M. LOUIS BLANC ON THE COERCION BILL.
THE Liberal party have made a good deal of rather effective use from time to time during the discussion on Irish policy, and especially during the discussion on the Irish Church, of "the enlightened foreigner." That expedient was really not without its advantages. A great moralist and still greater economist, Adam Smith, regarded an imaginary entity of that kind as the ultimate standard of moral appeal,—in fact, as an incarnate conscience on all moral questions. His imaginary "man in the breast" of each individual, was nothing but the enlightened foreigner of our political discussions under another name ; for he was invented by Adam Smith expressly to serve as a court of appeal from the individual prejudices and passions
of the personal self ; and of course, on national and political affairs, an impartial arbiter of that kind could only be an "enlightened foreigner," for an enlightened Englishman, or Scotchman, or Irishman would, by the very nature of the case, be liable to the specific prejudices from which appeal is to be made. Now, it is always an advantage to incarnate the en- lightened foreigner, if it be possible, in some one particular form, for while he remains a mere abstraction, he is apt, unhappily, to be a good deal swayed by the wishes of the person, however strictly just, of whose breast he is the inhabitant. And can there be a better type of the enlightened foreigner for a genuine Liberal, or one which is less likely to be swayed in
any degree by British prejudice, than M. Louis Blanc He is a man of genius ; he really understands England ; he shows a true sympathy with English institutions ; and yet he habitually laughs at our insular conceptions. Thus his letters to the Temps really hold English ideas up to English eyes in a delineation as impartial without being prepossessed against us as an English Liberal could wish. And as we take it to be the duty of the party which appeals to the enlightened foreigner when he can help them, not to ignore the same enlightened foreigner when his words happen to fall like precious balms which break the heads of his friends,—we shall try and give him as fair a hearing now, when his words are distasteful to us, as we did when they were a great aid against the narrow prejudices of the Conservatives.
M. Louis Blanc's view on the new Irish Coercion Bill is, then, simply this,—that the increase of agrarian crime is a most sinister phenomenon, and the more sinister for occurring under a Liberal Government, —that the new Bill puts Ireland, —M. Louis Blanc should have said certain very limited dis- tricts of Ireland,—virtually under a "state of siege,"—that the Habeas Corpus Act has not been suspended chiefly for appearance' sake, only because it would looh so bad from a Liberal Government ; "that would be very well," says M. Louis Blanc, speaking dramatically for Mr. Gladstone, "for the Conservative Government of Disraeli, whom Heaven con- found 1"—that it is a gross dereliction from Liberal principles to apply these coercive measures to Ireland, whatever the apparent need of them,—that this step of a Liberal Ministry in Liberal England drives one almost to despair of fidelity to Liberal principles anywhere,—that the Liberals are now doing precisely what they assailed the Conservatives for doing in time past,—and finally, that this increase of agrarian crime in the face of even startlingly courageous remedial measures, drives the enlightened foreigner to the conclusion either that these are not the remedies demanded by the nature of the evil, or that Ireland is "irreconcilable."
Now, as to one comparatively immaterial point, M. Louis Blanc, in spite of his accurate knowledge of English politics, is in error. It is not true that Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Bright —or, as far as we know, any leading Liberal,—did condemn the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act by the Tories in 1867, or at other times. On the contrary, Mr. Gladstone always supported that measure, and always held the same language about it, that it was a most lamentable and miserable neces- sity which could only subdue the external symptoms of the disease,—though it was necessary to subdue those external symptoms,—but which on that very account ought never to be adopted by any ministry which had not set itself resolutely to attack the seat of the disease at the same time that it dealt with the most alarming symptoms. In point of fact, Mr. Gladstone is not only not practising the policy which he formerly condemned, but he is practising the very policy which he formerly pressed most urgently on the Tories,—the association of permanent, broad, and courageous remedial mea- sures with these necessary temporary measures for the suppres- sion of actual lawlessness in Ireland. Neither the Ministry nor the Liberal party in general are in fact in any degree open to the particular reproach of inconsistency which M. Louis Blanc has addressed to them. But that is comparatively a small matter. Though they are not open to the reproach of inconsistency, they may be open to the worse charge of never having had faith in true Liberal principles at all. If they are not setting at naught their former views now, both their former views and their present views may be unworthy of true Liberals,—of the Liberalism of enlightened foreigners. Now that is the real point at issue. Does true Liberal principle require that both life and liberty should be with impunity invaded and trampled out by private persons for an unlimited period, rather than that liberty alone should be endangered and restricted by the State ? Can it be said to be an absolute and inviolable Liberal principle that the State should never voluntarily
endanger and restrict private liberty, even though the result of rigid adherence to that principle be that private liberty is being overridden, private property destroyed, and life taken away in every direction by evil persons who have no such scruple ? To us, we confess, this doctrine seems a mere caricature of Liberal principle. Why, every great State in its ordinary criminal law endangers and actually violates private rights and private liberty in numbers of cases every day, in the interest of still greater numbers whose rights and liberties would otherwise be still more seriously endangered ? What are the arrest and imprisonment of offenders charged—often falsely—with a crime, but the endangering and injuring of many innocent persons, and the restricting of their liberties, for the sake of the many who would be still more en- dangered if such accusations were not entertained, and even, where there is sufficient doubt, sent for trial ? M. Louis Blanc himself would hardly think of calling our ordinary police regulations gross derelictions from Liberal principle ; yet they are entirely founded on the idea that for the protection of the many, the State must not scruple to impose regulations which will be often penal and injurious to the few. What more is there in the demand by the State for power to inter- fere, in the exercise of a still wider discretion, with the liberty of the few for the sake of the property, liberty, and life of the many, than an extension of this ordinary power,—an extension justified by the fact that this ordinary power has not answered the ordinary purpose ? If order, and mutual respect for each others' rights, be the first conditions of a free society, we cannot see how any conceivable Liberalism can condemn a government responsible for such order, for demanding from the freely chosen representatives of the nation greater powers, in order to restrain the lawless, or for freely wielding those powers when they are freely accorded. We confess we hardly understand in what sense M. Louis Blanc thinks this a derelic- tion from Liberal principle.
