Part 2 — X.—Ireland, 1782 And 1912123 By Lord Fitzmaurice

X.—Ireland, 1782 And 1912123 By Lord Fitzmaurice

The events of 1782 will always loom large in history, and the views of the members of the Rockingham Ministry on the proper relations to be established between Great Britain and Ireland, and the possible course of events had they met with a negotiator less intractable than Grattan, are subjects of more than merely historical interest.

In that ministry the Duke of Portland was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and he took with him Colonel Fitzpatrick as Chief Secretary; Mr. Fox was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Lord Shelburne was Secretary of State for the Home and Colonial Departments, and as such was responsible for the government of Ireland.

The recognition of the claim of Ireland to be a distinct Kingdom, with a right to a separate Legislature of her own for all purposes, was the object of the movement of which Grattan was the leader. That this claim was founded on historic right, and had also on grounds of expediency to be accepted, was admitted by the Whig statesmen of the time in England. But they also saw that there were subjects which the geographical position [pg 269] of the two countries, their past history, and their industrial interests, rendered it desirable and indeed necessary should be recognized as common property. Ireland, in their opinion, was too near to be a separate State with safety to the external relations of Great Britain; she was too distant to be altogether incorporated with due regard to the efficient management of her own internal affairs.

The Ministry of Lord Rockingham came into office on March 27th, 1782. The moment was one of the gloomiest in English history. The nation had just been stunned by the news of the great surrender at York Town; it was an open question whether the intelligence of the surrender of Gibraltar might not be expected to follow; the power of the fleet to cope successfully with the combined navies of France, Spain, and Holland, was doubtful; an invasion was discussed in every household in the land as a serious possibility, and the resources of the country to meet it were disputed by competent judges. The new Prime Minister was himself a dying man, though the dangerous character of his illness was concealed; the two Secretaries of State were separated by mutual suspicions which were rapidly ripening into estrangement. Ireland was in the hands of the armed Volunteers, and England's difficulty was, as usual, Ireland's opportunity. “The liberties of America were inseparable from ours,” Grattan said in 1799, referring to this period; “they were the only hope of Ireland, and the only refuge of the liberties of mankind.”124 The satisfaction of Ireland was therefore, in 1782, the first condition of the safety of England, and imposed itself on the Ministers as their most imperious duty.

The four grievances of Ireland were, in the words of [pg 270] Grattan, “a foreign legislature, a foreign judicature, a legislative Privy Council, and a perpetual army,”125 and they were set forth in the Amendment to the Address carried by him in the Irish Parliament on April 17th.126

“My opinion,” Fox wrote to Fitzpatrick, on April 28th, “is clear for giving them all they ask; but for giving it them so as to secure us from further demands, and at the same time to have some clear understanding with respect to what we are to expect from Ireland in return for the protection and assistance which she receives from those fleets which cost us such enormous sums and her nothing. If they mean really well to their country, they must wish some final adjustment which may preclude further disputes; if they mean nothing but consequence to themselves, they will insist upon these points being given up simply, without any reciprocal engagement; and as soon as this is done, begin to attack whatever is left, in order to continue the ferment of the country. In one word, what I want to guard against is Jonathan Wild's plan of seizing one part in order to dispute afterwards about the remainder.”127

Lord Rockingham, writing in an exactly similar strain, said: “that the essential points of the Irish demands having first been conceded, it would be the duty of both countries to consider how finally to arrange, settle, and adjust all matters, whereby the union of power and strength, and mutual and reciprocal advantage, might be best permanently fixed;” and he spoke favourably of the appointment of “Commissioners” on both sides, to draw up the heads of an agreement between the two countries.128 Of a similar character was the language of Lord Shelburne.

