MR. FREDERIC HARRISON ON IRELAND.
[To rag Horror or ram “IiPECTAT011..] did not think it necessary to prolong the discussion of my friend Mr. Frederic Harrison's Irish policy, as you had been good enough so ably to defend for me the view I took, and I felt that I had nothing to add to your comments on his letters. But after his third solemn appeal to me, I am obliged to ask for more space in your columns to explain myself.
Like you, Sir, I understood Mr. F. Harrison's meaning to be that, in order to obtain the desired end of independence for Ireland, he was ready to run the risk of producing a state of things which he described as one in which "many an innocent one may suffer, and many an evil one work his bad way ;" while "England would ring with rage and shame" at the dreadful things that were going on in the sister-island. I used the word. " anarchy " to describe this state of things, justly, it seems to me. His words, "To such a national authority [namely, one which would bring about this sad confusion] we, at any rate, though other politicians may hesitate, are willing to commit the destinies of Ireland," I understood to mean, `If others shrink from the responsibility, we Positivists, at any rate, do not.' The "last wrench" he talks of, I understood to mean the final separation of the two countries.
Mr. Harrison says that I have misunderstood him, and I accept his correction, of course: but I think that my misunder- standing was pardonable, and you, Sir, I see, agree with me. Of course, with you, Sir, I never thought that Mr. Harrison recommended permanent anarchy as a remedy for the ills of Ireland; but I understood that he thought it quite worth while to traverse the Red Sea in order to reach the Promised Land. He now explains that what he really meant was that the obstinacy of those who refuse Ireland Home-rule would lead to anarchy ; but without his explanation, his meaning, it seems to me, was not clear, and was liable to be misunderstood, and has been widely misunderstood. In faot, I think Mr. Harrison ought to be obliged to me for giving him this opportunity of making his meaning quite clear.
"It is our aim," Dr. Congreve said in 1868, "to create in Ireland a new self-existing and self-ruling unit among Western States." Mr. Cotter Morison, in a letter to you on Ireland, which you printed on January 2nd, 1:6, says :—" Can we, ought we, to prevent her ruin, if she wills it ? Is anything more likely to bring her to her senses than self-inflicted ruin ?
The half-maniacal patient must be left to her own devices, and she will find what they will bring her to."
I concluded that this was the policy recommended by the leaders of the Comtist school of thought; and many others, I know, shared my mistake.—I am, Sir, dm.,
ARTHUR RUSSELL.
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