The New Irish Constitution Part 31

I fear there may be too much egotism and too little reticence in my placing such kindly and even confidential communications as these before the public, yet my motive for doing so is simply to show how much real kindly feeling and friendly intercourse exist between members of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches in Ireland, especially in those districts where the vast numerical predominance of the former Church might, as some suppose and suggest, provoke her to intolerance, which in my opinion is not the case at all. Of course I do not profess to do more than offer a general opinion founded on my own personal experience, and on my knowledge of Irish history in the past. But when I look back upon the past and think for example on the state of Ireland during the "t.i.the Wars," as described by such a writer as Lecky, and on my own recollections of Ireland in the days of the Land League, and compare with these periods the present happy and peaceful condition of the country, and ask myself what has produced such a blessed and beneficial change, is not the answer plain enough that it has been the progress of healing and remedial legislation? Well, then, if impending legislation in the direction of Home Rule is a further concession to national sentiment and likely to prove a further development of and outlet for national knowledge of what the country requires, and an application of her own energies and resources for the purpose, why should one dread and deprecate the experiment? I have lived through too many Irish crises to be afraid of another. I do not venture to speak dogmatically, still less despairingly, but I feel on the whole that this new departure will tend to good like its predecessors. I am inclined to ask, why should the Roman Catholic people of Ireland persecute Protestants, if Home Rule be granted-some will say, oh, because they will then have greatly increased power and influence in their own hands, and they will therefore be tempted to use it, and will use it in this direction. I find it hard to believe this, I am very slow to believe it, judging from my own experience of Ireland. May I not put it in this way plausibly and reasonably enough: why should not such an extension of self-government gratify the Irish National Party, and produce even better and still more kindly feeling towards their Protestant fellow countrymen than already exists? If we must make a calculus of probabilities in such an event, ought we not to take into account the mollifying influence of the possession of increased powers, just as much as the temptation to misuse them in the direction of intolerance. Besides, will it not be the policy of the leaders of the Home Rule movement, should it become an accomplished fact, to conciliate-much rather than to coerce-those who oppose the movement? As Mr. Redmond has recently said, "some repudiate Ireland, but Ireland will not repudiate them." We may for a time in the near future have a period of some unrest, anxiety, possibly even danger, but we must hope that this will pa.s.s. Certain Irish proverbs show something of the tone of the national mind. Here are a few: are they not very instructive and descriptive?

"One must cut the gad nearest the throat."

"The first thread is not of the piece."

"A small share of anything is not worth much, but a small share of sense _is_ worth much."

"It isn't day yet."

"Nil la fs e."

All these proverbs show that Ireland has "learned to labour and to wait:"

"Look not mournfully into the past, It comes not back again ...

Wisely improve the present, it is thine.

Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart."

(2) A Presbyterian View, BY REV. J. B. ARMOUR, M.A.

The question of Home Rule for Ireland has been discussed from all sides now for more than a quarter of a century: and at present it holds the field. Everything from the const.i.tutional, commercial, and religious aspect of the problem has been said in an italicised form. The history of the controversy has shown considerable change of view, at least on the part of the opponents of the measure, and the bitterness against the idea has become in many cases a mere scream, a sign that the foundation of their objections to the proposal is giving way. At the first mention of Home Rule, the majority of the const.i.tutional lawyers entered the lists, and satisfied themselves that the measure would violate the const.i.tution, lead to the dismemberment of the Empire, and the final separation of Ireland from the Crown. The stipendiary politician, of whom we have many, especially in the North of Ireland, said: "I thank thee, O Jew, for teaching me that word," and rang the changes on the word "separation,"

dubbing every adherent of the Liberal cause as a separatist. The saner const.i.tutional lawyers have come to the conclusion that the idea of separation has no foundation in fact, and could not, if mooted, have the slightest hope of success. A community which has not the power of raising an Army or a Navy could hardly venture on rebellion. Ireland is largely an agricultural country, and, seeing that the farmers in a few years will be sitting under their own vine and fig tree, possessors as well as tillers of the soil, it is almost unthinkable that even five per cent. of the population would think of risking their all in an enterprise which could not be successful, and, if successful, would close against them their best markets. The Irish people are sometimes credited with a double dose of original sin and folly, but their sense of humour would save them from such a cut-throat policy. The soldiers they have sent into the British Army, taken from the lower strata of social life, have proved as loyal to the British Crown as the Scotch Highlanders. The Curragh, and other camps for soldiers in Ireland, will not be broken up when Home Rule comes. The fear of Home Rule leading to separation has receded to the background of the controversy, and is now the monopoly of obscure politicians.