“If,” he said, writing to the Duke of Portland, on the day following that on which Fox had addressed the Chief Secretary, “the ties by which the two kingdoms have been hitherto so closely united [pg 271] are to be loosened or cut asunder, is your Grace yet prepared to advise whether any, and if so what, substitutions are thought of for the preservation of the remaining connection between us? If by the proposed modification of Poynings' Law, so much power is taken from the two Privy Councils as they are now constituted, are we to look for any agreement in any new institution of Council, which may answer the purpose of keeping up the appendancy and connection of Ireland to the Crown of Great Britain, and of preventing that confusion which must arise in all cases of common concern from two Parliaments with distinct and equal powers, and without any operating centre.”129

On May 11th, Fox, in another letter to Fitzpatrick, explained his views; what he intended, he said, was to grant the “concession of ‘internal legislation’ as a preliminary, accompanied with a modification of Poyning's Law and a temporary Mutiny Bill;” and he hoped that, having made these concessions, “they might be able to treat of 'other matters' so amicably as to produce an arrangement that would preserve the connection between the two countries.”130 The other matters were the Final Judicature and the question of the contribution of Ireland to Imperial expenses. Shelburne suggested the formal negotiation of “the articles of a treaty,” for as such, he said, he regarded his proposals;131 and he urged a little judicious temporizing in the hope that the situation abroad might in the interval improve. But Grattan, recognizing the immense advantage which this situation gave him in negotiating with Great Britain, refused to entertain any idea of compromise. There was not only, he said, to be no “foreign legislature, but there were to be no commissioners” to negotiate a treaty,132 and there was, above all, to be no delay in granting all the demands [pg 272] of Ireland. With this information before him, the Duke of Portland, who from the time of his arrival in Dublin had up till this moment encouraged both the Secretaries of State to believe that Grattan would come into their views, and might even make concessions133 in regard to the final appeal in judicial matters, now informed them that the claims of Ireland on all the four principal demands must be conceded, and conceded at once, as the whole country was in a state of the wildest excitement, and was rapidly escaping control.134 The concession of all the Irish demands was accordingly decided upon. The preliminary steps were taken on May 17th, by a resolution in both Houses of the British Parliament, for effecting the repeal of the 6th of Geo. I., c. 5, the Act by which the right of the British Parliament to legislate for Ireland was declared; and the necessary Bill was then introduced and rapidly passed into law.

At the same time, however, another resolution was adopted in the following terms:

“That it is the opinion of this House that it is indispensable to the interest and happiness of both kingdoms that the connection between them should be established by mutual consent upon a solid and permanent footing; and that an humble address be presented to His Majesty, that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to take such measures as His Majesty in his royal wisdom shall think most conducive to that end.”

On these resolutions Fox commented as follows:

“Ireland,” he said, “would have no reason to complain; the terms acceded to by England were proposed by herself, and all her wishes would now be gratified in the way which she herself liked best. But as it was possible that if nothing more was to be done than what he had stated to be his intention, Ireland might, perhaps, think of fresh grievances and rise yearly in her demands, it was fit [pg 273] and proper that something should be done towards establishing on a firm and solid basis the future connection of the two kingdoms. But that was not to be proposed by him here in Parliament: it would be the duty of the Crown to look to that; the business might be first begun by His Majesty's servants in Ireland, and if afterwards it should be necessary to enter into a treaty, Commissioners might be sent from the British Parliament or from the Crown, to enter upon it and bring the negotiation to a happy issue, by giving mutual satisfaction to both countries, and establishing a treaty which should be sanctified by the most solemn forms of the Constitution of both countries.”135

