Handbook of Home Rule: Being Articles on the Irish Question — How We Became Home Rulers by James Bryce, M.P., pt 3

The effect of this uncontested grant to Ireland of a suffrage practically universal was immense upon our minds, and the longer we reflected on it the more significant did it become.

It meant to us that the old methods were abandoned, and, as we supposed, for ever.

We had deliberately given the Home Rule party arms against English control far more powerful than they previously possessed.

We had deliberately asserted our faith in the Irish people.

Impossible after this to fall back on Coercion Bills.

Impossible to refuse any request compatible with the general safety of the United Kingdom, which Ireland as a nation might prefer.

Impossible to establish that system of Crown Colony Government which we had come to perceive was the only real and solid alternative to self-government.

To those of us who had been feeling that the Irish difficulty was much the greatest of all England's difficulties, this stood out beyond the agitation of the autumn and the compromise of the winter as the great political event of 1884. [4] Although this sketch is in the main a record of Parliamentary opinion, I ought not to pass over the influence which the study of their constituents' ideas exerted upon members for the larger towns.

We found the vast bulk of our supporters--English supporters, for after 1882 it was understood that the Irish voters were our enemies--sympathetic with the Irish people.

They knew and thought little about Home Rule, believing that their member understood that question better than they did, and willing, so long as he was sound on English issues, to trust him.

But they pitied Irish tenants, and condemned Irish landlords.

Though they acquiesced in a Coercion Bill when proposed by a Liberal Cabinet, because they concluded that nothing less than necessity would lead such a Cabinet to propose one, they so much disliked any exceptional or repressive legislation that it was plain they would not long tolerate it.

Any popular leader denouncing coercion was certain to have the sentiment of the English masses with him, while as to suspending Irish representation or carrying out consistently the policy of treating Ireland as a subject country, there was no chance in the world of their approval.

Those of us, therefore, who represented large working-class constituencies became convinced that the solution of the Irish problem must be sought in conciliation and self-government, if only because the other solution, Crown Colony Government, was utterly repugnant to the English masses, in whom the Franchise Bill of 1884, completing that of 1867, had vested political supremacy.

[5] Session of 1885. --The allied powers of Toryism and Nationalism gained in this year the victory they had so long striven for.

In February they reduced the Ministerial majority to fourteen; in June they overthrew the Ministry.

No one supposed that on either occasion the merits of the issue had anything to do with the Nationalist vote: that vote was given simply and solely against the Government, as the Government which had passed the Coercion Acts of 1881 and 1882--Acts demanded by the Tory party, and which had not conceded an Irish Parliament.

At last the Irish party had attained its position as the arbiter of power and office.

Some of us said, as we walked away from the House, under the dawning light of that memorable 9th of June, "This means Home Rule."

Our forecast was soon to be confirmed.

Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, formed upon the resignation of Mr. Gladstone's, announced that it would not propose to renew any part of the Coercion Act of 1882, which was to expire in August.

Here was a surrender indeed!

But the Tory leaders went further.

They did not excuse themselves on the ground of want of time.

They took credit for their benevolence towards Ireland; they discovered excellent reasons why the Act should be dropped.

They even turned upon Lord Spencer, whose administration they had hitherto blamed for its leniency, and attacked him in Parliament, among the cheers of his Irish enemies.

From that time till the close of the General Election in December everything was done, short of giving public pledges, to keep the Irish leaders and the Irish voters in good humour.

The Tory party in fact posed as the true friends of Ireland, averse from coercion, and with minds perfectly open on the subject of self-government.

This change of front, so sudden, so unblushing, completed the process which had been going on in our minds.

By 1882 we had come to feel that Home Rule was inevitable, though probably undesirable.

Before long we had asked ourselves whether it was really undesirable, whether it might not be a good thing both for England, whose Parliament and Cabinet system it would relieve from impending dangers, while leaving free scope for domestic legislation, and for Ireland, which could hardly manage her affairs worse than we were managing them for her, and might manage them better.

And thus, by the spring of 1885, many of us were prepared for a large scheme of local self-government in Ireland, including a central legislative body in Dublin.

[6] Now when it was plain that the English party which had hitherto called for repression, and had professed itself anxious for a patriotic union of all parties to maintain order and a continuity of policy in Ireland, was ready to bid for Irish help at the polls by throwing over repression and reversing the policy it had advocated, we felt that the sooner Ireland was taken out of English party politics the better.

