TOPICS OF THE DAY.
TRUE AND FALSE PATRIOTISM FOR IRELAND.
THEnoble and courageous letter of The O'Donoghue to Monday's Times is the first sign of really happier political fortunes for Ireland,—of the growth of an Irish party in the highest sense patriotic, in the highest sense liberal, which will cordially welcome and co-operate with all the genuine efforts of British Liberals to do such justice to Ireland as we would have Ireland do to us, were the relative dimensions and populations of the two countries just the converse of what they are, were Great Britain a dependency on Ireland, instead of Ireland on Great Britain. A remarkable contrast to this wise and bold plea of The O'Donoghue for real Irish co-operation with the British party of justice to Ireland, will be found in another column, in the clever letter of our correspondent Mr. Foley, in favour of repeal of the Union. Commenting on an incidental remark in our last number to the effect that there is to our minds something inexpressibly mean in the policy which leads the Irish patriots to raise their demands after every concession to their just demands, this gentleman proceeds to assert that there is no increase of demand, Ireland having never ceased to demand the re- storation of its parliamentary independence,—that England, were she in the same situation, would act in the same manner, —that Ireland has never asked for a dissolution of the Empire, but only for a dissolution of the Union, recognizing our Sovereign as her sovereign,—that England is so ignorant of Ireland, that the latter can never expect wise internal legisla- tion except from a national Parliament,—that there is little effective desire to do justice to Ireland in England as yet,— that the disestablishment of the Irish Church last session was due greatly to fear, greatly to the jealousy felt by Dissenters of all established churches, and " last, and very much least," to a desire to do justice to Ireland,—that a good land measure is not to be expected,—and that the wrongs inflicted by England on Ireland in past centuries are almost unforgiveable as well as unforgiven.
Our correspondent will, we are sure, excuse us for saying that he could not better have illustrated the force of our remark than he has done by this letter, appearing, as it fortunately does, in broad contrast to the deliberate opinion of one so heartily and devotedly Irish, so free from every imputation of dis- honourable subservience to the English Government, so remark- able for the bold independence of his Parliamentary career, as The O'Donoghue. We traverse our correspondent's assertions at every point, and we believe we are confirmed by The O'Donoghue at almost every point. Now, first, is it true that there is no increase of demand ? Is it true that the Irish have for years back returned for any town or county men of the political stamp of the Fenian convict O'Donovan Rossa ? Is it even true that the cry of Repeal has been heard at all among political Irishmen for the last fifteen years ? Has a single Irish Member of Parliament recently advocated repeal in the House of Commons ? The facts of the case are notorious. While there was no hope of getting rid either of the Protes- tant Church or the English land-laws in Ireland, these were made the great typical grievances of Ireland,—the proofs that Ireland was subject to an iniquitous oppression from England. The one of them is removed, and the greatest efforts are being made to remove the other. What do the noisy section of the patriotic party do ? Instead of co-operating heartily with the English Liberals who are trying to carry this great reform, and accepting the pledge of what was done last Session as an earnest of their real purpose, they cry out with Mr. Foley that nothing is of any use without Repeal of the Union, that centuries of wicked, ignorant, and unjust government cannot be forgiven, they pass the word round to each other that Glad- stone's Government is cowardly, that it has been frightened out of its wits by the Clerkenwell explosion and the Manchester crime, and that now is the time for pressing hard upon it and cowing it into Repeal. Now compare with this course The O'Donoghue's deliberate statement :—" No one can say that the present House of Commons,—I speak of the ruling majority,— is devoted to class interests as distinct from those of the great body of the people, or that it is bigoted except in its intolerance of bigotry, or that it is anti-Scotch or anti-Irish.... I wish to assure my countrymen that the picture so often held up before them of a House of Commons, oligarchical, fanatical, anti- Irish, prepared to bully and cringe alternately, has no exist- ence in these days, and is a creation of the perverted imagina-
tion of men who desire to sow horror, hatred, and despair, where confidence, friendship, and hope should alone flourish.. . . . Two or three years ago I could not conscientiously have spoken of the House of Commons as I may now speak of it.. The change which has come over the minds of Englishmen and Scotchmen with reference to the policy which ought to' be pursued towards Ireland has been so sadden and contrary to all experience and tradition, that the Irish people, so far from having realized its scope and tendency, as yet question its reality. While Ireland is thus doubtful, with a heart full of bitter memories, with the gloom of the past still over- shadowing the future, with so much to inspire distrust, men have been found denying and distorting facts, imputing the worst motives, suggesting treachery, and urging the con- tumelious rejection of every friendly overture." And we regret to say that our correspondent, verily thinking in him- self, no doubt, that he ought to do many things contrary to the spirit of English statesmanship, and to attribute predominantly to English cowardice, what is in the main due to the noble conscientiousness of the English Prime Minister and the various causes which have rooted confidence in him so deep in the hearts of the English nation, is a fair representative of those who deny and distort facts ; and, if not of those who impute the worst motives, still of those who ignore and discredit the best. We do not say that there is no excuse for Ireland's profound distrust of England's repentance. But we do say that there never was so little as there now is : that the Act of last session, and the preparations for the next, the sacrifice which has been made, and the tone taken in discussing that which is still needful, are so far guarantees of good faith, that if they are simply mocked at by Ireland, and responded to with cries for a dissolution of the Union as the sole condition of political hope for Ireland, we of England and Scotland have every right to assert that- nothing will satisfy Ireland but a dissolution of the Empire. What does our correspondent mean by assuring us that the dissolution of the Empire is not demanded, but only a dis- solution of the Parliamentary Union ? If the election of a Fenian convict for Tipperary means anything, it certainly means the former, and not the latter; it is a challenge to the Empire in the name of the Irish Republic, and not a challenge to England in the name of a party advocating provincial and legislative inde- pendence. For our parts, we see no pretence for the supposi- tion that the party which takes the fall of the Irish Church, and the grave discussion of a land-tenure reform as a mere sign of English pusillanimity and as an invitation to the dis- affected to raise their terms, will be content with legislative independence. If that were discussed, they would simply shriek out that that would be of no use, that without an inde- pendent republic not a single wrong of Ireland could be redressed. We reassert, then, with the gravest conviction that this constant raising of the demand, directly the justice of the last demand appears to be conceded, is due to a thoroughly- mean, as well as mistaken, interpretation of the policy and action of England, and one wholly unworthy of the generosity of the Irish nature. Irishmen see a ministry yielding deliberately and somewhat slowly, (for the English mind is not quick at changing its point of view), to a growing sense of justice, and they cry out, Here is weakness and retreat, now is your time to strike 1' We confess this interpretation of what has been done fills us with contempt as well as regret, though the O'Donoghue's letter fortunately shows that it is not that of the clearest-sighted and most generous Irishmen,—that there is faith an Irishmen in the political repentance of England,—that they can understand a noble policy, even of retractation and reparation, when they see it.