I am asked to say something on the question from a Presbyterian point of view. It is a little difficult to state the number of those in favour of the measure, and of those not actively opposed thereto, especially as those who pose as exponents of Presbyterianism have set themselves, with considerable success, to destroy the right of free speech and to ban the right of private judgment as a pestilential heresy-two of the essential factors in living Protestantism. To hamstring these principles is to leave Protestantism with a name to live, though it is dead. These Anti-Home Rulers have been threatening, and are carrying out their threat, to boycott any parson who shows signs of scepticism about the infallibility of their _credo_. Boycotting is a serious offence, if practised in any form in the South and West of Ireland, but it is the eleventh Commandment of the Anti-Home Rulers among the Protestants, and is being observed with greater strictness than any of the Ten Words. Under the reign of TERRORISING PREJUDICE it is not easy to indicate the number of those, especially in the Presbyterian Church, who refuse to make Anti-Home Rule an article of a standing or falling Church. But the drastic methods used to repress free speech, and the right of private judgment on a political question, are indications that the secret disciples of Home Rule are not only a large but an increasing number. As one who has believed in Home Rule for many years, as one who, while treated with courtesy and kindliness by leading Unionists, has been thrice stoned by their noisy followers, I venture to give an _apologia pro mea vita_.

(_a_) I accept the principle of Home Rule for Ireland because it is the principle of the Presbyterian Church Government applied to secular affairs; a principle which has worked well in the Colonies where there are mixed races and religions; a principle which is a fundamental one in the United States of America; a principle which, truly democratic, has proved itself the salt of social life wherever applied, and, in the case of our Colonies, has been a link binding the Colonies with hooks of steel to the British Crown. Why or how it will lead to red ruin and the breaking up of laws in Ireland is not very clear, save to the "dryting prophets" of the dolorous breed. As a matter of fact, that principle of Protestantism was suggested to the Catholics by Protestants. The idea of Home Rule for Ireland was bred in the brain of some Fellows of T.C.D. Isaac b.u.t.t was its Cicero, and Parnell brought the idea into practical politics. Home Rule is the child of Protestant parents, and its adherents in all the branches of Protestant Churches are many. All the Unionists of the saner type admit the common sense of the principle, and they say that if Ireland were Scotland they would have nothing to say against an Irish Parliament for purely local purposes. But they insist that a true principle, if administered by Irishmen, would lead to a reign of terror and tyranny. The answer to that is this. The Conservative Government has already granted the half of the principle in the establishment of County Councils, which Lord Salisbury said would be more mischievous than Home Rule pure and simple-though in spite of his _ex-cathedra_ opinion he set them up. The Irish Conservative papers at the time said bitterly that the Councils were the half-way house to Home Rule. In existence now for years, they have worked wonderfully well without a t.i.the of the evil predicted to follow in their train. People argue on the question as if the Irish representatives would never take a statesmanlike view of any matter for the public good, and as if Protestantism would have no share in the deliberations of an Irish Parliament with a fourth of the representatives in Dublin Protestants, and with an upper House nominated with a view to the protection of minorities. The belief that democracy in Ireland would become a persecutor of Protestants and a robber of the commercial cla.s.ses can only arise in the minds of those who hate democracy and all its works, though the democratic principle wherever tried has been the parent of much that is good in social life. It is becoming the conviction of the thinking portion of the Protestant world that the question MUST be settled by the one party or the other on lines satisfactory to Irishmen generally; and notwithstanding the whirling words uttered by the landlords and their entourage at Balmoral, it is firmly believed that Mr. Bonar Law would like to have a hand in establis.h.i.+ng an Irish Parliament for Irish affairs.

(_b_) Home Rule would undo to a large extent the evils of the paper Union of 1800, modifying racial animosities, introducing a new spirit of patriotism and healing the sores of long standing. The means by which the Union of Ireland with England was effected were so destructive of everything moral in political life that every thinking man denounces them as infamous, and they are without a defender past or present. It is tolerably certain that 90 per cent. of the Protestants of Ireland, including a large number of the landlords who refused to be bribed, were as bitter against the destruction of the Irish Parliament as their descendants are against its restoration. Listening to the harangues against an Irish Parliament, one can only conclude that the applauding auditors regard their ancestors as fools. To have a dance on the graves of one's ancestors may be a new amus.e.m.e.nt, but it is hardly respectful to the memory of brave men whose opinions of the hurtful effects to Ireland from the Union and the loss of a legislature have been fully justified by events. n.o.body can say that the Union has been a success. For fully seventy years of the nineteenth century the government of Ireland was a legalised tyranny, the whole political power of making and administering laws for Ireland was in the hands of the landlords, who were allowed to rob and spoil at their will the Irish tenants, Protestant and Catholic. A tenant's Protestantism did not save him from a rack rent; it often increased the rack rents. For generations the tenants of Ireland had to pay between five and ten millions beyond what was just and fair, and those millions might as well have been cast into the Irish Channel as far as bringing any benefit to Ireland was concerned. The Imperial Parliament is heavily in debt to Ireland for the spoliation of the Irish farmers and labourers which it permitted. Irishmen of all creeds, as they look back on a long spell of slavery, have no right to join in singing paeans to the Union. If changes were made in the laws bringing a modic.u.m of justice to Irishmen, giving them a right to call their votes their own, and a right to part of the property they created, the predecessors of the Unionists of to-day have no claim to credit for the changes, as they fought with the same savageness they are showing towards Home Rule against the introduction of the ballot, and took as their motto "tenants' rights are landlords' wrongs." The thanks of Irishmen are due to the Liberal Party, led by Mr. Gladstone, and backed powerfully by the Nationalist Members.

