LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE CRISIS AND ITS DANGERS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—The crisis is full of peril to Unionism.
First,—Unionists are tempted to become remiss in the defence of the Union. Mr. Gladstone is gone; his dis- appearance from the political scene ends, they 'think, the movement in favour of Home-rule; the Radicals will turn. sulky ; the absence of Mr. Gladstone will chill Liberal enthusiasm; Irish Separatists will turn against their English allies. All these sanguine expectations may, and I believe will, turn out unfounded. Never was there a time when Unionists needed to show greater vigilance and energy. The end of Mr. Gladstone's political career is not the death of Home-rule. His retirement frees his party from a great deal of embarrassment. If it weakens the Gladstonians in some respects, it strengthens them in others. In Scotland, the Separatists already feel, I suspect, a renewal of strength. Lord Rosebery's indubitable Scotch nationality is at least as attractive to his countrymen as Mr. Gladstone's factitious and overdone Scotticism. There is no reason, again, to suppose that the devotees of the new Liberalism will desert the cause of Home-rule. They became Home-rulers partly because the concession of a separate Parliament to Ireland fell in with a part of the pre- vailing sentiment of Liberalism, and partly because the alliance with the Irish Nationalists was essential to the maintenance in power of the English so-called Liberal Party. Sentimentalism has, during the last eight years, not lost its force. The eighty Irish votes were necessary to Mr. Gladstone in 1886; they are still more necessary to Lord Rosebery in 1894. We all know why democrats, in defiance of every democratic principle, insisted that the concession of Home-rule should not remove the Irish Members from West- minster. They surrendered democratic principles because they saw that the sacrifice was necessary to the success of revolutionary policy. The contest with the Separatists, then, is not at an end; it has only entered on a new stage. Remiss- ness on the part of Unionists is natural, but it means ruin.
Secondly,—Suppose, however, that, as is quite possible, dissensions break out among the ill-assorted party which, as many Unionists believe, was kept together only by the force of Mr. Gladstone's authority. The supporters of Unionism will then be exposed to a new temptation. They will be tempted to gain premature success by means of finesse and manoeuvring. It is at least on the cards that occasions may arise when the Ministry may be defeated by a coalition brought about by indefensible concessions to Sir William Harcourt or Mr. Labouchere. Such a coalition may seem to Parliamentary managers a fine stroke of statesmanship. It would mean, in reality, a death-blow to Unionism, and a death-blow which brought upon the Unionist Party dis- credit as well as destruction. On this matter, we may appeal to experience. The intrigues of 1885 drove an enfeebled Cabinet out of power ; but they gave birth to the Home-rule Bill of 1886. A policy of intrigue in 1894 might bring Lord Rosebery's Ministry to an end, but would, it is likely enough, make it possible for some Home-rule Bill of 1895 to become the law of the land. Intrigue means loss of character, and loss of character means political destruction.
Thirdly,—If the Unionists neither give way to indolence nor Infer themselves to be the victims of Parliamentary diplomacy, they will still be exposed to another and even more subtle temptation. Some of them, at least, may be tempted to accept a so-called compromise. Lord Rosebery is exactly the leader who would naturally aim at ending the Home-rule con- troversy by some kind of transaction. He is not an enthusiast; he cannot, to judge by his speech in the House of Lords, be a very ardent Home-ruler. If he finds that the electors dis- play no vehement feeling against the House of Lords, he will naturally attempt to gain by concession ends which he cannot attain by force. He is in a far better position than was Mr. Gladstone, at any rate towards the end of his career, for com- pelling or inducing the Irish Nationalists to accept a measure of a far more moderate character than the Bill of 1893. They accepted the Bill of 1886, though it gave them far less than did the Bill of 1893. If they were told by a Premier who knew his own mindthat the Bill of 1886 was all that could be offered them, say in 1895, they would, we may be sure, accept the inevitable, and wisely enough from their own point of view, act on the principle that half-a-loaf is better than no bread, and take what they could get. They at least know that if Ireland attains a separate Parliament and a separate Execu- tive, no restrictions on the authority of the Irish Government. will prevent Irish leaders from gaining, by a few years more- of agitation, at least as much independence for Ireland as. Irish Separatists now profess to desire. But offers which. might disappoint, but would not estrange the Irish National- ists, would, it may be feared, prove very attractive to some Union- ists, both in and out of Parliament. To men immersed in party conflicts a measure which disappoints an opponent almost necessarily appears a measure which has something to recom- mend it; and Englishmen who have great experience in the conduct of peaceful political contests, and are quite unversed in revolutionary conflicts, are attracted by any proposal, how- ever unwise and illogical, which has the air of a compromise. Lord Rosebery, moreover, is exactly the statesman to place- a compromise before Unionists in its most seductive form. The seductiveness of apparent moderation is the gravest peril which the time presents. The plain truth is, that between- Unionism and Separatism neither compromise nor transaction is possible. Moderate Home-rule would probably be the most ruinous of all the forms of Home-rule. Until this truth is fully mastered by every Unionist, the cause of the Union is in peril. Compromise is surrender. This is our only safe- rule of conduct.—I am, Sir, 8cc., A. Y. DICEY.
Previous page
