Ireland and the Home Rule Movement

tely gifted men who bawl out death and ruin upon every valuable change which the varying aspect of human affairs absolutely and imperiously requires ... I admit that to a certain

Letters of Pete

o a record unstained by any traffic with the unclean thing for which they express such horror. I will try to show how small is the measure of truth in this belief, and in what manner it has proved

attitude of Lord Randolph Churchill, then conducting his guerilla tactics as leader of the Fourth Party, all served to make opposition on the part of the Irish members to [151]the Liberal Government increase, and it was by their aid that in June, 1885, it was thrown out

and had attempted to bring it about in South Africa, who was familiar with the machinery of subordinate legislatures and Colonial parliaments, and whose sympathies with the Irish people were to be inferred from the fact that he had voted for Disestablishm

Government, the more so because in an unprecedented manner not the Premier but the Viceroy was the spokesman. He began by a repudiation of coercion, with which he declared the recent enfranchisement of the Irish people would not be consistent. "My Lords," he went on to say, speaking of the general questio

the strangest. Lord Carnarvon solicited through one of his colleagues, and obtained, an interview with Mr. Parnell, and the circumstances under which this occurred

eeting was no other than that rigid Imperialist, Col. Sir Howard Vincent, who had only the year before retired from the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard. When the occurrence of this interview became known, nearly a year later, Mr. Parnell declared-and the fact was never denied by Lord Carnarvon-that the latter had pronounced himself in favour of an Irish Parliament with the power of protecting

Parliament, with the right of taxing foreign and even English imports for the benefit of the Irish home trade-a proposal not so revolutionary as it would

has ever been made by an English statesman. The election address of Lord Randolph Churchill-the most popular and influential minister in the country-contained no allusion to the threatened "dismemberment of the Empire," and in his campaign his only allusion to Ireland was comprised in boasts of the success of the anti-coercion policy of Carnarvon; while Sir John Gorst, who had been Solicitor-General, referred in his el

to the Conservative leader on the urgency of the Irish question, and declared that it would be a public calamity if this great subject should fall into lines of party conflict. If Salisbury would bring forward a proposal for settling the whole question of future government in Ireland he would treat it in the same spirit as that which he had shown in the matters of Afghanistan and the Balkans, and he illustrated t

cCarthy's party would agree to an inquiry which he thought there was a chance of the Government agreeing to, and which would educate his colleagues and his party if granted and carried through. I was consternated, but replied that such a statement was an obvious lie, but, between ourselves

, and the extension of the franchise in 1867, Lord Salisbury saw in it only anxiety to take office on the part of his great opponent, and prophesied that if his hunger were not prematurely gratified he would be for

away what was perhaps the best hope of the settl

of the winter of 1885-6 is illustrated by a memo

rable manifestations. Subsequently we had but too much evidence of a deliberate

e appointed in the third week in December, it was not till the middle of January that the resignations were made public. The first act of the new Chief Secretary was to announce that, in spite of the emphatic disclaimers of the previous June, a Coercion Bill was to be introduced, and as a result of the Irish voting with the [156]Liberals the Tories were defeated, and Mr. Gladstone took office. The Home Rule Bill which was introduced was thrown out in the month of June, the Government being in a minority of thir

rvant and Member of the Indian Council, who had been in turn head of the Government of Burma, the Central Provinces, and the North-West Provinces, and who had with conspicuous ability carried on financial and agrarian reforms in the East. Lord Lansdowne, during his tenure of the Viceroyalty, formed a high estimate of his knowledge and

"on this condition, that I should have adequate opportunities of influencing the policy and acts of the Irish administration, and subject, of course, to your control, freedom of action in Executive matters. For many years in India I directed administration on the largest scale, and I know that if you send me to Ireland the opportunity of mere secretarial criticism would fall short of the requirements of my position. If I were installed in office in Ireland my aims, broadly stated, would

a colleague than as a mere Under Secretary to register Mr. Wyndham's will, and although in the House of Commons Mr. Balfour said that Sir Antony was bound by the rules applying to all Civil Servants, in the House o

tests from the Orangemen, as did also the words used, in what was almost his first speech, by Lord Dudley, the new Viceroy, who had succeeded Lord Cadogan, and who announced that, "the

iation Lord Dunraven had secured the assistance of the Under Secretary with the knowledge of the Chief Secretary and the Viceroy, the latter of whom, according to Lord Lansdowne's declaration in the House of Lo

