THE HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE IRISH DISTURBANCE BILL.
THE question as to the duty of the House of Lords in rela- tion to the Irish Disturbance Bill, must be discussed on very different principles from the question as to the duty of the House of Commons. No doubt it was the duty of the House of Commons to decide strictly and solely on the policy of the Bill. Those who were convinced in their own minds that the Bill was thoroughly bad, and that to defeat the Bill, even at the cost of weakening or overthrowing the Govern- ment, was a primary duty, were right, of course, on those pre- mises, in voting against the Bill in the House of Commons. In the House of Lords, on the other hand, there is no doubt at all as to the opinion of the great majority on this
point. But there is the greatest possible doubt as to the wisdom of defeating the deliberate decision of the House of Commons by the help of a majority which could, if it would, render the whole course of the legislation of a Liberal Government at any time impossible. The House of Lords must necessarily to a very considerable extent keep its convic- tions in abeyance when a Liberal Government is in power, and decide on the wisdom of thwarting, or modifying, or giving way to a decision arrived at by a majority of the House of Commons, according to the individual circumstances of each case as it arises. We wish to argue the matter for the House of Lords, so far as it may be possible for us, on principles which would recommend themselves to a moderate Conservative Peer, and not on the assumption—which we ourselves believe to be the trim assumption—that Mr. Forster's Bill is a wise and just and necessary Bill, which the Government have brought in solely because they felt that they owed it to the people of Ireland, and to themselves, as responsible for the peace and safety of Ireland, to bring it in. The great majority of the House of Lords do not, of course, acquiesce in that view, and it becomes their duty, therefore, to consider not, in the first place, the wisdom of the Bill, but a very different matter,—the wisdom of using the constitutional power of the House of Lords to defeat a Bill the policy of which is approved by the House of Com- mons, but disapproved by themselves.
Now, the main consideration they have to take into account is this,—how far will the defeat of this Bill by the House of Lords repress or stimulate the adoption of the principles in Ireland which the Conservatives of the House of Lords most dread ? What will be the immediate result in Ireland of the defeat of the Bill ? It must be remembered that the Land Leaguers in Parliament, so far from being satisfied with this Bill, could hardly restrain their desire to throw it out ; that Mr. Parnell and Mr. O'Donnell and others of the party did not vote for the third reading ; that the Government expressly said that they needed this measure in order to enable them to resist the anti-rent agitation with firm- ness, and without inflicting grave injustice ; and that nothing will strengthen Mr. Parnell's hands so much as to be able to say in Ireland that even a measure of relief, of which he and his friends thought so ill that they were on the point of de- nouncing and rejecting it for its inadequacy, has so little chance with one branch of the English Legislature, that the whole authority of the Government is unequal to passing it into law. When these things are taken into consideration, we say, a Conservative Peer ought to think long before deter- mining to play the mile which undoubtedly Mr. Parnell would desire him to play,—the role of weakening the Government and strengthening the revolutionary party. If Lord Grey succeeds,—and let us say, parenthetically, how great a mis-
fortune it seems to us that such a name should be associated with such an endeavour,—the evictions will go on even in cases in which the Government themselves admit that without com- pensation for disturbance they are unjust ; and if forcible re- sistance is made to them, and bloodshed occurs, the represen- tatives of the Land League will be able to tell the country that the peasantry are being shot down for resisting evictions which even in the opinion of the Administration itself are un- righteous, but which the House of Lords insisted on sustain- ing. What kind of effect will that produce on Ireland? Will it be one favourable to Irish acquiescence in the Union, or unfavourable to it? Will it be one favourable to the enforcement of the law, or unfavourable to it I Will it be one favourable to the cause of the landlords, or unfavourable to it What a Conservative Peer has to think of is not what the Government should have done, but what, the Government being what it is, the House of Lords should do to keep the Irish peasantry loyal,—to strengthen the enforcement of the law, —to sustain the landlords and secure their fair rents. Will any of these purposes be answered by defeating the Government Bills ? Will it secure any conceivable object of a true Con- servative to justify the Land-leaguers in declaring that half- hearted as the Government is, the British Legislature is even more bitter against Ireland than this half-hearted Government itself? Will it answer any Conservative purpose in Ireland to weaken the hands of the Irish Government in all its attempts to enforce the law, by making it possible to say with justice that in enforcing the law the Government are doing what they them- selves as an Administration disapprove, but what the House of Lords refused to absolve them from the legal obligation to do I Will it strengthen or weaken the position of the majority of landlords,—and the majority are, we believe, good land- lords,—to make it easy for the agitators to confound good and bad together, and involve all those whom the Court would have supported in their demands for rent without compensation, in the discredit attaching to the few whom the Court would have required to compensate their tenants in the very act of evict-. ing them ? When the Administration have demanded the right to discriminate between the good and the bad, the House of Lords, in refusing that right condemns the good landlords to suffer under the opprobrium which should strike only the bad. And we can imagine no course less wise, less likely to support the cause of order, less truly Conservative than this. If Mr. Parnell could have his way, of course he would choose that the House of Lords should throw out this Bill. It would indefinitely strengthen his influence in Ireland, and undermine that of the Government. Ho will urge, and with truth, that when on the authority and at the instance of Irish Governments, the gravest interference with personal liberty was proposed, the House of Lords agreed to it without a question, but that when on the same authority and with equally grave declarations of responsibility, an almost infini- tesimal interference with the rights of property was proposed, the House of Lords absolutely refused to accord to the Irish Government what it had demanded as necessary to preserve peace and order in that country. Would any sober Con- servative Peer seriously desire to put it into Mr. Parnell's power to assert these things, and to assert them truly ?
