COUNTY REFORM IN TRELAND.
IT is, we suppose, hopeless to expect that Home-rulers as a party should endeavour to remove the administrative grievances of Ireland. They can scarcely wish to remove them. Their most substantial argument, their first assertion in politics, their one ever-repeated credo, is that the adminis- trative grievances of Ireland are due to the absence of Home- rule, and if the grievances were removed, much of their own raison d'iltre as a party would disappear also. They wish well to Ireland, we believe, but it is hardly in human nature to desire strongly the abolition of a small evil, when its existence affords a foothold for attacking a great one. We cannot but wonder, how- ever, that the Irish Liberals who are not Home-rulers, but only wish that Ireland should enjoy the good government that Home-rule might, in Home-rulers' judgment, secure ; or are Nationalists, and therefore able to accept any instalment of " justice to Ireland," should not see what a chance Mr. &later- Booth's new County Bill has given them, and at once avail themselves of it. Why do they not come forward with a really reasonable measure of reform, a Bill for creating strong and effective County Parliaments in Ireland I They are not impeded by English feeling. The objections which will always disincline British statesmen to listen to Home- rule for Ireland do not apply to county reform, while there are hundreds of Members who entertain the conviction that municipal organisation throughout the kingdom requires to be greatly strengthened, and especially extended to the districts now without corporate life. These men could not, for consistency's sake, resist the application of their own principles to Ireland, and would be much more likely to believe that the experiment could be tried there with least risk and most hope of a satisfactory result. The Irish County system is far more open to objection than the English, which is disliked not for any harm it does, but for the more vigorous and brighter local life which its existence impedes. As in England, so in Ireland, local government is handed over to the landlords, but there is this immense difference between the two countries. The landlords in English counties are liked. The people neither hate them nor distrust them, but would, if the suffrage were wide, and seats in County Parlia- ments important enough to cause energetic canvassing, elect them to those bodies by the dozen. The rural ratepayers do not wish to keep out the gentry, but only to make sure that they will represent ratepaying as well as proprietary views. In Ireland, however, the landlords are the objects of inveterate mistrust. It has been found indispensable, in order Ireland invested with administrative powers, are accused by grossly exaggerated ; but that and we ourselves believe it to be matters very little. Traditions linger long in Ireland. They are kept up in this case, as Mr. de Vere himself admits, by constant jobbery in the small offices filled by votes of the Grand Jurors, and the consequences of ill-founded distrust are politically as evil as the consequences of distrust which is well- founded. The plain fact, whatever the explanation, is that the County system of Ireland is disliked and distrusted in the Irish counties, and that until it is radically reformed the people will be neither interested in it nor con- tented with its working. They will continue to look try upon it as part of the old system of governing the country through a caste, and that caste as a body alien from the people in race, in education, and in social as well as political sympathies. There are still, or were very recently, Catholic counties in Ireland in which Catholic grand jurors formed an inappreciable and wholly uninfluential minority, and every new road either had, or was popularly believed to have—which is quite as injurious to the content of the people —a distinctly Protestant deflection. Local geography and engineering were somehow always favourable to plans benefit- ing influential properties.
The plain remedy for this state of affairs is to govern an Irish county as we govern an Irish city, through a committee of its leading citizens, elected by the rate- payers and invested with all the necessary powers, including the administration of the Poor Law, the control of the roads, the management of all usual county work, and as much other world. In Ireland, however, owing to the evil repute of most induced to entrust business as Parliament can gradually be old systems, it is necessary to make reform more dramatic, them with. We would not be jealous of granting powers to to break more formally with old ways, and to make new institu- them, for we hold that in Ireland, a country with few cities and tions at once more logical and more dignified. We cannot any or would be few public careers, one of the main difficulties of good govern- ment has been that no sufficient outlet is provided for the smaller obstacle to the adoption of such a proposal as we have de- ambitions, for the men who feel that they have abilities, who fended in Parliament, while it certainly ought to be no obstacle liked by their neighbours, who fret ret under the absence of in the eyes of Irish Members. We believe that, if Irish repre- opportunities of distinction, but who yet know that they are sentatives would seek such a reform in earnest, would press it o not capable of rising above a certain level. They would find on Parliament and the Parties, they would carry it in three years, and lay the foundation of a system of local government their places in County Parliaments, and we cannot see why capable of indefinite extension. In this instance, they for once they should not find them. Ofcourse they would talk politics, in their lives—it is not their usual fault—ask too little, and and excited politics, but they would not bemore violent in their moderation fail to secure the sympathy which a larger because they were visible, or because they were placed in a scheme would certainly receive at the hands of Liberals ; and position whence they could speak without an annoying sense Tory tenant-farmers. It is of no use asking English Members, of inferiority. Nor would they be one whit the more likely, as Mr. de Vere does in his otherwise very good letter, for an because they were visible and responsible, to head insurrections. improved " County-at-large Presentment Sessions." They do Irish Town Councillors talk very loudly, and sometimes very not know what is being asked of them, they see that the land- injudiciously, and have a much greater desire for conspicuous- lords are on the whole opposed to it ; and they suspect that ness than English Town Councillors, but nobody who knows somehow priests are at the bottom of it, and that the intention Ireland ever dreams of reckoning them among the dangerous classes. The desire for conspicuousness is a national a definite thing which they can understand, and which, unless virtue or failing—whichever it is—and in gratifying it we greatly over-rate their political good-sense, they would, after Parliament does no harm whatever, except to people who think the world is crumbling whenever a small matt talks big, or elicits a noisy cheer from a mob with a upon Irishmen, who are great deal of waste time on its hands ; while it reconciles and freely concede. We understand, as we have said, why the the really dangerous men, the men who can lead, to the institutions