Part 587

"For some years after the failure of the Fenian insurrection there was no political agitation in Ireland; but in 1873 a new national movement began to make itself felt; this was the Home Rule Movement. It had been gradually formed since 1870 by one or two leading Irishmen, who thought the time was ripe for a new constitutional effort; chief among them was Mr. Isaac Butt, a Protestant, an eminent lawyer, and an earnest politician. The movement spread rapidly, and took a firm hold of the popular mind. After the General Election of 1874, some sixty Irish Members were returned who had stood before their constituencies as Home Rulers. The Home Rule demand is clear and simple enough; it asks for Ireland a separate Government, still allied with the Imperial Government, on the principles which regulate the alliance between the United States of America. The proposed Irish Parliament in College Green would bear just the same relation to the Parliament at Westminster that the Legislature and Senate of every American State bear to the head authority of the Congress in the Capitol at Washington. All that relates to local business it was proposed to delegate to the Irish Assembly; all questions of imperial policy were still to be left to the Imperial Government. There was nothing very startling, very daringly innovating, in the scheme. In most of the dependencies of Great Britain, Home Rule systems of some kind were already established. In Canada, in the Australasian Colonies, the principle might be seen at work upon a large scale; upon a small scale it was to be studied nearer home in the neighbouring Island of Man. … At first the Home Rule Party was not very active. Mr. Butt used to have a regular Home Rule debate once every Session, when he and his followers stated their views, and a division was taken and the Home Rulers were of course defeated. Yet, while the English House of Commons was thus steadily rejecting year after year the demand made for Home Rule by the large majority of the Irish Members, it was affording a strong argument in favour of some system of local Government, by consistently outvoting every proposition brought forward by the bulk of the Irish Members relating to Irish Questions. … Mr. Butt and his followers had proved the force of the desire for some sort of National Government in Ireland, but the strength of the movement they had created now called for stronger leaders. A new man was coming into Irish political life who was destined to be the most remarkable Irish leader since O'Connell. Mr. Charles Stuart Parnell, who entered the House of Commons in 1875 as Member for Meath, was a descendant of the English poet Parnell, and of the two Parnells, father and son, John and Henry, who stood by Grattan to the last in the struggle against the Union. He was a grand-nephew of Sir Henry Parnell, the first Lord Congleton, the advanced Reformer and friend of, Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne. He was Protestant, and a member of the Protestant Synod. Mr. Parnell set himself to form a party of Irishmen in the House of Commons who should be absolutely independent of any English political party, and who would go their own way with only the cause of Ireland to influence them. Mr. Parnell had all the qualities that go to make a good political leader, and he succeeded in his purpose. The more advanced men in and out of Parliament began to look up to him as the real representative of the popular voice. In 1878 Mr. Butt died. … The leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party was given to Mr. William Shaw, Member for Cork County, an able, intelligent man, who proved himself in many ways a good leader. In quieter times his authority might have remained unquestioned, but these were unquiet, times. The decorous and demure attitude of the early Home Rule Party was to be changed into a more aggressive action, and Mr. Parnell was the champion of the change. It was soon obvious that he was the real leader recognised by the majority of the Irish Home Rule Members, and by the country behind them. Mr. Parnell and his following have been bitterly denounced for pursuing an obstructive policy. {1796} They are often written about as if they had invented obstruction; as if obstruction of the most audacious kind had never been practised in the House of Commons before Mr. Parnell entered it. It may perhaps be admitted that the Irish Members made more use of obstruction than had been done before their time. … The times undoubtedly were unquiet; the policy which was called in England obstructive and in Ireland active was obviously popular with the vast majority of the Irish people. The Land Question, too, was coming up again, and in a stronger form than ever. Mr. Butt, not very long before his death, had warned the House of Commons that the old land war was going to break out anew, and he was laughed at for his vivid fancy by the English Press and by English public opinion; but he proved a true prophet. Mr. Parnell had carefully studied the condition of the Irish tenant, and he saw that the Land Act of 1870 was not the last word of legislation on his behalf. Mr. Parnell was at first an ardent advocate of what came to be known as the Three F's, fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale. But the Three F's were soon to be put aside in favour of more advanced ideas. Outside Parliament a strenuous and earnest man was preparing to inaugurate the greatest land agitation ever seen in Ireland. Mr. Michael Davitt was the son of an evicted tenant. … When he grew to be a young man he joined the Fenians, and in 1870, on the evidence of an informer, he was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude; seven years later he was let out on ticket-of-leave. In his long imprisonment he had thought deeply upon the political and social condition of Ireland and the best means of improving it; when he came out he had abandoned his dreams of armed rebellion, and he went in for constitutional agitation to reform the Irish land system. The land system needed reforming; the condition of the tenant was only humanly endurable in years of good harvest. The three years from 1876 to 1879 were years of successive bad harvests. … Mr. Davitt had been in America, planning out a land organization, and had returned to Ireland to carry out his plan. Land meetings were held in many parts of Ireland, and in October Mr. Parnell, Mr. Davitt, Mr. Patrick Egan, and Mr. Thomas Brennan founded the Irish National Land League, the most powerful political organization that had been formed in Ireland since the Union. The objects of the Land League were the abolition of the existing landlord system and the introduction of peasant proprietorship."

