THE IRISH EXECUTIVE.
THE Irish papers, or at least the Dublin papers, are making some noise about an address delivered the other day by Mr. Horsman to his constituents at Stroud, in which he declared himself in fa- vour of the abolition both of the Lord-Lieutenancy and of the Chief-Secretaryship, the office which he recently held. Mr. Hors- man's Parliamentary position, combined with his official ex- perience, gives great *eight- to his words. But on referring to his speech at Stroud, we find no particular reason why the Dub- lin papers should fall foul of him, inasmuch as he paid the most cordial compliments to the Irish people, and said little more about his official experience than that it confirmed what Lord John Rus- sell and Lord Lansdowne in their capacity of leaders in either House had said some years ago with very general assent. It does not indeed accord with our own impression that the Chief-Secre- taryship was so decisively condemned on the occasions referred to, but we are quite content to accept Mr. Horsman's recollection of the fact.
The misfortune is, that in England the actual working of the Irish Government is very imperfectly understood even by Cabinet Ministers, and that in Ireland English interests in the affair are left out of sight, and by consequence certain Irish interests also. We count that we shall be rendering a service, if we can make the rationale of the question more intelligible on both sides of the Channel.
The Irish Executive in ordinary times consists of eight persons, —to wit, the Lord Lieutenant, the Lord Chancellor, the Chief Secretary, the Under Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Solici- tor-General, the Law Adviser, and the Crown Solicitor. Five of these it will be perceived, axe law-officers. The Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary are more for show than use. Remains the Under Secretary; who if he be a man of the least ability,—and for the most part care is taken that he be an able man,—is the virtual ruler of Ireland, and wields more real power than any of her Majesty's subjects or servants, with the two exceptions of the Prime M ter and the Governor-General of India. None others enjoy unparticipated, and except as regards results uncontrolled, so large a share of authority and responsibility. It was not exactly thus during the last century. The Lord Lieutenant had then vastly more real work to do, some of it awfully dirty ; and accordingly, his private secretary, or else the Chief Secretary's private secretary, was sometimes a man of more weight than the Under Secretary ; and some men of the highest political reputation have filled one or other of those offices. But since the systematization of the Irish Executive commented under Lord Castlereagh, the work and the power of the Under Secretary have gone on increasing pan i passe, until, in the elaborate or- ganization of late years far surpassing as organization anything to be met with or perhaps predicable in England, the -Under Secretary governs Ireland, and governs it, we are bound to ad- mit, in most respects admirably well. This it is that makes the two highest offices of dignity and au- thority in Ireland in many respects—we should think it rash and premature to say in all—superfluities ; so palpably superfluities, indeed, that notwithstanding the attractions of high position and enormous salaries, few who have been Lords Lieutenant or Chief Secretaries can look back with anything of a comfortable feeling to their tenure of office in Ireland. In high positions in England and the Colonies, it is generally contrived to let you fancy YOU are governing even when you are not. But in Ireland, of late years, this kind of self-deception has become impossible unless to an inordinately vain man. Flesh-and-blood automata differ from wooden ones, in that they don't like their wires to be pulled too abruptly, or needlessly exposed to the public gaze.
Theoretically, people may not think it signifies much how Lord
A. feels during or after the process of pocketing his 20,000i.5 year, or Mr. B. his 50001. But practically there is nothing in our aristocracy-ridden land that knocks up an institution more effectively than a feeling of this kind, shared by and perpetuated through a series of men of high connexions and great political in- fluence. Therefore it is that for some time we have looked upon the Lord-Lieutenancy and the Chief-Secretaryship as doomed. Far be it from us to plead against their extinction at the proper mo- ment and with due deliberation. But we should think it a mis- fortune if they were too hastily abolished out of a mere feeling of pique in high places, and without a clear understanding of the important uses which they so long subseryed, and to secure a substitute for some of which a trifle of foresight may be required. The Lord-Lieutenancy is superfluous, and the Chief-Secretaryship is becoming so. But it strikes us that this superfluousness is a thing of much more recent date than some of those who ought to know better seem to imagine. The late Duke of Ti.rellington's view of the Lord-Lieutenancy is worth calling to mmd. Wel- lington was an Irishman, with very few of an Irishman's preju- dices. He had been Irish Secretary, also Prime Minister ; and, apart from his experience in those capacities, as Commander-in- chief he was constantly consulted whenever Ireland. was dis- turbed. His notion was, that the maintenance of the Lord- Lieutenancy was most desirable as a rallying-point whenever dis- affection in that country arose to a formidable height. The experience of 1848 seems to confirm this view ; for although the insurrection could never have succeeded, it might have assumed much more formidable dimensions if Lord Clarendon had not been on the spot to take the prompt and energetic measures which he did. All that those who adopt the Duke's view can say is, that even this last remaining function of the Lord-Lieutenaney in Ireland is not likely soon to be called for again. The one true chance of danger to English rule in Ireland arose from the possi- bility or probability of the union of Roman Catholics and Pro- testants for ultra-national purposes. The Papal aggression in England and the rampancy of Ultramontanism in Ireland have put an