THE TORIES AND HOME-RULE.
TOED CARNARVON'S frank explanation in the House of .4 Lords on Thursday night does not in any way account for Mr. Parnell's statement of the previous Monday. Nothing can be more explicit than Mr. Parnell's statement that the Minister with whom he conversed communicated to him "the intention" of offering Ireland "a statutory Legislature, with a right to protect her own industries," and "that this would have been coupled with the settlement of the land question, on the basis of purchase, on a larger scale than that now pro- posed by the Prime Minister." " Intention " is Mr. Parnell's own word when he interrupted Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. "Does the right honourable gentleman mean to deny that the intention was communicated to me by one of his own colleagues, a Minister of the Crown ?" Sir Michael did deny it, and what Lord Carnarvon says proves that Sir Michael Hicks- Beach had every right to deny it, so far at least as Mr. Parnell referred to Lord Carnarvon, and not to any other Minister. Lord Carnarvon tells us precisely what happened. He did see Mr. Parnell in July of last year, at Mr. Parnell's own request. But he laid down three conditions for the interview. The first was "that I was acting of myself, by myself, and the responsibility was mine, and the communica- tions were from me alone,—that is, from my lips alone. Secondly, that the conversation was with reference to informa- tion only, and that it must be understood that there was no agreement or understanding, however shadowy, between us. And thirdly, that I was there as the Queen's servant, and I would neither hear nor say one word that was inconsistent with the union between the two countries. To these conditions Mr. Parnell assented." It is perfectly clear, therefore, that Mr. Parnell had not the shadow of a ground for affirming that any kind of "intention" on the part of the Government had been expressed to him, seeing that he had distinctly accepted Lord Carnarvon's assurance that no such intention could be expressed to him ; that Lord Carnarvon had, indeed, absolutely no authority from the Government to commit them in any way whatever. It is obvious, therefore, either that Mr. Parnell refers to some other interview, or that he had no excuse at all for the startling assertion made on Monday night.
Subject, then, to the possibility that further revelations will be made,—and if they should be made, we think we may assume that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach will still be able to justify his categorical denial that the Tory Cabinet ever, in any form, accepted the principle of Home-rule,—we think we may offer the following account of the matter. When the Tory Cabinet took power, one or more of the members of that Cabinet did contem- plate as possible the grant of Home-rule to Ireland; but when the matter was discussed in Cabinet, it was found that the general opinion was far too strong against it for any Home-rule scheme to have a chance ; and consequently, the Tory Cabinet took up its stand finally upon the old lines. This is, we take it, the real truth, nor do we see that there has been anything discreditable to the Tory chiefs in the matter. It was, in our opinion, most dis- creditable to them that they took side as they did against Lord Spencer in reference to the Maamtrasna murders, and allied themselves with the Parnellites for the overthrow of Mr. Gladstone's Government. But on that subject we have said enough on former occasions. Lord Carnarvon, however, did not take part in that attack on Lord Spencer, and he had just as much right to form a judgment favour- able to some sort of Home-rule as Mr. Gladstone himself ; nor do we doubt for a moment that he was acting within his duty when he did his best to ascertain fully Mr. Parnell's views on the subject, even though, with the full reserve of which we have given the precise terms, he may frankly have communicated to Mr. Parnell his own personal views. Lord Carnarvon never pretended to speak the mind of the Cabinet, which, indeed, at that time, he probably did not know ; and there is nothing more astonishing in his having anticipated Mr. Gladstone in some of his views than there was in Mr. Disraeli's anticipating Mr. Gladstone in others of his views. If we are not astonished that Tories sometimes anticipate Liberals in the enunciation of a sound policy, we certainly ought not to be astonished that they sometimes anticipate Liberals in the enunciation of an unsound policy.
But what does seem to us clear is that there is in this case no evidence at all that the Tory Cabinet, as a whole, wavered. Lord Carnarvon did not waver. He early accepted the policy of surrender to Home-rule,—for himself. It does not matter at all whether Lord Randolph Churchill wavered or not. We rather think he did not waver ; that he held to the notion that Tory democracy would not admit any break-up of the Kingdom. Lord Salisbury may, perhaps, have wavered. There is much in his Newport speech which looks as if his mind were vacillating between Federalism and " resolute government." But all the evidence we have, goes to show that when the Cabinet first gave its mind to the question, it stead- fastly rejected Home-rule as a policy prejudicial to the country, and utterly opposed to the traditions of the Conservative Party. There, we think, they were right. If they had taken up Home-rule, we should all have ascribed that course to the craving for the Parnellite vote, and we should all have been more than excusable for so ascribing it. A far greater shock would have been given to the conscience of the Conservative Party, by such a course on the part of Lord Salisbury, than has been actually given to the conscience of the Liberal Party by the course taken by Mr. Gladstone. Much as we lament Mr. Gladstone's sudden decision, only his most malignant enemies ascribe it to the lust of power. All who know him ascribe it to the true motive, his almost superstitious faith in popular institutions and his profound ditlike to repressive laws. But had Lord Salisbury taken upon himself Mr. Gladstone's part, we fear that his influence over the bulk of the Conservative Party would have disappeared for ever, and that a complete moral disorganisation of that party would have been the result. The existing situation is menacing enough. But it is not so menacing as it would have been if the Conservative Party had gone to pieces, and Lord Hartington's followers had had to furnish forth the only supply of moral inertia which revolutionary opinion finds across its path when it wishes to break down some old Constitutional guarantee.
It will be argued, perhaps, that Lord Carnarvon's early con- version to Irish Home-rule tells on Mr. Gladstone's side. To our mind, it does not tell half as much on that side as Lord Spencer's conversion to it ; for Lord Spencer had had far more personal experience of the peril and the shiftiness of the Parnellite manceuvres than Lord Carnarvon ; and if Lord Spencer has not convinced us, Lord Carnarvon will not con- vince us. The truth is that in a difficulty so great as the Irish difficulty, a certain number of minds were quite sure to incline to the experiment of surrender,—simply on the ground that if that solution did succeed, it would take the burden off our shoulders ; and that if it did not, it would always be open to us to say that we might still resort to stronger measures. We have never been able to admit the reasonableness of the latter suggestion. We are quite persuaded that if we shirk our duty now, we should shirk it still more when the moment came for applying to the difficulty an energetic policy far more strenuous than that for which at present we look inwards in vain, and that no illusion is more dangerous than the illusion that the effort which we have no mind for to-day, we shall have a mind for at some distant day, when it will be one both more difficult for Great Britain to make, and more disastrous to the Irish people in its results.
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