail to some degree on the eve of the 18th. Would there be “splits,” would there be discord and turbulence and impossibility of reconcilement, or would there be order and decorum, earnest debate, but harmonious spirit and action? All felt that the event at hand was one of critical importance to Ireland.
For four days—the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st of November, 1873—the conference continued in session, sitting each day at eleven o’clock in the morning, and adjourning at six o’clock in the afternoon. The number of “delegates” was 947;[164] and the daily attendance at each sitting averaged about six hundred. Fortunately, an authentic record was taken of the composition of the assembly; and it is only on glancing over the names and addresses of those nine
hundred gentlemen that a full conception of its character can be formed. One of the most notable features in the scene, one that called forth much public comment as an indication of the deep public interest felt in the proceedings, was the crowded gallery of ladies and gentlemen who, having succeeded in obtaining admission-cards, day by day sat out the debates, listening with eager attention to all that went forward. The pressure for these admission-cards increased each day, and at the final sitting, on the 21st, it was found impossible to seat the hundreds of visitors who filled the avenues to the gallery.
There was much speculation as to who would be selected as chairman of the convention. The choice when made known called forth universal approbation. It was Mr. William Shaw, Member of Parliament for the borough of Bandon,[165] a Protestant gentleman of the highest position and reputation, a banker (president of the Munster Bank), a man of large wealth, of grave and undemonstrative manner, but of great depth and quiet force of character. He was one of the last men in Ireland who would answer the description of an “Irish agitator” as English artists draw the sketch. He was one who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by “revolution,” yet he had early joined the movement for Irish self-government, declaring that he did so as a business man having a large stake in the prosperity of the country, and because he saw that the present system was only the “pretence of a government” for Ireland.
Naturally the chief event of the
first day’s sitting was Mr. Butt’s great speech or opening statement on the whole case. It was a masterly review of the question of Irish legislative independence, and a powerful vindication of the federal adjustment now under consideration. He went minutely and historically into every fact and circumstance and every element of consideration, making his address rather a great argument than an oratorical display. At the close, however, when he came to tell how he himself had been led into this movement—how it began, how it had grown, till now he surrendered it into their keeping—his voice trembled with emotion. “State trials were not new to me,” he exclaimed:
“Twenty years before I stood near Smith O’Brien when he braved the sentence of death which the law pronounced upon him. I saw Meagher meet the same, and I then asked myself this: ‘Surely the state is out of joint, surely all our social system is unhinged, when men like O’Brien and Meagher are condemned to a traitor’s doom?’ Years passed away, and once more I stood by men who had dared the desperate enterprise of freeing their country by revolt.… I heard their words of devotion to their country as with firm step and unyielding heart they left the dock, and went down the dark passage that led them to the place where all hope closed upon them, and I asked myself again: ‘Is there no way to arrest this? Are our best and bravest spirits ever to be carried away under this system of constantly-resisted oppression and constantly-defeated revolt? Can we find no means by which the national quarrel that has led to all these terrible results may be set right?’ I believe, in my conscience, we have found it. I believe that England has now the opportunity of adjusting the quarrel of centuries. Let me say it—I do so proudly—that I was one of those who did something in this cause. Over a torn and distracted country—a country agitated by dissension, weakened by distrust—we raised the banner
on which we emblazoned the magic words, ‘Home Rule.’ We raised it with feeble hand. Tremblingly, with hesitation, almost stealthily, we unfurled that banner to the breeze. But wherever the legend we had emblazoned on its folds was seen the heart of the people moved to its words, and the soul of the nation felt their power and their spell. Those words were passed from man to man along the valley and the hillside. Everywhere men, even those who had been despairing, turned to that banner with confidence and hope. Thus far we have borne it. It is for you now to bear it on with more energy, with more strength, and with renewed vigor. We hand it over to you in this gathering of the nation. But, oh! let no unholy hands approach it. Let no one come to the help of our country,
“‘Or dare to lay his hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause’
who is not prepared never, never to desert that banner till it flies proudly over the portals of that ‘old house at home’—that old house which is associated with memories of great Irishmen, and has been the scene of many glorious triumphs. Even while the blaze of those glories is at this moment throwing its splendor over the memory of us all, I believe in my soul that the parliament of regenerated Ireland will achieve triumphs more glorious, more lasting, more sanctified and holy, than any by which her old parliament illumined the annals of our country and our race.
As his last words died away the assemblage, rising as one man, burst into cheers long protracted, and it was only after several minutes that order was restored.
Mr. Butt had spoken to a complete series of resolutions, which he now submitted to the conference; he concluded by formally moving the first of them:
“I. That, as the basis of the proceedings of this conference, we declare our conviction that it is essentially necessary to the peace and prosperity of Ireland that the right of domestic legislation on all Irish affairs should be restored to our country.”