Unionists of every colour are dwelling on the prosperity of Ireland, quoting statistics about the tremendous increase of sheep and swine. They forget two things, one of which is that Ireland since the Union has lost 50 per cent. of its inhabitants, but they say "What of that? We have a large increase of sheep and swine, the true index of a nation's prosperity." The Founder of our faith did not agree with the Unionist conception of the relative value of sheep and men. He said: "How much is a man better than a sheep," a saying which covers an Irish Catholic as well as a Protestant Home Ruler. Men are better than sheep, Unionists notwithstanding. Then they forget that Ireland's prosperity, whatever it is, began with Mr. Gladstone's legislation, which the Conservatives held would ruin the country and break up the Empire. His legislation was the introduction of the democratic principle into politics, and democracy has proved itself worthy of acceptation. Home Rule is the extension of the democratic idea, and in spite of all that has been said in strident tones against the measure, its acceptance will tend to social health and wealth, and not one hundredth part of the evil its opponents a.s.sociate with its pa.s.sing can result therefrom. The prophecies about the evils resulting from Liberal legislation have been falsified in every instance. The Ballot Act would have upset the Throne, according to the Tories, but the Throne is on a firmer basis now than it has been since the days of the Conqueror.

The disestablishment of the Irish Church was to ruin religion, but after more than forty years religion in the Episcopal Church of Ireland is healthier than ever. Home Rule will "heal the breaches of many generations."

(_c_) Home Rule in Ireland, so far from ruining Protestantism, will give Protestantism a chance of being judged on its own merits. _Hitherto Protestantism has been handicapped by its political a.s.sociations._ The system so long in vogue of compelling the Irish peasant to pay t.i.the for the support of an established Church where the peasant never wors.h.i.+pped, evoked the dislike of the majority of our countrymen for Protestantism and all its works. If that cause of active hatred was removed, the fact that Protestantism was still the religion of the majority of the landlords who demanded more than their pound of flesh from the tenants did not commend that form of religion as a gospel of love. Then the fact, so evident still, that the bureaucracy which is ruling Ireland is largely Protestant, the highest positions of dignity and emolument in connection with the State machinery being held, not by Protestants of all sects but by those belonging to a certain sect, has not been conducive to unprejudiced views of Protestantism as a religious system. The fear that the management of the State machinery will not remain in the hands of the descendants of the ascendency party is perhaps the strongest factor in opposition to Home Rule. As far as the Presbyterian Church is concerned, its members cannot possibly under Home Rule have a less share in the offices of emolument and dignity than they have had all down the years from 1800 to 1912.

Protestantism will enter on a new career as a spiritual rather than a political force, and will prove its right to have its share in our country's welfare. Persecution for conscience sake is a game played out, as the practice of persecution for religious opinions has hurt the persecutor more than the persecuted. Persecution cripples industry, and, as the world has become very practical, fears of persecution are to be largely discounted, especially as it would be rather difficult to persecute the fourth of the inhabitants. _Some_ of those who are exploiting the persecuting bogey for political ends have not much religion to persecute. The fears of a militant Catholic Duke who hates Home Rule, and who is credited with intriguing at Rome against it, ought to modify the fears of timid Protestants who urge that Home Rule must necessarily mean Rome Rule. To their credit, Irish Catholics, alone in the Catholic world, have never been known to persecute for religious beliefs. A martyr for conscience sake has never been heard of in Erin. On April 11th of this year, a letter was addressed to Mr. Redmond, signed by the leading Protestants of Dublin, in which they a.s.sert that Protestants have always been treated with courtesy by their Catholic neighbours in the south and west, and in which they repudiate the idea of persecution in the future.

