TWO BOOKS ON IRELAND.*
THE subjects of the two works on Ireland we have bracketed together are very nearly as dissimilar as a disease and its cause. Yet they resemble each other in possessing literary and other qualities that are too rarely to be found in books dealing with matters on which beats the fierce light of contro- versy. Such titles as " The Irish Question " and " Cromwell in Ireland" suggest at first pamphleteering from the Parnell or the anti-Parnell, the Fronde or the anti-Froude point of view. Happily, however, the authors of the books before us are better than their titles ; possibly, indeed, they have risen superior to the temptations involved in them. Not, indeed, that Mr. King and the Rev. Mr. Murphy are without strong sympathies or decided opinions. The American professor has not been converted from democratic notions by his visit to this country ; he is all for the Liberal and all against the Conserva- tive methods of dealing with the Irish people and of solving the Irish problem. The Jesuit Father, again, accepts the Clarendon or" great bad man "theory of Cromwell. But both writers are so manifestly honest in their desire to get at political and historical truth, and have been so painstaking in their search for it, that they never allow their special views to interfere with the results of their industry, and the reader, for all ptactical pur- poses, loses sight of these altogether. What with visits to Ireland in 1881 and 1882, with listening to debates in Parlia- ment, with reading all the important books on his subject, and with interviewing and obtaining special information from various important Irish authorities, including Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Mitchell Henry, the editor of the Contemporary Review, Mr. Parnell, and Mr. O'Connor Power, Professor King has done his best to show " how it strikes a stranger ;" while, by an excellent series of appendices, containing the charter of the Land League, the No-rent and Archbishop Croke's manifestoes, and the texts of the Land, Coercion, and Arrears Acts, he has striven to give his book the character of a manual. Mr. Murphy's abundant foot-notes, on the other hand, are sufficient proof that he has gone through an amount of "literary buck-washing" that would have drawn groans from Carlyle himself. Although neither author writes brilliantly or attempts high political thinking, and although finality in respect either of Irish litera- ture or of Irish legislation is but a vain dream at present, these liooks are of such a character that they transcend, and are morally certain to survive, the polemics of the hour.
We think none the worse of Professor King or of his book that he has no heroic remedies to offer for the woes of Ireland. The more stubborn factors of these problems, the partial solution of which he has witnessed, will, in his opinion, " yield only to patience, forbearance, kindness, justice, and the magic of prosperity." He has much sympathy with the Irish anti-land- lord agitation, and has in some instances forgotten to take the statements of certain of the Irish " leaders " with the necessary grain of salt. Yet he thinks that a survey of the whole question will lead " most Americans " to the conclasion that "the English Liberals are, after all, the true friends of Ireland, and much more likely to promote the objects that the masses of the people desire, and that are needed for the peace and prosperity of Ireland, than the Conservatives." He asks very pertinently, " Would it not be far wiser for the Irish Party in Parlia- ment to support the Liberal Party earnestly and fairly in its efforts to promote reforms, than to hinder and embarrass it, and so delay business as to excite the indignation of the English people, and binder conciliatory measures ?" There is shrewdness, too, of the statesmanlike kind that "dips into the future far as human eye can see," in his quoting from Peel's farewell speech as Prime Minister in 1816—a speech which is, perhaps, unique in our political history as a mine at once of prophecy and of practical sugges- tion—the passage which runs thus :—" There ought to be com- plete equality between England and Ireland in all civil, municipal, and political rights, so that no person viewing Ireland with perfectly disinterested eyes should be enabled to say a different law is enacted for Ireland, and on account of some jealousy or suspicion, Ireland has curtailed or mutilated rights." In fact, a perusal of Professor King's book strengthens the conviction that all that can be expected of British politicians in respect of Ireland is to aim at the • The Question. By David Bennett Bine, Professor in Lafayette College, Pa., U.S. Loudon : W. H. Allen and Co. 1883.
Cromwell is Ireland: a Hi.forY of Cromwdl's Irish Campaign. By the Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J. Dublin : M. W. Gill and Son. 1393.
ultimate realisation of Peel's ideal, and until that is in sight, to deal with each case of Irish grievance or difficulty as it arises, and strictly on its own merits or demerits. Mr. King goes over the old ground of eviction, absenteeism, and " Celtic tenure," say- ing such naïve things as, "In the United States, no one ques- tions a landlord's right to live where he pleases," and proves, perhaps more clearly than ever has been proved before, that while "English conquest" has much to do with the bitterness of the feeling in Ireland towards the sister-country, it is abso- lutely hopeless to think of going back to the communal or other land system that prevailed before that "conquest" The deal- ings of the Englishmen of the past with the Irish people are so saturated with injustice and nnwisdom, as to compel their descendants, the Englishmen of the present, to be " long- suffering, slow to wrath, in mercy plenteous." But this fact should not induce them to enter on a career of historical romanticism, which could only end in confusion, if not in political chaos. The Irish, for whom Professor King has such sympathy that he quotes, apparently with approval, Mr. Arnold's celebrated characterisation of them, so unfavourable to ourselves, would do well to ponder what he says about Home- rule—the Home-rule of American fact, and the Home-rule of Celtic imagination—and such general statements as, "I have great doubts of their being able to live in harmony under any system of government they themselves would devise."
