CORRESPONDENCE WITH MRS. WILLYAMS
‘What wondrous times are these,’ he writes in 1861. ‘Who could have supposed that the United States of America would have been the scene of a mighty revolution? No one can foresee its results. They must, however, tell immensely in favour of an aristocracy.’
In 1862 came the second exhibition at South Kensington.
‘This,’ he wrote, ‘is not so fascinating a one as that you remember when you made me an assignation by the crystal fountain, which I was ungallant enough not to keep, being far away when it arrived at Grosvenor Gate. But though not so charming it is even more wonderful. One was a woman—this is a man.’
In the session of the same year he had been overworked, and Mrs. Willyams had prescribed for him.
Hughenden:September2, 1862.—‘I am quite myself again; and as I have been drinking your magic beverage for a week, and intend to pursue it, you may fairly claim all the glory of my recovery, as a fairy cures a knight after a tournament or a battle. I have a great weakness for mutton broth, especially with that magical sprinkle which you did not forget. I shall call you in future after an old legend and a modern poem “the Lady of Shalot.” I think the water of which it was made would have satisfied even you, for it was taken every day from our stream, which rises among the chalk hills, glitters in the sun over a very pretty cascade, then spreads and sparkles into a little lake inwhich is a natural island. Since I wrote to you last we have launched in the lake two most beautiful cygnets, to whom we have given the names of Hero and Leander. They are a source to us of unceasing interest and amusement. They are very handsome and very large, but as yet dove-coloured. I can no longer write to you of Cabinet Councils or Parliamentary struggles. Here I see nothing but trees or books, so you must not despise the news of my swans.’
Here follows an historical incident not generally known:—
December9, 1862.—‘They say the Greeks, resolved to have an English king, in consequence of the refusal of Prince Alfred to be their monarch, intend to elect Lord Stanley. If he accepts the charge I shall lose a powerful friend and colleague. It is a dazzling adventure for the House of Stanley, but they are not an imaginative race, and I fancy they will prefer Knowsley to the Parthenon, and Lancashire to the Attic plains. It is a privilege to live in this age of rapid and brilliant events. What an error to consider it a utilitarian age. It is one of infinite romance. Thrones tumble down, and crowns are offered like a fairy tale; and the most powerful people in the world, male and female, a few years back were adventurers, exiles, and demireps.Vive la bagatelle!Adieu. D.’
February7, 1863.—‘The Greeks really want to make my friend Lord Stanley their king. This beats any novel. I think he ought to take the crown; but he will not. Had I his youth I would not hesitate even with the earldom of Derby in the distance.’
March21, 1863.—‘The wedding [of the Prince of Wales] was a fine affair, a thing to remember. After the ceremony there was a splendiddéjeunerat Windsor. The Queen wasvery anxious that an old shoe should be thrown at the royal pair on their departure, and the Lord Chamberlain showed me in confidence the weapon with which he had furnished himself. He took out of his pocket a beautiful white satin slipper which had been given him for the occasion by the Duchess of Brabant. Alas! when the hour arrived his courage failed him. This is a genuine anecdote which you will not find in the “Illustrated London News.”’
In 1863 Poland revolted, encouraged by the results of the Crimean war, which had enfeebled Russia, by the French campaign for the liberation of Italy, and by the supposed sympathy of England with oppressed nationalities. Louis Napoleon knew that his own throne was undermined, and was looking for safety in some fresh successful adventure. England had refused to join him in the recognition of Southern independence in America. Poland was another opportunity. The two extracts which follow deserve particular attention. Disraeli had known the French Emperor in London and did not trust him.
October17, 1863.—‘The troubles and designs of the French Emperor are aggravated and disturbed by the death of Billault, his only Parliamentary orator and a first-rate one. With, for the first time, a real Opposition to encounter, and formed of the old trained speakers of Louis Philippe’s reign, in addition to the young democracy of oratory which the last revolution has itself produced, the inconveniences, perhaps the injuries, of this untimely decease are incalculable. It may even force by way of distraction the Emperor into war. Our own Ministry have managed their affairs very badly, according to their friends. The Polish question is a diplomatic Frankenstein, created out of cadaverous remnants by the mystic blundering of Lord Russell. At present thepeace of the world has been preserved not by statesmen, but by capitalists. For the last three months it has been a struggle between the secret societies and the Emperor’s millionaires. Rothschild hitherto has won, but the death of Billault may be as fatal to him as the poignard of a Polish patriot, for I believe in that part of the world they are called “patriots,” though in Naples only “brigands.”’
