THE REALITY OF IRISH GRIEVANCES. to Ireland; and he said that to carry fire and sword within her borders merely because it was dreamed or supposed that through Canada some disgrace or wound might be inflicted upon England, was the very height and depth of human wickedness and baseness. He was not surprised at what had taken place in Manchester. He could not for a moment admit that offences of that kind ought to be treated with great leniency and tenderness. They were told that the men who went to stop the police van with revolvers did not mean any harm, and that it was an accident that led to bloodshed. The allegation had been used, and with no small effect in Ireland, that the attempt and the intention was not to kill Brett, but to blow open the door of the van. The evidence was that the pistol was fired through the ventilator; and, undoubtedly, he who wished to blow open a door did not fire his pistol through a part that was already open. But further, it was treated as a sort of accident, forsooth, that the police, instead of calmly submitting to the demand of the party who intercepted them, should have offered such resistance as they were able; and that Brett, with the spirit of a man and an Englishman, should have refused to do anything great or small in furtherance of the objects of the breakers of the law. The anticipation and the belief upon which that plea of excuse was founded was, forsooth, that the policeman had no sense of duty, no principle, and no courage, and that, therefore, being an animal without either honour or conscience, his business the moment danger appeared was to run away; and that a confident reckoning might be made that he would run away; and that if he did not, but acted under a sense of duty, and died in consequence, his death was to be regarded as an accident. It was, to say the least, a matter of sadness that, after six hundred years of political connection with Ireland, that union of heart and spirit which was absolutely necessary for the welfare of that country had not yet been brought about. It was impossible to exaggerate that fact or the gravity of the responsibility which it brought to the government of this country. There was no doubt that, even as matters stood, there was a great improvement upon 259 the past. Civil rights had been extended; odious penalties had been removed; religious distinctions that formerly existed had been effaced, and a better and a milder spirit had recently taken possession of British legislation with regard to Ireland. At the same time, if we wished to place ourselves in a condition to grapple with the Irish problem as it ought to be grappled with, there was but one way to do it-to suppose ourselves in the position of Irishmen, and then say honestly whether we would be satisfied with the state of things that now existed. Nearly thirty years had elapsed since (in 1838) the great grievance of the tithe system in Ireland had been mitigated by the conversion of tithe into a rent-charge payable by the landlord. It was thirty-five years since the church "cess" (which in England was called church-rate) had been totally abolished; but one of the most conspicuous complaints of the Irish people was that a Protestant church had been established and imposed upon them, and was maintained even in districts where, except the clergyman, his family, and his officers, all the inhabitants were Roman Catholics. After three hundred years of trial since the establishment of the Protestant church in Ireland not above one-seventh or one-eighth of the people of Ireland were Protestants of the Established Church. It is not to be wondered at that this grievance rankled, nor that the adoption of a plan of general education in Ireland should have been less successful because of the opposing claims of the clergy. In Ulster the proportion of Roman Catholic and Protestant children in the National Schools were about in proportion to the number of each denomination in the population; but the same proportion does not seem to have been maintained in the southern portion of the island. Not only was the Irish Church a source of perpetual discontent, but the injustice of the laws under which land was held by tenants in the southern portion of Ireland were such as to arouse the bitter feeling of the population. Nearly a century before, Grattan had spoken of Ireland as "a people ill governed, and a government ill obeyed," and in his speeches in the Irish parliament, had described the hardships suffered by cottagers who were forced to pay tithes for their potatoes till they were left in a state of impoverishment, ruin, and despair. In 1788 Grattan said, "In three-fourths of this kingdom potatoes pay no tithe; in the south they not only pay, but pay most heavily. They pay frequently in proportion to the poverty and helplessness of the countrymen. .. What so galling, what so inflammatory as the comparative view of the condition of his majesty's subjects in one part of the kingdom and the other! In one part their sustenance is free, and in the other tithed in the greatest degree; so that a grazier coming from the west to the south shall inform the latter that with him neither potatoes nor hay are tithed; and a weaver coming from the north shall inform the south that in his country neither potatoes nor flax are tithed, and thus are men, in the present unequal and unjust state of things, taught to repine, not only by their intercourse with the pastor, but