IRISH CAPRICE AND ENGLISH INCONSTANCY.
ATHOROUGHLY able and thoroughly informed Irish politician discusses in the new number of the Dublin Review the question whether Ireland be or be not " irrecon- cilable," but comes as far as we can see to no explicit con- clusion on the question of fact, though deciding without any hesitation that she ought not to be so, and that she has at the present moment everything to gain and nothing to lose by accepting cordially the generously spontaneous advances of our great English statesman. The interest of the article lies more in the strength of the apology for the apparently unintelligent and discouraging attitude of Ireland towards the English Minister who has thus frankly come forward with an Irish policy of great political audacity, and, to a host of Englishmen at least, of a most alarming and unpopular kind, than in any clear evidence that England ought not to feel discouraged, and that Irish feeling is not what it seems. The only atom of hopeful evidence which the writer gives ns that the symptoms are not quite so serious as we might suppose, is his personal testimony to the hearty, deep, and wide-spread recognition in Ireland last autumn of the spirit of justice in which the abolition of Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland had been accom- plished by the United Parliament at the instance of the present Ministry, and to the feeling of something like tender and magnanimous pity which induced the Catholics of Ireland to abstain from every demonstration of triumph over the fallen fortunes of the little sect which had so long usurped the emoluments and position of a national faith. The reviewer evidently believes that had that moment of almost awe-struck pause been used by the Irish Liberals to bring the motives of Mr. Gladstone's policy clearly and emphatically before the people of Ireland, to demand at once their help, and counsel moderation in pressing on the great measure of the future, the history of the past autumn and winter might have been wholly different. He believes that the great moment was lost when an appeal such as can rarely indeed be made to the imagination and the heart of an impressionable people would have succeeded in creating a sort of political crisis in Ireland, and leading to a definite turn of the tide in the direction of sympathy with Great Britain. And he shows with great ability to what political causes,— sufficiently regrettable indeed, but by no means of a nature to fill us with despair of ultimate reconciliation,—it has been due that the turn of the tide went against instead of for us, BO that we now see Ireland in a mood apparently more deeply alienated and bitter against us than it was two sessions ago, before so much labour had been devoted to immolating immemorial English prejudices on the altar of political union. But how difficult even this wise and thoughtful Irishman finds it to explain the political phenomena of Irish sullenness and bitterness at the present moment is sufficiently shown by his quoting in relation thereto " the strange saying of Frederick Schlegel that, after all, 'history is an incessant struggle of nations and individuals against invisible powers,' "—a remark which, strange as it may have been in the mouth of Schlegel, is still stranger in the mouth of
an earnest Irish Catholic,—as the writer evidently is,—when accounting for phenomena absolutely peculiar to the one Catholic portion of the British Isles. Do, then, the supernatural graces of the Catholic system only serve to concentrate the attacks of all the powers of darkness on those portions of the world where they most abound ? It may be a high compli- ment to the Catholic Church that it is so, but it is the sort of compliment, the Dublin reviewer will probably admit, of which ordinary governments will very excusably fight shy.. Seriously speaking, is it not a superficial capriciousness about both the noble and ignoble characteristics of Catholic countries which constitutes the peculiar difficulty of governing them well ? Of course, it is unreasonable and even ridiculous to- expect that one great act of political expiation, however- solemn and dramatic, shall undo the prepossessions which have been carefully strengthened by the " natural selec- tions " of many generations till they have grown into the very heart of Ireland, and modulated every voice that .‘ flows along her dreams " ; but one might fairly expect that it would soften them, and seem to open out relenting& and misgivings and shadows of better things ; and yet our reviewer, convinced as he is that Ireland is not irreconcilable, and still more deeply convinced that she ought not to be so, is clearly staggered by the history of the year, and driven,— probably very justly,—to fix attention on the caprices of history as the only explanation,—or rather apology for the- absence of any explanation—of the apparent turn for the worse- which occurred when every true Irish patriot was earnestly- prophesying a clear turn for the better.