And the practical blunder is as grave as the misinter- pretation of motive. No policy is less likely to lead to a dissolution of the Union than the policy of showing that it is no sense of existing wrong, no groaning under social and political injustice, which furnishes the motive for asking for that dissolution. If Irishmen openly reply to us, We care nothing about the abolition of the unjust Irish Church, we care nothing about the abolition of the unjust Wad laws,—abolish them or not, as you please, we shall be just as dissatisfied as ever ;—do everthing for us and with us that we should do for ourselves, except let us do it for ourselves, and we shall be as bitter as ever,'—why, then, we think England will rejoin—that if this be so, there is no further help forIreland, that a demand which would be just as reasonable for the legislative, or perhaps absolute independence, of Scotland or Wales,—and, as we have said, we see no reason to believe that any considerable party would be content with the legislative without demanding the absolute independence of Ireland,—_ which would be just as reasonable for the legislative or absolute dependence of Cornwall or Yorkshire, must simply be steadily resisted, resisted without argument, resisted on the same ground on which the Union resisted the secession of the South,—that the interest of the whole State overrides that of any of its constituent elements.
Our correspondent asks why Ireland cannot as easily have legislative independence as the Colonies. We reply, that there is no reason to believe that she would be content with legislative independence, but that if there were, there would be just as much, and the same kind of reason against it, as there would be in Ireland itself against giving Ulster legislative independence. Every independent wheel within the wheel diminishes the total moving force of the whole. Canada is too far off to be efficiently represented in the English House of Commons. Ireland is not too far off. The O'Donoghue tells us,—and there can be no more impartial witness, — that " whatever measure a majority of Irish representatives agreed to support the House of Commons will pass, if it be inherently just, no matter how novel are its features, or how violent the opposition it has to encounter." Of course, such a statement as to any conceivable representa- tion in the House of Commons of our Colonies would be simply absurd, and therein lies the immense difference of the two cases. Ireland may obtain precisely as much political justice as Scotland has obtained. We are now willing and anxious to give it her. If she takes it, and lends her whole force to the Union as Scotland lends hers, she has the enormous advantage of constituting a great part of a great kingdom, and of lending to that kingdom much of its greatness, instead of being an insig- nificant appendage to a much smaller kingdom. The difference between the weight of a State of 25,000,000 of people and that of a State of 30,000,000 of people in the councils of Europe is not small. The difference between a State of 5,000,000 of people and one of 30,000,000 is enormous. A little British colony across the Channel would hardly be even a State of 5,000,000 of people. It would be for effective weight in Europe probably n14—which is pretty nearly the weight of our Colonies as regards foreign policy,—while the chances of division, of hostile tariffs dividing the mother country and the -colony, of chronic bickerings,—for example, would Ireland for a moment bear patiently even those disallowances by the Crown of Colonial acts which our most contented colonies often growl at?—of divided Irish parties, Protestant and Catholic constantly scheming for English support,—and of divergent sympathies in relation to foreign affairs, would probably reduce Great Britain from a state whose population would amount to 25,000,000, to one in effect not above 20,000,000,—about one-fifth of our strength being neutralized by the necessity for keeping a -check on Ireland. We heard only the other day of an Irish Member whose avowal of Repeal sympathies provoked a real shudder among his supporters, the confessed reason being that Repeal would bring down an Orange invasion of Catholic Ireland in which the Catholics would hardly hold their own. Any reflecting Irishman who talks of a dissolution of the Union, except as the last and kill-or-cure remedy for hopeless and irremediable wrongs, is, to our mind, a traitor to his country. And one who talks of it anew and most loudly, at the very moment when every grave wrong is admitted and conceded as heartily, perhaps more heartily, in England than it is in Ireland, is a gratuitous traitor to his country. Hearty co-operation between Great Britain and Ireland is a policy as far more glorious and honourable than separation, as is a true marriage far more honourable than divorce. We must repeat that those Irishmen at least are no true patriots who .despair of such hearty co-operation most ostentatiously, pre- .cisely at the time when all reasonable men,—all men who, like The O'Donoghue, have hoped long for it, and hoped for it seemingly in vain,—are beginning to feel sanguine that the hour when it may be really possible has at last struck.
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