L I E, RAR.Y OF THE UN IVLRSITY or ILLI NOIS PRICE TWOPENCE. DISMEMBERMENT NO REMEDY. AN ADDRESS BY GOLDWIN SMITH, CHAIRMAN OF THE LOYAL AND PATRIOTIC UNION OF TORONTO, CANADA. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited LONLOX, PARIS, NEW YORK d: MELBOURNE. DISMEMBERMENT NO REMEDY. AN ADDRESS BY GOLDWIN SMITH, CHAIRMAN OF THE LOYAL AND PATRIOTIC UNION OF TORONTO, CANADA. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited: LONDON, FARIS, NEW YORK cO MELBOURNE. DISMEMBERMENT NO REMEDY AN ADDBESS BY GOLDWIN SMITH, Chairman of the Loyal and Patriotic Union of Toronto, Canada. As Chairman of the Loyal and Patriotic Association of a Canadian city^ I bear the hearty sympathy of Canadians to British loyalty in its struggle for the Union. Canadians have nothing" to do with British parties. They think only of the welfare^ honour^ and greatness of the Mother Country, Avhich they see are in peril with the Union. They have witnessed with shame and dismay the selfish strife of factions which has brought England into such extremity of danger. They will rejoice to learn that there are British statesmen who have at last laid faction aside, and are standing together in defence of the integrity of the nation. The resolute resistance of the Unionist Liberals to Mr. Gladstone's screw will be welcomed by them as a proof that the spirit of true liberty still lives in English breasts. Nor will they fail to do honour to the patriotism of the Irish landowners, who have refused Mr. Gladstone-'s bribe, and been true to the national cause. Canada has the American source and centre of this conspiracy against British unity and power close at hand. She knows the character of the conspirators. She hears their yells of fiendish, or ])rutish, hatred against the British name and race. Slie sees them taking;' up sub- seriptions for dynamite to murder wholesale Eni^-lish men, women, and ehildren. She knows their aims, and the abso- lute hopelessness of attempting to conciliate or appease them. In one of her own cities the other day she had an American orator proclaiming to a great meeting of I^-ish Nationalists that the man who would not murder a land- lord was a coward, while the meeting received the senti- ment with enthusiastic applause. She knows, too, how despicable in truth the conspiracy is. It invaded her a few years ago with its rabble army, which, upon the ap- proach of some Canadian Militia, at once decamped, the general leading the flight in his buggy. The object of that enterprise was to keep u]) the excitement, and make the money continue to flow from the pockets of the Irish ser- vant girls. And to this power is to be struck the flag which was not struck to the Master of the Armada, to Louis XIV., nor to Napoleon. Not against any measure of local self-government for Ireland in common with the rest of the Realm does Cana- dian Loyalty protest, but against a measure which would break or impair the Legislative Union. Canadians have sense enough to see that the alternative to separation is not coercion. For my own part let me say that more than twenty years ago, long before this controversy had arisen, and when times were calm, I studied the Irish question care- fully in Ireland. I wrote about Irish history and character in a strain sympathetic enough at all events to win me 5 the mucli-prized friendship of some of the best and most patriotic of Irishmen^ Roman Catholics as well as Protes- tants. I convinced myself then^ and I remain convinced now, that the serious questions are those concerning the land and the material condition of the people, while the political question, so far as the masses of the people are concerned, is rather one of imagination and sentiment than anything else. I advocated for Ireland reform of the local law, abolition of primogeniture and entail (which Mr. Glad- stone has all this time left untouched), disestablishment, provincial councils, and — that respect and sympathy might be shown for Irish nationality — a royal residence at Dublin and an occasional session of the Imperial Parliament there for the settlement of Irish questions on the spot. I may say then that I am no enemy of Ireland or of Irish nation- ality so far as it is consistent with the Union. That the maintenance of the Union is absolutely necessary to, the welfare, prosperity, peace, security, and greatness of the people of both islands I then thoroaghly convinced myself and have ever since firmly held. In this I had the most eminent of Irishmen, men who were patriots and not poli- tical adventurers, on my side.^ In those days, though Mr. Gladstone it seems was devoting himself to the question of Ireland, nothing was heard from him on the subject. Not a sign of sympathy with Irish reform did he, so far as my memory serves me, betray till Disestablishment presented itself as an engine for overthrowing Lord Beaconsfield. Had he been devoted * I ought porhaps to say that since the Essay to which I refer was wi'itten much new light has been thrown by research on Irish history, and I have myself seen the Irish in America. to the Irish question he would surely have studied it where alone it could be well studied, on the spot. But I am told that he has bnrely set foot in Ireland, though it is within a few hours^ run of his own door. The Ireland beyond the Atlantic, where the mainspring of this move- ment is, ho has never seen. You want to do right to Ireland and to make up to her for past wrongs. It is a generous desire. Even if something of British greatness were to be sacrificed for the purpose, that sacrifice ought to make Colonists all the more proud of their Mother Country. But in the first pla(*e do not confuse your minds by overstating or misstating past wrongs. In the second place have a care that, instead of doing Ireland right, you do not, by putting her out of the Union, do her the greatest wrong of all. Irish history ought to be read not by itself but as part of the general history of Europe. Europe passed through a period of conquest and re-settlement in which England was conquered by the Normans of Normandy, Ireland by the Normans of England. England was conquered all at once and the pang was over. la the case of Ireland, owing to the nature of the country, the unsettled habits of the people, and the distance