IRELAND AND THE PROPOSED REFORMS. T HE single sentence which we
had reason to regret and condemn in Lord Hartington's masterly speech at. Bacup a fortnight ago is already bearing fruit. Lord Hart- ington, in speaking of the County-Government Bill, objected strongly to its extension to Ireland, " unless we can receive from the representatives of the Irish people some assurance that this boon would not be misused for the purposes of agitation, and for the purpose of weakening the authority and the power of the Government." Even Mr. Forster at Leeds, last week, though we understand him to have deprecated any delay in the extension of local government to Ireland, admitted that it might be necessary to delay the passing of an Irish Reform Bill till fermentation of a dangerous kind had ceased ; but this week we have had Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, the Secretary to the Admiralty, echoing with all his might the remark of Lord Hartington. At Tunbridge Wells, on Tuesday, he is reported to have said :—" Glad as they would all be to see extended to Ireland the freedom we had in England, the present was hardly the moment to enable Parliament to give that freedom. The Government had applied remedies they believed to be necessary to the existing evils, and to the root of those evils ; but although the cause had been thus dealt with, it was not possible to follow up that treatment by the application of tonic measures until the feverish and inflammatory condition had passed away. For this reason, he trusted no serious organic reforms would be attempted in Ireland until peace and order were re-estab- lished." This seems to us very timid, as well as very dubious .policy, and certainly not the policy of true Liberals. Let it be granted, as a correspondent tells us to-day in exceedingly forcible language, that Ireland is never grateful for English justice,—nay, that she hates a measure, however just, which is passed by British Ministers in a Parliament mainly British, simply because it is to British Ministers and a Parliament mainly British, that she must owe it. Grant, again, what is possible, that Ireland, organising herself freely, will find more satisfactory opportunities for expressing her hatred of Great Britain, than Ireland possesses at the present moment. Still, surely it is neither to inspire gratitude in Ireland, nor to prevent the free outpouring of resentment, that a Liberal Government legislates for Ireland. The only fair reason for delaying genuinely remedial measures—for delaying the grant to Ireland of privileges which we claim in Great Britain —would be their tendency to foster disorder, plunder, threats, assassinations. Of course, if it could be truly said that a good County Government Bill, for instance, would put more power into the hands of Secret Societies, than it would put into the hands of peaceable men op- posed to Secret Societies and to the terrorism of irresponsible agents, we should have nothing more to urge. But is it even possible that this should be so 1 It is conceivable,— indeed it is not improbable,—that for a time at least the grant of more efficient local liberties would increase, instead of diminishing, the volume of the feeling in favour of complete Home-rule. That we do not deny for an instant. But how, by any fairly constitutional means, we are to pre- vent the Irish people from forming and expressing their own judgment on Home-rule, and the reasons for it, we cannot even imagine. Assuredly, no Liberal Government has ever professed a desire to stifle the free discussion of subjects of this kind in Ireland, or to arrest by penalties the growth . of any popular sentiment whatever, that does not take the form of directly stimu- lating to violations of the law. Liberals have always professed the conviction that to misgovern Ireland in order to prevent Ire- land from showing signs of disloyalty to the Empire, is as unjust as it is short-sighted. Yet what is the deliberate delay of organic improvements even more needed in Ireland than they are in England, except the misgovernment of Ireland for pur- poses of precisely this nature ? The true Liberal policy is to remove every grievance that we can remove without breaking up the unity of the Empire, as soon as we can remove it. If that increases the local patriotism of Ireland, and renders the agitation against the Union for a time more ardent and universal, we cannot help it. This has been already one of the results of doing Ireland such justice as we have done her, and yet no true Liberal will regret having done that justice. The policy of keeping from Ireland all the liberties that she would claim from a really popular Parliament of her own, in order to prevent her from obtaining a really popular Parliament of her own, is a policy tried for centuries, with the most fatal and tragic results. Indeed, the very essence of that policy is that it is right to do in- justice in fifty different ways, in order that we may not give
Ireland the chance of imposing what we hold to be a great injustice upon us in one way. That is not only a thoroughly selfish policy, but it is an exhausted policy,—one which the Liberals have given up, and which the Tories will never ven- ture to restore. And we cannot deny that the deliberate delay of what is so obviously and urgently needed in Ireland as a
good system of county government,—though we are taking pains to confer it on Great Britain--solely because the Irish will cry out for Home-rule,—is a leaf from the book of an obsolete and execrable policy which long ago resulted in Irish misery.
