How can one help wishing that they may one day return to their country, those Irish, who, a thousand leagues from Ireland, remain Irish still? How can one help loving them, those brave sons of Erin, so amiable and witty?
I have many times been asked why, having written on the subject of England and Scotland, I had no intention of publishing my impressions of the Irish.
My answer is this: in speaking of a people, I like to touch on their pet transgressions, their faults and weaknesses, and I have never been able to find any in the Irish.
You will understand now why I would not risk the little reputation I may have made, and write of the Irish.
Upon the strength of a six months' sojourn in America, one would hardly attempt to deliver a verdict on the political system of the country.
I think, however, that it may safely be affirmed that the English are a freer people than the Americans; that the constitutional—I had almost said republican—monarchy of England is preferable to the authoritative democracy of America.
The American Constitution was copied from that of the England of 1776, and the President of the United States was invested with a power about equal to that of George III. Since that date the English have advanced, but the Americans have not. Now, in these cases, not to advance is to go back. The English of the year of grace 1888 would soon give their queen notice to quit, if she took it into her head to ask for power equal to that possessed by the President of the United States: it would take less time, perhaps, than the Americans would need to get rid of a troublesome President.
For four years the Americans are at the mercy of their chief representatives. Scarcely have the latter gone through their apprenticeship in the science of politics and government, when they have to go home. The consequence is, that there are but novices: politicians, but no statesmen. These small politicians excite the interest of the public so little, that the American newspapers furnish their readers with many more details about what is said at Westminster, at the Palais Bourbon, and at the Reichstag, than about what is being done at the Capitol in Washington.
Reforms are constantly talked of in America, but how obtain them? Public opinion has but a secondary influence upon the Government. The English would obtain a constitutional reform in much less time than the Americans. In England, all officials are the servants of the public; in America, they are their masters. The English Parliament is constantly influenced by public opinion; the American Congress is not so influenced at all, and the people's representatives rarely give account to their electors of the way in which they have acquitted themselves of their charge.