What prospect was there of improving Ireland by the superior wisdom and fairness of the British Parliament, if British leaders were to make their Irish policy turn on interested bargains with Nationalist leaders?

Repression, which we clearly saw to be the only alternative to self-government, seemed to be by common consent abandoned.

I remember how, at a party of members in the beginning of July, some one said, "Well, there's an end for ever of coercion at any rate," and every one assented as to an obvious truth.

Accordingly the result of the new departure of the Salisbury Cabinet in 1885 was to convince even doubters that Home Rule must come, and to make those already convinced anxious to see it come quickly, and to find the best form that could be given it.

Many of us expected the Tory Government to propose it.

Rumour declared the new Lord Lieutenant to be in favour of it.

His government was extremely conciliatory in Ireland, even to the recalcitrant corporation of Limerick.

Not to mention less serious and less respected Tory Ministers, Lord Salisbury talked at Newport about the dualism of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy with the air of a man who desired to have a workable scheme, analogous, if not similar, suggested for Ireland and Great Britain.

The Irish Nationalists appeared to place their hopes in this quarter, for they attacked the Liberal party with unexampled bitterness, and threw all their voting strength into the Tory scale.

As it has lately been attempted to blacken the character of the Irish leaders, it deserves to be remarked that whatever has been charged against them was said or done by them before the spring of 1885, and was, practically, perfectly well known to the Tory leaders when they accepted the alliance of the Irish party in the House of Commons, and courted their support in the election of 1885. To those who remember what went on in the House in the sessions of 1884 and 1885, the horror now professed by the Tory leaders for the conduct and words of the Irish party would be matter for laughter if it were not also matter for just indignation.

Why, it may be asked, if the persuasion that Home Rule was certain, and even desirable, had become general among the Liberals who had sat through the Parliament of 1880, was it not more fully expressed at the election of 1885?

This is a fair question, which I shall try to answer.

In the first place, the electors made few inquiries about Ireland.

They disliked the subject; they had not realized its supreme importance.

Those of us who felt anxious to explain our views (as was my own case) had to volunteer to do so, for we were not asked about them.

The Irish party in the constituencies was in violent opposition to Liberal candidates; it did not interrogate, but denounced.

Further, it was felt that the issue was mainly one to be decided in Ireland itself.

The question of Home Rule was being submitted, not, as heretofore, to a limited constituency, but to the whole Irish people.

Till their will had been constitutionally declared at the polls it was not proper that Englishmen or Scotchmen should anticipate its tenour.

We should even have been accused, had we volunteered our opinions, of seeking to affect the result in Ireland, and, not only of playing for the Irish vote in Great Britain, as we saw the Tories doing, but of prejudicing the chances of those Liberal candidates who, in Irish constituencies, were competing with extreme Nationalists.

A third reason was that most English and Scotch Liberals did not know how far their own dispositions towards Home Rule were shared by their leaders.

Mr. Gladstone's declaration in his Midlothian address was no doubt a decided intimation of his views, and was certainly understood by some (as by myself) to imply the grant to Ireland of a Parliament; but, strong as its words were, its importance does not seem to have been fully appreciated at the moment.

And the opinions of a statesman whose unequalled Irish experience and elevated character gave him a weight only second to that of Mr. Gladstone--I mean Lord Spencer--had not been made known.

We had consequently no certainty that there were leaders prepared to give prompt effect to the views we entertained.

Lastly, we were not prepared with a practical scheme of self-government for Ireland.

The Nationalist members had propounded none which we could either adopt or criticize.

Convinced as we were that Home Rule would come and must come, we felt the difficulties surrounding every suggestion that had yet been made, and had not hammered out any plan which we could lay before the electors as approved by Liberal opinion.

[7] We were forced to confine ourselves to generalities.

Whether it would have been better for us to have done our thinking and scheme-making in public, and thereby have sooner forced the details of the problem upon the attention of the country, need not now be inquired.

Any one can now see that something was lost by the omission.

But those who censure a course that has actually been taken usually fail to estimate the evils that would have followed from the taking of the opposite course.

Such evils might in this instance have been as great as those we have encountered.

I have spoken of the importance we attached to the decision of Ireland itself, and of the attitude of expectancy which, while that decision was uncertain, Englishmen were forced to maintain.

