Chapter 14

'It will prove a happy and fortunate thing, both for Ireland and England, that there was one man living, one English statesman living, with the great power and the extraordinary ability of the right hon. gentleman to lend his voice on behalf of poor helpless Ireland. He had devoted his great mind, his extraordinary energy to the unravelling of this question and to the construction of this Bill.... To none of the sons of Ireland—at any time has there ever been given the genius and talent of the right hon. gentleman—certainly nothing approaching to it in these days.'

'It will prove a happy and fortunate thing, both for Ireland and England, that there was one man living, one English statesman living, with the great power and the extraordinary ability of the right hon. gentleman to lend his voice on behalf of poor helpless Ireland. He had devoted his great mind, his extraordinary energy to the unravelling of this question and to the construction of this Bill.... To none of the sons of Ireland—at any time has there ever been given the genius and talent of the right hon. gentleman—certainly nothing approaching to it in these days.'

The people, whom a few months ago Mr. Parnell denounced as representing to him and his friends 'imprisonment, chains and death,' now came to offer him a scheme of Irish nationality, and Shylock, recognizing the wisdom of the shamBalthazar, was not more appreciative: 'A Daniel come to judgment, yea a Daniel,' but, like Shylock, Mr. Parnell relied upon his bond. Whilst he accepted the offering with the effusion of a successful speculator, he took care to remind his hearers that he was not bound to take it in discharge of his claim. He reserved any 'definite or positive expression of opinion;' 'there were undoubtedly great faults and blots in the measure,' but he could safely say, 'whavever might be the fate of the Bill, the cause of Ireland, the cause of Irish autonomy, will enormously gain by the genius of the right hon. gentleman.' This is the solid result of the strange events which have been passing for the last three months. A distinguished public man has been called to office by the Parnellite vote. He has demanded and obtained ample time to consider the difficulties of his position and offer his solution.

A glance at the new scheme shows that the proposal is at once disingenuous and fantastic. The Prime Minister shrinks from admitting the nature of the work he is engaged in. He breaks up the unity of the Kingdom, but he will not allow that his Bill involves the repeal of the Union. But whatever quibbles may be indulged in, the main principle of the Act of Union, that Ireland should be represented at Westminster is swept away. As Irish nationality is not to be ignored, it finds expression in a Parliament in Dublin; but Ireland is to pay a contribution towards the debt and towards public defence, and in the application of this money is to have no voice. Thus we have Irish nationality started with machinery which sets aside the first principle of free governments, that there should be no taxation without representation; and the internal arrangements of the Dublin Parliament are equally suggestive of confusion in the future.

The Prime Minister does not ask Parliament to disregard the risks to which property and loyalty will be exposed in the Dublin Assembly, and he proposes to satisfy our conscience by giving them the security of representation in Dublin by a special Order. The Dublin Parliament is divided into two Orders, each of which shall have a veto on the legislation of the majority. The First Order consists of persons who must be possessors of 4000l.or an equivalent income. That is their personal qualification, and they are to be elected by occupiers rated at 25l.Property qualification for Members of Parliament was abolished in England some thirty years ago. Rating, as a qualification for electors, has been abandoned in a series of deliberate public measures from 1866 to 1885; but it is these old clothes of English Parliaments which Mr. Gladstone offers to his newnationality. Why should these expedients be adopted in Ireland? Checks upon legislative action, a second Chamber, a Second or a First Order, are questions upon which theorists are divided. They are certainly not questions which have occupied the National League. These 'Orders' in Parliamentary life are not native Irish ideas. These reproductions of quaint customs, such as we might find in some ecclesiastical synod, or in the village organization of some old Scandinavian community, are England's guarantees for the security of property in the Sister Island. That Island, we know, has been abandoned for some years to the National League, whose power was founded on their opportunities of excommunicating any one who did not subscribe to their funds and obey their decrees. The principle of the National League was that property in land was an outrage on Irish opinion; and we are asked to believe that this American-Irish organization, clothed with Parliamentary power in Dublin, will be kept in check by a device, which has no sanction in ancient tradition, in local sympathy, in recognized opinion. The First Order in the new Chamber will be so many people marked out for plunder. If any one possessing 4000l.worth of property, which he can convert into cash, is venturesome enough to accept a seat in the Chamber, what will become of him and his electors, people who are scheduled in each locality as the owners of property rated at 25l.a year? The majority of them in the South and West will be tenants who have not dared to pay their rents, because the National League prohibited the payment. Let us suppose people are found to constitute the First Order, and they veto some scheme of the majority, and a general election occurs, will the expedients which have made the League what it is be suddenly forgotten? Can we doubt that the First Order and its electors would be straightway boycotted out of existence? The Ministerial proposal is an attempt to meet the views of Mr. Parnell; and, without admitting that it is all he requires, the Irish leader cordially accepts it, but he wants, he has told us, 'the full and complete right to arrange our own affairs and make ours a nation—to secure for her, free from outside control, the right to direct her own course among the peoples of the world.' We are asked to suppose that he and his friends, started in their new career, will be stopped by such a ridiculous invention as this First Order. And it is a project like this, inconsistent with itself, implying constitutional degradation of the very people whom it is supposed to conciliate, patched up with strange curiosities as unknown in England as in Ireland, which Parliament is asked to accept as a 'final settlement' of our Irish difficulties.

