Mr. Gladstone assured his hearers last week, that he was bent on consolidating the unity of the kingdom; he would not tolerate that his new constitution should be called a repeal of the Union; but his final argument was this, 'Do not let us disguise this from ourselves. We stand face to face with what is termed "Irish nationality."' Now, what is this 'Irish nationality'? Let us examine it from the point of view of the welfare of the Irish population. It may be conceded at once that there is a strong current of local sentiment running through the Irish population of the south and west. This is a tender, home feeling—a very different thing from the stronger, more complex, and more highly developed, conception round which a political nationality gathers. It is such a sentiment as exists in one form or another in every group of counties, in every county, in every country-side, in almost every village. It is a kindly recollection of old memories, associated with a disposition to stand up for our own. It is the result of intimate knowledge of certain habits and ideas, and a tender reminiscence of the best types of character associated with those habits. This sentiment of local feeling is the germ of nationality, but it exists in many regions where the wider ideas of nationality have never supervened. There are many other places again, where this same feeling remains fresh and vigorous after the political nationality connected with it has passed away, merged in larger conceptions, in a sense of more extended interests.
Such was the feeling of Cicero when he said that he had two countries. His Volscian home was the country of his affection, but Rome that of duty and right. Arpinum will always be my country, said he, but Rome still more my country, for Arpinum has its share in the honours and dominion of Rome.
Such is the feeling of the proud and vigorous nationality occupying North Britain, various in race, in creed, and in social condition, but united in mutual knowledge, in local sympathies, and in self-respect. The Scotch, as an aggregate, are intellectually, physically, and in their local institutions and habits one of the most distinct national types existing. They are drawn together by a strong sentiment of patriotism, but they are as little likely to demand a separate political system, a parliament sitting at Edinburgh, as the members from Hampshire and Wiltshire are likely to combine for the establishment of parliamentary government on the banks of the Itchin.
Now what is Ireland, and what indications has that portion of the population known as Nationalist given of a capacity to form itself into a nation? Ireland has a geographical boundary in a sea channel crossed from Great Britain in three hours or in an hour and a-half, according to the line of passage selected. It is inhabited by some five millions, whose native language is English, with the exception of a decimal percentage of mountaineers, who nearly all speak English as well as Irish. The race is more mixed than in any other district of the kingdom containing the same amount of population. The northern coasts are thickly peopled by Scotch settlers. In the south and west are many varieties of race not of English introduction, but strongly different from each other. In many of the most Catholic districts of Munster and Leinster we find, in the names, physique, and temper, of the people, evident results of the Cromwellian settlements, although the faith and political principles of their forefathers have passed away. With this mixed population we have a social cleavage probably the most remarkable in Europe. The mass of the people, except in about one-fifth of the island on the north-east coast, are Roman Catholic, Celtic in their traditions and habits, and extremely poor. The Northern fifth is industrious, order-loving, prosperous, Protestant, and British in sentiment. Next to the masses of the population in importance are the great landowners, of whom six-sevenths are Protestants, and nearly the whole of Norman, Scotch, or English origin. There is no important mercantile class, except in the towns of Belfast, Dublin, and Cork; and the professional classes, with the exception of the Catholic priesthood, are chiefly Protestant and British.
This population, so strangely wanting in homogeneity, have no history which might attract them into unconsciousness of their differences. It has been well said, that 'anybody who knew nothing of the Irish past, except what he got from the speeches of Irish Nationalists, would suppose that at some comparatively recent period the green flag had floated over fleets and armies, and that Irish kings had played a part of some kind in the field of modern European politics.' But as a matter of fact Ireland has no part in European history before its conquest by England. Not only was the kingdom of Ireland, as the style of the island went before 1800, an English creation; but the name of Ireland has never had any political significance except in connection with the English crown.
External signs of difference between English and Irish there are many; nimble apprehension, fluent utterance, genial demeanour, the attraction of the flashing Celtic face, distinguish an Irish from an English group, but characteristics like this do not prove any original or consistent power of thought. They rather perhaps indicate the absence of it. It is not on qualities like these, cemented even by strong feelings of home sentiment, that we can expect to see the foundation of a new Nationality happily laid. With one exception there is not a single idea, which an orator could present to an Irish crowd, that could not be urged with equal chance of sympathy upon an English crowd. Personal liberty, the principles of no taxation without representation, of trial by jury, freedom of conscience, sympathy with the prosperity of the greatest number, all these are English ideas and must be illustrated, where they need illustration, by the events of history peculiar to England or common to the British dominion. The one topic, which is specially attractive to an Irish meeting, is abuse of England as the source of Irish misery. Community of hatred the mixed Nationalist population has, but whether such a passion is sufficiently creative to build up a new national type the reader can judge for himself. With this exception, laws, political teachings, commercial habits, are all of English origin.
