Gladstone, Premier—The Irish Land Act of 1870—The
Ballot Act—The Home Rule League founded—Gladstone resigns in 1874, and
Disraeli becomes Premier—Motion on Home Rule moved in the House of
Commons by Isaac Butt—It is defeated by a Very Large Majority—Advent of
Charles Stewart Parnell—Commencement of "Obstruction" — Failure of
Potato Crop—Foundation of the Land League — Relief of Distress Act—W. E.
Forster, Chief Secretary; Earl Cowper, Lord-Lieutenant—Protection of
Life and Property Act —"The Three F's"-—The Land League
proclaimed—Parnell imprisoned—The Ph œnix
Park Murders—Earl Spencer, Lord-Lieutenant—Gladstone introduces his
First Home Rule Bill—Excitement in Ulster—An Irish Land Purchase Bill
—Loyalists arm in Ulster—Riots in Belfast—Home Rule Bill defeated.
The Liberal Government formed under the Premiership
of W. E. Gladstone included for the first time members of the Advanced
Liberal or Radical party. Chief of these was John Bright, who became
President of the Board of Trade. An Irish Land Act was the chief
legislative work of the session of 1870. So rapidly had opinion ripened
on the question that Gladstone's Bill passed through Parliament without
meeting any very serious opposition. The Act, which received the royal
assent in August, gave legal recognition to tenant-right in Ulster, and
to a similar custom in other parts of Ireland. It conferred on tenants
rights of compensation for being turned out by the landlord and for
improvements made by them during their tenure. "In appearance", said
Professor Richey, "it gave the tenant no new rights, nor in anywise
deprived the landlord of any; but attempted to effect its object in a
circuitous manner by affixing what was essentially a
penalty to the exercise of rights which it admitted to be legal."
A Ballot Act was one of the achievements of the
session of 1872. The House of Lords inserted a clause limiting its
operation to eight years; but when the time came for renewing the Act it
was made permanent. The Ballot Act abolished the ancient custom of the
public nomination of candidates on the hustings.
A ministerial crisis was brought on in 1873 in
connection with an Irish University Bill introduced in the House of
Commons by Gladstone. The Bill proposed the erection and endowment of a
non-denominational university in Dublin, from which the teaching of
mental and moral philosophy, of theology, and of modern history should
be excluded. On the second reading the Bill was thrown out, and
Gladstone resigned. As the Conservatives were not prepared either to
carry on the Government with a majority of the House of Commons against
them, or to appeal to the country at once, Disraeli declined to take
office, and Gladstone returned to power.
Gladstone's Irish measures had produced quietness in
Ireland but not contentment. It was seen, however, that the Fenians had
gone too far in demanding total separation from England. A more moderate
demand was made towards the close of 1870—a demand for legislative
independence under a federal scheme. To carry out the scheme there was
formed in Dublin the Home Government Association of Ireland, a body in
which Conservatives and Liberals, Protestants and Catholics, were
brought together by their common belief in self-government as the remedy
for Irish evils. The scheme of the association (which was reconstituted
in 1873 under the name of the Home Rule League) provided for an Irish
Parliament, which should manage the internal affairs of Ireland, and
have control over Irish resources and revenues, subject to the
obligation of contributing a just proportion towards imperial
expenditure, Ireland continuing to be represented on imperial questions
in the Imperial Parliament.
In January, 1874, Gladstone suddenly dissolved
Parliament. Although he put in the forefront of his manifesto a promise
to abolish income-tax, the country declared against him. Nearly sixty
Home Rulers were returned for Irish constituencies, and Home Rule made
its first appearance in Parliament when a motion on the subject was made
by its exponent of the scheme, Isaac Butt, the member for Limerick. In
the new Parliament the Conservatives had a majority of 50 over Liberals
and Home Rulers combined. Gladstone at once resigned, and Disraeli
became Premier for the second time. The pleas for Home Rule were that
Ireland was entitled to manage her own affairs, and that the Imperial
Parliament was overburdened with work. Disraeli heaped ridicule on the
proposal, which was rejected by 458 votes to 61. Notwithstanding this
rebuff, Butt, the leader of the Home Rule party, brought the proposal
before the House of Commons year after year without success. This led to
a division in the Home Rule ranks. The main body, under Butt, and after
his death, in 1879, under Shaw, still favoured a moderate policy; while
a minority, led by Charles Stewart Parnell, determined to carry on a
more vigorous mode of procedure.
