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 A LIFE MISSPENT
 
 rlUXTKD BY 
 
 Bporriswoonr. AND co., NF.W-.STTIEF.T BQUARK 
 
 l.O.NDOX
 
 ME W. E. GLADSTONE 
 
 A LIFE MISSPENT 
 
 A SERIES OF LETTERS TO AND ON THE ABOVE 
 
 BY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SIMPKIN, MAESHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LIMITED 
 
 1893
 
 e 
 
 UJ 
 CO 
 
 QC 
 00 
 
 INTEODUCTOEY LETTEE 
 
 CD 
 
 O 
 
 or
 
 To Patriots and to Radicals. 
 
 THE following thirteen letters need no justifica- 
 tion ; without malice, they are written on the 
 Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone. Their aim is. to 
 rouse the British, lest the safety and prosperity 
 of the Empire be dreamed, dabbled, and gambled 
 away. 
 
 The letters deal with the Politician, States- 
 man, Prime Minister. 
 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone, D.C.Li, as a husband 
 and father, as a private friend and neighbour, 
 as a landlord, even as a student and scholarly 
 author, merits respectful consideration, and the 
 moralist's unreserved approbation. 
 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone as a 'financier' is 
 perhaps worthy of some praise. 
 
 However, Mr. W. E. Gladstone as the 
 member of Parliament, the publicist, the pam- 
 phleteer, the Party leader, the Secretary of 
 State, the Prime Minister !
 
 Vlll INTRODUCTORY LETTER 
 
 As such, he is another man. In these 
 various characters he has, by his inconsisten- 
 cies and vagaries, made himself almost unique. 
 The disturbance often caused by their mere 
 announcement seems to justify that the friends 
 of the country not only behold them with awe, 
 but think of their ultimate effects with vivid 
 apprehension. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone lives in the Nineteenth century, 
 and, indeed, he may consider himself fortunate 
 for. that. Thanks to the heroic efforts of former 
 patriots, the fundamental principles of the Con- 
 stitution of England are defined ; they are fixed 
 and well known. The consciousness of this 
 stability and the fear of this universal know- 
 ledge somewhat restrain beforehand any would- 
 be violators and usurpers. Moreover, on the one 
 side, the Press, that palladium of our liberties, 
 and the powerful factor in civilisation, paralyses, 
 as it were, unconsciously and most times un- 
 known to the beguiled or lethargic Nation, the 
 efforts of a master-schemer in politics and 
 supreme dabbler in diplomacy. On the other 
 hand, science has softened the tempers of the 
 people, so that peculiar originals, however per- 
 verse, ay, dangerous their actions may be, are 
 treated nowadays with a certain commiserative
 
 INTRODUCTORY LETTER IX 
 
 consideration. Whether they offend against 
 the laws, violate morals or customs, usurp or 
 dispose of other men's property or injure the 
 person ; so long as their actions appear suffi- 
 ciently eccentric, they are held to be suffering 
 from a cerebral aberration or psychical disease. 
 Free from any responsibility for their deeds, 
 they not unfrequently become even idolised. 
 
 Otherwise any such extraordinary politician 
 and fatalistically strange statesman had been 
 dealt with in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies. It is known that Ministers were then 
 impeached for having sold, ceded, or diplomati- 
 cally squandered away even as little as a con- 
 quered town that formed part of the Empire, 
 though for ever so short a period. It may, 
 therefore, be justly doubted if ' attainder,' 
 4 impeachment,' * pains and penalties ' would 
 have been thought by the patriots of those 
 times sufficiently efficacious against the author 
 of a policy which meditates the surrender of 
 Egypt, the desertion of India, the abandonment 
 of the Australian Colonies, the deliverance of 
 Constantinople, the betrayal of Ireland. For 
 instance : 
 
 The patriots of those times would have 
 argued : France impetuously demands our with-
 
 INTRODUCTORY LETTER 
 
 drawal from Egypt. She bases her request 
 upon principles of International Law. Yet she 
 herself has violated more than once such prin- 
 ciples whenever her interests required their 
 repudiation. As to the Egyptian territory, the 
 French have fought battles and waged costly 
 wars for its possession. Again, France holds 
 Cochin China and Tonquin. Both are close to 
 India, where she had ruled before her expulsion 
 by the English, the present occupiers of that 
 country. Also, France is historically proved 
 to be the rival, thus the natural enemy of the 
 British Nation. Her exertions for the evacua- 
 tion of Egypt by the English troops is, there- 
 fore, evidence of the great importance the 
 French people attach to the possession of the 
 Xile Valley and Suez Canal. It indicates that 
 these two are the gate to the East, hence the gate 
 to India. From which follows that whosoever 
 succeeds in making himself its keeper, may rule 
 or reconquer with safety all and any of these 
 Eastern territories. The patriots of the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries would accordingly 
 have declared the author of such a pernicious 
 suicidal policy, which could contemplate or 
 actually advocate the evacuation of Egypt, 
 thereby deserting India and abandoning, the
 
 INTRODUCTORY LETTER XI 
 
 Australian colonies, a dangerous enemy and a 
 traitor to his country. 
 
 With respect to Constantinople those patriots 
 would have considered : 
 
 Eussia covets that city, by the occupation 
 of which she could not fail soon to possess the 
 remaining Turkish possessions in Europe and 
 Asia Minor. Now, the prestige of such a con- 
 quest would make her not only the independent 
 mistress of the Dardanelles and Black Sea, but 
 lay Persia and Afghanistan at her mercy. This 
 should render her influence in Asia all-powerful, 
 extending not only over Armenia and the neigh- 
 bouring countries situated close to Egypt and 
 the Eed Sea, but also over the Indian Empire. 
 To abandon Turkey, therefore, in her resistance 
 to Eussian aggression were folly, as well as 
 cowardly betrayal. Actually to desert her in 
 a war with her enemy, hopeless, without help 
 from allies, would be self-destruction. In its 
 final results it were tantamount to a deliverance 
 of important, vitally important Eastern depend- 
 encies of Great Britain into the occupation of 
 Eussia, another natural enemy of the English 
 people. The patriots of the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries would accordingly have de- 
 clared the author of such a pernicious policy
 
 Xll INTRODUCTORY LETTER 
 
 a dangerous enemy, and a traitor to his 
 country. 
 
 With regard to the Australian Colonies, and 
 especially as to Ireland but the parallel had 
 here better be discontinued. The friends of the 
 Nation, condemned to live in these unhappy 
 times, can have no difficulty when remembering 
 the patriots of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, in imagining what they would have 
 thought of, and how they would have proceeded 
 against the author of a policy of disintegration 
 and separation. Sapienti sat. 
 
 However, there remain the nineteenth-cen- 
 tury ' fin de siecle ' Eadicals. 
 
 It is to their reputed impartial and passion- 
 less judgment that the following letters are 
 deferentially submitted. 
 
 In ' substance ' and principles being comet- 
 like, in nature animal ; in their life-instinct 
 materialistic their commenting effusions are 
 certain to be both entertaining and instructive. 
 To behold and to hear the mob and its ' aris- 
 tocratic ' mouthpiece, the democratic radical 
 Liberals, writhing and squeaking and yelling in 
 the throes of ' argumentative ' vituperations will 
 furnish the best object-lesson to the ' evolu- 
 tionist ' student of zoological monstrosities. The
 
 INTRODUCTORY LETTER Xlll 
 
 ' Darwinian ' philologist will rejoice in the 
 prospect of finding in their language further 
 proofs of the descent of man from the beast. 
 And the ' sophistic ' philosopher will gain 
 valuable experience from the not unfrequent 
 spectacle that the Eadical disciples become the 
 traducers of their Grand Old Charmer, yet 
 whom they were eager to justify, to exalt, ay, 
 to canonise. Already the performances given 
 by the Eight Honourable and his Honourable 
 though somewhat rebellious satellite, Labou- 
 chere, however little developed as yet, are 
 most curious, and certainly full of hopeful pro- 
 mise. . . ! For, if such things happen amongst 
 friends, between aiders and abettors !....? 
 
 But it is time that the epistolary portraits 
 speak. 
 
 They are the true and truthful Positive of 
 Mr. Gladstone, the politician, the statesman, the 
 diplomat. If the features they exhibit are found 
 to be harsh, if the criticisms thereon are bitter, if 
 the impressions which these will leave with the 
 readers are disquieting the better for Great Britain; 
 it is Mr. Gladstone who is both cause and effect. 
 
 Well might it be pleaded that his advanced 
 age should call forth the utmost kindness and re- 
 spectful consideration. And, indeed, where is he
 
 XIV INTRODUCTORY LETTER 
 
 to be found who would refuse him, as a private 
 man, almost Spartan deference ? 
 
 But, old as he is, he has scornfully deserted the 
 sanctuary of private life ; he has gone forth to 
 lead the destiny of the Nation. By an abnormal 
 proposal he endangers the very existence of the 
 Empire. He thus challenges criticism, aye, he 
 boldly stirs up a torrent of passions and dejiantly 
 provokes acrimosity deadly hatred. Should such 
 criticism be withheld, such opposition be restrained, 
 and Great Britain be wrecked, because he, the 
 wrecker, is of an advanced age ? 
 
 6 De mortuis nil nisi bonum ' is a precept of 
 Christian charity. But Mr. Gladstone, though it 
 is true by only a brief span of time separated from 
 Eternity ; he is still alive and under his tread the 
 Empire shakes to its very foundations. 
 
 * * * 
 LONDON, March 1893.
 
 LETTEES 
 
 TO THE 
 
 EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 
 
 Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall not budge, 
 You go not, till I set you up a glass 
 Where you may see the inmost part of you
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 FIRST LETTER : 
 
 MIGHTY CHANGES WITHIN THE SPAN OF ONE LIFE . 1 
 
 SECOND LETTER : 
 THE CONSISTENCY OF A CONSCIENCE .... 9 
 
 THIRD LETTER: 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND HIS ENEMIES ... 19 
 
 FOURTH LETTER : 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND THE BRITISH CONSTI- 
 TUTION . 85 
 
 FIFTH LETTER : 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS . 55 
 
 SIXTH LETTER : 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND THE HOUSE OF COM- 
 MONS AND ELECTORATE 79 
 
 SEVENTH LETTER : 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE DIPLOMAT AND THE 
 PATRIOT OR FOREIGN POLICY 91 
 
 B
 
 XV111 CONTENTS 
 
 EIGHTH LETTER : 
 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS . . 109 
 
 NINTH LETTER : 
 
 IRELAND : HER HISTORY UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS, 
 TUDORS AND STUARTS WITH A VIEW TO HOME RULE 123 
 
 TENTH LETTER : 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE GEORGES, UNDER WILLIAM, AND IN 
 THE VICTORIAN ERA WITH A VIEW TO HOME RULE 147 
 
 ELEVENTH LETTER : 
 
 THE IRISH GLADSTONIAN ERA AND THE HOME RULE 
 BILL OF 1886 185 
 
 TWELFTH LETTER : 
 
 THE IRISH GLADSTONIAN ERA AND THE HOME RULE 
 BILL OF 1893 243 
 
 THIRTEENTH LETTER : 
 
 THE HOME RULE BILL'S EPITOME THE RIGHT 
 HONOURABLE'S EPITAPH? 261 
 
 INDEX 275 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 285
 
 FIRST LETTER
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIR, You have arrived at an age when man 
 generally turns his mind from worldly concerns, 
 and lives henceforth unto himself, that he may 
 have peace hereafter. How truly it is said, 
 therefore, that the life of man is like the passage 
 of the sun, most beautiful when rising and when 
 setting. But there are times when he vanishes 
 in a welkin pregnant with thunder and fire, so 
 that before the fretful eyes of mankind the 
 planet of joy and light appears and disappears 
 a comet and a herald of commotion and disso- 
 lution. 
 
 Sir, to ask you to inquire within yourself in 
 which of these two shapes your descent will be 
 viewed by the nations would be adding insult, 
 perhaps, to injustice. To assume that whilst 
 you employ your last strength in schemes and 
 plots which must ruin your country } T OU are 
 all the time firmly believing your acts to be wise
 
 4 MIGHTY CHANGES WITHIX THE SPAN 
 
 and useful were to tax you with something 
 worse than a peculiarly weak intellect. To 
 think that you are thus strangely conducting 
 yourself with consciousness of your exploits and 
 with forethought would be accusing you of 
 treason. 
 
 However, though this problem may be pro- 
 perly left to that Judge who alone can discern 
 unerringly the heart and mind of man, the 
 Xation and every citizen affected by vour doings 
 
 * w w 
 
 have a title to criticise their nature ; and, if in- 
 jured by them, the people and the individual 
 possess not only the right to condemn their origin 
 and purport, but further, to resist their effects. 
 Also, so far from making it difficult vour ex- 
 
 O / 
 
 traordinary career has rendered criticism very 
 easy. 
 
 Commencing your political escapades under 
 the protection of Toryism, you close it under 
 the red flag of disintegration. 
 
 In that you fell from one extreme to the other 
 your conduct might yet be excusable : turncoats 
 amongst politicians are not too uncommon a 
 species. It is comprehensible that a ' Went- 
 worth ' should develop into an ' Earl of Straf- 
 ford,' and that the Mirabeau of the ' Salle 
 de Jeu de Paume ' should so far be whirled
 
 OF ONE LIFE 
 
 round as to finish by worshipping at Versailles : 
 flies and moths are attracted by glitter and 
 light. 
 
 But how must posterity start at the mention- 
 ing of a man, who, when young and out of place, 
 posed as the non plus ultra champion of the 
 worst of despotisms the ecclesiastical, politi- 
 cal absolutism ; who afterwards, when with the 
 help of his less cunning protectors he had 
 climbed the ladder to power half way, assumes 
 the opportune role of a preacher and defender 
 of the then ' current ' liberty ; who, finally, when 
 the too emotional heart and but half-grown 
 understanding of the people were sufficiently 
 confused and corrupted, throws off this cast for 
 that character almost indescribable the liberal- 
 radical advocate of Democratic tyranny or 
 license ! Indeed, posterity will start at the 
 sound of such a man's name ; the present gene- 
 ration must behold him with consternation, and 
 the peoples abroad speak of his deeds with scorn 
 and apprehension. 
 
 And yet even therein one might pardon 
 your conduct; its very perverseness pleads in 
 your favour ; it is psychologically unaccount- 
 able. 
 
 Though you are not charged, because you
 
 6 MIGHTY CHANGES WITHIN THE SPAN 
 
 could not conform with the ordinary course of 
 nature in that ' enthusiasm for some sort of 
 liberty is generally found in youth, and love for 
 law and order in old age.' Also, it were pre- 
 sumption, nay, usurpation of a right, and viola- 
 tion of two sacred principles : the actor sequitur 
 rei forum and extra territorium jus dicendi im- 
 pune non paretur ; if other than your fellow- 
 members should impeach you for actions which 
 bear a fatal resemblance to conspiracy, incite- 
 ment to riot and high treason. And the repre- 
 sentatives of the English Nation cannot already 
 be unnerved to such an extent that they should 
 be afraid to remember and, if need be, to apply, 
 how their ancestors have dealt with all those 
 who plotted the dismemberment of the Empire 
 and the corruption of the people. Indeed, you 
 read history, although, true to your character 
 even in this, you read it most peculiarly ; such 
 instances of bitter resentment against notorious 
 agitators, disintegrators and traitors, on the 
 part of a just, generous, free and patriotic 
 people, may thus, notwithstanding your predi- 
 lection for perversion, not be unknown to you. 
 
 But when the rule of courtesy and decency 
 towards, and the law of respect for others than 
 your unhappy country are alarmingly violated
 
 OF ONE LIFE 
 
 by you ; when, not content to cast the brand 
 of disorder and revolt in the homesteads of 
 hitherto peaceable and contented citizens, you 
 raise the banner of sedition among misguided 
 tribes of foreign nations ; when, not satisfied 
 with having set an awful example by your alli- 
 ance with the Healyites of countenancing muti- 
 lation, arson, revolt and murder at home, you 
 dare to preach, or, at least, to patronise, such 
 pernicious doctrines abroad, and boastfully to 
 receive the acclamations of Czechs and other 
 would-be rebels : then, sir, when you appear to 
 be the recognised chief of all the outlawed and 
 the lawless of Europe, then is the time, when 
 against an international evil, international reme- 
 dies should and must be used with all despatch 
 and energy. 
 
 Beware ! Foreign governments will know 
 how to safeguard the welfare and how to pro- 
 tect the property and integrity of their citizens ; 
 the measures of these governments against your 
 country will fall back with double force on your 
 past and future. 
 
 The English are generous. Moved by your 
 age and their sanguine temperament easily be- 
 guiled by promises, they have, in an abuse of 
 their generosity, returned you to power. Take
 
 MIGHTY CHANGES 
 
 care lest they be shaken too roughly out of their 
 noxious dream by a worse reality; by your 
 actions, which your enemies would impeach as 
 unlawful, you might be held to have placed 
 yourself outside the constitutional pale of the 
 law.
 
 SECOND LETTER 
 THE CONSISTENCY OF A CONSCIENCE
 
 To the Eigld Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 Sm, But a few more days, and you will 
 have reached the zenith of your ambitions : you 
 will be at the head of the affairs of Great 
 Britain. That explains the enthusiasm and 
 activity suddenly displayed by her most bitter 
 enemies ; they rely on the contradiction of your 
 nature. 
 
 However, you. are not so much impeached 
 here for your conduct towards the Maynooth 
 Bill, the Australian Colonies Bill and my Lord 
 John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. 
 
 Though inconsistent in your notions, utter- 
 ances and actions, you were at that time a 
 Peelite, and what is even more, a Puseyite. 
 Thus, as it were, privileged continually to 
 change and betray what with other men would 
 be ' principles ; ' moreover, an absolutist in 
 matters religious, you could with some decorum 
 on the one side support the claims and assump-
 
 12 THE CONSISTENCY OF A CONSCIENCE 
 
 tions of Church of England Episcopacy upon 
 the colonies ; on the other, defend the Papal 
 usurpation of English territories. 
 
 Sir, it is your subsequent conduct which 
 might justify the joy of Great Britain's enemies 
 over your ascendency ; which certainly has 
 marked you one of the greatest calamities that 
 may befall a nation. 
 
 Once attached to Doellinger, the absolute 
 and infallible Pope's archfoe, and with him 
 great in invoking the wrath of the Lord 
 against Popery and the Vatican Council, you 
 are now prepared even to wade through Civil 
 War, if only you succeed in delivering a brave, 
 honest and industrious people of your faith and 
 race into the claws of Jesuitism and ' Walshite ' 
 inquisition. 
 
 Yet your conduct even in this might be 
 found somewhat excusable ; there is a fatal 
 consistency of evil. 
 
 You did violence to yourself and denied 
 your character. Destined for commotion, war 
 and disintegration, you were obstinately bent 
 upon pursuing a policy of 'pacification' and 
 ' indemnification.' The curse fell on your per- 
 verse actions; outraged Nature had her revenge. 
 You, the foremost champion of Communism and
 
 THE CONSISTENCY OF A CONSCIENCE 13 
 
 Democracy, were to match in one common mis- 
 deed the most arbitrary of princes. In 1871 
 you perpetrated an act that your enemies call 
 sacrilege, and which is equalled only by the 
 sequestration of Henry VIII. 
 
 What did it matter that you were the bold 
 author of ' The State in its Eelation to the 
 Church,' of that hyperorthodox and absolutistic 
 treatise in which you called heaven's vengeance 
 upon all those who dared but utter a syllable 
 against the Established Church of your country 
 the Twin Sister of which, notwithstanding, 
 a few years afterwards none other than you 
 should doom to die ? What could it matter 
 that you were the man who for the sake, of that 
 book actually forsook his post in the Cabinet 
 and deserted the Board of Trade at a moment 
 most critical, under circumstances which, but 
 for the favour of Providence, might have become 
 most disastrous to the Nation ? Of what con- 
 sequence could it be to you that you betrayed 
 in the face of the world your patron and friend 
 and almost involved the downfall of your leader 
 and Party, all this for the reputation of theories, 
 for the sake of dogmas, yet which you denounced 
 by your private vote, as it were, on the morn of 
 their proclamation ?
 
 14 THE CONSISTENCY OF A CONSCIENCE 
 
 Sir, you were ' the purist with respect to 
 what touches the consistency of Statesmen.' 
 You committed that deed because your con- 
 science and your notion of consistency revolted 
 against a just grant to Maynooth of a few 
 thousand pounds for the education of Irish 
 priests. In the same manner it happened that 
 twenty-five years later you were goaded by this 
 consistent conscience to deprive the faithful 
 sister of your Church of hundreds of thousands 
 for the support of those very priestly agitators. 
 
 Indeed, it was consistent ! That the Nation 
 stood bewildered, that the English could not 
 understand this positively morbid, almost 
 fantastic over-scrupulosity is comprehensible. 
 That Sir E. Peel employed you again in the 
 following year is explainable. This statesman 
 had already arrived at such perfection in be- 
 traying his friends, constituents and clients, that 
 he could not fail to appreciate the rapid de- 
 velopment of a similar tendency in a nature, in 
 a character so wonderfully congenial to his as 
 he found yours. And did you not throw up 
 office in a like manner a few years later from 
 a most morbid perverseness of consistency and 
 conscience? Did you not abandon the Chan- 
 cellorship of the Exchequer from a strange
 
 THE CONSISTENCY OF A CONSCIENCE 15 
 
 antagonism against Mr. Eoebuck's motion for 
 an inquiry into the state of the British Army 
 before Sebastopol, though that investigation was 
 demanded in the interests of charity, humanity, 
 honour and patriotism ? Your friends, my 
 Lords John Eussell and Palmerston, had every 
 reason to remember your fits of puristic con- 
 sistency of those times. (See pages 102, 103.) 
 
 Sir, your conduct recalls Horace's ' Furorne 
 CEecus, an rapit vis acrior, an culpa ? ' To you 
 seems addressed ' Sic est, acerba fata te agunt.' 
 Thus, the world may believe that, though a 
 willing, yet you were a mere tool in the 
 schemes of your country's evil destiny, and you 
 may be pitied. Moreover, Eome has always 
 claimed the power to absolve people for the 
 celestial Eldorado, and the burden of your past 
 must disquiet your expectations of a future ; 
 great men are known to be superstitious. Above 
 all, for once you have shown a certain tact ; 
 your friend is dead ; so is Pius IX., and Eome 
 is in the ascendant. 
 
 The murder of the hero of Khartum, how- 
 ever, justifies England's enemies no longer to 
 doubt your code of morals, but boldly to hope 
 and brazenly to demand from you even the 
 final betrayal of your Nation.
 
 16 THE CONSISTENCY OF A CONSCIENCE 
 
 The bones of that great patriot, brave man, 
 and one of the bravest soldiers are scarcely 
 paled by Egypt's glowing sun, and the widows 
 and orphans consoled for the loss of their 
 husbands and fathers, slain in her * necessary * 
 conquest and afterwards 4 vital ' defence ; and 
 you can contemplate the surrender of this your 
 country's only gate to India ! 
 
 That you have forgotten the memorable 
 words of the Czar Nicholas, the then ruler of 
 your country's bitter enemies is pardonable. You 
 have reason to shun the remembrance of those 
 times. But the debates on Sir Michael Hicks- 
 Beach's motion relative to the hero General 
 Gordon and the acclamations of the Australian 
 Colonies ought, if not to touch your conscience, 
 at least to tingle still in your ears. 
 
 Sirrah ! Coquetry in youth, though blam- 
 able, is yet tolerable. Coquetry in old age, 
 when in a woman is ludicrous ; if in a man, it 
 is contemptible and detestable. Yet when an 
 octogenarian politician appears to coquet away 
 one of the foremost possessions of the Nation, 
 because the country of the Zolas, the Proud- 
 lions, the Eenaus supports by its morals and 
 political excesses the propagation of his poli- 
 tical creed, which to all and every uninitiated
 
 THE CONSISTENCY OF A CONSCIENCE 17 
 
 person justly seems to be * corruptive,' ' treason- 
 able/ ' destructive ' lie must be held to be 
 either an enemy of his country or a dangerous 
 fanatic. But you shall hear yet more of Egypt. 
 
 There can be no doubt you learnt Sophocles' 
 ' TToXXo, ra Seu'd /couSa> avOpatirov Seworepov TreXet ' 
 too well, and on beholding your deeds your 
 foes might think of Milton's description ' with 
 thoughts inflamed of highest design, he put on 
 swift wings, and towards the gates of hell ex- 
 plored his solitary flight.' In fact, on the eve 
 of your days your enemies maintain, you could 
 almost in the words of Mirabeau, say to your 
 unhappy Nation : ' My life, full of depredations 
 and injustice, has opened an abyss into which 
 the kingdom is doomed to fall, and where it 
 must perish. But, before I depart, let us yet 
 try to fill it. Here is a list of proprietors, of 
 middle-class citizens and gentry ; select the 
 wealthiest, the best educated, 1he most talented, 
 it is just that the classes shall die for the 
 masses. Then, triumph Democracy, i.e. 
 Tyranny or Anarchy! Communism, i.e. Licen- 
 tiousness ! ' 
 
 Sir, this peroration, not at all inconsistent 
 with the political record of utterances and deeds 
 of the human author of the ' Letters from Naples,' 
 
 c 2
 
 18 THE CONSISTENCY OP A CONSCIENCE 
 
 and fully in harmony with the sentiments of the 
 Kussian servile 'patron' of the Bulgarian horrors, 
 might be held to be consistent with the organiser, 
 and especially with the purveyor of the Crimean 
 and Egyptian campaigns on the one side and 
 the coercive legislator ; then, apostate and 
 apologist of Fenianism on the other. Aye, the 
 world expected yet to see Mr. Gladstone and 
 Michael Davitt, a second ' modernised ' edition 
 of Absalom and Ahithophel, fight shoulder to 
 shoulder for their ideals disintegration of the 
 Empire and Irish-English Republics. 
 
 But ' peyLO'Trj S' e\7ri9 Iv rot? TroXe/xots core TO 
 
 Sl/CCUOI>.' 
 
 There are ethics for the course of man as 
 for that of nations. A career, begotten by 
 treacherous ambition and pursued with the 
 help of iniquity and injustice, conceives at its 
 very outset the curse of ruin and self-destruction. 
 Of such a man might be said, ' When gloom has 
 swallowed up the Universe, then he will stand 
 confronted with Immensity, a lonely ghost amid 
 a desert, where nought else but the ghastly 
 ruins of his country shall be his wake and sleep 
 companions.'
 
 THIRD LETTER 
 
 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND HIS 
 ENEMIES
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIR, Your enemies say that you hunger 
 after infallible dictatorship. They charge you 
 with defection. They proclaim you as a being 
 possessed by the demon of destruction. Looking 
 upon your career, they call you the personified 
 contradiction and perverseness. Above all, as 
 you know, they accuse you of treason. 
 
 Though your enemies base their charges not 
 so much upon your betrayal of whole provinces 
 which form parts, important parts of the Em- 
 pire ; yet of proofs they could not be wanting. 
 Amongst many, they need only point to your 
 treachery towards the loyal South African 
 colonists. 
 
 Neither do they impeach you on account of 
 the vituperations which you generally cast on 
 your ' cats-paws,' as, for instance, at ' a certain 
 Mr. Jesse Collings.' Eemembering that it is 
 the Eight Honourable W. E. Gladstone, your
 
 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 enemies expect that after having effectively and 
 sometimes not very honestly used your tools, 
 you positively deny all connection with them. 
 Indeed, in you it is natural that whenever their, 
 to say the least, unscrupulous actions, although 
 committed for your sake and upon your in- 
 sinuation, or rather instigation, are likely to 
 bring in jeopardy your own reputation of self-just 
 consciousness and hyper-conscientious righteous- 
 ness : you should at once deliver up your 
 tools to the wrath of your reviled and injured 
 rivals. 
 
 Again, there stand counts against you, 
 charging you directly with moral assassinations. 
 But here, too, your enemies forbear to indict 
 you, notwithstanding that those so-called moral 
 assassinations have not unfrequently entailed 
 the premature physical death of your victims. 
 Your enemies pretend to be guided in their 
 moderation by considerations of ' public policy.' 
 For instance, they condemn your conduct to- 
 wards Charles Stewart Parnell, the once by you 
 much-wooed aider and abettor in your plot for 
 the destruction of the Empire by treasonable 
 disintegration. But they are apprehensive lest, 
 in impeaching you for the ruin of the Irish 
 leader, they should impeach your accomplice in
 
 AND HIS ENEMIES 
 
 treason, Dr. Walsh. It is for morality's sake 
 that they threaten such an indictment. 
 
 They know that your undoubtedly most 
 puristic sentiments in Church and Irish-English 
 politics are the mere echo of that prelate's in- 
 structions. They are aware that this your 
 anointed confederate implores the heavens for 
 either the conversion or annihilation of your 
 apostate country. They are convinced that in 
 case of a conflict between England and the 
 Vatican or any holy-Popish-Catholic state, your 
 would-be Cardinal-associate would side against 
 your country, even after his installation as Irish 
 Pope by your Home Eule scheme. For these 
 very reasons your enemies justly fear that a 
 trial against you and your accomplice, the archi- 
 episcopal dictator of Ireland, might call forth 
 revelations the publication of which could not 
 fail for ever to corrupt the still existing moral 
 instincts of the Nation. 
 
 Moreover, your enemies hold that the prema- 
 ture death of the uncrowned king, as well as 
 the ' Machiavellic ' intrigues from the 'Pact of 
 Kilmainham ' to the conspiracy at ' Committee 
 Room, No. 15,' have already become historic. 
 They are of opinion that these events came to 
 pass quite naturally inevitably.
 
 24 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 Charles Stewart Parnell appears in matters 
 politic to have acted from somewhat reasonable 
 and in several points, excusable motives. The 
 uncrowned king was an Irish agitator. As 
 such he looked upon the English as his foes. 
 As such he struggled and plotted for what he 
 believed to be his country's good. As such it 
 was that he attempted the ruin of what he be- 
 lieved to be his country's evil the ruin of Eng- 
 land of Great Britain. 
 
 But you, the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, are 
 supposed to be an English ' statesman ! ' Thus, 
 what motives your enemies ask, could you have 
 to aid and abet that Irishman in his endeavours 
 to establish in the Emerald Isle a new ' tyrannis ' ? 
 It was scarcely possible that you, the great 
 Statesman and prophet in the wilderness of 
 politics, were alone unconscious of their pur- 
 port. The instinct of patriotism in every 
 other Briton revolted against these acts of 
 the uncrowned king. It was universally felt 
 that they aimed at the destruction of England. 
 Still you, your enemies exclaim, you were ac- 
 tually plotting with Fenians and Land Leaguers 
 at the very time when the English Nation had 
 chosen you Great Britain's England's Prime 
 Minister, to protect her property, to defend her
 
 AND HIS ENEMIES 25 
 
 honour, to maintain her laws, to preserve her 
 order and peace, and thus to further her welfare 
 and prosperity. 
 
 Your revilers, it is true, say that the implac- 
 able hatred which your actions suggest you bear 
 your country, prove that you are Welsh, that 
 you are Scotch, that you are Irish, that you are 
 even French, aye, Eussian, rather than English. 
 But though your enemies maintain that having 
 been born in and educated, nursed and enriched 
 by England, any other moral character than 
 you would ethically, logically and materially 
 belong to such a motherly country. 
 
 This patriotism it is, your enemies argue, 
 that constituted Parnell's crime. They say his 
 independence and power were like a poisonous 
 two-edged dagger in your heart, diseased by 
 constantly revelling in visions of lusty, unre- 
 strained dictatorship. They are of opinion that 
 it was this very patriotism and sagaciously inde- 
 pendent spirit which ennobled the actions and 
 motives of the uncrowned king when compared 
 with your schemes and with what your enemies 
 call : your unparalleled misdeeds. Hence, they 
 maintain, sprung the hatred which you con- 
 ceived against your trusty ally, Charles Stewart 
 Parnell. Hence the eagerness with which you
 
 26 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 seized the opportunity to ruin him, when for once 
 a docile imitator, the Irish leader betrayed a 
 friend in private life. Sir, you may well believe 
 your enemies were not surprised that your sense 
 of righteousness and propriety should be so in- 
 dignantly tickled by it. They expected that you 
 would instantly take up your old game. They 
 had seen you at it before, and they knew that in 
 defence of morality you would not hesitate to 
 revile and betray your accomplice. They per- 
 fectly understood that you could not do other- 
 wise than punish this Parnell who so foolishly 
 allowed his weakness to be uncloaked before 
 that farrago of religion, before that self-righteous 
 hydra of dissenting prayer-clubs, before those 
 Methodists, Congregationalists and Tabernaclists 
 who, next to the Irish archpriests, were then 
 dearest to your heart. 
 
 Indeed, your enemies were not startled when 
 in alliance with these Irish archpriests you ex- 
 horted the Tim Healyites to revolt against the 
 uncrowned king. It is true you and the world 
 knew that through him not a few of them had 
 been raised to lucrative and glittering agitator- 
 ships from a state, morally, intellectually, and, 
 perhaps, in most cases, materially indigent. But 
 the world had also learnt the O'Shea failing of
 
 AND HIS ENEMIES 27 
 
 your brother in conspiracy and helpmate in con- 
 triving the ruin of your country. For you, 
 therefore, to preach to them there and then on 
 such ethics as gratitude, would have been not 
 only absurd but most unnatural. Sir, you under- 
 stood your duties towards your country far 
 better. You knew that on you and on you alone 
 it became incumbent to avenge outraged purism. 
 Inspired by morality you at once comprehended 
 that none but you could despatch with a final 
 sanctimonious stab your already wounded, at 
 one time by you obsequiously served and much 
 trusted aider and abettor. The fact was, to 
 repeat it, Parnell's usefulness had ceased. His 
 patriotism shamed you. His merits and abilities 
 overshadowed yours. His consistency, and from 
 an Irishman's standpoint, comprehensible and 
 justifiable fixed purpose when compared with 
 your perverseness and opportuneness, were hate- 
 ful to you. His ambition threatened your ra- 
 pacity. There was danger that his exposure 
 might involve yours. Above all, he was your 
 accomplice in your political misdeeds. And you 
 know that, in spite of their cant, criminals are 
 said to shun, even deadly to hate their associates 
 in crime after its commission. It devolved upon 
 you, therefore, to act.. And your enemies admit
 
 28 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 that you did act. They took it as a matter 
 of course when you issued to these Tim Healy- 
 ites, ' ivhose footsteps had hitherto been dogged 
 by crime,' the worldly famous, ethically infamous 
 mandate : undo him, betray him, nay, tear him 
 bodily to pieces, if only morality be saved for 
 the country. Ah, sir, morality ! Your enemies 
 say you certainly enriched by your ' apostolic ' 
 epistle to Justin McCarthy the literature on 
 ethics in politics and on morals among prayer- 
 clubs and priest-leagues. 
 
 Sir, the accusation which is hurled at you by 
 your enemies is far more galling. It is of a 
 most ignominious nature. They charge you not 
 only with Popery and Jesuitism, but also with 
 perfidious, ungrateful cowardice. 
 
 Yet with respect to the first count ! Is it 
 that your enemies forget your illustrious career 
 as the melodramatic Scripture reader of the 
 Church of England ? Is it that they look upon 
 your partisans' Sunday pilgrimages to the Hawar- 
 den Chapel as being naught else than a big farce, 
 adapted from the Church of Eome shows by 
 some wire-pullers for the statesman- actor ? Or 
 is it that they wrongfully appreciate your ex- 
 ploits as the Church of England 'master-jong- 
 leur ? ' Is it that they falsely construe the
 
 AND HIS ENEMIES 29 
 
 pamphlets, tracts, and bulls with which you, in 
 your capacity of the Church of England contro- 
 versial dogma doctor, afflict the world ? 
 
 It is true, to charge you with Popery and 
 Jesuitism seems at first sight anomalous. Your 
 enemies admit that the accusation appears to be 
 unnatural the proof thereof almost impossible. 
 But they maintain, only so at first sight. They 
 do not deny that you are the author of 'The 
 Church of England, is it worth Preserving ? ' of 
 ' The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil 
 Allegiance,' of 'Vaticanism.' Yet they point 
 out that you are also the author of the ' Irish 
 Disestablishment Bill ' and the ' Irish University 
 Bill.' Further, they comment on the strange 
 coincidence that your bosom friends were Hope, 
 Newman and Manning, all three Eoman con- 
 verts, or, from a Protestant's view, Apostates. 
 Papists, and certainly the deadliest enemies of 
 the Church of England. Again, your adver- 
 saries acknowledge that you wrote ' What is 
 Eitualism ? ' ; but they interpret its meaning by 
 your conduct towards the ' Public Worship Ee- 
 gulation Bill,' as well as towards the ' Endowed 
 Schools Act Amendment Bill.' Therefore, you 
 cannot wonder that they call you the ecclesias- 
 tical broker. However, it is on account of
 
 30 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 your duplicity whenever there are motions in 
 the House of Commons for the Disestablishment 
 of the Church of Scotland, or of the so-called 
 Church of Wales, or of the Church of England, 
 and because of your contradictory, though 
 * cunning ' platform utterances thereon, that 
 your enemies denounce you the ' opportunist 
 arch-Jesuit.' And they argue that in criminal 
 matters for instance, any evil-doer with such a 
 record, although charged on suspicion only, 
 would unhesitatingly be convicted. 
 
 As to the second count, that of cowardice, 
 your enemies do not forget how boldly you have 
 always defended the pretensions, insults and 
 injuries which the mob and the home and foreign 
 foes of Great Britain inflict on the unhappy 
 Nation, on your betrayed country. They admit 
 that vou brazen anvthin<r, even when out of 
 
 W <i 
 
 office, so long as you can harm England. How- 
 ever, in all other circumstances they contend, 
 you are the slave of the intimidating influences 
 of a troubled conscience, except when you are 
 goaded by some individual hatred. As proof, 
 vour enemies advance that in times of turmoil 
 and peril you desert the party which has made 
 you what you are. They say that you act thus 
 from cowardice. But they go farther. They
 
 AND HIS ENEMIES 31 
 
 search for a second reason why at such critical 
 moments you betray those who when one con- 
 siders your career entrusted and entrust with 
 a most touching simplicity their ' ideals ' or 
 ' idols,' their welfare or success, their honour or 
 reputation, their glory or conceit, even their very 
 existence and future into your honest, firm, con- 
 sistent and circumspect care. Sir, your enemies 
 assert that you retire at those crises to your 
 Hawarden Tusculum in order better to gloat 
 over the havoc wrought by your ambitious 
 misdeeds among your brethren, disciples, re- 
 tainers and followers. They call your pretext 
 that you ' seclude ' yourself in your retreat for 
 the purpose of studying ' Homer or ecclesiastical 
 legerdemain ' a mere imposture. In support of 
 their allegations they point to the history of 
 your memorable abdication of the leadership of 
 the great ' conglomerate ' Liberal party in 1875, 
 in favour of your friend, my Lord Hartington. 
 But in this your enemies apparently forget that 
 an individual diseased and devoured by the lust 
 of and for power, inasmuch as it is abnormal, 
 must be guided by a code of abnormal morals, 
 peculiar to his peculiar instincts. They forget 
 that to be the leader of a party which unfortu- 
 nate events have driven into a hopeless opposi- 
 
 D
 
 32 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 tion, requires a character sincere, firm and 
 patriotic. They naively think that an honest 
 and true statesman would exult in the prospect 
 of, and render thanks to the Deity for having 
 been chosen to lead his partisans safely through 
 the adversities to victory and triumph. They 
 charge you with an insatiable greed for power, 
 yet seemingly do not take into account that the 
 leadership of a party placed in an apparently 
 hopeless opposition is barren in conceit, adula- 
 tion, patronages, sinecures, benefices, and what 
 might be called ' ministerialties.' Above all, 
 they forget your letter to my Lord Granville, 
 dated January 14, 1875, and for once unmistak- 
 ably explanatory of your abdication ; the letter 
 in which you wrote : ' The time has, I think, 
 arrived, when I ought to return to the subject 
 of the letter which I addressed to you on March 
 12. Before determining whether I should offer 
 to assume a charge (i.e. the leadership) which 
 might extend over a length of time, I have 
 reviewed, with all the care in my power, a 
 number of considerations, both public and pri- 
 vate. . . . The result has been that I see no 
 public advantage in my continuing to act as the 
 leader of the Liberal party ; and that, at the age 
 of sixty-five, and after forty-two years of a
 
 AND HIS ENEMIES 33 
 
 laborious public life, I think myself entitled to retire 
 on the "present " opportunity. This retirement is 
 dictated to. me by my "present " personal views as 
 to the best method of spending the closing years of 
 my life' . . . 
 
 It is : they have since seen you twice re- 
 appear on the field of action, in the midst of the 
 turmoil of factions, where there is certainly not 
 preached the Evangel of God and Eternity but 
 the gospel of the world ; and they have lost 
 their faith in the sincerity of your decisions. 
 Indeed, when contemplating what your personal 
 views 'as to the best method of spending the 
 closing years of your life ' have been from then 
 until your Second Home Eule Scheme, they 
 justly hold that not only their former count 
 against you is right, but that for your epitaph 
 might be used Ben Jonson's 4 Fall of Catiline : ' 
 
 Which Catiline seeing, and that now his troops 
 
 Covered the earth they 'ad fought on with their trunks, 
 
 Ambitious of great fame, to crown his ill 
 
 Collected all his fury, and ran in 
 
 (Armed with a glory high as his despair) 
 
 Into our battle, like a Libyan lion 
 
 Upon his hunters, scornful of our weapons, 
 
 Careless of wounds, plucking down lives about him, 
 
 Till he had circled on himself with death : 
 
 Then fell he too, t'embrace it where it lay, 
 
 And as in that rebellion 'gainst the gods, 
 
 D 2
 
 34 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND HIS ENEMIES 
 
 Minerva holding forth Medusa's head, 
 
 One of the giant brethren felt himself 
 
 Grow marble at the killing sight ; and now, 
 
 Almost made stone, began to inquire what flint, 
 
 What rock, it was that crept through all his limbs ; 
 
 And, ere he could think more, was that he fear'd : 
 
 So Catiline, at the sight of Rome in us, 
 
 Became his tomb ; yet did his look retain 
 
 Some of his fierceness, and his hands still moved, 
 
 As if he laboured yet to grasp the state 
 
 With those rebellious parts. 
 
