MR. JOHN STUART MILL'S IRISH PROPHECY.
WE desire to call the immediate and the special atten- tion of all politicians in this country to a pamphlet just issued by Messrs. Longmans, which otherwise they might pass over. It is less than fifty pages long, and reprinted with- out alteration from a brochure written by John Stuart Mill thirteen years ago, but it contains more wisdom on the Irish Question than all the library which since 1880 has been issued on the subject. Mr. Mill, it should be remembered, though on some points a Radical of an advanced type, was on others a decided Conservative, advocating very strong and even re- pressive government. Upon all Indian questions, we should class him with the older school, who intend and defend govern- ment from above ; and on Irish subjects he was no extremist. Ho deprecated Home-rule, as leading inevitably to separation ; and he rejected separation, as nearly certain to lead to per- petual war WE desire to call the immediate and the special atten- tion of all politicians in this country to a pamphlet just issued by Messrs. Longmans, which otherwise they might pass over. It is less than fifty pages long, and reprinted with- out alteration from a brochure written by John Stuart Mill thirteen years ago, but it contains more wisdom on the Irish Question than all the library which since 1880 has been issued on the subject. Mr. Mill, it should be remembered, though on some points a Radical of an advanced type, was on others a decided Conservative, advocating very strong and even re- pressive government. Upon all Indian questions, we should class him with the older school, who intend and defend govern- ment from above ; and on Irish subjects he was no extremist. Ho deprecated Home-rule, as leading inevitably to separation ; and he rejected separation, as nearly certain to lead to per- petual war :-
"Too much bitter feeling still remains between England and the United States, more than eighty years after separation ; and Ireland has suffered from England, for many centuries, evils compared with. which the greatest grievances of the Americans were, in all but prin- ciple, insignificant. The persevering reciprocation of insults between English and American newspapers and public speakers has, before now, brought those two countries to the verge of a war ; would there not be even more of this between countries still nearer neighbours, on the morrow of an unfriendly- separation P In the perpetual state of irritated feeling thus kept up, trifles would become causes of quarrel. Disputes more or less serious, oven collisions, would be for over liable to occur. Ireland, therefore, besides having to defend herself against all other enemies, internal and external, without English help, would feel obliged to keep herself always armed and in readiness to tight England To England, the necessity of being always in a state of preparation against Ireland would be comparatively a loss inconvenience, because sho already has to maintain, for defence against foreigners, a force that would in general suffice for both pnr- poses. But Ireland would have to create both a fleet and an army ; and after all that could be done, Fie oppressive wonld be her sense of insecurity, that she would probably be driven to compromise' her newly-acquired independence, and sock the protection of alliances with Continental Powers."
Even if none of these things happened, they would be expected to happen, and the consequent tension would lead either to perpetual and hostile watchfulness, or, and more probably, to desperate efforts for the reconquest of the island by force of arms. Mr. Mill, therefore, was no Nationalist and no Home-ruler,
and yet he held that unless the British Governnaent and people were prepared for a " revolutionary " measure in regard to land-tenure, a formidable movement for separation was speedily inevitable, If our readers will remember that he wrote the following words thirteen years ago, they will acknow- ledge that, apart from his reputation as thinker, a man of such forecasting sagacity on the special subject has a claim to
be heard ;—
" There was a time, perhaps, when even such small measures as that of securing to tenants a moderate compensation, in money or by length of lease, for improvements actually made, and abolishing the unjust privilege of distraining for rout, might have appensed or post- paned disaffection, and given to great-landlordism a fresh term of existence. But such reforms as these, granted at the let moment, would hardly give a week's respite from active disaffection. The Irish are no longer retlueed to take anything they can get. They have acquired the sense of being supported by prosperous multitudes of their countrymen on the opposite side of the Atlantic. These it is who will furnish the leaders, the pecuniary resources, the skill, the military discipline, and a great part of the effective force, in any future Irish rebellion ; and it is the interest of these awciliaries to refuse to listen to any form of compromise, since no share of its benefits would be for them, while they would lose the dream of a place in the world's eye as chiefs of an independent republic, With these for leaders, and a people like the Irish, always ready to trust implicitly those whom they think hearty in their cause, no accom- modation is henceforth possible which does not give the Irish peasant all that he could gain by a revolution—permanent possession of the land, subject to fixed burtheus..Such a change may be revolutionary, but revolutionary measures are the thing now required. It is not necessary that the revolution should be violent, still less that it should be unjust. It iney and it ought to respect existing pecuniary interests which have the sanction of law. An equiva- lent ought to be given for the bare pecuniary value of ell mis-
• c]iievons rights which landlords or any others ore required to part with. But no mercy ought to be shown to the mischievous rights themselves ; no scruples of purely English birth ought to stay our bands from effecting, since it has come to that, a real re- volution in the economical and social constitution of Ireland. In the completeness of the revolution will lie its safety. Anything less than complete, unless as a step to completion, will give no help. There has been a time for proposals to effect this change by a gradual process, by encourngement of voluntary arrangements ; but the volume of the Sibyl's books which contained them has been burned. If ever, in our time, Ireland is to be a consenting party to her union with England, the changes must be so made that the existing genera- tion of Irish farmers shall at once enter upon their benefits. The rule of Irelend now rightly belongs to those who, by means consistent with justice, will make the cultivators of the soil of Ireland the owners of it ; and the English nation has get So decide whether it will be that just ruler, or not."
