world, as God has allowed it to be, there is no time for any generation to imagine that it has as yet entered into

rest.

A

ART. VII.-SIGNS OF AN IRISH POLICY.

Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. Part I. Session 1866.

YEAR has elapsed since, in an article entitled "Wanted a Policy for Ireland," we wrote the following words :

But candid and honest Englishmen constantly ask, What does Ireland really want? Ireland wants, on the part of British statesmen, a policy; and still more, on the part of the British Parliament, good will to assist and give efficacy to that policy. But "what one nation hates most," said Napoleon, "is another nation." The British Parliament- -a concentrated essence of all the passions and prejudices, as well as of all the abilities and virtues, of the English nation-in dealing with the affairs of Ireland, neither considers them as if Ireland were really and truly a part of the United Kingdom, nor yet as if Ireland were a peculiar province, requiring special and exceptional consideration. The animus of Parliament (of the majority of Parliament, taking both Houses together, we mean, of course), in considering the affairs of Ireland, is even still, three generations after the Union, that of one nation dealing with another nation-dealing with it not, perhaps, exactly as an enemy, but as an obstacle, a nuisance, a reproach, a cause of continual, incomprehensible annoyance and occasional serious danger, an opposite "moral essence " from itself, with different interests and habits, which it is impossible to gratify, and not even easy to apprehend. It was said, during a late debate, that if Ireland could only be towed round from the west to the east of England, and placed close to the coast of France, Parliament would soon see the necessity of settling certain Irish questions which it now contemptuously shelves from session to session. If Ireland, on the other hand, could only be towed half-way across the Atlantic, she would be sure of still greater consideration; for she would then be regarded as a colony occupying one of the most important positions in the globe, and would have the best constitution the Colonial Office could give her. Such hypothetical considerations as these, the force of which is simply obvious, are the worst reproach of the actual system of the British Parliament. That system allows the Irish nation to feel that Parliament will only act, where Irish interests are concerned, under the influence of alarm; and it is no exaggeration to say that this is a universal feeling throughout Ireland. It is not without reason. Take the few leading events in the recent Parliamentary history of Ireland. Parliament was induced to pass Catholic Emancipation only because the Duke of Wellington said there was no other alternative to civil war. When Sir Robert Peel wanted to increase the Maynooth grant by a few thousand

pounds, his principal plea to the House of Commons was that there was “a cloud in the west," a danger of war with America, in consequence of the Oregon question. Thus every act of justice that is done to Ireland is done, not as it ought to be done for justice' sake and on the merits, but as a concession and an act of propitiation to the natural ally of the enemy. We fear we are approaching a period of such ignominious arguments again.

Our augury, it would seem, was not far wrong. These words were uttered in the time, from which already a whole age seems to separate us, when Lord Palmerston swayed the state, and when his policy for Ireland was impersonated by Lord Carlisle, who, happily ignorant that such a disease as the rinderpest existed, was intent on the complete conversion of Ireland into a land of herds and flocks; and by Sir Robert Peel, who, incredulous of the very existence of Fenianism, was cultivating a close alliance with the Ulster Orangemen. It seems almost incredible that so few months should have elapsed since the Ministers of the Crown were assuring Parliament that Ireland never was more loyal and contented, and that the emigration to America was only the natural effort of industrious men desirous of bettering their condition-since it was confidently asserted that the Irish people had no remediable grievances, and, in particular, that it was a point of honour with the Ministry to maintain the Church establishment, and to refuse any further concession on the question of tenant right. Such was the language of the Ministry of Lord Palmerston to the end of last session. As we ventured to say at the time, nothing could be more offensive or more stupid than the conduct of Mr. Cardwell and Sir Robert Peel, the then Chief Secretary, and his predecessor, representing the Government in the Committee which inquired into the tenure and improvement of land in Ireland. But the Castle was no wiser than Downing Street. At the same time, so ill-informed was the Lord Lieutenant and the resident executive as to the state of the country, that in the month of September, after warmly congratulating the county of Tipperary on the peace and order which prevailed within its precinct, his Excellency revoked the Proclamation, which had for years forbidden to its inhabitants the possession of arms without the license of the police

Meantime a conspiracy, which hitherto, thank God, has produced no serious results beyond a degree of alarm in England, like that which followed the outbreak of the Sepoy mutiny, was spreading its ramifications from end to end of Ireland. In the course of a day, the Government which had imagined it was sailing on "the smooth surface of a summer sea, was obliged to act as if a cyclone were about to burst from all