November5, 1863.—‘The great Imperial sphinx is at this moment speaking. I shall not know the mysterious utterances until to-morrow, and shall judge of his conduct as much by his silence as by his words. The world is very alarmed and very restless. Although England appears to have backed out of this possible war there are fears that the French ruler has outwitted us, and that by an alliance with Austria and the aid of the Italian armies he may cure the partition of Poland by a partition of Prussia; Austria in that case to regain Silesia, which Frederick the Great won a century ago from Maria Theresa, France to have the Rhine, and Galicia and Posen to be restored to Poland. If this happens it will give altogether a new form and colour to European politics. The Queen is much alarmed for the future throne of her daughter; but as the war will be waged for the relief of Poland, of which England has unwisely approved, and to which in theory she is pledged, we shall really be checkmated and scarcely could find an excuse to interfere even if the nation wished.’
SPANISH QUARTERINGS
Disraeli’s arms and motto have been a subject of some speculation. The motto, ‘Forti nihil difficile,’ has been supposed to have been originated by himself, as an expression of his personal experience. The vanity, if vanity there was in the assumption of such a bearing, was the vanity of ancestry, not the vanity of a self-made man. When he toldthe electors at Aylesbury that his descent was as pure as that of the Cavendishes, he was not alluding to Abraham, but to his Castilian progenitors. While leading the aristocracy of England he claimed a place among them in right of blood. Mrs. Willyams descended from a similar stock. She desired to quarter her coat with the bearings of the Mendez da Costas, and Disraeli undertook to manage it for her. He had to use the help of ‘ambassadors and Ministers of State.’ He laid under contribution the private cabinet of the Queen of Spain, and gave himself infinite trouble that the poor old lady might have the panels of her carriage painted to her satisfaction. Among the many letters on the subject there is one which explains the arms of Beaconsfield.
July23, 1859.—‘The Spanish families never had supporters, crests, or mottoes. The tower of Castile, which I use as a crest, and which was taken from one of the quarters of my shield, was adopted by a Lara in the sixteenth century in Italy, where crests were the custom—at least in the north of Italy—copied from the German heraldry. This also applies to my motto. None of the southern races, I believe, have supporters or crests. This is Teutonic. With regard to the coronet, in old days, especially in the south, all coronets were the same, and the distinction of classes from the ducal strawberry leaf to the baron’s balls is of comparatively modern introduction.’
When the harlequin’s wand of Pitt converted Warren, the club waiter, into an earl, the Heralds’ College traced his descent for him to the Norman Fitzwarren. Robert Burns was content to take his patent of nobility from a more immediate source. Disraeli doubtless had a right to use the bearings of the Laras if he cared about such things. But a Spanish pedigree at best was a shadowy sort of business, and one could rather wish that he had let it alone.
Fall of the Whigs in 1867—Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer—Reform Bill, why undertaken—Necessities real or fancied of a Party Leader—Alternatives—Split in the Cabinet—Disraeli carries his point—Niagara to be shot—Retirement of Lord Derby—Disraeli Prime Minister—Various judgments of his character—The House of Commons responsible for his elevation—Increasing popularity with all classes.
NEW REFORM BILL
Something else too as well as the Castilian pedigree Disraeli might have done better to leave to others. In 1865 he had uttered his memorable warning in the House of Commons against playing tricks with the Constitution. Other countries might emerge out of a revolution and ‘begin again.’ England could not begin again. Lord John Russell’s Reform Bill was thrown out. The Whig Ministry fell in 1867, and Lord Derby came a third time to the helm with Disraeli for his Chancellor of the Exchequer. They at least, it might have been thought, would have let alone a subject on which the latter had pronounced so recently so emphatic an opinion. But they were still a Ministry on sufferance, and how to turn a minority into a majority was still an unsolved problem. The spectre of Reform was unexorcised. Both parties had evoked it at intervals, when they wished ultimately to pose before the world as the people’s friends. Yet no experienced statesman, Whig or Tory, unless from unworthy jealousy, would have opened his lips to recommenda change from which he could not honestly expect improvement. Even the working classes themselves, who were to be admitted to the suffrage, were not actively demanding it. No good had come to them from the great Bill of 1832. ‘I don’t care who is in or who is out,’ said a rough artisan to me. ‘I could never see that any of them cared for us.’ They had been told that they were living in a world where everyone was to look out for himself, that their interests would never be attended to till they had representatives who would force attention to them. But their general sense was that the ills which they complained of were out of reach of Parliament, and they were looking for a remedy in combination among themselves which would take the place of the old Guilds. The ancient organisation of labour had been destroyed in the name of Liberty. Their employers had piled up fortunes. They had been left ‘free,’ as it was called, with their families to multiply as they would, and to gather their living under the hoofs of the horses of a civilisation which had become an aggregate of self-seeking units. To this they had been brought by a Parliamentary government, which, as far as they were concerned, was no government at all; and they were incredulous of any benefit that was to arrive to them from improvements in a machine so barren. Thus they were looking rather with amused indifference than active concern while the parties in the House of Commons were fencing for the honour of being their champion.
