Handbook of Home Rule: Being Articles on the Irish Question — The ''Unionist'' Case for Home Rule by R. Barry O'Brien, pt 4

MR.

DICEY.

A fairer controversalist, or an abler supporter of the "paper Union," than Mr. Dicey there is not; nevertheless no man has fired more effective shots into Mr. Pitt's unfortunate arrangement of 1800. How well has the "failure" of that arrangement been described in these pithy sentences--"Eighty-six years have elapsed since the conclusion of the Treaty of Union between England and Ireland.

The two countries do not yet form an united nation.

The Irish people are, if not more wretched (for the whole European world has made progress, and Ireland with it), yet more conscious of wretchedness, and Irish disaffection to England is, if not deeper, more widespread than in 1800. An Act meant by its authors to be a source of the prosperity and concord which, though slowly, followed upon the Union with Scotland, has not made Ireland rich, has not put an end to Irish lawlessness, has not terminated the feud between Protestants and Catholics, has not raised the position of Irish tenants, has not taken away the causes of Irish discontent, and has, therefore, not removed Irish disloyalty.

This is the indictment which can fairly be brought against the Act of Union."

[53] What follows reflects honour on Mr. Dicey as an honest opponent who does not shrink from facts; but what a wholesale condemnation of the policy of the Imperial Parliament!

"On one point alone (it may be urged) all men, of whatever party or of whatever nation, who have seriously studied the annals of Ireland are agreed--the history is a record of incessant failure on the part of the Government, and of incessant misery on the part of the people.

On this matter, if on no other, De Beaumont, Froude, and Lecky are at one.

As to the guilt of the failure or the cause of the misery, men may and do differ; that England, whether from her own fault or the fault of the Irish people, or from perversity of circumstances, has failed in Ireland of achieving the elementary results of good government is as certain as any fact of history or of experience.

Every scheme has been tried in turn, and no scheme has succeeded or has even, it may be suggested, produced its natural effects.

Oppression of the Catholics has increased the adherents and strengthened the hold of Catholicism.

Protestant supremacy, while it lasted, did not lead even to Protestant contentment, and the one successful act of resistance to the English dominion was effected by a Protestant Parliament supported by an army of volunteers, led by a body of Protestant officers.

The independence gained by a Protestant Parliament led, after eighteen years, to a rebellion so reckless and savage that it caused, if it did not justify, the destruction of the Parliament and the carrying of the Union.

The Act of Union did not lead to national unity, and a measure which appeared on the face of it (though the appearance, it must be admitted, was delusive) to be a copy of the law which bound England and Scotland into a common country inspired by common patriotism, produced conspiracy and agitation, and at last placed England and Ireland further apart, morally, than they stood at the beginning of the century.

The Treaty of Union, it was supposed, missed its mark because it was not combined with Catholic Emancipation.

The Catholics were emancipated, but emancipation, instead of producing loyalty, brought forth the cry for repeal.

The Repeal movement ended in failure, but its death gave birth to the attempted rebellion in 1848. Suppressed rebellion begot Fenianism, to be followed in its turn by the agitation for Home Rule.

The movement relies, it is said, and there is truth in the assertion, on constitutional methods for obtaining redress.

But constitutional measures are supplemented by boycotting, by obstruction, by the use of dynamite.

A century of reform has given us Mr. Parnell instead of Grattan, and it is more than possible that Mr. Parnell may be succeeded by leaders in whose eyes Mr. Davitt's policy may appear to be tainted with moderation.

No doubt, in each case the failure of good measures admits, like every calamity in public or private life, of explanation, and after the event it is easy to see why, for example, the Poor Law, when extended to Ireland, did not produce even the good effects such as they are which in England are to be set against its numerous evils; or why an emigration of unparalleled proportions has diminished population without much diminishing poverty; why the disestablishment of the Anglican Church has increased rather than diminished the hostility to England of the Catholic priesthood; or why two Land Acts have not contented Irish farmers.

It is easy enough, in short, and this without having any recourse to theory of race, and without attributing to Ireland either more or less of original sin than falls to the lot of humanity, to see how it is that imperfect statesmanship--and all statesmanship, it should be remembered, is imperfect--has failed in obtaining good results at all commensurate with its generally good intentions.

