I E) RARY 
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 i 
 
 THE 
 
 lEISH 
 
 QUESTION. 
 
 I. HISTORY 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 II. LESSONS 
 
 OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 t 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 ! 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 Bi- THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONB:, 
 
 SI. I 
 
 \ FOR MIDLOTHIAN'. ! 
 
 
 1 
 
 LONDON : 
 
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 ', ALBEMARLE STREET, 
 
 
 1886. 
 
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 [^Continued.
 
 THE 
 
 IRISH QUESTION 
 
 I.-HISTOEY OF AN IDEA. 
 II.-LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 Br THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, 
 
 M.P. FOR MIDLOTHIAN. 
 
 When the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because 
 the harvest is come." — St. Mark iv. 29. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MUKEAY, ALBEMAELE STEEET. 
 
 1886.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STAMFOBD STBEET AND CHASING CB0S3.
 
 THE lEISH QUESTION. 
 
 I. History of an- Idea. 
 
 Ix the year 1868, I was closely associated with the 
 policy of disestablishing the Irish Church. It was 
 then, not unfairly, attempted to assail the cause in the 
 person of its advocate. To defeat this attempt, an 
 act became necessary which would otherwise have 
 been presumptuous and obtrusive. In order to save 
 the poHcy from suffering, I laid * a personal explana- 
 tion before the world. The same motive now obliges 
 me to repeat the act, and will I hope form a sufiScIent 
 excuse for my repeating it. 
 
 The substance of my defence or apology will, how- 
 ever, on the present occasion be altogether diiferent. 
 I had then to explain the reasons for which, and the 
 mode in which, I changed the opinions and conduct, 
 with respect to the Church of Ireland then established, 
 which I had held half a century ago. I had shown my 
 practical acceptance of the rule that change of opinion 
 should if possible be accompanied with proof of inde- 
 pendence and disinterested motive ; for I had resigned 
 
 * ' A Chapter of Autobiography,' Murray, 1868. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 HISTORY OF 
 
 my place in the Cabinet of Sir Eobert Peel in order 
 to make good my title to a new point of departure. 
 On the present occasion, I have no such change to 
 vindicate ; but only to point out the mode in which 
 my language and conduct, governed by uniformity 
 of principle, have simply followed the several stages, 
 by which the great question of autonomy for Ireland 
 has been brought to a state of ripeness for practical 
 legislation. 
 
 It is a satisfaction to me that, in confuting impu- 
 tations upon myself, I shall not be obliged to cast 
 imputations on any individual opponent. 
 
 The subject of a domestic Government for Ireland, 
 without any distinct specification of its form, has 
 been presented to us from time to time within the 
 last fifteen or sixteen years. I have at no time re- 
 garded it as necessarily replete with danger, or as a 
 question which ought to be blocked out by the 
 assertion of some high constitutional doctrine with 
 which it could not be reconciled. But I have con- 
 sidered it to be a question involving such an amount 
 and such a kind of change, and likely to be en- 
 countered with so much of prejudice apart from 
 reason, as to make it a duty to look rigidly to the 
 conditions, upon the fulfilment of which alone it 
 could warrantably be entertained. They were in 
 my view as follows : — 
 
 1. It could not be entertained, except upon a final 
 surrender of the hope that Parliament could so far
 
 AN IDEA. 5 
 
 serve as a legislative instrument for Ireland, as to be 
 able to establish honourable and friendly relations be- 
 tween Great Britain and the people of that countr}^* 
 
 2. Nor unless the demand for it were made in 
 obedience to the unequivocal and rooted desire of 
 Ireland, expressed through the constitutional medium 
 of the Irish representatives. 
 
 3. Nor unless, being thus made, it were likewise 
 so defined, as to bring it within the limits of safety 
 and prudence, and to obviate all danger to the unity 
 and security of the Empire. 
 
 4. Nor was it, in my view, allowable to deal with 
 Ireland upon any princi]3le, the benefit of which 
 could not be allowed to Scotland in circumstances of 
 equal and equally clear desire. * 
 
 5. Upon the fulfilment of these conditions, it ap- 
 peared to me an evident duty to avoid, as long as 
 possible, all steps which would bring this great 
 settlement into the category of party measures. 
 
 6. And, subject to the foregoing considerations, I 
 deemed it to be of great moment to the public weal 
 that the question should be promptly and expedi- 
 tiously dealt with ; inasmuch as it must otherwise 
 gravely disturb the action of our political system by 
 changes of Ministry, by Dissolutions of Parliament, 
 
 * I have not in the following pages given explanations on 
 this head, as I think they were sufficiently supplied by my 
 speech on the introduction of the Irish Government Bill in 
 April last.
 
 6 HISTORY OF 
 
 and by impeding the business, and derogating further 
 from the character of the House of Commons. 
 
 These were the principles, which I deemed applic- 
 able to the subject ; and every step I have taken from 
 first to last, without exception, has been prompted by, 
 and is referable to, one or other of them. 
 
 From the torrent of reproachful criticisms, brought 
 down upon me probably by the necessity of the case, 
 it is not easy to extricate, in an adequate form, the 
 charge or charges intended to be made. One or two 
 of the statements I must own surprise me ; as for 
 example when Lord Northbrook, complaining of me 
 for reticence before, and for my action after, the 
 election of 1885, states confidently that nothing had 
 happened " that could not have been foreseen by any 
 man of ordinary political foresight." I do not dwell 
 upon the undeniable truth that many things may be 
 foreseen, which, notwithstanding, cannot jDroperly 
 become the subject of action until they have been 
 seen as well as foreseen. But I broadly contest the 
 statement. I assert that an incident of the most vital 
 importance had happened, which I did not foresee ; 
 which was not foreseen, to my knowledge, by any one 
 else, even if some might have hoped for it ; and which 
 I doubt whether Lord Northbrook himself foresaw; 
 namely, that the Irish demand, put forth on the first 
 night of the Session by Mr. Parnell, with eighty-four 
 Irish Home Rulers at his back, would be confined 
 within the fair and moderate bounds of autonomy;
 
 AN IDEA. 7 
 
 of an Irish legislature, only for affairs specifically 
 Irish ; of a statutory and subordinate Parliament. 
 But in this incident lay the fulfilment of one of 
 those conditions which were in my view essential, 
 and which had been theretofore unfulfilled. 
 
 The more general and more plausible form of the 
 attack I think may be stated as a dilemma. Either 
 I had conceived the intention of Home Eule precipi- 
 tately, or I had concealed it unduly. Either would, 
 undoubtedly, have been a grave offence ; the second 
 as a plot against ^my friends, the first as an attempt 
 to escape from the sober judgment of the country, 
 and to carry it by surprise. The first aspect of the 
 case was presented by Lord Hartington in the House 
 of Commons, * and by Mr. Chamberlain, on^the 20th 
 of June, at Birmingham, f The second was put for- 
 ward by Mr. Bright, in addressing his constituents, f 
 and, with much point and force, by Lord Harting- 
 ton § at Sheffield. In substance he argued thus : 
 '' Mr. Grladstone has never, during fifteen years, con- 
 demned the principle of Home Eule. Either then, he 
 had not considered it, or he had assented to it. But^ in 
 his position as Minister, he must have considered it. 
 Therefore the proper conclusion is, that he had 
 assented to it. And yet, though I was Secretary for 
 Ireland, with Lord Spencer as Viceroy, when he was 
 
 * 'Times,' May 11. i * Times,' June 21. 
 
 t * Times,' July 2. § ' Times,' Juco 29.
 
 8 HISTORY OF 
 
 Prime Minister, to neither of us did he convey the 
 smallest idea of such assent." 
 
 Telling as this statement evidently was, it abounds 
 in leakages. In the first place, I deny that it is the 
 duty of every Minister to make known, even to his 
 colleagues, every idea which has formed itself in his 
 mind. I should even say that the contradictory 
 proposition would be absurd. So far as my experi- 
 eijce of Government has gone, subjects ripe for action 
 supply a Minister with abundant material for com- 
 munication with his colleagues, and to make a rule of 
 mixing with them matters still contingent and remote, 
 would confuse and retard business, instead of aiding it. 
 But letting pass, for argument's sake, a very irrational 
 proposition, I grapple with the dilemma, and say non 
 sequitur : the consequence asserted is no consequence 
 at all. It was no consequence from my not having 
 condemned Home Eule, that I had either not con- 
 sidered it, or had adopted it. What is true is, that I 
 had not publicly and in principle condemned it, and 
 also that I had mentally considered it. But I 
 had neither adopted nor rejected it ; and for the 
 very simple reason, that it was not ripe either for 
 adoption or rejection. It had not become the 
 unequivocal demand of Ireland : and it had not been 
 so defined by its j^romoters, as to prove that it was a 
 safe demand. It may and should be known to many 
 who are or have been my colleagues, that I made 
 some abortive ejfforts towards increasing Irish influ-
 
 AN IDEA. 9 
 
 enoe over Irish affairs, beyond the mere extension of 
 County Grovernment, but not in a shape to which the 
 term Home Kule could be properly applied. Nor 
 have I been able to trace a single imputation upon 
 me, whether of omission or commission, in respect of 
 which I should not, by acting according to the orders 
 of my censors, have offended against all or some of 
 the rules, which I have pointed out as the guides of 
 my conduct, and by which I seek to stand or fall.* 
 
 As these disputes of ours, trivial enough from one 
 point of view, are in a certain sense making history, 
 it may be well if, in connection with the thread of 
 these observations, I recall, by means of a very brief 
 outline, some particulars relating to the Grovernment 
 of Ireland, and to the demand for a domestic legisla- 
 ture, during the last half century. For that demand, 
 constant in the hearts of Irishmen, has nevertheless 
 been intermittent in its manifestation ; sometimes 
 wider, sometimes narrower in its form ; som^etimes, 
 as in the famine, put aside by imperative necessity ; 
 sometimes yielding the ground to partial and lawless 
 action ; sometimes exchanged for attempts at practical 
 legislation, which for the moment threw it into the 
 shade. 
 
