THE PARTY CRISIS.
THE Conservative banquet at Woodstock, at which Lord Randolph Churchill and his colleagues magnanimously consented to be reconciled to the leadership of Sir Stafford Northcote, on the mediation of Lord Salisbury, and Lord Ran- dolph himself almost expressly excommunicated Conservatives who would not give in their full adhesion to the positive as well as negative unity of the party, is important only as show- ing that the Conservatives are fully aware of the magnitude of the party crisis, and are determined to merge all their mutual differences into one great struggle to defeat the Irish policy of the Government. It is true that Lord Salisbury, in one sentence at least of his speech, repudiated this inten- tion. "Do not imagine," he said, "that I set myself beforehand against any legislative boons, if such be pos- sible, that may be offered to the people of Ireland. I will not determine before I see them. It is our duty to consider, -with the utmost care and respect, any remedy by which the statesmen who are entrusted with the government of this kingdom think that, for the future, this terrible discontent may be avoided." But no doubt it was part of the conditions of the truce between the different fractions of the Conservative party that a decent moderation of tone, such as Lord Randolph Churchill so completely dispensed with at Portsmouth, should be resumed, at least so long as "the sagacious guidance of Sir Stafford Northcote," as Lord Salisbury termed it, in the House of Commons, is to continue part of the bargain. We attach hardly any importance to Lord Salisbury's promise to give Irish remedial measures a respectful consideration, because it is obvious that both he and Mr. Gibson have made up their minds that remedial measures should only follow repressive measures, and that the Government deserves the strongest censure for not recognising that necessity. Before the words promising a respectful consideration for remedial measures were well out of Lord Salisbury's mouth, he was already insisting that coercion must precede curative measures :—" If you would give remedial measures a fair chance, if you would have a hope of their accomplishing their soothing and beneficent effect, you must begin by repressing with a strong hand the disorder which now prevents any reasonable terms being listened to by the population." And Mr. Gibson went still further :—" When the House of Commons met, it would meet with the responsible and grave duty of insisting that this crisis should at least be dealt with. It would be the duty of the House of Commons, whether the Government were prepared or not, to insist that law and order should be restored, and that anarchy should cease, and that the reign of terror should be compelled to end." That means a deliberate attempt to force on coercion before Parliament will even listen to the remedial legislation of the Government ; and we have no doubt that it is on this basis that the Conservative differences are to be made up. If the matter goes farther, if the Land Bill of the Government is really brought in, then, no doubt, it will be resisted by the old cry against the invasion of the rights of property, which Lord Salisbury has so often raised. But the great object will be to make coercion the condition sine qud non of even considering a land measure ; and what the Tories evidently hope is, that by insisting upon such an antecedent condition to remedial legislation, they will secure
for themselves a considerable secession from the Liberal ranks.
Nor can it be denied that one or two of the Liberal speeches of the last few weeks,—more especially Mr. Courtney's, at Liskeard, yesterday week,—tend to encourage the Tories in this hope. The Conservatives may close their ranks for an attack on the Government, but will the Liberals close their ranl s to resist such an attack I Mr. Courtney's language is at tl:e best ambiguous. He not only attacks Ministers for the pro- secutions, declares them to be useless and mischievous, as tending to limit liberty of action and liberty of speech, and tainted with the same vice as the prosecutions of Trades Unions for conspiracies in restraint of trade,—which is utterly untrue, the present prosecutions being for conspiracy to pre- vent the honest fulfilment of freely-made contracts, indeed, conspiracies to encourage the very offence for which the arti- sans of some London Gasworks were convicted and imprisoned some years ago,—but Mr. Courtney adopts language not at all unlike that of Mr. Gibson himself, though more moderate, in relation to what is called the failure to coerce :—
" It appears to me, under such a situation, Government must use the hand of authority, and must declare that the simple guarantees of that life and property shall be made secure. Her Majesty's Ministers have as yet done nothing of a nature which would naturally tend to put a atop to the demoralisation which is existing in the west of Ireland, and which, for aught we know, may go farther. They think they can go on with things as they are. I am most reluctant to ques- tion, still more reluctant to condemn a resolution of the kind. If it errs, it errs on the side of generosity, and if it is really the belief of the Government of Ireland, of those who are in authority in Dublin, of those who are directly responsible for the government of Ireland—that they can weather the crisis, and if they think the madness will disappear, instead of increasing, I am willing to bow my judgment to their's, and look for the result. They rim a risk—a great risk—but they know what they are about. But if, on the other hand, the resolution does not come from Ireland, but from people at ease at home, if the refusal to take action in Ireland does not spring from any feeling that the dangers have been magnified and exaggerated, but if souse one person of eminence, or two persons of eminence, have registered a vow that under no circumstances will they uphold a stronger form of Government. in Ireland than would give a guarantee of individual liberty, then I say to these persons, eminent as they may be, mut with all the respect I bear them, as was said to the people of old, 'I perceive that ye in all things are too superstitious.' If they say that under no circumstances will they exercise coercion in the west of Ireland, then it does not command my respect, and is a blind adhesion to some abstract principle having no reference to the present crisis."
