HANDBOOK OF HOME RULE

BEING

ARTICLES ON THE IRISH QUESTION

BY

THE RIGHT HON. W.E. GLADSTONE, M.P.
THE RIGHT HON. JOHN MORLEY, M.P., LORD THRING
JAMES BRYCE, M.P., CANON MACCOLL
E.L. GODKIN, AND R. BARRY O'BRIEN

WITH PREFACE BY

THE RIGHT HON. EARL SPENCER, K.G.

EDITED BY

JAMES BRYCE, M.P.

SECOND EDITION

LONDON

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., I, PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1887

Of the articles contained in this volume, those by Mr. Gladstone, Mr. E.L. Godkin on "A Lawyer's Objections to Home Rule," and Mr. Barry O'Brien appear for the first time. The others are reprinted from the Contemporary Review, the Nineteenth Century, and the New Princeton Review, to the proprietors and editors of which periodicals respectively the thanks of the several writers and of the editor are tendered. In most of these reprints some passages of transitory interest have been omitted, and some few additions have been made.

The object of the writers has been to treat the difficult questions connected with the Government of Ireland in a dispassionate spirit; and the volume is offered to the public in the hope that it may, at a time of warm controversy over passing events, help to lead thoughtful men back to the consideration of the principles which underlie those questions, and which it seeks to elucidate by calm discussion and by references to history.

October, 1887.

The present seems an excellent moment for bringing forward the arguments in favour of a new policy for Ireland, which are to be found in the articles contained in this volume.

We are realizing the first results of the verdict given at the election of 1886. And this I interpret as saying that the constituencies were not then ready to depart from the lines of policy which, up to last year, nearly all politicians of both parties in Parliament had laid down for their guidance in Irish affairs.

We have had the Session occupied almost wholly with Lord Salisbury's proposals for strengthening the power of the central Government to maintain law and order in Ireland, and for dealing with the most pressing necessities of the Land question in that country.

I feel that I can add little or nothing to the weight of the arguments contained in these papers, but I should like to give some reasons why I earnestly hope that they will receive careful consideration.

The writers have endeavoured to approach their work with impartiality, and to free themselves from those prejudices which make it difficult for Englishmen to discuss Irish questions in a fresh and independent train of thought, and realize how widely Irish customs, laws, traditions, and sentiments differ from our own.

We are apt to think that what has worked well here will work well in Ireland; that Irishmen who differ from us are unreasonable; and that their proposals for change must be mistaken. We do not make allowance for the soreness of feeling prevailing among men who have long objected to the system by which Ireland has been governed, and who find that their earnest appeals for reform have been, until recent times, contemptuously disregarded by English politicians. Time after time moderate counsels have been rejected until too late. Acts of an exceptional character intended to secure law and order have been very numerous, and every one of them has caused fresh irritation; while remedial measures have been given in a manner which has not won the sympathy of the people, because they have not been the work of the Irish themselves, and have not been prepared in their own way.

We hear, from men who ought to know something of Ireland, that if the Land question is once settled, and dual ownership practically abolished, the tenants will be satisfied, and the movement for Home Rule will no longer find active support in Ireland. Without going into the whole of this argument, I should like to say two things: first, that I do not know how a large scheme of Land Purchase can be carried through Parliament with safety to Imperial interests without establishing, at the same time, some strong Irish Government in Dublin to act between the Imperial Government and the tenants of Ireland; and, second, that the feeling for Home Rule has a vitality of its own which will survive the Land question, even if independently settled.

I shall not enlarge on this part of the subject, but I wish to draw attention to the working of the Irish Government, and the position which it holds in the country, for it is through its administration that the policy of the Cabinet will be carried out. At the outset I feel bound to deprecate the exaggerated condemnation which the "Castle" receives from its opponents. It has its defects. Notwithstanding efforts of various ministers to enlarge the circle from which its officials are drawn, it is still too narrow for the modern development of Irish society, and it has from time to time been recruited from partisans without sufficient regard to the efficiency and requirements of the public service. But, on the whole, its members, taken as individuals, can well bear comparison with those of other branches of the Civil Service. They are diligent; they desire to do their duty with impartiality, and to hold an even balance between many opposing interests in Ireland. Whatever party is in office, they loyally carry out the policy of their chiefs. They are, probably, more plastic to the leadership of the heads of departments than members of some English offices, and they are more quickly moved by the influences around them. Sometimes they may relapse into an attitude of indifference and inertness if their chiefs are not active; but, on the other hand, they will act with vigour and decision if they are led by men who know their own minds and desire to be firm in the government of the country.

Governments differ as to the use they make of these officials. Some Governments have endeavoured to confine their work to cases where a mere legal opinion has to be obtained; but, when the country is in a disturbed state, even these limited references become very frequent, and questions of policy as well as of law are often discussed with the law officers. It is needless to say that, with their knowledge of Ireland and the traditions of Castle government (it is rare that all the law officers are new to office, and, consequently, they carry on the traditions from one Government to another), they often exercise a paramount influence over the policy of the Irish Government, and practically control it.

I have known conspicuous instances of the exercise of these high qualities by law officers enabling reforms to be carried, but as a rule, particularly when the initiative of legal reform is left to them, the Irish law officers do not care to move against the feeling of the legal world in Dublin. The lawyers, like other bodies, oppose the diminution of offices and honours belonging to them, or of the funds which, in the way of fees and salaries, are distributed among members of the bar; and they become bitterly hostile to any permanent official who is known to be a firm legal reformer. It would be impossible for me not to acknowledge the great service often done to the Government by the able men who have filled the law offices, yet I feel that under certain circumstances, when their influence has been allowed too strongly to prevail, it has tended to narrow the views of the Irish Government, and to keep it within a circle too narrow for the altered circumstances of modern life.

The chief peculiarity of the Irish Administration is its extreme centralization. In this two departments may be mentioned as typical of the whole—the police and administration of local justice.

This state of things arose many years ago from the want of confidence between resident landlords and the bulk of the people. When agrarian or religious differences disturbed a locality the people distrusted the local magistrates, and by degrees the system of stipendiary, or, as they are called, resident magistrates, spread over the country. To maintain the judicial independence and impartiality of these magistrates is of the highest importance. At one time this was in some danger, for the resident magistrates not only heard cases at petty sessions, but, as executive peace officers, to a very great extent took the control of the police in their district, not only at riots, but in following up and discovering offenders. Their position as judicial and executive officers was thus very unfortunately mixed up. Between 1882 and 1883 the Irish Government did their utmost to separate and distinguish between these two functions, and it is to be hoped that the same policy has been and will be now continued, otherwise grave mischief in the administration of justice will arise. The existence of this staff of stipendiary magistrates could not fail to weaken the influence of the gentry in local affairs, and, at the same time, other causes were at work to undermine still further their power. The spread of education, the ballot, the extension of the franchise, communication with America, all tended to strengthen the political leaning of the tenants towards the National party in Ireland, and to widen the political differences between the richer and poorer classes in the country. The result of this has been, that not only have even the best landlords gradually lost their power in Parliamentary elections and on elective boards, but the Government, which greatly relied on them for support, has become isolated.

In this country, local authorities and benches of magistrates, quite independent of the Home Office, are held responsible for mistakes in police action or irregularities in local justice. The consequence is that there is a strong buffer to protect the character and power of the Home Office.

The absence of such protection in Ireland obviously has a very prejudicial effect on the permanent influence and popularity of the Irish Government. But as long as our system of government from England exists, this centralization cannot be avoided, for it would not be possible to transfer the responsibility of the police to local representative bodies, as they are too much opposed to the landlords and the Government to be trusted when strong party differences arise; nor, for the same reason, would it be possible to fall back on local men to administer justice. The fact is, that, out of the Protestant part of Ulster, the Irish Government receives the cordial support of only the landed proprietors, and a part of the upper middle classes in the towns. The feeling of the mass of the people has been so long against them that no change in the direction of trust in any centralized government of anti-national character can be expected.

In Parliamentary elections we also find clear evidence of the strength of the Nationalists, and the extreme weakness of their opponents. This is a test which those who accept popular representative government cannot disregard, particularly at an election when for the first time the new constituencies were called upon to exercise the privileges entrusted to them by Parliament. Such was the election of 1885, followed in 1886 by another General Election. In 1885 contests took place in most of the Irish constituencies. They were between Liberals allied with Conservatives, and Parnellites. In 1886 the contests were between those who called themselves Unionists and Parnellites, and the Irish policy of Mr. Gladstone was specially referred to the electors.