It was seconded by Mr. Joseph P. Ronayne, M.P. for Cork City, a man as honest and as just as Aristides; an “advanced Nationalist,” one in whose honor, sincerity, and earnestness Fenians and non-Fenians alike implicitly confided. “I did not take part,” he said, “in public life for the last twenty years, and I hesitated a long time before joining the Home-Rule movement. I was a simple Repealer, when simple Repeal was the form in which Ireland demanded the restitution of her nationality. I was a rebel in ’48.” After this manly avowal of his position Mr. Ronayne closed a brief but forcible speech as follows:
“I have no quarrel with the English people; their sins against Ireland are sins of ignorance, not of intention. Our quarrel is with the government, and against the system which has prevailed ever since England claimed possession of this country. The measure of Mr. Butt will solve the difficulties of the situation. I think we will maintain what is the sentiment of the Irish people—what they contended for with England when England and Ireland were Catholic, as well as when England and Ireland were Protestant and Catholic—that is, the nationality of Ireland. And I see no way but that proposed by Mr. Butt by which this great end can be obtained, consistently with the maintenance of friendly relations between the two countries.”
A still more important announcement, from what is called the “Nationalist” as well as the Repeal point of view, was made by the next speaker, Mr. John Martin, M.P., who moved the second resolution. He, too, avowed himself by preference a Repealer, and every one knew he had been a martyr, prisoner, and exile for his share in the events of ’48. But in language strong, clear, and decisive he gave his approval to the Home-Rule scheme:
“Because I believe that this measure of
home government, this new arrangement of the relations between the two countries, will operate sufficiently for the interests—for all the interests—of the Irish people; because I think, if carried into effect according to the principles enunciated in these resolutions, it will be honorable to the Irish nation, it will be consistent with the dignity of the Irish nation, and it will be safe for all its interests; and also because, as to so much of the rights and prerogatives of the Irish nation as are by this scheme of Home Rule to be left under the jurisdiction of an imperial parliament, in which we shall be represented, I consider that those are only the same rights and attributes that, under the old system, were practically left together to the control of the English Parliament and the English Privy Council and ministry.”
The full report of the proceedings at this conference, compiled from the daily newspapers and published by the Home-Rule League, is one of the most interesting publications of a political character issued in Ireland for many years. The speakers exhibited marked ability, and they represented every phase of Irish national opinion. There was very earnest debate; amendments were moved and discussed; points were raised, contested, decided. But the great fact that astounded the outside public, and utterly confounded the prophetic English journalists, was that, warm, protracted, and severe as were some of the discussions, free and full interchange of opinion in every instance sufficed to bring about conviction, and settled every issue without resort to a poll of votes. Every resolution was carried unanimously,[166] and on no question, from first to last, was there need to take a division. “It is not like Ireland at all,” said an astonished critic. “What on earth has become of our traditional contentiousness and discord?”
The following were the principal resolutions of the conference, besides the first, already quoted above:
Moved by Mr. John Martin, M.P. (Meath), and seconded by Mr. Roland Ponsonby Blennerhassett, M.P. (Kerry):
“That, solemnly reasserting the inalienable right of the Irish people to self-government, we declare that the time, in our opinion, has come when a combined and energetic effort should be made to obtain the restoration of that right.”
Moved by the Mayor of Cork (Mr. John Daly), seconded by the Hon. Charles French, M.P. (Roscommon, brother of Lord de Freyne):
“That, in accordance with the ancient and constitutional rights of the Irish nation, we claim the privilege of managing our own affairs by a parliament assembled in Ireland, and composed of the sovereign, the lords, and the commons of Ireland.”
Moved by the Rev. Joseph A. Galbraith, F.T.C.D., Trinity College,[167] and seconded by the Rev. Thomas O’Shea, P.P. (the celebrated “Father Tom O’Shea,” of the Tenant League):
“That, in claiming these rights and privileges for our country, we adopt the principle of a federal arrangement, which would secure to the Irish parliament the right of legislating for, and regulating all matters relating to, the internal affairs of Ireland, while leaving to the imperial Parliament the power of dealing with all questions affecting the imperial crown and government, legislation regarding the colonies and other dependencies of
the crown, the relations of the empire with foreign states, and all matters appertaining to the defence and stability of the empire at large, as well as the power of granting and providing the supplies necessary for imperial purposes.”
Moved by Sir Joseph Neale McKenna, and seconded by Mr. McCarthy Downing, M.P. (Cork County):
“That such an arrangement does not involve any change in the existing constitution of the imperial Parliament or any interference with the prerogatives of the crown or disturbance of the principles of the constitution.”
Moved by Sir John Gray, M.P. (Kilkenny), and seconded by Mr. D. M. O’Conor, M.P. (Roscommon, brother of the O’Conor Don):
“That, to secure to the Irish people the advantages of constitutional government, it is essential that there should be in Ireland an administration of Irish affairs, controlled, according to constitutional principles, by the Irish parliament, and conducted by ministers constitutionally responsible to that Parliament.”
Moved by Mr. Mitchell Henry, M.P. (Galway), and seconded by Mr. W. J. O’Neill Daunt, Kilcaskan Castle, County Cork:
“That, in the opinion of this conference, a federal arrangement, based upon these principles, would consolidate the strength and maintain the integrity of the empire, and add to the dignity and power of the imperial crown.”
