Ireland and the Home Rule Movement

by Sir Michael McDonnell

The defeat of the Liberals had been primarily due to the revolt on the part of the radical section over the question of whether a new Coercion Bill should be introduced. In the light of this fact special importance was attached to the declaration, made in the House of Lords, as to the Irish policy of the Government, the more so because in an unprecedented manner not the Premier but the Viceroy was the spokesman. He began by a repudiation of coercion, with which he declared the recent enfranchisement of the Irish people would not be consistent. "My Lords," he went on to say, speaking of the general question, "I do not believe that with honesty and singlemindedness of purpose on the one side, and with the willingness of the Irish people on the other, it is hopeless to look

[152]for some satisfactory solution of this terrible question. My Lords, these I believe to be the opinions and views of my colleagues."

A further step in securing Irish support occurred at the end of July, and perhaps of all the strange events which have occurred in the government of Ireland it is the strangest. Lord Carnarvon solicited through one of his colleagues, and obtained, an interview with Mr. Parnell, and the circumstances under which this occurred between the Queen's Lord Lieutenant and the leader to whom men attributed treason and condoning assassinations is perhaps the most curious part of the whole story.

The meeting took place at the very end of the London season, not in the Houses of Parliament nor in a club of which one or other of the parties was a member, but in an empty house in Grosvenor Square, from which all the servants had gone away. It is a piquant feature of the event, shrouded as it was with all these circumstances of mystery, that the gentleman who was in the secret and offered his house for the meeting was no other than that rigid Imperialist, Col. Sir Howard Vincent, who had only the year before retired from the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard. When the occurrence of this interview became known, nearly a year later, Mr. Parnell declared—and the fact was never denied by Lord Carnarvon—that the latter had pronounced himself in favour of an Irish Parliament with the power of protecting Irish industries. The insistence by the Viceroy that he spoke only for himself appeared to the Irish leader to be mere formality, but in truth the Cabinet knew nothing of the interview. Lord Salisbury was informed that it was going to take place, raised no objection to its occurrence, and on receiving afterwards, both verbatim and in writing, accounts of what had occurred, praised the discretion of his Viceroy.

In view of what had happened it was not surprising

[153]that in the month of August Mr. Parnell made an explicit demand for the restoration of Grattan's Parliament, with the right of taxing foreign and even English imports for the benefit of the Irish home trade—a proposal not so revolutionary as it would now appear, seeing that less than forty years had elapsed since the Irish Custom House had for the first time begun to admit all English goods duty free.

Mr. Parnell's manifesto was followed by Lord Salisbury's speech at Newport, from which quotation has already been made, in which he expressed himself of opinion that Home Rule would be safer than popular local government, and further enhanced the impression that he was moving in the direction of the safer policy, by proceeding to frame what has been described as the nearest approach to an apologia for boycotting which has ever been made by an English statesman. The election address of Lord Randolph Churchill—the most popular and influential minister in the country—contained no allusion to the threatened "dismemberment of the Empire," and in his campaign his only allusion to Ireland was comprised in boasts of the success of the anti-coercion policy of Carnarvon; while Sir John Gorst, who had been Solicitor-General, referred in his election address in disparaging terms to "the reactionary Ulster members." All the symptoms pointed in the one direction of an alliance between Salisbury and Parnell on the basis of a scheme for self-government, and an additional point was given to the indications in that direction by the fact that Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Hartington, at variance on most points of policy, were united in opposition to Mr. Parnell's demand.

The statesmanlike manner in which at this juncture Mr. Gladstone endeavoured, as he himself put it, to keep the strife of nations from forming the dividing line between parties, has become very apparent with the recent publication of documents of the period. Two years before, he had told the Queen that the Irish

[154]question could only be settled by a conjunction of parties, and on December 20th, 1885, he wrote to the Conservative leader on the urgency of the Irish question, and declared that it would be a public calamity if this great subject should fall into lines of party conflict. If Salisbury would bring forward a proposal for settling the whole question of future government in Ireland he would treat it in the same spirit as that which he had shown in the matters of Afghanistan and the Balkans, and he illustrated the advantages which such a spirit of concession could produce by the conferences on the Reform Bill, and the fact that the existing Conservative ministry had been maintained in office by Liberal forbearance. "His hypocrisy," wrote a minister to whom this letter had been shown, "makes me sick." In this connection a letter from Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury, written on the following day, is of interest:—

"Labouchere came to see me this morning.... He proceeded to tell me that, on Sunday week last, Lord Carnarvon had met Justin MacCarthy and had confided to him that he was in favour of Home Rule in some shape, but that his colleagues and his party were not ready, and asked whether Justin MacCarthy's party would agree to an inquiry which he thought there was a chance of the Government agreeing to, and which would educate his colleagues and his party if granted and carried through. I was consternated, but replied that such a statement was an obvious lie, but, between ourselves, I fear it is not, perhaps not even an exaggeration or a misrepresentation. Justin MacCarthy is on the staff of the Daily News, Labouchere is one of the proprietors, and I cannot imagine any motive for his inventing such a statement. If it is true Lord Carnarvon has played the devil."[^[21]]