Twelfth Thousand. 
 
 IPSE DIXIT, 
 
 OR THE 
 
 GLADSTONIAN SETTLEMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOS. E. WEBB, LL.D., 
 
 One of Her Majesty^ s Counsel ; 
 Regius Professor of Laws, and Public Orator in the University of Dublin. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 HODGES, FIGGIS, AND CO., GRAFTON-STREET. 
 
 LONDON: 
 P. S. KING AND SON, 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY AGENCY, 
 
 CANADA BUILDINGS, KING- STREET, A\^STMINSTER. 
 l886. 
 
DA 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 
 
 BY PONSONBY AND WELDRICK. 
 
 iOSTOIS S01IJ?^!E U^tiMl 
 
 I^OV 2 5 1035 
 
IPSE DIXIT. 
 
 The Irish question has occupied much of the 
 attention of Mr. Gladstone during his political 
 career, and the right honourable gentleman would 
 doubtless point to his Irish legislation as consti- 
 tuting his peculiar glory as a statesman. He has 
 disendowed the Church of Ireland. He has prac- 
 tically transferred the fee-simple and inheritance of 
 Ireland to the ' Irish People'. He is now engaged 
 in the still greater question — that of the Legislative 
 Union between the countries ; and in his Maiiifesto^ 
 just issued, he proclaims his purpose to devote 
 the available residue of his active life to its 
 consideration. It cannot be said that hitherto 
 the Irish legislation of Mr. Gladstone has proved 
 a remarkable success ; and on this question of 
 the Union his influence is impaired, and his autho- 
 rity is open to be challenged, by one of those 
 remarkable changes of front which have thrown an 
 interesting, not to say a fantastic air, around the 
 Protean politics of his career. In the year 1871, 
 when addressing the sober Scotch, on the subject of 
 the Repeal of the Legislative Union, he asked: * Can 
 any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose 
 that, at this time of day, in this condition of the 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 world, we are going to disintegrate the capital 
 institutions of this country, for the purpose of 
 making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all 
 mankind, and crippling any power we possess for 
 bestowing benefits through legislation on the country 
 to which we belong? ' For fourteen years his senti- 
 ments would appear to have remained unchanged. 
 In the year 1885, he addressed the Scottish con- 
 stituencies, and entreated them by everything they 
 held dear to send him into the Imperial Parliament 
 with a Liberal majority, which would enable him to 
 cope with the foul conspiracy which, he said, ex- 
 isted between the Tories and the Parnellites to dis- 
 integrate the Empire. In the year 1886 — mirabile 
 didu — all is changed. No transformation scene in 
 a Christmas Pantomime could be more sudden 
 or complete. The right honourable gentleman's 
 assumption of infallibility is as calm, his elo- 
 quence is as self-confident, his interrogatories are 
 as rhetorical as ever. According to his wont, his 
 Mmii/esto declares that ' his trust is in the wise 
 and generous justice of the nation'. To accomplish 
 what? The very thing which he had previously 
 declared to be neither just, nor generous, nor wise. 
 The Bill of Mr. Gladstone has descended like 
 a thunderbolt upon an astonished people. The 
 whole country is up in arms upon the question. It 
 is not alone the Conservatives, or the Tories, or the 
 Tory-Democrats that are alarmed. There is con- 
 fusion in the camp of King Agramant. The great 
 Liberal Party, like the veil of the temple, is rent 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 in twain. The Radicals are roused. Mr. Bright 
 is silent ; Mr. Chamberlain has seceded ; Mr. 
 Jesse Collings is in open rebellion. Mr. Gladstone 
 in his Manifesto acknowledges and laments the 
 fact. As far as men worthy of the name of states- 
 men are concerned, he virtually stands alone. In- 
 deed the only noticeable man in England that 
 supports the Prime Minister in his new departure 
 is the great noble, who but yesterday was the 
 representative of an Imperial Crown, and to-day, 
 like the Roman Emperor, is holding the stirrups 
 of his conqueror as he mounts his horse. 
 
 The Irish question is as paradoxical and yet as 
 momentous now as it was 300 years ago, when 
 Lord Spencer's ancestor wrote his View of the State 
 of Ireland, in the form of a dialogue between Irenaeus 
 and Eudoxus. ^ If that country of Ireland, whence 
 you lately came, be of so goodly and commodious a 
 soil as you report', says Eudoxus, *I wonder that no 
 course is taken for the turning thereof to good uses, 
 and reducing that nation to better government and 
 civility'. 'Marry', quoth Irenaeus, 'so there have 
 been divers good plots devised, and wise counsels 
 cast, about reformation of that realm, but they say it 
 is the fatal destiny of that land, that no purposes 
 whatsoever, which are meant for her good, will 
 prosper or take good effect, which, whether it 
 proceed from the very genius of the soil, or influ- 
 ence of the stars, or that Almighty God hath not 
 yet appointed the time of her reformation, or that 
 he reserveth her in this unquiet state still for 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 some secret scourge, which shall by her come unto 
 England, it is hard to be known, but yet much to 
 be feared'.* 
 
 And as even wise men, contemplating the 
 desperate condition of the country, used the lan- 
 guage of desperation then, so wise men are found 
 using the language of desperation now. Men 
 wished in Spenser's time ' that all that land were a 
 sea-pool'. Men in our own time have peevishly 
 exclaimed that the only remedy for the mischiefs 
 and the miseries of Ireland was to submerge it for 
 four-and-twenty hours beneath the sea. Even wise 
 and honest men like Thomas Carlyle and John 
 Bright have spoken of unmooring the island from 
 its foundations in the deep, and letting it drift 
 three thousand miles westward towards the great 
 Republic of the West. In fact there is scarce a man 
 in England at the present moment who, if he 
 dared to give public expression to his thoughts, 
 would not express a devout desire that Ireland 
 should be permitted to go her own way, so that 
 England might be rid of her for ever. 
 
 But this is not to be. The fatal island lies 
 moored within twenty miles of Scotland, within sixty 
 miles of England, and in instantaneous communi- 
 cation by electric union with its neighbours. Even 
 supposing the two countries were connected by 
 an unnatural bond, like the Siamese twins, they 
 might plague each other, and be for ever in each 
 
 "^ Tracts and Treatises on Ireland, vol. i. p. 417. 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 Other's way, but they would have joint pulsations 
 and a joint life, and the severance of the bond would 
 be the signal of the death of each. At present the 
 islands are united by no such unnatural tie, for they 
 are one. They are mutually incorporated in one 
 United Kingdom. The Unity of that Kingdom, 
 everyone tells us, is still to be maintained. But 
 it is now proposed that there should be two Legis- 
 latures in the place of one, and that the Kingdom, 
 like the Legislature, should henceforth be virtually 
 divided into two. 
 
 This is the last of the good plots devised, and 
 the wise counsels cast, by Mr. Gladstone. Its great 
 recommendation in his opinion is that it would be 
 final. ' What I wish', he said in the House of 
 Commons, * is that we should no longer fence and 
 skirmish with this question, but that we should 
 come to close quarters with it ; that we should 
 get if we can at the root ; that we should 
 take measures not merely intended for the wants 
 of to-day and of to-morrow, but, if possible, 
 that we should look into a more distant future'. 
 ' In order to be a good plan ', he said, ' it must 
 be a plan promising to be a real settlement of 
 Ireland'. * There have been several plans liberally 
 devised', he said, * for granting to Ireland the 
 management of her education, the management of 
 her public works, and the management of one 
 subject and another — things very important in 
 themselves — under a central elective body'; but 
 he does not think that ' such a scheme would 
 
( lO ) 
 
 have possessed the advantage oi finality \ In his 
 last Manifesto the Prime Minister recurs to the 
 idea, and proposes, 'to treat the Irish question' 
 with 'thoroughness of method', and ' to settle, on 
 an adequate scale, and once for all, the long-vexed 
 and troublesome relations between Great Britain 
 and Ireland'. 
 