with one another." This condition of things was abolished along with tithe and cess, and the Encumbered Estates Acts, brought in by Sir Robert Peel, tended to ameliorate the condition of landholders; but it took long even partially to undo the ill government of four hundred years, still longer unhappily does it take to apply healing remedies to old and deep wounds, and to convince the Irish people that apparently tardy governments have been anxious to repair the injuries inflicted during the four centuries from 1430 to 1829, when the evil policy was, as Earl Russell said, to check the industry, to repress the manufactures, to persecute the religion, and to confiscate the rights of the Irish people. The Catholic Relief Act of 1829, the abolition of cess and tithes, the extension of the poor-laws to Ireland in 1838, and acts for the sale of encumbered estates, which put an end to a large amount of pauperism and misery, were all efforts to promote the equality and to remedy the wrongs of Ireland. The Church of Ireland had been freed from many abuses; a system of national education had been extended and improved; and on more than one occasion the position of the Irish Church had been threatened. It was discussed in 1835, inquired into in 1836, but not disestablished and disendowed till 1869. Again, to quote Earl Russell, "Truth and justice in England make sure but slow progress; parliamentary reform caused great agitation in 1780, but it it was not carried till 1832; the slave-trade provoked much indignation in 1780, but it was not abolished till 1807. Measures to promote free-trade were proposed in 1823; but the work was not completed till 1862, even if it can be said to have been then complete. The corporation and test laws were repealed in 1828; the edifice of religious liberty was only completed by the admission of Jews to parliament at a later time." The claims on behalf of Ireland were still that the country should be released from the burden of an alien church, that a system of education should be provided suitable for the condition of the people, and that there should be a legal acknowledgment of the rights of tenants to profit by such improvements as they might have made in their holdings, and to enjoy a more equitable mode of tenure. The land question was in reality the most important, and it had been associated with much of the crime that needed to be repressed or punished. Unhappily, conditions, at which we have already glanced, the confederacies to murder and to commit outrages, for which there were neither social nor political excuses, had made it necessary to use means of repression which retarded the course of beneficial legislation. The limits of our remaining pages would not suffice to record examples of the brutal assassinations and injuries inflicted under the name of "Ribbonism." Those who have read the records of Mr. Stuart Trench's Realities of Irish Life will remember the pictures they give of the atrocities perpetrated forty-five years ago. differed but little from some of those, and later examples of crimes committed apparently with the complacent indifference, if not under the actual direction, of associations with new titles, are equally, if not more abominable. The Fenian outrages Still we should not lose sight of the fact, that while in one part of the kingdom the tenants held their land on equitable terms, and could claim something like adequately THE IRISH LAND QUESTION. adjusted reward for improvements, in the other there was neither inducement to labour nor reward for the results of knowledge and experience. It may have been the case that the tenant rights granted in Ulster, and known as the Ulster right or custom, could not be entirely applicable to neglected and unprofitable lands in other places. One reason for its not being so applicable was, that the tenants were too impoverished to make improvements which needed agricultural implements, proper fences, and the ordinary appliances of farm-work. To raise the wretched crops from their neglected unfenced patches, they only scratched the surface of the ground, or at the best kept part of it in cultivation by spade and hoe. What hope could there be for an agricultural country where the people who had to live on the land, and by what it produced, held their plots or farms at the pleasure of the landlords or their agent? The Ulster "custom," which had the effect of law, recognized the claim of the tenant to undisturbed possession as long as he paid his rent, and if he gave up his holding entitled him to compensation for unexhausted improvements. It also enabled him to sell the good-will of his farm to anyone whom the landlord was willing to accept as a tenant. In fact he possessed to a great extent the privileges of a farmer holding his land on a long lease. In Ulster there was comparative prosperity, for the holder of land profited by his own industry. His improvements had a market value, even after he had reaped some of the benefit from them. In the south, and wherever the tenants were little more than tenants at will, the condition of the people was wretched, and their fields were neglected. In such a condition it was not very surprising that they became the prey of political agitators, or that they were ready to defy the law, which they believed, from bitter experience, was calculated rather to suppress than to protect or encourage them. It is not necessary to contend that the Ulster custom would not