The Bill proposed settles nothing. Its only result is a renewed manifestation of the power and influence of the Irish agitator. In this extraordinary state of affairs men are apt to forget the series of events which have brought about our present condition. Ministries come and go at the bidding of Mr. Parnell. English policy in the future, important schemes affecting the gravest concerns of England, of Scotland, of Ireland, depend not on any principle accepted by the British public, but on the humour of the Irish leader. The existence of the House of Lords, the legal position of the Church of Scotland, the maintenance of our most important military reserve, the right of the Sovereign in relation to peace and war, are exposed to critical divisions, not because British opinion is eager for revolution, or has become indifferent to the vast interests involved, but because the Nationalist party wish to remind us of their voting power.

Our alarm at all this should not make us lose sight of the antecedent facts which have built up this force of mischief. Mr. Gladstone is Prime Minister by the favour of the Irish party, and this party is the outcome of Mr. Gladstone's own policy. Whether the fluent rhetorician foresaw his present position, whether perched on his slender ledge of power he now enjoys it, we need not stop to consider. What we would remind our readers is that for nearly twenty years past he has, in the main line of his public life, notwithstanding some convulsive oscillations, pursued with the pertinacity of one possessed the policy of which the present Irish organization is the natural and the logical development. The National League represents the spirit to which Mr. Gladstone appealed at Southport in 1867. In the December of that year he charged the new voters, in words of solemn adjuration, to look at Ireland from the Irish point of view. This appeal had an electric effect upon the population of that island. In the years which have passed since, his own injunction has been sometimes rudely disregarded by Mr. Gladstone himself, but he never long delayed to turn again to his favourite theory, to make another effort to justify the principle with which he had started, and at each renewal of his enterprise he plunged himself and his party deeper into the morass of Hibernian disorder. Mr. Gladstone's admirers are very proud of his numerous successes in carrying important Bills through Parliament, but it is forgotten that his Irish Bills, though carried, have never attained the ends for which they were passed. Twice have all the resources of his genius, all the machinery of his party, been called into requisition to bring about a final settlement of the Irish Land question, and yet thework is still to be done. The explanation is not far to seek. Mr. Gladstone's passionate recklessness committed him in 1867 to an enterprise, the magnitude of which excited his vanity, the actual nature of which he only dimly perceived.

In the year we have named he was trying to recover his footing after a heavy fall in his first start as leader of the Liberal Party. A scheme of Parliamentary reform, carried by his political opponent, had marked the commencement of another epoch. In the new arena of public life two centres of political energy were certain to be strongly represented in the organization which Mr. Gladstone hoped to lead back to office. The Spirit of Dissent was all powerful among the English householders. The Irish tenant, whose electoral strength, directed by the Roman priesthood, had been exhibited with much effect in 1852, was sure to receive a great increase of power under the new Reform Bill. To combine these influences was one of the conditions of any prolonged tenure of office by the Liberal party. The Irish Establishment had been forsaken by English opinion in previous years. Its overthrow would be hailed with enthusiasm by the Dissenting communities, whilst the Irish priesthood would regard disestablishment with undoubted satisfaction. The condition of Irish Land Tenure was admitted by all parties to require amendment, and its settlement would be a substantial benefit to the Irish farmer.

These were subjects which naturally tempted the daring energies of a man occupying Mr. Gladstone's position in the winter of 1867. Turned out of office after the death of Lord Palmerston, his subsequent management of the reform question, as leader of the Opposition, had only increased the distrust of his party. He was without a constituency at the coming election, and he went down to Lancashire to seek in that great centre of hard-headed Englishmen the confiding constituency which he subsequently found in Midlothian. New legislation on the Irish Church, a reform in Irish Land Tenure, were subjects for which his party, for which the majority of Englishmen were pretty well prepared. The Liberal Churchmen, like Sir Roundell Palmer, who held back on the subject of Disestablishment, were more than counterbalanced by the Dissenters, who were attracted by the scheme. Popular Legislation on these subjects might have been granted to Ireland as the matured outcome of British opinion. Such a mode of approaching the work in hand did not suit the exuberant temperament of Mr. Gladstone. Whilst the report of the Clerkenwell explosion was still echoing through the land, he announced his policy as one to be recommended, not because the great British community had examined and adopted theproposed measures, but because Irish opinion was to be henceforth accepted as our guide in Irish Legislation. With characteristic recklessness he hurried to turn to the account of his own ambition the throb of excitement which he saw traversing the nation. He appealed to his audience to regard the Fenian outrages as a sort of revelation from heaven, to commune with their own hearts, not on the state of Ireland, and the remedies sensible men could offer, but on the sentiments of Irishmen. His final test of legislation was to be, not its consonance with the judgment of the British people, but with the demand of the Irish crowd.

'Ireland is at your doors. Providence has placed her there. Law and legislation have been a compact between you. You must face these obligations. You must deal with them and discharge them. As to the modes of giving effect to this principle I do not now enter upon them. I am of opinion they should be dictated, as a general rule, by that which may appear to be the mature, well-considered, and general sense of the Irish people.'—20th Dec. 1867.

'Ireland is at your doors. Providence has placed her there. Law and legislation have been a compact between you. You must face these obligations. You must deal with them and discharge them. As to the modes of giving effect to this principle I do not now enter upon them. I am of opinion they should be dictated, as a general rule, by that which may appear to be the mature, well-considered, and general sense of the Irish people.'—20th Dec. 1867.

At this date 'the general sense of the Irish people' was, to Mr. Gladstone's mind, the policy formulated by the Irish Episcopacy, the scheme which at a later stage of the campaign in the following year he described as the lopping off the three branches of the Upas tree of Protestant ascendancy. He failed in Lancashire, but his success in other parts of the kingdom was complete; and then ensued the abolition of the Irish Establishment and an adjustment of the land question which carried the recognition of local customs farther than Englishmen had anticipated.