 Let us examine the Bill, then, with reference 
 to this paramount advantage of finality ; and in 
 order to do this let us briefly analyse the pro- 
 visions of the Bill, and collect its disjecta 7ne7nbra 
 from the forty-one sections over which they have 
 been deliberately scattered. The first section of 
 the Bill proposes to enact that ' on and after the 
 appointed day there shall be established in Ireland 
 a Legislature, consisting of Her Majesty the Queen 
 and an Irish Legislative Body' (sec. i). The seventh 
 section proposes that ' the Executive Government 
 of Ireland shall continue vested in Her Majesty, 
 and shall be carried on by the Lord Lieutenant 
 on behalf of Her Majesty, with the aid of such 
 offlcers and such Council as to Her Majesty may 
 from time to time seem fit' (s. 7, subs. i). It is 
 next provided that ' subject to any instructions 
 which may from time to time be given by Her 
 Majesty, the Lord Lieutenant shall give or withhold 
 the assent of Her Majesty to bills passed by the 
 Irish Legislative Body, and shall exercise the prero- 
 gatives of Her Majesty in respect of the summoning, 
 proroguing, and dissolving of the Irish Legislative 
 Body, and any prerogatives the exercise of which 
 
( !• ) 
 
 maybe delegated to him by Her Majesty' (subs. 2). 
 And, finally, it is provided that ' the Legislature of 
 Ireland shall not pass any Act relating to the office 
 or functions of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ' 
 (s. 26, subs. 4) ; that his salary shall be charged, 
 not on the Consolidated Fund of Ireland, but on 
 that of the United Kingdom, and that the expenses 
 of his household and establishment shall be defrayed 
 out of moneys to be provided by the Parliament of 
 Great Britain (subs. 2); and that, 'notwithstanding 
 anything to the contrary contained in any Act of 
 Parliament, every subject of Her Majesty shall be 
 eligible to hold and enjoy the office of Lord Lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland without reference to his religious 
 belief (subs. i). In spite of the denunciations of 
 United Ireland^ the Castle will remain, though the 
 Constitution may perhaps receive a shock. For the 
 Imperial Crown is limited by the Act of Settlement 
 to the Princess Sophia ' and the heirs of her body 
 being Protestant'; but the English Viceroy who is 
 to be invested with the prerogatives of the Crown 
 in Ireland may be — a new Tyrconnell. 
 
 So much for the first branch of the new Legis- 
 lature — the Lord Lieutenant. Let us briefly sketch 
 the constitution of the second branch of the new 
 Legislature — the Irish Legislative Body. The Irish 
 Legislative Body is to consist of a first and second 
 order (s. 9, subs. i). The first order is to consist of 
 two parts — 28 peers, who are to sit for life or a term 
 of 30 years, whichever lasts the longer, and 75 
 elective members, who are to be possessed of a pro- 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 perty qualification of ^200 a year, derived from 
 realized property, and are to be elected by occupiers 
 of lands or tenements of the annual value of;^25 or 
 upwards, and are to have a ten years' term of 
 office (s. 10). The second order is to consist of 
 204 members, to be chosen by the existing con- 
 stituencies under the existing franchise, subject to 
 any alteration in the constitution or election of the 
 order, excepting as to its number, which may here- 
 after be made (s. 1 1 ) — ' due regard being had in the 
 distribution of members to the population of the 
 constituencies' (s. 11, subs. 7). This composite 
 body is to be summoned, prorogued, and dissolved 
 by the Lord Lieutenant, subject to any instructions 
 which he may receive from England (s. 7, subs. 2), 
 with this limitation, that * the offices of members of 
 the first order shall not be vacated by the dissolu- 
 tion of the Legislative Body' (s. 10, subs. 8, clause 
 9), The two orders are to deliberate together and 
 to vote together — like the Nobles, the Clergy, and 
 the Tiers Etat in the last States General of France, 
 where we know what happened. It is true that 
 for the purposes of a suspensive veto (s. 23) the 
 Legislative Body is to be regarded not as one 
 Legislative Body, but as two separate Legislative 
 Bodies (s. 9, subs. 2); and this, doubtless, will 
 conduce to concord. An invidious prerogative is 
 also to be revived, for a right of veto is to be 
 vested in the Lord Lieutenant, acting on the in- 
 structions of Her Majesty the Queen (s. 7, subs. 2); 
 and here again we have Revolutionary France 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 to guide us, for Marie Antoinette, if I recollect 
 aright, was nicknamed Madam Veto. The Legis- 
 lative Body ' may have continuance for five years, 
 and no longer' (s. 6) ; and in every fifth year 37 
 or 38 of the elective members of the first order are 
 to retire from office, the remainder returning to the 
 next parliament without re-election (s. 10, subs. 6). 
 
 Such is the constitution of the new Legislative 
 Body. In order to see how the new system will 
 operate, let us next inquire into its poiijers. This 
 is essential in order that we may see how far the 
 proposed settlement will be final — how far it will 
 meet the aspirations of the Irish people — how far, 
 in the words of Mr. Gladstone, it will meet *the de- 
 sire and the demand of Ireland'. This desire and 
 this demand are now notorious. Mr. Parnell has 
 proclaimed from a hundred platforms that the 
 minimum he will accept is Grattan's Parliament. 
 What, then, were the powers which Grattan claimed, 
 and eventually extorted, from the fears of England ? 
 Everyone is familiar with his speech on the Irish 
 Declaration of Rights ; and it is thus he spoke of 
 the free Constitution which he claimed for Ireland. 
 * Suffer me to state some of the things essential to 
 that free Constitution. They are as follows : — the 
 independency of the Irish Parliament; the exclusion 
 of the British Parliament from any authority in this 
 realm ; the restoration of the Irish Judicature ; and 
 the exclusion of that of Great Britain' . * As to the 
 Perpetual Mutiny Bill', he said, * it must be more 
 than limited — it must be effaced ; that Bill must 
 
( H ) 
 
 fall, or the Constitution cannot stand'. 'What!' 
 he said, ' a Bill making the Army independent of 
 Parliament, and perpetual ! I protested against it 
 then ; I have struggled with it since ; and I am 
 now come to destroy this great enemy of my 
 country ' . ' As to the legislative powers of the 
 Privy Councils', he continued, *I conceive them 
 to be utterly inadmissible against the Constitu- 
 tion, against the privileges of Parliament, and 
 against the dignity of the Realm'. Mr. Grattan 
 then produced an inventory of Bills, altered and 
 injured, as he said, by the interference of the Privy 
 Councils, and proceeded: — ' I will never consent to 
 have men, God knows whom. Ecclesiastics, &c., &c., 
 men unknown to the constitution of Parliament, and 
 only known to the Minister, who has breathed into 
 their nostrils an unconstitutional existence, steal to 
 their dark divan to do mischief, and make nonsense 
 of bills which their Lordships, the House of Lords, 
 or we, the House of Commons, have thought good 
 and fit for the people. No — those men have no 
 legislative qualifications ; they shall have no 
 legislative power'. What, then, were Mr. Grattan' s 
 terms — terms which were eventually conceded — 
 terms which Mr. Parnell has said to his consti- 
 tuents are the minimum of what he will accept ? 
 ' First. The repeal of the perpetual Mutiny Bill, 
 and the dependency of the Irish army on the Irish 
 Parliament. Second. The abolition of the legisla- 
 tive power of the Council. Third. The abroga- 
 tion of the claim of England to make law for 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 Ireland. Fotirth, The exclusion of the English 
 House of Peers, and of the English King's 
 Bench, from any judicial authority in this realm. 
 Fifth, The restoration of the Irish Peers to their 
 final judicature — the independency of the Irish 
 Parliament in its sole and exclusive legislature. 
 These are my terms ', he said ; * I will take nothing 
 from the Crown '.* 
 
 Now let us compare these terms with the final 
 settlement of Mr. Gladstone, and it will give us 
 a curious insight into the true nature of its finality. 
 Not one single point of Mr. Grattan's ultimatum 
 is to be granted ! Not one single minim of Mr. 
 Parnell's minimum is to be conceded! One and 
 all the terms of Mr. Grattan have been ingeni- 
 ously ignored by Mr. Gladstone ! Thirteen mo- 
 mentous exceptions (sect. 3), and seven portentous 
 restrictions (sect. 4), are Mr. Gladstone's answer 
 to the demand for * the independency of the Irish 
 Parliament in its sole and exclusive legislation'. 
 ' The dependency of the Irish army on the Irish 
 Parliament ' is out of the question ; for Ireland 
 is to be garrisoned by English troops (sect. 3, 
 subs. 3). ' The abolition of the legislative power 
 of the Council' is so far from being conceded, 
 that the Irish Legislature will not be allowed to 
 touch the rights or privileges of the meanest 
 existing corporation * without the leave of Her 
 Majesty in Council' (sect. 4, subs. 5); the Irish 
 
 "^^ Grattan's Speeches, vol. i., pp. 127-129. 
 