from the centre of Anglo- Norman power, the process was cruelly protracted, and lingered on to the time of the Tudors, leaving intense bitterness behind it. This was disastrous, but we might as well concern ourselves practically at the present day about the untoward events of the Glacial Era. Europe went through a period of religious war, caused by the attempts of the Roman Catholic powers to crush the Reformation. The Irish Catholics took part with the Catholic powers. They were allied with Spain in the time of the Armada. In the time of Charles I. they rose and massacred every Protestant on whom they could lay their hands. They backed James II. in his attack on Protestantism and liberty^ and their troops were in the camp of the tyrant at Hounslow. In our own days they have crusaded for the Pope against Italian independence. Being vanquished^ ^'^^J suffered a part, and a part only, of what, in countries where Catholicism was victorious, was inflicted on the Protestants. The penal laws were evil ; but in their intention they were not so much fetters on conscience as handcuffs on Irish enmity. If Irish Catholics were restrained by a Protestant Parliament from holding land, the Irish Catholic Parliament in the time of James II. had passed an Act of Attainder against all the Protestant landowners in Ireland, not excepting women and children. The burning of heretics was still going on in Spain, and Prance had just seen the extirpation of Protestantism with the most hideous cruelty by a Roman Catholic King. But religious equality now reigns in Ireland, and to let the memory of past persecution in- fluence present policy would be folly indeed. Europe passed through a period of Protectionism in which communities made war with tariffs and sometimes with arms on each other's trade, each fancying that it was to be the loser by its neighbour's gain. England, at that time, by her restrictive laws did much mischief and wrong to Ireland as well as to herself. All this, again, belongs to the past. England has long been giving to Ireland the best market in the world, and she has found iu her manufacturing^ cities employment and bread for a vast number of Irish. If the Irish shut out British goods, as they intend to do when they get a Parliament of their own, they will shut out the work of Irish hands. It may be added that Europe passed through a period of corrupt government. England suffered under her rotten boroughs, her sinecurism, her pension list, her system of bribery in Parliament. The corruption ex- tended to Ireland, and was worse there because it was more out of sight. The Irish politicians were not less, but more corrupt than the English. This also has passed away. Since the time when England, by the Reform of 183ii, got real self-government, what has been her conduct to Ireland ? She has given Ireland a full measure of repre- sentation, religious equality, national education, fiscal indul- gence, aid in famine. A measure of improved local govern- ment was in preparation when this rebellion broke out. The law has been the same for the Irishman as for the Englishman, except when Irish lawlessness needed, as lawlessness in districts of England has sometimes needed, special restraint for a time. Lawless the Irish are apt to 1)0 in America, where British connection cannot be the cause, as well as in Ireland ; and if their fault is traceable to their misfortunes, this does not make restraint for a time less necessary. The Americans have put down Irish disturbance with a severity far beyond that of any Coercion Act, and by them boycotting is at once repressed. Coercion is an utterly misleading name when applied to mere restraint from murder and outrage. Is a reign of savagery 9 ' freedom ? Is it freedom to the law-abiding and well- disposed ? Is not protection of life and property the first duty of a Government ? To keep Irishmen from butcher- ing each other has been the object of these Acts. Of all the victims of the League only one has been an English official. That the Acts should have been so often renewed proves only that the Legislature was always trying to do without them. A despotic Government would once for all have proclaimed martial law and kept it in force till resistance had been crushed. The Vice-Royalty is now a great grievance. It is compared to an Austrian Satrapy. Austrian Satrapies had not Parliamentary representation, trial by jury, Jiaheas corjjiiSj or a free press. Thirty years ago the House of Commons passed by an overwhelming majority a Bill abolishing the Vice-Royalty; and the Bill was afterwards dropped in deference to the wishes of the Irish people, particularly to those of the citizens of Dublin,* who entered a strong protest. The Irish have been made to believe that England, by the conquest of Ireland, murdered a promising nationality and strangled a brilliant civilisation. The English had little more to do with the Norman Conquest of Ireland than they had with the Norman Conquest of England. But no such thing as an Irish nationality ever existed. The conquest found the Irish, not a nation but a set of unsettled tribes. There is no reason to believe that these tribes, left to themselves, would have come to any- thing much better than the state of the Highland clans be- fore 1745. The only civilisation before the Conquest was 10 ecclesiastical. The rude clans were trampling on it, and the clergy, who were its guardians, stretched out their hands for aid to Canterhiiry and Rome, and thus invited totheconquest. From what w^e know of the habits of the race in Brittany, where it retains its native character, and else- where, nothing seems more certain than that the Irish would have failed to give themselves Parliamentary institu- tions or free institutions of any kind, and would have • remained slaves to the priests. The stronger and more political race has been gradually raising to its own level the weaker and less political race, which would fall back if the partnership were dissolved. Guizot said to me twenty-five years ago that the conduct of England to Ireland for thirty years had been admirable. The great French statesman and historian was a calm and impartial and well-informed judge. Ireland has been as fully rejn-esented in Parliament as Scotland ; and if the Irish members would onlj-, like the Scottish members, have laid their heads together, they might, like the Scottish members, have practically had the settlement of their local questions. Cobden always said that the obstacle to good legislation for Ireland was the character of the Irish members. If the Irish members chose to spend their energies on Galway contract jobs, or in Parliamentary bush-whacking, who was to blame ? A review of Parliamentary history, I believe, will show that Irish members have not been very active in proposing, or even in seconding reform. They have apparently rather preferred to cherish the grievance as capital for agitation. 