TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ARE THE IRISHMEN DIDDLED ?
" THEN you've been diddled ! " That, Lady Granville tells us in her letters from Paris, was the answer made by a plain-speaking Englishman to a lady who recounted the result of her bargainings in the Palais Royal. " They've been diddled, most thoroughly diddled ! " is what the plain man is forced to say when he considers the upshot of the negotiations between the Nationalists and the new Government in regard to the Evicted Tenants Bill and the course of legislation. We have heard a great deal of talk about the discomfiture encountered by a slow- witted people in their efforts to govern a quick-witted one, but by the aid of their " pawky " Scotch leader, the former have for the moment at any rate, redressed the balance. Lord Rosebery and the Gladstonians may say, like the clergyman's gardener and general factotum in Charles Keane's inimitable picture : " They've often had the better of we before, but we've a'done they to a turn this time !" The Ministry have bought the continued support of the Anti-Parnellites, and have contrived to pay the price in the cheap and plentiful currency of promises which can- not be fulfilled. Lest we shall be accused of exaggerating, let us look a little closer at Lord Rosebery's " diddling " of the Irish,—" a State stroke " of the most consummate kind.
The Anti-Parnellites have at the present moment one predominant desire. Their constant preoccupation is, how to get an Evicted Terants Bill passed into law. Till they have secured that end, and have done something for the wounded soldiers of the Plan of Campaign, they can know neither rest nor peace. Read any of the speeches made by the leaders in the country districts, and it will be seen that the one object is to discover some plausible apology and explanation for the fact that the evicted tenants were not back on their holdings a year ago, and to find language strong enough to express the certainty that those tenants are not going to be deserted. These addresses are indeed quite painful to read, so uneasily, and with so much wailing, do the Anti-Pitmellites turn on the spit of their old promises to the men who came out under the Plan of Campaign. When the present Session opened, it looked as if at last the pledges were going to be redeemed, and an Evicted Tenants Bill passed into law. Mr. Morley's word was given, the Government were in no position to take a line of their own, and the fruit was in fact within reach. At the very last moment, however, the bough swung out of reach, and the Nationalists have been " left," " done," " diddled," and " hocussed." They - may not know it yet, but that is the fact,—a fact capable of the clearest possible demonstration. Consider the course of public business, and it will be seen that not only can no Evicted Tenants Bill become law this year, but that such a measure can never even pass the House of Commons. First comes Supply, then the Equalisation of Rates Bill, then the Labour Conciliation Bill, then the Factories Bill, and then the motion to constitute a Scotch Grand Com- mittee—a motion which will be fought tooth and nail by theUnioniat party, unless the Government agree to appoint an English Grand Committee, composed on similar lines. Next there is the Registration Bill, and hard upon its in- troduction must follow the most contentious Budget ever introduced into the House of Commons. When all this mountain of business has been got over, the Welsh and Irish parties are to scramble for first place. Let us assume that Sir William Harcourt will not, as in Sir John Tenniel's admirable cartoon in the current number of. Punch, re- quest Miss Erin to stand back a little, and that the Evicted Tenants Bill will come next after the Registration Bill. That is quite enough. The mere fact that the Irish have consented to their Bill following, not preceding, Regis- tration, is sufficient, and has utterly destroyed all prospect of its passing. And for this very good reason. The Regis- tration Bill means a struggle with the House of Lords over a question of the first magnitude, and a struggle which, whatever happens, must produce a Dissolution. The conflict with the Lords over the Registration Bill can only end in one of two ways. Either there will be a deadlock, the Peers declaring that they will not pass the Bill unless coupled with Redistribution, and the Commons refusing to agree to the principle of " one vote, one value ; " or else there will be a compromise, and a Bill for reducing the Irish representation will have to be passed pari passu with the Bills for " one man, one vote," and the alteration of the voting qualification. But whichever of these two things happens, a Dissolution must be the outcome. A. deadlock can only be put an end to by an appeal to the people, and one of the terms of the compromise will, of course, be instant Dissolution. The Registration Bill will, in a word, plunge the country into a political whirL pool, in which the Evicted Tenants Bill will disappear like a twig in the Maelstrom. But perhaps it will be said that the Irish party are sure to have insisted on a pro- mise that no Dissolution shall take place before the Evicted Tenants Bill has passed the Commons and gone up to the Lords. If the Nationalists are relying upon any such promise, they are doubly deceived. What is the use of promises to do things which are not in the power of the promisers ? Lord Rosebery cannot effectively pro- mise that he will not dissolve, for the very good reason that the right of Dissolution does not lie in his hands, but in those of the Sovereign. It is quite possible that if the conflict between the Houses became so acute as to be doing visible injury to the interests of the nation, and that it was clearly essential to end the matter one wav or another, the Queen might insist on a Dissolu- tion. In such a case, Lord Rosebery himself would probably not be sorry to go to the country, and the inter- vention of a higher power would afford him a complete excuse for not fulfilling an understanding with the Irish. Depend upon it, if the quarrel between the Lords and Commons takes an acute turn, a Dissolution will descend like the knife in the guillotine. When once the writs are out, all the old grievances and bargains and promises go to the wall, and men have simply to consider which party they want to win. Even if the Irish feel themselves " diddled," as no doubt they will, they cannot vote against Home- rule either in Ireland or in England. This the Govern- ment know well enough, and they would rely with confidence upon the obliterating effects of a Dissolution.
The Nationalists might be sore, but if the Home-rulers won, that soreness would not matter. Still less would it be of importance if the Home-rule party went to the wall- We may then feel as certain as it is possible to feel certain in regard to politics, that the Evicted Tenants Bill will be drawn into the whirlpool of Dissolution which will be produced by the Registration Bill, and that in giving their assent to its postponement, the Irish have been " diddled."
What the Irish Members ought to have done is clear enough. They should have insisted upon the Evicted Tenants Bill being put before the Registration Bill. If they had done that, the great measure of the Session, would have forced the minor measure through in front of it. The Government will do their very utmost neither to. dissolve nor to resign till they have passed their Registra- tion Bill, and thus, by putting the Evicted Tenants Bill first, they would have placed it out of the reach of destruction. It would have been hurried through at full speed, in order to clear the line for the Bill behind it. Its chances of passing the Lords would even have been improved by being put first ; for in spite of Lord Salisbury, the Peers have an objection to throwing out more than one Bill a. Session. They would have said : " Let us amend the Bill as little as possible, in order to make our firm stand on the Registration Bill more obviously not one dictated by mere wanton hostility to the Government." The fact that the Irish party did not perceive these things, but allowed themselves to be cajoled into letting their Bill drop behind the Registration Bill, is a sign of how much they miss the master band of Mr. Parnell. Lord Rosebery„ clever as he is, would never have been able to get the Evicted Tenants Bill so easily and quickly out of the way, had the Irish been led by an astute Parliamentarian. As long as the Nationalists are led by a committee boiling over with faction, jealousy, and spite, so long will they have to endure, as the comment of the public,—" Diddled again."
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