Moved by Mr. W. A. Redmond, M.P. (Wexford), and seconded by Mr. Edmond Dease, M.P. (Queen’s County):
“That, while we believe that in an Irish parliament the rights and liberties of all classes of our countrymen would find their best and surest protection, we are willing that there should be incorporated in the federal constitution articles supplying the amplest guarantees that no change shall be made by that parliament
in the present settlement of property in Ireland, and that no legislation shall be adopted to establish any religious ascendency in Ireland, or to subject any person to disabilities on account of his religious opinions.”
Moved by Mr. C. G. Doran, T.C. (Queenstown), and seconded by Mr. John O’Connor Power (Tuam):
“That this conference cannot separate without calling on the Irish constituencies at the next general election to return men earnestly and truly devoted to the great cause which this conference has been called to promote, and who, in any emergency that may arise, will be ready to take counsel with a great national conference, to be called in such a manner as to represent the opinions and feelings of the Irish nation; and that, with a view of rendering members of Parliament and their constituencies more in accord on all questions affecting the welfare of the country, it is recommended by this conference that at the close of each session of Parliament the representatives should render to their constituents an account of their stewardship.”
Moved by Mr. George L. Bryan, M.P. (Kilkenny), and seconded by Mr. P. Callan, M.P. (Dundalk):
“That, in order to carry these objects into practical effect, an association be now formed, to be called ‘The Irish Home-Rule League,’ of which the essential and fundamental principles shall be those declared in the resolutions adopted at this conference, and of which the object, and only object, shall be to obtain for Ireland, by peaceable and constitutional means, the self-government claimed in these resolutions.”
The remaining resolutions dealt with the constitution of the new organization thus founded, and decreed an appeal “to the Irish race all over the world” for funds to assist them in the great struggle now entered upon.
Thus was established the “Irish Home-Rule League” which to-day holds so prominent a position in Ireland.
American readers, familiar enough
with O’Connell’s demand for Repeal, will naturally be anxious to learn in what precisely does the above programme differ from that of the great Liberator. O’Connell, who had himself seen the Irish Parliament, and, young as he was, sought to resist its overthrow, grew into life with the simple idea of undoing the evil which yesterday had wrought; in other words, restoring the state of things which existed before the “Union.” This was known as “simple Repeal”—Repeal and nothing more. Such a demand, arising almost on the instant, or out of the evil act complained of, was quite natural; but when time had elapsed, and when serious changes and alterations in the circumstances and relations of the countries had come about, men had to perceive that simple Repeal would land them, in some respects, in an antiquated and impossible state of things. Thus in the Irish Parliament no Catholic could sit, while the act of 1829 admitted Catholics to the imperial Parliament. Again, the franchise and the “pocket” constituencies that had returned the Irish House of Commons could not be restored without throwing the country into the hands of a Protestant minority. Numerous other absurdities and anomalies—things which existed in 1799, but that would be quite out of all sense in 1844—might be pointed out. O’Connell saw this, but relied upon the hope of obtaining not only simple Repeal, but also such improvements as the lapse of time had rendered necessary; and he relied further on the necessity which there would be for Ireland and England, after Repeal, agreeing upon some scheme for the joint government of the countries; in other words, some shape or degree of federalism.
But the great blot upon the old system was that, although under it Ireland had a totally separate legislature and exchequer, she never had (or under it had the right to have) a separate responsible administration or cabinet. The cabinet or administration that ruled Ireland was formed by, and solely responsible to, the English Parliament. The Irish Parliament had not the right or power to remove a minister; was not able, no matter by what majority, to displace even an administration actually conspiring against Irish liberties. Without a separate Irish administration, responsible to the Irish Parliament, removable by its vote, and liable to its impeachment, it may be said that the legislative independence of Ireland was a frail possession. Events showed this to be so.
The Home-Rule scheme has been concisely described by some of its advocates as offering beforehand the arrangements between the two countries which under the Repeal plan would have to be laid down afterwards. Instead of first simply severing the Union, and then going to work to reconstruct everything, the Home-Rulers project their reconstruction beforehand, and claim that one advantage of this is in a large degree to allay alarms and avert hostility. Their plan proposes to secure for Ireland the great advantage of a separate responsible Irish ministry; offering, in exchange for this, to give up to the imperial executive such powers as the States in America give to the Washington Congress and executive, as distinguished from the powers and functions reserved to the State legislatures and governments. In fine, the Home-Rule scheme has been borrowed largely, though not altogether, from the United States
of America: Ireland to rule and legislate, finally and supremely, on all domestic affairs; all affairs common to England, Ireland, and Scotland to be ruled and legislated for by an administration and parliament in which all three will be represented. There are, no doubt, in America many patriotic Irishmen who think this far too little for Ireland to demand; who contend she should seek nothing less than total separation and independence; the price, undisguisedly, being civil war with its lottery of risks and chances. However this may be, the Irish people, if ever their voice has been heard for a century, on the 18th of November, 1873, solemnly and publicly spoke for themselves, and their demand so formulated is now before the world.
