Irish Parliamentary Party

“ The party which triumphed on that occasion was not the Irish party, or the Catholic party, but the Protestant aristocracy. The anti-national character and exclusive nature of the party in power was shown by the rejection of all Pitt's efforts at parliamentary reform. The independent Irish Parliament was indeed full of able speakers; men who carried the art of rhetoric and of clothing little thought in magnificent language to the highest pitch. ”

“ The Liberal party, beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following its leader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething with lawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-found zeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuate all Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons was trying to make Parliamentary government impossible. ”

“ It is, however, well that the House of Commons should recollect that parliamentary debates are open to all the world and that Englishmen and Englishwomen see no reason why brutalities of expression should be tolerated in the oldest representative Assembly of Europe which would be reproved in any respectable English meeting. But you can sometimes trust men's capacity where you cannot trust their moral feeling. Unfortunately the Irish Parliamentary party have given us examples of their ability in matters of government which are not reassuring. ”

“ And it also demonstrates that for a very meagre modicum of the Irish birth-right they were willing to sacrifice the position of Parliamentary independence, which was one of the greatest assets of the Party, and to enter into a formal alliance with the Liberals on a mere contingent declaration that "any measure brought in" should be "consistent with and leading up to a larger policy." ”

“ It is hard to see why they should be regarded as more exotic in Irish Dublin than in French Quebec: Sir Wilfrid Laurier cannot be termed a failure as a parliamentarian; British parties at Westminster have been inconvenienced by the parliamentary skill rather than by the parliamentary incompetence of Irish members; and the present menace to parliamentary institutions does not come from Ireland. ”

“ If this Bill granted to Ireland a free and independent Parliamentary Assembly with full powers over the Executive, as proposed by the Prime Minister, there would inevitably come a time when either the payment of the interest due, or some other cause, would bring the Irish Parliament into antagonism with the English. If they were to endeavour to demand what was necessary, whether payment of interest or what not, and to threaten to use force, could any one suppose that the great body of Irish Americans would stand by silently and see that done? ”

“ If it seems a paradox to claim that a country which has demanded a parliament of its own is dissatisfied with the parliamentary system, it should be recalled that there is no necessary obligation upon the Irish people to set up in Dublin a legislature upon the English model. ”

“ I do not believe for a moment that Ireland is going to be regenerated on political, measure-making Parliamentary lines. Her regeneration will have to come out of herself. So much of it as has already been accomplished has come wholly out of herself, and not out of legislation at all. The rest will follow if the Irish people have a mind to deal as straightly with themselves in the future as they have dealt with themselves in the past. And I should say that at all costs the potato-and-pig habit, as it now exists in Ireland, should be broken, and got rid of, and utterly wiped out. ”

“ The quiet, industrious, stay-at-home merchants or lawyers, who might be sent to Dublin for a month or two in the year to manage Irish business on business-like principles, will not be sent to Westminster to hold the balance between English parties. They cannot leave their every-day work; were they willing to forsake their own business, they are not the men to conduct with success the parliamentary game of brag, obstruction, and finesse. Keep, in short, the Irish members at Westminster, and you ensure the supremacy in Ireland of professional politicians. ”

“ The establishment of this separate Parliament is necessary, because we must give Ireland the opportunity of doing what we ourselves are unable to do, to find the best machinery they can to carry on the business of government. But, when this machinery is once found and invested with the resources and influence of a Government, we cannot suppose that our troubles will be at an end. If disputes arise in the working out of the new Irish Constitution, the popular majority will not be slow to call in the aid of the American Irish who have founded the National League. ”

“ They cannot stand still. They have already discovered that one act of repression leads to another, and they will find ere long that they have no alternative except Home Rule or the suppression of Parliamentary Government in Ireland. Men may talk lightly of the ease with which eighty-six Irish members may be kept in order in Parliament. They forget that the Irish people are behind the Irish members. How is Ireland to be governed on Parliamentary principles if the voice of her representatives is to be forcibly silenced or disregarded? ”

“ The Liberals are equally unlikely to risk the integrity and unity of the party by the concession of a claim which even an advanced Radical like Mr. Chamberlain has condemned as unwarrantable, unwise, and impossible to be granted. Still this and nothing less than this is the hope and expectation of the great majority of the Irish people. This and nothing less will be the demand of the Irish leaders as soon as Parliament assembles at the beginning of the ensuing year. ”

“ No previous failure counted for anything against this project, because there never had been such an Irish Party in the British Parliament. For it must be distinctly understood that it was not by consent of Parliament, but in spite of it, not by its grace and favour, but because of its utter impotence against the right, vigorously asserted, that we would succeed. This Irish Party must be kept pure and above suspicion by a pledge never to ask or accept favours for themselves or others from any Government, and must exhibit no preference between Whig and Tory. ”

“ Gladstone that the distance of Dublin from Westminster and the consequent deafness of the House of Commons to Irish opinion is to a slight extent redressed by the small excess—calculated on lines of proportion—which Irish representation secures at Westminster.
At any rate one has the satisfaction of knowing where one stands in the matter, and one is aware that one part of the Conservative programme to be applied whenever that party returns to power is that of which someone has spoken as the detestable principle that to keep Ireland weak is the most convenient way of governing her. ”

