THE TORIES AND THE IRISH.
THE Tory leaders are showing a great contempt for political morals in their language about Ireland, and we are not sure they are not making a great blunder in tactics. They are
appealing to the dislike of Irishmen which they believe to be latent in Great Britain, in order to secure votes,—that is, they are sowing disunion between .the Three Kingdoms, in the interests of their own power. Lord Beaconsfield's preposterous exagger- ations, in his speech at the opening of the Session, and in his manifesto about Home-rale as being treasonable and worse than pestilence and famine, may be extenuated as only Lord Beaconsfield's,—he being always, and in politics especially, the rhetorical novelist before everything ; but all his followers are taking their cue from him. Every Tory journal is full of bitter- ness against the Irish, and England, which only lately obeyed Lord Palmerston and depended upon the Duke of Wellington, is asked whether it will submit to be governed by Irish politicians. The apparent object of attack is not, of course, Irishmen, but only Irish parties, and censure is levelled nominally now at Home-rulers, now at agrarian agitators, now at Obstructionists, and now at Irish Catholics ; but it is in- tended to arouse a general feeling that Irishmen are, if not Tories, wicked imbeciles, who make monstrous demands, who use monstrous language, and whose monstrous views are not worthy of the attention of serious politicians. Only sentimental persons like the Liberal leaders will pay any attention to them, and that only for their own ends. They will attend to them, no doubt, having, it is insinuated, a secret understanding with the traitors,—or at least a willingness, when they are unwatched, to have one. This latter hint is repeated everywhere, even in little country papers usually in- nocent of an idea, and evidently has been sent down from above, as a most effective " cue." The electors are not only to " preserve the integrity of the Empire," but to give the Irish, who have helped so materially to build it, a savage rebuke for venturing to have ideas of their own.
The first objection to this line of action is, of course, that it involves a direct untruth. The Tory allegations are abso- lutely without foundation. No leader of the Liberal party has shown himself in the least friendly to Home-rule, if by Home-rule is meant the establishment of an Irish Parliament. Mr. Gladstone, Lord Hartington, and Mr. Forster have all repudiated any sympathy with that policy, Lord Hartington, in particular, declaring the project " impracticable," and " any concession, or appearance of con- cession, in this direction mischievous in its effects to the pro- sperity of England and Scotland." No English Liberal of any eminence is a Home-ruler, except the one English Liberal in whom " Jingoes " delight, Mr. Joseph Cowen, who has avowed his sentiments in unmistakable language, and
nevertheless, remain their favourite. No English Liberal of standing has supported the land agitation as led by Mr. Parnell, though many have advocated fixity of tenure ; and no English Liberal of mark has advocated any concession to Ireland of any kind which would weaken the complete control of the Imperial Parliament upon all matters of political importance. The story of a secret understanding or a secret sympathy between Home-rulers and British Liberals is a pure figment, deliberately invented in order to prejudice the electors, and induce them to overlook the real issue at stake in this election. Even this gross misrepresentation is, however, not the greatest, though it is the heaviest, objection to the visible Tory policy. That policy tends directly to destroy the union between Great Britain and Ireland, by making harmony between the two peoples an impossibility. It is impossible for Irishmen to read such language as that of the Premier and his supporters in the Press without feeling that they are both despised and disliked, that the Government does not respect them enough to observe even an interested decency in its language about them, and that its supporters chuckle at the virulence with which their own hatreds are officially expressed. Irishmen know well that if the Tories re- spected them their tone would be far different from this, that their wishes would be put aside with gentleness and their extravagan- cies condoned with tolerant words. They feel that if they were not despised, they would not be insulted on the eve of an election, and that denunciation would at least have been reserved for a more convenient season. They would be exasperated, even if they were as cool as Scotch Lowlanders are, erroneously, sup- posed to be ; and being what they are—Irishmen, with an over- weening longing for kindness and sympathy and respect, as sensitive as Southerners, and as eager for distinction as Frenchmen—they are furious to a point which, were they either Scotchmen or ten millions, would have results in action. As it is, they burst out in language such as a sensitive race uses to repel insult, language fiery, illogical, and imprudent, but natural ; and then they are taunted again with every variety of contumely and ridicule for their furious words. Mr. Shaw, the calmest among them, has been driven out of his equanimity ; and Englishmen are told that Home-rulers' equanimity is all a pretence. The party of action call upon Irishmen first of all to vote down their traducer, and Englishmen are informed that that is what Irish gratitude means. If Mr. Shaw and his followers were moderate, they would be accused of hypocritical time-serving ; and as they are violent, they are pointed at at ruffians, who in Ireland let their true proclivities appear.. All the while, the Home-rulers are just what, with the exception of two or three of them, they always were,—politicians intent on an impracticable design, which would in its results be in- jurious to the realm and to the world, but otherwise very much like other people who speak English, except that they have a
greater command of words, and use them more poetically ; that they care more about the tenure question than seems to Englishmen quite sensible ; and that they are liable when affronted to bursts of fury, one of which is now falling upon the head of Lord Beaconsfield. The Irish Committees in Ire- land and in England have, it is authoritatively stated, with- drawn all demand for pledges from Liberal candidates, except the single one to vote Lord Beaconsfield out of power. Deeply as we believe the dismissal of Lord Beaconsfield essential, not only to the prosperity, but to the safety of the Empire, the Tory Democracy, of which he is the exponent, being sure to make enemies of the whole world, we regret this outburst of feeling, as tending to lead to another upon the Tory side. Nothing could be worse for the country than the intru- sion into its politics of what Americans call "sectional " and Italians " regional" party feeling. If measures or men are to he supported or rejected because they are English, or Scotch, or Irish, there is an end of all unity of feeling, and of most of the possibilities of good government. The Three Kingdoms are inextricably bound together by their history, their geo- graphical position, their interests, and their language, and any attempt to sever them such as Tories are now making, and during the election will, after the Home-rulers' declaration, make still more, would be as injurious to the general prosperity as any attempt to sever them by legislation. The Irish cannot have Home-Rule in their sense, even if the alternative is insurrection ; but to say that they have no right to ask for it, to express their own views of land-tenure, to impress their own opinions upon general policy, is to sever the United Kingdom, by declaring that one member of the Union has not equal rights with the others. We might as well dis- qualify all Irishmen for office, or declare that the Irish candi- date for an appointment open to competition should lose a thousand marks on account of his place of birth, and then declare that the Union was complete. We deprecate the introduction of such hatreds into English politics, even when, as in this case, they tell on our own side, and trust that before the fight actually commences, the Tories will have seen the tac- tical as well as moral error they have committed, will withdraw their unfounded aspersions, and allow all electors to vote ac- cording to their opinions, without remembering from what part of the United Kingdom they may happen to have sprung. If they do not, it will be one more proof that this Govern- ment has exhausted its stock of wits, and has entered upon the cycle of mistakes upon which men without fixed principles are sure to enter, and which will very speedily produce a fall.
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