There can be no doubt—it is now very well known—that the proceedings at the Irish National Conference, especially the unanimity, power, and influence there displayed, had been keenly watched by the London government. Mr. Gladstone had been losing ground in the English by-elections for a year past; but as long as there was a hope of the Irish Liberal vote remaining he had no need to fear yet awhile. The conference, however, was read by him as a declaration of war. The Home-Rule leaders themselves realized the critical state of affairs; they were confident Mr. Gladstone would dissolve Parliament and strike at them in the approaching summer; and accordingly they set themselves to prepare for the conflict. The “Christmas holidays” intervening, it was the first or second week in January before the newly-formed Home-Rule League had fully constituted itself and elected its council. Its leaders, however, scenting danger, went
quickly to work, and arranged for beginning in February a thorough organization of the constituencies. In February! They were dealing with a man who had no idea of giving his adversaries six months, or even six weeks, to prepare. They were doomed to be taken unawares and nearly swept off their feet by a surprise as sudden and complete as the springing of a mine.
On the morning of Saturday, January 24, 1874, the people of the British Islands woke to find Parliament dissolved. No surprise could be more complete; for Parliament had stood summoned for the first week in February. At midnight on the 23d Mr. Gladstone sprang this grand surprise on his foes, English Conservative and Irish Home-Ruler, hoping to overwhelm both by the secrecy and suddenness of the attack. And for a while it quite seemed as if he had correctly calculated and would succeed. The wildest confusion and dismay prevailed. There was no time to do anything but simply rush out and fight helter-skelter. In Ireland the first momentary feeling seemed to be one almost of despair. “Oh! had we but even another month.” Yet no cowardly despair; only the first gasp of a brave people taken at utter disadvantage.
For the Home-Rule leaders it was a moment of almost sad and certainly oppressive responsibility and anxiety. They knew how little allowance would be made for the mere dexterity whereby they had been thus outwitted, if they should lose the campaign, as it seemed to many they must. But not a moment did they waste in sighing for what might have been. There was an instantaneous rush to the council-rooms, and before the tidings from London were twenty-four
hours old there had begun what may be called a three weeks’ sitting en permanence of the Home-Rule executive. It is almost literally true that it sat night and day throughout that time, receiving and forwarding despatches from and to all parts of the country, by telegraph, by mail, and by special messenger. The Home-Rulers had always held forth as an object which they could achieve, or were determined to achieve, in fair time, and after necessary preparations, the conquest of some seventy seats out of the Irish one hundred and three. To secure even thirty just now in this rush was deemed a daring hope. But it seemed as if enthusiasm and popular indignation at the Gladstonian coup compensated for lack of preparation or organization. It was a great national uprising. North, south, east, and west the constituencies themselves set the Home-Rule flag flying. Ireland was aflame.
This was the first general election under the free and fearless voting of the ballot.[168] No more complaints by voters of “coercion” or “intimidation” by “landlord” or “clergy” or “mob.” Neither bullying nor bribing would any more be of use. At last, for the first time, the mind of the elector himself would prevail, and the constituencies of Ireland were free to pass a verdict on the Act of Union.
One drawback, however, threatened to baffle their purpose. Candidates!
Where were trustworthy candidates to be found? The Home-Rule council had gone upon the plan of refusing to provide or recommend candidates, thinking to force upon the constituencies themselves the responsibility of such selection. “We will set up no candidate-factory here in Dublin,” they said; “it might lead to intrigue. We’ll keep clear of it; let each county and borough choose for itself.” But this had to be given up. The cry from the constituencies showed its folly: “Candidates, candidates! For the love of God send us a candidate, and we’ll sweep this county for Home-Rule.” As a matter of fact, owing to the dearth of suitable candidates, no less than a dozen seats had to be let go by default without any contest at all; while in as many more cases converts from mere liberalism to Home Rule, whose sincerity was hardly acceptable, had, from the same cause, to be let pass in “on good behavior.”
There was, there could be, but little of general plan over the whole field; it was fight all round, the whole island being simultaneously engaged. This was Mr. Gladstone’s able generalship: to prevent the Home-Rule leaders from being able to concentrate their resources on one place at a time. Nevertheless, they were his inferiors neither in ability nor in strategy, as the event proved. Upon the vantage points which he deemed most precious they delivered their heaviest fire, and in no case unsuccessfully.[169] The contests that,
each in some peculiar way, most forcibly demonstrated the determination of the people, their intense devotion to the Home-Rule cause, were: Cavan, an Ulster county, where for the first time since the reign of James II. a Catholic (one of two Home-Rulers) was returned; Louth, where the utmost power of the government was concentrated, all in vain, to secure Mr. Fortescue’s seat; Drogheda, where Mr. Whitworth, a princely benefactor to the town, and an estimable Protestant gentleman, was rejected because he was not a Home-Ruler; Wexford, where the son of Sir James Power, a munificent patron of Catholic charities, was rejected by priests and people for the same reason; Limerick County, where a young Whig Catholic squire, whose hoisting of Home Rule was disbelieved in by the electors, received only about one vote to eight cast for a more trustworthy man chosen from the ranks of the people, although the former gentleman was believed in and strenuously supported by the Catholic clergy; and Kildare, where the son of the Duke of Leinster, who owned nearly every acre in the county, was utterly routed!