The Liberal party had been charged to consult Irish opinion. As long as Cardinal Cullen and Mr. Gladstone were agreed all went merrily, even if some rude coercion like the Westmeath Act was required to deal with Irish ideas which did not find expression in the Cardinal. But whilst the English Minister and the Irish Primate declared, that Ribbonism was an impudent pretender to any representative character and must be rooted out, a third organ of opinion claimed the benefit of the Southport principle in the form of the Home Rule Association, and Mr. Gladstone at Aberdeen replied with angry scorn:

'Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that, at this time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate the capital institutions of this country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits, through legislation, on the country to which we belong?'—26th Sept. 1871.

'Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that, at this time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate the capital institutions of this country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits, through legislation, on the country to which we belong?'—26th Sept. 1871.

The ideas expressed by the Roman hierarchy, attracted bythe Disestablishment, substantially interested in the better position of the farmer, and confidently anticipating for themselves the acquisition of a power over public education such as their order enjoyed nowhere else in the world, these were ideas which Mr. Gladstone recognized as national. On the subject of education, however, he was not able to go as far as the Ultramontane party required. They directed the Irish members to vote against him. The coalition between Dissent and the Roman Hierarchy was dissolved. The Minister, who had brought it about, suddenly awoke to a sense of the evil teaching of his late allies in the government of Ireland, and 'Vaticanism' held them up to the reprobation of Protestant England.

The new Liberal discovery, the principle of Irish ideas, had broken down as a party engine. It had made the Ministry of 1868, but it had failed to preserve it. Mr. Gladstone retired from the leadership of the party to the greater freedom of an independent member of Parliament, and in this capacity led the stormy agitation against Lord Beaconsfield, making the foreign policy of England a party question.

Meanwhile the theory of the Southport speech, and the results which had attended it, were not forgotten in Ireland. The Home Rule movement, which was denounced so angrily at Aberdeen, enlisted all the resources of local sentiment, feelings similar to those which make a Lancashireman proud of Lancashire, a Scotchman delight in Scotch associations. Among its promoters were professors, poets, Irish Catholics, who were glad to show themselves on a public platform without being the puppets or the opponents of their bishops, Irish Protestants, who were irritated at the desertion of the Irish Church, a number of well-meaning people who were attracted by the opportunity of talking eloquently and vaguely about nothing in particular. This Academic scheme of Home Rule found an admirable exponent in Mr. Butt, an able lawyer of ambitious politics.

What answer were Liberals to give to this new embodiment of their great statesman's theory? They denounced Mr. Butt, pondering feebly meanwhile what it all meant; but the Home Rule organization, once set a-going, was soon permeated by the Fenian spirit. Platitudes about 'patriotism' and 'green Erin' meant to an Irish crowd, 'Down with England and with landlords.' That great hotbed of disatisfaction, Irish popular feeling, supplied stimulating nutriment to the new party. In proportion as hostility to England was more openly declared, funds came in rapidly from the Irish in America. Year by year the Home Rule members gained in parliamentary power, one sectionof the Liberal party after another giving them encouragement—in the first place because they were troublesome to a Tory Ministry, in the second because the flaccid thought of modern Liberalism made them welcome any organization, which would save them the trouble of facing the difficulties of Irish administration.

In 1880 the public took no heed to Lord Beaconsfield's historic warning, that danger was brewing in Ireland. The Liberal legislation of ten years before had, they tried to believe, disposed of Irish difficulties in their most serious aspect. Both before and after the General Election they were assured by Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone, that Irish affairs were proceeding satisfactorily. The new Ministry had, however, to face a formidable parliamentary party, who refused to recognize the legislation of 1869 and 1870 as any settlement of the Irish question. Their first device was to abandon the Act of their predecessors, passed in 1875, which applied some of the milder provisions of the Westmeath Act to the whole of Ireland. A reconstruction of the Local Government of the United Kingdom, and a new Reform Bill, were the tasks assigned by public opinion to the second Gladstone Ministry; but finding the abandonment of coercion did not conciliate the Irish party, the Premier returned with a rush to the policy of 1867. He determined to justify his claim to be the statesman who had found out the secret of Irish administration. Within two months after the Ministry was formed the public were warned that they were within measurable distance of civil war. This danger was not urged as a reason for recurring to accepted principles of government; on the contrary, it was a plea for new expeditions in pursuit of theignis fatuusof Irish opinion. We know the events which followed.

The Compensation for Disturbance Bill seemed a small matter in itself, but involved principles fatal to all security for property. During the next autumn and winter, Ireland was abandoned to the savage dominion of the Land League. The quiescence of the Government excited remonstrance even from advanced Radicals like Mr. Leonard Courtney. That stalwart Liberal had not been then in office, had not had the experience he has since acquired. He had not yet learned the dutiful lesson that, whatever his own convictions, the probabilities were in favour of the view that his great leader was in the right, or at least, might be successful. As a concession to public opinion, a Coercion Act was passed, new fangled and hesitating. But it was not so much on effective legislation and a resolute determination to curb disorder that the Ministry relied, as on therecognition of Irish opinion which the Land Act of 1881 embodied. It was truly said of that measure by an exulting Radical, that it struck a blow at property which was felt in every country in Europe. In his main calculation, his purpose to win popularity in Ireland, Mr. Gladstone failed, as he has so often failed; and as usual the failure was due to the wickedness or perversity of some one else. In 1874 it was Pius IX. and the Jesuits who had misled his Irish friends. In 1881 the evil influence was Mr. Parnell.