( i6 ) 
 
 Legislature will not be permitted to appropriate 
 any part of the Irish revenue in relation to any 
 prohibited subject without * the assent of Her Ma- 
 jesty in Council' (sect. 19, subs. 2); the Irish 
 Legislature will not have power to alter the salaries 
 of even the future judges of the Exchequer Di- 
 vision without the like consent (sect. 20, subs. 2). 
 Mr. Grattan demands ^ the restoration of the Irish 
 Judicature, and the exclusion of that of Great 
 Britain'; Mr. Gladstone answers that the decision 
 of all questions arising as to the powers conferred 
 on the Legislature of Ireland by the Act are to be 
 referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council in England (s. 25, subs. d). Mr. Grattan 
 demands * the exclusion of the English House of 
 Peers from any judicial authority in this realm' ; Mr. 
 Gladstone answers that * save as in this Act provided 
 with respect to matters to be decided by Her Majesty 
 in Council ' — the English Privy Council — ' nothing 
 in this Act shall affect the appellate jurisdiction of 
 the House of Lords in respect of actions and suits 
 in Ireland ' (sect. 36). Not only on high constitu- 
 tional questions, such as the status of the Crown; 
 not only in matters of international relation, such 
 as war and peace ; but on all matters relating to 
 navigation and trade (sect. 3, subs. 9); on all 
 matters relating to currency and coinage (subs. 
 12); on all matters relating to the exclusive rights 
 of Irishmen to the use or profits of their own in- 
 ventions (subs. 13), the interference of the Irish 
 Legislative Body is precluded. In fine, Mn 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 Grattan demands * the abrogation of the claim 
 of England to make law for Ireland ' ; and Mr. 
 Gladstone provides that * save as herein ex- 
 pressly provided, all matters in relation to which 
 it is not competent for the Irish Legislative Body 
 to make or repeal laws, shall remain and be within 
 the exclusive authority of the Imperial Parliament, 
 save as aforesaid, whose power and authority in 
 relation thereto shall in nowise be diminished or 
 restrained by anything herein contained ' (sect. 37). 
 When such paramount authority is claimed for 
 the Imperial Parliament, it becomes interesting to 
 inquire what the Lnperial Parliament of the future 
 is to be. At present it is an Imperial Parliament 
 in which Ireland is represented as an integral 
 portion of the Empire, and by the laws of which 
 she is legitimately bound. But the 24th section 
 of the Bill proposes to enact that ' on and after the 
 appointed day Ireland shall cease, except in the 
 event hereafter in this Act mentioned' — an event 
 which may be left out of the question, as the 
 present settlement is to be considered final — ' to 
 return representative peers to the House of Lords, 
 or members to the House of Commons ; and the 
 persons who on the said day are such representa- 
 tive peers and members shall cease as such to be 
 members of the House of Lords and House of 
 Commons respectively' (sec. 24). The Imperial 
 Parliament of the future then is to be a Parliament 
 in which no Irishman, as an Irishman, or as a re- 
 presentative of Irishmen, can sit. It will not be 
 
 B 
 
( i8 ) 
 
 an Imperial Parliament — it will be a British Par- 
 liament — it will be the Parliament of England and 
 Scotland. Accordingly, it will be the Parliament 
 of England and Scotland which will determine 
 whether Ireland is to be at peace or war ; it will 
 be the Parliament of England and Scotland that 
 will impose the Irish customs and excise ; it 
 will be the Parliament of England and Scotland 
 which will regulate the navigation and the trade 
 of Ireland. 
 
 A variety of theories have been laid down as 
 to the relation which subsists between Ireland and 
 the sister Island. King John, by his Letters 
 Patent, boldly ordained that Ireland should be 
 governed by the laws of England in right of 
 the do77miion by conquest^ Macaulay conceived 
 that England had the right even to destroy the 
 woollen manufacture of Ireland on the broad 
 general principle that Ireland was a colony planted 
 by her sons.f Blackstone lays it down as unques- 
 tioned law, that apart from Poyning's Acts, Ireland 
 was bound by all English Statutes, in which it was 
 expressly named, or impliedly included, ' for', 
 he says, ' this follows from the very nature and 
 constitution of a dependent State, dependence being 
 very little else but an obligation to conform to 
 the will or law of that superior person or State 
 upon which the inferior depends '.J Such, too, was 
 the doctrine of the Irish Judges. § It was against 
 
 ^^ I Black. Com., loo. \ i Black. Com., 103. 
 
 t History 0/ England, iv. 231. § Grattan's Sp fee lies, i. 42. 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 this position of inferiority and dependence that the 
 Irish House of Commons protested in the year 1641.* 
 It was this ' dependence and subordination of Ire- 
 land to the Imperial Crown ' of Great Britain that 
 the English House of Commons entreated King 
 William to enforce, when it condemned the tract 
 of Molyneux to be burnt by the English common 
 hangman, t It was this subordination and depen- 
 dence which was declared to be the law of the 
 land by the declaratory statute, 6 Geo. I. c. 5, 
 which legislatively declared that ' the kingdom of 
 Ireland ought to be subordinate to, and dependent 
 upon, the Imperial Crown of Great Britain, as being 
 inseparably united thereto ; and that the King's 
 Majesty, with the consent of the Lords and Com- 
 mons of Great Britain in Parliament, has power to 
 make laws to bind the people of Ireland.' That 
 statute, it is true, was repealed by the British Par- 
 liament when Ireland stood on the verge of civil 
 war demanding its repeal. But this is the very 
 law, couched in the very language of the statute, 
 which the Prime Minister proposes now to re-enact. 
 Mr. Gladstone tells us that ' the exclusive right of 
 the Parliament of Ireland to make laws for the 
 people of Ireland never was denied till the reign 
 of George II.' All history belies the statement. 
 At all events the Prime Minister proposes that this 
 demand of the Parliament of Ireland should be 
 7107V denied. He is proposing to acquire immortal 
 
 ^ M'Gee's History of Ireland, vol. i., p. 97. 
 f ^litchel's History of Ireland, vol. i., p. 29. 
 B 2 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 honour by re-enacting what Yelverton and Grattan 
 acquired immortal honour by repealing. He is 
 proposing to enact as law that which Molyneux, 
 the friend of Locke, denounced as usurpation. He 
 is proposing to establish the theory of a depending 
 kingdom against which Swift, the friend of Boling- 
 broke, protested as contrary to the law of God, 
 of nature, and of nations.* He is proposing to 
 re-enact the statute which Grattan described as a 
 general attack on the liberties of Ireland, f The 
 flame kindled by the burning of the tract of 
 Molyneux, to use the words of Grattan, illumined 
 posterity ; but it has shed no ray of light on the 
 mind of Mr. Gladstone. No — the Bill of the Prime 
 Minister has not even the merit of originality. It 
 is a mere plagiarism from the past. It is an ex- 
 periment which has already failed. The Revolu- 
 tion which he would fain inaugurate is not so 
 much a Revolution as a mere Reaction. 
 