Mr. Courtney has always asserted, and asserted with great ability, his individual independence. He is never inclined to go blindly with his party, even if he is not too much inclined to pick holes in his party, whenever that process seems feasible. We would not, therefore, take his speech as at all a type of the speeches likely to be made by Liberals below the Gang- way. We would rather accept the principle laid down by an older, and certainly not less weighty or less Radical speaker than himself, Mr. Dillwyn, who in a recent speech at Swansea, dealing with the same point, said :— "lie (Mr. Dillwyn) did not know what the Government meant to do, but so long as the Queen's Government was to be the Govern- ment in Ireland, law and order, life and property, must be protected. No doubt, strong measures would have to be used, lie did not at all like the idea of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, because, practically, it meant putting Ireland under military law. He was confident, however, that the course which Mr. Forster would adopt would be to consider carefully the Land Laws in Ireland, which were very exceptional ; the necessary steps in order to amend those Land Laws and make them thoroughly reasonable and satisfactory to the Irish people. To make them satisfactory to the demagogues would be simply impossible, because they preached in favour of a confisca- tion of the land, which no Government could or would for a moment entertain."
There is no threat in that language such as we find in Dlr. Courtney's, and we are disposed to think that it represents far better the probable attitude of the independent Liberals than Mr. Courtney's represents it. But however this may be, it certainly becomes Liberals of all shades to close their ranks, not so much for the sake of Liberalism, as for the sake of Ireland, and to condemn a gospel of coercion as the first and most important message which the Liberals have for Ireland. We heartily agree with Mr. Dillwyn that the monstrous dictation of the Land League must stop. But the real question for the Liberal Party is how best to stop it. Is it to be stopped by a renewal of the Westmeath Act ? Is it to be stopped as Fenianism and Ribandism have been stopped, by taking power to arrest notorious individuals, against whom there is ample moral, but no legal evidence ? Is it to be stopped by measures adapted to put down a few leaders of formidable gangs ? Is it to be stopped by disarming a county
or two ? Or is it as certain as anything in this world ever was, that until you have reached the centre of the griev- ance of which this discontent is the outcome, the most masterly coercive policy will be totally useless, because it will find arrayed against it, not a few score of leaders, but the whole of the peasantry in many of the counties, and scores of thousands in every province in Ireland,—thousands whom it will be impossible to coerce, though it will be quite possible, when once they are convinced that the Government is in earnest in its desire to strike at the injustice on which their revolt is grounded, to govern them with their own consent. The real issue between the Liberals and the Conservatives is, apparently, this :—Will you insist that the Irish shall obey the law before you have made reasonable concessions as to what the law ought to be ; or will you offer to make the law reasonable, simultaneously with your demand that it shall be obeyed ?
Now, we must say that this crisis seems to us a very grave one, —much graver for the Liberals than for the Conservatives. It is in all probability, as Lord Salisbury himself said, the meeting of two ways,—one of which leads to a reconquest of Ireland by military force, but the other not to separation, as Lord Salisbury suggested, rather, to the beginning of a new era of Irish loyalty. In all similar cases that we can recol- lect, the Conservatives have uniformly contended that obedi- ence must precede concession. They contended this in our strife with America, and it led to the independence of the United States. They contended this in our strife with Canada, and if the Liberals had not gained the ascendancy, it would have led to the loss of Canada. They have always contended for obedience before concession in Ireland, and, except on one memorable occasion, when the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel quailed, they have had their way ; and that way has always left Ireland in a condition more hopeless than it found her. The one exception was that of Catholic emancipation. Then for once even the Tories were compelled to admit that concession must precede the enforcement of the law, and then for a year or two there was a fair chance,—a chance that was ultimately thrown away,—of a real pacification. If it is true,—as almost all considerable statesmen admit it to be true,—that in the present, as in past cases, there is a very real substratum of grievance at the root of that disgraceful lawlessness which we all admit, then, for the sake of a noble though misled people, let the Liberals pull together to insist that concession shall accompany the enforcement of the law, and that it shall not be left to the Conservatives to initiate a new era of English conquest and oppression. Nothing can be falser,—nothing has ever been recognised as falser, by good Liberals out of Ireland,—than the doctrine that where widespread disloyalty has arisen from substantial causes, sub- mission to the law should precede popular remedies. It is well to bring Mr. Parnell and his colleagues to justice ; for what they are accused of doing at all events, is suggesting a popular remedy which strikes the just and unjust with almost equal force. But it is not just to strike a heavy blow at Irish liberty, without offering the alternative of obedience to a reasonable law. If Mr. Courtney should follow out the main suggestion of his speech, and if among the Liberals there be many Mr. Courtneys, the chance of the hour for a new era in Ireland is gone. The Government, if defeated on the main point of the priority of coercive legislation, would never reach a re- medial measure, and the opportunity of a great measure of healing legislation would pass away, possibly for ever. It becomes, then, even Liberals who are justly proud of the independence of their position, to think well what independ- ence means at a time when hearty co-operation is the only chance of success in a most difficult undertaking, and hearty co-operation is rendered impossible by ostentatious independence.
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