Every syllable of that prophecy has turned cut literally true, and now this very month, almost this very week, England is to have what John Stuart Mill believed to be her last chance of binding Ireland firmly to herself. If this revolutionary reform was not granted, he believed that there would exist in Ireland a condition of chronic insurrection, which would be ultimately successful, partly because every enemy of Great Britain all over the world would aid Ireland, but principally because the English democracy would never consent to rule the Island as Russia rules Poland, avowedly and permanently by naked force, unscrupulously applied up to the point of constant slaughter :— "The prophets who, judging, I presume, from themselves, always augur the worst of the moral sentiments of their countrymen, are already asseverating that, whether right or wrong, the British people would rather devastate Ireland from end to end end root out its in- habitants, than consent to its separation from England. If we believe them, the people of England are a kind of bloodhounds, always ready to break loose find perpetrate Jamaica horrors, unless they, and their like, are there to temper and restrain British brutality. This representation does not accord with my experience. I believe that these•prophooies proceed from men who seek to make their countrymen responsible for what they themselves are burning to commit; and that the rising power in our affairs, the democracy of Great Britain, is opposed, on principle, to bolding any people in sub- jection against their will. The question was put, some six months ago, to one of the largest and most enthusiastic public meetings ever assembled in London under one roof,—' Do you think that England has a right to rule over Ireland, if she cannot make the Irish people content with her rule ?' and tho shouts of 'No l' which burst from every part of that great assemblage will not soon be forgotten by those who heard them. An age when delegates of working-men meet in European Congresses to concert united action for the interests of labour, is not one in which labourers will cut down labourers at other people's bidding. The time is come when the democracy of ono country will join bands with the democracy of another, rather than baok their own ruling authorities in putting it down. I shall net believe, until I see it proved, that the English and Scotch people are capable of the folly and wickedness of carrying fire and sword over Ireland, in order that their rulers may govern Ireland contrary to the will *of the Irish people. That they would pat down a partial out- break, in order to got a fair trial for a system of government bene- ficent and generally acceptable to the people, I readily believe ; nor should I in any way blame them for so doing."
We are not so sure of our countrymen, who, once inflamed, have in them a frightful capacity, not for cruelty, but for slaughter ; but that point is of no importance, compared with this, that to be forced into such a position would mean for England a conscription, militarism dominant, and the perma- nent brutalisation of her people. If Ireland is to be per- manently hostile and yet subject, she must be governed by military law,—that is, held down by a garrison of at least fifty thousand men, always ready for action, a number which; with- out Irish help, we could only raise by conscription. It must be avoided, at any cost, and in Mr. Mill's opinion the only way of avoiding it was to settle the Land Question once for all upon Irish lines,—that is, upon principles almost exactly in accord with those summed up in the "three F.'s." Here is Mr. Mill's plan :—
"What is wanted in Ireland is a Commission to examine every farm which is let to a tenant, and commute the present variable for a fixed rent. But this great undertaking must not drag its slow length through generations, like the work of those other Commissions. The time is passed for a mere amicable mediation of the State be- tween the landlord and the tenant. There must be compulsory powers, and a strictly judicial inquiry. It must be ascertained in each case, as promptly as is consistent with due investigation, what annual payment would be an equivalent to the landlord for the rent lie now receives (provided that rent be not excessive), and for the present value of whatever prospect there may be of an increase, from any other source than the peasant's own exertions. This annual sum should be secured to the landlord under the guarantee of law. He should have the option of receiving it directly from the national treasury, by being inscribed as the owner of Consols sufficient to yield the amount. Those landlords who are the least useful in Ireland, and on the worst terms with their tenantry, would probably accept this opportunity of severing altogether their connection with the :Irish soil. Whether this was the case or not, every farm net farmed by the proprietor would become the permanent holding of the exist- ing tenant, who would pay either to the landlord or to the State the fixed rent which had boon decided upon ; or loss, if the income which it was thought just that the landlord should receive were more than the tenant could reasonably be required to pay. The benefit, to the cultivator, of a permanent property in the soil, does not depend on paying nothing for it, but on the certainty that the payment cannot be increased ; and it is not even desirable that, in the first instance, the payment should be less than a fair rent. If the land were lot below its value, to this new kind of copy- holder, he might be tempted to sublet it at a higher rent, and live on the difference, becoming a parasite supported in idleness on land which would still be farmed at a rackrent. He should, therefore, pay the fall rent which was adjudged to the former proprietor, unless special circumstances made it unjust to require so much."
It is not necessary, as matters stand, to give the landlords the enormous bonus which a State guarantee would involve, and we do, not doubt that, had Mr. Mill lived till 1881, he would have waived this part of his scheme ; but most undoubtedly, had he so lived, had he tested the Irish opinion of to-day, had he seen the men whom the Irish popular vote has recently sent up, had he watched the Civil War within Parliament called the Obstruction struggle, he would have declared that the time of grace was rapidly passing away, that English statesmen were called on for a supreme effort, and that if they could not make it, Britain must choose either to separate from Ireland, or to spoil its own future by the determination to sacrifice everything to holding the Island down by force.
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