PROFESSOR DICEY ON THE MORALITY OF UNIONISM.
PROFESSOR DICEY'S speech at Glasgow on Tuesday, on the nature of the moral issue between the Unionists and the Gladstonians, has not attracted the attention it deserves. It is really, as Professor Dicey declared, the issue on which the discussion will really turn in the mind of nine-
tenths of the electors. It is because the Gladstonians have persuaded. the majority of the Liberals that they are proposing to conquer Ireland " by love," and that this is the only Christian method of conquering Ireland, that they have obtained the considerable measure of success which with the Liberal Party they certainly have obtained. Professor Dicey challenges the whole doctrine. It is not, he says, because you profess to be acting on a noble sentiment, that you can claim to be the moral party. Those who propose to take away the landlord's property for the benefit of the tenant, are chiming to be actuated by the sentiment of love for the poor. But is love for the poor properly expressed by doing a gross injustice to those who are less poor ? "A sentiment seemed to prevail at this moment," said Professor Dicey, " that a tenant could do no wrong and a landlord could do no right. It might be that to-morrow the shopkeepers could do no right and the customers no wrong." Yet if it should be so, shopkeepers would cer- tainly not call that a moral rule of action. Why should it be a moral rule of action in relation to tenants and landlords ? Yet if it is not, then the outcry against the British Government in Ireland for not consenting to let the Parnellites do all they wish to do, cannot be right either. The whole object of the Parnellite agitation is to get for the Parnellite Party, who represent the majority in Ireland, the power of legislating freely for Ireland in the same sense in which they have recently been agitating ; and of administering the Govern- ment in the same sense in which they have recently been threatening to administer it whenever their turn comes. Can it honestly be called conquering Ireland "by love," to give free rein to the passions of the party who have expressed their mind hitherto by the widespread boycotting which Bishop O'Dwyer so strongly and so boldly condemns, and by the " Plan of Cam- paign " which the same spiritual authority,—who nevertheless proclaims himself a Home-ruler on principle,—equally con- demns? It is not morality, says Professor Dicey, to act on an amiable sentiment towards one class without considering whether, by so doing, you are gravely injuring the commonest rights of another class. Otherwise, we might all claim to be conquering by love whenever we do anything which appears to benefit one person at the expense of another. There is hardly a sin under heaven, from the sin of profligacy to the sin of violence, which cannot plead that it has been done out of the desire to gratify some sentiment which taken alone would not have been unamiable. The moonlighter who fires into a man's legs for not obeying the decrees of some secret society of Ribbonmen, might plead, we have no doubt, that it was his just hatred of tyranny on a large scale which had made him a tyrant on a smaller scale. The boycotting which Mr. Gladstone has taken to extenuating under the mild disguise of " exclusive dealing," though it promotes all sorts of suspicion, fear, and uncharitableness, is defended as serving the purposes of the National League, and in that way the purposes of national development. The question whether or not Ireland can be won " by love " is certainly not to be solved by assuming that you will win Ireland "by love," if you only give the majority of the representatives of the Irish people just what they ask for, whether what they ask for be right or wrong. That kind of conquest by love is inconsistent with all govern- ment. If the United States had proposed to win over the Ku-Klux-Klan in that fashion, who would have called it a generous and high-minded proposal?
But then, say the Gladatonians, if you are to do as you would be done by, you must let the Irish govern themselves, because you would certainly wish that the Irish should let us govern our- selves, if Ireland were the stronger Power and were so governing us as to throw everything into confusion. Before that can be reasonably considered, we have, as Professor Dicey points out, to ask, first, Can Ireland stand alone,—safely to herself stand alone ?' for if not, there can be no possible claim to give her an independence which would be mischievous to her, and which, indeed, according to most Home-rulers, she would not accept, But if it comes to be a question of a nice mutual adjust- ment of claims and duties between Ireland and England, then the whole discussion passes from one concerning the simple moral issue of the right to national independence, into one of negotiation, in which all sorts of considerations of expediency and convenience arise which it would be simply ludicrous to describe as a question of morality. Now, no one worth speaking of maintains that Ireland can safely stand alone, either safely for herself or safely for us. The question of national right does not, therefore, arise, and could not, indeed, arise without considering the claims of the very large minority who dread legislative separation from England as much as the Irishmen in the State of New York would dread legislative separation from the United States. And therefore the real question is not whether it is a positive wrong to refuse Ireland independence, but whether it is a duty to give her enough independence to meet the views of the moat moderate of the Parnellites, but not enough to meet the views of those Parnellites (probably the majority) who represent the most eager and enthusiastic Nationalists in Ireland and the United States ? Now, as Mr. Dicey points out, when the claim for nationality is whittled down thus far, it is impossible to call the claim a moral one at all. No one wants to interfere with Irish nationality in that sense in which the Scotch are so proud of their nationality,—namely, a certain national genius and pride of tradition, to which, for instance, Sir Walter Scott attached so much importance, while he would have been one of the first to resist a repeal of the Union with Scotland. Whatever there may be in the national sentiment beyond this which it is reasonable and safe to gratify, ought, of course, to be gratified. But if Great Britain is to remain responsible for the safety of Ireland, surely it is right that she should hold herself responsible for doing justice in Ireland, and not give up Ireland to a clique which has never ceased to advance its cause by the most unjust and demoralising processes. If the claim to independence be given up, no one can shift from off our shoulders the duty of seeing that dependence shall not mean this,—that we will hold down the Irish minority to let the Irish majority oppress it ; and yet this is what " winning Ireland by love" means when we come to translate it into the actual demands which the Home-rulers make upon us.
No part of Professor Dicey's speech was more effective than that in which he illustrated the new morality of the Home- rulers by the alliance which they are forming with the anarchists and enemies of order, both in Ireland and in England. He quoted the following remarkable passage from Burke :- "Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property. When private men form themselves into associations for the purposes of destroying the pre-existing laws and institutions of their country; when they secure to themselves an army bydividing amongst the people of no property the estates of the ancient lawful proprietors ; when a State recognises those acts ; when it does not make confiscations for crimes, but makes crimes for confiscations ; when it has its principal strength and all its resources in such a violation of property ; when it stands chiefly upon such a violation, massacring, by judg- ments or otherwise, those who make any struggle for their old legal government and their legal hereditary or acquired possessions,—I call this Jacobinism by establishment." And if we may trust the Parnellite speeches in Ireland, " Jacobinism by establishment" is what they are really aiming at. But can it be called a moral thing, can it be called " winning by love," to concede " Jacobinism by establishment " to Ireland only because the Irish majority imagine for the moment that they would like it. Nay, such Jacobinism cannot be con- ceded in Ireland and refused here. Already we have the same Jacobinism attacking order in London, and a certain proportion of the same party who wish to win Ireland " by love," wishing to win the London mob "by love,"—i.e., by encouraging them freely to attack the police, and so to make life in London all but intolerable for any except those who have nothing to low and everything to win by paralysing the police. The Unionists, Professor Dicey maintains, are the moral party, because they distrust sentiment, and ask what evil sentiments will be fostered, as well as what amiable senti- ments will be gratified, by the proposed opening of our arms to the Parnellites ; because they insist that if we are to have the responsibility of defending Ireland from attack, we shall not renounce the responsibility of enforcing justice within her borders ; and because they still hold by leaders who inspire them with faith in their stability, consistency, and equity, and who do not change with the changing tide. His position will be vehemently assaulted, but it will not be easily carried by assault.
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