Handbook of Home Rule: Being Articles on the Irish Question — The ''Unionist'' Case for Home Rule by R. Barry O'Brien, pt 1

BY R.

BARRY O'BRIEN.

I am often asked, What are the best books to read on the Irish question?

and I never fail to mention Mr. Lecky's _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_ and the _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_; Mr. Goldwin Smith's _Irish History and Irish Character, Three English Statesmen, The Irish Question_, and Professor Dicey's admirable work, _England's Case against Home Rule_.

Indeed, the case for Home Rule, as stated in these books, is unanswerable; and it redounds to the credit of Mr. Lecky, Mr. Goldwin Smith, and Mr. Dicey that their narrative of facts should in no wise be prejudiced by their political opinions.

That their facts are upon one side and their opinions on the other is a minor matter.

Their facts, I venture to assert, have made more Home Rulers than their opinions can unmake.

To put this assertion to the test I propose to quote some extracts from the works above mentioned.

These extracts shall be full and fair.

Nothing shall be left out that can in the slightest degree qualify any statement of fact in the context.

Arguments will be omitted, for I wish to place facts mainly before my readers.

From these facts they can draw their own conclusions.

Neither shall I take up space with comments of my own.

I shall call my witnesses and let them speak for themselves.

I. --MR.

LECKY.

In the introduction to the new edition of the _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_, published in 1871--seventy-one years after Mr. Pitt's Union, which was to make England and Ireland one nation--we find the following "contrast" between "national life" in the two countries:-- "There is, perhaps, no Government in the world which succeeds more admirably in the functions of eliciting, sustaining, and directing public opinion than that of England.

It does not, it is true, escape its full share of hostile criticism, and, indeed, rather signally illustrates the saying of Bacon, that 'the best Governments are always subject to be like the finest crystals, in which every icicle and grain is seen which in a fouler stone is never perceived;' but whatever charges may be brought against the balance of its powers, or against its legislative efficiency, few men will question its eminent success as an organ of public opinion.

In England an even disproportionate amount of the national talent takes the direction of politics.

The pulse of an energetic national life is felt in every quarter of the land.

The debates of Parliament are followed with a warm, constant, and intelligent interest by all sections of the community.

It draws all classes within the circle of political interests, and is the centre of a strong and steady patriotism, equally removed from the apathy of many Continental nations in time of calm, and from their feverish and spasmodic energy in time of excitement.

Its decisions, if not instantly accepted, never fail to have a profound and calming influence on the public mind.

It is the safety-valve of the nation.

The discontents, the suspicions, the peccant humours that agitate the people, find there their vent, their resolution, and their end.

"It is impossible, I think, not to be struck by the contrast which, in this respect, Ireland presents to England.

If the one country furnishes us with an admirable example of the action of a healthy public opinion, the other supplies us with the most unequivocal signs of its disease.

The Imperial Parliament exercises for Ireland legislative functions, but it is almost powerless upon opinion--it allays no discontent, and attracts no affection.

Political talent, which for many years was at least as abundant among Irishmen as in any equally numerous section of the people, has been steadily declining, and marked decadence in this respect among the representatives of the nation reflects but too truly the absence of public spirit in their constituents.

"The upper classes have lost their sympathy with and their moral ascendency over their tenants, and are thrown for the most part into a policy of mere obstruction.

The genuine national enthusiasm never flows in the channel of imperial politics.

With great multitudes sectarian considerations have entirely superseded national ones, and their representatives are accustomed systematically to subordinate all party and all political questions to ecclesiastical interests; and while calling themselves Liberals, they make it the main object of their home politics to separate the different classes of their fellow-countrymen during the period of their education, and the main object of their foreign policy to support the temporal power of the Pope.

With another and a still larger class the prevailing feeling seems to be an indifference to all Parliamentary proceedings; an utter scepticism about constitutional means of realizing their ends; a blind, persistent hatred of England.

Every cause is taken up with an enthusiasm exactly proportioned to the degree in which it is supposed to be injurious to English interests.

An amount of energy and enthusiasm which if rightly directed would suffice for the political regeneration of Ireland is wasted in the most insane projects of disloyalty; while the diversion of so much public feeling from Parliamentary politics leaves the Parliamentary arena more and more open to corruption, to place-hunting, and to imposture.

