Through all this turmoil Lord Randolph pursued his wayward course alone. After the Speaker’s coup d’état (February 2) he spoke in support of the Nationalist motion for adjournment, because, as he said, ‘one section of the House was greatly irritated, another section greatly fatigued, and a third greatly alarmed’ by what had happened. On this Mr. Balfour at once declared his intention of voting with Sir Stafford Northcote in the Government Lobby, though he contrived to defend Lord Randolph from the criticisms which his speech drew upon him from the highly strained nerves and tempers of the forces of law and order. On the 4th Lord Randolph spoke on the first of the Coercion measures—the Protection of Persons and Property Bill.

‘I support this Bill,’ he said, ‘with reluctance and distrust. I am confident that a proper and vigorous administration of the ordinary law last summer and last autumn would have saved us from this Bill. I cannot with satisfaction entrust extraordinary powers to a Minister who has proved unequal to the administration of the ordinary law of the land. I know that those powers require to be administered with firmness and decision. The more these qualities abound, the sooner the necessity for extraordinary powers will cease; but I fear that we shall have indecision and timidity and consequently injustice and protracted Coercion.’

On the 15th he supported an amendment to provide every person arrested under the new Acts with a copy of the warrant and a statement of the crime or crimes of which he was suspected, making at the same time a contemptuous reference to ‘members who still called themselves Liberals, while they supported a Bill for the suspension of the liberties of the Irish people.’ On the 16th he voted for an amendment providing that persons arrested on mere suspicion should be treated differently from ordinary prisoners while incarcerated without trial. This was conceded by the Government after much discussion. On the 18th he urged that the arrest of members of Parliament under special legislation should in all cases be reported to the House. Indeed, throughout these discussions his conduct was considered very reprehensible and shocking.

If Mr. Forster’s policy was unfortunate, his position, although supported by overwhelming majorities of both great parties, was certainly unenviable. It is hard to cope with revolution; but to attempt to do so without offending the susceptibilities of a Liberal Cabinet or a democratic party surpasses the wit and patience of man. The reports which reached him every day from magistrates and police, were alarming. His office table at the Castle was littered with letters of fierce and tragic reproach. Indignant landowners claimed imperiously that protection for life and property which even the basest of civilised Governments have rarely denied. The widow wrote from beside the body of her murdered husband, declaring that his blood was upon the head of the recreant Minister. The country seethed with sedition. Tales of tyranny and terror lacerated the warm heart of the Chief Secretary; and although police and detectives dogged his steps, his life was in constant jeopardy. In Parliament he was the object of frantic and virulent abuse from the Nationalist members. Many Chief Secretaries have faced that form of attack since then. English ears have become accustomed to it—and even deaf to it. But Forster was the first example, and an impression was produced that he was a man specially repugnant to Irish feeling. He was exposed to galling attack from every quarter.

‘It is unfortunate for Ireland,’ observed Mr. Parnell, ‘that the Tories are not now in office. If they were, Parliament would not have seen this measure of Coercion, because in that case the Irish would have had the assistance of the united Whig and Radical parties. We should have had all those platitudes as to the love of liberty which the Liberal party entertain and all those stock phrases which do Liberal Cabinets such good service when they are out of office. The two great parties are now united, but only for one purpose—namely, to crush, put down, and bully a poor, weak, and starving nation....’ But although the Government were supported in their repressive legislation by both parties and openly opposed by scarcely any English or Scottish members, the dissatisfaction against them on both sides of the House grew steadily as the session advanced. The regular Opposition neglected nothing that could discredit the Ministry, whether by accusing them of being responsible for the disorder, or by cavilling at their remedies and pointing out how inconsistent these were with their principles.

Although he allowed himself to be persuaded against making a hostile motion, Lord Randolph’s detestation of the Coercion Bill grew as he watched its course. ‘This Bill,’ he said (March 11, 1881), ‘is now passing away from the House, and with it disappears all that liberty-destroying machinery—urgency, clôtures, coups d’état, and dictatorships—never, I hope, to return again. We shall now be told to turn our attention to remedial legislation. I make no remark beyond this—that remedial measures which are planted under the shadow of Coercion and watered and nourished by the suspension of the Constitution, must be from their nature poor and sickly plants of foreign origin, almost foredoomed to perish before they begin to grow. It was upon their capacity to give contentment and happiness to Ireland that the Liberals relied to gain for themselves immortal credit and to secure a perpetual lease of power. The Chief Secretary went to Ireland in April last, bearing with him the hopes and blessings of an enthusiastic and victorious party. He gave us all to understand that he was to become an emancipator greater even than O’Connell; and within twelve months of office he has come to the House to ask for powers more stringent and more oppressive than were ever granted to or demanded by Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, or Lord Grey. I wish the Chief Secretary joy of these beautiful Bills; but I may tell the right honourable gentleman that he has acquired by them the undying dislike and distrust of the Irish people. While I have never denied that some measure of this kind, owing to the conduct of the Government, and that alone, was only too necessary for Ireland—and while I have always admitted that as to the nature and extent of that measure her Majesty’s Government, who were the culprits, must be the judges—I still recollect, with unqualified satisfaction, that Coercion is a double-edged weapon and has before now fatally wounded those Administrations which have been compelled by their own folly to have recourse to it.’

Sir William Harcourt, as Home Secretary, was put forward by the Government to reply to this. ‘It is difficult,’ he said, ‘to treat the noble lord the member for Woodstock as a serious politician, or to discover to which of the four parties he belongs. He once belonged to his own—the Fourth Party; but he has managed by his conduct during the discussion of this Bill to dissolve that minute party; and his feats in that respect only afford a fresh illustration of the infinite divisibility of matter.’ Sir William went on to say, amid general approval, that, being no more leader of the Fourth Party, Lord Randolph had become adviser to the Third Party (the Nationalists).

But, for all that, the undercurrents of disapproval of Ministerial policy flowed ever more strongly in Parliament, and nothing less than Mr. Gladstone’s unparalleled authority and skill could have sustained the Irish Secretary through the session. His colleagues in the Cabinet were doubtful, and some actively hostile. There was a feeling of suppressed resentment in the Liberal party against the Minister who had been responsible for forcing them into courses so obnoxious to their principles and so damaging to their reputation. Radicals below the gangway became increasingly outspoken in their attacks. A considerable section of the party press was openly hostile. Under these many anxieties and embarrassments the hair of the Chief Secretary grew visibly grey.

Whatever may have been the demerits of the Land Bill of 1881, it was sufficiently large and effective to threaten to take the agrarian wind out of the sails of the revolutionary movement. Unable to oppose openly a measure which conferred real benefits upon the tenants, Parnell resolved to obstruct its working and to prevent the tenants from resorting to the Land Courts. So soon as this intention was made clear the Government seem to have decided upon his arrest. The Prime Minister delivered a preparatory onslaught upon him at Leeds, where he charged the Irish leader with ‘standing between the living and the dead—not, like Aaron, to stay the plague, but to spread it’; and he hinted that the resources of civilisation were not exhausted. Parnell replied savagely at Wexford. ‘If you are arrested,’ inquired apprehensive friends, ‘who will take your place?’ ‘"Captain Moonlight" will take my place,’ replied Parnell. Two days later he was imprisoned in Kilmainham. In the ten months preceding the Coercion Act (March-December 1880) the number of outrages was 2,379; in the ten months which followed, 3,331. The gravest increase was in crime affecting life. Murders and attempts to murder were more than trebled. The Land League, when suppressed, was replaced by an even more sinister and even less responsible organisation. The failure of Mr. Forster’s repressive measures was signal.

1882
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