 CATO : A brave bad death ! 
 
 Had this been honest now, and for his country, 
 As 'twas against it, who had e'er falVn greater ? 
 
 Sir, would it be inappropriate ? 
 
 Ah, look to it ! There is one more indict- 
 ment ! Your enemies think it explains all. 
 They hold that destruction proves to be the 
 mission, the raison d'etre of your existence. 
 They allude to the weird spectacle of the ' States- 
 man-woodcutter,' to which, whenever out of 
 office, you so largely treat the Nation. And 
 they ask : Is it : that whilst you thus practise 
 destruction on trees and shrubs, your imagina- 
 tion, easily stretching, marks in anticipation 
 of the day when you will be returned to power 
 the branches which you will then cut off your 
 Country's glorious and invaluable Constitution ?
 
 FOURTH LETTER 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND THE 
 BRITISH CONSTITUTION
 
 To the Eight Hon. W.E. Gladstone, M. P. 
 
 Sm, The British Constitution ! ? 
 
 Unique as it is, it is justly considered by the 
 patriot as synonymous with the safety, pro- 
 sperity and grandeur of Great Britain. 
 
 ' And yet it is no document, nor is it a statute 
 or a code. It is neither tangible nor visible. 
 No stones nor casements enclose it, no bayonets 
 protect it, no circuits of entrenched posts confine 
 it.' Like the country for which it was destined, 
 it is free, without boundaries that might mar its 
 majesty. Unsullied by the pedantry, egotism, 
 prejudice, ambition, bigotry and passion of man, 
 it is limited only by restrictions which were 
 inspired by divine precepts and suggested by 
 physical law. 
 
 But it is sanctioned by a thousand years. 
 Created, wrought, framed, shaped by nature and 
 circumstances, it has been transmitted from 
 generation to generation as the blessing. Its
 
 38 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 teachings are the universal conceptions of the 
 English Nation. Its principles are the symbol, 
 the shibboleth, the Evangel for true English 
 conduct for British feelings, thoughts and 
 actions. It is the regulator of the very life of 
 vour Nation. And this greatest of inheritances 
 
 / o 
 
 left, transmitted, treasured up for so many ages 
 from father to son it has grown to the hearts of 
 the people whence it had sprung ; it is one with the 
 people. Sir, to maim it ! Sir, to cut it asunder 
 is to sap the very existence of the Empire. 
 
 What inducements, what powerful reasons, 
 what sacred obligations for every Briton, the 
 highest and the lowest, the noblest and the 
 meanest to hold it in esteem, to regard it with 
 reverence, to love it with veneration ! How 
 deeply he must have fallen who madly attempts 
 to conspire against it ! Can he be English ? 
 Is he a man ? ! 
 
 But no you do not attack the British 
 Constitution. You know that your Nation, not- 
 withstanding their party clamours against it, 
 instinctively feel that its ruin means the ruin of 
 the country. Bold as you are, the prospect of 
 such a war as an honest attack would provoke 
 appals you. So you employ a more ignoble 
 method you undermine its pillars.
 
 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 39 
 
 There are three of these columns by which 
 the British Empire is' upheld the Crown, or 
 Prerogative and Executive ; the House of Lords, 
 or Veto and Legislative ; the House of Commons, 
 or the Legislative. You are acquainted with 
 them ; they bear your marks. 
 
 Yet, behold ! Lest the Crown overshadow 
 the Commons, it is checked by the Lords ; lest 
 it be crushed by the Commons, it is supported 
 by the Lords. And in the same measure as the 
 Upper House forms the connecting link between 
 the Executive and Legislative, i.e. the Sovereign 
 and the People, the Cabinet is the common factor 
 between Prerogative, Control and Liberty, so that 
 none stands solitary. 
 
 Here, then, is the ideal state of Aristotle. 
 Here is the best government of which Polybius 
 tells us the constitution that consists of the 
 three forms, regno, optimatium, et populi imperio : 
 in English, Sovereign, Lords and Commoners. 
 The mixed government of Cicero is realised in 
 the British : Crown, Nobles and Commoners 
 participate in the administration and develop- 
 ment of Great Britain's Constitution. In theory 
 they are deputed by, and symbolic of parties ; 
 in practice, they represent the whole Nation. 
 United, they frame the laws and regulations.
 
 40 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 which, jointly and severally, they willingly bear 
 and gladly obey. 
 
 No deadlock is to be apprehended as may 
 happen in Switzerland, or especially in the North 
 American Republic . 
 
 The Senate of the United States is composed 
 of representatives of the several States ; it is 
 plutocratic-autocratic. It is its own adminis- 
 trator, controller and judge. The Congress 
 consists of deputies, nominally elected by the 
 people, actually by cliques and factions ; it is 
 impetuous, and may become licentious, being 
 its own master. 
 
 Neither are there the dangers to which the 
 French constitution is exposed. 
 
 The Senate of France is the assembly of 
 sycophants of the President, of creatures of the 
 Ministers, of promoted dependents and agents 
 from the factions of the Chamber ; of retired 
 ' litterateurs ' and professional ' politiqueurs.' 
 Their tenure of office is nine years, renewable, 
 however, by thirds every three years ; they hold 
 it at the pleasure of their protectors, cabals or 
 clubs. The Chamber is the meeting-place of the 
 ambitious, of agitators and fanatics, of place- 
 hunters, journalists and financiers. They are 
 paid by the people, and usually become the
 
 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 41 
 
 slaves of the mob, of the passions of their 
 coterie, of the bigotry of their sect. France 
 is, quite naturally, in turns the hot-bed of 
 Pluto-oligarchy, or Ochlarchy=0chlocraty, or 
 Despotism. 
 
 Finally, the chances that the sovereign or 
 his chancellor coerce or otherwise abuse the 
 Legislature, as it occurred and occurs in Ger- 
 many and Austria, are very remote, if not im- 
 possible in this country. 
 
 But, sir, you know these constitutions. They 
 recall Cicero's ex regno dominus ; ex optimatibus 
 factio; ex populo turba et confusio. Hence your 
 predilection for the civitas popularis, because its 
 rapid, almost immediate development to full 
 growth leads and terminates, naturally and 
 nearly always, into mob tyranny and lawless 
 confusion. Hence your great aversion to the 
 British Constitution. It is the Constitution of 
 law and order, of equity and moderation, of true 
 equality. Its principle is ' one common law and 
 one justice for all and everyone,' notwithstand- 
 ing that there have happened and will happen 
 in some particular instances exceptions of irre- 
 gularity, inasmuch as man manipulates that 
 great principle of equity of moderation. 
 
 Here, passions and ambitions for supreme
 
 42 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 power, exercised by an individual over the 
 Nation must devour themselves ; there is no 
 vantage ground for excessive egotism, brutal 
 licentiousness, cruel despotism. Here, the vir- 
 tues of each of the three ' Estates,' the Crown, 
 the Lords, the Commoners are called forth and 
 brought into beneficial action. The vices of 
 each are restrained, balanced, modified, or 
 changed and turned to advantage by the con- 
 tinual jealousy and the fear of a coalition 
 between two of the three elements for the de- 
 struction of the third. Here, even the mere 
 thought of such a coalition being dreaded and 
 treated as high treason, that pernicious union is 
 impossible ; the character of the people, the 
 nature of the conditions, and the condition of 
 the surroundings, the history of past events 
 prevent it. The 'Estates' know that of the 
 two surviving parties, one, in its turn, would 
 become annihilated in an inevitable duel for the 
 final heemonv. 
 
 O v 
 
 Do you want proofs? No, you have read 
 the story of France, that tale so full of con- 
 vulsions, excesses, outrages and murders. Aye, 
 your enemies, judging from your insinuations 
 and from appearances, accuse you of nursing, 
 as the very aim of your life, the awful desire of
 
 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 43 
 
 repeating in England within one generation that 
 endless history. They charge you with harbour- 
 ing the evil design of reproducing in this 
 country those epochs from Louis XI. till Louis 
 XIV., from the author of ' L'etat c'est moi ' to the 
 Eevolution, from the Eeign of Terror until the 
 tyranny of Napoleon. They tax you with having 
 the wicked intention of imitating that time of 
 the * Sacre,' the Polignacs, the Guizots, the La- 
 martines, and the Louis Blancs, a time extending 
 but a little over twenty-five years, and yet so 
 full of deceptions, commotions and outrages. 
 They insinuate that you do your utmost to re- 
 enact in this country a period such as that from 
 Louis Buonaparte till the ' Petroleuse,' from 
 MacMahon until Boulanger, from Boulanger to 
 the Panama Scandals. 
 
 Yet, you may say England herself can bear 
 testimony to Tacitus's ' cunctas nationes et urbes 
 populus aut primores aut singuli regunt, delecta 
 ex his et constituta reipublicge forma laudari 
 facilius quam evenire, vel si evenit haud diu- 
 turna esse potest.' In defence of your struggles 
 for the triumph of democracy, i.e. turba et con- 
 fusio, you may advance that, though the enemy 
 of honour, the incentive to noble actions in 
 monarchies, you are the champion of * virtue?
 
 44 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 the all-moving power in republics. You may 
 quote Montesquieu's ' la force des lois dans un 
 gouvernement monarchique ; le bras du prince 
 toujours leve dans un gouvernement despotique, 
 reglent et contiennent tout ; inais dans un etat 
 populaire il faut un ressort de plus, qui est la 
 vertu.' In support thereof, you may point to 
 the Eomans in the time of the elder Brutus, to 
 the Dutch in the age of the Xassaus, to the 
 Americans during the life of Washington. 
 
 But was Eome, at the time when Brutus 
 delivered her from, the tyranny of Tarquin, or 
 for a century afterwards, a Democracy? Or 
 has she ever been a ' civitas popularis ' ? Hear 
 'Polybius.' He foretells that her ruin would 
 arise from the popular tumults. Introducing 
 apparently the ' dominatio plebis ' (the tyrannic 
 anarchy of mob-rule) they created instantly, as 
 it were within and conjointly with the creation 
 of that mob- rule, the arbitrary government, if 
 government it could be called, of a single 
 person. Indeed, the moment the ' plebes ' were 
 predominant the freedom of Eome sank, buried 
 in civil wars. The virtuous the powerful city 
 was the city ruled over by the aristocracy. 
 
 Or were the Dutch democratic ? The 
 burghers shared in the government, it is true.
 
 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 45 
 
 Yet, like the members of the City of London 
 Corporation, they had ultra ' aristocratic ' plu- 
 tocratic tendencies. In fact, the Council of that 
 nation was managed by an oligarchy. There 
 were patricians, and there were nobles, such as 
 the Counts of Horn and Egmont, Prince William 
 the Silent and Maurice of Orange. Whereas, 
 John de Witt, the great republican and demo- 
 crat, the patriot and champion of his country's 
 liberties against the aggressions of the Nassaus 
 at a later period, was assassinated by the mob 
 the democracy. 
 
 Still with respect to America your argument 
 seems to hold good. 
 
 The country, whence the declaration of the 
 rights of man enlightened the world, and in the 
 end set France aflame, was at the time of its 
 rise against * unjust ' taxation animated by the 
 true democratic spirit. It was moved by that 
 spirit which is so liberal when sitting in judg- 
 ment on, or actually dividing and distributing 
 other people's property ; so orthodoxly con- 
 servative when called upon to contribute its 
 share to a fund, or to assist in an undertaking 
 not immediately benefiting it. Such a clique, 
 inspired by such principles, ruled this great 
 American Eebellion, notwithstanding, or in spite
 
 46 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 of the noble Washington, and they ventured 
 upon this secession, though ostensibly for the 
 sake of freedom, yet actuated by egotism, 
 goaded on by disappointed ambition, stirred by 
 jealousy, driven by avarice. They thought it 
 was to their material advantage to sever all 
 connection with their mother country in order 
 better to combat and compete with it ; just as 
 some say the Australians perceived it to be 
 to their interest to support Great Britain in her 
 struggle for the possession of the Suez Canal. 
 But materialism and selfishness, the mainsprings 
 of that American event, and always to be found 
 in tyrants or would-be autocrats, your enemies 
 argue, are synonymous with your ' democratic ' 
 virtue ; and inasmuch as they accuse you of 
 disparaging honour, they maintain that you look 
 upon this American rebellion with loving appro- 
 bation, believing yourself in interestedness as 
 the powerful incentive to daring actions. 
 
 However, as to England, the England of the 
 Tudors and Stuarts, and her glorious Constitu- 
 tion ! Do they not prove the dictum of Tacitus ? 
 
 Ah, sir, you are right in one sense ; attempts 
 at encroachments have been made. Yet look 
 into the annals of your country. Their failures 
 are recorded there as having always been
 
 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 47 
 
 disastrous to those who ventured upon them. 
 Though you are not wrong. 
 
 The English Constitution was not without 
 its 'Sturm- und Drang-Periode.' 
 
 It had to pass through vicissitudes, as every- 
 thing that becomes mixed up with man has to 
 undergo the trials and will be affected by the 
 changes to which human nature is liable and 
 continually subjected. However, the Witenage- 
 mote and the Witans, the Parliament and the 
 County Councils, the Hundred Courts, the 
 Quarter Sessions, the Town Moots, the Munici- 
 palities are they in principle, or even struc- 
 turally essentially different ? ' In the days of 
 the Saxon kings, the Lord-Lieutenants, the 
 Sheriffs, the Justices of the Peace were not 
 elected magistrates to do the work of their con- 
 stituents but the king's servants, named by him 
 to do the king's work, i.e. public work.' Have 
 the character of their appointments and the 
 nature of their functions changed during these 
 many centuries ? They are in principle almost 
 the same now as they were then, and the 
 Nation has thriven, lived and prospered ; she is 
 rich and powerful. It seems reserved for you 
 to madly scheme for the overthrow of that 
 which is justly considered to be the support of 
 
 E
 
 48 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 the Empire, i.e. its Constitution stem and 
 branches. For you your country's evil destiny 
 has begotten i Self Government ' and ' Home 
 Rule.' This generation and that to come are 
 condemned to watch your and your disciples' 
 attempts at the ' disintegration of the State into 
 Joint Stock Companies,' ruled by a ' Board 
 of Directors, 1 duly elected, it may be ; but 
 their character and aim having much in com- 
 mon with those of ordinary mining company 
 directors. 
 
 It is true the Witans and the Witenagemote 
 were not exactly the parliaments of our times ; 
 there was no Committee Eoom Xumber Fifteen. 
 And the former certainly did not resemble the 
 gatherings at 'Spring Gardens.' Yet the Witen- 
 
 G O J. C3 
 
 agemote was a great meeting for the making 
 of laws and the voting of taxes. It was an 
 assembly of the wise of the realm, and though 
 the members were bishops, earldormen, thanes, 
 magistrates of boroughs, four-men, reeves of 
 townships, you may say, more or less aristocrats 
 and optimats; the Witenagemote represented 
 the whole English people, as the wise moots of 
 each kingdom represented the several peoples of 
 each. In all, the freemen and citizens gathered 
 round the wise men at London and Winchester,
 
 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 49 
 
 and participated by acclamation in the election 
 of a king. 
 
 But what about the Constitution, the govern- 
 ment under the Normans ? 
 
 Sir, you know it proceeded on Saxon prin- 
 ciples. These ancestors of your Nation had the 
 Grand Council of the lords and wise men. 
 They had the King, ' who reserved to himself 
 from the freemen nothing but their free service, 
 as their lands were granted to them in inherit- 
 ance of the King by the Common Council of the 
 whole kingdom.' Thus they had the Common 
 Council. 
 
 Behold the balance of duties and rights 
 between the different estates of the realm more 
 and more clearly expressed and better defined, 
 in due progress with the advancement of the 
 culture of the Nation. Eemark also the con- 
 tinuity in the manifestation of the fundamental 
 principles of the Constitution, even such as it is 
 in our days. Indeed, William the Conqueror's 
 assertion of the liberty of the freeman and of the 
 representative body of the kingdom might be 
 taken as having been the basis of that greatest of 
 constitutional pacts, enactments, proclamations, 
 declarations the Magna Charta, that wonderful 
 people's charter, without the inspiration and 
 
 i 2
 
 50 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 sanction of which all the succeeding 'part- 
 charters ' of the constitutional liberties of the 
 Nation would never have enlightened the 
 world and rendered this kingdom glorious and 
 happy. 
 
 Yet who were those that struggled for and 
 obtained it from a licentious king ? Was it your 
 mob-democracy ? Or was it the English nobility ; 
 although of an aristocratic origin, yet truly 
 democratic, because in constant contact with 
 and backed by the Nation ? Eead that charter's 
 history. 
 
 Nothing could better exhibit the patriotic 
 moderation of the barons, at a moment when a 
 combination of past events and then present 
 circumstances brought within their reach un- 
 limited power, than ' Magna Charta.' No more 
 perfect illustration of the English character and 
 of the healthy and reciprocally vital interests of 
 the three estates in the Constitution could be 
 found than in ' Magna Charta.' ' It is the noble 
 and singular proof of the sympathy existing at 
 that time between the barons and the people 
 of England, and, as it were, of the instinctive 
 disposition for constitutional government, mani- 
 fest even in one of the most unscrupulous of her 
 kingly rulers.'
 
 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 51 
 
 However, you point to the assumptions of 
 the nobles under Henry VII. But in this again 
 you take only that part of historical facts which 
 may give some colour of truth to your insinua- 
 tion. You neither give due prominence to the 
 demoralising effects of the Wars of the Roses 
 
 O 
 
 and the disturbing influence of the bloody 
 struggles with France, nor do you state that 
 although the aristocrats attempted to invade the 
 balance of power such as the Constitution had 
 granted to each of the estates, their assaults 
 utterly failed, the boundaries of their respective 
 duties and rights being too well marked even at 
 that remote period. 
 
 As to Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. They 
 were arbitrary against certain individuals ; the 
 Nation, the Parliament, the Constitution as a 
 whole they respected. It is true as to Mary, 
 had she lived longer, her probable fate might 
 have offered a precedent to Charles I. or 
 James II. The arrangement about her successor 
 certainly constitutes such a precedent to the 
 events which made William of Orange and 
 George of Hanover kings of Great Britain. 
 
 But, sir, you are supposed to know the his- 
 tory of your country. With regard to the good 
 qualities which, in their co-operation its kings
 
 52 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 and nobles and people have exhibited at many 
 a critical moment in the course of centuries, it 
 may be excusable that your hatred of that con- 
 stitutional harmony would not for once allow 
 you to recognise its beneficial manifestations. 
 Your ' constitutional ' aversion to the mixed 
 character, though equitable principles of your 
 country's Constitution, in which three (among 
 almost all other nations) antagonistic elements 
 are harmoniously blended, explains your vehe- 
 ment denial of its excellent qualities. Yet the 
 predilection, yet the love of the patriots for 
 England's parliamentary and other institutions 
 should caution you to consider well, before you 
 embark upon your destructive attempt at the 
 overthrow of her several pillars. This love, 
 though may be slumbering, has yet lived through 
 all the many ages deep-rooted in the heart of 
 every Briton whence nought can remove it, 
 not even the perverting verbosity and cunning 
 machinations of an old parliamentary intriguer. 
 Therefore, beware ! there are breakers ahead. 
 Conjure the demon which lures you, lest you 
 may wreck and eternally drown a life, in matters 
 political and diplomatical fatalistically misspent, 
 but which in concerns purely domestic has shown 
 several good qualities that entitle you to the
 
 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 moralist's respectful consideration. The insti- 
 tutions the Constitution of your country re- 
 sembles a matchless crown of diamonds ; it is 
 pure ; it is lustrous ; it is of a marvellous 
 durability : only a general conflagration can 
 destroy it. 
 
 But your conscience and intellect shall not 
 be burdened with further illustrations such as 
 the Bill of Eights, the Declaration of Eights, 
 the Habeas Corpus Act, the Act of Settlement^ 
 Mr. Fox's Press and Libel Bill. They need 
 not be examined here. The mere fact of their 
 existence already testifies all powerfully to the 
 equitable justice with which the Constitution 
 allots to each of the Estates its functions, and 
 prevents each one from successfully encroaching 
 upon the others. 
 
 However, you shall not be harassed any far- 
 ther. It were a pity if your feelings for, and 
 notions of right and wrong should at last 
 lose their elasticity and your mind become en- 
 lightened by patriotism and purified by honour, 
 that monarchical incentive to noble actions. 
 You hold the championship of ' democratic ' 
 virtue, and should you not be allowed to ruin 
 your country by experimenting whether this 
 republican-radical-liberal virtue might not be
 
 54 THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 
 
 made supreme dictator and censor in Great 
 Britain ? ! 
 
 All, sir, well justified are your enemies who 
 doubt whether the Common Law, both civil and 
 criminal, the Statute Law, the complete col- 
 lection of precedents of and decisions on high 
 treason would be sufficiently efficacious, if the 
 High Court of Parliament or any other Court in 
 the land were called upon to try and adjudicate 
 on such an abnormal policy of such a statesman.
 
 FIFTH LETTEE 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND THE 
 HOUSE OF LORDS
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIR, You shall hear Cicero once more. It 
 may have some restraining influence, though 
 that influence, contending as it must with fatal- 
 istic perverseness, will naturally be small. Yet 
 read. It is the passage in the ' Commonwealth ' 
 which follows Scipio's eloquent translation of 
 Plato's vivid description of mob-rule ; a descrip- 
 tion, aye, a prophecy so masterfully true that 
 on perusing it one imagines one beholds the 
 French Eevolution the spectre of the Eeign of 
 Terror rising in all its hideousness from the 
 ruins of a betrayed State and nation. It is that 
 passage where Scipio exclaims : ' Since these are 
 the facts (that democracy degenerates into och- 
 larchy and aristocracy into oligarchy) Eoyalty 
 is, in my opinion, very far preferable to the 
 three other kinds of political constitutions. 
 But it is in itself inferior to that which is com- 
 posed of an equal mixture of the three best
 
 58 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AXD 
 
 forms of government, united and modified by 
 one another. I wish to establish in a common- 
 wealth a royal and pre-eminent chief. Another 
 portion of power should be deposited in the 
 hands of the aristocracy. Certain things should 
 be reserved to the judgment and wish of the 
 multitude. This constitution, in the first place, 
 possesses that great equality without which 
 men cannot long maintain their freedom. 
 Secondly, it offers a great stability, while the 
 particular and separate and isolated forms 
 easily fall into their contraries. So that a king 
 is succeeded by a despot ; an aristocracy by a 
 faction ; a democracy by a mob and confusion ; 
 and all these forms are frequently sacrificed to 
 new revolutions. In this united and mixed 
 constitution, however, similar disasters cannot 
 happen without the greatest vices in public 
 men. For there can be little to occasion revo- 
 lution in a State in which every person is firmly 
 established in his appropriate rank, and there 
 are but a few modes of corruption into which 
 we can fall.' 
 
 Does not this passage significantly apply to 
 your case ? If nought else, it is a condemna- 
 tion of your policy against the House of Lords. 
 
 Sir. you attack this Upper House of Parlia-
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 59 
 
 merit incessantly. Yet it forms an important 
 part of that united and mixed constitution, 
 where, as has been proved, degeneration and 
 revolution, tyranny or anarchy cannot come 
 to pass without the greatest vices in public 
 men. It forms part of the Constitution on 
 which that metaphor might seem to have been 
 written : 'As in flutes and harps and in all 
 vocal performances, a certain unison and har- 
 mony must be preserved amid the distinctive 
 tones, which cannot be broken or violated with- 
 out offending experienced ears, and as this 
 concord and delicious harmony is produced by 
 the exact gradation and modulation of dis- 
 similar notes, even so by means of the just 
 apportionment of the highest, middle, and lower 
 classes, the State is maintained in concord and 
 peace by the harmonious subordination of its 
 discordant elements. Yet, though this harmony 
 in music corresponds to the concord in the 
 State, the strongest and loveliest bond of 
 security in every Commonwealth, being always 
 accompanied by justice and equity ' although 
 this harmonious concord is produced by your 
 country's glorious Constitution you aim at 
 the destruction of its 'counterpoint.' But by 
 your attacks you prove to the patriot the
 
 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 advantage of the necessity for its existence. 
 You appeal to the passions and vices of the 
 masses. You hope that in a moment of suicidal 
 fury they will destroy this counterpoint, this 
 constitutional pillar, the House of Lords. Why, 
 why do you bear your country such an im- 
 placable hatred ? 
 
 Sir, you know the elements which make up 
 man. You know that within him passions and 
 their vices wage eternal war against reason and 
 her daughters, virtue and equitable justice. It 
 is these latter which check the all-flooding, all- 
 devouring license of the ' animal ' man. You 
 are conscious that once they are overthrown, the 
 passions will triumph. 
 
 What applies to man applies to states. As 
 it is with his animal and spiritual nature so it is 
 with the organism of nations. 
 
 The masses are the ' animal ' man : impul- 
 sive, passionate, fanciful, superstitious and faith- 
 less. They are yet mankind more in its infancy. 
 They are comparable to the fragile reed, moved, 
 nay, twirled by the slightest breeze, if agreeable, 
 flattering, insinuating. When roused thev are 
 
 o ' o *< 
 
 like a blind giant. Once set in motion they 
 rush forward downward. Though their own 
 homes stand below, though there their own de-
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 61 
 
 struction may await them, it matters not. They 
 cannot stop. They cannot think. Onward they 
 roll downward on their fatal course. Passions 
 drive the human ball, and soon it is like an 
 avalanche. Quicker and quicker it is hurled, 
 with lightning speed. And now it hangs on the 
 brink. For once it trembles. For once it seems 
 to tarry. But for a moment. Over it goes. It 
 falls, and the thunders of its fall echo amongst 
 far- off nations. But here beneath lies the mob 
 a human mass, dashed to pieces, crushed to 
 atoms, and amidst it is buried the welfare, the 
 future, the life of the Empire. Yet it matters 
 not. Democracy, Socialism, Anarchy have con- 
 quered. The passions are glutted. Theirs is 
 the victory. Though the masses themselves are 
 ruined, their destruction involved the annihila- 
 tion of their enemies ? No, of their victims. 
 What more ? Pereat civitas, pereat mundus, fiat 
 libertas ! Behold the trades-unions' ' policy ' ! 
 
 As to the classes ! They are rather the in- 
 tellectual man. Although infected with faults 
 and vices as much as the masses, yet their 
 passions are somewhat modified by thought. 
 The results of thought are sagacity, not unfre- 
 quently virtue. Both restrain in a not incon- 
 siderable measure their vices. Again, sagacity
 
 62 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AXD 
 
 and virtue inspire notions of equitable justice. 
 These direct to some extent their actions. 
 
 It is thus evident that the masses and classes 
 are moved by opposite instincts. At the same 
 time it is clear that these antagonisms are not 
 the mere effect of the inequality in their reci- 
 procal material positions. 
 
 The masses instinctively love a state of tur- 
 moil. The classes naturally prefer order and 
 peace. The impulse of the former clamours for 
 absolute liberty. Each and every individual is 
 to possess, as it were, an irresponsible power 
 over himself, the family, the community, the 
 State i.e. in theory, license; in practice, anarchy 
 and terrorism. The classes, on the contrary, 
 recognise the necessity of having some con- 
 trolling, checking, counteracting element, not 
 only in the communal, but above all in the 
 States-household. They feel that the masses' 
 Home Eule all round would inevitably lead back 
 to barbarism, or create the despotism of one 
 more powerful than the rest. They know that 
 without &VL independent control there cannot be 
 any staple government. 
 
 Sir, will you deny that such an independence 
 can best be secured by the prestige of illustrious 
 ancestors substantial means (landed lords) ; by
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 63 
 
 the prestige of high or long trained intellectual 
 qualifications (law lords, lord bishops and lords 
 literati) ; by the prestige of exceptional deeds, 
 which imply that their hero possesses an excep- 
 tional character (army and navy peers) ; finally, 
 by men justly and judiciously ennobled for 
 their great commercial or industrial enterprise, 
 sagacity, energy, integrity, 'civism,' and thrift? 
 
 Indeed, though not perhaps a fertile soil for 
 the mushroom growth of geniuses, in England 
 the House of Lords represents this independence. 
 
 It is the safeguard for the continuity in 
 politics and legislation. It is the safety-valve 
 of public opinion. 
 
 You know its duties are to alter or reject 
 any Bill on which the House of Commons is not 
 yet in thorough earnest. It has to suspend the 
 passage into law of any Bill on which the Nation 
 is not yet decided. In fact, it sits almost as a 
 Court of Eeview upon all the measures coming 
 from the Lower House or from any other legis- 
 lative assembly, council, corporation or body. 
 And as with but a few exceptions these measures 
 have previously been fully discussed before the 
 country, in and out of Parliament, the House of 
 Lords is best enabled to adjudicate on their 
 merits or defects, to estimate their popularity,
 
 64 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 not with a faction but with, the Nation ; above 
 all, to judge of their final usefulness to the 
 Empire. 
 
 Again, it is composed of almost homogeneous 
 elements. In character aristocratic, it is influ- 
 enced rather by ' honour.' These qualities 
 imply that it is more compact and less open to 
 a bribe, particularly to a social bribe, than the 
 Lower House, composed of most heterogeneous 
 elements, whose character, thanks to you, be- 
 comes more and more democratic, rnobocratic, 
 and whose aim is vague, ambitious. Moreover, 
 its welfare and existence largely depend, not 
 only on the sovereign, but in the first instance, 
 on the prosperity of the Empire and the satis- 
 faction of the Nation. The House of Lords, 
 therefore, is better capable than any otherwise 
 constituted legislative assembly to support, to 
 manage, to direct the foreign policy of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Further, the difficulties of its place and 
 office in the constitution suggest the adoption of 
 the principle of moderation for its maxim. 
 Montesquieu already recognised this axiom 
 when he remarked with respect to the ' principe 
 de 1' aristocratic : ' 'la moderation est Tame de ce 
 gouvernement. J'entends celle qui est fondee sur
 
 THE HOUSE OP LOKDS 65 
 
 la vertu, sur la sagesse, sur 1'experience ; non 
 pas celle qui vient d'une lachete et d'une paresse 
 de 1'ame.' Owing to this moderation, owing to 
 the homogeneity of its members ; owing, in most 
 cases, to their materially independent positions ; 
 owing, in many instances, to their matured age, 
 ripened experience and cleared understand- 
 ing ; owing to these it is that the House of 
 Lords is also not only a Constitutional Pillar, 
 but above all a Constitutional Pilot. 
 
 Finally, though it is not so much a source 
 whence many new organic laws originate, its 
 members, unrestrained by all-absorbing business 
 callings, can and do render to the country, to 
 the Nation, invaluable service in committees, in 
 Eoyal commissions, particularly in the Judica- 
 ture, as the Imperial High Court of Appeal, thus 
 preventing in many instances the establishment 
 of a salaried officialdom's tyranny. 
 
 The Peers themselves are on the average 
 comparable to the firmly-rooted oak. Their 
 position, as it were on a promontory, forces 
 them to act judiciously. Though there are ex- 
 ceptions, their manifold interests compel them 
 to be sagacious. And history, the mentor of 
 nations as to their life and policy, because the 
 best record of the wisdom and folly of peoples
 
 66 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 who once were history furnishes proofs of the 
 Lords' efficiency. It is : their actions proclaim 
 their independence, their deliberations give testi- 
 mony of their well-examined and well-directed 
 earnestness of purpose, their judgments are em- 
 phatically their own. Free from whims, free 
 from fits of sentimentality, unbiassed by suddenly 
 roused passions, regardless of the clamours of 
 faction, without fear of the threats of the mob 
 and its demagogues, neither eager to court 
 favour of the Prince nor anxiously seeking the 
 fleeting breath of popularity thus they pro- 
 ceed to their inquiries, thus they form their 
 judgment, thus they give their decisions, slow, 
 ceremonious, pedantic it may be, but conscious, 
 conscientious, statesmanlike. Indeed, the patriot 
 may look with pride upon this venerable Senate, 
 composed of men, many of whom have grown 
 grey in the honest service of their country, in 
 the faithful performance of the duties of their 
 office in church, judicature, community or 
 state, many of whom bear the wounds, the 
 scars of battle, of victory; proud signs, noble 
 emblems of the valour with which they vindi- 
 cated the honour, the integrity of their country. 
 The patriot may well believe that when the 
 genius of Great Britain should for once turn
 
 THE HOUSE OF LOKDS 
 
 from her people, and the hordes of a 
 enemy overflood her dominions, if no o 
 these senators would with unflinching ] 
 spirit remain true to their country, firm in their 
 principles. And future historians might speak 
 of them as Livius did of the conduct of those 
 Eoman ' senes ' in the presence of Brennus and 
 his Gauls : ' Expectabant adventum hostium obsti- 
 nate ad mortem animo. Qui eorum curules 
 gesserant magistratus, ut in fortune pristinae 
 honorumque aut virtutis insignibus morerentur 
 .... eburneis sellis sedere .... Galli sine 
 ira . . . . ingressi postero die urbem patente 
 Collina porta in Forum perveniunt .... adeo 
 haud secus quam venerabundi intuebantur in 
 aedium vestibulis sedentes viros prceter ornatum 
 habitumque humano augustiorem, majestate 
 etiam, quam vultus gravitasque oris prsc se 
 ferebat, simillimos Diis.' 
 
 Sir, you yourself testify to this their effi- 
 ciency. Your career is a proof of the necessity 
 of their existence. By your appeals to instinct 
 and passions, by your inflammatory addresses to 
 prejudice, envy and superstitious simplicity, 
 you show that the House of Lords is the break- 
 water against which the all-comprising licence 
 of the masses vainly beats.
 
 68 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 Indeed, it is the Lords who prevent the 
 truism of Montalernbert ' Quand le Gouverne- 
 ment est dans la rue, il passe tout naturellement 
 a la caserne ' from becoming applicable to Eng- 
 land. The Nation must be convinced that as 
 long as they exist the Empire will be secure. 
 The People must know that the downfall of the 
 Upper House would not only involve the de- 
 struction of the Lower House, but be followed 
 both by a political and economical, social and 
 moral deluge. England cannot but be aware 
 that after the annihilation of the First Chamber 
 there would be no longer a reward for noble 
 and magnanimous actions, for heroic or intellec- 
 tual deeds, nor any longer a recompense for 
 long, faithful and successful services to commu- 
 nity, to State, to mankind. Nay, the patriots 
 need not demonstrate that any such violation of 
 the Constitution as the abolition of the House of 
 Lords would be followed by a fratricidal war 
 between the classes and masses ! no, amongst 
 the masses themselves, after the extirpation of 
 the classes, so that in centuries hence far-off 
 nations and newly-forming peoples, when reading 
 your unhappy country's history, might justly 
 describe that chaos in Schiller's :
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 69 
 
 Freiheit und Gleichheit bort man scballen ; 
 
 Der rubige Burger greift zur Wehr. 
 Die Strassen fiillen sich, die Hallen, 
 
 Und "Wurgerbanden ziebn umber. 
 Da werden Weiber zu Hyanen 
 
 Und treiben mit Entsetzen Scherz ; 
 Noch zuckend, mit des Panthers Zalmen 
 
 Zerreissen sie des Feindes Herz. 
 Nicbts Heiliges ist mebr, es losen 
 
 Sicb alle Bande frommer Scbeu ; 
 Der Gute raumt den Platz dem Bosen, 
 
 Und alle Laster walten frei. 
 
 i 
 
 Nor could Great Britain forget that even if the 
 most crafty, the most powerful or the most des- 
 potic of the Nation should sway the kingly, the 
 imperial sceptre, the House of Lords would be an 
 equally impassable barrier against the attempts 
 at usurpation of such a king. 
 
 But, sir, all these functions, all these tremen- 
 dous duties of the Upper the controlling 
 Chamber, on the faithful, firm and successful 
 execution of which the very life of the Nation 
 depends the patriot considers as being of 
 secondary importance where you and those re- 
 sembling you are concerned. This it is, he 
 holds, this is their veritable raison d'etre, that if 
 by hereditary right the rulership should be 
 vested, or rest in the intellectually or morally 
 and, perhaps, physically weakest of the Nation,
 
 70 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 then the House of Lords would be, and is an 
 equally insurmountable barrier against the 
 usurpation, the tyranny, the outrages of the 
 Minister appointed to such a ' nominal ' king. 
 
 The failures of former ' ministerial ' attempts 
 at encroachment on the privileges of the sove- 
 reign and the rights of the Nation prove it. Sir 
 Eobert Peel and you experienced it. Hence 
 your hatred. 
 
 You know it is the Lords who prevent the 
 possibility of a ' demagogue major-domo ' or 
 'Lord High Steward.' You know it is they 
 who heroically combat the worst a ' modern- 
 ised ' revival of this despotism justly called the 
 consummation of times barbaric, superstitious 
 and fanatic ; of times when the utterances of an 
 arrogant, ignorant priesthood were law over 
 life and death ; of feudal times when physical 
 force triumphed, so that ' might was right.' 
 You know it is only by their fall that this worst 
 of tyrannies might become real ; worst, on ac- 
 count of its irresponsibility to ethics and reason ; 
 worst, because of its responsibility towards the 
 liberal, radical, democratical, communistic and 
 anarchistic, but above all spasmodical mobocracy. 
 You know that only after their annihilation it 
 might come to pass : Here, the unfortunate
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 71 
 
 king or queen, a mere puppet under the prime 
 minister major-domo ; there, the prime minister 
 major-domus directing the bacchanals of the mob, 
 beneath them their victim, the sacrificed Nation 
 on the brink of destruction. Therefore your 
 attacks. 
 
 Indeed, sir, such and no other must be the 
 cause of your hatred. 
 
 It is not, it cannot be the hereditary prin- 
 ciple to which you take so violent an objection. 
 ' Lawless Lords ' it is true, may become, in 
 virtue of their hereditary peerage, lawful legis- 
 lators. But wherever wheat grows, there tares 
 will crop up, and though there are some ' stray ' 
 lords, still the majority of the members of the 
 Upper Chamber are worthy of the inheritance 
 of their, in most cases, illustrious ancestors. 
 Moreover, you yourself have marked every 
 entrance into and exit from office by a multi- 
 farious creation of peers. Shall the Nation infer 
 from your attacks now that these objects of 
 your bounty were not useful and advantageous 
 additions to her Senate? Shall the Ration 
 believe that they are part of the poisonous 
 lymph with which you inoculated the Legisla- 
 tive, especially the House of Lords, in the 
 hope that thus it would become infected,
 
 72 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AM) 
 
 and thence bring destruction over the whole 
 body politic ? 
 
 Again, your leaning towards Eadicalism, 
 your coquetting with the mob, your unlimited 
 ambition imply that you do not desire the pre- 
 dominance of the 'bourgeoisie.' Your career 
 suggests that not in vain have you studied 
 Cicero's ' nee ulla deformior species est civitatis 
 quam ilia in qua opulentissimi optimi putantur.' 
 Indeed, your autocratic instinct must naturally 
 be averse to the political dictatorship of build- 
 ing society directors, mining company directors, 
 publishers of money and society papers, of 
 brokers, bankers, financial upstarts and social 
 mushroom-parvenues. And yet you scheme 
 for the overthrow of the only barrier against 
 their arrogance and usurpation ! 
 
 This is strange, it is full of mystery ; this 
 your contradictory conduct is only explainable 
 by the implacable hatred which you bear your 
 country. 
 
 Ah, sir, with you it is not a question of 
 reform ; ruin is your aim and you pursue it 
 without swerving. Though attempts to intro- 
 duce into the House of Lords the system of so- 
 called ' life-peers ' have been made repeatedly, in 
 your time, as recently as 1856 ; though yours
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 73 
 
 were a power and opportunity as Fate and the 
 Nation seldom grant to a statesman, you could 
 never sum up courage to propound such a pro- 
 ject of reform. Much as the resistance of the 
 Lords against such innovation must prick your 
 indignation, much as the prospect of swamping 
 them must inspire your expectations, much as 
 the exaltation of a possible triumph over them 
 must goad you on to frame and pass a Bill, the 
 provisions of which would inflict upon your 
 adversaries this most hateful reform you recoil 
 like one stung by a snake. It is : you mean 
 their ruin. It is : your deadly instinct tells you 
 that any such innovation might infuse the House 
 of Lords with new vigour, with new life. Their 
 destruction, however, is your panacea. 
 
 And yet it is said that ' even the most violent 
 reformer will on reflection feel the value of 
 the Upper House.' 
 
 Only tyrants or debased fanatics can deny it. 
 Its necessity in a well-organised state is recog- 
 nised. History proves it. The catastrophes 
 which befell nations who were without that 
 constitutional pillar demonstrate' it. Yet you 
 disregard this greatest of lessons for which many 
 a people has perished. Why? Do you think 
 the institutions of your country already so
 
 74 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 rotten ? Do you think them incapable of the 
 further government of your unhappy country ? 
 If so, how is it then that you believe in the 
 Commoners ? Behold, you, a Statesman, put 
 your faith upon the mob and doubt the Peers 
 of Great Britain ! 
 
