THE END OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.*
Mu. FISHER'S task has been one of disillusion. The Irish Parliament has gained a fictitious glory from the circum-
stances of its fall. It has been assumed that an institution which could only be got rid of by such very questionable means must have had some good reason for existing. Even if its faults were as great as they appear in Mr. Fisher's picture, might it not have been left to die the death which sooner or later overtakes institutions which have lost their savour ? Mr. Fisher honestly sets himself to answer this and similar questions, and to bring out the characteristics which in his opinion made the disappearance of the Irish Parliament a blessing alike to Ireland and to England. "It died because it had degenerated to that stage when, like the Roman Empire, it could no longer sustain either its diseases or their remedy."
The explanation of this quotation from Mr. Fisher's last chapter is to be found in another taken from his Introduc- tion :— • ." The point that has to be kept in mind throughout is that the Dublin Parliament was never, in any sense of the word, an 'Irish' Parliament. Wherever they have settled the pioneers of the English race have brought with them the tradition of represents-
* The End of the Irish Parliament, Br Joseph B. Pishaf, Lon49a; Xclward 1.ruold, 641. net.]
tive and deliberative government, and in due time the members of the English colony in Ireland established their Parliament."
Primarily, therefore, it was the legislature of the Pale. Out- side that boundary there was the hostile race which it was the business of the colonists to keep in subjection. "They no more dreamt of providing a Parliament for the 'Irish enemy' than did the New England colonists for the Indians who bad inhabited the territories lying round Massachusetts Bay." Had the distinction between these two communities been one of race only, they might in time have learned to live in peace under a common system of government. But the Reforma- tion added a new source of disunion. The English colony became for the most part Protestant, and by this very fact made it a certainty that the "Irish enemy" would remain Catholic. It was not in the passionate days of the wars of religion that the penal laws were passed; that was left for a time when, as Lord M.acartney says, "the Restora- tion had secured to them [the colonists] their property and the Revolution armed them with power." The heyday of persecution was the reign of Queen Anne, and its governing motive was the stripping of the subject population of what- ever property a century of warfare had left them. When the Irish Parliament met after the Williamite war it showed the temper in which it was likely to govern Ireland, not only by expressly excluding Roman Catholics from the franchise, but by prescribing a test which not even an honest Presbyterian could take. In the course of a century the penal legislation which was designed to make these religious disqualifications perpetual, at all events as regarded Roman Catholics, was relaxed "under pressure from England "; but, although in 1793 "Roman Catholics were admitted to the vote in overwhelming numbers under the 'forty shilling freehold' franchise," it was not with any expectation that the new electorate would make any change in the complexion of the House of Commons. "No one dreamt of their exercising the vote except for the purpose of swelling the retinue of their landlord on polling day." The Irish Parliament remained the Parliament of an oligarchy, and though in course of time that oligarchy bad become more Irish than the natives themselves, its patriotism never went beyond the determination to "divide the spoils of Irish politics without the interference of England."
