ENGLISH STATESMEN AND THEIR IRISH POLICY.
WE confess ourselves thoroughly alarmed at the strange vacillation visible in the language of public men with reference to Irish policy. Mr. Gladstone long ago announced that according to his view the true policy for Ireland was to govern the country, in all matters of local, not imperial, concern, on Irish principles,—that is, on those prin- ciples, as far as they can be ascertained, on which Ireland if she were left to herself would govern herself. This announce- ment was of the utmost importance, because for the first time it put the relations between Great Britain and Ireland on a really intelligible and satisfactory basis. If adopted it would enable us to say, in reply to Separatist, Home Rule, and other practically disunionist movements,—' Here you must take into account the common interest of the whole United King- dom, and it is no more feasible to give you your way against the demands of such interests, than it is to let the Midland or Eastern Counties decide upon changes which would practically restore the Heptarchy. But you shall no longer urge against this Union the plea that in your private concerns, those which affect exclusively, or exclusively at least for all practical purposes, Ireland, and Ireland alone, we dictate to you a policy at variance with your own wishes and interests. On the contrary, we conform our local policy in Ireland to the local wish. We have removed the alien Church ; we have passed such a land law as an Irish Parliament would undoubtedly pass ; we will do anything in the world—consistently with that respect for religious liberty which makes it a first principle of British policy to keep wor- ship and opinion free—to give full weight to the bias of a people the vast majority of whom are neither Anglo-Saxon nor Pro- testant. We cannot, of course, import into Irish legislation a positive belief which the vast majority of the Imperial Parlia- ment must always repudiate. But we can and will give to the people who profess that belief every kind of advantage which in any other part of the Empire we think it fair to accord to men of our own race and our own creed. We will give the Irish Catholics every privilege and liberty which can be claimed in any part of the Empire by English Protestants.' Now, that seems to us a very clear, intelligible, and reasonable policy, the acceptance of which secures a very great advantage in our treatment of Ireland. If we act upon it, no Irishman can at least say that we treat Ireland capriciously and without any pretence of asking what the Irish themselves wish. We give all moderate Irishmen fair ground for steady loyalty to the Union. We put it in their power to ask the Separatists, What is there which you would gain by separation that can bear any sort of comparison with what you would lose ?' We leave ample room for the free development of Irish patriotism, and of local predilections. But it does not seem to us that either the Liberal Press, or all the Liberal statesmen even of Mr. Gladstone's own Administration have the common-sense and common courage to accept this only firm standing-ground of Liberal principle against the Irish Secession feeling. They shrink from it in face of the party who, though they no longer dare to cry "No Popery," still regard the lees and dregs of the old no- Popery policy as the very panacea of modern political civiliza- tion. We have three speeches before us from statesmen of the first order, two from members of Mr. Gladstone's Administra- tion, and one from the most liberal of all the Conservative leaders,—we mean, of course, Lord Derby,—who, though he does not in all probability accept Mr. Gladstone's principle, would yet certainly desire to see Ireland governed on some principle, and not governed capriciously, and would therefore certainly prefer to see even this principle fairly tried, than to see a constant shilly-shally between conciliation of Catholic Ireland, and deference to Protestant prejudices in England. None of these speeches is satisfactory, and the tone of the comments upon them by the Liberal Press is still less so. For neither in these speeches, nor in the comments upon them, is there the vestige of an intelligible principle with regard to Irish Education,—the vestige of such a principle as the speakers themselves could defend and reconcile with what has gone before,—that is, with what has been achieved either by themselves, or at any rate, by a Government for whose consistency of action they, as British statesmen, are bound to feel, and indeed are pretty certain to feel, an honourable respect.
