As against these five centuries, we have one century of Irish rule under a united Parliament—1800 to 1911. One against five. But as the one is more recent, we have here not a bad provision of material for an answer to the question: "Which has proved in the past the best way of governing Ireland—Union or Home Rule?"
In regard to the century of Union, the record lies before us, open and palpable, a tale of disaster and tragedy almost without parallel in the modern history of the world. We see in the statistics of Irish population, of Irish disease, of Irish poverty during the nineteenth century[60] a black picture of material decay that literally "cries to Heaven" for redress.
Side by side with these statistics, too, we have others to clinch the evidence which traces the cause to the Act of Union. For the nineteenth century was no century of decay. On the contrary, in almost every other Western country, and especially in countries of the same racial and religious fusion—in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and in the British Colonies—the nineteenth century was a period of rising population, advancing commerce, and abounding prosperity.
Nor is it the fact that British Ministers had any deliberate malice against Ireland. On the contrary, many noble Englishmen worked themselves grey during the nineteenth century in their efforts to make the best of the Union system. Viceroy after Viceroy, and Chief Secretary after Chief Secretary, have gone to Ireland full of hope, and have come back converted reluctantly to the admission that their efforts have been in vain and their work wasted under the present form of Government.[61]
"For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administered is best"
sang Pope. But there are some forms of government so bad that they cannot be well administered. Among them is the form of government established under the Act of Union.
Unionist writers who are honest enough to admit the decay of Ireland between 1800-1900 attempt to trace it to any other cause than the Act of Union—to over-population, to the Catholic religion, to the Irish character, or even to the potato. But they labour in vain. If Ireland stood alone, they might succeed. But it does not stand alone. Precisely at the time when Ireland was decaying, all other Western nations were flourishing. Precisely when the Irish race was withering in Ireland, the same race, with the same religion and the same national characteristics, was prospering exceedingly in America, and was even contributing much of the power, skill and value for building up the white British Colonies.
Unvarying progress on one side—on the other, unvarying decline, until checked by the willingness of England to listen to the voice of Ireland. What evidence could you have more convincing, what witnesses more eloquent?
Perhaps, indeed, the most convincing statement of this very case was given to the world, not by an Irishman or by any Liberal statesman, but by the great Lord Salisbury. Speaking in 1865 as Lord Robert Cecil, he uttered the following wise and statesmanlike summary of the policy of the Union up to that date:—
"What is the reason that a people with so bountiful a soil, with such enormous resources (as the Irish), lag so far behind the English in the race? Some say that it is to be found in the character of the Celtic race, but I look to France, and I see a Celtic race there going forward in the path of prosperity with most rapid strides—I believe at the present moment more rapidly than England herself. Some people say that it is to be found in the Roman Catholic religion; but I look to Belgium, and there I see a people second to none in Europe, except the English, for industry, singularly prosperous, considering the small space of country that they occupy, having improved to the utmost the natural resources of that country, but distinguished among all the peoples of Europe for the earnestness and intensity of their Roman Catholic belief. Therefore, I cannot say that the cause of the Irish distress is to be found in the Roman Catholic religion. An hon. friend near me says that it arises from the Irish people listening to demagogues. I have as much dislike to demagogues as he has, but when I look to the Northern States of America I see there people who listen to demagogues, but who undoubtedly have not been wanting in material prosperity. It cannot be demagogues, Romanism, or the Celtic race. What then is it? I am afraid that the one thing which has been peculiar to Ireland has been the Government of England."[62]