We had not long to wait.

Early in December it was known that five-sixths of the members returned from Ireland were Nationalists, and that the majorities which had returned them were crushing.

If ever a people spoke its will, the Irish people spoke theirs at the election of 1885. The last link in the chain of conviction, which events had been forging since 1880, was now supplied.

In passing the Franchise Bill of 1884, we had asked Ireland to declare her mind.

She had now answered.

If the question was not a mockery, and representative government a sham, we were bound to accept the answer, subject only, but subject always, to the interests of the whole United Kingdom.

In other words, we were bound to devise such a scheme of self-government for Ireland as would give full satisfaction to her wishes, while maintaining the ultimate supremacy of the Imperial Parliament and the unity of the British Empire.

Very few words are needed to summarize the outline which, omitting many details which would have illustrated and confirmed its truth, I have attempted to present of the progress of opinion among Liberal members of the Parliament of 1880. 1. Our experience of the Coercion Bills of 1881 and 1882 disclosed the enormous mischief which such measures do in alienating the minds of Irishmen, and the difficulty of enlisting Irish sentiment on behalf of the law.

The results of the Act of 1881 taught us that the repression of open agitation means the growth of far more dangerous conspiracy; those of the Act of 1882 proved that even under an administration like Lord Spencer's repression works no change for the better in the habits and ideas of the people.

2. The conduct of the House of Lords in 1880 and 1881, and the malign influence which its existence exerted whenever remedial legislation for Ireland came in question, convinced us that full and complete justice will never be done to Ireland by the British Parliament while the Upper House (as at present constituted) remains a part of that Parliament.

3. The break-down of the procedure of the House of Commons, and the failure of the efforts to amend it, proved that Parliament cannot work so long as a considerable section of its members seek to impede its working.

To enable it to do its duty by England and Scotland, it was evidently necessary, either to make the Irish members as loyal to Parliament as English and Scotch members usually are, or else to exclude them.

4. The discussions of Irish Bills in the House of Commons made us realize how little English members knew about Ireland; how utterly different were their competence for, and their attitude towards, Irish questions and English questions.

We perceived that we were legislating in the dark for a country whose economic and social condition we did not understand--a country to which we could not apply our English ideas of policy; a country whose very temper and feeling were strange to us.

We were really fitter to pass laws for Canada or Australia than for this isle within sight of our shores.

5. I have said that we were legislating in the dark.

But there were two quarters from which light was proffered, the Irish members and the Irish Executive.

We rejected the first, and could hardly help doing so, for to accept it would have been to displace our own leaders.

We followed the light which the Executive gave.

But in some cases (as notably in the case of the Coercion Bill of 1881) it proved to be a "wandering fire," leading us into dangerous morasses.

And we perceived that at all times legislation at the bidding of the Executive, against the wishes of Irish members, was not self-government or free government.

It was despotism.

The rule of Ireland by the British Parliament was really "the rule of a dependency through an official, responsible no doubt, but responsible not to the ruled, but to an assembly of which they form less than a sixth part."

[8] As this assembly closed its ears to the one-sixth, and gave effect to the will of the official, this was essentially arbitrary government, and wanted those elements of success which free government contains.

This experience had, by 1884, convinced us that the present relations of the British Parliament to Ireland were bad, and could not last; that the discontent of Ireland was justified; that the existing system, in alienating the mind of Ireland, tended, not merely to Repeal, but to Separation; that the simplest, and probably the only effective, remedy for the increasing dangers was the grant of an Irish Legislature.

Two events clinched these conclusions.

One was the Tory surrender of June, 1885. Self-government, we had come to see, was the only alternative to Coercion, and now Coercion was gone.

The other was the General Election of December, 1885, when newly-enfranchised Ireland, through five-sixths of her representatives, demanded a Parliament of her own.

These were not, as is sometimes alleged, conclusions of despair.

We were mostly persons of a cautious and conservative turn of mind, as men imbued with the spirit of the British Constitution ought to be.

The first thing was to convince us that the existing relations of the islands were faulty, and could not be maintained.

This was a negative result, and while we remained in that stage we were despondent.

Many Liberal members will remember the gloom that fell on us in 1882 and 1883 whenever we thought or spoke of Ireland.

But presently the clouds lifted.

We still felt the old objections to any Home Rule scheme, though we now saw that they were less formidable than the evils of the present system.

