PEEL AND O'CONNELL.* THE object of this book appears to
be to show that in their dealing with Irish affairs Peel was almost invariably wrong and O'Connell was almost invariably right; and that, therefore, Home-rule ought to be conceded by the English people. To illus- trate and enforce this position, the history of the Irish Question during the Bret fifty years of the Union is given, based chiefly upon a study of the Annual Register, the memoirs and biographies of the time, and the Parnellite publications of the last few years. These documents do not constitute materials sufficiently ample for such a monograph as Mr. Shaw-Lefevre has undertaken to write, and many of them are open to suspicion. The book may do something to confirm those who are already Home-raters in their faith ; it will do little to con-
• pad o'Hon•ell, a Ravine of the Iriolt Policy of Parliament from the dot of Union to the Death of Sir Robert Pod. By the Right Ron. G. Shew-Lefenre, MX. London, Kagan Paid, Trench, and Co,
vert Unionists. But the contrast it presents between the political methods, violent as they were, practised by Repealers forty or fifty years ago, and those in favour with the followers of Mr. Parnell, ought not to be without some useful result. It is proper to add that Mr. Shaw-Lefevre states his case with something, it is true, of the dry precision of an official report, but clearly and forcibly, and without employing the exaggerated rhetoric too commonly resorted to on both sides in dealing with Irish history.
The text, however, does not warrant the sermon. The true history of Irish affairs, from the time of Peel's taking the Irish Secretaryship, at the age of twenty-four, in the year following O'Connell'e first attempt to found a Catholic Association (1811), up to his death in 1850, cannot yet be written. Bat Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's narrative may be accepted as being on the whole both fair and accurate, so far as it goes and so far as the materials at his disposition allowed. Its faults are, apart from those due to the bias of its author as a new convert, rather of omission than of commission. He makes more than One serious charge against Peel—even insinuating a belief in his readiness to reward a homicide—without citing any authorities, and his general accusation of a want of sym- pathy on Peel's part with Ireland and her misfortunes is based upon a misconception. Peel was stiff in his manner, unconoiliatory often in his intercourse with the world, some- what of a pedant, and, above all, reserved and undemonstrative to a fault. There is nothing in his career to show that he was at bottom of a hard and unsympathetic nature. His political errors in relation to Ireland may all be traced to his sharing the prevalent dogma of his age,—that Protestant ascendency in Ireland must at all risks be maintained. Burke had also been of this opinion, though he believed Protestant, or at least British, supremacy to be not incompatible with Irish legislative inde- pendence and the extension of political power to Catholics. Peel's Irish and Catholic policy was, of course, wrong, as we all know now, not so much in its methods as in its principles. That O'Connell should see the excellence of Catholic Relief was natural enough ; but his scheme for attaining it by bringing the country to the verge of civil war was, to say the least, a doubtfully excellent way. It betokens a lack of patience or power on the part of a political leader not to be able to compass his ends by other than minatory means. If Peel was far from fully appreciating the Irish side of the question, O'Connell either failed to recognise or put aside altogether its English aspect. He was as anxious to force England, or rather Great Britain, to reverse her domestic policy in order to serve the interests of Ireland, as Peel was to maintain that religions and political supremacy in Ireland which he deemed of vital importance to the larger interests of the Empire. The history of Catholic Relief, impartially considered, furnishes no arguments in favour of Home-rule. In fact, the Union, as Canning pointed out in 1813, should have facilitated emancipation, through merging, as it did, the Irish Catholics in the general popula- tion of the Kingdom. That it did not have this effect was due to the ascendency superstition. It may very well be that the Irish, in point of fact, would have obtained relief earlier but for the Union. But what is good in itself may at times be turned to bad uses ; and so it was with the Union, which enabled the ascendency bigots to gain their end by merging a question that excited but slight opposition in Ireland in one which called into activity the strongest prejudices of the people of Great Britain. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre points out that nearly a thousand petitions were presented against the Catholic Relief Bill, and many years had to elapse before the conduct of the Tory Ministry in relation to it was forgotten and forgiven. It is well, too, to remember that long before 1829 the House of Commons had shown itself favourable to Catholic Relief. Upon this question the classes were right and the masses were utterly and miserably wrong, as they have been on many others, though certainly not upon all, from the days of the Popish Plot down to our own times.