_J. H. McCarthy, Outline of Irish History, chapter 11._

ALSO IN: _T. P. O'Connor, The Parnell Movement, chapters 8-10._

_A. V. Dicey, England's Case against Home Rule._

_G. Baden-Powell, editor, The Truth about Home Rule._

IRELAND: A. D. 1880. The breach between the Irish Party and the English Liberals.

"The new Irish party which followed the lead of Mr. Parnell has been often represented by the humourist as a sort of Falstaffian 'ragged regiment.' … From dint of repetition this has come to be almost an article of faith in some quarters. Yet it is curiously without foundation. A large proportion of Mr. Parnell's followers were journalists. … Those who were not journalists in the Irish party were generally what is called well-to-do. … At first there seemed no reason to expect any serious disunion between the Irish members and the Liberal' party. … The Irish vote in England had been given to the Liberal cause. The Liberal speakers and statesmen, without committing themselves to any definite line of policy, had manifested friendly sentiments towards Ireland; and though indeed nothing was said which could be construed into a recognition of the Home Rule claim, still the new Ministry was known to contain men favourable to that claim. The Irish members hoped for much from the new Government; and, on the other hand, the new Government expected to find cordial allies in all sections of the Irish party. The appointment of Mr. Forster to the Irish Secretaryship was regarded by many Irishmen, especially those allied to Mr. Shaw and his following, as a marked sign of the good intentions of the Government towards Ireland. … The Queen's Speech announced that the Peace Preservation Act would not be renewed. This was a very important announcement. Since the Union Ireland had hardly been governed by the ordinary law for a single year. … Now the Government was going to make the bold experiment of trying to rule Ireland without the assistance of coercive and exceptional law. The Queen's Speech, however, contained only one other reference to Ireland, in a promise that a measure would be introduced for the extension of the Irish borough franchise. This was in itself an important promise. … But extension of the borough franchise did not seem, to the Irish members in 1880 the most important form that legislation for Ireland could take just then. The country was greatly depressed by its recent suffering; the number of evictions was beginning to rise enormously. The Irish members thought that the Government should have made some promise to consider the land question, and above all should have done something to stay the alarming increase of evictions. Evictions had increased from 463 families in 1877 to 980 in 1878, to 1,238 in 1879; and they were still on the increase, as was shown at the end of 1880, when it was found that 2,110 families were evicted. An amendment to the Address was at once brought forward by the Irish party, and debated at some length. The Irish party called for some immediate legislation on behalf of the land question. Mr. Forster replied, admitting the necessity for some legislation, but declaring that there would not be time for the introduction of any such measure that session. Then the Irish members asked for some temporary measure to prevent the evictions … ; but the Chief Secretary answered that while the law existed it was necessary to carry it out, and he could only appeal to both sides to be moderate. Matters slowly drifted on in this way for a short time. … Evictions steadily increased, and Mr. O'Connor Power brought in a Bill for the purpose of staying evictions. Then the Government, while refusing to accept the Irish measure, brought in a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, which adopted some of the Irish suggestions. … On Friday, June 25, the second reading of the Bill was moved by Mr. Forster, who denied that it was a concession to the anti-rent agitation, and strongly denounced the outrages which were taking place in Ireland. … This was the point at which difference between the Irish party and the Government first became marked. {1797} The increase of evictions in Ireland, following as it did upon the widespread misery caused by the failure of the harvests and the partial famine, had generated—as famine and hunger have always generated—a certain amount of lawlessness. Evictions were occasionally resisted with violence; here and there outrages were committed upon bailiffs, process-servers, and agents. In different places, too, injuries had been inflicted upon the cattle and horses of landowners and land agents. … There is no need, there should be no attempt, to justify these crimes. But, while condemning all acts of violence, whether upon man or beast, it must be remembered that these acts were committed by ignorant peasants of the lowest class, maddened by hunger, want, and eviction, driven to despair by the sufferings of their wives and children, convinced of the utter hopelessness of redress, and longing for revenge. … The Compensation for Disturbance Bill was carried in the Commons after long debates in which the Irish party strove to make its principles stronger. … It was sent up to the Lords, where it was rejected on Tuesday, August 3, by a majority of 231. The Government answered the appeals of Irish members by refusing to take any steps to make the Lords retract their decision, or to introduce any similar measure that session. From that point the agitation and struggle of the past four years [1880-1884] may be said to date."

