It was these consequences, quite as much as the sufferings of Ireland, that gradually converted a great body of the British people to the cause of Home Rule. That process was going on throughout the seventies and the eighties, and was brought to a climax by the conversion of Mr. Gladstone in 1886. Since then the cause which was so despised in the days of O'Connell has had one of the great English parties behind it, and has so steadily made its way in the favour of the British nation that it now stands on the threshold of accomplishment.
What, then, emerges from this survey? It is that in returning to Home Rule as the mode of governing Ireland we are simply going back to the old and traditional method of Irish rule. It is also that, on surveying the past, we find not merely that Home Rule has often saved Ireland, but that always the wider and the more generous the form of Home Rule the more it has helped Ireland. The wiser course of accepting Irish advice in Irish affairs has always turned the tide of disaster, and brought the hope of a new happiness for Ireland. Surely here we have a convincing proof that the logical consummation of this policy by the restoration of Home Rule is the only means of bringing back Ireland to a full and secure enjoyment of lasting well-being.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] For confirmation of this see Lecky's "Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland," Vol. I., p. 120.
[66] It is clear from Lecky's account that Lord Fitzwilliam's recall was due, not so much to any change of policy in London as to his action in dismissing Beresford, one of the most prominent figures of the Irish Protestant Party.
[67] There is a very close and minute account of the growth of Irish prosperity under the Grattan Parliament in O'Connell's great Repeal speeches to the British Parliament in 1834. Between 1782 and 1797 the consumption of coffee in Ireland went up by 600 per cent., the consumption of tea by 84 per cent., of tobacco by 100 per cent., and wine by 74 per cent. All these figures ran down rapidly after 1800.
[68] The Irish Parliament House, built in the eighteenth century, was, after the Act of Union, handed over to the Bank of Ireland. The House of Lords has been left intact, but special secret instructions were given that the Irish House of Commons should be divided into compartments in order that the memories of the Irish Parliament should be forgotten. Those instructions were carried out, and the Chamber of the Irish House of Commons ceased to exist.