IRISH POLICY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.".1 'SIEL—I believe you are right. The Ayr Burghs election cer- tainly does vividly suggest the probability that Mr. Gladstone will carry the constituencies with him at the next General Election. The Isle of Than& election tends to confirm this view. Mr. Lowther's majority is a purely Tory majority obtained in a Tory stronghold. The Unionist vote cast for the late Colonel King-Harman was refused to his successor in the constituency. There is no use in blinking the fact that
• the Unionist vote is daily growing beautifully less. The Government and their supporters have only themselves to blame. They have forgotten that, first and foremost, they are, or ought to be, Unionists. It was on Unionist, and not on Tory lines, that the last General Election was fought and won. In view of the common danger, the Unionists then pledged themselves, laying party politics aside, to settle the Irish Question by dealing with Ireland by a series of statesmanlike measures, and so wresting the country from the peril of separation from England. It was on this understanding that they were returned to Parliament by an overwhelming majority, a majority that might literally have accomplished anything. How have they kept their pledges ? For all settlement of the Irish Question this overwhelming Unionist majority have passed a Crimes Bill, introduced a brace and a half of Drainage Bills, and are buoyed up in their shaky hope of a few years' longer tenure of office by a Papal Decree on morals, and the precarious prospect of a fairly good harvest. And when their fortunes are almost at the lowest ebb, it is Mr. James Lowther they depute to contest the Isle of Thanet election, presumably as a messenger of peace and good- will to all shades of Unionists, and as an earnest that they are now, even though at the eleventh hour, about to close up their ranks and do what the country expects of them.
The Irish Question is the Irish Land Question. The Irish Question can only be solved by a Land-Purchase Bill. But, says Mr. Balfour, in his speech in the House of Commons, 'Tuesday, June 26th, 1888 :--" You talk about settling the Land Question in Ireland by purchase. How do you mean to settle the Land Question by purchase if you are going to permit this boycotting of derelict farms, if you allow the Irish people to think they act rightly when they shoot at men who take farms which have been boy- cotted? How on earth will you ever be able to carry out any system of land-purchase with tolerable success if you allow practices to go on like that in the case I
have referred to ? You will never be able to settle the Land Question or any other question in Ireland, unless you establish the reign of law." Mr. Balfour strikes heroically at the effect, but ignores the cause which produces that effect. He does not seem to have realised that it is not the number of League meetings he succeeds in suppressing, nor the number of convictions he obtains, that will eventually settle the Irish Question. Certainly the reign of the law must be established ; establish it by all means, and enforce it rigorously, but surely the enforcement of the law does not preclude legislation of the most vital importance to the United Kingdom. Does Mr. Balfour perhaps believe that seven years of resolute govern- ment without any further land legislation would reconcile either landlord or tenant to the present land system? The present land system ia odious to both landlords and tenants. And after these seven years, what then ? Does Mr. Balfour further believe in the probability of another Tory Unionist majority, and in another seven years' spell of resolute government? But if he does not, then he is playing fast and loose with Unionist interests. He is procrastinating when he knows that there is no time to lose ; he is fiddling, and Rome is burning.
Till the transfer of the land of Ireland from the owners to the occupiers of the soil is accomplished, we shall never have a day's peace in Ireland. Till then, England will certainly year after year continue to be confronted by an Irish Parlia- mentary party and a hostile Ireland. Without a Land- Purchase Bill, Mr. Balfour and every other Chief Secretary for Ireland will, on the expiration of their term of office, leave, as they invariably have left, Ireland exactly in the state in which it has always been. They may even find it hard enough to drive the discontent in the country below the surface.
But some of our English politicians have tender consciences when it becomes a question of a Land-Purchase Bill. I think it was Mr. Howorth who last autumn, writing for himself and some other representatives of urban constituencies, denounced, in the columns of the Times, any scheme of land-purchase by the State as "economically most vicious," and as "veiled State Socialism." But the funny part of it all is that these same dear representatives had no hesitation whatsoever in gaily recording their votes for the Land Act of 1887, which. however expedient a piece of legislation, could not be well termed economically most sound. But mostly all legisla- tion for Ireland has been "economically most vicious." For instance, for a black band of Sub-Commissioners to waltz through the length and breadth of the land, and, without having to assign any reasons for their decisions, to compul- sorily fix, for a period of fifteen years, fair rents, basing the rent on the produce of the worst cycle of years we have ever experienced in Ireland, is without a doubt State Socialism, and that without any veil at all.
I quite agree with Mr. Heywood, we cannot have County Councils in England, and in Ireland irresponsible Grand Juries riding other people's horses with their own spurs. But first of all we must have a Land-Purchase Bill.—I am, Sir, &e., Croom House, Crown, July 3rd. GA.STON MONSELL.
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