 * Among otlier persons whose animadversions I have exa- 
 mined, I may mention those of Mr. Goschen (' Times,' May 1 
 and 3), Lord Salisbury (' Times,' Jnne 14 and 30), Mr. Baxter 
 (' Times,' May 1), Sir M. H. Beach (' Times,' June 24), Lord K. 
 Churchill (' Times,' June 28), and Lord Hartington, passim.
 
 10 HISTORY OF 
 
 The great controversy of Free Trade, the re- 
 formation of the Tariff, and the care of finance, 
 provided me, in common with many others, nay, in 
 the main provided the Three Kingdoms, with a 
 serious and usually an absorbing political occupation 
 for a quarter of a century, from the time when the 
 Government of Sir E. Peel was formed in 1841. 
 When that period had past, and when the question 
 of the franchise had been dealt with, the general 
 condition of Ireland became the main subject of my 
 anxiety. 
 
 The question of a home-government for Ireland 
 was at that time in abeyance. The grant of such a 
 government to that country had only been known to 
 us, in the past, either as the demand for a repeal of 
 the Legislative Union, or in the still more formid- 
 able shape, which it presented when the policy of 
 O'Connell was superseded by the men of action, and 
 when the too just discontent of Ireland assumed the 
 violent and extravagant form of Fenianism. The 
 movement for Repeal appeared to merge into this 
 dangerous conspiracy, which it was obvious could 
 only be met by measures of repression. 
 
 In none of these controversies had I personally 
 taken any direct share, beyond following the states- 
 men of 1834 and of 1844 by my vote against Repeal 
 of the Union. Mournfully as I am struck, in retro- 
 spect, by the almost absolute failure of Parliament, 
 at and long after those periods, to perform its duties
 
 AN IDEA. 11 
 
 to Ireland, I see no reason to repent of any such 
 vote. Unspeakably criminal, I own, were the means 
 by which the Union was brought about, and utterly 
 insufficient were the reasons for its adoption; still 
 it was a measure vast in itself and in its conse- 
 quential arrangements, and it could not be made 
 the subject of experiment from year to year, or 
 from Parliament to Parliament. There was then 
 a yet stronger reason for declining to impart a 
 shock to the Legislative fabric by Repeal. Before 
 us lay an alternative policy, the relief of Ireland 
 from grievance ; and this policy had not been tried 
 in any manner at all approaching to sufficiency. It 
 was not possible, at the time, to prognosticate how in 
 a short time Parliament would stumble ahd almost 
 writhe under its constantly accumulating burdens, or 
 to pronounce that it would eventually prove inca- 
 pable of meeting the wants of Ireland. Evidently 
 there was a period when Irish patriotism, as repre- 
 sented by O'Connell, looked favourably upon this 
 alternative policy, had no fixed conclusion as to the 
 absolute necessity for Home Government, and seemed 
 to allow that measures founded in '* justice to Ire- 
 land " might possibly suffice to meet the necessity of 
 the case. But the efforts made in this ^lirection, 
 down to the time of the famine, were, though honest 
 and useful, only partial ; and they unhappily had 
 been met by an obstinacy of resistance, which entailed 
 long delays, and frequent mutilations ; and which in 
 all cases deprived them of their gracious aspect, and
 
 12 HISTORY OP 
 
 made even our remedial plans play the part of corro- 
 borative witnesses to an evil state of things. 
 
 It will be admitted that the Grovernment of 
 1868-74 endeavoured, on a more adequate scale, 
 principally by what is still called in some quarters 
 sacrilege and confiscation, to grapple with an invete- 
 rate difficulty. Once more, in acknowledgment of 
 these efforts, the National Party fell into line. But, on 
 the important question of Education, we were defeated 
 in 1873, not by an English but by an Irish resist- 
 ance. Other measures, to which I had looked with 
 interest, could not be brought to birth. But a happy 
 effect had been produced upon Irish feeling ; and 
 prosperity, both agricultural and general, singularly, 
 it might be said unduly, favoured for some years the 
 operation of the Land Act of 1870. We had taken 
 seriously to the removal of grievance, as the alterna- 
 tive policy to Repeal of the Union. So much had been 
 achieved, with the zealous support of the electorate 
 of England and Scotland, that it was our plain duty 
 to carry through that policy to the uttermost, and to 
 give no countenance in any shape to proposals for 
 either undoing or modifying the present constitution 
 of the Imperial Parliament, until it had been esta- 
 blished to our satisfaction, or conclusively shown to 
 be the fixed and rooted conviction of the Irish 
 people, that Parliament was unequal to the work of 
 governing Ireland as a free people should be 
 governed. 
 
 At this time it was, that the new formula of
 
 AN IDEA. 13 
 
 Home Rule came forward as matter for discussion, 
 not in Parliament, but in Ireland ; before the Irish 
 public, and under the auspices of Mr. Isaac Butt, who 
 was at that time simply an individual of remarkable 
 ability, not yet the representative or leader of a 
 Nationalist party, far less of a Nationalist majority 
 There were, at the time, no inconsiderable presump- 
 tions that Parliament could meet the wants of Ireland, 
 from the conspicuous acts it had just accomplished. 
 It was very well known that in some cases where those 
 wants had not been adequately met, such as the case 
 of the Borough Franchise in 1868, it was really due 
 to the defective expression of them by Irish Members 
 of Parliament. It was plain that there was no 
 authoritative voice from Ireland, such as was abso- 
 lutely required to justify a Prime Minister of this 
 country in using any language which could be 
 quoted as an encouragement to the movement on 
 behalf of a domestic Legislature. Accordingly, I 
 contended at Aberdeen in the summer of 1871, that 
 no case had been established to prove the incom- 
 petence of Parliament, or to give authority to the 
 demand of Mr. Butt. I felt, and rightly felt, the 
 strongest objections to breaking up an existing con- 
 stitution of the Legislature, without proof of its 
 necessity, of its safety, and of the sufficiency of the 
 authority by which the demand was made. But 
 even at that time I did not close the door against a 
 recognition of the question in a different state of 
 things. I differed as widely as possible, even at that
 
 14 HISTOPiY OF 
 
 time, from those with whom I have been in conflict 
 during the present year. For, instead of denounc- 
 ing the idea of Home Eule as one in its essence 
 destructive of the unity of the Empire, in the 
 following words I accepted the assurance given to 
 the contrary : 
 
 *' Let me do the promoters of this movement the fullest justice. 
 Always speaking under the conviction, as they most emphati- 
 cally declare, and as I fully believe them, that the union of tJieae 
 Jcingdoms under Her Majesty is to he maintained, but that Parlia- 
 ment is to be broken up." . . * 
 
 Thus, at the very first inception of the question, I 
 threw aside the main doctrine on which opposition 
 to Irish autonomy is founded. This was the first 
 step, and I think a considerable step, towards placing 
 the controversy on its true basis. 
 
 In the General Election of 1874, a great progress 
 became visible. Mr. Butt was returned to Parlia- 
 ment as the chief of a party, formed on behalf of 
 Irish self-government. It was a considerable party, 
 amounting, as is said, to a small nominal majority, 
 yet rather conventionally agreed on a formula than 
 united by any idea worked into practical form. But 
 a new stage had been reached, and I thus referred 
 at the opening of the Session f to the proposal of 
 the Irish leader : 
 
 " That plan is this — that exclusively Irish affairs are to be 
 judged in Ireland, and that then the Irish members are to come 
 
 * » Times,' Sept. 27, 1871. 
 
 I * Hansard,' Debate on Address, March 20, 1874.
 
 AN IDEA. 15 
 
 to the Imperial Parliament and to judge as they may think fit 
 of the general aflfairs of the Empire, and also of aifairs exclu- 
 sively English and Scotch. [Mr. Butt : ' No, no.'] It is all very 
 well for gentlemen to cry ' No ' when the blot has been hit 
 by the honourable gentleman opposite " (Mr. Newdegate). . . . 
 " I cannot quit this subject without recording the satisfaction 
 with which I heard one declaration made by the right honour- 
 able gentleman who seconded the amendment (Mr. Brooks). 
 My honourable and learned friend said, that Ireland has entirely 
 given up the idea of separation from this country.^ 
 
 Tims I again accepted without qualification the 
 principle that Home Rule had no necessary con- 
 nection with separation ; and took my objection 
 simply to a proposal that Irishmen should deal ex- 
 clusively with their own affairs, and also, jointly, 
 with ours. 
 
 After the death of Mr. Butt, Mr. Shaw became 
 the leader of his party, and in 1880 delivered an 
 exposition of his views in a spirit so frank and loyal 
 to the Constitution, that I felt it my duty at once to 
 meet such an utterance in a friendly manner. I 
 could not indeed, consistently with the conditions I 
 have laid down, make his opinion my own. But 
 I extract a portion of my reference to his speech, as 
 it is reported.* 
 
 " I must say that the spirit of thorough manliness in which 
 he approaches this question, and which he unites with a spirit 
 of thorough kindliness to us, and with an evident disposition to 
 respect both the functions of this House, and the spirit of the 
 English Constitution, does give hope that if the relations between 
 England and Ireland are to become thoroughly satisfactory, the 
 
 Hansard,' Feb. 27, 1880, vol. ccl. p. 1587.
 
 16 HISTORY OF 
 
 most important contribution to that essential end will have 
 been made l)y my hon. friend, and those who speak like him." 
 