The sins of the Irish Parliament have not been disposed of when we have called it an oligarchy. For an oligarchy may be a good government—good, that is, in everything except in the ability to conciliate popular support. "Everything for the people but nothing by the people " is a principle which may have excellent results until the time comes when what has been done for the people has bred in them the desire to do some- thing for themselves. But the Irish oligarchy no more thought of doing anything for the people than they thought of doing anything by them. Ireland was governed by "the Undertakers." The Lord Lieutenant "came over once in two years, stayed a few months, lived in kingly state, provided for his chaplain and secretary, received freedoms, gold boxes, and complimentary addresses, and then hurried back to England with the utmost precipitation." During his absence of eighteen months in every two years the country was usually governed by the Primate, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker as Lords Justices. They occasionally acted for themselves, but as a rule were " managed " by the great Anglo-Irish families. So far as desire and intention went, the first Irish reformer was King George III. He did at least want "an end put to Irish jobs." The instrument he selected for work- ing out this change was Lord Townshend. Of his qualification for the post Mr. Fisher thinks highly, though Mr. Leaky, while he speaks well of Townshend's intentions, has a very poor opinion of the methods he took to give effect to them. Two pleas may certainly be urged in his behalf. His task would in any circumstances have been one of extreme difficulty, and he had no proper support from the Government of which he was the representative. In the preceding century Went- worth had described the Undertakers as "a company of men the most intent upon their own bands that ever I met with, and so as these speed they consider other things at a very great distance." Townshend found that in this respect time had done nothing to change them. His special object was to break down the influence of the Undertakers in the Board pfIlevenue, in whicii body they possessed " 4 weight or
patronage superior to that of the Lord Lieutenant," and doled out £116,000 every two years, "chiefly in jobs." Ponsonby, the Head of the Board, was a difficult man to remove, for he was also Speaker of the House of Commons and Examinator of Customs. In the end, however, Townshend got his way, and a new Board was appointed in which Ponsonby's name did not appear ; but this had only been accomplished by a free recourse to the very methods which the Undertakers had used to establish their own power. A number of new offices had been created in order to secure votes in the Irish House of Commons, and as they all carried salaries the deficits in the public revenue grew and furnished just the occasion which the opponents of the Government wanted. If Townshend had been allowed to manage things his own way he might have won in the end. But the "determined resolution" and "con- stant perseverance" by which alone he told the Cabinet the authority of the English Government could be maintained was not forthcoming. Townshend resigned, and under the next Viceroy Ponsonby reappeared at the Board of Revenue, and the only permanent result of Townshencl's policy was that the five Commissioners and a number of subordinate officials whom he had appointed to carry out his reform were "thrown idle by the change [following on his resignation] and had all to be pensioned."
It may be objected that this is not the time at which the virtues of the Irish Parliament were most likely to be in evidence. Let. us turn therefore to the Golden Age of Irish Parliamentary eloquence and see what the House of Commons was like in 1782. At this time the Parliament had a perfectly good case. The trade of the country had been ruined by the combined action of English policy and the American War. The colonies had been great purchasers of Irish linen and Irish provisions. The war ruined the one trade, the em bargo put an end to the other. "Bankruptcy and starvation threatened the country, and men were asking why Ireland remained quiet while America was in arms for freedom." The Government had neglected its first duty of guarding its territories against invasion. The country had been denuded of troops, and though the Irish Parliament voted money for the repair of fortresses the draft was presented to an empty treasury. Thereupon, Ulster, seeing no hope of help from the Govern- ment, did what she could to help herself, and the Protestants in the rest of the kingdom followed suit. To the English Government, however, this was only a fresh cause of uneasi- ness. The Irish Catholics as a body were loyal ; but Presby- terian emigration had supplied a large part of the colonists now in arms against the English Crown. If Lord North would have given Ireland freedom of trade the money difficulty would in time have been got over, but as long as this was refused the Irish Executive was penniless and consequently helpless. But if the Volunteers were an effective defence against France they were a new danger to England, and for some years to come it was they "and not the Castle or the Parlia- ment that dominated the country." Under this new influence matte's] moved fast. Lord North gave way upon the right to trade, and the English Government showed sudden confidence in the loyalty of the Volunteers by withdrawing three more regiments of Regulars. Grattan seized the oppor- tunity, carried a Declaration of Parliamentary Inde- pendence through the Irish House of Commons, and saw his victory made complete in the following year by the passing of an English Act declaring the claim of Ireland to be bound only by laws enacted by his Majesty and the Parlia- ment of that kingdom . . . . to be "established and ascer- tained for ever." But the one object of the Irish Parliament seemed to be to make the maintenance of its newly gained independence impossible. Grattan would not work with Pitt, even when Pitt was doing his utmost to give Ireland that freedom of trade which had been the desire of a few patriotic politicians. The last hope went during the Rebellion of 1798, when the government of Ireland passed into the hands of the militia and the yeomanry, and 'more men than fell in battle were slain in cold blood.' Cornwallis, Pitt, and Castlereagh had approached the question of Irish misgovernment from different starting points, but by 1799 they had all become convinced "that there was one essential remedy for Irish misgovernment, one that /ay at the base of all the others
• . . . an incorporating union of the two Parliaments." Fisher's book will at least. show that,, whatever arguments for Home Rule may be drawn from other sources, none is to be found in the history of the Irish Parliament.
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