At length the last gun was fired, the last seat had been lost and won, and as the smoke of battle lifted from the scene men gazed eagerly to see how the campaign had gone. The Home-Rulers had triumphed all along the line! Strictly speaking, they failed as to one, and only one, of the seats which they contested—namely, Tralee, where the O’Donoghue (a former National
leader, now an anti-Home-Ruler) succeeded against them by three votes. They had returned sixty[170] men pledged to their programme, in the late Parliament the Irish representation stood 55 Liberals, 38 Conservatives, and 10 Home-Rulers. It now stood 12 Liberals, 31 Conservatives, and 60 Home-Rulers. The national party thus outnumbered all others, Whig and Tory, combined; and, for the first time since the Union, that measure stood condemned by a majority of the parliamentary representatives of the Irish nation.
Not in Ireland alone was Mr. Gladstone overwhelmed by defeat, his clever stroke of the midnight dissolution notwithstanding. The English elections also went bodily against him. In the middle of the fight he resigned, and the minister who met the new Parliament with the seals of office in his hand and the smile of victory on his countenance was Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative leader.
There was considerable uneasiness in England when the Irish elections were found to be going for the Home-Rulers, until it turned out that the Disraeli party had a hundred majority on the British vote. “The empire is saved,” gasped the alarmed Englishmen; “we were lost if such a Home-Rule phalanx found parties nearly equal in the House of Commons. They would hold the balance of power and dictate terms. Let us give thanks for so providential a Tory majority.” There was much writing in the English newspapers in this strain. They took it for granted that the Home-Rulers were “balked” or checkmated, for
a time at least, by this unexpected Tory preponderance. It cost them over a year to find out that no one rejoiced more than did the Home-Rule leaders in secret over this same state of things; that it was a crowning advantage to the Home-Rulers as a party to have the Liberals in opposition for four or five years.
Returning a number of men as Home-Rulers did not necessarily constitute them a political party. Neither would a resolution on their part so to act altogether carry out such a purpose. The discipline, the unity, the homogeneity, which constitute the real power of a party come not by mere resolving; they may begin by resolution, but they grow by custom and practice. Men behind the scenes in the Home-Rule councils knew that serious uneasiness prevailed amongst the leaders lest their ranks might be broken up or shaken by the prospect or reality of a return of the Liberals to power too soon—i.e., before they, the Home-Rulers, had had time to settle down or solidify into a thoroughly compact body, and before discipline and habit had accustomed them to move and act together. Four or five years training in opposition was the opportunity they most wanted and desired. From a dozen to a score of their rank and file were men who had been Gladstonian Liberals, and whose fealty would be doubtful if in 1875 the disestablisher of the Irish Church called upon them to follow him rather than Mr. Butt. These men would at that time have felt themselves “Liberals first, and Home-Rulers after.” Even in any case, and as it is, there are six or seven of these former Liberals among the Home-Rule fifty-nine who are looked upon as certain to
“cross the house” with their former chief whenever he returns to office. In 1875 these men would have carried a dozen lukewarm waverers along with them; in 1877 they will not carry one, and their own action, discounted beforehand, will disconcert or surprise no one, and will merely cause them to lose their seats on the first opportunity afterwards.
Quickly following upon the general election, the members returned on Home-Rule principles assembled in Dublin, 3d of March, 1874 (the Council Chamber of the city hall being lent to them for that purpose by the municipal authorities), and, without a dissentient voice, passed a series of resolutions constituting themselves a separate and distinct political party for parliamentary purposes. Whigs and Tories, Trojans and Tyrians, were henceforth to be alike to them. The next step was to elect a sort of “cabinet” of nine members, called the Parliamentary Committee, to act as an executive; while the appointment of two of their body most trusted for vigilance, tact, and fidelity, to act as “whips,”[171] completed the formal organization
of the Home-Rule members as a party.
Not an hour too soon had they perfected their arrangements. The new Parliament, after a technical opening a fortnight previously, assembled for the real despatch of business on Thursday, the 19th of March, 1874, and next day (on the debate on the Queen’s speech), in the very first hour of their parliamentary life, the Home-Rulers found themselves in the thick of battle. Mr. Butt had taken the field at once with an amendment raising the Irish question. The house was full of curiosity to hear “the Irish Home-Rulers” and see what they were like. It was struck with their combative audacity. It frankly confessed they stood fire “like men,” and that they acquitted themselves on the whole with astonishing ability. From that night forward the British House of Commons realized that it had for the first time a “third party” within its walls. How utterly opposed this is to Englishmen’s ideas of things proper or possible will be gathered from the fact that they construct or seat the chamber for two, and only two, parties; and that they even still make a great struggle to have it regarded as a “constitutional theory” that there must be two, and can be no more than two, parties in the house—namely, “Her Majesty’s Government” and “Her Majesty’s Opposition.” American legislative chambers, as well as French, German, Italian, Austrian, are constructed and seated in a semicircle or amphitheatre. The British, on the contrary, is an oblong hall or short parallelogram, divided right and left by a wide central avenue running its full length from the entrance door to the “table of the House” fronting
the speaker’s chair. There are, therefore, no middle seats; everyone must sit on one side or another—with the ministerialists or Tories on the right of the chair, or with the opposition or Liberals on the left. Half-way up the floor there runs (right and left to each side of the chamber), at right angles to the wide central avenue above referred to, a narrow passage often mentioned in newspaper reports as “the gangway.” “Above the gangway” (or nearest the chair) on each side sit respectively the thick and thin followers of the present or late ministry. “Below the gangway” (or farthest from the chair) sit on each side men who would occupy some section of the middle seats, if the house possessed any—the right and left centres, so to speak. The Home-Rulers sit in a compact body “below the gangway” on the opposition side.