They send Mr. Redmond a considerable subscription for his fund as a proof that their letter is not words, but an expression of well-grounded conviction. I have no fear for true Protestantism in the future, either in Ireland or elsewhere, though political Protestantism has had its day.

(_d_) Instead of diminis.h.i.+ng, Home Rule will increase, the commerce of Ireland. It is curious that, at all the Conventions called to denounce Home Rule, the fear of the ruin of commerce has been more prominent than the fear of the destruction of the Protestant religion. They have been reversing the great rule of life "Seek ye first the Kingdom of G.o.d and His righteousness and these things shall be added unto you." So obviously has the commercial side been thrust into the front rank of this controversy that a cynical friend-worthy to be a brother of the Member for Sark-has suggested that the meetings should have been opened by a hymn to commerce: "O G.o.d of Commerce help us, for the man from Waterford intends to cut down your groves." A more fantastic idea or one more devoid of all probability never took possession of men. Democracy has always been favourable to commerce, and commercial prosperity follows in its train. To imagine that a Parliament in Dublin would heap taxes on the rich is unthinkable, as any taxes on Ulster would weigh as heavily on other parts of Ireland. The Irish people of any creed are not fond of paying taxes, and one might take it for granted that a change in the administration of Irish affairs will not necessitate increased taxation. The administration of the Government machinery in Ireland is the costliest in any country, and is bound to decrease largely as the country settles. The cost of bills promoted by Irish Corporations for needed corporate improvements is enormous, and it frightens social reformers from attempting to get things which stand in the way of public good set right. No statement was ever further from the truth than that which is made so often, that the Imperial Parliament is ready to amend every real Irish grievance. There are hundreds of necessary reforms which would contribute to the prosperity of the country. These cannot be attempted because of the cost and the difficulty of getting them discussed in the Imperial Parliament. If settled in Dublin, they could be better done at one fifth of the expense. The Commerce of Ireland stands to gain by Home Rule. An increase of commerce always leads to a spirit of tolerance.

To those of my fellow religionists who are frightened by the very term-Home Rule, I would say "Who is he that will harm you if ye are followers of that which is good?"

(3) A Nonconformist View. BY REV. W. CRAWFORD, M.A.

It must be a matter of constant surprise, to those who have been accustomed to distinguish political from religious questions, to find religion for ever obtruded into discussions of the Irish problem. Can't men follow their religious convictions under any form of government? they will impatiently cry; why then complicate an already difficult subject by importing considerations on which some men appear always to be least reasonable? But it may as well be recognised at once that "religion" is generally at the base of the opposition to Home Rule, and that the British government of Ireland, as it is responsible for that peculiar feature of the case, must in all equity find a solution of the problem and a remedy for those evils which have embittered Irish life for centuries, and which to-day stand as the one great obstacle to England's last act of reparation for the wrongs of the past. An alien Church has been disestablished; a tyrannical land system is at enormous cost being revolutionised; and now the traditional animosity of Protestant to Roman Catholic, manifested in the general opposition of the Churches of the Reformation in Ireland to the demand for Home Rule, and enforced by every argument which the history of centuries can afford, must be dealt with.

The errors of a dark past cannot be undone; but each successive measure of conciliation has brought increased contentment and prosperity to the country; and, sure as there is a G.o.d in heaven, the repeal of the last and greatest wrong, an Act of Union which no honest historian can defend, will be the harbinger of lasting peace. To deal at once with the Protestant att.i.tude to Home Rule, the Churches in an overwhelming majority stand solid against it. The opposition is confined to no cla.s.s, being, if anything, more bitter and unreasoning in the lower grades of society. It is impossible to give any accurate estimate of the number of Protestant Home Rulers, and the much advertised totals of 95 to 98 per cent. of Unionists are mere fictions, as there never has been a poll taken on the question; and for easily understood reasons those in favour of suspected or unfas.h.i.+onable causes are slow to declare their opinions or convictions.

Liberalism is essentially "vulgar" in Ireland; and Nationalism is taboo in all polite society. That exclusive clique, among whom heredity, tradition, and "Church principles" reign supreme, has had a long ascendency in Ireland. In affluence amid poverty, with every advantage of education and influence over the unprivileged many, their pride has been to stand aloof from popular causes, and to decry every agitation for redress. Isolated Liberals, too few and scattered to form a community, have had to lie low, or risk their social position and business prospects. Of late years there has been some access of courage, and an increasing number in all professions and trades, except those directly dependent for support on the upper cla.s.ses, have greatly ventured in taking a stand on the people's side. Among the younger generations, the choicest spirits, true followers of Davis Emmett and Fitzgerald, have always been found on the popular side; but, on the whole, heredity prevails, tradition rules, and convention, under the guise of religion and Empire, drills the Protestant ma.s.s on the side of Unionism.

