A REVOLUTIONARY COMPACT.
" IF," said Mr. John Dillon, speaking at Ballybaunis, in the County Mayo, on Sunday last,—" if the repre- sentatives of the working classes of England pass a satis- factory Home-rule Bill, the Nationalists will do their work for them ; they will be by their side when they are en- deavouring to overthrow the monopolists and aristocracy who deny them their rights." This is an outspoken description from the Irish point of view of the terms of the alliance between the Nationalists and the Radicals, between the party which desires political revolution in Ireland, and the party which desires social revolution in England. The words, of course, contain not only a promise but a threat. 'If,' it is implied, 'the representatives of the working classes of England do not satisfy our de- mands, the Nationalists will leave them to cope as best they may with the monopolists and aristocracy who deny them their rights.' We do not imagine that Mr. Dillon attaches any definite notion whatsoever to his own words ; that he knows who or what are the monopolists whom he desires to overthrow ; or that he has any concep- tion of the rights which the aristocracy deny to the working classes of England. In his inmost heart he probably knows that the very greatest service that could be rendered to his own country would be the importation of two or three hundred of the "monopolists," if he means by them the heads of the great industries of England. He sees, no doubt, that the English aristocracy and the business classes, and, for that matter, the better portion of the workmen too, are somewhat intolerant of disorder, and is probably willing to sympathise with a movement to secure to others the rights of plunder and violence which the Nationalists so anxiously vindicate for Irishmen. But beyond this, the sentence is only a good illustration of the kind of vague rhetoric in which revolutionists, especially if they happen to be Irishmen as well, always love to indulge. It is not the less likely on that account to find its mark. The faction in England to whom Mr. Dillon makes appeal are in an equally nebulous state of mind ; they have not got beyond a feeling of vague dissatisfaction with the existing order, a determination to make things uncomfortable for everybody with less ground for dis- content than themselves, a desire to take a plunge in some new direction, trusting to chance to bring out of the resulting confusion an improvement of their present cir- cumstances. Indeed, we might add that neither one nor the other of the parties to this notable bargain attaches any more definite conception to Home-rule itself, the prime object of the alliance ; but while to the English Radicals it is only something which has to be promised in order to secure the assistance of the Irish vote, the Nationalists, since the fall of Mr. Parnell at least, only think of it as a means to the end of securing their own ascendency in Ireland, and leave to events the shaping of the scheme by which this object is to be attained.
Mr. Dillon, however, evidently over-rates enormously the strength of the revolutionary sentiment among the working classes in England and the extent to which it has per- meated the Gladstonian party as a whole. The good sense which abounds in every class of Englishmen, the social conditions of the country, the facts that classes rather melt away into each other than are divided by any hard-and-fast line, and that in spite of m itch social separation there are no impassable barriers, and the abler of the work- men can always find a way to raise themselves above their surroundings,—all this secures us to a great extent ex- emption from that blind revolutionary fury so common on the Continent. Even what a hostile critic might call the deficiency of imagination in our lower classes has the same effect. There is a practical instinct in all Englishmen which bids them translate their most im- possible aspirations into some positive and tangible schemit, and this habit of mind is fatal to the growth of a revolutionary temperament. If Mr. Tom Mann, for instance, were not an Englishman, he would pro- bably be content with wild denunciations of our present industrial system. As it is, he feels impelled to sketch a coherent plan of reorganisation, and though he fails ludi- crously from ignorance of the facts outside his own imme- diate province, the attempt to take up a central standpoint and to grasp the problem before him in all its range and complexity, is full of instruction both for himself and his followers. Outside a limited number of doctrinaires among the classes, and extremists among the masses, there is no real desire in England for sweeping social changes such as might prompt the workmen, in payment for Irish support, to sanction the vast constitutional changes in- volved in Home-rule. Their toleration for Home-rule is as vague as their desire for social change. Neither will bear presentation in the definite form which even revolu- tionists must give to their plans before they can do much harm, except in the way of open violence, and of that there is at present no question whatever. Mr. Dillon, moreover, takes no account of the machinery by which the joint programme of revolution would have to be carried out. He addresses himself directly to the British working classes, and ignores the British Government, assuming, with not unreasonable confidence, it must be admitted, that it will make itself the instrument of any policy which its supporters either in Great Britain or Ireland may approve. The members of the present Ministry are committed to highly dangerous principles of constitutional change, and have shown themselves perilously complaisant to Anarchic doctrines, both social and political ; their Government is dependent in the last resort on the support of two revolu- tionary factions, the one Irish, and the other English, and this must in the long-run inevitably prove its ruin. But however far they may go in Ireland, fortified by their own ignorance, and trusting to the ignorance of the British electorate, no one who is not utterly blinded by partisan- ship supposes them capable of lending themselves to a wild social policy in England such as Mr. Dillon's words would foreshadow, if they foreshadow anything. Even if they had the will to embark on such a course, they would not have the power. In the mass, the party which follows them is neither revolutionary nor even violently Radical. It is full of sentimental illusions, impossible expecta- tions, and general political dreaminess. But however pleasant the extreme Radicals might find such a course, the more moderate Gladstonians, who are still very numerous, would no more tolerate a policy of "over- throwing the monopolists," than they would tolerate a Home-rule Bill which grants too much to the Irish demands.
It is worth observing how the difference between the two Nationalist factions tends to define itself now that their English allies are in power. Utterances such as this of Mr. Dillon's, and, indeed, the whole history and con- duct of the Anti-Parnellites, show that to distinguish between Clericals and Jacobins is at least premature. In truth, one faction is neither more nor less Jacobin than the other ; or rather, perhaps, the Parnellites. in so far at least as they adhere to the traditions of Mr. Parnell, and are less closely identified than their rivals with the "Plan of Campaign," are the less Jacobin of the two. No doubt, if Home-rule became an accomplished fact, this would be the ultimate principle of division, though probably not before a combined attack was made on the landlords and Protestants. But at present the only difference—over and above the hearty hatred that each faction bears to the other, in- dependently of real differences—seems to be that while the Parnellites preserve the old Irish attitude of aloofness and distrust of everything English, good or bad, the Anti- Parnellites are willing to ally themselves with the revolu- tionary elements of English society. The Parnellites retain a secret hankering after the methods of the old physical-force party, and appeal more openly to the tradi- tional hatred of England ; the Anti-Parnellites follow the more subtle and dangerous policy of conspiring with the weaker side of England herself. Nevertheless, if either party can claim pre-eminence in perversity, it is the Par- nellites. The ultimate aims of both may be equally un- reasonable, but the Anti-Parnellites show some power of exercising tact and discretion in their relations to their allies, while their opponents show none. The independence of_which the Parnellites boast so much is really a sham. It had a real meaning for Mr. Parnell while he lived ; it meant dependence on himself. For the faction which now represents him, it has no meaning at all, unless it be the negative meaning that the English Gladstonians are less subject to the control and less mindful of the wishes of this faction than of the other. We think Mr. Dillon as dangerous a revolutionist as Mr. Redmond, but he at least deserves the credit of using more skilfully the in- struments with which he has to work.
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