The real danger of the situation, however, lies not, in our belief, in the capriciousness which, aggravated by the folly of the Irish Liberals, has made Ireland assume her cloudiest and bitterest mood just when England was beginning an earnest endeavour to do her duty, but in the effect that this may still have on our half-hearted Parliament. The Dublin reviewer recites with remarkable ability the history, not so much of English neglect in relation to the land laws, but of the growth of a deliberate English resolve in the higher circles. of political life not to legislate for Ireland on any prin- ciple alien to English ideas of proprietary right. He shows us that in the last Parliament but one Lord Palmer- ston repeatedly gained the cheers of the Commons by expressing the strongest and most deliberate disapprobation of the very principle of Mr. Gladstone's present Land Bill. Not- only did he invent the phrase " tenant-right is landlord wrong," but he said of the principle of retrospective compensation—" A. retrospective enactment, which transfers from the landlord to. the tenant that which by law has hitherto been the property of the former, which both parties know and have always. known to be his property, is, I conceive, most unjust, and ought not to be allowed." And in 1858 he said of a Bilb much more moderate than that now before the House, that it was "at variance with justice," and that "it would be- trifling with the House and an abuse of its powers to allow it to be read a second time." Mr. Horsman distinguished his- Irish Secretariat by getting rid of a proposal for retrospective- compensation. Mr. Cardwell, as late as 1865, in the last moments of Lord Palmerston's Administration, laid it down. with the blandest but the most authoritative air, that " com- pulsory compensation for improvements effected against the- will of the landlord is not a principle which is consistent with the rights of property," and that it was of the first- importance to publish this conclusion of the British Parliamentary Committee far and wide in Ireland as the- deliberate opinion of the Legislature. Now no doubt the- present Parliament was, at first at least, altogether distinct in tone from those before it, and was elected for the pur- pose of carrying out Mr. Gladstone's more generous policy for Ireland. But no one can have watched its deliberations. on the Land Bill without seeing that a very large proportions of the whole House,—probably even a considerable majority,— regards this Land Bill as a dose of nauseous medicine for- which it does not care to conceal its loathing,—which it is bound to profess, and does profess, its willingness to take on all formal occasions, but which it endeavours to spill, and sputter out, with every sign of detestation on all informal oppor- tunities,—which, in short, it will endeavour to fritter away in detail, if it can, though it does not venture to repudiate it in form. Now we believe this half-hearted disposition to have been infinitely increased by the apparent failure of last year's measure of justice. A sense of disgust is growing up on the question of Irish reforms which was hardly even disguised in the burst of ostentatious delightwith which both Houses adopted the
recent measure of coercion. There is real reason to fear that we may yet make the most contemptible and fatal of all blunders by retaliating on the caprice of Ireland a display of the inconstancy of our English virtue. Here is a late Easter, with but a clause and a half of the Irish Bill passed through Committee, and the House listening with delight to Lord Elcho's flippant and shallow criticisms on the fortitude and patience of the Government. Mr. Gladstone has, as it seems to us, gone to the utmost verge of concession in accepting modifications of his original proposal. If he were to concede more, he would concede the very principle on which he has promised to legislate for Ireland. Yet the House wants him to concede more, and is disposed to chafe, and fret, and waste hours in trivial and peevish cavils, rather than do manfully what it has formally resolved upon.
Let us suppose for a moment that this conduct were to have its natural result, and defeat the measure,—that a conspicuous act of English inconstancy were to be the reply to the recent display of Irish caprice,—that we were to say, or seem to say, A policy of conciliation only makes Ireland worse ; we are not going to risk English ideas of property for a chimera ; ideal sympathy and justice having no effect, let us return comfortably to our old habits of inflicting on these Celtic ne'er-do-weels the views and prepossessions of a tougher and more successful race.' What would be the result ? Why, in all probability that we should in every respect stand worse with Ireland at the end of 1870 than we did at the end of 1867,—and that we should hare sealed with our own hands a deliberate confession that we are utterly incompetent and unworthy to rule Ireland. What government can be worse for a capricious people than the government of an inconstant people ? How are we ever to extirpate the political mischiefs of caprice, if we fall away from our purposes of justice with every discouragement ? Constancy of principle on the part of the Government is the only cure for variableness of temper in the governed. Abandon your principles when the people misunderstand them,—iu other words, confess, with the poor mad woman, that "the very shadows of the clouds have power to shake me as they pass,"—and you do your best to aggravate the caprices of which you complain ; you justify the contemptuous scorn by which Ireland discounted your weakness of purpose, and give the most solid ground for a display of similar distrust and similar contempt, whenever you may choose to take up again the rule of justice of which you have so soon grown weary. Let the House go on as it is going on just now, and the next time the Dublin reviewer has to account for the angry suspicion with which the Irish receive the overtures of English statesmen, he will not need to have recourse to Frederick Schlegel's hypothesis of " invisible powers " fighting against common sense and common equity.
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