And yet Reform was in the air. The educated mind of England had been filled to saturation with the new Liberal philosophy. In the old days a ‘freeman’ was a master of his craft, and not till he had learnt to do, and do well, some work which was useful to society did he enter upon hisprivileges as a citizen. The situation was now reversed. To be ‘free’ was to have a voice in making the laws of the country. Those who had no votes were still in bondage, and bondage was a moral degradation. Freedom was no longer a consequence and a reward, but the fountain of all virtue; a baptismal sacrament in which alone human nature could be regenerated. In Great Britain and Ireland there were some thirty millions of inhabitants. Of these, under the Reform Bill of 1832, three hundred thousand only were in possession of their birthright. What claim, it was asked, had a mere fraction to monopolise a privilege which was not only a power in the State but the indispensable condition of spiritual growth and progress? We heard much about generous confidence in the people, about the political stability to be expected from broadening the base of the pyramid, about the elevating consciousness of responsibility which would rise out of the possession of a vote—beautiful visions of the return of Astræa, the millennium made into a fact by the establishment of universal liberty. Of all this Disraeli believed nothing. No one hated empty verbiage more than he. His dislike of cant was the most genuine part of him. But he too had once imagined that the working-men were safer depositaries of power than the ten-pound householders; and even old Tories, though they thought an extension of the franchise foolish and needless, did not suppose it would be necessarily dangerous unless accompanied with a vast redistribution of seats. Thus, although the mass of the existing voters were content with their privileges, and were not eager to share them, the House of Commons had already committed itself by second readings to the principle of Reform. The question would return upon them again and again till it was settled, and asthings stood either party had a Parliamentary right to deal with it.
What were Lord Derby and Disraeli to do? Accident had brought them into power, and accident or some adverse resolution of the House might at any time displace them. Experienced Parliamentary politicians had observed that the shake of the Constitution from the Act of 1832 had arisen more from the manner in which it was carried than from the measure in itself. A second Radical Reform Bill, which might be passed in a similar manner, was evidently imminent; the multitude, who were so far quiet, might again be stirred; and if once the classes and the masses were pitted against one another the breaking loose of a torrent might sweep away Church, House of Lords, landed estates, and all that was left of the old institutions of England. Such were the arguments on public grounds; to which, though it was unavowed, might be added the pleasure of ‘dishing the Whigs.’
But if Disraeli had looked back upon his own past career he might have remembered to have once said that there were considerations higher than any of these—that public men ought to be true to their real convictions. The Liberals had professed to believe in Reform. The Tories had never looked on it as more than an unwelcome and a useless necessity. Lord Derby had been a member of Lord Grey’s first Reform Cabinet. Disraeli in his enthusiastic youth had called himself a Radical. But Lord Derby had been cured of his illusions; and Disraeli had learnt the difference between realities and dreams. They might think that the danger of concession was less than the danger of resistance, but that was all. There were persons credulous enough to hope that there might be found men at lastamong their Parliamentary leaders who would adhere in office to what they had said in Opposition. In the opinion of the Conservatives, the need of England was wise government, not political revolution. They might have said that if the experiment of Democracy was to be tried it should be tried by those who were in favour of the change on their own responsibility. They themselves would have no hand in it. They might be turned out of office, but the country would know that they had been faithful to their word, and could be relied upon when there was need of them again. Tories of the old school would have said so and dared the consequences, which might not have been very terrible after all, and Parliamentary government would have escaped the contempt into which it is now so rapidly falling.
Unfortunately political leaders have ceased to think of what is good for the nation, or of their own consistency, or even of what in the long run may be best for themselves. Their business is the immediate campaign, in which they are to outmanœuvre and defeat their enemies. On this condition only they can keep their party together. The Conservatives had been out of office, with but short-lived intervals, for thirty-five years. Peel’s Government had been, as Disraeli said, not Conservative at all, but an organised hypocrisy. If they were to regard themselves as condemned to be in a perpetual minority, with no inducement to offer to tempt ability or ambition into their ranks, they would inevitably become disheartened and indifferent. The Parliamentary Constitution depended on the continuance of two parties, and if one of these disappeared the constitution would itself cease to exist.