 The Bill contains the elements of a reaction 
 more insufferable still. Since the Americans threw 
 the English tea-chests into the sea at Boston, 
 Dr. Johnson's ' Taxation no Tyranny ' has not ex- 
 pressed the sentiments of any English party. But 
 if the idea died with Lord North, it has come to life 
 again with Mr. Gladstone. Ireland is to have no 
 representative in the British Parliament, and the 
 British Parliament is to be empowered to fleece it 
 and to flay it with customs and excise. According 
 
 '^' See the fourth of the Drapih^s Letters. 
 \ Grattan' s Speeches^ i., 42. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 to the nationalist historian, the National Debt of 
 Ireland was ^4,000,000 just before the Rebellion, 
 and it was raised to ^26,841,219 in carrying out 
 the Union, in the interest of England ; * and now 
 after 85 years of a union, which Mr. Gladstone 
 denounces as flagitious, it is fixed by Mr. Glad- 
 stone at ^48,000,000, the interest of which Ire- 
 land is to pay, and England is to collect. Ireland 
 is to be allowed a mere pittance, for pocket-money, 
 out of a total revenue of ^8,350,000, and all the 
 rest is be allocated and appropriated by England. 
 Ireland is told that England is a foreign nation, and 
 that henceforth the laws of Ireland are not to come 
 in a foreign garb, and that her government is not 
 to wear a foreign aspect. But she is to pay a foreign 
 tribute ; and the army of the foreigner is to occupy 
 her territory in order to collect it ; and she is to 
 pay for this foreign occupation for all future time. 
 It is thus that the Prime Minister, to use the 
 words of his Manifesto^ proposes to secure to Ire- 
 land ^ immunity from gross and wholesale insult', 
 and to restore her share of ' the great inheritance 
 of human right'. 
 
 But, says Mr. Gladstone, we shall have * the con- 
 sent of the three countries'. ' We have no right to 
 question for a moment in this free country, under a 
 representative system, that the vast majority of the 
 
 ^' Mitchel's History, vol. ii., p. 153. Lord Clare's figures 
 differ from those of Mr. Mitchel ; but in declaiming upon this 
 topic the Irish Patriots of the future, I fancy, will prefer the 
 figures of Mr. Mitchel to the figures of Lord Clare. 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 Irish representatives speak the mind of a decided 
 majority of the people of Ireland'. He seems to 
 think that he is engaged in a great international 
 transaction, in which Mr. Parnell is to be regarded 
 as a plenipotentiary, with full powers to bind 
 the people of Ireland. This is a strange view 
 of the constitution for a constitutional minister to 
 adopt. 'Parliament', said Mr. Burke to his con- 
 stituents at Bristol, * is not a congress of ambas- 
 sadors from different and hostile interests, which 
 interests each must maintain as an agent against 
 other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a 
 deliberative assembly of our nation, with one 
 interest — that of the whole — where not local pur- 
 poses, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but 
 the general good resulting from the general 
 reason of the whole. You choose a member, in- 
 deed ; but when you have chosen him he is not 
 a member of Bristol, but he is a member of 
 Parliament'.* This doctrine is as old as Coke.f 
 In fact it is coeval with Parliament itself. But 
 grant that the doctrine is obsolete — grant that it 
 is a part of the fallen ruins of a crumbling consti- 
 tution — is it so very certain that the vast majority 
 of the Irish representatives speak the minds of a 
 decided majority of the Irish people ? The present 
 Irish Parliamentary Party are the mere puppets of 
 Mr. Parnell, just as the present ministers are mere 
 puppets in the hands of Mr. Gladstone. Whose 
 
 "^'^ Burke's Wofh, iii. 20. f 4. Inst. 14.. 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 mind is it, then, that Mr. Parnell speaks? In the 
 first place Mr. Parnell does not speak the mind of 
 the million and a-half of men who represent the 
 wealth, the intellect, the independence, and the 
 sober judgment of the Irish people. In the second 
 place, he does not speak the mind of any Nationalist 
 who took him at his word, and sent him into Par- 
 liament to win back the Parliament of Grattan. 
 And, in the last place, he does not represent the 
 most consistent and self-sacrificing of the 'patriots' 
 of Ireland. 
 
 The Prime Minister, in the rush and riot of his 
 headlong course, seems strangely to have forgotten 
 who it was that originally roused him from his 
 political slumbers, who it was that suggested his 
 Irish policy, who it was that brought his great 
 measures of disendowment, of confiscation, of dis- 
 memberment, within the sphere of his beneficent 
 activity. Let that lamented gentleman, the late 
 A. M. Sullivan, remind the Prime Minister of 
 the fact that the Irish Nationalist Party is com- 
 posed of two divergent sections. ' Through all 
 the course of Irish politics, from 1848 downwards', 
 says Mr. Sullivan, ' the divergence and conflict of 
 these two sections of the National party may be 
 traced, and have to be kept in mind. Half the 
 blunders of English politicians ' — let the Prime 
 Minister take note of this — ' in dealing with the 
 passing incidents of domestic Irish affairs, arise 
 from ignorance of this state of things. A correct 
 appreciation of it supplies a key to many appa- 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 rently perplexing problems. The Constitutional 
 Nationalists, looking to Henry Grattan as their 
 founder, and the Revolutionary Nationalists, or 
 Separatists, taking Wolfe Tone as theirs, have 
 operated, and still operate — sometimes together, 
 often in conflict — in Irish politics, down to the 
 present day'.* Down to the present day this is 
 as true as when New Irela^id was written. Well, 
 then, let the Prime Minister reflect upon a fact 
 which he seems to have forgotten in his calcula- 
 tion. At the present moment there are 300,000 
 organized Fenians in Ireland. They have their 
 affiliated clubs in every village. They have their 
 military bands in every town. They are partially 
 drilled and partially armed, and would be com- 
 pletely drilled and would be completely armed, 
 were it not for those laws with a foreign aspect 
 which still perpetuate * Coercion'. These men 
 are backed by the whole body of the Irish, who 
 carry on their operations in the United States ; 
 and they are bound by the most deadly oaths 
 never to rest till they have established a republic 
 one and indivisible in Ireland. * We stand face 
 to face with Irish Nationality', said the Prime 
 Minister, amid the cheers of the Home Rule party. 
 But the Irish Nationality which he faces is not the 
 Irish Nationality which he will have to face. Mr. 
 Parnell and his party are in evidence at present. 
 But though Mr. Parnell marches at the head of the 
 
 ^' Neiv Ireland, Seventh Edition, p. 197. 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 Irish movement he does not lead it. He is urged 
 onwards from behind. He and his followers are 
 merely pushed forward as a cloud of skirmishers to 
 mask the real advance. The advancing party are 
 the Fenians. I have no sympathy with the aspira- 
 tions of these men, but I think I understand them, 
 and if I cannot approve their aims I can appreciate 
 their motives. They are not the mere camp 
 followers of a cause. They are not the mere 
 stipendiaries of sedition. They are men with an 
 idea. They are men. No member of the Irish 
 Republican Brotherhood has condescended to send 
 round the hat. They have supplied the martyrs 
 and not the mendicants of disaffection. What will 
 men of this type say when they come to understand 
 the final settlement which has been arrived at 
 between a party of puppets and a ministry of 
 marionettes ? On and after the appointed day 
 there shall be established in Ireland a Legisla- 
 ture consisting of an Irish Legislative Body — and 
 Her Majesty the Queen ! On and after the ap- 
 pointed day the Legislature of Ireland shall be 
 subordinate to, and dependent on, the Parlia- 
 ment of England ! On and after the appointed 
 day the English Parliament shall impose, and 
 English officials shall administer, and English 
 officers shall levy, Irish taxes ! On and after the 
 appointed day Ireland shall pay tribute to a foreign 
 nation — England! On and after the appointed day 
 Ireland shall be occupied by foreign troops, and 
 shall pay for the foreign occupation. I can imagine 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 what men such as these will say when they come to 
 understand a final settlement like this. 'A con- 
 tinued Monarchy' — they will exclaim — 'A sub- 
 sidized Lieutenant ! A Legislative Body bound hand 
 and foot by England ! A Tributary Province ! A 
 Province in the occupation of a foreign army ! 
 Ireland reduced to the level of Roumelia, the 
 tributary to the Turk ! ' * Is it for this ', they will 
 say, * that we have dared all, and suffered all, and 
 waited ? Is it for this that our brethren have 
 crowded the English prisons, and have perished on 
 the English scaffold? And this is to be the final 
 settlement — this is to be received as a final settle- 
 ment by tis I ' 
 