11 England is always spoken of as '*' governing'/'' and ^^ misgoverning '' Ireland. She has not governed Ireland any more than she has governed Scotland. Scotland, Ireland, and England herself, have all been governed by a United Parliament in which Ireland has had rather more than her fair share of representation, with every facility for pressing local questions possessed by either of her partners. Under a despotism people may expect to be the objects of paternal care, under representative institutions they must help themselves. Irish expatriation, like all other Irish ills, real or sup- posed, is laid to the charge of British connection. Ten millions of Irish, we are told, have been driven from their country by British tyranny. If the ten millions had stayed in Ireland there would hardly have been a potato a day a-piece for them. Their Church encourages very early marriages ; they are unrestrained, in having children, by fear of poverty or social pride ; they multiply beyond the means of subsistence; population overflows, and exp*atria- tion becomes inevitable. After all it is by migration that the world has been peopled. In French Canada we have the same encouragement of early marriage by the Roman Catholic Church, the same overflow of population ; and if there were not a ready egress into the United States, we should have the same distress, without the slightest fault on the part of the Canadian Government. England might as well be charged with the dampness of the Irish climate, or the extent of the Irish bogs. That of which she is really guilty is providing in her own cities, and to the great detriment of her own people, bread for multitudes of expatriated Irish, while the rest find homes in her Colonies, or in the Colonies of her foundation. Mr, Gladstone was taken to have said that Ireland could gain the attention of British statesmen only by out- rage. He explained that all he meant was that the Clerkenwell outrage had acted like a church bell reminding a man of church-time when he was buried in a book. Had he said what he was taken to have said, he would not only have been guilty of an utterance most criminal in a public man, but he would have deeply wronged the British statesmen before him. Was not Ireland the '' difficulty ^' on which PeeFs mind was always anxiously dwelling ? Was not Melbourne always in close com- munication with O'Connell about Irish affairs ? For many years the Irish held the balance between parties in the House of Commons. Is it likely that their appeals would be set at nought ? Of what practical grievance have the Parnellites sought redress? AVhat specific proposal of any kind have they constitutionally laid before Parliament ? They took at once to obstruction and outrage. Their aim manifestly has not been reform, but to bully Great Britain into separation. Surely Mr. Gladstone might have called upon them to submit their demands in a definite, respectful, and constitu- tional way before he rushed into surrender. In all the honours and prizes of the empire Irishmen have fully shared. They have held the highest offices both in Great Britain and in the Colonies. An Irishman is at this time Viceroy of India, and two Irishmen are at the head of the army. That Irishmen suffer social disparagement is pre- 13 tended by writers whose tone suggests that they may have brought upon themselves, by their own manners, some social rebuke. But nowhere, perhaps, does social prejudice find more frank expression than in the public schools and universities ; and those who have been at Eton or Oxford will testify that Irish boys or youths suffered no disparage- ment there. Why, then, do the Irish people hate England ? Mainly because hatred of England is instilled into them by political agitators and the vitriol press. This process has been o-oins" activelv of late. The Irish did not seem to hate England so when I was among them twenty-three years ago. An Englishman sojourning in Ireland meets with no expressions of hatred. The country has been most unjustly used by British partisans of Irish disaffection, and by no one more than by the present Chief Secretary for Ireland. Whether Mr. Morley, when he formed his opinions, had seen more of Ireland than Mr. Gladstone I cannot say. But he knew political facts, and he owed common justice to his own country. He has throughout held a brief for Irish rebellion against British Government, and no advocate ever was less fair. If this quarrel ends in blood, to those who have laboured to fill the Irish mind, and at the same time the mind of Europe and America, with libels on their own country, the catastrophe will be mainly due. Mr. Forster mio-ht have held his trround ao-ainst the Irish Thug" knife had not other assailants been morally stabbing him in the back. He was overthrown not so much by rebellion in his front as by sympathy with rebellion in his rear. 14 Candour will say that what are called the wrongs of Ireland are in some measure her faults, or the faults of her leaders, and in great measure misfortunes traceable not to British injustice, but to the general course of history. But in giving her a separate Parliament, would you be doing her justice ? That is the practical question. Would a separate Parliament rule her more wisely, more justly, more impartially, with more integrity and economy than the Parliament of the United Kingdom. I say a separate Parliament. To a large measure of decentralisation, dele- gating power over local concerns to local bodies, and embracing all three kingdoms, nobody, so far as I am aware, objects. Such a measure would unload Parliament, while it would give life to local