 Yet, sir, you know the first condition above 
 all others in the organisation of a dual Legisla 
 tive is, that the Upper House be not a duplicate 
 of the Lower House. If the former is elective, 
 it must be chosen by a limited and more opulent 
 body of electors than that which elects the 
 members of the latter. Is the House of Lords 
 such a mere duplicate of the House of Com- 
 mons ? No, you know that it is better consti- 
 tuted, far better than a First Chamber, formed, 
 however scrupulously, on the ' no-duplicate ' 
 principle. For you are aware that the First 
 Chamber, the Legislative of a State, even though 
 it be thus organised, is, owing to the elective 
 feature in its constitution, not yet quite secured 
 from the quakes of popular commotions, from 
 the tyranny of coteries, from the usurpation of 
 princely or mobocratic agitators. You are con- 
 scious that it is wanting one element, the most 
 powerful element, the principle of independence : 
 in that a seat in the Upper House is inalienable,
 
 THE HOUSE OP LORDS 75 
 
 and its holder irremovable except according to 
 the law of the country, if and when he should 
 violate the law of the country. This principle, 
 however, is the House of Lords' very own. 
 Therefore, how far above any other first Chamber 
 does it tower ? 
 
 That Great Britain's Upper House might be 
 somewhat reformed the Nation may grant you ; 
 though French or American Senates should not 
 be imitated in pursuance of such an aim. The 
 Herrenhaus of Prussia, the Eeichsraethe of 
 Bavaria and Austria, in fact even your country's 
 Privy Council might in several points furnish 
 models for the improvement of the* Upper 
 Chamber. But notwithstanding, the Constitu- 
 tion of England, of Great Britain, of the British 
 Empire, as personified in the Lords and Com- 
 moners, is still the Constitution of modern civi- 
 lisation. 
 
 ' That division of the Parliament into Two 
 Houses it was foreshadowed in the distinction 
 drawn by " John's Charter," between the great 
 barons and inferior tenants in chief, and the 
 nature of the division which took place when 
 the Parliament was constituted by the addition 
 of Borough members, has been momentous for 
 the liberty of England. If the representatives
 
 76 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 of the inferior military tenants in chief had been 
 admitted to the Chamber of the Great Barons, 
 or if they had sat apart from the burgesses, the 
 same violent distinctions of class and caste must 
 have grown up in England that had been so 
 pernicious in the continental kingdoms. But in 
 England the kinsrs of the shire coalesced in Par- 
 
 O O 
 
 liament with the Borough representatives ; they 
 became the representatives of the Commons in 
 England; the great Barons with the Prelates 
 were left : a separate senate a separate order ; 
 yet not a separate caste. It is thus that Eng- 
 land had and has the advantage of a nobility 
 without "being cursed with a "noblesse;" it is 
 thus that the term " roturier " is untranslatable 
 into English ' (Sir R. Crease). 
 
 ' And,' as Hallani says, ' what is most parti- 
 cular, that peerage confers no privilege except 
 on its actual possessor. The sons of peers are 
 Commoners, and totally destitute of any legal 
 right beyond a barren pre-eminence. There is 
 no part of our Constitution so admirable as this 
 equality of Civil rights, this " isonomia," which 
 the philosophers of ancient Greece only hoped 
 to find in democratical governments. The Eng- 
 lish law confers not, it never did confer those 
 unjust immunities from public burdens which
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 77 
 
 the superior orders arrogated to themselves upon 
 the continent. Thus, while the privileges of the 
 peers as hereditary legislators of a free people are 
 incomparably more valuable and dignified in their 
 nature, they are far less invidious in their exercise 
 than those of any other nobility in Europe.' 
 
 Sir, such are the Lords, the brightest and 
 most durable jewel in the Constitution of your 
 country of the British Empire. The patriots 
 and the nations abroad recognise this their irre- 
 parable and inestimable value. Amongst new 
 peoples, perhaps in new hemispheres, the merits 
 of their existence will be recognised many cen- 
 turies long after Great Britain has become a 
 vast, an empty desert, and the last of her citizens 
 passed into eternity. Their enemies of to-day 
 even admit this their valour. You yourself 
 have borne witness to their qualities. Though 
 meant as a threat, those words of yours uttered 
 during the debate on the People's Bill, ' I think 
 that they (the Conservatives) impute to the 
 wisdom of another branch of the Legislature 
 (the House of Lords) probable conduct such as 
 it is not, in my opinion, honourable to that 
 House to impute,' will stand forth in flaming 
 letters and pronounce your own condemnation 
 for ever.
 
 78 THE HOUSE OP LORDS 
 
 Indeed, sir, they solemnly warn you to 
 ' Beware of entrance to a quarrel.' 
 
 The Lords are yet a power ; and they will be 
 a power as long as the British Nation exists. 
 Therefore, look well to it. 
 
 You summon against them the masses, you 
 conjure the past, you call upon the hell of pas- 
 sions ; it is true. And already they rise. But 
 it is no longer Eadicalism Democracy that are 
 alive. Mobocracy and Anarchism raise their 
 hydra head. These are the monsters which 
 your schemes have begotten. For the present 
 the House of Lords is the object of their fury. 
 It is too pure. It shines too bright. Hence, 
 pereat ! 
 
 But will you have power to stay the hurri- 
 cane ?
 
 SIXTH LETTER 
 
 THE BIGHT HONOURABLE AND THE 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS AND ELECTOBATE
 
 To tJie Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIR, Already they prowl and hover around 
 you, the jackals, the ravens and vultures of 
 society. They descry the poisoned Body Politic 
 doomed to death by you, whom a blinded Nation, 
 in spite of former wounds, has chosen once more 
 for her protector. They scent the end for which 
 you have inflated and still inflate the electorate. 
 They know why you attempt to rob of their fran- 
 chise the proprietors and industrious patriotic 
 citizens, whose sobriety, whose enterprise, whose 
 intelligence, whose labours and studies have 
 made Great Britain what she is an Empire 
 glorious and respected amongst foreign nations ; 
 prosperous and harmoniously developing within. 
 They understand why you bestow this stolen 
 franchise upon the mob, which has nothing to 
 lose by commotions, but much to gain by them ; 
 on the mob, whose very instinct, whose very 
 nature you well know are fluctuation, in- 
 equality, brutality, licence and revolt. The 
 
 o 2
 
 82 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 hungry senses of these shadowy birds are wide 
 awake. They recognise why you would fain 
 centre the Legislature in a mobocratic House of 
 Commons. 
 
 Aye, like Laocoon to Illion, so the patriot 
 seems in vain to cry to the beguiled Xation : 
 
 .... miseri, quae tanta insania, cives ? 
 
 .... aut ulla putatis 
 
 Dona carere dolis Gladstoni ? Sic notus Ulixes ? 
 
 . . . . Ne credite 
 
 Quidquid id est, timete Gladstonem et dona ferentem. 
 
 It is as if it shall come to pass : 
 
 Viri fatalis scandit fatalis machina muros 
 Foeta armis : mediaeque minans illabitur urbi. 
 
 Yet you have arrived at the closing scene of 
 your earthly passage when any other man in 
 your position would grasp the last moment, the 
 last chance, and with a final supreme effort 
 endeavour to do at least one good action, so 
 that he might yet hope to depart, accompanied 
 instead of by the curses, by the blessings of his 
 nation, and be for ever gratefully remembered 
 as the benefactor of his country. But 
 
 He whose life has once been tainted by 
 Hypocrisy and guilt, must he not be 
 For ever passion's slave ? 
 
 Macbeth spake but too truly : 
 
 Blood will have blood .... 
 . . . . I ain in blood ;
 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AXD ELECTORATE 83 
 
 Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more 
 Returning were as tedious as go o'er. 
 Strange things I have in head, that will to hand 
 WJiich must be acted, ere they can be scann'd. 
 
 Sir, you cannot blame your enemies when 
 they say that such might be your living epitaph. 
 You cannot reproach them with unjustly desir- 
 ing your political annihilation when they see 
 you throw open the doors of the already affected 
 second Chamber to the invasion of Demagogues, 
 Socialists and Anarchists. They must feel it 
 can be for no good purpose that you invite to 
 the parliamentary bacchanal, so happily inau- 
 gurated by your Irish ' parliamentary ' bosom 
 friends, even the apostles of dynamite. Such 
 a political profligacy cannot fail to corrupt the 
 laws of the country. A swamped Legislative 
 will swamp the Legislature. 
 
 You know it. You have had ample proof 
 of the mischief and damage which may be in- 
 flicted on your unhappy country by adding to 
 its Constitution laws and statutes for which 
 the Nation has no need, for which the people 
 feel no interest or sympathy, because they 
 neither require nor understand them. And you 
 have learnt that that which is not necessary is 
 burdensome, hence becomes positively mischiev- 
 ous. Still, under your statesmanship the Empire
 
 84 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 is never out of legislative throes, constantly 
 giving premature birth to spasmodic, contradic- 
 tory, conglomerate laws. 
 
 As to the House of Commons, you do not 
 ignore that in an assembly where various pas- 
 sions and interests congregate, each eager to 
 vent its particular grievance and to realise its 
 own special objects, the general welfare can 
 never be considered with that patience, atten- 
 tion and patriotic disinterestedness, without 
 which a Constitutional State, possessing no con- 
 trolling Upper House, must perish. Experience 
 has taught you that the Commons, composed of 
 more or less heterogeneous elements, are liable 
 to fluctuations. Well acquainted, as your 
 enemies say, with the corruptive part of your 
 country's history, you know that Ministers be- 
 fore you have speculated upon the tendencies 
 and facilities for corruption which the members 
 of the Lower House have manifested more than 
 once. You, as an old parliamentary hand, 
 must have observed and tried in practice that 
 if a Secretary of State cannot enslave the Com- 
 mons directly by a material bribe, he is sure to 
 obtain their subservience by that most insidious 
 poison a social bribe. 
 
 The histories of Henry VHI. and Elizabeth 
 are illustrative of this their servility. Walpole
 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AXD ELECTORATE 85 
 
 the bountiful has successfully demonstrated to 
 his 'ministerial' epigones the venality of the 
 average parliaments' man. The story of Crom- 
 well and of the Parliaments from Charles I. 
 to James II. is highly descriptive of the time- 
 serving cowardice and arrogance of the Lower 
 House. The Bill tacking system to Money Bills 
 is suggestive of the pretensions and possible 
 usurpations of the Commons, if left without a 
 check. The details of the Middlesex and other 
 such elections give alarming testimony of the 
 unconstitutional high-handedness of the Lower 
 House. The events connected with the Ayles- 
 bury election are instructive as to the tempers 
 and tyrannical predilections which permeate its 
 deliberations. 
 
 But is it necessary to recall the past in order 
 that it expose the characteristics of the Com- 
 mons ? Your own times furnish, it seems, even 
 better, more refined illustrations, as for instance 
 the last vote of the Commons on the Queen's 
 Speech. 
 
 Aye, sir, there is no finer example of their 
 simplicity, spitefulness, narrow-mindedness and 
 selfishness than this vote. None could be more 
 condemnatory of your conduct, for you were 
 their instigator. 
 
 They heard your insinuations. They saw
 
 86 THE BIGHT HOXOUEABLE 
 
 you draw up the death-warrant of those whose 
 power you were eager to inherit. They watched 
 you recording your vote for its execution. Such 
 a sight of many-sidedness (' agent provocateur,' 
 judge and executioner in one and the same 
 person) could not fail to rouse their animal in- 
 stincts. The prospect of political, of parlia- 
 mentary, of financial, of social raids upon the 
 body politic, upon the Nation, upon the Em- 
 pire under such an abnormal leader, was too 
 ravishing to be resisted. Thus they followed 
 you into the lobby though not inspired thereto 
 by patriotism, nor guided into it by principle, 
 but moved by personal, selfish, nay, by insidious 
 motives. It was for the realisation of their 
 several aims, for the fulfilment of their particu- 
 laristic ambitions and gratification of then* 
 passions, for the success of their particular 
 enterprises that the Welsh, the Irish, the Social- 
 ists, the hermaphrodite Labour Members, the 
 Cockney Eadicals, the Liberals that all these 
 ' representative' champions of negation and sects, 
 of disunion and commotion, of trades-union 
 tyranny, and priestly despotism overthrew a 
 Ministry who at least knew how to safeguard 
 the interests of the Nation by preserving order 
 at home and maintaining her reputation abroad. 
 Sir, it is therefore not without great cause
 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AM) ELECTORATE 87 
 
 that the patriots tremble when they think of 
 the future of the Nation whose Statesman betrays 
 her thus ; whose Statesman, in his electoral 
 policy, does not hesitate even to stoop to 
 deliberate falsehood and calumny. For what 
 else was your imputation against my Lord 
 Salisbury, who according to you ' could not 
 discuss redistribution with a rope round his 
 neck ? ' What else was it than a wicked un- 
 truth, invented by you for a criminal end, told 
 for the purpose of kindling the passions of 
 hatred between the classes and masses ? Upon 
 what else than a perfidious fabrication did you 
 base that invective, that inflammatory tirade of 
 yours, during the County Franchise Bill agita- 
 tion : ' A rope round his neck ! What is the 
 rope round his neck ? It is the prospect of a 
 large addition to the franchise ! They speak as if 
 these persons to be enfranchised were a set of 
 wild beasts, and as if it were thought we could 
 never have safety until they were all brought 
 within their cages.' Yet worse ! But a few 
 years before you yourself had declared : ' No- 
 thing could be more contemptible than a Govern- 
 ment dealing with the subject of reform whilst 
 excluding from the scope of its deliberation the 
 distribution of seats, only second in importance 
 to that of the franchise ! '
 
 88 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 
 In truth, it is not without the gravest reason 
 that the Nation looks with terror upon you who 
 in 1866 could write : 
 
 ' I do not agree in the demand either for manhood or 
 household suffrage ; ' 
 
 who, when moving the second reading of his 
 Reform Bill in 1866, could exclaim : 
 
 ' Changes that effect sudden and extensive transfer of 
 power are attended by great temptations to the weakness of 
 human nature, and however high our opinion may be of 
 the labouring classes, I do not believe that it would be right 
 to place such temptations as the franchise might give 
 within the reach of them ; ' 
 
 yet who has since thrown the people of Great 
 Britain in a chaotic whirlpool of reform revo- 
 lutions. Posterity must stand aghast at the 
 perverse character of a Statesman who in the 
 prime of his manhood could write of the Eadical 
 school : 
 
 ' With this latter school (the Eadical school) the re- 
 moval of abuses is mainly a means to an end, and that end 
 is a fundamental change in the character of our institu- 
 tions. Their aim is to centralise administration, to break 
 up the masses of landed property, to discountenance the 
 unpaid service which among us is so closely associated 
 with the influence of hereditary station, to concentrate 
 political power in the towns, to discredit the ancient 
 traditions of Government, to prevent the Church from 
 gaining real strength and union by good laws, to make the 
 franchise irresponsible, and the representative a delegate ; 
 and when by tliese means the sapping process has been 
 brought to sufficient ripeness, then to open the batteries,
 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND ELECTORATE 89 
 
 which until the proper time will remain judiciously masked, 
 against the independence of the House of Lords, the 
 connection between religious and the civil institutions of 
 the country, and whatever else of the Constitution may 
 still remain open to attack and worth attacking ; ' 
 
 yet who has since become the great leader, the 
 fanatic teacher of that Eadical school. 
 
 Sir, indeed, your reckoning will, it must be 
 heavy. You cannot plead that you sinned from 
 ignorance. You know the tempers of the Com- 
 mons and have tried their average understand- 
 ing, and you know and have tried the electors. 
 In fact, more than once have you worked upon 
 the motives which inspire the councils of the 
 former, and which influence the decisions of the 
 latter. Yet though you endeavour still further 
 to develop their animal nature ! It is : you 
 understand that by this policy the remnants of 
 intellect, character and patriotism that are yet 
 preserved them by Great Britain's providential 
 genius will be destroyed. For this you de- 
 moralise the electorate, that in its turn it may 
 inflate the Commons with the putrefying elements 
 of street politicians and gutter demagogues. 
 
 The great political parties, the historical 
 parties are already broken up into small floating 
 particles representing nothing but the passing 
 accidents of the hour. So early as March 12, 
 1866, you began with the work of their de-
 
 90 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AXD ELECTORATE 
 
 struction by cutting atwain the ties of national 
 honour and national aspirations which until 
 then had still bound the constituencies to their 
 leaders, to their statesmen. There and then 
 you struck the first deathblow to that continuity 
 in politics, to that patriotic instinct in parties, 
 to that true faith and self-denying allegiance to 
 principles and dictates as to the consideration 
 of the general advantage before the private 
 interest, which enabled former English politi- 
 cians to carry out great and beneficial reforms 
 at home ; and British diplomats successfully 
 to establish, to consolidate, to enlarge Great 
 Britain's imperial sphere of influence abroad. 
 Consistent with your nature you have unswerv- 
 ingly pursued this fatal aim ever since. On 
 June 26, 1884, you inflicted upon the betrayed 
 Nation the ' People's Bill.' Now, you raise the 
 axe to strike the final blow. Yet, are you sure 
 that it will not rebound upon yourself ? ' One 
 man, One vote ' may crush the Empire ; but you 
 and yours will be buried beneath your victim. 
 
 Verily, he who can act thus against his 
 country, he would deserve to be removed from 
 the light of the world, so that even the shadow 
 of his name be sunk for ever into the night of 
 oblivion.
 
 SEVENTH LETTER 
 
 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE THE DIPLOMAT 
 AND THE PATEIOT 
 
 OB 
 
 FOEEIGN POLICY
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIR, And yet your comet-like career excites 
 universal interest. It is everywhere : 
 
 tvvtTti, MOWOTI, TroXvrpoirov og fiaXa TroXXct 
 .irel TpolijQ ispuv Tr~o\u6pov tT 
 
 How can you explain this world-wide repute, 
 the motives for which are so various and in their 
 purpose hostile to each other? How do you 
 explain that on the one side Papists and Puritan- 
 fanatics, rebels and revolutionists, Fenians, 
 moonlighters, and dynamitards expect from you 
 finishing lessons in their respective moralities ; 
 whilst on the other side the patriots watch 
 your passage horror-stricken, and implore Fate 
 to hasten your eclipse so that the Empire be yet 
 saved ? 
 
 Sir, it is true : that you have performed great 
 deeds, ever memorable deeds even your enemies 
 cannot deny. Your monstrous electioneering
 
 94 FOREIGN POLICY 
 
 trick, perpetrated at the Mansion House on the 
 eve of the last General Election your harangue 
 on the future government of London, its duties, 
 that is, its licence ; your tragic utterances during 
 the ever memorable Midlothian campaign ; the 
 renewed onslaught which you ventured against 
 the House of Lords in reply to the Queen's 
 speech, indisputably entitle you to immortality 
 in common with a Kleon. The generosity with 
 which you have always provided for your 
 servitors and private secretaries will be remem- 
 bered as long as there are large-hearted poli- 
 ticians and sycophants. The fact that for the 
 worldly advancement of your aiders, abettors 
 and proteges you did not stop short even at a 
 violation of the Constitution, as amongst others, 
 in the case of Sir Eobert Collier, whom you 
 manufactured from a two-days' Common Plea 
 Judge into a Member of the Judicial Committee 
 of the Privy Council, will for ever associate your 
 name with the worst actions of the most re- 
 nowned practitioners in nepotism, simonism, 
 and favouritism. For these and other such like 
 qualities your enemies concede, you are justly 
 reputed, and it may be said of you that you have 
 most consistently acted up to the maxim: 
 c nequidquam sapit, qui sibi non sapit nequid-
 
 FOREIGN POLICY 95 
 
 quam laborat qui sibi non laborat.' And 
 indeed, driven by the mania with which Hero- 
 stratus must have been possessed, you do not 
 hesitate even to set your country aflame. But 
 centuries before your advent there have already 
 been politicians and autocrats who for the 
 gratification of their ambitions, likes and dislikes, 
 could so far forget themselves as to sell the 
 interests of their country to its home and foreign 
 enemies. Yet, though they are infamously 
 famous, yours is a fame which for ever towers 
 above that of an Alcibiades, a Pausanias, a 
 Catiline, an Ethelred, Dermot and Edward, a 
 Wallenstein, a Murray and James, a Calonne 
 and Artois. Whence, therefore, does it origi- 
 nate, this universal interest ? 
 
 Is it that you are renowned among diplomats? 
 Is it that you have made the wishes of Great 
 Britain respected in the European Concert ? Is it 
 that you have made her dicta dutifully obeyed, or 
 at least gratefully attended to in countries for the 
 commercial, social, political and legislative develop- 
 ment of which your Nation not only engaged her 
 interest and risked her property, but brought actual 
 sacrifice in the blood of her brave soldiers and 
 loyal colonists? Or have you conquered, won, 
 bought or discovered new empires, new wealthy 
 
 H
 
 96 FOREIGN POLICY 
 
 colonies, new promising dependencies, and opened 
 new fertile territories ? Have you extended the 
 sphere of British political influence, and the 
 markets for British industry and commerce in a 
 manner beneficial to the tribes, to the peoples thus 
 newly allied to civilisation, and advantageous to 
 the Nation ? 
 
 Sir, the consistency of your morbid con- 
 science, your enemies say, must shrink before 
 the answer, for yours is a reputation indeed, 
 both as diplomat and patriot. Over the epochs 
 of your country's foreign policy during which 
 you were at the head of her affairs may be 
 inscribed Dante's 
 
 Per me si va nella citta dolente, 
 Per me si va nell' eterno dolore, 
 Per me si va tra la perduta gente. 
 
 Yet it is not to the shades of noble Gordon 
 that your enemies need appeal for a justification 
 of your world-wide repute. There is more than 
 one High Commissioner of Great Britain, of 
 whom a faithless and pusillanimous Ministry, 
 presided over by you, has made a victim for his 
 pronounced sense of honour and bold spirit of 
 patriotism. The fate of Sir Bartle Frere stands 
 recorded. The ambiguity in the instructions to 
 Sir Gerald Portal are full of omen.
 
 FOREIGN POLICY 97 
 
 Nor do your enemies need recall that other 
 Midlothian campaign, when on the eve of your 
 restitution to the Ministry you dared before the 
 mob denounce a friendly Power, and proclaim : 
 ' You cannot put your finger upon any part of 
 the map and say, " Here Austria has done 
 good.'" Nay, your enemies need not repeat 
 the abject apology you soon after addressed to 
 the Austrian Ambassador, Count Karolyi, when 
 a few months later, as Prime Minister, you were 
 forced to retract those words. Sir, it has 
 become ignominiously historic, this letter of 
 yours : ' I will not conceal from your Excellency 
 that grave apprehensions had been excited in 
 my mind, lest Austria should play a part in the 
 Balkan peninsula hostile to the freedom of the 
 emancipated populations and to the reasonable 
 and warranted hopes of the subjects of the 
 Sultan. These apprehensions were founded, it 
 is true, upon secondary evidence. Permit me at 
 once to state that had I been in possession of 
 such an assurance as I have now been able to 
 receive I never would have uttered any one of 
 the words which your Excellency justly describes 
 as of a painful and wounding character. Whether 
 it was my misfortune or my fault that I was 
 not so supplied I will not now attempt to 
 
 H 2
 
 98 FOREIGN POLICY 
 
 determine, but will at once express my sincere 
 concern.' 
 
 Neither need your enemies revive your Don 
 Quixotic career, when for once you yourself 
 went as High Commissioner of Her Majesty's 
 Derby-Cabinet to Corfu of the Ionian Islands. 
 It was but natural, since you were concerned, 
 that your negotiations there brought about the 
 very decision which you had been sent to resist. 
 
 Sir, to show the perfection of your diplo- 
 matic patriotism your enemies could simply 
 point to the support you gave to the United 
 States of America when they complained, without 
 ground or justification, about the application of 
 the Foreign Enlistment Bill; to the impreca- 
 tions you uttered in favour of Eussia during the 
 second epoch of the Crimea ; to the speeches 
 you made in defence of the Boers in South 
 Africa. 
 
 To prove your diplomatic acumen and per- 
 verseness, your enemies need only mention the 
 ' Alabama Claims.' There, they might say, you 
 abandoned British interests for the threats and 
 flatteries of American and Continental journal- 
 ists ; firstly, by conceding that the exaggerated, 
 the ' indirect ' demands of the Yankees should 
 be retrospective ; secondly, by waiving Great
 
 FOREIGN POLICY 99 
 
 Britain's claims of compensation for the Fenian 
 raids on Canada, though British blood had been 
 murderously spilt; thirdly, by actually impos- 
 ing, instead, upon your unhappy Nation the 
 payment to her rival of an indemnity of 
 3,250,000/. 
 
 They might also point to your vituperations 
 of Beaconsfield, to your invectives against the 
 occupation of Cyprus as a 'place d'armes'for 
 British operations in the East ; yet of the ad- 
 vantages of which you were the first to avail 
 yourself in your ever-memorable Egyptian 
 campaign. 
 
 To demonstrate the consistency of your 
 abnormal love of peace and your diplomatic 
 instinct, your enemies would have but to remind 
 the Nation of your intention to arm on the eve 
 of the Franco-German War twenty thousand 
 Britishers for the defence of Belgium's integrity 
 against French and Prussian aggression. Then 
 turning to the following year, they would simply 
 need to point to your conduct when Gort- 
 schakoff announced Eussia's retrocession of the 
 Black Sea Clauses of the Treaty of 1856, and all 
 patriotic England and her friends abroad were 
 in commotion at the portentous challenge of 
 Eussia's declaration ; yet when you cowardly
 
 100 FOEEIGX POLICY 
 
 shrunk from endorsing my Lord Odo Eussell's 
 
 O / 
 
 ramark to Bismarck at Versailles : ' the situation 
 was such that England was forced to go to war 
 with Eussia with or without allies.' And your 
 enemies could then recall to the Nation that 
 about fourteen years later you not only spent 
 over 8,000,000/. in warfare which left 
 
 A stream of misery and blood 
 
 And shame upon your country's name, 
 
 but wasted another 11,000,000^. in preparations 
 for a struggle more barbarous, more deadly ; for 
 a war that seemed to be the inevitable wicked 
 fruit of your guilt in 1871 ; for bloody battles 
 whereby to reinforce those very Black Sea 
 clauses of the Treaty of 1856, and to resist 
 Eussian aggressions which your cowardice and 
 obsequiousness had encouraged, and which now 
 threatened no longer merely Turkey, but your 
 country's Indian Empire. 
 
 Yet, sir, your enemies refrain from impeach- 
 ing you for these acts. They know it is for 
 your diplomacy towards races, towards peoples 
 to whom Great Britain had pledged her faith 
 and support, that your name excites universal 
 consternation. They know you are famous for 
 the abnormal fact that you, the human author
 
 FOEEIGN POLICY 101 
 
 of the ' Letters from Naples ' and of ' Bulgarian 
 Horrors,' could during the North American 
 Civil War utter wishes for the success of the 
 Southern States over the armies of the North, 
 whose soldiers were not only kin of your kin, 
 but champions of that great cause for which a 
 Chatham, a Pitt, a Wilberforce had fought and 
 spent their noble lives, for the consummation of 
 which the Nation had sacrificed millions of her 
 earnings for the abolition of slavery. 
 
 Aye, once in times eternal, your enemies are 
 confident, the cry will be raised before you : 
 ' Where are Poland and Denmark, where are the 
 Transvaal and Afghanistan, where is Egypt, and, 
 perhaps, where Uganda ? ' Then, they are sure, 
 you will be confounded with your defence of the 
 Crimean War, ' so justifiable upon the ground 
 that the danger of the encroachments upon, and 
 the absorption of Turkey by Eussia, was one 
 calculated to bring upon Europe evils none the 
 less formidable than those already existing, and 
 which, threatening the liberties, peace and pri- 
 vileges of all, they were called upon to resist 
 with all the means in their power.' 
 
 Then and there you will be confounded with 
 your denunciation of this very war, at a mo- 
 ment when all seemed lost, and nothing but the
 
 102 FOREIGN POLICY 
 
 supreme patriotism of her citizens could save 
 Great Britain from ruin ; yet when you coun- 
 selled the suicidal policy of surrender. Be sure 
 it will stand up against you, this denunciation 
 of the Crimean Campaign, as being 'immoral, 
 unchristian and inhuman ; * for was it not you 
 who on its eve had boasted in Manchester 
 and elsewhere, ' I really don't think that Eng- 
 land has often been better prepared than she 
 is at this moment ; ' for was it not you who 
 had been its purveyor. Your declaration, it 
 will rebound upon you, that if England thought 
 more of her honour and right than of the doc- 
 trines of the ' Manchester School,' ' she would 
 tempt the justice of Him in whose hands was 
 the fate of armies to launch upon her His wrath.' 
 Indeed, then and there you will hear again Sir 
 Edward Bulwer Lytton's scathing condemna- 
 tion : ' When Mr. Gladstone was dwelling in a 
 Christian spirit that moved them all. on the 
 gallant blood which had been shed by England, 
 did it ever occur to him that all the while he 
 was speaking, this one question was forcing it- 
 self upon the British mind : " And shall all this 
 blood have been shed in vain ? " Then and there 
 you will be confronted with the indictment of 
 my Lord Palmerston : ' But it must, indeed, be
 
 FOREIGN POLICY 108 
 
 a grave reason which could induce a man who 
 had been a party with Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment to this line of policy, who had after full 
 and perhaps unexampled deliberation sanctioned 
 its commencement, who, having concurred after 
 that full and mature deliberation, had also joined 
 in calling upon the country for great sacrifices 
 in order to continue it, and who had, up to a 
 very recent period, assented to all the measures 
 that had been proposed for its continuance I 
 say it must, indeed, be a grave reason which 
 could induce a man who had so acted, utterly 
 to change his opinions, and to declare that the 
 war to which he himself was a party, was un- 
 necessary, impolitic, and unjust ; to exaggerate 
 the resources of the enemy, and set before the 
 country all the imaginary disasters with which 
 his fancy could furnish his speech ; and to mag- 
 nify and exaggerate the force of the enemy and 
 the difficulties of our own position.' 
 
 Aye, sir, your enemies and the patriots are 
 confident that in those awful moments of judg- 
 ment the scroll of the impeachment for your 
 foreign policy will be fully unrolled. They will 
 hear you arraigned for the burning of Alexan- 
 dria and the slaughter of the deserted garrisons 
 of Sinkat, Tokar, Kassala and Khartum. They
 
 104 
 
 FOEEIGN POLICY 
 
 will hear your condemnation for having be- 
 trayed your country in proclaiming, when the 
 proposition was brought forth to purchase the 
 Egyptian tribute : ' I object to our making 
 Turkey a victim to the insatiable maiv of these 
 stage-playing British interests. And I think we 
 should decline to bid during the lifetime of the 
 Turk for this portion of his clothes.' They will 
 base the plea for your condemnation upon your 
 friendship towards Eussia and hostility against 
 the Porte, a perverseness of feeling which could 
 induce you not only to attack the British armed 
 intervention in favour of Turkey against her 
 vassal Egypt in 1840, but to strive to inflame 
 the populations of India against Great Britain 
 at a time when her bitterest foe, the Czar, was 
 aiming a death-blow at the Ottoman Empire. 
 And these three statements of yours will be 
 written side by side upon your sentence : 
 
 In distant and, 
 to her children, un- 
 genial climes, in 
 lands of usage, 
 tongue, religion 
 wholly alien, the 
 flower of India's 
 youth are to bleed 
 and to die for us, 
 and she will have no 
 part but to suffer 
 
 There is a ne- 
 cessity for regula- 
 ting the distribution 
 of power in Europe 
 where there is a 
 certain absorption 
 of power by one of 
 the great potentates, 
 which would follow 
 the fall of the Otto- 
 man Empire, which 
 
 From the British 
 armed intervention 
 in 1840, may be 
 traced the English 
 interest - policy in 
 Turkish existence. 
 It grew with rapi- 
 dity fostered by the 
 rather womanish 
 suspicions and 
 alarms on behalf of
 
 FOREIGN POLICY 
 
 105 
 
 and obey. They will 
 
 would be dangerous 
 
 India, of which 
 
 be pariah forces of 
 
 to the peace of the 
 
 Eussia became gra- 
 
 our wars to whom 
 
 world ; it is the 
 
 dually the object. 
 
 every high reward 
 
 duty of England, at 
 
 
 of valour is denied, 
 
 whatever cost, to set 
 
 
 every avenue of hope 
 
 itself against such a 
 
 
 for eminence and 
 
 result. 
 
 
 fame jealously and 
 
 
 
 irremediably closed. 
 
 
 
 Ah, sir, indeed, not without reason is yours 
 a world-wide repute. Your foreign policy has 
 been the curse of your unhappy country from 
 the moment when you supported Eussia's claims 
 for the Protectorate over the Greek Church in 
 Turkey to the ever-shameful desertion of Can- 
 dahar in spite of the defeat of Ayoob Khan and 
 General Eoberts's brilliant march from Cabul. 
 Truly, this ever-treacherous abandonment of 
 Afghanistan, the Glacis of Hindustan, whose 
 Ameer you drove into rebellion against Great 
 Britain by meeting his appeals for British help 
 against Eussian encroachment with the sneer 
 that the apprehension of such an attack was 
 ' nothing but an old wife's fable ; ' it will crush 
 you on the day of your trial. But woe to the 
 Nation ! The curse of your temporising diplo- 
 macy in Central Asia, of your meddlesome 
 policy in Europe, here bullying, there peevishly 
 curbing ; again, here pledging England's faith
 
 106 FOREIGN POLICY 
 
 and support, whilst there cowardly betraying 
 her interests and most solemn pledges of 
 honour, this curse will fall doubly heavy 
 upon the innocent generations to come. Other 
 4 Angra Pequenas,' other * New Guineas ' must 
 crop up, and the precedents of humiliation, 
 cowardice and shame which vou have set, will 
 
 / 
 
 be then used against your country. 
 
 Indeed, Greater Britain the Empire has 
 been for you a contemptible myth. 
 
 With the rapid increase of the population in 
 the United Kingdom before you; icith the daily 
 growing difficulties in the industrial and labour 
 market surging higher and higher around the 
 State barque ; with the speedy development of the 
 Colonies and the eager competition of foreign 
 nations under your immediate notice you have 
 wasted Great Britain's energies in hunting with 
 discontented or actually rebellious fragments of 
 other States after phantoms, such as brotherhoods 
 of peoples and sacred rights of nationalities. 
 With evidence before you which should make you 
 apprehensive that the protectionist policy of Euro- 
 pean and American governments might some day 
 prevent British manufactures and commerce from 
 entering their territories, thus entirely throwing your 
 country upon its colonies: you have, instead of
 
 FOREIGN POLICY 107 
 
 drawing by postal reforms, by legislative enact- 
 ments, by constitutional enlargements, by tariff 
 diplomacy these British dependencies and Colonies 
 closer to the mother country ; endeavoured to sow 
 between them the seed of distrust ; you have schemed 
 how to widen instead of overbridging any gidfthat 
 might separate the Briton in foreign parts from 
 the Briton at home. ' Acting against all your 
 outspoken opinions or the lessons you must 
 have learnt under Sir Kobert Peel, you have 
 without scruple generously accepted the " Man- 
 chester" theories in vogue as to the undesir- 
 ability of extending colonial influence which, 
 it was* the fashion to assume, your country had 
 not the means of defending.' With the con- 
 sistency of a morbid conscience you have since 
 faithfully adhered to these pernicious doctrines, 
 and England has been writhing under its bane. 
 
 Sir, can you thus wonder why the patriots 
 cry ' Woe to the generations to come ! ' ? 
 
 It is true, you yourself have already reaped 
 part of the fruits of your labours. You have 
 caused or waged wars with profuse bloodshed 
 in various regions of the earth, yet not with 
 credit to Great Britain's Government. 'You 
 have tarnished the nation's honour, lowered the 
 national character, and injured the national in-
 
 108 r FOEEIGX POLICY 
 
 terests.' But England to come will have to bear 
 the main brunt of your shame. The ' Penjdeh-' 
 inheritance ; the 'Pamirs' difficulty; the Oriental, 
 the Eussian-Anglo-Indian Question hers will 
 be the tremendous task if possible to solve. 
 But then ' Batoum ' will be no longer a free port, 
 and ' Kars ' is Eussian. As to Persia : ' Merv ' 
 is already connected with the Caucasus by a 
 strategical railway. 
 
 Sir, Verily, your world-wide repute, where 
 the undoing of Empires is concerned, seems 
 more than justifiable.
 
 EIGHTH LETTER; 
 
 THE EIGHT HONOURABLE AND 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIR, However, when the patriot turns to 
 the record of your legislative labours for the 
 moral, the social and economical development 
 of the Nation, how little he finds there that en- 
 titles you to grateful remembrance. And yet, 
 the so-called i Social Legislation,' is it not the 
 greatest problem of the greatest, the most stormy 
 of centuries, the Nineteenth, a century which, 
 inaugurated by a Napoleon, contains the life of 
 a Bismarck, and closes with your eclipse ? 
 
 What mighty events within this one epoch ! 
 Eevolution begetting revolution. The different 
 peoples, the various states, so many boiling, ever- 
 working volcanoes. The old order of society 
 falling to pieces. The castes swept away by the 
 irresistible, inevitable march of a new era. The 
 people rising to the surface. 
 
 But still more, what portentous changes are 
 foreshadowed by this century ! For, in spite
 
 112 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AXD 
 
 of those events and evolutions, the world as yet 
 in a state of chaos, and mankind tossed to and 
 fro by the awful doubt as to whether the haven 
 is close to, or whether in the future though 
 inaybe still dim and distant future lurks final 
 destruction ! 
 
 Above all, what a difference between you and 
 those other two human phenomena of the great 
 age ! Napoleon, though the destroyer of king- 
 doms and the war-scourge of his country, still 
 Xapoleon : the lawgiver and administrator of 
 France, leaving behind him the five codes, an 
 everlasting landmark of civilisation. Bismarck, 
 though in his dotage assailing the citadel of 
 German unity, the glorious result of fifty years 
 of duty and patriotism, still Bismarck: the 
 pioneer of social, economical and financial re- 
 form ; the Bismarck of the ' Social-Politik,' of 
 the ' Unfall,' ' Krankheit,' ' Invaliditiit,' and 
 'Altersversicherung' ! Whereas, you ?. . . 
 
 Sir, your enemies think that you have been, 
 instead of a pilot and reformer, a wrecker of 
 this great century of genesis, so far as Eng- 
 land is concerned. They hold that your con- 
 duct is the more blamable, nay, treacherous, 
 because in I860 already you had proclaimed 
 ' Are not the people our flesh and blood ? ' and
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 113 
 
 a little later on, 4 Time is (on my) on our side. 
 The great social forces which move onwards in 
 their might and majesty, and which the tumult 
 of our debates does not for a moment impede or 
 disturb those great social forces, they are on 
 our side.' Your enemies maintain that, though 
 with all those hosts of electors gathering round 
 your banner, lured thither by vague, gigantic 
 promises and prophecies the conditions of the 
 labour and commercial world ; the moral and 
 material status of the people have under each of 
 your successive governments not only not im- 
 proved, but, in spite of Radical pressure, become 
 more and more neglected. As evidence of how 
 little you have done for the working classes, for 
 agriculturists and industrials, compared with 
 your opportunities and with the achievements 
 of the Tories, your enemies point to the record 
 of the respective parliamentary labours during 
 the last ten years : 
 
 HEEE CONSERVATIVE: 
 FIRST SESSION, 1886. 
 
 THERE GLADSTONIAN 
 FIRST SESSION, 1880. 
 
 Amendment of the Prisons i Act to extend and regulate 
 Act, 1877, so far as regarded the liability of employers to 
 the superannuation of Prison make compensation for per- 
 Officers. sonal injuries suffered by work- 
 
 Amendment of the laws of i men in their service, 
 bankruptcy so far as related to I Amendment of the law as to 
 
 i 2
 
 114 
 
 agricultural labourers' wages. 
 (Priority of wages of yearly 
 labourers.) 
 
 Amendment of the Mines 
 Regulation Act, 1872. 
 
 Act to limit the hours of 
 labour of children and young 
 persons in shops. 
 
 SECOND SESSION, 1887. 
 
 Amendment of the provi- 
 sions of Merchant Shipping 
 (fishing boats) Acts. 
 
 Act to remove the disabili- 
 ties of the police to vote at 
 Parliamentary elections. 
 
 Amendment of the Metro- 
 polis Management Acts (Bat- 
 ersea and Westminster). 
 
 Act to provide for the fencing 
 of Quarries. 
 
 Act to limit the powers of 
 Water Companies to cut off the 
 tenant's water supply where 
 the rate is paid by the land- 
 lord. 
 
 Act to amend the Public 
 Libraries Act. 
 
 Act to promote compensa- 
 tion to the occupiers of allot- 
 ments and cottage gardens for 
 crops left in the ground at the 
 end of their tenancies. 
 
 Act to consolidate and amend 
 the law relating to fraudulent 
 marks on merchandise. 
 
 Extension of certain provi- 
 sions of the Metropolitan Open 
 Spaces Acts, 1877 and 1881, 
 with amendments to sanitary 
 districts throughout England 
 
 the payment of wages and 
 rating of merchant seamen. 
 
 Amendment of the Savings 
 Bank Acts. 
 
 Amendment of the law on 
 the payment of wages and 
 rating of merchant seamen. 
 
 SECOND SESSION, 1881. 
 
 Amendment of the Metro- 
 politan Open Spaces Act, 1877. 
 
 Act to consolidate the Alkali 
 Acts and to make further pro- 
 vision for regulating Alkali and 
 certain other works in which 
 noxious and offensive gases are 
 evolved. 
 
 Act to extend the Superannu- 
 ation Amendment Act, 1873, to 
 certain persons admitted into 
 subordinate situations in the 
 department of the Postmaster- 
 General and the Commissioners 
 of Her Majesty's Works and 
 Public Buildings.
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 115 
 
 Wales, and Ireland, and for 
 other purposes. 
 
 Act for the transfer to the 
 Metropolitan Board of Works 
 of the maintenance of certain 
 public parks and works in the 
 Metropolis. 
 
 Amendment of the Acts re- 
 lating to Savings Banks and to 
 the purchase of small Govern- 
 ment annuities, and to assess- 
 ing payments of money after 
 death. 
 
 Act to amend and extend the 
 law relating to truck. 
 
