TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CASE AGAINST HOME-RULE.
THERE have been many powerful speeches during the week against Mr. Gladstone's bold and novel proposal, --Bowe of /10.4 like Lord Hartington's and Mr. Goschen's, embodying mainly the insuperable objections to the scheme of the Government ; and some, like Mr. Chamberlain's, em-
bodying also alternative schemes. In the present article we will deal only with the former, for it is very important that the people should see clearly what the dangers of this scheme are before they turn to the consideration of the bewildering question with which novices on this subject are always prematurely urged,—What is your alternative I It is obvious, we think, that no satis- factory result can be arrived at by pressing those who have not even clearly mastered the objections to the proposal actually before them, to suggest something less objectionable. The reply of a strong man would be If I am sure that this is most objectionable, I can wait till I find something less so, without deciding to do in haste what I shall probably repent at leisure ; in the meantime, let me see clearly why I ought not to do this.'
The first argument to which the speakers against the Bill have given a wise prominence is that the Liberal constituencies were certainly asked to make up their minds on four great questions not at all connected with Ireland, and that, so far as Ireland was mentioned by Mr. Gladstone before the General Election, it was mentioned in a way which left the people absolutely unprepared for the great crisis of the day. Lord Hartington points out that Mr. Gladstone's September address to Midlothian treated Ireland very much as it treated the question of Establishments,—as a problem not pressing for immediate solution, and outside the great questions which did press for immediate solution. On the other hand, as Sir John Lubbock pointed out in his excellent speech, Mr. Gladstone's speeches in Edinburgh, though they put the Irish question in a more urgent light, prepared the country rather for steady resistance to a thoroughly unendurable Parnellite demand, than for an enormous concession to it. We have ourselves defended Mr. Gladstone against the monstrous charge that his new attitude was a deliberate tactical sur- prise sprung on the country in political foul play, as a gambler uses an ace which is not in the pack with which he is playing. We need not say that no Liberal speaker has given the slightest countenance to so unworthy an asper- sion on our great Minister. The reasons for reserve on his part before the elections are not only plain, but honourable to him. None the less, we quite agree with Lord Hartington that the reserve in September, and the appeal for a sufficient majority to resist Parnellite dictation in November, did give a most unfortunate turn to the elections, by disguising most effectually from the electors the great issue on which this Parliament would have at once to decide. The question of Union, the question of a break-up of our central Legislature, the question of a very great stride towards Separation,—for that it is, whether Separation be ever reached or not,—was never really presented to the electors at all, and in a vast number of constituencies men were returned to support Mr. Gladstone, because it was understood that he would be the great champion of the policy of Lord Spencer's government against Mr. Parnell,—men who might never have been returned at all, if it had been known that he was going to con- stitute himself the ally of Mr. Parnell, and to advocate, as he did on Tuesday, the reasonableness of feeling perfect confidence in the nominees of the people of Ireland. We say that Lord Hartington is quite right in asserting that this sudden and startling change of front is a very good reason why the present Parliament should distrust itself as an arbiter on a Home-rule measure. The country has been taken by surprise. And it is not well that the very first efforts of a new democracy should be directed to dealing with a most difficult and dangerous problem, with which it had no true notice that it would have to deal at all. This, at all events, is a sound reason for the very greatest caution, the very firmest determination to avoid precipitate and ill-considered action.
The next great point made by the speakers,—especially the Liberal speakers,—against the Bill, is that the mark of pre- cipitation is on the measure throughout. The great question of the position of Ulster is deliberately left to be dealt with
in Committee. The fiscal plan is a most curious, unworkable, and almost unintelligible compromise between leaving Ireland to tax herself, and insisting that the British Customs and Excise shall not be interfered with. As Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Goschen pointed out, the arrangement proposed will interfere with the financial freedom of both countries, and ensure the most unpleasant squabbles between us. And as Sir John Lubbock pointed out, it will not prevent the Government of Ireland from establishing great distilleries, and using the receipts handed over from the Custom- houses, for the purpose of paying drawback to balance the Excise. So far from establishing a fiscal Union, the system, even if fairly carried out, will be quite compatible with a thoroughly different financial system in the two countries; and, as we have ourselves shown, it will be the easiest thing in the world, if the Irish authorities are disposed to defy the English, to defeat the Excise duty altogether, by taking care that the Excise officers shall be few, incompetent, and careless. Thus, there is every indication, not only in the provisions for pro- tecting the minority,—which on Tuesday Mr. Gladstone openly treated as needful only for the weaker brethren who had not his own very newly grown, but very profound, faith in the Parnellite Members,—but also in the financial provisions, for saying that the measure presented to Parliament last week is a hasty and precipitate measure, the main principles of which will not really bear discussion. A more remarkable admission of this than the reserving of the case of Ulster for Committee, was perhaps hardly ever before made by a great Government.
Then, thirdly, there is the great blot on the measure, which Sir John Lubbock insisted on so powerfully, that, far from tending to promote the physical prosperity of Ireland, the mere rumoar of it seriously depressed all securities in Ireland ; while it is certain that what Ireland is hungering after is greater physical prosperity. Mr. Goschen, moreover, in his impressive speech, showed that the very party who are to be installed in full power in Ireland are already attacking the only flourishing Irish industry,—the linen industry,—because it is closely associated with Irish Conservatism. The Nationalists are threatening the only Irish goose which lays golden eggs with that untimely fate which so often befalls the one prosperous concern in a community where most lots are miserable. And it will be hard enough to show how an Irish Parliament is to be reconciled to an industry which, though it should be the chief source of national wealth, is already, unfortunately, the chief object of Irish dislike. The economical prospects of Ireland under this Bill are simply terrible. And to those who know how much the discontent of Ireland has been fed by its poverty, the prospect of this economical collapse is appalling. When the gleam of prosperity under Grattan's Parliament is talked of, it is forgotten that that was a Parliament repre- senting the richer classes as well as the Protestant minority. The new statutory Parliament would represent chiefly the masses who suffer fearfully from Irish poverty, and who have never learned that to become richer they must not oppress those who have already become rich, even though the rich do not share the popular opinions.
But, most important of all, the great speeches of Lord Harlington and Mr. Goschen have proved that under the pro- posed measure, we should be responsible for Ireland to the world at large without having the slightest power to control the disorderly elements of Irish society. Irish-Americans, eager for the gratitude which their enormous contributions to the success of the Home-role movement had merited, would flock over in crowds to Dublin, intent on further schemes for magnifying still more the nation of their own making. They might easily become the very centre of Nihilist conspiracies; they might initiate any number of breaches of the Foreign Enlistment Act ; and, whatever they might attempt, only the Irish Executive could control, while the British Executive would be responsible for all their acts. Is there any probability that such an Irish Executive as we should certainly have, would be willing, even if able, to control such elements of anarchy as these ? And is Great Britain really to accept responsibility for what it cannot in the least prevent ? We might well be at war within a year or two for acts of an anarchical character which we had never had even a chance of preventing. And if we were, Ireland would not contribute,—under the present scheme, however faithfully carried out,—a single extra shilling for the expenses of a war which the laxity of her own Adminis- tration had caused. Such are the chief blots which the week's discussion of the Home-rule scheme of the Government have revealed. Are they not large enough and black enough to render it simply intolerable to the British people ?
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