DA 953 
 .1886 
 .G5 
 Copy 1 
 
 Price Ten Cents. 
 
 The Irish 
 Question 
 
 I. HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 II. LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 By the T{ight Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, 
 
 M.P. FOR MIDLOTHIAN. 
 
 
 
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 1886. 
 
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THE 
 
 IRISH QUESTION 
 
 L-HISTORY OF AN IDEA 
 H.-LESSONS OF THE ELECTION 
 
 EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE 
 
 M.P. FOR. MIDLOTHIAN 
 
 " When the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, 
 because the harvest is come."— St. Mark iv. 29 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1886 
 
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 <u^- 
 
 
 TROWS 
 
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 NEW YORK. 
 
THE IRISH QUESTION. 
 
 L— HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 In the year 1868, I was closely associated with the 
 policy of disestablishing the Irish Church. It was 
 then, not unfairly, attempted to assail the cause in 
 the person of its advocate. To defeat this attempt, 
 an act became necessary which would otherwise have 
 been presumptuous and obtrusive. In order to save 
 the policy from suffering, I laid a personal explana- 
 tion before the world.* The same motive now obliges 
 me to repeat the act, and will I hope form a sufficient 
 excuse for my repeating it. 
 
 The substance of my defence or apology will, how- 
 ever, on the present occasion be altogether different. 
 I had then to explain the reasons for which, and the 
 mode in which, I changed the opinions and conduct, 
 with respect to the Church of Ireland then estab- 
 lished, which I had held half a century ago. I had 
 shown my practical acceptance of the rule that change 
 of opinion should if possible be accompanied with 
 
 * ' A Chapter of Autobiography,' Murray, 1868. 
 
4 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 proof of independence and disinterested motive; for 
 I had resigned my place in the Cabinet of Sir Robert 
 Peel in order to make good my title to a new point 
 of departure. On the present occasion, I have no 
 such change to vindicate ; but only to point out the 
 mode in which my language and conduct, governed 
 by uniformity of principle, have simply followed the 
 several stages, by which the great question of auton- 
 omy for Ireland has been brought to a state of ripe- 
 ness for practical legislation. 
 
 It is a satisfaction to me that, in confuting imputa- 
 tions upon myself, I shall not be obliged to cast im- 
 putations on any individual opponent. 
 
 The subject of a domestic Government for Ireland, 
 without any distinct specification of its form, has been 
 presented to us from time to time within the last fif- 
 teen or sixteen years. I have at no time regarded it 
 as necessarily replete with danger, or as a question 
 which ought to be blocked out by the assertion of 
 some high constitutional doctrine with which it could 
 not be reconciled. But I have considered it to be a 
 question involving such an amount and such a kind 
 of change, and likely to be encountered.with so much 
 of prejudice apart from reason, as to make it a duty 
 to look rigidly to the conditions, upon the fulfilment 
 of which alone it could warrantably be entertained., 
 They were in my view as follows : — 
 
 1. It could not be entertained, except upon a final 
 surrender of the hope that Parliament could so far 
 serve as a legislative instrument for Ireland, as 
 to be able to establish honourable and friendly re- 
 
HISTORY OF AT* IDEA. 
 
 lations between Great Britain and the people of that 
 country.* 
 
 2. Nor unless the demand for it were made in 
 obedience to the unequivocal and rooted desire of 
 Ireland, expressed through the constitutional medium 
 of the Irish representatives. 
 
 3. Nor unless, being thus made, it were likewise 
 so defined, as to bring it within the limits of safety 
 and prudence, and to obviate all danger to the unity 
 and security of the Empire. 
 
 4. Nor was it, in my view, allowable to deal with 
 Ireland upon any principle, the benefit of which 
 could not be allowed to Scotland in circumstances of 
 equal and equally clear desire. 
 
 5. Upon the fulfilment of these conditions, it ap- 
 peared to me an evident duty to avoid, as long as 
 possible, all steps which would bring this great 
 settlement into the category of party measures. 
 
 6. And, subject to the foregoing considerations, I 
 deemed it to be of great moment to the public weal 
 that the question should be promptly and expedi- 
 tiously dealt with ; inasmuch as it must otherwise 
 gravely disturb the action of our political system by 
 changes of Ministry^ by Dissolutions of Parliament, 
 and by impeding the business, and derogating 
 further from the character^ of the House of Com- 
 mons. 
 
 These were the principles, which I deemed ap- 
 
 * I have not in the following pages given explanations on this 
 head, as I think they were sufficiently supplied by my speech on 
 the introduction of the Irish Government Bill in April last. 
 
6 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 plicable to the subject ; and every step I have taken 
 from first to last, without exception, has been 
 prompted by, and is referable to, one or other of 
 them. 
 
 From the torrent of reproachful criticisms, 
 brought down upon me probably by the necessity 
 of the case, it is not easy to extricate, in an adequate 
 form, the charge or charges intended to be made. 
 One or two of the statements I must own surprise 
 me ; as for example when Lord Northbrook, com- 
 plaining of me for reticence before, and for my 
 action after, the election of 1885, states confidently 
 that nothing had happened " that could not have 
 been foreseen by any man of ordinary political fore- 
 sight." I do not dwell upon the undeniable truth 
 that many things may be foreseen, which, notwith- 
 standing, cannot properly become the subject of 
 action until they have been seen as well as foreseen. 
 But I broadly contest the statement. I assert that 
 an incident of the most vital importance had hap- 
 pened, which I did not foresee ; which was not 
 foreseen, to my knowledge, by any one else, even if 
 some might have hoped for it ; and which I doubt 
 whether Lord Northbrook himself foresaw ; namely, 
 that the Irish demand, put forth on the first night 
 of the Session by Mr. Parnell, with eighty-four Irish 
 Home Iiulers at his back, would be confined within 
 the fair and moderate bounds of autonomy ; of an 
 Irish legislature, only for affairs specifically Irish ; of 
 a statutory and subordinate Parliament. But in this 
 incident lay the fulfilment of one of those conditions 
 
HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 7 
 
 which were in my view essential, and which had 
 been theretofore unfulfilled. 
 
 The more general and more plausible form of the 
 attack I think may be stated as a dilemma. Either 
 I had conceived the intention of Home Rule precipi- 
 tately, or I had concealed it unduly. Either would, 
 undoubtedly, have been a grave offence ; the second 
 as a plot against my friends, the first as an attempt 
 to escape from the sober judgment of the country, 
 and to carry it by surprise. The first aspect of the 
 case was presented by Lord Iiartington in the House 
 of Commons,* and by Mr. Chamberlain, on the. 20th 
 of June, at Birmingham.f The second was put for- 
 ward by Mr. Bright, in addressing his constituents,^ 
 and, with much point and force, by Lord Iiarting- 
 ton § at Sheffield. In substance he argued thus : 
 "Mr. Gladstone has never, during fifteen years, con- 
 demned the principal of Home Rule. Either then, 
 he had not considered it, or he had assented to it. 
 But, in his position as Minister, he must have con- 
 sidered it. Therefore the proper conclusion is, that 
 he had assented to it. And yet, though I was Secre- 
 tary for Ireland, with Lord Spencer as Viceroy, when 
 he was Prime Minister, to neither of us did he con- 
 vey the smallest idea of such assent." 
 
 Telling as this statement evidently was, it abounds 
 in leakages. In the first place, l deny that it is the 
 duty of every Minister to make known, even to his 
 colleagues, every idea winch has "formed itself in his 
 
 * < Times,' May 11. f * Times,' July 2. 
 
 % ' Times,' June 21. § ' Times,' June 29. 
 
8 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 mind. I should even say that the contradictory 
 proposition would be absurd. So far as my experi- 
 ence of Government has gone, subjects ripe for action 
 supply a Minister with abundant material for com- 
 munication with his colleagues, and to make a rule of 
 mixing with them matters still contingent and remote, 
 would confuse and retard business, instead of aiding 
 it. But letting pass, for argument's sake, a very irra- 
 tional proposition, I grapple with the dilemma, and 
 say non sequitur : the consequence asserted is no 
 consequence at all. It was no consequence from my 
 not having condemned Home Rule, that I had either 
 not considered it, or had adopted it. What is true 
 is, that I had not publicly and in principle condemned 
 it, and also that I had mentally considered it. But 
 I had neither adopted nor rejected it ; and for the 
 very simple reason, that it was not ripe either for 
 adoption or rejection. It had not become the un- 
 equivocal demand of Ireland : and it had not been 
 so defined by its promoters, as to prove that it was a 
 safe demand. It may and should be known to many 
 who are or have been my colleagues, that I made 
 some abortive efforts towards increasing Irish influ- 
 ence over Irish affairs, beyond the mere extension of 
 County Government, but not in a shape to which the 
 term Home Rule could be properly applied. Nor 
 have I been able to trace a single imputation upon 
 me, whether of omission or commission, in respect 
 of which I should not, by acting according to the 
 orders of my censors, have offended against all or 
 some of the rules, which I have pointed out as the 
 
HISTORY OF ATT IDEA. 9 
 
 guides of my conduct, and by which I seek to stand 
 or fall.* 
 
 As these disputes of ours, trivial enough from one 
 point of view, are in a certain sense making history, 
 it may be well if, in connection with the thread of 
 these observations, I recall, by means of a very brief 
 outline, some particulars relating to the Government 
 of Ireland, and to the demand for a domestic legisla- 
 ture, during the last half century. For that demand, 
 constant in the hearts of Irishmen, has nevertheless 
 been intermittent in its manifestation ; sometimes 
 wider, sometimes narrower in its form ; sometimes, 
 as in the famine, put aside by imperative necessity ; 
 sometimes yielding the ground to partial and lawless 
 action ; sometimes exchanged for attempts at practical 
 legislation, which for the moment threw it into the 
 shade. 
 