self-government, and per- haps it might hereafter afford a good basis for central institutions themselves. It would be a measure, not of separation, actual or virtual, but of delegation, leaving the Legislative Union and the supreme power of Parliament unimpaired. This, not Coercion (however miscalled), is the alternative to Mr. Gladstone's policy, for which he is always angrily calling ; and it differs from his own policy as decentralisation differs from disunion, as wisdom differs from madness. It has been brought before him in his own Cabinet, and when he persists in asserting that there is no policy but his own except Coercion, he shows that his mind is closed not only against argument but against fact. Go into the House of Commons ; look at the Parnellite members ; mark their demeanour and their utterances ; compare them with the rest of the House, and say whether 15 a Parliament composed of sacli men is likely to do better for Ireland than the United Parliament. If it is, Nature must have given a false warning to the beholder. But be- hind these men — to the eye of a dweller on an American continent— are visible the forms of the American National- ists, the really leading spirits of the movement, and the men by whom its funds are supplied. You will have those adventurers flocking back to Ireland as soon as a revolution- ary assembly is set up. And when we look to the con- stituencies we find that they are completely under the con- trol of a Terrorist League, ruling by assassination and out- rage, while the animating influence of the whole is a press which in venomous malignity and reckless instigation to crime far transcends any other press in the world. Let any man, instead of giving ear to vague talk about self- go verment, or " autonomy '' (a word not less blessed than " Mesopotamia '' was to the old woman) , ask himself plainly what the character and conduct of a Parhellite Parliament are likely to be, and in what respect or with regard to what class of questions it would be likely to do better for Ireland than the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Would the Government be fairer and more economical, more free from jobbery and corruption ? No one can believe it who has seen Irish rule in American cities. Would the balance be more evenly held between sects, or between conflicting local interests ? That a Parnellite Par- liament would be a robber Parliament Mr. Gladstone himself implies, when to his Home Rule Bill he tacks a Purchase Bill, to secure landowners against spoliation, and when he institutes a special order for the guardianship of property, 16 and gives it a lopjislative veto. What Jacobinism let loose does I'or an industrial community and for all ranks in it, France under Jacobin sway has shown. And let it be remembered that not the Legislature only but the Executive, with everything upon which the lives, property, rights, and liberties of loyal citizens depend, will be in the hands of the League and its American masters. Industry trembles at the prospect of such a Govern- ment ; Trade stands aghast ; Capital begins to retire. The prosperity which, as full Savings Banks attested, was growing in Ireland when this causeless rebellion broke out, is arrested and thrown back. The consequence will be a renewal of distress in Ireland. The consequence of that again will be a fresh rush of Irish into England, where Irish immigration has long been the bane of our working classes, who had not a fair chance of raising themseh'£s by industry and thrift while this miserable competition was pulling them down. To England Irish destitution will come. Emigration to America or the Colonies is violently opposed both by the demagogues and by the priests. It takes from the demagogue his vote, and from the priest his fees. They dub it "transpor- tation,^^ and discourage it with all their power, which when government is in their hands will be supreme. An Irish Parliament would be under the dominant influence of the Tenant Farmer. The interest of the Tenant Farmer alone is thought of, because the Tenant Farmer alone has defied the law. But the Irish Farmer is at least as hard on the Labourer as ever the Landlord has been on the Farmer, and I am told by a correspondent 17 in Ireland that the Lahoiirer begins to shrink from the prospect of being left in the Farmers^ hands. Would a separate Parliament give Ireland peace? Belfast and Sligo are the answer. Imagine the two religions and races, upon some burning questions, facing each other in the Dublin Legislature. To talk about Grattan's Parlia- ment is absurd : it was a Parliament of Protestant land- owners and gentlemen. But its career ended in a murderous civil war, in which social order perished, and no authority but the military power of the Empire was left. Protestant Ulster is industrial and commercial, pros- perous, and contented with the Union. She is the Treasury of Ireland, and she knows what her fate, under the sway of Parnellites and American Nationalists, would be. She resists, and will continue to resist. With what shadow of right can she be called upon to let herself be torn from the historic nationality of which she is no mean part, and thrust into a nationality fabricated by the fiat of Mr. Parnell, from which in every fibre of her, religious, sr)cial, and industrial, she recoils. Let those who think that surrender, though ignominious, will end trouble, turn their eyes that way. It is pretty evident that neither to Mr. Gladstone nor to Mr. Morley are Ulster Protestants dear. Neither has a word of respectful sympathy for them, though it is difficult to conceive a case in which respectful sympathy would be more due. But Ulster Protestants are high-hearted men, as history knows, and are not inclined to be politically drowned like a litter of puppies. Nor will England and Scotland stand by while Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Morley send British troops to help American Fenians 18 in coercing Irish loyalty. There will be trouble, then_, after surrender, and not peace. In the Roman Catholic provinces, if not throughout the Island, after Separation, Roman Catholicism would be established, really if not openly, and endowed. No paper restriction would stand in the way. Indeed, when it is proclaimed that the Imperial