HOW TO MEET THE IRISH DIFFICULTY.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1510, 9 March 1882, Page 2

HOW TO MEET THE IRISH DIFFICULTY.

Mr Laboocheke, writing in "Truth," sa y S : — I understand that, should any proposal be brought forward to give the Irish Landlords compensation for the reductions of their rents enforced by the Land Courts, it will be met with an amendment recommending that the tenants, in payment of future rents, shall be allowed to deduct the excess over fair rent that they have been charged during the last ten years. The proposal may, however, give trouble if supported by the Irish members and by several Whig landlords ; for in this case, it would be within the range of possibilities that the Government would iind itself in a minority. Were this so, the best plan would be to pass a bill giving votes to the agricultural labourers, and then, if this bill were thrown out in the Lords, to appeal to the country on the two issues, whether an hereditary chamber of landlord legislators is to veto electoral reform, and whether Irish laudlords are to be compensated out of English pockets for being hindered from completing the ruin of Ireland by rackrenting. We cannot for ever rule Ireland by clapping its representatives in prision, by quartering an army of 50,000 men there, and by depriving every Irishman of all guarantees agaiust arbitary arrest. These, we are told, are but temporary measures. But if, as Lord Derby asserts, four-fifths of the Irish are opposed to our kindly undertaking to make laws for them, if Ireland is not pacified by the Land Act, if our coercive policy and our occupation of the island are met with passive resistance and open outiage — what then? Arc we permanently to maintain our power tlicie, as Russia maintains her sway in Poland, and as Austria ruled in Lombardy ? Are laws to be enacted in every part of the British Empire by the assent of the governed, with the one single exception of Ireland ? Up to the present we have proceeded upon the theory that the Irish have been terrorised into disaffection, and we have sought to meet this by terrorising the terrorisers. The official creed has been that the temporary objection to obey our laws may legitimately be met by temporary suspension of the ordinary law on our part, and by substituting for it the absolute power of the Executive over the liberties of Irishmen. We have found, unfortunately, that all this has been a pleasant illusion. We are face to face with the fact that the vast majority of the inhabitants of one of the three kingdoms of the realm are determined rightly or wrongly to render impossible, so far as they are able, the existing system df the British Parliament regulating their local affairs. We are the stronger, and by force we can crush out opposition to our will. But are we prepared permanently to substitute force in one of three kingdoms for the will of the governed ? If so, what is the difference between our policy in Ireland and the Russian policy in Poland ? No, we cannot, with any regard to our principles, rule Ireland by the sword. This would be neither just nor expedient. The cost of the army of occupation is enormous, and we should have to withdraw it were any foreign complications to arise. Moreover, we may alter the mode of procedure in the House of Commons as we will, we shall find it impossible to carry on the machinery of representative Government with fifty or sixty Irish members in the House banded together to throw every difficulty that they can conceive in the way. How the present state of things is to end is that, sooner or later, we shall have to make terms with Irish public opinion. As a first step, we must clear our heads of the fetish of legislative unity, and realise the fact that Irish Home Rule is not necessarily identical with the disintegration of the empire. Legislative ttiufry may in the abstract be better than legislative federation,' but in our particular case, the former, if it involves the necessity of a 'perpetual war between the English Executive and the - majority of the Irish, is 'it not better than the latter ? I should be glad to see reasonable men in < Ireland uniting upon, some sort" of which would rally *to them the English Radicals, who are. prepared to; assent to any scheme which wo^uld jgacifyl Ireland and at'tbe same tiirie maintain the unity

of the empire. What, I ask these reasonable men, can be more foolish than to imagine that anything will be gained by an alliance with the Conservatives, who most assuredly will do nothing for them ? Mr Gladstone did all that ho could for Ireland. Had he not assented to the Coercion Act, the majority of his own Cabinet would have deserted him, and had he sought to enlarge the scope of the Land Act he would have been defeated by a coalition between the Whigs and the Conservatives. So long as the Irish allow their leaders to demand Home llule, and to imply that this means separation, so long will a vast majority of Englishmen be opposed to Home Rule. If the Irish mix up the two together, how can the English be expected to separate them ? The v%ry essence of practical politics is compromise. No one can be an absolutely independent judge in his own cause. We and the Irish arc at variance. It is to our mutual advantage that avc should be friends, and to be so, both must give and take.