 The great controversy of Free Trade, the refor- 
 mation of the Tariff, and the care of finance, pro- 
 vided me, in common with many others, nay, in 
 the main provided the Three Kingdoms, with a 
 serious and usually an absorbing political occupation 
 for a quarter of a century, from the time when the 
 Government of Sir It. Peel was formed in 1841. 
 When that period had passed, and when the question 
 of the franchise had been dealt with, the general 
 
 * Among other persons whose animadversions I have examined, 
 I may mention those of Mr. Goschen (' Times,' May 1 and 3), 
 Lord Salisbury (' Times,' June 14 and 30), Mr. Baxter (' Times,' 
 May 1), Sir M. H. Beach ( k Times,' June 24), Lord R. Churchill 
 ('Times,' June 28), and Lord Hartington, passim. 
 
10 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 condition of Ireland became the mam subject of my 
 anxiety. 
 
 The question of a home-government for Ireland 
 was at that time in abeyance. The grant of such a 
 government to that country had only been known to 
 us, in the past, either as the demand for a repeal of 
 the Legislative Union, or in the still more formid- 
 able shape, which it presented when the policy of 
 O'Connell was superseded by the men of action, and 
 when the too just discontent of Ireland assumed the 
 violent and extravagant form of Fenianism. The 
 movement for Repeal appeared to merge into this 
 dangerous conspiracy, which it was obvious could 
 only be met by measures of repression. 
 
 In none of these controversies had I personally 
 taken any direct share, beyond following the states- 
 men of 1834 and of 1844 by my vote against Eepeal 
 of the Union. Mournfully as I am struck, in retro- 
 spect, by the almost absolute failure of Parliament, 
 at and long after those periods, to perform its duties 
 to Ireland, I see no reason to repent of any such 
 vote. Unspeakably criminal, 1 own, were the means 
 by which the Union was brought about, and utterly 
 insufficient were the reasons for its adoption ; still 
 it was a measure vast in itself and in its consequential 
 arrangements, and it could not be made the subject 
 of experiment from year to year, or from Parliament 
 to Parliament. There was then a yet stronger reason 
 for declining to impart a shock to the Legislative 
 fabric by Repeal. Before us lay an alternative pol- 
 icy, the relief of Ireland from grievance ; and this 
 
HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 11 
 
 policy had not been tried in any manner at all ap- 
 proaching to sufficiency. It was not possible, at the 
 time, to prognosticate how in a short time Parlia- 
 ment would stumble and almost writhe under its 
 constantly accumulating burdens, or to pronounce 
 that it would eventually prove incapable of meeting 
 the wants of Ireland. Evidently there was a period 
 when Irish patriotism, as represented b}^ O'Connell, 
 looked favourably upon this alternative policy, had 
 no fixed conclusion as to the absolute necessity for 
 Home Government, and seemed to allow that meas- 
 ures founded in "justice to Ireland" might possibly 
 suffice to meet the necessity of the case. But the 
 efforts made in this direction, down to the time of 
 the famine, were, though honest and useful, only 
 partial ; and they unhappily had been met by an ob- 
 stinacy of resistance, which entailed long delays, 
 and frequent mutilations ; and which in all cases de- 
 prived them of their gracious aspect, and made even 
 our remedial plans play the part of corroborative 
 witnesses to an evil state of tilings. 
 
 It will be admitted that the Government of 
 1868-74 endeavoured on a more adequate scale, 
 principally by what is still called in some quarters 
 sacrilege and confiscation, to grapple with an invet- 
 erate difficulty. Once more, in acknowledgment of 
 these efforts, the National Party fell into line. But, 
 on the important question of Education, we were de- 
 feated in 1873, not by an English, but by an Irish 
 resistance. Other measures, to which I had looked 
 with interest, could not be brought to birth. But a 
 
12 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 happy effect had been produced upon Irish feeling; 
 and prosperity, both agricultural and general, singu- 
 larly, it might be said unduly, favoured for some 
 years the operation of the Land Act of 1870. We 
 had taken seriously to the removal of grievance, as 
 the alternative policy to Repeal of the Union. So 
 much had been achieved, with the zealous support of 
 the electorate of England and Scotland, that it was 
 our plain duty to carry through that policy to the 
 uttermost, and to give no countenance in any shape 
 to proposals for either undoing or modifying the 
 present constitution of the Imperial Parliament, un- 
 til it had been established to our satisfaction, or con- 
 clusively shown to be the fixed and rooted conviction 
 of the Irish people, that Parliament was unequal to 
 the work of governing Ireland as a free people 
 should be governed. 
 
 At this time it was, that the new formula of 
 Home Pule came forward as matter for discussion, 
 not in Parliament, but in Ireland ; before the Irish 
 public, and under the auspices of Mr. Isaac Butt, who 
 was at that time simply an individual of remarkable 
 ability, not yet the representative or leader of a 
 Nationalist party, far less of a Nationalist majority. 
 There were, at the time, no inconsiderable presump- 
 tions that Parliament could meet the wants of Ire- 
 land, from the conspicuous acts it had just accom- 
 plished. It was very well known that in some cases 
 where those wants had not been adequately met, such 
 as the case of the Borough Franchise in 1868, it was 
 really due to the defective expression of them by 
 
niSTOKY OF AN IDEA. 13 
 
 Irish Members of Parliament. It was plain that 
 there was no authoritative voice from Ireland, such 
 as was absolutely required to justify a Prime Minis- 
 ter of this country in using any language which could 
 be quoted as an encouragement to the movement on 
 behalf of a domestic Legislature. Accordingly, I 
 contended at Aberdeen in the summer of 1871, that 
 no case had been established to prove the incom- 
 petence of Parliament, or to give authority to the 
 demand of Mr. Butt. I felt, and rightly felt, the 
 strongest objections to breaking up an existing con- 
 stitution of the Legislature, without proof of its 
 necessity, of its safety, and of the sufficiency of the 
 authority by which the demand was made. But 
 even at that time I did not close the door against a 
 recognition of the question in a different state of 
 things. I differed as widely as possible, even at that 
 time, from those with whom I have been in conflict 
 during the present year. For, instead of denounc- 
 ing the idea of Home Pule as one in its essence 
 destructive of the unity of the Empire, in the fol- 
 lowing words I accepted the assurance given to the 
 contrary : 
 
 " Let me do the promoters of this movement the full- 
 est justice. Always speaking under the conviction, as 
 they most emphatically declare, and as I fully believe 
 them, that the union of these kingdoms under Her Majesty 
 is to be maintained, but that Parliament is to be broken 
 »*p."* 
 
 * « Times,' Sept. 27, 1871. 
 
14 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 Thus, at the very first inception of the question, I 
 threw aside the main doctrine on which opposition 
 to Irish autonomy is founded. This was the first 
 step, and I think a considerable step, towards placing 
 the controversy on its true basis. 
 
 In the General Election of 1874, a great progress 
 became visible. Mr. Butt was returned to Parlia- 
 ment as the chief 'of a party, formed on behalf of 
 Irish self-government. It w r as a considerable party, 
 amounting, as is said, to a small nominal majority, 
 yet rather conventionally agreed on a formula than 
 united by any idea worked into practical form. But 
 a new stage had been reached, and I thus referred 
 at the opening of the Session * to the proposal of 
 the Irish leader : 
 
 " That plan is this — that exclusively Irish affairs are to 
 be judged in Ireland, and that then the Irish members 
 are to come to the Imperial Parliament and to judge 
 as they may think fit of the general affairs of the Em- 
 pire, and also of affairs exclusively English and Scotch. 
 [Mr. Butt : No, no.] It is all very well for gentlemen 
 to cry " No " when the blot has been hit by the honour- 
 able gentleman opposite " (Mr. Newdegate). . . . 
 
 " I cannot quit this subject without recording the 
 satisfaction with which I heard one declaration made 
 by the right honourable gentleman who seconded the 
 amendment (Mr. Brooks). My honourable and learned 
 friend said, that Ireland has entirely given up the idea 
 of separation from this country." 
 
 * ' Hansard, ' Debate on Address, March 20, 1874. 
 
HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 15 
 
 Thus I again accepted without qualification the 
 principle that Home Rule had no necessary con- 
 nection with separation ; and took my objection 
 simply to a proposal that Irishmen should deal ex- 
 clusively with their own affairs, and also, jointly, 
 with ours. 
 
 After the death of Mr. Butt, Mr. Shaw became 
 the leader of his party, and in 1884 delivered an 
 exposition of his views in a spirit so frank and loyal 
 to the Constitution, that I felt it my duty at once to 
 meet such an utterance in a friendly manner. I 
 could not indeed, consistently with the conditions 1 
 have laid down, make his opinion m}^ own. But 
 I extract a portion of my reference to his speech, as 
 it is reported.'* 
 
 "I must say that the spirit of thorough manliness in 
 which he approaches this question, and which he unites 
 with a spirit of thorough kindliness to us, and with an 
 evident disposition to respect both the functions of this 
 House, and the spirit of the English Constitution, does 
 give hope that if the relations between England and 
 Ireland are to become thoroughly satisfactory, the most 
 important contribution to that' essential end will have 
 been made by my hon. friend, and those who speak 
 like him." 
 
 In a speech at the Guildhall, on receiving an 
 address, I reverted to the subject of Home Rule. 
 This was the period (October, 1881) when I deemed 
 it my duty more than once to denounce in strong 
 
 * ' Hansard,' Feb. 27, 1880, vol. ccl. p. 1587. 
 
