AN INGENUOUS RADICAL.
WE are always glad when any party in the State founds its belief in pure principle, and repudiates mere opportunism. That is the way to test the truth of political convictions, even if on full consideration those who take this stand do not find it possible to maintain that lofty position for their creed. We are far, indeed, from supposing that the great majority of those who followed Mr. Gladstone into Home-rule were mere oppor- tunists, though we believe that the wish to secure 80 votes at one sweep had more influence with the leaders,—more even with Mr. Gladstone himself,—than the advocates who rested their Home-rule on the highest constitutional prin- ciple, were themselves at all aware of. Of these advocates Mr. ilolford Knight's letter, printed in another colunm, makes it clear that he is one. But while it is a very easy matter to flourish constitutional principles before one's eyes, and the eyes of one's party, it is a very difficult thing to exclude altogether all considerations of oppor- tunist expediency from practical politics. The devotees of abstract principle in relation to self-government will find themselves met by difficulties of the gravest kind at a hundred different points if they try to make those principles hold water effectually in political argument. How will they justify, for instance, the very first arbitrary assumption of representative government that a majority of only one or more is to exert all the representative influence of the constituency which gives that majority, and that the perhaps almost equal minority is to have none at all ? Will they say that that is abstractedly just ? They cannot maintain that the political injustices in one place will neutralise the political injustices in another, when they see General Elections in which, as in that of 1895, the same injustice,—if it be injustice,— occurs in constituency after constituency,—and a popular majority of 100,000 votes scattered over a whole country gives a representative majority of 152, whereas a popular majority of 200,000 in the previous General Election, gave a representative majority of only 40. Is that abstract right on any principle on which the Radical elector can take the lofty ground of repudiating anything like oppor- tunism, and advocating self-government for communities in the same sense in which the Liberal party advocates self-government for the individual ? Let us go a step farther, and apply the abstract principles of self-govern- ment to such a State as Ireland, which is broken up into two communities of almost opposite faith and political genius. Is it possible to claim as of absolute right on the principles of self-government, that the Catholics of Ireland shall rule over the Protestants of the North-East counties with an absolute sway, solely on the ground that they greatly outnumber them, when it is maintained that the English people have no right at all to refuse Ireland separate self-government on the same ground ? Again, how can it be abstractedly just to concede separate self- government to Ireland, and to refuse it to Wales and Scotland and London, and perhaps Northumbria and East Anglia and Wessex, whenever and if ever these sections of the country should claim the right, as some of them appear likely to claim it ? Is there to be no finality at all in maintaining the unity and cohesion of a nation when any fragment of it demands separate self- government ? The only difference between us and our correspondent, Mr. Holford Knight, is that we maintain that a nation once constituted, a nation that has resisted for centuries the disintegrating influence of disaffected populations, has the right to go on resisting it on the same ground on which the individual who has resisted for years the attempt to assimilate his conduct to the uniform pattern of that of his neighbours, has the right, and ought to have the liberty, to maintain his own inde- pendence and to defy the encroachments of his neighbours on his individual liberty. Somewhere in every attempt to define self-government for communities you must admit the arbitrary right of resisting changes which will unsettle the realm, even though doctrinaires may, with a show of reason, brand your principles as merely opportunist. If Ireland is to be conceded the right to break away in spite of her composite society, in spite of the vehement protests of one-third at least of her people, in spite of the danger to the United Kingdom of this great inroad on the unity of the Legislature and Administration, then, as we have seen already in practice, the same right will be claimed for other sections of the Kingdom in numbers that will soon increase, till we shall be landed in a system of the utmost complexity and confusion. The abstract right of sections of a nation to rebel is a most encroaching and devouring principle, and no great State has ever existed which has not, by the very law of its being, resisted this encroaching and devouring principle at its very origin. " Ty Buis, j'y reste " is of the very essence of anything like strong person- ality in either individual or political character. We know that Ireland was far more miserable and far more unhappy before the Union than she has been since, though the last century has been a century of as much restlessness as pro- gress. Moreover, we know that no abstract right can be admitted for Ireland's separate constitutional entity, which will not mean abstract wrong for one-third of her popu- lation, and great constitutional peril for all her partners in political organisation.
What strikes us as entirely arbitrary in the political attitude of the Liberals who base their political doctrine on the principle that the right ideal of all Government ought to be "for the people and by the people," is that they accept one majority, the majority in Ireland for Home-rule, as proving the abstract right, and reject another majority, the majority of the whole United King- dom, and also the majority of an important section of Ireland, against it, as being of no weight at all in relation to the question of right and wrong. Does not the principle that all Government should be " for the people and by the people " mean that ultimately a majority, as a majority, if the area in which the majority is to rule is rightly chosen, itself deter- mines the abstract right. How are we to deter- mine what the formula " for the people and by the people " means, except by looking out for a majority ? And if so, why do the Liberals regard the majority of the United Kingdom as a mere opportunist majority, while the majority of Ireland is a righteous and just majority ? We suppose the Liberals would say that it is because the area in which the majority is appealed to is not the right area in the case of the United Kingdom, and is the right area, in the case of Ireland. But that surely is a principle enormously difficult to establish. Why should the con- siderable minority in Ireland who cry out for the protec- tion of the Union be completely ignored, while the Irish minority in the United Kingdom is not to be ignored ? Why is the Irish minority to be regarded as sacred, though history and precedent are all against it, while another minority is regarded as destitute of any reasonable claim to separate consideration, though history and precedent are all on its side ? It is not possible to invest one majority with all the authority and majesty of "the people," and to deny another and more extensive majority any vestige of that character. The principle that no Govern- ment is just which is not " for the people and by the people," either applies to all communities or only to some. If it applies to all, then not only must Ireland be let go to govern herself, but the Protestant corner of Irelane. must be let go too ; and not only the Protestant corner of Ireland, but Wales, and Scotland, and London, or for that matter any special district of London which fancies itself aggrieved by being merged in a bigger and uncongenial population, must be emancipated and allowed to rule itself for its own people and by them. If the rule applies only to those majorities which can show sound reason for demanding a separate life of their own, then no country is less entitled to it than Ireland, which has been divided against itself for centuries, and has never shown any capacity for sober, wise, and just self-government.
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