For the moment, however, the hope of commencing negotiations with these objects had to be abandoned, and when, on May 27th, the Royal Message conveying the intention of His Majesty to concede all the demands of the Irish Parliament was delivered in Dublin, the Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant announced that no measures were then intended to be grounded on the second English resolution of May 17th. For a time, however, the Duke of Portland continued to hope against hope, and to nourish the vain expectations with which from the beginning he had buoyed himself up, and had misled his colleagues. During the month of June he allowed himself to be persuaded by Mr. Ogilvy, the husband of the Duchess of Leinster, and stepfather to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, that Grattan was not really so intractable as he seemed to be, and in a secret and confidential despatch, written on June 6th, he urged that the Irish Parliament should not be at once prorogued, in order to give time for a possible arrangement in regard to common affairs. But on June 22nd he was reluctantly compelled to express his disappointment and mortification at finding that his hopes had proved entirely fallacious, and that Mr. Ogilvy was a person not to be relied upon. The [pg 274] prorogation of the Irish Parliament was accordingly suffered to take place on July 27th, and here the matter ended.136 “Thus,” exclaimed Grattan to his applauding audience—“thus have you sealed a treaty with Great Britain; on her side the restoration of the final judicature; the extinction of her legislative claim; of her Privy Council; of her perpetual Mutiny Bill; the repeal of the Act of legislative supremacy; on your side satisfaction! And thus are the two nations compacted for ever in freedom and peace.”137

Subsequently at the time of the Union a controversy arose in regard to these events. Mr. Pitt asserted that the adjustment of 1782 was not considered by the British Ministers by whom it was effected as final in its character; but that, on the contrary, they were fully convinced of the necessity of adopting some further measures to strengthen the connection between the two countries, and he produced the correspondence which had passed in 1782—extracts from which have been given above—as a reply to the lame attempt of General Fitzpatrick, who was still in Parliament, to deny that any such negotiation had been desired by the members of Lord Rockingham's Ministry. General Fitzpatrick had declined to admit more than that the Duke of Portland, during his residence in Ireland, might have entertained a vague idea of some farther arrangement for consolidating the connection with Ireland, but had soon given it up; and Grattan in the Irish Parliament openly accused Lord Shelburne and the Duke of having concealed their views from their [pg 275] colleagues, and said that, above all, Mr. Fox knew nothing of the project contained in the despatch of June 6th.138 The truth is, that the Rockingham Ministry was in June a house divided against itself, owing to differences of opinion as to the peace negotiation with France and the United States, and was almost in the actual throes of dissolution. From a letter written by Fox in 1799 to Fitzpatrick, it certainly appears that the so-called “Ogilvy” negotiation never was communicated to him.139 But the assertion of Mr. Pitt went far beyond the Ogilvy negotiation—if negotiation it can be called. What Mr. Pitt asserted was, not that the correspondence proved that in June, 1782, the Ministers were actually intending to enter on any such negotiation, but that the Prime Minister, the Lord-Lieutenant, and both Secretaries of State, from the very commencement of the correspondence in April, considered the arrangement insisted on by Grattan deficient, and lacking in finality, and were only prevented by the stress of adverse circumstances and the impracticable character of the Irish leaders, from trying to negotiate an agreement, by which Ireland should acknowledge that “the superintending power and supremacy were where Nature had placed them”—viz., in the Government of Great Britain.

What, then, was the view which the British Ministers in 1782 took of the relations which it was desirable to establish between Great Britain and Ireland—the relations which, had events been more favourable, they would have established? Evidently it was not a legislative union, though they wished to retain the final judicial appeal in London. The object of the [pg 276] Duke of Portland, as he explained in the secret despatch of June 6th, was that an Act of Parliament should be passed by the Legislatures of the respective kingdoms, by which “the superintending power and supremacy” of Great Britain in all matters of State and general commerce would be virtually and effectively acknowledged; by which also a share of the expense in carrying on a defensive or offensive war, either in support of our dominions or those of our allies, should be borne by Ireland in proportion to the state of her abilities; and that she should adopt every such regulation as might be judged necessary by Great Britain for the better ordering and securing her trade and commerce with foreign nations, or her own colonies and dependencies; consideration being duly had to the circumstances of Great Britain. “This plan,” Lord Shelburne explained during the debates of 1799, “had nothing to do with a legislative union.”140 “It related,” he said, “to what might be called the expense of the system which was carried on under the two Parliaments, in Army, Navy, commerce and finance, and in the great establishments of Church and State; and it did not imply ‘bringing the two Parliaments together.’ ”141

