IRISH FACTIONS AND ENGLISH MINISTERS.
AT the first blush it may appear strange that we should be inclined to pay special attention to Mr. Healy's pub- lished views on the political situation, for his brief article in the New Review, on "Parties in Ireland and the Ministry," is certainly more noteworthy for what it attempts to conceal than for what it actually reveals. This is, however, only what might be expected at this crisis in the affairs of the English Government and the Irish Nationalists, from a mind so essentially astute and attorney-like as Mr. Healy's. Lord Ressebery's utterances on Home-rule came at a very awkward time for the Anti-Parnellite party, of which Mr. Healy is one of the acknowledged leaders. The fatal admission as to the claims of " the predominant partner" played directly into the hands of Mr. Red- mond and his eight " stalwarts." No subsequent explanation on the part of the Prime Minister and his apologists could altogether charm away the scare. After the speech in the Lords, the Irish, who are quick-witted enough, must have felt the full meaning of the recent change in the Premiership—the change from Mr. Glad- stone, with whom Home-rule had become almost an article of religious faith, to Lord Rosebery, with whom it is a somewhat doubtful question of political expediency. Mr. Healy evidently thought the time had arrived when he should make use of his pen with the view, it appears to us, of misdirecting public opinion in England. The chief aim of the article, under the guise of great apparent frankness, is to conceal from Englishmen the fact that the Irish Clericals are anything but a united or happy family. Mr. Healy, in writing of "Irish parties," attacks Mr. Red- mond as the sole cause of disunion among the Nationalists. But is this a fact ? Is it not rather patent that, since the removal of Mr. Parnell, there have been serious dissen- sions in the Clerical party itself ? What is the meaning of the ousting of Mr. Arthur O'Connor from the inner McCartbyite conclave ? How can it be urged that Mr. Redmond has directly anything to do with the present imbroglio at the Freeman office? Nor, we imagine, could it be seriously maintained that he is at the bottom of the pretty little quarrel now waging between Mr. W. O'Brien, M.P., and Mr. Vesey Knox, M.P., in the columns of the Cork Examiner. We desire to touch lightly on these Irish dissen- sions. It may be, as is currently rumoured, that within the charmed circle of the Clericals there is actually a Dillonite and a Healyite faction hating each other with all the ran- cour of sectarian bitterness. We have no wish to pry into the dark secrets of the Nationalists so long as they do not actually call attention themselves to their internal disputes and bickerings. But with the facts of these dissensions before the public, only a most simple and credulous soul can accept the theory that, save for Mr. Redmond's contumacy, there would now be a happy and united Nationalist party. That party was dissolved when the strong hand of Parnell was removed. That masterful English leader—for he was in no trae sense an Irishman—was able to dominate his Celtic followers, so as to weld them for his own purposes into a compact and independent Parliamentary party ; and by this means, as all the world knows, he became the master rather than the ally of Mr. Gladstone and the bulk of the English Liberal party.
Mr. Healy, with an appearance of straightforward out- spokenness, deals with Mr. Parnell's famous Manifesto of 1890, which, as he states, was intended to ruin the Glad- stonians in the eyes of the Irish Nationalists. Mr. Healy, however, omits to add that but for the active intervention of the Irish priests, and the unexpected death of Parnell, the Manifesto would in all probability have succeeded in achieving this end. According to Mr. Healy, the great crime of Mr. Redmond is his adherence to this Parnellite Manifesto, which insisted on the maintenance of an "in- dependent " Irish Nationalist party. Had Mr. Redmond listened to the allurements of Mr. Healy and the priests and merged himself and his party in the Clericals, all would have gone well and smoothly. In fact, had Mr. Redmond consented to this "compromise," as Mr. Healy calls it, he would, we are assured, now be Lord Rosebery's master, and the actual dictator of these realms. " At the General Election, a great chance offered, which, had it been grasped by Mr. Redmond, would have greatly changed the future. He was not bold enough to seize upon it, and it will never arise again. Had it been taken, Mr. Redmond would now be master of the Parliamentary situation, and of the Ministry to boot." In other words, Mr. Redmond would have found himself in the proud position now held by Mr. Healy himself.— or is it by Mr. Dillon ? The passage we have quoted is remarkably plain speaking, and, truth to tell, jars somewhat on our English sensibilities. It is not, we may remark en passant, pleasant to hear, even from the lips of so great and commanding a man as Mr. Healy, that things have come to so pitiful a pass that an Irish faction leader is, or might be, our lord and master. The rest of Mr. Healy's article is taken up with a lame and half-hearted apology for Mr. Morley as an Irish administrator. We are told that Mr. Morley's has been a " dual policy "—he has striven to be loyal to the Home- rulers, and at the same time has aimed to convince the " Irish Tories" that he is a sane anti-revolutionary adminis- trator at Dublin Castle. It is equally plain that in penning this portion of the article Mr. Healy was influenced by a " dual policy." While backing up Mr. Morley as far as he dared, Mr. Healy does not forget the existence of Mr.
Redmond and the Irish Daily Independent. That redoubt- able Parnellite organ thus deals with the statesman whom Mr. Healy so cautiously patronises. " We cannot see any substantial difference between Proconsul Morley and Proconsul Balfour. Mr. Morley has indeed one excuse which Mr. Balfour was never able to allege for himself. He may without doubt point to the vote of the so-called Irish party in the House of Commons." This is certainly a home-thrust ; and after reading such com- ments, say, in the intervals of a board meeting at the Freeman's Journal, Mr. Healy may well have his mis- givings whether he is actually master of the situation, and whether Mr. Redmond is utterly and irrevocably crushed.
Throughout Mr. Healy's magazine article there are evident traces of his disquiet concerning the attitude, and still more the personality, of Lord Rosebery. The new Premier is an unknown factor, and so far as he has declared his political views on Irish autonomy, it is plain that Mr. Healy finds them unpalatable.
It is Lord Rosebery's profound misfortune that he should not be an eye-witness from the Ministerial benches in the House of Commons to the overwhelming might of the Nationalists. It is quite a different matter, says the disconsolate Mr. Healy, to see a play from the stalls and merely to read a critique of it in the morn- ing paper. Perhaps so. But if Lord Rosebery be as wise as his eulogists proclaim him, there is also a great advantage in his present more isolated position as a Peer. Lookers-on see most of the game. It is evident that we are not within measurable distance of that British majority of 100 required to pass Home-rule ; and it is equally evi- dent that long before that dread consummation can be arrived at, there will be further, and perhaps fatal, fissures in the Nationalist parties. Mr. Healy's article is adroit ; but like much adroit special pleading of its kind, it is absolutely unconvincing.
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