Parliament is incompetent, on account of its being mainly British, to legislate about Irish concerns. Irishmen may reasonably say that being mainly Protestant it was incompetent to decide whether Catholic Ireland should or should not be allowed to establish her national religion. Ireland has at present a system of national education. It is the gift of British connection, introduced and maintained in spite of the general antagonism of the priesthood. AVhen it falls under the power of the priest we know, from the history of all Roman Catholic countries, what will be the result. With popular education, industrial intelligence and skill will decline, and Ireland will become again like other countries under the dominion of the enemies of light. Do the Nonconformists who follow Mr. Gladstone in the hope of Disestablishment, desire the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland ? Are not all the restrictions which Mr. Gladstone's Bill imposes on the action of Irish Parliament, that on the establishment of religion among the rest, morally annulled in their very birth? Are they not all declared by their author himself to be the acts of an alien legislature unqualified to legislate for Ireland ? Of the Agrarian Question, which is the real sore of 19 Ireland, it would be out of place here to speak, since the Bill does not touch it. It is complex as well as deep, and can be solved by no single Act of Parliament. A political revolution will no more cure the agrarian malady than a dose of medicine will set a broken limb. * No pen, I believe, has been used with more hearty goodwill than mine in doing justice to the graces of the Irish character. But there is no use in denying that the Irishman, like other Celts, is by nature politically weak, and apt to fall under the leadership of evil men. American politics, in the cities especially, are a mournful proof of the fact. As a labourer the Irishman in the United States has been invaluable ; as a voter, he has been the unhappy tool of knavery and corruption. He became the vassal sup- porter of slavery, and was the most cruel enemy of the negro. Nor is there any use in denying the fact that when people applaud assassination, stand by in a crowd while a poor boy has his brains beaten out before his mother^s eyes for obeying his lawful master, drag the husband into his wife^s presence to be shot, kill one woman, boycott another in childbirth from receiving medi- cal aid, go out by hundreds to hoot a widow on her return from viewing the body of her murdered husband, cut off the udders of cows, and at New York set fire to a negro orphan asylum, increase of self-government is by no means sure to be an unmixed boon. These are not pleasant things to recall, but recalled they must be when it is pro- posed to take a momentous and irrevocable step on the assumption that British connection being ended, all will be well. British connection is not the cause of Irish crime 20 and disorder, or of tlie killino' of noG^roes and Chinese on the other side of tlie Atlantic. Races, like men, have their gifts. Races, like men, have their weaknesses, which may be gradually worked off, but arc not to l)e worked off in an hour. The race which in the early strugi4'le of tribes for existence or ascendency, was thrust into the remote island of the West is likely to have been weaker than its rivals. It is strange that some men who pretend to scientific habits of mind, after all they have said about evolution, differences of capacity, and the neces- sity of adapting institutions to the stage of human develop- ment, should now shut their eyes to patent facts, and talk as if the political level of all men were the same. There is no doubt, on the other hand, that by a Govern- ment at once firm and sympathetic the Irish are easily ruled. All that is said about the impossibility of maintaining social order in Ireland is baseless. While Governments and politicians have been deserting their duty, the Irish con- stabulary and police (though the police is full of Roman Catholics) have not deserted theirs. The fidelity of those services, being entirely native, as they are, to the Govern- ment, is a signal proof of the hollowncss of the revolution. There is nothing of which the study of the Irish question (taken up I repeat long before this controversy began) has left me more thoroughly convinced than that what the Irish peasant wants is not political change but the land. In the political line he would be satisfied with the presence of his sovereign and an occasional session at Dublin of the Imperial Parliament to make him feel that he was the object of its care. All the political movements from n O^ConnelFs Re2)eal Agitation onwards have been utterly- weak. The present movement would be as weak as the rest were it not for its connection with the Agrarian Agitation, and the aid which it has received from conspiracy on the other side of the Atlantic, and from demagogism, faction, and the weakness of statesmen here. The Parnellites show their consciousness of the fact by nervously protesting against any settlement of the Land Question apart from Home Rule ; they know that, the Land Question settled, the fuel Avould at once be withdrawn from the cauldron of political revolution. They gave the Land Act and its sup- plements very faint aid, and would apparently not have been sorry to see them miscarry. Settle the Land Ques- tion, or keep order while it is settling itself, and the political agitation so far as the Irish peasant is concerned, will soon subside. Such is the indication of history, and everything that I hear from Ireland confirms me in this belief. There is no real political danger, if British stsptes- men would only be themselves, and if Parliament would be patriotic for an hour. A noble ship, which has gone through storm and battle, is being scuttled in a dead calm by her faithless crew. Who has asked for a separate Parliament ? The Irish nation, we are told. What is the proof ? The result of a single election carried by terrorism and foreign money. The Parnellites assert that a free election would have given the same result. Why then were the terrorism and foreign money used? But Protestant Ulster, the organ of industry, commerce, and education, voted the other way, and so did almost