The Marquess of Hartington

The Case Against Home Rule (1886)

A major figure in the Liberal Party since the 1860s, Hartington takes issue with Gladstone’s plan for Ireland in a speech delivered to the House of Commons on April 9, 1886.

It may be that this measure will really be accepted by the Irish Party only as an installment; and it may be, especially under these circumstances, that the people of this country will not be willing that changes so vast and so wide-reaching should be made. But, whatever may be the fate of this measure, its mere introduction by a responsible Government, by a Minister wielding, and justly wielding, the influence and authority of my right hon. Friend, will have done much that can never be recalled. This measure will be henceforth the minimum of the Irish national demand; it will be the starting-point and the vantage-ground of whatever proposals they may hereafter think it necessary to bring forward. … From this point of view it seems to me that if, as I think is extremely likely, this measure does not command the support—the intelligent and informed support—of the majority of the people of this country, its introduction without, as I think, adequate preparation or consideration will have vastly added in the future to the already great difficulties of the government of Ireland.

And now let me say a word or two upon the historical argument, by which a concession of this kind is sometimes justified. My right hon. Friend referred last night to the history of Grattan's Parliament. …Grattan's Parliament was a Protestant Parliament, a Parliament in which the influence of the landlords was entirely paramount; and it is just as probable that a Parliament so composed might have delayed, rather than have forwarded, those reforms in Irish Administration, which we all now acknowledge to have been delayed too long. We may grant that the Parliament of the United Kingdom delayed too long Catholic Emancipation; we may grant that it too long maintained Protestant ascendancy in Ireland; we may grant that the land legislation of the Imperial Parliament was too long conceived in the interests of the landlord class and in disregard of those of the occupiers and cultivators; but it is beyond the possibility of proof that an Irish Parliament, composed as Grattan's Parliament was, would have initiated and carried out the reforms that were needed before the Imperial Parliament did so. It is just as likely that the authority of the Imperial Government and of the Imperial Parliament might have had to be invoked for the protection of the oppressed majority of the Irish people as that the Grattan Parliament would have carried out those reforms one day sooner than they did take place. It is equally impossible to prove that any Government or Parliament could have averted any of the evils that have be-fallen Ireland since that time. We are a great deal too apt to attribute omnipotence to Parliaments and to Governments. In the presence of physical and economical causes and changes I believe it is much nearer the truth to say that Parliaments and Governments, whatever they may be, are almost powerless. …

I maintain that the restoration of an Irish Parliament, or of anything approaching to an Irish Parliament, will not be the restoration of that which existed before the Union, but will be the creation of a state of things as absolutely and entirely different from that as it is possible to conceive. … The Parliament which would be restored now would not be a Protestant, but would be a Roman Catholic Parliament. The Established Church has been swept away; and instead of a Roman Catholic priesthood, which at the time of the Union was without political influence at all, we have a Roman Catholic clergy wielding a large political influence. The owners of land in Ireland have been deprived of almost all control over their estates; and with the loss of that control they have lost the political influence which they formerly enjoyed. Now, Sir, it is not a question whether all these changes have been wise and just changes. I believe, in the main, that the changes have been wise and have been just; but they are changes which have been made by the paramount and superior authority of the Imperial Parliament. They are not changes which have been made by the efforts or exertions of the people of Ireland themselves. They are changes which have been imposed by the superior and overwhelming authority of the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It may have been, and I believe it was, substantially just that those changes should be made in the interests of the great majority of the people of Ireland; but, at the same time, it is not less just that the minority which has been deprived by our action, and not by the action of the people of Ireland, of almost all the rights and privileges and power which they possessed at the time of the Union, should not be handed over without due and adequate protection at the hands of that power by whose influence those vast and far-reaching changes have been effected, and by whose influence the whole balance of the political situation in Ireland has been changed since the time of the Union. …

Now, Sir, my right hon. Friend, having resolved to make some concession to the demands of the Irish Parliament, as expressed by their Representatives, had no lack of choice between plans and policies which he might adopt. It was open to him to adopt a plan in the direction of what has, up to now, been generally understood as the extension of local government in Ireland. It was open to him to adopt something in the nature of the plan which has been referred to to-night by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) as a plan of National Councils. … When that time comes, let Ireland share in whatever is granted to England, Scotland, or to Wales; but when it comes it will be, in my opinion, the outgrowth of institutions which have not yet been created. The superstructure will be raised on foundations which have not yet been laid; and it would be, in my opinion, unwise and impolitic in reference to either England or to any of the Three Kingdoms to attempt to begin at the top instead of allowing the natural result of a growth of reform in local government which the Three Kingdoms equally desire, and which is naturally developed. But, Sir, I conceive that in the progress of the examination which my right hon. Friend has undertaken he has discovered that the demand which the Irish people make is not a demand for the reform or the extension of local self-government—as that term is here understood—at all. What that demand really is, is a demand for practical separation from this country, for natural independence, for the power to make their own laws and to shape their own institutions, without any reference whatever to the opinion that may be held here in respect to the wisdom, the justice, the equity of those laws, or to the fitness or the wisdom of those institutions. …

