uld be reduced by any fair and democratic scheme
of representation. No one can be less tempted than myself to make light
of Irish turbulence and Irish misery. But it must not be exaggerated.
The discontent of 1893 is nothing to the rebellion, sedition, or
disloyalty of 1782, of 1798, of 1829, or of 1848. If Irishmen of one
class are discontented, Irishmen of another class are contented,
prosperous, and loyal. The protest of Irish Protestants--the grandsons
of the men who detested the Union--against the dissolution of the Union,
is the reward and triumph of Pitt's policy of Union. The eighty Irish
members ask for Home Rule, but the tenant farmers of Ireland ask not for
Home Rule but for the ownership of the land; and the Irish tenant
farmers will and may under a Unionist Government become owners of their
land, and, what is no slight matter, may become owners by honest means.
Vain for Mr. M'Carthy[110] to assert that Irish farmers would not have
accepted even from Mr. Parnell the most favourable of land laws in
exchange for Home Rule. Mr. M'Carthy believes what he says, but it is
impossible for any student of Irish history or of Irish politics to
believe Mr. M'Carthy. Facts are too strong for him. Mr. Lalor showed a
prevision denied to our amiable novelist. Gustave de Beaumont understood
political philosophy better than the lively recorder of the superficial
aspects of recent English history. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Davitt, and the
whole line of witnesses before the Special Commission, tell a different
tale. The very name of the _Land_ League is significant. Home Rule was a
mere theme for academic discussion in the mouth of Mr. Butt. Repeal
itself never touched the strongest passions of Irish nature, though
advocated by the most eloquent and popular of Irish orators. Not an
independent Parliament, but independent ownership of land, has always
been the desire of Irish cultivators. It was a cry for the land which
gave force to the demand for Home Rule; and an Irish agitator, if his
strength fails, renews it by touching the earth. But why confine our
observation to Ireland? We here come upon the passions, not of Irish
nature, but of human nature. There is not a landowner in France who does
not care tenfold more for the security of his land than for the form of
the government. If peasants trembled for their property the Republic
would fall to-morrow. This is no mere conjecture; the peasantry were
Jacobins as long as the Jacobins ga