THE OMITI'LD ALTERNATIVE.
NOTHING has been more remarkable throughout this long debate than the steadiness and, as it were, the design with which all speakers, small and great, have avoided two immensely important subjects, namely, the real meaning of Separation, and the effect of Mr. Gladstone's Bill, as it originally stood and as it may stand again, upon the political future of Great Britain. We can, we think, understand the motives of this reticence, the Home-rulers being unwilling to risk an explosion of national pride, while the Unionists were afraid of damaging their own case ; but we are under no such fetters, and we think that in such a crisis, when the existence of the Kingdom is at stake, the whole truth should be laid before the community. That truth is, that besides the two alternatives—Union as it now exists, supported by force, and Mr. Gladstone's Bill—to which the Home-rulers pretend to confine us, there is yet a third, namely, Separation, whether as absolute as that between England and France, or as actual as that between England and Hanover under William IV. During his reign, England forgot Hanover, though both were under the same Sovereign. Of the three alternatives, we prefer Union, as incomparably the best for Ireland and for the world—which is injuriously affected whenever Great Britain seems to be, bat is not, weak—and as most consistent with the moral obligation of every State to do its best for the subjects entrusted, by what we believe is ulti- mately a Divine authority, to its care. But as between Separa- tion and Home-rule, we believe, with Lord Macaulay, that the former is by far the wiser alternative, and one which the people should most gravely consider before they, in fear of being compelled to coerce, adopt Mr. Gladstone's Bill. It is clearly the one which, if the Irish arguments are granted —and we address ourselves to. day only to those who accept those arguments—is most in accordance with moral principle. If Ireland is a nation—which is not, in our judg- ment, historically true, though it is true that Ireland is a country—and if it is wrong that one nation should ever be merged in another—a doctrine which would shatter nearly all existing State systems—if, that is, Great Britain must act on the extremest theory of democracy, then it is right to tell Ireland to depart in peace. We have, on that theory, no right to keep her ; but we have, on that theory, the right to say that if she chooses to stay with us, we shall settle the terms of the alliance. If Ireland is a nation, so also is Great Britain, with all national rights, one of which, on the Irish contention, is the right of refusing to be fused with any other nation except on her own terms. Even Mr. Parnell cannot object to that, for it is the essential datum of his own position. The Separa- tion is therefore right from the democratic point of view, while also it must be wiser than Home-rule. A self-governing country is bound to accept the full responsibilities of self- government, and under Mr. Gladstone's Bill Ireland does not do it. Her people control their own legislation and their own Executive, but accept full responsibility for neither. If Ireland starves because her Ministry are incompetent, England must pre- vent starvation. If her Government makes the Dublin Treasury bankrupt, England must refill it. If her Government provokes civil war or religious war, English troops must restore civil order. If her Government allows universal anarchy, the English Parliament must repeal the "Magna Charta of the island," and recommence through coercion the whole weary round. Such a position must be ruinous to any people, and especially ruinous to Ireland, because her popular parties have for centuries been demoralised by never being allowed to feel the full consequences of their own acts. They have never been suffered to learn the hard lessons of experience, or com- pelled to realise the consequences of economic folly ; so that at this moment they think confiscation would increase riches, they think Protection would not impoverish their country, and they think Ireland, in defiance of evidence hourly before their eyes, a country with exceptional potentialities of wealth. They dream, in fact, as the irresponsible dream. The cure for all that, and the only cure, is to let them try their own plans without British help, to work out their own destiny for them- selves, and take the consequences or enjoy the fruits, as other nations do. The British would then be irresponsible for their acts, and unaffected by them, and would watch calmly the results of Irish theories and Irish action. The danger of their hostility would be less, owing to the absence of friction, while preventive measures against attack could not cost more than preventive measures against insurrection now do, and one very singular prerogative belonging to Great Britain, and indestruc-
tibia by Ireland, would revive. Ireland, as an independent State, would be in the singular position that her prosperity would be absolutely dependent on her neighbour, which, if attacked or threatened, could, by an Order in Council prohibit- ing imports from her shores, terminate at a blow her external trade. You cannot smuggle articles of agricultural produce, nor does any other State in Europe require Irish pigs, or butter, or fat cattle. Finally, the Ulster difficulty would be over, Ulster saying with one v&ce that independence threatens her less than Home-rule, for that, apart from the British troops, she and her allies could take care of herself, and of the Pro- testants of the South too. The Ulster dread is not dread of Dublin, but dread lest behind Dublin should now, as always, stand the irresistible strength of Westminster.