THE LEAP IN THE DARK
Disraeli’s notion that the aristocracy were to recover theirpower by an alteration of their ways had proved ‘a devout imagination.’ The ancient organisation was visibly crumbling, and progress, whether it was upwards or downwards, was the rule of the hour. Lord Derby was old and out of health, and Disraeli himself was the ruling spirit of the Cabinet. Though born an Englishman, and proud of the position which he had won, he had not an English temperament, and he was unembarrassed by English prejudices. He surveyed the situation with the coolness of a general and the impartiality of a friend who had no personal interests at stake. He prided himself on his knowledge of the English character; and to some extent he did know it, though he mistook the surface for the substance. He believed—and the event a few years later seemed to show that he was right—in the essential Conservatism of the great mass of the people, and he resolved upon a ‘leap into the dark.’ He regretted the necessity. He did not hide from himself that he too was ‘stealing the Whigs’ clothes while they were bathing.’ History was repeating itself. His situation too much resembled that of his old leader whom he had overthrown. His own language could be retorted upon him, and the more violent he had been at Peel the more severe would be his condemnation. But a strategist must be governed by circumstances, and he could plead that the position was not entirely the same. Peel had been pledged to Protection, and was at the head of an unbroken majority returned in the Protectionist interest. In going over to Free Trade he had made a social revolution and destroyed his party. Disraeli could say that he had never opposed the principle of an extension of the suffrage, that he had more than once openly advocated it. He had always protested against the assumption that the Liberals had a monopoly of the question.
All agreed that reform was inevitable; if conducted by the Conservatives with a drag upon the wheel, it might be harmless, and might add to their strength. To persuade himself was more easy than to convince his party. Old-fashioned Toryism was stubborn and distrustful—distrustful of the measure in itself, and distrustful of the leader whom, for want of ability in themselves, they were compelled to follow. He found it necessary to ‘educate’ them, as he scornfully said. He told them that they could not hold together on the principle of mere resistance to the spirit of the age. Change was the order of the day. To cease to change would be to cease to live. They must accept the conditions. Party government is perhaps an accident of a peculiar period. To divide the intellect of the country into hostile camps, each struggling to outwit or outbid the other, is not a promising, and may not be a permanent, method of conducting the affairs of a great country. But it is a present fact, theoretically admired and practically accepted and acted on, and while it continues, the opposing chiefs have to disregard the reproaches of inconsistency. They have to do what occasion requires—attack, defend, snatch advantages, and improve opportunities.
In earlier years, Disraeli, by speech and writing, had tried for a nobler policy. He had hoped for a real government again, to be brought about by an aristocratic regeneration. But the aristocracy had not regenerated themselves. The American war, which was to have shown the superiority of aristocracies to democratic republics, had had precisely the opposite effect. He was carrying on the administration with a minority. His business now as a general was to go with the times, and if possible change his minority into a majority. Tory principles were dead. His best chancewas in the daring stroke, on which Carlyle so scornfully commented, and in throwing himself boldly upon the masses of the people.
‘SHOOTING NIAGARA’
All admit Disraeli’s dexterity as a Parliamentary commander. To succeed, he knew that he must outbid the highest offers of his opponents. He shook his Cabinet in the process. Three of his most distinguished supporters—Lord Salisbury, Lord Carnarvon, and General Peel—threw up their offices and left him. But the body of his army consented to go with him. He could be confident in the general support of the Opposition. Their consent could not be refused. For form’s sake, and to satisfy his followers, he introduced a few limitations of which he must have foreseen that the Liberals would demand the surrender, and to which his easy sacrifice of them showed that he attached no importance. He carried a bill which in its inevitable developments must give the franchise to every householder in the United Kingdom; and he gained for his party the credit, if credit it was, of having passed a more completely democratic measure than the most Radical responsible statesman had as yet dared to propose. The reproaches which were heaped upon him are fresh in the memories of many of us. Carlyle roused himself out of the sorrows into which he had been plunged by his wife’s death to write his ‘Shooting Niagara.’ In Carlyle’s opinion, the English people had gone down the cataract at last, and nothing was left to them but to continue their voyage to the ocean on such shattered fragments of their old greatness as they could seize and cling to. A quarter of a century has gone by and the Constitution still holds together. The prophet of Chelsea may yet prove to have been clear-sighted. There are sounds in the air of cracking timbers, and signsof rending and disruption. But a powerfully organised framework does not break with a single shock, and Disraeli scored a victory. Enemies said that he had covered himself with ignominy; but the disgrace sat light upon him, and by his manœuvres he had secured for his party at least one more year of office. Time must pass before the newly enfranchised voters could be placed upon the register. If the Liberals forced a dissolution before the process was completed, a new Parliament would have to be chosen by the old constituencies, and they would gain nothing even if they were again in a majority, for there would be an appeal to the fresh electors, whose votes no one could count upon. Two general elections close one upon another would be so inconvenient that the country would resent it upon them. They had therefore to wait and digest their spleen, while new honours descended upon the triumphant Disraeli. Lord Derby’s health broke down; he was no longer equal to the work of office. He retired, and the author of ‘Vivian Grey’ became Prime Minister. The post which in the extravagance of youthful ambition he had told Lord Melbourne could alone satisfy his ambition was actually his own, and had been won by courage, skill, and determination, and only these. Helibertino patre natus, alibertinushimself—without wealth, without connection, for the peers and gentlemen of England resented his supremacy while they used his services—had made himself the ruler of the British Empire. He had not stooped to the common arts of flattery. He had achieved no marked successes in the service of the country. It was supposed, perhaps without ground, that he was not even agrata personato the highest person in the realm, till Her Majesty was compelled to accept his supremacy. He had won his way byparliamentary ability and by resolution to succeed. Whether it be for the interest of the nation in the long run to commit its destinies to men of such qualifications is a question which it will by-and-by consider. If a time comes when party becomes faction, and the interests of the empire are sacrificed visibly in contention for office, when the wise and the honest hold aloof from politics as a game in which they can no longer take part, Parliamentary government will fall into the contempt which Disraeli himself already secretly felt for it. The system will collapse, and other methods will be tried. Disraeli, however, had risen by the regular process, and according to the representative principle was the chosen of the country. Among rival politicians his elevation created irritation more than surprise, for it had been long regarded as inevitable. Outside Parliamentary circles there was no irritation at all, but rather pride and pleasure. Englishmen like those who have made a position for themselves by their own force of character. Disraeli’s public life was before the world. He had made innumerable enemies. A thousand calumnies had pursued him. His actions, good, bad, and indifferent, had been coloured to his least advantage. He had been described as an adventurer and a charlatan, without honesty, without sincerity, without patriotism; a mercenary, a gladiator; the Red Indian of debate.