“ The United Irishmen, whose aim was to establish a free and equal representation of all Irishmen irrespective of creed, despaired of obtaining their object by open agitation and, subjected to repressive enactments, transformed themselves into a secret association for the overthrow of the existing government and for complete separation from England as the only method of securing and maintaining the rights of Ireland. They were the first Irish Republican Party. ”

“ For it is not with Ireland alone British ministers will have to settle. Although no reference has previously been made here to the fact, the strongest arm of the Home-Rule party is in England itself. Within the past thirty years there has grown up there, silently and unnoticed, a new political power—hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who, having settled in the large labor marts, have grown to citizenship, power, and influence. From Bristol to Dundee there is not a large city that has not now on its electoral roll Irish voters whose action can decide the fate of candidates. ”

“ They would fare badly with an Irish legislature and an Irish executive. They are, for the most part, poor but loyal men, and have exercised a great civilising influence. Are they to be deserted and ruined to keep an English party in place by the votes of men who have never pretended to be anything but England's enemies?
Irish Unionists laugh at the idea of a local Parliament being kept subordinate. It will have the power of making laws for everything Irish, that is, for everything that immediately concerns those that live in Ireland. ”

“ If some large question or controversy in British affairs should then come up, causing a deep and vital severing of the two great parties in this House, and the members of those parties knew that they could bring over eighty members from Ireland to support their views, I am afraid a case like that would open a possible door to dangerous political intrigue. The whole subject is full of thorns and brambles, but our object is the autonomy and self-government of Ireland in all matters properly Irish. ”

“ The Restrictions are one and all of them limits upon the powers of the Irish Parliament; they are none of them limits upon the powers of the Irish Executive. The new constitution does not contain—from its nature it hardly could contain—a single safeguard against abuse of power by the Irish Ministry or its servants. Yet in all countries there is far more reason to dread executive than parliamentary oppression, and this is emphatically true of Ireland. ”

“ It could only rumble under ground in Ireland, and every outward symptom of Irish disaffection could be suppressed with the iron hand without causing one quiver of uneasiness at Westminster, much less shaking Ministries and revolutionizing parties. Even at home Nationalism was a shunned creed. It was not respectable. The few exponents it occasionally sent to Parliament were regarded as oddities. The mass of the Irish representation were as thoroughly English party-men as if they were returned from Yorkshire. ”

“ Flood, a distinguished member of the Irish House of Commons, brought in a bill of parliamentary reform, which, after a long debate, was negatived. Though his measure was defeated in the House, its advocates out of doors were not cast down, but took measures to form a national congress, for the amelioration of the evils which existed. A large delegation of the people actually met at Dublin, and petitioned parliament for the redress of grievances. Mr. Pitt considered the matter with proper attention, and labored to free the commerce of Ireland from the restraints under which it labored. ”

“ The Irish members will keep themselves apart as an independent Party and a distinct power; precisely as the Pitt Party, the Peel Party, and the Free Trade Party did when they were small minorities and in hopeless opposition. They will act together; and in order to do so submit individual opinion, within the limits of conscience, to the common sense of the majority. They will vote for every measure of benefit to Ireland, no matter from whom it may proceed. ”

“ It is not intended, by drawing attention to the fact that the local rather than the Dominion Legislatures constitute the better models, in any way to impair the prestige of the future Irish Parliament, or to lessen the readiness to meet all reasonable demands of the Irish party and people, or to withhold powers necessary to make self-government a success. But it is essential to bear in mind that the primary condition of permanent success is a measure that will work with the least possible friction on both sides while satisfying legitimate Irish demands. ”

“ And yet Ireland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, is supposed to live under representative institutions! No doubt I may be reminded that the Nationalist Members are in touch with local opinion in Ireland, and that they are the informal allies of the Liberals; but the Nationalist attitude is concerned with little else but Home Rule, and it is just because, in existing circumstances, the Irish do not declare themselves, or perhaps even form an opinion, on ordinary political issues, that our representative system has broken down so much more severely in Ireland than in England or in Scotland. ”

“ Of one thing are we certain regarding the composition of an Irish Parliament: it would not really represent the nation.
For the nation is Catholic to the core; the sufferings of more than two centuries have made religion dearer to her than life; all she has been, all she is to-day, may be summed up in one word—Catholic. Nothing has been left her but this proud and noble title, which of all others her enemies would have wrested from her. The nation exists to-day, independently of parliamentary enactments, in spite of the numberless parliamentary decrees of former times ”

“ It is necessary to speak with the utmost frankness and not to slur over any real difficulty in the way of a settlement. Irish parties must rise above themselves if they are to bring about an Irish unity. They appear on the surface irreconcilable, but that, in my opinion, is because the spokesmen of parties are under the illusion that they should never indicate in public that they might possibly abate one jot of the claims of their party. ”

“ The retention of the Irish members breaks up our whole system of Cabinet government. This system has some inherent defects, but it cannot work at all with any benefit to the country unless the Cabinet can depend on the support of a permanent majority. The result of what has happily been described as the 'in-and-out plan,' that is the scheme for allowing Irish members to vote on some subjects and not on others, will be the constitution of two majorities, and it is more than possible that the one majority may belong to one party and the other majority to another. ”