In the autumn the Prime Minister startled his hearers at Leeds by a passionate complaint, that—

'a small band of men had arisen who were not ashamed to preach in Ireland the doctrine of public plunder ... now that Mr. Parnell is afraid, lest the people of England by their long continued efforts should win the hearts of the whole Irish nation, he has a new and enlarged gospel of plunder to proclaim.'

'a small band of men had arisen who were not ashamed to preach in Ireland the doctrine of public plunder ... now that Mr. Parnell is afraid, lest the people of England by their long continued efforts should win the hearts of the whole Irish nation, he has a new and enlarged gospel of plunder to proclaim.'

He went back with a swing to the high-handed policy he had so often denounced. Irishmen must be made to recognize Gladstone, and not Parnell, as their true friend. The Land League was dissolved by proclamation, its principal leaders, including Mr. Parnell, were clapped into jail, and it was proclaimed at Knowsley that the Cabinet were going 'to relieve the people of Ireland from the weight of a tyrannical yoke.'

These speeches, full as they were of denunciation of Mr. Parnell, were still on the lines of the Southport speech. They were not declarations of the opinion of the British community, warnings to Ireland to take account of the settled judgment of the nation, of which the sister island must always form part. They contrasted with the manly utterance of Mr. Chamberlain on this subject, the same month, at Birmingham. They were angry appeals to Ireland to quarrel with her chosen leaders. Mr. James Lowther was denounced for stating, that 'the party headed by Mr. Parnell commanded the support of the large majority of the people of Ireland.' Mr. Gladstone added, 'The proposition here made is one on which we are entirely at issue. I profoundly disbelieve it; I utterly protest against it. I believe a greater calumny on the Irish nation,... a more gross and injurious statement could not possibly be made against the Irish nation.'

In the following year it was found that the recognition of Mr. Gladstone, as the father of the Irish people was still remote; whilst Mr. Forster declared, that a stronger Coercion Bill was necessary, if life was to be protected in Ireland. Then came another plunge after the coveted ideal. Mr. Forster, who hadso generously devoted himself to his party and his leader in the pursuit of a new Irish policy, was abandoned to the Irish members, and to Mr. John Morley's crusade against him in the columns of the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' Mr. Parnell was called out of jail to secure votes to the Government, and order in Ireland, by the help of Mr. Sheridan and other ex-convicts. The Phœnix Park murder, following on the Kilmainham Treaty, postponed the full carrying out of this arrangement. The sort of measure, which Mr. Forster had been refused a month before, was now passed with provisions of excessive stringency; and Lord Spencer, who had been sent to Ireland to win that popularity, which the late Chief Secretary had been unable to obtain, was chiefly occupied in curbing the violence which that Minister had denounced, in bringing to justice the criminals whom he had not been allowed to reach. We recollect that the new Viceroy was exposed to a storm of unpopularity so violent and outrageous, that the public readily forgot the discreditable folly of his original enterprise, and honoured the resolution and dignity with which he discharged the laborious duties of a thankless office.

The construction of the Irish Government at this time was such as to make the Lord Lieutenant personally responsible for the administration of justice, and the carrying out of the main provisions of the Crimes Act. He was in the Cabinet, whilst his chief Secretaries, Mr. Trevelyan and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, were only subordinate members of the Ministry. They conducted Irish business in the House of Commons, representing in their relations with the Irish members, as far as circumstances allowed, their leader's yearning after Irish popularity, whilst Lord Spencer, the Whig Earl, who belonged to things that had been rather than to the rising power of the Radical party, bore all the odium of unpopular imprisonments or executions.

The significance of such an arrangement was not lost on the Irish crowd. By the end of 1882 the Land League was reconstructed under the name of the National League. The new organization, of which 'United Ireland' was the especial organ, gradually established branches from one end of Ireland to the other. Strong as the provisions of the Crimes Prevention Act were, no attempt was made to bring the new society under its operation. The columns of 'United Ireland,' on the other hand, bore plenty of evidence of a disposition to move on. The Irish farmers were reproachfully asked if they were content with a paltry reduction of rent. 'Had they no other account to settle with England?' The leaders reminded their followers that the Crimes Act would expire before long. They renewedwith savage energy that campaign against thepersonnelof the Irish administration, which Mr. John Morley had so warmly espoused up to the murder of Mr. Burke. A continual storm of abuse and calumny was directed against Lord Spencer and every one else concerned with Irish government. Mr. Clifford Lloyd and Mr. Trevelyan were removed by way of warning, that there was no room in Ireland for public servants who did their duty. The National League, in fact, became in each district a conspicuous and formidable power. Their representatives in Parliament received much attention from the Prime Minister and his colleagues. They exercised great influence and had many chances before them in the new organization of the electorate. With all these advantages on the side of the Irish Revolution, the Queen's Government had nobody to champion it but the not imposing personality of Lord Spencer.

It is not surprising that in such a state of things Ireland was already, at the commencement of 1885, like a country occupied by two hostile armies. There was the National League camp with its scouts and emissaries all over the country, with a vigorous Press proclaiming its policy and success. The Government forces remained within their lines, attempting nothing, doing nothing, unless some outrage by a moonlight gang compelled them to make some show of interference to check violation of the truce between treason and loyalty. The greatest care was taken not to identify the Government with the scattered Loyalists. They might be very worthy persons, but they were the special aversion of the Nationalist party, and the business of the Government was not to protect or encourage loyalty, but to prevent Nationalism from going too fast. The Nationalist aspirations of Mr. Gladstone's friends were not to be irritated by attentions shown to their adversaries.