 Act to facilitate provision of 
 allotments for the labouring 
 classes. 
 
 Act to amend the Friendly 
 Societies Act. 
 
 Act to consolidate and amend 
 the Coal Mines Acts, 1872 and 
 1886, and the Stratified Iron- 
 stone Mines (Gunpowder) Act, 
 1881. 
 
 THIRD SESSION, 1888. 
 
 Act for facilitating the pro- 
 ceedings of the Commissioners 
 appointed to inquire into the 
 working of the Metropolitan 
 Board of Works. 
 
 Amendment of the law of 
 distress for rent. 
 
 Amendment of the Factory 
 and Workshops Act, 1878. 
 
 Amendment of the law with 
 respect to the appliances to be 
 carried by British merchant 
 ships for saving life at sea. 
 
 Act to consolidate the law 
 
 THIRD SESSION, 1882. 
 
 Act to make better provision 
 for inquiries with regard to 
 boiler explosions. 
 
 Amendment of the Baths 
 and Washhouses Acts. 
 
 Extension of the Acts re- 
 lating to the purchase of small 
 Government annuities. 
 
 Amendment of the Artisans' 
 and Labourers' Dwellings 
 Acts. 
 
 Amendment of the Divided 
 Parishes and Poor Law Amend- 
 ment Act, 1876.
 
 116 
 
 relating to excise licenses for 
 hawkers. 
 
 Act to continue the Em- 
 ployers' Liability Act, 1880. 
 
 Act to amend the Friendly 
 Societies Act, 1875, with refer- 
 ence to certain societies then 
 subject to provisions of section 
 thirty of that Act. 
 
 Local Government Act. 
 
 FOURTH SESSION, 1889. 
 
 Amendment of the Public 
 Libraries Act, 1855. 
 
 Act to Regulate the Sale of 
 Horseflesh for Human Food. 
 
 Act to abolish any duties on 
 coals leviable by the Corpora- 
 tion of London. 
 
 Amendment of the Friendly 
 Societies Acts. 
 
 Act to repeal certain statutes 
 relating to master and servant 
 in particular manufactures, 
 which had ceased to be put in 
 force or had become unneces- 
 sary by the enactment of sub- 
 sequent statutes. . 
 
 Act establishing a Board of 
 Agriculture for Great Britain. 
 
 Act for the prevention of 
 cruelty to, and better protec- 
 tion of children. 
 
 Amendment of the Merchant 
 Shipping Act, 1854, and the 
 Acts amending the same. 
 
 Amendment of the law re- 
 specting children in work- 
 houses. 
 
 Act to make provision for 
 
 Extension 
 (England). 
 
 of Allotments 
 
 FOURTH SESSION,' 1883. 
 
 Act prohibiting the payment 
 of wages to workmen in public - 
 houses, &c. 
 
 Act providing for the better 
 application and management of 
 parochial charities in London. 
 
 Amendment of the Merchant 
 Shipping Acts, 1854 to 1880, 
 with respect to fishing vessels 
 and apprenticeship to the sea- 
 fishing service. 
 
 Amendment of the laws on 
 certain factories and workshops. 
 
 Acts for amending the laws 
 relating to Agricultural Hold- 
 ings in England and Scotland.
 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 117 
 
 the regulation of cotton cloth 
 factories. 
 
 Act to remove doubts as to 
 the power of the Local Govern- 
 ment Board to make regula- 
 tions respecting cholera. 
 
 Act to facilitate the provi- 
 sions of technical instruction. 
 
 FIFTH SESSION, 1890. 
 
 Amendment of the Merchant 
 Shipping Acts relating to load- 
 line. 
 
 Amendment of the Open 
 Spaces Acts. 
 
 Act to facilitate gifts of 
 land for dwellings for the 
 ^vork^ng classes in populous 
 places. 
 
 Amendment of the law re- 
 lating to the grant of super- 
 annuation allowances and gra- 
 tuities to certain workmen in 
 the manufacturing and store 
 establishments of the War 
 Department. 
 
 Act to prevent the spread of 
 infectious diseases. 
 
 Act to amend the Boiler Ex- 
 plosions Act, 1882. 
 
 Act to make provision re- 
 specting the pensions, allow- 
 ances, and gratuities of police 
 constables in England and 
 Wales, and their widows and 
 children. 
 
 Amendment of the law with 
 respect to compensation due to 
 tenants on land under mortgage. 
 
 Amendment of the Metro- 
 
 FIFTH SESSION, 1884. 
 
 Amendment of the Public 
 Libraries Acts. 
 
 Amendment of the Building 
 Societies Act, 1874. 
 
 Act to extend the Franchise. 
 
 Act settling the redistribu- 
 tion of seats.
 
 118 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 polis Management Acts so far 
 as they apply to sewers. 
 
 Amendment of the Public 
 Libraries (England) Acts. 
 
 Act to consolidate and amend 
 the Acts relating to artisans' 
 and labourers 1 dwellings and 
 housing of the working classes. 
 
 SIXTH SESSION, 1890-91. 
 
 Amendment of the law re- 
 specting technical instruction. 
 Amendment of the Merchan- 
 dise Marks Act. 
 
 Act to extend to Army Schools 
 the benefit of certain educa- 
 tional endowments. 
 
 Amendment of the law re- 
 lating to Savings Banks. 
 
 Act enabling urban authori- 
 ties to provide and maintain 
 museums and gymnasiums. 
 
 Act to assist managers of 
 Reformatory and industrial 
 schools in advantageously 
 launching into useful careers 
 the children under their charge. 
 Amendment of the laws re- 
 lating to the rating of allot- 
 ments for sanitary purposes 
 (Allotment Eating Exemption). 
 Act to facilitate the acquisi- 
 tion of ranges by Volunteer 
 corps and others. 
 
 Act to make further pro- 
 vision for assisting education 
 in public elementary schools 
 in England and Wales. (FREE 
 EDUCATION.) 
 Act to facilitate the transfer 
 
 SIXTH SESSION, 1885. 
 
 Extension of the hours of 
 polling at Parliamentary and 
 municipal elections. 
 
 Act preventing medical relief 
 disqualifying a person from 
 voting. 
 
 Amendment of the Metro- 
 politan Police Staff Super- 
 annuation Act, 1875. 
 
 Amendment of the laws on 
 the dwellings of the working 
 classes. 
 
 Act for the Preservation of 
 the river Thames above Ted- 
 dington Lock for purposes of 
 public recreation.
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 119 
 
 of schools of science and art to 
 local authorities. 
 
 Amendment of the laws re- 
 lating to factories and ivork- 
 shops (sanitary provisions, 
 provisions to secure safety, 
 limiting the peril d of em- 
 ployment, and stipulzting cer- 
 tain conditions of employ- 
 ment). 
 
 Labour Commission and Par- 
 liamentary Committees on the 
 hours of labour of railway ser- 
 vants. 
 
 Finally, the establishment of 
 a State Department of Agricul- 
 ture. 
 
 Sir, this record seems to justify the accusa- 
 tion of your enemies, that you have betrayed 
 your constituencies, the people, the Nation. It 
 shows that Poor Law ; the Extension of ' Insur- 
 ance of working men against accidents ' to all 
 Artisans, Labourers and Servants, male and 
 female ; Old Age Pensions ; Factory and Work- 
 shops Eegulations as to Women and Children ; 
 the Hours of a normal Labour-Day ; Railway, 
 Post and Telegraph Eeforms ; Agricultural and 
 Commercial Legislation ; Eeorganisation of the 
 Judicature, and Simplification of the Procedure 
 in Courts of Justice ; Amendment and Codifica- 
 tion of the Civil and Criminal Law ; that these 
 are regions into which, as if it were hallowed
 
 120 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 ground, you have scarcely ventured. As to 
 legislation for the improvement and extension of 
 Education primary, middle-grade, university 
 of technical Education so needful of reform, so 
 important and urgent because of the rapidly 
 increasing, better endowed foreign competition ; 
 there, your enemies contend, coming ages 'will 
 vainly seek for your pioneering traces. Con- 
 cerning the Land Question, the Drink Traffic, 
 Prostitution and Usury, a solution of which is 
 of paramount interest and consequence to the 
 welfare of a nation in the throes of mighty 
 changes and evolutions, and all four of which 
 are problems that, the greater and more 
 patriotic a statesman be, the quicker he would 
 examine and strive to solve, if favoured by 
 opportunities and power such as yours were 
 these problems, too, you have left to explode 
 upon the unhappy coming generations of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Indeed, you have been true to your fatal 
 mission, your enemies say when summing up 
 the results of vour ' Social Legislation.' 
 
 f O 
 
 True to this, your mission, you have in- 
 cessantly laboured in ' electoral politics] and 
 ' enfranchised ' millions of ' Britons,' the better 
 to maintain yourself in power. It was in order
 
 
 SOCIAL PKOBLEMS 
 
 to be true to this fatal mission, your enemies 
 contend, that you studiously withheld from these 
 electors the means morally, intellectually and 
 materially to qualify themselves for the proper 
 use and reasonable enjoyment of their so-called 
 ' franchise.' Aye, your enemies declare that 
 you thus acted not only because you were sure 
 that yours would be the new ' social ' forces, in- 
 asmuch as their awakening could be but slow, 
 but because you calculated from this their igno- 
 
 */ O 
 
 ranee and simplicity that any such electoral 
 power would, instead of being a blessing, in- 
 evitably become a curse to themselves, to the 
 Nation. 
 
 But above all in ' ecclesiastical policy ' it is, 
 your enemies argue, where true to your fatal 
 mission you have with undaunted energy plotted 
 for and attempted to legislate towards disinte- 
 gration, attacking, devouring like a Moloch, 
 one by one, the noble institutions of a ' National ' 
 Church, yet the history of which proves her 
 foundations to be so intergrown with the basis 
 of the State, that the destruction of the former 
 must break up the latter ; yet the history of 
 which proclaims in glowing language her devo- 
 tion to duty, and her patriotism; yet on the 
 bosom of whom you once had sought shelter,
 
 122 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 and which had nursed and reared you into 
 power. Ah, from the first onslaught on her, 
 your enemies say, you knew that moral prin- 
 ciples alone, supported by a ' National ' Church, 
 shall and will be able to help the people of 
 Great Britain over the abyss of a social, a 
 political revolution towards a social, a political 
 re-organisation, on the brink of which, driven 
 thither by your ' Social Legislation/ she is now 
 staggering, dumbfounded, guideless, helpless, 
 almost hopeless. Therefore, your ' ecclesiastical 
 policy.' 
 
 Sir, can you blame the patriots for their 
 hatred of you ? 
 
 Xo, it is only too true ; the record of your 
 4 Social Legislation ' seems one continual effort 
 to blight the Nation. And yet, may you not be 
 pitied ? If you have been the curse of your 
 country, has not Ireland been, is, and will be, 
 the bane of your life, past, present and future?
 
 NINTH LETTER 
 
 IRELAND : HER HISTORY UNDER THE 
 
 PLANTAGENETS, TUDORS AND STUARTS 
 
 WITH A VIEW TO HOME RULE
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIR, Ireland ! That name, what feelings it 
 must rouse within your soul ! When the hour 
 of your reckoning has come, will they not swell 
 and form into one cry of anguish : 
 
 Let me call back those evil days. 
 Bid time return, that I may yet 
 Undo my fatal scheme ! ? 
 
 Behold, already here, when the hand of death is 
 upon you, your drooping, over-weary eyes must 
 turn once more towards the map of the United 
 Kingdom, and the demon of your conscience 
 force then from your faltering lips your own 
 condemnation : 
 
 Roll up that map ; no longer 'tis Great Britain. 
 Woe he to me, my country I have torn asunder ; 
 How I leave England ! 
 
 And reflected in the glowing flames of English- 
 Irish history rekindled by you in 1868, you
 
 126 HISTORY OF IRELAND 
 
 will stand forth a gloomy shadow, beneath 
 which may justly be inscribed : 
 
 Merciful heaven ! 
 
 Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt 
 Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, 
 Than the soft myrtle : but man, proud man ! 
 Drest in a little brief authority, 
 Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 
 His glassy essence, like an angry ape, 
 Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
 As make the angels weep. 
 
 Yet before entering into the pernicious laby- 
 rinths of your Home Eule schemes, it will be 
 just to you to unroll the scroll of Irish griefs and 
 Irish sins. The enormity of your wrong can 
 only be adequately measured by the ' enormity ' 
 of the wrong it strives not to redress but to 
 perpetuate, inasmuch as : 
 
 To persist 
 
 In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, 
 But makes it much more heavy. 
 
 HISTOEY OF IRELAND 
 Ireland under the Plantagenets. 
 
 Sir, this history of the Emerald Isle, it is not 
 so much a record of the reciprocal cruel deeds 
 of the two nations, the English-Irish, as it pre-
 
 IRELAND tNDER THE PLANTAGENETS 127 
 
 sents the story of a land marked by the finger 
 of Fate. For, the Irish the English were, and 
 are, and will be, two peoples whom nature, by 
 their geographical positions, by the climatic 
 conditions, by the products of their soil, sup* 
 plementing each other, meant to be one, but 
 whom, as it were, a conspiracy of unfortunate 
 events, whom treachery, superstitious preju- 
 dices and untimely passions, nourished and 
 fanned by foreign foes, drove into two hostile 
 camps almost from the first moment that their 
 destinies had brought them together. 
 
 What were the conditions when they 
 met? 
 
 Ireland had sunk from a high standard of 
 civilisation in the eighth century slowly but 
 surely within two ages to a state of grossest 
 immorality and lawlessness. Its government 
 being oligarchic, the condition of the people was 
 very little short of slavery. Bloodshed seemed of 
 daily occurrence. Of 200 Irish kings not more 
 than thirty had died a natural death. As to its 
 chieftains, they kept the peasants by their exac- 
 tions in hopeless poverty ; by their tyranny in 
 constant fear. They claimed a right not only of 
 taking from their tenants provisions for their own 
 use at discretion, or of sojourning in their houses, 
 
 K
 
 128 IRELAND UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS 
 
 but also of quartering their soldiers upon the un- 
 happy people. ' For the perpetual warfare of 
 these petty chieftains had given rise to the employ- 
 ment of mercenary troops, partly natives, partly 
 from Scotland, known by the uncouth names of 
 Kernes or Gallow-glasses.' That this system, and 
 the Oriental custom of polygamy, proved to be 
 the scourge of Ireland, was inevitable, And these 
 evils could not but be aggravated by the law of 
 ' tanistry,' in virtue of which the demesne lands 
 and dignities of chieftainship descended to the 
 eldest and most worthy of the same blood, a source 
 of perpetual civil quarrels. They were increased 
 hundredfold by an extraordinary tenure, that of 
 ' gavelkind,' by which on the decease of a pro- 
 prietor, instead of an equal partition among his 
 children, the chief of the sept made a fresh divi- 
 sion of all the land within his district, allotting 
 to the heirs of the deceased a portion of the in- 
 tegral territory along with the other members 
 of the tribe a practice that produced a con- 
 tinual change of possession ; thus precluding alto- 
 gether the improvement of the soil. As to the 
 Church, she, too, though formerly nourishing, 
 but having since in the surrounding degene- 
 ration become destitute of any effective organi- 
 sation, was powerless to stop the backward march
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS 129 
 
 of the unhappy nation. Indeed, so far from 
 being able to introduce order into the anarchy of 
 the warring tribes, she shared their anarchy. 
 
 Sir, such was the condition of Ireland, pre- 
 saging utter ruin for the future, when Pope 
 Hadrian the Fourth sanctioned the ' crusade ' 
 of Henry II. into the Emerald Isle for the 
 purpose ' of enlarging the bounds of the Church, 
 of restraining the progress of vice, of correcting 
 the manners of her people and of planting virtue 
 among them.' Such was the state of civilisation 
 of the Irish nation, when, in 1168, Dermod, 
 King of Leinster, presented himself at the Court 
 of Henry II., and did homage to him for the 
 dominions from whence he had been driven by 
 one of the endless civil wars which distracted 
 the country. 
 
 Thus, both the unhappy condition of the 
 country and the free homage of one of its chief 
 kings, not only seemed to favour, but actually 
 legitimised the reduction of Ireland under the 
 dominion of England. Yet destiny prevented 
 Henry II. from at once setting sail for Erin, 
 and, supported by the, royal prestige, preparing 
 by peaceful means the affiliation of the daughter 
 isle to the British kingdom. Instead, a troop 
 of adventurers accompanied Dermod ; Lacy, 
 
 K 2
 
 130 IRELAXD U.VDER THE PLANTAGENETS 
 
 Strongbow, Fitz Stephen became the real con- 
 querors. 
 
 Sir, in contemplating the future development 
 of the English-Irish history this unfortunate event 
 must constantly be remembered. It impressed 
 upon the conquest of Ireland that peculiar law- 
 less character. It was the seed whence all the 
 successive evils grew forth. ' It reveals the 
 secret of the English government over Ireland.' 
 It explains the apparent neglect, aye, abandon- 
 ment of its authority, of its duties. 
 
 It was by dint of force that these adven- 
 turers had won the Irish soil ; by dint of force 
 alone they could hope to retain it. Eeckless 
 as they already were from former habits and 
 dissipations, they were easily led to deem their 
 swords better security than royal charters, than 
 the establishment of order, the organisation of 
 the peasantry, the propagation of true religion, 
 the teaching of morals, the introduction of 
 equitable laws. Without any higher aim, with- 
 out any policy even, unless it be the acquisition 
 of large territories, their position was merely 
 that of freebooters, and could not but tend 
 towards their and their Irish neighbours' further 
 demoralisation. 
 
 Thus when circumstances at last enabled
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE PLANTAGEXETS 131 
 
 Henry II. to visit the Emerald Isle it was too 
 late ; the English adventurers had already tasted 
 of the ' sweetness ' of lawless power, and the 
 Irish felt the iron arm of the oppressor. 
 
 The ' lording ' of his son John, though but 
 for a few months, widened the gulf of misery 
 that was fast opening between the English and 
 Irish. 
 
 Sir, it was in vain that Henry endeavoured 
 to raise the edifice of Irish constitution by 
 granting charters of privileges to the chief 
 towns, by dividing the country into counties, 
 by appointing sheriffs and judges of assize to 
 administer justice, by erecting in Dublin law 
 courts. It was in vain that Magna Charta, 
 that great charter of English liberties, was sent 
 over to the sister isle. The ' representatives ' 
 of English * government ' over Ireland soon 
 matched in oppression the Irish chieftains, and 
 seemed to outrun them in profligacy and all 
 their other vices ; and lawlessness, rape, and 
 bloodshed ruled supreme. 
 
 Though once more, a part of the Irish 
 applied for help, for redress to the King of 
 England. But as before, the British Sovereigns 
 were unable to render them assistance. It is 
 true, by writs and proclamations they insisted
 
 132 IRELAND UNDER THE PLANTAGEXETS 
 
 upon the due observance of the laws. Yet this 
 was all John and his successor Henry III. could 
 do for the protection of their new subjects ; the 
 turmoil at home prevented them from obtaining 
 submission to their royal will by force of arms. 
 
 Unhappily also and, sir, this you ought 
 never to lose sight of Ireland herself was split 
 into several divisions. The conflict between the 
 Xorth and South, East and West, had never 
 ceased. The hatred amongst the various tribes, 
 the barbarism amongst the different clans, were 
 only intensified by their hatred of the more 
 civilised intruders. It may be admitted they 
 well deserved it. 
 
 In consequence of worse ill-usage the Irish 
 renewed their suppli cations. Both Edward I. 
 and Edward HE. were ready to grant them 
 protection ; the same unconquerable oligarchy 
 made a peaceful solution of the Irish difficulty 
 impossible. Now the English and Irish barons 
 vied with each other in harassing their tenants. 
 Anarchism spread wider and wider ; barbarism, 
 if possible, took deeper and deeper root. 
 
 Under such conditions it happened that 
 Edward Bruce landed with a Scotch force to 
 * help ' the Irish. For once the sons of Erin 
 seemed to rise united. Yet, with their defeat
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS 133 
 
 on the bloody field of Athenree, the dream of 
 independence and national unity vanished again. 
 It had been but a dream : not all Ireland had 
 marched against the host of the barons of the 
 Pale. Moreover, could Ireland win her freedom 
 from the English by the arms of foreigners ? 
 
 Indeed, the country durst not become free. 
 However much the British lords were to blame ; 
 although their misdeeds may have contributed 
 to the then misery of the people, and certainly 
 laid the mines which should afterwards by their 
 explosion not only fully devastate the Emerald 
 Isle, but nearly wreck Great Britain ; though 
 the Geraldines, the Fitz-Maurices, the De Courcys 
 may be charged with having retrograded from 
 the laws and comparative morals of England, 
 they did not deprive the Irish people of religion, 
 order, peace, freedom, and happiness, which under 
 their own chieftains they had never known. 
 
 In fact, .the fusion of the two ' aristocracies ' 
 became more and more inevitable. The so- 
 called Kilkenny Statute proved powerless. Nay, 
 the Brehon or native law rapidly gained ground 
 within the English Pale. The barons all but 
 threw off even the semblance of allegiance to 
 the English king. This at last stirred Ei chard II. 
 He appeared in Ireland with a powerful army.
 
 134 IRELAND UNDER THE PLANTAGEXETS 
 
 Her chieftains crowded round his throne offer- 
 ing homage. But when he left they and the 
 barons returned to former lawlessness and ' in- 
 dependent' anarchy. On the other side, the 
 Kilkenny Statute had done its evil work. With- 
 out improving the character of the English-Irish 
 lords, it estranged the Irish tribes from the 
 British crown ; by its provisions they were out- 
 lawed. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that under Edward V. 
 and Richard HI. English rule over Ireland was 
 but a mere shadow, a name. 
 
 Yet the Emerald Isle had for a considerable 
 time served rather the purpose of rebellious in- 
 vaders than of English monarchy. Was it not 
 necessary therefore, was it not vitally important 
 that the acquisition of Ireland became more 
 than a word ? And why could she not be 
 affiliated with Great Britain ? 
 
 Sir, prove by the Irish history during the 
 period of the Plantagenets that misrule and syste- 
 matic oppression which now every day you impute 
 to the English Nation and its government! Ah, 
 you will find that the policy of those kings was 
 generally wise arid beneficent ; but the co- 
 ordinate power of Parliament its result : the 
 limitations of their prerogative obstructed
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS 135 
 
 more than once their purposes, and was often 
 the screen of private tyranny and inveterate 
 abuse. l This incapacity of doing good as well 
 as harm, has produced, comparatively speaking, 
 little mischief in Great Britain, where the aris- 
 tocratic element of the Constitution is neither so 
 prominent nor so much in opposition to the 
 general interest as it may be deemed to have 
 been in Ireland. But it is manifestly absurd 
 to charge the Edwards and Henrys, or those to 
 whom their authority was delegated at Dublin, 
 with crimes they vainly endeavoured to chastise; 
 much more to erect either the wild barbarians of 
 the North, the O'Neals and O'Connors, or the 
 degenerate Houses of Bourke and Fitzgerald into 
 patriot assertors of their country's welfare. The 
 laws and liberties of England were the best in- 
 heritance to which Ireland could attain; the sove- 
 reignty of the English crown her only shield 
 against native or foreign tyranny. It was her 
 calamity that these advantages were long withheld; 
 but the blame can never fall upon the government 
 of this island?
 
 136 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS AND STUARTS 
 
 Ireland under the Tudors and Stuarts. 
 
 Sir, you know with the arrival of the Tudors 
 the history of England-Ireland entered into a 
 new phase. 
 
 The continuity in their policy, their more 
 sagacious diplomacy, above all the extended 
 powers of their prerogative could not fail to 
 enable them better to restrain and to govern 
 both the rebellious peers of English origin and 
 the demoralised Irish chieftains. 
 
 It is true, under Henry VII. the old state of 
 disorder still prevailed, if it did not change 
 even for the worse. For in spite of the enact- 
 ment of the famous Statute of Drogheda which 
 contained such provisions as ' that to excite the 
 Irish to war should be held to be high treason,' 
 and ' that all statutes lately made in England 
 should be deemed good and effectual in Ireland ; ' 
 further ' that all private hostilities without the 
 deputy's license were to be declared illegal ' 
 the feuds of the 'Butlers and the Geraldines,' 
 the ' De la Poers and Fitzpatricks ' were as 
 incessant after the King's departure as the 
 slaughters amongst the Irish septs. Indeed,
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS AND STUARTS 137 
 
 these feuds between the Irish clans were as 
 bitter as their hatred of the stranger ; and the 
 lords of the Pale found it no difficult task to 
 maintain a strife, which enabled them to pursue 
 their own family quarrels, among a people whose 
 '.nature is such that for money one shall have 
 the son to war against the father, and the father 
 against his child.' 
 
 Sir, with Henry VIII. 's accession to the 
 throne, however, began really and, as much as 
 circumstances allowed, permanently a change 
 towards improvement in the affairs of Ireland. 
 
 Can, dare you deny the energy, the wisdom, 
 and, generally, the justice of this king's Irish 
 policy ? 
 
 Behold, he not only at once recognised the 
 evil of ruling the Irish people through the great 
 Irish-English lords, but when Thomas Fitzgerald 
 broke out into rebellion against the King's 
 government, and began the struggle for the 
 liberation of. the Irish barons and chieftains 
 from the English ' yoke,' as is usual in Irish 
 revolts, with an assassination the murder of the 
 Archbishop of Dublin Henry with the quick- 
 ness of lightning crushed his mutiny almost in 
 its first stage. In fact, the kernes of Wicklow 
 and Wexford, Munster, Clare, Connaught, with
 
 138 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS AND STUARTS 
 
 the great ' Norman ' House of the De Burghs ; 
 even the wild tribes of the north were soon 
 brought back, under the King's rule, to peace 
 and order. Within a few years from the land- 
 ing of Skeffington it could be said that Henry's 
 government extended over the length and 
 breadth of the Emerald Isle ; and one of the 
 justices, the Lord Justice, durst justifiably 
 boast to Cromwell : ' the King's Sessions are 
 being kept in five shires more than formerly.' 
 
 Sir, you cannot dispute that this happy 
 result was chiefly due to the King's firmness 
 and energy in at once establishing the royal 
 authority and, where needed, unswervingly en- 
 forcing it by the sword. But it was also due 
 to his moderation, for, although never relaxing 
 his grip on the reins of government, soon after 
 the extirpation of the first Geraldines, he pur- 
 sued a policy of conciliation, endeavouring by 
 persuasion and good example to win over the 
 Irish chiefs. His aim was to ' Englishise ' them ; 
 then, using the traditional devotion of their 
 tribal dependents as a means of diffusing the 
 new civilisation of their nobles, to reform the 
 country. And indeed, ' chieftain after chieftain 
 was induced to accept the indenture which 
 guaranteed him in the possession of his land
 
 IRELAND UNDER TflE TUDORS AND STUARTS 139 
 
 and left his authority over his tribesmen un- 
 touched on condition of a pledge of loyalty, of 
 abstinence from illegal wars and exactions on 
 his fellow-subjects, and of rendering a fixed 
 tribute and service in war time to the Crown.' 
 
 And yet this policy, this wise policy failed. 
 It was sterile, notwithstanding that both 
 Edward VI. and Mary carried out in the main 
 this system of conciliation in spite of the re- 
 bellion of two septs in Leinster under the 
 former's reign, and of the act of the latter's 
 Lord Deputy, the Earl of Sussex, which reduced 
 the country of the O'Connors to shire-land 
 under the names of King's and Queen's Coun- 
 ties. It failed, although it could justly be said at 
 that time ' that men may quietly pass between 
 Limerick and Tipperary without danger or 
 other displeasure,' and that 'ploughing in- 
 creaseth daily.' Sir, this promising order, this 
 general tranquillity, they were but the lull 
 before the storm. Ireland's evil destiny willed 
 it that the sword should not be buried, and the 
 unfortunate people prosper. But who conjured 
 the demon of discord ? Whose curse, what 
 malediction was it that doomed the very first- 
 lings of this civilising policy before they could 
 deeply strike root the better to bring forth
 
 3 40 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS AND STUARTS 
 
 wholesome fruit ? Was it the fault of England, 
 the England whose kings, as you have seen, and 
 must well admit, desired and strove to be bene- 
 factors to Ireland, or was this evil destiny a 
 destiny shaped by the Irish themselves ? 
 
 There could be no doubt that the interest 
 of the people suggested, on the part of the 
 sons of Erin, reciprocation of the conciliatory 
 spirit of the English Government. The Irish 
 could not do better than seek the British Con- 
 stitution which, at least in theory, was accorded 
 to their country, and to press with spontaneous 
 homage round the throne of the English Sove- 
 reign. But the interest of the people and that 
 of their chieftains was antagonistic. No matter 
 whether of an Irish or English descent, whether 
 of a Shane O'JSTeill, an Earl of Tyrone or of 
 Desmond, the lords within the Pale, as well as 
 the thanes without, all dreaded alike a rigorous 
 and a conciliatory, though firm government of 
 the English King. 
 
 Sir, this oligarchy it was that had hitherto been 
 the curse of the Emerald Isle ; these, her ' aristo- 
 cratic ' enemies, were now joined by her most bitter 
 foes, the priests, both her bane and ruin. Indeed, 
 there is ample evidence in the history of Queen 
 Elizabeth's reign that the activity of the Catholic
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS AND STUARTS 141 
 
 clergy, in deluding a people ' too open at all 
 times to their counsels, aggravated the rebellious 
 spirit of the Irish, and rendered their obedience to 
 the law more unattainable! 
 
 That the event of the Keformation would not 
 fail to fan the smouldering fire was but natural. 
 And there can be no doubt as to the illogical 
 conduct of Elizabeth in impressing upon a nation 
 so prone to superstition as the sons of Erin, the 
 dogmas and simple, though rational ceremonies 
 of the Eeformed Church. Yet will you, can 
 you dispute that she acted in conformity with 
 the doctrine of those times as to the Sovereign 
 de Dei gratia, in so far ' that the religion of a 
 people should be that of its king ? ' Moreover, 
 had not Elizabeth before her eyes the endless 
 crimes of the Inquisition ; the examples of a 
 Philip and Mary ; the weird event of St. Bar- 
 tholomew's Day ? 
 
 Yet even so, it is a fact ; at the beginning of 
 her reign there was no religious persecution at 
 all. The Act of Uniformity, though proclaimed, 
 remained a dead letter. ' In the many complaints 
 of Shane O'Neill, mostly for imaginary causes, 
 there is not a single religious grievance men- 
 tioned.' The truth is, had it not been for the 
 great Irish families, who by their mismanage-
 
 142 IRELAND tXDER TflE TUDORS AND STUART'S 
 
 inent and dissensions were the scourge of their 
 vassals, the Irish people could have lived in 
 security hitherto unknown ; the masses certainly 
 were not unfriendly disposed towards the English 
 Sovereign. 
 
 It may be admitted, before the blight of 
 foreign intervention in and for Ireland fell for 
 the first time upon her relations with Great 
 Britain, the revolt of Shane O'Neill had some- 
 what disturbed this general feeling. But the 
 victory of Sidney had at once won back for the 
 unfortunate country order and peace. Indeed, 
 the truce lasted for ten years. That it could 
 have been for ten times ten years ! 
 
 Sir, it was the curse of Papal interference, of 
 Papal interest in Irish ascendency for the better 
 destruction, not so much of the English in Ire- 
 land, as of the Protestant British Monarchy 
 which threw the Emerald Isle in the whirlpool 
 of endless, useless, deadly revolts and wars. 
 England only when the floods of Spanish, of 
 French, of Italian invasion by the way of Ire- 
 land threatened to drown the English lion; 
 when the Pope hurled his anathemas at her 
 Sovereign, and sent his emissaries to poison, to 
 assassimts her; when Jesuitic, when Dominican 
 Catholicism saw in the Insh people a tool, a
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS AND STUARTS 143 
 
 lever for overthrowing the heretic Nation ; when 
 2,000 papal soldiers, headed by a Legate, landed 
 on the Irish shores and entrenched themselves 
 in the fort of Smerwick, exciting by bulls and 
 vituperations the sons of Erin to perpetrate on 
 the British intruders an Irish St. Bartholomew's 
 day England only then abandoned her policy of 
 conciliation for rigorous measures in her self- 
 defence. For had not the Earl of Desmond risen 
 to hail the arrival of her arch-foes ? 
 
 From that moment England was justified in 
 whatever precautions she took for the purpose of 
 checking the Irish. She dared no longer waste 
 her energies in endeavours to win them for civilisa- 
 tion ; henceforth she had to combat in the sons of 
 Erin her most bitter, her most dangerous enemies, 
 the more dangerous because of their constant close 
 proximity. The attack of the Pope, and the 
 almost unceasing revolts of the Earl of Tyrone, in- 
 stigated by Rome and Spain, showed her con- 
 clusively that an Ireland free, an Ireland in- 
 dependent, likely to be rent by the savage feuds of 
 its clans and chieftains, would become for all her 
 foes abroad the 'place d'armes,' a gate of sally 
 against her. 
 
 Sir, for this reason the colonisation of Ulster 
 was a wise, it was a politic, a patriotic, a vitally 
 
 L
 
 144 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS AND STUARTS 
 
 necessary act. The Irish, conspiring with and 
 harbouring the enemies of England, thus con- 
 tinually threatening her flank : the plantation of 
 Ulster with stalwart, doughty Britons, loyal unto 
 death to the country which thus confided in their 
 valour: erected an almost impregnable entrench- 
 ment against the flank of the Irish. Indeed, 
 the subsequent history, the episode of London- 
 derry proved the all-importance of this colonisa- 
 tion; for not England's foreign enemies alone 
 were welcomed by the sons of Erin ; the tyrants 
 of Great Britain, her bitterest foes at home 
 found ready support there. But is it necessary 
 to unfold the tale of James II. 's connection 
 with Ireland, that sickening story of hypocrisy, 
 treachery and cruel guilt, in which an English 
 king strove to subject his brave people by the 
 help of a Louis XIV. and of Irish savagery 
 inflamed by Jesuitic fanaticism ? Or is it neces- 
 sary to recall the scenes of horror and outrage 
 that were enacted within the sanguinary period 
 from Charles I. to James II. JS"o, sir, you dare 
 not, you cannot deny it ; Cromwell's masterful 
 rule, his conquest of the Emerald Isle, yet by 
 which, with but one exception, 'not a single 
 Irishman was killed, unless he had been met in 
 arms ; ' it is extenuated, if extenuation were
 
 CEOMWELL AND THE IRISH MASSACRE 145 
 
 needed, by the Irish rising, by the massacre in 
 1641, undoubtedly designed for the extirpation 
 of the Scots and English aye, Cromwell's retri- 
 bution is more than extenuated, it was vitally 
 necessary, it was the just punishment, in truth 
 the too lenient chastisement for outrages such 
 as the Irish history, the history of the world has 
 happily not often to record, if at all ; it was for 
 massacres ' where thousands of English people 
 perished in a few days, some of whom, though 
 innocent, were burned on set purpose ; others 
 drowned for sport and pastime, many of whom 
 were buried quick, and some set into the earth 
 breast high, and there left to famish.' Where 
 husbands were cut to pieces in the presence of 
 their wives, their children's brains dashed out 
 before their eyes ; their daughters brutally 
 violated, and driven out naked to perish, frozen 
 in the woods.' 
 
 Sir, verily, such were the deeds of the Irish 
 from the commencement of their history ; and 
 yet you hurl your execrations at your country- 
 men, the English ; yet you will fling back the 
 uncanny sons of Erin into the night of their 
 former barbarism and savagery! Is it that 
 thereby you hope the better to injure your 
 country? Is it that you expect an Irish anarchy 
 
 i 2
 
 146 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS AND STUARTS 
 
 will be sure to destroy Great Britain with the 
 aid of her foreign foes ? Your enemies say that 
 if there could still be any doubt as to the 
 hatred you bear England, Irish history at the 
 end of the eighteenth, and during the nineteenth 
 centuries will for ever remove it. Indeed, 
 nationes possunt nihil riser e pejus.
 
 TENTH LETTER 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE GEORGES, UNDER 
 
 WILLIAM, AND IN THE VICTORIAN ERA 
 
 WITH A VIEW TO HOME RULE
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIE, For nearly a hundred years Ireland 
 ceased to be a continual source of political 
 danger to Great Britain. This comparative 
 security was mainly due to her rigorous govern- 
 ment of the sister isle. It is true, the measures 
 taken by England for the preservation of order 
 among the ill-starred Irish people were not such 
 as were likely to foster love between the in- 
 habitants of the two countries. But did the 
 Irish deserve the favours of an unreasonable 
 nay, under the then circumstances, pernicious 
 sentimentality of the Nation ? 
 
 You have seen an Ireland free and inde- 
 pendent implied the certain ruin of England, 
 brought about by the coalition of her foreign 
 foes with the sons of Erin. Again, a peaceful 
 affiliation with Great Britain was rendered im- 
 possible by the jealousy both of the Irish 
 chieftains and the descendants of the barons of
 
 150 IRELAND UNDER THE GEORGES 
 
 the Pale. Not less were Popery and the Irish 
 priesthood opposed to a Union betwixt the two 
 peoples. England could not but be dangerous 
 to them on account of her higher civilisation, 
 and must have been loathsome for her * heresy.' 
 It was only natural that the clergy should look 
 with vivid apprehension upon any possible 
 rapprochement between the two countries which 
 would have diminished, if not utterly destroyed 
 their own political and social power, gained 
 under the guise of sacerdotal administrations to 
 Irish superstition. Moreover, had not history 
 proved that when driven to despair by the 
 savage feuds amongst themselves and the cruel 
 oppression on the part of their chieftains, then 
 the Irish people could apply to the British kings 
 for protection ; yet, as soon as there was a lull 
 in the turmoil of clannish factions, that the}'- im- 
 mediately replied with atrocities to the friendly 
 overtures and kindnesses bestowed upon them 
 by the English sovereigns ? Thus, what else was 
 left for England to do than to treat the Emerald 
 Isle as a conquered land? Such a policy was 
 politically wise nay, it was her vital duty to pur- 
 sue it with all energy, though, no doubt, it may 
 have been anything but sentimental or Glad- 
 stonian. Froude has well expressed this her
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE GEORGES 151 
 
 necessity : only by England being deliberately 
 determined to keep Ireland poor she might hope 
 to prevent it from being troublesome. Also, the 
 hardships which such a system could not fail to 
 inflict upon the people were less burdensome 
 than it appears now to its ' refined ' critics. The 
 peasantry of those times, thanks to their chief- 
 tains and spiritual advisers, in nature half savage, 
 in culture and education at a very low degree, 
 would not miss so much the comforts of an 
 advancing civilisation. 
 
 Sir, it was part of this obligatory policy that 
 England should lay upon Irish commerce and 
 manufactures certain restrictions. 
 
 No doubt, Britain's prohibition of cattle ex- 
 portation from Ireland dealt a severe blow to 
 the prosperity of that ill-advised country. Nor 
 can it be denied that the Act passed against the 
 importation into England of wool and woollen 
 cloth from the Emerald Isle was even the direct 
 cause of a vast amount of poverty and distress, 
 chiefly amongst the people in the south of Ire- 
 land. Not less iniquitous, considering the 
 backward state of Irish agriculture, were the 
 differential duties and the disabilities by which 
 the English Government endeavoured to control 
 its growth. But, though the exclusion of Ire-
 
 152 IRELAND UNDER THE GEORGES 
 
 land from the advantages of the Navigation 
 Laws unmistakably closed to the Irish people 
 many a source of income, if not actually of 
 wealth, it would have been against good policy 
 to allow them the construction and accumulation 
 of a fleet ; to permit them to hoard up treasures 
 which, as their antecedents evidenced, they were 
 only too well inclined to put at the disposal of 
 any enemy of Great Britain that might solicit 
 their support. 
 
 In justification of the Penal Laws or so- 
 called ' Papist Code ' there were, however, if 
 possible, even stronger reasons to be advanced. 
 The various massacres by the Irish, and the 
 repeated revolts of English Jacobites and Ultra- 
 montanes, almost always, with but a few ex- 
 ceptions, set aflame by Jesuitic fanaticism, fur- 
 nished a powerful plea for the enactment of 
 regulations most likely to crush, as it was then 
 thought, that hydra of discontent in its breed- 
 ing-place. Above all, Catholicism itself in its 
 principal dogmas of faith deadly intolerant, and 
 in its own history constantly appearing as a 
 religious body that persecuted (and persecutes) 
 any non-conformer to even the most insignificant 
 of its priestly teachings not only in this world, 
 but beyond the grave provoked such reci-
 
 IEELAND UNDER THE GEORGES 153 
 
 procal treatment by the outrages it committed. 
 And, sir, what Home, what the Vatican is, your 
 disquisitions on ' Vaticanism ' and the ' Vatican 
 Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance' 
 sufficiently prove that you do not ignore. For 
 is it not you who has written : ' No more cunning 
 plot was ever devised against the freedom, the happi- 
 ness, and the virtue of mankind than Romanism ? ' 
 
 Now, such was the policy by which Ireland 
 was governed, and such were the motives for 
 that policy. If it did not bring forth much 
 good, still it prevented at least greater evils. 
 Moreover, not Ireland alone was dealt with in 
 that manner. Against Scotland, too, that system 
 was employed. It was the then current practice 
 of the governments towards rash nations and 
 doubtful, though all-important dependencies. 
 
 To charge England with mistrust, iniquity 
 and cruelty, was therefore at that time utterly 
 unfair and unjustifiable. To do so now, sir, is 
 in a British statesman criminal, nay, most un- 
 natural conduct. For so far from persistently 
 prosecuting such a policy for at least a full cen- 
 tury, Great Britain retraced her steps in spite of 
 the historical lessons and sanguinary warnings 
 she had received; the British Government, it
 
 154 IRELAND UXDER THE GEORGES 
 
 resumed the lenient policy of a Henry II., an 
 Edward ILL, and a Henry VIII. That the Eng- 
 lish Nation, that its ministers had been more 
 consistent ! How advantageous it would have 
 been to England, and how beneficent to the 
 Irish. 
 