Mr. Gladstone, in recommending to the House of Commons his scheme for the establishment of an independent Parliament in Ireland, cited as precedents the independent Legislatures of Sweden and Norway, and of Austria and Hungary. He dwelt particularly upon the precedent of Norway:—
'The Legislature of Norway has had serious controversies, not with Sweden, but with the King of Sweden, and it has fought out those controversies successfully upon the strictest constitutional and Parliamentary grounds. And yet with two countries so united, what has been the effect? Not discord, not convulsion, not danger to peace, not hatred, not aversion, but a constantly-growing sympathy; and every man who knows their condition knows that I speak the truth when I say, that in every year that passes the Norwegians and the Swedes are more and more feeling themselves to be the children of a common country, united by a tie which never is to be broken.'
If Mr. Gladstone had been better acquainted with the recent historic and economic condition of Norway, of which we have given some account in our present number,[104] he might have quoted that country as a warning rather than an example. The 'Storthing,' or Parliament of Norway, is omnipotent, and two-thirds of its representatives are permanently in the hands of the peasant proprietor. The King has only a suspensive veto on Bills enacted by the Storthing, which therefore become law, if passed in their original form by three successive triennial Parliaments. The recent dispute between the King and the Parliament, to which Mr. Gladstone alluded, related to the right of the King to exercise an absolute veto in the case of Bills affecting the principles of the Constitution. The existence of such a right was denied by the Radical majority in the Storthing, which established in 1884 a Supreme Court of Justice composed exclusively of Radical members, and the Judges of the ordinary High Court of Justice. It was a packed Court, bound to secrecy; and the tribunal thus constituted condemned, in violation of the first principles of justice, all the King's Ministers in Norway to deprivation of office and to pecuniary fines, for having advised their master, that the Constitution could not be altered without his sanction. The King was compelled to yield, though he was supported in his opposition to the Storthing by his Swedish Cabinet; and his ultimate submission to the Radical majority in Norway was followed by a Ministerial crisis in Sweden. The Swedes rightly argue that, if the King has no absolute veto on matters affecting the principles of the Constitution in Norway, there is no obstacle to an abolition of the Monarchical form of government in that kingdom, or to a repeal of the union between the two countries. There is in consequence much discontent in Sweden at the conduct of Norway; and the Norwegians, on their side, have an intense and ever-growing 'hatred and aversion' to the Swedes. Hence has arisen a considerable tension in the official relations between the two countries instead of the 'constantly growing sympathy' of which Mr. Gladstone spoke. It is characteristic of the Prime Minister's mode of stating a case, that he tells us the Norwegian controversies are 'not with Sweden but with the King of Sweden.' Sweden has nothing to say in Norwegian affairs, except in the person of the King. The King is the only connecting link between the two countries. If the Dublin Parliament should impeach the Irish Viceroy, we suppose Mr. Gladstone would tell us that the difficulty was not with England but with Queen Victoria.
Nor was Mr. Gladstone much happier in his allusion to Hungarian Nationality in recent times. For more than 150 years Austria endeavoured to extinguish the national life of Hungary. In 1867 this policy was definitely abandoned, and Hungary was called to a share in the Empire of the Hapsburgs. As recently as last October Mr. Parnell, when insisting that Ireland must have an independent Parliament, said: 'We can point to the example of other countries—to Austria and to Hungary—to the fact that Hungary, having been conceded self-government, became one of the strongest factors in the Austrian Empire.' The favour, with which these references have been received by the Liberal party, is a singular example how far afield they are ready to go in search of an argument. Austria, in 1867, was a great military despotism, tottering to its fall amidst a group of eager rivals. A general appeal to the nation, such as France made at the commencement of the Revolutionary war, was out of the question. Differences of race, differences of language, differences of social condition, made national unity impossible within the wide dominions of the House of Austria. The government at Vienna consented to the division of its territories into groups of nearly equal strength. In each of these groups various alien nationalities were clustered round a central power more advanced in politics, in civilization, and in wealth, than the adjacent territories. Instead of trying to weld their multiple varieties of race into one great popular community, Austria, smitten at Sadowa, shared her dominion with Hungary, and asked her to take charge of the Government of the East Leithan Slavs, whilst the German population of Austria dealt with the Czechs and Moravians and Carinthians on the western side of the river.