PRIME MINISTER
If this was the true account of him, one has to ask oneself in wonder what kind of place the House of Commons must be, when such a man can be selected by it as its foremost statesman. There he had sat for thirty years, session after session, ever foremost in the fight, face to face with antagonists who were reputed the ablest speakers, the most powerful thinkers whom the country could produce. Had his enemies’ account of him been true, why had theynot exposed and made an end of him? The English people had too much respect for their institutions to believe in so incredible a story. The violence of the attacks recoiled upon their authors. With his accession to the Premiership he became an object of marked and general regard. When he went down to Parliament for the first time in his new capacity, he was wildly cheered by the crowds in Palace Yard. The shouts were echoed along Westminster Hall and through the lobbies, and were taken up again warmly and heartily in the House itself, which had been the scene of so many conflicts—the same House in which he had been hooted down when he first rose to speak there.
And the tribute was to himself personally. He was not the representative of any great or popular cause. Even in carrying his Reform Bill he had not stooped to inflated rhetoric, or held out promises of visionary millenniums. He was regarded merely as a man of courage and genius, not less honest than other politicians because his professions were few.
Reply of the Liberals to the Tory Reform Bill—State of Ireland—The Protestant Establishment—Resolution proposed by Mr. Gladstone—Decay of Protestant feeling in England—Protestant character of the Irish Church—The Upas Tree—Mr. Gladstone’s Irish policy—General effect on Ireland of the Protestant Establishment—Voltaire’s opinion—Imperfect results—The character of the Protestant gentry—Nature of the proposed change—Sprung on England as a surprise—Mr. Gladstone’s resolutions carried—Fall of Disraeli’s Government.
IRISH POLICY OF MR. GLADSTONE
Disraeli, in appropriating Parliamentary Reform, obliged the Liberals to look about them for another battle-cry at the next election—something popular and plausible which would touch the passions of the constituencies. The old subjects were worn out or disposed of. It had become necessary to start new game. The genuine Radical desires to make a new world by a reconstruction of society. He has his eye always on one or other of the old institutions, which he regards as an obstacle to progress. There are, therefore, at all times, a number of questions which are gradually ‘ripening,’ as it is called, but which wait to be practically dealt with till the opportunity presents itself. Among these the Liberal leader had now to make his choice. A small advance would not answer. Disraeli had ventured a long and audacious step. The other side must reply with a second and a longer if the imagination was to be effectively awakened.