have worked to equal advantage among a people different in character and temperament to those of a province colonized or chiefly colon 261 The experi ized by men of another race. ment was not made, and the inequality was therefore indefensible. Neither industry nor thrift could well be expected of people to whom the inducements to improve their position had been denied. The increased cultivation of their land, they too often had reason to believe, would be followed by the raising of their rents - the improvements that they could contrive to make in it might be liable to confiscation by the landowner in favour of another tenant who would offer higher terms for occupation. That was the condition of the peasant landholder; and it was no answer to the complaints against it that a number of the proprietors of the soil acted with reasonable fairness, and neither exacted exorbitant rentals nor permitted the unjust eviction of their tenants. There was no law giving actual security of tenure. The alleged rights of property in the soil have many a time stood in the way of just legislation in England as well as in Ireland, and have frustrated the attempts of honest and earnest statesmen to deliver the holder and cultivator of the land from the position of a tenant on sufferance. The landholder in Ireland was in fact living under something of a feudal law, as the tenure was much the same as that granted by the conqueror to the tiller of the ground. Hundreds of years before, conquest had given a kind of title to restrict the tenure to a mere privilege, and there had been no law passed to alter that state of things. At a remote period there had been open war; the victors had taken possession of the land; the vanquished could therefore only be tenants at will. Generations had passed-land had changed hands by purchase or otherwise-tenants had come and gone. All was altered but the feudal tenure. Government had failed to secure the holders of land against the assertion of an obsolete authority. Some of the holders listened to the evil counsel that a remedy might be found in a conspiracy to defy the government, to refuse both rent and possession of the land, and to assassinate landlords who took steps to recover either. In 1866 Mr. Gladstone and Earl Russell were together in Italy, and there they dis cussed the question of the Established Church in Ireland. "I found that he was as little disposed as I was to maintain Protestant ascendency in Ireland," wrote the earl in his Recollections," and from that time I judged that this great question would be safer in his hands than in mine." This and some subsequent remarks seem to show that it was to bring forward a measure on the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church that Mr. Gladstone took the place of the earl as leader of the House of Commons. On the retirement of Lord Derby Mr. Disraeli had been commanded to form a new administration. The only changes that were made, however, were the appointment of Lord Cairns as lord-chancellor in place of Lord Chelmsford, and that of Mr. Ward Hunt to the chancellorship of the exchequer, Mr. Disraeli, of course, becoming first lord of the treasury. It was felt that the affairs of Ireland demanded immediate attention, but it soon appeared to be equally evident that the ministry had no definite propositions to make. It was not till the end of February, 1868, that the new ministry was formed, and when in March the house had settled to business the subject was brought forward by Mr. John Francis Maguire, who was eminently capable of giving forcible expression to the serious claims of his countrymen. Mr. Maguire was a man of considerable ability, and though he was also known to be so opposed to all acts of lawless violence that he had on more than one occasion shown himself ready to forfeit his position rather than give any support to rebellious demonstrations, he had shown by unmistakable evidences that he was none the less true to the interests of his countrymen, because he well understood the differences between English and Irish characteristics and temperament. He had avoided, even if he had not actually refused, overtures which would have led to some remunerative office at a time when his pecuniary circumstances were narrow and discouraging. He had distinctly avowed that there could be no separation of England and Ireland, but had advocated what may be called a liberal measure of Irish local selfgovernment. Mr. Maguire was liked and trusted by extreme agitators, who could not question his earnest love for his country, and also by cautious politicians, who admired the consistency and moderation of opinions, which were often, however, delivered in language of no little force, and with considerable vehemence of expression. Mr. Maguire's proposals were, that the house should resolve itself into a committee to take into immediate consideration the condition of Ireland, and the debate that ensued showed that the government was not prepared to indicate any distinct policy on the subject. It was evident that the question of the Irish Church must be brought forward, and the ministry was not prepared to yield to the demands that would be made. Lord Mayo, the secretary for Ireland, spoke of the wisdom of "levelling up" instead of levelling down, and appeared to suggest that religious equality should be secured by supporting the various denominations, but it was not represented that he uttered the opinions