16 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 terms the movement against rent in Ireland, and 
 with it the extravagant claims which seemed to me 
 to be made in the name of National Independence. 
 Yet I then spoke as follows : 
 
 "It is not on any point connected with the exercise 
 of local government in Ireland ; it is not even on any 
 point connected with what is popularly known in that 
 country as Home Rule, and which may be understood 
 in any one of a hundred senses, some of them perfectly 
 acceptable, and even desirable, others of them mischiev- 
 ous and revolutionary — it is not upon any of those 
 points that we are at present at issue. With regard to 
 local government in Ireland, after what I have said of 
 local government in general, and its immeasurable 
 benefits .... you will not be surprised if I say 
 that I for one will hail with satisfaction and delight any 
 measure of local government for Ireland, or for any 
 portion of the country, provided only that it conform 
 to this one condition, that it shall not break down or 
 impair the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament."* 
 
 Once more I entered on the subject, in the House 
 of Commons, on February 9, 1882. I referred to 
 the party, led then as now, by Mr. Parnell. The 
 citation is from Hansard : 
 
 "Neither they, nor so far as I know Mr. Butt 
 before them, nor so far as I know Mr. O'Con- 
 nell before him, ever distinctly explained, in an 
 intelligible and practicable form, the manner in 
 
 * 'Times,' Oct. 14, 1881. 
 
HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 17 
 
 which the real knot of this question was to be untied. 
 The principle upon which the hon. members propose 
 to proceed is this — that purely Irish matters should be 
 dealt with by a purely Irish authority, and that purely 
 Imperial matters should be dealt with by an Imperial 
 Chamber in which Ireland is to be represented. But 
 they have not told us by what authority it is to be de- 
 termined what matters, when taken one by one, are 
 Irish, and what matters are Imperial. Until, Sir, they 
 lay before this House a plan in which they go to the 
 very bottom of that subject, and give us to understand 
 in what manner that division of jurisdiction is to be 
 accomplished, the practical consideration of this sub- 
 ject cannot really be arrived at, and, for my own part, 
 I know not how any effective judgment upon it can be 
 pronounced. Whatever may be the outcome of the 
 hon. member's proposal, of this I am well convinced, 
 that neither this House of Commons, nor any other 
 that may succeed it, will at any time assent to any 
 measure by which the one paramount Central Authority, 
 necessary for holding together in perfect union and 
 compactness this great Empire, can possibly be either 
 in the greatest or the slightest degree impaired. We 
 are not to depart from that principle ; and what I put 
 to the hon. gentleman who has just sat down, and to 
 the hon. member who preceded him is this — that their 
 first duty to us and their first duty to themselves, their 
 first obligation in the prosecution of the purpose which 
 they have in view — namely, the purpose of securing the 
 management of purely Irish affairs by Irish hands — is 
 to point out to us by what authority, and by what in- 
 strument, affairs purely Irish are to be divided and dis- 
 tinguished, in order that they may be appropriately and 
 
18 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 separately dealt with from those Imperial affairs and 
 interests which they have frankly admitted must remain 
 in the hands of the Imperial Parliament. 
 
 Mr. Pinnkett hereupon stated that he had taken 
 down my words, and that he could only understand 
 them as an invitation to Irish members to re-open 
 the question of Home Rule. Nor did he see how I 
 could after using such words resist a motion for a 
 Committee on the subject.* To any and every plan 
 for referring such a subject to a Committee of Parlia- 
 ment I have at all times been opposed. But Mr. 
 Plunkett's meaning was evident, nor could I dispute 
 the substance of his interpretation. 
 
 I will not weary my reader by adding to citations 
 by which his patience has already been so severely 
 tried. But I ask him to remember that down to 
 this time no safe-guarding definition of Home Rule 
 had been supplied, and no demand, in the constitu- 
 tional sense, had been made by the Irish nation. I 
 beg him then, after he has read the foregoing dec- 
 larations, to place himself for a single moment in 
 my position, as one who thought conditions to be 
 indispensable, but also thought that the question 
 might under conditions be entertained, and then to 
 ask himself whether it was possible more carefully 
 
 * The ' Times ' of January 8, 1882, states that in my speech, 
 as Prime Minister, I "diverged, amid general amazement," into 
 the question of a separate Legislature, and supporting Mr. Plun- 
 kett, said that the language which I used was " susceptible of an 
 interpretation which, we fear, may do infinite and irreparable 
 mischief. " 
 
HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 19 
 
 to indicate in outline the limits within which the 
 subject of Irish self-government might, and beyond 
 which it might not, legitimately be considered, and 
 whether it is anything less than absurd to impute to 
 me * that my " principles " forbade me to promote it ? 
 I next pass to the period preceding the election of 
 1885. It had now become morally certain that 
 Ireland would, through a vast majority of her repre- 
 sentatives, present a demand in the National sense. 
 But no light had been thrown, to my knowledge, 
 upon the question what that demand would be. 
 Further, not only was there a Tory Government in 
 office, but one which owed much to Mr. Parnell, and 
 which was supposed to have given him, through its 
 Lord Lieutenant or otherwise, assurances respecting 
 Irish Government, which he had deemed more or less 
 satisfactory. Under these circumstances, I conceived 
 that my duty was clear, and that it was summed up 
 in certain particulars. They were these. To do 
 nothing to hinder the prosecution of the question by 
 the Tory Government if it should continue in office 
 (of course without prejudice to my making all the 
 efforts in my power to procure a Liberal majority). 
 Entirely to avoid any language which would place 
 the question in the category of party measures. But 
 to use my best efforts to impress the public mind, 
 and especially the Liberal mind, with the supreme 
 importance, and the probable urgency, of the question. 
 And lastly, to lay down the principle on which it 
 should be dealt with. These rules of action applied 
 
 * Sir M. Beach at Bristol ('Times,' June 24, 1885). 
 
20 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 to the circumstances of the hour those governing 
 principles which 1 have above enumerated. I pro- 
 ceeded on them as follows : 
 
 It was impossible for me, while ignorant of the 
 nature and limits of the Irish demand, to give an 
 opinion upon it ; and even had it been possible, it 
 would have been in conflict with the condition which 
 I have numbered (p. 5) as the fifth. But, to give 
 emphasis to the importance of the question, I severed 
 it in my Address from the general subject of Local 
 Government for the three kingdoms. Ireland had 
 arrived, I said, at an important epoch in her history; * 
 she had claims to a special interpretation of the prin- 
 ciples of Local Government.! It would be the solu- 
 tion of a problem, testing the political genius of these 
 nations.;): Woe be to the man who should prevent or 
 retard the consummation^ It would probably throw 
 into the shade all the important measures, which in 
 my Address I had set out as ripe for action. || And 
 the subject is one " which goes down to the very 
 roots and foundations of our whole civil and political 
 constitution. "^ And yet it has been said, strangely 
 enough, that I gave no indication to my friends, 
 except of Local Government in the sense of County 
 Government for Ireland.** 
 
 * Address of Sept. 17, 1885, p. 20. 
 
 t Ibid. 21. % Ibid. § Ibid. p. 22. 
 
 || First Midlotbian Speech, Nov. 9, 1885, Speeches, p. 44. 
 1 Ibid. 
 
 *'* Iu the speech just quoted, I also said that for a Government 
 
 •in a minority to deal with the Irish question would not be safe. 
 
 Certainly such an operation could not but be attended with 
 
HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 21 
 
 Lastly I laid down, over and over again, the prin- 
 ciple on which we ought to proceed. It was to give 
 to Ireland everything which was compatible with 
 " the Supremacy of the Crown, the Unity of the 
 Empire, and all the authority of Parliament neces- 
 sary for the conservation of that Unity." * 
 
 It appears to me that the whole of the provisions 
 of the Irish Government Bill, lately buried, but per- 
 haps not altogether dead, lies well within these lines, 
 and that my case thus far is complete. 
 
 What I have in these pages urged has been a de- 
 fence against a charge of reticence. On the charge 
 of precipitancy I need not bestow many words. 
 What antagonists call precipitancy, I call prompti- 
 tude. Had Mr. Pitt in 1801 carried Roman Catholic 
 Emancipation, as we suppose he wished, many an 
 Englishman would have thought him precipitate. 
 Precipitancy indeed was avoided, but at what cost ? 
 For' ni ne-and- twenty years the question was trifled 
 with on one side the Channel, and left festering on 
 the other, and emancipation was at last accepted as 
 an alternative to civil war. Such is not the manner 
 in which I desire to see the business of the Empire 
 carried on. It w T as not pondering the case ; it was 
 paltering with the public interests. I do not deny 
 that promptitude is disagreeable in politics, as it 
 
 danger; but that I thought it might nevertheless be properly 
 undertaken is demonstrated by the tender of my support in it to 
 Lord Salisbury, conveyed after the Election through Mr. Bal- 
 four, although the Ministerial party scarcely reached 250. 
 * Address, p. 21. 
 
22 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 often is to a doctor's or a surgeon's patient. But if 
 the practitioner sees that, bj every day's delay, the 
 malady takes hold and the chances of health or life 
 are dwindling away, it is his duty to press the opera- 
 tion or the drug, and the sufferer will in due time be 
 grateful to him for the courage and fidelity, which at 
 first he mistakenly condemned. 
 
 I have endeavoured to point out the conditions, 
 under which alone the question of a statutory Par- 
 liament for Ireland could be warrantably entertained. 
 The real test may be stated in one word : the ripe- 
 ness or unripeness of the question. All men do not 
 perceive, all men do not appreciate, ripeness, with 
 the same degree of readiness or aptitude ; and the 
 slow must ever suffer inconvenience in the race of 
 life. But, when the subject once was ripe, the time 
 for action had come. Just as if it had been a corn- 
 field, we were not to wait till it was over-ripe. The 
 healing of inveterate sores would only become more 
 difficult, the growth of budding hopes more liable 
 to be checked and paralysed by the frosts of politics. 
 For England, in her soft arm-chair, a leisurely, very 
 leisurely consideration, with adjournments inter- 
 posed, as it had been usual, so also would have been 
 comfortable. But for Ireland, in her leaky cabin, it 
 was of consequence to stop out the weather. To 
 miss the opportunity would have been not less 
 clearly wrong, than to refuse waiting until it came. 
 The first political juncture which made action per- 
 missible, also made it obligatory. 
 
