PARTY POLITICS IN IRELA.ND.
The Railway Spring Makers' Society is more- explicit :—MHE trumpet has been blown in Zion. Lord Russell has "Considering that the trade whereby we live is our property, made ready the harness of the Old Whig champions, bought by certain years of servitude, which give us a vested and invites Mr. Disraeli to meet him next session on the right, and that we have a sole and exclusive claim upon it, as battle-ground of "the Irish difficulty." Already he seems to all. will have hereafter who purchase it by the same means ; be- measuring the field and searching out its pitfalls, while he such being the case, it is evident that it is every man's duty luxuriates among the beauties of lake and mountain at Kil- to. protect by all fair and legal means the property whereby he larney. Mr. Disraeli perhaps, like Marius at Vercells3, would These expressions are enough to show that in many cases enemies. On Irish land the Tories must be prepared to give the artizans regard the right of working at any trade as a battle, if they are not willing to resign what they have gained monopoly, the property of those who have been allowed to by their questionable manipulation of Reform. That their purchase it by apprenticeship. In some Trades membership leaders are not willing we make not the least doubt ; Mr. is regarded as a sort of hereditary possession. Either the sons of Disraeli and Lord Derby talk as if they meant to be in for members only 'are admissible as apprentices or some special ten years, at all events, and there is no saying what a dogged advantages are allowed to them, a system which, if it had full determination may not achieve. It may be conjectured from play, would turn all occupations into separate castes. Another a recent rumour that Lord Russell's challenge has been prac- form which- the spirit of monopoly takes is the attempt to tically accepted ; it has been said,—and there is, no doubt, secure for the members of a Union work which can be done authority for the statement, —that Lord Stanley and Mr. as well without their special training. Sometimes this attempt Disraeli contemplate an Irish tour similar to Lord Russell's. takes the form of a claim to do such work because it is con- Whether this be true or no, it may be taken for granted fleeted with the regular business of the trade ; more often it that the leaders, both of the Government and the Opposi- consists in resistance to some subdivision of labour in manu- tion, will do their best to organize their forces for an facturing, by which the easier and simpler part of a process Irish campaign. It becomes, then, an important as well as an would be entrusted to unskilled labour. These two kinds of interesting question,—how will the Irish Members range demands run into- each other, and are often difficult to dis- themselves ? In the case of English constituencies a problem tinguish. of this sort is very easily solved. Speaking roughly, the bold The principle on which. they rest is well laid down in a self- lines of party distinctions govern the political conduct of all denying ordinance of the Seamen's United Protection Society. representatives, except those who are either very earnest " No member shall work, whip, or discharge coals at any theorists or very corrupt intriguers. In Ireland one cannot creek, quay, or wharf, in the Port of the London, on the River guess with the same certainty. No doubt, the events of late Thames ; nor at any hulk,the Gravesend Canal, or Lobster years have tended to concentrate Irish political energy, to Wharf ; such work being an unjust interference with the labour enroll Irish politicians in one party camp or the other. Still, of men who get their living by such work." This enactment it would be unwise to forget that the mass of these are enrolled, shows the consideration justly due from the members of one so to speak, as mercenaries; that they abjure for the most part monopoly to those of another. All the Societies are not so the sanctity of party allegiance; that they are guided by prin- careful to avoid offence, and bitter quarrels have arisen more ciples or instincts which find no place in the creed of Whig, or than once from men belonging to one trade doing work which Tory, or Radical. If we have not the patience to study and another claimed as its special province. Monopoly is some- apprehend the intellectual position assumed by the varieties times carried further into local restrictions, and may then give of political sects in Ireland, we shall find ourselves involved in rise to such struggles as that between. the Ashton and Man- very serious error. cheater brick-makers. It is not difficult to understand what Irish Conservatism, Again, every trade has among its members some men who, or Toryism,—the latter name is preferred in Ireland,—is. either from stupidity or idleness, have never mastered their Toryism at the other side of the Irish Channel has identified, profession. These, with the idle and dissolute fellows whom itself with the supremacy of a sect and a caste, a supremacy no master will employ if he can help it, are often out of work, based on well defined historical facts, which strike between the and get