But he will say perhaps that the very fact that such unusual powers are needed to preserve order, ought to convince all true Liberals that Ireland is not really free, is not really governed by a government which possesses the confidence of the people ? Perhaps it does. Undoubtedly the reluctance of the Irish to denounce agrarian crime and their fidelity to the cause of the assassin, do indicate a rooted belief in the hostility of the law and administration to the people. But when M. Louis Blanc infers from this, that "either the remedies adopted are not those demanded by the nature of the evil, or that Ireland is irreconcilable,"—we maintain that he argues like a physi- cian who at once despairs of a medicine only because his patient is growing worse under the prospect of taking it. Does M. Louis Blanc seriously believe that the Irish people are exasperated at the prospect of the Irish Land Bill, and are expressing that exasperation by agrarian outrages ? If he does, he may well say that the remedies adopted are not those demanded by the nature of the evil. But we believe that no such suggestion has yet been dropped by any British or Irish politician, and we can hardly believe that this notion is enter- tained by M.Louis Blanc himself. But if he does not believe this, and ascribes the increase of agrarian crime to any extraneous cause whatever,—if he is only calling our attention forcibly to the fact that the promise of what the Government regard as justice is not as yet drawing over the people of Ireland to our side,—he seems to us a very impatient adviser. Evils the seeds of which have been carefully sown for hundreds of years cannot be rooted up in a session. History shows that an outburst of agrarian crime in Ireland has invari- ably followed every political excitement, especially where it has been an excitement consequent on a just concession of Irish rights. There are some natures which all kinds of agitation so upset and disorder, that nervous derangement inevitably follows, and this is more common with constitutions habitually low in tone than with any others. It seems to us almost ludicrous to judge the effect of any measure like the Irish Land Law by the attitude of the country on its first introduction. You might just as well judge of the moral effect of school on a boy by his mode of receiving the announcement that he is to go to school. As for Ireland's proving irreconcilable,—we suppose M. Louis Blanc's drift is that if she does, we ought to break her chains and bid her go in peace. Now we don't believe a bit in any country proving irreconcilable which is both well governed and virtually governed by her own chosen representatives,—which will soon be, we hope, the case in Ireland (since even for this Coercion Bill of the Government's the vast majority of Irish Members voted, leaving only four- teen Irish Members, including tellers, with one Englishman, in the minority); and we hold it to be the duty of statesmanship not to talk about irreconcilability, but to solve the problem of reconcilability, at which Mr. Gladstone is, we fully believe, making a very promising attempt. But even were Ireland to remain irreconcilable after twenty years of just and equal govern- ment such as Mr. Gladstone has inaugurated, does it abso- lutely follow on any truly Liberal principles that Great Britain is bound to bid her go ? We do not say that if the experi- ment had been tried long enough and fairly enough, we might not reply in the affirmative ; but we are quite sure that the staunchest Liberals have often replied in the negative to any demand of a fraction of the people for the right to separate from, and endanger the life of, the whole. If the Northern States were justifiable, quite apart from the question of Slavery, in resisting the secession of the South, as M. Louis Blanc pro- bably believes, we cannot see how Great Britain could be held unjustified for resisting the secession of Ireland, so long as we leave Ireland no just right ungranted. We confess that, on the whole, M. Louis Blanc's remarks on the Irish Coercion Bill have disappointed us. We doubt if they are quite worthy of the truly enlightened foreigner from whom they proceed,— though we have done our best to enter absolutely into his position, and look at our conduct with his eyes.
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