 So much, then, for precipitancy. 
 
II.— LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 I.- Lessons of the Election as they regard the 
 Liberal Party. 
 
 ThC satisfactory adjustment of the Irish question 
 will now, I apprehend, be the supreme object of 
 every member of the Liberal party who has em- 
 braced its prevailing sentiment at the present crisis. 
 I shall, therefore, principally seek to draw attention 
 to the bearings of the late Election on that question. 
 
 But I will first endeavour to dispose of an impor- 
 tant, though secondary point. Every Liberal politi- 
 cian will feel a reasonable anxiety to estimate aright 
 both the immediate effects of the Election upon his 
 party, and the lessons which it teaches as to the real 
 strength and eventual prospects of that party ; inas- 
 much as it, and no other, has been, during the last 
 half century, the principal feeder of the political 
 thought of the nation, and the main organ of its 
 activity. In the remarks which follow, I intend no 
 sort of reproach. 
 
 It has this year, unhappily, been divided through- 
 out Great Britain into a main body, and a seceding 
 or dissentient wing, of which the energy has of 
 necessity been developed in directly opposing the 
 candidates who belonged to the main body of the 
 
24 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 party, on the ground of the paramount importance 
 attaching to the Irish question. The result has of 
 course, for the party, been disastrous, as a very large 
 share of its energies have been spent in a suicidal 
 conflict. Out of 292 contests in Great Britain, no 
 less than 114 have been fought between candidates 
 professedly Liberal. Every one of these was for a 
 seat which was essentially Liberal. The result, 
 therefore, does not exhibit nominally a deduction 
 from the total roll of the part} 7 . But there have 
 been, also, contests between Liberals, or Dissentient 
 Liberals, and Tories. Where Tory and Dissentient 
 have fought, the Dissentient has probably suffered 
 from inability to marshal the full Liberal force. In 
 the far more numerous cases, where Tory and Liberal 
 have fought, the Liberal has commonly suffered from 
 the defection of all the Dissentients ; most of these 
 abstaining from the poll, but some, in conformity 
 with the advice of Lord Harrington , and, I ihink of 
 Mr. Chamberlain, actually transferring their votes to 
 the Tory candidate. 
 
 The Liberal party as a whole has been, since the 
 Reform Act, the stronger of the two parties in the 
 constituencies. The measure of its preponderance 
 has sensibly increased with the extension of the fran- 
 chise. From 1834 to 1868, the Tory party was rarely 
 under, and frequently over, 300 strong. In 1841, 
 it gained a majority of eighty in straight fighting. 
 Since the establishment of household suffrage in the 
 towns, it has never had a majority ; except in 1874, 
 when the Home Rule party, finally breaking away 
 
I. THE LIBERAL PARTY. 25 
 
 from the Liberals with whom they most commonly 
 had counted, took definite form as a separate sec- 
 tion of the House of Commons. The majority of 
 Tories, over Liberals alone, then amounted to fifty- 
 nine ; and it was known to be due partly to class 
 interests, cultivated of late years so assiduously by 
 the Tories, but mainly to discontent, and conse- 
 quent slackness and abstention, in the Liberal ranks. 
 In 1868, 1880, and 1885, the Tory strength never 
 approached three hundred, but fell much below its 
 old standard. The Liberal majorities over the 
 Tories, in these Parliaments, averaged nearly one 
 hundred. On the whole it might probably be a 
 fair .though a rough statement of the comparative 
 strength of the two parties in the country, if we 
 were to set down the Liberals as represented, on 
 the average, by four-sevenths, and the Tories by 
 three-sevenths, of the electoral body. 
 
 What, then, was the loss of Liberal strength at 
 the late election in consequence of the schism ? 
 The test previously supplied by voting in the Llouse 
 of Commons is definite so far as it goes. Two 
 hundred and twenty-eight Liberals voted for the 
 Irish Government Bill, and ninety-three against it. 
 This test exhibits the strength of the schism as 
 greatly exceeding one-fourth of the whole. It very 
 slightly exceeds two-sevenths, at which I take it for 
 present purposes. 
 
 It is distributed, however, with very great in- 
 equality among classes. It has hitherto commanded, 
 I fear, not less than five-sixths of the Liberal Peers. 
 
26 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 If we go to the Liberal working men, I do not be- 
 lieve it has touched a fraction higher than one-twen- 
 tieth. But I now refer to independent working men. 
 If we take the portion of the Liberal party, through- 
 out the country, composed of those who may be 
 termed employers, or who are socially in a position 
 to draw with them the votes of others, it w r ould, I 
 fear, be a moderate computation or conjecture that, 
 of this important and leading section of Liberals, 
 four-fifths at least were numbered among the Dissen- 
 tients ; and these drew with them large numbers of 
 dependent, though, I doubt not, as a rule perfectly 
 willing voters. 
 
 Again, the strength of the schism was unequally 
 distributed, as is that of the party, in constituencies 
 as well as in classes. In very many constituencies 
 Liberal and Tory strength are nearly balanced. In 
 these a deduction of one-fifth, or one-tenth, or even 
 less, from the normal strength, transfers the seat as 
 matter of course. It is impossible to estimate with 
 precision the loss of Liberal strength through the 
 schism ; but it must have been greater than either of 
 these fractions would represent. In this ruinous state 
 of facts, the results have been as follows. The party 
 as a whole has been reduced from 333 in the last 
 Parliament to 269, or by less than one-fifth. The 
 Liberals of the main body have been reduced from 
 about 235 to 196, or about one-sixth. The small- 
 ness of the aggregate poll as compared with 1885, 
 even on the Conservative side, is worthy of notice, 
 and appears to show that a fraction of the electors, 
 
I. TITE LIBERAL PARTY. 27 
 
 not inconsiderable, still holds its judgment in sus- 
 pense. 
 
 Again, the total poll in Great Britain was — 
 
 For Liberals . . . 1,344,000 
 
 For Dissentient Liberals . 379,000 
 
 For Tories . . . 1,041,000 
 
 For Tories and Dissentients . 1,420,000 
 
 Thus the Liberals of the main body came within 
 
 70,000, or only four per cent, of the united strength 
 
 of the Tories and the schism. Considering that the 
 
 aggregate party had suffered a loss which cannot be 
 
 taken at less than twenty or thirty per cent., this is 
 
 a remarkable result. 
 
 Nor is there any obvious levity or presumption in 
 saying that, to all appearance, at the first moment 
 when Liberalism is again united, it must again be- 
 come predominant in Parliament. But our antici- 
 pations of its real strength in the future grow more 
 and more confident when we consider how much it 
 is that Toryism, under circumstances of unprece- 
 dented advantage, has been able to achieve. It now 
 reckons 316 members of Parliament. That is to 
 say, as against the rest of the House, it is in a mi- 
 nority of thirty-eight ; and it is less by nineteen than 
 the Liberal numbers returned to the last Parliament. 
 It has failed to win from our shattered and disunited 
 party the same moderate amount of success which 
 we obtained against it in November last, when it 
 had the important accidental advantage of the Irish 
 vote. If, with that advantage, it hardly touched 
 the number of 250, and if it cannot obtain a major- 
 
28 LESSORS OF THE ELECTION". 
 
 ity of the House when Liberalism is divided against 
 itself in a manner unknown for nearly a centmy, 
 the inevitable inference, not demonstrable but very 
 highly probable, seems to be that Toryism can never 
 by its own resources win, under the existing laws, a 
 majority of the House of Commons, unless and until 
 the tendencies and temper of the British nation 
 shall have undergone some novel and considerable 
 change. 
 
 II.— The Lessons of the Election as they 
 regard Ireland. 
 
 There is nothing in the recent defeat to abate the 
 hopes or to modify the anticipations of those who 
 desire to meet the wants and wishes of Ireland. 
 
 Let us look first at the result of the Election as it 
 is exhibited in the total return of members to the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 The Liberal and the Irish supporters of the policy 
 of the late Government, taken together, amount to 
 280. The opponents of that policy are 390, show- 
 ing a majority of 110 — a large number without 
 doubt. It has been bravely stated by the Prime 
 Minister that this is an irrevocable verdict. It is 
 certainly a verdict without any instant appeal. But 
 the authority which gives such verdicts has power to 
 revoke them 2 and is in the practice of revoking 
 them ; and, moreover, has seen and may see them 
 disobeyed by the representatives whom it has em- 
 powered not merely or mainly to repeat a formula, 
 
II. FOR IRELAND. 29 
 
 but to deliberate upon and to follow the exigencies 
 of public affairs. 
 
 In order to estimate truly the value of such ma- 
 jorities, let us refer to recent history ; bearing in 
 mind especially, that the Session of 1886 was the 
 first and only Session, in which the adoption of the 
 policy was clearly and unequivocally demanded by 
 the Irish nation, and the first and only Session, also, 
 in which it had the support of a British party, or 
 a British ministry. 
 
 In 1841, the Election turned mainly on the Corn 
 Law. The proposal to repeal it had been, since the 
 Reform Act of 1832, frequently, and of late almost 
 annually, debated ; and the country had had unusual 
 opportunities of mastering the question, through the 
 energetic action of the Anti-Corn-Law League. 
 Nevertheless, the people returned in 1841 a Parlia- 
 ment which by a majority of ninety-one placed the 
 Conservative party in office to uphold the Corn Law. 
 And, considering that many Whigs, who would not 
 join in ejecting the Whig Government were friendly 
 to the Corn Law, we may state without apprehension 
 that the majority returned to support that law in 
 1841 was even larger than that now returned, in 
 1886, to oppose the Irish policy of the late Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Yet this very Parliament of 1841, by a majority 
 of 98, repealed the Corn Law in 1846. 
 