FENIANISM
WEAKENED INFLUENCE OF PROTESTANTISM
The Established Church of England, the Land Laws, the House of Lords, perhaps the Crown, were eventually to be thrown into the crucible; but the nation was not yet prepared for an assault on either of these. The weak point was found in Ireland, which at all times had been the favourite plaything of English faction. Three millions of Irish had fled across the Atlantic to escape from famine since the failure of the potato. Some had gone of their own wills, some had been roughly expelled from their homes. With few exceptions, they had borne the cost of their own exportation. Those who went first sent home money to bring out their families and friends, and the economists had congratulated themselves that the Irish difficulty was at last disposed of, at no expense to the British taxpayer. A few insignificant persons, who understood the Irish character, knew too well that the congratulations were premature. If the poor Irish were really our fellow-subjects, these persons thought that some effort should have been made to soften their expulsion, and to provide or at least to offer them homes in the vast colonial territories which then belonged to us. Past efforts in that direction, indeed, had not been encouraging. For several generations we had poured shiploads of Irish into the West Indies. Scarcely a survivor of Celtic blood is now to be found in those islands. It would have been something, however, to have shown that we were generously anxious to bear our share in the undeserved calamity which had fallen on an ill-used people, and to try to repair the efforts of centuries of negligence. If we left them to their own resources without regret, with an avowed confession that we were glad to be rid of them, Irish disaffection would become more intense than ever. We did so leave them. They streamed across to the United States,carrying hatred of England along with them, while the walls of the deserted villages in Connaught preached revenge to those who were left at home. The exiles throve in their new land—a fresh evidence, if they needed more, that English domination had been the cause of their miseries. They multiplied, and became a factor in American political life. They fought, and fought well, in the American Civil War. When the Civil War was over, they hoped for a war with England, and tried to kindle it in Canada. The ‘Alabama’ question having been settled peacefully, they failed in their immediate purpose; but none the less they were animated with an all-pervading purpose of revenge; and there were many thousands of them who had escaped the Southern bullets who were ready for any desperate adventure. An invading force was to cross the Atlantic, while Ireland organised itself in secret societies to receive them as it did to receive the French in 1797. Chester Castle and the Fenian rebellion of 1867 are not yet forgotten even in these days of short memories and excited hopes. The rising was abortive. It failed, as Irish rebellions have so often failed, because the Irish people trusted in their numbers and neglected to make serious preparations. The American general who came over to take the command had been told that he would find ten thousand men drilled and armed. He did not find five hundred, and he left the enterprise in contempt. The scattered risings which followed were easily suppressed, and were suppressed with gentleness. The exhortation of a leading Liberal journal to make an example of the rebels in the field, because executions afterwards were inconvenient, was happily not attended to. But the leniency with which the leading insurgents were treated was construed into a confession of weakness. The rebellious spirit was fed fromAmerica, and detached acts of violence, attempted rescues of prisoners, and blowing up of gaols showed that Ireland was as unsubdued as ever. The great Liberal champion saw the occasion which he required. The Clerkenwell explosion, he said, had brought the Irish question within the range of practical politics, and in this extraordinary acknowledgment invited an inflammable people to persevere in outrage if they desired to secure their rights. He declared in a memorable speech that the cause of Irish wretchedness had been Protestant Ascendency. Protestant Ascendency was the Irish upas-tree, with its three branches, the Church, the land, and the education. The deadly growth once cut down, the animosity would end, and the English lion and the Irish lamb would lie down together in peace. That to disarm the garrison was a likely mode of reconciling an unwilling people to a connection which they detest, was an expectation not in accordance with general human experience; still less when it was confessedly recommended as a reward of insurrection. But the Irish question was ingeniously selected as a counterstroke to Disraeli’s Reform Bill. Had Disraeli but left Reform to its owners the Liberals would have been provided with work at home and have left Ireland alone. But the deed was done, and many circumstances combined to suggest to the eminent statesman who had discovered the secret of Irish disaffection that here was the proper field for his genius, and that he was peculiarly the person to put his hand to the plough. Irish Church had long been a scandal to Liberal sentiment, and Disraeli himself had denounced it. The land was the favourite subject of Radical declamation. Land-owning in Ireland showed under its least favourable aspect, and could there be assaulted at best advantage. It was true that the controlof Ireland was vital to the safety of Great Britain, and that the Protestants there were the only part of the population whose loyalty could be depended on. Until recent years the Protestant feeling in England and Scotland would have forbidden a revolutionary change avowedly intended to weaken the Protestant settlement; but the extended franchise, either already conceded or made inevitable by Disraeli’s Bill, would throw four-fifths of the representation of Ireland into Nationalist hands, and the adhesion of such a phalanx would give the party which could secure it an overwhelming preponderance, while the Protestant prejudices which had served hitherto as a check were wearing away.
Sixty years ago the British nation adhered almost unanimously to the traditions of the Reformation. It had grown to its present greatness as a Protestant power. The Pope was still the Man of Sin. Roman doctrine, either pure or modified into Anglicanism, was regarded with suspicion, aversion, or contempt. Conversions were unheard of, and the few surviving hereditary Catholics were unobtrusive and politically ciphers. Catholic Emancipation in restoring them to power restored them at the same time to social consequence. The Liberals who had advocated that great measure, historians, statesmen, and philosophers, broke with the principles of which their predecessors had once been the staunchest advocates, changed front, and traduced the Reformation itself, to which Liberalism owed its existence. While Macaulay and Buckle were cursing Cranmer, the Oxford Movement made its way among the clergy, was welcomed largely by the upper classes, whose nerves were offended by Puritan vulgarities, and leavened gradually the whole organisation of the Church of England.Men of intellect who would once have interfered had ceased to care for such things, and allowed them to go their own way. The Rationalists and critics, whom Disraeli so sagaciously disliked, worked havoc in a party whose whole belief was in their Bible. The Evangelicals, who had been narrow and tyrannical in the days of their power, found themselves fading into impotence; while in the mass of the people a doctrinal faith was superseded by a vague religiosity which saw no particular difference between one creed and another.