far more from the Union than they contribute. If victors and the vanquished an insuperable line of separation. competency were the recognized test, they would soon sink Toryism in Ireland accepts only two forms,—Orangeisna and down into unskilled labourers. But as the question is only Landlordism. Among English Tories the latter is exceedingly -whether they are members of the privileged class, they have common, the former very rare ; it is needless in this place to examine the reasons of this distinction ; it is enough that the distinction exists. The first form is chiefly, but by no means exclusively, prevalent in Ulster ; the second is powerful in every part of Ireland. Upon the whole, with a few erratic ex- ceptions, both the Orangemen and the landlords of Ireland have followed, without hesitation, Lord Derby's guidance ; to please the former, the Conservative leader insulted the Irish Catho- lics in his celebrated " muzzling " speech on the Oaths' Bill ; to gratify the latter at the period when he accepted office, he announced his intention of governing Ireland by the Squire- archy,—a mad design, which he has been wise enough in practice to discard. It might be supposed that this unquali- fied identification with the aims and outcries of Irish Toryism would have fixed a sufficiently wide and impassable gulf be- tween the Conservative Government and the popular party in Ireland. This, however, has not been the case. The Irish " Catholic " and " National " members—they divide them- selves with distinctness into these two classes—have carefully abstained from pledging themselves to the shibboleths of either Whigs or Tories. The Whigs have been from time to time disposed to make concessions in favour of Ireland, but they have seldom received from that country more than a transitory and unstable support ; the Tories in their practical policy have always been hostile to the mass of the Irish population, its religion, its social claims, its national pretensions. Catholic- ism, however, is very strong among the representatives of the South and West of Ireland ;—stronger, perhaps, than even any national jealousies or any care for popular interests, and so far as Toryism has had any foreign policy or been allowed by circumstances to have it, it has been kindly disposed towards the Catholic States of Europe, and towards the Temporal Power. There is consequently a party among the Catholics which has never ceased to call itself Conservative, and all Catholic parties, even those most identified with Irish nation- ality and most hostile to Irish landlordism, have coquetted occasionally with the Tories. Alliances, covert or open, between English Conservatives and Irish Catholics have not often been long-lived, but they have been common enough and treacherous enough to warn the Liberal party from trust- ing too confidently in the help of the members for Irish con- stituencies in which the priests are powerful.
Since the Italian question got itself settled, the Catholic Mem- bers have been more consistent Liberals than they were while there was yet a possibility that Mr. Disraeli would be able to stretch a helping hand to the Austrians and the Pope. For some time we have seen nothing of that ridiculous and mischievous scheme, the Irish " Independent Opposition." But the ideas out of which that abortive attempt to nullify party govern- ment arose have not perished. The late Reform debates have shown that Irish members still wear their allegiance to Liberalism somewhat loosely. The Cave had its Irish tenants, and the Tea-Room was not without them. It would be difficult to judge what it was that tempted away these from Mr. Glad- stone. About Reform for itself, nearly all Irish Members profess to care very little, and none of the popular party had then received from Mr. Disraeli any offers of concilia- tion. Many of the Irish malcontents—Lord Dunkellin, to whom the people of Galway, it seems, are about to erect a statue, though Hudson's self was not more " incapable for ever of getting any worship, except from the soul consecrated to flunkyism ;" Mr. Gregory, his colleague ; Lord John Browne ; Sir George Bowyer, " defensor fidei ;" the Hon. L. Agar-Ellis, who writes the other day a surpassingly silly letter to the Times on the Irish Church ; Mr. Morris, who was suddenly taken from the side of Mr. Bright to be Lord Derby's Attor- ney-General, and was himself as much astonished at the change as anybody else could have been,—were widely separated in opinion, and in their past careers. Some had almost dubbed themselves Tories outright ; a few had been spoken of as Radicals ; some others, as far as might be judged, were of no politics at all, like Mr. Osborne Stock and Mr. McKenna, better known as speculators on 'Change than as politicians at St. Stephen's. How could the help of these men be counted on in any party fight ? Yet when Mr. Glad- stone's forces were computed, all these were reckoned as sure 'otes for the Liberal whip. On the two important occasions on which the schism in the Liberal party was fatal to Mr. Gladstone's lead, the Irish seceders were not remarkable either for numbers or distinction in the House. There were no men like