Irish government

“ Nor do they realize, I venture to think, that any Irish Government, however composed, will be a patriotic Government pledged and compelled for its own credit and safety to do its best for the interests of Ireland. ”

“ I trust that the opportunity of making a great advance on this question of Irish government will not long be delayed, and when that opportunity comes my firm belief is that a greater measure of agreement than hitherto as to the ultimate solution will be found possible, and that a keener appreciation will be felt of the benefits that will flow to the Irish communities and British people throughout the world, and that Ireland, from being disaffected, impoverished, and discouraged, will take its place as a strong, harmonious, and contented portion of the empire. ”

“ The Irish Executive and the Irish Parliament become under the new constitution the true and real Government of Ireland. But the Irish Government and the Irish people are fettered by Restrictions which would not be borne by the Government or the people of a self-governing colony. ”

“ BY common consent the problem of Irish Government is at once the most urgent and the most complex of all the dilemmas which face the statesmen of Britain. Englishmen are at last convinced that it cannot be satisfactorily dealt with by any generalisation, on a priori principles, or purely British ideas, but must be settled by Irish ideas, in accordance with Irish traditions, and especially by an intimate grasp of the facts and realities of Ireland. ”

“ The object of the Irish Government Bill is to confer on the Irish people the largest measure of self-government consistent with the absolute supremacy of the Crown and Imperial Parliament and the entire unity of the Empire. ”

“ The government of Ireland, like the government of all other countries, is a piece of business—a very difficult piece of business, I admit—and therefore horror over Irish doings, and the natural and human desire to "get even with" murderers and moonlighters, by denying the community which produces them something it would like much to possess, should have no influence with those who are charged with Irish government. ”

“ Ireland will never be content with a system of self-government which lessens its representation in the Imperial Parliament, and still retains for that Parliament control over all-important matters like taxation and trade policy. Whoever controls these controls the character of an Irish civilization, and the demand of Ireland is not merely for administrative powers, but the power to fashion its own national policy, and to build up a civilization of its own with an economic character in keeping by self-devised and self-checked efforts. ”

“ The notion which has possessed most Englishmen, that Irish self-government would be another name for anarchy, is curiously erroneous. Conflicts there may be, but a vigorous rule will emerge.
Lastly, as to local government. If a popular system is established in Ireland—one similar to that which it is proposed to establish in England—the control of its assemblies and officials will, over four-fifths of the island, fall into Nationalist hands. Their power will be enormously increased, for they will then command the machinery of administration, and the power of taxing. ”

“ Impossible to refuse any request compatible with the general safety of the United Kingdom, which Ireland as a nation might prefer. Impossible to establish that system of Crown Colony Government which we had come to perceive was the only real and solid alternative to self-government. To those of us who had been feeling that the Irish difficulty was much the greatest of all England's difficulties, this stood out beyond the agitation of the autumn and the compromise of the winter as the great political event of 1884. ”

“ The power which gave the planters their land could laugh at their constitutional pretensions. So the Dublin Parliament idly strove to emulate its exemplar at Westminster, and clamoured in vain for responsible government, for control of the [pg 263] Irish Executive. In spite of its Irish Parliament, Ireland has never been given the chance of governing itself. ”

“ In a passage which contained a reference to Hottentots and Hindus, he declared that the Irish were incapable of self-government. His policy was "that Parliament should enable the Government of England to govern Ireland. Apply that recipe honestly and resolutely for twenty years, and at the end of that time you will find that Ireland will be fit to accept any gifts in the way of local government or repeal of coercion laws that you may wish to give her. What she wants is government—government that does not flinch, that does not vary." ”

“ Like so many Englishmen who have long held on to the principle of Irish nationality, I see how this infinitely complex problem has now drifted far away from the ideas of the Home Rulers of thirty and forty years ago. Reasonable Englishmen of all parties are now ready to accept any settlement of Irish problems that will not involve civil war, or abandoning the island to chaos and our enemies. Short of that, we are willing to adopt any kind of national government in which Ireland as a whole can be got to live and work in peace. ”

“ That, in carrying out these resolutions, the representatives of the Irish people should always keep in mind the adopting such a prudent and wise course as shall enable them to realise for the Irish nation the greatest possible quantity of good, and as shall also enable them to support and sustain in office, without any violation of principle, the first and only true and honest government that has ever been known in Ireland. ”

“ It would be impossible for me not to acknowledge the great service often done to the Government by the able men who have filled the law offices, yet I feel that under certain circumstances, when their influence has been allowed too strongly to prevail, it has tended to narrow the views of the Irish Government, and to keep it within a circle too narrow for the altered circumstances of modern life. ”

“ As it is, the Irish Government stands isolated in Ireland, and relies for support solely on England. Is a policy opposed to national feeling, which has been often, and by different Ministers, tried in Ireland, likely to succeed in the hands of a Government such as I have described, and isolated, as I think few will deny it to be? It is impossible in the long run to maintain it. The roots of strength are wanting.
If we turn from Dublin to London, we do not find greater prospects of success. Twice within fourteen months Lord Salisbury has formed a Government. ”