_J. H. McCarthy, England under Gladstone, 1880-1884, chapter 6._

ALSO IN: _T. W. Reid, Life of William Edward Forster, volume 2, chapter 6-7._

IRELAND: A. D. 1881-1882. The Coercion Bill and the Land Act. Arrest of the Irish leaders. Suppression of the Land League. The alleged Kilmainham Treaty, and release of Mr. Parnell and others.

Early in 1881, the Government armed itself with new powers for suppressing the increased lawlessness which showed itself in Ireland, and for resisting the systematic policy of intimidation which the Nationalists appeared to have planned, by the passage of a measure known as the Coercion Bill. This was followed, in April, by the introduction of a Land Bill, intended to redress the most conspicuous Irish grievance by establishing an authoritative tribunal for the determination of rents, and by aiding and facilitating the purchase of small holdings by the peasants. The Land Bill became law in August; but it failed to satisfy the demands of the Land League or to produce a more orderly state of feeling in Ireland. Severe proceedings were then decided upon by the Government. "The Prime Minister, during his visit to Leeds in the first week of October, had used language which could bear only one meaning. The question, he said, had come to be simply this, 'whether law or lawlessness must rule in Ireland;' the Irish people must not be deprived of the means of taking advantage of the Land Act by force or fear of force. He warned the party of disorder that 'the resources of civilisation were not yet exhausted.' A few days later Mr. Gladstone, speaking at the Guildhall, amid enthusiastic cheers, was able to announce that the long-delayed blow had fallen. Mr. Parnell was arrested in Dublin under the Coercion Act, and his arrest was followed by those of Mr. Sexton, Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly, and other prominent leaders of the agitation. The warnings of the Government had been met at first with derision and defiance, and the earlier arrests were furiously denounced; but the energy and persistence of the Government soon began to make an impression. … A Parthian shot was fired in the issue of a manifesto, purporting to be signed, not only by the 'suspects' in Kilmainham, but also by [Michael] Davitt, … in Portland Prison, which adjured the tenantry to pay no rent whatever until the Government had done penance for its tyranny and released the victims of British despotism. This open incitement to defiance of legal authority and repudiation of legal right was instantly met by the Irish Executive in a resolute spirit. On the 20th of October a proclamation was issued declaring the League to be 'an illegal and criminal association, intent on destroying the obligation of contracts and subverting law,' and announcing that its operations would thenceforward be forcibly suppressed, and those taking part in them held responsible."