"This picture is in itself a very melancholy one, but there are other circumstances which greatly heighten the effect.

In a very ignorant or a very wretched population it is natural that there should be much vague, unreasoning discontent; but the Irish people are at present neither wretched nor ignorant.

Their economical condition before the famine was, indeed, such that it might well have made reasonable men despair.

With the land divided into almost microscopic farms, with a population multiplying rapidly to the extreme limits of subsistence, accustomed to the very lowest standard of comfort, and marrying earlier than in any other northern country in Europe, it was idle to look for habits of independence or self-reliance, or for the culture which follows in the train of leisure and comfort.

But all this has been changed.

A fearful famine and the long-continued strain of emigration have reduced the nation from eight millions to less than five, and have effected, at the price of almost intolerable suffering, a complete economical revolution.

The population is now in no degree in excess of the means of subsistence.

The rise of wages and prices has diffused comfort through all classes.

...

Probably no country in Europe has advanced so rapidly as Ireland within the last ten years, and the tone of cheerfulness, the improvement of the houses, the dress, and the general condition of the people must have struck every observer.

[26] ...

If industrial improvement, if the rapid increase of material comforts among the poor, could allay political discontent, Ireland should never have been so loyal as at present.

"Nor can it be said that ignorance is at the root of the discontent.

The Irish people have always, even in the darkest period of the penal laws, been greedy for knowledge, and few races show more quickness in acquiring it.

The admirable system of national education established in the present century is beginning to bear abundant fruit, and, among the younger generation at least, the level of knowledge is quite as high as in England.

Indeed, one of the most alarming features of Irish disloyalty is its close and evident connection with education.

It is sustained by a cheap literature, written often with no mean literary skill, which penetrates into every village, gives the people their first political impressions, forms and directs their enthusiasm, and seems likely in the long leisure of the pastoral life to exercise an increasing power.

Close observers of the Irish character will hardly have failed to notice the great change which since the famine has passed over the amusements of the people.

The old love of boisterous out-of-door sports has almost disappeared, and those who would have once sought their pleasures in the market or the fair now gather in groups in the public-house, where one of their number reads out a Fenian newspaper.

Whatever else this change may portend, it is certainly of no good omen for the future loyalty of the people.

"It was long customary in England to underrate this disaffection by ascribing it to very transitory causes.

The quarter of a century that followed the Union was marked by almost perpetual disturbance; but this it was said was merely the natural ground swell of agitation which followed a great reform.

It was then the popular theory that it was the work of O'Connell, who was described during many years as the one obstacle to the peace of Ireland, and whose death was made the subject of no little congratulation, as though Irish discontent had perished with its organ.

It was as if, the Æolian harp being shattered, men wrote an epitaph upon the wind.

Experience has abundantly proved the folly of such theories.

Measured by mere chronology, a little more than seventy years have passed since the Union, but famine and emigration have compressed into these years the work of centuries.

The character, feelings, and conditions of the people have been profoundly altered.

A

long course of remedial legislation has been carried, and during many years the national party has been without a leader and without a stimulus.

Yet, so far from subsiding, disloyalty in Ireland is probably as extensive, and is certainly as malignant, as at the death of O'Connell, only in many respects the public opinion of the country has palpably deteriorated.

O'Connell taught an attachment to the connection, a loyalty to the crown, a respect for the rights of property, a consistency of Liberalism, which we look for in vain among his successors; and that faith in moral force and constitutional agitation which he made it one of his greatest objects to instil into the people has almost vanished with the failure of his agitation."

[27] Few Irish Nationalists have drawn a weightier indictment against the Union than this.

After a trial of seventy years, Mr. Lecky sums up the case against the Union in these pregnant sentences:-- "The Imperial Parliament allays no discontent, and attracts no affection;" "The genuine national enthusiasm never flows in the channel of imperial politics;" the people have "an utter scepticism about constitutional means of realizing their ends," and are imbued with "a blind, persistent hatred of England."

Worse still, neither the material progress of the country, nor the education of the people, has reconciled them to the Imperial Parliament.

Indeed, their disloyalty has increased with their prosperity and enlightenment.

This is the story which Mr. Lecky has to tell.

But why are the Irish disloyal?

Mr. Lecky shall answer the question.