Ulster is the crux of the Home Rule problem; and Protestantism is the _raison d'etre_ of its opposition; as we are being ever reminded by Church a.s.semblies, Orange lodges, and political orators whose interest in the welfare of so Puritan a faith is admirable indeed, and full of promise for their future. The "religion" may sometimes appear to be of a peculiar political cast, and difficult to reconcile with ordinary Christianity; but such as it is, in it a serious fact has to be reckoned with. Its genesis, as well as the present condition of Ireland, can be understood only in the light of the history of the last four centuries. The att.i.tude of Protestantism generally does not need a separate discussion, being marked by the same characteristics (as it originated, for the most part, in the same events) as that of the North of Ireland. It is in the confiscations and plantations of the seventeenth century that the origin of political Protestantism is to be found. That nefarious plan of conquest and government was old as the Normans; but it is to the later phases of it adopted by the English rulers from James I. to Cromwell that the establishment of the Protestant races and families now in possession of the land may be traced. Recollect that the planters were English and Scotch Protestants put in possession of the lands and homes of Irish Roman Catholics, who were relegated to Connaught, and farther, or held in complete subjection by the conquering race. Their religion was proscribed, and all civil rights were denied them. No doubt the object was rather to extinguish a nation, than a creed; but the fact remains that in his paternal solicitude, "the interests of His Majesty's _Protestant_ subjects were his greatest care, and must first be provided for" (17 & 18 Charles II.); and the "mere Irish" were sacrificed for the purpose. The "settlements" of Ireland resulted in the fact that to a very large extent the history of Ireland until to-day is involved in the land question, and in the doings of contending religious factions.

Thus favoured by the State, and supported in their armed possession of property and ascendency, the Irish Protestants developed at once the masterful qualities so natural to the British in relation to subject races, loyalty to their benefactors whose garrison they were, stern adherence to the religion which was the badge of their predominance, and a firm determination, at all cost to others, to maintain a state of affairs so favourable to their welfare here and hereafter.

To hark back thus to a distant past, seeking the origin of the events of the present, may appear unnecessarily provocative of bad feeling. It is pleasanter to dwell on the social amenities and Christian charities which have often marked the relations of Roman Catholic and Protestant neighbours, and do so more than ever to-day; but in view of the present struggle they are merely misleading accidents, and the intolerant spirit that displays itself in threats of armed resistance, or in the "Ulster" of Rudyard Kipling with its:

"The faith in which we stand, The Laws we made and guard, Our honour, lives and land, Are given for reward.

To Murder done by night, To Treason taught by day, To folly, sloth and spite, And we are thrust away."

is more truly characteristic of the historical fairness and temper of that past in which we seek the origin of the problem now confronting the British people. The history of the past dominates minds on both sides of the conflict. Peasants have very long memories, and traditions wrought into every fibre of their being control their outlook on current events in a way quite inexplicable to those who enjoy a wider range of vision and are occupied with modern interests. The horrors of Scullabogue and the heroism of Saintfield are still recounted with vivid detail in the cabins of Wexford and Down; and the relative condition of the two nations in Ireland must be radically altered before the bitter memories of the past and the pa.s.sions they evoke in the name of religion, will cease to frustrate all movements toward peace and progress. The mention of "two nations" will be eagerly seized by opponents as a fatal objection to the establishment of a native government. And so it would be, if the differences were ineradicable in their nature, or agreement on the principles of government impossible between men of different faith in Ireland; but the past has abundantly proved that neither supposition is true. In every century as men have been uninfluenced by the machinations of party leaders, or freed from clerical control, they have agreed to struggle for the good of their common country. Presbyterians have led "the rebels" in many a b.l.o.o.d.y fight, the liberties of Ireland were never more gloriously vindicated than in the Protestant Parliament of Grattan, and the latest struggle for legislative independence has found its earliest and most trusted leaders among the Protestant gentry. "More Irish than the Irish themselves," there have always been found some, yielding to the glamour of Irish climate, character and life, who have forgotten the animosities of religion to combine in prayer and sacrifice for the good of their adopted country. Further, the principles on which the Home Rule demand is based are those professed by men of every creed in the free countries of the world, and in Ireland, too, when men are not blinded by prejudice or traditional fears. The two nations will be welded into one; and "Ireland a nation" will become something more than a patriotic toast, when, for the first time in history, the representatives of all creeds form its Parliament, for Ireland can as ill afford to lose the dour virtues of the Ulster-Scot as of the most dreamy Munster Celt.