 In a si3eecli at the Gruildhall, on receiving an 
 address, I reverted to the subject of Home Rule. 
 This was the period (October, 1881) when I deemed 
 it my duty more than once to denounce in strong 
 terms the movement against rent in Ireland, and 
 with it the extravagant claims which seemed to me 
 to be made in the name of National Independence. 
 Yet I then spoke as follows : 
 
 "It is not on any point connected with the exercise of local 
 government in Ireland ; it is not even on any point connected 
 with what is popularly known in that country as Home Eule, 
 and which may be understood in any one of a hundred senses, 
 some of them perfectly acceftalle, and even desirahle, others of them 
 mischievous and revolutionary — it is not upon any of those 
 points that we are at present at issue. With regard to local 
 government in Ireland, after what I have said of local govern- 
 ment in general, and its immeasurable benefits .... you will 
 not be surprised if I say that I for one will hail with satisfac- 
 tion and delight any measure of local government for Ireland, 
 OR for any portion of the country, provided only that it conform 
 to this one condition, that it shall not break down or impair the 
 supremacy of the Imperial Parliament." * 
 
 Once more I entered on the subject, in the House 
 of Commons, on February 9, 1882. I referred to 
 the party, led then as now^ by Mr. Parnell. The 
 citation is from Hansard : 
 
 " Neither they, nor so far as I know Mr. Butt before them, 
 nor so far as I know Mr. O'Connell before him, ever distinctly 
 explained, in an intelligible and practicable form, the manner in 
 
 * Times,' Oct. 14, 1881.
 
 AX IDEA. 17 
 
 wliicli the real knot of this question was to be untied. The 
 princij^le upon which the hon. members propose to proceed is 
 this — that purely Irish matters shouki be dealt with by a purely 
 Irish authority, and that purely Imperial matters should be 
 dealt with by an Imperial Chamber in which Ireland is to be 
 represented. But they have not told us by what authority it is 
 to be determined what matters, when taken one by one, are 
 Irish, and what matters are Imperial. Until, Sir, they lay 
 before this House a plan in which they go to the very bottom of 
 that subject, and give us to understand in what manner that 
 division of jurisdiction is to be accomplished, the practical con- 
 sideration of this subject cannot really be arrived at, and, for 
 my own part, I know not how any effective judgment upon it 
 can be pronounced. Whatever may be the outcome of the hon. 
 member's proposal, of this I am well convinced, that neither 
 this House of Commons, nor any other that may succeed it, will 
 at any time assent to any measure by which the one paramount 
 Central Authority, necessary for holding together in perfect 
 union and compactness this great Empire, can possibly be either 
 in the greatest or the slightest degree impaired. We are not to 
 depart from that principle ; and what I put to the hon. gentle- 
 man who has just sat down, and to the hon. member who pre- 
 ceded him is this — that their first duty to us and their first 
 duty to themselves, their first obligation in the prosecution of 
 the purpose which they have in view — namely, the purj)Ose of 
 securing the management of purely Irish affairs by Irish hands 
 — is to point out to us by what authority, and by what instru- 
 ment, affairs purely Irish are to be divided and distinguished, 
 in order that they may be appropriately and separately dealt 
 with from those Imperial affairs and interests which they have 
 frankly admitted must remain in the hands of the Imperial 
 Parliament." 
 
 Mr. Plunket hereupon stated that he had taken 
 down Diy words, and that he could only understand 
 them as an invitation to Irish members to re-open the 
 question of Home Rule. Nor did he see how I could 
 
 c
 
 18 HISTORY OF 
 
 after using such words resist a motion for a Committee 
 on tlie subject.* To any and every plan for referring 
 such a subject to a Committee of Parliament I have 
 at all times been opposed. But Mr. Plunket's mean- 
 ing was evident, nor could I dispute the substance of 
 his interpretation. 
 
 I will not weary my reader by adding to citations 
 by which his patience has already been so severely 
 tried. But I ask him to remember that down to this 
 time no safe-guarding definition of Home Eule had 
 been supplied, and no demand, in the constitutional 
 sense, had been made by the Irish nation. I beg 
 him then, after he has read the foregoing declarations, 
 to place himself for a single moment in my position^ 
 as one who thought conditions to be indispensable, 
 but also thought that the question might under con- 
 ditions be entertained, and then to ask himself whether 
 it was possible more carefully to indicate in outline 
 the limits within which the subject of Irish self- 
 government might, and beyond which it might not, 
 legitimately be considered, and whether it is any- 
 thing less than absurd to impute to me f that my 
 " principles " forbade me to promote it ? 
 
 * The ' Times ' of January 8, 1882, states that in my speech, as 
 Prime Minister, I "diverged, amid general amazement," into the 
 question of a separate Legislature, and supporting Mr. Plunket, 
 said that the language which I used was " susceptible of an in- 
 terpretation wdiich, we fear, may do infinite and irreparable 
 mischief.' 
 
 t Sir M. H. Beach at Bristol (' Times,' June, 24, 1885).
 
 AN IDEA. 19 
 
 I next pass to the period preceding the election of 
 1885. It had now become morally certain that 
 Ireland would, through a vast majority of her re]Dre- 
 sentatives, present a demand in the National sense. 
 But no light had been thrown, to my knowledge, 
 upon the question what that demand would be. 
 Further, not only was there a Tory Government in 
 office, but one which owed much to Mr. Parnell, and 
 which was supposed to have given him, through its 
 Lord Lieutenant or otherwise, assurances respecting 
 Irish Government, which he had deemed more or less 
 satisfactory. Under these circumstances, I conceived 
 that my duty was clear, and that it was summed up 
 in certain particulars. They were these. To do 
 nothing to hinder the prosecution of the question by 
 the Tory Government if it should continue in office 
 (of course without prejudice to my making all the 
 efforts in my power to procure a Liberal majority). 
 Entirely to avoid any language which would place 
 the question in the category of party measures. But 
 to use my best efforts to impress the public mind, 
 and especially the Liberal mind, with the supreme 
 importance, and the probable urgency, of the question. 
 And lastly, to lay down the principle on which it 
 should be dealt with. These rules of action applied 
 to the circumstances of the hour those governing- 
 principles, which I have above enumerated. I pro- 
 ceeded on them as follows. 
 
 It was impossible for me, while ignorant of the 
 
 c 2
 
 20 HISTORY OF 
 
 nature and limits of the Irish demand, to give an 
 opinion npon it ; and even had it been possible, it 
 woiikl have been in conflict with the condition which 
 I have numbered (p. 5) as the fifth. But, to give 
 emphasis to the importance of the question, I severed 
 it in my Address from the general subject of Local 
 Government for the three kingdoms. Ireland had 
 arrived, I said, at an important epoch in her history ; * 
 she had claims to a special interpretation of the prin- 
 ciples of Local Government.! It would be the solu- 
 tion of a problem, testing the political genius of these 
 nations. J Woe be to tli€ man who should prevent or 
 retard the consummation.^ It would iDrobably throw 
 into the shade all the important measures, which in 
 my Address I had set out as ripe for action. || And 
 the subject is one " which goes down to the very 
 roots and foundations of our whole civil and political 
 constitution." ^ And yet it has been said, strangely 
 enough, that I gave no indication to my friends, 
 except of Local Government in ihe sense of County 
 Government for Ireland.** 
 
 * Address of Sept. 17, 1885, p. 20. 
 
 t Ibid. 21. J Ibid. § Ibid. p. 22. 
 
 II First Midlothian Speech, Nov. 9, 1885, Speeelies, p. 44. 
 
 i: Ibid. 
 
 ** In the speech just quoted, I also said that for a Government 
 in a minority to deal with the Irish question would not be safe. 
 Certainly such an operation could not but be attended with 
 danger ; but that I thought it might nevertheless be properly 
 undertaken is demonstrated by the tender of my support in it 
 to Lord Salisbury, conveyed after the Election through Mr. 
 Balfour, although the Ministerial party scarcely reached 250.
 
 AN IDEA. 21 
 
 Lastly I laid down, over and over again, tlie prin- 
 ciple on which we ought to proceed. It was to give 
 to Ireland everything which was compatible with " the 
 Supremacy of the Crown, the Unity of the Empire, 
 and all the authority of Parliament necessary for the 
 conservation of that Unity." * 
 
 It appears to me that the whole of the provisions 
 of the Irish Grovernment Bill, lately buried, but 
 perhaps not altogether dead, lies well within these 
 lines, and that my case thus far is complete. 
 
 What I have in these pages urged has been a 
 defence against a charge of reticence. On the charge 
 of precipitancy I need not bestow many words. 
 What antagonists call precipitancy, I call prompt!- 
 tude. Had Mr. Pitt in 1801 carried Roman Catholic 
 Emancipation, as we suppose he wished, many an 
 Englishman would have thought him precipitate. 
 Precipitancy indeed was avoided, but at what cost ? 
 For nine-and-twenty years the question was trifled 
 with on one side the Channel, and left festering on 
 the other, and emancipation was at last accepted as 
 an alternative to civil w^ar. Such is not the manner 
 in which I desire to see the business of the Empire 
 carried on. It was not pondering the case ; it was 
 paltering with the public interests. I do not deny 
 that promptitude is disagreeable in politics, as it 
 often is to a doctor's or a surgeon's patient. But 
 if the practitionei- sees that, by every day's delay, 
 
 * Address, p. 21. 
 
 I
 
 22 HISTORY OF AN IDEA. 
 
 the malady takes hold and the chances of health or 
 life are dwindling away, it is his duty to press the 
 operation or the drug, and the sufferer will in due 
 time be grateful to him for the courage and fidelity, 
 which at first he mistakenly condemned. 
 
 I have endeavoured to point out the conditions, 
 under which alone the question of a statutory Parlia- 
 ment for Ireland could be warrantably entertained. 
 The real test may be stated in one word : the ripe- 
 ness or unripeness of the question. All men do not 
 perceive, all men do not aj)preciate, ripeness, with the 
 same degree of readiness or aptitude ; and the slow 
 must ever suffer inconvenience in the race of life. 
 But, when the subject once was ripe, the time for 
 action had come. Just as if it had been a corn-field, 
 we were not to wait till it was over-ripe. The 
 healing of inveterate sores would only become more 
 difficult, the grow^th of budding hopes more liable 
 to be checked and paralysed by the frosts of politics. 
 For England, in her soft arm-chair, a leisurely, 
 very leisurely consideration, with adjournments inter- 
 posed, as it had been usual, so also would have been 
 comfortable. But for Ireland^ in her leaky cabin, it 
 was of consequence to stop out the weather. To 
 miss the opportunity would have been not less clearly 
 wrong, than to refuse waiting until it came. The 
 first political juncture which made action permissible, 
 also made it obligatory. 
 
