MR. PARNELL'S AMENDMENT.
THE interest of Mr. Parnell's speech on his amendment, delivered on Tuesday to a House singularly attentive, but, except on the Irish benches, quite unresponsive, consists mainly in its object. It was not a good speech, or a persuasive speech ; it was overloaded with minute detail ; and it was at times extremely tedious, and even provocative of sleep ; but still it was important. It showed so fully where the leading Irishmen believe the strength of their agitation to lie. The secret of Mr. Parnell's real character is still unrevealed, and there are conflicting opinions even about his ability ; but it is impossible to doubt that be has thoroughly gauged Irish opinion, whether expressed or latent. Without that power, even if we admit that he is a man of great though separate and sombre genius, he never could have risen to his position, or mastered a population with which he has by nature no tie of sympathetic feeling. No man is so little Irish by temperament, and it must be therefore by deliberate thought that he has mastered Irishmen. This man, whose single object in politics is to secure for Ireland as much independence as he can obtain, and who has repeatedly avowed his comparative indifference to the land question, had to utter his great speech in a new Session at a moment when the dividing-line of parties is simply and solely Home-rule. Of that subject he is master, and he had every temptation an orator can have to display his mastery. He knows perfectly well that on the land question there is no dividing-line ; that preaching about landlordism is thrown away in a House which would grant a new tenure if it honestly could ; that it is Home-rule, not tenure, on which, from his point of view, men's minds require education. Yet he says scarcely a word on Home-rule. His one subject is the tenure. His long and laboured speech is directed entirely to three ends, which are, again, but one end, —to justify his own rejected Land Bill, to show that the Government is weak and vacillating in its dealing with land- lords and tenants, and to prevent any such strengthening of the law as should make agrarian resistance to its provisions unsafe. He maintains that if his Bill bad been passed, there would have been no disturbances, which is unfounded, as in the worst oases his Bill, though we admit it was much too summarily rejected, would have had no applica- tion. His argument that the Government placed pressure on landlords to remit rents, whether true or false, comes to nothing, for the pressure was only moral, and affected no landlord against his will ; while his argument against " coer- cion " is only a threat that if it is tried, the reign of terrorism will at once revive. No coercion, he said, would prevent murder. Mr. Parnell cannot have hoped to convince the House by such arguments, and out of it they are hardly readable from their poverty of thought ; but his object in uttering them is clear. He, who knows Ireland as few men know it, recognises that the root of the question in Ireland is the agrarian quarrel, that his constituents are think- ing of nothing else, that they dread the strengthening of the law only because it may protect landlords, that they expect at his hands victory in this, their secular struggle against rent. The long details about rent and evictions, which seem to us so wearisome, are to them of burning interest. The arguments for the "Plan of Campaign," which to us appear so hesitating, are to them full of subtlety and force. The threats which so irritate English feeling, are in their ears declarations of war against the landlord. Mr. Parnell, their uncrowned King, who, as they think, gave them security of tenure, is now fighting to give them lower, and ever lower rents ; and as when fixity has been granted, and rents are reduced to their lowest, the conversion of tenancy into freehold must be easy, they are content. Mr. Parnell's silence on the " national cense " does not displease them at all, for on the canes which is before the national one in their mind, he is sufficiently lengthy, and he is wholly on their side. So are his lieutenants. In the long list of quotations which Mr. Gibson, in his closely reasoned answer, made from the speeches of the leaders, and which rise from argument to passion, from passion to violence, from violence to direct menace, the underlying topic never changes. A single sentence expresses them all. The Irish peasant wants the land, and shall have it, though he damn himself in the effort. In these speeches, the word "right" means the tenant's claim, the word " wrong," the landlord's contract ; and though Mr. Parnell, speaking in Parliament, does not go so far, still every now and then the same thought breaks out, as when he holds that eviction must call forth "the wild justice of revenge." If ever an induction could be made from the speeches of agitators, we are justified in believing that the Parnellite agitators, with their chief at their head, know that their agitation rests upon the hunger of an agricultural population to possess the land. If that desire were satiated, or shown to be impossible, the desire for Home-rale, they know, would die away. The " lever " which Michael Devitt placed in Mr. Parnell's hand would have done its work.
But, it may be asked, if the Irish leaders are thus convinced, why do they attempt to remove or abate the grievance, real or imaginary, which gives them such a foothold? Because they cannot help themselves. Coldness in this quarrel would cost them their influence, which rests first of all on the belief that they have lowered rents and increased tenants' security, and are still continuing the process. Every one of them in every speech is obliged to show his devotion to that cause, or he will become suspect. Even Mr. Parnell, with all his absolutism, must on this point give way, and cannot venture to leave tenure to those who, as he would admit, understand it far better than himself. Moreover, the Parnellite chiefs do, so far as they can, leave the grievance hanging. There is plenty of ability among them ; but from first to last, not one of their number has so much as formulated in a Bill the scheme of enfranchisement which would content their supporters, not one has even asked Great Britain to contribute a definite sum in aid. Upon fisheries, upon drainage, upon their special commerce, they can be definite enough, nor will any politician accuse them of shamefacedness in asking aid from the country they so sincerely loathe ; but upon the enfranchisement of the land they are strangely silent. They did not care even about Mr. Gladstone's Bill upon this subject, and have never attempted to expand a Purchase Bill into a final settlement. Not they say; grant Home-rale, and we will settle that matter our own way ; in other words, let Home-rule come first. They do not want, it is not natural they should want, the chances of their ultimate object to be weakened by the concession of their nearer one, which nevertheless they are compelled by their supporters to make their perpetual stalking-horse. If they did want
it, they would bring forward a scheme for discussion, would enlist the English Radicals in its support, and would, if it were a practicable scheme, probably carry it through. Not only do they not do this, but they profess perfect indifference to large offers of credit, they do not resent the refusal of English Radicals to help them with money, they do not even urge that the subject should be seriously taken up. In fact, they do not want it settled ; and in their attitude, the English people, if they were wise, would find their guidance. They should insist on the settlement once for all of the agrarian difficulty ; if necessary, by a momentary union of the parties such as carried the Redistribution Bill. They are not wise, however ; and with all the Irish speeches before them, speeches as clear to be read as if their authors explained their meaning, the English majority places no pressure upon its chiefs. The Unionists understand the situation in part, and would, we believe, welcome a great Bill ; but the Conservative rank and file, without whom the Unionists are powerless, give no sign. They support the Government in defending the law of eviction ; but of the necessity for any general plan for effecting a change of tenure they seem entirely ignorant. Yet every day and every night, every Parnellite Member gives them, in the same wearisome monotone, lengthy speeches every one of which has for its inner meaning a conviction that the secret of Irish agitation is agrarian unrest.
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