In their third session public opinion has now pretty well gauged and measured the ability and resources of the Home-Rule party. In their first campaign, 1874, though much praised because they were infinitely better in every respect than most people expected, they exhibited plentifully the faults and shortcomings of “raw levies.” Their formal debate on Home Rule, on the 30th of June and 2d of July, was utterly wanting in system and management, and would have been a failure had not the anti-Home-Rule side of the discussion been incontestably much worse handled. But never, probably, in parliamentary history has another body of men learned so quickly, and so rapidly attained a high position, as they have done. By the concurrent testimony of their adversaries themselves the Home-Rule members are the best disciplined and best guided
and, in proportion to their numbers, the most able and powerful party in the British House of Commons. In order to have a complete and accurate conception of all that relates to the Irish Home-Rule movement, there remains only to be considered the policy or line of action on which its leaders propose to operate. How do they expect to carry Home Rule?
At no time have the criticisms of the English press on the subject of Home Rule exhibited anything but the shallowest intelligence; and many of the Home-Rule victories have been won because of the stolid ignorance prevailing in the English camp. The English journalists disliking the Irish government, believe and proclaim to their readers only what accords with their prejudices; and accordingly upon them has fallen the fate of the general who refuses to reconnoitre the enemy and accurately estimate his strength. On this subject the British journalist will have it that he “knows all about it,” and has no need to investigate things seriously. From the first hour of the Home-Rule movement he has declared it to be “breaking up,” “failing,” “going down the hill.” It has been so constantly going down that hill in his story that one never can find out when or how it got up there, or whether there is any bottom to the declivity which it can ever reach in such a rapid and persistent downward motion. On no feature of the Home-Rule question has there been more affectation of knowing all about it, and more complacent dogmatism as to its inevitable fate, than this of the Home-Rule plan of action. The way these people look at the matter explains their consolatory conclusions. They view the Home-Rulers simply as sixty members
in a house of six hundred and fifty-eight. “Six hundred to sixty—surely it is absurd! Are the Irish demented, to think their sixty will convert our six hundred?”
This mistake of viewing Mr. Butt and Home Rule just as they view Sir Wilfrid Lawson and prohibition is just where the English show their unpardonable and fatuous want of intelligence. Indeed, others besides English commentators fall into this error. They imagine the Home-Rulers contemplate working Home Rule through the House of Commons by bringing in a “Bill” and having an annual “vote” upon it, as if it were the Permissive bill, or the Woman’s Suffrage, or the Game Law Bill. The Home-Rulers laugh heartily over all this sort of criticism. They dream of nothing of the kind. There is another way of looking at the Home-Rule party and the Home-Rule question in the House of Commons.
Six hundred men can indeed very easily vote down sixty, and make short work of their opposition; always supposing these latter to be units from places wide apart, representing scattered interests or speculative opinions. The House of Commons deals every year, session after session, with several such sixties and seventies and eighties and nineties. But it would be a woful apology for “statesmanship” to regard the Home-Rule sixty in this light. In their case the government have to do, not with sixty of their own general body of British members, but with the Irish representation. The question is not with sixty members of the House, but with Ireland. In any crisis of the empire, as the English Chancellor of the Exchequer said recently about the British representatives on the Suez Canal Board,
“their votes would be weighed, not counted.”
The purpose of the Home-Rulers, for the present at all events, is much less with the House of Commons than with the country; they operate on the country through that house. They want to get Ireland into their hands; and even already they have very substantially done so. They want to convince and conciliate and enlist the English democracy; and they have very largely succeeded. With this key to their movements, the supreme ability and wisdom which they have displayed will be better recognized. They have taken the whole of the public affairs of Ireland into their charge. They have taken every public interest in the country under their protection. Whoever wants anything done or attended to, whether he be Catholic, Protestant, or dissenter, now looks to the Home-Rulers, and to them alone. Not the humblest peasant in the land but feels that, if a petty village tyrant has wronged him, the Irish party in the House of Commons will “know the reason why.” They have seized upon every subject deeply affecting the people as a whole, or important classes among them, and showered bills dealing with these subjects on the table of the House of Commons. The distracted premier knows what is beneath all this; he detects the master-hand of Isaac Butt in this deep strategy. These are not sham bills, merely to take up time. They are genuine bills, ably and carefully drawn, and every one of them dealing with a really important and pressing matter for Ireland. Every one of them hits a blot; they are nearly all such bills as our Irish Parliament would pass. Some of the subjects (such as the “Fisheries Bill”) are popular
with very nearly all classes in Ireland; then there are the University Education Bill, the Land-Tenure Bill, the Grand Jury Bill, the Municipal Privileges Bill, the Franchise Hill, the Registration Bill, besides a host of others. Suppose the government give way, and accept one; there is a shout of triumph in Ireland: “The Home-Rulers have forced their hand!” and a cry of dismay and rage from the irreconcilable Orangemen: “The government have succumbed to the Jesuits!” Suppose they resist and vote down the bill; matters are worse. The Irish people are inflamed, and even ministerialists sulk and say: “This is bad policy; ‘tis playing the Home-Rule game.” Suppose, again, Mr. Disraeli adopts a middle course and says: “This is an excellent bill in many respects, but really we have not time to consider it this year.” A louder shout than ever greets such a statement: “There is no room for Irish business. Then let us transact it here at home.”
