the landlords, without imposing tremendous liabilities of loss upon the British Treasury, is the creation of a strong Home Rule Government in Dublin. Supposing, however, that some other plan could be discovered, which would avoid the fatal objections to which an extension of the plan of the (Salisbury) Land Purchase Act of 1885 is open, such a plan would remove one of the chief objections to an Irish Parliament, by leaving no estates for such a Parliament to confiscate. As for coercion every day, I might say, every bye-election shows us how it becomes more and more odious to the British democracy. They dislike severity; they dislike the inequality involved in passing harsher laws for Ireland than those that apply to England and Scotland. They find themselves forced to sympathize with acts of violence in Ireland which they would condemn in Great Britain, because these acts seem the only way of resisting harsh and unjust laws. When the recoil comes, it will be more violent than in former days. The wish to discover some other course will be very strong, and the obvious other course will be to leave it to an Irish authority to enforce social order in its own way—probably a more rough-and-ready way than that of British officials. The notion which has possessed most Englishmen, that Irish self-government would be another name for anarchy, is curiously erroneous. Conflicts there may be, but a vigorous rule will emerge.
Lastly, as to local government. If a popular system is established in Ireland—one similar to that which it is proposed to establish in England—the control of its assemblies and officials will, over four-fifths of the island, fall into Nationalist hands. Their power will be enormously increased, for they will then command the machinery of administration, and the power of taxing. What with taxing landlords, aiding recalcitrant tenants, stopping the wheels of any central authority which may displease or oppose them, they will be in so strong a position that the creation
of an Irish Parliament may appear to be a comparatively small further step, may even appear (as the wisest Nationalists now think it would prove) in the light of a check upon the abuse of local powers. These eventualities will unquestionably, when English opinion has realized them, make such a Parliament as the present pause before it commits rural local government to the Irish democracy. But it could not refuse to do something; and if it tried to restrain popular representative bodies by the veto of a bureaucracy in Dublin, there would arise occasions for quarrel and irritation more serious than now exist.[70] Those who once begin to repair an old and tottering building are led on, little by little, into changes they did not at starting contemplate. So it will be if once the task is undertaken of reforming the confessedly bad and indefensible system of Irish administration. We may stop at some half-way house on the way, but Home Rule stands at the end of the road.
Supposing, then, that the Nationalist party, retaining its present strength and unity, perseveres in its present demands, there is every prospect that these demands will be granted. But will it persevere? There are among the English Dissentients those who prophesy that it will break up, as such parties have broken up before—will lose hope and wither away. Or the support of the Irish peasantry may be withdrawn—a result which some English politicians expect from a final settlement of the land question in the interest of the tenants. Any of these contingencies is possible, but at present most improbable. The moment when long-cherished aims begin to seem attainable is not that at which men are disposed to abandon them.
There are, however, other reasons which suggest the likelihood of a change in English sentiment on the whole
matter. The surprise with which the Bill of last April was received has worn off. The alarm is wearing off too. Those who set their teeth at what seemed to them a surrender to the Parnellites and their Irish-American allies, having relieved their temper by an emphatic No, have begun to ponder things more calmly. The English people are listening to the arguments from Irish history that are now addressed to them. They will be moved by the solid grounds of policy which that history suggests; will understand that what they have deemed insensate hatred is the natural result of long misgovernment, and will disappear with time and the removal of its causes. Many of the best minds of both nations will be at work to discover some method of reconciling Irish self-government with imperial supremacy and union free from the objections brought against the Bills of 1886. It is reasonable to expect that they may greatly improve upon these measures, which were prepared under pressure from a clamorous Opposition. What Mr. Disraeli once called the historical conscience of the country will appreciate those great underlying principles to which Mr. Gladstone's policy appeals. It has been accused of being a policy of despair; and may have commended itself to some who supported it as being simply a means of ridding England of responsibility. But to others it seemed, and more truly, a policy of faith; not, indeed, of thoughtless optimism, but of faith according to the definition which calls it "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith, by which nations as well as men must live, means nothing less than a conviction that great principles, permanent truths of human nature, lie at the bottom of all sound politics, and ought to be boldly and consistently applied, even when temporary difficulties surround their application. Such a principle is the belief in the power of freedom and self-government to cure the faults of a nation, in the tendency of re
sponsibility to teach wisdom, and to make men see that justice and order are the surest sources of prosperity. Such a principle is the perception that national hatreds do not live on of themselves, but will expire when oppression has ceased, as a fire burns out without fuel. Such a principle is the recognition of the force of national sentiment, and of the duty of allowing it all the satisfaction that is compatible with the maintenance of imperial unity. Such, again, is the appreciation of those natural economic laws which show that nations, when disturbing passions have ceased, follow their own permanent interests, and that an island which finds its chief market in England and draws its capital from England will prefer a connection with England to the poverty and insignificance of isolation. It is the honour of Mr. Gladstone to have built his policy of conciliation upon principles like these, as upon a rock; and already the good effects are seen in the new friendliness which has arisen between the English masses and the people of Ireland, and in the better temper with which, despite the acrimony of some prominent politicians, the relations of the two peoples are discussed. When one looks round the horizon it is still far from clear; nor can we say from which quarter fair weather will arrive. But the air is fresher, and the clouds are breaking overhead.
POSTSCRIPT.
What has happened since the above paragraphs were written, ten months ago, has confirmed more quickly and completely than the writer expected the forecasts they contain. Home Rule is no longer a word of terror, even to those English and Scotch voters who were opposed to it in July, 1886. Most sensible men in the Tory and Dissentient Liberal camps have come to see that it is inevitable;