 Under Grattan's constitution the political situa- 
 tion, according to the patriotic historian, was 
 anomalous and insecure. ' Ireland had not, like 
 England, a responsible body of Cabinet Ministers, 
 accountable to her own Parliament. The Lord 
 Lieutenant and Irish Secretary ruled as before; 
 and although they were appointed, it was said, by 
 the King of Ireland, they really held their offices 
 and received their instructions from the Ministers 
 in England'.* Mr. Gladstone's constitution makes 
 no provision for the remedy of this evil ; but it will 
 doubtless be remedied by the Irish Legislative 
 Body. An Irish Administration will be formed. 
 There will be no Minister of War, for Ireland will 
 possess no army. There will be no Minister of 
 Marine, for Ireland will not possess so much as 
 
 ^ Mitchel's History, vol. i., p. 275. 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 a single gardacosta to protect its coasts. There 
 will not even be a Minister of Commerce, for trade 
 and navigation are beyond the competence of an 
 Irish Legislature. Neither will there be a Minister 
 of the Fine Arts ; for Ireland will be poor, and 
 Art, which depends upon the rich, will be an ab- 
 sentee. But there will doubtless be a Minister of 
 Finance, a Minister of Agriculture, a Minister of 
 Public Instruction, and a Minister of Justice and 
 Police. What the Minister of Agriculture will 
 recommend is doubtful. He will, I am sure, con- 
 sider the policy of migration as distinct from emi- 
 gration, the expediency of converting the pasture 
 lands of Ireland into tillage, and the pecuniary ad- 
 vantage of cultivating the Irish wastes, when the 
 Irish cultivated lands have ceased to pay. The 
 Minister of Public Instruction is precluded, it is 
 true, from meddling with such subjects as the 
 endowment of religion, or the establishment of any 
 system of denominational education ; but, ' with the 
 assent of Her Majesty in Council', he will have the 
 power to appropriate any part of the Irish Public 
 Revenue ' for the purpose of, or in connexion with, 
 such subjects' (sect. 19, subs. 2) ; and he will doubt- 
 less exercise his powers — when he has any revenue 
 to appropriate. The Minister of Justice will 
 secure to Ireland the inestimable benefits of a 
 learned and independent Bench, and an accom- 
 plished and intrepid Bar. The Minister of Police 
 will see that the police are well armed and drilled — 
 and will probably utilise the Fenians. The whole 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 administration, however, will mainly depend upon 
 the Minister of Finance. ' For the purpose of 
 providing for the Public Service of Ireland, the 
 Irish Legislature may impose taxes other than 
 duties of customs and excise as defined by the 
 Act' (sect. 12); and I am sure the Minister of 
 Finance will do his best to make provision for the 
 Public Service. But what is the Minister to do ? 
 He will have to manipulate the finances of a coun- 
 try denuded of capital, and destitute of credit, and 
 he will commence his operations with an empty 
 exchequer, and an overwhelming debt. He will not 
 possess the power of issuing assignats, and terri- 
 torial mandates, and boiis des trois quarts, which the 
 French Minister of Finance in the French Revo- 
 lutionary period possessed ; for England will not 
 permit him to deal with currency or coinage. Nay, 
 his own salary, and that of his colleagues, and that 
 of the whole public service, may be in arrears, and 
 England will not even permit him to exercise an 
 independent judgment as to the taxes which he 
 will impose ; for the Bill provides that * it shall 
 not be lawful for the Irish Legislative Body to 
 adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address, or 
 bill, for the raising or appropriation for any 
 purpose of any part of the public revenue of 
 Ireland, or of any tax, duty, or impost, except 
 in pursuance of a recommendation from Her Majesty 
 signified through the Lord Lieutenant, in the ses- 
 sion in which such vote, resolution, address, or bill 
 is proposed' (s. 19, subs, i ). 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 It may seem astonishing- that the Irish Parlia- 
 mentary Party should consent to receive a Bill like 
 this, with its exceptions, and its restrictions, and its 
 illusive powers, as a final settle?nent of all questions 
 depending between Ireland and England. And yet 
 we have been assured by the Parnellites, in open 
 Parliament, that the Bill will be accepted in full 
 discharge of all demands by the whole Irish Parlia- 
 mentary Party — 'to a man'. But the Irishman is no 
 fool : the Parnellites know what they are at. They 
 know that the separation of the Legislatures is the 
 first step to the separation of the countries. The 
 Irish Legislative Body, created by the Prime 
 Minister of England, is at least a body; and they 
 will know how to animate it with a soul. They 
 may promise and protest ; but their promises and 
 protestations are not treason to Ireland — they are 
 merely perfidy to England. 
 
 The Prime Minister believes that his new Irish 
 government will never come into collision with the 
 Government of England. He intimates in his 
 Manifesto that under his new Constitution the pre- 
 servation of Imperial prerogative is absolute and 
 complete. He has obviated, as he thinks, the possi- 
 bility of such a conflict as occurred on the occa- 
 sion of the Commercial Propositions of Mr. Pitt 
 in 1785, by reserving to the English Parliament 
 all questions affecting Commerce. He has obviated, 
 as he thinks, the possibility of such a conflict as 
 occurred on the Regency question in 1789, by re- 
 serving to the English Parliament all questions re- 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 lating to the status of the Crown. But in spite of 
 these precautions, a thousand occasions of quarrel 
 will arise between the Irish government and the 
 Imperial government of England. Suppose the 
 Irish Legislative Body should declare its sittings 
 permanent when the Lord Lieutenant had intimated 
 his intention to prorogue it or dissolve it (s. 7). 
 Suppose the Irish Legislative Body should refuse 
 to impose such taxes, duties, or imposts, as will 
 raise a sufficient revenue to meet all sums charged 
 for the time being on the Irish Consolidated Fund 
 (s. 13). Suppose the Irish Legislative Body should 
 refuse to pay the Consolidated Fund of the United 
 Kingdom the instalments which it is bound to 
 pay on foot of loans advanced on any security in 
 Ireland (s. 17). Suppose the Irish Legislative 
 Body, on a declaration of war by England, should 
 peremptorily refuse to appropriate any further 
 sums out of the Consolidated Fund of Ireland ' in 
 aid of the army or navy, or other measures [jsic] 
 which Her Majesty may take for the prosecution of 
 the war' (s. 18). How are these obligations to be 
 enforced by England ? 
 
 But the Bill is exposed to objections far more 
 serious than these. The Irish Legislative Body 
 may not only refuse to assist the English Govern- 
 ment in its wars ; it may have occasioned the very 
 war in which it refuses to assist. The Legisla- 
 ture of Ireland is forbidden to make laws relat- 
 ing to offences against the Law of Nations (s. 3); 
 the power of making such laws is expressly re- 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 served to England ; and it is England that will 
 be responsible to foreign powers for their en- 
 forcement. Suppose, then, that Dublin should be- 
 come, as under the new regime it is likely enough 
 to become, the Alsatia of the Communards, the 
 Dynamitards, the Nihilists, the Invincibles, of 
 Europe ; suppose that Ireland should grant the 
 right of sanctuary to the persecuted patriotism of 
 the world. A foreign monarch is assassinated; 
 the assassin flies to Ireland; the foreign govern- 
 ment demands his extradition from the govern- 
 ment of England ; the English Government calls 
 upon the Irish Executive to act — what if the Irish 
 Executive declines to act? what if it assumes an 
 attitude of passive resistance to the demands of 
 England ? 
 
 Take the case of the Army. Here we have the 
 actual experience of the past to fall back upon for 
 our instruction. In the year 1780 the Irish army, 
 or rather the English army in Ireland, was provided 
 for under the Annual Mutiny Act, passed by the 
 Parliament of Great Britain — the arrangement that 
 is now proposed by Mr. Gladstone. The public 
 mind was agitated against England at the time, 
 >^and popular passions were aroused. The Army was 
 falling to pieces by desertion ; the deserters were 
 committed to prison ; and the Irish magistrates re- 
 leased them. Members of the Irish Parliament 
 declared in their places that neither as magistrates 
 nor as jurors would they suffer the British Mutiny 
 Law to be acted on. In his extremity the English 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 Viceroy summoned his Irish Privy Council, and his 
 Irish Privy Council informed the English Viceroy 
 that the British Mutiny Act could not be enforced 
 in Ireland.* This history may well repeat itself; 
 and at the first acute crisis of affairs the English 
 army in Ireland will be demoralised by invitations 
 to desert, and by the impunity offered to desertion. 
 Or look at the matter in another view. England, we 
 are told, is considered by Ireland as a foreign coun- 
 try. If so, the English garrison in Dublin will be in 
 the same position as an Austrian garrison at Milan, 
 or a Russian garrison at Warsaw. The Irishman 
 will be in the same position as the Italian or the 
 Pole, and will be animated by the same patriotic 
 instinct. Here, again, we have history to instruct 
 us. The Irish populace under the Constitution of 
 Mr. Gladstone will probably be neither better nor 
 worse than the Irish populace under the Constitu- 
 tion of Mr. Grattan; and in the year 1783, just 
 a hundred years ago, so many men of the 49th 
 Regiment had been hamstrmig by the Irish patriots, 
 that the regiment was ordered out of Dublin, lest 
 they should inflict retribution on the mob who 
 were in league to protect the ruffians who assailed 
 them. 
 
