TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S HOPE.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN, in his admirable speech at Edinburgh on Tuesday, did not ignore at all the recent reverses in the counties. On the contrary, he admitted them frankly ; but he denied, as every one who knows the facts must deny, that they turned on the issue on which, as he believes, the fate of the next General Election must turn,—Home-rule for Ireland. He illustrated his conception of the significance, or rather, in his view, the relative insignificance of these elections, by comparing them to the fourteen duels fought by a Neapolitan noble- man, whose death has been recently recorded, on behalf of the poetry of Dante, which he affirmed to be greatly superior to the poetry of Ariosto. But when this noble- man came to lie on his death-bed, he confessed to his sorrowing relatives that he had never read a line of either Dante or Ariosto, so that he had fought his duels in happy ignorance of the poetry of either one or the other. It was just so, said Mr. Chamberlain, with most of the recent electoral verdicts on Irish Home-rule. The contests have all been fought out without the least concep- tion of what Irish Home-rule is to mean. Those who voted for Home-rule in Ireland, possibly even those who voted against it, voted in complete ignorance as to what Home- rule, if ever bestowed, will mean. The issue was carefully masked by a number of other issues which are of much more interest to the English constituencies ; and consequently the verdict was not given on the strength of the opinion that Mr. Gladstone's policy for Ireland is right, but only on the strength of the conviction that in relation to matters of which they really knew something, they would prefer Mr. Gladstone's promises to the promises of the Unionists. That is often the way with by-elections,—that they turn on points on which the General Election can hardly turn, unless the people are willing to be deceived and to give their verdict with their eyes shut. But that is just the question. Will they not be disposed to give their judgment with their eyes shut ? If they can only per- suade themselves that the matter is really insignificant, why should they not give their judgment with their eyes shut ? There is the true pinch of the difficulty. If they can but persuade themselves that Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy will be a negligeable quantity, so far as regards the fate of England, they may not take the trouble to open their eyes. We are not sure that Mr. Chamberlain feels as easy in his mind as he would like to be on that important question. But, at any rate, he does as much as he can,—and where is the man who has it in his power to do more than he ?— to prevent the constituencies from committing that most stupendous and fatal blunder. He chose two of the most critical issues from amongst the many involved in the pro- posed Irish policy of Mr. Gladstone, and made even the most indolent of his hearers and readers see how utterly impos- sible it is for Mr. Gladstone to keep the promises he has made to his English followers without alienating completely the Irish Party, or to satisfy the demands which the Irish Party are loudly putting forward, without breaking coni pletely his promises to his English supporters. He insists first on the explicit declaration which Mr. Glad- stone has made, that nothing must be done to weaken or compromise the authority of the Imperial Par- liament, "because the Imperial Parliament must be supreme within the Three Kingdoms, and nothing that excites a doubt upon that supremacy can be tolerated by any intelligent and patriotic man." That assurance was given at Dalkeith in 1879, before Mr. Gladstone was con- verted to Irish Home-rule. But in 1886 Mr. Chamberlain challenged him to say in the House of Commons whether or not he still held to that opinion, and Mr. Gladstone replied that he did, and accepted and confirmed his earlier judgment. Now, says Mr. Chamberlain, let the con- stituencies insist on Mr. Gladstone explaining how his new proposals are to be so guarded as to place that condition beyond the risk of anything like failure or encroach- ment. Let us know how we are to be absolutely secured against any sort of undermining of the authority of the Imperial Parliament within the realm of Ireland under the new conditions of Home-rule, and if he succeeds in satisfying Great Britain that this abso- lute supremacy of the Imperial Parliament will be Isedulously and scrupulously asserted and maintained what will be the effect on the Irish contingent of Mr. Gladstone's force ? Of that we have the most indisputable evidence. Mr. Parnell said at Kilkenny : "This is the principle, I think : we have to fight for Home-rule for Ireland free from the outside interferences of anybody." At Limerick, he said in the present year : "We will have no veto except it be constitutional, exer- cised in the same way as it is exercised upon the Imperial Parliament,"—which means, of course, as Mr. Chamber- lain observes, no veto at all. Nor will Mr. Parnell's