The session of 1877 is memorable for an extraordinary
development of "Obstruction" in the House of Commons by the Irish
members. Feeling themselves powerless to obtain the Home Rule measure
they demanded, from a Parliament in which they formed a small minority,
they resolved to punish the majority by preventing the ordinary business
of the House from being advanced. Obstruction was practised
systematically, and was reduced to a science. The forms of the House,
which were designed to facilitate business, were ingeniously used to
retard it by Parnell, aided by Biggar, O'Donnell, and other Home Rulers.
Butt did not approve of these tactics, and ultimately threw up his
leadership of the party in disgust. The Government proposed and carried
new Rules of Procedure, limiting the powers of members in speaking and
in repeating motions in Committee. The remedy was only partially
successful, and it was found necessary to amend the rules again and
again.
A wet season in 1878 led to a failure of the potato
crop, and also of the peat supply. Famine seemed imminent. Political
agitators took advantage of the distress to incite the people against
the Government. The Home Rulers, now led by Parnell, put themselves at
the head of the discontent. The Land League, an association organized by
Michael Davitt, was formally established under the presidency of
Parnell, its objects being, firstly, to bring about a reduction of
rack-rents, and, secondly, to facilitate the obtaining of the ownership
of the soil by the occupiers. The league soon acquired a position of
popular power such as no organization had ever held in Ireland before,
but owing to the state of the franchise it had not a representation in
Parliament of corresponding strength. It advised the farmers not to pay
rent. Landlords and their agents were shot; the cattle and goods of
those who obeyed the law were destroyed. There came into vogue a system
of social persecution which consisted in refusing to associate or to
trade with anyone who submitted to the law. This was termed
"boycotting", from a Captain Boycott who was its first victim.
The Queen's Speech at the opening of Parliament in
February, 1880, expressed deep sympathy with the condition of the
population in certain parts of Ireland, and announced that a grant would
be made from the Irish Church surplus with the view of alleviating the
distress. A Relief of Distress Act, in fulfilment of this promise, was
at once passed. In March, Disraeli, who had been raised to the peerage
as Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, deemed it prudent to appeal to the
country. In the general election which followed the Liberals had a
majority of 46 over Conservatives and Home Rulers combined. Gladstone
was recalled to power, and formed a Ministry which included a still
larger representation of the Radical party than his former Ministry.
Though this general election increased the Home Rule
vote to 64, not more than half this number joined Parnell, either in the
agrarian revolt which he headed or in his continuous and violent
resistance during the Gladstone administration to the severe repressive
measures that accompanied the new land legislation. The serious view of
the state of Ireland taken by Gladstone was shown by his appointment of
W. E. Forster as Irish Chief Secretary and of Earl Cowper as
Lord-Lieutenant. The Government now allowed the Peace Preservation Act
to lapse, and passed a second Relief of Distress Act. These conciliatory
measures were, however, of little avail in presence of the growing
distress and disorder. The withholding of rents at the instigation of
the Land League was met by evictions on the side of the landlords, and
agrarian outrages of a terrible type became common.
Early in the session of 1881 a Protection of Life and
Property Act and a new Peace Preservation Act were passed in the
Commons, in the face of determined obstruction. At one sitting 36 Irish
members were suspended for defying the authority of the Speaker. A new
Land Act was passed, granting to tenants more liberal terms than the Act
of 1870. These included "the three F's "—Fair Rents, to be fixed by a
Land Court; Fixity of Tenure; and Free Sale of their holdings by
tenants. Forster's rule in Ireland was strong. Persons suspected of
agitating in a manner calculated to endanger life or property were
imprisoned. Among those imprisoned as "suspects" were Parnell and two
other Irish members of Parliament. The Land League retaliated by issuing
a No-Rent Manifesto. Thereupon the Government proclaimed the Land
League as "an illegal and criminal association".
In May, 1882, the three imprisoned Irish members of
Parliament were released, and Forster, disgusted at this leniency,
resigned, his office of Chief Secretary being filled by Lord Frederick
Cavendish. At the same time Earl Spencer took the place of Earl Cowper
as Lord-Lieutenant. At five o'clock in the evening of the very day on
which he arrived in Dublin to take up his duties, Lord Frederick
Cavendish and the Chief Under-Secretary, Burke, were done to death with
knives by a gang of men employed by a secret society calling themselves
"the Irish Invincibles", whose avowed object was "to make history".