If we turn from Dublin to London, we do not find greater prospects of success. Twice within fourteen months Lord Salisbury has formed a Government. In 1885 his Cabinet, on taking office, deliberately decided to rule Ireland without exceptional laws; after a few months, they announced that they must ask Parliament for fresh powers. They resigned before they had defined their measures. But within six months Lord Salisbury was once more Prime Minister, and again commenced his administration by governing Ireland under the ordinary law. This attempt did not continue longer than the first, for when Parliament met in 1887, preparations were at once made to carry the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which occupied so large a portion of the late Session.

This is not the action of men who have strong faith in their principles. Nor can it be shown that the continuous support so necessary for success will be given to this policy. No doubt it may be urged that the operation of the Act is not limited in duration; but, notwithstanding that, few politicians believe that the constituencies of Great Britain will long support the application of exceptional criminal laws to any part of the United Kingdom.

BY E.L. GODKIN

The truth is that nowhere, any more than in Ireland, do people love their Government from a sense of duty or because they crave an object of political affection, or even because it exalts them in the eyes of foreigners. They love it because they are happy or prosperous under it; because it supplies security in the form best suited to their tastes and habits, or in some manner ministers to their self-love. Loyalty to the king as the Lord's anointed, without any sense either of favours received or expected, has played a great part in European politics, I admit; but, for reasons which I will not here take up space in stating, a political arrangement, whether it be an elected monarch or a constitution, cannot be made, in our day, to reign in men's hearts except as the result of benefits so palpable that common people, as well as political philosophers, can see them and count them.

"Examining the evidence taken by your committee still further, in connection with facts too notorious to be disputed, it appears that the Southern press, with few exceptions, and those mostly of newspapers recently established by Northern men, abounds with weekly and daily abuse of the institutions and people of the loyal States; defends the men who led, and the principles which incited, the rebellion; denounces and reviles Southern men who adhered to the Union; and strives constantly and unscrupulously, by every means in its power, to keep alive the fire of hate and discord between the sections; calling upon the President to violate his oath of office, overturn the Government by force of arms, and drive the representatives of the people from their seats in Congress. The national banner is openly insulted, and the national airs scoffed at, not only by an ignorant populace, but at public meetings, and once, among other notable instances, at a dinner given in honour of a notorious rebel who had violated his oath and abandoned his flag. The same individual is elected to an important office in the leading city of his State, although an unpardoned rebel, and so offensive that the President refuses to allow him to enter upon his official duties. In another State the leading general of the rebel armies is openly nominated for Governor by the Speaker of the House of Delegates, and the nomination is hailed by the people with shouts of satisfaction, and openly endorsed by the press....

"If we add to this evidence the fact that, although peace has been declared by the President, he has not, to this day, deemed it safe to restore the writ of habeas corpus, to relieve the insurrectionary States of martial law, nor to withdraw the troops from many localities, and that the commanding general deems an increase of the army indispensable to the preservation of order and the protection of loyal and well-disposed people in the South, the proof of a condition of feeling hostile to the Union and dangerous to the Government throughout the insurrectionary States would seem to be overwhelming."

On this legislation there grew up, as all the world now knows, what was called the "carpet-bag" regime. Swarms of Northern adventurers went down to the Southern States, organized the ignorant negro voters, constructed State constitutions to suit themselves, got themselves elected to all the chief offices, plundered the State treasuries, contracted huge State debts, and stole the proceeds in connivance with legislatures composed mainly of negroes, of whom the most intelligent and instructed had been barbers and hotel-waiters. In some of the States, such as South Carolina and Mississippi, in which the negro population were in the majority, the government became a mere caricature. I was in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, in 1872, during the session of the legislature, when you could obtain the passage of almost any measure you pleased by a small payment—at that time seven hundred dollars—to an old negro preacher who controlled the coloured majority. Under the pretence of fitting up committee-rooms, the private lodging-rooms at the boarding-houses of the negro members, in many instances, were extravagantly furnished with Wilton and Brussels carpets, mirrors, and sofas. A thousand dollars were expended for two hundred elegant imported china spittoons. There were only one hundred and twenty-three members in the House of Representatives, but the residue were, perhaps, transferred to the private chambers of the legislators.

"The murders and outrages which have been perpetrated in many counties of Middle and West Tennessee, during the past few months, have been so numerous, and of such an aggravated character, as almost baffles investigation. In these counties a reign of terror exists which is so absolute in its nature that the best of citizens are unable or unwilling to give free expression to their opinions. The terror inspired by the secret organization known as the Ku-Klux Klan is so great, that the officers of the law are powerless to execute its provisions, to discharge their duties, or to bring the guilty perpetrators of these outrages to the punishment they deserve. Their stealthy movements are generally made under cover of night, and under masks and disguises, which render their identification difficult, if not impossible. To add to the secrecy which envelops their operations, is the fact that no information of their murderous acts can be obtained without the greatest difficulty and danger in the localities where they are committed. No one dares to inform upon them, or take any measures to bring them to punishment, because no one can tell but that he may be the next victim of their hostility or animosity. The members of this organization, with their friends, aiders, and abettors, take especial pains to conceal all their operations.

Here is some of the evidence on which the report was based.

Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Merrill, who assumed command (in Louisiana) on the 26th of March, and commenced investigation into the state of affairs, says (p. 1465)—

"From the best information I can get, I estimate the number of cases of whipping, beating, and personal violence of various grades, in this county, since the first of last November, at between three and four hundred, excluding numerous minor cases of threats, intimidation, abuse, and small personal violence, as knocking down with a pistol or gun, etc. The more serious outrages, exclusive of murders and whippings, noted hereafter, have been the following:—"

He then proceeds with the details of sixty-eight cases, giving the names of the parties injured, white and black, and including the tearing up of the railway, on the night before a raid was made by the Ku-Klux on the county treasury building. The rails were taken up, to prevent the arrival of the United States troops, who, it was known, were to come on Sunday morning. The raid was made on that Sunday night while the troops were lying at Chester, twenty-two miles distant, unable to reach Yorkville, because of the rails being torn up.

There are about eighty, closely printed, large octavo pages of this kind of testimony given by sufferers from the outrages.

Something was done to suppress the Ku-Klux by a Federal Act passed in 1871, which made offences of this kind punishable in the Federal Courts. Considerable numbers of them were arrested, tried, and convicted, and sent to undergo their punishment in the Northern jails. But there was no complete pacification of the South until the carpet-bag governments were refused the support of the Federal troops by President Hayes, on his accession to power in 1876. Then the carpet-bag régime disappeared like a house of cards. The chief carpet-baggers fled, and the government passed at once into the hands of the native whites. I do not propose to defend or explain the way in which they have since then kept it in their hands, by suppressing or controlling the negro vote. This is not necessary to my purpose.

What I seek to show is that the Irish are not peculiar in their manner of expressing their discontent with a government directed or controlled by the public opinion of another indifferent or semi-hostile community which it is impossible to resist in open warfare; that Anglo-Saxons resort to somewhat the same methods under similar circumstances, and that lawlessness and cruelty, considered as expressions of political animosity, do not necessarily argue any incapacity for the conduct of an orderly and efficient government, although I admit freely that they do argue a low state of civilization.

"The story of this remarkable case cannot be pursued here except in brief.... It will be enough to say that the struggle between the modest and heroic young Quaker woman and the town lasted for nearly two years; that the school was opened in April; that attempts were immediately made under the law to frighten the pupils away and to fine Miss Crandall for harbouring them; that in May an Act prohibiting private schools for non-resident coloured persons, and providing for the expulsion of the latter, was procured from the legislature, amid the greatest rejoicing in Canterbury (even to the ringing of church bells); that, under this Act, Miss Crandall was in June arrested and temporarily imprisoned in the county jail, twice tried (August and October) and convicted; that her case was carried up to the Supreme Court of Errors, and her persecutors defeated on a technicality (July, 1834), and that pending this litigation the most vindictive and inhuman measures were taken to isolate the school from the countenance and even the physical support of the townspeople. The shops and the meeting-house were closed against teacher and pupils, carriage in the public conveyances was denied them, physicians would not wait upon them, Miss Crandall's own family and friends were forbidden, under penalty of heavy fines, to visit her, the well was filled with manure and water from other sources refused, the house itself was smeared with filth, assailed with rotten eggs and stones, and finally set on fire" (vol. i. p. 321).

Miss Crandall is still living in the West, in extreme old age, and the Connecticut legislature voted her a small pension two years ago, as a slight expiation of the ignominy and injustice from which she had suffered at the hands of a past generation.

