Excerpt from Handbook of Home Rule, Vol. 2: Being Articles on the Irish Question

We are realizing the first results of the verdict given at the election of 1886. And this I interpret as saying that the constituencies were not then ready to depart from the lines of policy which, up to last year, nearly all politicians of both parties in Parliament had laid down for their guidance in Irish affairs.

We have had the Session occupied almost wholly with Lord Salisbury's proposals for strengthening the power of the central Government to maintain law and order in Ireland, and for dealing with the most pressing necessities of the Land question in that country.

It is well, before the policy of the Government is practically tested, that the views of thoughtful men holding different opinions should be clearly set forth, not in the shape of polemical Speeches, but in measured articles which specially appeal to those who have not hitherto joined the fighting ranks of either side, and who are sure to intervene with great force at the next election, when the Irish ques tion is again submitted to the constituencies.

I feel that I can add little or nothing to the weight of the arguments contained in these papers, but I should like to give some reasons Why I earnestly hope that they will receive careful consideration.

The writers have endeavoured to approach their work with impartiality, and to free themselves from those pre judices which make it difficult for Englishmen to discuss Irish questions in a fresh and independent train of thought, and realize how widely Irish customs, laws, traditions, and sentiments differ from our own.

We are apt to think that what has worked well here will work well in Ireland; that Irishmen who differ from us are unreasonable; and that their proposals for change must be mistaken. We do not make allowance for the soreness of feeling prevailing among men who have long objected to the system by which Ireland has been governed, and who find that their earnest appeals for reform have been, until recent times, contemptuously disregarded by English politicians. Time after time moderate counsels have been rejected until too late. Acts of an exceptional character intended to secure law and order have been very numerous, and every one of them has caused fresh irrita tion 3 while remedial measures have been given in a manner which has not won the sympathy of the people, because they have not been the work of the Irish themselves, and have not been prepared in their own way.

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