THE CHURCH OF IRELAND
The High Churchmen, who grew strong as their rivals declined, called themselves Catholics again, and abjured the name of Protestant. To unprotestantise the Church of England had been the confessed purpose of the first Tractarians, and the work had been effectively done. Mr. Gladstone was the most distinguished of their lay adherents. The purity of his life, the loftiness of his principles, his well-known because slightly ostentatious piety commended him generally to the national confidence, English statesmen with strong religious convictions having been recently uncommon articles. Thus, in addition to the ordinary Radical forces, Mr. Gladstone had the support of a great body of influential clergy, who, although tried at times by his questionable associations, continued to believe in him and uphold him—to uphold him especially in his onslaught upon their unfortunate Irish sister. The Irish Church had refused to follow in the new counter-Reformation. The Irish Church was Evangelical to the heart—actively, vigorously, healthily Evangelical—a Church militant in Luther’s spirit. ‘We have no Tractarians here,’ said the Bishop of Cashel to me. ‘We have the real thing, and know too much about it.’ The life which was showing wasof late growth too, and was therefore likely to continue. The Church of Ireland as a missionary institution had not been a success. Established by Elizabeth for political reasons, it had existed for two centuries and a half, making no impression on the mass of the population. Such Protestant spirituality as remained was confined to the Presbyterians of Ulster and the few Southern Nonconformists who were descended from the Cromwellian colonists. The bishops, secured after the Revolution by the Penal Laws, had received their large incomes and consumed them with dignity; but when they exerted themselves it was to persecute Protestant dissenters and drive them out of Ireland. The ancient churches fell to ruins. Incumbents ceased to reside where they had no congregations, left their parishes to underpaid curates, or more commonly to the tithe proctor. So things went on till the long negligence had borne its inevitable fruit. The Nonconformists were then let alone. The rebellion of 1798, the rapid growth of the Catholic population, the immediate contact with the Catholic system in an aggressive form, and the relaxation of the Penal Code gradually roused the clergy to exertion. The ruined churches were repaired or others provided, and before the middle of the present century the Protestant ministers in Ireland were showing a sincerity, a piety, a devotion to the work of their calling of exceptional and peculiar interest. I was myself at that time brought in contact with many of the Established clergy in the southern provinces. They had more of the saintly character of the early Christians than any clergy of any denomination that I had ever fallen in with.
After the tithe question had been settled they had no quarrels with the Catholic peasantry. They were poor, butthey were charitable beyond their means. They were beloved, respected, trusted by all classes of the population. In every parish there was a resident educated gentleman, whose help in the most miserable times was never asked in vain if the occasion was not beyond the resources of those to whom the appeal was made. They made some few proselytes, and this was treated as a crime in them, while their rivals thought it no crime to convert a heretic. The Evangelical Calvinism which they generally professed was more attractive to the Celtic peasantry than the EpiscopalVia Media. The Irish nature is impressible by a real belief, and the old creed which roused half Europe to fight for spiritual liberty in the sixteenth century in this one corner of the globe remained alive and active. The differences which had separated the Establishment from the Ulster Presbyterians had practically disappeared. For the first time since the Reformation the Protestants of Ireland were of one heart and one mind.
IRELAND AND ENGLAND
The time had been when such a disposition would have had the warm sympathies of the sister island. But the Protestant fire on this side of the Channel had sunk to ashes, and the ashes themselves were cooling. Even among the Scotch and the Dissenters the creed of Knox and Cromwell had subsided into opinion flavoured with a vague Liberalism. While the English Church parties were drifting Romeward with an eagerness which to some persons appeared like the descent over a steep place of certain foolish animals, their poor Irish brethren who adhered to the faith of their fathers had lost their sympathy, and when the statesman whom they regarded with so much admiration proposed to disable and disendow the Irish branch of the Establishment, they looked on with indifference and did not withdraw theirconfidence in him. They did not actively approve. Even Mr. Gladstone himself professed to feel some qualms of conscience. ‘We do it wrong,’ he said, ‘being so majestical, to offer it the show of violence.’ But by their silence they gave him their tacit sanction, and lent an air of respectability to a proceeding which without it he might have failed to go through with. They allowed the Irish Church to be dealt with politically, as a branch of his Protestant Ascendency which had been called a upas-tree.