In 1839, Stephen Van Rensselaer, the proprietor, or "Patroon" as he was called, died, with $400,000 due to him as arrears from the tenants, for which, being a man of easy temper, he had forborne to press them. But he left the amount in trust by his will for the payment of his debts, and his heirs proceeded to collect it, and persisted in the attempt during the ensuing seven years. What then happened I shall describe in the words of Mr. John Bigelow. Mr. Tilden was a member of the State Legislature in 1846, and was appointed Chairman of a Committee to investigate the rent troubles, and make the report which furnished the basis for the legislation by which they were subsequently settled. Mr. Bigelow, who has edited Mr. Tilden's Public Writings and Speeches, prefaces the report with the following explanatory note:—

This anti-rent agitation is described by Professor Johnston of Princeton, in the Cyclopædia of Political Science, as "a reign of terror which for ten years practically suspended the operations of law and the payment of rent throughout the district." Suppose all the land of the State had been held under similar tenures; that the controversy had lasted one hundred years; that the rents had been high; and that the Van Rensselaers and the Livingstons had had the aid of the Federal army in enforcing distraints and evictions, and in enabling them to set local opinion at defiance, what do you suppose the state of morals and manners would have been in New York by this time? What would have been the feelings of the people towards the Federal authority had the matter been finally adjusted with the strong hand, in accordance, not with the views of the people of the State, but of the landholders of South Carolina or of the district of Columbia? I am afraid they would have been terribly Irish.

I need hardly tell English readers how all this has ended. The withdrawal of the Federal troops from the South by President Hayes, and the consequent complete restoration of the State governments to the discontented whites, have fully justified the expectations of those who maintained that it is no less true in politics than in physics, that if you remove what you see to be the cause, the effect will surely disappear. It is true, at least in the Western world, that if you give communities in a reasonable degree the management of their own affairs, the love of material comfort and prosperity which is now so strong among all civilized, and even partially civilized men, is sure in the long run to do the work of creating and maintaining order; or, as Mr. Gladstone has expressed it, in setting up a government, "the best and surest foundation we can find to build on is the foundation afforded by the affections, the convictions, and the will of men."

BY JAMES BRYCE, M.P.

Of that process I shall attempt in the following pages to give a sketch. Such a sketch, though mainly retrospective, is pertinent to the issues which now divide the country. It will indicate the origin and the strength of the chief reasons by which Liberals are now governed. And, if executed with proper fairness and truth, it may, as a study in contemporary history, be of some little interest to those who in future will attempt to understand our present conflict. The causes which underlie changes of opinion are among the most obscure phenomena in history, because those who undergo, these changes are often only half conscious of them, and do not think of recording that which is imperceptible in its growth, and whose importance is not realized till it already belongs to the past.

The change I have to describe was slow and gradual. It was reluctant—that is to say, it seemed rather forced upon us by the teaching of events than the work of our own minds. Each session marked a further stage in it; and I therefore propose to examine its progress session by session.

When Mr. Forster was appointed Irish Secretary in Mr. Gladstone's Government which the General Election brought into power, we (by which I mean throughout the new Liberal members) were delighted. We knew him to be conscientious, industrious, kind-hearted. We believed him to be penetrating and judicious. We applauded his conduct in not renewing the Coercion Act which Lord Beaconsfield's Government had failed to renew before dissolving Parliament, and which indeed there was scarcely time left after the election to renew, a fact which did not save Mr. Forster from severe censure on the part of the Tories.

When the Coercion Bill of 1881 was introduced, many English Liberals were inclined to resist it. The great majority voted for it, but within two years they bitterly repented their votes. Our motives, which I mention by way of extenuation, not of defence, were these. The Executive Government declared that it could not deal with crime by the ordinary law. If its followers refused exceptional powers, they must displace the Ministry, and let in the Tories, who would doubtless obtain such powers, and probably use them worse. We had still confidence in Mr. Forster's judgment, and a deference to Irish Executive Governments generally which Parliamentary experience is well fitted to dissipate. The violence with which the Nationalist members resisted the introduction of the Bill had roused our blood, and the foolish attempts which the Radical and Irish electors in some constituencies had made to deter their members from supporting it had told the other way, and disposed these members to vote for it, in order to show that they were not to be cowed by threats. Finally, we were assured that votes given for the Coercion Bill would purchase a thorough-going Land Bill, and our anxiety for the latter induced us, naturally, but erringly, to acquiesce in the former.

At the end of the session the House of Lords came again upon the scene. It seriously damaged the Bill by its amendments, and would have destroyed it but for the skill with which the head of the Government handled these amendments, accepting the least pernicious, so as to enable the Upper House without loss of dignity to recede from those which were wholly inadmissible. Several times it seemed as if the conflict would have to pass from Westminster to the country, and, in contemplating the chances of a popular agitation or a dissolution, we were regretfully obliged to own that the English people cared too little and knew too little about Irish questions to give us much hope of defeating the House of Lords and the Tories upon these issues.

           ἡμεῖς δ' οὐκ αἴτιοι ἔσμεν
Ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἑρινύς.

It is from this year 1882 that I date the impression which we formed, that Home Rule was sure to come. "It may be a bold experiment," we said to one another in the lobbies; "there are serious difficulties in the way, though the case for it is stronger than we thought two years ago. But if the Irishmen persist as they are doing now, they will get it. It is only a question of their tenacity."

SESSION OF 1883.—Three facts stood out in the history of this comparatively quiet session, each of which brought us further along the road we had entered.

Another momentous fact was the steady increase in the number of Nationalist members. Every seat that fell vacant in Ireland was filled by them. The moderate Irish party, most of whom had by this time crossed the floor of the House, and were sitting among us, had evidently no future. They were estimable, and, in some cases, able men, from whom we had hoped much, as a link between the Liberal party and the Irish people. But they seemed to have lost their hold on the people, nor were they able to give us much practical counsel as to Irish problems. It was clear that they would vanish at the next General Election, and Parliament be left to settle accounts with the extreme men, whose spirits rose as those of our friends steadily sank.

Lastly: it was in this session that the alliance of the Nationalists and the Tory Opposition became a potent factor in politics. Its first conspicuous manifestation was in the defeat of the Government by the allied forces on the Affirmation Bill, when the least respectable privates in both armies vied with one another in boisterous rejoicings over the announcement of numbers in the division. I do not refer to this as ground for complaint. It was in the course of our usual political warfare that two groups, each hating and fearing the Ministry, should unite to displace it. But we now saw what power the Irish section must exert when it came to hold the balance of numbers in the House. Till this division, the Government had commanded a majority of the whole House. This would probably not outlast a dissolution. What then? Could the two English parties, differing so profoundly from one another, combine against the third party? Evidently not. We must, therefore, look forward to unstable Governments, if not to a total dislocation of our Parliamentary system.

There were two ways of treating Ireland between which Parliament had to choose.

One was to leave her out of the Bill, on the ground that the masses of her population could not be trusted with the franchise, as being ignorant, sympathetic to crime, hostile to the English Government. This course was the logical concomitant of exceptional coercive legislation, such as had been passed in 1881 and 1882. It was quite compatible with generous remedial legislation. But it placed Ireland in an unequal and lower position, treating her, as the Coercion Acts did, as a dependent country, inhabited by a population unfit for the same measure of power which the inhabitants of Britain might receive.

Of these two courses the Cabinet chose the latter, those of its members whom we must suppose, from the language they now hold, to have then hesitated, either stifling their fears or not apprehending the consequences of their boldness. It might have been expected, and indeed was generally expected, that the Tory party would refuse to follow. They talked largely about the danger of an extended Irish suffrage, and pointed out that it would be a weapon in the hands of disloyalty. But when the moment for resistance came, they swerved, and never divided in either House against the application of the Bill to Ireland. They might have failed to defeat the measure; but they would have immensely strengthened their position, logically and morally, had they given effect by their votes to the sentiments they were known to entertain, and which not a few Liberals shared.

As it has lately been attempted to blacken the character of the Irish leaders, it deserves to be remarked that whatever has been charged against them was said or done by them before the spring of 1885, and was, practically, perfectly well known to the Tory leaders when they accepted the alliance of the Irish party in the House of Commons, and courted their support in the election of 1885. To those who remember what went on in the House in the sessions of 1884 and 1885, the horror now professed by the Tory leaders for the conduct and words of the Irish party would be matter for laughter if it were not also matter for just indignation.

Very few words are needed to summarize the outline which, omitting many details which would have illustrated and confirmed its truth, I have attempted to present of the progress of opinion among Liberal members of the Parliament of 1880.