And now look beyond the immediate measure, and let the moderate Conservatives ask themselves how best they may influence the future Irish policy of the Government, so as to modify it in a Conservative sense. Will they produce most effect by calmly delivering their protests, but throwing on the Administration the full responsibility of its own measure, or by refusing the Administration the power for which it avow- edly asks in the name of Irish peace and legality? It seems
to us that if they adopt the first course, they do all in their power to take away any excuse for a needlessly big, or what they
would regard as a revolutionary organic measure ; while if they
take the latter course, they do whatever is in their power,— though much in that way is, we hope, not in their power,—
to throw the Government into the hands of the popular agitators. At all events, by rejecting the present Bill, the Conservative Peers will advertise the Government that the Administration can obtain no support for a moderate Irish policy from either Conservatives or Home- Rulers. While the advanced party in Ireland scoff at them as timid, one House of the British Legislature thwarts them because they are rash and reckless ; and the result is that, if they are to succeed with their Irish policy at all, they must
either go much farther, or retreat into absolute inaction. It may be possible for the Tories to defeat and turn out the Government, in spite of its great majority,—but that
cannot be done by the House of Lords alone ; and while the House of Commons is true, it cannot be done at all. What Conservatives have to choose between, then, is either so much acquiescence as shall give the hope of Conservative neutrality in case the Government acts on cautious and moderate principles, or such ob- struction as shall drive the Ministry to choose in re- lation to Ireland between going much farther and standing absolutely still. Now, with Ireland in its present state, is the latter policy even conceivable ? Can a Government which has acknowledged itself dissatisfied with the actual condition of the Land-law, make the obstruc- tiveness of the House of Lords the excuse for withdrawing altogether from any dealings with the Irish Land-law ? That is obviously impossible, so that the only result of defeating the Government on this Bill in the House of Lords is to for- feit all Conservative influence with the Government, and to do all in the power of Conservatives to throw the Administration into the arms of the progressive party. But if, after a fair and lucid protest, they permit this Bill to pass, they may fairly hope that the Government will at least make it one of their chief objects in further legislation not to bring forward anything which might needlessly irritate the Conservative branch of the Legislature into bitterer opposition. In one word, what the Conservatives in the Peers should desire, is to put a drag on the Irish policy of the Government ; and the only question is, which is the best way of doing so ? Can any one doubt that the best way of doing so is to make it clear to the Government that, by moderation, they can neutralise the majority in the House of Lords, and that it is therefore worth their while to consider the views of that majority, so far as they can ? Can any one sup- pose that they will put an effectual drag on the policy of the Government, by defeating at once even a temporary adminis- trative measure,—a measure declared to be essential to the maintenance of peace and order in Ireland ?
'But, ii will be said, why does a Liberal journal give such advice as this to the Conservatives, if it be not for the inter- ests of Liberals, as Liberals, that it should be followed ? We reply, merely because we think that this is in the interest of peace as well rs of Ireland ; and nothing can be so essential, either to Conservative or to moderate Liberal views for Ireland, as that peace should be maintained. Rebellion, agitation, violence of all kinds, all these may come of stimulating just now the passions of the peasantry and serving the policy of the Land League. But, though rebellion, agitation, violence of all kinds may well lead ultimately to a revolutionary policy in Ireland, they will not conduce to any settlement of the Irish question such as either a Conservative or a moderate Liberal would approve.
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