 The Legislature of Ireland is forbidden to make 
 * laws ' with reference to Volunteers. But the tradition 
 of the Volunteers is one of the most cherished of 
 Irish ideas ; and who is to coerce the Irish Volunteers 
 
 ^ Froude's English in Inland, vol. ii., pp. 278-282. 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 if they take to volunteering- ? Who is to interfere 
 with the liberty of the subject if the subject takes to 
 marching in procession under a tricolor of green, 
 and white and orange, surmounted by a pike-head, 
 such as Mr. Meagher brought back from Paris and 
 presented to the citizens of Dublin ?* What if the 
 armed beggary of Ireland, to use a phrase of Mr. 
 Grattan's, should rise? The English commander- 
 in-chief might mount his cannon on the entabla- 
 tures of the Bank, and bivouac his troops in the 
 quadrangles of the College, as his predecessor did 
 in 1848. But I fear there would be nothing left 
 for it but this. 
 
 A similar difficulty would arise with respect to 
 the Custojns and Excise. Irish patriotism may pos- 
 sibly come to regard the English Custom-house 
 officer, and the English exciseman, as Irish patri- 
 otism has regarded the tithe proctor, the process- 
 server, and the bailiff. In such a case I fail to 
 see how, under Mr. Gladstone's Constitution, the 
 English Government will be able to protect its own 
 officials from the natural hatred of the Irish people ; 
 and I scarcely think the Irish Administration will 
 make itself unpopular by putting forth its powers 
 to arrest the natural course of Irish indignation. 
 The Bill, it is true, provides that ' all legal pro- 
 ceedings instituted in Ireland by or against the 
 Commissioners or any Officers of Customs or Excise ' 
 may be brought before the Irish Exchequer Divi- 
 sion, and carried to the English House of Lords ; 
 and that if it is made to appear that any decree or 
 ^' Mitchel's History, ii. 436. 
 C 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 judgment in any such proceeding has not been 
 duly enforced, the Judges may ' appoint some 
 officer to enforce it' (sec. 20). But if the Irish 
 Administration should wink hard, or look the other 
 way, as Irish officials in the Castle even now oc- 
 casionally do, I wonder what benefit would accrue 
 from this to the exciseman ? 
 
 Then, again, as to Irish Trade and Commerce, 
 If Mr. Gladstone conceives that he has effectually 
 secured the trade of Manchester, and Birmingham, 
 and Sheffield, from the avowedly protective policy of 
 the Irish Party, I should recommend him to read 
 Swift's proposal for * utterly rejecting and renounc- 
 ing everything wearable that comes from England'. 
 Swift was not an old parliamentary hand, but he 
 knew something of Ireland and the Irish, and he 
 is worth listening to upon an Irish question. ' I 
 heard', he says, * the late Archbishop of Tuam 
 mention a pleasant observation of somebody's — 
 that Ireland would never be happy until a law were 
 made for burning everything that came from 
 England — except their people and their coals'. No 
 such lazv, thanks to the Prime Minister's precautions, 
 can be made by the Irish Legislative Body. ' But ', 
 says the Dean, * what if the House of Commons 
 should think fit to make a resolution — ?ie?nine con- 
 tradicente — against wearing any cloth or stuff in 
 their families which were not of the growth and 
 manufacture of this kingdom?' * What if they 
 should extend it so far as utterly to exclude all silks, 
 velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female 
 fopperies, and declare that whoever acted other- 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 wise was an enemy to the nation ? ' As a matter of 
 fact, in the year 1780 the Freemen of Dublin met, 
 with the High Sheriff in the chair, and carried a 
 non-importation resolution, in which they declared 
 that ' they would neither themselves import, nor 
 consume, nor would deal with any tradesman who 
 ventured to import, manufactured goods from Eng- 
 land'.* Mr. Gladstone proposes to create a Legis- 
 lative Body which could pass such a resolution — a 
 resolution which it could not convert into a law, 
 but which it might invest with the moral feeling of 
 the nation, and allow to be enforced by the peculiar 
 sanctions by which the nation's unwritten law has 
 from time immemorial been enforced. 
 
 The Prime Minister does not seem to see that, 
 in handing over to the Irish Party the powers of the 
 executive which he is willing to renounce, he is 
 virtually handing over the powers of legislation 
 which he is anxious to retain. On this point the 
 letters and speeches of Mr. Grattan are full of sug- 
 gestive matter, on which future Mr. Grattans will 
 not fail to act, in case the English Government 
 should delay to comply with their demands. ' We 
 retire within ourselves', says Mr. Grattan to one of 
 his correspondents, ' preserving our allegiance to 
 the Crown as annexed to England, and in perfect 
 obedience to all the laws of Ireland ; dii^ we do not 
 execute English laws nor English judgineiits. We keep 
 to our covenants and our associations, consume our 
 own manufactures, keep on terms of amity with 
 England under the law, with that diffidence which 
 '^ Froude's Hisioij, ii. 291. 
 C 2 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 must exist if she is so infatuated in support of a 
 claim to take away our liberty'.* And it should be 
 noted that the ' claim to take away our liberty', of 
 which Mr. Grattan here complains, is the claim to 
 enforce the Act which declared Ireland to be de- 
 pendent on, and subordinate to, Great Britain — the 
 very Act which Mr. Gladstone proposes virtually to 
 re-enact. Mr. Grattan suggested how even the fetters 
 on legislation might be burst. In struggling against 
 the position of dependence in which Ireland was 
 placed, he more than once spoke of possible resolu- 
 tions of the Irish House as '' pmdiamentary ordmances 
 to be maintained by the armed associations '; and so 
 impressed was the English Government of the time 
 with the threat, that it consented to the repeal of 
 the obnoxious law, in terror lest the Irish House of 
 Commons should be 'overawed by popular violence 
 to pass votes disclaiming British legislation '.f 
 
 This mention of popular violence suggests 
 another consideration to the reflecting mind. The 
 Prime Minister is solicitous to protect the Judges 
 who ' have been placed in relations more or less 
 uneasy with popular influences, and with what, 
 under the new constitution, will in all probability be 
 the dominating influence in that country'. But the 
 Judges who, in the opinion of the Prime Minister 
 require protection, are the Judges who tried the 
 mutilators of cattle, the murderers who spared 
 neither age nor sex, the Invincibles, who passed 
 sentence of death on every official of the English 
 Government in Ireland. Such is the influence 
 ^^ Grattan's Life, ii. 251. f Froude's Hisiorj, ii. 344. 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 which the Prime Minister believes will be the domi- 
 nating influence in the country — and he proposes to 
 confer upon the country in which this is the domi- 
 nating influence the boon of an independent admi- 
 nistration. Such an administration would scarce 
 be independent. Even in Grattan's time there 
 was an influence which overawed Parliament itself. 
 The Parisian mob, when it sang ^a-ira, and danced 
 the carmagnole, was not more audacious than the 
 mob of Dublin. The mob hustled the Viceroy in 
 the theatre. It hooted the obnoxious member of 
 Parliament as he left his house. It beat its 
 drums and sounded its rappels. It held riotous 
 possession of the streets. It blockaded College- 
 green, and terrorised the House of Commons. If 
 the military were called out the Lord Mayor would 
 not allow the soldiers to fire — for fear of hurting the 
 poor people ; and if the soldiers were attacked and 
 used their arms in self-defence, why, they were 
 British savages who were bent on slaughtering 
 the Irish. 
 