The refusal to recognise Irishmen's right to Nationality, when English, Welsh and Scots are "nations" is a curious relic of the old att.i.tude towards(165) "England's oldest foe." They inhabit, at all events, one land, and it is an island. A people variously const.i.tuted, they breathe its air, cultivate its soil, speak the same language with even a brogue of their own, enjoy the usual intercourse of ordinary human beings in social, commercial, educational and political pursuits, with common interests, problems, difficulties, and aspirations (_pace_ Ulster). They have a history more ancient than that of Saxon England, and a continuous Christianity as devoutly held for seventeen centuries as in any country of Europe; they have marked characteristics, admirable or otherwise, according to taste and temper, but which the world of art, literature and religion seems to value. But because their ideals do not commend themselves to some thrifty settlers on their lands they are to be denied the status and privileges of a nation.

In any attempt to reach the truth as to the justice and expediency of granting Home Rule to Ireland, it is absolutely futile to waste time in answering the stock arguments of party platforms, special pleading to support a foregone conclusion, half-truths backed up by most remarkable incidents, "fresh in the memory" of the speaker, or invented by his heated imagination. To contradict falsehoods, debate plausible conclusions, or quote instances to the contrary is equally vain, for the distinction between _propter_ and _post hoc_ is often as inscrutable to the ordinary mind in politics as it is in medicine. We must fall back on recognized principles; and leave it to our opponents, on whom the burden lies, to show reason why these should not be applied to Ireland as to other parts of the British Empire, or why Irishmen, because mostly Catholics, are to be refused the natural rights of freemen.

"What in the world do you want?" is the cry indignantly repeated in Belfast conventions, as if it had not been answered a thousand times.

Well, once more; it is self-government, so far as that is compatible with the interests of the Empire, to which Ireland belongs and must still belong unless a mighty convulsion of nature puts it elsewhere. It is the right of every civilized and progressive people, the grant of which to its dependencies is the glory of the British Empire, and in preparation for which it governs its subject races in India or Africa. Is Ireland less fit after nine centuries of English government to rule itself on const.i.tutional lines than Canada or the South African Union? Possibly it is; for the centuries have been a weary apprentices.h.i.+p in misgovernment rather than in const.i.tutional methods; but all the more surely does the long experiment stand condemned, and it may well give place to saner methods. As in personal, so in national life, the sole condition of mature development is responsibility. The father or ruler who jealously denies it to one come to years of discretion is a bungler or a tyrant, ignorant of the first principles of education. For all these centuries the Irish race has been in leading strings; and those most guilty of multiplying and tightening the bonds are naturally the enemies of its independence and of the only method ever discovered by G.o.d or man to secure the growth of virtue, the acquisition of strength, or the fulfilment of personal and national promise. Experience is the best, the only, teacher of practical politics; and the mistakes and losses in life incurred by folly or ignorance are our best discipline. To charge a people with incapacity who have never been trusted with power is the resort of stupid malice.

Irishmen have vindicated before the world their fitness to fight its battles, or command its armies; as captains of industry they have led in every land, and the British Empire above all is indebted to the statesmen, proconsuls, travellers, scholars and divines that have issued from the race. What a people to be denied the elementary rights of self-government!

If Unionists are sincere in deploring the absence of a true spirit of citizens.h.i.+p in the Irish, what have they ever done to encourage it?

Sympathy with men's difficulties, appreciation of their virtues, co-operation in their efforts, Christian charity and trust-these, and not suspicion, distrust, misrepresentation and opposition, should have been the Protestant contribution to the growth and happiness of a people, whom in private life they themselves always admit to be generous friends and neighbours.

Self-government must be based on representation, and the right of majorities. Recognized universally in the Empire, this simple dictate of justice is to be denied to Irishmen in their own land, because the great majority is Roman Catholic. "It is not const.i.tutional" said Gladstone in 1886, "to refuse the demand of five-sixths of the duly elected representatives of a country"; and ever since then the representation has never changed nor has the demand abated. That it is resisted in the name of Religion, not Politics, we are not allowed for one moment to forget; and no one in Protestant circles is unfamiliar with the a.s.sertion, how ardently Home Rule would be welcomed if it were not for the Priest in politics and the dread of "Rome Rule." But let it be recognized that under free inst.i.tutions it is the right of the majority to rule, irrespective of their religious creed; and that to deny that right in Ireland is to establish a tyranny of the minority-an oligarchy in these days of Democracy! Nothing can exceed the sincerity of men, good but blinded by prejudice, when on Belfast platforms they declare their desire for equality and hatred of ascendency. But what a ludicrous fallacy they fall into when with the same breath they a.s.sert their resolve never to submit to the Government of the great majority of their fellow countrymen. In other words they, a small minority, contend for a union with the Parliament of another country for this express purpose, that by the aid of its votes they may override the unanimous wish of three-fourths of the people of their own land. This is the very gist of the Anti-Home Rule demonstration in Belfast on April 9th. It was not Irish in any true sense.