Whatever arguments, however, in favour of Home-rule a skilful dialectician may extract from the annals of the Catholic movement, it is difficult to understand what support Mr. Shaw- Lefevre can find for his new-born faith in the history of Repeal. What O'Connell desired was the Parliament of 1782, coupled with the entire removal of Catholic disabilities in Ireland. In other words, he desired an independent Legislature, but was content to accept with it what would have been a quasi. foreign Executive not responsible to the Legislature, a scheme of government only workable, as experience had sufficiently shown,
with the aid of an organised system of more or less illegitimate influences. To such a scheme, Home-rule is preferable from every point of view. It is certain that Ireland never really eared for any such resuscitation of Grattan's Parliament. Grattan himself did not; he opposed the Union, but accepted it after experience of an Imperial Parliament. Even O'Connell may not unfairly be said to have taken up Repeal mainly as an opportunist. He could not, at all events, have regarded it as indispensable, for during Lord Melbourne's Ministry (1835-41) he dropped it altogether. At the General Election of 1841, the feeling of the Irish constituencies was decidedly opposed to Repeal. In the following years, the movement in favour of Repeal assumed, it is true, immense proportions; but this sudden development was due almost wholly to the energy and dexterity with which O'Connell organised the agitation. He was driven to this to save his popularity, which was in danger of being filched from him by the Young Ireland Party, then just begin- ning to assert itself, the aims and methods of which O'Connell, who at heart was no demagogue, cordially detested. Finally, Repeal dwindled into a sort of Federalism which Sir C. Gavan Daffy, quoted by Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, explains as not much more than enlarged vestryism. But, using Repeal as an opportunist, O'Connell undoubtedly proposed a variety of measures to which Peel, during his tenure of office from 1841 to 1846, would have done well to extend a benevolent consideration. Peel, however, whose nature was not plastic, and who, despite his great powers, was not a statesman of high original genies, could never divest himself of the ascendency superstition, and though not unwilling to promote large measures of relief, was unable to reconcile a generous policy to Ireland with what he deemed to be his duty to the Empire.
Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's estimate of O'Connell lacks proportion. The Liberator was essentially a magnified nisi price advocate. There are two kinds of political agitation,—one intended to con- vince, the other to overawe. The Corn-Law agitation is an in- stance of the first kind, O'Connell's campaigns of the other. Both kinds demand certain qualities in their leaders that are not exactly great, but demand them on an ample scale. These O'Connell possessed upon an unparalleled scale. But what we venture to regard as the better kind of agitation demands many of the higher qualities of the statesman, and with these O'Connell was only moderately endowed. As an agitator, therefore, he must be relegated to the second rank ; but in that rank he has no equal. Peel, on the other hand, it is hardly necessary to say, daring the last decade of his life occupied the foremost place among contemporary European statesmen. The tribute paid to his memory by the French Chamber is almost sufficient warrant for this assertion. Nevertheless, his administration of Irish affairs lacked both vigour and insight. The explanation of this deficiency of performance must be sought partly in his want of certain qualities of temperament ; partly in the fact that O'Connell's imperium in imperio occupied his attention and excited his aversion for the man, his faith, and his works ; partly, too, it must be admitted, in his tendency to a pedantic adherence to formulas that warped his judgment and obscured his appreciation of facts. He never perceived that O'Connell was at bottom an opportunist, and through this blindness failed to avail himself of occasions that, properly used, might have relieved the present generation of some of its most onerous burdens.
In conclusion, we earnestly commend this book to the atten- tion of Mr. Parnell's followers, for, in truth, it teaches a valuable lesson, of which they stand in great need. It shows not the less clearly because undesignedly, that violent agitations of the minatory kind, even when they achieve success, do so at ruinous cost. O'Connell won Emancipation, but never after- wards obtained a patient hearing in the court of British opinion, save during the brief interval when he " suspended " Repeal. His violence distracted attention from the real issues, and even falsified them. He caused every concession to wear the air of a surrender, and it cannot be said that such a policy is likely to facilitate their attainment, even when founded in justice. One feature of his system, however, fully merits the unqualified praise bestowed upon it by Mr. Shaw-Lefevre. O'Connell steadily refused to have anything to do with men who advocated 'trims and outrage, and declined to receive a penny by way of subscription from the apologists of disorder, or help in any form from the foreigner.
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