Mr. King is so cautious, and his book is so much of the -character of a manual, that we find in it few theories and few statements of fact to challenge. Yet we think that in connec- tion with the history of the events that led last year to the release of Mr. Parnell and his brother suspects, he should have named his authority for this statement, which appears on page 190 :—" An Irish gentleman, who has for many years been engaged in Irish affairs, and has an intimate knowledge of Irish politics, and has been associated with Mr. Parnell in many matters, said to me recently, in explaining Mr. Parnell's letter and the conduct of the Government, 'The fact is, when Mr. Forster, by a tyrannical use of the Coercion Act, broke up the -open organisation of the Land League, and suppressed open agita- tion, the Ribbonmen and other secret societies flourished, and got a powerful hold on the country, the Government was embarrassed, and Mr. Parnell from Kilmainham saw that he and his friends were losing their hold upon the people, and that other leaders were getting a powerful grip on the country. If matters went on in this way, it was evident that the Parliamentary party would lose its power. The result was the overtures to Govern- ment, and the Kilmainham letter." Then, again, Mr. King does not get rid so easily as he appears to think of the objections offered, both in England and in Ireland, to the " Castle " system of government, by noting the fact that the Dublin officials are chiefly "Irishmen appointed not for political or military reasons, but by examination." The chief -objection to the " Castle" is that in practice it means one set of Irishmen with strong prejudices and special ideas governing another set of Irishmen with different and, indeed, antagonistic prejudices and ideas. Those amongst us, again, who are of opinion that the experiment of governing Ireland from London, and not by a Chief Secretary, but by an Under-Secretary, responsible to Parliament and to a Home Secretary for the Three King- doms, may be worth trying some day, support it on the ground that it would mean the bringing promptly to bear upon the problems of Irish administration and upon Irish " ideas" the fair- mindedness of Englishmen and the resolute reasonableness of Scotchmen, in an atmosphere untainted by Irish prejudice, Presbyterian or Catholic, Ribbon or Orange, from Belfast or from Tipperary.
The "Curse of Cromwell" means rather the Cromwellian Settlement in Ireland than, in spite of the horrors of Drogheda and Wexford, the actual Irish campaign of Cromwell, which began in August, 1649, and ended in May, 1650. It is of the campaign only that Mr. Murphy writes, although he finds it necessary in preliminary chapters to show the condition of the great political parties, both in England and Ireland, before Cromwell made his appearance in the character of Protestant scourge. From the newspapers of the day, from the narratives of eye-witnesses, actors, or sufferers in the tragedies of these terrible months, above all, from Cromwell's own lettere, numerous and full of details, Mr. Murphy has compiled a narrative of his doings, and the doings of his lieutenants, from his landing at Dublin to his setting sail from Yougbal. It is an old story that is told in this volume, but seldom if ever has it been told so fully, or with such an accumulation of proof in regard to every incident. It may fairly be said that Mr. Murphy has proved beyond all possibility of doubt that Mr. Froude has totally failed in his attempt to minimise the Drogheda and other butcheries, and has also shown, from the speeches of Pym and from Puritan pamphlets, that these were thoroughly in accord- ance with, and, indeed, the fruit of the theological spirit then dominant in England. Cromwell's own intention, as a military and political tactician, was to strike terror into the hearts of the Irish Catholics, while, as is proved by his manifesto on landing at Dublin, which is given by Mr. Murphy, his hope was to gain the hearts of the native and humble Irish by affording them protection, and insisting, in his tremendously effective way, on his soldiers being fair in all their transactions with them. He was wonderfully successful, too, mainly, perhaps, on account of the wretched morale of the Irish leaders of the time. This—the weakness of Ormonde, the vacillation, unscrupulousness, and " saleability " of Inchiquin and Broghill —Mr. Murphy's pages bring into startling relief. Owen Roe O'Neill, the chief of the Ulster Catholics, was much above his colleagues, or rather rivals, alike in heart and head, and his mysterious death removed from Ireland the only soldier who might have proved an obstacle in Cromwell's path. Yet even he saw nothing immoral in coquetting with both Royalists and Parliamedtarians. Mr. Carlyle has quaintly speculated on what might have been, had Cromwell been a Scotchman by birth. Ireland is the land of historical and tragic might•have-beens, and one can hardly help wondering, after reading Mr. Murphy's book, what would have been Ireland's fate, had she " raised " a Cromwell of her own, instead of being " cursed " to the latest day by one from England.
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