WHY MR. COURTNEY'S CENSURE OF HOME- RULE IS SO WEIGHTY.
MR. COURTNEY made a very terse and effective speech against Home-rule for Ireland to his Cornish constituents at Looe on Tuesday. And, in our view, there are few opinions on the subject which are so weighty as Mr. Courtney's, as we shall presently give reasons for thinking. He pointed out that Mr. Glad- stone's plan of 1886 had gone to pieces on three points. The proposal to leave Irishmen out of the Imperial Parliament had been decisively rejected and withdrawn.
The proposal to make Ireland tributary to England without giving Irishmen any influence over the mode in which the tribute should be spent, had. been decisively rejected and withdrawn. And the proposal to reserve certain very important subjects, like the Customs duties, for instance, from the consideration of the Irish Parlia- ment, though not decisively rejected and withdrawn, had excited so much and so increasing an opposition in Ireland, that it was plain enough it could not be car- ried without losing all hope of conciliating the Irish people. No new plan had been even shadowed forth for replacing these condemned or endangered proposals. There was a large minority of the Irish people, probably numbering two-fifths or very nearly two-fifths of the popu- lation, who steadily resisted the scheme of a separate Irish Legislature and Administration, and resisted it on principle. Yet the only solution of all these difficulties, not, indeed, sanctioned by Mr. Gladstone, but put forth amongst his followers, was the Federal solution, which would necessitate separate Parliaments and Administrations for England and Scotland as well as for Ireland, and an Imperial Legis- lature and Administration as well; and this would, involve the herculean difficulty of discriminating on constitutional grounds clearly laid down, between Irish, Scotch, English, and Imperial affairs, and of dividing the Imperial resources and revenue fairly between the Irish, Scotch, English, and Imperial authorities, and this in the face of the immense minority of Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen who dislike the whole proposal so much that they would avail themselves of every means in their power to embarrass and prevent its being carried, to a successful issue. Such is a brief summary of Mr. Courtney's argument, and now we want to point out why Mr. Courtney's authority on the whole question is so weighty. Is he a statesman who can be regarded as in any way prepossessed against the Irish Party ? On the contrary, though be is Chairman of Committees, and is constantly called upon to decide authoritatively questions between the Irish Party and the Government, he has been so notoriously impartial, or perhaps somewhat more than impartial, that in spite of his avowed Unionism, he is perhaps more popular with the Irish Party than any Gladstonian, unless Mr. Glad- stone himself is to be counted a Gladstonian. Mr. Courtney may be said to embody in himself the principle of im- partiality towards Irishmen in the House of Commons. While he is in the chair, no one ever dreams of disputing the equal, or indeed perhaps more than equal, justice dealt out to Irishmen in the Parliament of Westminster. That is one point which tells heavily in our estimate of the weight of Mr. Courtney's opinion on this im- portant question. In the next place, is Mr. Courtney to be counted too timid and Conservative to weigh fairly all the advantages of a great proposal for a constitutional change which might be called almost revolutionary ? On the contrary, Mr. Courtney is one of the boldest Members of the House of Commons in facing constitutional change. He is much the most weighty of the advocates of the plans for directly representing minorities in the House of Com- mons; and he is one of the most weighty of the advocates for the representation of women in the Legislature. It is impossible to regard Mr. Courtney as in any way indis- posed to entertain the boldest plans for constitutional reform. Of the weightier Liberal Unionists, he is, except Mr. Chamberlain, decidedly the most Liberal, and not excepting Mr. Chamberlain, the most Liberal in his attitude towards the Irish Party. And, in the third place, Mr. Courtney cannot by any possibility be charged with being an amateur on some of the most important of all the questions which would arise between Great Britain and Ireland in case of any conceivable plan of Home-rule coming to detailed discussion. Mr. Courtney is not only an expert in political economy, but an expert in finance. One reason of his great success as Chairman of Committees is his perfect command over all the financial arrangements of this country. When he speaks of the insuperable diffi- culty of discriminating successfully between the resources and revenues and the financial limits of the three countries, he speaks of what he knows. If there be a man in the House who knows as well as Mr. Gladstone the significance of Mr. Gladstone's former saying that it "passes the wit of man" to discriminate effectually between Imperial and local affairs, on questions of finance, it is Mr. Courtney. Hence, without even taking into account Mr. Courtney's masterful common-sense, there is hardly another man in the House whose deliberate rejection of Irish Home-rule, as raising far more and far greater difficulties than it can ever solve, is entitled to so much respectful consideration.
Let us add that Mr. Courtney represents a constituency which would have been delighted if he could have followed Mr. Gladstone, and which can only be kept true to its Unionism, if it can be kept true to its Unionism, by its hearty deference for the judgment of Mr. Courtney, and we have another reason why Mr. Courtney's adverse judgment on this great issue is entitled to the most respectful consideration. Mr. Courtney well knows that in the Bodmin Division of Cornwall it is very uphill work for him to oppose Mr. Gladstone, so that he has every personal interest which a representative could have for giving way. He does not give way, simply because he is a statesman and a patriot first, and a representative only afterwards ; because his first thought is for the Kingdom and the Empire, and only his second thought for his Par- liamentary seat. He risks, too, not only his seat, but the great office which he fills with so much distinction, by the line he is taking on Irish Home-rule, for it is hardly likely that even if some other constituency returned him to Parliament in case of his rejection by the South-East division of Cornwall, he would be re-elected by a hostile majority, Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons. He might be ;—for ho has gained, as he has deserved, the deepest respect of both parties. But the very fact that he has done so, and that he remains so robust a Liberal as well as so immoveable a Unionist, should weigh heavily with the country in attaching the proper value to his deep and unbiassed conviction on this great issue.
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