TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW MOVEMENT IN IRELAND.
AGREAT and entirely unexpected change appears to be passing over politics in Ireland. When Mr. Gladstone's proposals were first brought forward, we were told by all manner of orators that they would only deepen the chasm between the two great Irish parties ; that the Catholics, exult ant in their success, would irritate the Protestants ; and that the Protestants, maddened by defeat, would in return assail the Catholics, till the last chance of internal peace would finally disappear. The nation nevertheless accepted those proposals, and what is the first result ? It is not only possible, but exceedingly probable, that the old schism will come to an end ; that religious ascendancy having disappeared, the two parties will combine to gain certain secular and political ends ; that the energetic and comparatively united men of the North will step forward in their natural position as leaders of the Catholic masses, and that the Irish will have to be dealt with as a united and resolute people. The mere proposal of dis establishment once made in good faith has broken the Orange party into fragments, the leaders going one way, the mass of their followers the other. The Presbyterian rank and file refused to fight for Episcopacy, a great section of the Episcopalian rank and file declined to place State assistance to their Church above every other consideration, and both together declared that the first point for Ireland, for Orangemen no less than Catholics, was security of tenure. Dr. Drew, a leading clergyman of Orange ideas, was, we believe, the first to give utterance to the new thought ; and he has been followed, it is believed, by a majority of the entire party, headed by their clergy, who see clearly enough that disestablishment will throw them upon the body of their people. The objects of the "Orange Democracy," as the new party is called, may be roughly summed up in two phrases,—freedom of election, and a Perpetual Settlement ; or, as the Rev. S. S. Frackleton, Rector of Maghera, puts it, the abolition of " capricious " evictions, that is, of any evictions except for non-payment of fair rent ; the settlement of fair rent by some authority other than the landlord, and, if we rightly read one of the Rector's illustrative stories, the concession to the tenant of the power of purchasing his farm at so many years of its rental : improvements made by the tenant to be absolutely his property, and, in case of eviction, to be paid for by the landlord "to the last shilling." This programme, which, even if we strike out the tenant's right of redemption, is far less lenient to landlords than the scheme which we have often defended under the name of the " Perpetual Settlement," was received with enthusiasm, not by landless Catholics in rags ; but by sturdy, sensible, Protestant farmers, many of them of Scotch descent, and embodies, there is no reason to doubt, the views of the rank and file of the Orangemen, who have already, it is admitted, broken with their leaders and the landlords, have elected Dr. Drew Grand Chaplain, have returned Mr. Johnston for Belfast in the teeth of the superiors' orders, and have largely contributed to seat Mr. Dowse for Derry, and Mr. Kirk for Newry. It is believed that the movement gains strength day by day ; it is admitted that an alliance has already been formed between the Orange Democrats and the old Liberals,—an alliance of which Orange leaders complain as unfair play,----and it is affirmed that were a general election to take place next year, the vote of Ulster would be unhesitatingly anti-Tory.
The change is a most extraordinary one, and it must be inevitably followed by one still greater. The Protestant democracy, resisted as they will be by landlords both in England and Ireland, by all Conservative feeling, and by the wealthy, alarmed at the smallest sign of interference with property, must at last ask the assistance, as they already ask the sympathy, of the Catholic masses. They are too few to succeed alone, and religious equality once proclaimed, they have too few separate interests to maintain by standing aloof, a mere fifth of the population. They have little to lose and all to gain by courting the Catholic votes, which we may add they are already in some instances receiving ; and they are certain, under the ordinary pressure of political warfare, to make every effort to secure them. They will scarcely, as we read Ireland, ask long in vain. The priests may dread the effect of an "unholy alliance," but with the peasantry who vote, the tenure dominates every question, and if they see tenant-right in the distance the priesthood will be powerless. Already Catholic laymen are asking in a kind of stupor whether the Ulster men can be really on their side, and once. convinced, they will mass up behind them as readily as behind any other leaders, perhaps more readily, knowing full well how determined and energetic the Northerners of Ireland have always proved themselves to be. It is within the range of fair probabilities that within five yearsIreland may be as united as Scotland ; that the Irish people may be like the Scotch, a " unit " in politics ; that in Ireland,. as in Scotland, Tory landlords may be the only class to whom political life is forbidden, who are, in the expressive American slang, "left out in the cold." Such a change seems to those who know Irish history almost incredible, but it is to such a change that this new movement tends ; and if it succeeds, as it threatens to succeed, as many even of Orange leaders evidently fear it will succeed, such a change is, humanly speaking, inevitable. Men living in the same island cannot agree on a. question like tenure and disagree on every other, or fight a battle like that which is to be fought for freedom of election without acquiring some faint idea that it is under given circumstances possible for them to be comrades. Irishmen are all human beings, subject to the ordinary laws of life, an& can no more keep up hereditary antipathies when hereditary grievances have disappeared, than English Jews can hate English Christians because for so many centuries Christians persecuted and Jews endured. Once relieved of unequal laws, there is nothing whatever in the circumstances of Ireland to separate North and South, Protestant and Catholic, while there is this immense question of the tenure to bind them firmly together. Divided, the Irish representation is a nullity ;united, it would almost hold the balance of power within the Sovereign Assembly.
Irish landlords must judge whether we, looking on these things from the outside, have over-estimated the importance of this new movement ; but we would ask them whether, whatever the existing facts may be, some such movement is not at any moment possible ? whether it does not threaten changes of the gravest character ? whether they have any resources of any kind which the Scotch landlords had not? and whether it will not be wise for them to consider carefully and dispassionately any reasonable compromise ? Her Majesty's. Attorney-General for Ireland (Sir Edward Sullivan) has this week stated publicly and positively that Mr. Gladstone has such a compromise to offer,—a compromise which will content, if not the hopes, at least the just expectations, of both parties to the struggle. In other words, a man whose genius for finance those landlords do not doubt, has thought out a plan which to be successful must first of all display financial genius. Will it not be wise for the landlords, in the face of the new movement, of more dangerous movements. in the background, and. of the national resolve to see justice done to Ireland, to approach that compromise in a spirit of calm and dispassionate consideration ? They claim with a. certain justice to have a special share of the qualities of governing men, of a race born to rule ; can they not display those qualities in the discussion of this question ? We do not. know what Mr. Gladstone's plan may be, we have not the faintest ground for believing that it even approaches this or that of the many schemes so often discussed, but this much at least is certain. It will leave the landlords the best-off class in Ireland, the class with most means, most leisure, and most. education for political life and social leadership. Is not that position, if it can be obtained amidst a decently contented and tolerably united people, a better one than that they at present. occupy, a position which is really a feudal superiority, withoutthe security or honour feudalism assured to the owners of the soil? Nobody is going to deprive them of any money that is theirs without the fullest compensation; and as to political influence, could any measure whatever, could confiscation itself, deprive them of influence as completely as the Orange Democracy threatens to deprive them ? That strikes at their power not only as landlords but as leaders. Mr. Gladstone's measure, if it renders them powerless to drive voters to the poll, will, at all events, increase their chance of leading them there. To use an illustration they will all understand, is the position of a wealthy French gentleman so bad that they should prefer that of the late Mr. Baker, that of an owner exercising legal rights under penalty of assassination, and reject a secure social dignity with a distinct preference in political life, to maintain a system which is neither more nor less than badly hidden civil war?
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