of the government, and the resolutions of Mr. Maguire were opposed during a debate which lasted for three nights. Mr. Gladstone in the course of the discussion had, in referring to the Irish Church, mentioned the word disestablishment, and the applause with which the expression had been received was significant, so significant that Mr. Disraeli, who followed him, declared his determination to resist with all his power any attempts that might be made to overthrow the Established Church in Ireland, and in his argument maintained the inseparable alliance between church and state. On the fourth night a decisive blow was struck. Mr. Gladstone unhesitatingly declared his opinion that the Established Church in Ireland must cease to exist as an institution upheld by the state. Religious equality must be established, difficult as it might be, but not on the principle of levelling up. His object also was to promote the loyalty and union of the Irish people, but it was idle and mocking to use words unless they could be sustained by the unreserved devotion of definite THE IRISH CHURCH DEBATE-STANLEY-CRANBORNE. 263 efforts. "If we are prudent men, I hope we shall endeavour as far as in us lies to make some provision for a contingent, a doubtful, and probably a dangerous future. If we be chivalrous men, I trust we shall endeavour to wipe away all those stains which the civilized world has for ages seen, or seemed to see, on the shield of England in her treatment of Ireland. If we be compassionate men, I hope we shall now, once for all, listen to the tale of woe which comes from her, and the reality of which, if not its justice, is testified by the continuous migration of her people:-that we shall endeavour to "Raze out the written troubles from her brain, Pluck from her memory the rooted sorrow." But, above all, if we be just men, we shall go forward in the name of truth and right, bearing this in mind-that, when the case is proved and the hour is come, justice delayed is justice denied." The government was unprepared for this sudden declaration, and Mr. Disraeli complained that at the very outset of their duties the new ministry should be called upon to deal with a difficulty, all the elements of which had existed while Mr. Gladstone, who had been converted by Mr. Bright and the philosophers, was himself in office. The majority of the house was, however, manifestly in favour of the proposal to bring the question forward without delay, and Mr. Maguire having withdrawn his proposition, Mr. Gladstone lost no time in placing before it the following resolutions, to be moved in committee of the whole house :-"1. That in the opinion of this house it is necessary that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an establishment, due regard being had to all personal interests and to all individual rights of property. 2. That, subject to the foregoing considerations, it is expedient to prevent the creation of new personal interests by the exercise of any public patronage, and to confine the operations of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of Ireland to objects of immediate necessity, 'or involving individual rights, pending the final decision of parliament. 3. That an humble address be pre sented to her majesty, praying that, with a view to the purposes aforesaid, her majesty will be graciously pleased to place at the disposal of parliament her interest in the temporalities, in archbishoprics, bishoprics, and other ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in Ireland and in the custody thereof." When it was proposed to bring these resolutions before the house in committee, Lord Stanley moved, "That this house, while admitting that considerable modifications of the temporalities of the united church in Ireland may, after the pending inquiry, appear to be expedient, is of opinion that any proposition tending to the disestablishment or disendowment of that church ought to be reserved for the decision of the new parliament." He advocated this resolution on the ground that it would leave the parliament, which would be elected by the enlarged constituencies under the new Reform Bill, free and unfettered; but Mr. Gladstone was not slow to note that the admissions involved in such a resolution were a decisive proof that the days of the Irish Church were numbered. In one part of his powerful address he denied that the existence of that church was necessary for the maintenance of Protestantism in Ireland. Though the census of 1861 showed a small proportionate increase of Protestants, the rate of conversion was so small that it would take 1500 or 2000 years to effect an entire conversion if it went on at the same rate. The final arrangements in this matter might be left to a reformed parliament, but he proposed that they should prevent by legislation, this session, the growth of a new crop of vested interests. Lord Cranborne spoke with bitter emphasis against the proposal of Lord Stanley, which had received the support of the ministry, and after events showed that his attack was not unjustifiable. The amendment, he said, was ambiguous; it either indicated no policy at all or a policy which the ministry was afraid to avow. The leader of the opposition offered them a policy, the foreign secretary offered them a paltry excuse for delay. The attitude assumed by ministers was neither wise, firm, nor creditable. The amendment was too clever by half. He was prepared to meet the |