end to that, at no time very formidable prospect. How small the chances of rebellion now, is shown by the fact that two such opportunities as the Russian war and the Indian mutiny would have seemed to men in earnest have passed over without so much as a mouse stirring in an insurrectionary sense. The argument of the Duke of Wellington, sound in its day, may therefore be thought no longer to hold good. As for the Chief-Secretaryship, it does not seem quite so certain that objects may not yet arise for which it would be found useful. If we were to vote for its immediate extinction, it would be on grounds which we fear would give vast offence to the Irish press generally, and drive the Dublin journalists out of their senses. The question has other bearings, too important for us to attempt to make a mystery of it. Frankly-, then, in our opinion, the- great mistake that has been made during the last ten years is, that with the one exception of Mr. Horsman himself, all the Chief Secretaries appointed have been Irishmen. This, in our mind, is ignoring two of the principal uses which for the preceding half- century the office had subserved. One of these was training our young statesmen. For it is worth keeping in mind, that a-good half of our most eminent statesmen, including Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Melbourne, and Lord Derby, have been Irish Secretaries, some of them for a long time, and acquired in that capacity such a knowledge of human nature as might not have been easy- to get elsewhere.* The other use, still snore important to the welfare of both countries, was the personal knowledge of Ireland which the men who were to lead in the House of Commons for years, and in or out of office shape the national policy, acquired when Irish Secretaries, and could not have acquired otherwise. If, after being for about seventy- five years--i. e. from the commencement of the American Revo- lution to the end of the last French Revolution (1776 to 1861)— the chief danger and anxiety of England, Ireland is now so quiet and prosperous that it is thought all the old safeguards can be safely dispensed with, what has made her so ? What, but the policy of Peel, Wellington, Melbourne, and Stanley ? Whether we look to legislation or to organization, the fact is still the same. The matchless Police is due to Peel ; Catholic Emancipation to Peel and Wellington; the first practical carrying out of Emanci- pation to Melbourne ; the National system of Education is Lord Derby's ; the Queen's Colleges are for the most part Six Robert Peel's. - * We believe we are correct in Baying that the list of Chief Secretaries of Ireland since the Union includes the following Englishmen, quasi-English- men, or Scotchmen, of the highest social and political influence—Lord Col- chester, Lord Bexley, Lord Farnborough, Duke of Wellington, oecond Lord Melville, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Glenelg, Mr. Goulburn, Lord Melbourne, Lord Ellesmere, Lord Hardinge, Lord Derby, Lord Broughton, Lord Hatherton, Lord Carlisle, Lord St Germans, Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Labouchere, and Mr. Herman. To these must be added, as having filled the offices of Lord Lieutenant or Lord Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, Duke of Bedford, Duke of Richmond, Lord Whitworth, Lord Talbot, Marquis Wellesley, Afarquis of Anglesea, Duke of Northumberland, Lord Haddington, Marquis of Nor- manby, Lord Fortescue, Lord De Grey, Lord Heytesbury, Lord Clarendon, Lord Eglinton, Lord St. Leonardo, and Lord Campbell. Going back a little before the Union, we might add to the list of those whose influence extended considerably into the nineteenth century, such men as the Duke of Portland, Marquis Cornwallis, Lords Camden, Castlereagh, and Fitzwilliam, and Mr. indham. Putting all these names together, he who is best acquainted with the political history of the time will see most clearly how entirely and overwhelmingly the men of official and personal experience of Ireland, through the offices now sought to be condemned, determined the policy of England towards Ireland. Mere obstructionists like Lords Redesdale and Manners we have omitted from the list ; but their number is singularly few. Hardly any the most extreme party men went to Ireland that did not return better disposed to do justice to that people. It is impossible to overrate the benefit to both countries of the mitigating influences thus exercised. But e would not ourselves nor would we recommend others to put this forward as by itself a justification for perpetuating either office. Fortunately, the most difficult part of that great work of national reconcilement may be looked upon as achieved.
Now, should we be asked wlaplher we think it probable that all or any of those great and priceless reforms would have been proposed and carried out at the time and in the unstinted mea- sure they were, unless all the statesmen above named, and many others hardly ;less distinguished who supported them, had en- joyed personal experience of Ireland—had studied Irish political pathology as only it was to be studied, clinically, and that in the only way that young Englishmen could be brought to accept the discipline, i.e. by official compulsion—we say, decidedly not. And therefore, while we would freely give up the Lord-Lieu- tenancy as no longer rendering any service that may not be se- cured in other ways, we think that statesmen of the experience of Lord Lansdowne, Lord Palmerston, and Lord John Russell, ought to hesitate before they too hastily concur in abolishing an office which, directly of no great importance, has indirectly served such noble and indeed inappreciable uses as we think we have proved that the Irish Secretaryship has. But most certainly, if none but Irishmen are to be henceforth appointed to the office its true utility is at an end, and the sooner it is abolished the better. Only we fear, that Ireland still is and is likely long to remain, too much of a terra incognita to the English governing classes tt; admit of their dispensing with this excellent means of forcing their sucking statesmen to acquire some personal knowledge of a people so incurably anomalous.
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