Handbook of Home Rule: Being Articles on the Irish Question

by Unknown

countries the perpetual connection of which is one of the warmest wishes of my heart.'

"In fact, the Union of 1800 was not only a great crime, but was also, like most crimes, a great blunder. The manner in which it was carried was not only morally scandalous; it also entirely vitiated it as a work of statesmanship. No great political measure can be rationally judged upon its abstract merits, and without considering the character and the wishes of the people for whom it is intended. It is now idle to discuss what might have been the effect of a Union if it had been carried before 1782, when the Parliament was still unemancipated; if it had been the result of a spontaneous movement of public opinion; if it had been accompanied by the emancipation of the Catholics. Carried as it was prematurely, in defiance of the national sentiment of the people and of the protests of the unbribed talent of the country, it has deranged the whole course of political development, driven a large proportion of the people into sullen disloyalty, and almost destroyed healthy public opinion. In comparing the abundance of political talent in Ireland during the last century with the striking absence of it at present, something no doubt may be attributed to the absence of protection for literary property in Ireland in the former period, which may have directed an unusual portion of the national talent to politics, and something to the Colonial and Indian careers which have of late years been thrown open to competition; but when all due allowances have been made for these, the contrast is sufficiently impressive. Few impartial men can doubt that the tone of political life and the standard of political talent have been lowered, while sectarian animosity has been greatly increased, and the extent to which Fenian principles have permeated the people is a melancholy comment upon the prophesies that the Union would put an end to disloyalty in Ireland."[35]

Mr. Lecky's views as to what ought to have been done in 1800 deserve to be set forth.

"While, however, the Irish policy of Pitt appears to be both morally and politically deserving of almost unmitigated condemnation, I cannot agree with those who believe that the arrangement of 1782 could have been permanent. The Irish Parliament would doubtless have been in time reformed, but it would have soon found its situation intolerable. Imperial policy must necessarily have been settled by the Imperial Parliament, in which Ireland had no voice; and, unlike Canada or Australia, Ireland is profoundly affected by every change of Imperial policy. Connection with England was of overwhelming importance to the lesser country, while the tie uniting them would have been found degrading by one nation and inconvenient to the other. Under such circumstances a Union of some kind was inevitable. It was simply a question of time, and must have been demanded by Irish opinion. At the same time, it would not, I think, have been such a Union as that of 1800. The conditions of Irish and English politics are so extremely different, and the reasons for preserving in Ireland a local centre of political life are so powerful, that it is probable a Federal Union would have been preferred. Under such a system the Irish Parliament would have continued to exist, but would have been restricted to purely local subjects, while an Imperial Parliament, in which Irish representatives sat, would have directed the policy of the empire."[36]

MR. GOLDWIN SMITH.

None of the recent opponents of Home Rule have written against that policy with more brilliance and epigrammatic keenness than Mr. Goldwin Smith. But no one

has stated with more force the facts and considerations which, operating on men's mind for years past, have made the Liberal party Home Rulers now. His coup d'oeil remains the most pointed indictment ever drawn from the historical annals of Ireland against the English methods of governing that country. Twenty years ago he anticipated the advice recently given by Mr. Gladstone. In 1867 he wrote:—

"I have myself sought and found in the study of Irish history the explanation of the paradox, that a people with so many gifts, so amiable, naturally so submissive to rulers, and everywhere but in their own country industrious, are in their own country bywords of idleness, lawlessness, disaffection, and agrarian crime."[37] He explains the paradox thus: "But it is difficult to distinguish the faults of the Irish from their misfortunes. It has been well said of their past industrial character and history,—'We were reckless, ignorant, improvident, drunken, and idle. We were idle, for we had nothing to do; we were reckless, for we had no hope; we were ignorant, for learning was denied us; we were improvident, for we had no future; we were drunken, for we sought to forget our misery. That time has passed away for ever.' No part of this defence is probably more true than that which connects the drunkenness of the Irish people with their misery. Drunkenness is, generally speaking, the vice of despair; and it springs from the despair of the Irish peasant as rankly as from that of his English fellow. The sums of money which have lately been transmitted by Irish emigrants to their friends in Ireland seem a conclusive answer to much loose denunciation of the national character, both in a moral and an industrial point of view.... There seems no good reason for believing that the Irish Kelts are averse to labour, provided they be placed, as people of all races require to be placed, for two or three generations in

circumstances favourable to industry."[38] He shows that the Irish have not been so placed. "Still more does justice require that allowance should be made on historical grounds for the failings of the Irish people. If they are wanting in industry, in regard for the rights of property, in reverence for the law, history furnishes a full explanation of their defects, without supposing in them any inherent depravity, or even any inherent weakness. They have never had the advantage of the training through which other nations have passed in their gradual rise from barbarism to civilization. The progress of the Irish people was arrested at almost a primitive stage, and a series of calamities, following close upon each other, have prevented it from ever fairly resuming its course. The pressure of overwhelming misery has now been reduced; government has become mild and just; the civilizing agency of education has been introduced; the upper classes are rapidly returning to their duty, and the natural effect is at once seen in the improved character of the people. Statesmen are bound to be well acquainted with the historical sources of the evil with which they have to deal, especially when those evils are of such a nature as, at first aspect, to imply depravity in a nation. There are still speakers and writers who seem to think that the Irish are incurably vicious, because the accumulated effects of so many centuries cannot be removed at once by a wave of the legislator's wand. Some still believe, or affect to believe, that the very air of the island is destructive of the characters and understandings of all who breathe it."[39]