My right hon. Friend referred yesterday to the case of these Colonies. He attached great importance to the 60 miles of sea which divide Great Britain from Ireland. He did not refer to the 3,000 miles which separate England from her nearest self-governing Colony, or the still greater number of thousands of miles which separate her from the most distant of those Colonies. The distance which separates our Colonies from us makes any analogy which may be drawn between their case and that of Ireland utterly fallacious. Beyond this, it is perfectly well known that the connection which exists between our self-governing Colonies and the United Kingdom is purely a voluntary connection. We have granted to these Colonies practical independence. If they are willing still to be bound to, and to form part of, the British Empire; if they are willing to have their foreign policy regulated by the Imperial Government; if they are willing to submit to the nominal superiority of British law and British authority over their internal affairs, it is by virtue of a voluntary compact by which they accept our direction of their foreign relations that they gain the Imperial protection of our Fleets and Armies. But everyone knows that the real interference or authority exercised by the Imperial Government in the domestic affairs of the Colonies is practically nothing. …

My right hon. Friend would never dream of saying that it was the first duty of every Representative of the people to maintain under all or any circumstances the unity of this country with Canada or with the Colony of Victoria; and, therefore, it must be considered, when he himself agreed that we cannot permit absolute separation between England and Ireland, that he must have had some other unity in his mind than the unity which binds these Colonial Dependencies to this country, and which it is our first duty to maintain….

I have said that I do not want to go into any details in this matter; but there is, I admit, one consideration which is not one of detail which seems to be to be absolutely fatal to the existence of this Legislature. If this is a plan which is good for Ireland, I conceive that it ought to be good and must be good for England, Scotland, and Wales. If Scotland or Wales demand that this plan should be extended to them, I do not see how that demand can possibly be refused. Supposing they make the demand, what would be the resulting state of things? We should have in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales domestic Legislatures, having full control over their own affairs. So far, very well. We should have in England a domestic Legislature also, with full control over English affairs; but we should, in addition to this, find this House, from which every Irish, Scotch, and Welsh Member was excluded, having full control, not only over the domestic legislation of England, but over the Imperial legislation of the whole of the Empire. All the foreign policy of this Empire, all the Colonial policy, all the Indian policy of this Empire would in future be controlled by Representatives of English constituencies alone. … It would be as unfair to ask Scotland and Wales to pay contributions under these circumstances towards a war with which they had nothing to do, as it would be now to ask that the expense of any warlike enterprize this country may be called upon to engage in for the defence of Imperial interests should henceforth become a charge upon the taxpayers of England alone….

Well, Sir, what will remain of the unity of the Empire when this Bill shall have passed? We shall be under one Sovereign; but the question is, shall we be under one Sovereign power? The Sovereign power, as I have already ventured to remind the House, is the power of the Imperial Parliament. Will the power of the Imperial Parliament remain Sovereign in Ireland? … It may be said that the Military Forces of the Crown will remain under the entire control of the Imperial Government and the Imperial Parliament. But if that is all we are to rely upon, it appears to me to be nothing less than to call in civil war as the sanction—the ordinary sanction—of the proceedings of the Government. It is impossible to administer the affairs of the country by means of an Army….

I maintain that, as far as I can understand, there is no legal or Constitutional means by which the Imperial Parliament will be able henceforth to exert authority in Ireland contrary to the will of the Irish Parliament. Well, it may be said that it is to be hoped occasions of difference may not arise. I do not cherish this hope. We have had the experience of the last few years. … The people of Great Britain—England and Scotland—have relatives, and connections, and friends in Ireland, and great interests in Ireland, and the people of Great Britain will not be indifferent to what passes in Ireland; and if—I will not say injustice or oppression occur—but if they think that oppression or injustice is taking place, the minority in Ireland will appeal to the people of England and Scotland, and will not appeal in vain. The occasions of collision will be too likely, in fact will be certain, to occur; and I firmly believe that this measure, which is brought forward by my right hon. Friend in the interests of peace, will be of all measures the measure which is most likely to furnish occasions of even more serious differences than have over arisen in Ireland in the past. …

I cannot help thinking that my right hon. Friend, for the purpose of his argument, has somewhat overstated the difficulties and the inefficiency and the impossibility of continuing to govern Ireland by the mingled system of remedial and repressive legislation. … Sir, I think it is necessary that we should clear our ideas a little on this subject of coercion. We have accepted far too readily the term "coercion" which has been applied to it by its opponents, and which has been generally interpreted as a sort of synonym for tyranny. What, Sir, is the reason? Why is it that powers in excess of those of the ordinary law have had very generally to be conferred upon the Executive Government in Ireland? It is because the ordinary law has not received that ready and willing assent from the people of Ireland that it receives in the remaining parts of the Kingdom. But the law in support of which these extraordinary powers have been evoked is the same law, the same system of law, administered on the same principle which prevails over the whole of the United Kingdom. If that law is an unjust law, it is in our power, without the creation of a domestic Legislature in Ireland, to alter it. If it is a just law it is our duty to maintain it; …

There are other causes to be found for the failure of our system of government in Ireland, and among them has been the fact that Irish questions and the government of Ireland have too long and too habitually been made the battle-ground of political Parties. …I believe, at all events, that now, if ever—now that the people of this country have been brought face to face with the alternative of the disruption of the Empire on the one hand, or all the evils and calamities which I admit will follow on the rejection of this unfortunate scheme, I believe that now, at all events, the people of this country will require that their Representatives shall, in relation to Irish affairs, agree to sink all minor differences, and to unite as one man for the maintenance of this great Empire, to hand it down to our successors compact and complete, as we have inherited it from our forefathers, and at the same time to maintain throughout its length and breadth the undisputed supremacy of the law.

(From The Past Speaks, Sources and Problems in British History, Vol. II: Since 1688, edited by Walter Arnstein (D.C. Heath and Company, 1993), pp. 254-257.)