It is a matter of notoriety that there is growing up among Englishmen, within and without the House of Commons, a feeling that, even apart from all political considerations, something must be done to lighten the work, and remit to other assemblies a large portion of the legislative business now attempted there. The house is breaking down under the load laid upon or undertaken by it. So would Congress, if, in addition to its own functions, it attempted to do the work of the State legislatures besides. There are hundreds, it may be said thousands, of influential English politicians who, seeing this, regard as simply inevitable something in the direction of the Home-Rule scheme, only, of course “not so extreme,” as they call it.
Nothing but the bugbear of “dismembering the empire” prevents an English cry for lightening the ship. The Home-Rulers watch all this, and take very good care that the load which the house prefers to retain shall press heavily on it. Not that they pursue or contemplate a policy of mere obstruction, which many persons, friends and foes, thought they would. Mr. Butt has again and again repudiated this. He knows that such a course would only put the house on its mettle, and would defeat his scheme of silently sapping the convictions of the more fairly disposed Englishmen. He knows that the present system cannot last many years. He knows that the English people, once their convictions are affected, soon give way before public exigency. To affect those convictions and to create that exigency is the Home-Rule policy. It is all very well, while the skies are clear and tranquil, for English ministers, past and present, to bluster greatly about the impossibility of entertaining the Irish demand. It is all very well, while the present Tory majority is so strong, for both parties to protest their hostility to Home-Rule. Opinions change wondrously in these cases. When the Disraelian majority has in the course of nature dropped down to forty, thirty, twenty, and ten; when the Liberal leaders find they can attain to office with the Home-Rule vote, and cannot retain office without it, they will—offer Home Rule? No. Offer palliatives—good places for Home-Rulers, and “good measures” for Ireland? Probably. But when these offers are found to be vain; are found to strengthen the power and intensify the resolution of the Home-Rule party, the transformation
which England went through on so many great questions—Catholic Emancipation, Church Disestablishment, etc. (each in its day just as solemnly sworn to be “impossible”)—will begin to set in; and—all the more loudly if such a moment should happen to synchronize with deadlock in the legislature, peril abroad, and popular resentment at home—from England itself will arise the cry that “Ireland must be fairly dealt with.” At such a moment a British minister will easily be found to “discover,” as it were most fortunately, that “the question has hitherto been misunderstood,” and that it is England’s interest not less than Ireland’s to have it satisfactorily adjusted.
For it is not with Ireland alone British ministers will have to settle. Although no reference has previously been made here to the fact, the strongest arm of the Home-Rule party is in England itself. Within the past thirty years there has grown up there, silently and unnoticed, a new political power—hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who, having settled in the large labor marts, have grown to citizenship, power, and influence. From Bristol to Dundee there is not a large city that has not now on its electoral roll Irish voters whose action can decide the fate of candidates. Coincidently with the establishment of the “Home Government Association” in Ireland there arose in England, as a co-operative but independent organization, the “Home-Rule Confederation of Great Britain.” This body has organized the Irish vote all over England and Scotland, and holds virtually in its hands all the vast centres of political thought and action. Reflecting their sentiments and their influence, Dundee, Newcastle, Durham, Tynemouth,
Cardiff, and more than a dozen other important English and Scotch constituencies returned English friends of Home Rule to Parliament. It was not the mere matter of so many votes that lent such value to this fact; it was the incentive which it gave to the growing feeling (amongst the English working-classes especially) that the Irish question was one to be sympathized with. An event which occurred in England barely a few weeks ago was, however, beyond all precedent in the sensation which it created. This was the recent Manchester election. A week previously in Burnley it was found impossible to return any but a Home-Rule Liberal, and such a man accordingly headed the poll. In Manchester Mr. Jacob Bright (son of Mr. John Bright) was the Liberal, and a Mr. Powell the Conservative, candidate. It became clear that the Irish vote would decide the issue. One morning the news was flashed through England that both candidates, Liberal and Conservative, had undertaken to vote for Mr. Butt’s motion on Home Rule! What! Manchester, the political capital of England, gone for Home Rule? It was even so, and Mr. Bright, being preferred of the two, was triumphantly returned by the Irish Home-Rule vote.