 Sir, as it is, instead of opposing an unalter- 
 able, unswerving, energetic and prompt govern- 
 ment to ruffianism and lawlessness, England 
 now began rapidly to glide downward upon her 
 fatal course of making concessions to intimi- 
 dation, not of a whole people, but from a club 
 of turbulent, discontented demagogues and prole- 
 tarians, partly not unlike those who followed a 
 Catiline, partly resembling the thirty tyrants of 
 Athens. 
 
 Lord Charlemont and my Lord Eockingham 
 were the first who, in deference to Irish factious 
 clamours, abandoned the only true and whole- 
 some policy of principle, firmness and fixed pur- 
 pose for ' opportunism.' On them the lawless 
 organisations and secret societies, so notorious 
 
 o 
 
 afterwards, tried for the first time their odious 
 system of boycotting and moonlighting organi- 
 sations, such as the 'Heart of Oak Boys' and espe- 
 cially the ' Whiteboys,' who, ' without any means 
 or desire to take any steps of practical benefit to
 
 ERA OF IRISH PARLIAMENTARY ' INDEPENDENCE '155 
 
 themselves, houghed cattle, levelled inclosures, 
 broke up roads, murdered landlords and their 
 agents, and ill-treated, many times under shock- 
 ing atrocities, their wives and children.' 
 
 This pernicious policy of ' expedients ' and 
 concessions, it rapidly bore evil fruit. 
 
 In the crisis of the American struggle, when 
 England seemed on . the brink of ruin, Ireland 
 turned on her. When France was contemplating 
 an invasion of Great Britain, when Spain and 
 Holland joined the former to help the Americans 
 towards the destruction of the English, Ireland 
 unfurled the banner of rebellion. But this time, 
 the Irish danger came even from a worse, an 
 unexpected quarter. It was mostly Protestant 
 Ireland that rounded on England, and alack ! 
 once more she was weak enough to submit to 
 threats and factious clamours. The baneful 
 effect of this unfortunate event was 
 
 The Era of Irish Parliamentary ' Independence? 
 
 This independence consisted in the sudden 
 ascendency of an Irish Parliament, tyrannical, 
 oligarchic, capricious, rapacious and iniquitous. 
 It meant a substitution of 'parliamentary under-
 
 156 ERA OP IRISH PARLIAMENTARY ' INDEPENDENCE * 
 
 takers ' and l proletarian agitators ' for the des- 
 potism of the Irish chieftains, and the 'lording' 
 of the barons of the Pale of former times. It 
 furnished another illustration, if proof were 
 needed, that ' if ever there was a country unfit to 
 govern itself, it is Ireland. A corrupt aristocracy, 
 a ferocious commonalty, a distracted government, 
 a divided people 1 ' 
 
 Comprising the representatives and nominees 
 of a narrow-minded, egotistical and demoralised 
 oligarchy, its members, unrestrained as they 
 were, naturally glutted themselves with the 
 spoils of a misguided country. Indeed, the 
 only check to their despotism, a check which 
 had been of some benefit, and which consisted 
 in the connection of Ireland with England, in 
 the subordination of its policy to the English 
 Privy Council the pusillanimity of my Lord 
 Eockingham had removed upon the intimida- 
 tion of the Volunteers. Thus it came to pass 
 that for eighteen years the Irish Parliament 
 at Stephen's Green ruled supreme, and that 
 Ireland was independent ; independent as re- 
 gards political independence of England, but 
 the Irish themselves being more than ever en- 
 slaved by a few noble families. Do not the 
 names of the Hills, the Ponsonbys and the
 
 EEA OF IRISH PARLIAMENTARY INDEPENDENCE ' 15 
 
 Beresfords recall the O'Neills and O'Connors, 
 the Bourkes and Fitzgeralds, the Butlers and 
 Geraldines, the De la Poers and Fitzpatricks ? 
 
 But why conjure up an awful past for the 
 purpose of comparing its horrors with the 
 iniquities of more recent times ? The Parlia- 
 ment at Stephen's Green deserved only too well 
 the early, ignominious death to which its in- 
 justice had doomed it from the first. Had it 
 lived longer, but a few years; in its ruin it 
 would have involved the utter ruin of the Irish 
 people, notwithstanding that it passed several, 
 under the then conditions, very liberal Acts in 
 favour of the Catholic population of the country. 
 In fact, if naught else, its insidious conduct 
 regarding the Kegency Bill proved conclusively 
 the almost fatal danger of its existence. This 
 was evidenced, the Nation recognised it, when 
 the Irish impetuously claimed the Eegency for 
 the Prince of Wales, better known as George IV., 
 against the direct resolution of both the British 
 Houses of Parliament, the Lords and Commons. 
 Thenceforth it could no longer be doubted that 
 no matter whether the majority of the Irish 
 Legislature were Catholic or Protestant, their 
 ultimate aim, the goal of their hopes, the idol of 
 their ambitions was complete separation.
 
 158 GLADSTONE IRISH INDEPENDENCE AND PITT 
 
 Sir, that you could but have acted upon the 
 lessons of English and of Irish history ! You could 
 never have lifted the veil of oblivion which time 
 mercifully and wisely throws over the ruins of mans, 
 of governments' evil institutions that once were, as 
 in its gigantic march it passes by them. You 
 would never have dared to plunge poor Ireland anew 
 into the whirlpool of faction and perhaps civil war, 
 and your unhappy England in commotion and end- 
 less turmoil. Having seen how in turns the clannish 
 feuds and the tyranny of the chieftains; the English- 
 Irish aristocrats ; Jesuitism and Priesthood had 
 lain like a blight upon the Emerald Isle you would 
 not attempt now to revive the curse of ' indepen- 
 dence ' for Ireland, an independence which must 
 deliver that betrayed country into the claws of 
 ' Walshite-Inquisition,' or to the tender mercies of 
 plutocratic dictators and mobocratic fanatics, of 
 proletarian ' doctrinaires? of a clique of lawyers 
 under the various leaderships of Healyites and 
 Redmondites. But the beacons of history, to you 
 they seem distorted by the night of prejudice 
 and passions. To you applies : 
 
 Gefahrlich ist's den Leu zu wecken, 
 
 Verderblich ist des Tigers Zahn ; 
 Doch das Schrecklichste der Schrecken, 
 
 Das ist der Mensch in seinem "NYalm.
 
 PITT 159 
 
 A Pitt, for you in vain he has lived, suffered 
 and died in the service of the United Kingdom. 
 And yet, where is the people, patriotic, civilised, 
 that remains unmoved by the history of this 
 Statesman ? Where is the people, subjected in 
 economical or political dependence of another 
 nation, that would not hail in him a deliverer ? 
 Aye, whilst the hurricane of faction was once 
 more gathering over Ireland to hurl its unfortu- 
 nate population into the abyss of anarchism, 
 was not the sun of Pitt rapidly ascending on the 
 political horizon of Great Britain, a sign of 
 peace and goodwill ? Must not the sons of 
 Erin, blinded though they were by fanaticism, 
 have beheld with hopeful expectation the rain- 
 bow of his reflection as it vaulted over the 
 Emerald Isle ? That he had never sunk under 
 the inevitable irresistible march of time and 
 nature ! Or, that the spirit of that Statesman 
 could return once more and pass amongst the 
 Nation ! In the sight of him, a warmer, a more 
 sincere friend than ivhom Ireland never had 
 and never shall have, may be, the Briton would 
 yet tarry to betray the Briton. Great Britain 
 might yet be stayed in her fatal course towards 
 disintegration, towards self-destruction by Pitt, the 
 immortal author of 
 
 M
 
 160 PITT AND THE ACT OF UNIOX 
 
 The Act of Union. 
 
 Sir, long before the consummation of this 
 greatest achievement of statecraft, Pitt had laid 
 the foundations for the growth of a new Nation 
 out of the two misguided peoples. He effected 
 a thorough reform of the commercial and in- 
 dustrial legislation. He also overthrew many 
 of the barriers of religious disabilities against 
 which Irish Catholic discontent was surging 
 higher and higher. Indeed, a spirit of revolt 
 was abroad. The times were full of perils. He 
 had to ask himself the question : Could England 
 weather the storm with a mutinous Ireland on 
 board ? Though aware of the failures of former 
 policies of conciliation, Statesman as he was, he 
 thought, by the aid of an advancing civilisation, 
 he might once more try peaceful means, especially 
 under auspices which in spite of the turmoil of 
 the epoch were then more favourable than ever 
 before. He hoped, not unreasonably, that Ire- 
 land free, that is, placed upon a footing of 
 economical equality with Britain, might yet obey 
 the hint of nature as to its geographical position, 
 climate, soil and resources, and recognise that
 
 PITT AND THE ACT OP UNION 161 
 
 its real advantage lay in a close and friendly co- 
 operation, in an alliance with England. He be- 
 lieved in a possible ' union of hearts,' begotten 
 by the solidarity between the two peoples. 
 Above all, his were legislative measures that 
 neither threats nor corruption had wrung from 
 the British Government, but which were volun- 
 tary Acts, passed in the first instance for the 
 benefit of Ireland, which could therefore easily 
 and justly be suspended, if the sons of Erin should 
 use them to the detriment of the English. 
 
 Sir, you know in this, his premises were 
 correct ; his policy was sound ; though the abo- 
 lition of the Dublin Parliament had not yet 
 .entered into the sphere of his actions for the ad - 
 vantage of the sister isle. However, he should 
 soon recognise the necessity of a complete union 
 of Ireland with England. Events which turned 
 the Emerald Isle into a hell, should bestir him 
 to cut off at least that one source of continual 
 agitation and danger ; the infamously famous 
 parliamentary ' independence.' 
 
 You know these events and the evils arishi" 1 
 
 t5 
 
 'from them; they happened when the waves of 
 the great revolution in France broke over her 
 borders and rolled westward and northward. 
 Turbulent as they were by nature, superstitious, 
 
 M 2
 
 362 IRELAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 credulous of falsehood, prone to violence, eager 
 for change ; it was to be expected that the Irish 
 would be seized by the floods of this French 
 revolution. 
 
 Moreover, the British Government had shown 
 leniency, even culpable lukewarmness in re- 
 pressing mobocratic outbreaks. The conspiracy 
 of the United Irishmen with Eepublican France ; 
 the attempt of General Lazare Hoche to in- 
 vade Great Britain by way of Ireland, were the 
 natural answer to this British weakness, or un- 
 timely misplaced indulgence. Yet these events 
 proved to be but the mere prelude to the storm 
 that ravaged the Emerald Isle a few years after. 
 They were only the murmurs of the storm 
 which, as the months passed by, swelled into 
 one of the most fiendish rebellions ever known, 
 and which reached its climax when General 
 Humbert disembarked with a French force at 
 Killala. 
 
 Sir, the English, Great Britain, the Empire 
 at last understood the lessons which Fate thus 
 wrote for her with a gory hand. Notwithstand- 
 ing the stubborn, the determined opposition of 
 the ' BoroughmongersJ the Act of Union was 
 finally passed. Their resistance was a sheer ques- 
 tion of gold ; the peace and prosperity of the
 
 THE ACT OP UNION 163 
 
 two countries, henceforth to be one, seemed 
 well worth the one and a half million which 
 the Government spent to glut their cupidity. 
 
 Can you deny it ? Commerce between the 
 two peoples was now completely freed from all 
 and every restriction, and all trading privileges 
 of the one country thrown open to the other ; 
 whilst the benefits of the English law were to 
 become Irish property, the glory and prosperity 
 of the Empire to extend their blessings to both 
 the Irish and the English, and the taxation 
 necessary for the maintenance of the States- 
 household to be distributed proportionally be- 
 tween the two. 
 
 One project, it is true, one essential part of 
 reform remained as yet unrealised. Both the 
 Presbyterians and the middle, the better class of 
 Irish Catholicism had still to be fully emanci- 
 pated. Pitt had commenced this task. He had 
 endeavoured to obtain for them unqualified, un- 
 limited franchise and citizenship. His plan, 
 however, was wrecked on the stubbornness of 
 George III. The King, certainly not without 
 reason, mistrusted any such measure, lest the 
 priests, whose dangerous, aye, almost fatal power 
 the Government had felt more than once before, 
 should gain anew too great an ascendency
 
 1G4 PITT AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 
 
 which might become ruinous to England, to 
 the Empire. Moreover, Irish Catholicism was 
 utterly uneducated, it may be admitted partly 
 through the fault of the British ; but to judge 
 from the comparative low civilisation of purely 
 Catholic countries in Europe and elsewhere, it was 
 hardly likely to become educationally improved 
 under Homish priest-rule. Xor were reasons 
 wanting for the King's apprehensions of the 
 Presbyterians. The history of the Covenant, their 
 overbearing factious temper in the Cromwellian 
 era could not but provoke grave doubts in their 
 moderation and tolerance. In fact, Pitt himself 
 seemed in the course of events to have less and 
 less approved of the sweeping reform in favour 
 of Papists and Dissenters, though it was he who 
 at one time had endeavoured to force its prin- 
 ciples upon the King. He certainly began to 
 question the wisdom of having thrown it on the 
 Xation, almost as it were on a sudden. Be it 
 too, that he had no longer the same opportu- 
 nities as previously. When he was once more 
 returned to power, he did not immediately re- 
 sume the solution of that thorny question, and 
 even if so inclined, before he had time to take 
 up the final measure, death stayed his glorious 
 career.
 
 PITT AND GLADSTONE 165 
 
 Sir, the Nation lost in him her great pilot 
 through the turbulent, through the treacherous 
 sea of nameless, endless Irish and Irish-English 
 difficulties, difficulties which his statecraft had 
 reduced to the smallest possible minimum ; diffi- 
 culties which you have increased since not only 
 a hundred, but a thousandfold. 
 
 Sirrah ! can you wonder if the patriots ask 
 themselves how you will stand on the day of 
 trial when face to face with him whose heart 
 beat to the last for naught else than for England's, 
 for Great Britain's, nay for Ireland's good and 
 welfare ? Sirrah, must you not tremble as to 
 how you shall plead then and there, when con- 
 fronted, before the immortal Pitt, with your 
 Home Eule scheme that appears in the eyes of 
 the Briton of the nations abroad to be an 
 act,' a proposal, a plot, revolutionary, traitorous, 
 criminal, what ! unnatural ? Sirrah, how will 
 you answer him, you a British Statesman 
 who not only attempt to destroy his monumental 
 work ; you who not only betray the prayers and 
 labours, the solemn pledges and sacrifices of 
 centuries ; but who dare to do so without cause 
 or reason ? 
 
 Indeed, without necessity, without occasion, 
 without the least justification, in so far as the
 
 166 CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION COMPLETED 
 
 ideas of the great Pitt were not buried with his 
 mortal remains, but, on the contrary, lived, 
 grew and bore fruit, as it were, within one 
 season, and worthy of the root whence they had 
 sprung. In fact, the full emancipation of the 
 Catholics was soon to be effected. Not that the 
 policy against them had been a severe one in 
 the eighteenth century. No, ' already before 
 the middle of that age the laws against Catholic 
 worship were virtually obsolete, and before its 
 close the Parliament had become the most tole- 
 rant in Europe.' Catholics, politically, how- 
 ever, were still without the rights of full citizen- 
 ship ; at the time of the Act of Union the 
 moment for the passing of such a measure had 
 not yet matured. But it was maturescent. It 
 required only a few more years for its full 
 development. You know how rapidly these 
 went by. Already in 1829 all the principles of 
 such emancipation were formulated. In that 
 year they became law. And with it was re- 
 moved the only grievance which might have 
 been alleged as some sort of excuse for the dis- 
 content of several sections of the Irish popu- 
 lation, though not even the most rigorous 
 enactments against Popery could ever palliate 
 the crimes that in the name of religion, of re-
 
 THE ACT OF UNION AND IRISH OLIGARCHY 167 
 
 ligious disability, have been committed in the 
 Emerald Isle by Jesuitism and fanaticism. 
 
 But, sir, to give here a record of all these 
 gory acts, is it desirable ? Nothing corrupts 
 more than vice and crime ; they spread like an 
 epidemic. Already a mere mention of them 
 works mischief. Nor need the rebellion of 
 Eobert Emmett as usual, beginning with a 
 murder, the assassination of Lord Kilwarden, 
 Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench be par- 
 ticularly considered here. The real point at 
 issue, be it at once stated, is the fact that the 
 period which elapsed from the passage of the 
 Act of Union until the ever unhappy moment 
 when you began to take an interest in Ireland 
 was, considering the conditions of the country 
 and the character of its population an epoch 
 of improvement, and, but for the Secret Socie- 
 ties, it would have been an era full of hopeful 
 augury for the healthy development and pros- 
 perous contentment of the Emerald Isle. 
 
 It is true, and to mention it should be most 
 interesting at the present juncture, in 1810 the 
 Protestant Corporation of Dublin resolved unani- 
 mously to present a petition for the repeal of 
 the Union. But it was only natural that the 
 memory of their happy days under Irish ' inde-
 
 168 THE ACT OF UNION AND IRISH DEMAGOGUES 
 
 pendence ' should bias their policy. It is true 
 that seventeen years later, under the direction 
 of the priesthood and the Catholic Association, 
 with the aid of spiritual and physical intimi- 
 dation, O'Connell, the Eepealer and Eepublican, 
 was returned a member of the County of Clare. 
 But did not the ' emancipation ' of their flock 
 promise them the supremacy over Ireland when 
 once more ' independent ' ? Thus, what do 
 these events prove, if proof were still needed, 
 after the previous recapitulation of Irish his- 
 tory ? Do they not indict you, the author of 
 two Home Eule Bills, in their cause and effect 
 establishing the ' Irish Anarchy ' ? Do they 
 not impeach you for high treason against Eng- 
 land, the Empire ; for criminal treachery against 
 the Emerald Isle itself? Do they not stand 
 forth as irrefutable evidence that Pitt's Act of 
 Union, if firmly carried out, would in the course 
 of years have struck the deathblow to the des- 
 potism of oligarchic factions, to the tyranny of 
 lawless rabble, which for centuries had devas- 
 tated the island, no matter whether they were 
 Protestants or Catholics? For why else their 
 factious onslaughts ? 
 
 It is true there was also a famine. It ravaged 
 the Emerald Isle in a manner no country had
 
 THE FAMINE 169 
 
 ever before experienced, when death, absolute 
 starvation of strong men and women and chil- 
 dren were things daily and hourly to be told. 
 But what were its causes ? Did they originate 
 in the Act of Union? You know they were 
 fivefold ; yet could a single one be traced to the 
 Union ? 
 
 The Famine. Its Causes. 
 
 No, sir, in the first instance there was the 
 pernicious policy of the Irish Legislature that 
 enacted regulations for the plantation of and 
 commerce in corn, thereby forcing Nature, which 
 had made Ireland, with its damp climate, a 
 country ill-adapted for the production of any 
 cereal crop. Unfortunately, favoured, for a time 
 by the high war prices during the Eepublican, 
 the Napoleon epoch, the only too eager adop- 
 tion of such an economical expedient could not 
 fail to lead in its turn to an unnatural multipli- 
 cation of small holdings ; the second cause. 
 Could it be otherwise than that this again 
 should beget the third cause, in so far that 
 when after the battle of Waterloo the high war 
 prices fell, as it were, on a sudden ; when the 
 bounty system was abandoned ; when thus the
 
 170 THE FAMINE 
 
 cultivation of cereals, to the growth of which 
 climate and soil were already hostile, was no 
 longer not only not profitable, but did not fur- 
 nish the means of bare subsistence that then 
 the peasants were driven from their holdings by 
 sheer want, and the labourers thrown out of 
 employment by tens of thousands ? 
 
 Yet even under such conditions their mate- 
 rial, and with it their moral and political 
 position would again have improved under the 
 eegis of the privileges of the Act of Union, not- 
 withstanding that the Irish soil was henceforth 
 turned into large tracts of pasturage and num- 
 berless potato-fields. In fact, they did some- 
 what improve, though as yet more spasmodically. 
 But they would have done so permanently, had it 
 not been for the Secret Societies ; the fourth cause. 
 For it was they who actually kept Ireland within 
 the vicious circle of evils, producing and repro- 
 ducing each other. Thus, turmoil and conspira- 
 cies begetting anxiety, lawlessness, and insecurity ; 
 insecurity want of capital ; want of capital pro- 
 ducing want of employment ; want of employment 
 creating misery and turbulence ; this turbulence 
 again causing more anxiety and commercial 
 insecurity; which insecurity naturally prevented 
 the introduction and accumulation of capital.
 
 ITS CAUSES 171 
 
 Therefore, until security could be given, no capi- 
 tal would be invested, hence there could be no 
 employment, such enforced idleness begetting, in 
 its turn, new vices and excesses. 
 
 To this baneful influence of the Precursor 
 Whiteboys Catholic and Eepeal Associations 
 came the effects of a fifth cause : sir, the over- 
 growth, the almost phenomenal, the unhealthy, the 
 abnormal overgrowth in the population of Ire- 
 land, an overgrowth such as no rich state 
 could have borne for a length of time without 
 great distress, far less an island in natural 
 resources already so poor as the Emerald 
 Isle. 
 
 Thus, the Irish, the Irish alone were mostly 
 responsible for the famine. It was : that the 
 curse of the Secret Societies had already devas- 
 tated the island when the potato blight fell upon 
 the unprepared, the distracted, the betrayed 
 country. 
 
 Indeed, that cruel visitation, so far from cast- 
 ing any blame on Great Britain, it showed con- 
 clusively that Ireland left to herself would be, 
 even physically, doomed to ruin. 
 
 The truth is : the Black Year, it demon- 
 strated clearly, indisputably, that not only the 
 famine did not originate, in its first cause, in
 
 172 THE FAMINE AND MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 the Act of Union, but that if the Emerald Isle 
 had been severed from the mother isle in the 
 hour of its trial starvation, pestilence, vice and 
 civil war would have effaced for ever its mis- 
 guided population from the earth. And if it 
 were not for considerations of humanity, for 
 strategical reasons, for the express dictates of 
 Nature that wished, by placing the two islands 
 side by side, their two peoples to work together 
 harmoniously and to supplement each other's 
 deficiencies, yet so that the more rich, the more 
 powerful, the more gifted, the more populous 
 should take the lead in their joint pioneering 
 march towards civilisation there are some who 
 would hold that those who attack you on ac- 
 count of your Home Eule Bills are in reality 
 England's greatest enemies. If it were not for 
 those reasons, there are even patriots who would 
 call you England's truest friend, and not at all 
 unreasonably on the contrary, very justifiably, 
 inasmuch as by repealing the Act of Union and 
 creating the Irish Anarchy, you abandon the 
 Emerald Isle to certain destruction by its own 
 population ; thus would deliver Great Britain 
 from a danger which thanks to her opportu- 
 nistic, ' conciliatory ' policy, is menacing more 
 and more her very existence.
 
 THE FAMINE AND ENGLAND 173 
 
 The Famine and England. 
 
 But, as it then happened, England did not 
 desert the daughter isle in the hour of tribu- 
 lation. 
 
 Ah, you may have forgotten it ! It is not 
 surprising that the Irish caucus, the rabble and 
 oligarchic coterie, that your aiders and abettors 
 in the ruin of England, in the destruction of 
 Ireland, that the band of Irish demagogues in 
 the House of Commons, that they have forgotten 
 the noble, the self-denying part Great Britain 
 acted in that weird catastrophe ! Yet history, 
 posterity will remember how in the existence of 
 the Act of Union your country recognised at 
 once its moral obligation towards Ireland. They 
 will record how, for the sake of the Union, 
 England readily acknowledged her political 
 relation towards the Emerald Isle. They will 
 remember how your country gladly and ener- 
 getically fulfilled its material responsibility, 
 promptly alleviating the general misery, un- 
 swervingly endeavouring to remove its causes, 
 a responsibility which but for the Act of Union 
 would never have existed. Future ages must
 
 174 ENGLAND AND THE FAMINE 
 
 wonder how the hated, the calumniated, the per- 
 secuted, the repulsed, the ' alien ' England could 
 so strenuously exert herself to rescue the Irish 
 from the dreadful consequences of their own 
 wickedness. Indeed, inspired by the lofty ideas 
 of the Act of Union, your country did not recoil 
 from the tremendous task of feeding half the 
 population of Ireland, over 3,000,000, an under- 
 taking such as had never before been carried out 
 in the world's history. The British buried the 
 wrongs and insults and injuries they had re- 
 ceived from the sons of Erin ; every man and 
 woman and child in the kingdom hastened to 
 help their ' Irish brethren.' All England sup- 
 ported the daughter isle, though all England 
 knew that the curse of Ireland that the Secret 
 Societies would repay her with rebellion, mutila- 
 tion and murder. For as to Irish gratitude ! 
 All England understood that the sons of Erin, 
 that the Irish people durst not be grateful ; the 
 tyranny of their demagogues prevented them. 
 How well this is shown amongst many others, in 
 the case of Forster, your Forster whose shades 
 you cannot desire to encounter on the day of 
 your trial ! Behold ! Forster, even he who was 
 so conspicuous amongst those who exerted them- 
 selves in the alleviation of the distress and de-
 
 IRISH GRATITUDE AND FORSTER 175 
 
 spair in Ireland, even he did not escape the 
 murderous attacks of Fenians and Moonlighters. 
 And why ? Because this, his very devotion to 
 the Irish people during the famine was a crime 
 against the agitators. It was a crime, inasmuch 
 as it naturally weakened the despotism of the 
 caucus of demagogues which they exercised by 
 spreading falsehoods against England, by terror- 
 ising Ireland. It was a crime in that it re- 
 strained them from trafficking in the misery of 
 their countrymen. His life was held to be for- 
 feited by the Fenians, Land Leaguers and 
 Dynamitards, because, whilst Chief Secretary in 
 the Emerald Isle, he strove to establish peace, and 
 to maintain the law the only means to make 
 the daughter isle prosperous, and its misguided 
 population for once contented, thus starving out 
 the ulcer of a clique of demagogues. 
 
 Improvement of Irish AJfairs. 
 
 Yet England, though her efforts were repaid 
 with the grossest ingratitude, she had the in- 
 ward satisfaction that under the aegis of the Act 
 of Union she had nobly performed her duty and 
 successfully. 
 
 H
 
 176 IMPROVEMENT IN IRISH AFFAIRS. O'CONNELL 
 
 Sir, even you who are notorious for per- 
 verting historical facts, even you would fail to 
 dispute that in spite of those factious commo 
 tions for the Eepeal of the Union, in spite of the 
 causes which led to the calamitous event of the 
 famine, in spite of that dreadful event itself 
 Ireland had improved her material affairs in the 
 course of years. Indeed, before that cruel 
 visitation, there was the beneficial administra- 
 tion of a Drummond, beneficial as to law and 
 order, thus beneficial for the general morals. 
 Xor could the repeal of the Navigation Laws, 
 the admission of Ireland to all the advantages of 
 British commerce be without salutary effects. 
 Thus, the Emerald Isle was before the famine 
 a decidedly improving country in respect of 
 production, notwithstanding the traitorous ac- 
 tions of the secret societies. Aye, the Irish 
 were even so far, socially, a contented people, 
 for what else indicates the significant statement 
 which O'Connell, the Eepublican and Eepealer 
 uttered at Youghal (1829) : ' / recollect when 
 we agitators were almost as much execrated by our 
 fellow-slaves (?) as ice (the agitators) were by our 
 oppressors (?) ' 
 
 But this improvement was even more pro- 
 mising after the Black Year. ' Ireland advanced
 
 COMMUTATION OF TITHES 177 
 
 more rapidly, and recovered from the condition 
 of almost total wreck more completely than any 
 other country would have done or has ever 
 done.' For the commutation of the tithe, the 
 last point in the ' Catholic grievance,' then 
 wrought the beneficial changes which had been 
 expected from the Act. And with great truth 
 has Lecky stated : ' The Irish Church, when it 
 was supported by tithes, was the most unpopular 
 ecclesiastical establishment in Europe. . . . 
 After the commutation of tithes nearly all 
 active hostility to it disappeared. The Church 
 question speedily became indifferent to the great 
 mass of the people ; the Protestant clergy were 
 a beneficent, and usually a popular element in 
 Irish society, and the measure which finally dis- 
 endowed them was much more due to the exigencies 
 of English party politics than to any genuine 
 pressure of Irish opinion." 1 Again, with the de- 
 crease of the population of Ireland, the number 
 of acres under cultivation increased in propor- 
 tion. Thus, whilst in 1841 there had been for 
 each individual of the rural population one and 
 eight-tenths of an acre, about twenty years after 
 there were two and a half to three acres for each 
 peasant. Favoured by Nature, this general im- 
 provement extended to the returns of the tillage 
 
 N2
 
 178 IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICULT 17EE 
 
 of the soil. The potato crop, the corn crop 
 produced in each successive year a larger quan- 
 tity than in the preceding, so that in 1868 the 
 potato harvest was estimated at 4,062,207 tons ; 
 the wheat produce at 954,818 quarters ; the oats 
 crop at 7,628,857. This general improvement 
 was not less visible in the rise of wages. As you 
 yourself testified in the speech by which you 
 introduced your first Land Bill up to the year 
 1860 and later on, there was a great and uni- 
 versal increase in the rate of wages throughout 
 Ireland, amounting in some places to 30 per 
 cent., in others to 50 per cent., and in some to 
 as much as 100 per cent. This improvement 
 included even the tenements of the Irish peasants, 
 in so far that the third- and fourth-class houses, 
 of which there were in 1841 491,278 and 533,297 
 respectively, gradually decreased, whereas the 
 number of the first and second class increased 
 in the same ratio. 
 
 English Land Policy in Ireland and Fenianism. 
 
 Sir, such was the general improvement, 
 solely the result of the beneficent advantages 
 which the provisions of the Act of Union had
 
 ENGLISH LAND POLICY IN IRELAND 170 
 
 conferred upon Ireland. Sir, such was the 
 general improvement in spite of certain factious 
 commotions. It needs no commentary. It shows 
 that if England had really neglected her pro- 
 tective policy towards the daughter isle in ages 
 gone by, the record of this amelioration in the 
 condition of the Irish since the Act of Union 
 would fully palliate all her former short- 
 comings. 
 
 Indeed, it proves that your country has been 
 almost too solicitous for the welfare of the 
 Emerald Isle. Behold, being induced by party 
 tricks, by false representations to believe that 
 there was another grievance, the Land Question, 
 which, unless it was settled according to the 
 pretensions of the demagogues, would always 
 stand hostile between the two peoples the 
 policy of Great Britain embarked even upon 
 that suicidal Land Legislation, by which it not 
 only again granted concessions to threats and 
 violence, but by which with the connivance of 
 a British Statesman, in fact upon his instigation, 
 the doctrine of spoliation and murder for political 
 ends was raised to a moral principle in politics. 
 For, though not yet fully developed by you, already 
 the very first Act, the Encumbered Estates Act, 
 purporting to redress this grievance : it was an
 
 180 ENGLAND'S IRISH LAND POLICY AXD FEXIANISM 
 
 Act of the grossest injustice ; it was the seed 
 whence all future troubles should grow. 
 
 No doubt it brought large tracts of heavily 
 mortgaged land within the reach of the farmer 
 in general. Yet it replaced the landlord's agent 
 by the middleman and moneylender ; it acted 
 thus demoralisingly upon the agricultural estate 
 itself. Instead of benefiting the poor peasant, 
 it introduced a new, a foreign element into the 
 class of landowners. Above all else, it hastened 
 and intensified the commercial ruin of hundreds 
 of old families, and resulted in their expulsion 
 from hearth and home. 
 
 However, it is unnecessary to dwell here 
 at great length on the proceedings of the En- 
 cumbered Estates Court or on Deasy's Act in 
 1860, the sequels of that first iniquitous measure 
 in the Land Eeform. 
 
 Nor need the rebellion of Smith O'Brien 
 or the conspiracy of Mitchel be particularly 
 mentioned here. They were the effects of that 
 policy, vacillating and without principle, now 
 imposing upon the country the Treason Felony 
 Act and suspending the Habeas Corpus Act; 
 now for the furtherance of British party politics 
 betravincr by unlimited concessions to the rabble 
 
 * O * 
 
 those who loyally defended the interests of the
 
 THE SADLEIR AND KEOGH BUBBLE 181 
 
 Empire. It was but natural that a policy such 
 as that, founded upon what might justly be called 
 a felony committed by a factiously biassed legis- 
 lative assembly, would result in felony and 
 renewed criminal agitation on the part of the 
 Irish, than to whom, next to a fair or a funeral, 
 nothing is dearer than a conspiracy or sanguinary 
 riot. 
 
 Neither could the bursting of the Sadleir 
 and Keogh bubble ' Sadleir and Keogh ! ' the 
 leaders of the first Irish Parliamentary clique in 
 the House of Commons come as a surprise. The 
 whole history of Ireland, from the dawn of his- 
 torical records to the present day, shows only 
 too clearly how easily the sons of Erin were 
 led at all times by impostors and swindlers and 
 traitors, no matter whether they appeared in 
 the gown of a priest or Jesuitic fanatic ; under 
 the guise of a deliverer or as the apostles of 
 dynamite. 
 
 Nor is it necessary to enlarge upon the in- 
 fluence which the revolutionary events that 
 happened abroad during the next twelve years 
 exercised upon the Irish demagogues. It would 
 have been unnatural in at least a large section 
 of the Irish if the July Revolution in France had 
 not found an echo amongst them. And when
 
 182 CHARACTERISTICS OF FEXIAXISif 
 
 the Indian Mutiny broke out, to men such, as 
 Stephens and O'Donovan Eossa, to the young 
 members of the Phoenix Club the Literary 
 Phoenix Club ! it must have seemed to afford 
 the most favourable opportunity for establishing, 
 upon the principles of French Anarchy and 
 Terrorism, an Irish Republic. The life-purpose 
 of Fenianism being destruction, they could not 
 fail at once to appreciate the chance of finally 
 ruining an Empire, by that Indian Mutiny already 
 shaken to its very foundations. 
 
 Sir, it is enough to know that Ireland was 
 again rolling into the all-devouring vortex of 
 faction ; that once more it fell into the claws of 
 a band of robbers and assassins, of criminals. 
 For even you cannot deny, even you cannot 
 pervert the fact that the Clan na Gael, the 
 Invincibles that Fenianism were and are such 
 and naught else. They represented no grievance. 
 They did not formulate or proffer reasonable 
 claims for consideration. They set up no ideal of 
 patriotism. Their aim was jlghting and blood- 
 shed. The daggers of their members were raised 
 against society indiscriminately. Revolution 
 animal communism being their ideal ; massacre, 
 as the best means to realise it, was the idol whom 
 they worshipped. Indeed, as to that part of Irish
 
 FEXIAXISM AXD MR. GLADSTONE 183 
 
 history, it is enough to know that the general 
 improvement in the economical affairs of Ireland 
 was henceforth checkmated as usual in the first 
 instance through factious violence and fiendish 
 conspiracies. 
 
 The interesting, the momentous part in this 
 new phase into which Irish history now enters, 
 its weird and lamentable characteristic, this it 
 is : that this change for the worse in the con- 
 dition of Ireland is mainly due to the perverse- 
 ness of a so-called British Statesman. Sir, this 
 is the most remarkable fact in the Irish-English 
 history of recent times, that the moonlighters, 
 the cattle mutilators, the assassins, the dyna- 
 mitards, the Land Leaguers, that the clique of 
 Irish demagogues in the House of Commons 
 truly representative of the most lawless rabble 
 that these sprang up under your patronage. 
 Indeed, this phenomenal feature in the new 
 development of Irish-English history ; it is all- 
 important that it be recorded, that it be ex- 
 amined. The Nation, the coming generations, 
 posterity ought to, they must learn how you 
 not only furnished those Fenians with the 
 means to organise against the laws of your 
 country, but actually forged and are forging for 
 them the very weapons wherewith to destroy 
 Great Britain.
 
 ELEVENTH LETTER
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 Sm, On March 30, 1868, opened this new 
 phase in the history of Ireland, which posterity 
 may well call the Irish Gladstonian era of 
 humiliation, surrender, affliction and treason, 
 and which you yourself have placed under the 
 symbol of an Upas Tree, whose branches it is 
 your fatal mission to cut off, the better to wound 
 the Nation and to poison the body politic. On 
 that day was enacted the first scene in the 
 unnatural drama : the dismemberment of the 
 Empire on that day was enacted the great 
 betrayal scene between 
 
 Mr. Gladstone and the Irish Church. 
 
 Sir, can you deny it though you knew 
 there were numerous important matters relating 
 to Scotland and England urgently requiring the 
 attention of the Legislature on March 30 you
 
 188 ME. GLADSTONE AND THE IRISH CHURCH 
 
 moved your famous resolutions which led to the 
 disestablishment of the Irish twin-sister of the 
 United Church that according to the fifth 
 article of the Act of Union ' was to be deemed 
 and taken to be an essential and fundamental part 
 of that Union ' ? On that day by three resolu- 
 tions you made the first move in your campaign 
 for the severance of the Emerald Isle from the 
 British Isle, for the disruption of the Empire. 
 
 It is true you then stated that, although 
 your measure might alter some of its provisions, 
 yet you would ' confidently contend that by it 
 you were confirming the general purport and 
 substance of that Act of Union.' It is likewise 
 admitted that the State's endowment of the 
 Church of the minority was ' equitably ' inde- 
 fensible, though the burden it had imposed upon 
 the majority had been removed; though the esta- 
 blishment was no longer felt since the commutation 
 of tithes. (Page 177.) 
 
 But the motive for the introduction of your 
 portentous measure it had not originated in your 
 strong sense of justice. The Act for the Dis- 
 establishment of the Irish Church had not been 
 suggested by considerations of equity, nor was it 
 effected by reasons of general policy. For, whilst 
 for twenty-five years in power you had never,
 
 LORD GEEY ON ME. GLADSTONE'S MOTIVES 189 
 
 not once, however feebly, raised your voice in 
 support of redressing any Irish ' grievance.' 
 On the contrary, as my Lord Beaconsfield 
 taunted you, you had during all this time never 
 done anything for Ireland but make speeches in 
 favour of the Irish Church.' 
 
 Sir, this your motive, in the first instance it 
 had sprung from party political considerations. 
 It originated in your supreme egotism. It was 
 the outcome of your unlimited ambition and 
 love of power. Indeed, how well it is said by 
 my Lord Grey, the liberal Lord Grey, t It was 
 not the welfare of the nation, but party interest 
 which seems to have guided the conduct of Mr. 
 Gladstone. The resolutions he brought forward 
 and the manner in which they were advocated 
 made all compromise impossible, and in the elec- 
 toral campaign when Parliament was dissolved 
 his speeches were calculated to inflame to the very 
 utmost the fierce party passions of the Roman 
 Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, and to kindle 
 a spirit of hatred against this country in the minds 
 of the Irish.' In the second instance it was a 
 concession to violence. For party purposes, for 
 personal advantages, for selfish considerations, 
 but also from cowardice, you surrendered to the 
 events which rapidly and naturally followed the
 
 190 ME. GLADSTONE'S IRISH CHURCH POLICY 
 
 announcement in February 1867 of the intention 
 of the then Government once more to try in Ireland 
 a forbearing policy, and restore to its population 
 the Habeas Corpus Act. It was a concession to 
 the events ichich immediately resulted there- 
 from : a concession to the murder of policemen 
 at Manchester by Fenians ; to the Irish plot to 
 seize the arsenal at Chester; to the Fenian 
 atrocity at the Clerkenwell Prison, when, in 
 broad daylight, in the midst of a crowd of 
 mothers and their children, Irish conspirators, 
 in the attempt to set two Fenian captives at 
 large, placed and exploded a barrel of gun- 
 powder, spreading mutilation and death amongst 
 more than a hundred innocent persons. In the 
 third instance you were goaded to that measure 
 by fury over the success of your rival Disraeli. 
 
 These were the causes which ' revived ' the 
 Irish Church Question, and brought it within 
 the range of practical politics. 
 
 Thus, your first move towards the settle- 
 ment of the Irish problem, if a problem there 
 was, bore within itself the curse of opportunism, 
 of selfishness, of iniquity. It proved, instead of 
 being a gospel of peace and goodwill, to be a 
 scourge upon the betrayed sons of Erin. It 
 was, as my Lord Derby exclaimed, ' a measure
 
 A CONCESSION TO FEN f IAN OUTKAGES 191 
 
 unjust, calculated to shake confidence in all 
 property, and to alienate those who had hitherto 
 been the firmest supporters of the British throne 
 and of British connection, and to stimulate to 
 fresh demands that portion, that violent portion of 
 the Roman Catholic population which looks for- 
 ward to ultimate emancipation from the control 
 of the British Legislature' By it you sowed the 
 seed of dragon's teeth, from which should 
 grow forth the assassins of my Lord Cavendish 
 and of Burke. It became so far from being a 
 settlement, as you and John Bright proclaimed, 
 * tending to a more true and solid union between 
 Ireland and Great Britain, giving tranquillity to 
 our people, greater strength to the realm, and 
 adding new dignity to the Crown ' the source 
 of all these fiendish commotions under which 
 the Emerald Isle, under which England sold by 
 you her ' Statesman,' have since been writhing 
 in the agony well nigh of despair. Indeed, the 
 curse which was inherent in that measure, it 
 affected even the administration under your 
 supervision of the provisions the Disestablish- 
 ment Bill contained ; it affected it in such a 
 manner that Disraeli could well say, ' The law 
 has been defeated, the Legislature baffled, the 
 country swindled.' ' And yet, however criminal 
 
 o
 
 192 MR. GLADSTONE'S IRISH CHURCH POLICY 
 
 in its motive, however iniquitous in some of its 
 principles, a just solution of this Irish Church 
 Question might have contributed to the welfare 
 of the Irish, of the Nation, if it had not been so 
 dastardly used for party purposes ! ' 
 
 The Fruits of Mr. Gladstones Irish Church Policy. 
 