IRISH CHARACTER
As a Churchman Mr. Gladstone was a Tractarian; as a statesman, he had become an advanced Radical. From neither point of view was the Irish Church to his liking. Yet as English statesman he was taking a bold, perhaps a rash step in endeavouring to weaken English authority in a country so ill-affected to us, when it had been built up with so many centuries of effort. Geographical position compels us to keep Ireland subject to the British Crown. That is the first fact of the situation—a situation which cannot be changed till we have lost our place as a great European power. The Irish, perhaps as much for this reason as for any other, have resisted and still resist. They might have been reconciled to their fate in return for other advantages if their own wills had been consulted; but they have resented the claim of necessity. Difference of religion has not been the cause of the hostility. Before the Reformation as much as after it they never missed an opportunity of injuring or attempting to break from us. The Reformation appeared to sanctify their quarrel, and caused a century of civil war and desolation; and the English Parliament, after all other means had been tried in vain to bring them to obedience, had determined to colonise the island with Scotch and English Protestants whose loyalty could be dependedon. The land was taken forcibly away from the native owners, and was given to adventurers or to Cromwell’s soldiers who would undertake to defend it. It was a violent measure; but to hold a country in subjection against its will is itself an act of violence which entails others. The Irish people had shown in five centuries of resistance that they could only be held to us by force. The colonists were the English garrison, and however grave their faults and miserable their deficiencies, the result was that Ireland had a century of peace. Twice during that period there was a civil war in Great Britain, and Ireland remained quiet. When the American colonies revolted, the Irish Catholics offered their swords and their services to ‘the best of kings,’ and only when the Penal Laws were relaxed and they were allowed an instalment of liberty did they again attempt insurrection. The Penal Laws are considered an atrocity. They were borrowed from the terms of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and Voltaire, an impartial witness on such a subject, was able to use language about Ireland during the time when they were in force which deserves more attention than it has met with. ‘Ce pays est toujours resté sous la domination de l’Angleterre, mais inculte, pauvre et inutile jusqu’à ce qu’enfin dans le dix-huitième siècle l’agriculture, les manufactures, les arts, les sciences, tout s’y est perfectionné, et l’Irlande, quoique subjuguée, est devenue une des plus florissantes provinces de l’Europe.’ (‘Essai sur les Mœurs,’ chap. 50.) So Ireland appeared to the keenest eye in Europe at the time when it is the fashion to say that she was groaning under the hatefullest tyranny. The description was too favourable, yet it was relatively correct. The Irish are a military people. They are admirable as soldiers and police. They obeyauthority and prosper under it. They run wild when left to their own wills. An industrious people thrive best when free. A fighting people require to be officered, and when authority is firm and just are uniformly loyal. In Ireland, unfortunately, authority was not firm and was not just. The trade laws were iniquitous. The Protestant gentry were forced into idleness. They became a garrison without wholesome occupation; yet at worst such advance as Ireland did make was wholly due to them, and every step which was taken to reduce their power brought back the old symptoms. It cannot be said that the system was satisfactory; yet to abolish it altogether, to declare it to be a poisonous plant which required to be uprooted, was an adventure which ought not to have been entered upon without maturer consideration than it received. The injustice (such as there was) lay in the original sin of forcing an unwilling people into a connection which they detest. Protestant ascendency was the instrument by which the connection was maintained, and the only one which had even partially succeeded. If it was swept away, what was to take its place? Conciliation, we are told. But what had conciliation effected hitherto? The abolition of the Penal Laws was to have brought peace. It brought only a sword. The admission of the Catholics to the franchise was to have brought peace. It was followed instantly by rebellion. Parliament was opened to them, and tithe riots broke out, and midnight murdering. On the heel of each concession came a Coercion Act, because Ireland could not be governed otherwise. The eager Celt has regarded each step gained as the conquest of an outwork of English dominion which has served but to whet the appetite for attack and to weaken the defence. What reason was thereto suppose that when they heard Church and landlords denounced, when they were told by a great English statesman that their grievances would only be attended to when they made themselves dangerous, the result would be different? The great grievance of all, the English sovereignty, would be left. If that too was to be sacrificed—if after the internal administration of their country was made over to themselves they showed that nothing would satisfy them except national independence—were the advocates of a trusting policy prepared to concede this point also? They might answer ‘Yes’ perhaps. Better Ireland should be free altogether than chained to England against her will. This might be their own opinion, but they could not answer for the English nation; and if the English nation refused, there would be nothing for it but civil war and a fresh conquest.
Before letting loose an agitation so far-reaching and of such uncertain consequence, Mr. Gladstone ought to have laid out the whole problem for consideration in all its possible issues; not partially and crudely for an immediate election cry, but in a form in which it could be maturely discussed and paused over for years. To reverse and undo the policy of centuries was a step which ought not to have been ventured without the national consent. The electors knew less of Ireland even than Mr. Gladstone himself, who ought to have made them first understand what it was which they were called on to sanction.
But these are not times for long reflection. A Parliamentary leader sees an opportunity. His followers echo him. Sentiment displaces reason, and a majority is the most conclusive of arguments.