We need not say that we have no desire for Separation. Ireland would under it probably reach in time a reasonably happy life, the social system so reconstituting itself as to be endurable, or even, it might be, excellent; but that would only occur after a period of calamity which it is impossible to regard without horror. The social cleavages are too deep, the people are too excited by economic illusions, the circumstances of the island are too unfavourable, to allow of immediate social peace, and a social war is more disastrous than even a civil one. Ireland might fall into the condition of Poland just before the partition, or even a worse state, for in Poland there was always corn to eat. We cannot recommend a scheme so fraught with immediate evil to a people still our fellow- subjects ; but still, we are bound to tell the electors that there is this alternative in their hands if they decide to give up the Union, and so to surrender responsibility for the government of Ireland, and that it is a better one than Home-rule, which, again, would lead immediately to Separation. And we are bound, also, to tell them the further truth, which every Home-ruler has shirked, that Mr. Gladstone's Bill, as it originally stood—though the worst for Ireland, because it so dissevered power and responsibility—was, of all Home- rule plans, the best for Britain. It restored her to her
legislative independence. Her Parliamentary life, which has been almost destroyed, would have again revived free and strong. Her Executive would no longer have been enfeebled by the possibility of union between the Parnellites and the extremer Radicals. She would have been replaced in her free position before 1800, with these great differences, that while her population has grown from eight millions to thirty- one, and her wealth in an incalculable ratio, the population of Ireland has sunk from seven millions to five, and her wealth, though greatly increased, is still insufficient for her needs. Inde- pendent in her foreign policy, nearly homogeneous in creed and race, populated by thirty-one millions of industrious and brave men, possessed of a world-wide Empire and of wealth which, if not inexhaustible, has hitherto met every demand upon it, England would have commenced a new career, fettered only by the necessity of keeping a corps d'arrnie in Ireland, and of making unreasonable advances whenever the Irish Exchequer arrived in sight of total exhaustion. From the date of the passing of the Bill, the British people, however hampered • by the Act, would have dealt with Ireland as they judged best or most fair, unimpeded by the pressure within their own central Council and ruling body of eighty-six men intent on baffling their efforts, confusing their plans, and reducing the reputation of their public men. The British people would have gained that advantage, which might have been immeasurable, as completely as they would from Separa- tion. That, however, was lost when Mr. Gladstone, in a moment of singular weakness, quite exceptional in his career, endeavoured to attract the Radical Unionists by readmitting the Irish Members ; and his Bill, therefore, as it will be reconstructed and presented to Parliament if he wins at the elections, is a provision for ultimate Separation, without any of the compensating advantages Separation would bring. We are, under the threatened Bill, to lose Ireland, but to keep the Irish Members. Separation is far better than that ; and those electors who bold it wise and right to vote for Disunion, have a right also, on their own principles, and whether the Irish like it or not, to insist on Separation. If democratic Nationalism be a true doctrine—which is the secret Radical doubt—it follows of necessity that Great Britain, like Ireland, has the right to stand alone, unhampered by a people which, on the Nationalist theory, proclaims itself unappeaseably her foe. It is for Ireland that we are asked to legislate, but Great Britain has also rights; and it is time that her people ceased to efface themselves, and asserted them as strongly as the Irish are doing, though by less evil means.
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