THE PRINCE OF WALES (AFTERWARDS EDWARD VII.) IN HIS ROBES AS A BENCHER OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE.
(From a Photograph by W. & D. Downey.)
Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal party in general having entered upon the policy of conciliation to Ireland, both in regard to the Irish Church and to the tenure of the land, from a conviction that these important measures were demanded by justice, did not repent of what they did; yet it must be confessed that the sanguine anticipations of seeing peace, union, contentment, and gratitude diffused over the sister island in consequence of this legislation were wofully disappointed. The marked warmth and heartiness with which a French deputation, headed by Count Flavigny, that came over to Ireland in the summer of 1871 to make a public acknowledgment of the services rendered during the war by the Irish ambulance, was received by the masses of the Irish population was understood to cover and indicate at least as much dislike of England as affection for France. Nor was this feeling now confined to the Celtic portion of the population. A section of Protestants, among whom the most prominent figure was a distinguished Fellow of Trinity College, resented so keenly the conduct of England in having sacrificed their Church to, as they deemed, a miserablepolitical expediency, and the clap-trap plea of numbers, that they eagerly joined that large disaffected mass of the native and Roman Catholic population which, about this time (direct agitation for a repeal of the Union being discouraged by the experience of 1844), began to seek the same end under the newly invented name of "Home Rule." The leader of this movement, Mr. Isaac Butt, the member for Limerick, was one, and not the least gifted, of the brilliant band of counsel who rallied round O'Connell on the occasion of his trial for exciting to sedition in January, 1844. The movement for Home Rule which he now took up had this advantage, that while the very name implied a certain degree of separation from England, and therefore insured for it popularity, its vagueness made it more difficult for opponents to grapple with it. All that those who gave in their adhesion to the agitation need necessarily contemplate was the transfer to some legislative body established in Ireland of the management of the purely local concerns of the kingdom. It meant the practical self-government of Ireland, and the exclusion of English influence from the conduct of its affairs, with the exception of a few specified departments, such as the Army and Navy, foreign relations, and the Post Office. While Mr. Butt was leader, however, Home Rule never emerged from a purely academic stage.
THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. (See p. [602].)
Mr. Gladstone delivered an important speech on this question at Aberdeen towards the close of the year, in which he based his opposition to Home Rule, not on prospective or hypothetical dangers, but on consideration of the argument that the Irish, if they would combine together, and become as keenly alive to their own interests as the Scots or the Welsh are, could obtain whatever they might reasonably demand. "You would expect," he said, "when it is said that the Imperial Parliament is to be broken up, that at the very least a case should be made out showing there were great objects of policy, and great demands necessary for the welfare of Ireland, which representatives of Ireland had united to ask, and which the representatives of England, Scotland, and Wales had united to refuse. There is no such grievance. There is nothing which Ireland has asked, and which this country and this Parliament have refused." He proceeded to admit that Ireland had something like a grievance in regard to university education, but urged that a united demand from Ireland would lead immediately to its rectification; and continued: "What are the inequalities of England and Ireland? I declare that I know none, except that there are certain taxes still remaining which are levied over Englishmen and are not levied over Irishmen, and likewise that there are certain purposes for which public money is freely and largely given in Ireland, and for which it is not given in England or Scotland.... But if the doctrines of Home Rule are to be established in Ireland, I protest on your behalf that you will be just as well entitled to it in Scotland; and, moreover, I protest on behalf of Wales, in which I have lived a good deal, and where there are 800,000 people who this day, such is their sentiment of nationality, speak hardly anything but their own Celtic tongue—a larger number than speak the Celtic tongue, I apprehend, in Scotland, and a larger number than speak it, I apprehend, in Ireland—I protest on behalf of Wales that they are entitled to Home Rule there. Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits through legislation on the country to which we belong?"
A tragic event, the prelude, as it proved, to one still more tragic, was announced in the autumn from Calcutta. Mr. Justice Norman, acting Lord Chief Justice, was assassinated by a fanatical Mussulman while ascending the steps leading to his own court. He had reached the summit of the flight of steps, when a man, who had been concealed in a doorway, sprang out and stabbed him in the back. Mr. Norman turned quickly round, and was stabbed again in front: either wound, being inflicted by one who was an adept in the art of murder, would have been fatal. The assassin was immediately seized. The evidence given on the trial left it doubtful whether pure fanatical hate towards a judge who had lately been enforcing the law against some Mohammedan conspirators at Patna was the cause of the murder, or whether some private grudge supplied a subsidiary motive.