 Sir As it is at the best an act of spoliation, 
 it was your first success in that perverse scheme 
 of yours to throw the millions of pounds with 
 which you have since endowed priestly tyranny, 
 Jesuitic inquisition and Fenian terrorism, as a 
 heavy debt upon your unhappy country. Could 
 it thus be otherwise than that 
 
 Once stept in guilt, once seen the worldly gain 
 Of theft, of robbery, of sin, 
 
 you should now rapidly roll down your fatal 
 course ? 
 
 Could it be otherwise than that the Dis- 
 establishment Bill should be followed by the 
 Irish Glebe Lands Bill, by which you would 
 have authorised loans from the spoils of the 
 Irish Church to assist in the purchase of glebes 
 and the erection of glebe houses for the Irish 
 Eoman Catholic clergy, a proposal of which
 
 EDUCATION AND THE ROMISH PRELATES 193 
 
 even Maguire, Maguire the first mover for Dis- 
 establishment, stated : that if the Government 
 had been so mad as to introduce the Bill at the 
 commencement of the Session, Scotland would 
 have been up in arms against it, but as it hap- 
 pened, it was a well-planned attempt to steal a 
 march upon Great Britain ? 
 
 Was it otherwise to be expected than that, 
 in answer to this your move ' for conciliating 
 Irish discontent,' the Romish Irish prelates 
 should, in 1871, issue a manifesto demanding de- 
 nominational education, or ' educational equality,' 
 as they termed it, in imitation of the phrase 
 you used when speaking of your Glebe Lands 
 Bill, as embodying the * question of equal treat- 
 ment of the clergy of all religions ? ' It was 
 but natural that after your first lesson that 
 after your overture, they should clamour for 
 the overthrow of the existing unsectarian edu- 
 cation which in reality placed all denominations 
 on a footing of perfect equality. It was but 
 natural that they should claim as their right 
 from the national, the British, the Protestant 
 English treasury the endowment of schools and 
 colleges over which they alone exercised control, 
 which were under their exclusive management, 
 which were devoted to the teaching of Ultramontane 
 
 o 2
 
 194 ME. GLADSTONE'S IRISH CHURCH POLICY 
 
 doctrines doctrines you have since denounced with 
 horror in your dissertations ' The Vatican Decrees 
 in their bearing on Civil Allegiance ' and * Vatican- 
 ism ; ' doctrines of which you have said l that they 
 were an incentive to general disturbance, a premium 
 upon European war ; ' doctrines which you have 
 characterised as ( aiming deadly blows at the free- 
 dom of mankind.' Indeed, this policy of the 
 Eomish Catholic prelates it was but natural : 
 I'appetit vient en mangeant. 
 
 But above all, could it be otherwise than 
 that your perverse conduct, your almost feloni- 
 ous actions should be followed by fresh agrarian 
 crimes, by murders and deeds of violence ; that 
 lay and clerical agitators, that the Irish dema- 
 gogues redoubled their activity in stirring the 
 ignorant peasantry to acts of lawlessness and 
 sedition? For apart from this raid upon the 
 sister Church of your country, apart from that 
 violation of the right of property, and, sir, of 
 equity, had you not only allowed the Habeas 
 Corpus Suspension Act to expire, but also re- 
 leased several of the most notorious Fenian 
 criminals from their only too just captivity? 
 Ah, it did produce its results, this abnormal 
 lenity of yours, this egotistical weakness of 
 yours, this your damnable bargaining for power
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S FIRST LAND BILL 195 
 
 with national interests which you held in trust 
 from your country. England quivered under 
 them. For, the first use which the Fenians, 
 whom your opportunism had set at large, made 
 of their freedom was to proclaim in vehement 
 terms their unabated hostility to the British 
 Government. They then instigated a new san- 
 guinary agitation for procuring the release of 
 the remaining Fenian convicts. And, before 
 leaving for America, they did their utmost to 
 incite anew their beguiled countrymen to open 
 rebellion against the Crown. 
 
 But this your perverse policy begot yet 
 something worse, your 
 
 First Land Bill. 
 
 On the 15th of February, 1870, it was when 
 you brought forth this ever-memorable measure, 
 by which you ' wished to alarm none, to injure 
 none' On that day you inflicted upon the Nation 
 that kaleidoscopic proposal, the adoption of 
 which was to bring ' hope where there has been 
 despondency, confidence where there has been mis- 
 trust ; and by which, where there has been aliena- 
 tion and hate, there shall^ however gradually, be
 
 196 THE PROVISIONS OF THIS LAND BILL 
 
 woven the ties of a strong attachment between man 
 and man I ' On that day you felled the second 
 branch of that Upas Tree, an act of which your 
 hope was high and ardent that you would live to 
 see it prosper, and that in Ireland, which you 
 desire to unite to England and Scotland by the 
 only enduring ties those of free will and free 
 affection peace, order and a settled and cheerful 
 industry will diffuse their blessings from year to 
 year and from day to day over a smiling land. 
 
 Sir, the smiling land ! Through the Land 
 Bill ! Indeed, ere the year that saw its painful 
 birth had passed away, England, the present 
 generation, you yourself reaped 
 
 The Firstlings of this Land Bill. 
 
 That you could deny it ! the 'legalisation' 
 of the Ulster custom henceforth throughout Ire- 
 land compensation for improvements, and the 
 price of the goodwill of the land to the outgoing 
 tenant ; the new rights by which the farmer 
 could claim from the landlord damages for dis- 
 turbance or eviction ; the regulation that for the 
 purpose of creating a peasant proprietary the 
 Board of Works should advance loans at 3^ per 
 cent, interest for the purchase of holdings ; the
 
 ITS EFFECT UPON THE RABBLE 197 
 
 clause that the Court was to consider when 
 valuing the tenant's compensation, whether the 
 demanded rent was reasonable all these pro- 
 visions of the Land Bill, so hostile to the land- 
 lords ; all these concessions so deferring to the 
 clamours of the demagogues : they produced 
 but a new, a more vehement, a more cruel form 
 of terrorism. They taught the rabble how easy 
 it would be in future to break contracts under 
 a so-called 'British' Government, which itself 
 could thus violate the first principles of owner- 
 ship and virtually confiscate for the benefit of 
 Great Britain's enemies the property of those 
 who, whatever their shortcomings were, had at 
 least been the staunchest, the most loyal sup- 
 porters of the Law and the Crown. And the 
 rabble recognised instinctively at once who 
 and what was the man that ostensibly stood at 
 the helm of the State ship, but who allowed her 
 to drift out of, though a stormy, yet open and 
 comparatively safe sea into a gulf studded with 
 shoals and rocks, and with deadly breakers 
 ahead. The rabble understood and responded 
 to your purpose to wreck the State vessel, so 
 that she should break up in mouldering frag- 
 ments. The Irish demagogues organised afresh 
 lawless bands of armed men, who swarmed over
 
 198 MR. GLADSTONE AND COERCION 
 
 the county of Mayo, under threat of instant 
 death coercing the farmers into taking an oath 
 to unsettle their pasture lands. They revived 
 the memory of O'Connell, of the ' martyred * 
 Fenian assassins. They resumed their seditious 
 schemes. They returned John Martin the con- 
 vict to Parliament as a Home Euler. Aye, 
 they went forth to preach the doctrine of Sepa- 
 ration and to proclaim the Irish Eepublic. 
 
 Sir, it is true you replied with THE CRIMES 
 ACT considering you were its author one of 
 the most coercive measures that has been 
 enacted by a British Government against re- 
 bellious Ireland ; though it certainly was not 
 only justifiable in view of the unjustifiable out- 
 rages of the agitators and their beguiled tools, but 
 vitally necessary, and which would have operated 
 beneficially and beneficently to the betrayed Irish 
 people, if the Government had for a length of time 
 persisted in a systematic administration of its pro- 
 visions. But already a few months later you 
 fell back upon your ' opportunistic,' your ' con- 
 ciliatory,' your ' expiatory ' policy. You re- 
 leased the Fenian convicts who were still in 
 prison. And lest the mischief thus wrought 
 might not work sufficiently detrimental to the 
 prosperity and order of Ireland, to the welfare
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S OPPORTUNISM AND FENIANS 199 
 
 and peace of England, you banished them from 
 the English, from the Irish territory ; you drove 
 them out of the supervision of the British 
 police ; you set them at large in the United 
 States. Can you wonder if your enemies hold 
 that by this abnormal act abnormal in an 
 ' experienced Statesman ' you materially con- 
 tributed towards the completion of your treason- 
 felony against the Empire towards Separation, 
 towards dismemberment, in so far as you be- 
 came, as it were, the ' recruiting sergeant ' for 
 Great Britain's most relentless foe : for the 
 American Fenians the Clan-na-Gael ? 
 
 Why ! Indeed, you were well repaid. Your 
 country, you yourself immediately felt the pain- 
 ful effects of your culpable, vacillating, compro- 
 mising conduct. 
 
 When a French deputation arrived in Ire- 
 land to thank the Irish Ambulance Society for 
 the assistance which it had rendered France 
 during the Franco-German war ; the sons of 
 Erin expressly indulged in violent demonstra- 
 tions against your country. But worse ! Juries 
 refused to convict of murder Fenians and rebels 
 against whom not only lay the clearest circum- 
 stantial evidence, but who had been taken in 
 delicto flagrante. The Irishman, the organ of
 
 200 THE HOME RULE MOVEMENT 
 
 the Nationalists, proclaimed that the man icho 
 shot an informer against moonlighters, cattle- 
 mutilators and assassins, was, so far from being 
 a criminal, a hero, worthy of honour and reward. 
 At the same time, the agitation for Home Eule 
 became more and more turbulent. During the 
 election of a Mr. Smyth for Westmeath, it was 
 even declared ' that in him the electors were 
 sending a man to Parliament to tell Mr. Glad- 
 stone his mock legislation was a humbug, and 
 that the Nationalists would not stand a base, 
 bloody and brutal Whig in Ireland.' 
 
 And yet, bent upon your fatal mission, you 
 did not pause in your pernicious legislation for 
 the ' settlement ' of Ireland. Though you saw 
 the Empire shaken almost to its foundations by 
 the quakes of your policy of destruction ; bent 
 upon your fatal mission, you raised your axe 
 to strike off the third branch of the Upas Tree. 
 
 Truly, not without reason are you called the 
 ' great wrecker.' 
 
 You heard the murmurs of the coming gale. 
 You saw the clouds srather thicker and thicker 
 
 *~- 
 
 over Ireland. In the face of the growing turmoil, 
 in answer to the factious clamours for Home Rule 
 of the demagogues and Inrincibles, you even de- 
 clared at Aberdeen in September, 1871 :
 
 DENOUNCED BY MR. GLADSTONE 201 
 
 Wliy is Parliament to be broken up ? Has Ireland 
 great grievances ? What is it that Ireland has demanded 
 from the Imperial Parliament and that the Imperial 
 Parliament has refused ? It will not do to deal with this 
 matter in vague and shadowy assertions. I have looked 
 in rain for the setting forth of any practical scheme of 
 policy which the Imperial Parliament is not equal to deal 
 with, or tvhich it refuses to deal with, and which is to be 
 brought about by Home Eule. 
 
 You would expect when it is said that the Imperial 
 Parliament is to be broken up you would expect that at 
 the very least a case should be made out, showing there 
 were great subjects of policy and great demands necessary 
 for the welfare of Ireland, which the representatives of 
 Ireland had united to ask, and which the representatives 
 of England, Scotland, and Wales had united to refuse. 
 There is no such grievance. There is nothing that Ire- 
 land has asked that this country and that this Parlia- 
 ment has refused. This Parliament has done for Ireland 
 what it tvould have scrupled to do for England and for 
 Scotland. What are the inequalities of England and 
 Ireland ? I declare that I know none, except that there 
 are certain taxes still remaining which are levied over 
 Englishmen and Scotchmen, and which are not levied 
 over Irishmen ; and likewise that there are certain pur- 
 poses for which public money is freely and largely given 
 in Ireland, and for which it is not given in England or 
 Scotland. That seems to me to be a very feeble case in- 
 deed for the argument which has been made, by means of 
 which, as we are told, the fabric of the United Parliament 
 of this country is to be broken. 
 
 But, although the sanguinary lessons of Irish 
 history ; though your own bitter experience 
 must have warned you that compromise, that
 
 20fi ONCE MOKE A POLICY OF CONCILIATION 
 
 * CONCILIATION,' as your bosom friend, John 
 Morley has pointedly remarked, ' MEANS, IN 
 PLAIN LANGUAGE, SEPAKATION where Ireland 
 is concerned ; ' though you yourself emphati- 
 cally denied that there was any cause for the 
 Irish to complain about English misrule you 
 now flung upon your unhappy country the 
 
 Irish University Bill, 
 
 1 a measure vital not only to the honour and 
 existence of the Government, but to the wel- 
 fare of Ireland ! ' 
 
 Ah, sir, it is well for posterity to have your 
 record of this University Bill. The Empire cai> 
 not yet be lost if the patriots succeed in rousing 
 the Nation the people to a second perusal of 
 ' The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil 
 Allegiance.' For there it stands marked that 
 this Bill was the final settlement of Ireland's 
 grievances. 
 
 'When Parliament had passed the Church 
 Act of 1869, and the Land Act of 1870, there 
 remained only under the great head of Imperial 
 equity one serious question to be dealt with 
 that of higher education. I consider that the 
 Liberal majority of the House of Commons,
 
 IRISH UNIVERSITY BILL 203 
 
 and the Government to which I had the honour 
 and satisfaction to belong, formally tendered 
 payment in full of this portion of the debt by 
 the Irish University Bill of February, 1873. 
 Some, indeed, say that it was overpaid? 
 
 However, in justice to you, it must be stated, 
 the blow was stayed. The Bill which ' nobody 
 wanted, nobody accepted; which settled nothing, 
 BUT UNSETTLED EVERYTHING:' on March 12 it 
 was rejected by the patriotism and common 
 sense of the Nation. 
 
 But the event, the lamentable event of its 
 appearance, left its traces. Could it be other- 
 wise ? It was a failure in its conception ; it must 
 be a miscarriage on its birth. It was inevitable 
 that a measure, 1 by the mere production already 
 of which * the debt to Ireland had been paid in 
 full ; ' yet of which on the one side it was said, 
 ' that a vote for it the country would regard as a 
 vote of confidence in Cardinal Cullen and his 
 priests ; ' whereas on the other side YOU vehemently 
 impeached that very Eoman prelacy of Ireland 
 for its defeat : should not only disappoint, but 
 be productive of discontent and acrimony ; 
 that it should stir up the muddy waters of so- 
 called l religious ' passions.
 
 204 MR. GLADSTONE'S FALL AND IRELAND'S RISE 
 
 Though the blessings of peace seemed once 
 more to throw forth their enlivening beams over 
 the Emerald Isle, and prosperity to smile upon 
 its population. True to the proverb : 
 
 Wer andern eine Grube grabt 
 Fallt selbst hinein, 
 
 the axe rebounded this time from the Upas Tree ; 
 it struck you, and under its vibrations the 
 Gladstone Ministry, the brass idol of your un- 
 limited greed for power, fell to pieces. Foiled 
 in your pernicious schemes you retreated in 
 your vapour bath of sanctimonious practices as 
 to the best method of spending the closing years 
 of your life. And though the Nation knew 
 that in spite of, nay, over your pamphlets 
 ' What is Eitualism ? ' and ' The Vatican Decrees 
 in their bearing on Civil Allegiance,' you were 
 hatching new plots against the Church, against 
 Ireland, against the Empire ; in favour of Ultra- 
 montanism ; for the advancement of Fenianism 
 the patriots, not without some reason, thought 
 Ireland and England at least for a while secure 
 from the all-devouring English-Irish Moloch. 
 
 Indeed, their expectations were justified. 
 Thanks to the renewal and prompt administra- 
 tion of the Peace Preservation Act, it could be 1
 
 GLADSTONE AND DISRAELI 205 
 
 stated of Ireland in 1875-76 ' that at no time 
 of its history did the Emerald Isle appear more 
 tranquil, more free from serious crime, more 
 prosperous and contented.' 
 
 However, though ostensibly retired from 
 active politics, you were still alive. Nor were 
 the demagogues thoroughly weeded out. Could 
 the peace thus last for long ? 
 
 Sir, you had grave reasons to apprehend 
 that the desertion of your party would tell 
 against you. Moreover, your rival Disraeli had 
 successfully taken up the policy of an Elizabeth, 
 a Cromwell, a Chatham, a Pitt. Convinced 
 that Great Britain limited to Great Britain 
 would soon roll down from her proud and 
 above all commercially and industrially advan- 
 tageous position of a first European Power, he 
 endeavoured to extend her political sphere of 
 influence in proportion to the rapid growth of 
 her population. Being assured that in new 
 foreign markets alone could be found relief for 
 the flooded industries and over-crowded cities 
 at home ; and that the lustre of the Crown, the 
 glory of the British name would shed economical 
 and social blessing upon the Sister Isles in the 
 face of the envious nations abroad he unfurled 
 the Imperial banner amidst the enthusiasm of
 
 206 IMPERIAL POLICY AND HADICALISM 
 
 the patriots of Great and the peoples of Greater 
 Britain. 
 
 Your policy of dismemberment seemed thus 
 doomed. And though yours was as yet only 
 an eclipse in the light of his ascent ; the longer 
 your silence, the more problematic became your 
 return to power. The shadows of a retired life, 
 troubled by and breaking out in passionate fits of 
 an abnormal conscience, began already to darken 
 your ' fame.' It needed a new agitation. 
 
 One party was discontented with this Impe- 
 rial policy. For them the ' civis Britannicus sum ' 
 doctrine had a hateful sound. It was the party 
 of which you had once stated that through them : 
 
 6 The House of Commons would degenerate into 
 an assembly of municipal and parochial minds ; * 
 the party composed of 'little luminaries jitter for 
 a municipal chamber than for the senate of the 
 most extended empire in the world ; ' the party of 
 which 'you viewed with deep regret the undue pre- 
 dominance it gave to merely local ideas, a conduct 
 which would threaten to leave the government of 
 the greatest Empire in the world to be the prize of 
 a scramble among a motley crowd of eager, con- 
 tentious and egotistical mediocrities.' 
 
 This party, this very party it was upon whose 
 support you were thrown. Your last anchorage
 
 MR. GLADSTONE AND RADICALISM 20? 
 
 lay in Eadicalism. There you had to fix your 
 hold without delay, or else be swept from the 
 scene for ever. 
 
 Alack, sir, only too willingly you espoused 
 their narrow-minded contentions with all the 
 clamour and pretension of a demagogue. Like 
 a poisonous spider you stretched forth your 
 insinuations as to the dreadful perils into which 
 Imperial policy would plunge the country. You 
 flung right and left the evil forebodings of an 
 inevitable war with Eussia. Your inflammatory 
 harangues, they fell with the vehemence of vol- 
 canic eruptions upon the Nation until she was 
 one glowing, boiling mass. And on it you rode 
 to power. 
 
 But the commotion which bore you to the 
 Government was wrought by deception. Your 
 second Ministry was thus cursed to be one con- 
 tinual falsehood. Begotten in sin, it could not 
 but lead to ruin : the wages of sin is death. 
 
 Ireland had to pay the penalty. 
 
 How well is all this illustrated by the Mani- 
 festo of my Lord Beaconsfield ; how truly does 
 it foreshadow the coming era of betrayal and 
 faction; how fully does it characterise your 
 position ! 
 
 ' The measures respecting the state of Ireland which
 
 208 LORD BEACONSFIELD'S MANIFESTO 
 
 Her Majesty's Government so anxiously considered with 
 your Excellency, and in which they were much aided by 
 your advice and authority, are now about to be submitted 
 for the Royal Assent, and it is at length in the power of the 
 Ministers to advise the Queen to recur to the sense of her 
 people. The acts of agitators which represented that 
 England, instead of being the generous and sympathising 
 friend, was indifferent to the dangers and sufferings of 
 Ireland have been defeated by the measures at once liberal 
 and prudent which Parliament has almost unanimously 
 sanctioned. 
 
 ' During the six years of the present Administration the 
 improvement of Ireland and the content of our fellow- 
 countrymen in that island have much occupied the care of 
 the Ministry, and they may remember with satisfaction 
 that in this period they have solved one of the most diffi- 
 cult problems connected with its government and people 
 by establishing a system of public education open to all 
 classes and creeds. 
 
 ' Nevertheless, a danger, in its ultimate results scarcely 
 less disastrous than pestilence and famine, and which now 
 engages your Excellency's attention, distracts that country. 
 A portion of its population is attempting to sever the Con- 
 stitutional tie which unites it to Great Britain in that bond 
 which has favoured the power and prosperity of both. 
 
 ( It is to be hoped that all men of light and leading will 
 resist this destructive doctrine. The strength of this 
 nation depends on the unity of feeling which should 
 pervade the United Kingdom and its widespread dependen- 
 cies. The first duty of an English Minister should be to 
 consolidate that co-operation which renders irresistible 
 a community educated as our own in an equal love of 
 liberty and law. 
 
 ' And yet there are some who challenge the expediency 
 of the Imperial character of this realm. Having attempted 
 and failed to enfeeble our Colonies by their policy ofdecom-
 
 IRELAND AN EXPEDIENT TO RETARD PROGRESS 209 
 
 position, they may perhaps now recognise in the disintegra- 
 tion of the United Kingdom a mode which will not only 
 accomplish but precipitate their purpose.' 
 
 Indeed, sir, although by force of circum- 
 stances the Leader of Eadicalism, with the excep- 
 tion of the enfranchising legislation, you had 
 until then always looked with inward, with 
 constitutional aversion upon the Eadical pro- 
 gramme of ' reforms.' But with an Ireland law- 
 
 o 
 
 abiding and progressing the barrier would be 
 removed which hitherto had stopped the flood 
 of constitutional, political, economical, land, and 
 sociological changes towards the triumph of a 
 true Democracy. Whereas your mission was 
 Anarchy ; your ambition tyranny. Upon Ireland, 
 therefore, it was most expedient to hurl the new 
 commotion. For, writhing under the blight of 
 further spasmodic, contradictory, conglomerate 
 legislation, its convulsions could not fail seriously 
 to affect the Nation and to absorb the very life 
 interest of Eadicalism. And, as if to further 
 your pernicious expedient, once more the evil 
 genius of Great Britain, nay, of Ireland, raised 
 you your best allies amongst the Irish them- 
 selves. It sent another blight, a more terrible 
 blight than had ever before befallen the Emerald 
 Isle it sent :
 
 210 MH. GLADSTONE ASD TtfE LA3?D 
 
 The Land League. 
 
 Behold, just as you in England could not 
 succeed with an Ireland law-abiding, so the 
 Republican Brotherhood in Ireland could not 
 flourish with an Ireland contented. Upon a 
 population constantly improving its moral and 
 material position, thus becoming more and more 
 reconciled to the existing regime, there was 
 nothing for the demagogues to feed. Therefore 
 their very existence was at stake, and to save it 
 they were to make violent efforts. Under such 
 conditions could it be otherwise than that your 
 clamour should find a ready echo amongst 
 Fenianism, and your scheme an ally amongst 
 the lawless rabble, though as yet unconscious of 
 the identity between your ambition and their 
 aim ? 
 
 Moreover, the teachings of the Butts and 
 the Powers were rapidly paling. On the Irish 
 horizon appeared the Parnell Comet. From the 
 Irish soil sprung the Scorpion of the Land 
 League, Michael Davitt. The doctrines of the 
 Skirmishers, the Clan-na-Gael, the Y.C., the 
 American Nationalists began pest-like to seize
 
 THE LAND LEAGUE 211 
 
 the Home Eule party in the Emerald Isle. They 
 soon infected the latter's aim. It was no longer 
 an effort to place Ireland in the same relation 
 to the British Empire that the State of New 
 York bears to the Union. Their cry their 
 threat was henceforth for a national existence. 
 But ' the peasantry in Ireland were in a dormant 
 state' The Separation movement hitherto had 
 failed, according to the Father of the Land 
 League, for two reasons : First, ' because there 
 had never been one in which the people were 
 united ; ' second, ' because the movements had 
 been wholly sentimental.' It needed, therefore, 
 something more luring; a something that did 
 appeal to the prejudices of the people ; a some- 
 thing that did excite the cupidity of man and 
 inflame even his worst animal passions. Only 
 by dint of work, great energy and incessant 
 appeals to every feeling, every sentiment, every 
 wrong, every superstition that would rouse the 
 farmers, could the Land League be brought 
 beyond the point to which these Butts had 
 brought it in their drag-along movement. The 
 Land Question furnished this all-powerful pretext. 
 It could not fail to invigorate a movement which 
 in the words of Dillon ' would succeed and over- 
 throw the first garrison of an alien and hostile
 
 212 MICHAEL DAVITT OX THE LAND LEAGUE 
 
 government.' Hence the Land League was 
 organised, the characteristics of the formation 
 of which and its principles have thus been ex- 
 plained by Michael Davitt : 
 
 ' The principle upon which the Land League was founded 
 is, as a matter of course, subject for dispute and difference 
 of opinion, and the programme which was drawn up by 
 the persons named (the American Nationalists) and em- 
 bodied in resolutions of the Conference on October 21, 
 1879 (inasmuch as it did not comprise any demand for 
 self-government), cannot be credited with containing the 
 whole "principle" upon which the Land League was 
 founded. The organisers of the Conference had to con- 
 sider the advisability of framing such a programme as 
 would not " scare " any timid land reformer away from the 
 projected movement, and it was further considered neces- 
 sary to render it eminently constitutional for the double 
 purpose of legal protection against the Castle and to en- 
 able members of Parliament to defend it within the Hoitsc 
 of Commons. What, then, was the principle upon which 
 the Land League was founded ? I maintain that it teas 
 the complete destruction of Irish landlordism : first, as 
 the system which was responsible for the poverty and 
 periodical famines which have decimated Ireland ; and, 
 secondly, because landlordism was a British garrison, 
 which barred the way to national independence.'' 
 
 Such were the avowed aims of the Land 
 League : the severance of Ireland from Eng- 
 land ; the establishment of an Irish Eepublic. 
 
 Now by the force, the irresistible force of 
 common personal interests and a common fatal 
 mission, the champions of these pernicious
 
 COMPENSATION FOR DISTURBANCE BILL 
 
 teachings became henceforth your allies. It 
 is true you were for a time still vacillating 
 between coercion and felonious concession. But 
 that your fresh career should end in a humili- 
 ating surrender to Fenianism, in a betrayal of 
 your country, and become a curse on the 
 Emerald Isle, was certain. 
 
 Already on the morn of your return to 
 power you invoked the demons of discontent, 
 greed, violence and hatred. Though at the 
 opening of this new ' Gladstonian ' epoch there 
 were once more endless, vitally important and 
 urgent reforms to be dealt with in England, in 
 Great Britain, in Ireland itself, the settlement of 
 which was of scarcely a contentious character, 
 and would have been beneficial to the Nation 
 you introduced the infamously famous 
 
 Compensation for Disturbance Bill, 
 
 a ' legislative ' proposal which could not fail to 
 rouse the wildest passions. 
 
 But can you be blamed for its production ? 
 
 It was the evil consequence of your first 
 iniquitous measure, the first Land Act. You 
 had legalised the doctrine of robbery, you had
 
 214 MR. GLADSTONE'S COERCION BILLS 
 
 denounced the rights of ownership, you had 
 punished loyal devotion to the interests of your 
 country; it was in the nature of events that 
 now at the first opportunity you should pro- 
 nounce by this new proposal the final bless- 
 ing. Moreover, it was the honest repayment 
 of a bargain. The treacherous waves of Irish 
 ' demagogy ' had borne you to power. Lest they 
 should swallow you now, or rise above your 
 despotism, you had to conjure them. And 
 what better victim could you fling into the all- 
 devouring vortex of Irish faction than land- 
 lordism, the garrison of the Union ? 
 
 However, the sacrifice was for once too 
 much for the Nation ; at the same time it was 
 scornfully rejected by your allies, the Parnell- 
 ites. And with the rapidity of lightning the 
 bane fell upon your perverse action. You had 
 to ask 'for additional powers necessary to secure 
 protection for life and property and personal 
 liberty of action' You had to bring in ' THE 
 PROTECTION BILL ' and ' THE ARMS BILL.' 
 
 Ah, sir, that these measures had been ener- 
 getically carried out ! But alack ! you were 
 in power. Not restoration, peace and pros- 
 perity ; but commotion and annihilation were 
 your life's support and life-mission. How sigm>
 
 PAKNELL ON THE LAND LEAGUE 215 
 
 ficant is that doggerel which was at that time 
 circulated amongst the Irish children for the 
 formation of a children's Land League : 
 
 A is the army that covers the ground, 
 
 B is the buckshot we're getting all round ; 
 
 C is the crowbar of cruellest fame, 
 
 D is our Davitt, a right glorious name, 
 
 E is the English who have robbed us of bread, 
 
 F is the famine they've left us instead. 
 
 G.is the Gladstone, whose life is a lie. 
 
 You were doomed to prove it. You had 
 betrayed the Irish vote by passing the Coercion 
 Acts. You had now to betray confiding Eng- 
 land. That you could deny it for the sake of 
 the political security, of the morals of the 
 generations to come ! You knew that ' the 
 appeals in this new departure in Irish national 
 effort which were thus addressed to the peasant 
 mind did not originate in the exalted patriotism 
 of a Thomas Davis, nor excite the farmers to 
 the practice of virtues of disinterested patri- 
 otism.' For, as Michael Davitt has afterwards 
 candidly stated, ' the appeals were made to self- 
 interest rather than to self -sacrifice' 
 
 You were likewise aware of Parnell's speech, 
 delivered at Galway in 1880 : 
 
 ' I wish to see the tenant farmers prosperous ; but large 
 and important as is the class of tenant farmers, constitut*
 
 216 REDMOND ON THE LAND LEAGUE 
 
 ing as they do, with their wives and families, the majority 
 of the people of this country, I would not have taken off 
 my coat and gone to this work if I had not known that we 
 were laying the foundations by this movement for the re- 
 covery of our legislative independence. Push on, then, 
 towards this goal, extend your organisation, and let every 
 tenant farmer, while he keeps a firm grip of his holding, 
 recognise also the great truth that he is serving his country 
 and the people at large, and helping to break down English 
 misrule in Ireland.' 
 
 You could not be ignorant of the vehement 
 declarations against your country, such as 
 Redmond's : 
 
 ' / say for one I have a great and another object in view 
 in this land movement. I am anxious that the peasants 
 of Ireland should be free and independent men. I am 
 anxious above all that Ireland should be a free and an 
 independent self-governing country. And it is because I 
 know by the history of the past that landlordism in Ireland 
 has ever been the supporter of alien rule, and because I 
 knoiv that to-day it is the only link which binds us in that 
 hateful union to England it is for that reason above all 
 others that I, at any rate, am here to-day as a Land 
 Leaguer. Now, fellow-countrymen, I have said over and 
 over again, and I repeat it here to-day, tliat in this move- 
 ment in Ireland we are only continuing- and prolonging 
 the same old struggle which has never ceased to be waged 
 by Irishmen against foreign rule in this island. In tJie 
 old days that movement had other names. In the old 
 days it was supported by other means, but to-day, on a 
 constitutional platform, in working for the land, for the 
 people, we, every man of us, are still continuing the 
 struggle which our forefathers made on the hill-side and 
 the valley when they laid down their lives for the inde- 
 pendence of their country.'
 
 PARNELL OX GLADSTONE'S POLICY OF CONCESSION 217 
 
 You must have known Matthew Harris's : 
 
 ' WJicn wo found reason and argument of no avail, we 
 found it necessary to appeal to the passions of the people, 
 to tell them how they were, rack-rented by landlords, how 
 they were exterminated by landlords, and tell them all the 
 evils that could rouse up the passions and the "manhood" 
 of the, country.' 
 
 You must have foreseen that any concession 
 to, that any compromise with the Irish dema- 
 gogues and Fenian Republicans would only lead 
 to further extortions on their part. The goal of 
 their ambitions an Irish anarchv ; the idol of 
 
 / ' 
 
 their prayers the destruction of England and 
 the annihilation of the English ; unless it was 
 reached, unless it was fulfilled, they would 
 march on ' through rapine and murder ' till the 
 last and great treason concession would be ex- 
 acted from you. Parnell himself had triumph- 
 antly declared at Westport : 
 
 ' And also there is really no reason why we should permit 
 ourselves to be demoralised by the greatest concession of all. 
 If you obtain concessions of right privileges, such as the Irish 
 Church Act and the Land Act, yon run no risk of demoralising 
 yourselves. I have always noticed that the breaking down 
 of barriers between different classes has increased their 
 self-respect, and increased the spirit of nationality amongst 
 our people. I am convinced that nothing would more 
 effectually promote the cause of self-government for Ireland 
 than the breaking down of those barriers between different 
 classes. Nothing would be more effectual for that than
 
 218 THE AIM AND END OF LAND-LEAGUE TERRORISM 
 
 the obtaining of a good Land Bill the planting of the 
 people in the soil. If we had the farmers of Ireland the 
 owners of the soil to-morrow, ive would not be long without 
 getting an Irish Parliament. I do not intend to be demor- 
 alised myself by any concessions. While we are getting a 
 concession we, may show the Government a little considera- 
 tion for the time being, and give them a quid pro quo, but 
 after that the bargain ceases ; and when we have returned 
 them a fitting return for ivhat ive have got, we are quits 
 again, and are free to use such measures as may be neces- 
 sary according to the times and according to the circum- 
 stances. You have a great country to struggle for a great 
 country before you. It is worth a little exertion on your 
 part ; it is worth a little time. Do your best, and your 
 country will thank you for it, and your children here- 
 after.' 
 
 As to the terrorism the Land League the 
 National League would spread over the country 
 you could not be doubtful. You had bargained 
 with their rebel-organisers. Thus, if not already 
 by intuition, or better, by the instinct of a kin- 
 dred nature, your intercourse with them had 
 made you acquainted with their ambitions and 
 aims. Should you not know that for the Land 
 League, for the National League to exist, the 
 supreme life-duty of the demagogues was relent- 
 less and violent persecution of all their oppo- 
 nents ? And could you ignore who were these 
 opponents ? Sir, alack, not for one moment did 
 you could you misunderstand that not merely 
 the loyal, but all and every law-abiding, indus-
 
 FATHERED AND BLESSED BY MR. GLADSTONE 219 
 
 trious and honest citizen would be proscribed 
 by these Fenian mercenaries. To you it must 
 have been known that whosoever dared refuse 
 to join these conspirators and assassins was 
 doomed and boycotted not only during his stay 
 in this world, but would be persecuted into the 
 grave. For, Parnell himself has admitted in the 
 House of Commons that the practice of boy- 
 cotting has been used not only against persons 
 who ' robbed ' their neighbours by taking their 
 holdings from them, * but it has been used against 
 persons who refused to join the Land League, who 
 refused to illuminate their houses, and who refused 
 to subscribe to various popular movements. It has 
 been used in a variety of other ways which merit 
 the severity of the most stringent condemnation' 
 
 Yet, behold ! in spite of all warning, you 
 tried again your ' expiatory ' policy. Though, 
 according to your emphatic declaration, the 
 debt to Ireland was paid in full in 1873, though 
 all ' Irish grievances ' had been settled by you, 
 though you knew that the fiendish attacks of 
 Fenians and Moonlighters, of Skirmishers and 
 Land Leaguers were waged against landlordism, 
 because landlordism was the British garrison 
 and a pillar of strength to the Union ; you now 
 brought forth
 
 220 THE LAXD BILL 
 
 The Land Bill 
 
 Ah, sir, there is no greater or more weird 
 mystery than the lethargy of the Nation where 
 you are concerned. The phenomenon of your 
 existence the havoc wrought by your career 
 which, Phaeton-like, has in its fatal course set 
 the Empire aflame what are they when com- 
 pared with the calamitous fact, that in the face 
 of all, you repeatedly succeeded in beguiling a 
 great, though unfortunately distracted Xation? 
 For you have fed, you have lived, you have 
 grown upon the self-immolated bodies of your 
 own creation. You have advanced statements, 
 and proclaimed with the fervour of an apostle 
 prophecies which, when yon had sufficiently be- 
 numbed the people, you then denounced, and 
 which you swept away as soon as a new creed 
 was more likely to further your despotism. You 
 have reared your political power by piling legis- 
 lative measures your work upon the ruins 
 again your work of legislative measures, as to 
 the adoption of which you at one time had 
 declared with all the vehemence of an interested 
 fanatic, with all the cunning of an ambitious
 
 THE LAND BILL 221 
 
 false prophet, that they would bring the Nation 
 . into the haven of peace, and inaugurate an era 
 of continual progress and prosperity ; that they 
 would open the millennium. Therefore, could it 
 be otherwise ? : 
 
 This Land Bill, it too, did not spring from 
 a virgin soil. Nay, from the source whence it 
 originated could grow no harvest plentiful, 
 beneficial and advantageous, however auspi- 
 cious the conditions of the season might have 
 been. Being one of the many measures which 
 upon your call and under the sanction of per- 
 jury and treason pullulated as it were from a 
 field of mouldering legislative abortments and 
 political victims the sacrifices of ambition and 
 despotism, the immolations of cowardice it 
 bore the sting of death, and would, epidemic- 
 like, infect the Nation. A denial, as it were, 
 of all former professions of faith, a refutation 
 of pledges often given, an abandonment of all 
 the principles which in times perhaps scarcely 
 gone by which but a few years before you had 
 so boastfully displayed and so relentlessly advo- 
 cated this Land Bill could not but be cor- 
 ruptive and destructive in its effects. 
 
 Indeed, it contained all the elements of 
 demoralisation, of public plunder, of treason-
 
 222 ME. GLADSTONE'S ACT OF * MORAL FELO DE SE ' 
 
 felony, of dissolution. Its provisions re- 
 nounced the fundamental doctrines of govern- 
 ment and the ethics upon which human society 
 is erected. In fact, it overthrew the very same 
 rules and precepts which you yourself had at 
 one time and another pronounced as vitally 
 essential to the moral health of the Body 
 Politic, and which you praised as the panacea 
 against material revolution. 
 
 'Fixity of tenure wholly unsustained by the 
 slightest attempt at reasoning! ' Perpetuity of 
 tenure on the part of the occupier, a virtual ex- 
 propriation of the landlord . . . the effect of 
 which provision would be that the landlord became 
 a pensioner and rent-charger upon what is now 
 his own estate! l Perpetuity of tenure, a phrase 
 that you Jlatter yourself is a little going out of 
 fashion. If " you " have contributed anything to- 
 wards it " you " are not sorry ' all these your 
 denunciations of the most iniquitous l propo- 
 sitions which, if adopted, would bring the most 
 grievous evils upon the country, and against which, 
 you solemnly warn the Nation : ' they all, without 
 exception, nay, rather more advanced, more 
 developed, BECAME NOW EMBODIED IN THIS LAND 
 BILL. 
 
 But more ! Beyond the wildest expectation
 
 COMMITTED BY THIS LAND BILL 223 
 
 of the Parliamentary rabble of Irish demagogues 
 you even carried out the proposal to establish a 
 department in the State's household which 
 should reduce excessive rents, yet against 
 which you had formerly inveighed most vio- 
 lently, of which you had exclaimed : 
 
 ' I own I have not heard, I do not know, and 
 I cannot conceive what is to be said for the 
 prospective power to reduce excessive rents.' 
 . . . Shall I really be told that it is for the 
 interest of the Irish tenant bidding for a farm 
 that the law should say to him i Cast aside all 
 providence and forethought; go into the field and 
 bid what you like ; drive out of the field the pru- 
 dent man who means to fulfil his engagement; 
 bid right above him and induce the landlord to 
 give you the farm, and the moment you have got 
 it come forward, go to the public authority, show 
 that the rent is excessive and that you cannot pay it 
 and get released ! If I could conceive a plan, first 
 of all for throwing into confusion the whole agri- 
 cultural arrangements of the country ; secondly, 
 for driving out of the field all solvent and honest 
 men who might be bidders for farms, and might 
 desire to carry on the honourable business of 
 agriculture ; thirdly, for carrying WIDESPREAD DE- 
 MORALISATION THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE MASS OF THE 
 
 Q
 
 224 THE LAND BILL AND DEMORALISATION 
 
 IRISH PEOPLE, / must say it is this plan and this 
 demand that we should embody in our Bill as a 
 part of permanent legislation, a provision by 
 ivhich men shall be told that there shall be an 
 authority always existing ready to release them 
 from the contracts they have deliberately made' 
 
 Indeed, sir, 
 
 The Land Bill and Demoralisation ! 
 
 Behold, in this you had for once prophesied 
 true, only too true. ' The demoralisation spread 
 throughout the whole of the Irish people ; ' nay, 
 it infected even the English rabble ; and, if not 
 already unredeemably demoralised in matters 
 politic, the effects of the Land Bill certainly 
 poisoned now your political character for ever. 
 
 Ireland was henceforth whirled in a chaos of 
 outrages, crime and murder, whilst England 
 resounded with the impassionate accusations 
 which you hurled against the Irish agitators. 
 Your message of peace had once more become 
 a challenge for the most cruel faction-warfare 
 history has ever known. The compact of 
 'goodwill' and 'conciliation' between you and 
 the Irish demagogues had festered the bitterest
 
 MR. GLADSTONE DENOUNCES TAENELL 225 
 
 hatred. Indeed, the nations abroad beheld with 
 bewilderment, they looked with scorn upon the 
 vituperations and pranks of reciprocal revenge 
 which you and your present Irish Parliamentary 
 bosom friends were then performing. 
 