1. Our experience of the Coercion Bills of 1881 and 1882 disclosed the enormous mischief which such measures do in alienating the minds of Irishmen, and the difficulty of enlisting Irish sentiment on behalf of the law. The results of the Act of 1881 taught us that the repression of open agitation means the growth of far more dangerous conspiracy; those of the Act of 1882 proved that even under an administration like Lord Spencer's repression works no change for the better in the habits and ideas of the people.

2. The conduct of the House of Lords in 1880 and 1881, and the malign influence which its existence exerted whenever remedial legislation for Ireland came in question, convinced us that full and complete justice will never be done to Ireland by the British Parliament while the Upper House (as at present constituted) remains a part of that Parliament.

4. The discussions of Irish Bills in the House of Commons made us realize how little English members knew about Ireland; how utterly different were their competence for, and their attitude towards, Irish questions and English questions. We perceived that we were legislating in the dark for a country whose economic and social condition we did not understand—a country to which we could not apply our English ideas of policy; a country whose very temper and feeling were strange to us. We were really fitter to pass laws for Canada or Australia than for this isle within sight of our shores.

This experience had, by 1884, convinced us that the present relations of the British Parliament to Ireland were bad, and could not last; that the discontent of Ireland was justified; that the existing system, in alienating the mind of Ireland, tended, not merely to Repeal, but to Separation; that the simplest, and probably the only effective, remedy for the increasing dangers was the grant of an Irish Legislature. Two events clinched these conclusions. One was the Tory surrender of June, 1885. Self-government, we had come to see, was the only alternative to Coercion, and now Coercion was gone. The other was the General Election of December, 1885, when newly-enfranchised Ireland, through five-sixths of her representatives, demanded a Parliament of her own.

BY LORD THRING

The principal charge made against the scheme of Home Rule contained in the Irish Government Bill, 1886, is that it is incompatible with the maintenance of the unity of the Empire and the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. A further allegation states that the Bill is useless, as agrarian exasperation lies at the root of Irish discontent and Irish disloyalty, and that no place would be found for a Home Rule Bill even in Irish aspirations if an effective Land Bill were first passed. An endeavour will be made in the following pages to secure a verdict of acquittal on both counts—as to the charge relating to Imperial unity and the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, by proving that the accusation is absolutely unfounded, and based partly on a misconception of the nature of Imperial ties, and partly on a misapprehension of the effect of the provisions of the Home Rule Bill as bearing on Imperial questions; and as to the inutility of the Home Rule Bill in view of the necessity of Land Reform, by showing that without a Home Rule Bill no Land Bill worth consideration as a means of pacifying Ireland can be passed.

The powers of government are divisible into two great classes—1. Imperial powers; 2. State powers, using "State" in the American sense of a political community subordinated to some other power, and not in the sense of an independent nation. The Imperial powers are in English law described as the prerogatives of the Crown, and consist in the main of the powers of making peace and war, of maintaining armies and fleets and regulating commerce, and making treaties with foreign nations. State powers are complete powers of local self-government, described in our colonial Constitutions as powers to make laws "for the peace, order, and good government of the Colony or State" in which such powers are to be exercised.

Having arrived at a competent knowledge of the materials out of which governments are formed, it may be well to proceed to a consideration of the manner in which those materials have been worked up in building the two great Anglo-Saxon composite nations—namely, the American Union and the British Empire—for, if we find that the arrangements proposed by the Irish Home Rule Bill are strictly in accordance with the principles on which the unity of the American Union was based and on which the Imperial power of Great Britain has rested for centuries, the conclusion must be that the Irish Home Rule Bill is not antagonistic to the unity of the Empire or to the supremacy of the British Parliament.

In discussing these matters it will be convenient to begin with the American Union, as it is less extensive in area and more homogeneous in its construction than the British Empire. The thirteen revolted American colonies, on the conclusion of their war with England, found themselves in the position of thirteen independent States having no connection with each other. The common tie of supremacy exercised by the mother country was broken, and each State was an independent nation, possessed both of Imperial and Local rights.

The nature of the Constitution of the United States will be best understood by considering the position in which its subjects stand to the Central Government and their own State Governments. In effect, every inhabitant of the United States has a double nationality. He belongs to one great nation called the United States, or, as it would be more aptly called to show its absolute unity, the American Republic, having jurisdiction over the whole surface of ground comprised in the area of the United States. He is also a citizen of a smaller local and partially self-governing body—more important than a county, but not approaching the position of a nation—called a State.

In comparing the Constitution of the United States with the Constitution of the British Empire, we find an apparent resemblance in form as respects the Anglo-Saxon colonies, but underlying the surface a total difference of principle. The United States is an aggregate of homogeneous and contiguous States which, in order to weld themselves into a nation, gave up a portion of their rights to a central authority, reserving to themselves all powers of government which they did not expressly relinquish.

The British Empire is an aggregate of many communities under one common head, and is thus described by Mr. Burke in 1774, in language which may seem to have been somewhat too enthusiastic at the time when it was spoken, but at the present day does not more than do justice to an Empire which comprises one-sixth of the habitable globe in extent and population:—

Ireland, from the very commencement of her connection with England, has chafed under the restraints which that connection imposed. The closer the apparent union between the two countries the greater the real disunion. The Act of 1800, in words and in law, effected not a union merely, but a consolidation of the two countries. The effect of those words and that law was to give rise to a restless discontent, which has constantly found expression in efforts to procure the repeal of the Act of Union and the reestablishment of a National Parliament in Dublin. How futile have been the efforts of the British Parliament to diminish by concession or repress by coercion Irish aspirations or Irish discontent it is unnecessary to discuss here. All men admit the facts, however different the conclusions which they draw from those facts. What Burke said of America on moving in 1775 his resolution on conciliation with the colonies was true in 1885 with respect to Ireland:—

An examination, then, of the Home Rule Bill, that "child of revolution and parent of separation," appears to lead irresistibly to two conclusions. First, that Imperial rights and Imperial powers, representation for Imperial purposes, Imperial taxation—in short, every link that binds a subordinate member of an Empire to its supreme head—have been maintained unimpaired and unchanged. Secondly, that, in granting Home Rule to discontented Ireland, that form of responsible government has been adopted which, as Mr. Merivale declares—and his declaration subsequent events have more than verified—when conferred on the discontented colonies, changed restless aspirations for separation into quiet loyalty.

The notable feature which distinguished this plan from all other schemes was the security given for the repayment of the purchase-money: hitherto the English Government has lent the money directly to the landlord or tenant, and has become the mortgagee of the land—in other words, has become in effect the landlord of the land sold to the tenant until the repayment of the loan has been completed. To carry into effect under such a system any extensive scheme of agrarian reform (and if not extensive such a reform would be of no value in pacifying Ireland) presupposes a readiness on the part of the English Government to become virtually the landlord of a large portion of Ireland, with the attendant odium of absenteeism and alien domination. Under a land scheme such as that of 1886, all these difficulties would be overcome. The Irish, not the English, Government would be the virtual landlord. It would be the interest of Ireland that the annuities due from the tenants should be regularly paid, as, subject to the prior charge of the English Exchequer, they would form part of the Irish revenues. The cardinal difference, then, between Mr. Gladstone's scheme and any other land scheme that has seen the light is this—that in Mr. Gladstone's scheme the English loans would have been lent to the Irish Government on the security of the whole Irish revenues, whereas in every other scheme they have been lent by the English Government to the Irish creditors on the security of individual patches of land.

An endeavour has been made in the preceding pages to prove that Home Rule in no respect infringes on Imperial rights or Imperial unity, for the simple reason that the Imperial power remains exactly in the same position as it was before, the Home Rule Bill dealing only with Local matters. At all events, Burke thought that the Imperial supremacy alone constituted a real union between England and Ireland. He says—

To conclude: the cause of Irish discontent is the conjoint operation of the passion for nationality and the vicious system of land tenure, and the scheme of the Irish Home Rule Bill and the Land Bill removes the whole fabric on which Irish discontent is raised. The Irish, by the great majority of their representatives, have accepted the Home Rule Bill as a satisfactory settlement of the nationality question. The British Parliament can, through the medium of the Home Rule Bill and the establishment of an Irish Legislature, carry through a final settlement of agrarian disputes with less injustice to individuals than could a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and, be it added, with scarcely any appreciable risk to the British taxpayer. Of course it may be said that an Irish Parliament will go farther—that Home Rule is a step to separation, and a reform of the Land Laws a spoliation of the landlords. To those who urge such arguments I would recommend the perusal of the speech of Burke on Conciliation with America, and especially the following sentences, substituting "Ireland" for "the colonies:"—

BY LORD THRING

A mere enumeration or analysis of the contents of the Irish Government Bill, 1886, and the Land (Ireland) Bill, 1886, would convey scarcely any intelligible idea to the mind of an ordinary reader. It is, therefore, proposed in the following pages, before entering on the details of each Bill, to give a summary of the reasons which led to its introduction, and of the principles on which it is founded. To begin with the Irish Government Bill—

Assuming, however, the division between Imperial and local powers to be accurately determined, how is the subordinate legislative body to be kept within its due limits? The answer is very plain,—an Imperial court must be established to decide in the last resort whether the subordinate legislature has or has not infringed Imperial rights. Such a court has been in action in the United States of America ever since their union, and no serious conflict has arisen in carrying its decisions into effect, and the Privy Council, acting as the Supreme Court in respect to Colonial appeals, has been accepted by all the self-governing colonies as a just and impartial expositor of the meaning of their several constitutions.

