SIR GEORGE BOWYER ON IRELAND.
THOUGH Sir George Bowyer appears to us to have advo- cated very few public causes which are good causes, and very many which are mischievous,—though, in spite of his nominal Liberalism, he regards Lord Beaconsfield as "a great statesman,"—and though he suffers as much from Russia-on- the-brain as Mr. Hanbury himself, we have seldom read any- thing with more lively admiration and pleasure than his courageous and powerful letter to yesterday's Times on the condition of Ireland. It is plain that not only has the religious side of Sir George Bowyer's nature,—and even the most political and ecclesiastical of Roman Catholics, do not merge their religious nature wholly in their militant ardour for the institution on behalf of which they fight,—risen up in arms against the rule of Mr. Parnell ; but his very considerable attainments as a constitutional lawyer have opened his eyes to the ruinous career on which the extreme party among the Home-rulers are seeking to embark the Irish people. This letter to the Irish people,—for that is what it really is, though it is cast only in the form of a letter to the Times,—is the result. We cannot help hoping that it may be productive of great good. It must tend to make merely thoughtless politicians, and especially those parish priests who are supporting Mr. Parnell, reconsider the very serious responsibility they are incurring ; and we hope that it may do more,—that it may tend to break the Home-rule party in two, and withdraw from amongst the followers of the violent man who is now endeavouring to drive every land-. lord, however beneficent, out of Ireland, all those who with a single mind seek the prosperity at once of Ireland and of the United Kingdom, and who do not believe that either one or the other can be promoted by striking a deadly blow at the very institution of property, whether real or personal, or by fanning that contagious passion which blindly calls for confiscation, in oblivion of the fact that those who reap the harvests of confiscation one year, are but too likely to pay its penalties the next. Sir George Bowyer is Member for the county of Wexford, and has long accepted, under some mild interpretation of his own, the so-called policy of Home-rule. He was a strong supporter of Mr. Butt's moderation, and hoped at one time to obtain the willing consent of Parliament to some modified form of Home-rule, some form which should be harmless to the other parts of the Empire and beneficial to Ireland. This hope, however, he has completely abandoned. "The most unwise, the most inexperienced, and the most ignorant members of the Irish representation," says Sir George Bowyer, "are the leaders of the so-called party of action, and they are deluding the people, and misleading them into a course which must end in rebellion and ruin. These words are strong, but they are sanctioned by his Eminence Cardinal Cullen. That eminent and venerated prelate said to me, in the most solemn manner, that the leaders of the Irish party were deceiving and deluding the people, and that the course which they were taking led to treason and rebellion. His Eminence added, If they go on, I will denounce them." We only wonder that the authorities of the Irish Catholic Church did not seize the occasion of Mr. Parnell's advice to Irish farmers to refrain from paying rent altogether till their landlords agreed to what they, from their one-sided position, thought a fair rent, to speak the mind of the Catholic Church on the subject. No one can doubt that this advice is, as Sir George Bowyer says, a virtual breach of what he calls the Seventh, or as Protestants reckon it, the Eighth Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal ;" and we see with pleasure that Mr. Mitchell Henry (who is, by the way, a Protestant) the other day, in Mr.Parnell's presence, openly took this view of Mr. Pamell's land policy, in a manner
so straightforward as to compel Mr. Parnell to hedge, and try to explain away his proposals. Catholic and Protestant alike ought to feel that this attempt to encourage Irish farmers to take the law into their own hands, is not only an invitation to a great offence, not only an invitation to social anarchy, but the beginning of an agrarian movement which could only even temporarily succeed by the terror of frequent assassina- tions. It is not only the Eighth Commandment which Mr. Parnell's policy would teach the Irish people to ignore, but, ultimately at least, as the threats with which the speeches of Mr. Parnell are interrupted, alone prove, the Sixth Command- ment also. If these are the first fruits of the Home-rule agitation, the doctrine that the tree is known by its fruits, will give us an easy method of computing its value, and the political value of its leaders.
Sir George Bowyer, in avowing his willingness to retire into private life, rather than accept the new lead of the Home- rulers, sets an example which not only all Irish Members who, on mature consideration, share his fears, but all Liberal politicians who, like ourselves, have never ceased to advocate stronger views of the Irish land question than even Mr. Gladstone's legislation embodied, should try to follow. We ought to isolate at once the followers of Mr. Parnell ; to make them feel that, if they go on as they do, they will alienate all the best friends of Ireland both here and there ; that not by aid such as their's, nor by such champions as they are, is the re- generation of Ireland to be achieved. After all, say what we will—and we are prepared to say very much—of the enor- mous benefit to Ireland of a large class of peasants who are at least part-proprietors of the land they till, nothing can be said of that benefit which would make it weigh for a moment in the scale against the reverence for property, for contract, for life. It is this reverence which Mr. Parnell's agitation is tending to subvert amongst the most ignorant of the Irish peasants ; and it is to do what he can against this fatal subversion of the very source of Irish prosperity, and not of Irish prosperity only, but of Irish morality and Irish character, that Sir George Bowyer is willing to sacrifice his Parliamentary career. All sound Liberals, as well as all sound Conserva- tives, are bound to support him. For unquestionably the cause of liberty is even more endangered by this attack on property, than any cause for which Conservatives, as such, plead. Mr. Parnell may, indeed, easily enough play into the hands of the "party of order,"—in other words, the party of arbitrary rule,—for an outbreak threatening the very consti- tution of society always brings with it a greater danger of despotism. But it would not play into the hands of the party of liberty. Whatever else goes when social ties are broken up, liberty goes first.
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