the entire wealth and intelligence of the 22 country, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant. Can any imjiartial men doubt that the vote of free intelligence (thouoh in a minority) points more true than that of terrorised ignorance (though in a majority) to the real interest of a nation ? To nationality no doubt the Irish heart aspires ; and nationality it may have in full measure, with all the sentiments, memories, poetry, and symbols, as the Scotch have it, in the Union. For my part I have never ceased to advocate, not only the residence of the Sovereign in Ireland, but everything by which respect and sympathy for Irish national feeling could be shown. Much has been done, in spite of the most adverse accidents of history, towards training the Irish Celt for a full and active partnership in those free institutions which are the original patrimony of the Anglo-Saxon, and which he has imparted to his Celtic mates in other districts of these Islands. Are this high task and the hope of blending the people of the two Islands into a united and powerful nation, to be now abandoned under the threats of American conspirators, and is Ireland to be thrown back into the dominion of Fenian savagery, or of a reactionary priest- hood ? A poor result this of the extension of the franchise ! An ignominious opening of the reign of the people ! That a separate Parliament means the dissolution of the Legislative Union and the ultimate loss of Ireland ^\dlo can seriously doubt ? Will those who have wrested so much from British fears and weakness stop there ? Having thus " breakfasted,^^ will they not wish to " dine '' and '^sup.^^ lias not Mr. Parnell proclaimed that to bx'cak the 23 last link is liis object^ and that Irishmen will be satisfied with nothing less? Suppose he were inclined himselt* to take less, would those who are behind him, and those who will come after him, accept the compromise ? Will men who live by agitation give up their trade ? Will the in- cendiary press at once put out its fires ? The Irish Par- liament will set out with rebellion glowing in its veins, and the aim and badge of patriotism will be hostility to the remnants of dependence. In fact, why should Irishmen be content with a system which, while it recognised the right of Ireland to be a nation, would yet make her much less than a nation ? Union and independence are each of them respectable in its way. Yassalnge can never be respectable. After altercations and affrays, by which mutual bitter- ness would be increased, separation would come. Ireland would seek the aid of the foreign enemies of Great Britain. She would apply for recognition to the Government of the United States, and through the influence of the Irish-vote upon the politicians her application would be granted. The same weakness which yields now would yield then. Are we not told now, that to yield, whatever may be the demand, is the only road to peace. If " Coercion^'' is im- possible when the only thing to be coerced is a lawless con- spiracy, much more will it be impossible when the things to be coerced are the lawful Parliament and Government of the Irish nation. About the spirit and the aims of the American Nationalists, at all events, no Canadian, living next door, can have any doubt. Their speeches against Great Britain are full not only of hatred, but of murder, dynamite, and 24 devilry. Mr. Gladstone may rest assured that all the ap])hiuse which he drinks in from that quarter comes from the deadliest enemies of his country. lie may rest as- sured that all the American money which will be spent on his side in Irish, and probably also in English and Scotch elections, will have been subscribed with no other object than the destruction of Great Britain. Sir William Har- court, too, who used to be eloquent about the treasonable source of Nationalist supplies, may have the satisfaction of kno\vin(y that he is drawing* from the fund of treason. Is it ''^ mere vulgar slang ^^ to say that they are the more loyal who are not receiving aid and countenance from the enemies of the realm ? It is almost needless to speak of Mr. Gladstone's Bill, which ]\Ir. Bright says would not have been supported on its merits by twenty members outside the Irish Party. The Nationalists accept it because they know that if they can once get an Irish Parliament they will get separation. It brings Ireland down from the position of a co-equal partner in a legislative union to that of a tributary vassal with which neither she nor any other nation with any spirit would ever be content. It bristles with occasions for dispute, and provides no ultimate arbiter but the bayonet. Instead of settlement and conciliation, every one who considers it carefully must see that it is organised unsettlement and discord. In the vain hope of helping it over the second reading, its principal clause, and the one which had been put forward in its mover's speech as its main recommendation, has been abandoned and is to be replaced by one of an almost opposite character. Instead 25 of our being rid of the Irish members,, they are now to be admitted at Westminster on Imperial or ^^ reserved '■* ques- tions. The change will be unavailing. It is impossible in practice to draw a line between Imperial questions and British questions. The policy of a governing assembly^ like that of a single ruler, or the conduct of an individual man, is one ; all the parts of it play into each other : finan- cial considerations especially run through the whole. And how is the admission of Irish members on Imperial or ^' reserved '' questions to be made to work with Party, which Mr. Gladstone declares to be the only way of carrying on Parliamentary government ? Can the Irish members sup- port or oppose a party on Imperial questions without strengthening or weakening it on the whole ? When want of confidence is moved against a Government for its general policy, foreign and domestic, are the Irish members, every time that the domestic policy is mentioned, to snatch up their hats and leave the House ? By no botching will .the impracticable be made practicable. By no shiftings can legislative union be combined with separation. Stronger proof of the crudity of a scheme there surely could not be than this willingness, for the sake of