When Parliament reassembled in the spring of 1885, men asked what provision was made for renewing the Crimes Act, which would expire in the autumn. Week after week passed, month after month; and it was impossible to extract from the Ministry what their policy was as regards the government of Ireland. At length, in the summer, it was announced that on a day, which was never fixed, a Bill would be introduced renewing certain provisions of the expiring Act. This announcement from the Treasury Bench was followed at once by a notice from Mr. John Morley to oppose the Bill. So much time had already been lost, that it was practically impossible for any Ministry to carry a Coercion Bill against the determined opposition of the Irish members, without the most resolute effort on the part of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues. Were they prepared to makethese exertions? One of the conditions, on which the Reform question had been settled, was the definite postponement of a dissolution until after the 1st November. Each day men became more and more engrossed with the great question of the winter—the new election—more indifferent to the business of the Session; the Parnellite party more exultant and defiant. Rumours of dissensions in the Cabinet, had been already rife, and grew more frequent every day. The country awoke one morning to find that the second Gladstone Ministry, with its clear majority of over eighty, was at an end. Rather than confess their disunion, the ministry had allowed themselves to be defeated on another question, and Mr. Parnell came before his countrymen as the avenger who had chastised the suggestion of renewed coercion by destroying the Government which made it.

In this collapse of administration the only course open to the Tory party was to prepare as rapidly as possible for an appeal to the country, doing what they could meanwhile in foreign and in home affairs to mitigate the mischief which they were powerless to remedy. When the dissolution came, Mr. Gladstone opened his canvass in Midlothian by many sneers at the election policy of the Irish Nationalists. He reminded his hearers, that the subject of extending local government in Ireland must come forward in the new Parliament, and urged that, 'in dealing with this question the unity of the empire was not to be compromised or be put in jeopardy.' 'Nothing was to be done which should tend to impair,—visibly or sensibly to impair,—the unity of the Empire.' Auditors who had made no special study of Mr. Gladstone's phraseology interpreted these words as a declaration against a separate Parliament in Dublin. He apparently was prepared for large schemes of decentralization, either specially for Ireland or in connection with the projected reform of local government in England; but there was to be nothing which should 'visibly impair' the Imperial unity. He went on to dwell on the danger of 'condescending either to clamour or to fear,' and added:—

'But quite apart from the names of Whig and Tory, one thing I will say, and will endeavour to impress, and it is this, that it will be 'avital dangerto the country if at the time that the demand of Ireland for large powers of self-government is to be dealt with—it will be avital dangerto the Empire if there is not in Parliament ready to deal with that subject, ready to influence the proceedings upon that subject,a party totally independent of the Irish vote.'

'But quite apart from the names of Whig and Tory, one thing I will say, and will endeavour to impress, and it is this, that it will be 'avital dangerto the country if at the time that the demand of Ireland for large powers of self-government is to be dealt with—it will be avital dangerto the Empire if there is not in Parliament ready to deal with that subject, ready to influence the proceedings upon that subject,a party totally independent of the Irish vote.'

Even the most enthusiastic followers of the Liberal chief have learnt to be very cautious in saying what meaning is to be attributed to his utterances, but there can be no doubt that thislanguage was read by the public as saying, 'whatever lengths I may go in working out the principle of local government, whatever may be the understanding between the Home Rulers and the Tories, I at least will not accept the principle of an Irish Parliament.' Not only was this the natural reading of Mr. Gladstone's declarations at the election, but nearly every member of his party, who referred to this question at all, spoke in the same sense. Mr. Campbell Bannerman denounced the Parnellite demands as 'separation under one name or another,' and many other Liberals were equally emphatic, whilst a still larger number never alluded to the subject.

Well may Lord Hartington protest against the competence of the present Parliament to deal with the legislation now proposed.

'There was no thought, no warning held out to the country, that a radical reform in the relations between Great Britain and Ireland would be the main work of the present Parliament.... The country had no sufficient warning—I think I may say the country had no warning at all—that any proposals of the magnitude and vastness of those which were unfolded to us last night were to be considered in the present Parliament, much less were to form the first subject of consideration upon the meeting of this Parliament. I am perfectly aware that there exists in our Constitution no principle of the mandate. I know that the mandate of the constituencies is as unknown to our Constitution, as the distinction between fundamental laws and laws which are of an inferior sanction. But, although no principle of a mandate may exist, I maintain that there are certain limits which Parliament is bound to observe, and beyond which Parliament has morally not the right to go in its relations with the constituencies. The constituencies of Great Britain are the source of the power, at all events, of this branch of Parliament, and I maintain that in the presence of an emergency which could not have been foreseen, the House of Commons has no moral right to initiate legislation, especially upon its first meeting, of which the constituencies were not informed, and of which the constituencies might have been informed, and as to which, if they had been so informed, there is, at all events, the very greatest doubt what their decision might be.'

'There was no thought, no warning held out to the country, that a radical reform in the relations between Great Britain and Ireland would be the main work of the present Parliament.... The country had no sufficient warning—I think I may say the country had no warning at all—that any proposals of the magnitude and vastness of those which were unfolded to us last night were to be considered in the present Parliament, much less were to form the first subject of consideration upon the meeting of this Parliament. I am perfectly aware that there exists in our Constitution no principle of the mandate. I know that the mandate of the constituencies is as unknown to our Constitution, as the distinction between fundamental laws and laws which are of an inferior sanction. But, although no principle of a mandate may exist, I maintain that there are certain limits which Parliament is bound to observe, and beyond which Parliament has morally not the right to go in its relations with the constituencies. The constituencies of Great Britain are the source of the power, at all events, of this branch of Parliament, and I maintain that in the presence of an emergency which could not have been foreseen, the House of Commons has no moral right to initiate legislation, especially upon its first meeting, of which the constituencies were not informed, and of which the constituencies might have been informed, and as to which, if they had been so informed, there is, at all events, the very greatest doubt what their decision might be.'