 It is true it would be wicked to deny it 
 you exhibited a marvellous heroism in the part 
 you were playing. You actually aimed, nay, 
 you really struck a blow at the hydra heads 
 which your policy had begotten. 'You sent the 
 robber chiefs of the Irish ' Parliamentary ' party 
 to prison. And most worthy of remembrance 
 is that great event when entertained at the Guild- 
 hall you valiantly delivered the ever-memorable 
 homily on the claims of law, public order, and 
 loyalty to the throne and institutions of the country. 
 When you triumphantly waved to and fro the tele- 
 gram which had announced to you the recent arrest 
 of your future aider and abettor, Charles Stewart 
 Parnell. When the ivhole assembly, including men 
 of the most opposite political opinions, rose to their 
 feet and cheered loud and long. And when, after 
 the applause had died away, you appealed to all 
 the leaders of all the political parties to support the 
 supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. 
 
 Yet as to the events which thenceforth rapidly 
 developed your betrayal of Forster, the murder 
 
 Q2
 
 226 LOVE PASSAGES BETWEEN THE RIGHT 
 
 of Cavendish and Bourke, the release of Parnell, 
 the Pact of Kilmainham, all these deeds at the 
 shame and humiliation of which the friends of 
 Great Britain in Europe may well have blushed 
 for the beguiled Nation who seemed insensible 
 to the mortal wounds which her 'Statesman' 
 inflicted on her had they not better be left 
 hidden under the winding-sheet that, mercifully 
 to you, covers the victims of your policy ; had 
 they not better remain buried in their premature 
 grave ? 
 
 Sir, how calamitously the demoralisation 
 spread; how dreadfully the Nation was repaid 
 for her trust in you ; how venomous an end 
 the unholy alliance between you, the ' British ' 
 Statesman and the emissaries of the American 
 Fenians, the Clan-na-Gael, the Invincibles came 
 to, is best shown by your and your English 
 confederates' inflammatory harangues such as 
 your onslaught on John Dillon : 
 
 ' He comes here as the apostle of a creed of 
 force, which is a creed of oppression, which is a 
 creed of the destruction of all liberty.' 
 
 Such as your accusations of the Parnellites, 
 the Land Leaguers, yet in whose services you 
 have since enlisted as their ' bravo : ' 
 
 (1.) 'For nearly the first time in the history of
 
 HONOURABLE AND THE PARNELLITES 227 
 
 Christendom a body a small body of men have 
 arisen who are not ashamed to preach in Ireland 
 the doctrine of public plunder. .' 
 
 (2.) 'Behind the commission of these 
 agrarian outrages in Ireland there are influ- 
 ences at work higher than any that belong to 
 those who commit them.' 
 
 (3.) ' These Irish members are not persons 
 seeking amendment of the law. They are seeking 
 to dismember the British Empire' 
 
 (4.) ' So that with fatal and painful precision 
 the steps of crime dogged the steps of the Land 
 League, and it is not possible to get rid, by any 
 ingenuity, of facts such as I have stated, by vague 
 and general complaints, by imputations against 
 parties, imputations against England, imputa- 
 tions against Governments. You must meet 
 them and confute them if you can.' 
 
 (5.) 'The process called "boycotting" is, 
 according to the hon. member (Parnell), a 
 legitimate and proper process. What is meant 
 by " boycotting ? " In the first place, it is com- 
 bined intimidation. In the second place, it is 
 combined intimidation made use of for the purpose 
 of destroying the private liberty of choice by fear 
 of ruin and starvation. In the third place, that 
 being what " boycotting " is in itself, we must
 
 2 J5S GLADSTONE ON THE STEPHEN'S GREEN PARLIAMENT 
 
 look to tins, that the creed of " boycotting," like 
 any other creed, requires a sanction, and the 
 sanction of " boycotting" that which stands in the 
 rear of " boycotting" and by which alone " boycot- 
 ting " can in the long run be made thoroughly effec- 
 tive,is THE MURDER WHICH is NOT TO BE DENOUNCED.' 
 
 Such as your peroration on the infamously 
 famous, happily defunct Parliament at Stephen's 
 Green : 
 
 ' It seems almost impossible that such events 
 could have happened only ninety years ago, but 
 the present position of affairs in Ireland, with 
 many of the Wolfe Tone type, leads us to realise 
 that if France was not too much occupied with 
 thoughts of Germany there are adventurous 
 spirits in her army who would be ready to 
 repeat the enterprise of Hoche. If Ireland had 
 Home Ride given her to-morrow, she would use her 
 power with the continued endeavour, consistent 
 with all her recent utterances, of complete separa- 
 tion from England.' 
 
 This is the lesson of history as to the prospects 
 of a successful experiment in Home Ride. 
 
 6 It is a great issue ; it is a conflict for the 
 very first and elementary principles upon which 
 civil society is constituted. It is idle to talk of
 
 AND FURTHER LOVE PASSAGES 229 
 
 either law or order, or liberty, or religion, or civi- 
 lisation if these gentlemen (the Irish Home Rulers] 
 are to carry through the reckless and chaotic 
 schemes that they have devised. Rapine is the 
 first object; but rapine is not the only object. It 
 is perfectly true that these gentlemen wish to 
 march through rapine to the disintegration and 
 dismemberment of the Empire, and, I am sorry 
 to say, even to the placing of different parts of 
 the Empire in direct hostility one with the other. 
 That is the issue in which we are engaged. Our 
 opponents are not the people of Ireland. "We 
 are endeavouring to relieve the people of Ireland 
 from the weight of a tyrannical yoke.' 
 
 Corroborated by John Bright's : 
 
 4 An Irish rebel party, the main portion of 
 whose funds for agitation come directly from the 
 avowed enemies of England and whose oath of 
 allegiance is broken by association with its ene- 
 mies' 
 
 As well as by Sir William Harcourt's : 
 
 * The land agitation in their hands (the hands 
 of the Irish Nationalists] is an agitation whose 
 object is to destroy the Union of the Empire and 
 to overthrow the established Government of the 
 United Kingdom'
 
 230 THE IRISH COOING TO MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 Especially by Sir George Trevelyan's : 
 
 ' If you want to get at the truth you must 
 never forget that there are two Irelands the Ire- 
 land of men of all creeds, ranks, and callings, 
 who, whatever else they may differ upon, unite in 
 wishing to preserve law and order, and the right 
 of every citizen to go about his business in peace 
 and safety. . . . On the other hand stand the men 
 who planned and executed the Dublin murders, 
 the Galway murders, the boycotting and firing into 
 houses, the mutilation of cattle, and intimidation 
 of every sort and kind throughout the island' 
 (1883.) 
 
 How demoralising the effects of the Land 
 Bill were, is best illustrated by utterances such 
 as John Dillon's : 
 
 ' Gladstone's reputation in politics is, I believe, 
 a false reputation, and based upon a most extra- 
 ordinary gift of skilful misrepresentation of fact' 
 (1891.) 
 
 Such as Wm. Eedmond's : 
 
 ' There is not a single man from Mr. ParneU 
 down to myself who does not hate the Government 
 of England with all the intensity and fervour of 
 his heart: (1885.)
 
 THE PARXELLITE MANIFESTO 231 
 
 Such as J. O'Kelly's : 
 
 4 Should a war break out between England and 
 any foreign Power within three months, every man 
 capable of holding a gun will be found fighting 
 for the enemy against Great Britain' (1885.) 
 
 But, above all, by the Parnellite manifesto of 
 1885 to the Irish voters : 
 
 '/ft 1880 the Liberal Party promised peace, 
 and it afterwards made unjust war; economy, 
 and its Budget reached the highest point yet 
 attained ; justice to aspiring nationalities, and it 
 mercilessly crushed the national movement of 
 Egypt under Arabi Pasha, and murdered thou- 
 sands of Arabs " rightly struggling to be free" 
 To Ireland, more than to any other country, it 
 bound itself by most solemn pledges, and these it 
 most flagrantly violated. It denounced coercion, 
 and it practised a system of coercion more brutal 
 than that of any previous Administration, Liberal 
 or Tory. Under this system juries were packed 
 with a shamelessness unprecedented even in Liberal 
 Administrations, and innocent men were hung or 
 sent to the living death of penal servitude; 1,200 
 men were imprisoned without trial; ladies were 
 convicted under an obsolete Act directed against 
 the degraded of their sex ; and for a period every
 
 232 AND THE IRISH COOIXG TO MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 utterance of the popular Press and of the popular 
 meeting was as completely suppressed as if Ireland 
 were Poland, and the Administration of England 
 a Russian autocracy! 
 
 ' We feel bound to advise our countrymen to 
 place no confidence in the Liberal or Radical 
 Party, and so far as in them lies to prevent the 
 government of the Empire falling into the hands 
 of a party so perfidious, treacherous, and incom- 
 petent. In no case ought an Irish Nationalist to 
 give a vote, in our opinion, to a member of the 
 Liberal or Radical Party, except in some few 
 cases in which courageous fealty to the Irish cause 
 in the last Parliament has given a guarantee that 
 the candidate will not belong to the servile and 
 cowardly and unprincipled herd that would 
 break every pledge and violate every principle 
 in obedience to the call of the Whip and the 
 mandate of the caucus. We earnestly advise our 
 countrymen to vote against the men who coerced 
 Ireland, deluged Egypt with blood, menace re- 
 ligious liberty in the school, the freedom of speech 
 in Parliament, and promise to the country gene- 
 rally a repetition of the crimes and follies of the 
 last Liberal Administration.''
 
 THE HOME RULE PHASE 233 
 
 The Home Rule Phase. 
 
 But, sir, the gulf, the boiling gulf of hatred 
 that surged between you and the Irish ' parlia- 
 mentary ' band, the mercenaries of American 
 Fenianism, of the Invincibles and Dynamitards, 
 of the men of the Skirmishing Fund it should 
 once more be overbridged ; common ambitions, 
 common aims, common tendencies and charac- 
 teristics between you and them should spin the 
 arches for a fresh alliance. ' The high sanction 
 of " boycotting " murder ; ' it should receive the 
 high sanction of a ' British ' Statesman, sir of 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone, the Eight Honourable. 
 
 Indeed, rapid is the fall when once upon the 
 downward course. Only too true it is that man 
 pays off one debt to sin but to ensnare him 
 deeper in another. 
 
 You had begun your Irish policy with an 
 act which, considering the motives whence it 
 had originated, your enemies rightly call sacri- 
 legious. You had practised opportunism, and 
 entangled yourself in a vicious labyrinth of 
 concessions to threats and violence. Commenc- 
 ing with bribing those who could either frustrate
 
 234 SIE W. HAECOURT ON HOME EULE 
 
 or further the advancement of your ambitious, 
 despotic aspirations, bribing them with the 
 spoils of your raids on the ancient institutions 
 of your country ; upon the incorporated rights, 
 properties and titles of its citizens ; upon the 
 Body Politic it was inevitable that you should 
 end with and under the attempt finally to de- 
 stroy Great Britain. In pursuing the phantas- 
 magoria of an ' Irish ' settlement of ' Irish ' 
 ' grievances ' of which your bosom friend, Sir 
 William Harcourt, so pertinently remarked : ' If 
 the English, if Great Britain, if we (the Liberals) 
 are to govern Ireland according to the ideas of 
 Irish demagogues, I fear we shall find ourselves 
 reduced to the consequences of not governing Ire- 
 land at air you could not but pursue your 
 own fate ; though unhappily after each step of 
 yours another chasm opened rolling forth poi- 
 sonous fumes over the betrayed Empire. And, 
 indeed, Nemesis at last alighted upon you. 
 
 You saw your power wane. You thought 
 of a new union, nay, of a fresh conspiracy with 
 the Irish 'parliamentary' band. Your demon 
 whispered that your rivals, that the Conserva- 
 tives might henceforth have the ' doubtful,' 
 yet in your opinion all-important support at 
 Westminster of the Parnells, the Eedmonds, the
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S FALL 235 
 
 Tim Healyites and McCarthyites. And though 
 on October 15, 1885, my Lord Eosebery had 
 indignantly denounced what such an alliance 
 would be, when he exclaimed : 
 
 ' The followers of Mr. Parnell do not give votes for 
 nothing. I fear the result will be disastrous. I don't 
 profess to be a very imaginative person, but I confess that 
 my imagination fails to lead me to what the practical result 
 of that alliance may be. We know the friendly feeling of 
 Mr. Parnell towards this country, and we may be certain 
 that it ia not England, or Scotland, or Wales that will 
 benefit by this new and interesting alliance. It is an 
 alliance which has not merely struck a mortal stab at 
 political principles, but it involves a danger to the Empire 
 itself : ' 
 
 You committed the final deed, which, if not 
 stayed in time, should annihilate the Nation, 
 blotting out, as it were, with its curse the 
 whole history of a stormy, yet just and glorious 
 past of many centuries of British, of Imperial 
 evolution. You yourself hastened to form 
 nay, to renew this unholy alliance with Par- 
 nell ; and though my Lord Salisbury had at the 
 outset of his interim Ministry sufficiently de- 
 clared that he intended to restore order, to 
 check terrorism, and to carry out the law in 
 Ireland in the same manner in which it was 
 administered in England, you made, as John 
 Bright wrote you on July 4, 1886, 'a complete
 
 236 THE FIRST HOME RULE BILL 
 
 surrender' of the destinies of the Empire. But 
 were you not doomed to descend from this 
 world's scene, a second Ephialtes and Attila in 
 one, to descend to the memory of posterity as 
 the 'great wrecker?' Was it not the consis- 
 tency of your morbid conscience which, rather 
 than that the Conservatives, the staple element 
 in your Nation, should set the ever-corrupting 
 example of such an abnormal alliance, prompted 
 you to throw before the hungry pack of the 
 Irish ' parliamentary ' wolves the 
 
 Bill to amend the Provisions for the future 
 Government of Ireland? 
 
 However, sir, is it necessary to enlarge upon 
 the inevitable effects which the adoption of these 
 provisions for the future government of Ireland 
 would have had on the future existence of Ire- 
 land? Will it be advisable Say, is it worth 
 while to inquire into the possibility of a Legis- 
 lature such as that lined out in clauses 9, 10 and 
 11 of vour amending Bill, such' as could only 
 be hatched in an abnormally fantastic, in an 
 Utopian exuberant imagination? Verily, you 
 may believe, if not already immortal for the 
 implacable hatred you bear your country, pos-
 
 FAMOUS CLAUSES CONSTITUTING 237 
 
 terity will remember you as the most scathing 
 satire on the perverseness and absurdity and 
 self-indulgence of a statesman ; it will re- 
 member as the most comic illustration of 
 human 'wisdom' these clauses of yours con- 
 stituting a Legislative Body in Ireland, these 
 clauses of yours so worthy of a Jules Verne's, 
 of a Don Quixote's idiosyncrasies : 
 
 9. (1.) The Irish Legislative Body shall consist of a 
 first and second ' order' 
 
 (2.) The two orders shall deliberate together, and shall 
 vote together, except that, if any question arises in relation 
 to legislation or to the Standing Orders or Kules of Pro- 
 cedure or to any other matter in that behalf in this Act 
 specified, and such question is to be determined by vote, 
 each order shall, if a majority of the members present of 
 either ' order ' demand a separate vote, give their votes in 
 like manner as if they were separate Legislative Bodies ; 
 and if the result of the voting of the two orders does not 
 agree the question shall be resolved in the negative. 
 
 10- (1.) The first 'order' of the Irish Legislative 
 Body shall consist of one hundred and three members, of 
 tvhom seventy-five shall be elective members and twenty- 
 eight peerage members. 
 
 (2.) Each elective member shall at the date of his elec- 
 tion and during his period of membership be bond fide 
 possessed of property which 
 
 (a.} if realty, or partly realty and partly personalty, 
 yields two hundred pounds a year or upwards, free of 
 all charges ; or 
 
 (6.) if personalty yields the same income, or is of the 
 capital value of four thousand pounds or upwards, 
 free of all charges.
 
 238 THE IEISH LEGISLATIVE BODY 
 
 (5.) The term of office of an elective member shall be 
 ten years. 
 
 (6.) In every fifth year thirty-seven or thirty-eight of 
 the, elective members, as the case requires, shall retire from 
 office, and their places shall be filled by election; the 
 members to retire shall be those who have been members 
 for the longest time witlwut re-election. 
 
 (7.) The offices of the peerage members shall be filled 
 as follows ; that is to say 
 
 (a.) Each of the Irish peers who on the appointed day 
 is one of the twenty-eight Irish representative peers 
 shall, on giving his written assent to the Lord 
 Lieutenant, become a peerage member of the 'first 
 order ' of the Irish Legislative Body ; and if at any 
 time within thirty years after the appointed day any 
 such peer vacates his office by death or resignation, 
 the vacancy shall be filled by the election to that 
 office by the Irish peers of one of their number in 
 manner heretofore in use respecting the election of 
 Irish representative peers, subject to adaptation as 
 provided by this Act, and if the vacancy is not so 
 filled within the proper time it shall be filled by the 
 election of an elective member. 
 
 (b.) If any of the twenty-eight peers aforesaid does not 
 within one month after the appointed day give such 
 assent to be a peerage member of the first order, the 
 vacancy so created shall be filled up as if he had 
 assented and vacated his office by resignation. 
 
 (8.) A peerage member shall be entitled to hold office 
 daring his life, or until the expiration of thirty years from 
 the appointed day, whichever period is the shortest. At 
 the expiration of such thirty years the offices of all the 
 peerage members shall be vacated as if they were dead, and 
 their places shall be filled by elective members qualified 
 and elected in manner provided by' this Act with respect to 
 elective members of the first order, and such elective mem-
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE BODY IX IRELAND 239 
 
 bers may be distributed by the Irish Legislature among the 
 electoral districts, so, however, that care shall be taken to 
 give additional members to the most populous places. 
 
 (9.) The offices of members of the ' first order ' shall no$ 
 be vacated by the dissolution of the Legislative Body. 
 
 (10.) The provisions in the Second Schedule to this Act 
 relating to members of the 'first order ' of the Legislative 
 Body shall be of the same force as if they were enacted in 
 the body of this Act. 
 
 11. (1.) Subject as hi this section hereafter men- 
 tioned, the ' second order ' of the Legislative Body shall 
 consist of two hundred and four members. 
 
 (2.) The members of the ' second order ' shall be chosen 
 by the existing constituencies of Ireland, two by each con- 
 stituency, with the exception of the city of Cork, which 
 shall be divided into two divisions in manner set forth in 
 the Third Schedule to this Act, and two members shall 
 be chosen by each of such divisions. 
 
 (3.) Any person who, on tlie appointed day, is a mem- 
 ber representing an existing Irish constituency in the Housi 
 of Commons shall, on giving his written assent to the Lord 
 Lieutenant, become a member of the ' second order ' of the 
 Irish Legislative Body as if he had been elected by the 
 constituency which he was representing in the House of 
 Commons. Each of the members for the city of Cork, on 
 the said day, may elect for which of the divisions of that 
 city he wishes to be deemed to have been elected. 
 
 (4.) If any member does not give such written assent 
 within one month after the appointed day, his place shall 
 be filled by election in the same manner and at the same 
 time as if he had assented and vacated his office by 
 death. 
 
 (5.) If the same person is elected to ' both orders, 1 he 
 shall, within seven days after the meeting of the Legislative 
 Body, or if the Body is sitting at the time of the election, 
 within seven days after the election, elect in which order 
 
 R
 
 240 THE LAND PURCHASE BILL 
 
 he will serve, and his membership of the other order shall 
 be void and be filled by a fresh election. 
 
 Indeed, even the too confiding Nation roused 
 herself against the absurdities of this your pro- 
 posal. The people instinctively felt its incon- 
 gruities. It recognised at once that such an 
 Assembly was doomed to be abortive, resembling 
 in its construction an airy castle, peopled by the 
 phantastic impossible creations of an abnormal 
 ' romancier.' And though by its provisions you 
 virtually disenfranchised Ireland, in so far as it 
 would have henceforth no representatives at 
 Westminster ; though by the reserve clauses 
 as to customs, as to the retention of the Royal 
 Irish Constabulary under the control of the 
 British Imperial Executive, you made for once 
 Great Britain the real ruler over the Emerald 
 Isle ; though you brought forth at the same 
 time another ' conciliatory ' measure, 
 
 The Land Purchase Bill, 
 
 by which you gave to the Irish landlords the 
 right to be bought out at from twenty to twenty- 
 two years' purchase of their judicial rents, with 
 something extra by way of compensation for 
 arrears ; though by this proposal, ' adopted
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S UNIONIST COLLEAGUES 241 
 
 under a serious conviction of honour and 
 duty' you admitted the particeps cnminis and 
 proclaimed against all your former actions 
 in the face of all your former statements and 
 declarations that England, that Great Britain 
 had some obligations towards her garrison in 
 Ireland : the Irish landlords : 
 
 Sir, once more your evil scheme rebounded 
 upon you ; once more you were crushed beneath 
 it. Deserted by your noble friends, by such 
 true patriots as his Grace the Duke of Argyll, 
 his Grace the Duke of Westminster, by my 
 Lord Hartington, by the Brights, the Chamber- 
 lains, the Goschens you fell, a monument of 
 shame. That you had sunk for ever ! For then 
 Ireland might at last have been safely steered 
 into the haven of peace and prosperity. Aye, 
 already, with a Balfour at her helm and a Salis- 
 bury in command, she was successfully braving 
 the winds and breakers ; she was entering the 
 sheltered gulf. But that it could have been 
 otherwise ! her demon was still lurking for 
 her : you were yet alive. And in spite of the 
 beneficial and beneficent enactments and laws, 
 encouraging the economical, social and moral 
 development of the Emerald Isle, which were 
 passed for the reviving country by a firm and 
 
 R2
 
 242 DESERTED AND DEGRADED, YET STILL ALIVE 
 
 for this very reason truly Irish-patriotic adminis- 
 tration; in spite of the rays of intelligence, 
 which the Parnell Commission, which the ever- 
 memorable speech of Sir Henry James threw 
 upon the infernal workings of the Irish dema- 
 gogues and conspirators a mist, a Gladstonian 
 mist was again gathering over Great Britain and 
 the Nation became more and more dangerously 
 afiected.
 
 TWELFTH LETTEK 
 
 THE IRISH GLADSTONIAN ERA AND THE 
 HOME RULE BILL OF 1893
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIK, But, * Tempora fugiunt et horse et dies 
 et menses.' The Empire is no longer held in dis- 
 quieting suspense. The clouds of doubt which 
 for seven years have hung threatening over 
 England like sulphureous vapours that thicken 
 round a volcano before its outbreak they have 
 burst at last. It has come to pass 
 
 Mons parturibat, gemitus immanes ciens, 
 
 Eratque in terris maxima expectatio ; 
 
 Quid ille pareret ? At ille legem ' Proteam ' peperit ; 
 
 namely : 
 
 The Bill for the l better ' Government of Ireland. 
 
 Indeed, sir, before the Nation has arisen the 
 grandiloquent Gladstonian mirage of a union of 
 hearts ; you may believe, the people stand dumb- 
 founded which way to turn. As to your enemies,
 
 246 HOME RULE ROME RULE 
 
 they confess themselves by its phantasmagoria 
 utterly confounded. And behold ! the Irish 
 parliamentary rabble delights since its appear- 
 ance in high pranks of Irish ! nay, of British, 
 of English patriotism. The cockney Eadicals 
 are lying low in anticipation of the spoils that 
 will fall into their claws in the inevitable fast- 
 approaching confusion. The priests' anxiety it 
 has developed into conceit, and their Walshite 
 and Jesuitic distempers seem completely muzzled. 
 They read Rome Rule for Home Eule, and what 
 that means is explained by you when you say : 
 
 No one can become Home's convert without 
 renouncing his moral and mental freedom and 
 placing his civil loyalty at the mercy of another.' 
 
 It is explained in the ' Freeman's Journal ' 
 of April 16, 1891 : 
 
 ' No body of clergymen in Great Britain would 
 venture to put forward such claims as some of the 
 Catholic bishops have recently advanced in Ireland, 
 nor would it be possible for any organisation of 
 ministers of religion across the Channel to inter- 
 fere in elections in the spirit and after the fashion 
 marking recent contests in Ireland' 
 
 It is proclaimed by Dr. Walsh, the would-be 
 Cardinal and Irish Pope : 
 
 'As priests, and independent of all human
 
 HOME RULE AND REVOLUTIONARY ELEMENTS 247 
 
 organisations, they possess an inalienable and 
 indisputable right to guide their people in this 
 momentous proceeding, as in every other proceed- 
 ing where the interests of Catholicity as well as 
 the interests of Irish nationality are involved' 
 
 But the Socialists, too, see behind the Home 
 Rule Bill visions of their millennium. The An- 
 archists rejoice since its first reading that they, 
 together with the Fenians and Irish-American 
 dynamitards, have found in you the ' legitimate ' 
 expounder of their chaotic creed. And the 
 anti-popish scruples the terrors of a supre- 
 macy of the Eomish antichrist, which have so 
 often, like a horrible nightmare, harassed the 
 Nonconformist and Dissenter-teetotal, the Welsh, 
 the Sankey and Moody conscience they, too, 
 are lulled to sleep by that Bill for the ' better ' 
 Government of Ireland ; for do not the Veto 
 and Suspensory Bills nestle under its ' blessing ' 
 wings ? 
 
 Ah, sir, well may you be proud of this your 
 Home Rule Bill. Rightly has its announcement 
 been .hailed by all revolutionary elements. By it 
 are scattered to the winds the warnings of even 
 a Peel, your great teacher, as to the ruin of a 
 policy of concession : 1 1 will do anything to 
 conciliate any portion of the people of Ireland
 
 248 SIR ROBERT PEEL ON THE UNION 
 
 that is just towards them, just also towards 
 others. But, alas ! we have had many warnings 
 that conciliation and peace are not the necessary 
 results of concession and of intended kindness.' 
 
 By it are scattered into the empty air those 
 ever-memorable, ever-true prophecies of that 
 Sir Eobert Peel : ' / can have no security for the 
 protection of law, property, or individual liberty, so 
 long as the slightest degree of influence is exercised 
 over the ignorant population of Ireland by agita- 
 tors and conspirators. . . . A separate Parlia- 
 ment in Ireland would amount to a disbanding of 
 society ; and, new relations having sprung up since 
 the incorporation of the two countries, to retain Ire- 
 land after a dissolution of the Union within her 
 proper orbit in the system of the Empire would 
 require the might of that omniscient and omnipo- 
 tent Power by which the harmony of the planetary 
 system had been arranged and was sustained' 
 
 By it you have once more perjured yourself 
 in your most solemn declarations. By clause 1 
 of your ' Protean ' Bill you give to Ireland a 
 Legislature. By clause 9 you grant her eighty 
 representatives in the Imperial Parliament. You 
 make thus the Irish- American republicans more 
 than ever the arbiter of England's destinies, 
 inasmuch as in your 'plot for the "worse"
 
 THE LAND LEAGUERS' INSTRUCTIONS 24'J 
 
 government of Ireland' you have obediently 
 carried out the instructions laid down by a 
 William O'Brien (January 1892) : 
 
 ' We are all united in demanding that the 
 Irish Parliament, while it acts within its own 
 province, shall be as free from Imperial meddling 
 as the Parliaments of Australia and Canada 
 that is to say, practically speaking, as free as air* 
 
 And by your quondam friend then victim 
 Charles Stewart Parnell : 
 
 ' It is now known to all men that when our 
 Parliament has been restored to us it shall have 
 power to make laws for Ireland, and that there 
 shall be no English veto upon these laws except the 
 constitutional veto of the Crown, exercised in the 
 same way as in the Imperial Parliament.' 
 
 Yet in 1886 you, the Eight Honourable, had 
 solemnly stated : 
 
 1 1 never will be a party to any plan which 
 gives to the Irish people a separate Parliament, and 
 also gives them a voice in British affairs at home? 
 
 By it you consummate your pernicious, your 
 unnatural policy of disintegration. 
 
 The new revolutionary proposal neither con- 
 tains the clause of the old the scheme of 1886 : 
 
 19- (1.) It shall not be lawful for the Irish Legislative 
 Body to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address, or Bill
 
 250 AS TO WHAT THE HOME RULE BILL SHOULD BE 
 
 for the raising or appropriation for any purpose of any 
 part of the public revenue of Ireland, or of any tax, duty, 
 or impost, except in pursuance of a recommendation from 
 Her Majesty signified through the Lord Lieutenant in the 
 session in which such vote, resolution, address, or Bill is 
 proposed. 
 
 
 
 Nor the clause : 
 
 12. (1.) For the purpose of providing for the public 
 service of Ireland the Irish Legislature may impose taxes 
 other than duties of customs or excise, which duties shall 
 continue to be imposed and levied by and under the direc- 
 tion of the Imperial Parliament only. 
 
 Nor the clause : 
 
 33- (#) The existing law relating to the Exchequer 
 and the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom 
 shall apply to the Irish Exchequer and Consolidated 
 Fund, and an officer shall from time to time be 
 appointed by the Lord Lieutenant to fill the office 
 of the Comptroller General of the receipt and issue 
 of Her Majesty's Exchequer and Auditor General of 
 public accounts so far as respects Ireland ; and 
 
 (6.) The accounts of the Irish Consolidated Fund shall 
 be audited as appropriation accounts in manner pro- 
 vided by the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act, 
 1866, by or under the direction of the holder of such 
 office. 
 
 But instead, it hands over to the Irish Parlia- 
 mentary rabble all the powers of finance. Does 
 not the ' improved ' Bill enact that 
 
 ' All matters relating to the taxes in Ireland 
 and the collection and management thereof shall be
 
 CLAUSES OF THE BILLS OP 1886-1893 COMPARED 251 
 
 regulated by " Irish " Act, and the same shall be 
 collected and managed by the Irish Government, 
 and form part of the public revenue of Ireland? 
 (Bill, 1893, 10(3))? 
 
 Does it not enact that : 
 
 Save as in this Act mentioned, all the public revenues 
 of Ireland shall be paid into the Irish Exchequer and form 
 a Consolidated Fund, and be appropriated to the public 
 service of Ireland by Irish Act? 
 
 Indeed, by the Bill for the " better " Go- 
 vernment of Ireland,' you consummate your 
 treason-felony against England, against the 
 Empire. 
 
 Abandoned are the former encouraging 
 safeguarding provisions, such as : 
 
 18. If Her Majesty declares that a state of war exists 
 and is pleased to signify such declaration to the Irish Legis- 
 lative Body by speech or message, it shall be lawful for the 
 Irish Legislature to appropriate a further sum out of the 
 Consolidated Fund of Ireland in aid of the army or navyy 
 or other measures which Her Majesty may take for the 
 prosecution of the war and defence of the realm, and to 
 provide and raise money for that purpose ; and all moneys 
 so provided and raised, whether by loan, taxation, or other- 
 wise, shall be paid into the Consolidated Fund of the 
 United Kingdom ; 
 
 such as : 
 
 3. The Irish Legislature shall not make laws 
 relating to : (3) The army, navy, MILITIA, VOLUN-
 
 252 COMPARISON CONTINUED, THE CONSTABULARY 
 
 TEERS, or other military or naval forces, or the 
 defence of the realm. 
 Such as : 
 
 22. (1.) The power of erecting forts, magazines, 
 arsenals, dockyards, and other buildings for military 
 or naval purposes ; 
 
 (2.) The power of taking waste land, and, on making 
 due compensation, any other land, for the purpose of erect- 
 ing such forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, or other 
 buildings as aforesaid, and for any other military or naval 
 purpose, or the defence of the realm. 
 
 But instead, the ' improved ' Sill abandons in 
 Clause 30 the loyal Irish Constabulary to the 
 tender mercies of t/ie mercenaries of Irish- 
 American dynamitards, of the Clan-na-Gael, of 
 the Invincibles, of the men of the Skirmishing 
 Fund. 1 It delivers the only guard, the only re- 
 
 1 ' The Skirmishing Fund,' of which the ' Irish World ' 
 gives under date August 28, 1880, the following information as 
 to the motives for and aims of its formation : 
 
 'Five years ago O'Donovan Eossa, through the columns 
 of this paper, made known to the Irish people the idea of 
 skirmishing. . . . He did not himself write the address that 
 was published. Bossa called for 5,000. The first notion 
 seemed to rise no higher than the rescue of a few Fenian 
 prisoners then held in English gaols. He wanted badly to 
 knock a feather out of England's cap. That sort of theatrical 
 work did not satisfy us. 
 
 ' Nor did it commend itself to some others either. Eossa 
 then said he was willing to burn down some shipping in Liver- 
 pool. AVhy not burn down London and the principal cities of 
 England ? asked one of the two whom Eossa, in the beginning, 
 associated with him in the movement. Eossa said he was in 
 favour of anything. The question of loss of life was raised.
 
 THE SKIRMISHING FUND 253 
 
 liable guarantee as to the true and prompt and 
 honest fulfilment of Ireland's obligations and re- 
 
 Yes, said he, who has put forward the idea. Yes, it is war, 
 and in all wars life must be lost ; but in my opinion the loss of 
 life under such circumstances would not be one-tenth that re- 
 corded in the least of the smallest battles between the South 
 and the North. Some one suggested that plenty of thieves and 
 burglars in London could be got to do this job. Here we inter- 
 posed. Why should you ask others to do what you yourself 
 deem wrong ? After all, would it not be yourself that would be 
 committing the sin ? Gentlemen, if you cannot go into this 
 thing with a good conscience you ought not to entertain the 
 notion at all. 
 
 ' Here now, two questions presented themselves : (1) Was 
 the thing feasible ? (2) If feasible, what would be the probable 
 result ? 
 
 ' That the idea could be carried into execution, that London 
 could be laid in ashes in twenty-four hours was to us self- 
 evident. England could be invaded by a small and resolute 
 band of men, say ten or a dozen, when a force of a thousand 
 times this number, coming with ships and artillery, and banners 
 flying, could not effect a landing. Spaniards in the days of the 
 Invincible Armada, and Zulus to-day, could not do what 
 English-speaking Irishmen can accomplish. Language, skin- 
 colour, dress, general manners, are all in favour of the Irish. 
 Then, tens of thousands of Irishmen, from long residence in the 
 enemy's country, know England's cities well. Our Irish Skir- 
 mishers would be well disguised. They would enter London 
 unknown and unnoticed. When the night for action came, the 
 night that the wind was blowing strong this little band would 
 deploy, each man setting about his own allotted task, and no 
 man, save the captain of the band alone, knowing what any 
 other man was to do, and at the same instant strike with 
 lightning the enemy of their land and race. . . . In two hours 
 from the word of command London would be in flames, 
 shooting up to the heavens in fifty different places. Whilst 
 this would be going on, the men could be still at work. The 
 blazing spectacle would attract all eyes, and leave the skir- 
 mishers to operate with impunity in the darkness.'
 
 254 ENGLISH PAYMENTS TO IRISH REPUBLICAN FUND 
 
 sponsibilities towards England it delivers these 
 faithful sentries of British integrity and Imperial 
 supremacy to the tyranny and revenge of the 
 Healyites and Redmondites. 
 
 And lest your pernicious plot might, in 
 spite of these treacherous mines, so masterfully 
 laid with all the ' mad ' cunning of an abnormal 
 hatred, ambition and despotism, at the last 
 moment fail to explode; you actually dare to ask 
 the Nation for contributions in amounts of half mil- 
 lions to the Fenian the Dynamitard the Irish 
 Republican Fund. Is it that you are thus anxious 
 to endow with British, with English money the 
 Irish and Popish conspirators because of the pro- 
 bability of an Amjlo- American conflict ? Is it that 
 you wish to enable these traitor-demagogues not only 
 hospitably to receive any enemy of Great Britain, 
 but materially to aid him ? 
 
 Still, your ' Protean ' Bill has some redeem- 
 ing features. 
 
 It is true, in their refraction its hell-born 
 origin and fiendish aims show forth only the 
 more hideously. 
 
 It is true, in its principles as well as in its 
 purports and provisions as to Irish autonomy, 
 it is even devoid of originality, in that before 
 the appearance of this your revolutionary
 
 'HOME RULE' IN COUNTRIES NOT ENGLISH 255 
 
 ' legislative ' abortment, there have been so- 
 called ' Personal Unions ' such as the old 
 German, the holy Eoman Empire (the laugh- 
 ing-stock of Europe) and Spain under Charles 
 V. ; such as Poland and Saxony under Augus- 
 tus ; such as England and Hanover under the 
 Georges. And, indeed, the end of all these 
 it points a moral which may well once adorn 
 the Home Eule tale. 
 
 It is true, that it endeavours to produce in 
 the two British Isles the happily defunct, aye, 
 happily decayed ' Deutsche Bundesstaat.' 
 
 It is true, that in the inevitable develop- 
 ment of your pernicious project there will 
 occur many a similarity of evil cause and 
 ruinous effect to the rapidly developing, de- 
 composing conflict in Scandinavia between the 
 ' Eiksdag ' and ' Eidderhus ' on the one side, 
 and the 'Storthing' the 'Lagtliing' and the 
 4 Odelsthing ' on the other. 
 
 It is true, that in one point its destructive 
 operation will be analogous to the events that 
 come to pass in federate Canada. Without 
 provisions for the establishment of autonomous 
 County Councils or sub-divisional Provincial 
 Delegations by ichich a large minority, differ- 
 ing in religion and race from an antagonistic
 
 256 HOME RULE BILL AND THE BRITISH ARMY 
 
 majority, would successfully be protected 
 against the latter's oppression, this your Home 
 Kule Bill, it must in Ireland: in the loyal, 
 prosperous, industrious and noble Ulster re- 
 produce the evils which play such havoc 
 amongst the Protestant population of British 
 origin in the province of Quebec. 
 
 It is true although surrendering all the 
 rights and powers of government to the Irish 
 Legislature your Home Eule Bill yet contains 
 no clause by which the garrisoning in Ireland 
 of a British army of occupation is rendered un- 
 lawful. Indeed, it leaves in the Emerald Isle 
 such regiments as are already quartered there. 
 In this you judge that their very presence icill not 
 only be a continual source of vexation to the Irish 
 parliamentary rabble, but must sooner or later 
 r t i me into collisiomcith the ultimate jwlicy of the 
 Walshes, the Egans, the DarAtts, the Tim Healys, 
 and the Redmonds. It is true, therefore, that it 
 contains all the combustibles for another civil 
 war, worse than any ever before, a war which 
 will only terminate after the annihilation of one 
 of the combatants. Thus, so far your ' Protean ' 
 proposal is fiendish both in its origin and aim. 
 
 But, sir, notwithstanding, there are redeem- 
 ing features. Sir, notwithstanding, there - are 
 I
 
 HOME RULE BILL'S REDEEMING FEATURES 257 
 
 two provisos which are really unique. They 
 are inspired by the dictum : 
 
 When two authorities are up, 
 Neither supreme, how soon confusion 
 May enter 'twixt the gap of both. 
 
 First, your Bill contains an all-important 
 nay, a patriotic ! preamble : ' Whereas it is 
 " expedient " that without " impairing " or " re- 
 stricting " the supreme authority of Parliament, 
 an Irish Legislature should be created.' For, 
 with such a preamble ! can it matter much 
 that there will be no longer a loyal Ulster and 
 a loyal Constabulary to protect this supreme 
 authority of the Imperial Parliament ? With 
 such a preamble ! can it matter that in case of 
 an Irish alliance with an American or French 
 host against England ; that in case of the triumph 
 of Fenian terrorism and 'Irish parliamentary' 
 anarchy the British troops might have to re- 
 enforce this supreme authority perhaps at the 
 point of the bayonet, yet no longer as the guar- 
 dians of law and justice and in the interests, in 
 fact, for the real benefit and protection of Ireland, 
 but held up by the Irish traitor-demagogues as 
 oppressors and hated aliens ? 
 
 Secondly, there is a proviso in your Bill by 
 
 02
 
 258 HOME RULE BILL'S REDEEMING FEATURES 
 
 which the Lord Lieutenant is retained the 
 Lord Lieutenant ! the representative of the 
 Queen ! His nominal continuation being thus 
 guaranteed, can it be of much consequence that he 
 is virtually dependent on an ' Irish ' Executive, 
 which again is actually the instrument of the 
 6 Irish ' Legislature, sicayed in turns by the rabble 
 and the priests ; sometimes coerced by both at one 
 and the same time ; fooling the Queens representa- 
 tive, and tyrannising over the industrious, the real 
 population of Ireland ? 
 
 No, sir, this your 'Protean' Bill, indeed, 
 how wonderful it would work, if the patriots 
 were less untractable ! 
 
 Yet these patriots will not be persuaded 
 otherwise. They contend that this your new 
 Home Rule Scheme would, if passed, sever the 
 bonds by which the British community is held 
 together. They maintain that it aims the death- 
 blow at the rights and the security of property, 
 even where acquired by dint of industry, self- 
 denial and thrift. They firmly believe that it 
 will poison the law and defame the administra- 
 tion of justice. They say it establishes the 
 terrorism of the brutal force of numbers, de- 
 stroying for ever the equitable titles of mino- 
 rities to state and defend their cause in a con-
 
 NOT RECOGNISED AS SUCH BY PATRIOTS 259 
 
 stitutional manner. They are convinced that 
 by the adoption of its principles, tolerance be- 
 comes a sham, and religion a pompous, theatrical 
 farce of hypocrisy. They apprehend, they 
 vividly apprehend that the fulfilment of its pro- 
 mises to threats and murder, perjury and trea- 
 son will tarnish the Nation's honour, and that 
 on the drooping banner of the Empire the peoples 
 abroad, the foreign enemies of Great Britain 
 shall read the infamous story how England, 
 how a British Statesman could betray, and did 
 betray their most sacred obligations towards 
 thousands and thousands of loyal citizens and 
 civil servants. And though they have yet some 
 hope that the time has still to come when the 
 British Nation turns Judas against the British 
 Nation, they look forward with terror to the 
 mischief which your attempt already at disinte- 
 gration must work. They believe that the bane- 
 ful effect of this Home Eule Bill consists already 
 therein that the very fact of you being suffered 
 to produce such a traitorous, such a revolu- 
 tionary, such a pernicious and unnatural pro- 
 posal uncovers before the world a state of 
 licence, of demoralisation, of decomposition, 
 the knowledge of which will, pest- like, spread 
 and further poison the people, the example of
 
 260 
 
 which will corrode the very foundations upon 
 which Great Britain has grown prosperous, 
 glorious and peacefully great. For they hold 
 that the whole history of this infamously no- 
 torious Home Eule Bill, from the motive for its 
 conception, from the hour of this conception, 
 from the development, the growth of this 
 conception to the hour of its birth and since, 
 has been one continual perjury, and a depraved, 
 or rather, a mad glorification of high treason, 
 of felony and assassination.
 