, but in spite of this, Irish Unionists wrote to the Times to express their suspicions "whether in short the devolution scheme is

p of Bombay-the third greatest Governorship in the [159]British Empire-retained his position, though his presence at Dublin Castle had been described by some fervent Orangemen as a menace to the loyal and law-abiding inhabitants of Ireland, and by the Irish Attorney-General as a gross betrayal of the Unionist position and an injury to the Unionist

to draw upon her reserves," which was taken to mean that the Orangemen who were members of the Government would resign en masse-an action which, in the moribund condition of the Ministry, would have meant an instant dissolution. At the very beginning of the session Mr. Wyndham had announced that the matter of Sir

d once again, in the historic phrase, to catch the Whigs bathing and steal their clothes, but this time they failed. When the Orangemen held a pistol at [160]the Government's head and bade its members stand and

always thought Mr. Wyndham resigned the Chief Secretaryship in consequence of criticisms from the Orangemen below the gangway on his own

s an obvious reference, as most people supposed, to such denunciations as that of Mr. William Moore of the Chief Secretary's "wretched, rotten, sickening policy of conciliation." The disingenuousness marking the whole proceeding is well shown by the fact that although on announcing Mr. Wyndh

as published in the Press, we have the express statement from the ex-Lord Lieutenant that Mr. Balfour "neve

as. Challenged to make good the assertion, which he declared was based on a private conversation, Sir Edward Carson went on to assert that the Viceroy had on another occasion expressed the opinion to

stly the standpoint of anyone whose views on such questions may be more moderate and tolerant than your own. It is not, however, by violence and intolerance that the cause of union is best served, and my experience i

other. Their position reminds me of Alphonse Daudet's immortal creation, Tartarin de Tarascon, with a double nature, partly that of Don Quixote and partly of Sancho Panza, at one moment urged o

administration of the country have found themselves by the force of circumstances, even against their will, driven to apply popular principles of government in order that they may secure fairness and efficiency, and my contention that th

e of the ill-fated Round Table Conference, which Sir William Harcourt convened, Mr. Chamberlain committed himself to the expediency of establishing some form of legislative authority in Dublin, and admitted that such a body should be allowed to organise the form of Executive Government on whatever lines it thought fit, and Sir West Ridgeway, as Under Secretary, sub

nties of Donegal, Tyrone, Monaghan, [163]Fermanagh, and Cavan there are more Catholics than Protestants, while in the Counties of Armagh and Down the numbers of the two creeds are almost equally divided.

of Tenant Right had an immense effect on the economic status of the province. Under it the system of tenure which held the field in the other three provinces was replaced by one in which the tenants had security against arbitrary eviction so long as they paid their rents, and, in addition, were entitled to sell their interest in the property to t

where improvements are effected in nearly every case not by the tenant but by the landlor

s are entitled to statutory compensation for improvements, whether permanent, as, for example, bui

he richer classes was removed. The non-application in the more purely Protestant parts of Ulster of the principles which held the field in other parts of Ireland made for prosperity in that province by tending towards an economic condition of the labour market, unimpeded by artificial restrictions, arising from religious differences and imposed at the hands of employers of labour. Another factor in the contentment of the Ulster Presbyterians under the varying vicissitudes of Irish government is to be found in the history of the Regium Donum. The Scottish settlers in 1610 having brought with them their ministers, the [165]latter were put in possession of the tithes of the parishes in which they were planted. These they enjoyed till the death of Charles I., but payments were stopped on their refusal to recognise the Commonwealth. Henry Cromwell, however, allowed the body ￡100, which Charles II. increased to ￡600, per annum, but towards the end of his reign, and during that of James II., it was discontinued. William III. renewed the grant, increasing it to ￡1,200, and it was still further augmented in 1785 and 1792. After the Union Castlereagh largely increased the amount of the Regium Donum, and completely altered its mode of distribution, making it in fact contingent on the loyalty

restrictions were placed on the production of Irish linen for the better encouragement of the English trade, the North of Ireland was far ahead of the rest of the cou