Over and over again in the Parliament of 1874 and of 1880 have we heard Mr. Gladstone appealing to this principle, that schemes of crucial importance ought to be discussed before the constituencies; yet the most important proposal made in Parliament for some generations is presented after a general election, in which the constituencies were invited by the Prime Minister and his colleagues to believe, that this particular question was outside the region of practical politics.

No sooner had it become apparent that the country had refused that renewal of power which Mr. Gladstone had asked for, than his resolution not to accept defeat was promptly manifested. Public men remembered his use of the Royal prerogative in 1872, to carry into execution a scheme for which he had sought and failed to obtain the consent of Parliament. He had not been a week at Hawarden after his journey from Scotland, when people became conscious that the return to office, which he had told the country would be their security against Mr. Parnell, he was now ready to seek with the aid of that leader.

It was on the 8th of December, just after the main results of the elections were settled, that Mr. Herbert Gladstone wrote from Hawarden to a casual correspondent, 'If five-sixths of the Irish people wish to have a Parliament in Dublin, for the management of their own local affairs, I say in the name of justice and wisdom, let them have it.' A few days afterwards the Press announced that the Liberal chief had, in consultation with some former colleagues, matured a scheme which embodied the points desired by Mr. Parnell. The announcement was immediately followed by a telegram from Hawarden, denying the accuracy of the scheme as sketched in the Press. On the main point, whether he was prepared to co-operate with the Home Rule Party, whether he had recovered from the fear he expressed at Edinburgh, that it would be a 'vital danger' to the Empire, if Home Rule came on for discussion 'without the presence in Parliament of a party totally independent of the Irish vote,' on these questions, with which all England was busy, Mr. Gladstone said never a word. He relied on the virtue he assumed to protect him from inconvenient questionings, and meanwhile the Nationalists were invited to reflect during the Christmas holidays, that perhaps after all their best friend was at Hawarden.

Mr. Chamberlain followed up the rumour of a settled scheme by a prompt denial that he was a party to it, and added an emphatic statement of the way in which he and his friends read the Midlothian speeches—'all sections of the party were determined that the integrity of the Empire should be a reality, and not an empty phrase.' Mr. Chamberlain had listened to his great leader too long not to be aware of the importance of marking the distinction between a 'reality' and a 'phrase.' In a few days Lord Hartington too wrote to say, that he was no party to the suggested policy.

The ultimate result of the elections left the government at Christmas only 251 votes, and the Liberals 333. Had it beenclear that the Liberal party were united in a scheme, which was consistent with the current of British opinion, the solution would have been simple enough. Had the appeals for straightforward dealing, made more than once during the election by Lord Salisbury and Lord Randolph Churchill, been responded to, the Government might have made way for a Liberal Ministry, the best men on both sides recognizing, what the soundest public opinion required, that the Irish vote of 86 should be disregarded on questions affecting the existence of a Cabinet; but before the elections were all over, the divisions in the Liberal party were obvious. Mr. Gladstone had returned with more eagerness than ever to the policy of Irish ideas, whilst experience had at length opened the eyes of his ablest lieutenants.

In such a condition of affairs, the only course for Lord Salisbury's Government was to await the onset of their opponents, meanwhile applying themselves to settle that scheme of Irish policy which they as a party were prepared to champion in office or out of office. They met Parliament with an emphatic declaration to maintain the Union, and a few days afterwards announced that further legislation in defence of public order was necessary. This announcement was made on the 26th of January, when several of the Amendments in the Address were still on the paper. Before the House rose, the Government had ceased to exist. By a majority of 79, in a House of 583; a Resolution in support of a policy advocated by the Radical section of the Liberal party was carried against the Government. The motion of Mr. Jesse Collings was, it must be remembered, not a necessary assertion of a particular principle. The importance of the questions of allotments was acknowledged by the Ministry collectively and individually. It was not supposed, even by Mr. Collings himself, that the carrying of this particular Motion on the Address would advance legislation on the subject by a single day. The motion was one of those demonstrations of opinions, ordinary enough in Parliament, and generally resulting in a debate without a division or if pushed to a division, in the withdrawal from the House of all but declared partizans. On this particular occasion the motion was taken up and pressed to a division, in order that the National League was to be put down, was followed in a few hours by a vote which, in the existing constitution of parties, necessarily involved the restoration of Mr. Gladstone to power. So transparent was the object of the division that 13 Liberals voted with the Ministers, among others such staunch adherents of Liberalism as Lord Hartington and Sir Henry James.

When the new Ministry was formed, two extraordinary circumstances came to light. Lord Hartington, the heir-apparent to the Liberal Leadership, Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone's most distinguished proselyte, Lord Selborne, and other eminent colleagues in the conduct of the Liberal party, would have nothing to do with the new scheme for the final settlement of Ireland for the third time. Another still more singular fact was soon disclosed. All the members of the new Cabinet, who had any future before them, had come in with reservations of a right of further consideration, when the subject of Irish policy should be brought up for discussion.

