TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ARREST OF HR. PARNELL.
THE long-enduring patience of the British Government and people has been worn out, at last. We have ourselves no sympathy with the storm of exultation which arose in the Guildhall as the arrest of Mr. Parnell was announced,—no feeling as regards the event, except that it is a most sad necessity. Englishmen and Scotchmen are united to Irish- men by a bond stronger than their own wills, and every incident which increases the pain of that bond, every quarrel which compels the stronger openly to rule the weaker party to that union, seems to us deplorable. We seek an Ireland cheerful, if not fully contented ; governed by law, and not force ; with benefactors for its popular heroes, and not martyrs ; and can take pleasure in no incident which, even for the moment, deepens animosity between inevitable companions. But while we deplore, we admit the necessity to the full. Mr. Parnell, from whatever motive—whether hatred of Eng- land, as we think was the ease, or misdirected love of Ireland, or only personal ambition, or all three—had assumed an atti- tude which made the government of Ireland on the principles of civilisation quite impossible. He had so inflamed one part of the people with promises of "plunder "—of obtaining the land at a sixth of its value—so cowed another part with thinly- veiled menaces and with a terrorism half-popular and half- organised, and so broken down all habitual respect for law, that Ireland was falling into anarchy, and it would have been necessary all over the country at last to enforce the law by blood. That is the unvarying course of history, in Republics as in despotisms, in Switzerland no less than in Russia. He made no secret of his purpose, but avowed, and gloried in the avowal, that he had organised his party till the law was powerless, till the true Government was his Society, till in a short time all Ireland would be united in a single demand for the dismemberment of the Kingdom. He was often cautious in words, for Mr. Parnell, like every other opponent of England, made the mistake of thinking that Englishmen were slaves to legality, but every Irishman understood him in that sense ; and so great was the effect of his cold, pale hate of England, so universal the doubt whether any Government could tolerate such a design, except from fear, that half Ireland, including thousands who detested and dreaded his policy, believed in his greatness, and were afraid to resist the orders of an occult despotism. It was indispensable to dissipate that illusion, and to show the whole world that Mr. Parnell was not master of Ireland, but a citizen misleading the people, as completely within the grasp of the Representative Government as the humblest of his followers. Whether Mr. Parnell had technically broken the law or not does not morally matter. He himself would not deny that in spirit he had broken it all through, nor would his most determined follower question that he had committed the precise offence which Parliament, in passing the Coercion Act, intended to restrain. To arrest humble followers, yet spare the leader who avowed that he led them, became, as Mr. Parnell's language grew bolder, an injustice and a scandal, and after a display of patience which astonished Europe, the leader was arrested, to the satisfaction of all men who believe that neither in Ireland nor elsewhere in the world can anarchy be right, any more than it can be beneficial ; that rebellion, with its strict laws, is better morally, as well as economically, than a national condition of contempt for law. With what reluctance the Government acted is evident from its long endurance, from its careful and protracted consulta- tion, from its calm under defiance ; but its duty became at last clear, and it was performed.
Whether the performance of that duty will tranquillise Ire- land does not depend, as so many are saying heedlessly, upon the conduct of the Government, but upon that of the people of Ireland. The Government, as Mr. Gladstone informed the people of Leeds, will do, patiently and steadily, without violence or clamour, but without fear even of bloodshed, whatever is necessary to make the law unmistakably Eupreme, but the extent of that necessity does not
depend on them. They have as little need as wish to tyrannise. If the Irish people, wakened out of the dream which they have been dreaming for two years, retire from the Land-League organisation, obey the law, and try whether the enormous gift they have received from Parliament will or will not remove their secular grievance, the Government, we will vouch for it, will be as "inactive," as "weak," as "cowardly" as the worst Tory or Land Leaguer could desire. Its members are absolutely free from any desire to triumph over Irishmen, to humiliate Irishmen, or even—though that word will annoy those who believe that true Government implies a measure of insolence—to offend Irishmen. So far from wishing to "go farther," to show "more energy," to "improve the occasion," they would welcome evidence that they had done all that was needed, and that opinion would do. the rest, like men suddenly relieved of the burden of a grand misfortune. They no more desire to terrorise Ireland than to. terrorise Wales. But the Irish, like too many English, have been terribly mistaken in believing Tory slanders, and think- ing that these are men who, because they are patient are feeble, because they hate blood are cowardly, and because. they are law-abiding are paralysed for extra-legal action. What is necessary to enforce the law, whether it be protecting a process-server or meeting all Ireland in. arms, that the Government will do ; no more, no less, keeping step with the Irish demand, and never outstrip- ping it by one hair's-breadth. In Ireland, as everywhere else, their policy is not violence, but that steady, continuous, irresistible pressure before which, when fairly exerted and with adequate force, all resistance not based on religious con- viction invariably and inevitably gives way. Their work is not to conquer either Ireland or the Land League, but to re- establish law. If the work takes force, we are seven-and- twenty millions. If it takes time, a generation or two is nothing in the life of a nation or a race. Cost what it may in men or money, or energy or time, the Government is resolved that,. in the interest of Ireland, for which they are responsible, and of which they, and no others, are the legal representatives, the law shall be peaceably obeyed. For ourselves, we have still full hope that further measures will not be necessary, that the majority of Irishmen will be convinced, if not that the law is their security, at least that it is as irresistible as rain,. and will desist from an effort which has no outcome except anarchy or insurrection. Once relieved of terror, neither their- consciences nor their intellects can long be powerless. But if it is not so, if the illusion is still to last, and Mr. Dillon to succeed Mr. Parnell, and Mr. Healy to follow Mr. Dillon, an& some unknown leader to follow Mr. Healy, this Government, if we understand it in the least, will press forward, without passion, but without fear, towards the goal which, if history be not an old wives' fable, it must inevitably reach. Every- form of government endures long, a bad form often as long as: a good form, but anarchy is always for an hour.
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