It may, however, be said that it is not on account of the mere stimulus it would afford to political discussion that any eaten-
sion of British Reform Bills—whether political or municipal —to Ireland, is so undesirable. It may be said that such a course would put dangerous weapons into the hands of the lawless, of the conspirators and terrorisers from whom Ire- land has suffered lately so severely. Well, that is a considera- tion of a really important character. If it be true that any Reform Bill proposed for England and Scotland would throw fresh power into the hands of Irish conspirators and assassins, of course that reform ought not to be introduced into Ireland, be- cause, in that case, it would not be a reform ; it would be a de- terioration. We cannot reasonably take very exceptional powers to detect and punish crime with one hand, and offer the means to stimulate crime with the other. That is not a rational course. But then it must be shown that there is at least some proba- bility of such a result from the extension of local liberties to Ireland. Is there any such probability V Would a County Board add any strength to the organisation of a secret society Would the extension of the household franchise to Ireland facilitate the terrorising of landlords by tenants, or of those who do not wish to dissolve the Union by those who do I On the contrary, every legitimate opening for the energies of the Irish will let off the steam which otherwise concentrates itself in these Secret Societies. You cannot discuss plans of assassi- nation in County Boards, or oblige Members of Parlia- ment to bring in Bills at Westminster for the confiscation of private property. The more every legitimate political energy is organised in Ireland, the more will politicians shrink from involving themselves in unlawful conspiracies by which they know that they will lose their standing-ground as poli- ticians. Mr. Forster never said a wiser thing than when. he declared last week at Leeds that " Home-rule or- dissolution of the Union means two countries, and the only way to meet that is by showing that we will treat the Irish as we treat ourselves. Therefore, I look forward to the same popular franchise, both in counties and in boroughs in Ireland, as in England." And not only so, but we at least look forward to a simultaneous grant to Ireland of the liberties, whatever they be, which we grant to England and Scotland. The only effect of postponing that grant is to confess that, though we hope to make the two countries one in the future, we are obliged to keep them two at present. There is, indeed, a very adequate reason for keeping them two so far as the special measures needed to put down local crime are concerned. You cannot apply precisely' the same remedy to a totally different class of exigencies. If Wales or Yorkshire were to develope a special kind of persistent crime, we should have to apply a special remedy in Wales or Yorkshire. But there is no occa- sion at all for postponing the extension to Ireland of a measure which is even more needed in Ireland than in England,—like a good County Government Bill,—solely on the ground that the existence of special crime in Ireland has obliged us to have recourse to a special remedy. One reason why there is so much crime in Ireland is, that there is so much discontent; and the reason why there is so much discontent is, that there is so little independent local self-government, so little wise control of local affairs. To postpone the removal of that evil, is to postpone the recovery, not to hasten it. We agree, indeed, with Mr. Forster, that the police arrangements must not be left in local hands. That would be, no doubt, endangering greatly the safety of both property and person. But then, we say the same for England and Scotland. We hold that nothing is managed worse than the local control of the police in England, and there is no good reason why the State, which prescribes the conditions of order all over the country, should not retain in its own hands, and refuse to delegate to others, the control of the agents who are to enforce that order. No one would think of handing over the control of the Metropolitan Police to the Municipal Government of London, and we believe it to be a mischievous arrangement to leave the control of the county police in the hands of local bodies. The Irish should have as complete a system of self-government as we have in England, but this ought certainly not to include what, in our opinion, it ought not to include even in any part of England,—the power to control those arrangements for enforcing the law on which the safety of life and property depends.
But it seems to us that, with this very necessary reserve, nothing can be more short-sighted or less truly Liberal in
policy, than to delay indefinitely the removal of the evils to which we justly ascribe the unhappy condition of life in Ireland, in deference to the craven fear lest a little more public life and liberty should increase the number of opportunities for hostile demonstrations against the Union. No doubt, it will increase the number of opportunities for talking openly in that sense,
but for that very reason it will diminish the temptation to plot secretly in the same sense. And if the Union will not bear a few more jets of eloquent denunciation, it is not the strong tie of interest and policy for which we, at all events, honestly take it.
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