All this means that on English ground Ireland now has hostages—hostages of security that no daring act of armed violence shall be attempted against her; hostages of friendship, too, as well as of safety; centres of a propagandism, of conciliation; citadels of political power. The growth of feeling in England in favor of the concession of Ireland’s national autonomy is simply incontestable. It may well be that, as many Irish politicians declare, “the battle of Home Rule for Ireland
will be fought and won on British soil.”
And this is how Ireland stands in 1876—erect, powerful, resolute, united. What the future may have in store for her, victory or defeat, is beyond human ken. This effort too may fail, as many a gallant endeavor in her behalf has failed before. All that can be said is that so far it has progressed with a success unparalleled in Irish political annals; that it is wisely guided, boldly animated, faithfully upheld. Much depends on her own children, at home and in foreign lands; on their devotion, their prudence, their courage, their perseverance. May this new dawn of unity, of concord of conciliation herald the day they have so long hoped to see!
And thou, O mighty Lord! whose ways
Are far above our feeble minds
To understand,
Sustain us in these doubtful days,
And render light the chain that binds
Our fallen land!
Look down upon our dreary state
And, through the ages that may still
Roll sadly on,
Watch thou o’er hapless Erin’s fate,
And shield at least from darker ill
The blood of Conn.
[161] This odious law, known as the “Irish Convention Act,” was passed by the Irish Parliament in order to forbid the Volunteers and other friends of Parliamentary Reform from “overawing the legislature.” Its repeal has been steadily resisted by the British Parliament, which finds the restriction now as invaluable as the Irish people find it oppressive.
[162] Some time previously he had publicly said that Repeal he understood, but the new programme he did not. Since that time, however, he gave ample proof that he had come to understand it clearly.
The clergy of his diocese, the archbishop himself in one instance presiding at their meeting, had sent in their formal adhesion, accompanied by large contributions of money, to the association.
[163] Almost incredible as it may seem to some readers, this was the only portion of the arrangements never once required. Throughout the four days of protracted and earnest debate, as will be detailed further on, no occasion arose for taking a division.
[164] List of Conference Ticket-holders—names and addresses—National Conference, November, 1873. Dublin: Home-Rule League Publications. 1874.
[165] Since elected (1874) for the county of Cork, along with Mr. McCarthy Downing. He had been at one time a Protestant dissenting minister.
[166] There was one dissentient to one of the resolutions—a gentleman named Thomas Mooney, late of California and other places.
[167] It is impossible to treat of the Irish Home-Rule movement without a special reference to this reverend gentleman, who is one of the most prominent figures in the group of Home-Rule leaders. He is a man of European reputation in science, and of the most upright and noble character. He is greatly loved and universally respected. Scarcely has Mr. Butt himself been more instrumental in the success of the movement; and there are now few names in Ireland more popular than that of “Professor Galbraith.”
[168] The ballot-voting in Ireland under the act of 1873, unlike that in America, is strictly secret: there being no “ticket” to be seen by outsiders. Only on entering the booth, where the few persons necessarily present are sworn to secrecy, the voter receives a paper on which the names of the candidates are printed. In a secret compartment of the booth the voter marks a cross alongside the name of the man for whom he wishes to vote, folds up the paper so as to conceal the mark which he has made, brings it forward, and drops it through a slit into a sealed box. He then quits the booth, and no one, inside or outside (but himself), knows for whom he has voted.
[169] The defeat of his Irish cabinet minister and former chief secretary, the Right Hon Chichester Fortescue, in Louth County, was generally regarded as the crushing blow of the whole campaign, as Mr. Fortescue was Mr. Gladstone’s official representative in Ireland. He was deemed invulnerable in Louth, having sat for it twenty-seven years, and being brother of Lord Claremont, one of the largest and best landlords in the county. The government laughed to scorn the idea of disturbing him. The Home-Rulers selected for this critical fight Mr. A. M. Sullivan, editor of the Nation. It was a desperate struggle: but not only was the Home-Ruler returned at the head of the poll, but he polled two to one against the cabinet minister.
[170] One of them, in Leitrim, subsequently lost his return, though in a majority, by a stupid mistake of one of his agents.
[171] It may be doubted whether there is any man amongst the Home-Rule members better entitled than their senior “whip,” Captain J. P. Nolan, to be ranked as next to Mr. Butt himself in importance and in service. On him it rests to keep the party on the alert; to note and advise with his chief upon every move of the enemy; to have his own men always “on hand,” so that they may never be caught napping; to keep his colleagues informed by circular (or “whip”) of all forthcoming bills or motions of importance; and finally, to act as “teller” or counter on a division. In fact, if Mr. Butt is the head or brain of the Home-Rule party, Captain Nolan is its right hand. He belongs to an old Catholic family, the O’Nolans of Leix, who in 1645 were put upon allotments beyond the Shannon in return for their estates in fertile Leix, which were handed over to Cromwell’s troopers. Captain Nolan is a man of considerable literary ability. He is a captain in the Royal Artillery and as a scientific and practical artillerist stands in the highest repute. He is the inventor of “Nolan’s Range-finder,” adopted in the Russian, French, and Austrian armies.