"The causes of this deep-seated disaffection I have endeavoured in some degree to investigate in the following essays.

To the merely dramatic historian the history of Ireland will probably appear less attractive than that of most other countries, for it is somewhat deficient in great characters and in splendid episodes; but to a philosophic student of history it presents an interest of the very highest order.

In no other history can we trace more clearly the chain of causes and effects, the influence of past legislation, not only upon the material condition, but also upon the character of a nation.

In no other history especially can we investigate more fully the evil consequences which must ensue from disregarding that sentiment of nationality which, whether it be wise or foolish, whether it be desirable or the reverse, is at least one of the strongest and most enduring of human passions.

This, as I conceive, lies at the root of Irish discontent.

It is a question of nationality as truly as in Hungary or in Poland.

Special grievances or anomalies may aggravate, but do not cause it, and they become formidable only in as far as they are connected with it.

What discontent was felt against the Protestant Established Church was felt chiefly because it was regarded as an English garrison sustaining an anti-national system; and the agrarian difficulty never assumed its full intensity till by the repeal agitation the landlords had been politically alienated from the people."

[28] Let those who imagine that the Irish question can be completely settled by the redress of material grievances take those words to heart.

But, it is said, Scotch national sentiment is as strong as Irish, why should not a legislative union be as acceptable to Ireland as to Scotland?

Mr. Lecky shall answer this question too.

"It is hardly possible to advert to the Scotch Union, without pausing for a moment to examine why its influence on the loyalty of the people should have ultimately been so much happier than that of the legislative union which, nearly a century later, was enacted between England and Ireland.

A very slight attention to the circumstances of the case will explain the mystery, and will at the same time show the extreme shallowness of those theorists who can only account for it by reference to original peculiarities of national character.

The sacrifice of a nationality is a measure which naturally produces such intense and such enduring discontent that it never should be exacted unless it can be accompanied by some political or material advantages to the lesser country that are so great and at the same time so evident as to prove a corrective.

Such a corrective in the case of Scotland, was furnished by the commercial clauses.

The Scotch Parliament was very arbitrary and corrupt, and by no means a faithful representation of the people.

The majority of the nation were certainly opposed to the Union, and, directly or indirectly, it is probable that much corruption was employed to effect it; but still the fact remains that by it one of the most ardent wishes of all Scottish patriots was attained, that there had been for many years a powerful and intelligent minority who were prepared to purchase commercial freedom even at the expense of the fusion of legislatures, and that in consequence of the establishment of free trade the next generation of Scotchmen witnessed an increase of material well-being that was utterly unprecedented in the history of their country.

Nothing equivalent took place in Ireland.

The gradual abolition of duties between England and Ireland was, no doubt, an advantage to the lesser country, but the whole trade to America and the other English colonies had been thrown open to Irishmen between 1775 and 1779. Irish commerce had taken this direction; the years between 1779 and the rebellion of 1798 were probably the most prosperous in Irish history, and the generation that followed the Union was one of the most miserable.

The sacrifice of nationality was extorted by the most enormous corruption in the history of representative institutions.

It was demanded by no considerable section of the Irish people.

It was accompanied by no signal political or material benefit that could mitigate or counteract its unpopularity, and it was effected without a dissolution, in opposition to the votes of the immense majority of the representatives of the counties and considerable towns, and to innumerable addresses from every part of the country.

Can any impartial man be surprised that such a measure, carried in such a manner, should have proved unsuccessful?"

[29] In the _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_ Mr. Lecky traces the current of events which have led to the present situation.

He shows how the Treaty of Limerick was shamelessly violated, and how the native population was oppressed and degraded.

"The position of Ireland was at this time [1727] one of the most deplorable that can be conceived....

The Roman Catholics had been completely prostrated by the battle of the Boyne and by the surrender of Limerick.

They had stipulated indeed for religious liberty, but the Treaty of Limerick was soon shamelessly violated, and it found no avengers.

Sarsfield and his brave companions had abandoned a country where defeat left no opening for their talents, and had joined the Irish Brigade which had been formed in the service of France....

But while the Irish Roman Catholics abroad found free scope for their ambition in the service of France, those who remained at home had sunk into a condition of utter degradation.

All Catholic energy and talent had emigrated to foreign lands, and penal laws of atrocious severity crushed the Catholics who remained."

[30]