saving its framer from defeat at once to change fundamentally its chief provision. That the conception of the Irish govern- ment scheme was sudden we know, since its author had denounced Mr. ParnelFs designs and had just been attack- ing the late Government for its alliance with him. The change came only when the result of the election showed that Mr. ParnelPs aid was indispensable. It is noteworthy that the scheme was preceded by the publication of Mr. 26 Gladstone's theory of the Mosaic cosmogony, which science at once pronounced utterly fantastic, crude, and baseless ; a verdict which learning had already delivered on his theories respecting Greek mythology and history. These theories and the Dublin Parliament all came from the same brain. When a leader by an imperious assertion of his will without regard to the ojiinions of his colleagues, shatters a great party, which has for two centuries been the chief organ of constitutional progress not for England only, but for Europe, drives all its other chiefs and his natural successors out of it, and at the same time brings the country to the verge of dismemberment, we have a right to scrutinise the workings of his genius, and to see whether they betoken infallibility, or even deliberate wisdom. Infallible the statesman who changes, and changes suddenly, can hardly be. Yet he may be trustworthy if, like Sir Robert Peel, he proves his disregard of place and power, does justice to his opponents, and pays the tribute due to public morality. A string of precedents for the Irish Government Bill has been produced. Canada, Austria and Hungary, Sweden and Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Not one of these cases surely bears historically, geographically, politically, or in any respect which can influence practical statesman- ship, the slightest relation to the case of Great Britain and Ireland. Hungary is an ancient kingdom with a race, language, a constitution, and a crown of its own. It forms one of a great Imperial federation of realms and princi- palities. Wluit is still more to the purpose, the arrange- ment between it and Austria is very far from being an assured success, and a quarrel is going on at this moment. 27 Sweden and Norway are independent and co-equal king- doms linked together by the Crown, which in the case of Great Britain and Ireland would not be a strong bond, con- siderino' how the Parnellites and their American confede- rates treat the Queen^s name. Iceland, the precedent on which the Foreign Secretary dwells, is a petty dependency 1,000 miles away from Denmark, of no consequence to her, and incapable of ever becoming a source of danger. The precedent on which Mr. Gladstone relies is Canada. But, I say as a Canadian, he misreads her history, and mis-states her present position. The dis- turbances of 1887 were not so much a rising against the tyranny of the Mother Country as a petty civil war between parties in British Canada and between races in French Canada. The relation was also entirely different ; Canada never formed a part of the United Kingdom, as represented in the Imperial Parliament. Nor were the Canadians pacified, nor would they ever have been pamfied by anything like what is now proposed for Ireland. They pay no tribute, nor could they submit to restrictions touching their internal legislation, such as the Bill imposes on the Irish. Besides, Canada is three thousand miles off, and too friendly ever to be a thorn in the side of the Mother Country. Internally, her provinces are all under a Federal Parliament elected by the people of all, an arrangement which bears no resemblance to the dog-collar union proposed by Mr. Gladstone for Great Britain and Ireland. That even under Canadian confederation all goes not smoothly the present attitude of Nova Scotia is a proof. Then we are told that England rued her resistance to 28 the demands of the American colonists. She has resisted other demands and has not rued it. Is she never to hold her own ? The Americans did not demand separation, much less the dismemberment of the United Kingdom. They demanded redress of a specific grievance. AVhen Mr. Par n ell does the same^ and does it in the constitutional manner in which it was at first done by the Americans, let his demand at once be heard. How did the quarrel between Great Britain and the American colonies arise ? It arose from the retention by the Imperial Parliament of legal powers over the Colonies which could not be })ractically exercised ; and this is precisely the relation which Mr. Gladstone now proposes to establish between Great Britain and Ireland. The Americans, people of British blood, nobly resolv^ed to make any sacrifice rather than submit to the disruption of their Union. This is the only pertinent lesson wliich the American continent sends to England at this hour. Far better than separation through a lingering and angry process such as these half-way projects must entail, would be separation immediate and complete. Great Britain could then be at liberty to deal with Ireland as with any other foreign power, to retaliate if the Irish excluded British goods, and to lay restraint, if necessary, upon Irish immigration. Against the Act of Union Mr. Gladstone instigates revolt, but to repeal it he does not dare. It was a good thing ill done. It rescued the vanquished from the wrath of the victor. It put an end not to real independence but to dependence maintained _by means of nomination 29 boroughs and corruption. It gave the Irish people for the first time a fair chance of freedom and progress. Pitt, who carried it, was perfectly pure and perfectly kind in his intentions towards Ireland, though he was compelled, or fancied himself compelled, to obtain by bribery the consent of "Grattan^s Parliament.'"' The promise of Catholic emancipation, if it was not fulfilled at the time, has been amply fulfilled since. Practical wisdom will ask not whether the parchment has a stain upon it, but whether the measure was good. The two islands, as a glance at the map shows, are so linked together by destiny that they must be united or enemies, while the weaker especially can have no security, and therefore no prosperity but in union. Commercially they are supplements of each other. Great Britain having the coal, Ireland the