death, and the comparative impotence of his section of the Irish Party, make any difference on this head. Mr. Sexton has said that if all Mr. Parnell's demands had been conceded, he should have several of his ownwhich it would be necessary for him to press on Mr. Gladstone's attention. And Mr. O'Brien has said in Mayo: "The Irish Parliament will never accept any Home-rule settlement that will not draw the fangs of landlordism, and that will not leave this old Irish race of ours master of the landowners within the four seas of holy Ireland." "Holy Ireland " ! How could the abso- lute authority of the Imperial Parliament be secured within, the four seas of "Holy Ireland," without dissipating: completely this dream of the consecrated independence of Holy Ireland ? And Mr. Dillon has been equally explicit. Ireland is to be "independent, and more independent than ever we were before." If, then, Mr. Gladstone holds to the doctrine of the absolute and unquestionable supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, the demands of the Irish Party must be peremptorily refused. If the Irish Party are to be secured, the demands of the English Home- rulers who insist that nothing shall endanger in the slightest degree the power of the Imperial Parliament to. interfere as to it may seem good in every corner of the United Kingdom, must be peremptorily rejected. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, before he asks the constituencies to. vote, must be forced to say what position he will take up towards these diametrically opposite demands. If he- perseveres in his silence, the constituencies must inter- pret it as repudiating the most reasonable and natural of all demands, the demand that he will explain to which of two absolutely irreconcilable policies with regard to Ireland, he is disposed to adhere. And they will hardly be so wanting in common self-respect as to permit him to shirk so constitutional and urgent an inquiry. But whichever way he answers the question, he must lose a strong party at the General Election. If he satisfies the Irish, he will lose all the British Home-rulers who compelled him to give security for ample central control over the local Legisla- ture and Administration in Ireland, and the British poll will turn against him, in spite of the by-elections. If he satisfies his British supporters, he will alienate both sections of the Irish Home-rulers, and can no longer count on their votes to give -him a majority in Parliament. And Mr. Chamberlain pressed the same point as regards the case of Ulster. If Mr. Gladstone excludes Ulster from the jurisdiction of the Dublin Legislature and Administration,. he loses the Irish vote. If he includes it, he invites civil war, and loses a whole host of supporters in Great Britain.
Now, the question is, how far the Gladstonians can or cannot be induced to insist on knowing the particular scheme of Home-rule through which Mr. Gladstone pro- poses to solve this insoluble dilemma. Mr. Chamberlain thinks that the Gladstonians will not go to the General Election without obtaining this most important piece of explicit information. Doubtless such knowledge is abso- lutely essential for the purpose of any rational judg- ment on the crisis. It is a question which is as closely bound up with the future of the United Kingdom as was the question for the United States, after the great war, whether Congress was to decide on the future of slavery, or slavery was to decide on the future of Congress. If the constituencies are not to be allowed to pass judgment on the question whether Mr. Gladstone has or has not got a satisfactory answer to a constitutional riddle which looks exactly as if there could be no answer to it at all, Mr. Gladstone's professions of profound respect for constitutional traditions must have very little sincerity in them. Lord Grey's Government in 1831 might just as well have claimed the right to conceal the figure of the proposed rental qualifying for the franchise, and the number and weight of the constituencies to which it was to be given,—and yet to claim the confidence of the people for their proposals. However, unfortunately, it is not a question for the Liberal Unionists, but for the Glad stonians, to determine, whether the Gladstonian Party will vote blindfold or not. If they have any political stamina in them, they will insist that Mr. Asquith's demand for the details of the scheme shall be complied with ; but if they have not, we cannot prevent them from voting their blind confidence in Mr. Gladstone, and their indifference as to any removal of the bandage from their eyes. But we can and shall insist that if they will vote in the dark, they shall at least confirm in the light what they voted in the dark, before we let them try the practical working of Mr. Glad- stone's solution. We can ensure a second dissolution on the new plan when it is actually before the world, and we shall certainly require the constituencies to confirm with their eyes open what they insisted on voting with their eyes shut.
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