"On and after the appointed day there shall be established in Ireland a Legislature consisting of Her Majesty the Queen and an Irish legislative body."

This is the first step in all English constitutional systems, to vest the power of legislation in the Queen and the legislative body. Such a legislature might have had conferred on it the independent powers vested in Grattan's Parliament: but the second clause at once puts an end to any doubt as to the subordination of the Irish legislative body; for while on the one hand it confers full powers of local self-government, by declaring that the Legislature may make any laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland, it subjects that power to numerous exceptions and restrictions. The exceptions are contained in the third clause, and the restrictions in the fourth. The exceptions are as follows:—

"The Legislature of Ireland shall not make laws relating to the following matters or any of them:—

"(1.) The status or dignity of the Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency;

"(2.) The making of peace or war;

"(3.) The army, navy, militia, volunteers, or other military or naval forces, or the defence of the realm;

"(5.) Dignities or titles of honour;

"(6.) Prize or booty of war;

"(7.) Offences against the law of nations; or offences committed in violation of any treaty made, or hereafter to be made, between Her Majesty and any foreign State; or offences committed on the high seas;

"(8.) Treason, alienage, or naturalization;

"(9.) Trade, navigation, or quarantine;

"(10.) The postal and telegraph service, except as hereafter in this Act mentioned with respect to the transmission of letters and telegrams in Ireland;

"(11.) Beacons, lighthouses, or sea-marks;

"(12.) The coinage; the value of foreign money; legal tender; or weights and measures; or

"(13.) Copyright, patent rights, or other exclusive rights to the use or profits of any works or inventions."

Of these exceptions the first four preserve the imperial rights which have been insisted on above, and maintain the position of Ireland as an integral portion of that Empire of which Great Britain is the head. The remaining exceptions are either subsidiary to the first four, or relate, as is the case with exceptions 10 to 13, to matters on which it is desirable that uniformity should exist throughout the whole Empire. The restrictions in clause 4 are:—

"The Irish Legislature shall not make any law—

"(1.) Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

"(2.) Imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege, on account of religious belief; or

"(3.) Abrogating or derogating from the right to establish or maintain any place of denominational education or any denominational institution or charity; or

"(5.) Impairing, without either the leave of Her Majesty in Council first obtained on an address presented by the legislative body of Ireland, or the consent of the corporation interested, the rights, property, or privileges of any existing corporation incorporated by royal charter or local and general Act of Parliament; or

"(6.) Imposing or relating to duties of customs and duties of excise, as defined by this Act, or either of such duties, or affecting any Act relating to such duties or either of them; or

"(7.) Affecting this Act, except in so far as it is declared to be alterable by the Irish Legislature."

These restrictions differ from the exceptions, inasmuch as they do not prevent the Legislature of Ireland from dealing with the subjects to which they refer, but merely impose on it an obligation not to handle the specified matters in a manner detrimental to the interests of certain classes of Her Majesty's subjects. For example, restrictions 1 to 4 are practically concerned in securing religious freedom; restriction 5 protects existing charters; restriction 6 is necessary, as will be seen hereinafter, to carrying into effect the financial scheme of the bill; restriction 7 is a consequence of the very framework of the Bill: it provides for the stability of the Irish constitution, by declaring that the Irish Legislature is not competent to alter the constitutional act to which it owes its existence, except on those points on which it is expressly permitted to make alterations.

(1.) The executive government of Ireland shall continue vested in Her Majesty, and shall be carried on by the Lord Lieutenant on behalf of Her Majesty with the aid of such officers and such council as to Her Majesty may from time to time seem fit.

(2.) Subject to any instructions which may from time to time be given by Her Majesty, the Lord Lieutenant shall give or withhold the assent of Her Majesty to bills passed by the Irish legislative body, and shall exercise the prerogatives of Her Majesty in respect of the summoning, proroguing, and dissolving of the Irish legislative body, and any prerogatives the exercise of which may be delegated to him by Her Majesty.

The above clauses contain the pith and marrow of the whole scheme. The exact constitution of the legislative body, and the orders into which it should be divided, the exclusion or non-exclusion of the Irish members from the Imperial Parliament, indeed, the whole of the provisions found in the remainder of this Bill, are matters which might be altered without destroying, or even violently disarranging, the Home-rule scheme as above described.

A power is given to the Legislature of Ireland to enable the Royal University of Ireland to return two members.

The provisions with respect to this second order fall within the class of enactments which are alterable by the Irish Legislature. After the first dissolution of parliament the Irish Legislature may deal with the second order in any manner they think fit, with the important restrictions:—(1) That in the distribution of members they must have due regard to population; (2) that they must not increase or diminish the number of members.

The transfer to the Irish legislative body of the Irish representative peers, and of the Irish members, involves their exclusion under ordinary circumstances from the Imperial Parliament, with this great exception, that whenever an alteration is proposed to be made in the fundamental provisions of the Irish Government Bill, a mode of procedure is devised for recalling both orders of the Irish legislative body to the Imperial Parliament for the purpose of obtaining their consent to such alteration (clause 39).

Further, it is right to state here that Mr. Gladstone in his speech on the second reading of the Bill proposed to provide, "that when any proposal for taxation was made affecting the condition of Ireland, Irish members should have an opportunity of appearing in the House to take a share in the transaction of that business."

Some provisions of importance remain to be noticed. Judges of the superior and county courts in Ireland are to be removable from office only on address to the Crown, presented by both orders of the Legislative body voting separately. Existing Civil servants are retained in their offices at their existing salaries; if the Irish Government desire their retirement, they will be entitled to pensions; on the other hand, if at the end of two years the officers themselves wish to retire, they can do so, and will be entitled to the same pensions as if their office had been abolished. The pensions are payable by the Receiver-General out of the Irish account above mentioned.

BY CANON MACCOLL

So much as to the state of Liberal opinion on the Irish question at the General Election of 1885. The leaders of all sections of the party put the Irish question in the foreground of their programme for the session of 1886. We all remember Sir Charles Dilke's public announcement that he and Mr. Chamberlain were going to visit Ireland in the autumn of 1885, to study the Irish question on the spot, with a view to maturing a plan for the first session of the new Parliament.

It is idle, therefore, to assert that the question of Home Rule for Ireland, in some form or other, was sprung on the country as a surprise by Mr. Gladstone in the beginning of 1886. The question was brought prominently before the public in the General Election of 1885 as one that must be faced in the new Parliament. All parties were committed to that policy, and the only difference was as to the character and limits of the measure of self-government to be granted to Ireland; whether it was to be large enough to satisfy "the national sentiment," as Lord Carnarvon, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Gladstone, and others desired; or whether it was to consist only of a system of county boards under the control of a reformed Dublin Castle. There was a general agreement that the grant to Ireland of electoral equality with England necessitated equality of political treatment, and that, above all things, there was to be no renewal of the stale policy of Coercion until the Irish people had got an opportunity of proving or disproving their fitness for self-government, unless, indeed, there should happen to be a recrudescence of crime which would render exceptional legislation necessary. The election of 1886 turned almost entirely on the question of Irish government, and it is not too much to say that Conservatives and Liberal Unionists vied with Home Rulers in repudiating a return to the policy of coercion until the effect of some kind of self-government had been tried. Of course, there were the usual platitudes about the necessity of maintaining law and order; but there was a consensus of profession that coercion should not be resorted to unless there was a fresh outbreak of crime and disorder in Ireland.

Under these circumstances it is the opponents of Home Rule, not its advocates, who owe an explanation to the public. They defeated Mr. Gladstone's Bill, but promised a Bill of their own. Where is their Bill? We hear nothing of it. They have made a complete change of front. They now tell us that the grievance of Ireland is entirely economic, and that the true solution of the Irish question is the abolition of dual ownership in land combined with a firm administration of the existing law. England and Scotland are to have a large measure of local government next year; but Ireland is to wait till a more convenient season. A more complete reversal of the policy proclaimed last summer by the so-called Unionists cannot be imagined.