pasture. The lan- guage, perhaps the strongest bond of nationality, is the same, and the races are inextricably intermingled in the two islands. This, with a connection which has now lasted seven hundred years, is Nature's Act of Union, which, if it is now repealed, will some day be re-enacted in blood. How far is this ripping-up of national titles on account of historical flaws to go ? It would unmake Europe. Almost every great nation is the product of acquisition and • union. Is France to resign the acquisitions of Louis XI. and Louis XIV. ? They are far more recent than the annexation by the English Monarchy of Ireland. What again is this right of secession which Mr. Glad- stone is beginning to proclaim ? Is any province or segment of a nation which can show anything like a separate history or a distinct character to be at liberty to secede when it 30 will ? l^id the Americans recognise this principle in the case of the South ? Did the Swiss recognise it in the case of the Catholic cantons ? Yet Slavery in the first case and Catholicism in the second were surely lines of cleavage as distinct as the Irish Channel. And why is not the right to l)e extended to Ulster ? As Macaulay said, whatever argu- ments can be used in favour of the political separation of Ireland from Great Britain,, may be used with far greater force in favour of the political separation of Ulster from the rest of Ireland. Of the weakness that would come to Euo-land when she had a divorced Ireland — sure to be hostile and to league with her enemies — at her side, who can entertain a serious doubt ? There is not one of the enemies of British power and influence in France, Russia, America, or any part of the world, who is not on Mr. Gladstone's side. There is not one of them whose heart does not beat with malignant joy and hope as he watches Mr. Gladstone's course, or who does not echo with exultation an English statesman's libels on England and her Government. But Italy and the other friends of England mourn. Disintegration will not stop here. Mr. Gladstone's instigations to revolt apply to India as well as to Ireland, and already the rulers of India are disquieted. Lose India, and you lose, besides immense investments, the Indian market, the one great market which is surely your own. The structure of British prosperity perhaps is somewhat artificial ; but the bread of the people nowdepends upon it, and if Secessionism is allowed to tear it down widespread suffering must ensue. Weakness will not be the worst consequence if loyal 31 Ulster is abandoned to enemies whose cause for hating her is that she is British and true to Great Britain. Words (3an add nothing to the infamy of such a betrayal. If Great Britain could really be guilty of it, or show herself capable of it, would she not be scorned and spat upon by all nations ? The greatest stain on English history is the abandonment of the Catalans. The Catalans were abandoned, but the enemy in coercing them was not aided by British troops. The omen of Egypt is inauspicious. It makes us fear that the country may be in the hands of those who are not only destitute of forecast but little careful of national honour. I have never been an Imperialist or a Jingo. I have even incurred some obloquy by advocating, in the case of the Ionian Islands and in other cases, the policy, as I thought it, of morality and moderation. I have always held that England ought to move among nations, not like a Roman citizen in a conquered world (which was too much Lord Palmerston^s ideal), but like an English gentleman among his equals, respecting their rights and honours while he quietly maintains his own. But Great Britain has her rights, and, unless patriotism is a thing of the past, it is the duty of her sons to uphold them. It is their duty not only to her, but to Humanity. After her glorious history of ten centuries, she is still the guiding star of constitutional and ordered freedom. A colonist, perhaps, may say this with a better grace than a citizen of the Imperial country. Many a colonist will say it from his heart. For Germany, Italy, and all other nations, unification is proposed; dismemberment is proposed for Turkey and 32 Great Britain alone. It has been asked liow we can refuse to Ireland what lias been given to Bulgaria. I would reply, in the first place, that no Bulgarian Ulster, no Unionist party of wealth and intelligence in Bulgaria, protested against separation ; in the second place, that whereas for the Bulgarians, the only hope of civilisation and freedom lay in separation from Turkey, for the Irish people, the only hope of civilisation and of real freedom lies in union with Great Britain ; and in the third place, that while the dissolution of the Turkish Empire breaks up only a power of barbarism which blights some of the fairest regions of the earth, the dissolution of the British Em})ire would break up what is, as the sons of England in Canada and throughout the world believe^ a power of beneficence and light. There is another thing which a Colonist has specially to say. Do not imagine that when you have allowed the United Kingdom to be broken up you will find an ampler and grander unity in Imperial Federation. So far as Canada is concerned, I must say, with all respect for the advocates of Imperial Federation, that their cause is hope- less. The Canadian people will never part with any portion of their self-government, they will never contribute to Imperial armaments, nor will they ever conform to an Imperial tariff. Their tendencies are all the other way. Not a single man of mark among us, not one powerful journal, even treats the question as serious. You would give up the solid unity which you possess, only to find that the ampler and grander unity was a dream. PkINTED by CAS3ELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, La BeLLE SaUVAGE, LONDON Price Sixpence. FALSE HOPES; or, Fallacies, Socialistic and Semi- Socialistic, Briefly Answered. AN ADDRESS BY GOLD WIN SMITH, M.A., D.C.L. " This little tract was written to furnish those who are too busy to read economical treatises with ready answers to the principal economical fallacies which they are likely to encounter."— Extract from Preface. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, Ludgate Hill, London,