 So much^ then, for precipitancy.
 
 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 23 
 
 II. 
 
 I. — Lessons of the Election as they regard 
 THE Liberal Party. 
 
 The satisfactory adjustment of the Irish question 
 will now, I apprehend, be the supreme object of 
 every member of the Liberal party who has embraced 
 its prevailing sentiment at the present crisis. I shall, 
 therefore, principally seek to draw attention to the 
 bearings of the late Election on that question. 
 
 But I will first endeavour to dispose of an impor- 
 tant, though secondary point. Every Liberal politi- 
 cian will feel a reasonable anxiety to estimate aright 
 both the immediate effects of the Election upon his 
 party, and the lessons which it teaches as to the real 
 strength and eventual prospects of that party ; inas- 
 much as it, and no other, has been, during the 
 last half century^ the principal feeder of the political 
 thought of the nation, and the main organ of its 
 activity. In the remarks which follow, I intend no 
 sort of reproach. 
 
 It has this year, unhappily, been divided through- 
 out Great Britain into a main body, and a seceding 
 or dissentient wing, of which the energy has of 
 necessity been developed in directly opposing the 
 candidates who belonged to the main body of the 
 party, on the ground of the paramount importance
 
 24 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 attaching to the Irish question. The result has of 
 course, for the party, heen disastrous, as a very large 
 share of its energies have been spent in a suicidal 
 conflict. Out of 202 contests in Great Britain, no 
 less than 114 have been fought between candidates 
 professedly Liberal. Every one of these was lor a 
 seat which was essentially Liberal. The result, 
 therefore, does not exhibit nominally a deduction 
 from the total roll of the 2oarty. But there have 
 been, also, contests between Liberals, or Dissentient 
 Liberals, and Tories. Where Tory and Dissentient 
 have fought, the Dissentient has probably suffered 
 from inability to marshal the full Liberal force. In 
 the far more numerous cases, where Tory and Liberal 
 have fought, the Liberal has commonly suffered from 
 the defection of all the Dissentients ; most of these 
 abstaining from the poll, but some, in conformity 
 with the advice of Lord Hartington, and, I think, 
 of Mr. Chamberlain, actually transferring their votes 
 to the Tory candidate. 
 
 The Liberal party as a whole has been, since the 
 Reform Act, the stronger of the two parties in the 
 constituencies. The measure of its preponderance has 
 sensibly increased with the extension of the franchise. 
 From 1834 to 1868, the Tory party was rarely 
 under, and frequently over, 300 strong. In 1841, it 
 gained a majority of eighty in straight fighting. 
 Since the establishment of household suffrage in the 
 towns, it has never had a majority; except in 1874,
 
 I.— THE LIBEEAL PARTY. 25 
 
 when the Home Rule part}^, finally breaking away 
 from the Liberals with whom they most commonly 
 had counted, took definite form as a separate section 
 of the House of Commons. Tlie majority of Tories, 
 over Liberals alone, then amounted to fifty-nine ; and 
 it was known to be due partly to class interests, 
 cultivated of late years so assiduously by the Tories, 
 but mainly to discontent, and consequent slackness 
 and abstention^ in the Liberal ranks. In 1868, 1880, 
 and 1885, the Tory strength never approached three 
 hundred, but fell much below its old standard. The 
 Liberal majorities over the Tories, in these Parlia- 
 ments, averaged nearly one hundred. On the whole 
 it might probably be a fair though a rough statement 
 of the comparative strength of the two parties in 
 the country, if we were to set down the Liberals as 
 represented, on the average, by four-sevenths, and the 
 Tories by three-sevenths, of the electoral body. 
 
 What, then, was the loss of Liberal strength at the 
 late election in consequence of the schism.? The 
 test previously supplied by voting in the House of 
 Commons is definite so far as it goes. Two hundred 
 and twenty-eight Liberals voted for the Irish 
 Government Bill, and ninety-three against it. This 
 test exhibits the strength of the schism as greatly 
 exceeding one-fourth of the whole. It very slightly 
 exceeds two-sevenths, at which I take it for present 
 purposes. 
 
 It is distributed, however, with very great inequality 
 
 I
 
 26 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 among classes. It lias liitberto commanded, I fear, 
 not less than five-sixths of the Liberal Peers. If we 
 go to the Liberal working men, I do not believe it has 
 touched a fraction higher than one-twentieth. But I 
 now refer to independent working men. If we take the 
 portion of the Liberal party, throughout the country, 
 composed of those who may be termed employers, or 
 who are socially in a position to draw with them the 
 votes of others, it would, I fear, be a moderate com- 
 putation or conjecture that, of this important and 
 leading section of Liberals, four-fifths at least were 
 numbered among the Dissentients ; and these drew 
 with them large numbers of dependent, though, I 
 doubt not, as a rule perfectly willing voters. 
 
 Again, the strength of the schism was unequally 
 distributed, as is that of the party, in constituencies 
 as well as in classes. In very many constituencies 
 Liberal and Tory strength are nearly balanced. 
 In these a deduction of one-fifth, or one-tenth, or 
 even less, from the normal strength, transfers the 
 seat as matter of course. It is impossible to estimate 
 with precision the loss of Liberal strength through 
 the schism; but it must have been greater than 
 either of these fractions would represent. In this 
 ruinous state of facts, the results have been as 
 follows. The party as a whole has been reduced 
 from 333 in the last Parhament to 269, or by less 
 than one-fifth. The Liberals of the main body have 
 been reduced from about 235 to 196, or about one-
 
 L— THE LIBERAL PARTY.' 27 
 
 sixth. The smallness of the aggregate poll as com- 
 pared with. 1885, even on the Conservative side^ is 
 worthy of notice, and appears to show that a 
 fraction of the electors, not inconsiderable, still 
 holds its judgment in suspense. 
 
 Again, the total poll in Great Britain was — 
 
 For Liberals . . . 1,344,000 
 
 For Dissentient Liberals. . 379,000 
 
 For Tories .... 1,041,000 
 
 For Tories and Dissentients . 1,420,000 
 
 Thus the Liberals of the main body came within 
 
 76,000, or only four per cent, of the united strength 
 
 of the Tories and the schism. Considering that the 
 
 aggregate party had suffered a loss, which cannot be 
 
 taken at less than twenty or thirty per cent.,- this is 
 
 a remarkable result. 
 
 Nor is there any obvious levity or presumption in 
 saying that, to all appearance, at the first moment 
 when Liberalism is again united, it must again 
 become predominant in Parliament. But our antici- 
 pations of its real strength in the future grow 
 more and more confident when we consider how 
 much it is that Toryism, under circumstances of 
 unprecedented advantage, has been able to achieve. 
 It now reckons 316 members of Parliament. That 
 is to say, as against the rest of the House, it is in a 
 minority of thirty-eight ; and it is less by nineteen 
 than the Liberal numbers returned to the last Parlia- 
 ment. It has failed to win from our shattered and 
 disunited party the same moderate amount of success
 
 28 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 which we obtained against it in November last, 
 when it had the important accidental advantage of 
 the Irish vote. If, with that advantage, it hardly 
 touched the number of 250, and if it cannot ol)tain a 
 majority of the House when Liberahsm is divided 
 against itself in a manner unknown for nearly a 
 century, the inevitable inference, not demonstrable 
 but very highly probable, seems to be that Toryism 
 can never by its own resources win, under the 
 existing laws, a majority of the House of Commons, 
 unless and until the tendencies and temper of the 
 British nation shall have undergone some novel and 
 considerable change. 
 
 II. — The Lessons of the Election as they 
 REGARD Ireland. 
 
 There is nothing in tlie recent defeat to abate the 
 hopes or to modify the anticipations of those who 
 desire to meet the wants and wishes of Ireland. 
 
 Let us look first at the result of the Election as it is 
 exhibited in the total return of members to the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 The Liberal and the Irish supporters of the policy 
 of the late Government, taken together, amoiuit to 
 280. The opponents of that policy are 390, showing 
 a majority of 110 — a large number without doubt. 
 It has been bravely staled by the Prime Minister 
 that this is an irrevocable verdict. It is certainly a 
 verdict without any instant appeal. But the autho- 
 rity which gives such verdicts has power to revoke
 
 11.— FOR IRELAND. 29 
 
 them, and is in the practice of revoking tljora ; and, 
 moreover, has seen and may see them disobeyed 
 by the representatives whom it has empowered not 
 merely or mainly to repeat a formula, but to deliberate 
 upon and to follow the exigencies of public affairs. 
 
 In order to estimate truly the value of such 
 majorities, let us refer to recent history ; bearing in 
 mind especially, that the Session of 1886 was the 
 first and only Session, in which the adoption of the 
 policy was clearly and unequivocally demanded by 
 the Irish nation, and the first and only Session, also, 
 in which it had the support of a British party, or a 
 British ministry. 
 
 In 1841, the Election turned mainly on the Corn 
 Law. The proposal to repeal it had been, since the 
 Reform Act of 1832, frequently, and of late almost 
 annually, debated ; and the country had had unusual 
 opportunities of mastering the question, through the 
 energetic action of the Anti-Corn-Law League. 
 Nevertheless, the people returned in 1841 a Parlia- 
 ment which by a majority of ninety-one placed the 
 Conservative party in office to uphold the Corn Law. 
 And, considering that many Whigs, who would not 
 join in ejecting the Whig Grovernment were friendly 
 to the Corn Law, we may state without apprehension 
 that the majority returned to support that law in 1841 
 was even larger than that now returned, in 188G, 
 to oppose the Irish policy of the late Government. 
 