BY E.L. GODKIN.

There are a great many Englishmen who think that when they show that Grattan's Parliament was a venal and somewhat disorderly body, which occasionally indulged in mixed metaphor, they have proved the impossibility of giving Ireland a Parliament now. But then, as they are obliged to admit, Walpole's Parliament was very corrupt, and no one would say that for that reason it would have been wise to suspend constitutional government in England in the eighteenth century. It is only through the pernicious habit of thinking of Irishmen as exceptions to all political rules that Grattan's Parliament is considered likely, had it lasted, to have come down to our time unreformed and unimproved.

Mr. Madison's challenge to the opponents of the American Constitution to agree on some plan of their own, and his humorous suggestion that if the American people had to wait for some such agreement to be reached they would go for a long time without a government, are curiously applicable to the opponents of Irish Home Rule. They are very fertile in reasons for thinking that neither the Gladstone plan nor any other plan can succeed, but no two of them, so far as I know, have yet hit upon any other mode of pacifying Ireland, except the use of force for a certain period to maintain order, and oddly enough, even when they agree on this remedy, they are apt to disagree about the length of time during which it should be tried.

The American Constitution is flecked throughout with those flaws which a lawyer delights to discover and point out, and which the framers of a federal contract can only excuse by maintaining that they are inevitable. It is true that Mr. Dicey does not even now acknowledge the success of the American Constitution to be complete. He points out that if the "example either of America or of Switzerland is to teach us anything worth knowing, the history of these countries must be read as a whole. It will then be seen that the two most successful confederacies in the world have been kept together only by the decisive triumph through force of arms of the central power over real or alleged State rights" (p. 192).

It is not in its details, therefore, but in the manner of its construction, that the American Constitution furnishes anything in the way of guidance or suggestion to those who are now engaged in trying to find a modus vivendi between England and Ireland. The same thing may be said of the Swiss Constitution and of the Austro-Hungarian Constitution. Both of them contain many anomalies—that is, things that are not set down in the books as among the essentials of federalism. But both are adapted to the special wants of the people who live under them, and were framed in reference to those wants.

BY R. BARRY O'BRIEN.

I am often asked, What are the best books to read on the Irish question? and I never fail to mention Mr. Lecky's Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland and the History of England in the Eighteenth Century; Mr. Goldwin Smith's Irish History and Irish Character, Three English Statesmen, The Irish Question, and Professor Dicey's admirable work, England's Case against Home Rule.

Indeed, the case for Home Rule, as stated in these books, is unanswerable; and it redounds to the credit of Mr. Lecky, Mr. Goldwin Smith, and Mr. Dicey that their narrative of facts should in no wise be prejudiced by their political opinions.

That their facts are upon one side and their opinions on the other is a minor matter. Their facts, I venture to assert, have made more Home Rulers than their opinions can unmake.

I.—MR. LECKY.

In the introduction to the new edition of the Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, published in 1871—seventy-one years after Mr. Pitt's Union, which was to make England and Ireland one nation—we find the following "contrast" between "national life" in the two countries:—

"It is impossible, I think, not to be struck by the contrast which, in this respect, Ireland presents to England. If the one country furnishes us with an admirable example of the action of a healthy public opinion, the other supplies us with the most unequivocal signs of its disease. The Imperial Parliament exercises for Ireland legislative functions, but it is almost powerless upon opinion—it allays no discontent, and attracts no affection. Political talent, which for many years was at least as abundant among Irishmen as in any equally numerous section of the people, has been steadily declining, and marked decadence in this respect among the representatives of the nation reflects but too truly the absence of public spirit in their constituents.

"Nor can it be said that ignorance is at the root of the discontent. The Irish people have always, even in the darkest period of the penal laws, been greedy for knowledge, and few races show more quickness in acquiring it. The admirable system of national education established in the present century is beginning to bear abundant fruit, and, among the younger generation at least, the level of knowledge is quite as high as in England. Indeed, one of the most alarming features of Irish disloyalty is its close and evident connection with education. It is sustained by a cheap literature, written often with no mean literary skill, which penetrates into every village, gives the people their first political impressions, forms and directs their enthusiasm, and seems likely in the long leisure of the pastoral life to exercise an increasing power. Close observers of the Irish character will hardly have failed to notice the great change which since the famine has passed over the amusements of the people. The old love of boisterous out-of-door sports has almost disappeared, and those who would have once sought their pleasures in the market or the fair now gather in groups in the public-house, where one of their number reads out a Fenian newspaper. Whatever else this change may portend, it is certainly of no good omen for the future loyalty of the people.

But, it is said, Scotch national sentiment is as strong as Irish, why should not a legislative union be as acceptable to Ireland as to Scotland? Mr. Lecky shall answer this question too.

"The effect of a measure of this kind, levelled at the principal article of the commerce of the nation, was necessarily most disastrous. The profound modification which it introduced into the course of Irish industry was sufficiently shown by the estimate of Sir W. Petty, who declares that before the statute three-fourths of the trade of Ireland was with England, but not one-fourth of it since that time. In the very year when this Bill was passed another measure was taken not less fatal to the interest of the country. In the first Navigation Act, Ireland was placed on the same terms as England; but in the Act as amended in 1663 she was omitted, and was thus deprived of the whole Colonial trade. With the exception of a very few specified articles no European merchandise could be imported into the British Colonies except directly from England, in ships built in England, and manned chiefly by English sailors. No articles, with a few exceptions, could be brought from the Colonies to Europe without being first unladen in England. In 1670 this exclusion of Ireland was confirmed, and in 1696 it was rendered more stringent, for it was enacted that no goods of any sort could be imported directly from the Colonies to Ireland. It will be remembered that at this time the chief British Colonies were those of America, and that Ireland, by her geographical position, was naturally of all countries most fitted for the American trade.

Mr. Lecky's views as to what ought to have been done in 1800 deserve to be set forth.

"England has ruin before her, unless she can hit on a remedy, and overcome any obstacles of class interest or of national pride which would prevent its application, the part of Russia in Poland, or of Austria in Italy—a part cruel, hateful, demoralizing, contrary to all our high principles and professions, and fraught with dangers to our own freedom. Our position will be worse than that of Russia in this respect, that, while her Poland is only a province, our Fenianism is an element pervading every city of the United Kingdom in which Irish abound, and allying itself with kindred misery, discontent, and disorder. Wretchedness, the result of misgovernment, has caused the Irish people to multiply with the recklessness of despair, and now here are their avenging hosts in the midst of us, here is the poison of their disaffection running through every member of our social frame. Not only so, but the same wretchedness has sent millions of emigrants to form an Irish nation in the United States, where the Irish are a great political power, swaying by their votes the councils of the American Republic, and in immediate contact with those Transatlantic possessions of England, the retention of which it is now patriotic to applaud, and will one day be patriotic to have dissuaded.

A federal union differs from a confederate union in the material fact that the common superior authority, instead of acting on the individual subjects of the constituent States through the medium of their respective governments, has a power, in respect of all matters within its jurisdiction, of enacting laws and issuing orders which are binding directly on the individual citizens.

The distinguishing characteristics of an imperial union are, that it consists of an aggregate of communities, one of which is dominant, and that the component communities have been brought into association, not by arrangement between themselves, but by colonization, cession, and by other means emanating from the resources or power of the dominant community.

The above-mentioned distinction between a Government having communities only for its subjects, and incapable of enforcing its orders by any other means than war, and a Government acting directly on individuals, must be constantly borne in mind, for in this lies the whole difference between a confederate and federal union; that is to say, between a confederacy which, in the case of the United States, lasted a few short years, and a federal union which, with the same people as subjects, has lasted nearly a century, and has stood the strain of the most terrible war of modern times.

An imperial union, though resembling somewhat in outward form a federal union, differs altogether from it both in principle and origin. Its essential characteristic is that one community is absolutely dominant while all the others are subordinate. In the case of a federal union independent States have agreed to resign a portion of their powers to a central Government for the sake of securing the common safety. In an imperial union the dominant or imperial State delegates to each constituent member of the union such a portion of local government as the dominant State considers the subordinate member entitled to, consistently with the integrity of the empire. The British Empire furnishes the best example of an imperial union now existing in the world. Her Majesty, as common head, is the one link which binds the empire together and connects with each other every constituent member. The Indian Empire and certain military dependencies require no further notice in these pages; but a summary of our various forms of colonial government is required to complete our knowledge of the forms of Home Rule possibly applicable to Ireland.