Take, first, the Marquis of Hartington, as to the exact word- ing of whose declaration we feel a certain amount of doubt, since the report in the Times differs very materially from the longer report in the Standard, though in relation to this par- ticular subject the Times reporter, having specially marked the sentence by speaking of the "loud and long-continued cheers" with which it was greeted, was bound to be very accurate in his rendering. According to the Times, then, the Irish Secretary told his constituents at Radnor last week that "what Ireland wanted now were two things,—the greatest possible firmness and patience. They must be firm to repress any attempts at rebellion or insurrection, to protect life and property, and not to tolerate any propositions which tend to the insecurity or disseverance of this great Empire ; and more than this, they must have firmness in showing to the people of Ireland that they were not willing to hand over the control of educa- tion entirely to them and to the priests (loud and long-con- tinued cheers), no more than they were willing to hand it over to the Denominationalists in England ;" and on this report various comments have been made, without eliciting, as far as we know, any correction from the Marquis of Hartington. The Standard's report only says that "they were not willing to hand over the control of education in Ireland entirely to the priests,"—a very different assertion, in the drift of which, so far as it goes, we entirely concur. But whatever the Marquis said, he certainly did not say on what funda- mental political principle he wished to see the Irish Education question settled ;—he touched and left the subject not only without defining his position in relation to the illiberal and utterly indefensible attitude of the English Press thereon, but leaving behind him a distinct and certainly intentional effect of sympathy with that attitude. He may not have distinctly said, what the Times report makes him say, that the Education question was not a question on which the Irish people could be permitted to decide for them- selves,—that is, that it was a question on which a Protestant Kingdom ought to legislate for a subject Catholic Kingdom in defiance of that kingdom's real wishes. But if he did not say this,—as we suspect he did,—he left the flavour of such a view in his speech ; and had not the courage to say boldly that while he would take every possible guarantee that the Education question in Ireland should be settled by the wishes of the people, as distinct from that of the priests,—while he would wait if necessary for the result of a general election taken by ballot before making any sort of change in the sense desired by the priests, yet that the real view of the people of Ireland on Education, once fairly ascertained, is the view which ought to be carried out in education, so far as it infringes no right of free worship and free thought. It is simply idle to talk of governing Ireland on all local matters as Ireland would govern herself, and then to affect to know what "the Irish laity" really wish better than the representatives whom they have themselves instructed and chosen to represent them. This judging by the inner con- sciousness what Ireland desires, and judging it in a sense entirely contrary to every indication that Ireland herself gives, is one of the most contemptible bits of moral legerde- main of which the Liberal Press has ever been guilty. Assume, if you please, that it is the fear of Hell impressed by the priests which alone makes the Irish people prefer denomina- tional education to secular education,—are we to say that the fear of Hell is a motive which the Irish have no right to entertain, and which we must not for a moment recognize as a legitimate principle of action ? Why, fear of Hell as a motive is surely on precisely the same footing as fear of earthly penalties, and the fear of earthly penalties is the very sanction to which all law appeals. The whole pretence of English Liberals to know,—by a process of political divination,—better than the Irish Members themselves what the Catholic laity really desire, is a pretence as utterly unconstitutional in principle, and we will even say, as consciously hollow in the mouths of the very people who try to believe that they believe it, as the most preposterous figment ever invented by the most astute casuist of the Society of Jesus itself. If we really hold that the Irish Members do not represent the Irish laity, let us by all means take the utmost pains to get a truer representation. Let us give Ireland household suffrage, and the ballot to protect it ; let us establish School Boards also elected by the people, without admitting any scrutiny by the priests; and let us then see in what scheme of education such guarantees result. We, for our parts, do not doubt in the least what the first answer would be. But we do hold that if ever, instead of continuing this ill-advised plan of an alien intervention between the people and the priests, we left the people to decide entirely for them- selves, without artificially identifying all their patriotic feelings with the cause of the sacerdotal order, we should soon see them voluntarily putting very stringent and wise limitations on the interference of the priests in their schools. This has happened already in many really Catholic countries, where there is no artificial jealousy of a Protestant Government to prevent the natural divergence of tendency between the laity and the priesthood from showing itself. It is our sagacious intolerance which alone prevents its happening in Ireland.
