CORRESPONDENCE.
A WORD OF WARNING FROM PROFESSOR DICEY. THE time for criticising the policy of the Special Com- mission Act, 1888, is past. To speculate on the event of a judicial investigation is inopportune and indecent. But the period has fully come for every Unionist to make up his mind on the attitude which an honest man should assume toward the solemn and difficult inquiry now entrusted, by the law of the land, to three eminent Judges. Unionists are in danger of being in this matter betrayed into a false position. This calamity will certainly fall upon them unless they hold fast by two plain, yet easily misunderstood principles.
First, the battle of the Union cannot be decided by a forensic duel between Mr. Walter and Mr. Parnell.
The idea that the Commissioners can in effect pronounce a verdict for or against Home-rale, may, under conceivable circumstances, obtain popular currency. Human nature delights in personalities and is reckless of principles. English nature understands a stand-up fight and loves a wager. Thousands of electors, therefore, may easily come to regard the proceedings before the Commission as a piece of political gambling. Mr. Walter (they will feel) asserts Mr. Parnell's authorship of certain discreditable letters. Mr. Parnell gives Mr. Walter the lie direct. Unionists back the Times, Glad- stonians bet heavily in favour of the Irish leader. Each party stands to win or to lose, according as the letters are proved to be genuine documents or impudent forgeries. This, of course, is a profoundly absurd view of a serious investigation. But it is a way of looking at things which, unless Unionists are on their guard, will influence thousands of electors whose ballots tell as heavily at the polling-booths as the votes of wiser men. One thing we may take for certain. If the proceedings before the Commissioners be popularly regarded as the determination of a wager, the crowd who stand round and enjoy the game will compel the losers to pay up their stakes. In one way only is it possible to prevent the fortunes of England from being made the sport of chance. Sensible men must, while the result of the Commission's inquiries is still unknown, insist that a question of national policy cannot be reduced to an issue of personal character. That this is so becomes manifest on a moment's reflection. Prove Mr. Parnell a liar and the friend of criminals, and you will have wrecked his credit with the world ; but you will not have thereby proved to a rational Separatist that it is expedient to maintain the Union; for you will not have removed those difficulties in carrying on the government of Ireland which in one form or another supply the basis for the strongest arguments in favour of Home-rule. If to convict Mr. Parnell of complicity with wrong-doing need not of itself convert Home-rulers into Unionists, still less would his acquittal of every charge brought against him be, in the judgment of
any Unionist, a decision against the maintenance of national unity. Let Mr. Parnell be proved innocent of every offence imputed to him by suspicion or prejudice, let it be shown that the celebrated letters are patent forgeries, let it be established that he has never countenanced or condoned a single breach of the law,—the case against Home-rule stands nevertheless in substance as strong as ever. An isolated argument here and there may lose its point, but the vindication of Mr. Panell's character cannot remove any one of the fatal objections which lie against every scheme for dissolving the United Kingdom into an ill-compacted federation. From whichever side the matter be looked at, a candid inquirer comes to the same con- clusion,—the Home-rule controversy cannot be closed by a wager of batteL Secondly, it is of paramount importance that the truth, whatever it be, about the alleged connection between Par- nellism and crime be made patent to the whole people of the United Kingdom.
Most persons admit the soundness of this principle ; but whoever has attended to the discussions on the Commission Bill will infer that few are the men who have grasped the practical bearing of a maxim to which every one yields theoretical assent. It is worth while to examine three current arguments which virtually deny the expediency of a full inquiry into the conduct of the Parnellite leaders.
" Whether the Parnellites have or have not overstepped the limits of legality, cannot," it is sometimes suggested, "affect the claim of Ireland to Parliamentary independence."
This is one of those half-truths which are more delusive than falsehoods. Mr. Parnell's character, whether as a private man or a statesman, is, it is true, in itself a matter of insignificance. But to ascertain the political methods of Parnellism may rightly go far to determine the action both of the Government and of the nation. If the National League tread in the steps of the Anti-Corn-Law League, then Home-rulers, like Free-traders, ought to be resisted only by the strength of argument. If the demand for an Irish Parliament, or for a change in the Irish land laws, be supported, either directly or indirectly, by terrorism, then the movement for Home-rule, however legiti- mate its object, ought to be met by what we all of us used a year or two ago euphemistically to term the resources of civilisation. It is right to employ against revolutionists weapons which may not be turned against constitutional reformers. The very assertion, again, that " Ireland " claims an independent Parliament depends for its moral weight on the capacity of Ireland to utter her mind with freedom. Terrorists, even though backed by a majority, cannot be the representatives of a nation. Let us apply to the political leaders of our own country and our own time the criteria by which impartial historians test the moral authority of foreign statesmen in past generations. The vices or virtues of Danton or Robespierre are felt by every sensible student to tell little either in favour or against the policy of the Jacobins; but the • ascertained fact that the Jacobins were a faction ruling France by a mixture of fraud and terror strips Jacobinism of the moral authority which would have been due to any party which justly represented the will of France.
