Ireland and the Home Rule Movement

have no pity for th

UND

that we regard all Unionist reforms, whether from Liberal or Conservative Governments, as instalments of conscience money, in regard to which, granting our premises, it would be sheer affectation to express surprise or to feign disgust at the lack of effusive gratitude with which we receive them. "Give us back our ancient liberties" has been the cry of the Irish people ever since George III. gave his assent to the Act of Union. The ties of sentiment which bind her colonies so closely to Great B

the opinion of the nation itself. To decide whether they are well governed or not is for those who live under that government." If the Times were to apply the wisdom of these words to the situation in Ireland instead of screaming "Separati

untrymen in the parts I have named is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe. I believe that these people are made as we ar

Home Rule Bill of 1886, Sir Robert Hamilton was retired, and in his stead Sir Redvers Buller was sent to rule Ireland manu militari. This officer, on being examined by Lord Cowper's Commission, expressed [225]his opinion that the National League had been the tenants' best, if not their only, friend. "You have got," he said, "a very ignorant, poor people, and the law should look after them, instead of which it has only looked after the rich." To ho

laws of tenure, failed to put an end to Irish disaffection. Mr. Gladstone thought in 1870 that the Irish problem was solved. Complicated as the question has been in its various aspects-religious, racial, economic, and agrarian-our demands have too often and too long been met in the spirit of the Levite who passed by on the other side, until violence has forced tardy redress, acquiesced in with reluctance. If the action of Wellington and Peel was pusillanimous in granting Emancipation, for the express purpose of resisting which the

vernment on this very issue with the aid of the Irish vote. The manner in which both English parties have eaten their words is warranted to inculcate political cynicism. If in 1881 the Liberals are declared to have jettisoned their principles and to

ve to the exclusion of the beneficent side of government, and how ready they have been to make the government not one of opinion, as in their own country, but one of fo

ed her legal system, England superseded it and took steps to rule by a code outside the Common Law, so that respect was, therefore, asked for legal institutions which, on her own showing, and by her own admissions, had [227]proved inadequate.

law. Trial by jury was suspended and the common right of freedom of speech was infringed. In 1901 no less than ten Members of Parliament were imprisoned under

chosen perfectly freely. The suspension of the most cherished Common Law rights of the subject from Habeas Corpus downwards has been the inevitable result of a failure to apply democratic pri

that the Irish militia are drafted out of the country for their training, that no citizen army of volunteers is permitted, and the desire of one faction to preser

a dagger." So long as the Government sate on the safety valve, so long did periodic explosions of revolutionary resentment arise, and one must appreciate the fact that in a country so devoutly Catholic as is Ireland the natural conservatism which a

ice in a contemptible struggle." No one can accuse Burke-the apostle of constitutionalism, the arch-enemy of the French

rful have had their day, and can one deny that the attempt to govern Ireland in the sole interests of a minority has made Ireland what it is. An unbiased French observer three-quarters of a century ago declared that the cause of Irish distress was its mauvaise aristocratic. It was the interest of this class, as they themselves admit, which was allowed to dominate the policy of the [229]Unionist Party, and to effect this, force was the only available instrument. With the recognition of the fact that the possession of property is no guarantee of intelli

ime when the landed interest was supreme in these islands. Their power was first assailed by the Ballot Act of 1873, and the Corrupt Practices Act of 1884 did much to put a term to a form of intimidation at which Tories did not hold

dministration of the Land Act, under the secret instructions issued by Dublin Castle, was such as to cripple the Estates Commissioners in their application of its provisions. The proposals as to the settlement of the University question were nipped in the bud

England; but in spite of this, so far, neither British party has advanced one step in the direction of a permanent solution, pleading as excuse that the fear of strengthening the hands of the priests blocks the way, albeit a university under predominatingly lay cont

tant. If Oxford and Cambridge had been founded by foreign Catholics for the express purpose of destroying the Protestant religion in England, a thirt

the public offices in Ireland, the reply is made that the number of members of that Church with high educational qualifications is small; when demands are made for facilities for higher education, the relucta

way in regard to the University question the old error which for so long obstructed the land question is at work-mean the error of denying reform for

ears of Conservative rule the permanent officials were so steeped in the methods of Toryism their habits were to such a degree tinged and coloured by its policy, that there was the greatest possible difficulty in making the necessary alterations. In the case o

that the Irish volcanoes are not yet extinct, and that the history of reform is such as to show the value of violence on the failure of peaceful persuasion-a feature the most lamentable in Irish politics; and in this connection let it never be forgotten that "the warnings of Irish members," as Mr

s continued so to do for more than twenty years. One would have thought that she would have applied the rigour of her theories and put an end to this travesty by which she has conceded the letter of democracy-a phantom privilege which she has rendered nugatory. It was the impossibility of ignoring the constitutional

s on our side; but one has to count the cost in the material damage to us, and in the moral damage to Great Britain, in the ultimate concession, perhaps under duress, of so much which has repeatedly been refused. [233]Ever since, in 1881, Mr. Gladstone "banished to Saturn the laws of political economy," strong measures of State socialism have been enacted by both parties. It is not for nothing that the tenants in the West find themselves to-day paying less than half for their holding

d when Englishmen appreciate to how small an extent the Union has enured to the advantage of Ireland, they will understand the feelings which actuate the desire for self-government. Is there anything which makes Englishmen believe that the extension of Land Purchase or the foundation of a university will make for a pe

ase of the Encumbered Estates Act, or she may grant concessions piecemeal, and the minority which thereby she mai

-"You will put to Irish Protestants the choice between apostacy and expatriation, and every man among them who has money or position, when he sees his C

he pages of Hansard are grey with unfulfilled forebodings as to what would be the effect of the extension of the Franchise and of the grant of popular Local Government. The results of the former

at first scouted and finally surrendered. And withal, English statesmen have not killed Home Rule with kindness. "

2

O

s. L'Irlande Cont

Randolph Churchill

e Contempora

rd, Augus

, Septemb

, August

., March

., April

, Februar

lanricarde estate have expressed their readiness to clear out of the evicted lands and to accept re-settlement elsewhere. The Lords' amendments will in

oirs," Series I.,

ies II., p. 217

ies II., Vol. I

ard, Febr

Irishman,

lph Churchill," Vol. II.

ard, May

ndolph Churchill," Vo

ies I., Vol. II., p.

hately," Vol. I

lph Churchill," Vol. II.

Gladstone," Vol. II., B

ard, Marc

s, Januar

rd Green, Independen

d and the Em

sard, Ma

Gladstone," Vol. II., B

2

DE

ill, when at an early date it comes into force, repeal the Tobacco Cultivation Act, 1831, which forbade the growth of tobacco in Ireland. Und

town in Meath, Tagoat in Wexford, and Tullamore in King's County, and in addition Lord Dunraven and Col.

2

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-W.L. Courtney (

Opinions of M

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2

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