Failure, however, is none the less failure because its causes admit of analysis.

It is no defence to bankruptcy that an insolvent can, when brought before the Court, lucidly explain the errors which resulted in disastrous speculations.

The failure of English statesmanship, explain it as you will, has produced the one last and greatest evil which misgovernment can cause.

It has created hostility to the law in the minds of the people.

The law cannot work in Ireland because the classes whose opinion in other countries supports the actions of the courts, are in Ireland, even when not law-breakers, in full sympathy with law-breakers."

[54] No Home Ruler has described the evils of English misrule in Ireland with such vigour as this.

"Bad administration, religious persecution, above all, a thoroughly vicious land tenure, accompanied by such sweeping confiscations as to make it, at any rate, a plausible assertion that all land in Ireland has during the course of Irish history been confiscated at least thrice over, are admittedly some of the causes, if they do not constitute the whole cause, of the one immediate difficulty which perplexes the policy of England.

This is nothing else than the admitted disaffection to the law of the land prevailing among large numbers of Irish people.

The existence of this disaffection, whatever be the inference to be drawn from it, is undeniable.

A series of so-called Coercion Acts, passed both before and since the Act of Union, give undeniable evidence, if evidence were wanted, of the ceaseless and, as it would appear, almost irrepressible resistance in Ireland offered by the people to the enforcement of the law.

I have not the remotest inclination to underrate the lasting and formidable character of this opposition between opinion and law, nor can any jurist who wishes to deal seriously with a serious and infinitely painful topic, question for a moment that the ultimate strength of law lies in the sympathy, or at the lowest the acquiescence, of the mass of the population.

Judges, constables, and troops become almost powerless when the conscience of the people permanently opposes the execution of the law.

Severity produces either no effect or bad effects; executed criminals are regarded as heroes or martyrs; and jurymen and witnesses meet with the execration and often with the fate of criminals.

On such a point it is best to take the opinion of a foreigner unaffected by prejudices or passions from which no Englishman or Irishman has a right to suppose himself free.

"'Quand vous en êtes arroês à ce point, croyez bien que dans cette voie de regueurs tous vos efforts pour rétabler l'ordre et la paix seront inutiles.

En vain, pour réprimer des crimes atroces, vous appellerez à votre aide toutes les sévérités du code de Dracon; en vain vous ferez des lois cruelles pour arrêter le cours de révoltantes cruautés;

vainement vous frapperez de mort le moindre délit se rattachant à ces grands crimes; vainement, dans l'effroi de votre impuissance, vous suspendrez le cours des lois ordinaries proclamerez des comtés entiers en état de suspicion légale, voilerez le principe de la liberté individuelle, créerez des cours martiales, des commissions extraordinaires, et pour produire de salutaires impressions de terreur, multiplierez à l'excès les exécutions capitales.'

"[55] The next passage is a trenchant condemnation of the "Union."

"There exists in Europe no country so completely at unity with itself as Great Britain.

Fifty years of reform have done their work, and have removed the discontents, the divisions, the disaffection, and the conspiracies which marked the first quarter, or the first half of this century.

Great Britain, if left to herself, could act with all the force, consistency, and energy given by unity of sentiment and community of interests.

The distraction and the uncertainty of our political aims, the feebleness and inconsistency with which they are pursued, arise, in part at least, from the connection with Ireland.

Neither Englishmen nor Irishmen are to blame for the fact that it is difficult for communities differing in historical associations and in political conceptions to keep step together in the path of progress.

For other evils arising from the connection the blame must rest on English Statesmen.

All the inherent vices of party government, all the weaknesses of the parliamentary system, all the evils arising from the perverse notion that reform ought always to be preceded by a period of lengthy and more than half factitious agitation met by equally factitious resistance, have been fostered and increased by the interaction of Irish and English politics.

No one can believe that the inveterate habit of ruling one part of the United Kingdom on principles which no one would venture to apply to the government of any other part of it, can have produced anything but the most injurious effect on the stability of our Government and the character of our public men.