The platforms crowded with sixty members of Parliament representing British Const.i.tuencies, presided over by n.o.blemen such as a Grand Master of Orangemen and a great coal owner who has practically ceased to be an Irish landowner, addressed by eminent counsel who have transferred their services to the English bar for reasons best known to themselves, ex-ministers and aspirants to office in a Unionist administration-it was a brave show of party political force; but nothing can hide or minimize the fact that it is all avowedly an effort to support and intensify the claim of about half the population of Ulster, and one-fourth of the population of Ireland, to resist and overthrow the rights of Irishmen to the privileges of representative government. If the Unionists of Ireland sincerely desire equality and disavow ascendency in their own country, let them prove it by being willing to accept the conditions of life and legislation naturally imposed by the will of a majority, in the discussion of which they will possess and exercise a fair, or according to their ability, a preponderating degree of influence. But let them cease to demand in their country the predominance of social, political and religious ideals, natural perhaps to England and Scotland now, but alien to Ireland, and secured only by foreign, that is non-Irish, votes.

The representation of minorities on a complete system of proportional voting is an absolute necessity in Ireland. Considering the number of the population, there is very marked and wide-spread variety of opinion. The Orangemen of the cities are often democratic Radicals, however much evil a.s.sociations may at times corrupt their good manners; Catholic Irishmen, even the clergy (notwithstanding the _semper eadem_ cry), are sharply divided by lines of severance that will appear when the present unnatural combinations pa.s.s out of sight, Unionist and Nationalist becoming meaningless; Nonconformists here, as elsewhere, differ from Episcopalians on important subjects; Molly Maguires, Sinn Feiners, Gaelic Leaguers have something to say as regards Irish life worth hearing; and all must find a voice in any true representation of the country's thought and purpose. The United Kingdom, too, probably needs such a reform in representation, and cannot do better than witness the trial of the experiment on the political body of the sister island.

It is on such fundamental principles of government the argument for Home Rule stands, and Liberalism at all events would be untrue to its very genius in hesitating to confer the boon. Irish Home Rule has been the touchstone of Liberalism, and it is not by any accident that Unionists, who abandoned their old creed to refuse Ireland's plea, became arrant Tories, and have ceased to exist as a political party.

The objections made by Protestants are formidable and specious. They appeal to pa.s.sion rather than to reason; they exploit religion in opposition to Christianity; they ignore history and flourish on journalism; they forget humanity's claims in their zeal for sectional interests.

The stock argument in Belfast appears to be that in the interests of "Empire" Home Rule is impossible. Yet Ireland was under the British Crown when 42,000 volunteers were enrolled under Lord Charlemont and the Duke of Leinster to protect her sh.o.r.es from foreign foes; the stigma of the word "Separatist" has been repudiated by every responsible Irish statesman; and so long as Britain's naval and military power lasts, the secession of 4 millions of people within one hour's sail is an absolute impossibility, should any one desire "the dismemberment of the Empire." Let candid Englishmen consider a simple question; which is the more likely and the more intimidating, menace to the Empire: a discontented, disloyal and impoverished Ireland, or one proud in its self-dependence, grateful to its benefactor, and united by every consideration of mutual protection and benefit? Or which will be of most credit to Britain in the estimation of her Colonies and of the civilized world?

Timid Ulstermen deplore "the loss of their birthright in the Empire"; their civil and religious liberties, they say, are imperilled, their commercial prosperity is sure to suffer. It is hard even to imagine the conception they have formed of their countrymen. Is it as fools or rogues, slaves or tyrants, they wish to caricature the inhabitants of the land, in which they so reluctantly dwell, for the delectation of ignorant foreigners? For none other can be imposed on by such diatribes. Are Irishmen engaged in a struggle for 150 years to gain independence and the rights of men, to signalize their victory by denying civil and religious liberty to their fellows; or are a people whose own industries have been ruined in the past by legal restraints on trade, whose enterprise and efforts to establish new industries and foster old ones are being rewarded with a few gleams of prosperity, dull or wicked enough to wish to injure commercial or manufacturing triumphs in the north of which they are proud?

Ask the commercial travellers from Ulster, who enter every town in Ireland, whether their wares are scouted and themselves insulted because of Orange bluff or threats. No! Irishmen are neither fools nor bigots.