Now look at the Scottish Lord Advocate's speech to his constituents of the Wigtown Burghs. He treats with deserved contempt the notion of enforcing (by Act of Par- liament) Roman Catholic teaching in the Irish schools, and he treats the impossibility of so doing as an excellent reason why Presbyterian teaching cannot be enforced in Scotland, lest the Scotch Act should be a precedent for the Roman Catholics of Ireland. But what does he propose for Scotland itself, amidst the cheers of his audience ? Why, a plan which, if it would not fully satisfy the extremest Ultra- montane among Irish educationalists, would at least utterly terrify the English Protestants who are so anxious to guard the Irish against their own chosen religious teachers. He pro- poses that the Scotch ratepayers shall freely elect the School Boards of Scotland, and then that each School Board shall be left quite free to have religious teaching or not in its schools, and such religious teaching, if any, as it pleases, the teacher to be paid, for the religious part of his teaching at least, either out of the rates or the school pence, and the Parliamentary grant to be given in consideration of the secular teaching only. Why, that is all but precisely the plan of Mr. Forster's Education Bill for England in its earliest form,—the plan rejected by the Nonconformists and Secularists as much for fear of its operation as a precedent for Ireland, as for dislike of the preponderating influence it might have given here to the English State Church. As far as we judge from the drift of his speech,—though here we may be doing him injustice,—the Lord Advocate himself would shrink from conceding such a scheme to Ireland. But whether that be so or not, the English Liberals who boast of their jus- tice to Ireland are perfectly ready to maintain that a degree of freedom which it is quite proper to concede to Scotch Presby- terians, it would be sheer madness to grant to Irish Papists. Then there is Lord Derby, who, in asking in a strain of Con- servative irony what Liberalism means, demands, "Is it in favour of putting Irish education into Mtramontane hands, which is what Irish Liberals want ? or of purely secular edu- cation, which is what English Radicals want ?" We should reply, if the question were serious, that it is in favour of giving the people of each country the scheme of education with which they themselves will feel the heartiest inclination to co-operate, the Government only insisting on seeing that the secular elements of it are sound, —and that what that scheme is, in each individual case, can only be determined by the people themselves. But Lord Derby meant his question only as a mode of briefly indicating the strong and, as we think, un- statesmanlike position he took up on the subject in the sub- sequent part of his speech, when he said that Conservatives are now face to face with two claims which they must resist,— one the claim of the Mtramontane party to control all educa- tion, and the other the demand for Home Rule. On the former he explained his position further thus :—" There are a good many politicians who believe in the theory of governing Ireland through the Catholic clergy, and I think some leanings in that direction may be observed in very high quarters. Now that is a system to which there are two objections ; one, that the English nation (which, after all, has a voice in the matter) will not endure it ; the other, that even if it could be acted upon, the Catholic clergy do not by any means possess the power which is commonly ascribed to them. Their
strength has lain in following the popular feeling which they seem to lead, and if that feeling points in the direction of repeal they will be Repealers to a man." Very likely ; but all that does not in the least bear on the only questions which were worth discussing, and which Lord Derby unworthily evades. Have we any right to force on the /fish a system or education which,—we do not say the priests,—but the people themselves dislike ? And even if we have,—which he very likely might maintain,—is it pru- dent, is it common-sense to carry a great policy such as Mr. Gladstone has declared himself favourable to,—the policy of governing Ireland on all local matters as much as possible by Irish opinion,—half-way, so making a ridiculous patchwork of our legislation, here inserting a bit of the Celtic and Catholic, there a bit of the Cromwellian and propagandist pattern, and so gaining neither respect from the people we govern, nor self-respect for ourselves ? We should never have expected from Lord Derby so poor and partizan a comment on a great policy, as he has here given us.
We want more courage from our statesmen on this subject. Let those who really wish to impose secular education on Ireland "at the point of the bayonet," as an influential man once said, say so in distinct terms, and we shall understand them. Let those who say that the Irish Members do not represent Irish wishes on this matter, show us how to get more accurately at those wishes, and not arrogate to themselves a faculty of political divination on a special point for which there is no pretence, and in which they do not themselves seriously be- lieve; but above all, let them say explicitly whether they desire or not that our legislation in this matter shall conform to the wishes of the Irish people, when fairly ascertained. And finally, let those who hold that the people of one race and faith have no right in the world to dictate the educational laws of the people of another race and faith, say so without flinching, and challenge the lingering intolerance of Liberal- ism to declare itself, if it dare, against a principle at once so conspicuously just, and so plainly in accordance with the deli- berate promises of this Government and the declarations of its most enlightened statesmen, like Mr. Chichester Forteseue, and with the spirit of that great Imperial Act which broke up the Irish Protestant Establishment in 1869.
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