 Yet this very Parliament of 1841, by a majority 
 of 98, repealed the Corn Law in 1846.
 
 30 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 There are many elements, beside tliat of number, 
 which go to determine the prospects of an opinion or 
 a policy. A policy which is affirmative, which is 
 definite, which is complete, which rallies its adherents 
 on one and the same ground, has standing advantages 
 over a combination which agrees only in negations, 
 whose ideas advance to-day and recede to-morrow, 
 which proposes no definite settlement_, and waits 
 upon the chapter of accidents. Especially is it a 
 mighty advantage to have a nation at our back ; for a 
 nation never dies. In this case we have more even 
 than a nation. Few indeed, so far as I know, of our 
 opponents are bold enough to deny that we have 
 with us, in a degree hard to match, the general 
 opinion of the widely extended British race ; not to 
 say of the civilised world beyond the confines of 
 England, isolated on this occasion alike from her 
 sisters and her children, from her rivals and her 
 allies. 
 
 At the outset of the American Civil War, the 
 friends to the Abolition of Slavery were not even a 
 party ; they were no more than a section or a group. 
 But, because they saw that time and events must 
 needs work with them, they were content to bide 
 their time. It came, and came speedily. In two 
 years, the irrevocable word of freedom was spoken 
 from the lips of authority. We may well be content to 
 bide our time ; for we see that time and events are 
 working, and must work, on our side. 
 
 Nor is this the only solace. What may be termed
 
 II. — FOR IRELAND. 31 
 
 the pot-valiant language, to which hot and passionate 
 tempers have been occasionally treated, is now heard 
 no more. No longer is the idea of holding Ireland 
 by attachment, instead of holding it by force, illus- 
 trated by the supposed parallel of an attempt to 
 govern by attachment, instead of police, the criminal 
 population of London. No more is the proposal of 
 self-government for Ireland compared with a proposal 
 of self-government for Hottentots. No more is heard 
 the loud demand for measures of repression, which 
 produced the policy named by the present Leader of 
 the House of Commons the policy of the 26th of 
 January. Yet the agrarian crimes reported by the 
 Constabulary were (inclusive of threatening letters) 
 in the 62 days of December and January,*! 8 5 ; in 
 the 61 days of June and July, 194 ; and, while in 
 two years preceding there was but one agrarian 
 murder, in the twelve latest months there have been 
 ten. 
 
 What is "weightier still, no more do we hear of 
 the famous twenty years, during which Parliament 
 was to grant special powers for firm government in 
 Ireland, and at the end of which, in a larger or a less 
 degree, coercive laws might be repealed, and measures 
 of local self-government entertained.* 
 
 It is, then, evident, even amidst the shouts of 
 
 * It might be invidious to supply references to verify these 
 statements ; and it is unnecessary, as they are all both recent, 
 and familiar.
 
 32 LESSONS OF THE EI.F.CTIOX. 
 
 victory, that the Tory iidversaiies of Ireland have 
 had a severe, perhaps an irreparable, loss : they have 
 lost the courage of their opinions. On the other hand, 
 the Dissentient Liberals generally, and their leader, 
 seem now to be pledged to immediate and large con- 
 cession ; many of them on such a scale, that they give 
 to their idea the name of Home Rule, declaring them- 
 selves favourable to its principle, and only opposed to 
 the awkward and perverse manner in which it was 
 handled by the late Administration. So that, while 
 a large majority of the present House was elected to 
 oppose the measures of the bygone Ministry, a much 
 less large, but still a decided majorit}^, has bound 
 itself not less strongly to liberal measures of self- 
 government for Ireland. The seceding Liberals, 
 added to the main body of the party and to the 
 Nationalists, make a total of not less than 354. 
 Even of the Ministerialists, some have declared them- 
 selves favourable to large concession. These pro- 
 fessions of individuals might be drowned in the 
 strong stream of party feeling. Without reckoning, 
 then, on any sort of Tory help, we seem to have in 
 this anti-Home-Rule Parliament a real majority ready 
 to act in the direction at least of Irish wishes, and to 
 run the risk of seeing the grant of a portion used 
 as a leverage to obtain the residue. 
 
 So that, look at the question which way we will, 
 the cause of Irish self-government lives and moves, 
 and can hardly fail to receive more life, and more
 
 II.— FOR IRELAND. 33 
 
 propulsion, from the hands of those who have been 
 its successful opponents in one of its particular forms. 
 It will arise, as a wounded warrior sometimes arises 
 on the field of battle, and stabs to the heart some 
 soldier of the victorious army, who has been exulting 
 over him. 
 
 So much for the case of Ireland within the walls : 
 it is full of hope and comfort. When we go beyond 
 the walls, and consider either the points of vantage 
 gained, or the general progress which has been accom- 
 plished, it is yet more, and by far more, favourable. 
 
 Let us now take some account of the results 
 of the Elections, as they are exhibited, not in a gross 
 total, but in different quarters of the country. 
 
 The fact that Wales has been from the first under 
 an incorporating union, has blinded us to the fact 
 that there are, within the United Kingdom, no less 
 than four nationalities. Of these four nationalities, 
 three have spoken for Irish autonomy in a tone yet 
 more decided than the tone in which the fourth has 
 forbidden it. Scotland has approved our Irish policy 
 by three to two, Ireland herself by four and a half to 
 one, and gallant Wales by five to one. In the 
 aggregate they have returned more than 150 sup- 
 porters of the policy, and rather above fifty against 
 it; or three to one in its favour. 
 
 In England, I might dwell on some remarkable 
 exceptions to the prevailing opinion, such as those 
 of Yorkshire and Northumberland ; portions of the 
 
 D
 
 34 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 country commonly supposed to be above, and not 
 below, the average in intelligence and force of 
 character. But for the present purpose we must deal 
 with England as a whole, and we find that she has 
 decided against Ireland by returning 336 opponents 
 of our Irish policy, against 129 who support it. 
 
 This is not, then, a partnership of three kingdoms, 
 or of four nationalities, upon equal terms. The vast 
 preponderance in strength of one among them enables 
 her to overbear the other three, and to reverse their 
 combined judgment. The case may be even carried 
 a little further. The minority adverse to Ireland in 
 Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, taken together, is 
 twenty-five per cent, of the whole. The minority 
 favourable to Ireland in the English return, though 
 a small minority, reaches twenty-eight per cent, of 
 the whole. So, then, England speaking by much 
 less than three-fourths of her whole number of mem- 
 bers, can give, against Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, 
 speaking conjointly by three-fourths of their mem- 
 bers, an absolute majority on the aggregate return of 
 no less than 110. Let us illustrate the state of facts 
 by a supposed case. Whenever the people of England 
 think one way in the proportion of two to one, they 
 can outvote in Parliament the united force of Scot- 
 land, Wales, and Ireland, although they should think 
 the other way in the proportion of five to one. And 
 if England thinks one way in the proportion of three 
 to one, she can outvote Scotland, Ireland, and Wales
 
 II. — FOR IRELAND. 35 
 
 together, although they were each and all to return 
 the whole of their members to vote against her.* 
 There are, therefore, reasons of a very intelligible 
 kind why England should at the first blush take a 
 favourable view of the advantages of incorporating 
 unions. 
 
 But the question of majority and minority does 
 not rule the whole case. Ireland, with the minority 
 of 280 in her favour, and carving out of that aggre- 
 gate minority large majorities in three out of the four 
 nationalities, stands far better than she would stand 
 were that minority proportionably diffused in four, 
 or even in three of them : were our opponents able 
 to say that England, Scotland, and Wales were all 
 against her. 
 
 * The figures stand thus : — 
 
 England has members .... 465 
 Scotland ... 72 ^ 
 Ireland ... 103 ... 205 
 Wales ... 30 j 
 
 Case 1.— f of 465 = 310 
 i of 205 = 34 
 
 344 
 
 0- of 205 = 171 
 
 326 
 
 But ^- of 465 = 155 
 
 Majority . 18 
 
 Case 2. 465 - 116 = 349 
 The rest of the House 321 
 
 Majority . 28 
 
 D 2
 
 -3f) LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 The recent contest has been Ibuglit upon tlie 
 question of nationality : upon the title of Ireland to 
 some recognition (in Lord Carnarvon's phrase) of 
 her national aspirations. Now, in the first place, 
 this very fact, that an election has been contested on 
 grounds of nationality, of itself gives a new place to 
 nationality as an element of our political thought. 
 Secondly, these nationalities will be inclined to help 
 one another. Ireland has received signal assistance 
 from Scotland and from Wales on the great and 
 capital subject of her nationality. Should there be, 
 and will there not be ? — questions coming forward, in 
 which Scotland or Wales have a special national 
 interest or feeling, it is probable that Ireland, so long 
 at least as she continues to have a voice through her 
 members in British affairs, will reciprocate the boon. 
 AVhat is not less likely, and even more important, is 
 that the sense of nationality, both in Scotland and in 
 Wales, set astir by this controversy, may take a 
 wider range than heretofore. Wales, and even 
 Scotland, may ask herself, whether the present system 
 of intrusting all their affairs to the handling of a 
 body, English in such overwhelming proportion as 
 the present Parliament is, and must probably always 
 be, is an adjustment which does the fullest justice to 
 what is separate and specific in their several popula- 
 tions. Scotland, which for a century and a quarter 
 after her Union was refused all taste of a real repre- 
 sentative system, may begin to ask herself whether, 
 if at the first she felt something of an unreasoning
 
 II.— FOR IRELAND. 37 
 
 antipathy, she may not latterly have drifted into a 
 superstitious worship, or at least an irreflective acqui- 
 escence. Of two things I feel assured. First, what- 
 ever practical claims either of these countries may 
 make on their own behalf will be entertained and dis- 
 posed of without stirring up the cruel animosities, 
 the unworthy appeals to selfishness, the systematic 
 misrepresentations, which have told so fearfully 
 against Ireland. And, secondly, that the desire for 
 Federation, floating in the minds of many, has had 
 an unexpected ally in the Irish policy of 1886 ; and 
 that, if the thing, which that term implies, contains 
 within itself possibilities of practical good, the chance 
 of bringing such possibilities to bear fruit has thus 
 been unexpectedly and largely improved. 
 
