4. Home Rule. Reprint from the 'Times' correspondence, &c. 1886.
5. Social Order in Ireland. Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union. Dublin, 1886.
6. Speech of Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, April 8, 1886, on moving for leave to bring in a Bill to make provision for the future Government of Ireland.
The fate of the scheme for the Government of Ireland, which Mr. Gladstone disclosed in the House of Commons last week, has been practically determined. Whether the Bill be rejected on the second reading, whether amidst the currents of adverse opinion which have already set in, it slowly goes to wreck upon the shoals of Parliamentary procedure, its ultimate doom is already settled, but the mischief which has been done will not be removed so promptly. A great blow has been struck at the United Kingdom. The proposal to recognize Irish nationality as a political force apart from Great Britain—a proposal made by a Prime Minister, a leader of a great Parliamentary party—will for many a day to come stimulate in Ireland all the elements of disorder, which a noble series of statesmen, from Burke to Peel, have resolutely laboured to eradicate.
It was no surprise to the House that had listened to the marvellous dream of Mr. Gladstone, when Mr. Parnell rose to express his gratitude in terms almost of emotion:—
'It will prove a happy and fortunate thing, both for Ireland and England, that there was one man living, one English statesman living, with the great power and the extraordinary ability of the right hon. gentleman to lend his voice on behalf of poor helpless Ireland. He had devoted his great mind, his extraordinary energy to the unravelling of this question and to the construction of this Bill.... To none of the sons of Ireland—at any time has there ever been given the genius and talent of the right hon. gentleman—certainly nothing approaching to it in these days.'
The people, whom a few months ago Mr. Parnell denounced as representing to him and his friends 'imprisonment, chains and death,' now came to offer him a scheme of Irish nationality, and Shylock, recognizing the wisdom of the sham Balthazar, was not more appreciative: 'A Daniel come to judgment, yea a Daniel,' but, like Shylock, Mr. Parnell relied upon his bond. Whilst he accepted the offering with the effusion of a successful speculator, he took care to remind his hearers that he was not bound to take it in discharge of his claim. He reserved any 'definite or positive expression of opinion;' 'there were undoubtedly great faults and blots in the measure,' but he could safely say, 'whavever might be the fate of the Bill, the cause of Ireland, the cause of Irish autonomy, will enormously gain by the genius of the right hon. gentleman.' This is the solid result of the strange events which have been passing for the last three months. A distinguished public man has been called to office by the Parnellite vote. He has demanded and obtained ample time to consider the difficulties of his position and offer his solution.
A glance at the new scheme shows that the proposal is at once disingenuous and fantastic. The Prime Minister shrinks from admitting the nature of the work he is engaged in. He breaks up the unity of the Kingdom, but he will not allow that his Bill involves the repeal of the Union. But whatever quibbles may be indulged in, the main principle of the Act of Union, that Ireland should be represented at Westminster is swept away. As Irish nationality is not to be ignored, it finds expression in a Parliament in Dublin; but Ireland is to pay a contribution towards the debt and towards public defence, and in the application of this money is to have no voice. Thus we have Irish nationality started with machinery which sets aside the first principle of free governments, that there should be no taxation without representation; and the internal arrangements of the Dublin Parliament are equally suggestive of confusion in the future.
The Prime Minister does not ask Parliament to disregard the risks to which property and loyalty will be exposed in the Dublin Assembly, and he proposes to satisfy our conscience by giving them the security of representation in Dublin by a special Order. The Dublin Parliament is divided into two Orders, each of which shall have a veto on the legislation of the majority. The First Order consists of persons who must be possessors of 4000l. or an equivalent income. That is their personal qualification, and they are to be elected by occupiers rated at 25l. Property qualification for Members of Parliament was abolished in England some thirty years ago. Rating, as a qualification for electors, has been abandoned in a series of deliberate public measures from 1866 to 1885; but it is these old clothes of English Parliaments which Mr. Gladstone offers to his new nationality. Why should these expedients be adopted in Ireland? Checks upon legislative action, a second Chamber, a Second or a First Order, are questions upon which theorists are divided. They are certainly not questions which have occupied the National League. These 'Orders' in Parliamentary life are not native Irish ideas. These reproductions of quaint customs, such as we might find in some ecclesiastical synod, or in the village organization of some old Scandinavian community, are England's guarantees for the security of property in the Sister Island. That Island, we know, has been abandoned for some years to the National League, whose power was founded on their opportunities of excommunicating any one who did not subscribe to their funds and obey their decrees. The principle of the National League was that property in land was an outrage on Irish opinion; and we are asked to believe that this American-Irish organization, clothed with Parliamentary power in Dublin, will be kept in check by a device, which has no sanction in ancient tradition, in local sympathy, in recognized opinion. The First Order in the new Chamber will be so many people marked out for plunder. If any one possessing 4000l. worth of property, which he can convert into cash, is venturesome enough to accept a seat in the Chamber, what will become of him and his electors, people who are scheduled in each locality as the owners of property rated at 25l. a year? The majority of them in the South and West will be tenants who have not dared to pay their rents, because the National League prohibited the payment. Let us suppose people are found to constitute the First Order, and they veto some scheme of the majority, and a general election occurs, will the expedients which have made the League what it is be suddenly forgotten? Can we doubt that the First Order and its electors would be straightway boycotted out of existence? The Ministerial proposal is an attempt to meet the views of Mr. Parnell; and, without admitting that it is all he requires, the Irish leader cordially accepts it, but he wants, he has told us, 'the full and complete right to arrange our own affairs and make ours a nation—to secure for her, free from outside control, the right to direct her own course among the peoples of the world.' We are asked to suppose that he and his friends, started in their new career, will be stopped by such a ridiculous invention as this First Order. And it is a project like this, inconsistent with itself, implying constitutional degradation of the very people whom it is supposed to conciliate, patched up with strange curiosities as unknown in England as in Ireland, which Parliament is asked to accept as a 'final settlement' of our Irish difficulties.
The Bill proposed settles nothing. Its only result is a renewed manifestation of the power and influence of the Irish agitator. In this extraordinary state of affairs men are apt to forget the series of events which have brought about our present condition. Ministries come and go at the bidding of Mr. Parnell. English policy in the future, important schemes affecting the gravest concerns of England, of Scotland, of Ireland, depend not on any principle accepted by the British public, but on the humour of the Irish leader. The existence of the House of Lords, the legal position of the Church of Scotland, the maintenance of our most important military reserve, the right of the Sovereign in relation to peace and war, are exposed to critical divisions, not because British opinion is eager for revolution, or has become indifferent to the vast interests involved, but because the Nationalist party wish to remind us of their voting power.