OPENING OF PARLIAMENT IN 1880: THE ROYAL PROCESSION IN WESTMINSTER PALACE ON THE WAY, TO THE HOUSE OF PEERS.
Salisbury’s Newport address was ambiguous in its references to Home Rule, it rather gave colour to the prevalent belief that if the Tories could win a majority by the Irish vote, they would hold power by giving Ireland Home Rule. At the same time, it is but right to say that Lord Salisbury and his colleagues never appear to have committed the Cabinet to Lord Carnarvon’s bargain with Mr. Parnell. Indeed, they even seem to have told Lord Carnarvon that, personally, they disapproved of his Irish policy. They, however, still retained his services as a Cabinet Minister, though Lord Salisbury had discovered that he was a Home Ruler.
Mr. Parnell issued a manifesto fiercely attacking the Liberal Party, and ordering all Irishmen to give their votes to the Government. The Liberals, on the other hand, appealed to the people for such a majority as would enable Mr. Gladstone to defy Mr. Parnell. The elections began on the 24th of November. They showed that in the boroughs the Liberal Party was shattered, though it had, through Mr. Chamberlain’s doctrine of ransom, won in the counties all along the line.[234] The new House of Commons it was found would contain 333 Liberals, 251 Tories, and 86 Parnellites, not one Liberal having been returned by Ireland. In the circumstances it was hopeless for the Ministry to attempt a settlement of the Irish Question on Lord Carnarvon’s lines.[235] They had, even with the Irish vote, only a majority of four. But then, if they dared to make concessions to Mr. Parnell, this majority of four would inevitably be converted, by the secession of the Ulster Tories, into a minority of eight. The Liberal Leaders, on the other hand, were in an equally difficult predicament. They, too, could not hope to govern the country save by the Irish vote. It was quite possible, moreover, for the Government, by conceding Home Rule, to detach from the Liberals a sufficient number of Radicals to more than counterbalance the Ulster secession. In these circumstances Mr. Gladstone towards the end of the year let it be known indirectly that he was in favour of giving Ireland Home Rule.
Ere Parliament opened on the 12th of January, 1886, the resignation of Lord Carnarvon indicated that Ministers had dissolved the connection between the Tory Party and the Parnellites. The House of Commons elected Mr. Peel as its Speaker, and when Mr. Bradlaugh appeared he took the Oath in the ordinary manner. The Queen’s Speech was read on the 21st of January by her Majesty in person, but its references to Ireland were vague, though they foreshadowed the introduction of a Coercion Bill. In the preliminary skirmishes Mr. Gladstone threw out overtures to the Irish Party which Mr. Parnell and Mr. Sexton hailed with effusive delight. The Government, on the other hand, announced the introduction of a Coercion Bill, which would also suppress the National League. The Liberals and Parnellites now promptly united to support an Amendment moved by Mr. Jesse Collings, which censured the Ministry for refusing to bring in a Labourers’ Allotments Bill, and the Coalition defeated the Government by a vote of 329 to 258. The opposition of Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen to the Amendment showed that the Whigs at least were afraid of Mr. Gladstone’s return to office, after his vague and ambiguous promises of concessions to the Home Rulers. Lord Salisbury resigned, and when Mr. Gladstone formed his Ministry it was seen that many of his old colleagues, such as Lord Hartington, Mr. Goschen, Mr. Forster, Lord Selborne, Lord Northbrook, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Cowper, and Sir Henry James, had refused to join him. The appointment of Lord Aberdeen as Irish Viceroy was not very significant. But that Mr. John Morley, the most pronounced of all the English advocates of Home Rule, should have been appointed as Chief Secretary for Ireland meant much. Lord Rosebery was made Foreign Secretary, and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman Secretary at War. Both were known to be Home Rulers. Lord Spencer, disgusted at his betrayal by the Tory Party, had also become a convert to Home Rule principles, and was appointed President of the Council. Oddly enough Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan, who were both pledged against Home Rule, had joined the Ministry. But they had been induced to do so on the assurance that, in the meantime, the policy of the Cabinet would be merely to examine and inquire into the Home Rule question.