One remarkable ally, however, Mr. Gladstone had found in his momentous enterprise. The appointment of Mr. John Morley to the principal post in the Government of the part of the kingdom, which had fallen under the sway of such an organization as the National League, was in itself a revolution. The new Chief Secretary had no official experience, and no parliamentary position. A favoured person, who had audience of great Trades' Union gatherings, he was observed with some interest by the late Parliament, busy with speculations on the character of the new Electorate. But, if his parliamentary work had been slight, he had considerable literary reputation, and had taken an active part, in the press, in discussions on the Irish question. The apologist of Danton, the champion of the Jacobin Club, he was the one English political writer who believed himself able to find in the throes of the French Revolution valuable examples of public policy. The figures of that terrible convulsion did not attract him so much by their range of human passion, by the largeness of the space they filled in a great drama of humanity. It was their fanaticism which inspired him. Their capacity to combine, with the perpetration of atrocious crimes, an ardent apostolate of abstract ideals, had for him a vivid fascination. A gentle critic of Robespierre, he could see in the execution of Marie Antoinette traces of discriminating statesmanship. Entering on political work with such dispositions, he was early attracted to the seething cauldron of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy. Having satisfied himself that Ireland was in a state of revolution, he regarded murder and robbery as necessary incidents. When an unfortunate lady driving in the evening along a country road was shot dead beside her husband, whose only offence was that of being a landlord, the public were lectured for the inconsequence of their indignation. On the Dublin conspirators, who were watching to murder Mr. Forster, were not lost the lessons which Mr. Morley had been preaching on the vileness of the permanent officials at the Castle. They determined to murderMr. Burke, and in killing him slew his companion also; and Mr. Morley deprecatingly reminded his readers, that the death of Lord Frederick Cavendish was 'almost an accident.' With these professed opinions, it was easy for him to acknowledge what Mr. Gladstone might have hesitated to confess, that Mr. Parnell and the National League were the true expression of 'the general sense of the Irish people.'

The Nationalist party had long recognised the value of his aid in Parliament. They felt the truth of the saying, that he was 'Mr. Parnell in an Englishman's skin,' and consequently enjoying more freedom of action, able, on occasion, to do more service for the National League in a Parnellite Cabinet than Mr. Parnell himself. Although the principles he had laid down, strictly applied, would oblige him to say, let Ireland take care of herself and work out her own destiny, he has qualified his faith—he has never very clearly explained why—by a declaration in favour of the integrity of the Kingdom. A believer in revolution, Mr. Morley is astute enough to be ready to take what he can get. 'We do wrong,' he said, writing after the breakdown of the Kilmainham Treaty, 'in being content with nothing short of perfection and finality. If we see our way to the next step, that is enough.' 'Perfection' in Irish affairs would perhaps be that Irish opinion should be organized in a convention at Dublin, and then, tempered by a full course of revolution, should come to the conclusion, that the Union after all was the best thing for both islands. As the public are not yet prepared for trying this experiment, we are to have a succession of 'next steps.'

As a set off to Mr. Morley's want of official experience and of weight in the House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone placed the consideration he enjoyed with the Parnellite party and a disposition, composed of fanaticism and adroitness, fitting him well to co-operate in the schemes which were to follow from the wild passion of the National League in combination with the skill of the 'old Parliamentary hand.'

No sooner was the new Ministry formed than the Nationalist party recognized the greatness of their opportunity. An attitude of reserve was taken up by the Nationalist members and their Press. The Ministry had not been a week in office, when the most advanced and outspoken of the Irish leaders, Mr. John Dillon, presiding at a meeting of the National League, frankly declared 'he never felt more inclined to say nothing than to-day, the present Ministry had been formed on one question and on one question alone, and that was the rights of the Irish nation.' With Mr. Gladstone in office, the policy of the League was toapply the policy of silence so often inculcated by Mr. Parnell. Speaking out might only embarrass their new allies.

The country, up to a week ago, knew nothing of the momentous scheme on which the Ministry were engaged. One Cabinet council considered it with the result, that the collective action of the Cabinet ceased for the next fortnight; and then the only two public men of weight, whom Mr. Gladstone had induced to give his scheme the compliment of a hearing, retired from the Ministry. Our readers are now in possession of so much of the new scheme as they may be able to discern through the glamour of Mr. Gladstone's rhetoric; but the condition of affairs during the last three months is a picture to remember for all time.

When the Hawarden scheme was disclosed before Christmas, Mr. Gladstone's principal organ in the London Press declared within a week that the game was up. The public would have none of it. The return of Mr. Gladstone to office, with Mr. John Morley as Irish Secretary, suddenly revived the hopes of the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' His new start in pursuit of the Irish ideal banished the despair which had settled upon even the most reckless of his adherents. The age, the physical power of the Premier, his long public career, called up reflections which could not be disposed of in a moment by foes, still less by former allies. He claimed time, and he has taken the most important part of the Session, to mature his plans, amidst the silence of the Opposition and of his Home Rule allies.

But, if his opponents were silent, his nomination of Mr. Morley to the most important place in his Cabinet was not lost upon the motly crowd outside. All the dancing dervishes of politics rushed upon the scene to amaze a bewildered public with fantastical gyrations. 'The Empire of Liberty,' cried one, 'can never employ coercion.' Another enthusiast exclaimed, after reviewing the course of events since the Hawarden revelations, 'To call these things to mind does one's heart good. It seems as if nothing need be despaired of, as if words of hope need never be empty words.' A well-known economist tried to ease the public conscience, and to neutralize the resistance of the unfortunate Irish landlord, by a nebulous scheme for buying up the landlords' rights, but what the supply of money is to be, and who is to supply it, are questions to which the answers vary every hour. A separate Parliament is to be accompanied by a system of guarantees, and Professor Rogers declares that the surest guarantee was the hostages we have in the two millions of Irish inhabiting Great Britain; as if these unfortunate persons could be made liable to imprisonment ortorture in order to secure the good conduct of Mr. Parnell's Dublin Cabinet, as if such an arrangement, if made, would have the slightest effect upon the Irish revolutionists.