the points of the compass at once. Numerous arrests were made with extraordinary precautions, and under the cover of a heavy armed force. A newspaper was arbitrarily suppressed without warrant of law, and in a way without precedent in these kingdoms. The Channel Fleet was ordered to the west coast of Ireland. The garrison of Dublin was greatly strengthened and kept under arms night and day. A special commission was held, and a number of persons convicted of treason-felony, and sentenced to long periods of penal servitude. At last the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended; several hundred persons are arrested. The capital, the principal ports, and two-thirds of the counties are proclaimed. Still the conspiracy makes no overt attempt, and still the alarm of the Government does not abate. Indeed, the latest acts of the Lord Lieutenant show a deeper sense of the danger of the movement than was pleaded to justify the coup de main of last October. The special commission has been succeeded by a series of courts-martial on Fenian soldiers. Two of the most distinguished regiments of the line have, within a single week, been summarily transported to Malta, and the reason is no mystery. Notice has been given that the Irish Militia will not be called out for exercise this year; and the garrisons and police stations all over the country have orders not to relax their vigilance, but to observe the same discipline as if a rising were expected from day to day. Meantime, Mr. James Stephens, the "Central Executive of the Irish Republic," who walked out of Richmond Prison three months ago, without the least difficulty, and has since remained at large, with a reward of £2,000 on his head, is reported to have arrived in France, either with a view of conferring with Mr. John Mitchel, the Fenian envoy there, or en route for the head-quarters of the Brotherhood in the United States. On that side of the Atlantic, the signs are not less ominous. The Canadian Government, expecting their frontier to be invaded by the Fenian General Sweeny, are suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, and have called out the Militia of the Province. Though the Brotherhood is divided by a great schism, each of its sections appears to be strong in numbers, arms, and funds. At the congress, which took place at Pittsburg last month, there were many subscriptions of 5,000 dollars; many of 2,000, 1,000, 500; and a host of 100, and 50, and 20. An Irish merchant of New York offered a large steamer fully equipped; and another of Chicago, a gunboat, ready for service on the lakes. This, too, it may be observed, is only the Secessionist Roberts-Sweeny section of the Confederacy, which both the Head-Centre, Colonel O'Mahony, and the Central Executive

Stephens refuse to recognize. The resources of the New York Branch are even greater. At the time that the secession took place, it was estimated that O'Mahony had at his disposal, for Fenian purposes, a sum of not less than a quarter of a million sterling. No insurrectionary movement of our time, not even the Italian or the Polish, has had such advantages in its base of operations, in the sympathies of the people among whom it is situate, in its resources of money, and in the general fidelity of its agents. Italian agents, like Mazzini and Orsini, have found secure quarters and considerable resources in England, but nothing like the same wealth of means and general public acceptance as the Fenians enjoy in the United States. It is probable that we are now only at the beginning of their operations, and that it is only some ten years hence that they will begin to become really formidable. But abhorring as we do their principles, aims, and ends, we most reluctantly admit that we believe it has been the chief cause of compelling Parliament and the Cabinet to give, under the influence of alarm, that consideration to the affairs of Ireland, which, during the last ten years of torpid politics, has been systematically refused.

Now, side by side with the vigorous vindication of the law, we see the signs and promises of a comprehensive Irish policy seriously indicated. The debates on the state of Ireland in both Houses have, on the whole, a claim to the respect and gratitude of the people of that country. There was, perhaps, a too habitual tone in them of Parliament's ignoring its own responsibility for the existing condition of feeling in Ireland. This was most marked, for example, in the very eloquent, and very clever, but very fallacious speech of Lord Dufferin. His Lordship urged that the Fenians did not wish to see the Church establishment overthrown, or tenant right conceded; and implied that it was vain to make concessions upon these questions in the hope of arresting the spread of disaffection. But it must be realized by Parliament, if legislation is to do any good, that the reason why disaffection is formidable, or even possible, in Ireland, is, because Parliament has for a number of years neglected its duty in dealing boldly and honestly with such admitted grievances. Disaffection exists and has vital force in Ireland, not merely because it is actively propagandized from America, but because that propaganda finds the mind of the people in a state of despair, touching any real redress of their grievances on the part of Parliament. The first axiom of Mr. John Mitchel's political teaching in 1848, was that "no good thing can come from the English Parliament ;" and it may be admitted that the principal measures which have come from Parliament since 1848, the suspension of the Writ of Habeas

Corpus on two occasions, three Arms Acts, the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and Mr. Cardwell's Landlord and Tenant Act, are not of a character to contradict his doctrine.

Now, however, with the second suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, admittedly necessary as it is for the good government of the country, we are promised not merely a series of important measures, but the adoption of new principles of policy in dealing with the affairs of Ireland. The land question, by far the most important of Irish questions, which, indeed, so far as the peace, prosperity, and good government of the country are concerned, exceeds in its gravity all the rest of them put together, is, we are rejoiced to see, regarded with all the seriousness it deserves by the Government. We are confident that we are speaking the all but unanimous sense of the Irish Catholic clergy and of all the laity, who are not otherwise personally interested, when we say that they would willingly see every other question, the Catholic Oath, the Catholic University, the Church Establishment, postponed for any reasonable period if only the present Parliament would undertake to achieve a satisfactory settlement of the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland. We are bound to admit that in the speeches of Lord Russell in the House of Lords, of Mr. Gladstone to the deputation of Irish Members, of the Attorney-General in the House of Commons, and of the Chief Secretary at the hustings of Louth county, their responsibility in this matter has been fully accepted by the Government.

We have also to recognise that, if we may trust the announcement made of its scope by the Times, the policy of the measure to be proposed by Government is a right and statesmanlike policy. The State has, in Ireland, to deal with a body of landlords, who, as it has been repeatedly proved before Parliamentary Commissions and Committees, have never made, do not now make, and cannot even in future be expected to make, the ordinary agricultural improvements necessary for the efficient cultivation of the soil; and who, as a rule, insist on keeping the population of the country in the condition of tenants at will, in order that they may have the power of taxing by enhanced rent the progress of agricultural improvement. The policy of the proposed law is to encourage leases; and it proposes to do so by giving the tenant a claim against the landlord for such improvements as he may have made in the case where there is no written agreement between them. We believe that Parliament might with great advantage go a step further, and render the landlord liable for all local taxation, such as the Poor Rate and County Cess, as well as the Tithe Rent Charge, unless in cases where there is a VOL. VI.—NO. XII. [New Series.]