From these passages it appears that what the Whig statesmen aimed at in 1782 was to obtain, in the first place, a clear acknowledgment of the Imperial supremacy, or, as they would have said in the language of the time, of the power of Great Britain in “external” as distinct from “internal” legislation; and, in the next place, a contribution from Ireland to the expenses [pg 277] of external administration and policy: the Fleet, the Army, and the diplomatic and commercial establishments. “I humbly conceive,” said Burke, who was a member of the Rockingham Government, and the trusted adviser of his official chief, “that the whole of the superior, and what I should call Imperial politics, ought to have its residence here [in London]; and that Ireland, locally, civilly and commercially independent, ought politically to look up to Great Britain in all matters of peace or war, and, in a word, with her to live and die. At bottom, Ireland has no other choice—I mean no other national choice.”142

Very different were the views of the Irish Parliamentary leaders: not of Grattan only, but of his rival, Flood, as can be gathered from the perusal of the debates in the Irish Parliament, which culminated in the famous struggle between Flood and Grattan on October 28th, 1782, when Flood, having denounced Grattan as a “mendicant patriot,” and Grattan having retorted by likening his rival “to a bird of prey with an evil aspect and a sepulchral note,” the two leaders left the House in order to solve their differences by a duel, and were only prevented meeting in deadly combat by the interposition of the Speaker, who wisely issued his warrant to apprehend them both.

The contention of Flood was that the mere repeal of the Act of George I. was insufficient, and did not prevent its revival at any future period; that it really left the matter where it stood, and that it was therefore necessary to bring in a Bill for declaring the sole and exclusive right of the Irish Parliament to make laws in all cases whatsoever, internal and external, for the kingdom of Ireland. His desire was to trump Grattan's cards, and destroy his popularity, which in the following [pg 278] year he all but succeeded in doing, when a decision of Lord Mansfield in the Court of King's Bench enabled him to raise a cry that the independence of the Irish Courts of Judicature was in danger; and a further Act was forced on the British Government renouncing any claim to legislate and confirming the independence of the Irish Courts of Justice.143 The contention of Grattan was that the relations between Great Britain and Ireland were to be ascertained from the record of the whole of the recent transactions, which were transactions between two independent nations having a common Sovereign; and this being so, he said it was no more possible for Great Britain to reassert her legislative supremacy over Ireland than it would be for her to do so over the American colonies, if the pending negotiations resulted, as they evidently were about to do, in a recognition of the independence of those colonies. Grattan, indeed, went so far as to say that the relations between Great Britain and Ireland were in future to be sought in the law of nations and not in the municipal legislation of either country, which he said was no longer applicable. But both the Irish leaders agreed that in one way or another the legislative, financial, and judicial links between the two countries were to be severed, however much they differed as to the legal formulas which were to impress and carry out these ideas.144

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The following propositions can, then, be based on the events of 1782:

(1) That the Irish leaders insisted on the freedom of Ireland from interference by the British Parliament both in internal and external affairs, [pg 280] or, as would now be said, both on Home and Imperial questions.

(2) That the British Ministers were ready to concede the former, and were not ready to yield the latter; but conceded both, owing to the circumstances of the time, and considered the concession final.

(3) That the British Ministers wished to obtain a contribution from Ireland for Imperial purposes, and the maintenance of a final appeal to an Imperial Court of Judicature.

(4) That the British Ministers do not appear to have proposed the representation of Ireland in the British Legislature.

In substance the plan proposed by Mr. Gladstone in 1886 was the plan which Grattan rejected in 1782. The objection to any such plan is the probability that if Ireland were to be asked, and were even to consent for the moment to make an appreciable contribution to the common expenses of the Empire, without being given through her representatives any share in the Parliamentary control of the funds so voted, and in the discussion of Imperial affairs—if, in other words, she was made a tribute-paying colony, instead of being treated as a member of a Federal system having an undiminished area of taxation for National purposes—a fresh and formidable grievance would arise in a few years, on the ground that taxation without representation was an intolerable thing, and contrary to the first principles of the Constitution. It was with these considerations present to his mind that Mr. Butt, when leader of the Irish Home Rule Party, in order to get over the difficulty, had proposed that a Federal [pg 281] arrangement should be instituted between Great Britain and Ireland—i.e., an arrangement under which Great Britain and Ireland should agree to vest certain powers in a purely Irish Legislature and certain others in the Imperial Parliament. The late Mr. Sharman Crawford, who like Mr. Butt was an Ulsterman and a Protestant, held similar views at an earlier epoch, and put them prominently forward during the period which elapsed between the imprisonment of O'Connell and the collapse of the first Tenant-right movement. With their opinion before us, it may be asked—why was no such plan proposed in 1782 by the English statesmen of the day? The answer is not far to seek.