But we came to feel that the grant of self-government was a right thing in itself.

It was not merely a means of ridding ourselves of our difficulties, not merely a boon yielded because long demanded.

It was a return to broad and deep principles, a conformity to those natural laws which govern human society as well as the inanimate world--an effort to enlist the better and higher feelings of mankind in the creation of a truer union between the two nations than had ever yet existed.

When we perceived this, hope returned.

It is strong with us now, for, though we see troubles, perhaps even dangers, in the immediate future, we are confident that the principles on which Liberal policy towards Ireland is based will in the long run work out a happy issue for her, as they have in and for every other country that has trusted to them.

One last word as to Consistency.

We learnt in the Parliament of 1880 many facts about Ireland we had not known before; we felt the force and bearing of other facts previously accepted on hearsay, but not realized.

We saw the Irish problem change from what it had been in 1880 into the new phase which stood apparent at the end of 1885, Coercion abandoned by its former advocates, Self-government demanded by the nation.

Were we to disregard all these new facts, ignore all these new conditions, and cling to old ideas, some of which we perceived to be mistaken, while others, still true in themselves, were out-weighed by arguments of far wider import?

We did not so estimate our duty.

We foresaw the taunts of foes and the reproaches of friends.

But we resolved to give effect to the opinions we slowly, painfully, even reluctantly formed, opinions all the stronger because not suddenly adopted, and founded upon evidence whose strength no one can appreciate till he has studied the causes of Irish discontent in Irish history, and been forced (as we were) to face in Parliament the practical difficulties of the government of Ireland by the British House of Commons.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: I may mention here another fact whose significance impressed some among us.

Parliament, which usually sinned in not doing for Ireland what Ireland asked, occasionally passed bills for Ireland which were regarded as setting very bad precedents for England.

By some bargain between the Irish Office and the Nationalist members, measures were put through which may have been right as respects Ireland, but which embodied principles mischievous as respects Great Britain.

We felt that if it was necessary to enact such statutes, it would be better that they should proceed from an Irish Legislature rather than from the Imperial Parliament, which might be embarrassed by its own acts when asked to extend the same principles to England.

The Labourers' Act of July, 1885, is the most conspicuous example.

] [Footnote 4: At Easter, 1885, I met a number of leading Ulster Liberals in Belfast, told them that Home Rule was certainly coming, and urged them to prepare some plan under which any special interests they conceived the Protestant part of Ulster to have, would be effectually safe-guarded.

They were startled, and at first discomposed, but presently told me I was mistaken; to which I could only reply that time would show, and perhaps sooner then even English Liberals expected.

] [Footnote 5: My recollection of a conversation with a distinguished public man in July, 1882, enables me to say that this fact had impressed itself upon us as early as that year.

He doubted the fact, but admitted that, if true, it was momentous.

The passing of the Franchise Bill made it, in our view, more momentous than ever.

] [Footnote 6: Some thought that its functions should be very limited, while large powers were granted to county boards or provincial councils.

But most had, I think, already perceived that the grant of a merely local self-government, while retaining an irresponsible central bureaucracy, would do more harm than good.

It seemed at first sight a safer experiment than the creation of a central legislative body.

But, like many middle courses, it combined the demerits and wanted the merits of each of the extreme courses.

It would not make the country tranquil, as firm and long-continued repression might possibly do.

Neither would it satisfy the people's demands, and divert them from struggles against England to disputes and discussions among themselves, as the gift of genuine self-government might do.

] [Footnote 7: Some of us had tried to do so.

I prepared such a scheme in the autumn of 1885, and submitted it to some specially competent friends.

Their objections, made from what would now be called the Unionist point of view, were weighty.

But their effect was to convince me that the scheme erred on the side of caution; and I believe the experience of other Liberals who worked at the problem to have been the same as my own--viz.

that a small and timid scheme is more dangerous than a large and bold one.

Thus the result of our thinking from July, 1885, till April, 1886, was to make us more and more disposed to reject half-and-half solutions.

Some of us (of whom I was one) expressed this feeling by saying in our election addresses in 1885, "the further we go in giving the Irish people the management of their own affairs (subject to the maintenance of the unity of the empire) the better."

] [Footnote 8: Quoted from an article contributed by myself to the American _Century Magazine_, which I refer to because, written in the spring of 1883, it expresses the ideas here stated.

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