 Let it not, however, be supposed for a moment that 
 England is to be regarded as hostile to the claims of 
 Ireland. What we have before us is not really a 
 refusal ; it is only a slower acknowledgment. What- 
 ever efforts may have been made by individuals to 
 bring the national mind at the Election of 1885 to a 
 perception of what was coming, it must be remem- 
 bered that a powerful party had at that time, on 
 account of the Irish vote, the very strongest reasons 
 for keeping the Irish question out of view, and that 
 jlhey set up other cries, such as the " Church in 
 danger," which were known and familiar, and which 
 drew away attention from what was real to what was 
 imaginary. So it is po great wonder or offence if,
 
 38 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 wlieii the subject was novel, and when the most 
 powerful and best organised classes in the country 
 were resolutely bent on arguments which darkened all 
 its bearings, it should have remained a little obscure. 
 But mark the progress that has been made. A subject 
 which, twelve months ago, was almost as foreign to the 
 British mind as the differential calculus, has been in- 
 scribed among the chief lessons of all Liberal teaching 
 in every town and county of the land, and is every- 
 where supported by a large body of persons with a 
 warmth and earnestness equal to any that is felt for 
 any of the dearest and most familiar aims of public 
 policy. All the currents of the political atmosphere 
 as between the two islands have been cleansed and 
 sweetened ; for Ireland now knows, what she has 
 never known before, that, even under her defeat, a 
 deep rift of division runs all through the English nation 
 in her favour ; that there is not throughout the land 
 a district, a parish, or a village where there are not 
 hearts beating in unison with her heart, and minds 
 earnestly bent on the acknowledgment and permanent 
 establishment of her claims to national existence. 
 
 She knows also that many, if not most, of her 
 adversaries have paid the highest compliment to her 
 claim for the adoption of the measure of 1886, in 
 adopting, it is to be presumed as a political necessity, 
 the method of systematically misstating it. Because 
 they conceive it to tend to separation, they describe 
 it as being in itself Separation. Because they think
 
 II. — FOR IRELAND. 39 
 
 it would bring about a Eepeal of the Union, they 
 describe it as being a Repeal of the Union. That is, 
 by reason of what they think (most erroneously) that 
 it would produce, they habitually describe* it as being 
 that which they know it not to be. It is just as in an 
 arithmetical sum ; the misstatement of the terms of the 
 problem, of course, if not detected, makes the problem 
 hopeless. It is without example, so far as I know, 
 in the political controversies of the last half century. 
 It establishes a precedent which may, with some kind 
 of excuse, be used hereafter against its authors. It 
 is a practice analogous to hitting foul in pugilism, or 
 
 * Still worse is the endeavour to tempt the voter through his 
 selfishness. From an illustrated placard, printed by Bale, Great 
 Titchfield Street, I cite the following words. After describing 
 the majority of the Irish nation as rebels, it proceeds to say 
 that, as the result of Home Eule, " The labour market of England 
 would be flooded with Irishmen, wages lowered." In the ' Times ' 
 of July 22, a defeated Dissentient complained that hardly a 
 single word on his side had reached the agricultural labourers. 
 The secretary of the Liberal Association replied by showing that, 
 on behalf of this very Dissentient, the labourers were informed 
 by placards on every wall that, if they voted for his opponent, 
 *' swarms of poor Irishmen would come over and lower wages, 
 besides which 100 millions were to be spent on buying out 
 Irish landlords, which would enormously increase taxes on your 
 tea, coffee, cocoa, &c." We should all husband as much as 
 possible in this controversy our small stock of Christian charity. 
 But could the person, who wrote that the concession of the 
 demand of the Irish people would drive away the Irish people 1 jj^ 
 from Ireland, himself have believed what he wrote ? That it 
 would raise wages in England, by largely drawing back the 
 Irish, may not be very probable, but is certainly a less absurd 
 proposition. 

 
 40 LESSONS OP THE ELECTION. 
 
 using weajDons in war, wlncli are prohibited by 
 the laws of war. It constitutes a proof of the 
 weakness in argument of a cause, driven to supply 
 by prohibited means its poverty in legitimate 
 resource. 
 
 Apart from this grave aspect of the case, is there 
 not something beyond the ordinary licence of con- 
 troversy in charging upon the Irish people the idea 
 and intention of Separation, in connection with the 
 present subject ? 
 
 As the adversary believes the measure involves by 
 way of consequence the separation of the countries, 
 he is entirely justified in pressing his argument ; but 
 he should surely press it in the right way. 
 
 There are two methods of conducting the argu- 
 ment, either of which it has been open to him to 
 follow, and which I will call respectively the humane 
 and the savage method. 
 
 The Irish nation, while it is recovering from its 
 very natural estrangement, and learning with a good 
 heart the accents of loyalty, disclaims in the most 
 emphatic and binding way, by the mouth of its 
 authorised representatives, the idea of separation. 
 The opponent of Home Rule might say, " I take you 
 at your word ; I am convinced you do not mean 
 Separation ; but I will show you that, by certain con- 
 sequence, this mischievous Bill involves it." That I 
 call the humane method of argument. 
 
 But the method generally adopted has been to say, 
 *' You disclaim Separation ; but I do not believe you ;
 
 II.— FOR IRELAND. 41 
 
 and so I call you, and all who aid and abet yon, 
 Separators/' Is it too much to call this the savage 
 method ? 
 
 At least it may be held that, when we begin by 
 giving the lie, there ought to be in the essence of 
 the thing that we impute something of a nature to 
 render our imputation probable. Is this the case 
 with Separation ? What is there in Separation, that 
 would tend to make it advantageous to Ireland ? 
 
 As an island with many hundreds of miles of coast, 
 with a weak marine, and a people far more military 
 than nautical in its habits, of small population^ and 
 limited in her present resources ; why should she 
 expose herself to the risks of invasion, and to the 
 certainty of enormous cost in the creation and main- 
 tenance of a navy for defence, rather than remain 
 under the shield of the greatest maritime Power in the 
 world, bound by every consideration of honour and of 
 interest to guard her ? Why should she be supposed 
 desirous to forego the advantage of an absolute com- 
 munity of trade with the greatest among all commercial 
 countries, to become an alien to the market which 
 consumes (say) nine-tenths of her produce, and instead 
 of using the broad and universal paths of enterprise 
 now open to her, to carve out for herself new and 
 narrow ways as a third-rate State ? Why, when her 
 children have now, man by man, the free run of the 
 vast British Empire, upon terms of absolute equality 
 with every native of Great Britain, should she be
 
 42 LESSONS OP THE ELECTION. 
 
 deemed so blind as to intend cutting them away from 
 the greatest of all the marts in the world for human 
 enterprise, energy, and talent, and to doom them to 
 be strangers among nearly three hundred million men, 
 with whom they have now a common citizenship ? 
 Why is she to be insensible to all the indications 
 nature herself has given of the destiny of Ireland to 
 be our partner in weal and woe, and why should she 
 be ready to enter upon a desperate contest of strength 
 with a people of six times her number, of twelve times 
 her wealth, inferior to her in no single element of 
 courage or tenacity ? This people, to whom even justice 
 itself has never yet enabled her to offer an effective 
 military resistance, are now to be frightened out of 
 their propriety lest Ireland should offer them violence, 
 to tear herself away, unattracted to any foreign centre 
 (for there is none), unwarmed by sympathy beyond 
 her shores (for she would have none), unblessed 
 by Heaven, and quarrelling suicidally with all that 
 could minister to her material or her political wel- 
 fare ! No ; the truth is, and history proves it, Eng- 
 land has been strong enough to be, even through a 
 course of generations, unjust to Ireland ; and now it is 
 not want of strength that will put a stop to such 
 injustice, but her better will, her better knowledge, 
 the action of the nation substituted for the action of 
 the few, and an improved and improving moral sense 
 in public affairs. What reason here indicates, history 
 proves ; for never did Separation become a substan-
 
 III.— SALE AND PURCHASE OF LAND. 43 
 
 tive idea in Ireland, until the one unhappy period 
 when the warlike instincts of France coincided with 
 that infatuation of the British G-overnment which in 
 Ireland raised tyranny and sanguinary oppression, 
 as well as the basest corruption, to their climax. 
 Only superlative iniquity led Ireland even for a 
 moment to dream of separating. Even then, the 
 remedy would have been worse than the disease. 
 None but the few fanatics of crime dream now of 
 such a thing; and they, who impute it to the Irish 
 nation, treat it as a nation made up of men who are 
 at once and equally traitors, knaves, and fools. 
 
 III. — Purchase and Sale of Land in Ireland. 
 
 I do not propose to examine in detail the Causes of 
 the signal defeat, which tlie Irish joolicy of the late 
 Government has now received at the polls of Eng- 
 land, or rather of the middle and southern parts of 
 England. But, in my opinion, the chief among 
 those causes is not to be found in chimerical fears of 
 Separation, or in aversion to the grant of self-govern- 
 ment to Ireland as a whole, or even in want of time 
 to understand the principles and bearings of our 
 measures. The most powerful agent in bringing 
 about this result was, in my judgment, aversion to 
 the Bill for the Purchase and Sale of Land in 
 Ireland. 
 