The ordinary method of producing prejudice on these topics is to recount the crimes and outrages that have darkened the past of Irish agrarian life. No one can deny their existence, or palliate their enormity. They were the inevitable incidents of war; one of the most bitter ever waged over such a period of years. It was a war of rebellion against misgovernment, of revenge for political crimes, a frantic struggle for life and home on the part of a peasantry down-trodden, ejected, starved; it was the last and successful phase of a great agrarian movement to secure the rights of free born men in the land they tilled. Many crimes have been committed, but who can distribute the blame? and any fair historian will recollect the exasperation under which they were committed, the failure of every attempt at redress, the findings of Royal Commissions disregarded and the promises of politicians forgotten, the evictions and legalized tyranny of rack-renting landlords, and the steady decrease of this violence as const.i.tutional agitation has gained a hearing and a more humane spirit has inspired Parliamentary action. But such crimes as were committed were never acts of religious persecution or violations of the civil liberties of Protestants as such. Roman Catholics who opposed the national movement, or sided with the party accountable for the wrong, suffered also; and it is absolutely unjust and unhistorical to quote the violence of an angry and a maddened people as prophetic, or even suggestive, of similar wrongs likely to be perpetrated under an Irish Government. If the Irish Roman Catholics desired to persecute Protestants, there has been plenty of opportunity to do so; and, in three-fourths of the country, life could have been made intolerable and impossible to farmers and merchants dependent on the goodwill of their neighbours. Yet a universal testimony to the contrary is borne by Protestants of every cla.s.s and party in the middle and southern counties where Romanism is predominant. The charges of intolerance freely levelled at the Protestant of the north in connection with certain notorious incidents of the political campaign have been repelled and, it was supposed, answered by reference to the boycotting outrages of the land struggle; but what unprejudiced critic would ever admit that such incidents could be paralleled with, or afford any justification for, the petty tyranny to which men have been subjected in Ulster, because they dared to differ in opinion from the majority and to utter the expression of their deliberate convictions?

One of the most curious arguments relied on now against Home Rule, is the prosperity of Ireland under the Union. It used to be Ireland's miserable poverty and thriftlessness that were a.s.signed as proof of its unfitness for self-government; now the blessed effects of the self same Union have produced such prosperity that self-government is not needed or even wanted!

A daring orator in Belfast proclaimed "the independent Parliament of Ireland a dismal failure, and the Imperial Parliament a distinct success."

The improved condition of Ireland is a matter of deep gratification, specially as a foretaste of a better future. But to boast of the prosperity of a country with its population reduced by one-half in fifty years, with its poor little agricultural holdings of a 10 valuation extending to one-half of the total, its sodden fields and ill-drained lands, its treeless hills and undeveloped mineral resources, its famished peasants and shoeless children carrying sods of peat to the village school, is a heartless jibe emanating from the wealthy capital of the North. The "distinct success" of a century of so-called Union government is an equally audacious flight of fancy. Most people would wish to find a contented people, living under the ordinary laws of const.i.tutional government, advancing industries, growing population, and plentiful food as the tokens of a distinct success under a government of ever-increasing wealth and power: but seven famines desolated the land during the century; "for thirty-five years after the Union, Ireland was ruled for three years out of every four by laws giving extraordinary powers to the Government; and in the next fifty years (1835-1885) there were only three without Coercion and Crime Acts."(166) That for the boasted success of Unionism in Ireland! The present prosperity is due to the National movement, in response to which Gladstone secured the tenant right for the farmer, and disestablished the Church, commencing that long series of beneficent but belated reforms which have inspired the Irish people with hope, and of which the last and crowning gift of independent self-government awaits completion.

To return to the more distinctly religious aspects of the question, though all that means liberty and progress ought to appeal to every Protestant's warmest sentiments, let us examine briefly the alleged dangers arising from the power of the Roman Catholic priesthood and their influence on a national government. It is ungenerous to forget all but the seamy side of the Priest's influence in Ireland. In many a dark day he was the poor man's only champion, and he has won a place of love in the people's heart not lightly granted or easily lost. But no one familiar with Irish life fails to notice a change in the relations of priest and people whether it be a portent of good or evil. The spread and consolidation of democratic feeling, the many ties between the cabin in Ireland and the children's home in America, the spread of education and the influence of the Press, are exercising in Ireland, as similar causes do elsewhere, a deep influence on the simple piety, or as some call it, the superst.i.tion of the people. The cry "no priest in politics" prevails as never before; and that their sphere of influence in limited to questions of faith and morals is being widely recognized by the clergy themselves. Influences at work in European Catholic countries must more and more reach Ireland, and possibly its danger is not from clericalism but from a slackening hold of the only form of Christianity that has ever won the heart of the people. At all events Roman Catholicism in Ireland has never been an aggressive force forcing its faith on other communions, but seems content to be let alone and to minister to its own adherents unmolested, as it has not been in the past.