But whilst Mr. Gladstone lingered, waiting to see how far the outer public could be brought into sympathy with his schemes, he did not hesitate a moment to consolidate the power of the National League. The subject of evictions for non-payment of rent was brought before the new Government in the form of a question, alleging that a particular eviction was not in strict conformity with the landlord's right. Mr. Morley offered to consider the question of right, and added that what was much wanted in Ireland was 'a strict and scrupulous and literal spirit of legality.' Later on the same evening, Mr. Dillon made a vigorous appeal to the Chief Secretary not to give the aid of armed force to carry out evictions. Mr. Morley responded with alacrity. 'I for one am not prepared to admit that we are justified in every case, in which a shadow of legal title is made out, to bring out the military force to execute decrees which, on the ground of public policy as well as that of equity, may seem inadvisable and unnecessary.' Legal right, if it is relied on in favour of the subjects of the Land League, must be interpreted in a 'scrupulous and literal spirit.' If it is acted on by the landlord, there come in considerations of public policy and of equity.

The result of a long debate was that organized resistance to the execution of the law would not be interfered with, unless the Government were satisfied that in particular circumstances equity required such interference. We have thus arrived at once at a system of official despotism. The law is not to be a guarantee of the rights of the subject, unless so far as the Minister may think fit to permit it. And this dispensing power is to be exercised in favour of the subjects of the National League.

The self-sufficiency of the Liberal party had been vigorously appealed to during the years 1883-5. Liberals tried to persuade themselves, that the comparative repose of Ireland was due to, or was likely to generate, a Conservative feeling amongst the farmer class. Their harvests were good, and they had got so much from the Land Bill, they had so much, in fact, to lose now, in comparison with their condition in former years, men argued, that they would not care to risk their well-being in pursuit of Nationalist projects, with the certainty of being subject to the village ruffians Mr. Forster had described whilst the struggle was going on, with the probability of having to share what they had with these same ruffians as soon as an Irish Parliament obtained power.

This reasoning took little account of historical experience in cases where property is suddenly given to one class by an arbitrary act. Care for what one possesses, forethought to avoid its loss, come only with habits of acquisition. The Irish farmer was confessedly careless in the past, because, it was said, providence could be of so little use to him in the then state of the law, but his prosperity under the legislation of 1881 was not the result of his own industry. It was due to a long course of agrarian outrage in Ireland and of Parliamentary outrage at Westminster. A favourite commonplace of Land Reformers is the conservatism of the French peasant, turned into a proprietor by the decrees of the Legislative Assembly of 1791. We are reminded of his industry, his self-denial, his distrust of the revolutionary spirit which rages in the towns, but we forget the date at which this sober, assiduous, conservatism made its appearance in history. The immediate result of the change made in 1791 was a savage orgie of bloodshed and outrage, nor was the wild fury, once let loose, sated by the blood of Frenchmen. It was nearly a generation before the fire of Revolution burnt itself out. The French peasantry of 1815 only came to value the land they acquired, to devote their lives to its cultivation, after twenty-three years of savage warfare had strewed the bones of their fathers and their brothers over every battlefield from Salamanca to Borodino, after Teuton and Cossack and Saxon had traversed French territory from end to end.

Nor does the work of revolution produce other effects among the backward turbulent British population, whom Irish rhetoric describes as the Irish nation. Whatever we might hope from the children or grandchildren of those farmers who profited by the change which Mr. Parnell had already brought about, to suppose that prudence and a judicious spirit of self-interest would come to them as rapidly as the reduction of their rents, was to ignore all the facts of human nature. The desire for further winnings possessed them, as the passion of a gambler. Mr. Parnell's triumphant personality was the first thought in their minds. He had already taken 20 per cent. off their rents. Next time they were confident he would take off 50 per cent. or abolish rent altogether.

The Liberals who had been dreaming complacently about the happy results of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy awoke to find Ireland in possession of the powerful, well-organized, hostile, combination known as the National League.

To make our readers understand what this power means, we should like to be able to bring them within the closed doors ofthe room where the League Committee sits in the remote country village. We should then hear the report of the member, respecting the funds obtained, their review of the wealth and independence around them, within their reach, but not yet brought under tribute, the gleeful narrative of resistance subdued, the dark hints of resources for future conquest. The details of the action of the League, as avowed by their press, have been published by the Loyal and Patriotic Union, and would fill many pages of this Review.

The rapid growth of the new organization is easily understood. They had the past success of Mr. Parnell to work on, and this success was both appreciable in their balance of unpaid rent at the Bank, and stimulating to the imagination. The whole island was busy observing the execution of Mr. Parnell's behests in the re-adjustment of contracts for land. The Ministry, which had rebelled against his criticism and sprung at his throat, had been compelled to bring him out of jail supplicating for his alliance. The object of creating the new body was not so much to move forward as to keep Mr. Parnell's friends well together, to take advantage of the effect on the popular mind, which Mr. Parnell's achievements were producing in every hamlet. The practical advantages already won were an earnest of the future, secured new support, and would give greater momentum and unity to the Parnellite movement; when the time came for another attack upon property. The suspects who had been imprisoned by Mr. Forster, constituted local centres for the establishment of branches of the League. Every country public-house was a place of meeting for the branches or their agents. Once the League was organized in a particular district, the next point was to secure subscriptions. Land-grabbing, that is, becoming tenant of land from which some one else had been evicted, was the offence against which the League in the first place directed its energies, and this disregard of popular opinion was punished by social excommunication; but the system of boycotting once called into requisition involved new duties and responsibilities. If a man had not taken land himself, he might have worked for some one who had, or bought cattle from a land-grabber. The League in Kerry enjoined the following procedure on their subscribers:—


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