which give them such fair-play. Of course, too, deserve well .they would create a great many small " places," possibly a great many too many, but they would soon find a natural THE SILVER CRAZE IN AMERICA. check to that pleasing little game. Irishmen like places, MHE large majorities by which the Silver Bill has been and like to see places created, but they like them paid for I carried through the Senate leave little doubt that it will out of English money ; and the county ratepayers being be passed over the President's veto. The movement has all county electors, and themselves feeling the expenditure, the characteristics of a really popular agitation. There are would very speedily show themselves quite stingy enough. some delusions which are only dangerous until they are ex- Mr. De Vere pleads very strongly for an admixture of Grand posed. They look formidable enough when they are seen in a Jurors, of the men who he says are trained to business and half-light, but the sunshine of open discussion at once reduces who have hitherto governed well, and tries very ably indeed them to their proper proportions. There was reason at one to raise his plea to the dignity of a principle :— time to hope that this would be the case with the Silver Bill. "I have been during a long life a consistent, and as many people The argument against it is so conclusive and overwhelming, would say, an advanced Liberal, and I will not abate one jot or one that it seemed impossible that, when men were forced to say tittle of my old Liberal principles. I believe that a nation, to be governed wisely and well, must have a Government not of one class, what they really meant, they would not be ashamed of having but one in which the various classes shall be harmoniously combined. meant it. Whether the Bill is regarded in its moral I hold that taxation without representation is a fraud upon the taxpayer or in its financial aspect, it is alike bad. There is an ugly and a waste of the resources of the State. These principles, if true of look of dishonesty about it, which is not gilded by any prospect the great community of the State, are equally true of the smaller oom- inanity of the County, and mast form the foundation of any wise and practicable scheme for the reconstitution of Grand juries. If it be true United States could be sure that a tender of ninety per cent. to keep up respect for law, to make the Chairmen of Quarter- of the State, as I believe it to be, that the one thing most fatal to Sessions paid officials ; while the Grand Juries, which are in liberty is an unmixed and uncontrolled democracy, and that an upper
and highly educated class, possessing not only strong moral influence,
but a legislative restraining and moderating power, is essential for the the people of being jobbers, actuated in all their transactions protection of public liberty, and especially of that of the lower dames, by class feeling, religious feeling, and personal alliances. The and ought to form a constituent part of the governing body ; so is it accusation may be as utterly untrue, as Mr. Stephen de Vere, true that, in the County, the functions of government should be die- tributed between the representativea of the people, who should alone a sound Liberal, in his " Letter to Lord Emly," recently printed have the power of originating taxation, and a moderating, controlling, and rather widely circulated, though not published, says it is, restraining body, such as the old, time-honoured Grand Jury, modified,
however, and amended in conformity with these principles. A Grand
Jeu so hold a in relation to the overning body of theconstituted Countywould in many waysposition analogous to that of theg House of Lords in relation to Parliament."
That is all very true ; but then there is no difficulty in embodying the principle of that argument in the proposed reforms. Nobody wants to ostracize the landowners, or to deprive them of their fair share of power in local affairs. Cer- tainly the British Parliament does not. The difficulty with that Parliament, if the reform were fairly pressed on it, would be not to secure the Irish coon gentlemen their full power, but to secure substantial power to anybody else. We do not object to a strong infusion of grand juror into Irish County Councils, or to their division into two Houses, one to be filled by selection, if that should be deemed more expedient. All we object to is pottering reform, the retention of old and distrusted names, an apparent desire to put just as little confidence in the body of the people as circumstances will admit. In England there is not much objection to pottering. Nobody thinks that administrators are hostile, or that class-interests are irreconcilable, or that the electors, if convinced, will be seriously resisted. If we can only get County Boards of any reasonable sort, and they work decently, power will accrete to them fast enough, as power has accreted to the Metropolitan Board of Works, which though at first almost a vestry, is now armoured in statutes, raises money in millions, and has become one of the strongest municipal bodies in the the management of all usual county work, and as much other world. In Ireland, however, owing to the evil repute of most induced to entrust business as Parliament can gradually be old systems, it is necessary to make reform more dramatic, them with. We would not be jealous of granting powers to to break more formally with old ways, and to make new institu- them, for we hold that in Ireland, a country with few cities and tions at once more logical and more dignified. We cannot any or would be see, however, that this either ought to be ment has been that no sufficient outlet is provided for the smaller obstacle to the adoption of such a proposal as we have de- ambitions, for the men who feel that they have abilities, who fended in Parliament, while it certainly ought to be no obstacle liked by their neighbours, who fret ret under the absence of in the eyes of Irish Members. We believe that, if Irish repre- opportunities of distinction, but who yet know that they are sentatives would seek such a reform in earnest, would press it o not capable of rising above a certain level. They would find on Parliament and the Parties, they would carry it in three years, and lay the foundation of a system of local government their places in County Parliaments, and we cannot see why capable of indefinite extension. In this instance, they for once they should not find them. Ofcourse they would talk politics, in their lives—it is not their usual fault—ask too little, and and excited politics, but they would not bemore violent in their moderation fail to secure the sympathy which a larger because they were visible, or because they were placed in a scheme would certainly receive at the hands of Liberals ; and position whence they could speak without an annoying sense Tory tenant-farmers. It is of no use asking English Members, of inferiority. Nor would they be one whit the more likely, as Mr. de Vere does in his otherwise very good letter, for an because they were visible and responsible, to head insurrections.
is to establish Catholic ascendancy. A County Parliament is always wanting something, a readily certain quantity of annoyance and bitter debate, and attacks " " a Home-rulers miss such a chance, but they certainly do not of their country for so missing it.
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