Nearly twelve months elapsed before any of the murderers were captured,
when five were hanged and others imprisoned. Immediately after the
murder of these innocent officials the Government passed a stringent
Prevention of Crimes Act, and also an Arrears Act for the relief of
tenants. The Crimes Act was vigorously administered by Earl Spencer and
by G. O. Trevelyan, who had taken the post of Chief Secretary. During
the two years following, the number of agrarian crimes steadily
diminished.
The Parliament of 1880 was dissolved in 1885, having
passed the Reform Act, which established the household franchise in
Ireland. This great increase in the electorate enabled Parnell to carry
all before him, and in the result, out of the total Irish representation
of 103, no fewer than 85 members were elected on a strict pledge to
follow him. Even in Ulster, 17 out of the 33 seats were gained by the
Nationalists. Gladstone accepted the large majority of Nationalists
returned from Ireland as proof that the Irish people demanded Home Rule;
he therefore made a Government of Ireland Bill his first measure.
The most important features of the Government of
Ireland Bill, which was introduced on the 8th of April, 1886, were the
establishment in Dublin of a legislative body with executive powers and
comprising two orders; the exclusion of the Irish members from the
Imperial Parliament; the committing of all taxation in Ireland, except
Excise and Custom duties, to the hands of the legislative body; and the
granting of securities for the unity of the Empire and for the
protection of minorities and of Protestants.
In Ulster excitement was at its highest pitch. On the
evening when the measure was developed the morning papers in Belfast
published editions containing Gladstone's speech at intervals as it was
transmitted through the telegraphic wires, and large crowds assembled
round the newspaper offices eagerly buying copies. The part of the Bill
which was most severely scrutinized was the proposal to secure the
rights of the minority. It was read with dismay by the Protestants and
more respectable Catholics of Ulster. "In a moment they found themselves
apparently defenceless and handed over by the statesman in whom many of
them had trusted, to a hostile Nationalist majority, from whom they
could expect no consideration, and by whom their very loyalty would be
regarded as treason to that Irish nationality which has not and never
had any impelling, any animating object but hatred of England and of
everything English."
A week later Gladstone introduced an Irish Land
Purchase Bill which proposed the issue of £50,000,000 of new
three-per-cent stock, for the purpose of buying up the estates of
landlords who were willing to sell their lands, which were to be
allotted to the tenants on easy terms of purchase. These measures were
accepted by the Irish Nationalists, but they were strongly opposed by
the Conservatives and by a section of the Liberals who broke off from
Gladstone and formed the party known as Liberal Unionists. This
secession caused the defeat of the Government on the Home Rule Bill,
which was, on a second reading, thrown out on the 6th of June, 1886, by
a majority of 30.
Before the fate of the Bill was decided, preparations
for resistance were being made in the counties of Ulster. Sir James
Haslett, member for the West Division of Belfast, said to a
correspondent of the Birmingham Gazette: "There can be no doubt
that the Loyalists are arming". Advertisements for the supply of 20,000
rifles and for the services of competent drill-instructors appeared in
many Ulster newspapers. A statement which produced a great effect was
that Lord Wolseley had declared his intention to put himself, in the
event of resistance, at the head of the Ulster Unionists. It was a
Wolseley, it will be remembered, that commanded the Inniskillings at
Newtownbutler when the shout of "Advance!" was raised, and who again won
distinction at the Battle of the Boyne. The Irish Nationalist members
maintained that Ulster was in a state not far off rebellion. Hostile
demonstrations by Catholics and Protestants alike led to serious
rioting, one fight between the sects lasting nearly twenty-four hours.
The riots in Belfast threatened to extend overall Ulster.
Gladstone, on the defeat of the Bill, dissolved
Parliament, and appealed to the country on the single
question—self-government or coercion for Ireland. Lord Salisbury, on the
other hand, declared the issue to be separation or union. Gladstone was
defeated at the polls by a majority of 115, and at once gave way to Lord
Salisbury, who took office with the promise of the support of the
Liberal-Unionist party. "Had the Home Rule Bill not been defeated, and
in consequence of that defeat a new Parliament elected and a new
Government constituted, the civil war," said the editor of the
Northern Whig, "which has been so often threatened, and which I had
predicted to Mr. Gladstone himself, would that summer have begun." |