The colonies, in relation to their forms of government, may be classified as follows:—

2. Colonies possessing representative institutions, but not responsible government, in which the Crown has only a veto on legislation, but the Home Government retains the control of the executive.

3. Colonies possessing representative institutions and responsible government, in which the Crown has only a veto on legislation, and the Home Government has no control over any public officer except the Governor.

The British Colonial Governments thus present an absolute gradation of rule; beginning with absolute despotism and ending with almost absolute legal independence, except in so far as a veto on legislation and the presence of a Governor named by the Crown mark the dependence of the colony on the mother country.

It is to be remembered, moreover, that the colonies which have received this complete local freedom are the great colonies of the earth—nations themselves possessing territories as large or larger than any European State—namely, Canada, the Cape, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania. And this change from dependence to freedom has been effected with the good-will both of the mother country and the colony, and without it being imputed to the colonists, when desiring a larger measure of self-government, that they were separatists, anarchists, or revolutionists.

Materials have now been collected which will enable the reader to judge of the expediency or inexpediency of the course taken by Mr. Gladstone's Government in dealing with Ireland. Three alternatives were open to them—

1. To let matters alone.
2. To pass a Coercion Bill.
3. To change the government of Ireland, and at
the same time to pass a Land Bill.

The two last measures are combined under the head of one alternative, as it will be shown in the sequel that no effective Land Bill can be passed without granting Home Rule in Ireland.

Now, the short answer to the first alternative is, that no party in the State—Conservative, Whig, Radical, Unionist, Home Ruler, Parnellite—thought it possible to leave things alone. That something must be done was universally admitted.

The second alternative has found favour with the present Government, and certainly is a better example of the triumph of hope over experience, than even the proverbial second marriage.

On the basis of the above arrangement the Bill of Mr. Gladstone was founded. Absolute local autonomy was conferred on Ireland; the assent of the Irish members to quit the Imperial Parliament was accepted; and the Bill provided that after a certain day the representative Irish peers should cease to sit in the House of Lords, and the Irish members vacate their places in the House of Commons. Provisions were then made for the absorption in the Irish Legislative Body of both the Irish representative peers and Irish members.

Technically these reservations of supremacy to the English Legislature were unnecessary, as it is an axiom of constitutional law that a sovereign Legislature, such as the Queen and two Houses of Parliament in England, cannot bind their successors, and consequently can repeal or alter any law, however fundamental, and annul any restrictions on alteration, however strongly expressed. Practically they were never likely to be called into operation, as it is the custom of Parliament to adhere, under all but the most extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances, to any compact made by Act of Parliament between itself and any subordinate legislative body. The Irish Legislature was subjected to the same controlling power which has for centuries been applied to prevent any excess of jurisdiction in our Colonial Legislatures, by a direction that an appeal as to the constitutionality of any laws which they might pass should lie to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. This supremacy of the imperial judicial power over the action of the Colonial Legislatures was a system which the founders of the American Constitution copied in the establishment of their supreme Court, and thereby secured for that legislative system a stability which has defied the assaults of faction and the strain of civil war.

The Irish Bills of 1886, as above represented, had at least three recommendations:

1. They created a state of things in Ireland under which it was possible to make a complete agrarian reform without exposing the English Exchequer to any appreciable risk.

2. They enabled the Irish to govern themselves as respects local matters, while preserving intact the supremacy of the British Parliament and the integrity of the Empire.

3. They enabled the British Parliament to govern the British Empire without any obstructive Irish interference.

To the first of these propositions no attempt at an answer has been made. The Land Bill was never considered on its merits; indeed, was never practically discussed, but was at once swept into oblivion by the wave which overwhelmed the Home Rule Bill.

It was also urged that the concession of self-government to Ireland was but another mode of handing over the Loyalist party—or, as it is sometimes called, the English garrison—to the tender mercies of the Parnellites. The reply to this would seem to be, that as respects property the Land Bill effectually prevented any interference of the Irish Parliament with the land; nay, more, enabled any Irishman desirous of turning his land into money to do so on the most advantageous terms that ever had been—and with a falling market it may be confidently prophesied ever can be—offered to the Irish landlord; while as respect life and liberty, were it possible that they should be endangered, it was the duty of the imperial officer, the Lord Lieutenant, to take means for the preservation of peace and good order; and behind him, to enforce his behests, stand the strong battalions who, to our sorrow be it spoken, have so often been called upon to put down disturbance and anarchy in Ireland.

What, then, are the conclusions intended to be drawn from the foregoing premises?

2. That some alternative must be found, and that the only alternative within the range of practical politics is some form of Home Rule.

3. That there is no reason for thinking that the grant of Home Rule to Ireland—a member only, and not one of the most important members, of the British Empire—will in any way dismember, or even in the slightest degree risk the dismemberment of the Empire.

4. That Home Rule presupposes and admits the supremacy of the British Parliament.

5. That theory is in favour of Home Rule, as the nationality of Ireland is distinct, and justifies a desire for local independence; while the establishment of Home Rule is a necessary condition to the effectual removal of agrarian disturbances in Ireland.

6. That precedent is in favour of granting Home Rule to Ireland—e.g. the success of the new Constitution in Austria-Hungary, and the happy effects resulting from the establishment of the Dominion of Canada.

7. That the particular form of Home Rule granted is comparatively immaterial.

8. That the Home Rule Bill of 1886 may readily be amended in such a manner as to satisfy all real and unpartisan objectors.

How the Government of Ireland Bill was brought into the House of Commons on April 8th, amid circumstances of curiosity and excitement unparalleled since 1832; how, after debates of almost unprecedented length, it was defeated in June, by a majority of thirty; how the policy it embodied was brought before the country at the General Election, and failed to win approval—all this is too well known to need recapitulation here. But the causes of the disaster have not been well understood, for it is only now—now, when the smoke of the battle has cleared away from the field—that these causes have begun to stand revealed in their true proportions.

Besides some circumstances attending the production of the Bill, to which I shall refer presently, and which told heavily against it, there were three feelings which worked upon men's minds, disposing them to reject it.

We may now turn from the past to the future. Yet the account which has been given of the feelings and ideas arrayed against the Bill does not wholly belong to the past. They are the feelings to which the opponents of any plan of self-government for Ireland still appeal, and which will have to be removed or softened down before it can be accepted by the English. In particular, the probability of separation, and the supposed dangers to the Protestants and the landlords from an Irish Parliament, will continue to form the themes of controversy so long as the question remains unsettled.

What are the prospects of its settlement? What is the position which it now occupies? How has it affected the current politics of England?

However, as the Home Rule Liberals and Nationalists, taken together, are in a minority (although a minority which obtains recruits at many bye-elections) in the present Parliament, it is not from them that fresh proposals are expected. They will, of course, continue to speak, write, and agitate on behalf of the views they hold. But practical attempt to deal with Irish troubles must for the present come from the Tory Ministry; for in the English system of government those who command a Parliamentary majority are responsible for legislation as well as administration, and are censured not merely if their legislation is bad, but if it is not forthcoming when events call for it.

Why, it may be asked, should Lord Salisbury's Government burn its fingers over Ireland, as so many governments have burnt their fingers before? Why not let Ireland alone, giving to foreign affairs and to English and Scottish reforms all the attention which these too much neglected matters need?

There are three aspects of the Irish question, three channels by which the troubles of the "distressful island" stream down upon us, forcing whoever now rules or may come to rule in England to attempt some plan for dealing with them. I will take them in succession.

Since, then, we may conclude that whatever Ministry is in power will be bound to take up the state of Ireland—since Parliament and the nation will be occupied with the subject during the coming sessions fully as much as they have been during those that have recently passed—the next inquiry is, What will the tendency of opinion and legislation be? Will the reasons and forces described above bring us to Home Rule? and if so, when, how, and why?

Far greater obstacles exist in the aversion which (as already observed) so many Englishmen of both parties have entertained for any scheme which should seem to leave the Protestant minority at the mercy of the peasant and Roman Catholic majority, and to carry us some way toward the ultimate separation of the islands. These alarms are genuine and deep-seated. One who (like the present writer) thinks them, if not baseless, yet immensely overstrained, is, of course, convinced that they may be allayed. But time must first pass, and the plan that is to allay them may have to be framed on somewhat different lines from those of Mr. Gladstone's measure. It is even possible that a conflict more sharp and painful than any of recent years may intervene before a settlement is reached.