 There are many elements, beside that of number, 
 which go to determine the prospects of an opinion or 
 a policy. A policy which is affirmative, which is defi- 
 
30 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 nite, which is complete, which rallies its adherents 
 on one and the same ground, has standing advantages 
 over a combination which agrees only in negations, 
 whose ideas advance to-day and recede to-morrow, 
 which proposes no definite settlement, and waits 
 upon the chapter of accidents. Especially is it a 
 mighty advantage to have a nation at our back ; for 
 a nation never dies. In this case we have more even 
 than a nation. Few indeed, so far as I know, of our 
 opponents are bold enough to deny that we have 
 with us, in a degree hard to match, the general 
 opinion of the widely extended British race ; not to 
 say of the civilised world beyond the confines of 
 England, isolated on this occasion alike from her 
 sisters and her children, from her rivals and her 
 allies. 
 
 At the outset of the American Civil War, the 
 friends to the Abolition of Slavery were not even a 
 party ; there were no more than a section or a group. 
 But, because they saw that time and events must 
 needs work with them, they were content to bide 
 their time. It came, and came speedily. In two 
 years, the irrevocable word of freedom was spoken 
 from the lips of authority. We may well be content 
 to bide our time ; for we see that time and events 
 are working, and must work, on our side. 
 
 Nor is this the only solace. What may be termed 
 the pot-valiant language, to which hot and passionate 
 tempers have been occasionally treated, is now heard 
 no more. No longer is the idea of holding Ireland 
 by attachment, instead of holding it by force, illus- 
 
II. FOR IRELAND. 31 
 
 trated by the supposed parallel of an attempt to 
 govern by attachment, -instead of police, the criminal 
 population of London. No more is the proposal of 
 self-government for Ireland compared with a pro- 
 posal of self-government for Hottentots. No more 
 is heard the loud demand for measures of repression, 
 which produced the policy named by the present 
 Leader of the House of Commons the policy of the 
 26th of January. Yet- the agrarian crimes reported 
 by the Constabulary were (inclusive of threatening 
 letters) in the 62 days of December and January, 
 185 ; in the 61 days of June and July, 19-1 ; and, 
 while in two years preceding there was but one 
 agBtrian murder, in the twelve latest months there 
 have been ten. 
 
 What is weightier still, no more do we hear of 
 the famous twenty years, during which Parliament 
 was to grant special powers for firm government in 
 Ireland, and at the end of which, in a larger or a less 
 degree, coercive laws might be repealed, and meas- 
 ures of local self-government entertained.* 
 
 It is, then, evident, even amidst the shouts of vic- 
 tory, that the Tory adversaries of Ireland have had 
 a severe, perhaps an irreparable, loss : they have lost 
 the courage of their opinions. On the other hand, 
 the Dissentient Liberals generally, and their leader, 
 seem now to be pledged to immediate and large con- 
 cession ; many of them on such a scale, that they 
 
 * It might be invidious to supply references to verify these 
 statements; and it is unnecessary, as they are all both recent, and 
 familiar. 
 
32 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 give to their idea the name of Home Rule, declaring 
 themselves favourable to its- principle, and only op- 
 posed to the awkward and perverse manner in which 
 it was handled by the late Administration. So that, 
 while a large majority of the present House was 
 elected to oppose the measures of the bygone Minis- 
 try, a much less large, but still a decided majority, 
 has bound itself not less strongly to liberal measures 
 of self-government for Ireland. The seceding Liber- 
 als, added to the main body of the party and to the 
 Nationalists, make a total of not less than 354. Even 
 of the Ministerialists, some have declared themselves 
 favourable to large concession. These professions of 
 individuals might be drowned in the strong stream 
 of party feeling. Without reckoning, then, on any 
 sort of Tory help, we seem to have in this anti- 
 Home-Rule Parliament a real majority ready to act 
 in the direction at least of Irish wishes, and to run 
 the risk of seeing the grant of a portion used as a 
 leverage to obtain the residue. 
 
 So that, look at the question which way we will, 
 the cause of Irish self-government lives and moves, 
 and can hardly fail to receive more life, and more 
 propulsion, from the hands of those who have been 
 its successful opponents in one of its particular forms. 
 It will arise, as a wounded warrior sometimes arises 
 on the field of battle, and stabs to the heart some 
 soldier of the victorious army, who has been exulting 
 over him. 
 
 So much for the case of Ireland within the walls : 
 it is full of hope and comfort. When we go beyond 
 
II. FOR IRELAND. 33 
 
 the walls, and consider either the points of vantage 
 gained, or the general progress which has been ac- 
 complished, it is yet more, and by far more, favour- 
 able. 
 
 Let us now take some account of the results of the 
 Elections, as they are exhibited, not in a gross total, 
 but in different quarters of the country. 
 
 The fact that Wales has been from the first under 
 an incorporating union, has blinded us to the fact 
 that there are, within the United Kingdom, no less 
 than four nationalities. Of these four nationalities, 
 three have spoken for Irish autonomy in a tone yet 
 more decided than the tone in which the fourth has 
 forblSden it. Scotland has approved our Irish policy 
 by three to two, Ireland herself by four and a half 
 to one, and gallant Wales by five to one. In the 
 aggregate they have returned more than 150 sup- 
 porters of the policy, and rather above fifty against 
 it ; or three to one in its favour. 
 
 In England, I might dwell on some remarkable 
 exceptions to the prevailing opinion, such as those 
 of Yorkshire and Northumberland ; portions of the 
 country commonly supposed to be above, and not be- 
 low, the average in intelligence and force of charac- 
 ter. But for the present purpose we must deal with 
 England as a whole, and we find that she has decided 
 against Ireland by returning 336 opponents of our 
 Irish policy, against 129 who support it. 
 
 This is not, then, a partnership of three kingdoms, 
 or of four nationalities, upon equal terms. The vast 
 preponderance in strength of one among them en- 
 
34 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION". 
 
 ables her to overbear the other three, and to reverse 
 their combined judgment. The case may be even 
 carried a little further. The minority adverse to 
 Ireland in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, taken to- 
 gether, is twenty-five per cent, of the whole. The 
 minority favourable to Ireland in the English return, 
 though a small minority, reaches twenty-eight per 
 cent, of the whole. So, then, England speaking by 
 much less than three-fourths of her whole number 
 of members, can give, against Scotland, Ireland, and 
 Wales, speaking conjointly by three-fourths of their 
 members, an absolute majority on the aggregate re- 
 turn of no less than 110. Let us illustrate the state 
 of facts by a supposed case. Whenever the people 
 of England think one way in the proportion of two 
 to one, they can outvote in Parliament the united 
 force of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, although they 
 should think the other way in the proportion of five 
 to one. And if England thinks one way in the pro- 
 portion of three to one, she can outvote Scotland, 
 Ireland, and Wales together, although they were 
 each and all to return the whole of their members to 
 vote against her. There are, therefore, reasons of 
 a very intelligible kind why England should at the 
 first blush take a favourable view of the advantages 
 of incorporating unions. 
 
 But the question of majority and minority does 
 not rule the whole case. Ireland, with the minority 
 of 280 in her favour, and carving out of that aggre- 
 gate minority larg? mti jorities in three out of the four 
 nationalities, stands far better than she would stand 
 
II. FOR IRELAND. 35 
 
 were that minority proportion ably diffused in four, 
 or even in three of them : were our opponents able 
 to say that England, Scotland, and Wales were all 
 against her.* 
 
 The recent contest has been fought upon the 
 question of nationality : upon the title of Ireland to 
 some recognition (in Lord Carnarvon's phrase) of 
 her national aspirations. Now, in the first place, 
 this very fact, that an election has been contested on 
 grounds of nationality, of itself gives a new place to 
 nationality as an element of our political thought. 
 Secondly, these nationalities will be inclined to help 
 one*another. Ireland has received signal assistance 
 from Scotland and from Wales on the great and 
 
 * The figures stand thus : 
 
 England has members .... 465 
 Scotland ... 72 ) 
 Ireland ... 103 I ... 205 
 Wales ... 30 ) 
 
 Case 1.— | of 465 = 310 
 £ of 205 = 34 
 
 344 
 But & of 465 = 155 
 f of 205 = 171 
 
 326 
 
 Majority . 18 
 
 Case 2. 465 - 116 = 349 
 The rest of the House 321 
 
 Majority . 28 
 
36 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 capital subject of lier nationality. Should there be, 
 and will there not be? — questions coming forward, 
 in which Scotland or Wales have a special national 
 interest or feeling, it is probable that Ireland, so long 
 at least as she continues to have a voice through her 
 members in British affairs, will reciprocate the boon. 
 What is not less likely, and even more important, 
 is that the sense of nationality, both in Scotland and 
 in Wales, set astir by this controversy, may take 
 a wider range than heretofore. Wales, and even 
 Scotland, may ask herself, whether the present system 
 of intrusting all their affairs to the handling of a 
 body, English in such overwhelming proportion as 
 the present Parliament is, and must probably always 
 be, is an adjustment which does the fullest justice to 
 what is separate and specific in their several popula- 
 tions. Scotland, which for a century and a quarter 
 after her Union was refused all taste of a real repre- 
 sentative system, may begin to ask herself whether, 
 if at the first she felt something of an unreasoning 
 antipathy, she may not latterly have drifted into a 
 superstitious worship, or at least an irreflective acqui- 
 escence. Of two things I feel assured. First, what- 
 ever practical claims either of these countries may 
 make on their own behalf will be entertained and 
 disposed of without stirring up the cruel animosities, 
 the unworthy appeals to selfishness, the systematic 
 misrepresentations, which have told so fearfully 
 against Ireland. And, secondly, that the desire for 
 Federation, floating in the minds of many, has had 
 an unexpected ally in the Irish policy of 188^ , and 
 
IT. FOR IRELAND. 37 
 
 that, if the thing, which that term implies, contains 
 within itself possibilities of practical good, the chance 
 of bringing such possibilities to bear fruit has thus 
 been unexpectedly and largely improved. 
 