" Neither the Commission nor the nation have any call to inquire into the connection between Parnellism and offences against the Crimes Act. These offences are not real crimes."
Language which may thus be summarised has been used by Home-rulers, and occasionally acquiesced in by Unionists. Such acquiescence is uncalled for and unfortunate. The question which concerns the nation is whether Parnellism involves defiance of law. The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, is as much a law as any other enactment in the Statute-Book. In the eyes of every Unionist it is a just law; otherwise it ought not to be in the Statute-Book at all. The man who violates its provisions commits a crime and is a criminal. It is, further, the merest delusion to suppose that the deeds it prohibits are in themselves morally indifferent. Whoever is subject to this delusion should study for himself 50 & 51 Victoria, cap. 20, sec. 2. Grant, for the sake of argument (though the concession is one which most moralists will be slow to make), that there is nothing wrong in " taking part in a riot or an unlawful assembly." Who is the man who will deny that it is a breach of morality as well as of law, for one person to use "violence or intimidation" towards• another with a view to cause such person to do some act which he has a legal right to abstain from doing, or to abstain from some act which he has a legal right to do ? There is no known school of ethics which teaches that A does no moral wrong when he by violence compels B not to associate with his friend C, or intimidates D so that he dare not pay the rent due to E. No doubt a new morality is rapidly teaching us to change our standards of right and wrong ; but the critics who think that breaches of the Crimes. Act may be opposed to, the law, but are not derelictions of duty, must for the moment'
be content to have their position tested by received ethical canons. They must show, then, that to assault or " wilfully
and unlawfully resist or obstruct a sheriff or constable "—e.g., by throwing scalding water at the face of a policeman is to pursue a course of action which a tyrannical Legislature may
condemn, but which morality and religion approve. Till this be made out, plain men will hold that to violate the Crimes Act is a crime, and that whoever is proved to encourage such violation is guilty of moral complicity with crime, and that the relation of the Parnellites to offences punishable under the Crimes Act is a fair subject for judicial inquiry.
"It is not well to force upon the attention of the English public deeds of violence or of wrong which, bitterly regretted, it may be, by every reputable Parnellite leader, have been the inevitable accompaniment of a beneficial revolution."
This idea, which cannot find direct expression in the public utterances of statesmen, explains the attitude of English Home-rulers towards the Commission. Englishmen, they feel, must at all costs be persuaded to forget all the worst features of the Home-rule agitation, and to believe that intimidation, boycotting, and murder are proper methods for obtaining desirable reforms. Evil transactions must be buried in oblivion, lest they should kindle the indignation of the English people. To this view, Unionists must, on principle, offer uncom- promising opposition. We live under a democracy ; the ultimate sovereign of the British Empire is the electorate of the United Kingdom. No ruler, whether monarch or democracy, can act wisely without knowledge. The more thoroughly, then, a man believes in the rightful supremacy of the people, the more strenuously he should insist that, on all matters submitted to the popular decision, the people shall be provided with the fullest and amplest knowledge. It is for those who trust the people to demand that the people shall not be blindfolded. Ignorance is the natural ally of folly and of injustice. It is absolutely impossible that too much should be known about the whole state of Ireland, and about the political conduct, be it good or bad, of the Irish leaders. Much is already known which, whatever be the result of the Commission's inquiries, amply justifies the opposition of Unionists to the tactics of Home-rulers. Mr. O'Brien's admissions before the Cork jury measure the worth of his invectives against Mr. Balfour. The repentant slanderer of Lord Spencer cannot blame opponents if they hold him the impenitent slanderer of the Irish Secretary. Mr. Gladstone is now known to palliate breaches of law, and to preach the doctrine that the authors of a law he deems unjust are morally responsible for the crimes of those who break it. Mr. Gladstone has at last come to persuade himself that a comparison is possible between the cruelty of King Bomba and the despotism of the English Government. How far the teaching of anarchy will proceed, no man can tell. What is certain is that the most moderate and sensible of English Home-rulers either will not or dare not protest 'against the doctrines preached by their leaders, and at times practised, at any rate by the followers of their allies. What further knowledge may result from the investigations of the Commission is hidden in the future ; but he who has been most accustomed to watch the course of judicial investigation will form the most moderate hopes of its success in the ascertainment of unknown facts.
Meanwhile, the duty of Unionists is clear. They must await with perfect calmness the verdict of Judges whose ascertained competence and intentional fairness none but partisans can deny. They must insist that the fate of the United Kingdom can in no case be decided by a new ordeal of combat, and that the English people, on whose verdict depends the policy of the country, shall, as far as is compatible with justice to individuals, learn as to the alleged connection between Parnellism and crime, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. A. V. DICEY.
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