The eighteenth century knew little or nothing about Federal Government. The Constitution of the United States, the parent of all the numerous later schemes of Federalism, was still in the limbo of the future; and it would be as idle to blame the Government of 1782 for not entering on a journey into the region of the unknown, especially at a moment of unexampled public difficulty, as it would be to blame the statesmen of the present day for not anticipating the political discoveries of the next generation, whatever they may prove to be. It was owing no doubt to the idea of Federal Government being practically unknown to the men of 1782, and to the unwillingness of the English mind to strike out on a new and as yet untrodden path in the art of Government, that in all the discussions of that time there is little or no suggestion of instituting a Federal link between Great Britain and Ireland. Some such suggestion was made during the negotiations on the Scotch Union, but it was decisively rejected by England, and only weakly urged by Scotland. The period was, in fact, one when Europe was still under the influence of a set of ideas which worked [pg 282] in an exactly opposite direction to the ideas of nationality and Federalism. The period was indeed drawing to a close; but the whole tendency of history had for two centuries previously been in the direction of large agglomerations of territory and centralization of government, quite irrespective of questions of nationality and race, and that tendency was still potent in 1782. The idea that the advantages of a national Government, extending over a large territory, might be combined with those of a decentralization of authority by a division of jurisdictions, was not one which the statesmen of the day in Europe had begun seriously to consider. Separation they understood, or an incorporate union: the possibility of an intermediate arrangement they ignored.

And yet an experiment in Federal Government is not to be approached with a light heart, and perhaps one thing only can be said about it with any certainty, that whatever success has attended it, wherever in fact it has worked smoothly, it has been when the powers reserved to the Federal or National Government have been those only which were strictly necessary, and in regard to which differences of opinion would presumably not arise amongst the States forming the Union.

It is the more important to bear these considerations in mind, because of the existence of a widely spread but erroneous idea in regard to the United States Constitution, to the effect that the Federal Government has very numerous and extensive powers in internal affairs assured to it by the jurisdiction of the Federal Court. This Court, it is said, can intervene, under the terms of the Constitution, to arrest the action of the State Governments, and therefore, once given a Federal Court, the success of the Federal experiment is assured.

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But it is necessary to realize that it is only because the powers of the Federal Government are very strictly limited, and that the Federal Court is not overweighted with the assertion of rights, the exercise of which the public opinion of the States might not support, that its jurisdiction, when asserted, is as a rule respected, while over the State Legislatures as such it has no power at all, by way of injunction or prohibition. Nor have cases been wanting from which the precarious character of its powers, and its occasional lack of any sufficient sanction to enforce its decrees, may be gathered, when it has happened that those decrees have not been in accord with the prevailing opinion of the State within which execution has had to be carried out. In 1812, when a state of war existed with Great Britain, the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut refused obedience to the orders of the Federal Government for the concentration of the militias of all the Northern States on the frontier, giving as their reason that the Constitution only empowered the Federal Government to call out the militia in the case of “insurrection or actual invasion,” and that neither of these two eventualities had arisen. These doctrines met with general approval in the two States in question, and were endorsed by their Governors, their Legislatures, and their tribunals, nor were the Federal Courts able to enforce obedience to the commands of the Government at Washington. By a strict limitation of the powers of the National Government to what is absolutely necessary in order to secure the existence of the United States as a nation, the framers of the Constitution of 1787 did as much as it was possible to do, in order to render their work permanent; but they were not able, as De Tocqueville pointed out, even before the war of Secession had come to confirm the foresight of his views, altogether to [pg 284] avoid the dangers which are the natural inheritance of all Federal forms of Government.