 Let it not, however, be supposed for a moment that 
 England is to be regarded as hostile to the claims of 
 Ireland. What we have before us is not really a 
 refusal ; it is only a slower acknowledgment. What- 
 ever efforts may have been made by individuals to 
 bring the national mind at the Election of 1885 to a 
 perception of what was coming, it must be remem- 
 bereTl that a powerful party had at that time, on 
 account of the Irish vote, the very strongest reasons 
 for keeping the Irish question out of view, and that 
 they set up other cries, such as the " Church in 
 danger," which were known and familiar, and which 
 drew away attention from what was real to what was 
 imaginary. So it is no great wonder or offence if, 
 when the subject was novel, and when the most pow- 
 erful and best organized classes in the country were 
 resolutely bent on arguments which darkened all 
 its bearings, it should have remained a little obscure. 
 But mark the progress that has been made. A sub- 
 ject which, twelve months ago, was almost as foreign 
 to the British mind as the differential calculus, has 
 been inscribed among the chief lessons of all Liberal 
 teaching in every town and county of the land, and 
 is everywhere supported by a large body of persons 
 with a warmth and earnestness equal to any that is 
 felt for any of the dearest and most familiar aims of 
 public policy. All the currents of the political at- 
 
38 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 mosphere as between the two islands have been 
 cleansed and sweetened ; for Ireland now knows, 
 what she has never, even under her defeat, known 
 before, that a deep rift of division runs all through 
 the English nation in her favor ; that there is not 
 throughout the land a district, a parish, or a village 
 where there are not hearts beating in unison with her 
 heart, and minds earnestly bent on the acknowledg- 
 ment and permanent establishment of her claims to 
 national existence. 
 
 She know T s also that many, if not most, of her 
 adversaries have paid the highest compliment to her 
 claim for the adoption of the measure of 1886, in 
 adopting, it is to be presumed as a political necessity, 
 the method of systematically misstating it. Because 
 they conceive it to tend to separation, they describe 
 it as being in itself Separation. Because they think 
 it would bring about a Kepeal of the Union, they 
 describe it as being a Repeal of the Union. That 
 is, by reason of what they think (most erroneously) 
 that it would produce, they habitually describe * it 
 
 * Still worse is the endeavour to tempt the voter through his 
 selfishness. From an illustrated placard, printed by Bale, Great 
 Titchfield Street, I cite the following words. After describing 
 the majority of the Irish nation as rebels, it proceeds to say that, 
 as the result of Home Rule, ' ' The labour market of England 
 would be flooded with Irishmen, wages lowered." In the ' Times ' 
 of July 22, a defeated Dissentient complained that hardly a 
 single word on his side had reached the agricultural labourers. 
 The secretary of the Liberal Association replied by showing that, 
 on behalf of this very Dissentient, the labourers were informed 
 by placards on every wall that, if they voted for his opponent, 
 " swarms of poor Irishmen would come over and lower wages, 
 
II. FOR IRELAND. 39 
 
 as being that which they know it not to he. It is 
 just as in an arithmetical sum; the misstatement of 
 the terms of the problem, of course, if not detected, 
 makes the problem hopeless. It is without example, 
 so far as I know, in the political controversies of the 
 last half century. It establishes a precedent which 
 may, with some kind of excuse, be used hereafter 
 against its authors. It is a practice analogous to 
 hitting foul in pugilism, or using weapons in war, 
 which are prohibited by the laws of war. It con- 
 stitutes a proof of the weakness in argument of a 
 cause, driven to supply by prohibited means its pov- 
 erty in legitimate resource. 
 
 Apart from this grave aspect of the case, is there 
 not something beyond the ordinary licence of con- 
 troversy in charging upon the Irish people the idea 
 and intention of Separation, in connection with the 
 present subject ? 
 
 As the adversary believes the measure involves by 
 way of consequence the separation of the countries, 
 he is entirely justified in pressing his argument ; but 
 he should surely press it in the right way. 
 
 There are two methods of conducting the argu- 
 
 besides which 100 millions were to be spent on buying out Irish 
 landlords, which would enormously increase taxes on your tea, 
 coffee, cocoa, &c." We should all husband as much as possible 
 in this controversy our small stock of Christian charity. But 
 could the person, who wrote that the concession of the demand 
 of the Irish people would drive away the Irish people from Ire- 
 land, himself have believed what he wrote ? That it would 
 raise wages in England, by largely drawing back the Irish, may 
 not be very probable, but is certainly a less absurb proposition. 
 
40 LESSON'S OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 ment, either of which it has been open to him to 
 follow, and which I will call respectively the humane 
 and the savage method. 
 
 The Irish nation, while it is recovering from its 
 very natural estrangement, and learning with a good 
 heart the accents of loyalty, disclaims in the most 
 emphatic and binding way, by the mouth of its 
 authorised representatives, the idea of separation. 
 The opponent of Home Rule might say, "I take 
 you at your w r ord ; I am convinced you do not mean 
 Separation ; but I will show you that, by certain 
 consequence, this mischievous Bill involves it." 
 That I call the humane method of argument. 
 
 But the method generally adopted has been to 
 say, " You disclaim Separation ; but I do not be- 
 lieve you ; and so I call you, and all who aid and 
 abet you, Separators." Is it too much to call this 
 the savage method ? 
 
 At least it may be held that, when we begin by 
 giving the lie, there ought to be in the essence of 
 the thing that we impute something of a nature to 
 render our imputation probable. Is this the case 
 with Separation ? What is there in Separation, that 
 would tend to make it advantageous to Ireland ? 
 
 As an island with many hundreds of miles of 
 coast, with a weak marine, and a people far more 
 military than nautical in its habits, of small popula- 
 tion, and limited in her present resources ; why 
 should she expose herself to the risks of invasion, 
 and to the certainty of enormous cost in the creation 
 and maintenance of a navy for defence, rather than 
 
II. FOR IRELAND. 41 
 
 remain under the shield of the greatest maritime 
 Power in the world, bound by every consideration 
 of honour and of interest to guard her % Why 
 should she be supposed desirous to forego the advan- 
 tage of an absolute community of trade with the 
 greatest among all commercial countries, to become 
 an alien to the market which consumes (say) nine- 
 tenths of her produce, and instead of using the broad 
 and universal paths of enterprise now open to her 
 to carve out for herself new and narrow ways as a 
 third-rate State ? Why, when her children have 
 now, man by man, the free run of the vast British 
 Empire, upon terms of absolute equality with every 
 native of Great Britain, should she be deemed so 
 blind as to intend cutting them away from the great- 
 est of all the marts in the world for human enter- 
 prise, energy, and talent, and to doom them to be 
 strangers among nearly three hundred million men, 
 with whom they have now a common citizenship? 
 Why is she to be insensible to all the indications nat- 
 ure herself has given of the destiny of Ireland to be 
 our partner in weal and woe, and why should she be 
 ready to enter upon a desperate contest of strength 
 with a people of six times her number, of twelve 
 times her wealth, inferior to her in no single element 
 of courage or tenacity ? This people, to whom even 
 justice itself has never yet enabled her to offer an ef- 
 fective military resistance, are now to be frightened 
 out of their propriety lest Ireland should offer them 
 violence, to tear herself away, unattracted to any 
 foreign centre (for there is none), unwarmed by 
 
42 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 sympathy beyond her shores (for she would have 
 none), unblessed by Heaven, and quarrelling suici- 
 dally with all that could minister to her material oi- 
 lier political welfare ! No ; the truth is, and history 
 proves it, England has been strong enough to 
 be, even through a course of generations, unjust 
 to Ireland ; and now it is not want of strength 
 that will put a stop to such injustice, but her 
 better will, her better knowledge, the action of 
 the nation substituted for the action of the few, and 
 an improved and improving moral sense in public 
 affairs. What reason here indicates, history proves ; 
 for never did Separation become a substantive 
 idea in Ireland, until the one unhappy period when 
 the warlike instincts of France coincided with that 
 infatuation of the British Government which in 
 Ireland raised tyranny and sanguinary oppression, 
 as well as the basest corruption, to their climax. 
 Only superlative iniquity led Ireland even for a 
 moment to dream of separating. Even then, the 
 remedy would have been worse than the disease. 
 None but the few fanatics of crime dream now of 
 such a thing ; and they, who impute it to the Irish 
 nation, treat it as a nation made up of men who are 
 at once and equally traitors, knaves, and fools. 
 
 III. — Purchase and Sale of Land in Ireland. 
 
 I do not propose to examine in detail the causes of 
 the signal defeat, which the Irish policy of the late 
 Government has now received at the polls of Eng- 
 
III. PURCHASE AND SALE OF LAND. 43 
 
 land, or rather of the middle and southern parts of 
 England. But, in my opinion, the chief among 
 those causes is not to he found in chimerical fears of 
 Separation, or in aversion to the grant of self-govern- 
 ment to Ireland as a whole, or even in want of time 
 to understand the principles and bearings of our 
 measures. The most powerful agent in bringing 
 about this result was, in my judgment, aversion to 
 the Bill for the Purchase and Sale of Land in Ire- 
 land. 
 