 This aversion grew out of misapprehension, which 
 was itself founded on (what I think) misrepresenta-
 
 44 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 tions, such as the complexity of the subject made it 
 impossible to remove. But, however illegitimate may 
 have been the means employed, the result is not to be 
 denied, and has to be taken into practical account. 
 The gigantic bribe which was detected in an offer to 
 pay to Irish landowners what Parliament might deem 
 to be the fair market value of their rented lands ; the 
 attempt to combine a large equity with policy in an 
 employment of British credit warranted by such high 
 calls, and in its pecuniary results absolutely safe ; the 
 daring attempt we made to carry to the very utter- 
 most our service to the men whom we knew to be 
 as a class the bitterest and most implacable of our 
 political adversaries, by declaring our two Bills to be, 
 in our own minds, and for the existing juncture, 
 inseparable : all these have been swept ruthlessly off 
 the field of present action by the national verdict. 
 Not merely the verdict expressed by the English 
 majority ; for the sentiment is shared by many of the 
 staunch supporters of Irish autonomy, and has not 
 been hitherto repudiated by the Nationalists of Ire- 
 land, who had given a somewhat reluctant assent to 
 pi'oposals entailing so heavy a liability on the whole 
 public resources of their country. 
 
 The two Bills, for the government of Ireland and 
 for the Purchase and Sale of Land, have been used at 
 the Election to destroy one another. The Land Bill 
 had many friends, chiefly among Tories and Dis- 
 sentient Liberals. But their love of the Land Bill
 
 Ill, — SALE AND PURCHASE OF LAND. 45 
 
 was not so strong as their aversion to Home Rule, 
 and they allowed it to lie pierced with a thousand 
 gashes, in. order that through it the sister measure 
 of Home Eule might be wounded. On the other 
 hand, the mass of the Liberals throughout the 
 country were fully prepared for the grant of Irish 
 autonomy, but were in many cases adverse to the 
 ill-understood measure for the Purchase and Sale 
 of Land, which they were taught to believe could, 
 under no circumstances, be severed from it. Hence 
 many a seat was given to the Tories by Liberal 
 abstentions, and not a few to Liberal Dissentients, 
 by those who acquiesced in the destruction of the 
 one Bill for the sake of securing the destruction of 
 the other. So, then, this Siamese twinship of the 
 Bills, put to scorn by those for whose benefit it 
 was in great part designed, has been deadly to both, 
 and has proved the most powerful cause of the defeat 
 of the Liberal party at the elections in England. 
 
 I think it my duty explicitly to acknowledge that 
 the sentence which has gone forth for the severance 
 of the two measures is irresistible, and that the twin- 
 ship, which has been for the time disastrous to the 
 hopes of Ireland, exists no longer. 
 
 At the same time, the partnership between enemies 
 of Home Rule and enemies of the Land Bill, which 
 has brought about this result, will now, we may hope, 
 be dissolved. The enemies of Home Rule have ever 
 been the keenest promoters of Land Purchase in the
 
 46 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 interest of the Irish landlords. The enemies of the 
 Land Purchase Bill, instead of standing at ease, will 
 now have to use all their vigilance for the purpose 
 of preventing the adoption of schemes of Land 
 Purchase founded on principles very different from, 
 and, indeed, opposite to, those of the Bill lately con- 
 signed to the limbo of abortions. 
 
 We have lying before us a new point of departure ; 
 but, for the sake of the subject, it may be right to 
 offer a slight explanation on the Bill. 
 
 A main object of that Bill was to get rid of the bad 
 and dangerous schemes, which alone had seemed 
 possible in the present centralised condition of our 
 arrangements for the government of Ireland. Among 
 the principles of the plan, any or all of which I 
 reserve my title to uphold and urge at the proper 
 time on their merits, and not as inseparable portions 
 of a wider scheme, were these : — 
 
 1. — To eschew entirely the establishment of the 
 relation of debtor and creditor between the Imperial 
 Treasury and the Irish occupier individually. 
 
 2. — To deal only with an authority empowered 
 under the highest sanction to bind Ireland as a 
 whole. 
 
 3. — To accept as security nothing less than what 
 would suffice to place the fifty millions of Consols 
 issuable under the Act on a footing of perfect equality 
 in the market with the mass of Consols already there. 
 
 4. — In fulfilment of this view, to place the charge,
 
 11. — SALE AND PUKCHASE OF LAND. 47 
 
 not on the rents proceeding from the land alone, but 
 also on the entire public revenues of Ireland. 
 
 5. — To direct the collection and course of these 
 revenues in such a channel, as to make their receipt 
 and application not less safe and certain than the 
 receipt and application of the revenues of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 I trust that every British Liberal, consentient or 
 dissentient, who may think that there are reasons 
 sufficient to warrant some intervention of Imperial 
 credit in order to solve the question of Irish land, 
 will steadily resist any attempt to fasten on us a 
 scheme of inferior security ; and especially will set 
 his face against the establishment of direct relations 
 between the Treasury and the individual occupant of 
 the soil in Ireland, by reason, not only of pecuniary 
 risk, but also, and far more, of very grave political 
 danger. 
 
 The subject may be summed up in three short 
 queries. 
 
 First, is it right that England, both on grounds of 
 policy, and as having been art and part in the wrongs 
 done to Ireland by her land laws and by many of her 
 landlords, should bear her share in providing further 
 facilities for the sale and purchase of land in Ireland ? 
 
 Secondly, ought this provision to be made by a 
 liberal use, under the peculiar circumstances of the 
 case, of the public credit of the country ? 
 
 Thirdly, is it wise or justifiable, instead of dealing
 
 48 LESSOKS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 witli some public authority in Ireland, to place the 
 Treasury of this country in tlie direct relation of 
 creditor to scores, or it may be hundreds, of thousands 
 of the persons occupying land in Ireland ? 
 
 To the first two questions I give my answer in the 
 affirmative ; to the third I say emjDhatically, No. 
 
 IV. — The Conservative Character of Home 
 EuLE FOR Ireland. 
 
 I deviate for a moment from my survey of the 
 political battlefield, to touch on a question more 
 likely to receive consideration now than during the 
 heat of the fight. 
 
 For my own part, in arguing for the Irish policy 
 of the late Administration, I have not found it my 
 duty to attempt any narrow appropriation of that 
 policy to the Liberal party. It was indeed eminently 
 agreeable to the principles of that party, because it 
 proceeded upon a rational but a broad and generous 
 trust in the people of Ireland ; upon a large recogni- 
 tion of that people's right to liberty, which, says 
 Mr. Burke,* is " the birthright of our species," and 
 which " we cannot forfeit, except by what forfeits our 
 title to the privileges of our kind. I mean the abuse 
 or oblivion of our rational faculties," which " destroys 
 our social nature, and transforms us into something 
 little better than the description of wdld beasts." 
 
 Correspondence, iii. 105.
 
 IV.—IS HOME EULE CONSERVATIVE ? 49 
 
 But unless the policy, from its harmonising with 
 the love of liberty, and its spirit of reliance on a 
 peo|)le, be, in the eyes of all but Liberal politicians, 
 guilty of the unpardonable sin, and thus excluded 
 from a hearing, surely it has high titles to a conser- 
 vative character, and may reasonably lay claim to 
 Conservative favour. For it is especially founded 
 on regard for history and tradition. It aims in the 
 main at restoring, not at altering, the Empire. In 
 this vast mass are straightway discovered a multitude 
 of subaltern integers ; municipalities, counties, colo- 
 nies, and nations. Does a true conservative policy 
 recommend that the dividing lines, which hedge about 
 these secondary organisations, should be eyed with 
 an eager jealousy, and effaced upon any favourable 
 occasion ? I put aside for the moment all regard to 
 the pollution and the tyranny by which an occasion 
 for the Union was forced into existence ; and I raise 
 the issue on a broader ground. It is surely most 
 desirable that every subaltern structure in an enor- 
 mous political fabric, having joints and fastenings, 
 tie-beams and rafters of its own, should contribute, 
 by the knotted strength thus inhering in each part, 
 to increase the aggregate of cohesive force, which 
 guarantees the permanence and solidity of the whole. 
 
 Intermediate authority, set between the central 
 power and the subject, is a contrivance favourable to 
 both. It softens the whole character of government 
 as a coercive system. It saves the centre from strain; 
 
 E
 
 50 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 and saves it also from excess. It gives a domestic 
 aspect to commands which, when proceeding from a 
 remoter source, want their best passport to accept- 
 ance. The ruler's will is more largely obeyed ; and 
 the quality of the obedience is improved as the 
 quantity is enlarged, for it becomes a willing obedi- 
 ence. There are functions of government which 
 require from their own nature a central impulsion. 
 But, wherever the nature of the thing to be done 
 does not suffer, the more locally it is determined the 
 better. 
 
 And in all cases where, population not being 
 homogeneous, the different portions of a country (such 
 as the United Kingdom) are variously coloured, as 
 by race, or religion, or history, or employments, the 
 argument against centralisation acquires new force, 
 in proportion as the central agent loses the power of 
 sympathy and close adaptation to peculiar wants and 
 wishes, and may lose also, where relations have not 
 been altogether kindly, even the consciousness of this 
 iugenital defect. When matters have reached such a 
 stage, the ruler resents that resentment in the mind 
 of the subject, which his own incapacity has raised. 
 This comparative coldness, sometimes passing into 
 aversion, discontent, and even disloyalty, we find in 
 the case of Ireland, and of Ireland alone among all 
 the portions of the Empire. All the rest are held 
 together by freewill ; she alone is under the bond of 
 force. In opposition to it, she has maintained from
 
 V. — WHO WILL DO IT? 51 
 
 first to last the best protest in her power, and has 
 availed herself progressively more and more of the 
 increased means of protest with which, in singular 
 blindness to the state either of her mind or our own, 
 or possibly both, we have incongruously supplied her. 
 And when, more positively urging her demand, she 
 at the same time narrows the demand itself, so as to 
 meet imperial jealousies and scruples, she is rewarded 
 for her moderation by the loud assertion that the 
 Irish nation speaks, it is true, but speaks with a lie 
 in its mouth. 
 