Nevertheless, great as are the obstacles in the way, bitter as are the reproaches with which Mr. Gladstone is pursued by the richer classes in England, there is good reason to believe that the current is setting toward his policy. In proceeding to state the grounds for this view, I must frankly own that I am no longer (as in most of the preceding pages) merely setting forth facts on which impartial men in England would agree. The forecast which I seek to give may be tinged by my own belief that the grant of self-government is the best, if not the only method, now open to us of establishing peace between the islands, relieving the English Parliament of work it is ill fitted to discharge, allowing Ireland opportunities to learn those lessons in politics which her people so much need. The future, even the near future, is more than usually dim. Yet, if we examine those three branches of the Irish question which have been enumerated above, we shall see how naturally, in each of them, the concession of self-government seems to open, I will not say the most direct, but the least dangerous way, out of our troubles.

POSTSCRIPT.

The repressive policy which the present Ministry are attempting in Ireland—for in the face of their failures one cannot say that they are carrying out any policy—is rendering Coercion Acts more and more detested by the English people. The actualities of Ireland, the social condition of her peasantry, the unwisdom of the dominant caste, the incompetence of the bureaucracy which affects to rule her, are being, by the full accounts we now receive, brought home to the mind of England and Scotland as they never were before, and produce their appropriate effect upon the heart and conscience of the people. The recognition by the Liberal party of the rights of Ireland, the visits of English Liberals to Ireland, the work done by Irishmen in English constituencies, are creating a feeling of unity and reciprocal interest between the masses of the people on both sides of the Channel without example in the seven hundred years that have passed since Strongbow's landing.

This was the thing most needed to make Home Rule safe and full of promise, because it affords a guarantee that in such political contests as may arise in future, the division will not be, as heretofore, between the Irish people on the one side and the power of Britain on the other, but between two parties, each of which will have adherents in both islands. We may now at last hope that national hatreds will vanish; that England will unlearn her arrogance and Ireland her suspicion; that the basis is being laid for a harmonious co-operation of both nations in promoting the welfare and greatness of a common Empire.

October, 1887.

The strength of the argument from Nationality is great, and full of significance; but Nationality is not the whole essence of either the argument from History or the argument from Self-government. Their force lies in considerations of political expediency as tested by practical experience.

"It is an inherent condition of human affairs," said Mill in a book which, in spite of some chimeras, is a wholesome corrective of the teaching of our new jurists, "that no intention, however sincere, of protecting the interests of others can make it safe or salutary to tie up their own hands. Still more obviously true is it, that by their own hands only can any positive and durable improvement of their circumstances in life be worked out" (Repres. Government, p. 57). It is these wise lessons from human experience to which the advocate of Home Rule appeals, and not the wild doctrine that any body of persons claiming to be united by a sense of nationality possesses an inherent and divine right to be treated as an independent community. It is quite true that circumstances sometimes justify a temporary dictatorship. In that there is nothing at variance with Liberalism. But the Parliamentary dictatorship in Ireland has lasted a great deal too long to be called temporary, and its stupid shambling operations are finally and decisively condemned by their consequences. That is a straightforward utilitarian argument, and has nothing whatever to do with inherent and divine rights, or any other form of political moonshine.

If experience is decisive against the policy of the past, experience too, all over the modern world, indicates the better direction for the future. I will not use my too scanty space in repeating any of the great wise commonplaces in praise of self-government. Here they are superfluous. In the case of Ireland they have all been abundantly admitted in a long series of measures, from Catholic Emancipation down to Lord O'Hagan's Jury Law and the Franchise and Redistribution Acts of a couple of years ago. The principle of self-government has been accepted, ratified, and extended in a hundred ways. It is only a question of the form that self-government shall take. Against the form proposed by the late Ministry a case is built up that rests on a series of prophetic assumptions. These assumptions, from the nature of the case, can only be met by a counter-statement of fair and reasonable probabilities. Let us enumerate some of them.

3. It is assumed that there is a universal desire for Separation. That there is a strong sentiment of nationality we of course admit; it is part of the case, and not the worst part. But the sentiment of nationality is a totally different thing from a desire for Separation. Scotland might teach our pseudo-Unionists so much as that. Nowhere in the world is the sentiment of nationality stronger, yet there is not a whisper of Separation. That there is a section of Irishmen who desire Separation is notorious, but everything that has happened since the Government of Ireland Bill was introduced, including the remarkable declarations of Mr. Parnell in accepting the Bill (June 7), and including the proceedings at Chicago, shows that the separatist section is a very small one either in Ireland or in America, and that it has become sensibly smaller since, and in consequence of, the proposed concession of a limited statutory constitution. The Irish are quite shrewd enough to know that Separation, if it were attainable—and they are well aware that it is not—would do no good to their markets; and to that knowledge, as well as to many other internal considerations, we may confidently look for the victory of strong centripetal over very weak centrifugal tendencies. Even if we suppose these centrifugal tendencies to be stronger than I would allow them to be, how shall we best resist them—by strengthening the hands and using the services of the party which, though nationalist, is also constitutional; or by driving that party also, in despair of a constitutional solution, to swell the ranks of Extremists and Irreconcilables?

It is true, no doubt, that the old feud between Protestant and Catholic might, perhaps, not instantly die down to the last smouldering embers of it all over Ireland. But we may remark that there is no perceptible bad blood between Protestant and Catholic, outside of one notorious corner. Second, the real bitterness of the feud arose from the fact that Protestantism was associated with an exclusive and hostile ascendency, which would now be brought to an end. Whatever feeling about what is called Ulster exists in the rest of Ireland, arises not from the fact that there are Protestants in Ulster, but that the Protestants are anti-National. Third, the Catholics would no longer be one compact body for persecuting, obscurantist, or any other evil purposes; the abatement of the national struggle would allow the Catholics to fall into the two natural divisions of Clerical and Liberal. What we may be quite sure of is that the feud will never die so long as sectarian pretensions are taken as good reasons for continuing bad government.

The ruinous interplay between agrarian and political forces, each using the other for ends of its own, will never cease so long as the political demand is in every form resisted. That, we are told, is all the fault of the politicians. Be it so; then the Government must either suppress the politicians outright, or else it must interest them in getting the terms of its land settlement accepted and respected. Home Rule on our scheme was, among other things, part of an arrangement for "settling the agrarian feud." It was a means of interposing between the Irish tenant and the British State an authority interested enough and strong enough to cause the bargain to be kept. It is said that the Irish authority would have had neither interest nor strength enough to resist the forces making for repudiation. Would those forces be any less irresistible if the whole body of the Irish peasantry stood, as Land Purchase minus Self-Government makes them to stand, directly face to face with the British State? This is a question that our opponents cannot evade, any more than they can evade that other question, which lies unnoticed at the back of all solutions of the problem by way of peasant ownership—Whether it is possible to imagine the land of Ireland handed over to Irishmen, and yet the government of Ireland kept exclusively and directly by Englishmen? Such a divorce is conceivable under a rule like that of the British in India: with popular institutions it is inconceivable and impossible.

BY W.E. GLADSTONE.

Ireland for more than seven hundred years has been part of the British territory, and has been with slight exceptions held by English arms, or governed in the last resort from this side the water. Scotland was a foreign country until 1603, and possessed absolute independence until 1707. Yet, whether it was due to the standing barrier of the sea, or whatever may have been the cause, much less was known by Englishmen of Ireland than of Scotland. Witness the works of Shakespeare, whose mind, unless as to book-knowledge, was encyclopædic, and yet who, while he seems at home in Scotland, may be said to tell us nothing of Ireland, unless it is that—

That history, until the eighteenth century begins, has a dismal simplicity about it. Murder, persecution, confiscation too truly describe its general strain; and policy is on the whole subordinated to violence as the standing instrument of government. But after, say, the reign of William III., the element of representation begins to assert itself. Simplicity is by degrees exchanged for complexity; the play of human motives, singularly diversified, now becomes visible in the currents of a real public life. It has for a very long time been my habit, when consulted by young political students, to recommend them carefully to study the characters and events of the American Independence. Quite apart from the special and temporary reasons bearing upon the case, I would now add a twin recommendation to examine and ponder the lessons of Irish history during the eighteenth century. The task may not be easy, but the reward will be ample.

"Novus sæcorum nascitur ordo."

Within the last twelve months we have seen, in the streets of Belfast, the painful proof that the work of Beresford and of Castlereagh has been found capable for the moment of revival. To aggravate or sustain Irish disunion, religious bigotry has been again evoked in Ireland. If the curse be an old one, there is also an old cure, recorded in the grand pharmacopoeia of history; and if the abstract force of policy and prudence are insufficient for the work, we may yet find that the evil spirit will be effectually laid by the gentle influence of a living and working Irish nationality. Quod faxit Deus.