 This aversion grew out of misapprehension, which 
 was itself founded on (what I think) misrepresenta- 
 tions, such as the complexity of the subject made 
 it impossible to remove. But, however illegitimate 
 may have been the means employed, the result is not 
 to be denied, and has to be taken into practical ac- 
 count. The gigantic bribe which was detected in an 
 offer to pay to Irish landowners what Parliament 
 might deem to be the fair market value of their 
 rented lands ; the attempt to combine a large equity 
 with policy in an employment of British credit war- 
 ranted by such high calls, and in its pecuniary results 
 absolutely safe ; the daring attempt we made to carry 
 to the very uttermost our service to the men whom 
 we knew to be as a class the bitterest and most im- 
 placable of our political adversaries, by declaring our 
 two Bills to be, in our own minds, and for the exist- 
 ing juncture, inseparable: all these have been swept 
 ruthlessly off the field of present action by the na- 
 tional verdict. Not merely the verdict expressed by 
 the English majority ; for the sentiment is shared by 
 
44 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION". 
 
 many of the staunch supporters of Irish autonomy, 
 and has not been hitherto repudiated by the Na- 
 tionalists of Ireland, who had given a somewhat 
 reluctant assent to proposals entailing so heavy a lia- 
 bility on the whole public resources of their country. 
 
 The two Bills, for the government of Ireland and 
 for the Purchase and Sale of land, have been used at 
 the Election to destroy one another. The Land Bill 
 had many friends, chiefly among Tories and Dis- 
 sentient Liberals. But their love of the Land Bill 
 was not so strong as their aversion to Home Bule, 
 and they allowed it to lie pierced with a thousand 
 gashes, in order that through it the sister measure 
 of Home Rule might be wounded. On the other 
 hand, the mass of the Liberals throughout the coun- 
 try were fully prepared for the grant of Irish auton- 
 omy, but were in many cases adverse to the ill- 
 understood measure for the Purchase and Sale of 
 land, which they were taught to believe could, 
 under no circumstances, be severed from it. Hence 
 many a seat was given to the Tories by Liberal 
 abstentions, and not a few to Liberal Dissentients, 
 by those who acquiesced in the destruction of the 
 one Bill for the sake of securing the destruction of 
 the other. So, then, this Siamese twinship of the 
 Bills, put to scorn by those for whose benefit it was 
 in great part designed, has been deadly to both, 
 and has proved the most powerful cause of the defeat 
 of the Liberal party at the elections in England. 
 
 I think it my duty explicitly to acknowledge that 
 the sentence which has gone forth for the severance 
 
III. PURCHASE AND SALE OF LAND. 45 
 
 of the two measures is irresistible, and that the twin- 
 ship, which has been for the time disastrous to the 
 hopes of Ireland, exists no longer. 
 
 At the same time, the partnership between enemies 
 of Home Rule and enemies of the Land Bill, which 
 has brought about this result, will now, we may hope, 
 be dissolved. The enemies of Home Rule have ever 
 been the keenest promoters of Land Purchase in the 
 interest of the Irish landlords. The enemies of the 
 Land Purchase Bill, instead of standing at ease, will 
 now have to use all their vigilance for the purpose 
 of preventing the adoption of schemes of Land Pur- 
 chase founded on principles very different from, 
 and, indeed, opposite to, those of the Bill lately con- 
 signed to the limbo of abortions. 
 
 We have lying before us a new point of departure ; 
 but, for the sake of the subject, it may be right to 
 offer a slight explanation on the Bill. 
 
 A main object of that Bill was to get rid of the bad 
 and dangerous schemes, which alone had seemed 
 possible in the present centralized condition of our 
 arrangements for the government of Ireland. Among 
 the principles of the plan, any or all of which I 
 reserve my title to uphold and urge at the proper 
 time on their merits, and not as inseparable portions 
 of a wider scheme, were these : — 
 
 1. — To eechew entirely the establishment of the 
 relation of debtor and creditor between the Imperial 
 Treasury and the Irish occupier individually. 
 
 2. — To deal only with an authority empowered 
 under the highest sanction to bind Ireland as a whole. 
 
46 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 3. — To accept as security nothing less than what 
 would suffice to place the fifty millions of Consols 
 issuable under the Act on a footing of perfect equal- 
 ity in the market with the mass of Consols already 
 there. 
 
 4. — In fulfilment of this view, to place the charge, 
 not on the rents proceeding from the land alone, 
 but also on the entire public revenues of Ireland. 
 
 5. — To direct the collection and course of these 
 revenues in such a channel, as to make their receipt 
 and application not less safe and certain than the re- 
 ceipt and application of the revenues of Great Britain. 
 
 I trust that every British Liberal, consentient or 
 dissentient, who may think that there are reasons 
 sufficient to warrant some intervention of Imperial 
 credit in order to solve the question of Irish land, 
 will steadily resist any attempt to fasten on us a 
 scheme of inferior security ; and especially will set 
 his face against the establishment of direct relations 
 between the Treasury and the individual occupant of 
 the soil in Ireland, by reason, not only of pecuniary 
 risk, but also, and far more, of very grave political 
 danger. 
 
 The subject may be summed up in three short 
 queries. 
 
 First, is it right that England, both on grounds of 
 policy, and as having been art and part in the wrongs 
 done to Ireland by her land laws and by many of 
 her landlords, should bear her share in providing 
 further facilities for the sale and purchase of land in 
 Ireland % 
 
IV. IS HOME RULE CONSERVATIVE? 47 
 
 Secondly, ought this provision to be made by a 
 liberal use, under the peculiar circumstances of the 
 case, of the public credit of the country? 
 
 Thirdly, is it wise or justifiable, instead of dealing 
 with some public authority in Ireland, to place the 
 Treasury of this country in the direct relation of 
 creditor to scores, or it may be hundreds, of thou- 
 sands of the persons occupying land in Ireland ? 
 
 To the first two questions I give my answer in the 
 affirmative ; to the third I say emphatically, No, 
 
 IV. — The Conservative Character of Home Rule 
 for Ireland. 
 
 I deviate for a moment from my survey of the 
 political battlefield, to touch on a question more 
 likely to receive consideration now than during the 
 heat of the fight. 
 
 For my own part, in arguing for the Irish policy 
 of the late Administration, I have not found it my 
 duty to attempt any narrow appropriation of that 
 policy to the Liberal party. It was indeed eminently 
 agreeable to the principles of that party, because it 
 proceeded upon a rational but a broad and generous 
 trust in the people of Ireland ; upon a large recogni- 
 tion of that people's right to liberty, which, says 
 Mr. Burke,* is " the birthright of our species," and 
 which " we cannot forfeit, except by what forfeits 
 our title to the privileges of our kind. I mean the 
 abuse or oblivion of our rational faculties," which 
 
 * Correspondence iii., 105. 
 
48 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 " destroys our social nature, and transforms us into 
 something little better than the description of wild 
 beasts." 
 
 But unless the policy, from its harmonising with 
 the love of liberty, and its spirit of reliance on a 
 people, be, in the eyes of all but Liberal politicians, 
 guilty of the unpardonable sin, and thus excluded 
 from a hearing, surely it has high titles to a conser- 
 vative character, and may reasonably lay claim to 
 Conservative favour. For it is especially founded 
 on regard for history and tradition. It aims in the 
 main at restoring, not at altering, the Empire. In 
 this vast mass are straightway discovered a multitude 
 of subaltern integers ; municipalities, counties, colo- 
 nies, and nations. Does a true conservative policy 
 recommend that the dividing lines, which hedge about 
 these secondary organisations, should be eyed with 
 an eager jealousy, and effaced upon any favourable 
 occasion ? I put aside for the moment all regard to 
 the pollution and the tyranny by which an occasion 
 for the Union was forced into existence ; and I raise 
 the issue on a broader ground. It is surely most de- 
 sirable that every subaltern structure in an enormous 
 political fabric, having joints and fastenings, tie- 
 beams and rafters of its own, should contribute, by 
 the knotted strength thus inhering in each part, to 
 increase the aggregate of cohesive force, which guar- 
 antees the permanence and solidity of the whole. 
 
 Intermediate authority, set between the central 
 power and the subject, is a contrivance favourable to 
 both. It softens the whole character of government 
 
IV. IS HOME RULE CONSERVATIVE ? 49 
 
 as a coercive system. It saves the centre from 
 strain ; and saves it also from excess. It gives a do- 
 mestic aspect to commands which, when proceeding 
 from a remoter source, want their best passport to 
 acceptance. The ruler's will is more largely obeyed ; 
 and the quality of the obedience is improved as the 
 quantity is enlarged, for it becomes a willing obedi- 
 ence. There are functions of government which re- 
 quire from their own nature a central impulsion. 
 But, wherever the nature of the thing to be done does 
 not suffer, the more locally it is determined the 
 better. 
 
 And in all cases where, population not being ho- 
 mogeneous, the different portions of a country (such 
 as the United Kingdom) are variously coloured, as 
 by race, or religion, or history, or emplojanents, the 
 argument against centralisation acquires new force, 
 in proportion as the central agent loses the power of 
 sympathy and close adaptation to peculiar wants and 
 wishes, and may lose also, where relations have not 
 been altogether kindly, even the consciousness of this 
 ingenital defect. When matters have reached such 
 a stage, the ruler resents that resentment in the mind 
 of the subject, which his own incapacity has raised. 
 This comparative coldness, sometimes passing into 
 aversion, discontent, and even disloyalty, we find in 
 the case of Ireland, and of Ireland alone among all 
 the portions of the Empire. All the rest are held 
 together by freewill ; she alone is under the bond of 
 force. In opposition to it, she has maintained from 
 first to last the best protest in her power, and has 
 
50 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 availed herself progressively more and more of the 
 increased means of protest with which, in singular 
 blindness to the state either of her mind or our own, 
 or possibly both, we have incongruously supplied her. 
 And when, more positively urging her demand, she 
 at the same time narrows the demand itself, so as to 
 meet imperial jealousies and scruples, she is rewarded 
 for her moderation by the loud assertion that the 
 Irish nation speaks, it is true, but speaks with a lie 
 in its mouth. 
 