Mr. Lowe, or even like Mr. foreman or Lord Elcho, among the Irish Adullam- ites ; among the Irish schismatics of the Tea-Room, there were no men holding so well defined a place in the public view as Mr. Roebuck or Mr. Locke. But while the action of the spirit of revolt against Mr. Gladstone may now be calculated, as far as English politics are concerned, almost to a nicety, we must not count upon more than a few Irish Members as being Liberals au fond. Upon no intelligible principle can the course of Irish politicians be explained, except upon the assumption that they deny implicitly the binding character of party ties altogether. It cannot even be the religious element which accounts for these aberrations. Sir George Bowyer and Mr. Maguire have been equally conspicuous champions of the Pope and the Temporal Power ; they are both members for popular Irish constituencies ; yet Sir George Bowyer deserts Mr. Gladstone on the most critical divisions of the session, and Mr. Miguire votes with as much consistency with the bulk of the party. Again, men who have never been prominent in politics at all, who have merely, it might appear, crept into Parliament to bask in its social sunshine, find their way into the lobby with Colonel Taylor. It may be said, and probably with truth, that in these cases there are springs of action at work which never come to light ; that social intrigues are the machinery by which the astute Tory leader and his subordinates pick up stray votes, even among the Radical Abdiels below the gangway. But how- ever the votes are gained for Mr. Disraeli, they are lost for Mr. Gladstone, and we might look with some confidence to a Liberal constituency to punish the traitors. It is very doubt- ful whether the Irish constituencies will do so. There is a prevailing belief in Ireland, which owes its origin to O'Connell, and which the priests have done their best to foster, that it is more honourable for a politician to enter the House as a free lance than as a soldier in either camp. When a candi- date for an Irish constituency says that he will neither range himself under the Whig or Tory banner he catches the ears of the groundlings at once, and he is looked on as the stub- born Hampden of his country. It is true that the explosion of the " Independent Opposition " about ten years ago, and the revelations of the intrigues of Sadlier and others, who, not less culpable than he, have escaped his ruin, and made no diffi- culty about taking the place they had sworn to refuse, dis- credited somewhat the free lances. But the ideas which inspired that self-destructive attempt to hold together a tiers pctrti are still potent in Ireland, and influence many elections. On the whole, the Tory party alone gains by this laxity of allegiance among the Irish popular members. The Orangemen of Ulster may chafe as they are chafing now at some occasional act of justice on the part of the Conservative leaders towards the Catholics, but in the House of Commons the Orangemen can hardly go into the lobby with Mr. Bright and Mr. Mill. Spleen at the prosecutions under the Party Processions' Act may incite Belfast to send up Mr. Johnstone of Ballykilbeg, or some other dignitary of the Orange Society, to vex Mr. Disraeli by one or two erratic votes ; but, on the whole, Ulster is safe for the Tories, whatever pranks the Ministry may play. On the other hand, as we have said, the ties which bind the Irish Liberals to Mr. Gladstone may any day be relaxed still further. Mr. Disraeli, if he had the courage to play the same game with the Irish Church, Irish Tenures, and Irish Education that he has played with Reform, would detach not a few apparently staunch Liberals from the Opposition. That any alliance between the English Conservatives and the popular and Catholic party in Ireland would be of long continuance we do not believe, but such an alliance might last sufficiently long to keep Mr. Disraeli on the Treasury Bench for another five years, unless, indeed, the operation of House- hold Suffrage in this country wOld strengthen the Liberals so much that the help of the -Cgtholics need not be very eagerly desired. The state of parties, then, in the future, as far as Ireland is concerned, will depend on Mr. Disraeli's audacity and his power to persuade his followers to another "leap in the dark." That he has in contemplation another coup for the session of 1868, and that he means, if possible, to trick the Liberals out of their Irish auxiliaries is almost certain. The speeches of minor officials in Ireland give warn- ing of another revolution in Tory policy ; Mr. Disraeli's pro- mised visit to Dublin is perhaps also a sign of the times. Meantime, the Liberals seem to be doing nothing, to have agreed on no line of action. If Mr. Gladstone has not made up his mind to be again outmanceuvred by his rival, he must announce before the end of the year a strong policy ; he must ascertain on what support he can count, and drill his followers into something like cohesion. A repetition of the political hesitation which deprived him of the honour of passing a Reform Bill would be fatal to his position and his fame.
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