 THIBTEENTH LETTER 
 
 THE HOME RULE BILL'S EPITOME 
 THE BIGHT HONOURABLE'S EPITAPH
 
 To the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 SIR, Such is the c legislative ' measure by 
 which you persuade yourself to solve the Irish 
 problem. Truly, it crowns 3'our phenomenal 
 career. Under the bane of the solution you 
 attempt, the Empire would crumble and revo- 
 lution sweep its disjointed fragments into the 
 chaos of destruction. 
 
 But dare it come to pass ? 
 
 No, methinks I see in my mind the Nation 
 rousing herself from a lethargic sleep. Methinks 
 I see her rise, like a lion shaking his mane to 
 the jackals and hyenas that were prowling 
 closer and closer round their king, deeming him 
 dead and an easy prey. Methinks I behold her 
 as an eagle triumphantly soaring forth from an 
 abyss, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the 
 full mid-day beam of patriotism which at last 
 has broken gloriously through the poisonous 
 vapours of faction-strife. Methinks I watch her
 
 264 THE HOME RULE BILL'S EPITOME 
 
 with 'bated breath now immerging into the 
 boiling sea of political passion, but now emerg- 
 ing renewed in her existence like a phoenix, and 
 more powerful, more noble than ever, more 
 enlightened as to her mission towards the 
 peoples, towards the nations that have gathered 
 under her banner. And in the hour of this her 
 triumph, methinks I see her even mourn over 
 the great fall of one who might have been to 
 her a blessing, both for his opportunities and 
 his powers ; but whose doom it was to become 
 her curse. For your career and its catastrophe 
 though it has opened a hundred chasms that 
 hungrily gape to swallow up the Nation, yet 
 should England not be grateful it has un- 
 covered, and it will reveal and expose in all 
 their hideousness the parasites, the parliamen- 
 tary rabble, the Home Eulers, these Walshites, 
 these Healyites and Eedmondites that are 
 festering the Irish wound and keep her sorrows 
 from healing. And perhaps the tune will come 
 that then the sons of Erin, too, shall awaken 
 from their wicked dream and recognise at last 
 the true freedom, the true liberty, the heavenly- 
 born daughter the freedom which an obedience 
 to the law alone can confer. Perhaps the time 
 will come when they will hurl their malediction
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S EPITAPH ? 265 
 
 at the phantom of national independence which 
 has lured them for centuries into a desert of 
 misery, massacre and crime ; at the phantom 
 of liberty which is but license, tyranny and 
 anarchism. 
 
 Sir, but how will you then stand before the 
 Irish people, and by what reasons will you 
 justify your false gospel of the eternal rights of 
 man and nationalities? The subtleties of your 
 political metaphysics will be crushed by the 
 gigantic weight of historical realities. In vain 
 will you plead that, by overthrowing the bar- 
 riers which convention and its effect, society, 
 have raised and the rules they have laid down 
 for the formation and the protection of States 
 without which there can be no advancement in 
 civilisation, you have restored to the Irish the 
 .original birthrights of a state of nature. From 
 evil can come no good, and you knew, from the 
 rapidity with which the revolt of America begot 
 the revolution in France, how quickly grows 
 and swells the hurricane of rebellion that must 
 break up all the foundations upon which not 
 only Great Britain but all the truly great Em- 
 pires are towering. But will you really end 
 your life by that tragic, by that infernal act ; 
 by casting, in the name of liberty, Ireland into
 
 266 THE HOME RULE BILL'S EPITOME 
 
 the dungeon of despotism, and, through the 
 example you set, all other nations into the con- 
 flagration of racial, of tribal ambitions and 
 wars? 
 
 That you would have remembered the eternal 
 law of nature by which the smaller atoms are by 
 the larger particles with which they come in contact 
 attracted, assimilated and converted into one solid, 
 one united mass ! Ireland's march towards pro- 
 gress would never have been impeded, and the 
 Emerald Isle, Great Britain were not threatened 
 now by a British statesman with destruction. 
 For the burning and inflaming lava of your 
 legislative schemes must destroy all life, if not 
 stemmed in time. 
 
 But is not destruction reconstruction ? Are 
 not all endings said to be new beginnings ? 
 
 Indeed, behold on the firmament yawns in- 
 finite night : the huge grave of planets that 
 have devoured themselves in their heat unspeak- 
 able. But ere long, where there was darkness, 
 there new stars blaze up. And they pass on 
 and enlighten and enliven. Then they flicker 
 again into dimness. 
 
 These phenomena of stellar-collisions are 
 they not phenomena of such evolution ? For 
 in that crucible of change, full of flame and fury
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S EPITAPH? 267 
 
 of liquefaction, of elements bubbling and roar- 
 ing in the process of their decomposition, new 
 destinies are shaped. 
 
 Aye, as it is with stars, even so it is with 
 nations. Whilst those roll in their orbs, these 
 move in their spheres towards their common 
 end for a common purpose. They are all 
 ephemeral : the days of men, the lives of nations, 
 the ages of planets. None will escape de- 
 struction, so that new life may spring from 
 their ruins. 
 
 But, sir, these new destinies, these new creations 
 are worked out upon eternal laws. No star shall 
 fall from its ellipse until its hour has ripened; 
 nor shall any nation die before it has conceived 
 the germs for the birth of a new people. There- 
 fore, stay ! Beware, you waste your last powers. 
 Hold back or you will damn even the final stage 
 in your life when you should strew that seed the 
 fruits of which would shine for you in heaven, 
 and which might move the angels to blot out 
 with their tears of mercy the record of your 
 former misdeeds. Sir, in vain you attempt, in 
 vain you plot to hasten the combustion of the 
 Empire. The mission of the British Nation is not 
 yet fulfilled. She shall not perish before that ful- 
 filment.
 
 268 
 
 You have mistaken the temper of the people. 
 You also mistake the purpose of your century. It 
 is true it is an age of revolution. But it is 
 not during its passage that the stormy season 
 will open when mighty Empires such as Great 
 Britain shall be broken up into atoms of nation- 
 alities. On the contrary, it is an era of concen- 
 tration, of centralisation ; and he it is that will 
 perish who thrusts his arm between the wheels 
 of that evolution. 
 
 In this you are right : there are States- 
 unions ; there are States-federations which are 
 tottering towards their decay. Behold Scan- 
 dinavia, behold Austria, behold Turkey ! These 
 are fast approaching their dissolution, for they 
 have been raised upon a patchwork of compro- 
 mises and treaties ; their policy is opportunism. 
 They vegetate within the vicious circle of self- 
 governing, provincial, tribal, and small national 
 legislatures, and of Imperial diets and royal 
 delegations. They are worn out by the col- 
 lisions between these their various governing 
 bodies, each moved by its own principles and 
 driven by its particular aims ; in most cases 
 the one directly opposed to the other. These 
 countries, not unlike the idol made up of frag- 
 ments of clay, iron, brass, silver and gold, that
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S EPITAPH? 269 
 
 fell to pieces before the dawn of a better creed ; 
 they will be swept away ere long by that irre- 
 sistible movement. Their tottering composites 
 will soon be thrown into the furnace of re- 
 creation, there to be melted down and then to 
 be driven into new forms more in harmony with 
 the age, so that the hundred features of their 
 
 O ' 
 
 hundred nationalities will be effaced, and the 
 new nation bear the impress of one uniform 
 character. And there will be models. There 
 shall be Great Britain. There will be Germany, 
 for * Deutschland, Dentschland liber Alles ' is the 
 dream and the hope of the coming German 
 generations. 
 
 Indeed, such is the course of civilisation ; 
 that there shall be an international union of 
 large States with an international board of 
 arbitration. Can there be any longer room 
 for every tribal claim for a national indepen- 
 dence ? 
 
 No, sir, the larger the Empires, the more 
 numerous their populations, the more often will 
 points of dispute between the various countries 
 be treated from a lofty, from a calm and un- 
 biassed, from an international standpoint, the 
 less frequent will such contentious questions 
 crop up, because the petty jealousies of small rulers,
 
 270 THE HOME RULE BILL'S EPITOME 
 
 the distempers of ministers, the fancies and revenges 
 of mistresses, the tribal pedantries and ambitions 
 of tiny nationalities will no longer be an element of 
 disturbance, but henceforth be sunk in the great 
 considerations of commerce and industry, and edu- 
 cation and science of civilisation ; because also 
 the different Governments dare no longer plunge 
 their millions and millions that make up the 
 various great nations they represent, into wars 
 which must end in the ruin of both the belli- 
 gerents. Nor will these peoples themselves easily 
 be moved to rush into such wars ; they will pause 
 before they risk, unless it be for tremendous issues, 
 a struggle that must be a struggle of extermination 
 of the one combatant, that must be a war of de- 
 struction to the other combatant. 
 
 Therefore, abandon it is the last moment 
 fling from you your policy of disintegration. 
 Great Britain, the British Empire shall yet live ; 
 she must yet rule over the sister isle, over her 
 peoples abroad. In vain you stem yourself 
 against the tide of that great evolution. Not 
 yet is Great Britain's imperial mission fulfilled. 
 Xay, it has only just begun. And you cannot 
 destroy her and cast the Irish, cast the African, 
 cast the Hindoo upon the ocean of dismember- 
 ment a wreckage of worse than helpless orphans.
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S EPITAPH ? 271 
 
 No, your attempts must end in your self-destruc- 
 tion. Behold the bloody battlefields of Misso- 
 longhi, of Solferino, of Koniggriitz, arid Sedan 
 they proclaim that there shall be but great 
 nations in which the surrounding tribes and 
 small nationalities are swallowed up in the in- 
 terests of progress, of society, of civilisation. 
 
 Sir, such has been the life-principle in the 
 growth of nations before the Eomans ; it has 
 been the motive in the formation of States from 
 the dawn of history. 
 
 Indeed, vainly you would compare the Eoman 
 Empire the end of the Eoman Empire with 
 the prospective end of Great and Greater Britain. 
 Sir, it has been admitted that the life of states 
 is like the life of man : it has a beginning and a 
 termination, and to this law the British Empire 
 is subjected. But again and again be it said, 
 and the Nation will soon proclaim it when 
 thundering forth your condemnation, the con- 
 flagration of Great Britain is yet chained up in 
 a far-off future. If Eome, the Imperial Eome, 
 fell within a few centuries of its birth, it was 
 because Eome did not spread the blessings of 
 civilisation amongst her nationalities. Eapine 
 and plunder was her aim, and instead of flourish- 
 ing cities and fertile plains, she left deserts in 
 
 T
 
 272 THE HOME RULE BILL'S EPITOME 
 
 her track. But Great Britain's mission is an 
 apostolic mission. And centuries after, when of 
 you and your Irish conspirators there will not 
 be even one grain of mouldering dust, she will 
 still fulfil this her glorious mission, nobly, un- 
 swervingly, beneficently, and beneficially ; she 
 will still rule the waves the Empress of the 
 oceans ; and under the protecting shadows of 
 her Imperial banner will still gather the grateful 
 peoples that now live prosperous and happy 
 within the pale of Great and Greater Britain. 
 And Ireland will think with horror of her former 
 wicked dreams ; she will think with horror of 
 her traitor-demagogues. She will have sought 
 new modes of action. With true men to guide 
 her she will have found and bravely pursue 
 these new paths. And on her, too, will be 
 poured the blessings of contentment and peace. 
 
 Sir, as to yourself such will be your end : 
 self-destruction. And thus it shah 1 come to pass 
 that the long discord which has been jarring 
 throughout your political career, terminates in 
 one weird, hitherto unheard-of dissonance, the
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S EPITAPH ? 273 
 
 vibrations of which may well spread terror 
 among the Nation and cause consternation in 
 the peoples abroad. 
 
 Verily, you may believe, already for the sake 
 of your age which overshadows my years by 
 three score and more, I would have wished to 
 speak of you in terms of praise and enthusiastic 
 gratitude ; for the sake of your undaunted per- 
 severance, which, though employed in a fatal 
 cause, yet brilliantly shows the moral purity of 
 your private life, I would have desired to be 
 able to hold you up to the Nation to posterity, 
 a genius of statecraft and a symbol of patriotism. 
 But as I turned over the leaves of your political 
 record, I found but dark spectres such as may 
 herd in the sterile despair of an Arctic winter 
 night. No lights to guide the coming genera- 
 tions, no revelations to elevate their political 
 morals beamed upon me ; no sparkling foun- 
 tains that might refresh the patriotism of the 
 Nation bubbled forth, encouraging me as I 
 mournfully passed along on my onward march 
 through the gloomy labyrinth of your political 
 life. There whilst I tremblingly stood, whilst 
 I fain was turning to flee from so uncanny a 
 spectacle, I was, as it were on a sudden, con- 
 fronted with the monster of that cave. Upon 
 
 T 2
 
 274 THE HOME RULE BILL'S EPITOME 
 
 me stared the phantasm begotten of a wizard 
 your Home Eule Scheme. And, sir, although 
 not born in nor reared by this country, I now 
 felt my blood tumultuously rising. For tre- 
 mendous are the issues that, like the sword of 
 Damocles, hang on the thin thread of your 
 advanced life not over England, not over Great 
 Britain alone, but over Europe, threatening her 
 nations with dissolution and destruction ! Thus 
 I venture it, thus I appeal to you, abandon 
 your pernicious scheme ; thus I call upon a 
 noble Nation to rouse herself, and if you will 
 not give way, to crush you and your satellites 
 beneath her. 
 
 Indeed, willingly would I have employed 
 other methods. But the subject of your career 
 can only be treated in a language befitting it. 
 If that language has been impassionate, you have 
 provoked it. It is the language of the heart ; 
 it is the echo of the curse of your deeds. 
 
 Verily, you cannot blame the patriots that 
 they are doubtful whether of you may be said : 
 
 'KEQUIESCAT IN PACE.'
 
 INDEX 
 
 ACT 
 ACT, Crimes, 198 
 
 Deasy's, 180 
 
 Employers' Liability, 113 
 
 Encumbered Estates, 179 
 
 - Habeas Corpus, 53, 180, 190 
 Suspension, 194 
 
 Irish University, 102 
 
 Peace Preservation, 204 
 
 of Settlement, 53 
 
 - Uniformity, 141 
 
 Union, 160 
 
 Treason Felony, 190 
 Afghanistan, xi., 101, 105 
 Alexandria, burning of, 103 
 America, 40, 44, 45, 99, 265 
 Anarchism, 78, 83 
 
 Apology of Mr. Gladstone to 
 
 Austria, 97 
 Arabi Pacha, 231 
 Archbishop of Dublin, murder 
 
 of, 137 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, 241 
 Aristotle, his ideal State, 39 
 Armenia, xi. 
 Arms Bill, the, 214 
 Athenree, battle of, 133 
 Attainder, ix. 
 Australia, 16 
 
 abandonment of, ix. 
 
 Colonies Bill, 12 
 
 supports Britain, 46 
 Austria, 75, 97, 268 
 Aylesbury Election, 85 
 Ayoob Khan, 105 
 
 CAT 
 
 BALFOUR, Mr., 241 
 Balkan Peninsula, 97 
 Beach, Sir M. H., 16 
 Beaconsfield, Earl of, 99, 189, 
 
 191, 205, 207 
 Ben Jonson, 33 
 Bismarck, 100, 111, 112 
 Black Sea, xi., 99 
 Boulanger, General, 43 
 Boycotting, 164, 219, 227 
 Brehon Law, 133 
 Brennus and his Gauls, 67 
 Bribery in House of Commons, 
 
 84 
 Bright, John, on Home Rule, 
 
 229, 235 
 
 leaves Mr. Gladstone, 241 
 Bruce, Edward, in Ireland, 132 
 Brutus, 44 
 
 Bulgarian horrors, 18, 101 
 Bulwer Lytton, Sir Edward, on 
 
 Gladstone, 102 
 Butt, Mr. Isaac, 210 
 
 CABISTEI, the British, 39 
 Cabul, 105 
 
 Canada and Mr. Gladstone, 99 
 Canal, Suez, x., 46 
 Candahar, 105 
 Cardinal Oullen, 203 
 Manning, 29 
 Newman, 29 
 Catholic Emancipation, 7 
 Catiline, 33, 154
 
 276 
 
 INDEX 
 
 CAU 
 
 Causes of the Irish Famine, 169 
 Chamberlain, Mr., leaves Mr. 
 
 Gladstone, 241 
 Charlemont, Lord, 154 
 Charles I., fate of, 51 
 
 Parliament of, 85 
 
 Charmer, the Grand Old, xiii. 
 Charta, Magna, 49, 50, 75 
 Chatham, Earl of, 101, 205 
 Cicero, quoted, 39, 41, 57, 72 
 Civil war, 12 
 
 in America, 101 
 Clan-na-Gael, 182, 199, 210, 
 
 252 
 
 ' Cksses ' against ' Masses,' 60, 
 61 
 
 Clerkenwell outrage, 190 
 
 Cochin China, x. 
 
 CoUier, Sir Robert, 94 
 
 Colonisation of Ulster, 143, 144 
 
 Commons, House of, 39, 82, 84, 
 85 
 
 its Constitution, 86 
 
 Commutation of Tithes in Ire- 
 land, 177 
 
 Compensation for Disturbance 
 Bill, 213 
 
 Congress of United States, 40 
 
 Conservatives, the Legislative 
 Measures of the, 113 
 
 Constantinople, ix. 
 
 Constitution, British, 37-54 
 
 its stability, viii. 
 
 characteristics, 41 
 
 Corpus Act, Habeas, 53 
 
 Habeas, Suspension Act, 194 
 Council, Common, 49 
 
 County, 47 
 - Grand, 49 
 
 Privy, 75, 94 
 Count of Egmont, 45 
 
 Horn, 45 
 Courts, Hundred, 47 
 Crimean Campaign, 18, 101 
 Cromwell, 83, 138, 144, 205 
 Crown, the, 39 
 
 Cullen, Cardinal, 203 
 
 ELE 
 
 Cyprus, 99 
 
 Czar Nicholas, 16 
 
 Czechs, 7 
 
 DASTTE, quoted, 96 
 Dardanelles, xi. 
 Davis, Thomas, 215 
 Democracy described, 45 
 
 a tyranny, 5 
 
 Gladstone, a champion of, 13 
 Denmark, 101 
 
 Derby, Lord, on Irish Church 
 
 Question, 190 
 
 Dermod, King of Leinster, 129 
 Despotism, 41 
 
 Deutsche Bundesstaat, the, 255 
 Dillon, John, 211, 226, 230 
 Disestablishment of Church of 
 
 England, 30 
 
 of Church of Ireland, 13, 188 
 
 - of Church of Scotland, 30 
 
 of Church of Wales, 30 
 Disraeli (see Beaconsfield) 
 Doellinger and Gladstone, 12 
 Dublin, murder of Archbishop of, 
 
 137 
 Dutch, the, 44 
 
 EARL of Beaconsfield, 99, 189, 
 191, 205 
 
 - of Derby, 190 
 
 of Granville, 32 
 
 of Strafford, 4 
 
 of Tyrone, revolts of, 143 
 Edward I. in Ireland, 132 
 Edward III. in Ireland, 132 
 Edward V. in Ireland, 134 
 Edward VI. in Ireland, 139 
 Edward Bruce in Ireland, 132 
 Egmont, Counts of, 45 
 Egypt, 101, 104 
 
 and Gladstone, 17, 231 
 
 and Gordon, 16 
 
 the gate to India, 16 
 
 surrender of, ix., x. 
 Elections, Aylesbury, 85 
 
 Middlesex, 85 

 
 INDEX 
 
 277 
 
 ELI 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 61, 84, 205 
 Emancipation, Catholic, 166 
 Emmett, Robert, rebellion of, 167 
 Estates, the Three, 42 
 
 FAMINE, the Irish, its causes, 
 
 169 
 Fenianism, 178 
 
 its characteristics, 182 
 Fitz-Stephen, 130 
 
 Forster, Mr., and Ireland, 174, 
 
 225 
 France, ix., x., 43, 45, 112 
 
 and Ireland, 165, 162, 199 
 
 Chamber of, 40 
 
 Senate of, 40 
 Franchise BUI, the County, 87 
 Franco-German War, 99, 199 
 
 ' Freeman's Journal ' on the Priest 
 
 in Politics, 246 
 French Revolution, the, 43, 57, 
 
 181, 265 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, 96 
 
 GALWAY, Mr. Parnell at, 215 
 Gavelkind, 128 
 General Boulanger, 48 
 
 Gordon, 15 
 George I., 51 
 George III., 163 
 Germany, 255, 269 
 Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E., 
 
 his various aspects, vii. 
 
 as a Private Citizen, vii., xiv., 
 273 
 
 - a Tory, 4 
 
 a Peelite, 11 
 
 a Puseyite, 11 
 
 a coquet, 16, 72 
 
 an ecclesiastical broker, 29 
 
 and Mirebeau, 17 
 
 a purist, 14, 23, 27 
 
 plots with Fenians, 24, 204, 
 247 
 
 a Scripture reader, 28 
 
 the Opportunist arch-Jesuit, 
 30 
 
 GLA 
 
 Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E., 
 the Woodcutter, 34, 90 
 
 a champion of Democracy, 
 12,53 
 
 an old Parliamentary hand, 84 
 
 a hunter of phantoms, 106 
 
 a disintegrator of Empire, 107, 
 263 
 
 - a Wrecker, 112, 197, 200, 236 
 
 a follower of Lord Charle- 
 mont, 164 
 
 a Betrayer of Pledges, 165 
 
 a Breaker of Contracts, 197 
 
 an Incendiary, 189 
 
 a False Prophet, 221 
 
 the arch-Opportunist, 154, 190, 
 195, 198, 233 
 
 the Grand Old Charmer, xiii. 
 Chief of the Lawless in Eu- 
 rope, 7 
 
 compared with Absalom, 18 
 Catiline, 33, 95 
 
 Ephialtes and Attila, 236 
 
 Kleon, 94 
 
 Herostratus, &c., 95 
 
 - Don Quixote, 98, 237 
 Jules Verne, 237 
 
 and Doellinger, 12 
 
 and General Gordon, 15, 16, 
 96, 103 
 
 and Michael Davitt, IS 
 
 and Jesse Collings, 21 
 
 and Sir Robert Peel, 14, 107, 
 247 
 
 and Mr. Forster, 225 
 
 and Paruell, 22, 24, 26, 27, 
 225 
 
 and Archbishop Walsh, 23 
 
 and Lord Salisbury, 87 
 
 and Lord Hartington, 31 
 
 and Lord Granville, 32 
 
 and Sir Robert Collier, 94 
 
 and Sir Bartle Frere, 96 
 
 and Sir Gerald Portal, 96 
 
 and Count Karolyi, 97 
 
 and John Dillon, 226 
 
 and John Morley, 201
 
 278 
 
 INDEX 
 
 GLA 
 
 Gladstone, the Eight Hon. W. E., 
 and Homer, 31 
 
 and Virgil, 82 
 
 and Egypt, 17, 99, 104 
 
 and the Ionian Islands, 98 
 
 and Belgium, 99 
 
 and Batoum, 108 
 
 and Kars, 108 
 
 and Cyprus, 99 
 
 and Penjdeh, 108 
 
 and Merv, 108 
 
 and Ireland, 123 and following 
 
 and the Phrenix Park Mur- 
 derers, 191, 226 
 
 endangers the Empire, xiv., 
 106, 204 
 
 deserts Board of Trade, 13 
 
 abandons Chancellorship of 
 Exchequer, 15 
 
 betrays the South African 
 Colonies, 21 
 
 abdicates leadership of the 
 Liberal party, 31 
 
 attacks House of Lords and 
 aims at its destruction, 59, 
 73,94 
 
 creates a multitude of peers, 
 71 
 
 apologises to Austria, 97 
 
 defends the Boers, 98 
 
 pleads for Russia, 98 
 
 pays the Alabama claims, 99 
 
 defends Crimean war, 101 
 
 denounces Crimean war, 102 
 
 establishes the Irish anarchy, 
 168, 172 
 
 - denounces Home Rule, 200, 
 229 
 
 attacks the Land League, 227 
 
 impeaches the Irish Catholic 
 prelacy, 203 
 
 releases Fenians, 178, 194, 198 
 
 notorious for perversion of 
 facts, 176 
 
 guilty of high treason, 168, 199 
 
 charged with moral assassina- 
 tion, 22 
 
 GLA 
 
 Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E., 
 charged with cowardice, 28. 
 30 
 
 Jesuitism and Popery, 28 
 
 treason, 21, 43, 251 
 
 a diplomatist, 95 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield on, 189 
 
 contrasted with Pitt, 165 
 
 - author of 'The State in its 
 Relation to the Church,' 13 
 
 '-Letters from Naples,' 17, 
 
 101 
 
 'The Church of England : 
 
 is it Worth Preserving ?' 29 
 
 ' The Vatican Decrees in 
 
 their Bearing on Civil Alle- 
 giance,' 29, 153, 194, 202, 204 
 
 i Vaticanism,' 29, 153, 194, 
 
 202 
 ' What is Ritualism ? ' 204 
 
 'Bulgarian Horrors,' 101 
 at the Mansion House, 94 
 
 - at the Guildhall, 225 
 
 at Manchester, 102 
 
 at Aberdeen, 200 
 
 and the British Constitution, 
 37, 48, 52 
 
 and the Anarchists, 83, 168 
 
 and bribery, 84, 233 
 
 and Household Suffrage, 88 
 
 and Manhood Suffrage, 88, 90 
 
 and political jobbery, 94 
 
 and the Fenians in Canada, 99 
 
 and the Franchise, 121 
 
 and the Church, 121 
 
 and the Irish Church, 1 87, 190 
 
 and the Government of Lon- 
 don, 94 
 
 and Education, 120 
 
 and Social Legislation, 120 
 
 and Fenianism, 178, 194, 198, 
 213 
 
 and Separation, 202 
 
 and the Radicals, 86, 88 
 
 and the ' Maynooth Bill,' 11, 14 
 
 and the ' Australian Colonies 
 Bill/ 11
 
 INDEX 
 
 279 
 
 QLA 
 
 Gladstone, the Right Hon.W. E., 
 and the 'Ecclesiastical Titles 
 Bill,' 11 
 
 - and the ' Irish Disestablish- 
 ment Bill,' 29, 187 
 
 and the 'Irish .University 
 Bill,' 29, 202 
 
 and the 'Public Worship 
 Regulation Bill,' 29 
 
 and the ' Land Purchase Bill,' 
 240 
 
 - and the ' Endowed Schools 
 Act Amendment Bill,' 29 
 
 and the 'County Franchise 
 BUI,' 87 
 
 - and the 'People's Bill,' 77, 90 
 
 and the ' Foreign Enlistment 
 Bill,' 98 
 
 and the first 'Irish Land 
 Bill,' 178, 195, 213 
 
 and the ' Land Bill,' 220 
 
 and the 'Irish Glebe Lands 
 Bill,' 192 
 
 and the 'Irish University 
 Bill,' 203 
 
 and the ' Encumbered Estates 
 Act,' 179 
 
 - and 'The Crimes Act,' 198 
 
 and the Midlothian Campaign, 
 94 
 
 his foreign policy, 105 and 
 following 
 
 his ecclesiastical policy, 121 
 
 like a poisonous spider, 207 
 
 and the ' Compensation for 
 Disturbance Bill,' 213 
 
 and the ' Protection Bill,' 214 
 
 and the ' Arms Bill,' 214 
 
 - like Phaeton, 220 
 
 his act of moral felo de se, 222 
 
 imprisons Mr. Parnell, 225 
 
 and the Land League, 226 
 
 and ' boycotting,' 227 
 
 - and the Home Rule Bill of 
 1886, 236 
 
 - and the Home Rule Bill of 
 1893, 245 
 
 IMP 
 
 Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E., 
 
 and the Dissenters, 247 
 and the Veto Bill, 247 
 
 and the Suspensory Bill, 247 
 - his epitaph, 263 
 
 Gordon, General, 15 
 Goschen, Mr., leaves Mr. Glad- 
 stone, 241 
 Granville, Earl, 32 
 Grey, Lord, on Gladstone, 189 
 Guizot, 43 
 
 HABEAS CORPUS ACT, 53, 180, 
 
 190 
 
 Hadrian IV., Pope, 129 
 Hallam, quoted, 76 
 Harcourt, Sir William, on Home 
 
 Rule, 229, 234 
 
 Harris, Matthew, quoted, 217 
 Hartington, Lord, 31 
 Hawarden, 28, 30 
 Healyites, 7, 26, 28, 158, 235, 
 
 254 
 
 Henry II., 129 
 Henry III., 132 
 Henry VII., 51, 137 
 Henry VIII., 13, 51, 84, 137 
 Herostratus, 95 
 Herrenhaus of Prussia, the, 75 
 Hoche, General, 162, 228 . 
 Home Rule, 48, 185, 200, 227, 
 
 233 
 
 in Scandinavia, 255 
 
 in Canada, 255 
 
 Bill's Epitome, the, 263 
 
 Bill of 1886, 236 
 
 of 1893, 245 
 
 Homer, quoted, 93 
 
 Hope, a friend of Gladstone, 
 
 29 
 
 Horace, quoted, 15 
 Horn, Count of, 45 
 House of Commons, 39 
 - of Lords, 39, 58 
 Hundred Courts, 47 
 
 IMPEACHMENT of Ministers, ix.
 
 280 
 
 INDEX 
 
 IMP 
 
 Impeachment of Gladstone, 168 
 India, x., 100 
 
 and Egypt, 16 
 International Law, x. 
 Ireland, 123 
 
 betrayal of, ix. 
 
 in the eighth century, 127 
 
 polygamy in, 128 
 
 tanistry in, 128 
 
 gavelkind in, 128 
 
 under the Plantagenets, 126 
 
 conquest of, 127, 130 
 
 lawlessness of, 131 
 
 bloodshed in, 127 
 
 - under John, 131, 132 
 
 under Edward I., III., and 
 V., 132, 134 
 
 under Richard II. and III., 
 133, 134 
 
 under the Tudors, 136 
 
 under Elizabeth, 140 
 
 under James II., 144 
 
 under Cromwell, 144 
 
 under an Irish Parliament, 
 155, 161, 228 
 
 under Pitt, 159, 163 
 
 Henry VIII.'s policy in, 138, 
 154 
 
 a Papal lever for England's 
 overthrow, 142 
 
 a place oCarmes for England's 
 foes, 143, -254 
 
 a traitor during the American 
 Rebellion, 155 
 
 a traitor during the Indian 
 Mutiny, 182 
 
 in league with France, 155, 
 162 
 
 its ultimate aim Separation, 
 157, 208, 211 
 
 - a Republic, 198, 212 
 
 colonisation of Ulster, 143 
 
 massacre of 1641, 145 
 
 oppressed, 151 
 
 her peasantry, 151, 216 
 
 and the Penal Laws, 152 
 
 and boycotting, 154, 219 
 
 JOH 
 
 Ireland and moonlighting, 154, 
 197 
 
 and secret societies, 154, 167, 
 170, 174 
 
 - and the Presbyterians, 155, 
 164 
 
 and Catholic emancipation, 166 
 
 and O'Connell, 168, 176 
 
 and the Famine, 169, 173 
 
 and Mr. Forster, 174, 225 
 
 and Drummond, 176 
 
 and Smith O'Brien, 180 
 
 and Sadleir and Keogh, 181 
 
 - and the Navigation Laws, 
 152, 176 
 
 and the Black Year, 171, 176 
 
 and Commutation of Tithes, 
 177 
 
 and Fenianism, 178, 182 
 
 and the Invincibles, 182, 226 
 
 and the Irish Church, 141, 
 187 
 
 and the first Irish Land Bill, 
 195 
 
 and the Crimes Act, 198 
 
 and the Irish University Bill, 
 202 
 
 and the Encumbered Estates 
 Act, 179 
 
 and the commencement of 
 opportunism, 154 
 
 and the Land League, 210, 
 212 
 
 - and landlordism, 212, 216 
 
 and the Home Rule Bill of 
 1886, 236 
 
 - of 1803, 245 
 
 Irish Gladstonian era, the, 187 
 ' Irishman,' the, 199 
 
 JAMEB II., 51 
 
 Parliaments of, 85 
 James, Sir Henry, on Parnell 
 
 Commission, 241 
 Jesse Collings, 21 
 Jesuitism, 12, 29, 30 
 John, King, and Ireland, 132
 
 INDEX 
 
 281 
 
 JOH 
 
 John, Prince, in Ireland, 131 
 John de Witt, 45 
 Jonson, Ben, 33 
 
 KASSALA, 103 
 Keogh and Sadleir, 181 
 Khartoum, 15, 103 
 Kilkenny Statute, 133 
 Killala, French land at, 162 
 Kilmainham Treaty, 23, 226 
 Kb'niggratz, 271 
 
 LABOUCHERE, xiii. 
 Lacy, 129 
 Lamartine, 43 
 
 Land Bill, First Irish, 178, 195 
 Land League, the, 210, 212, 218, 
 226 
 
 the Children's, 215 
 
 the National, 218 
 
 ' Land Purchase Bill,' the, 240 
 
 Laocoon, 82 
 
 Law, International, x. 
 
 - Brehon, 133 
 Lecky, Mr., quoted, 177 
 Leinster, Dermod, King of, 129 
 
 - Rebellion in, 139 
 
 Liberals, their legislative mea- 
 sures, 113 
 
 Livy, quoted, 67 
 
 London, Corporation of City of, 
 45 
 
 Londonderry, Siege of, 144 
 
 Lord Charlemont, 164 
 
 Rockingham, 156 
 Lords, House of, 39, 58 
 
 Constitution of, 62, 74, 76 
 
 a Court of Review, 63 
 
 a Constitutional Pillar, 39 
 
 a Constitutional Pilot, 65 
 
 a breakwater, 67 
 
 a reward, 68 
 
 a barrier, 70 
 
 its usefulness, 65 
 its composition, 66 
 
 its independence, 66, 74 
 
 attacked by Gladstone, 59 
 
 OCH 
 
 Lords, House of, destruction of,. 
 
 aimed at by Gladstone, 73 
 Louis Blanc, 43 
 Louis Buonaparte, 43 
 Louis XL, 43 
 Louis XIV., 43, 144 
 Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer, 102 
 
 MCCARTHY, Justin, 28 
 McCarthyites, 235 
 ' Macbeth,' quoted, 82 
 MacMahon, Marshal, 43 
 Magna Charta, 49, 50, 75 
 
 in Ireland, 131 
 ' Manchester School,' 107 
 Manning, Cardinal, 29 
 Marshal MacMahon, 43 
 Mary I., Queen, 51, 139 
 ' Masses ' compared with ' Classes,' 
 
 60,64 
 
 Maurice of Orange, 45 
 Michael Davitt, 18, 210, 215 
 Milton, quoted, 17 
 Mirabeau, 4, 17 
 Missolonghi, 271 
 Mobocracy, 78, 81 
 Montalembert, 68 
 Montesquieu, quoted, 44, 64, 65 
 Morley, John, on Home Rule, 201 
 Municipalities, 47 
 Murder of Archbishop of Dublin, 
 
 137 
 
 of Lord Kilwarden, 167 
 
 of Lord Frederick Cavendish, 
 191, 226 
 
 of Mr. Bourke, 191, 226 
 
 at Manchester, 190 
 
 NAPOLEON, 43, 111, 112 
 
 Nassaus, Dutch under the, 44, 45 
 
 National League, the, 218 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, 29 
 
 Nile Valley, x. 
 
 Normans, England under the, 49 
 
 O'BRIEN, 249 
 Ochlarchy, 41
 
 282 
 
 INDEX 
 
 OCH 
 
 Ochlocraty, 41 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 168, 176, 198 
 
 O'Donovan Rossa, 187, 252 
 
 O'Kelly, 231 
 
 Oligarchy, 45, 127 
 
 Irish, a curse, 140 
 Opportunism, Mr. Gladstone's. 
 
 154, 190, 195, 198 
 O'Shea, 26 
 
 PALMEKSTOIT, Lord, 15, 102 
 1 Papist Code,' the Irish, 152 
 Parliament, 47 
 
 Irish, the, 156 
 
 in conflict with British, 
 
 157 
 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 22-25, 
 
 210, 215, 217, 225, 249 
 Parnell Commission, the, 241 
 Peace Preservation Act, 204 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 14, 70, 107 
 Peelite, Mr. Gladstone a, 11 
 Penal Laws, Irish, 152 
 People's Bill, 77, 90 
 Persia, xi. 
 
 Phaedrus, quoted, 245 
 Pitt, 101, 159, 205 
 Pius IX., 15 
 Plato, 57 
 
 Pluto-oligarchy, 41 
 Poland, 101 
 Polignac, 43 
 Polyhius, his ideal State, 39 
 
 on Rome, 44 
 Polygamy in Ireland, 128 
 
 Pope Pius IX., 15 ; Hadrian IV., 
 
 129 
 
 Popery, 23, 29 
 Portal, Sir Gerald, 86 
 Power, Mr. O'Connor, 210 
 Presbyterians, Irish, 155, 164 
 Press, the power of the, viii. 
 Prince John in Ireland, 131 
 Prisons Amendment Act, 113 
 Privy Council, 75, 94 
 ' Protection Bill,' the, 214 
 Proudhon, 16 
 
 SEE 
 
 Prussia, the Herrenhaus of, 75 
 Puseyite, Mr. Gladstone a, 11 
 
 RADICALS, xii. 
 
 their arms, 88, 89 
 Rebellion of Emmett, 167 
 
 of Smith O'Brien, 180 
 Redmond, Mr., 216, 230 
 Redmondites, 158, 234, 254 
 Regency Bill, 157 
 Reichsraethe of Bavaria and 
 
 Austria, 75 
 
 Reign of Terror, 43, 57 
 Renan, 16 
 Revolution, French, 43, 57, 181, 
 
 265 
 
 Richard II. in Ireland, 133 
 Richard III. in Ireland, 134 
 Rights, Bill of, 53 
 
 Declaration of, 53 
 Roebuck, Mr., 15 
 
 Rome, decline and fall of, 271 
 Rome in the time of Brutus, 44 
 Rome Rule, Mr. Gladstone on, 
 
 246 
 
 Rosebery, Lord, 235 
 Roses, Wars of the, 51 
 Russell, Lord John, 11, 15 
 Russell, Lord Odo, 100 
 Russia covets Constantinople, 
 
 xi. 
 
 has a friend in Mr. Gladstone, 
 98,104 
 
 always aggressive when Mr. 
 Gladstone is in power, 99 
 
 aggression of, 99-101, 105 
 
 SADLEIR and Keogh, 181 
 Salisbury, Lord, 87, 235, 241 
 Scandinavia, 255, 268 
 Shakespeare, quoted, 82, 126 
 Schiller, quoted, 69 
 Scipio, 57 
 Sea, Black, xi., 99 
 
 Red, xi. 
 
 Sebastopol, British army before, 
 15
 
 INDEX 
 
 283 
 
 SEC 
 
 Secret Societies in Ireland, 154, 
 
 167, 170, 171, 174 
 Sedan, 271 
 Senate of France, 40 
 
 - of United States, 40 
 Siakat, 103 
 
 Sir Gerald Portal, 96 
 
 Michael Hicks Beach, 16 
 
 - William Harcourt, 229, 234 
 Skirmishing Fund, the, 252 
 Solferino, 271 
 
 Sophocles, 17 
 
 States, United, 40, 155 
 
 Statute of Drogheda, 136 
 
 the Kilkenny, 133 
 Strafford, Earl of, 4 
 Strongbow, 130 
 
 Suez Canal, the, x., 46 
 Switzerland, 40 
 
 TACITTTS, quoted, 43, 46 
 
 Tanistry in Ireland, 128 
 
 Tarquin, 44 
 
 Tenure, Fixity of, Mr. Gladstone 
 on, 222 
 
 Terror, Reign of, 43, 57 
 
 Tithes, Commutation of, in Ire- 
 land, 177 
 
 Tokar, 103 
 
 Tone, Wolfe, 228 
 
 Tonquin, x. 
 
 Town Moots, 47 
 
 Transvaal, 101 
 
 Trevelyan, Sir George, on Home 
 Rule, 230 
 
 ZOL 
 
 Tudors in Ireland, 136 
 
 Turkey, xi., 97, 100, 101, 104, 268 
 
 UGANDA., 96, 101 
 
 Ulster, Colonisation of, 143 
 Uniformity, Act of, 141 
 Union, Act of, 160, 168 
 United States, 40, 98, 155 
 
 VATICAN COUNCIL, 12 
 
 Decrees in their Bearing on 
 Civil Allegiance, 29, 153, 194 
 
 - and England, 23, 153 
 ' Vaticanism,' 29, 153 
 Virgil, quoted, 82 
 
 WALPOLE, 84, 85 
 Walsh, Dr., 23, 246 
 ' Walshite Inquisition,' 12, 158 
 Wars of the Roses, 61 
 Washington, 44, 46 
 Wentworth, 4 
 Westminster, Duke of, 241 
 Westport, Mr. Parnell at, 217 
 Wilberforce, 101 
 William of Orange, 51 
 William the Conqueror, 49 
 William the Silent, 45 
 Winchester, 48 
 Witan, 47 
 
 Witenagemote, 47, 48 
 Witt, John de, 45 
 
 YOTJGHAL, O'Connell at, 176 
 ZOLA, 16 
 
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