 But though the new Executive of Mr. Gladstone 
 will be impotent for good, it will be omnipotent 
 for evil. The Civil Service, the Constabulary, and 
 the Police will eventually be under its control. 
 It will have the nomination of the Magistrates and 
 of the Judges of the land. The whole patronage of 
 the country will be in its hands. It will esta- 
 blish a new and an odious ascendency. The 
 very professions, in which at present men of loyal 
 sentiments hold so prominent a position by force 
 of merit, will be virtually closed to them by 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 reason of their one demerit — that they were loyal 
 to the Empire and to England. The new tri- 
 bunals of the country will be open to all, just 
 as they are open now. But under the new 
 criminal jurisprudence there will be no power of 
 changing- a venue, of appealing to a special jury, 
 of invoking the protection of any summary jurisdic- 
 tion in the case of flagrant and intolerable wrong. 
 The Loyalists will not be expelled from Ireland as 
 the Moors were expelled from Spain, and the 
 Huguenots from France — they will be hustled out. 
 The possibility of these things is foreseen by 
 the Prime Minister, who has exhausted his inge- 
 nuity in providing * restrictions', and 'exceptions', 
 and 'safeguards', and 'guarantees'. But the lion is 
 not to be kept back by the gossamers that glitter in 
 the sun before his lair. The danger of the Loyal- 
 ists is not imaginary — the fears of the minority are 
 not fantastic. They have alarmed even the most 
 sober of our statesmen. They have appealed to 
 the consciences of men like Lord Hartington, 
 and Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Trevelyan, and 
 Mr. Goschen. They have evoked the indignant 
 protests of men like the Duke of Argyle, the Earl 
 of Selbourne, and the Earl of Derby. I say 
 nothing of Lord Salisbury and the party which he 
 leads. There is no one who does not recognize 
 the peril to which the Loyalists are exposed. For 
 England to abandon them to the mercy of their foes 
 is not mere impolicy, is not mere injustice — it is 
 dishonour. It is dishonour such as no great nation 
 has incurred since the Romans evacuated Britain^ 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 and left the Britons to the mercy of the Picts 
 and Scots. 
 
 The minority thus to be abandoned and dis- 
 owned, however, is not altogether to be left out 
 of calculation and despised. There has been talk 
 of civil war ; and the Prime Minister has charac- 
 terized this talk as mere 'momentary ebullition'. 
 The Prime Minister maybe right in this, or he may 
 be wrong. Still, in the wild excitement and fierce 
 passions which he has roused, the possibility of 
 a civil war in Ireland is not one of those possi- 
 bilities which a wise statesman should discount. 
 The people in the North are terribly in earnest. 
 They are haunted with the memories of the fright- 
 ful winter of 1 64 1, and the tyranny of TyrconnelL 
 They still celebrate the glories of Derry, and New- 
 town Butler, and the Boyne. They, too, have their 
 sentiment, their passion. What if civil war should 
 actually break out? What does the English Go- 
 vernment propose to do ? Will it employ the 
 Enniskilleners to dragoon Enniskillen ? Will it 
 employ the Scotch Presbyterian regiments to coerce 
 Belfast ? 
 
 But there is another aspect of the subject which 
 England should prepare herself to face. The intel- 
 lect and wish and will of a people with Eng- 
 lish blood in its veins, and which has supplied 
 England with great soldiers, and administrators, 
 and statesmen, will not tamely brook injustice. 
 It is possible that it may address the English 
 people in the tone of menace. It may say, ' We 
 are weary of your liberal disendowments, of 
 
( 40 ) 
 
 your generous confiscations, of your ignomi- 
 nious surrenders, sanctimoniously disguised by 
 appeals to everlasting justice. We have been so 
 infamously treated by your English factions that 
 we cannot be more infamously treated by our 
 own. We will try the experiment. We will join 
 our fellow-countrymen. Their knowledge of what 
 desperate men may do will prevent them from 
 driving us to desperation. We will assist in 
 forming a United Ireland'. I do not think 
 this action of the Loyalists would betoken good 
 to England. They would not acquiesce in 
 Ireland being held by England as a depen- 
 dent kingdom, as a taxed colony, as a tribu- 
 tary province, as a country to remain for ever in 
 the military occupation of a foreign power. The 
 deadliest enemies that England encountered in 
 America were the exiled Presbyterians of the 
 North ; and if ever she should be engaged in 
 another struggle for existence, I do not think 
 she could count on much enthusiasm on the part 
 of the abandoned Loyalists of Ireland. There is 
 the wild justice, as Bacon calls it, of revenge. 
 There is the desperate saying of the Florentine 
 with reference to the friends who had neglected 
 and betrayed him. 'You shall read', he said, 
 ^ that we are commanded to forgive our enemies ; 
 but you never read that we are commanded to 
 forgive our friends'.* 
 
 These possibilities of the future, however, are 
 no concern of Mr. Gladstone's. His sun is setting. 
 •'* Bacon's Essays, No. 4. 
 
( 41 ) 
 
 He has lived his span. The bond which he has 
 given to Mr. Parnell is a post-obit. Its obligation 
 will have to be discharged by his successors. Its 
 observance will have to be enforced by them. The 
 less-reflecting Radicals repeat the cuckoo cry — 
 there is no alternative to the scheme of the Prime 
 Minister except coercion. But they do not reflect 
 that it is only by coercion that the terms of 
 Mr. Gladstone's international transaction with 
 Mr. Parnell can ever be enforced. Mr. Parnell 
 has no power to bind the Fenian Brotherhood. 
 He has no power to bind the Irish in the United 
 States. He has no power to bind posterity. What 
 if posterity should disown its plenipotentiary, and 
 repudiate the new Kilmainham Treaty? What 
 if Ireland should endeavour to throw off the into- 
 lerable burden of her indebtedriess to England ? 
 What if she should strive to break the galling 
 fetters of the exceptions and restrictions imposed 
 upon her freedom by the Act of Mr. Gladstone ? 
 What if she should refuse to recognize the fact 
 that she is subordinate to, and dependent on, the 
 Parliament of England ? As surely as the sun 
 fulfils its orbit, so surely will the old cycle of Irish 
 agitation be renewed, so surely will the Irish people 
 return upon its traces, and assume its old attitude 
 to England. It will assume it, when England is 
 distracted by some domestic trouble, or entangled in 
 some diplomatic dispute, or engaged in some great 
 European war. It will assume it, when it thinks that 
 it has England on the hip. The only remedy that 
 would be left to England, unless she were content 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 to suffer fresh wrong and humiliation at the hands 
 of Ireland, would be coercion. But in such a case 
 coercion would not be the coercion which it is the 
 fashion of the moment to decry. Coercion would 
 not be Authority enforcing* law — it would be War, 
 
 The Bill of the Prime Minister is too narrow for 
 finality, it is too wide for freedom. So far as it 
 professes to be a concession to national sentiment, 
 it only enables one portion of the nation to oppress 
 the other. So far as it professes to be a final 
 settlement between England and Ireland, it leaves 
 open every question which has agitated Irish na- 
 tionality for ages. It deprives Ireland of all the 
 benefit of the Union, but it leaves the bond. It 
 throws Ireland back into that state of dependency 
 upon the Parliament of England against which the 
 Irish House of Commons unanimously protested in 
 1641 ; against which Molyneux wrote in 1698; 
 against which Swift declaimed in 1724; against 
 which Grattan and Yelverton thundered in 1780, 
 and which was disposed of, as it seemed, for ever 
 by the Act of Renunciation, passed in 1783. 
 The benefit of that Renunciation Act Mr. Glad- 
 stone now calls on Ireland to renounce ; and 
 Mr. Parnell consents that the English Parlia- 
 ment should resume the gift extorted from her 
 fears by Grattan. This is the Gladstonian settle- 
 ment of Ireland. Ireland is no longer to enjoy 
 the benefits of the Constitution conferred upon her 
 by the Act of Union ; she is not even relegated to 
 her rights under the Constitution of 1782; she is 
 sent back two centuries in her miserable career. 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 and is to occupy the position of a dependent 
 kingdom, which she occupied under the Constitu- 
 tion forced upon her by the Battle of the Boyne. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone conceives that his measure would 
 restore Ireland to her share of ' the great inheritance 
 of human right.' How would this measure have 
 been regarded by Mr. Grattan ? We know his 
 views, not as to the great inheritance of human 
 right — for Mr. Grattan was no cosmopolitan poli- 
 tician, no Tom Paine in office — but as to the rights 
 of Irishmen as British subjects. He stated them in 
 his speech to the House of Commons in moving the 
 Declaration of Right in 1782. Having described 
 the triumphs achieved by the spirit of liberty in 
 England, he indignantly asked : ' Has then the 
 birth-right of the British subject, your birth -right, 
 been sufficient against precedent ? . . . has our 
 common birth-right done all this for England, and 
 given security to her meanest subject, and clothed 
 her beggar with his sturdiness ? and has it left Ire- 
 land naked, subject to be bound without your con- 
 sent, taxed without your consent, with your com- 
 merce restricted, an independent army, and a 
 dependent Parliament, and your property adjudged 
 by the decisions of another country?'* To this 
 indignant question of the great Irish Patriot 
 Mr. Gladstone proposes to answer, Yes. This is 
 the very position to which he would fain reduce the 
 country. And does the Prime Minister think that 
 Irishmen are so destitute of manhood and so lost to 
 shame that they will finally acquiesce in an ignomi- 
 