was responsible, apart from all other causes, for the progress of Belfast is an attitude similar to that of one who should hold that nothing but the stupidity of the East Anglian yokel has prevented that country from becoming as much a centre of industry as is Lancashire, for such a sweeping generalisation would take

rmation of Belfast Lough have, moreover, a great bearing on its prosperity. Independence of Irish railways with their excessive freights, crippling by their incidence all export trade, in a town like Belfast, nine-tenths [167]of the industrial output of which goes across the sea, and the adv

at a time which might otherwise have proved a critical period in her industrial career, by the fact that the American Civil War caused a slump in cotton which resulted in the failure of a very large number

mentioned serve to show the unwarrantable nature of the assumption which accounts for the prosperity of North-East Ulster by considerations of race and religion alone. That several generations of progress in the industrial field have had a great effect on the character of the people of Belfast in respect of thrift, energy, and industry I am not concerned to deny, but on what ground in this light is to be explained the decrease in population

kwardness, in the case of Finland the convulsions of a bitter political agitati

have been in the van of progress. That they have never produced a great leader of men or framer of policy is a remarkable fact, and to every demand of their fellow-countrymen

the settlement of the University question. Their attitude to the Land Conference we have seen elsewhere, and in view of this recor

es also the manner in which in 1886 they threatened armed resistance if the Bill to which they were opposed was carried. That they submitted to the Church Act without

mplished so completely that it is difficult for Englishmen to realise the extent

collector in Ballinasloe did not receive the appointment to a post for which he applied, and the dem

but no Catholic has ever yet been allowed to fill either of these exalted offices. Of the 173 Irish peers only 14 (including Viscount Taafe of Austria) are Catholics, and the 28 representative peers in the House of Lords are all free from the taint of the religion of the Irish people, and powerful to drive opinion against it. Out of 60 Privy Councillors in Ireland 4 only are Catholics, and 3 out of 17 judges. Eleven out of the 60 Sub-Commissioners are Catholics; 7 out of the 21 County Court Judges. The head of the police is a Protestant. One only of the 36 County Inspectors is a Catholic. Of 170 Dis

urge, and in this connection an amazing article, which I remember reading in an English paper, is of interest. The writer, a Unionist from Ulster, strove to show the manner in which the influence of the Vatican was making itself felt in English politics by pointing to the number of Catholics-mostly Irishmen-who held hig

factors, which are present in Dublin, where the Establishment is Unionism with Dublin Castle as its cathedral. Social ambition, anxiety for preferment or for an entree into society, are all at work to bring it to pass that a large amount of wealth and influence are ranged on the side of the Union. It is a damaging indictment which has been drawn up against the Irish landlords by Mr. T.W. Russell in his recent book, where he declares of this class, with which he fought side by side against the two Home Rule Bills, that he has come to the conclusion, slowly but surely, "tha

the part of a grief-stricken widow had aroused throughout Great Britain. The associations connected with the Crown in Ireland are not many. From the day on which Dutch William beat English James at the Boyne in circumstances not calculated to arouse the enthusiasm of Irish Catholics for either the lawful king or the usurper, no Sovereign set foot in Ireland till George IV. visited the country in 1824. The main function of Ireland as regards the monarchs of that time was that its pension list served to provide for the maintenance of Royal favourites as to whose income they wished no questions to be asked. Curran thundered against the Irish pension list as "containing every variety of person, from the excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney to the base situation of a lady who humbleth herself that she

longest reign in English history lends point to a [173]question asked by Mr. James Bryce in a book published more than twenty years ago-Why has the most obvious service a monarch can render been so strangely neglected? When the present King visited the South of Ireland as Prince of Wales in 1885, at a time w

imes and the Unionist Press in general, for several days with a text upon which they hung their leading articles in the exploitation of their favourite theme, but no attention has been drawn in these quarters to the periodical threat of Orange exponents of a contingent loyalty to "throw the Crown into the Boyne" as a protest against the various assaults which have been ma

hich the law exacts from the Sovereign at his accession, that the popular welcome accorded to his Majesty, on the part of individuals, [174]shoul

hich the Sovereign is head; and it must not be forgotten in this connection that, if the Sovereign is neutral, his representative in Ireland is a strong party man, and that the tendency which his Majesty has so strongly deprecated in England on

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