The advocates of Home Rule find by far their strongest arguments for influencing English opinion, in the proofs which they produce that England, no less than Ireland, has suffered from a political arrangement under which legal union has failed to secure moral union.

_These arguments, whatever their strength, are, however, it must be noted, more available to a Nationalist than to an advocate of federalism_."

[56] The words which I have italicised are an expression of opinion; but nothing can alter the damning statement of fact--"legal union has failed to secure moral union."

Nevertheless, Mr. Dicey advocates the maintenance of this legal union as it stands.

"On the whole, then, it appears that, whatever changes or calamities the future may have in store, the maintenance of the Union is at this day the one sound policy for England to pursue.

It is sound because it is expedient; it is sound because it is just."

[57] I shall not discuss the question of Home Rule with the eminent writers whose works I have cited.

It is enough that they demonstrate the failure of the Union.

So convinced was Mr. Lecky, in 1871, of its failure, that he suggested a readjustment of the relations of the two countries on a federal basis;[58] and Mr. Goldwin Smith, in 1868, contended that the Irish difficulty could only be settled by the establishment of Provincial Councils, and an occasional session of the Imperial Parliament in Dublin.

Mr. Dicey clings to the existing Union while demonstrating its failure, because he has persuaded himself that the only alternative is separation.

Irishmen may be pardoned for acting on Mr. Dicey's facts, and disregarding his prophecies.

The mass of Irishmen believe, with Grattan, that the ocean protests against separation as the sea protests against such a union as was attempted in 1800. [59] FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 26: Omissions here and elsewhere are merely for purposes of space.

In some places the omitted parts would strengthen the Irish case;

in no place would they weaken it.

] [Footnote 27: Lecky, _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_, new edit.

(1871), Introduction, pp. viii.

, xiv.

] [Footnote 28: Lecky, _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_, new edit.

(1871), Introduction, pp. xiv.

, xv.

] [Footnote 29: Lecky, _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, vol. ii.

pp. 59, 60. ] [Footnote 30: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 33, 34. ] [Footnote 31: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 120-123. ] [Footnote 32: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 125, 126. ] [Footnote 33: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 34-37. ] [Footnote 34: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 134-137. ] [Footnote 35: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 192-195. ] [Footnote 36: _Leaders of Public Opinion_, pp. 195, 196. ] [Footnote 37: Goldwin Smith, _Three English Statesmen_, p. 274. ] [Footnote 38: _Irish History and Irish Character_, pp. 13, 14. ] [Footnote 39: Ibid.

, p. 194. ] [Footnote 40: Ibid.

, p. 142. ] [Footnote 41: _Irish History and Irish Character_, p. 101. ] [Footnote 42: _Irish History and Irish Character_, pp. 139, 140. ] [Footnote 43: Sir George Cornewall Lewis, _Irish Disturbances_, p. 97. ] [Footnote 44: _Irish History and Irish Character_, pp. 153-157. ] [Footnote 45: Ibid.

, pp. 70, 71] [Footnote 46: _The Irish Question_, Preface, pp. iii.

, iv.

] [Footnote 47: _The Irish Question_, pp. 3-5. ] [Footnote 48: Ibid.

, p. 6. ] [Footnote 49: Ibid.

, p. 7. ] [Footnote 50: _The Irish Question_, pp. 7-9. ] [Footnote 51: _Irish Question_, p. 10. ] [Footnote 52: _The Irish Question_, pp. 16-18. ] [Footnote 53: Dicey, _England's Case against Home Rule_, p. 128. ] [Footnote 54: Dicey, _England's Case against Home Rule_, pp. 72-74. ] [Footnote 55: Dicey, _England's Case against Home Rule_, pp. 92-94. --The foreigner is De Beaumont.

] [Footnote 56: Dicey, _England's Case against Home Rule_, pp. 151, 152. ] [Footnote 57: Ibid.

, p. 288. ] [Footnote 58: I hope I am not doing Mr. Lecky an injustice in this statement.

I rely on the extract quoted from the _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,_ at p. 176 of this volume; but see Introduction, p. xix.

] [Footnote 59: Irish House of Commons, January 15th, 1800. ] IRELAND'S ALTERNATIVES.