TOPICS OF THE DAY.
IRISH IRREPRESSIBILITY.
SINCE the Home-rule debate began, there has been no more important discussion than that of Tuesday, "lopsided" as it was. On the Government benches, Mr. Gladstone and the Solicitor-General were the only speakers ; and the Solicitor-General's speech was rather a mere break- ing of silence than an argument, for argument there was none. Lord Wolmer had moved an amendment to Clause 3, asking that the Dublin Parliament should be debarred from discussing or passing resolutions on any subject on which they were to be constitutionally debarred from legislating. Often, he remarked, a formal discussion and resolution of a hostile tendency in a Legislature such as that of Dublin, even though it were quite destitute of legislative force, would be almost, if not quite, as mis- chievous as an Act passed by a Legislature constitutionally competent to pass it. The real danger to the Empire was the power which Irish Home-rule would confer of making a hostile and impressive demonstration against the policy of the Empire at a critical moment in its history. Suppose a question as to the Regency arising in such a case as that of the illness of George III. A mere resolution passed by such a body as the Dublin Legislature, so near home, and. so obviously in command of great resources for crippling the Home Government, would have something very like the force of a legislative Act. Or suppose that the Lord-Lieutenant had vetoed an Act of the Legislature under the powers reserved to him for that purpose, and that the Legislature met and condemned that exercise of the veto, perhaps describing it as unconstitutional. Or suppose that in time of war the Dublin Legislature passed a resolution condemning the policy of war, or even a reso- lution of positive sympathy with the Power against which the Empire had declared war, would not the action of the Legislature in any or all of these cases be almost as mis- chievous to the power of Great Britain as an Act of the Legislature of the same drift which should be really binding and regular ? In such a case, the danger consists in the display to the world of the embarrassments under which England is playing her part,—of the internal divisions which cripple and threaten to paralyse her. Ought we not to have the same power of stopping mani- festations of this kind, that we are to have for arresting any attempt to do what, according to the Constitution, would be simply ultra vires ? What was Mr. Gladstone's reply ? Simply this, that he admitted the full force of what Lord Wolmer had urged, but maintained that to prohibit such re- solutions or expressions of mere opinion by the subordinate Legislature would be simply vain, useless, and ineffectual. The evil would be done by the mere utterance of its views, and could not be undone. Moreover, Mr. Gladstone con- demned as very unreasonable the assumption that the Irish Legislature was likely to be "impassioned for evil and animated by all those unworthy and hostile motives which are attributed to it,"—that it was likely to be so "incapable of using rational powers in a rational manner for rational pur- poses," as Lord Wolmer supposed. Was it not much fairer to assume that it would strengthen our hands, and not thus dangerously weaken them ? To this, Mr. Balfour at once replied that Mr. Gladstone had practically admitted that all the so-called safeguards were no safeguards at all, since at a critical moment they could not be enforced ; and Mr. Chamberlain added that Mr. Gladstone forgot that an Irishman, animated by Irish national feelings, might very reasonably take a very different view of what was patriotic from that of the English Parliament. Indeed, this, in our opinion, is of the very essence of the whole movement. If the movement for Home-rule is not founded on the assumption that Irish and British views may easily and widely differ as to the needs and policy of Ire- land, there is hardly any excuse for it at all. And why are we to assume that these differences will stop at the very point where they become a matter of great im- portance to the enemies of the -United Kingdom ? As a matter of fact, they never have stopped at that point. Nor is there any reason why a strongly Catholic and ultramon- tane Power should necessarily, or even generally, agree in policy with a strongly Protestant nation. What, indeed, is the use of providing safeguards at all, if it is the duty of those who provide them to take for granted that urgent occasions for their use will never arise ? Why should we insure our house against fire, if it were unreasonable to believe that adequate preeau- tions against fire could ever be neglected ? Why should we provide life-belts to secure the passengers on our packet- boats against drowning in case of falling overboard, if it were folly to expect that they would ever fall overboard ?
Safeguards are not provided for the ordinary course of every-day work, but for the emergencies when that ordinary course is dangerously interrupted ; and to tell us that it is quite irrational to assume that it will be in- terrupted, is to beg the very question at issue. Moreover, to say that there is no possible mode of preventing a discussion and resolution of the Irish Legislature of a kind dangerous to the Empire, is to admit that all the safeguards are simply worthless. Supposing the Lord-Lieutenant ha& the constitutional power given him to suspend the sittings of the Legislature on the commencement of any unconstitu- tional discussion, and to enforce that suspension by the use of military force if needful, would not that, for instance, be a manifestation of the strength and resolute determination of the British power not to permit itself to be struck at from within, which would have a great effect on the enemies of Great Britain ? It is absurd to be always appealing, as Mr. Gladstone does, to our overwhelming military force in, Ireland, and then to declare that we are never to provide for the use of that force, even when he admits, as he does in this case, that the danger would really be great, if the Irish Legislature took a totally different view of its duties from that of the British Legislature.
The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone ignores the whole ten- dency of what he is doing to encourage and foster the growth of an Irish Nationalism that would diverge, and would necessarily diverge, from English ideas. He is so, full of the notion that by gratifying up to a certain point the pride and harmless vanity of the Irish people, we shall reconcile them to Us and make them anxious to co-operate heartily with us, that he does not see what appears to us absolutely certain,—that this sort of national pride and vanity grows by what it feeds on, and that the mere exulta- tion of feeling themselves able to throw off English control in several departments of political life, will foster in the Irish the desire to throw off that control in all the other depart- ments of political life. If there is one feature more than another which characterises the Irish genius, it is the ten- dency to use up to the utmost limits,—nay, beyond the ut- most limits,—anyliberty accorded to Ireland. As theLiberal papers very justly say, if the Pope himself attempts to limit Irishmen's right of bullying their landlords, even in a region where the moral law is obviously involved, they kick against the Pope. To no pressure which is not steady and stringent do they yield at all. But to a steady and stringent pressure like Mr. Balfour's, they yield at once. Emancipate them, as Mr. Gladstone proposes to do, up to a certain ill-defined point, and that, too, a point which they can easily pass without suffering any penalty for passing it, and, like the Arabian genie which rose like a column of steam out of a bottle from which Solomon's seal had been removed, they will expand and expand their claims to do as they please, till they reach the point at which a formidable and irresistible pressure is brought to bear sensibly upon them. We do not believe that any Home- rule scheme can be devised that they would not very soon indeed claim the right to exceed. And if that excess were ignored, they would go further and further in the same direction. That is the tendency with all Nationalist movements, as Norway itself is now showing. But in the case of Ireland there is an extravagance of natural dis- position which greatly enhances the danger. If Mr. Glad- stone were wise, he would devote all his strength to making his limits, whatever they be, walls of iron, which the Dublin Legislature could not pass without at once feeling the heavy consequences of their breach of contract. But this he will not do. The very spirit which induced him to take up this Quixotic crusade, prevents him from attempting to con- struct a scheme that would have even a chance of success. He is so anxious to lighten the sense of restriction,— which ought to be definite and urgent,—that his restric- tions will have no force at all.
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