 So, then, we may fairly say of the policy which 
 aims at giving Ireland an Irish Government, not 
 only it is a policy broad, open, trustful, popular, and 
 therefore liberal ; but also it is a policy whick, instead 
 of innovating, restores; which builds upon the 
 ancient foundations of Irish history and tradition ; 
 which, by making power local, makes it congenial, 
 where hitherto it has been unfamiliar, almost alien ; 
 and strong, where hitherto it has been weak. Let 
 us extricate the question from the low mist of the 
 hour, let us raise the banner clear of the smoke of 
 battle, and we shall see that such a policy is eminently 
 a Conservative policy. 
 
 V. — To WHICH Party is the Work Reserved? 
 It is one of the best characteristics of the Liberal 
 party, that it has never foregone an opportunity ^^ftrT-^ 
 closing with a good measure, come it from whom it ^t/^O
 
 62 LESSONS OF THE ]^:LECTI0N. 
 
 It was in an endeavour to ajoj^ly this principle, 
 that in December last I promised my best support to 
 Lord Salisbury, if his Government would introduce 
 a comprehensive measure for the settlement of the 
 Irlsli question. This was an offer made under 
 highly favourable circumstances. For, as between 
 the two great parties in the State, the question of 
 Irish self-government, in its principal aspects, was 
 then open ground. The Liberal party of 1800 had 
 the honour of resisting the Incorporating Union. 
 But for the last sixty years, on the question of re- 
 pealing that measure, as the proposal was entertained 
 by neither party, no distinctive character had 
 attached to the action of the one or the other. Un- 
 happily, the last Tory Grovernment, notwithstanding 
 the encouragement given by the opinion of their 
 Viceroy, was not prepared to move. Accordingly, 
 the question of self-government for Ireland in Irish 
 affairs has now taken its place in politics with the 
 Liberal coat of arms stamped upon it, and has 
 become a Liberal measure. But there remains an 
 important question behind. Will it, or will it not, 
 like other Liberal measures, owe its coming place on 
 the Statute Book immediately, if not causally, to the 
 action of official Tories, sustained and made effective 
 by Liberal patriotism and Liberal votes ? 
 
 There are at least four great cases, which have 
 been placed on record within my memory, and in 
 every one of which a Conservative Government^ 
 after having resisted a great proposal up to the
 
 V. — WHO WILL DO IT? 63 
 
 moment immediately preceding the surrender, then 
 became its official sponsor, and carried it into law. 
 They are the cases of the Test Act in 1828, of the 
 Roman Catholic Relief in 1829, of Corn Law Repeal 
 in 1846 (when, however. Sir Robert Peel had done all 
 in his power to throw the conduct of the question into 
 Liberal hands), and of Extension of the Franchise in 
 1867. In the last of these cases, not only had the 
 measure been resisted, but a Liberal Government had 
 been overthrown in the preceding year on account 
 of a measure less extended, not indeed than the 
 very meagre original proposal of 1867, but than the 
 measure which, by the strength of Liberal votes, and 
 with the sanction of the Derby-Disraeli Government, 
 was eventually adopted. It seems extremely doubt- 
 ful whether any one of these measures would have 
 been carried through both Houses, except under the 
 peculiar conditions which secured for them on each 
 occasion, both the aid of the Liberal vote in the 
 House of Commons, and the authority of the Tory 
 Government in the House of Lords. One other case 
 stands alone. The Tory chiefs of 1832, with the 
 exception of Sir Robert Peel, fiercely resisting the 
 Reform Bill of Lord Grey, and stopping its progress 
 in their own familiar fortress, the House of Lords, 
 declared themselves nevertheless willing to take 
 charge of the question. But public indignation was 
 too strong to permit the progress of the experiment. 
 A main reason, which governed me in the offer of 
 last December, was my full conviction that if the
 
 54 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 Tory Grovernment had acted as many were tlien 
 inclined to hope, the proposal would have an im- 
 partial hearing from the Liberal party, and an 
 amount of support far more than sufficient, as in 
 1829 and 184G, to make up for Orange and Tory 
 defections, so as to secure the speediest and easiest, 
 which would in my judgment have been also the 
 most satisfactory, accomplishment of the great design. 
 With regard to that design, I do not venture to 
 forecast the future, beyond the expression of an un- 
 doubting belief that a measure of self-government 
 for Ireland, not less extensive than the proposal of 
 1886, will be carried. Whether the path will be 
 circuitous ; whether the journey will be divided into 
 stages, and how many these will be ; or how much 
 jolting will attend the passage ; it is not for me to 
 say. ISlor is it for me to conjecture whether in this, as 
 in so many other cases, the enemies of the measure are 
 the persons designed finally to guide its triumphal 
 procession to the Capitol. But I hope that, should 
 this contingency once more arise, every Liberal poli- 
 tician, irrespective of any misgivings (should he be 
 tempted to entertain them) as to the motives of the 
 men, will remember that his inexorable duty is to 
 extract the maximum of public profit from their acts. 
 
 VI. — Conclusion. 
 
 If I am not egregiously wrong in all that has been 
 said, Ireland has now lying before her a broad and 
 even way, in which to walk to the consummation of 
 
 I
 
 VI.— CONCLUSION. 55 
 
 her wishes. Before her eyes is opened that same 
 path of constitutional and peaceful action, of steady, 
 free, and full discussion, which has led England and 
 Scotland to the achievement of all their pacific 
 triumphs. Like the walls of Jericho, falling, not in 
 blood and conflagration, but at the trumpets' peal, 
 so, under the action of purely moral forces, have an 
 hundred fortresses of prejudice, privilege, and shallow 
 prescription, successively given way. It is the 
 potent spell of legality, which has done all this, or 
 enabled it to be done. The evil spirit of illegality 
 and violence has thus far had no part or lot in the 
 political action of Ireland, since, through the Fran- 
 chise Act of 1885, she came into that inheritance of 
 adequate representation, from which she had before 
 been barred. Ireland, in her present action, is not 
 to be held responsible for those agrarian offences, 
 which are in truth the indication and symptom of 
 her disease ; from which her public opinion has, 
 through the recent beneficial action, become greatly 
 more estranged ; and to which she herself ardently 
 intreats us to apply the only effectual remedy, by such 
 a reconciliation between the people and the law, as is 
 the necessary condition of civilised life. The modera- 
 tion of the Irish demands, as they were presented and 
 understood in the Session of 1886, has been brightly 
 reflected in the calm, confiding, and constitutional 
 attitude of the nation. I make no specific reference 
 to the means that have been used in one deplorable
 
 56 LESSONS OF THE ELECTION. 
 
 case, under guilty recommendations from above, with 
 a view to disturbing this attitude, and arresting the 
 progress of the movement ; for I believe that the 
 employment of such means, and the issuing of such 
 recommendations, will eventually aid the cause they 
 were designed to injure. It is true that, in the close 
 of the last century, the obstinate refusal of just 
 demands, and the deliberate and dreadful acts of 
 Ireland's enemies, drove her people widely into dis- 
 affection, and partially into the ways of actual 
 violence. But she was then down-trodden and 
 gagged. She has now a full constitutional equip- 
 ment of all the means necessary for raising and deter- 
 mining the issues of moral force. She has also the 
 strongest sympathies within, as well as beyond, these 
 shores to cheer, moderate, and gnide her. The 
 position is for her a novel one, and in its novelty 
 lies its only risk. But she is quick and ready of 
 23erception : she has the rapid comprehensive glance, 
 which the Generals she has found for us have shown 
 on many a field of battle. The qualities she has so 
 eminently exhibited this year have already earned 
 for her a rich reward in confidence and goodwill. 
 There is no more to ask of her. She has only to 
 persevere. 
 
 August 19, 1886.
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Since these pages were written, the principal in- 
 tentions of Ministers with respect to Ireland have 
 heen announced. 
 
 The Statesmen, who in January deemed coercive 
 measures an absolute necessity, do not now propose 
 them, although agrarian crime has rather increased, 
 and Ireland has been perturbed (so they said) by the 
 proposal of Home Rule. 
 
 This is a heavy blow to Coercion ; and a marked 
 sign of progress. 
 
 I am concerned to say that on no other head do 
 the announcements supply any causes for congratu- 
 lation. * 
 
 1. Large Irish subjects, ripe for treatment, are to 
 be referred to Commissions for inquiry. This is a 
 policy, while social order is in question, of almost 
 indefinite delay. 
 
 2. Moreover, while a Commission is to inquire 
 whether rents, or judicial rents, are or are not such 
 as can be paid, the aid of the law for levying the 
 present rents in November has been specially and 
 emphatically promised. This is a marked discourage- 
 ment to remissions of rent, and a powerful stimulus 
 to evictions. 
 
 3. A project has been sketched of imposing upon 
 the State the payment of all monies required to meet 
 the difference between these actual rents, and what 
 
 F
 
 58 POSTSCIUPT. 
 
 the land can fairly bear. Tliis project is in principle 
 radically bad, and it wonld l)e an act of rapine on 
 the Treasury of the country. 
 
 4. Whereas the greatest evil of Ireland is that its 
 niagisterial and administrative systems are felt to 
 be other tlian Irish, no proposal is made for the 
 reconstruction of what is known as ' Dublin Castle ' 
 government. 
 
 5. It is proposed to spend large sums of public 
 money on public works of all kinds for the material 
 development of Ireland, under English authority, 
 and Dublin Castle administration. This plan is 
 (1) in the highest degree wasteful; (2) it is unjust 
 to the British tax-payer; and (3) it is an obvious 
 attempt to divert the Irish nation by pecuniary 
 inducement from its honourable aim of national self- 
 government, and will as such be resented. 
 
 6. The limitation of local Government in Ireland 
 to what may at this moment be desired for Great 
 Britain, is just to none of our nationalities, rests upon 
 no recognised principle, and is especially an unjust 
 limitation of the Irish national desire. 
 
 In my opinion, such a policy for dealing with the 
 Irish question ought not to be, and cannot be 
 adopted. 
 
 Anqmf 22, 1880. 
 
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