MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S IRISH POLICY.
it/F CHAMBERLAIN'S speech at Birmingham on Monday will effectually dissipate the hope which some of his opponents had conceived that the article which lately appeared in the Birmingham Daily Post was meant as a sort of signal to his least inveterate enemies that he is again looking for a modus vivendi with the Home-rulers. Nothing could be more straightforward and satisfactory than his speech, though he need not have suggested that Mr. Gladstone is " tricking " the people instead of trusting them, and that he is performing some feat of legerdemain, like the conjurer who keeps something hidden under his hat. We quite agree with Mr. Chamberlain that Mr. Glad- stone ought to take the country into his confidence as to the extent to which he intends to push the federalism of his next Home-rule proposal. Without knowing that, the country can no more form an opinion on the merits or the risks of his policy than it could have formed an opinion on his Disestablishment policy in 1868 without the Sus- pension Bill by which he had clearly foreshadowed it. But it is one thing to maintain that a vast constitutional change, —involving a complete revolution in our political life and history,—such as Mr. Gladstone is understood to propose, ought to be frankly placed before the people long before they are expected to give their opinion of it at the polls, and quite another thing to suggest that Mr. Gladstone is keeping it back,—or, as Mr. Chamberlain says, "under his hat,"—only for the purpose of imposing on them something for which they are not prepared. Mr. Chamber- lain's own justification of a promise of the early concession of local liberties to Ireland is grounded on the fact that Lord Hartington went a good way in 1886 towards the promise of such liberties, and that Sir Michael Hicks- Beach and Lord Randolph Churchill have gone a good way in the same direction much more recently. But Lord Hartington, in our opinion, made a mistake in 1886, and has been very careful not to repeat his error ; while Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Lord Randolph Churchill are precisely the kind. of poli- ticians with whose tactics we do not desire to be asso- ciated. It was to their juggling that the Conservatives owed that disastrous intrigue with the Parnellites in 1885, from the discredit of which Lord Salisbury's Government has hardly yet recovered. The only passage in Mr. Cham- berlain's speech which makes us at all disposed to tremble for the future is that in which he appeals to the authority of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Lord Randolph Churchill as sufficient guarantee for the genuine Unionism of any policy to which they are disposed to give their sanction. Except, however, the needless discourtesy of attributing jugglery to Mr. Gladstone, and the needless honour with which he treats the manipulators of the surrender to the Parnellites in 1885, Mr. Chamberlain's speech is admirable, and sets us quite free from any fear that he is disposed to precipitate the concession to Ireland of local liberties for which, in the first place, the Parnellites are not in the least disposed to thank us, and which, in the next place, they would use, if they got them, only to extort what we are determined, not to give. Mr. Chamberlain insists with all the force and lucidity in which no man ever surpassed him, that the first condition of constitutional reforms of any End in Ireland, shall be a solid settlement of the Land Question. And that being granted,—it is a tremendous postulate, for no one has practically formu- lated such a, settlement yet,—we are quite ready to agree with Mr. Chamberlain that the Irish might very safely be trusted not to risk that settlement by asking for a consti- tutional revolution which would imperil all they had gained. "You will see," said Mr. Chamberlain, "that the settle- ment of the Land Question must precede the reform of local government. It would not be safe to extend local government to Ireland until we have dealt finally and satisfactorily with the Land Question." Nothing could be more explicit. And though we have a shrewd notion that to deal "finally and satisfactorily with the Land Question" is not quite so easy a matter, or one requiring so little time, as Mr. Chamberlain conceives, that does not in the least affect our perfect willingness to follow him into the ulterior question so soon as that final and satisfactory solution of the Land Question shall have been achieved. Let him wait patiently till then, and we will not murmur at any impatience after that consummation has been reached.
We heartily sympathise with and admire the generous spirit in which Mr. Chamberlain deals with the subject of public works for Ireland, and points out that it is not fair for a rich country like England to insist on Irishmen trusting to the development of national resources by in- dividual enterprise, when there is hardly another country in Europe where the State has not interfered to foster the development of the resources of the land in a far larger degree than the British State has ever been allowed to foster the development of British resources. That is perfectly true, and we admit willingly that, having in past times so often interfered injuriously with the development of Irish industries, we are bound to do all that can be safely done to give Ireland. such a fair start now that she shall have no reason to regret, commercially and industrially, her union with this country. But we have the gravest doubt whether Mr. Chamberlain applies his doctrine in the exact way in which it would be applied to the best advantage of Ireland, when he suggests that large drainage schemes, or other enterprises of that species, might be safely fostered by the State in Ireland, and yet maintains that we ought not to run any risk of burdening the British taxpayer even for the greatest result of all, the transfer of a, large portion of the Irish soil to the Irish tenantry. The reason why great State enterprises in Ireland are so risky, is that Ireland is a poor country, without great beds of metal or coal, without a rich soil, and without even. ordinary natural advantages for the drainage of her humid. and too often depressed surface. But that is the very reason which makes it so dangerous to risk the resources. of the State in attempting what, instead of making Ireland richer, may only make her a great deal poorer. But there is no reason of that End for not appealing to the one source of wealth which every country has, the wealth which the magic of industry can charm out of it, by making a large experiment in the transformation of tenants- at-will or leaseholders into freeholders. Once let that be effected, and we should at least see what the motive of proprietary pride and the security of proprietary confidence- could do in turning Ireland into a great pasturage, dairy- farm, and market-garden, in which small proprietors and great would compete for the supply of all sorts of pro- duce to her richer neighbour. It is here that British wealth would really help Ireland by excessively re- ducing the rate of interest at which the transformation could be effected. And yet it is just here that the scruples of Mr. Chamber am n and some of his friends step in. He tells us that the great change may really be effected, and effected successfully, without the help of British credit. Well, if so, of course we are delighted. We do not want to see Scotch and. English taxpayers called upon to give out of their hard-earned profits and wages. something substantial for the redemption of the Irish, land, unless it be really a great and necessary boon to- Ireland which can be secured in no other way. In that case, we should. think that we are called upon to expiate in this way the evil policy of our ancestors by which Ireland so greatly suffered. But if Ireland can redeem her own soil, by all means let her do so. That is precisely the point on which we are incredulous. After all, the terms on which this great transformation can be effected. must be a question of security, and British security is, unfortu- nately, much better than Irish security, and can there- fore command a loan on much more reasonable terms. We shall not be easily convinced that if there is to be State interference on a large scale to restore prosperity to Ireland, that State interference would not be best given in the form of British security for the great transfer by which the existing Irish tenants shall become proprietors, and a very considerable number of the present landed proprietors shall be bought out. But thougla. we may be disposed to risk more than Mr. Chamber- lain is disposed to risk in some directions, and to doubt the advisability of the risks which he is disposed to sanction in other directions, we have no doubt at all that his admir- able speech of Monday last will clear the air, and remove the uneasiness which the Birmingham, Daily Post's political trial-balloons had excited. as to Mr. Chamberlain's steadfast and thorough-going Unionism.
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