Our honour, lives and land,
Are given for reward.
To Murder done by night,
To Treason taught by day,
To folly, sloth and spite,
And we are thrust away.”
is more truly characteristic of the historical fairness and temper of that past in which we seek the origin of the problem now confronting the British people. The history of the past dominates minds on both sides of the conflict. Peasants have very long memories, and traditions wrought into every fibre of their being control their outlook on current events in a way quite inexplicable to those who enjoy a wider range of vision and are occupied with modern interests. The horrors of Scullabogue and the heroism of Saintfield are still recounted with vivid detail in the cabins of Wexford and Down; and the relative condition of the two nations in Ireland must be radically altered before the bitter memories of the past and the passions they evoke in the name of religion, will cease to frustrate all movements toward peace and progress. The mention of “two nations” will be eagerly seized by opponents as a fatal objection to the establishment of a native government. And so it would be, if the differences were ineradicable in their nature, or agreement on the principles of government impossible between men of different faith in Ireland; but the past has abundantly proved that neither supposition is true. In every century as men have been uninfluenced by the machinations of party leaders, or freed from clerical control, they have agreed to struggle for the good of their common country. Presbyterians have led “the rebels” in many a bloody fight, the liberties of Ireland were never more gloriously vindicated than in the Protestant Parliament of Grattan, and the latest struggle for legislative independence has found its earliest and most trusted leaders among the Protestant gentry. “More Irish than the Irish themselves,” there have always been found some, yielding to the glamour of Irish climate, character and life, who have forgotten [pg 477] the animosities of religion to combine in prayer and sacrifice for the good of their adopted country. Further, the principles on which the Home Rule demand is based are those professed by men of every creed in the free countries of the world, and in Ireland, too, when men are not blinded by prejudice or traditional fears. The two nations will be welded into one; and “Ireland a nation” will become something more than a patriotic toast, when, for the first time in history, the representatives of all creeds form its Parliament, for Ireland can as ill afford to lose the dour virtues of the Ulster-Scot as of the most dreamy Munster Celt.
The refusal to recognise Irishmen's right to Nationality, when English, Welsh and Scots are “nations” is a curious relic of the old attitude towards[165] “England's oldest foe.” They inhabit, at all events, one land, and it is an island. A people variously constituted, they breathe its air, cultivate its soil, speak the same language with even a brogue of their own, enjoy the usual intercourse of ordinary human beings in social, commercial, educational and political pursuits, with common interests, problems, difficulties, and aspirations (pace Ulster). They have a history more ancient than that of Saxon England, and a continuous Christianity as devoutly held for seventeen centuries as in any country of Europe; they have marked characteristics, admirable or otherwise, according to taste and temper, but which the world of art, literature and religion seems to value. But because their ideals do not commend themselves to some thrifty settlers on their lands they are to be denied the status and privileges of a nation.
In any attempt to reach the truth as to the justice and expediency of granting Home Rule to Ireland, it [pg 478] is absolutely futile to waste time in answering the stock arguments of party platforms, special pleading to support a foregone conclusion, half-truths backed up by most remarkable incidents, “fresh in the memory” of the speaker, or invented by his heated imagination. To contradict falsehoods, debate plausible conclusions, or quote instances to the contrary is equally vain, for the distinction between propter and post hoc is often as inscrutable to the ordinary mind in politics as it is in medicine. We must fall back on recognized principles; and leave it to our opponents, on whom the burden lies, to show reason why these should not be applied to Ireland as to other parts of the British Empire, or why Irishmen, because mostly Catholics, are to be refused the natural rights of freemen.
“What in the world do you want?” is the cry indignantly repeated in Belfast conventions, as if it had not been answered a thousand times. Well, once more; it is self-government, so far as that is compatible with the interests of the Empire, to which Ireland belongs and must still belong unless a mighty convulsion of nature puts it elsewhere. It is the right of every civilized and progressive people, the grant of which to its dependencies is the glory of the British Empire, and in preparation for which it governs its subject races in India or Africa. Is Ireland less fit after nine centuries of English government to rule itself on constitutional lines than Canada or the South African Union? Possibly it is; for the centuries have been a weary apprenticeship in misgovernment rather than in constitutional methods; but all the more surely does the long experiment stand condemned, and it may well give place to saner methods. As in personal, so in national life, the sole condition of mature development is responsibility. The father or ruler who [pg 479] jealously denies it to one come to years of discretion is a bungler or a tyrant, ignorant of the first principles of education. For all these centuries the Irish race has been in leading strings; and those most guilty of multiplying and tightening the bonds are naturally the enemies of its independence and of the only method ever discovered by God or man to secure the growth of virtue, the acquisition of strength, or the fulfilment of personal and national promise. Experience is the best, the only, teacher of practical politics; and the mistakes and losses in life incurred by folly or ignorance are our best discipline. To charge a people with incapacity who have never been trusted with power is the resort of stupid malice. Irishmen have vindicated before the world their fitness to fight its battles, or command its armies; as captains of industry they have led in every land, and the British Empire above all is indebted to the statesmen, proconsuls, travellers, scholars and divines that have issued from the race. What a people to be denied the elementary rights of self-government! If Unionists are sincere in deploring the absence of a true spirit of citizenship in the Irish, what have they ever done to encourage it? Sympathy with men's difficulties, appreciation of their virtues, co-operation in their efforts, Christian charity and trust—these, and not suspicion, distrust, misrepresentation and opposition, should have been the Protestant contribution to the growth and happiness of a people, whom in private life they themselves always admit to be generous friends and neighbours.