The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

Some of our reasons for being chary of confidence in the success of home-rule have been already given. But we have also insisted on the necessity of leaving the question open, and admitted that Irishmen have a right to discuss it, and take whatever side they may think proper, provided always they stand, as they are standing, within the limits of law and order.

Surely, the Irish have a right to be fairly represented; modern doctrines, as far as they can go, consecrate that right; and, if fair representation is an impossibility in the present state of affairs in Ireland, that state should be so altered as that the Irish nation might obtain all the advantages which a truly representative government bestows.

It is clear that the difficulty consists in the paramount importance of the union—of the empire; and this is not the place to discuss so large a question. It may be said, however, that the union of the British Empire does not and cannot consist in the absorption into one whole of the three integral parts which compose it. England, Scotland, and Ireland, are still three distinct national entities, each inhabited by a peculiar race, and each race cannot, in such a political organization, be in justice ignored, for a mere abstraction called the state.

Certainly the question is a very complicated one; and to offer a dogmatic solution of it would be pretentious. It is better to leave it to a future which is not far distant. What may be insisted on is, that moral force is strong enough to bring about a satisfactory decision, and that to resort to revolution for such a purpose would be as fatal as it is criminal.

A right discussion of the question must make clear the fact that Ireland is entitled to fair dealing as a component part of the empire. Many other political organizations embraced within the vast limits of the British power are allowed to discuss and decide on questions peculiar to themselves, and which they are at full liberty to pronounce upon for themselves by a wise adjustment and concession on the part of the mother-country as necessary to their well-being. Canada is almost entirely independent; the Australian colonies have all their own legislatures; it is the same more or less with all the distant dependencies of England, yet there have been no complaints heard so far of these late concessions threatening the union of the Empire.

But the objection is urged: "If such a concession be made to Ireland, where can you stop? The Scotch may ask the same, and the Welsh; one has as much right to home-rule as the other; where can you draw the line?"

An easy answer to this is, that the Scotch have never asked for home-rule, for the very good reason that they never had to complain of unfair treatment at the hands of the English Government; their special wants and desires having been always duly considered from the moment of their union with England. But the union of Ireland with England is not yet a century old, was brought about perforce, and by chicanery and fraud, and from the moment of its enactment to the present has been loudly protested against by the Irish nation—the nation, that is, which we have followed all through, joined in this instance by numbers of their Protestant fellow-countrymen. A long list of pamphlets and books might be drawn up, as showing the fact that multitudes of Irish writers, not of a revolutionary but of a truly conservative character, who cannot be accused of disloyalty to England, have deplored, protested against, and clamored for the repeal of, the Union of 1800.

Such is not the case with Scotland. But suppose it were, and proofs furnished showing that Scotland is not fairly represented in a Parliament which meets at Westminster, then that country would have just as much right to see itself fairly represented, its special wants satisfied and met, as all the other branches of the great British organization.

Certain it is that the empire cannot be sound when an important, a vital part of its political frame is incurably sore. Let that sore be healed by justice, large, generous, and complete; let Ireland be truly and really represented, in whatever manner her representation may be carried out, and the sudden rise of the little western isle in wealth, contentment, true prosperity, and happiness, will redound to the general good of the whole. As it now stands, its still miserable condition is as great and constant a danger to Great Britain as it is a reproach and a shame upon the maternal government which suffers the child, for whose session it would stake its all, to continue in a state of almost hopeless poverty, materially and intellectually, and to struggle unaided in its efforts to rise.

If home-rule be the measure which is to heal Ireland's wounds, it must be granted, and the voice of reason and right must rise above the stupid clamor which says that it cannot, must not, shall not be granted! Such expressions were common in inflammatory pamphlets which flooded the country on the eve of Catholic Emancipation, in 1829; and possibly many were issued even after the granting of this (from a certain English point of view) suicidal act of justice to Catholics.