_Annual Summaries reprinted from The Times, volume 2, page 155._

"In the month of April [1882] Mr. Parnell was released from Kilmainham on parole—urgent business demanding his presence in Paris. This parole the Irish National leader faithfully kept. Whether the sweets of liberty had special charms for Mr. Parnell does not appear; but certain it is that after his return to Kilmainham, the Member for Cork wrote to Captain O'Shea, one of the Irish Members, and indirectly to the Government, intimating that if the question of arrears could be introduced in Parliament by way of relieving the tenants of holdings and lessening greatly the number of evictions in the country for non-payment of rent, and providing the purchase clauses of the Land Bill were discussed, steps might be taken to lessen the number of outrages. The Government had the intimation conveyed to them, in short, which gave to their minds the conviction that Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly, once released, and having in view the reforms indicated to them, would range themselves on the side of law and order in Ireland. Without any contract with the three members the release of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly was ordered, after they had been confined for a period bordering on three months. Michael Davitt had been released, likewise, and had been elected for Meath; but the seat was declared vacant again, owing to the conditions of his ticket-of-leave not permitting his return. Much has been said, and much has been written with regard to the release of the three Irish M. P.'s. The 'Kilmainham Treaty' has been … a term of scorn addressed to Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues. … As a fact … there was no Kilmainham Treaty. … Mr. Forster [the Secretary for Ireland] resigned because he did not think it right to share the responsibility of the release of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly. The Government had detained the Queen's subjects in prison without trial for the purpose of preventing crime, not for punishment, Mr. Forster said in vindication. Mr. Forster contended that the unwritten law, as promulgated by them, had worked the ruin and the injury of the Queen's subjects by instructions of one kind and another—biddings carried out to such a degree that no power on earth could have allowed it to continue without becoming a Government not merely in name but in shame. {1798} Mr. Forster would have given the question of the release of the three consideration, if they had pledged themselves not to set their law up against the law of the land, or if Ireland had been quiet, or if there had been an accession of fresh powers on behalf of the Government: but these conditions were wanting. What Mr. Forster desired was an avowal of a change of purpose. He entreated his colleagues 'not to try to buy obedience,' as he termed it, and not to rely on appearances. The Government did rely on the intimation of Mr. Parnell … ; there was no treaty."

_W. W. Pimblett, English Political History, 1880-1885, chapter 10._

IRELAND: A. D. 1882. The Phœnix Park murders.

Mr. Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland, resigned in April, 1882, and was succeeded by Lord Frederick Cavendish, brother of the Marquis of Hartington and son of the Duke of Devonshire. Earl Spencer at the same time became Viceroy, in place of Lord Cowper, resigned. "On the night of Friday, May 5th, Earl Spencer and Lord Frederick Cavendish crossed over to Ireland, and arrived in Dublin on the following day. The official entry was made in the morning, when the reception accorded by the populace to the new officials was described as having been very fairly favourable. Events seemed to have taken an entirely prosperous turn, and it was hoped that at last the long winter of Irish discontent had come to an end. On Sunday morning there spread through the United Kingdom the intelligence that the insane hatred of English rule had been the cause of a crime, even more brutal and unprovoked than any of the numerous outrages that had, during the last three years, sullied the annals of Ireland. It appeared that Lord Frederick Cavendish, having taken the oaths at the Castle, took a car about half-past seven in order to drive to the Viceregal Lodge. On the way he met Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary, who, though his life had been repeatedly threatened, was walking along, according to his usual custom, without any police escort. Lord Frederick dismissed his car, and walked with him through the Phœnix Park. There, in broad daylight—for it was a fine summer evening—and in the middle of a public recreation ground, crowded with people, they were surrounded and murdered. More than one spectator witnessed what they imagined to be a drunken brawl, saw six men struggling together, and four of them drive off outside a car, painted red, which had been waiting for them the while, the carman sitting still and never turning his head. The bodies of the two officials were first discovered by two shop-boys on bicycles who had previously passed them alive. Lord Frederick Cavendish had six wounds, and Mr. Burke eleven, dealt evidently with daggers used by men of considerable strength. Lord Spencer himself had witnessed the struggle from the windows of the Viceregal Lodge, and thinking that some pickpockets had been at work sent a servant to make inquiries. A reward of £10,000, together with full pardon to anyone who was not one of the actual murderers, was promptly offered, but for many long months the telegrams from Dublin closed with the significant information—'No definite clue in the hands of the police.' All parties in Ireland at once united to express their horror and detestation at this dastardly crime."

_Cassell's Illustrated History of England, volume 10, chapter 50._

ALSO IN: _Sir C. Russell, The Parnell Commission: Opening Speech, pages 282-291._

IRELAND: A. D. 1884. Enlargement of the Suffrage. Representation of the People Act.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

IRELAND: A. D. 1885-1886. Change of opinion in England. Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill and Irish Land Bill and their defeat.