The possibility, then, of establishing a Federal connection of any kind between Great Britain and Ireland—that is to say, an arrangement under which certain powers would be vested in an Irish Legislature and Executive, and certain others in a Parliament and Executive common to both countries—depends entirely on whether it is believed not only that such a division of power can be successfully made upon paper—a feat which any constitution-monger can accomplish—but also that public opinion in Ireland will not interpose hopeless obstacles to the assertion of the reserved rights and powers of the Imperial Legislature and Executive.

That under a Federal arrangement there would be any real possibility of frequent interference from London in Irish internal affairs is not probable, even were such interference legal. The attempt could only end in failure. Much has been said about the supremacy of the British or Imperial Parliament; and some of those who have used this expression apparently mean that every Act of the Irish Legislature and Executive is in some way or another to be reviewed by the British Parliament and Executive; or that in defiance of the plain teaching of history there is to be no responsible Irish Executive. The certain result of this would be to destroy the sense of responsibility in the Irish Legislature, to create endless differences of opinion between the two countries, and to make Great Britain the “whipping-boy” of Ireland, whenever Ireland had done anything foolish, and the British Parliament had not stepped in to prevent it. Reasonable men will continue to differ about the grant of Home Rule; but whatever is granted to Ireland in the way of legislative [pg 285] or executive right must be given fully and frankly, without looking backward. We must allow ourselves in this matter to listen to the voice of the statesmen of 1782. On the other hand, whatever is reserved must be clearly reserved, with ample guarantees for the arm of the Imperial Executive being long enough and strong enough to put down resistance. But that the power of the Imperial Parliament and Executive could, under any circumstances, be exerted frequently and in many matters, is a dangerous and impotent delusion. That power can only be maintained by carefully selecting and limiting the objects to which it is to relate; and by admitting Irish representatives to their full share—neither more nor less—of the control of Imperial questions in the Imperial Parliament, and securing adequate machinery for the execution of the decrees of the Imperial Government in Ireland when necessary. The arguments against any petty and irritating interference with the internal affairs of Ireland would be just as strong now as those which Lord Chatham used in 1774 against the proposed interference of the British House of Commons with the Absentee tax which the Irish Parliament was in that year supposed to be about to pass:

“The justice or policy of the tax,” he said, “is not the question; and on these two, endless arguments may be maintained pro and con. The simple question is, have the Commons of Ireland exceeded the powers lodged with them by the essential constitution of Parliament? I answer, they have not, and the interference of the British Parliament would in this case be unjust, and the measure destructive of all fair correspondence between England and Ireland for ever.”145

In what way would the British Parliament be more able to interfere in such a case than it was in 1774?

That Great Britain, if she chooses, is strong enough to [pg 286] govern Ireland for a prolonged period against the wishes of the majority of the people of Ireland, is indeed true; and under a strong and consistent Administration, strict and even justice might no doubt produce quiet and a considerable degree of material prosperity, without the constitutional question being touched. But the existence of outward calm and material prosperity has always been a favourite plea with the opponents of political reform. And it is the most subtle and dangerous of all possible pleas, so soothing in character, and making apparently so winning an appeal to plain common sense and to self-evident facts. “Now, after all this,” says Lord Clarendon, when describing the period in which England was administered, judged, and legislated for by the Privy Council, “I must be so just as to say that during the whole time that these measures were exercised, and these new and extraordinary ways were run, this kingdom enjoyed the greatest calm and the fullest measure of felicity that any people in any age for so long a time together (for the above-mentioned eleven or twelve years) have been blessed with, to the wonder and envy of all the other parts of Christendom.” But a few years after the happy period described in such glowing terms by the great historian the Civil War broke out.

