TOPICS OF THE DAY.
SIR MICHAEL BEACH AT BRISTOL.
SIR MICHAEL BEACH does not wish, he says, to make the political situation more difficult for his former colleagues than it already is ; yet he has delivered a speech which is eagerly welcomed by some of the Home-rule organs as more than half-way to Home-rule. We do not think that Sir Michael Beach himself would accept that view. He would maintain that in not a single sentence did he concede the right of Ireland to a separate Legislature or Executive, and that in all he said of the need of ultimate concession to the Irish ideas of Irish Members, he insisted strictly on the principle that we should deal with Ireland as we do with Scotland, and tacitly acquiesce in the Irish Members moulding Irish legis- lation and administration neither more nor less than we acquiesce in the Scotch Members moulding the legislation and administration expressly intended for North Britain. That is true enough. But when a statesman insists on the necessity of conceding much to a local majority at the very time when the policy recommended by the particular local majority chiefly in question is diametrically opposed to the demands of good faith, and one which, applied to the United Kingdom as a whole, would bring swift ruin upon us, it does seem not a little ambiguous to anticipate, without the most explicit reserves, an early surrender to the counsels of the very men who have brought upon us, first, the "Plan of Campaign," and next, the defiance to the Irish constabulary. There are none who wish more heartily than we do to see the day when the majority of Irish Members in the House of Commons may have it practically in their hands to determine what, in nineteen cases out of twenty, Irish policy shall be. That is, no doubt, the true goal of all Unionist wishes, and if Sir Michael Beach had but laid down clearly the conditions which must be satisfied before this goal can be reached, we should have felt nothing but hearty gratitude for his speech. But this is just what he has failed to do. He is teaching us to look eagerly for the time when we are "to take into account those new forces and requirements which the extension of the franchise has brought into being in Ireland," and he does so without explicitly saying that that time cannot come till the Irish Members frankly accept the decision of Parliament on all those ultimate principles which it really concerns the integrity of the State to maintain. Such a notable omission cannot but hold out hopes that what Parliament will not allow an Irish Parliament to do because it would strike at the very root of law and justice, Sir Michael Beach wishes to allow Irish Members, acting within the limits of our present Parliamentary procedure, to do, with the connivance and sanction of the majority of British Members. We do not mean to say that this is what Sir Michael Beach intended. Indeed, we earnestly trust that he did not intend it. But this is certainly what the Home-rulers regard with so much satisfaction in his speech. They hold that Sir Michael Beach virtually advised Parliament to concede to the Parnellites in the Imperial Parliament whatever an Irish Parliament would be likely to pass, and to condi- tion only that Ireland shall not be handed over to an Irish Legislature and a local Administration. And though we do not think that this is what Sir Michael Beach intended, it was certainly a grave and rather marked omission in his speech that he did not guard expressly against this misconstruction of his drift. What in the world is the use of retaining in the hands of Parliament the whole authority to legislate for the United Kingdom and to control its administration, if we are not to legislate for it on such general principles as the majority of the whole Parlia- ment approve, and to refuse our consent to any acts of administration which appear to us to strike at the principles of justice and honour ? We should be much wiser to hand over the whole responsibility of doing what we think unjust and dishonourable to an Irish Legislature and an Irish Administra- tion, than to do it ourselves on the suggestion of the Irish majority. The most weighty reason for refusing to create an Irish Legislature and Administration is that we all believe that British justice would not be dealt out by such a Legisla- ture and such an Administration ; but if we are to gulp down our dislike to sanction acts which we regard as dishonourable and unjust, at all, we may as well gulp it down once for all, and make what poor show we can of washing our hands of the responsibility. As we understand it, we claim the legislative and administrative control of Great Britain and Ireland for the Parliament at Westminster, not because we wish to meddle in the details of local affairs, which only the inhabitants of individual localities understand, but because we do wish to guarantee equal justice to all parts of the United Kingdom. If we are not willing to let an Irish Parliament sanction a "Plan of Campaign," or what Mr. Gladstone calls "exclusive dealing," we certainly are not willing to sanction it ourselves, by conniving at legislative or administrative acts which would virtually involve these evils. Therefore, before we can admit that, in relation to Irish affairs, Parliament ought to concede great influence to the wishes of the majority of Irish Members, we must be satisfied that these Irish Members have given up altogether the desire either to effect statutory plunder or to inflict administrative revenge. At present we have every reason to believe that the Parnellite Members, left to themselves, would aim at these objects. And while we have that reason to expect it, it would be as criminal to consult their wishes in Parliament, as to concede the institutions by which they could carry out their wishes outside Parliament. What we miss in Sir Michael Beach's speech is the explicit and emphatic declaration that the most weighty of all the reasons for not delegating our authority to an Irish Legislature is that we have no confidence in the conduct of such a Legislature, and that the Parnellite Members have for many years back been doing all in their power to demonstrate to us that such con- fidence would be misplaced. We miss the statement that, so long as the moral principles of the majority of representatives from the United Kingdom are in conflict with the moral principles of the majority of the representatives from Ireland, it would be just as wrong to defer to the opinions of the latter on the points on which we are in conflict with them, as it would be to establish the Legislature which they demand.
Of course, the object of statesmen should be to remove the danger by getting rid of the ultimate evil, the conflict of classes on the agrarian question. If that could be effected, the Irish representatives would no longer be disposed to propose what the consciences of Englishmen and Scotchmen could not accept, and it would then be no longer needful to distrust the wishes of the majority of Irish Members. No one can desire to see the time sighed for by Sir Michael Beach, when it would be possible to consult the wishes of Irish Members as freely as we now consult the wishes of Scotch Members, more heartily than we do. And if Sir Michael Beach had only warned us that under present circumstances this would be im- possible, we should have adhered cordially to every word of his criticism on the Irish Question. As it is, he has, imprudently, we think, rather than intentionally, given comfort and help to those who believe that Mr. Dillon is a patriot and Mr. Healy a trustworthy authority on the moral condition of Ireland. It is unfortunate that it should be so. But we cordially hope that Sir Michael Beach will take some early opportunity of removing the impression he has given that what he objects to in Home- rule is rather the formal breaking-up of one Legislature into two, than a real divorce between the general principles of justice on which Great Britain is to be governed, and the principles to be applied to the government of Ireland.
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