During the spring nothing was done in the matter. The House of Commons refused to press Ministers upon their Irish policy, evidently deeming it reasonable that Mr. Gladstone should have time to work it out. Lord Hartington and the Whigs, however, adopted an attitude of independence which showed that Mr. Gladstone had failed to heal the divisions in the Liberal Party. Hence, when it was announced that Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan, on being informed of Mr. Gladstone’s proposals for the reform of the Irish Government, had resigned office, it was evident that the fate of the Ministry was sealed.
On the 8th of April Mr. Gladstone expounded the scheme, which set up in Ireland an Executive Government, responsible to an Irish Legislature, capable of dealing with all matters save the Crown, the Army and Navy, Foreign and Colonial Policy, Trade, Navigation, Currency, Imperial taxation, and the endowment of churches. The Lord-Lieutenant, on the advice of his Ministers, was to have a power of veto. The Irish Legislative Body was to consist of two Orders, voting apart, the first to comprise representative peers and members elected under a £25 property qualification, and the second members chosen by household suffrage. In the event of collision between the two Orders, the measure in dispute was to be held in suspense for three years, or until a dissolution. The Irish contribution to the Imperial Revenue was fixed at £3,242,000. On the 13th of April Mr. Gladstone introduced a Land Bill as a complementary measure to his Home Rule Bill. He proposed to give every Irish landlord the option of selling his land to an authority appointed by the Irish Government, who would sell it to the tenants, the purchase-money being advanced through the Imperial Exchequer by an issue of Consols. These advances the tenant was to repay in instalments spread over forty-nine years, and twenty years’ purchase was taken as the basis of the price. The amount to be advanced at first under the Bill was to be £50,000,000, but in the original draft it was nearly £300,000,000. The repayments were to be secured on the Irish Revenue, and paid to a British Receiver-General in Ireland. The opponents of the whole scheme contended that it gave no effective guarantee for Imperial unity, that it put the loyal minority entirely in the power of the disloyal majority in Ireland, that it multiplied the risks of collision between Ireland and the Imperial Government, that, in point of fact, it was virtually a Bill to repeal the Union. Mr. Gladstone’s chief argument in favour of the scheme was that the English democracy could no longer be trusted to hold Ireland down by repressive legislation, and that Home Rule was the only alternative to Coercion. Moreover, as Coercion bred Irish disloyalty, it weakened the Imperial power of England in the world. Though the Orangemen of Ulster plainly declared that they would plunge into civil war rather than submit to a Home Rule Government in Ireland, Mr. Parnell accepted the Bill in principle as an adequate concession of the Nationalist claims.
The weak points in the scheme were soon detected. One of these was the exclusion of the Irish Members from the House of Commons—the only proposal of Mr. Gladstone’s which had been hailed with applause from both sides of the House when he expounded his Bill. The absence of the Irish Members from the House of Commons was taken as a visible sign, not only that the Parliamentary Union between Ireland and the United Kingdom was dissolved, but that the control and authority of the Imperial Parliament over Ireland was impaired. The Purchase scheme alarmed the taxpayers, who objected to pledge the credit of England in order to buy the Irish landlords out of Ireland. It is now known that, if Mr. Gladstone had made concessions by promising to reconsider the question of retaining the Irish Members at Westminster, and to remodel the Bill accordingly, the Second Reading would have been carried. A meeting of Liberals was indeed held at the Foreign Office to hear what concessions Mr. Gladstone would make. Subsequently, in explaining his speech at this meeting to the House of Commons, his phraseology seemed to the wavering Liberals so illusory that they refused to support him. Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain accordingly organised their followers (about fifty in number) into a separate Parliamentary party, describing themselves as Liberal Unionists, and at their first meeting a letter was read from Mr. Bright casting in his lot with theirs. They bound themselves to vote against the Second Reading of Mr. Gladstone’s Bills.