 •'•' Grattan' s Specclus, i. in. 
 
( 44 ) 
 
 nious settlement like this ? It is impossible they 
 should. The agitation which distracted Ireland 
 from 1 64 1 to 1782 will be renewed. There will be 
 a new race of agitators. 
 
 Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo 
 Delectos heroas. 
 
 There will arise a new Darcy, a new Molyneux, a new 
 Swift, a new Lucas, a new Grattan, to protest against 
 subordination, and to contend for independence. 
 They will say, ' Mr. Parnell stood in a Parliament 
 where Ireland was at a disadvantage ; he accepted 
 an ignominious compromise from the English Min- 
 ister; but Mr. Parnell was not the Plenipotentiary of 
 Posterity, and he had no authority to bind the Irish 
 Nation.' In contemplating the settlement of 1886 — 
 if it is fated that the year 1886 is to be our year of ill 
 omen — they will be animated with the sentiments of 
 Mr. Grattan when he said, * If I had lived when the 
 9th of William took away the woollen manufacture, 
 or when the 6th of George the First declared this 
 country to be dependent, and subject to laws to be 
 enacted by the Parliament of England, I should 
 have made a covenant with my own conscience to 
 seize the first moment of rescuing my country from 
 the ignominy of such Acts of power ; or, if I had a 
 son, I should have administered to him an oath that 
 he would consider himself as a person separate and 
 set apart for the discharge of so important a duty.' 
 No — the measure, if passed, would be no final 
 settlement of the difficulties in which we are involved. 
 
 "^^ Grattan' s Speeches, i. 39. 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 It would not inaugurate an era of fraternity and 
 friendship — it would be but the beginning of strife ; 
 it would be the letting out of waters. And it is 
 not merely that fresh complications would arise 
 in Ireland. Our whole Colonial system would be 
 shaken to its base. The prestige of our Empire 
 would be gone. And it is for results like these 
 that we are called upon to cripple our resources, 
 disturb the equilibrium of our finance, and add 
 ^100,000,000 to our debt. It is for results like 
 these that we are called on to violate every prin- 
 ciple of the great Liberal Party — to re-introduce 
 the inequalities which it has striven to remove; 
 the vetoes which it has derided ; the property 
 qualifications which it has denounced as fraught 
 with perjury and fraud ; the theory of taxation, 
 against which Chatham and Burke and Fox 
 protested, and which cost us an empire when we 
 endeavoured to enforce it. The fatal measure is 
 repudiated by all those who, to use the phrase 
 of Burke adopted by Lord Beaconsfield, are men 
 of light and leading. The whole intellect of the 
 country is against it. Against the intellect of the 
 country the Prime Minister invokes its ignorance, 
 under the name of ' the upright sense of the nation' 
 — its faction, under the name of ' an upright and en- 
 lightened House of Commons' — its fanaticism, 
 under the desecrated name of ' generous justice ' — 
 its evil genius, under the form of the malignant 
 Irish vote — its madness, under the guise of its 
 blind reliance on himself. 
 
. ( 46 ) 
 
 Let not the English people disguise from them- 
 selves the true character of the abject surrender 
 which they are called upon to make. If they are 
 determined to perpetrate this folly, let them look 
 it in the face. Let them recognize the fact that 
 they are relying, not on their own judgment, but 
 on the infallibility of a single man. And what 
 are Mr. Gladstone's claims to their confidence at 
 this momentous crisis? In 1835 Mr. Gladstone 
 denounced the policy of the Whigs with reference 
 to the Church of Ireland, and expressed his belief 
 that * if it should be removed they would not long 
 be able to resist the Repeal of the Union'.* In 
 1 87 1 Mr. Gladstone asked his countrymen * Can 
 any sensible man, can any rational man, sup- 
 pose that at this time of day, in this condition of 
 the world, we are going to disintegrate the capital 
 institutions of the country, for the purpose of mak- 
 ing ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, 
 and crippling any power we possess of bestowing 
 benefits through legislation on the country to which 
 we belong?' In 1885 he entreated his country- 
 men to give him such a Liberal majority as might 
 enable him to defeat the nefarious conspiracy which 
 he said existed between the Parnellites and Tories. 
 And in the year 1886 — a few short months after- 
 wards — he brings in his Government of Ireland Bill, 
 and proposes that we should cripple our powers, 
 disintegrate our empire, and make ourselves ridicu- 
 
 '>■' Hansard, Series 3, vol. xxvii. p. 513. 
 
( 47 ) 
 
 lous in the eyes of all mankind. He does this on 
 the transparent pretext that the Tories had ventured 
 to try the experiment in 1885 which he himself had 
 tried in 1880. In a moment, in the twinkling of an 
 eye, without a word of warning, he changes the 
 professions of his life. Without consulting the 
 country, without consulting his party, without con- 
 sulting the colleagues with whom he was accus- 
 tomed to act, without taking counsel with anyone ; 
 industriously concealing his intentions, he has 
 broken with all the traditions of his party and his 
 past. 
 
 The eyes of the whole world are fixed upon the 
 English people. Both friend and foe are watch- 
 ing how it will comport itself in this crisis of its 
 fate. Its enemies — those who envy its glory, and 
 detest its name — are holding meetings, delivering 
 orations, and passing resolutions, applauding Mr. 
 Gladstone's 'generous' resolve. But in realit}^ 
 they are watching with malignant eyes to see if 
 they can observe any signs of weakness in the atti- 
 tude of England ; to see if they have any chance of 
 flattering a great people into infamy and ruin. And 
 what of the Democracy of England ? The great 
 American Democracy entered on the most gigantic 
 war in the annals of the world to preserve its Unity. 
 The great French Democracy sent the most bril- 
 liant of its statesmen to the guillotine because they 
 proposed to split up the great French Republic 
 into a confederacy of small republics. Is the De- 
 mocracy of England inferior in patriotism to that 
 
( 48 ) 
 
 of America and to that of France ? Has it lost 
 all imperial instincts, foresworn all imperial 
 traditions, forgotten all the responsibilities of 
 empire ? Mr. Chamberlain has answered for 
 the English people — No ! And I think I know 
 how the people of Scotland will respond to the 
 cry of their brethren in Ireland. They will re- 
 spond in the words of the great Scottish His- 
 torian and Liberal Statesman, which were re- 
 ceived with thunders of applause in the Impe- 
 rial House of Commons forty years ago: — 'The 
 Repeal of the Union we regard as fatal to the 
 Empire, and we never will consent to it ; never, 
 though the country should be surrounded by dan- 
 gers as great as those which threatened her when 
 her American Colonies, and France, and Spain, and 
 Holland were leagued against her, and when the 
 Armed Neutrality of the Baltic disputed her mari- 
 time rights ; never, though another Bonaparte 
 should pitch his camp in sight of Dover Castle ; 
 never, till all has been staked and lost ; never, till 
 the four quarters of the world have been convulsed 
 by the last struggle of the great English people 
 for their place among the nations'. 
 
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