Minister, whilst aiming at the ends of a wise revolutionist, must pay a
respect to the demands of justice not always evinced by the
revolutionary spirit. But to put in force a policy of just revolution,
nothing is so necessary as the combination of resistless power with
infinite wealth. This is exactly what the government of the United
Kingdom can, and no Irish government could, supply. Mr. Gladstone and
his followers fully admit this, and the Land Purchase Bill was the sign
of their conviction that the policy of Home Rule itself needs for its
success and justification the power to draw upon the wealth of the
United Kingdom. Let the United Kingdom, it is said in effect, pay fifty
millions, that without any injustice to Irish landlords Irish tenants
may be turned into landowners, and may then enjoy the blessings of Home
Rule, freed from all temptation to use legislative power for purposes of
confiscation. The advice may in one sense be sound, but prudence
suggests that if the fifty millions are to be expended, it were best
first to settle the agrarian feud, and then to see whether the demand
for Home Rule would not die a natural death. French peasants were
Jacobins until the revolution secured to them the soil of France. The
same men when transformed into landed proprietors became the staunch
opponents of Jacobinism. It is in any case the interest of England to
see whether, say in a generation, the existing or further changes in the
tenure of land may not avert all necessity or demand for changes in the
constitution. Interest here coincides with duty. No scheme whether of
Home Rule or of Irish independence has been proposed, nor, it may be
said with confidence, ever can be proposed, which, disguise the matter
as you will, does not savour of treachery to thousands of Irishmen who
have performed the duties and claim to retain the rights of citizens of
the United Kingdom. The worst delusion of the revolutionary spirit is
the notion that justice to the people may be based upon injustice to
individuals. Protestants have not more, but neither have they less,