If the necessity for a political change exists, sooner or later it forces its way to the front, notwithstanding outward calm. It has been so before, and there is no reason to doubt that it will be so again, because the claim made by Ireland depends on permanent facts which statesmen cannot alter notwithstanding occasional periods of material prosperity and outward calm. As the ultimate solution of existing difficulties it is indicated by the geography and by the history of the island; and these are the two conditions of every [pg 287] political problem, which it is difficult to surmount or evade. Time may indeed slowly soften the asperities produced by past errors and the crimes of bygone generations; but the geographical conditions of a problem remain fixed and unalterable, and in the long run will be found to be the permanent factor which governs the situation. Not by empty formulas, such as “governing Ireland according to Irish ideas,” or, “extending all the liberties enjoyed by the subjects of Great Britain to those of the sister island,” shall we advance one yard on our way, or indeed do aught but make it clear to friend and foe alike, that we are cultivating contradictory ideas without even being apparently aware that we are doing so. What we have to do is to resolve to take our stand on the few firm bits of fact which emerge like stepping-stones traversing a quaking bog; and then we may get over, and some day perhaps climb the distant hills which are on the other side. Otherwise we shall go on “filling our belly with the east wind” to the end of time; we shall fish all night and take nothing. These few firm bits of fact are those provided by history and geography. Open the map and look at the situation of Great Britain and of Ireland relatively to each other; observe how they lie near, yet apart; how they are separated by intervening seas, but seas so narrow as to be a bond quite as much as a bar; how they are inhabited by races speaking the same language but professing different religions; and bear in mind that these are the features of the picture which cannot be altered. This being so, let us next suppose that some stranger ignorant of all the trivial details of the Irish question, on his arrival amongst us, were asked to state what, in his opinion, with the above conditions placed before him, the institutions of two such islands relatively to [pg 288] one another were likely to be, judging from his experience of other countries. Would he not probably reply that the wise statesmen of Great Britain, of whose fame he had heard in foreign lands, had doubtless long ago come to the conclusion that their separation for some purposes, and their union for others, was stamped on the map as the certain and inevitable condition of any satisfactory settlement of their mutual relations, and that, alike to their complete separation and to their complete union, there was one and the same answer: Opposuit natura.

But, further, let us suppose him in his turn to inquire what the experience of the past had been in this particular case; and whether the two countries at the present time were entirely united or entirely separate, or were linked by some intermediate arrangement adapted to their relative needs and springing out of them; and suppose that the answer was, as it would have to be, that after several centuries of aggravated strife, they had first tried entire legislative separation, and had then abandoned it for an absolute incorporate union. Would he in that case be astonished if he was informed that history had vindicated geography, and that under neither of these two relations had peace, goodwill, and amity, been the distinguishing characteristics of the relations of Great Britain and Ireland?

To such a traveller it might perhaps be explained as an unexampled portent, that although constitutional liberty, limited only by the right of every Government to suppress crime and repress disorder, had been extended by the larger to the smaller country; that although an equal representation, a wide suffrage and vote by ballot had also been given, and no alien Church any longer vexed the conscientious scruples of the majority, and the land system of the country had also [pg 289] been reformed, yet so unreasonable were the minds of the Irish people that they refused to be contented, and were now asking for a modification of the fundamental articles of the existing incorporate union, and that a constant agitation in consequence prevailed.

Might he not reply that he had heard it said by them of old time, that it was a mistake to be too much alarmed by the existence of political agitation; that absolute quiet is not a necessary sign of political health even in a constitutional State; that what is called union within a political system may be a very equivocal expression; that the true union is a harmony, the result of which is that all parties, however opposed in appearance, co-operate towards the common good; that union may even exist in a State where the eye at first seems only to recognize a busy confusion; and that the contentment of the population with the institutions under which they live is the only solid guarantee of their permanence.146 Englishmen, he might add, in conclusion, had themselves been occupied for two centuries in proclaiming these and similar liberal sentiments from one end of Europe to the other, and the time had now perhaps arrived for applying them nearer home.

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