“ It will be a Bill which, save possibly for a pious expression of hope in the preamble, will deal with Ireland only. It will set up in Ireland an Irish legislature and executive responsible for the "peace, order, and good government" of Ireland, subject to certain restrictions and limitations. It will assign to Ireland the whole of the Irish revenues, though probably retaining the control of customs and excise, and in that case retaining some Irish representatives at Westminster. ”

“ It comes to this, that the policy of the Government in Ireland is to declare on the one hand, by the passing of the Reform Bill, that the Irish people are perfectly capable of exercising for the advantage of the Empire the highest rights and privileges of citizenship; and by the proposal to renew the Crimes Act they simultaneously declare, on the other hand, that the Irish people are perfectly incapable of performing for the advantage of society the lowest and most ordinary duties of citizenship.... ”

“ Catholic Emancipation, the extension of the franchise, and secret ballot, have within the last sixty years completely shifted the balance of political power in Ireland. Land legislation has revolutionised the conditions of ownership. These vast and vital changes in Ireland have been accompanied by the transfer of decisive power from aristocracy to numbers in Great Britain, and Great Britain is arbiter. Is it fatalism, or is it common sense, to perceive that one new effect of new causes so potent must be the necessity of changing the system of Irish government? ”

“ You must not imagine that with a wave of a wand by any Minister, however powerful, the effects of centuries of conflict and exasperation will be wiped away.... My belief is that the future government of Ireland does not involve any unmanageable difficulty. We want a wise, firm, continuous administration of the law. We want a steady policy. But you must support it, or it will not take place. There has been a great contest between England and the discontented portion of the Irish people. ”

“ It must embitter the Irish against England, for which there is no need. Nothing can be more shocking than the continual outrages and murders in Ireland; but it is the penalty we pay for a long course of misgovernment, and from which nothing but a long course of mild and good government can set us free; certainly not severe indiscriminate measures which mark out Ireland still more as an unhappy conquered province, instead of a part of the nation. Such are my sentiments, dearest, on this subject, which always makes my blood boil.... ”

“ Would those forces be any less irresistible if the whole body of the Irish peasantry stood, as Land Purchase minus Self-Government makes them to stand, directly face to face with the British State? This is a question that our opponents cannot evade, any more than they can evade that other question, which lies unnoticed at the back of all solutions of the problem by way of peasant ownership—Whether it is possible to imagine the land of Ireland handed over to Irishmen, and yet the government of Ireland kept exclusively and directly by Englishmen? ”

“ It is to me astonishing that so little weight is attached by many to the fact that Irish wishes of self-government were represented only by a small minority.
Now what voting power are the eighty members to have? Ireland is to be represented here fully; that is my first postulate. My second postulate is that Ireland is to be invested with separate powers, subject, no doubt, to imperial authority. Ireland is to be endowed with separate powers over Irish affairs. Then the question before us is: Is she or is she not to vote so strongly upon matters purely British? ”

“ Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. ”

“ Under such a constitution an Irish Government would have power to forbid or restrict recruiting for the Imperial forces in Ireland, and to raise and train a force of its own. It might establish or subsidise a religion, make education wholly denominational, levy customs duties on imports from Great Britain and give fiscal advantages to a foreign power, confiscate or transfer property without payment, and deprive individuals of nationality, franchise, liberty, or life without process of law. ”

“ Parliament on their own terms. Irish politics was for these men a mere means of public plunder; they were glutted with pensions, preferments, and bribes in hard cash, in return for their services; they were the advisers of every Lord-Lieutenant and the practical governors of the country. The results were what might have been expected. For more than a century Ireland was the worst governed country in Europe. That its government was not even worse than it was, was due to its connection with England and the subordination of its Parliament to the English Privy Council. ”

“ The English people are listening to the arguments from Irish history that are now addressed to them. They will be moved by the solid grounds of policy which that history suggests; will understand that what they have deemed insensate hatred is the natural result of long misgovernment, and will disappear with time and the removal of its causes. Many of the best minds of both nations will be at work to discover some method of reconciling Irish self-government with imperial supremacy and union free from the objections brought against the Bills of 1886. ”

“ Such was the state of affairs in Ireland when the French revolution took place. This event was looked upon by the mass of the Irish with strong sensations of joy. Ever disposed to revolt, they looked upon it as the harbinger of their own liberty. Meetings were held to celebrate its anniversary in different places, and also for the discussion of politics. The chief topics at these meetings were parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, in favour of which strong resolutions were entered into with a view of intimidating government to concede them. ”

“ Judging by the time that Irish affairs now occupy in Parliament, when there are so many other important things to be considered, the regulation of the internal affairs of Ireland alone is a sufficient task for any representative body, and I am sure that most people in this room will agree with me when I say that the domestic government of some 30,000,000 of Englishmen, a business which is now very much left on one side, would give ample scope to the energies and talents of any body of legislators, however energetic, and however capable. ”