 So, then, we may fairly say of the policy which 
 aims at giving Ireland an Irish Government, not 
 only it is a policy broad, open, trustful, popular, and 
 therefore liberal ; but also it is a policy which, instead 
 of innovating, restores ; which builds upon the 
 ancient foundations of Irish history and tradition ; 
 which, by making power local, makes it congenial, 
 where hitherto it has been unfamiliar, almost alien ; 
 and strong, where hitherto it has been weak. Let 
 us extricate the question from the low mist of the 
 hour, let us raise the banner clear of the smoke of 
 battle, and we shall see that such a policy is eminently 
 a Conservative policy. 
 
 V. — To which Party is the Work Reserved ? 
 
 It is one of the best characteristics of the Liberal 
 party, that it has never foregone an opportunity of 
 closing with a good measure, come it from whom it 
 might. 
 
 It was in an endeavour to apply this principle, 
 
V. WHO WILL DO IT % 51 
 
 that in December last 1 promised my best support 
 to Lord Salisbury, if his Government would intro- 
 duce a comprehensive measure for the settlement of 
 the Irish question. This was an offer made under 
 highly favourable circumstances. For, as between 
 the two great parties in the State, the question of 
 Irish self-government, in its principal aspects, was 
 then open ground. The Liberal party of 1800 had 
 the honour of resisting the Incorporating Union. 
 But for the last sixty years, on the question of re- 
 pealing that measure, as the proposal was entertained 
 by neither party, no distinctive character had at- 
 tached to the action of the one or the other. Un- 
 happily, the last Tory Government, notwithstanding 
 the encouragement given by the opinion of their 
 Viceroy, was not prepared to move. Accordingly, 
 the question of self-government for Ireland in Irish 
 affairs has now taken its place in politics with the 
 Liberal coat of arms stamped upon it, and has be- 
 come a Liberal measure. But there remains an im- 
 portant question behind. Will it, or will it not, like 
 other Liberal measures, owe its coming place on the 
 Statute Book immediately, if not causally, to the 
 action of official Tories, sustained and made effective 
 by Liberal patriotism and Liberal votes % 
 
 There are at least four great cases, which have 
 been placed on record within my memory, and in 
 every one of which a Conservative Government, 
 after having resisted a great proposal up to the 
 moment immediately preceding the surrender, then 
 became its official sponsor, and carried it into law. 
 
52 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 They are the cases of the Test Act in 1828, of the 
 Roman Catholic Relief in 1829, of Corn Law Repeal 
 in 1846 (when, however, Sir Robert Peel had done 
 all in his power to throw the conduct of the question 
 into Liberal hands), and of Extension of the Fran- 
 chise in 1867. In the last of these cases, not only 
 had the measure been resisted, but a Liberal Govern- 
 ment had been overthrown in the preceding year on 
 account of a measure less extended, not indeed than 
 the very meagre original proposal of 1867, but than 
 the measure which, by the strength of Liberal votes, 
 and with the sanction of the Derbj^-Disraeli Govern- 
 ment, was eventually carried. It seems extremely 
 doubtful whether any one of these measures would 
 have been adopted through both Houses, except un- 
 der the peculiar conditions which secured for them 
 on each occasion, both the aid of the Liberal vote in 
 the House of Commons, and the authority of the 
 Tory Government in the House of Lords. One other 
 case stands alone. The Tory chiefs of 1832, with the 
 exception of Sir Robert Peel, fiercely resisting the 
 Reform Bill of Lord Grey, and stopping its progress 
 in their own familiar fortress, the House of Lords, 
 declared themselves nevertheless willing to take 
 charge of the question. But public indignation was 
 too strong to permit the progress of the experiment. 
 A main reason, which governed me in the offer of 
 last December, was my full conviction that if the 
 Tory Government had acted as many were then in- 
 clined to hope, the proposal would have an impartial 
 hearing from the Liberal party, and an amount of 
 
VI. CONCLUSION. 53 
 
 support far more than sufficient, as in 1829 and 1846, 
 to make up for Orange and Tory defections, so as to 
 secure the speediest and easiest, which would in my 
 judgment have been also the most satisfactory, ac- 
 complishment of the great design. 
 
 With regard to that design, I do not venture to 
 forecast the future, beyond the expression of an un- 
 doubting belief that a measure of self-government 
 for Ireland, not less extensive than the proposal of 
 1886, will be carried. Whether the path will be 
 circuitous ; whether the journey will be divided into 
 stages, and how many these will be ; or how much 
 jolting will attend the passage ; it is not for me to 
 say. Nor is it for me to conjecture whether in this, 
 as in so many other cases, the enemies of the meas- 
 ure are the persons designed finally to guide its tri- 
 umphal procession to the Capitol. But I hope that, 
 should this contingence once more arise, every Lib- 
 eral politician, irrespective of any misgivings (should 
 he be tempted to entertain them), as to the motives 
 of the men, will remember that his inexorable duty 
 is to extract the maximum of public profit from 
 their acts. 
 
 VI. — Conclusion. 
 
 If I am not egregiously wrong in all that has been 
 said, Ireland has now lying before her a broad and 
 even way, in which to walk to the consummation of 
 her wishes. Before her eyes is opened that same path 
 of constitutional and peaceful action, of steady, free, 
 and full discussion, which has led England and Scot- 
 
54 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 land to the achievement of all their pacific triumphs. 
 Like the walls of Jericho, falling, not in blood and 
 conflagration, but at the trumpets' peal, so, under the 
 action of purely moral forces, have an hundred for- 
 tresses of prejudice, privilege, and shallow prescrip- 
 tion, successively given way. It is the potent spell 
 of legality, which has done all this, or enabled it to 
 be done. The evil spirit of illegality and violence 
 has thus far had no part or lot in the political action 
 of Ireland, since, through the Franchise Act of 1885, 
 she came into that inheritance of adequate represen- 
 tation, from which she had before been barred. Ire- 
 land, in her present action, is not to be held respon- 
 sible for those agrarian offences, which are in truth 
 the indication and symptom of her disease ; from 
 which her public opinion has, through the recent 
 beneficial action, become greatly more estranged ; 
 and to which she herself ardently intreats us to apply 
 the only effectual remedy, by such a reconciliation 
 between the people and the law, as is the necessary 
 condition of civilised life. The moderation of the 
 Irish demands, as they were presented and under- 
 stood in the Session of 1886, has been brightly re- 
 flected in the calm, conflicting, and constitutional 
 attitude of the nation. I make no specific reference 
 to the means that have been used in one deplorable 
 case, under guilty recommendations from above, with 
 a view to disturbing this attitude, and arresting the 
 progress of the movement ; for I believe that the 
 employment of such means, and the issuing of such 
 recommendations, will eventually aid the cause they 
 
VI. CONCLUSION. 55 
 
 were designed to injure. It is true that, in the close 
 of the last century, the obstinate refusal of just de- 
 mands, and the deliberate and dreadful acts of Ire- 
 land's enemies, drove her people widely into disaffec- 
 tion, and partially into the ways of actual violence. 
 But she was then down-trodden and gagged. She 
 has now a full constitutional equipment of all the 
 means necessary for raising and determining the 
 issues of moral force. She has also the strongest 
 sympathies within, as well as beyond, these shores 
 to cheer, moderate, and guide her. The position is 
 for her a novel one, and in its novelty lies its only 
 risk. But she is quick and ready of perception : she 
 has the rapid comprehensive glance, which the Gen- 
 erals she has found for us have shown on many a 
 field of battle. The qualities she has so eminently 
 exhibited this year have already earned for her a 
 rich reward in confidence and goodwill. There is no 
 more to ask of her. She has only to persevere. 
 August 19, 1886. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Since these pages were written the principal in- 
 tentions of the ministers in respect to Ireland have 
 been announced. The statesmen who in January 
 deemed coercive measures an absolute necessity do 
 not now propose them, although agrarian crime has 
 rather increased and Ireland has been perturbed (so 
 they said) by the proposal of home rule. This is a 
 heavy blow to coercion and a marked sign of prog- 
 ress. I am concerned to say that on no other head 
 do the announcements supply any causes for con- 
 gratulation : 
 
 1. Large Irish subjects, ripe for treatment, are to 
 be referred to commissions of inquiry. This is a 
 policy (while social order is in question) of almost 
 indefinite delay. 
 
 2. Moreover, while a commission is to inquire 
 whether the rates of judicial rents are or are not 
 such as can be paid, the aid of the law for levying 
 the present rents in November has been specially 
 and emphatically promised. This is a marked dis- 
 couragement to remissions of rent .and a powerful 
 stimulus to evictions. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 57 
 
 3. A project lias been sketched of imposing upon 
 the State the payment of all moneys required to 
 meet the difference between these actual rents and 
 what the land can fairly bear. This project is in 
 principle radically bad, and it would be an act of 
 rapine on the treasury of the country. 
 
 4. Whereas the greatest evil of Ireland is that its 
 magisterial and administrative systems are felt to be 
 other than Irish, no proposal is made for the recon- 
 struction of what is known as the Dublin Castle 
 government. 
 
 5. It is proposed to spend large sums of public 
 money on public works of all kinds for the material 
 development of Ireland under English authority and 
 Dublin Castle administration. This plan is (1) in 
 the highest degree wasteful ; (2) it is unjust to the 
 British taxpayer ; and (3) it is an obvious attempt to 
 divert the Irish nation by pecuniary inducement 
 from its honorable aim of national self-government, 
 and will as such be resented. 
 
 6. The limitation of local government in Ireland 
 to what may at this moment be desired for Great 
 Britain is just to none of our nationalities, rests upon 
 no recognized principle, and is especially an unjust 
 limitation of the Irish national desire. In my opin- 
 ion such a policy for dealing with the Irish question 
 ought not to be and cannot be adopted. 
 
 August 22, 1886. 
 
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