Let us carry our hypothesis further.
At the same time when she gave up the responsibilities of the local government of Ireland, England has transmitted them to the representatives of the Irish nation.
Are those representatives to form immediately a single Parliament sitting at Dublin, or are they for the present to be divided into four provincial assemblies for Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster? This question is of small importance, at least at the beginning. Let the first step be taken; an united Ireland will only be a matter of time. The best way in such cases is to follow the expressed wish of the populations; and supposing that Ulster, or at least a part of Ulster, vote for the continuation of the present régime, why should not those territories be excepted from the new arrangements, and either be left in statu quo or joined politically to Scotland, of which they are a geological as well as an ethnical dependency? But I cannot help thinking that if the above system was submitted to the Antrim tenants themselves, they would not be backward to see its advantages.
On the whole question the last word should remain to the voter. If a majority of the electors of Scottish Ireland spoke in favour of Home Rule, what could be objected to them? That they will eventually be oppressed by the Catholics? No great fear of that, I should think; and besides, efficient measures could be taken, guarantees found against that danger; but no such caution will be really wanted. The influence of the Catholic clergy in Ireland has for its principal basis the political state of the country. The day when difficulties are cleared up, national education will soon have put an end to the reign of clericalism in Ireland as elsewhere.
One cannot help feeling firmly convinced that Mr. Gladstone’s formula, “Home Rule and Abolition of Landlordism,” taken in its most general meaning, and applied with a spirit both prudent and liberal, will suffice to heal in a few years the disease of Ireland. Public wealth will rise by degrees, feelings of hatred will die away, the rapidity of the cure will take the world by surprise. Has not already the adoption of the Irish programme by a large number of Englishmen belonging to the Liberal party been sufficient to bring about a partial reconciliation between the two countries? We have seen Irish orators come and preach the Liberal gospel in England, and reciprocally, English orators go and bring the word of peace to Ireland. That alone is an augury of success, a symptom of healing and pacification.
Will it be objected that this is a Utopian picture, an unpractical scheme, or simply one of difficult execution? As for me, the more I look into the matter, the more settled grows my belief that three things only are requisite for substituting so much good for so much evil, viz., money, steadiness of purpose and conscience. Nobody will say that the English have ever shown a lack of steadiness in the pursuit of success; money they have in abundance; will they be wanting in conscience? This is scarcely to be feared. Conscientiousness of a more or less enlightened kind is a characteristic of the Englishman, and it is his highest praise. Men are constantly to be met in England who rule their conduct on the principles of an inward law. It is true that, by a natural consequence, many are good only in name, and their display of conscience is only a sham; but as our great moralist has said, “Hypocrisy is a homage which vice renders to virtue,” and wherever vice is obliged to wear a mask, virtue is bound to conquer.
A great transformation, the instruments of which are the press, the steam-engine, and the telegraph, has been slowly developing throughout the world during the last few years: a new and powerful influence has been born that might be named “obligatory justice through publicity.” Tennyson has spoken of “the fierce light that beats upon a throne;” thrones now-a-days scarcely exist except in name; the will of the people has taken their place. But let Governments call themselves republics or monarchies, they are equally submitted to that pitiless ray of light which is the ever-wakeful eye of the press, the uncompromising publicity which ignores either rank or station. How many examples of it have we not seen at home! To quote a recent one, take that wretched Schnæbelé affair. Only fifteen years ago there would have been found in it reasons ten times sufficient to bring about a war for those who wanted it. Not so in our days. In less than twenty-four hours the press had brought to light the most minute details of the affair, exposed the naked truth to the eyes of the world, photographed the place where the incident had occurred, submitted, in short, to the great public judge all the evidence of the case. One had to tender apologies under pain of being called the aggressor, and the whole affair evaporated into smoke.
Such results are perhaps the clearest gain that modern progress has given us. If our age has a superiority over the preceding ages, it is assuredly to have succeeded in making injustice more difficult to practise. More and more henceforward will great national crimes become impossible. Mr. Gladstone’s chief merit will be to have understood it before anybody in England, and to have been emphatically the man of his time. In spite of friends and adversaries he has dared to utter the truth, and say: “We must give back to Ireland what we have taken from her. The good of England imperiously demands that sacrifice, for we are entering an age when the honour of a great nation should not even be suspected.”